SAP Concur Blog
2024-03-18T09:00:00Z
SAP Concur Team
https://www.concur.com
How to Elevate Workplace Dynamics: Team-Building Activities for Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-elevate-workplace-dynamics-team-building-activities-for-work
2024-03-18T09:00:00Z
2024-03-13T10:23:12Z
Boost workplace dynamics with our blog's guide on engaging team-building activities. Improve productivity and foster unity within your team.
<p>In today's dynamic work environment, team building stands as a cornerstone of any successful employee development strategy. Team-building activities not only strengthen employee engagement and morale but also hone essential skills, foster connections among team members, and cultivate trust. When executed effectively, team building can significantly enhance communication, collaboration, and problem-solving capabilities within teams.</p>
<p>Finding the right team-building activities for your business requires some forethought and intention. The most effective team activities tie back to strategic goals, either for the specific team or the entire organization.</p>
<h2>Why Team Building Activities Matter</h2>
<p>Team-building activities offer numerous organizational benefits, including:</p>
<h3><strong>ENHANCED COLLABORATION</strong></h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bright-ideas-all-one-place">Collaboration is critical, both within and across teams</a>. Teams that regularly collaborate work together more effectively and efficiently and can more easily navigate differences in opinions. Collaboration exercises help teams come together, typically for problem-solving tasks that require groups to work in tandem to achieve goals.</p>
<h3><strong>BOOSTED CREATIVITY</strong></h3>
<p>Team-building activities often require a spark of imagination to solve a challenge. They stimulate creativity and innovation, encouraging employees to contribute actively to discussions and share new ideas. The creativity sparked in a team-building activity often carries over into day-to-day work.</p>
<h3><strong>IMPROVED COMMUNICATION</strong></h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/effective-communication-in-workplace">Clear and consistent communication</a> is a core element of team success, and team-building activities promote effective communication and active listening among team members. Teams that communicate well, respect different perspectives, and actively listen to one another are primed for success, leading to more idea generation and sharing — and better business outcomes.</p>
<h3><strong>INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY</strong></h3>
<p>By learning how to work together to address challenges, team members also learn to recognize each other's strengths and weaknesses, leading to improved productivity and shared responsibility within the team. Put simply, exercises that foster effective, smart work habits and collaboration help create more productive teams.</p>
<p><strong>CONNECTING REMOTE TEAMS</strong></p>
<p>In today's diverse work landscape, team-building activities play a crucial role in bridging the gap between remote and in-office team members, fostering a sense of connection and community.</p>
<p>For those working remotely, there can be a real disconnect from other team members – either fellow remote workers or those in an office. This disconnection can hamper the ability of remote team members to feel a part of a team. It’s essential that team-building exercises help bridge the divide that often occurs for those not working face-to-face with colleagues.</p>
<h3><strong>RESPECTING DIFFERENCES</strong></h3>
<p>Today’s workplaces bring together people with different backgrounds, lived experiences, values, and perspectives. These differences strengthen and add value to any organization, with unique insights and viewpoints that can lead to new and improved solutions. Team building celebrates diversity by acknowledging and valuing different perspectives, ultimately strengthening teams and driving innovation.</p>
<h3><strong>STRENGTHENING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT</strong></h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-employee-engagement">Employee engagement</a> — how connected employees are to the organization and each other — is <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-work-environment-your-employees-will-love">an indicator of an organization’s morale and efficacy</a>. Employees who are connected to their organization’s mission, values, and goals are more productive and likely to feel proud of — and speak better about — their employer. Team building activities can reinforce corporate values and connect employees to those core tenets, fostering better relationships with co-workers and customers.</p>
<h2>Innovative Team-Building Activities </h2>
<p>Here are some creative team-building activities to incorporate into your organization:</p>
<p><strong>PAPER TOWER (In-Person)</strong></p>
<p>Encourage collaboration and problem-solving skills by challenging teams to build the tallest paper tower using limited supplies.</p>
<p>How it works: Divide participants into teams of 3-4 players. Give everyone 25 pieces of paper and a roll of tape. Each team has 20 minutes to build the tallest paper tower using only the supplies provided. This activity develops collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills.</p>
<h3><strong>LUCKY PENNY (In-Person)</strong></h3>
<p>Foster communication and sharing by having participants share personal stories associated with randomly selected pennies.</p>
<p>How it works: Place a pile of pennies in a hat. Each participant takes a penny and must tell a story about themselves from the year on the penny. (If someone pulls a penny from before they were born or very young, they can select another.) You can select a theme for the stories – holidays, travel, or work, for example, in this exercise that builds communication and sharing.</p>
<h3><strong>BLIND RETRIEVAL (In-Person)</strong></h3>
<p>Promote teamwork and trust by guiding blindfolded team members to retrieve hidden objects without verbal cues.</p>
<p>How it works: Teams of approximately four are placed behind a starting line. One person is blindfolded. An object is placed in the room where the other players can see it. The task is to have each other member of the team, taking turns, to guide the player to the object without naming the object or its location. The first team whose player finds the object wins.</p>
<h3><strong>FLIP IT (In-Person)</strong></h3>
<p>Enhance teamwork and collaboration by challenging teams to flip a tarp without stepping off it or touching the ground.</p>
<p>How it works: Place all participants on a large tarp. The participants must flip the tarp over without removing both feet from the tarp or touching the ground. To make the task more challenging, you can disallow verbal communication.</p>
<h3><strong>VIRTUAL SCAVENGER HUNT (Virtual)</strong></h3>
<p>Engage remote teams with a virtual scavenger hunt, encouraging them to find common household items within their homes.</p>
<p>How it works: Compile a list of standard objects that can be found in a home or apartment. Or limit the objects to those typically found on a desk or in a home office.</p>
<p>Assign points for each object that is found and have people share their haul with others at the conclusion.</p>
<h3><strong>RANK IT (Virtual or In-Person)</strong></h3>
<p>Build trust and understanding by asking participants to rank random objects based on personal priorities and preferences.</p>
<p>How it works: The organizer starts with a scenario, such as a one-way trip to Mars or an expedition that leaves you deserted on an island. Also compile a list of five or more obscure, random objects, such as an empty Coke bottle, a skein of yarn, a newspaper, a broom and a Beatles record.</p>
<p>Ask each participant to rank the objects in priority order. Each person shares their list and explains why they ranked the items the way they did.</p>
<h3><strong>GROUP PLAYLIST (Virtual or In-Person)</strong></h3>
<p>Encourage camaraderie and connection by creating a shared playlist where team members can share their favorite songs and the stories behind them.</p>
<p>How it works: Start by creating a shared playlist on YouTube or Spotify and give all participants access to it. Each person is asked to include 1-23 songs, or an album, to the playlist.</p>
<p>Each team member will share the songs they included on the list and why they matter to them. You can even play the selections while each member speaks, providing a soundtrack to the activity.</p>
<p>At the end of the activity, each person will also have the playlist as a keepsake of the shared work.</p>
<h2><strong>How to Sustain Team Building</strong></h2>
<p>To maximize the impact of team-building activities, integrate them into broader employee outreach and training initiatives. Clearly communicate the purpose of these activities and how they align with organizational goals to ensure they are valued and effective. Team building works best when employees understand why it’s being done and how it connects to their team’s or organization’s broader priorities. Is your company looking to develop more efficient operations, for example, or improve customer service?</p>
<p>By incorporating team-building activities into a strategic approach to achieving important goals, employees can better grasp their value and derive meaningful takeaways from the experience. Fostering an elevated employee experience doesn't have to detract from business priorities; rather, it complements them. Achieving a balance between positive employee experiences and business objectives is essential for cultivating a productive and engaged workforce that drives success.</p>
<h2><strong>Unlocking Enhanced Employee Experiences with SAP Concur</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur offers cloud-based solutions, including Concur Expense, Concur Travel, and Concur Invoice, to streamline core business processes and improve employee experiences. By automating workflows and leveraging artificial intelligence, SAP Concur helps companies work smarter and more effectively, driving operational efficiency and strengthening employee teams.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/4-ways-hr-and-travel-leaders-can-better-meet-employee-and-business-needs">Discover how SAP Concur can transform your business operations and empower your teams to thrive</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Top AP Trends and Predictions Center on AI and Agility
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-ap-trends-and-predictions-center-on-ai-and-agility
2024-03-13T09:34:50Z
2024-03-13T09:22:17Z
AI will sweep across accounts payable, which must be ready to pivot and become both “hubs of intelligence” and “centers of efficiency,” Ardent Partners analysts predict in their annual report on AP tr
<p>Here’s a safer bet for 2024 than the “recession is inevitable” prediction many economists made for 2023: Artificial intelligence and automation will deepen their impact on accounts payable, bringing efficiencies and insights that allow AP teams to concentrate on strategic decision-making instead of chasing paper and problems.</p>
<p>That’s just one of many observations from the analysts at Ardent Partners, who each year put their heads, research, and expertise together to assess where AP is at and where they think it’s headed. They share their insights and outlook in Accounts Payable 2024: BIG Trends and Predictions, a report sponsored by SAP Concur and design to equip finance leaders for the challenges ahead.</p>
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<h5>Where AP Is At and Where It’s Going</h5>
<p>Take a deeper look at the trends and predictions from Ardent Partners in their annual AP report.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/accounts-payable-2024-big-trends-and-predictions">Get it here</a></div>
</div>
<p>A key theme runs through the report: Accounts payable plays a critical role in providing value, boosting the bottom line, and improving operations, especially at companies undergoing digital transformation and adopting AI-infused solutions for expense, invoices, travel, and other important functions. A look at some of the report topics reflects that theme and others in what they describe as “The Year of Efficiency, Part II.”</p>
<h2>AI, Automation, and Digital Transformation</h2>
<p>AI isn’t the only trend affecting accounts payable. It runs through their list not only for the efficiency it can bring but also for how the technology will play out in other priorities for companies. For example, with fraud attempts at an all-time high, businesses are expected to invest more heavily in prevention, and AI can play a sizable role in detection. Similarly, supply chains are predicted to keep shifting, and with automation and AI aboard, AP teams can respond with greater agility.</p>
<p>This year, the AI infusion deepens, as the technology is embedded in more spend management and travel solutions. That, the analysts expect, will soon launch a “revolution” in invoice and payment processing. At the same time, diligent AP teams and their companies will formulate guidelines on how the technology is used. With powerful tools available, finance leaders likely will make digital transformation and investment their top priority and take advantage of the opportunity to scrutinize and reconsider how their companies operate. “The path to becoming a top AP department starts here,” Ardent believes.</p>
<h2>Being Ready for Anything is Key</h2>
<p>The lack of recession, of course, doesn’t mean everything is running smoothly. Although predicting the economy will remain strong, analysts recognize global uncertainty remains, especially amid strife in Ukraine and now in the Middle East, affecting not only people but supply chains. Many companies are expected to continue shifting away from China, while many countries are setting or toughening invoicing standards. All those factors make preparing for contingencies and pivots essential. Accounts payable teams and the rest of their companies must be ready to adapt to changing conditions – both expected and unexpected – and automated, intelligent solutions can simplify adjustments across their operations.</p>
<h2>Absorbing Best Practices, Using the Data You Have</h2>
<p>AP teams can increasingly draw on lessons from other top-performing businesses. Whether it’s from a community of users fostered by a solutions provider – as SAP Concur does – or via LinkedIn or networks of fellow industry professionals, there’s plenty to be gained from “community” intelligence. The past few years strengthened collaboration skills and the tools that enable doing business from anywhere. The technology – and accompanying engagement – supports the sharing of best practices, and the AP community is better for it.</p>
<p>One reason AP has become more highly valued is the rich data possibilities it delivers. Improved reporting tools for cash flow, travel and expense, spending, and more allow better management, compliance, and decisions. AP teams are more likely to have the resources to manage and plumb that data when intelligent solutions reduce manual work and help spot issues and potential fraud. AP teams are now “hubs of intelligence” as well as “centers of efficiency.”</p>
<h2>AP: Where Careers Can Be Built</h2>
<p>It’s not just businesses that benefit as accounts payable undergo shifts in technology, processes, and prominence within an organization. Careers can as well, with the field’s growing strategic and bottom- line roles priming AP professionals for other key roles at their companies. As the report concludes, “AP teams must start taking bold new steps to maintain their momentum and pave their way to a smarter future. That makes it an exciting time to be working in AP.”</p>
<h2>Deepen Your Knowledge</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/accounts-payable-2024-big-trends-and-predictions">Read the full report</a> to learn more about trends and predictions from Ardent Partners that can help give finance leaders, AP leaders, and their businesses the knowledge and tools to be ready for anything.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Amid Uncertainty, Finance Leaders Must Have a Certain Mindset
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/amid-uncertainty-finance-leaders-must-have-certain-mindset
2024-03-13T09:21:41Z
2024-03-13T09:16:46Z
Business uncertainty is a given, as is the more strategic role expected of finance leaders. Our CFO Insights Report explores how technology, collaboration, and mindset help meet the challenges.
<p>As finance leaders strive to navigate uncertainty and excel in their strategic roles, they should embrace technology, prioritize foundational principles, and foster personal growth and collaboration. </p>
<p>Those are key insights from finance leaders from around the globe in the latest entry in our CFO Insight Series, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-lead-through-business-uncertainty-technology-and-strategic-vision">Lead Through Business Uncertainty with Technology and Strategic Vision</a>. The paper, like others in the series, is intended to help identify challenges as well as pathways for leaders to surmount them. </p>
<p>A key element of success for finance leaders is how they frame and accept adaptability, both for themselves and their teams. “As the pace of change continues to grow in speed and volume, we need to ensure the right tools, technology, and mindset are in place now to secure profitable business success in the future,” says Hagit Ynon, CFO of WalkMe. </p>
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<h5>CFO Insights into Uncertainty, Technology, and Strategy </h5>
<p>Drawing on experience and expertise, global finance leaders share their thoughts on ways to weather uncertainty and satisfy the expanded CFO role. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-lead-through-business-uncertainty-technology-and-strategic-vision">Get the ebook</a></div>
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<h2>Adapting But Keeping Attention on the Basics </h2>
<p>Integrated, intelligent solutions have, of course, tremendously changed finance functions, improving efficiency, productivity, and spending transparency. Automation reduces the nuts-and-bolt work finance teams long did with budgets, invoices, and other areas. But it also empowers finance to scrutinize data better and provide the analysis that fuels better decisions and strategy. Managing cash flow, payables, and receivables while ensuring compliance and preventing fraud remain key duties. But those duties should be seen as part of an integrated and comprehensive approach that, when done well, makes finance teams a much more visible and powerful part of the company and culture. </p>
<p>“The evolution of the finance leader’s role demands their involvement in the entire spectrum of business lines – from product development to technology, HR, compliance, and treasury,” says Sinead Fitzmaurice, CEO of TransferMate Global Payments and CFO of Taxback.com. </p>
<h2>Making Personal Development a Top Priority </h2>
<p>Choosing technology and how it’s used puts a good deal of responsibility on finance leaders. There’s much to manage and to learn. It requires a good deal of resiliency, according to the CFOs sharing their views. This circles back to the tremendous value of mindset, of seeing change as a potential opportunity instead of a burden. A commitment to personal growth is a key part of building a finance culture that envisions going beyond working with numbers to embracing change and solving problems. </p>
<p>“Increasingly, technologies, such as process automation and AI, are used to execute transactional tasks, while people in other business areas make critical spending decisions,” says Benoit De Saeger, regional director and CFO at Terumo Corporation. “But this doesn’t mean that the finance function should feel threatened – instead, this moment should be viewed as an opportunity to redefine their roles and </p>
<p>extend their skills as value creators and business partners.” </p>
<h2>The Power of Working Together </h2>
<p>With finance leaders now expected to gather insights and not just numbers, it’s essential that they build better working relationships with leaders and teams across the business. </p>
<p>How, for example, is new technology supposed to provide the desired dashboards and reports if finance and IT leaders don’t discuss in detail the intended outcomes and the solutions to provide them? Or how can the company achieve its recruiting and hiring strategy if finance and HR don’t work together on resource allocation? In both cases, the result will likely be less than ideal without collaboration. </p>
<p>“Sharing challenges, goals, and progress with the executive leadership team fosters engagement, empowerment, and alignment with organizational objectives,” Ynon says. “This openness not only boosts employee engagement but also enables a more comprehensive understanding of company goals.” </p>
<h2>Deepen Your Insights </h2>
<p>Download <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-lead-through-business-uncertainty-technology-and-strategic-vision">this CFO Insights report</a> and then explore other recent entries in the series: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">CFO Insights Report: A New Role in Managing Uncertainty</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">CFO Insights: Why Finance is Ready for a Breakout Transformation with AI</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cfo-insights-series-top-skills-every-finance-leader-needs-succeed">CFO Insights: Building a Future-Ready Finance Skill Set</a> </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
A Look Inside Expenses: How Much Are Your Employees Spending?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/look-inside-expenses-how-much-are-your-employees-spending
2024-03-14T11:35:29Z
2024-03-12T14:13:52Z
"At SAP Concur, we want to make expense management as simple, automated, and accurate as possible so companies aren’t losing a cent to inaccurate forecasting, inefficient policies, or noncompliant pur
<p>Did you know that collectively, companies reimburse their employees billions of dollars each year? An employee expense could be as low as $2 for a coffee—or perhaps $6 for a fancy latte—and as these expenses add up, companies need to be thoughtful about how they guide this spending. </p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we want to make expense management as simple, automated, and accurate as possible so companies aren’t losing a cent to inaccurate forecasting, inefficient policies, or noncompliant purchases. With billions of dollars on the line, there’s a lot to lose. </p>
<p>To help companies understand the impact of inflation and gain a clear picture of the most common expense categories, we’ve analyzed Concur Expense data collected in 2019 and 2023. </p>
<h2>Average Cost per Transaction </h2>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Category </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Pre-Pandemic - 2019 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>% Change </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Past year - 2023 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Air </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$698 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>10% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$770 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Miscellaneous1 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$182 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>19% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$217 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Other2 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$182 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>11% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$202 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Car Rental </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$150 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>28% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$192 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Entertainment </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$123 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>28% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$157 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Office </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$127 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>14% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$145 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Lodging </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$116 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>21% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$140 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Telecom3 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$90 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>9% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$98 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Train </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$75 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>-5% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$71 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Gas4 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$43 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>37% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$59 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Meals </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$43 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>30% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$56 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Mileage5 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$38 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>13% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$43 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Ground transportation </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$30 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>13% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$34 </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Parking </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$25 </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>12% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>$28 </p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>1Miscellaneous refers to expenses that don’t fit within current expense categories </p>
<p>2Other refers to non-standard expense categories </p>
<p>3Telecom includes wired and wireless telephone fees as well as the costs of phone and communication devices </p>
<p>4Gas refers to fuel expenses </p>
<p>5Mileage refers to reimbursement based on miles driven </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Airfare was the most expensive purchase per transaction in 2023. The average expense for airfare was $770, up 10% from $698 in 2019. That’s more than three times the cost of any other expense report category. Yet, while airfare was certainly impacted by inflation, it isn’t the category most changed from 2019. </p>
<p>That category would be gas. Compared to 2019, when the average expense transaction was $38, the cost has increased 37% to $59. Even though gas prices have cooled from the all-time high of <a href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/">$5.016</a> per gallon in 2022, they’re still higher than before the pandemic. </p>
<p>Inflation, supply chain disruptions, and tariffs on certain imports have also resulted in higher prices for food and meals. The average expense transaction for meals has increased 30%, from $43 in 2019 to $56. Higher meal costs are here to stay, but future increases may not be as dramatic. Food prices only <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/consumer-price-index-2023-in-review.htm">rose</a> 2.7% between December 2022 and December 2023, compared to 10.4% over the same period in 2021 and 2022. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the average expense for train travel has dropped 5% from $75 in 2019 to $71. Trains are a more sustainable way to travel, so the reduced cost is good news for companies looking to swap car or plane travel for rail. </p>
<h2>Spend by Expense Category as a Percentage of Total Spend</h2>
<img alt="2019" data-align="left" data-caption="2019" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="d5dc7f05-62cf-412b-ac7c-ef89e0e2d1b5" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/2019%20chart_small.png" />
<p> </p>
<img alt="2023" data-caption="2023" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="6d73ec70-fa73-4388-a7c7-ec88f1c8bd98" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/2023%20chart_small.png" />
<p> </p>
<p>While airfare is the costliest per transaction, it’s not where we see the most spending. In 2023, 22% of expense spending across transactions in Concur Expense appeared in the “other” category. Indeed, it has become the most expensed category in terms of total spend increasing from 17% in 2019. The cost of expenses in the “miscellaneous” category also increased from 9% in 2019 to 11% in 2023. </p>
<p>“Miscellaneous” and "other” expense categories are the second- and third-most expensive, respectively, when looking at the cost of an average expense. These murky areas represent expenses that don’t fit within existing categories or refer to expense categories outside of the norm. For example, we saw an increase in “miscellaneous” and “other” expense categories during the pandemic when employees were expensing new home office equipment or PPE. In terms of the volume of expense transactions, those in the “other” and “miscellaneous” categories are increasing, making up nearly 20% of expense transactions. These are commonly-used expense types, but it’s important that companies have insight into what employees are spending on to ensure compliance with expense policies. </p>
<p>Other changes since 2019 include lodging overtaking airfare as the category with the third most spending. Lodging prices have increased 21% from $116 per expense transaction in 2019 to $140 in 2023. Like most expense categories, inflation has left its mark on the lodging industry. Indeed, separate research from <a href="https://skift.com/2024/02/02/3-charts-that-show-hotel-prices-will-keep-rising-in-2024/">Skift</a> observed a 20% increase in hotel rates from 2019 to 2023. </p>
<p>“Inflation is certainly the main culprit when it comes to higher prices,” said Chris Juneau, head of market strategy at SAP Concur, “but the nuances in the data showing rising costs and shifts in spending habits provides valuable insights that should be used to guide business decisions, spending strategies, and travel and expense policies.” </p>
<h2>Volume of Expense Transactions as a Percentage of all Transactions<sup>1</sup></h2>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Expense Category </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2019 Percent </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2023 Percent </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Airfare </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>3% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Car Rental </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Entertainment </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>3% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>3% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Gas </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Ground Transportation </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>22% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>22% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Lodging </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>16% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>14% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Meals </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>26% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>24% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Mileage </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>7% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>7% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Miscellaneous </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>5% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>6% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Office </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Other </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>9% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>12% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Parking </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Telecom </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>2% </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Train </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
<td>
<p>1% </p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><sup>1</sup>Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding </p>
<p>Our third look inside the data shows not how much is being spent, but how often employees are spending in each category. In a given year, the three most common expense categories based on volume of transactions, in order, are meals, ground transportation, and lodging. Nearly one in four expense transactions involve employee meals. </p>
<p>Business expense categories help companies track and manage outgoing spend. A robust list of expense types allows companies to increase oversight into employee spend and help establish guard rails on what can and can’t be expensed through expense policies. </p>
<p>Tips for Expense Policies </p>
<p>Managing employee spending across expense categories and payment methods can leave room for error and non-compliance. But with clear expense policies, organizations can reduce ambiguity and non-compliance, saving time and money while reducing risk. Consider these seven tips for developing or revising expense policies: </p>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p>Review existing policies and elicit input from finance leaders and employees on what has been effective, what hasn’t, and what must be updated. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>Tap technology to look at spend data. Reexamine your “other” or “miscellaneous” categories and find out what employees are spending on. This could result in adding new expense types or adjusting category names if they’re confusing. Learn more about common expense categories <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-expenses-list-what-include-expense-policy">here</a>. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p>Work with solution providers or industry experts to understand current economic, social, and behavioral conditions that might impact employee spending—for example, differences in how employees made purchases before and after return-to-office initiatives. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li>
<p>After gathering information, adjust policies to be fair and sensible. Write your policy to guide behavior but be flexible enough to adapt to local and international travel requirements. Be explicit about what is and isn’t an acceptable expense. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="5">
<li>
<p>Remove the jargon from policies. Make sure they are easy to read and not bogged down by unfamiliar terms. The easier a policy is to understand, chances are better your employees will follow policy on their next business trip or purchase. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="6">
<li>
<p>Make sure your policy is simple to find and use. Your expense policy won’t be followed unless people know about it; make it visible and include in internal communications. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ol start="7">
<li>
<p>Take a future-forward approach to technology. Without question, you should be using a mobile-first solution that makes it easy for employees to submit expenses on-the-go from their mobile devices. Additionally, ask about current AI-powered capabilities and how your technology partners are planning for the addition of generative AI for such things as helping employees better navigate expense policies. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><sup><em>Methodology: SAP Concur analyzed aggregate expense reports in Concur Expense between January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023, and equivalent time periods from 2019. Expenses for this analysis were tagged as “airfare,” “car rental,” “entertainment,” “gas,” “ground transportation,” “lodging,” “meals,” “mileage,” “miscellaneous,” “office, “other,” “parking,” “telecom,” and “train.” </em></sup></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Do an Expense Report: Steps and Solutions for Effective Expense Reporting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-do-expense-report-steps-and-solutions-for-effective-expense-reporting
2024-03-07T09:00:00Z
2024-02-28T13:25:47Z
Uncover effective strategies for creating an expense report in our latest blog. Learn simple, organized steps for efficient expense reporting.
<p>There's nothing like face-to-face communication, but travel can be one of the biggest costs associated with doing business. Detailed and accurate expense reports help you keep your finger on where money is going, while employees get reimbursed for expenses promptly. </p>
<p>Travel-related expenses at small and medium businesses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-spend-insights-how-will-last-year-make-2023-better?bypass=form">increased 178%</a> in 2022. Everyone who travels for your business should know how to do expense reports. Employees who pay out of pocket want to have their expenses reimbursed. When tax time comes, you need to be able to accurately document legitimate business expenses. And, the business intelligence associated with travel costs means understanding your expenses better. </p>
<p>Setting up a consistent system means that you’re always on top of all costs and using your travel funds effectively. </p>
<h2>Why a Well-Structured Expense Report Matters </h2>
<p>A business expense report has to be set up in a way that’s easy to understand, comprehensive, and consistent across departments and personnel. </p>
<p>A good report gives the business a better idea where travel-related money is going and can help with planning. For example, you can see whether you need to budget more toward international airfare in the coming year or decide whether travel-related subscriptions are paying for themselves and being used to their fullest potential. You can also identify places where you can save money. </p>
<p>Business travel expenses are typically tax-deductible. With the right expense report setup, you can document those expenses quickly and easily, saving headaches at tax time. </p>
<h2>A Step-by-Step Guide to Expense Reporting </h2>
<p>An expense report is a document that brings together all the relevant expenses from a business trip or event. This will include information like the date of a purchase, the amount spent, the expense category, and any relevant receipts. </p>
<p>Start by collecting receipts during travel. Physical receipts should be either scanned or photographed so the information is available to anyone who needs it later on for documentation. </p>
<p>Capture all the relevant information in the business expense template or system used. This will include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Date of the expense </li>
<li>Vendor purchased from </li>
<li>Expense category (common categories include meals, transportation, and lodging) </li>
<li>any tax or VAT assessed) </li>
<li>Any additional notes </li>
<li>A PDF, PNG, or JPEG of the receipt of invoice </li>
</ul>
<p>This data is sent to the person in charge of managing expenses. Then, expenses that need to be reimbursed are tallied up and paid. When it's time to make reports for tax and other purposes, all the data is there and available in one place. </p>
<h2>How Templates Can Help </h2>
<p>If everyone's working with the same framework, expense reports get a lot easier for everyone involved. Your traveling employees have a better handle on what expenses are reimbursable. You are better able to categorize expenses, so you can see where your money is going. </p>
<h2>Exploring Tools for Expense Reports </h2>
<p>There are a few different tools you can use to do your expense reports. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks. </p>
<p>At the most informal end, you can simply have traveling employees email a list of expenses and attach images of receipts. However, this can be a hard system to standardize and it creates opportunities for risk. You'll likely end up with people formatting their reports differently from one another, such as using different wording for the same expenses. It can be easy to miss legitimate expenses. Plus, parsing the list can use huge amounts of your finance team's time that could be better spent on other tasks. </p>
<p>You can learn how to do an expense report in Excel, but this has limitations. Using an incorrect formula in one cell can populate an error throughout your sheet. And, the spreadsheet is what's known as a "closed" system. You can't automatically export data from it into another system. </p>
<p>Specialized, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-tools-speed-your-expense-reporting">purpose-built tools</a> like the ones from SAP Concur can cut the confusion and make travel expense reporting easy and accurate. Traveling employees can start by collecting receipts in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> mobile app. Then they upload images to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, which creates and categorizes expenses automatically. If you are using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Concur Drive</a>, it will seamlessly capture mileage to ensure expenses are documented accurately and fairly. </p>
<h2>Common Challenges in Expense Reports </h2>
<p>While expense reports are necessary for transparent operation of your business, they can also be challenging for both traveling employees and the people coordinating back in the office. </p>
<p>Fraud is, unfortunately, a persistent risk associated with business travel. Studies show that around <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-types-expense-report-fraud-look-out">5% of a typical organization's annual revenue</a> is lost to fraud. Employees may deliberately or unintentionally request reimbursement for expenses that are not legitimate parts of business travel. A well-organized system with clear categories can help eliminate misunderstandings and ensure reimbursement requests are accurate. </p>
<p>Many employees do not want to spend the time associated with paperwork after business trips. A system like SAP Concur solutions, however, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-automating-expense-reporting-have-do-boosting-productivity-and-company">captures and categorizes most expenses automatically</a>. All the employee needs to do is review the inputs to ensure accuracy and it's good to go. </p>
<h2>Speed and Simplify Your Expense Report Process </h2>
<p>Travel expense reports provide essential insights into where your travel-related funds are being spent. They provide the business intelligence you need to keep your travel cost-effective and to get the most out of every travel dollar spent. </p>
<p>Want a one-stop solution that makes everything easier? Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a> shows you how to capture expenses from any device, submit an expense report to a manager, and see how to approve reports you receive. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Is a Per Diem, and How Does It Work?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-per-diem-and-how-does-it-work
2024-03-05T09:00:00Z
2024-02-28T13:20:48Z
Uncover the fundamentals of per diem in our latest blog post. Find out what it is, how it works, and its benefits for your business expenses.
<p>A well-defined <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/8-corporate-travel-policy-best-practices">business travel policy</a> can help eliminate confusion and frustration for employees. Simplifying the reporting and approval process can streamline operations. In the pursuit of simplification, many companies choose to adopt a per diem approach for travel expenses rather than requiring itemized receipts. So, what exactly is a per diem, how does it work, and what per diem policies are needed to reap the full benefits? </p>
<h2>What Is a Per Diem? </h2>
<p>The per diem meaning originates from the Latin phrase meaning "by the day." Per diem is a daily stipend designated to cover expenses incurred by employees during business travel. This allowance encompasses various costs such as: </p>
<ul>
<li>Meals and snacks </li>
<li>Hotel stays </li>
<li>Airfare </li>
<li>Rental cars or taxis </li>
<li>Parking fees </li>
<li>Incidentals, such as tips, internet fees, and business-related supplies </li>
</ul>
<p>Employees who travel for business receive a predetermined daily sum to meet their essential needs without requiring explicit approval for expense reimbursement. Some companies choose a per diem fee for all expenses while others provide a per diem meal allowance only. </p>
<p>Most companies set per diem rates based on federal per diem rates published by the <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates">General Services Administration</a> (GSA). The GSA rates provide per diem guidelines for lodging, meals, and incidental expenses across more than 10,000 cities and counties within the U.S. Per diem rates differ across locations, taking into account average costs of living and travel expenses. The <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-23-68.pdf">Internal Revenue Service</a> (IRS) also publishes per diem rates, which they update annually. For international travel, the <a href="https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem.asp">U.S. Department of State provides</a> benchmarks to help you ensure your employees are being fairly reimbursed for their business expenses when traveling abroad. </p>
<p>Companies may also set per diem rates based on policies, such as setting rates for a particular class of hotel or airfare. For example, per diem rates might be set based on economy or business class rates, but not account for first-class travel for employees. Some organizations also specify certain expenses that are not covered by a per diem, such as alcohol or personal expenses. </p>
<h2>How Does Per Diem Work? </h2>
<p>When an employee goes on a business trip, they can claim an allowance for each day they are away. They usually do not need to provide itemized receipts, as the per diem rate is meant to cover everything. </p>
<p>You calculate the total reimbursement by multiplying the per diem rate times the number of days spent on the trip. For example, let’s say an employee is going on a 3-day business trip and the company’s per diem rate is $150 per day. The total per diem would be 3 x $150 or $450 for the three-day trip. </p>
<h3>Partial Days and Unused Per Diem </h3>
<p>Different companies have different policies regarding per diem allowances for partial days of travel and unused per diem. For partial travel days, the per diem rate may be prorated based on the time spent on the trip. For partial days or days where expenses were less than the per diem, employees are allowed to keep any of the allowance that is not spent. Other organizations require employees to return the difference between the allowance and actual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-te-mean">travel and entertainment expenses</a>. </p>
<h3>What Is Per Diem Accounting? </h3>
<p>When employees go on a business trip and incur eligible expenses, they need to follow company procedures for accounting and reporting. </p>
<p>In most cases, employees will need to track their expenses during the trip and specify any additional expenses that are not covered by the per diem rates. At the end of the trip, the employee submits an expense report to the accounting team which includes information about the trip, dates and destination, purpose, and expense breakdown. Typically, employees are not required to submit detailed receipts, although this can also vary based on company policies. </p>
<p>After review and approval, employees are reimbursed for the eligible expenses in addition to the normal wages they earn while traveling. Some companies choose to issue employees a per diem payment before travel that they can use to pay for the trip. This amount would be noted and deducted from the expense report when filed. </p>
<p>Expense management software helps effectively enforce and manage per diem programs. A sophisticated solution creates an efficient workflow, allows employees to quickly enter expenses on the go, and streamlines the approval process. At the same time, the software creates a complete audit trail and stored records for future review. </p>
<h3>H3: What Is Per Diem Work? </h3>
<p>Expenses reimbursement for travel should not be confused with per diem work. Per diem work refers to a daily rate that is paid as a flat fee for work or services. This type of payment structure is generally used for contracted specialists or temporary workers and is adjusted based on skills and services. </p>
<h2>Benefits of Per Diem Beyond the Numbers </h2>
<p>There are several key benefits for both employers and employees using a per diem method of reimbursement. </p>
<h3>Keeping It Simple </h3>
<p>Without having to track every expense and provide itemized receipts, both the reporting and approval processes are easier. This eliminates much of the administrative burden. Finance teams spend less time tracking down missing or lost receipts or verifying the accuracy of expense reports. </p>
<p>An automated system to track expenses can significantly reduce the amount of data entry and human error that creeps into manual processing. </p>
<p>Coupling a reporting platform with an accounting system using <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2023/10/26/ai-laggards-beware-the-time-for-business-transformation-is-now/?sh=6861894caaed">AI and automation</a> can streamline straight-through processing to approve per diem reports. </p>
<h3>Increasing Policy Compliance </h3>
<p>By capping expenses at a reasonable rate, employees are encouraged to work within company guidelines and not submit requests for additional reimbursement. At the same time, there is no incentive to inflate expenses, such as adding additional miles to the use of a personal vehicle. </p>
<h3>Cost Savings </h3>
<p>By providing a per diem rate, employees know ahead of time that if they spend more than the per diem rate, it will come out of their pocket. As such, they are less likely to spend lavishly, be less than forthright about actual expenses, or <a href="https://www.acfeinsights.com/acfe-insights/2020/11/16/prevent-fraud-before-it-happens-how-to-train-employees-to-be-fraud-detectors">engage in fraud</a>. </p>
<h2>What Are the Downsides of Per Diem? </h2>
<p>There is a potential downside to deploying a per diem model for reimbursement. Employees may look at the per diem rate as part of their income or a way to increase their earnings. They may cut corners to keep more of the per diem rate for themselves. </p>
<p>This may not always be a downside. If an employee opts to stay in a slightly lower-priced hotel, for example, it likely will not affect the quality of their work. However, if they skip sharing a meal with a high-value client when that’s the standard practice, it may undermine the relationship. </p>
<p>Per diem may also incentivize an employee to travel more frequently, perhaps leading to unnecessary expenses. For example, they may choose to meet a contact in person over a meal rather than do a video chat. </p>
<h2>Per Diem Policies for Success </h2>
<p>Creating formal per diem policies and publishing them for employees is a critical first step. Your policies need to be clear and consistent. You also need to be aware of changes in the travel environment. With <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2022/12/16/travel-expense-reports-now-higher-than-pre-pandemic-what-this-means-for-your-business/?sh=6733677b678e">travel expenses rising</a>, companies need to analyze their per diem rates at least annually to ensure they are keeping pace with inflation and actual costs in the marketplace. </p>
<p>Other best practices for managing per diem include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Basing per diem rates on current federal guidelines for geographic areas </li>
<li>Allowing exceptions to standard rates for high-cost cities, such as major metropolitan areas </li>
<li>Enforce rate consistency across employees and business units </li>
<li>Setting partial receipt requirements for lodging over certain thresholds </li>
<li>Not requiring detailed meal receipts within per diem allowance </li>
<li>Adjusting policies based on finance expense analysis </li>
<li>Providing convenient expense submission channels </li>
<li>Auditing policy compliance through random expense checks </li>
<li>Incentivizing employees to remain within per diem budgets </li>
<li>Requiring employees to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-management-options-no-matter-how-big-or-small-your-needs-may-be">get pre-approvals</a> </li>
</ul>
<h2>Incorporating Per Diem Into Your Financial Strategy </h2>
<p>Having the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/buyers-guide-to-choosing-te-solution-for-your-business">right tools and applications</a> to manage your employee expenses and reimbursements is crucial with business travel. </p>
<p>SAP Concur is the leading solution for integrating travel and expenses, helping organizations and employees streamline the reporting and approval process. By integrating near real-time data and AI to analyze transactions, businesses will know where and how spending occurs to provide greater transparency into spending. </p>
<p>Contact SAP Concur to see how we can help you simplify the per diem process and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">automate your employee expense reimbursement</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What is an Itemized Receipt
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-itemized-receipt
2024-03-01T09:00:00Z
2024-02-27T14:04:30Z
Discover the intricacies of itemized receipts in our latest blog, covering their types, requirements, and how they compare to regular receipts.
<p>We’ve all been there. You have a pile of expense reports to process and there’s a sea of crumpled receipts and missing information. Each one tells a story, whether it’s a client dinner or a cross-country trip to seal a deal. However, as you try to decipher credit card slips and cryptic notes, every receipt becomes a potential audit problem. </p>
<p>There’s a hero in this story, though. It’s the itemized receipt. </p>
<p>In this article we’ll answer the question: What is an itemized receipt? We’ll also look at the differences between an itemized receipt vs. regular receipt and the benefits of an itemized receipt for reimbursement. </p>
<h2>What Is an Itemized Receipt? </h2>
<p>An itemized receipt details each line item of the goods or services from a transaction. Rather than a credit card slip that just gives you the totals, itemized receipts provide the details about: </p>
<ul>
<li>Date and time of purchase </li>
<li>Specific items purchased </li>
<li>Quantities and amounts for each item </li>
<li>Unit price and total costs </li>
<li>Taxes paid (if applicable) </li>
<li>The total amounts paid </li>
</ul>
<h2>Itemized Receipt vs. Regular Receipt </h2>
<p>Itemized receipts provide significantly more transaction information and detail than a standard receipt. Here are some of the key differences. </p>
<h3>Itemization </h3>
<p>Regular receipts only show the total amount paid. Itemized receipts list and describe each product or service purchased separately. This additional itemization is useful for accounting purposes. </p>
<h3>Expense Tracking </h3>
<p>With itemized line items on purchases, it's easier to categorize expenses and track spending for budgeting. You can't do detailed spend analysis without the breakdowns provided on itemized receipts. </p>
<h3>Expense Reporting </h3>
<p>Employees use itemized receipts when doing expense reports after business trips and events to keep it simple to fulfill reporting requirements and get quickly reimbursed. </p>
<h3>Auditing </h3>
<p>During any financial review or audit of a company's books, detailed itemized receipts provide the necessary support documentation. This added transparency improves compliance. </p>
<h2>Common Types of Itemized Expenses </h2>
<p>Here are some examples of the details that are usually included on itemized receipts in these common spending categories. </p>
<h3>Meals and Entertainment </h3>
<ul>
<li>Date, time, and location of meal </li>
<li>Itemized list of food and beverages consumed </li>
<li>Number of guests detailed </li>
<li>Gratuity amount itemized </li>
<li>Business purpose for entertainment outlined </li>
</ul>
<p>Without proper itemization on dining and entertainment receipts, these expenses may not comply with policy or meet tax deductibility rules. </p>
<h3>Hotel Stays </h3>
<ul>
<li>Room rate per night </li>
<li>Room taxes and fees broken out </li>
<li>On-property dining or other charges itemized </li>
<li>Valet, internet, phone, or other ancillary charges listed </li>
</ul>
<p>Itemization is key for reconciling hotel spending against corporate travel program rates and reimbursement limits. </p>
<h3>Car Rentals</h3>
<ul>
<li>Date and locations for each rental period </li>
<li>Mileage driven/mileage charges itemized </li>
<li>Refueling and other ancillary services detailed </li>
<li>Damage waivers, GPS rentals, or additional insurance itemized </li>
</ul>
<p>Complete car rental itemization provides the backup needed to dispute any billing errors or unauthorized charges. </p>
<h3>Air Travel </h3>
<ul>
<li>Ticket fees and taxes </li>
<li>Changes, cancellations, and other ancillary charges delineated </li>
<li>Baggage fees, seat selections, onboard WiFi itemized </li>
</ul>
<p>Itemized airfare receipts allow for audit of expenses against corporate travel policies. </p>
<h3>Office Supplies </h3>
<ul>
<li>Each supply item numbered </li>
<li>Quantity, unit price, and item cost for each line </li>
<li>Item details like size, color, or other attributes </li>
</ul>
<p>Itemization on office supply receipts enables better budgeting and prevents duplicate or excessive ordering. </p>
<h2>When Are Itemized Receipts Required? </h2>
<p>You can determine when itemized receipts are required as part of your expense policy. Here are some of the key considerations in making this decision. </p>
<h3>Employee Expense Reimbursements </h3>
<p>Nearly all companies require the submission of itemized receipts along with expense reimbursement reports over a predetermined threshold, such as $75 or $100. Even if a company doesn't set a clear policy, many managers will request itemized receipts as back-up for any large or unusual employee spend. </p>
<h3>Business Tax Deductions </h3>
<p>To qualify for federal tax write-offs of valid business expenses, companies will want to retain itemized receipts as evidence. </p>
<h3>Government Contracting </h3>
<p>Organizations that do business with government agencies generally have to meet strict itemization rules. All expenses submitted for reimbursement under a government contract require detailed itemized receipts with full transparency regarding the exact goods or services purchased. </p>
<h3>External Audits </h3>
<p>Financial auditors will request to review itemized receipts for material transactions during assessments of company books. Audits of expenses, procurement spending, and special projects typically sample high-dollar invoices and receipts — relying on itemization to verify legitimacy. </p>
<h2>Reducing Expense Fraud </h2>
<p>Itemized receipts can also play a big role in reducing expense fraud. </p>
<p>A 2022 Pulse survey commissioned by SAP Concur found that nearly two-thirds of business travelers admitted <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-types-expense-report-fraud-look-out">questionable expenses</a> from employees intentionally submitting reimbursements for personal expenses. Five percent of a typical company’s annual revenues are <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/fraud-research-report-2022">lost due to fraud</a> each year, according to the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership (IOFM) — more than $8,000 per month. </p>
<p>In the “old days,” employees used to gather up blank taxi slips or restaurant receipts and simply write the amounts in by hand. This provided AP teams with no information to judge the validity of an expense except for their intuition. Fake receipts, inflated claims, and multiple claims for the same purchase can be difficult to spot. </p>
<p>Fortunately, there are solutions to help mitigate expense fraud. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Finance automation</a> can help spot non-compliant spend and increase audit accuracy. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> from SAP Concur offers receipt scanning on a mobile app that enables users to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-capture-receipts-your-mobile-phone">digitize receipts</a> on the go — meaning they can submit their itemized receipts right at the point of purchase. </p>
<h2>Ensuring Compliance and Adopting Best Practices </h2>
<p>By making itemized receipt capture and reporting standard practice across an organization and, enforcing consistent compliance, you can improve transparency and employ best practices, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Establishing policies detailing when an itemized receipt for reimbursement is required, including any dollar thresholds over which itemization is mandatory. </li>
<li>Implementing expense reporting software and apps that allow the seamless capture of itemized receipt data and automated flow into reports. </li>
<li>Establishing a consistent approval flow with exception reporting to flag any missing itemization or details requiring follow-up. </li>
<li>Conducting regular audits of reports to identify any non-compliant spend lacking proper documentation or itemization. </li>
<li>Providing employee training on expense reporting procedures, highlighting the importance of detailed, accurate receipts. </li>
</ul>
<p>Adopting a seamless workflow and integrating your expense management with ERP and accounting systems can reduce human error, accelerate processing, and produce real-time visibility into spending. This ensures compliance and improves efficiency. </p>
<h2>SAP Concur Makes Expense Management Simpler </h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions make it easy for users to capture receipts and eliminate some of the manual data entry associated with business expenses by creating a digital workflow. There’s no more dealing with paper receipts or cutting paper checks. ExpenseIt extracts the necessary information to simplify processing and reduce manual entry, making month-end reporting a snap. You get improved workflow, increased visibility into spend, and robust <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-give-your-team-financial-visibility-it-needs">cost controls</a> to manage your expense reimbursements more efficiently. </p>
<p>You also get <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2022/03/04/the-hr-reset-how-midsize-companies-can-make-intelligent-technology-a-priority/?sh=6c8f50cad76a">intelligent technology</a> that’s cloud-based, providing a secure app that empowers employees to capture itemized receipts wherever they are and automatically move expense reimbursements through the approval chain. </p>
<p>Concur Expense, Concur Travel, and Concur Invoice empower you to track and manage every employee expense, travel cost, and invoice payment in one connected system. You can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">get a free trial</a> of Concur Expense today and see how you can automate and simplify your expense process, capture itemized receipts, and provide complete spend visibility. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Continue to earn American AAdvantage Miles for business travel with Concur Travel and TripLink maintaining managed travel programs and traveler satisfaction
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/continue-to-earn-american-aadvantage-miles-for-business-travel-with-concur-travel-and
2024-02-26T13:57:58Z
2024-02-26T10:19:23Z
Continue to earn American AAdvantage Miles for business travel with Concur Travel and TripLink maintaining managed travel programs and traveler satisfaction
<p>American Airlines <a href="https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2024/Booking-directly-with-American-Airlines-and-its-airline-partners-makes-travel-even-better-for-AAdvantage-members-AADV-02/default.aspx">announced</a> on February 20, 2024, it will change eligibility on how customers earn miles and loyalty points for corporate tickets issued, starting on May 1, 2024. The good news is that SAP Concur travelers and travel managers can rest assured they can configure their Concur Travel instance and/or leverage Concur TripLink to maintain travel program efficacy and visibility while earning American AAdvantage Miles.</p>
<p>There are two ways to enable American content directly in Concur Travel that will allow travelers to continue to get their points. Today, customers using Sabre at the U.S. point of sale can enable the Evolution of Travel module and its modern display, which, in addition to many other benefits, also supports American’s direct booking platform via the Sabre NDC Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and their modern retailing solution that has been live since October 2023.</p>
<p>Concur Travel customers can also gain access to American’s direct booking platform via Concur Select Access, which has been available to all Concur Travel customers since 2021. Travel managers can find out more about how to enable this functionality by <a href="http://www.exploreamerican.com/globalsales/onboarding-guide-for-concur-select-access-via-travelfusion">visiting the Explore American website</a>. Customers who utilize the Amadeus GDS will be able to switch from Select Access to enable NDCX in Amadeus when released in Q2 2024.</p>
<p>While booking on AA.com and the American Airlines mobile app, Concur TripLink provides SAP Concur customers with the ability to find all the best fares American offers, obtain corporate negotiated fares, earn miles, and remain in policy. With Concur TripLink, American itineraries booked through American’s website flow into the SAP Concur ecosystem, automatically flowing into Concur Expense and also ensuring that the company has the ability to administer policy and honor their duty of care obligations. To find out more about Concur TripLink, visit <a href="http://www.concur.com/triplink">www.concur.com/triplink</a>, or talk to an SAP Concur Salesperson or your SAP Concur account executive. It’s easy to sign up and start using Concur TripLink right away. Companies that already have Concur TripLink should encourage their users to connect their AA accounts in Concur by visiting the <a href="http://www.concursolutions.com/triplink/hub">Concur TripLink Hub in Concur</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“SAP Concur has been ahead of the game in helping our customers prepare for airline full content by developing a multi-channel approach through our industry leading Concur Travel platform,” said Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel. “Fortunately, Concur Travel has a long history of solving industry challenges such as this, and we will continue to create solutions to ensure that our corporate customers can access a supplier’s full content, lowest fares and all of their benefits, while giving the corporation the controls and data they need to effectively manage their programs.”</p>
</blockquote>
SAP Concur Team
Make 2024 a Little Less Taxing with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-2024-little-less-taxing-with-sap-concur
2024-02-26T09:00:00Z
2024-02-22T11:01:17Z
Today, companies face a handful of hurdles to avoid tax penalties and maximize reclaim, from keeping pace with rapidly evolving regulations and laws, to dealing with tax audits, and more.
<p>Change is a constant in global tax management, and it has always been challenging to keep up. Today, companies face a handful of hurdles to avoid penalties and maximize reclaim, from keeping pace with rapidly evolving regulations and laws, to dealing with tax audits, and more. However, organizations are undergoing another change that—while difficult at first—will ultimately make things easier: digitalization. </p>
<p>Digitalization is driving the transformation, automation, and streamlining of tax management through digital technologies. Digitized receipts and e-invoice mandates are already in place in countries such as China, Japan, and Mexico—with a handful of other regions in the process of rolling out similar regulations. The country-by-country, tax-by-tax approach is not a scalable solution for organizations that are trying to adhere to rapidly evolving regulations. </p>
<p>SAP Concur is supporting its customers during this period of change so that they can be ready for anything. SAP Concur solutions for global tax management can help companies stay up to date with changing tax regulations, helping to enhance compliance and reduce financial risk. Our solutions support various phases of the global tax management process, from expense report creation to approval, payment, and reconciliation. </p>
<p>Here’s what this looks like. As receipts or invoices come into <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, they are processed through SAP Concur solutions for global tax management. SAP Concur stores these documents and ensures that no changes are made for a minimum of eight years. Lastly, API-based integrations help bring the validated documents and data into customers’ financial systems. </p>
<p>Our receipt digitalization and e-invoicing solutions currently support France, Spain, Japan, China, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand, with support for Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland coming soon. </p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions also help to maximize tax recovery using the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. As governments become more sophisticated in how they collect both direct and indirect taxes, organizations must elevate their ability to comply with new regulations, prevent tax penalties and fines, and avoid leaving reclaimable taxes behind. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Concur Tax Assurance solution by Blue dot</a> helps organizations improve compliance with tax regulations and maximize tax reclaim. It automates data completion; consistently identifies opportunities for reclaiming eligible value-added tax (VAT), goods and service tax (GST), and harmonized sales tax (HST); and helps finance teams manage global tax regulations with greater accuracy and speed. </p>
<p>Another SAP Concur offering, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance">Concur Benefits Assurance solution by Blue dot</a>, simplifies and automates the process of identifying taxable employee benefits within expense reports. Using AI and machine learning, the solution helps organizations to consistently identify, calculate, and track taxable employee benefits while cost-effectively handling tax regulations with greater accuracy, speed, and compliance. </p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions for global tax management help to make compliance easier, streamline tax operations, flex and scale, and offer a consistent and simplified user experience. And as tax regulations and organizations’ needs continue to evolve, SAP Concur solutions will evolve with them. We’ll be there asking all the right questions and collaborating with our trusted partners to continue creating solutions that set our customers up for success. </p>
<p>Learn more about SAP Concur solutions for global tax management <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">here</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Is Purchase Requisition: Streamlining Financial Workflow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-purchase-requisition-streamlining-financial-workflow
2024-02-15T09:00:00Z
2024-02-01T10:15:16Z
Explore Purchase Requisition's role in financial planning, enhancing expense management, inventory control, and reducing fraud. Learn how automation streamlines this process.
<p>Purchase requisitions can play a critical role in a company’s financial planning processes because they increase visibility to spend before it happens. </p>
<h2>What Is Purchase Requisition? </h2>
<p>Purchase requisition is a process that creates a formal request within an organization to buy goods or services. The requisition process includes a detailed submission of the desired purchase and the approvals and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-ways-to-get-more-budget-clarity-across-your-business">routing of information to budgets</a>. </p>
<p>The requisition usually includes a detailed description of the good or service requested, the business reason for the purchase, the quantity, price, vendor, and other important details. This information helps authorized staff to approve or deny the request. </p>
<p>The purchase requisition is usually a step taken within an organization before a purchase order is issued to a supplier allowing the transaction to proceed. </p>
<p>The purchase requisition process is an important method for managing expenses, ensuring visibility into pending transactions so that budgets are managed appropriately. </p>
<h2>Purchase Requisition Processes </h2>
<p>While each company’s purchase requisition process will be different, the fundamental steps include the following: </p>
<h3>1. Create the Purchase Requisition Form </h3>
<p>An employee will complete a purchase requisition form. Ideally, this form will be available online and, once completed, be routed appropriately for consideration. </p>
<h3>2. Line Manager Approval </h3>
<p>Internal approvals are at the heart of the purchase requisition process. The line manager is responsible for ensuring that the request is necessary, the information is accurate, and that the department has the budget needed to pay for the requested products or services. </p>
<p>Additional approvals may be required, based on the company’s internal processes. Often, higher amounts require additional approvals before proceeding. </p>
<h3>3. Inventory Verification </h3>
<p>A requisition form may be routed to the person or team who manages inventory to confirm that the items aren’t already in stock. </p>
<h3>4. Purchasing Department Approval </h3>
<p>Purchasing team members will review the approved requisition and ensure that there’s a valid business need. If the form is incomplete, the officer may complete it themselves or return it for more details. </p>
<h3>5. Purchase Order Generation </h3>
<p>Once all the approvals are in place, a purchase order is generated, allowing the requestor to proceed with the purchase. </p>
<h3>6. Order Delivery and Acceptance </h3>
<p>The vendor will send goods to the company, where they will be reviewed to ensure that the items, quantities, and quality are what was ordered. Typically, details are confirmed among the purchase order, packing slip, and invoice to ensure that correct materials have been sent. </p>
<h3>7. Invoice Payment </h3>
<p>If the received materials are accepted and accurate, the purchase order is marked complete and the invoice is paid, usually by the finance department, and the details are entered into appropriate budget ledgers. </p>
<h2>Advantages of Purchase Requisitions </h2>
<p>Having a strong purchase requisition process has many benefits to a company and is a critical component of a robust procurement operation. Among the core benefits are: </p>
<ul>
<li>Efficiency. As part of a centralized procurement process, a purchase requisition builds efficiency into the finance operation. It allows for better organization and tracking of materials, reduced ordering delays, and better inventory management. </li>
<li>Cost savings. With efficient purchase requisitions, a company can <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cut-cost-and-time-invoice-processing-with-automation">save time and money</a> throughout the operation. </li>
<li>Fraud reduction. Clearly defined protocols reduce the risk of fraud, such as employees purchasing items for personal use or reselling bought items. The purchase requisition process can deter fraud before it starts and ensure that goods and services cannot be ordered without the proper approvals in place. </li>
<li>Transparency. A solid purchase requisition workflow adds layers of transparency and clarity. The hierarchical nature of the process ensures that documents are verified for accuracy and the request is needed. It provides documentation that a purchase was submitted and approved with consent of the appropriate managers and that budgeted funds are available. </li>
<li>Accountability. Using purchase requisitions provides proof that orders were necessary. It can also be used to confirm that delivered goods were those requested. This accountability is important for internal controls and audit procedures. </li>
<li>Fewer duplicate orders. A good purchase requisition system means fewer mistakes, such as duplicated orders. Purchasing departments can track what’s ordered and question if a duplicate request comes through before a purchase order is issued. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Why Automating Purchase Requisitions Makes Sound Business Sense </h2>
<p>Purchase requisitions can help improve the operations of businesses, but they are an added step in the purchasing process. Fortunately, there are options for automating this important process, which can make it viable for businesses of any size. </p>
<p>Automation can replace unreliable and error-prone manual requisition processes. Automation takes a company’s existing paper forms and processes and translates them to cloud-based solutions, with intuitive, accessible tools for users and approvers. </p>
<p>Automated purchasing requisitions help maintain budget control across departments. The controls built into an automated requisition process ensure that money is spent appropriately and accurately. </p>
<p>Automation also ensures that your company maintains compliance with regulatory mandates governing purchasing. It allows for better response times and timely acquisition of necessary goods and services critical for success. </p>
<p>With the right solution, a company can ensure data related to purchase requisition is synchronized across business systems, with real-time data integration and sharing. There’s also lower risk of data entry errors and more accuracy in finance operations. There’s better cash flow management and budget reconciliation, too. </p>
<h2>Choosing the Right Solution to Automate Your Processes </h2>
<p>When you’re looking for automation solutions that can help improve your spend processes, consider technology that gives your managers more control over spending with a user-friendly system that gives approvers the visibility they need. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">learn how Concur Request</a> uses automation to simplify requests and approvals, drive policy compliance, and control company spending. </p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions for travel and expense management also automate processes ranging from <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-reimbursement-guide-to-efficient-expense-management">employee travel reimbursements</a> to invoice generation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/">Discover how SAP Concur solutions can enhance your operations.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
6 Expense Reimbursement Policy Best Practices and Why You Need Them
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-expense-reimbursement-policy-best-practices-and-why-you-need-them
2024-02-13T09:00:00Z
2024-02-01T10:06:23Z
Expense reimbursement policy best practices improve cost control and maximize employee satisfaction with expense processes.
<p>Strong expense reimbursement policies are critical to overall organizational success, especially when you have employees who travel for business purposes. However, if you're not following expense reimbursement policy best practices, you might inadvertently create higher risks for the company and employees when you do reimburse people. </p>
<h2>Why Do You Need a Strong Expense Reimbursement Policy? </h2>
<p>A strong policy that governs <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-expense-reimbursements-and-other-faqs">expense reimbursements</a> protects employees as well as the company. It communicates specifics about what can and can't be reimbursed and how to seek reimbursement. When your policy is detailed and clearly worded, it can reduce the risk of noncompliant spend. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/benefits-effective-expense-reimbursement-policy">benefits of effective expense reimbursement policies</a> include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Helping to define the culture of your organization </li>
<li>Supporting trust so employees can travel for business with confidence </li>
<li>Increasing the efficiency of reimbursements, reducing the time employees may float their own expenses </li>
<li>Setting parameters for control of travel and other business expenses to help maintain the budget </li>
</ul>
<h2>Initial Steps for Designing an Employee Expense Reimbursement Policy </h2>
<p>Before you sit down to write an employee expense reimbursement policy, take some time to gather necessary information and make sure you’re creating a policy that works well for your organization. </p>
<p>Start by considering specific business needs. What type of budget are you working with, and do you have software solutions to help manage your expense request and reimbursement processes? You may also want to consider how investing in <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-reimbursement-guide-to-efficient-expense-management">efficient expense management</a> can help you save time and money in the long term. </p>
<p>Next, consider the company's mission and values and how expense reimbursement policies can support them. For example, if sustainability is important to your business, you may want to include parameters in your policy (this <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainability_travel_policy">travel sustainability guide</a> can help) that support making a sustainable choice when possible for travel arrangements and other expenses. </p>
<p>Finally, consider the needs and desires of your employees. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/4-ways-hr-and-travel-leaders-can-better-meet-employee-and-business-needs">Flexibility in the workplace</a> is a global trend and preference for many people, for example. While flexibility often relates specifically to scheduling and where and how people do work, it could also relate to how travel expenses are handled. If that's important to your employees, can you build some flexibility into your expense reimbursement policy? </p>
<p>As you work to answer these questions and set the stage for policy creation, collaborate with stakeholders and subject-matter experts in your organization. That might include getting feedback from employees who travel frequently and are familiar with your current expense reimbursement practices. </p>
<h2>6 Expense Reimbursement Policy Best Practices </h2>
<p>Once you set the foundation for your employee expense reimbursement policy, you can put these best practices into action when creating it. </p>
<h3>1. Define Qualifying Reimbursements </h3>
<p>One of the most important purposes of your expense reimbursement policy is to set parameters on allowed spending. Your policy should define what makes an expense business-related and also provide boundaries, such as maximum allowable amounts or types of allowed purchases. </p>
<p>For example, it's common to set a per diem for meals for each day an employee travels. Perhaps you allow up to $55 per day for meals. As long as the employee has the receipts to back up their meal expenses, you would automatically approve up to that amount. </p>
<p>But you can also set parameters for other types of spending. Perhaps employees are only allowed to book certain types of hotel rooms with properties you have negotiated business rates with or economy or business class flights. </p>
<h3>2. Require Receipts </h3>
<p>Ensure that your expense reimbursement policy is clear about the need for receipts. Describe the types of receipts that are acceptable. That might include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Traditional register receipts </li>
<li>Email receipts </li>
<li>Printed purchase confirmation from online booking sites </li>
</ul>
<p>Detail how receipts should be prepared for submission—digital processes may require the employee to take pictures of receipts or scan them in for adding to expense reporting software. </p>
<h3>3. Reduce Paperwork in Your Expense Report and Reimbursement Process </h3>
<p>Ensure your policy details the types of templates and workflows people should use to submit reimbursement requests, approve those requests, and, ultimately, fund them. When possible, remove actual hard-copy paper from the process. Digital forms support higher levels of streamlining and automation and they also reduce risks associated with paper, including the loss of paperwork and data breaches. </p>
<h3>4. Define Expense Submission Deadlines </h3>
<p>You might think that employees will rush to complete expense reports so they can be reimbursed. Surprisingly, however, the paperwork can get shuffled to the backburner when people are busy with other work. This can lead to employees submitting expense requests months after the expenditure occurred. </p>
<p>Slow expense reporting can put a burden on your accounting processes and even cause you to miss some tax opportunities. You can help speed up expense reporting processes by setting deadlines in your policy. </p>
<h3>5. Create an Approval Workflow </h3>
<p>Define the workflow for expense report approvals in your policy. If you're taking part in digital transformation and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-management-automation-and-why-should-you-go-paperless">automating some of the expense process</a>, define what types of expenses or dollar thresholds are eligible for auto approval. </p>
<p>Ensure the policy covers who must approve expenses and avoid creating policies that would allow someone (a manager, for example) to approve their own expense report. </p>
<h3>6. Include Quality and Compliance Audits </h3>
<p>Consider adding quality and compliance audit procedures to your expense reimbursement policy. Define who conducts the audit and how they do so. It's also important to set the parameters for auditing so that no one perceives audits as being directed to certain individuals. </p>
<p>You might write a policy that requires auditing of every third expense reported submitted by any given employee, for example. Or, you might set up the process so audits are triggered when expense reimbursement requests surpass a dollar threshold or include certain types of expenses. </p>
<p>Ready to get started on your employee expense reimbursement policy? Use the SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to ensure you cover all the bases. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What's the Impact of a Corporate Travel Manager on Business?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-impact-corporate-travel-manager-on-business
2024-02-09T09:00:00Z
2024-02-01T09:56:39Z
Learn how corporate travel managers and tech can optimize T&E spending in times of rising travel costs for improved business efficiency.
<p>Inflation and higher travel prices are taking a toll on corporate travel. Businesses today need to be more strategic about travel and expense (T&E). That’s no surprise as budgets tighten and companies look more closely at a line item that can make up <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-te-mean">8% to 12%</a> of an organization’s spending. Corporate travel managers and technology can help. </p>
<p>Nearly two-thirds of companies say they are under <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-intelligent-travel-and-expense-management-drives-future-work">increasing pressure</a> to manage costs. Yet, three-quarters of those surveyed say travel is <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">important or very important</a> to managing customer relationships and key in obtaining new business. </p>
<p>The solution is to deploy an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">intelligent approach</a> to travel and expenses. This requires an integrated, AI-driven travel and expense platform to save money and unlock employee value. The right technology, driven by the right people, can streamline your T&E process and optimize your spending. </p>
<p>In this article, we will discuss the impact technology and corporate travel managers can have on your business, understand the role of corporate travel managers, and how to become a corporate travel manager. </p>
<h2>What Are Corporate Travel Managers? </h2>
<p>Corporate travel managers oversee travel within organizations. Depending on the size of the organization and the amount of travel required, they may book travel or work with a travel agency. Corporate travel managers typically set policies and budgets, negotiate with vendors, help employees with travel documents, and ensure compliance with company policies. </p>
<p>Finding the right person for your organization to oversee travel is important. Employees wondering how to become a corporate travel manager should know there is no pre-set pathway, but most organizations seek out someone with a degree or certification in the travel services industry and experience managing travel. Corporate travel managers must be detail-oriented, savvy negotiators, and have strong communication skills to be effective. </p>
<h2>The Impact of Corporate Travel Managers on Business </h2>
<p>Corporate travel managers can impact organizations in several key areas. </p>
<h3>Building Strategic Corporate Travel Policies </h3>
<p>Corporate travel managers establish the strategic travel policies organizations need to optimize their spending. At their most basic, they set guidelines for travel. This might include classes of acceptable travel and preferred airlines, hotels, or rental cars. </p>
<p>Managers will coordinate all travel either in-house or through a travel management company to ensure consistent application of these policies. This helps control spending while ensuring necessary travel is conducted within policies. </p>
<h3>More Efficient Travel Arrangements and Expense Management </h3>
<p>Skilled corporate travel managers can leverage industry experience and travel and expense (T&E) tools for greater efficiency. Sourcing travel through different partners and platforms can often achieve significant discounts and make sure employees use preferred vendors to get the best rates. </p>
<p>By streamlining the expense reporting process, corporate travel managers can reduce administrative overhead and save money while reducing the burden on employees to handle travel on their own. </p>
<h3>Making Data-Driven Decisions </h3>
<p>Corporate travel managers also analyze data to make informed decisions for their organization. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-and-expense-performance-benchmark-report">benchmarking data</a> to compare T&E with peers can help right-size travel policies to remain competitive. </p>
<p>Measuring key metrics can also provide insight into the travel process from various viewpoints, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Employee satisfaction </li>
<li>Return on investment </li>
<li>Out-of-compliance spending </li>
<li>Savings from corporate discounts </li>
<li>Travel incident reporting </li>
</ul>
<h3>Aligning with Sustainability Initiatives </h3>
<p>Another area that is increasingly important for organizations is in the area of sustainability. 28% of travel managers say they face increasing pressure to <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainability_travel_policy">report on travel emissions</a> and 89% of business travelers say they are taking extra steps to reduce the environmental impact of travel. </p>
<p>As companies focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/building-tangible-sustainability-your-business">environmental, social, and corporate governance</a> (ESG), corporate travel managers can ensure travel aligns with these initiatives. </p>
<h3>Integrating Technology in Corporate Travel </h3>
<p>The right technology can streamline the user experience while <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-back-office-to-tip-spear-how-ai-will-transform-te">ensuring compliance</a>. Modern booking tools can reduce or eliminate paper, allow for centralized tracking of all T&E spend, and automate the enforcement of travel policies. </p>
<p>AI and machine learning capabilities better monitor budget vs actuals, flag out-of-policy purchases, and analyze large amounts of corporate travel data. The insights can help with better real-time decision-making as well as inform future policy adjustments. </p>
<p>Nearly 62% of finance leaders agree that artificial intelligence (AI) is an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">essential tool</a> to manage the unexpected, according to the SAP Concur CFO Pulse Survey 2023. Integrating AI and machine learning to capture expense receipts drives compliance and streamlines the reporting and approval process. Customers using <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> from SAP Concur, for example, have seen returned expense reports drop from 14% to just 1.2%. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">Verify</a> is a self-serve audit solution from SAP Concur, which also automatically reviews expense reports to identify compliance issues like duplicate receipts, incorrect data, or out-of-policy spending. </p>
<h2>Enhancing Employee Productivity </h2>
<p>A corporate travel manager can play a big role in enhancing employee productivity. When there is central coordination of travel, employees don’t have to worry about the planning and coordination of trips. This can eliminate travel-related stress and allow employees to focus on their work responsibilities rather than logistics. </p>
<p>If an unexpected situation arises during travel, employees also benefit from a reliable support system that can provide assistance. Travel disruption is more common than ever before. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">38% of business travelers</a> say they have felt the impact of last-minute delays and cancellations. </p>
<p>As travel stress before, during, and after trips increases for employees, it can raise anxiety levels. A coordinated effort to reduce travel stress, coupled with the right technology to manage expenses, can help with employee well-being. For companies that require regular travel, these solutions can also provide a competitive advantage when recruiting or retaining employees. </p>
<p>Corporate travel managers can also help navigate complex rules and regulations, especially for international travel, and advise on potential risks based on geopolitical activity that might impact business travel. </p>
<h2>SAP Concur Travel and Expense Solutions </h2>
<p>SAP Concur is the world’s leading brand for integrated travel, expense, and invoice management. We make it possible for businesses to simplify everyday processes and provide employees with better experiences. </p>
<p>Get insights into what business travelers are thinking these days. Download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/2023_smb_business_travelers_insights">SAP Concur Global Small to Midsize Business Travelers Survey</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Create a Business Financial Plan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-create-business-financial-plan
2024-02-07T09:00:00Z
2024-01-31T08:52:30Z
Learn how to create a robust business financial plan. Explore key steps, core components, and the role of tools like SAP Concur in efficient planning.
<p>Developing a financial plan is an essential piece of building and running your business. Knowing how to create a financial plan, its core components, and how to use it can position your business for success. </p>
<h2>What Is a Business Financial Plan? </h2>
<p>A business financial plan is a forward-looking projection of what your income and expenses are likely to be in the coming months. It can help with <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/find-out-if-you-have-spend-control-stay-agile-and-meet-future-head">determining your cash flow</a>, pinpointing needs for financing, and identify when to take on new initiatives or projects. </p>
<p>When developing a new business, a financial plan can help determine if your concept is viable. At all times, the plan helps to monitor your financial health and progress and prevent problems. </p>
<p>A financial plan is a core part of a business plan that frames your business concept, leadership, market, and competition. It’s a key element of documents used, along with financial statements, to help secure funding from investors or private lenders. </p>
<p>It can also help you understand cash flow to help you determine <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-sure-how-you-spend-matches-your-business-growth-priorities">where to place valuable financial resources</a>. </p>
<h2>Elements of a Financial Plan </h2>
<p>Financial projections can be tricky to develop. This guide shows you the key components and how to get started. </p>
<h3>Income Statement </h3>
<p>The income statement details the profits and losses your business experienced during a specific time frame. It can be common to have monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting periods, depending on your business goals. Also known as a profit-and-loss statement, the income statement includes the following elements: </p>
<ul>
<li>Cost of sales or the cost of goods, e.g. how much it costs to produce your goods or services </li>
<li>Revenue streams </li>
<li>Operating expenses, such as rent and utilities </li>
<li>Gross margin – the total net profit or loss </li>
</ul>
<h3>Balance Sheet </h3>
<p>The balance sheet is a look at the current state of your business. It includes: </p>
<ul>
<li>Assets, such as cash, products and resources you have available </li>
<li>Liabilities, including what you owe to suppliers, employees, landlords, and creditors </li>
<li>Shareholder equity, which is the amount of money your business generates (assets minus liabilities) </li>
</ul>
<h3>Personnel Plan </h3>
<p>If you employ staff in your business, it’s important to look at the expenses and needs of your personnel. A personnel plan lays out the positions you have, the costs associated with each, and helps identify where you may need to bring on additional employee resources. </p>
<p>The plan forecasts the salaries or wages, benefits, and other costs associated with personnel, including training, travel, along with their ability to generate revenue. This analysis helps to determine when and where to hire new staff. </p>
<h3>Business Ratios </h3>
<p>Business ratios give you clear indications of where your business stands. There are a variety of ratios you can calculate. Here are some common ratios used by businesses to gauge progress: </p>
<ul>
<li>Working capital – Presents a clear picture of current financial strength. </li>
<li>Quick – Demonstrates your ability to meet current financial obligations if something unexpected happens. </li>
<li>Inventory turnover – Shows how frequently you convert inventory to sales and the efficiency of your inventory management. </li>
<li>Debt-to-worth – Indicator of overall health and often used by lenders. </li>
<li>Return on investment – A higher ROI demonstrates that your business generates income from your investments. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Sales Forecasts </h3>
<p>A sales forecast is integral to your planning, because it projects cash flow and your overall financial health. The sales forecast predicts how much you will sell in each period and should align with sales in your profit-and-loss statement. It also should segment sales by each type of good or service sold. </p>
<h3>Cash Flow Projections </h3>
<p>These projections show how cash moves into and out of your business, indicating what cash you have on hand today, where it will be allocated, the sources of your cash, and scheduling of outflows. </p>
<h3>Income Projections </h3>
<p>Typically done on an annual basis, income projections show how much the business earns minus expected expenses. </p>
<h3>Assets and Liabilities </h3>
<p>Both assets and liabilities are core elements of the company’s balance sheet. </p>
<p>Assets comprise what your company owns, such as cash, along with inventory and accounts receivable that could be converted into cash. </p>
<p>Liabilities are financial commitments your company has to creditors, including current and long-term obligations. Current liabilities include payroll, short-term loans, and taxes due, usually within a one-year window. Long-term liabilities include debt such as loans that mature a year or more from present. </p>
<h3>Break-Even Analysis </h3>
<p>Your break-even point is a key indicator of financial health and is a measure of how much you need to sell to cover your expenses. Knowing your break-even point helps shape your sales volume and revenue goals. </p>
<h2>What are the Key Steps to Create a Financial Plan? </h2>
<p>With so many components to a financial plan, it can seem daunting to consider creating one. Here are four steps to take to get started. </p>
<h3>1. Build a Business Strategic Plan </h3>
<p>Starting with a strategic plan for your business can help to frame some of your projections. The strategic plan helps you develop clear answers to core questions, such as who your typical customers are, your market, and what needs your products or services address. Think of the strategic plan as your roadmap that helps you direct the business towards meeting your goals.. </p>
<h3>2. Create a Marketing Strategy </h3>
<p>How are you going to differentiate your products and services? Having a compelling and effective marketing plan that creates messages, ads, promotions, emails and other communications that spur action, address needs and demonstrate value help to build a customer base and understand what resources are necessary to do so. </p>
<h3>3. Understand the Competition </h3>
<p>Having a clear sense as to your competition helps you plan financially. At what price point are they selling the same items? What customers are they targeting? Are they in the same sectors or regions as you? Knowing your competition helps you position your brand differently and create effective and compelling strategies to attract business. </p>
<h3>4. Be Prepared to Pivot </h3>
<p>Businesses, markets and customers are constantly changing. A sound financial plan prepares for these eventualities, with forward-looking analysis that spots trends and can adjust accordingly. </p>
<h2>Tools for Financial Planning </h2>
<p>SAP Concur provides powerful tools for <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-business-process">automating business processes</a>, helping your business reduce costs, save money, work more efficiently, and plan. Technology like SAP Concur solutions help you manage invoices and company expenses, access real-time data, integrate finances with other business systems, and drive success. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/importance-healthy-financial-process">Learn more about SAP Concur solutions today</a> and how they can help your business thrive. </p>
SAP Concur Team
A New Home for Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-home-for-concur-triplink
2024-01-31T08:48:14Z
2024-01-31T08:44:38Z
Concur TripLink has a new home within your SAP Concur solutions, providing you with a centralized hub to help streamline enrollment and engagement.
<p>Concur TripLink has a new home within your SAP Concur solutions, providing you with a centralized hub to help streamline enrollment and engagement!</p>
<p>Simply sign in, and you’ll see “TripLink” in the main navigation. Your employees will find sections to learn about the component parts of Concur TripLink (travel partner integrations and TripIt Pro) and can enable each one. </p>
<p>With these updates, your organization and travelers will benefit from: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easier enrollment</strong> – Now in one central location, travelers can get set up, manage, and engage with Concur TripLink. It’s easy to find and access the hub in the main navigation within SAP Concur solutions. Here, employees can learn about Concur TripLink, enroll in travel partner integrations, connect their frequent traveler accounts, and activate their complimentary TripIt Pro subscriptions. </li>
<li><strong>Improved awareness</strong> – This consolidated “home” for Concur TripLink will improve awareness and education of the solution and its benefits for your travelers. </li>
<li><strong>Increased connections</strong> – With a streamlined connection process, more of your employees can take advantage of the benefits they already have, giving your organization a better return on your investment. </li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>What actions do I need to take? </strong> </h2>
<p>As an SAP Concur administrator, we encourage you to communicate this update with your organization and travelers to help your business and employees get the most value from Concur TripLink. </p>
<p>For additional information on this change, steps for your organization’s travelers to take, frequently asked questions, and adoption tools, please review these helpful resources: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://assets.concur.com/triplink/FAQ_External_Concur_TripLink_Hub.pdf"><strong>Our FAQ</strong></a> with more information and commonly asked questions </li>
<li><a href="https://assets.concur.com/triplink/toolkit/MessagingGuide_ConcurTripLink.pdf"><strong>Admin messaging guide</strong></a> containing email templates and pre-written messages so you can communicate this update to your travelers and drive adoption </li>
<li><a href="https://assets.concur.com/triplink/toolkit/GettingStartedGuide_ConcurTripLink.pdf"><strong>End User getting started guide</strong></a> with steps for your employees to find the Concur TripLink hub and get connected </li>
</ul>
<p>For additional questions and support, please utilize <a href="https://assets.concur.com/triplink/FAQ_External_Concur_TripLink_Hub.pdf"><strong>our FAQ</strong></a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Future-Ready Guide for Finance Leaders
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/future-ready-guide-for-finance-leaders
2024-02-05T09:00:00Z
2024-01-31T08:35:42Z
Get our latest resources to help finance leaders grow their skillset and be proactive in a fast-paced market where the economy and finance jobs are changing rapidly.
<p>As a finance leader, your role has probably grown incredibly complex compared to what it was even five years ago. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">A recent CFO Insights</a> report by SAP Concur found that 90% of senior finance leaders agree that their key task is to prepare their business for the unexpected. So, if your company has been looking to you – now more than ever – to be the guiding light through times of uncertainty and change, you might also be looking to acquire new skills, knowledge, and technology to support a host of new asks. </p>
<p>But where do you begin? We’ve compiled our latest insights and most popular learnings to help you grow your finance leader skillset in times of rapid transformation. </p>
<h2>Growing Your Finance Career </h2>
<p>You always continue learning as a finance leader. From dealing with new technology and aligning with key trends to upskilling and empowering your teams, there’s always an opportunity to grow and evolve. These resources can help you set up roadmaps for your company and career. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cfo-insights-top-priorities-cfos-2024">CFO Insights: Top Priorities for CFOs in 2024</a> </p>
<p> <br />
What’s top of mind for today’s finance leaders? We asked CFOs and finance leaders from different industries and regions about their key focus areas for 2024 and beyond. In this eBook, you’ll discover what steps your peers are taking to ensure sustainable financial growth for their companies in the years ahead. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/fast-track-cfo">The Fast Track to CFO</a> </p>
<p><br />
For many ambitious finance professionals, the ultimate career move is a chief financial officer role. But the scope of the CFO role has expanded beyond numbers; companies now expect you to work closely with every part of the organisation to drive growth. Here’s what kind of skills today’s CFO should consider pursuing. </p>
<h2>Stepping into the Modern Finance Leader Role </h2>
<p>You may not always be able to predict what’s coming next. But these resources share top strategies from your finance leader peers on how to stay agile and even thrive in times of uncertainty. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">A New Role in Managing Uncertainty</a> </p>
<p>With CFOs’ increased responsibility for managing risk and uncertainty, this research looks at how finance leaders can respond and position themselves and their teams to be ready for the future. Top trends include addressing increasing complexity in financial forecasting and looking to AI to manage risk and change. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/how-cfos-prepare-unexpected">How CFOs Prepare for the Unexpected</a> </p>
<p>With finance leaders focused on preparing business for the unexpected, it helps to know your peers' actions. This infographic gives an at-a-glance overview of current finance leader challenges and how companies are investing in new tools to improve visibility into business risks. </p>
<h2><br />
Empowering Your Teams </h2>
<p>Building a supportive and productive environment for your teams can help your employees work smarter and help your company run more efficiently. These resources highlight how to take your employee experience to the next level. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-talent-management-can-drive-financial-opportunity">Focus on How Talent Management Can Drive Financial Opportunity</a> </p>
<p>How can you, as a finance leader, manage your employees’ valuable talent? We explore the three core areas that leading CFOs recommend finance leaders should focus on to help fuel financial success and create a supportive and thriving environment. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-help-your-finance-team-be-future-ready">4 Ways to Help Your Team Be Future-Ready</a> </p>
<p>If you’ve invested in technology to automate your employee expense process and bring greater stability and flexibility to spend management, you’ve built a great foundation for digital transformation. Here are more ways to sharpen your business forecasting, stay compliant, and guide spending decisions so your company is ready for what’s next. </p>
<h2>Adopting AI & Finance Technologies </h2>
<p>There’s no denying – when it comes to technology, the future is already here. So, what does that mean to your company? And how do you embrace these new and fast-advancing tools in a way that makes sense for your business? Dive into these resources to get some helpful insights. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">Why Finance Is Ready for Breakout Transformation with AI</a> </p>
<p>Nearly 62% of finance leaders agree that artificial intelligence (AI) is an essential tool to manage the unexpected, according to the SAP Concur CFO Pulse Survey. In this white paper, you’ll learn more about best practices fueled by research and insights from CFOs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/robot-revolution-how-purposeful-ai-use-building-better-businesses">The Robot Revolution: How Purposeful AI Use Is Building Better Businesses</a> </p>
<p>How can business leaders move forward with AI and automation? The key to making progress, says Tim Lebel, VP and Head of Spend Products at SAP Concur, is to think about the end goals for your business rather than starting with the technology. Dive into this and other key topics on leveraging AI to empower your business and employees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/artificial-intelligence-for-business-ai-travel-expense-solutions">Artificial Intelligence, Real Solutions for Business</a> </p>
<p>Generative AI, machine learning, large language models, and more. What does it all mean for finance leaders and their companies? This whitepaper takes a close look at AI, the future of finance automation, and taking a secure, human-centered approach when adopting intelligent technologies. </p>
<h2>Always Keep Learning </h2>
<p>When you consider how quickly today’s workplace, technology, and finance leader role have all evolved in recent years, it’s more important than ever to stay connected and in tune with trends. SAP Concur is committed to helping you and your company be ready for whatever comes next. </p>
<p>Want to dive into more resources for finance leaders? Visit our thought leadership page, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">Finance Leaders: Solutions to Better Manage Your Cash Flow</a>, to stay current on trends in technology, career advancement, and employee experience. </p>
SAP Concur Team
New Resolutions for Finance Leaders: Ready for Anything
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-resolutions-for-finance-leaders-ready-for-anything
2024-01-31T10:11:21Z
2024-01-29T09:44:32Z
"Finance leaders are realizing that their approach to spend management needs a radical shift. Economic volatility, market uncertainties, and rapid technological advancements are challenging them to de
<p>Finance leaders are realizing that their approach to spend management needs a radical shift. Economic volatility, market uncertainties, and rapid technological advancements are challenging them to develop comprehensive systems and processes beyond cost-cutting measures and resource optimization. </p>
<p>Most finance organizations are ready to rise above the pressure. We conducted a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">study</a> of global senior finance leaders and learned that 90% agree that preparing their business for the unexpected is a critical task today. Only 2% disagreed. </p>
<p>As finance leaders evaluate their approaches, here are four resolutions they should aim to achieve in the new year. </p>
<h2>Innovate to control costs, compliance, and cash flow </h2>
<p>Quality spend management remains crucial, regardless of how the economy, inflation, or interest rates might fluctuate in the coming year. Yet, it matters even more during peak volatility in costs and constant regulatory changes. </p>
<p>The key to effective spend management involves connecting travel, invoice, and expense data on a single, unified platform. This consolidation enhances control and confidence when managing multiple sources of spend. </p>
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is also a game changer. With compliance-protecting AI, the platform can review every expense, cross-reference it with finance policies, and flag potential issues. This streamlined workflow operates without the hassle of gathering and searching for paper receipts and navigating convoluted steps. It creates a simple experience that handles most tasks without compromising compliance. </p>
<p>Extensions also can be added to support complex tax challenges. Automating the reclamation of indirect taxes, such as value-added tax (VAT), can bring money back to the budget. Additionally, these extensions can automatically analyze expense reports to identify charges that constitute taxable employee benefits while maintaining compliance, without piling on manual work. </p>
<h2>Strengthen visibility, analysis, and planning </h2>
<p>Finance organizations operate on spend transparency, whether it involves tracking progress against an annual plan or adjusting budgets based on new quarterly priorities. Yet, a dedicated expense solution is just the starting point. </p>
<p>Powerful reporting tools and prebuilt, ready-to-use dashboards are essential to gain insights into policy effectiveness, spending patterns, and potential savings opportunities. They empower finance organizations to leverage reports and collective expertise to derive real-time insights for forecasting and planning across any timeline. </p>
<p>The final piece of the puzzle is integrating spend data like travel bookings, mileage, meetings, and invoices. This comprehensive intelligence enables finance and organizational decision-makers to negotiate discounts and savings with suppliers more efficiently while tracking, managing, and optimizing sustainability performance. </p>
<h2>Adapt processes, policies, and priorities </h2>
<p>Many companies manage spend across various departments, groups, subsidiaries, and locations using separate legacy tools. The result is a fragmented experience marked by inconsistent policies, redundant and outdated data, and manual reporting. </p>
<p>Addressing this widespread issue requires the establishment of a cohesive and secure source of financial truth for the entire company. This unified approach enables the business to leverage consistent insights, services, and supportive expertise to navigate new tax requirements in new markets, evaluate travel allowance rates and mileage, and assess spend policies, solution configurations, and sustainability strategies. </p>
<p>As policies or processes evolve, all employees—regardless of experience, organization, and role—can successfully engage in workflows with step-by-step instructions delivered through conversational, on-screen prompts. </p>
<h2>Boost morale, productivity, and retention </h2>
<p>In today’s shifting labor market, internal systems must provide avenues that enhance productivity and create a process-oriented experience that energizes the entire workforce. This is especially true of travel, expense, and invoice processes. </p>
<p>Automating the synchronization of travel management with expense reports facilitates a straightforward mobile booking process that requires minimal user effort. Additionally, integrating invoice processes eliminates the need for accounts payable professionals and budget owners to spend valuable time manually capturing, coding, processing, and approving invoices. </p>
<p>Mobile apps and advanced AI technology further streamline the experience, allowing employees to log expenses from anywhere, eliminate paper receipts, and effortlessly add charges to expense reports with just a few clicks. </p>
<h2>Lead your business's future with financial resilience </h2>
<p>The start of every year is a time to reflect and make adjustments. Finance leaders should use this time to review these four resolutions and look for ways to apply them in their organization. </p>
<p>For more information, finance leaders can visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/future-proof-your-business-travel-expense-management">https://www.concur.com/future-proof-your-business-travel-expense-management</a> to learn how to build a resilient program and future-proof their business.</p>
Christopher Juneau
Concur Cloud for Public Sector Receives FedRAMP® Authorized Status
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-cloud-for-public-sector-receives-fedrampr-authorized-status
2024-01-18T10:18:36Z
2024-01-11T09:31:46Z
Concur Cloud for Public Sector has received full Authorized status in accordance with the Federal Risk Assessment Management Program (FedRAMP®) for managed cloud applications and services. Concur Clou
<p>SAP Concur today announced Concur Cloud for Public Sector has received full Authorized status in accordance with the Federal Risk Assessment Management Program (FedRAMP®) for managed cloud applications and services. Concur Cloud for Public Sector has been issued a “Moderate” FedRAMP agency authorization, which now enables government customers to accelerate mission attainment with confidence at industry-leading security and availability levels.</p>
<p>Concur Cloud for Public Sector empowers government agencies and the commercial entities that support them to deliver secure, scalable, reliable, and sustainable spend management solutions by combining the benefits of cloud technology, cybersecurity, and risk management. By using a commercial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach, it continually improves and leverages advanced security analytics, threat management, workflow automation, and orchestration tools to eliminate manual action.</p>
<p>Concur Cloud for Public Sector was built to protect sensitive government data and meet government security standards while providing the experience of a modern travel and expense management platform. The highly regulated needs of public sector organizations along with the desire for commercial functionality now come together in the Concur Cloud for Public Sector environment. A multi-tenant, end-to-end, fully integrated platform for travel and expense, Concur Cloud for Public Sector limits access to privileged customer data to approved resources on US soil and includes oversight by a team of security experts responsible for continuous monitoring, detection, and dynamic response to threats. This platform was architected with government agencies in mind to meet security standards based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 control framework and is now validated as FedRAMP Moderate Authorized.</p>
<p>In addition, Concur Cloud for Public Sector benefits the entire government workforce by providing a highly secure, mobile-friendly platform that reduces cumbersome processes and paperwork, increases employee satisfaction, and drives policy compliance. Government employees now will have access to the same great user experience as those booking travel and submitting expenses within large enterprise companies globally — proving that you don't have to sacrifice usability to achieve security. Lastly, through this new certification, the State of Texas Risk and Authorization Management Program office will grant Concur Cloud for Public Sector an Authorization to Operate, through full reciprocity.</p>
<p>FedRAMP was established in 2011 to provide a cost-effective, “do once, use many times” security assessment framework for the adoption and use of cloud services by the federal government. It empowers agencies to use modern cloud technologies with an emphasis on security and protection of federal information. It is a government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies.</p>
<p>The program is meant to ensure the security of cloud services used by the U.S. government and standardizes the security assessments, authorizations, and continuous monitoring of cloud service offerings (CSOs) used by federal government agencies. The FedRAMP program is also designed to be dynamic, by deploying regular enhancements to the standard security framework to keep pace with security risks and threats over time in accordance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidance.</p>
<p>Additional benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reducing duplicative efforts, inconsistencies, and cost inefficiencies</li>
<li>Establishing a public-private partnership to promote innovation and the advancement of more secure information technologies</li>
<li>Enabling the federal government to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing by creating transparent standards and processes for security authorizations and allowing agencies to leverage security authorizations on a government-wide scale</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information, please visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">Concur Cloud for Public Sector</a> website or explore the FedRAMP Marketplace.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How the Right Solutions Can Help HR Elevate Employee Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-right-solutions-can-help-hr-elevate-employee-experience
2024-01-23T09:00:00Z
2024-01-10T10:20:42Z
The human resources team is at the heart of elevating your organization’s employee experience and setting the tone for your corporate culture. From enhancing productivity and ensuring compliance to re
<p>The human resources team is at the heart of elevating your organization’s employee experience and setting the tone for your corporate culture. From enhancing productivity and ensuring compliance to recruiting and retaining employees and meeting duty-of-care responsibilities, HR provides employees with the ongoing support they need to get their jobs done — and feel good about where they work. The right suite of technology solutions for travel, expense, and beyond can make it easier for HR to achieve these goals. </p>
<h2>Empower employees to focus on meaningful work </h2>
<p>Employees want to spend their time doing meaningful work, not bogged down in admin tasks and complicated processes, such as logging miles and booking travel. Giving employees intuitive, easy-to-use technology tools makes these necessary tasks less time-consuming, increases collaboration, and reduces frustration. </p>
<p>For example, a centralized cloud-based spend-management platform can automate tedious, manual tasks, such as requesting approval for purchases and submitting expense reports. Features like mobile receipt capture and GPS mileage tracking make documenting expenses even easier. </p>
<p>An automated spend-management platform also can streamline back-office management tasks like approving and processing expenses. This type of platform can also ensure compliance with company and regulatory policies, and greatly simplify the reporting of financial data. Accurate, near real-time data gives company leaders increased visibility into cash flow, enabling more productive work time and agile decision-making. </p>
<p>HR can work in concert with other departments, such as IT and finance, to ensure that employees have access to the technology solutions they need. </p>
<h2>Simplify remote-work tax implications </h2>
<p>More employees are asking for the flexibility to work remotely. In fact, 76% of employees say that a work-from-anywhere policy would increase their job satisfaction.1 HR teams are integral to implementing successful remote-work programs, including ensuring that organizations comply with tax laws where employees are based. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-benefits-are-expanding-what-businesses-need-know-tax-compliance">taxable employee benefits (TEBs)</a> vary based on location. If an organization reimburses remote or hybrid employees for internet expenses, for instance, they may have taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks, depending on where they live. Technology solutions can use machine learning and AI to track, calculate, and report TEBs, greatly simplifying what could be a very complex process. The same solution can also help employees automate reporting these kinds of expenses for reimbursement. </p>
<h2>For recruiting and retaining employees, technology matters </h2>
<p>Competition remains high in attracting the right talent, and many organizations identify skill gaps and an inability to attract talent as the key barriers to industry transformation.2 Offering job candidates a workplace with up-to-date technology also plays a part in recruiting and hiring new employees. In addition, providing current employees with modern technology bolsters retention. </p>
<p>Among many factors, candidates are evaluating organizations on how advanced their technology solutions are. Younger workers expect an organization to be using AI, cloud computing, and mobile apps. These digital natives assume they will have access to tools that are intuitive, modern, and always available, such as a consumer-like app to book business travel. </p>
<h2>Enhance duty of care with your T&E system </h2>
<p>Every organization <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">has duty-of-care responsibilities</a>, or a legal obligation to protect employees from harm. Ensuring employees’ safety whether they are traveling on business or are in the workplace is often a primary HR responsibility. </p>
<p>At the same time, employees are asking for more flexibility in how they travel for work, for instance, tacking on personal paid time off before or after a business trip. At companies with a travel policy, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travelers-report-2023">91% of business travelers</a> expect to be allowed to make choices outside of company policy for reasons such as safety and work-life balance.3 Further complicating booking requirements are travel policies and corporate goals, such as prioritizing sustainability. </p>
<p>A modernized T&E system can meet employee expectations and keep them safe while traveling, while at the same time ensuring employees comply with the organization’s policies and goals. </p>
<p>See how interconnected solutions make life easier for this HR leader <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/heather-handles-hr-sap-concur-solutions">in this infographic.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Automation Meets Growing Needs of Growing Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automation-meets-growing-needs-growing-businesses
2024-01-15T09:00:00Z
2024-01-08T10:57:06Z
Growing businesses often find that paper-based finance processes no longer meet their needs, as spending and risk become harder to control. Automation helps businesses gain the visibility, compliance,
<p>Your business is growing, but so are challenges, like once-sufficient paper-based manual processes being overrun by your size. You’re losing sight of where money is going and risks are rising, because throwing people at the problem and trying to plug gaps aren’t efficient or permanent solutions. </p>
<p>Automating your travel, expense, and invoice management processes and technology can restore the clarity and efficiency a once-smaller business previously enjoyed while making it ready for change the future brings. Our new checklist, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">5 Ways Finance Automation Can Help Your Growing Business</a>, examines the improvements that are possible and what you should look for in technology solutions that deliver benefits like: </p>
<ul>
<li>32% less time to approve expenses<sup>1</sup></li>
<li>26% less budget overspending because of greater visibility<sup>2</sup></li>
<li>24% reduction in late invoice payments<sup>3</sup></li>
<li>29% less time spent by AP and finance teams to capture invoices<sup>4</sup></li>
</ul>
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<h5>Count the Ways Automation Can Help Handle Growth </h5>
<p>Read about what to look for in an automated finance solution, including examples of how other businesses successfully put SAP Concur solutions to work. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">Get The Checklist</a></div>
</div>
<h2>5 Steps to Regaining Control and Visibility </h2>
<p>To assess your needs and put more effective finance processes in place, seek an automated solution that: </p>
<ul>
<li>Tracks expenses automatically and delivers near real-time updates of spending, which strengthens control as well as agility. </li>
<li>Provides better data and visibility so that decision-making capabilities grow with the business. </li>
<li>Guides expense policies that improve monitoring of costs and readily adapts and communicates the travel, expense, and AP policies. (The checklist includes links to a free policy template to get started). </li>
<li>Manages invoices by making it easy to capture receipts quickly and sends invoices promptly after customers receive goods or services. </li>
<li>Preserves time and money and can readily expand as your business changes and grows. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Start Checking Your List and Accessing Resources </h2>
<p>Improving the efficiency, productivity, and compliance of your now larger business are just several benefits of investing in a scalable, automated finance solution. In addition, you will increase your company’s resilience and make it ready for the future, which are valuable assets amid global instability, economic uncertainty, and other factors that make predicting the times ahead highly difficult. </p>
<p>Download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">checklist</a> to learn more and access links to the policy template, additional automation benefits, and case studies on how SAP Concur solutions helped businesses gained visibility, speed, and accuracy in their operations. </p>
<h6>1-4. Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. </h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Ready for the Future? Focus on These 5 Business Outcomes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ready-for-future-focus-on-these-5-business-outcomes
2024-01-12T09:00:00Z
2024-01-08T10:45:32Z
Finance leaders preparing their businesses to better navigate today’s challenges and to weather change in the future should focus on five key areas: Productivity, employee experience, flexibility, vis
<p>Day-to-day challenges can be hard enough to contend with, never mind whatever surprises the future throws at your business. The positive thing, though, is that finance leaders who address certain key areas can make their businesses ready for both today and tomorrow. </p>
<p>Knowing where to start may be the hardest part. Our new eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-most-important-business-outcomes-finance-leaders">The 5 Most Important Business Outcomes for Finance Leaders and How to Maximize Them</a>, helps bring focus to the multifaceted task of improving processes, technology, and resilience and shares how time-saving SAP Concur solutions and extensions can simplify the effort. </p>
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<h5>Key Outcomes: Productivity, Employee Experience, Flexibility, Visibility, Reduced Risk </h5>
<p>Finance and AP teams using SAP Concur T&E solutions save an estimated 148 hours weekly, a benefit as well as time that businesses can use to help address key outcomes. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-most-important-business-outcomes-finance-leaders">Get It Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Better Productivity </h2>
<p>65% identify improving efficiency and productivity as a top cost containment goal.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>Using automated solutions instead of tedious, paper-based processes for managing travel, vendor invoices, expense reporting, mileage, and payments reduces labor costs and frees your finance team for more engaging, value-adding work like forecasting and hunting for savings. With the spending insights gained, it’s easier to negotiate better deals with suppliers. </p>
<h2>Better Employee Experience </h2>
<p>71% consider user experience and time savings important in choosing an automated expense and/or invoice management solution.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p>Attracting and keeping employees is a key factor in your success. Outdated, time-eating processes can be a barrier, while giving employees easy-to-use tools can demonstrate you value them and their time. Automated, AI-infused solutions simplify travel booking, receipt and expense report submittals, invoice approvals, reporting, auditing, and other tasks for finance teams and their fellow employees. And they empower work in the office, on the go, remote, or a mix – whatever you need and employees prefer. </p>
<h2>Better Adaptability </h2>
<p>69% think T&E solutions have improved their ability to make data-driven decisions.<sup>3</sup></p>
<p>Accurate, timely spending data is critical to not only understanding your current financial picture, but also improves control, insights, and flexibility. With that clear picture, you can adjust budgets to match new priorities and seize opportunities instead of them passing by. A single, cloud-based platform enables work wherever it occurs, integrates readily with ERP and accounting systems, and can scale and customize to your needs and priorities. </p>
<h2>Better Spending Visibility </h2>
<p>72% agree an automated T&E solution allows a better response to business challenges.<sup>4</sup></p>
<p>You must see spending before you can manage it. With spending data consolidated across a single platform, a business can see spending before it takes place, make better decisions about where to allot it, and increase compliance. Solutions allow you to spot trends, promote sustainability and other initiatives, and reallocate or cut costs as needed. Now that spending is in better sight, your business has better insight. </p>
<h2>Better Risk Management </h2>
<p>53% call reducing the risk of expense reimbursement fraud a top cost containment goal.<sup>5</sup></p>
<p>Your business can respond with greater agility if it has a stable foundation. Establishing control and minimizing risk – from cyber threats to employee theft and more – help firm up your foundation. A solution that guards data and privacy, monitors for misuse, and automatically audits spending is part of a solid risk management strategy. Specifically, the solution lets you easily set spending limits, adjust policies as priorities shift, track payments, and simplifies approval and payment processes. </p>
<h2>Dig Deeper </h2>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-most-important-business-outcomes-finance-leaders">eBook</a> for more on how your business can improve and be future-ready by focusing on five key business outcomes with the assistance of SAP Concur solutions. </p>
<h6>1-5. Analysys Mason, 2022 Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. </h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
6 Ways Automation Can Help Fuel Your Company’s Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-ways-automation-can-help-fuel-your-companys-growth
2024-01-10T09:00:00Z
2024-01-08T10:35:28Z
End-to-end automation of travel, expense, and invoice processes can provide companies the insights, efficiencies, and flexibility they require to grow and weather challenges in the future.
<p>Here’s a question to ask yourself: Do your travel, expense, and invoice solutions deliver the information and insights you need to adapt to market forces and prepare for growth? While also performing the basic functions your business requires, such as improving efficiency and compliance and lowering risk? </p>
<p>Our eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/6-ways-grow-your-business-spend-management-automation">6 Ways to Grow Your Business with Spend Management Automation</a>, takes a deep look at how intelligent travel, expense, and invoice solutions can address current challenges while preparing your company to get bigger and better. It’s an approach that involves increasing efficiency, insight, sustainability, compliance, agility, employee satisfaction, and readiness for change. </p>
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<h5>Ways that Automation Can Fuel Business Growth </h5>
<p>Preparing, planning, and being proactive are at the core of the six ways automation can enable your business to grow safely while managing risk. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/6-ways-grow-your-business-spend-management-automation">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Maximize Automation and Close Visibility Gaps </h2>
<p>By instituting end-to-end automation, your business limits the ability for spending to fall between the cracks in processes and systems. It includes the full spectrum of spend management from preapprovals to paying suppliers and reimbursing employees. Invoices flow smoothly through workflows, corporate card purchase come in directly and accurately, and artificial intelligence (AI) flags problems and cuts off tax issues. Throughout the view and control of spending increase, your team focuses on important business instead of chasing paper, and you gain certainty that each dollar is well spent. </p>
<h2>Track and Respond to Spending, Stay Ahead of Cashflow </h2>
<p>With all your spending data flowing into the system, the full picture of cashflow comes together earlier. The solutions allow spending and budget adjustment to be made quickly across the company. Standard reports and dashboards enable real-time forecasting. With better information coming sooner, your team can identify opportunities to cut costs and the company can more effectively negotiate discounts with suppliers. </p>
<h2>Empower Flexible and On-the-go Work </h2>
<p>Digital, cloud-based tools and solutions make it possible to run a business no matter where employees do their jobs, no small consideration with the return of travel and the growth of hybrid and remote work. Add in mobile apps that offer a user-friendly experience and you have tools that reduce the time of travel, expense, and invoice processes while building both compliance and employee satisfaction. A fully automated system frees you team for creative work and improves the agility of the business. </p>
<h2>Encourage Compliance, Manage Risk </h2>
<p>The money businesses lose to fraud is bad enough. The challenges – and waste – of noncompliance and risk are compounded by the time finance teams spend poring over expense claims and the frustration employees suffer from using inadequate tools and hard-to-understand policies. A comprehensive spend management system can process supplier invoices, simplify purchase orders, and catch duplicates and other issues. As a result, mistakes, potential fraud and noncompliance go down while employee satisfaction and savings go up. </p>
<h2>Make Sustainability Part of the Process </h2>
<p>Measuring and reducing a company’s impact on the environment is no longer a rarity. Automated travel and expense solutions can help achieve the sustainability goals business leaders and regulators demand and employees want. You can guide travelers to greener – and compliant – flights, hotels, and other travel options and show the impact of their choices. In addition, you can track and report on other targets, such as reducing paper and carbon consumption. That is not only what’s being asked of your business, but can also help attract and maintain high-caliber employees. </p>
<h2>Grow Your Business with Spend Data </h2>
<p>When your spending is on a single platform, you can spot patterns, better manage your dollars, and make adjustments and devise strategies for investments, acquisitions, and market expansions. It includes reports and dashboards that provide insights and better decisions and let you put changes into effect quickly and consistently across the company. It’s a system customizable and scalable to your needs. With greater visibility and fewer mistakes, you have the information and confidence to move forward with your growth plans. </p>
<h2>Read and Explore the 6 Ways Further </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/6-ways-grow-your-business-spend-management-automation">Read the eBook</a> for details on how automation can foster growth and learn how Concur Expense, Concur Travel, and Concur Invoice can be part of the team making your business future-ready. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Six Proven Strategies for Boosting Productivity at Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-proven-strategies-for-boosting-productivity-at-your-business
2024-01-08T10:34:25Z
2024-01-08T10:27:24Z
From setting goals to determining the truly important to letting technology work for you, Columnist and Small Business Expert Steve Strauss shares time-tested strategies for increasing productivity.
<p>Set specific measurable goals and focus your energy on outsized producers. Comb each task for urgency and importance and set aside time to address and complete important tasks. Leverage technology for efficiency and never be afraid to delegate and outsource. All of those are critical pieces of a broad but focused approach to raising productivity – both for yourself and your business. </p>
<p>Steve Strauss, author of the “The Small Business Bible” and a longtime columnist for USA Today, shares proven, workable, and easy-to-install strategies in our new e-book, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/very-best-productivity-workarounds-small-business">The Very Best Productivity Workarounds for Small Business.</a> It draws on Strauss’s extensive experience and uses stories and other examples to demonstrate how the workarounds can be put into practice, enabling you to gain productivity in both the short and long terms even as you contend with day-to-day challenges. </p>
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<h5>Want to Raise Productivity? Here’s How to Work Around It </h5>
<p>Learn how to gain productivity through six time-tested strategies from Small Business Expert Steve Strauss. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/very-best-productivity-workarounds-small-business">Get the E-Book</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Get Smart, Set SMART </h2>
<p>A tried-and-true strategy involves setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, if your goal is to boost sales in Canada, set monthly and yearly revenue targets. By having something specific to focus upon and measure, your productivity push has clarity and purpose instead of you just generally trying to make progress on many fronts. Always remember that, as Author Tim Ferriss says, “Being busy is not the same as being productive.” </p>
<h2>Apply the 80-20 Rule </h2>
<p>The longtime rule that 80% of results come from 20% of one’s efforts is all about focus and intentionality. It applies to sales and to people – as in one in five sales representatives deliver four out of five sales. So look hard at the outliers delivering outsized results, whether they’re coming from customers, employees, or web-page clicks fueling leads or revenue. And then give those producers your energy and try to understand why they are so productive, teasing out lessons to apply elsewhere. </p>
<h2>Adopt the Eisenhower Box </h2>
<p>This is about setting priorities, so apply your limited time to important tasks instead of trivial ones that distract. Popularized by Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme Allied commander doing World War II and later U.S. president, it’s a box (or matrix) with four self-explanatory quadrants to separate your work into: </p>
<p>Do it now: Urgent and important tasks go here. </p>
<p>Delegate: Urgent but not important can be farmed out. </p>
<p>Decide: Important but not urgent, set a time to do these. </p>
<p>Delete: Not urgent and not important, just skip these. </p>
<h2>Time Blocking </h2>
<p>Despite what we think, few of us are actually effective at multitasking. So take those top tasks from the urgent and important container of the Eisenhower box, determine how much time each requires, and set aside blocks of 30, 60, 90, or whatever minutes to complete them. And don’t allow interruptions or attempt anything else during those blocks. As a result, you’ll find more lines going through the items on the to-do list. </p>
<h2>Leveraging Technology </h2>
<p>If a task or process consumes an inordinate amount of time, there’s likely an app, technology solution, or platform out there designed to increase efficiency. Take a close look at paper-based, manual processes – or the tools you now use – to identify opportunities to automate, increase productivity, and save money. Those opportunities return results and give back time you and your team can put to work elsewhere. With Concur Expense, for example, small businesses save 13 hours per finance/accounting employee weekly. </p>
<h2>Outsource and Delegate </h2>
<p>It’s a mistake to believe that only your team can handle certain tasks or roles or that no one but you will do the job right. Recognize that you cannot do everything, nor should you try. One solution is to hire independent contractors to do research, marketing, manage social media, take care of one-off projects, or perform other tasks that you don’t have the time for or do well. You’ll not only be outsourcing but also be learning to delegate more, a valuable skill. </p>
<h2>Learn More About the Workarounds </h2>
<p>To discover more about the six strategies Steve Strauss recommends to gain productivity and be ready for the future, get the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/very-best-productivity-workarounds-small-business">e-book</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Expense Policy Template You Need to Be Ready for Change
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-policy-template-you-need-to-be-ready-for-change
2024-01-08T09:59:53Z
2024-01-08T09:50:34Z
Setting clear guidelines is important in every aspect of business, particularly with your most valued audience – your employees.
<p>Setting clear guidelines is important in every aspect of business, particularly with your most valued audience – your employees. Managing business expense and travel is no exception. Improving control and compliance is one way to build agility and resiliency at your business, making it ready for change in a future filled with unknowns. </p>
<p>A formal expense policy provides employees with knowledge of what they can and cannot submit as reimbursable, while providing management with critical real-time visibility into budgets and the ability to leverage vendor discounts. Having this protocol in writing will cut down on reimbursable expense report fraud, which is often unintentional, but can have big consequences. It’s an area worth watching, as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-spend-insights-how-will-last-year-make-2023-better">companies reported spending violations rose nearly 10% year to year in the wake of the pandemic.</a><sup>1</sup></p>
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<h5>Build your own expense policy </h5>
<p>Get a free template to customize for your business. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">Download Here</a></div>
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<h2>Where do you start? </h2>
<p>Creating an employee expense reimbursement policy from scratch can be overwhelming but an expense policy template can help get you started. You can use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to create your own customizable expense policy template in just a few clicks. Or use the categories examples of our policy template as a roadmap. </p>
<p>Consider these six tips for starting work on (or revising) your policy. </p>
<ol>
<li>Review the policies you have. Ask managers and other key employees what has been effective, what hasn’t, and what must be updated. </li>
<li>Analyze spending. Scrutinize existing purchases, including ones specific to certain roles. Ask your vendors to share data on your spending history. </li>
<li>Ditch the jargon: Write the policy to cover the basics, but don’t be afraid to revise it later. Make sure it’s easy to read and not bogged down by jargon. The easier a policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow on their next business trip. </li>
<li>Keep it fair and sensible: Write your policy to guide behavior but be flexible enough to adapt to local and international travel requirements. Be explicit about what is and isn’t an acceptable expense. </li>
<li>Make it easy to find and use: Your expense policy won’t be followed unless people know about it. Put Make sure yours is visible and easy for company employees to find, like on the company intranet. </li>
<li>Make mobile a priority: Employees are accustomed to technology on the go. If it’s easy to snap a photo of a receipt and then submit their expense report from a mobile device, it’s easier for them to stick to the rules. </li>
</ol>
<h2><br />
What Your Expense Policy Should Contain </h2>
<ul>
<li>Which employees covered</li>
<li>List of allowed expense categories, including what’s allowed and not allowed in each </li>
<li>Expense submission, review, and approval procedures, including the dispute process </li>
<li>Compliance requirements, including company policy on fraud, bribery, and corruption </li>
</ul>
<h2>Consider an Automated Expense Solution </h2>
<p>Concur Expense® is an intelligent solution that automatically populates charges from suppliers, credit card companies, common expense categories, and receipts such as business meals, car rentals, dry cleaning, hotel rooms, and airfare. Businesses save time and can focus on core business functions, while mobile tools simplify receipt capture and expense submission for employees. It’s a solution that integrates readily with purchasing cards and other existing business systems, including finance, HR, and payroll . </p>
<p>Ready to get started? Generate your custom expense policy template now with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> or download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policy template</a>. </p>
<h6>1. Spend Insights Report: How will last year make 2023 better, SAP Concur </h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Expense Management with AI: A Comprehensive Guide
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-management-with-ai-comprehensive-guide
2024-01-30T02:57:32Z
2024-01-02T08:27:27Z
Examining AI's role in expense management, this blog focuses on how it improves efficiency, ensures policy compliance, and forecasts the future of AI in expense management.
<p>Artificial intelligence is upending industries and jobs in nearly every business sector. The speed, precision, and time- and cost-savings AI expense management provides are significant enhancements to all kinds of business operations. </p>
<p>Expense management is no exception to the technological revolution driven by AI. <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-management-automation-and-why-should-you-go-paperless">Expense management by AI</a> has the capability to accelerate completion of expense-related tasks, ensure policy compliance, and provide more data for finance, human resources, and travel professionals. </p>
<p>Old Expense Management Models are Inefficient </p>
<p>The tried and true manual method of expense management is antiquated by today’s standards. Command and control approaches are outdated, inefficient, and challenging, if not impossible, for larger, decentralized organizations. </p>
<p>Finance managers can’t easily review every expense manually to ensure compliance. Tracking down receipts and memos can be a time-consuming and inefficient exercise, at best. </p>
<p>For employees, the standard system of expense management can be arduous. Receipts need to be collected and filed. There are countless forms to fill out and budget ledger entries to be made and reconciled. </p>
<p>An out-of-date expense management system can do more than just waste time and resources. It can also foster frustration and dampen employee engagement and morale. </p>
<p>AI can solve that, giving employees valuable time back in their days while streamlining workflows, increasing accuracy, and enabling policy compliance. </p>
<h2>How AI Improves Expense Management </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-back-office-to-tip-spear-how-ai-will-transform-te">Artificial intelligence uses tools, apps, and other technologies to streamline your expense management processes</a>. Automation allows for faster processing, tracking against policy, and approvals. </p>
<p>Using AI tools allows companies to save resources at every turn. Department managers can spend less time approving expenses while administrators can more easily submit and reconcile entries. </p>
<p>For finance teams, automation tools provide rapid reconciliation and automated flags of potential discrepancies and policy outliers. By using AI, businesses can gain better, more accurate insights into their spending and reduce inefficiency and waste. </p>
<p>AI expense management has multiple benefits, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Cost efficiency </li>
<li>Smarter and more accurate expense categorization </li>
<li>Automated expense reports and budget updates </li>
<li>Real-time insights and fewer delays in budget updates and reconciliation </li>
<li>Reduced risk management and fraud </li>
<li>Consistent enforcement of financial policies </li>
<li>Better decision-making regarding policy and budget </li>
</ul>
<h2>Tools and Technologies In AI Expense Management </h2>
<p>There are multiple tools used as part of an AI expense management solution, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Machine Learning. Machine learning algorithms are often used to automate expense categorization and analysis, reducing the need for manual data entry. Over time, these algorithms can adapt, learning to be more accurate in categorization and data interpretation. </li>
<li>Mobile Apps. Apps are a great way to expedite the expense management process, especially for business travel. These apps <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-capture-receipts-your-mobile-phone">can track expenses, scan and store receipts, complete expense reports and transmit data</a> to other systems for categorization and reconciliation. </li>
<li>Optical Character Recognition. While OCR may be a seemingly “old” technology,” its utility in AI expense management cannot be overstated. OCR has advanced greatly and can now read data more accurately and extract relevant information from receipts and invoices. OCR can read text in multiple languages and scan and take photos with highly accurate results </li>
<li>Cloud Computing. With cloud technology, employees can access AI-powered expense management from anywhere, on any device, and at any time. Cloud storage of data and apps allows for access and use or expense management tools no matter who needs them and when. Cloud systems provide security and reliability, too </li>
</ul>
<h2>The Future of AI Expense Management </h2>
<p>As technology evolves, AI for expense management will continue to improve. The future of AI-powered expense management may offer: </p>
<ul>
<li>Paperless Expensing. Paper receipts and manual data entry are coming to an end soon. The increasing use of digital invoices and receipts and other paperless options are increasingly becoming the norm. AI can help scan and track digital copies of documents, resulting in reduced expenses for staffing, storage, and overhead. Plus, the reduction in paper waste will have a positive environmental impact. </li>
<li>Blockchain Verification. Blockchain may completely transform how expenses are verified while dramatically reducing fraud. By using a verified ledger for all transactions, companies can ensure transactions are authentic, tracked properly, and verified, all while keeping data secure. This technology could result in simpler audit procedures and lower the risk of fraud. </li>
<li>Employee Engagement. Employees often feel frustrated and encumbered by finance and expense policies they do not understand. With accurate and consistent application of policy via AI, companies can be more transparent and empower employees to be responsible with spending and compliant with policies. </li>
<li>Global Growth. Companies often need expense management solutions that work across borders and currencies. Remaining compliant and accurate while working across the globe can be challenging, though. AI technologies can ensure accurate cross-regional operations, foster global growth, and drive regulatory compliance. </li>
</ul>
<p>AI is a powerful way to untangle the complexities and challenges of expense management. At SAP Concur, our AI-driven solutions help companies manage their expenses with ease and accuracy while driving efficiency and delivering better business outcomes. To learn more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/can-ai-release-us-from-the-nightmare-of-expense-reports">contact us today</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Is a Travel Management System?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-travel-management-system
2024-01-30T03:21:06Z
2024-01-02T08:13:50Z
This blog explores travel management systems, highlighting their role, key features, integration with financial systems, and tips on finding the best solution for companies.
<p>We know how much juggling travel managers do. One employee might need to get to Mumbai to manage an ongoing project, another needs to get to Boise to attend an industry event. Still others need to book a multi-stop trip, making sales presentations along the way. </p>
<p>The person who manages company travel helps team members get to meetings, sales presentations, and trainings all over the world. They help book flights, reserve hotel rooms, and smooth out all the snags when delays or issues occur. And this recent study finds that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/corporate-travel-managers-declare-new-era-business-unusual">travel management is growing more complex</a> for companies of all sizes. </p>
<p>But, the most savvy of them don’t do it alone. They use technology like a travel management system to ensure that nothing gets overlooked and everything runs smoothly. </p>
<p>What is a travel management system? It's a tool that provides a single, seamless interface for booking, tracking, and handling <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/one-way-reduce-stress-travel-management">end-to-end management for business travel</a>. </p>
<h2>Understanding Travel Management Systems </h2>
<p>Travel management systems (TMS) are one-stop software systems where <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-travel-management-company-can-transform-your-business">all of a company's travel arrangements</a> can be handled. The platform helps you manage travel budgeting, policy, and reporting, so you can be sure that everything is always running as it should. </p>
<p>Efficient company travel means spending money in a way that’s consistent with your company's goals and values. This means budgets for specific types of travel, and different travel policies that depend on each person's role in a company. The folks up in the C-suites, for instance, may have different needs than those in sales. </p>
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<p> </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/8-corporate-travel-policy-best-practices">Download Here</a></div>
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<p>But keeping track of everything can be time-consuming. It's a drag when an employee is excited about booking a specific hotel, but then learns it’s outside your company policy. It's also a pain when someone is geared to book a flight but loses out on the seat because they aren't sure whether it's compliant or not. </p>
<p>A good travel management system puts all the data you need in front of you so you can work faster and easier. </p>
<h2>Key Features of an Efficient Travel Management System </h2>
<p>The right TMS can be customized to work with your unique travel needs. You can set policies so that each employment role has access to exactly what they need. This eliminates travel bookings that fall outside policy, which means less time spent looking for compliant travel options. </p>
<p>The system should be customizable, so it fits your company size and your company's most common travel needs. Does your company use more trains than flights? Do you have specific car rental companies you like to work with? The TMS should be customizable to show just what you like. </p>
<p>The platform should offer a wide array of inventory options. More options means your travelers can find the best prices on flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. It also means you can book the dates you want so everyone is where they need to be. </p>
<p>A system that does not offer enough options might mean spending more than you'd like. More options can mean your travel budget goes farther, and your employees do, too. </p>
<p>And, most of all, a TMS must offer easy travel booking. After all, this is about saving time and effort. Without a good system in place, you may find that someone is spending more time than they should chasing down deals that are compliant with company policy. Not a good use of anyone's time, right? </p>
<p>The right TMS is easy to use so employees can spend less time wrangling with travel and more in the role they were hired for. </p>
<p>How does your T&E process measure up for your business needs? Take this quick <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">Travel and Expense Maturity Model</a> assessment to find out. </p>
<h2>Integration with Your Financial Systems </h2>
<p>It's no secret: When you lobby for new software and utilities, you need to be able to show how it will save your organization money. </p>
<p>A quality travel management system integrates seamlessly with your company's internal financial system. By putting reports of all travel-related spending in one place, you'll be able to show how much you're spending and where you have been able to save your organization's hard-earned cash. </p>
<p>How much time have you spent getting traveling employees to submit their expenses? Plus, even when they do, mistakes can happen. That $12 sandwich scarfed down at the airport might be hurriedly entered as $120. Or, it might be missed altogether, leaving your traveler with an unreimbursed expense that you have to manually handle later. </p>
<p>With the right TMS, bookings and charges are <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/juggling-compliance-and-flexibility">automatically captured and categorized</a>. </p>
<h2>Finding the Best Solution for Your Company </h2>
<p>Putting the most knowledgeable and experienced people on the job is just good business—and so is equipping them with the best tools to do their jobs. Finding the right solution for your business can seem overwhelming, but a good place to start is by evaluating your travelers’ needs and the needs of your company. </p>
<p>Savvy travel managers also know that travel management companies can help them save money, work more efficiently, and find the best solutions, such as travel management software, to get their travelers from point A to B. </p>
<p>Want to know more about what a travel management company does and how it can help improve your company’s business travel? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">Get our free ebook to learn more</a>. </p>
<p>A TMC can do a lot to support your business travel, but pairing it with the right technology partner can be critical to your travel management success. See how solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel & Expense</a> provide tools for pre-, during, and post-trip, and help make a safe, sustainable, secure travel program possible. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Risk Management: How to Provide Safe Businesses Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-management-how-to-provide-safe-businesses-travel
2024-01-30T03:22:41Z
2024-01-02T08:04:49Z
Explore the essentials of travel risk management, and effective strategies for implementing a robust corporate travel risk management plan.
<p>Travel brings both opportunity and risk; to manage the latter, you need a good travel risk management strategy. </p>
<p>Adverse incidents during travel don't just put employees at risk. They can undermine your business's bottom line. Travel risk management helps you address potential issues and respond quickly and efficiently if an incident occurs. </p>
<p>When you put the framework in place to prevent travel-related incidents, you can avoid unexpected costs, legal issues, and potential damage to your company’s hard-won reputation. </p>
<p>Business travel can be filled with surprises. An earthquake can keep an international team from reaching the airport. A lost passport can mean navigating the process of finding a replacement while abroad. Even something as simple as a fender bender in an unfamiliar city can lead to missed meetings and unexpected costs. </p>
<p>Forewarned is forearmed. While you can't prevent every potential travel risk, you can avoid many issues and deal with the ones that do occur. An efficient travel risk management plan means you have the data, strategy, and technology you need to work more accurately and effectively. </p>
<h2>What Is Travel Risk Management? </h2>
<p>Travel risk management (TRM) is a proactive and consistent approach that keeps your people safe when they're on the move. </p>
<p>Your business sends its people to the places they need to be. They go for networking, training, sales, and because they need to oversee projects in person. </p>
<p>Traveling, of course, is not without risks. Severe weather incidents can cause damage to lodging and delays in travel. Medical emergencies can necessitate swift action. Political unrest can cause unexpected turmoil. There’s no way to predict what may happen. </p>
<p>Creating a <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-tips-to-help-travel-and-hr-managers-deliver-duty-care">comprehensive travel risk assessment framework</a> means your organization can avoid risk when possible and mitigate issues when they occur. </p>
<p>An effective policy and strategy starts with three key areas: prevention and planning, awareness, and response. </p>
<h3>Developing a Comprehensive Travel Risk Assessment Framework </h3>
<p>Effective corporate travel risk management is proactive rather than reactive. A framework is developed so you can determine what risks are most likely for you and your enterprise, and are can create solutions before a problem ever occurs. </p>
<p>For example, say Bill is a logistics expert who travels to multiple countries to help develop new manufacturing plants. If he’s heading to tropical countries during hurricane season, your travel risk management will require plans for severe weather. There may be times he has to cancel travel at the last minute to avoid a storm. If he’s already in a hurricane zone when a storm occurs, the company will need to make arrangements for him to shelter in place until travel is safe and possible again. He may be without power and internet, necessitating a satellite phone to stay in communication. </p>
<p>Talk to your traveling employees to learn more about the risks they've observed so you can plan accordingly. </p>
<h2>Travel Risk Management Starts with Prevention and Planning </h2>
<p>You can <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/8-corporate-travel-policy-best-practices">create best practices</a> that reduce the risks associated with travel, understand the relevant risks in the places you travel, and learn what to do if an incident occurs. </p>
<p>What’s one tactic you can use to test your organization's readiness and develop plans for responses? The Crisis Response Exercise (CRE). This allows you to game your way through hypothetical situations so everyone knows what to do if an incident occurs. </p>
<h3>Awareness Is Key </h3>
<p>Real-time data is essential to making informed decisions. This need for awareness stretches from the C-suites to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-safety-guidelines-for-employees-ensuring-safe-and-secure-business-travel">every team member and stakeholder</a>. Be sure everyone is aware of their risk and exposure. Be sure they know what to do to mitigate risk. And, make sure they know the right processes if an adverse travel incident occurs. </p>
<p>Employees might need travel training to prepare for whatever happens on the road. Situational awareness training, for instance, helps them identify and avoid potentially dangerous situations. Making sure everyone has realistic expectations and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-experiences-and-expectations-differ-by-generation">makes the right choices</a> can cut risk and keep everything running smoothly. </p>
<p>Awareness is not a one-and-done thing. You need to continually reassess to be aware of: </p>
<ul>
<li>Changing travel rules and laws </li>
<li>Evolving political situations </li>
<li>Adverse weather </li>
</ul>
<h3>Fast and Effective Response </h3>
<p>No one wants to contemplate potential emergencies during travel. But, having the right resources available means that if something does happen while you have people on the road, you can get them to safety quickly. </p>
<p>Communication is the first and most important key. Have contacts for your team members to call to report an incident and to learn what to do next. Consider choosing a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/guide-reinventing-te-management-sap-concur-solutions/">travel management solution</a> to give your employees a way to manage things like alternative travel plans on their own for minimum disruption. </p>
<p>Whether your travelers are dealing with a missing passport, a fender bender in a strange city, or flights canceled due to unseasonal severe weather, they need to know what to do next. </p>
<p>Travel risk management means having the answers and communicating them, so traveling employees know how to proceed. </p>
<p>You can keep them safe, reduce inconvenience, help your company's bottom line, and preserve your company’s reputation by having a swift reaction and managing your risk. </p>
<h2>Putting Travel Management Tools to Work for You </h2>
<p>Are you fulfilling your duty of care to your business travelers? Work with a solution that offers a central place to manage travel and make sure your traveling employees have everything they need on the go. </p>
<p>Look for a solution that provides tools that help ensure your travel goals are met safely, securely, and conveniently. </p>
<p>Take <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">our T&E Assessment</a> to see where your business stands and determine what steps you can take to create a better, safer, and more efficient travel management process. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Let's Get Automating: Why State and Local Governments Need to Modernize their Expense Systems
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-state-local-governments-need-modernize-expense-systems
2023-12-28T12:21:09Z
2023-12-28T12:11:44Z
Delve into the challenges government organizations face when it comes to expense management and explore how automation can be the game-changer they need.
<p>In today's fast-paced world, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local governments</a> are pushing to optimize spending while ensuring transparency and compliance with taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, many are still stuck with legacy expense systems that rely on manual processes or outdated technology, hindering their efforts to efficiently manage expenses. In this blog, we'll delve into the challenges government organizations face when it comes to expense management and explore how automation can be the game-changer they need.</p>
<h2>For honesty’s sake: Manual expense systems are a pain</h2>
<p>Manual expense systems are notoriously slow and labor-intensive, both for employees filling out expense reports and for finance teams processing them. Tedious tasks such as completing spreadsheets, stapling receipts, and matching expenses consume valuable time that could be better spent on more strategic pursuits. Furthermore, the approval processes are often lengthy, resulting in outdated spending information.</p>
<p>One of the most significant downsides of manual expense systems is the potential for human error. Tracking employee expenses manually is prone to mistakes, with risks of unreported expenses like mileage and the approval of non-compliant charges. Such errors can lead to an inaccurate picture of your organization’s spending. In addition to this, legacy expense systems may inadvertently allow acts of fraud to go unnoticed.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most critical issue with these systems is the lack of transparency and visibility. Effective budget management requires clear, accurate, and up-to-date information. Unfortunately, legacy systems fall short in providing the tools needed for efficient oversight.</p>
<h2>Why the time is now: Key ways automation transforms your expense system</h2>
<p>The solution to all these challenges lies in automation. Automating your expense process can address the drawbacks of manual systems, offering benefits such as accelerated cycle times, error reduction, fraud prevention, and enhanced visibility into expenses. Plus, when you ditch the paper, an automated expense process allows for easy and accurate expense tracking. It can swiftly identify inconsistencies and highlight issues like duplicate claims and missing receipts. Here are three more key ways state and local governments can reap the benefits of automation:</p>
<ol>
<li>Spend Management: Automated expense processes provide near real-time insights into who is spending how much and where. This transparency and visibility are crucial for managing spending and cash flow. With the right financial data and analysis tools, you can identify trends and improve spending forecasts.</li>
<li>Control and Compliance: Automated expense systems can flag and prevent non-compliant transactions. By incorporating your government's compliance policies, your finance team gains transparency in tracking expenses, enhances control through pre-approvals, and simplifies reports and audits with intelligent tools like analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.</li>
<li>Employee Experience: Cumbersome manual expense processes can be a source of frustration for employees, especially as remote work becomes more prevalent. Automation simplifies the expense process, making it more efficient and less error prone. For instance, a GPS-based app can automatically track car mileage, while on-screen digital assistance guides new employees through the learning of new technology and processes. The time saved can be redirected towards more strategic work in serving constituents.</li>
</ol>
<h2>The solutions you need, the automation you deserve</h2>
<p>Managing a government budget is no small feat, and outdated manual expense systems only make the task more challenging. That's why an increasing number of state and local governments are turning to automated solutions like SAP Concur to modernize their expense systems and gain real-time expense tracking capabilities, even on mobile devices. A platform that integrates travel, expenses, and AP together; that’s packed with AI, best practices, and continuous innovation; and that delivers it all through an easy, clear, “I-can’t-believe-how-simple-that-is” experience.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur, you can make it more efficient for all involved parties, while providing a comprehensive view of how your funds are serving your constituents. With our unparalleled automation, you'll know more so you can do more for your county and its residents. It's time to embrace the future of expense management and leave the legacy systems behind.</p>
<p>See how SAP Concur can help modernize your state or local government’s spend management process, so you can focus on serving citizens. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">Visit us online</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Additional Resources to Leverage</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/four-tips-more-strategic-municipal-spending-state-and-local-governments">Four Tips for More Strategic Municipal Spending in State and Local Governments</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-digitizing-spend-management-benefits-state-and-local-governments-and-their-constituents">7 Ways Digitizing Spend Management Benefits State and Local Governments and Their Constituents</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/road-efficiency-state-and-local-government">The Road to Efficiency: Why State and Local Governments Should Digitize Spend Management</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Leveraging Generative AI for Revolutionizing Travel & Expense Management: The SAP Concur Approach
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/leveraging-generative-ai-for-revolutionizing-travel-expense-management-sap-concur
2024-02-06T09:01:06Z
2023-12-15T10:33:02Z
Rahul Vig, Senior Director of Product Management at SAP Concur, demystifies the concept of AI and discusses its role within today's organizations.
<p>Wondering how SAP and SAP Concur are leveraging generative AI to revolutionize spend management? In this video, Rahul Vig, Senior Director of Product Management at SAP Concur, demystifies the concept of AI and discusses its role within today's organizations.</p>
<p>In the video above, and the transcript below, we answer four core questions:</p>
<p><a href="#What is artificial intelligence (AI)?">What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?</a></p>
<p><a href="#What is SAP doing in the AI space?">What is SAP doing in the AI space?</a> </p>
<p><a href="#How do SAP Concur solutions leverage AI?">How do SAP Concur solutions leverage AI?</a> </p>
<p><a href="#What's next?">What's next?</a></p>
<p><strong>Alistair Kent:</strong> My name's Alistair Kent and I look after public relations for the UK here at SAP Concur. We've got a really interesting chat today. The topic is artificial intelligence, what it means, how we as a business, SAP Concur, are using it, but how the wider ecosystem uses AI and what it actually means.</p>
<p>Really lucky today to have Rahul Vig with us who is the expert on AI, I think you'd say. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and what you do here at SAP Concur?</p>
<p><strong>Rahul Vig:</strong> Sure, Alistair, and thank you for having me here. My name is Rahul Vig and I've been working here at SAP Concur for over 16 years. And my role here right now is the senior director for Concur product management. I look after the strategy for our Concur Invoice and Concur Expense product suites.</p>
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<h5>Robot Revolution: How Purposeful AI Use is Building Better Businesses</h5>
<p>Beyond the breathless hyperbole, artificial intelligence and automation tools are proving to be genuine change-makers for many sectors.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/robot-revolution-how-purposeful-ai-use-building-better-businesses">Read the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2><a name="What is artificial intelligence (AI)?">What is artificial intelligence (AI)?</a></h2>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Okay, brilliant. So, you're well placed to talk about artificial intelligence and what it all means.</p>
<p>I know it's a massive topic and we're all reading it in the news. Big companies are all saying, "Yeah, we've got AI this, AI that." But can you explain what it actually means? What does it mean to the general person on the street or in a finance department, for example?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah, it's, you know, if you go out today, artificial intelligence, or commonly AI, it's the buzzword everywhere. Everyone's talking about it, you know, but really, if you go down to what is AI, when I talk to a number of people, they often mistake automation with AI.</p>
<p>And I think if you think about automation, it's actually following a series of steps. So, it aims to reduce or eliminate tedious tasks that machines can do. And that's not what artificial intelligence is.</p>
<p>Part of automation can be AI, but not in general. But when we talk about the ability to think like humans or mimicking the thinking, that's where artificial intelligence kicks in. So back in the day, we were doing things like trends analysis or predictive behavior.</p>
<p>That was the earliest forms of AI. And then of late, we started looking into machine learning, which actually became the bigger form of artificial intelligence. And think about it this way, humans cannot actually code for everything, right? We need to have machines who can build the algorithms and then see the data coming through to them and optimize accordingly.</p>
<p>That optimization, that's what typically humans do. And when machines start doing it, that's what we call machine learning.</p>
<p>So, of late, that's what we've been doing. But then the advancements in AI have taken a further step with generative AI, and that's absolutely new and huge and presents a whole set of opportunities for us.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> And that's what everyone's talking about in the media with ChatGPT exactly?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> That's right. That's right. You know, people look at that and say, "Oh, you know, I've got this great way of communicating. And if you talk about like ChatGPT or similar tools, all of these are things that process large language models, it's important to think that just that conversational aspect is not the only thing that these technologies bring to the table.</p>
<p>It's a lot more. It's any kind of medium that can be generated, whether it's text, whether it's pictures or so on. That's using the input medium and then presenting the output in a similar way. That's what the generative AI brings to the table. And I think the potential here is absolutely phenomenal.</p>
<h2><a name="What is SAP doing in the AI space?">What is SAP doing in the AI space? </a></h2>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Yeah, it's a very exciting time. Thank you for that really detailed overview of AI.</p>
<p>I mean, I think everyone can attest to that it's such a complicated subject. Before we get onto us as a business, SAP Concur, can you give an overview of what SAP is doing in the AI space?</p>
<p><strong>RV: </strong>Yeah, so within SAP, AI is one of the biggest areas of investment because SAP firmly believes that by having an opportunity with AI, we can have the most desired outcomes for our clients.</p>
<p>Now, all of this is based on three core principles within SAP: relevance, reliable, and responsible.</p>
<p>As far as relevancy goes, we want to make sure that all of the capability is embedded within our technology solutions so that when we talk about future proofing for our clients, it's all there.</p>
<p>When we talk about reliability, your AI is only as good as the data that you have. And we have huge amounts of data within SAP. We work with data all the time. Just combining that data with business processes, that's what's going to make this reliable for our clients.</p>
<p>And then finally, responsibility. Now, you see this that a lot of people talk about AI all the time, but we do it bearing in mind security, privacy, compliance, ethics, and accuracy. And all of that really is what makes it responsible for us.</p>
<p>And you know, we want to make sure that we are at the forefront of this. So, whether you're talking about SAP Concur as a solution with traveling expenses or contingent workforce or procurement, AI's going to be embedded in everything that SAP does.</p>
<h2><a name="How do SAP Concur solutions leverage AI?">How do SAP Concur solutions leverage AI?</a></h2>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> I think that's a really important point that people don't really think about is the responsibility side and the ethics side of things cause obviously, we don't want to go down the "Terminator" route with this whole thing.</p>
<p>But it all comes down to data as well because AI is only as good as the data that comes along with it, which actually leads on to my next point. I mean, I know you said you've been here 16 years, which beats my 10 years, but I remember launching <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> about six years ago and we were so excited about it and we're still using it today and it's one of our key product solutions.</p>
<p>But when we launched it, we were talking about automation and machine learning. Is there an AI element to that now?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> That's a great question and I think I'm going to answer to that automation and machine learning piece as well, but ExpenseIt, it was launched even earlier than that, or we've been working on that for a longer time to be honest. But it was a simple concept, right?</p>
<p>You take a receipt, you take the information from the receipt, create the expense for the user. It's great. I mean, I use it all the time. I hope you do too.</p>
<p>But for us, how we went about building that, we embedded what you said, machine learning into it. So, we'd create a model, think about it, just take a simple thing like an amount, right? What we did was create a model to say where would we find the amount on the receipt and then train and train and train that machine so it gets it right.</p>
<p>And you can get it wrong so many ways. I mean, think about it. It could be all handwritten, various kinds of receipts, could have different currencies and so on. Just trying to put all of that together. That's where we brought in that concept of machine learning and used it within ExpenseIt.</p>
<p>Think about hotel itemizations. I mean, you've been to the U.S. How hard it is and everyone knows just putting in, keying in all of those things and ExpenseIt does a fantastic job of that.</p>
<p>But should we stop at that? No, and to answer your question, we started with machine learning and now we're moving into the world of generative AI with that capability. And we looked at hotel itemizations and whilst we were doing a great job with the machine learning, gen AI actually takes it one step further. It's not there right now in ExpenseIt but it will be there soon.</p>
<p>So, we're not stopping and saying, "That's it, we're done." We are trying to see where gen AI is going to play a part for us, and ExpenseIt is going to be one of those.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> I think that's the key thing to actually continuously evolve the solution with AI as well. Because yeah, you mentioned the hotel invoice, which is the bug bear of everyone doing expenses, but what it should be is that it's automatic. The user, like when I'm doing an expense report, I shouldn't need to worry about it, and it should just happen in the background.</p>
<p>I think that's where AI is going to. Is that fair to say?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Absolutely, and one of the other things I want to say is ExpenseIt, today we've got that on mobile, but lots of people don't know. We have also got it on emails. We send your receipts to concursolutions.com, and that's it. It's all ExpenseIt powered, and soon, it's going to be on the web. You drag and drop your receipt on the expense page, ExpenseIt is going to play a part, and all of that is down to AI.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> So basically, the expense report will actually end up writing itself, which I think is really cool.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Absolutely. That's where we want to go to.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Brilliant. So aside from ExpenseIt, done there, covered that, what other solutions do we have that are AI-powered or will be coming out?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah, and there's a lot of advancements in that stage, but I'll talk about a couple. And those are not the only ones that we have within SAP Concur. But one which is primarily AI-powered is <a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">Verify</a>, and this is a tool that automates the audit solution.</p>
<p>Now, we've got two flavors of audit within SAP Concur. I'll keep it simple.</p>
<p>One is the one like <a href="https://www.concur.com/intelligent-audit">Intelligent Audit</a> where SAP Concur is the ones that get outsourced the audit process. So, we have our auditors running and doing the audit for the clients. And the second is Verify in which the client actually performs the audit. But before that, everything goes through SAP Concur's machine learning process or SAP Concur's AI process to do that kind of audit.</p>
<p>Now, think about it this way, if SAP Concur auditors are the ones performing the audit, what happens is a lot of clients turn around and say, "Let me do some sampling. I only want to do 10% of my reports, 30% of my reports." But with Verify, 100% of all receipts get scanned, and we go through and make sure that they're all accurate, they're all compliant.</p>
<p>I've actually got a stat from one of our clients who automated their audit process using Verify, and they said that they saved 8,000 hours by doing that. 8,000.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Wow.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> That's a huge number. It's almost like the number of hours in a year, I think, or close to it. So, think about the value that it brings. It's absolutely amazing. In the past 18 months, I think we've gone through 60 million expense reports or 60 million expense transactions that have gone through Verify, and only 3% went up to the client auditors.</p>
<p>That's huge value. That means that we're giving them time to do something that's more important, pertinent to their business than look at just expenses.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Well, yeah, like what we were talking about earlier, that it just happens in the background.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> And that's the really important part.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah. The other thing along with the Verify is <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/effortless-invoice-capture">Invoice Capture</a>. And again, think of that as ExpenseIt for invoice.</p>
<p>You know, we're basically looking at invoices and saying we can capture the information and create the invoice for you. So it works on similar principles, though slightly different technology at the back end. And that's yet another product that you can get from SAP Concur, which is AI-powered.</p>
<p>So, I just wanted to talk about these two in particular.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Well, exciting times.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Absolutely.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Artificial Intelligence, Real Solutions for Business</h5>
<p>Learn about how AI-infused solutions can meet business needs and make your company ready for change. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/artificial-intelligence-for-business-ai-travel-expense-solutions">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2><a name="What's next?">What's next?</a> </h2>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Well, we're nearly running out of time, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, guys. So, one last question. Get your crystal ball out. What does the future hold? What is coming next?</p>
<p>I know you spoke about Verify and the audit tools that are kind of live now or coming soon, but what's the next big thing?</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> I was almost waiting for this question. There's so much buzz and excitement in all of SAP Concur to do with artificial intelligence, especially with the gen AI.</p>
<p>You know, we get asked all the time, "What are you working on?" And think about this as what is our goal? Our goal at SAP Concur is that travel and expenses practically manage themselves, and that we minimally interact with the user. You know, it's all instinctive.</p>
<p>If you think about the words that I used, you know, why do we talk about practically managing and minimally interacting with the user? And the reality is we've been in this business for a long time. We know through our experience that ideally, we would want to automate everything but sometimes, there is a reason that you want a little bit of touch with the user.</p>
<p>You want that additional information from the user. And that's where that whole minimal interaction comes in. Our job is to reduce it as much as possible. Nil ideally, but then not nil. Just get the bare minimum information that you need so that your expense report is completed.</p>
<p>Now, think of a trip, you know? I remember, one of my bosses used to say to me, "You're traveling to Paris. How much is it going to cost me?" It's a hard one, you know? How do I figure out how much is it going to cost me?</p>
<p>But now if you think about that kind of trip where you talk about the concept of planning, booking, expense reporting, if you were to start this concept to say just from a planning perspective, can I actually get those costs easy enough?</p>
<p>And one of the things that we are looking at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a> is the cost estimation for various components. And you using generative AI, we can go in and say for my air, car, hotel, build out the estimate. And whilst it's doing that, it can also look at my travel policy and say, "You know what? Your travel policy allows you for this."</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> And also, it's got your preferences as well.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> So you can actually just ask the question and it does a lot of the legwork in the background.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah, the asking the question may not be here now, but yeah, but with Request, what it's basically saying is, "Hey, this is what you can have from your travel perspective and I'm going to build this thing out. I'm going to create that request for you. I'm going to create the expenses for you, expected expenses." It can go out to your manager who then goes ahead and approves that.</p>
<p>Now think about it, that's half the job done from an expense work perspective. If it's tied to travel, what I can then do is say, "Okay, now take me through, get that booking done." And then once you're doing your booking, with our evolution of travel, can actually be smarter and say, "I want a hotel that's got a nice coffee shop in there in the lobby and it's close to a metro station." It'll filter all of that.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>RV: </strong>And then sometimes, you know, I know this, people come in and say, "How do I know what my policy is?" It's a very common thing. You go to a new place, you just don't know. But if you have an in-product assistant that can be of conversational nature and you can actually say, "Well, how much is it that I can spend on my meals?" It'll say, "It's this much." It's great. Or do I need a receipt? Yes. If you can get that kind of answers, having that conversational capability powered by gen AI, I mean, that's where we are trying to get to.</p>
<p>And then when your trip is near done, you've checked out from your hotel, now having your hotel itemizations done by gen AI, I mean that's just a part that I would love to tread on all the way through.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> It's like next level stuff.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah. And if you've got all of that, your expense report gets done, I mean, what else would you want? Ideally, that's my trip.</p>
<p><strong>AK:</strong> Well, it's been so great chatting to you. And I think I've learned so much and I think we'll have to do another session in about six months' time because it changes so much. But thank you so much for your time, Rahul.</p>
<p><strong>RV:</strong> Yeah. Thank you, Alistair.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Top Travel Destinations for 2023 Holiday Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-travel-destinations-for-2023-holiday-business-travel
2023-12-14T09:00:00Z
2023-12-13T11:34:52Z
November and December are busy travel months. Travelers are gearing up to visit family or take advantage of time off for a bucket-list vacation. But some travelers will still be on the clock. SAP Conc
<p>November and December are busy travel months. Travelers are gearing up to visit family or take advantage of time off for a bucket-list vacation. But some travelers will still be on the clock. SAP Concur analyzed U.S. bookings in Concur Travel over November and December and surprisingly, many employees took business trips over Thanksgiving, and several already have trips booked for Christmas and New Years.</p>
<h2><strong>Hundreds of Thousands Took Business Trips this Thanksgiving</strong></h2>
<p>The busiest day for business travel in November was Monday, November 13. Hundreds of thousands of workers traveled on 11/13 and 5.6% of trips went to Dallas, Texas, the number one destination and 5.4% went to Chicago, Illinois, which was a very close second. Other major metros like Washington, D.C. and New York City rounded out the top 10 list.</p>
<p><u>Top Destinations for November 13</u></p>
<ol>
<li>Dallas, Texas</li>
<li>Chicago, Illinois</li>
<li>Atlanta, Georgia</li>
<li>Washington D.C.</li>
<li>Denver, Colorado</li>
<li>New York, New York</li>
<li>Phoenix, Arizona</li>
<li>Boston, Massachusetts</li>
<li>Los Angeles, California</li>
<li>Houston, Texas</li>
</ol>
<p>While mid-November was the peak, business travel didn’t stop for the Thanksgiving holiday. Between November 17, the Friday before Thanksgiving, and November 26, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, hundreds of thousands of employees traveled for work.</p>
<p>Most employees traveled before or after the holiday. Friday, November 17 was the top travel date but Sunday, November 26 was a close second. The least popular travel date was Thanksgiving, on Thursday, November 23.</p>
<p>In terms of the top destinations, Las Vegas, Nevada claimed the top spot. In fact, more than three times as many business travelers went to Las Vegas compared to Phoenix, Arizona in the tenth spot. Like the most popular travel day in November (11/13), Chicago, Illinois, Atlanta, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas fell within the top 10 destinations. However, over Thanksgiving, Charlotte, North Carolina joined the list.</p>
<p><u>Top Destinations for Thanksgiving (11/17-11/26)</u></p>
<ol>
<li>Las Vegas, Nevada</li>
<li>Chicago, Illinois</li>
<li>Atlanta, Georgia</li>
<li>Dallas, Texas</li>
<li>Los Angeles, California</li>
<li>New York, New York</li>
<li>Denver, Colorado</li>
<li>Washington, D.C.</li>
<li>Charlotte, North Carolina</li>
<li>Phoenix, Arizona</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Business Travelers Ring in the New Year in Orlando</strong></h2>
<p>The top travel date in December was Monday, December 4. Like the busiest travel date in November, Dallas, Texas claims the number one spot, representing 6.2% of business trips taking place on December 4. Atlanta, Georgia comes in at second, representing 5.1% of business trips. Compared to November, new to the top ten list are Orlando, Florida and San Francisco, California. But read on because Orlando takes center stage over the holidays.</p>
<p><u>Top Destinations for December 4</u></p>
<ol>
<li>Dallas, Texas</li>
<li>Atlanta, Georgia</li>
<li>Chicago, Illinois</li>
<li>New York, New York</li>
<li>Washington, D.C.</li>
<li>Las Vegas, Nevada</li>
<li>Orlando, Florida</li>
<li>San Francisco, California</li>
<li>Phoenix, Arizona</li>
<li>Los Angeles, California</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s still a few weeks away, but still, tens of thousands of employees have booked business trips during the Christmas and the New Year holidays, between the Thursday before Christmas, December 21, and the Wednesday after New Year’s Day, January 3.</p>
<p>Most trips won’t take place until after New Year’s celebrations, with the top travel dates being Tuesday, January 2 and Wednesday, January 3. The least popular travel date will be Christmas Day on Monday, December 25.</p>
<p>For top destinations, Orlando, Florida claims the number one spot by a mile. More than double the amount of business travelers will head to Orlando compared to Phoenix, Arizona in the second spot. New additions to the list include Seattle, Washington and San Antonio, Texas.</p>
<p><u>Top Destinations for Christmas and New Year’s (12/21-1/3)</u></p>
<ol>
<li>Orlando, Florida</li>
<li>Phoenix, Arizona</li>
<li>Atlanta, Georgia</li>
<li>Los Angeles, California</li>
<li>Dallas, Texas</li>
<li>Chicago, Illinois</li>
<li>Seattle, Washington</li>
<li>San Antonio, Texas</li>
<li>San Francisco, California</li>
<li>Denver, Colorado</li>
</ol>
<p>We’re not surprised to see so many holiday business trips planned. Our annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a> found that nearly all global business travelers (94%) said they were willing to travel for business in the next 12 months, including 67% who were very willing.</p>
<p>Happy holidays to the road warriors and cheers to maintaining client relationships and starting new ones!</p>
<p><em>Methodology: SAP Concur analyzed business travel bookings in Concur Travel with a U.S. origin during November and December 2023, and established holiday date ranges of 11/17-11/26 for Thanksgiving and 12/21-1/3 for Christmas and the New Year. </em></p>
SAP Concur Team
Unlocking Efficiency: The Transformative Impact of Virtual Cards on Invoice Payments
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/unlocking-efficiency-transformative-impact-virtual-cards-on-invoice-payments
2023-12-05T09:00:00Z
2023-12-04T10:42:01Z
"In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are seeking new avenues to optimize payment operations and enhance financial efficiency. Amid a plethora of tools, one stands out – the virtu
<p>In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are seeking new avenues to optimize payment operations and enhance financial efficiency. Amid a plethora of tools, one stands out – the virtual credit card. </p>
<p>The global virtual card market is expected to triple by 2030, according to <a href="https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/">Vantage Market Research</a>. As businesses look to leverage this payment option, SAP Concur is uniquely positioned to help via a new integration from <a href="https://www.paywithextend.com/">Extend</a>, a leading virtual card platform. With Extend’s virtual card functionality embedded into Concur Invoice as a payment option, businesses using SAP Concur solutions can pay invoices easily, quickly, and securely from an embedded Concur Invoice workflow and with the corporate credit card they already have. There is no need for a new card, contract, or settlement process. </p>
<p>So how can your organization leverage the benefits of virtual cards for paying invoices? </p>
<h2>Understanding Virtual Credit Cards </h2>
<p>First, let's explain what a virtual credit card is. This payment solution closely emulates the functionality of a conventional corporate credit card, with one key distinction – it exists solely in the digital realm. </p>
<p>Traditional corporate credit cards are tangible cards issued by banks. These physical cards empower cardholders to make purchases and transactions within pre-approved credit limits, encompassing both in-person and online transactions. They serve as a convenient and widely accepted payment method. </p>
<p>Virtual credit cards represent temporary digital subcards of traditional credit cards, initially conceived with security at the forefront. Each virtual card is endowed with a unique card number, often accompanied by a limited validity period, set spending limit, or single-use feature. This design defends the virtual card from fraudulent activities, rendering compromised numbers ineffective for unauthorized transactions. Traditional credit cards, while possessing fixed credit limits, lack the granular control of spending limits per invoice, rendering them more susceptible to misuse or fraud, particularly when their 16-digit card number is shared across an organization. </p>
<h2>The Advantages of Virtual Credit Cards for Invoice Payments </h2>
<p>Virtual cards offer a transformative approach to financial operations. They erase the need to share sensitive credit card details with vendors or use the same card for all your payments. Instead, you can automatically generate unique virtual cards linked to your existing credit card. And you can dispatch these virtual cards instantly via the platform you use to pay invoices. </p>
<p>Incorporating virtual cards into business operations enables businesses using Concur Invoice to: </p>
<ul>
<li>Settle invoices with unique virtual cards created from their existing credit card; </li>
<li>Better control payment amounts and timing; </li>
<li>Earn available card rewards on transactions; </li>
<li>Pay vendors more quickly; </li>
<li>Free up working capital to improve cash flow, and </li>
<li>Gain greater visibility into payment delivery. </li>
</ul>
<h2>How to use virtual cards within SAP Concur Invoice </h2>
<p>After registering a corporate or purchasing credit card in Concur Invoice, customers of participating issuers can use virtual cards to settle payments with credit-card-accepting vendors. Concur Invoice automatically generates a virtual card linked to your registered credit card, complete with a distinctive spend limit, validity date, and invoice number corresponding to the invoice. </p>
<p>David Blaha, chief revenue officer at Extend, explains, “Businesses want to do more with the tools they already use, and Concur Invoice delivers that frictionless experience to BMO Corporate Card customers, and with more bank integrations to come. The Extend integration with Concur Invoice marks a new era for embedded payments in which businesses can easily tap into powerful tools for managing payments from within the solutions they use every day.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.paywithextend.com/contact">Learn more</a> about how Extend and SAP Concur solutions can transform your payment processes. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Simpler Sustainability: Building an Eco-Strategy into Your Travel Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simpler-sustainability-building-eco-strategy-into-your-travel-policy
2023-11-30T10:16:58Z
2023-11-30T10:05:52Z
From the C-Suite to the front lines, travel leaders are encouraged and pushed to build sustainability into their programs and the choices they offer. It’s no small order to start measuring and reducin
<p>From the C-Suite to the front lines, travel leaders are encouraged and pushed to build sustainability into their programs and the choices they offer. It’s no small order to start measuring and reducing travel’s impact on the planet, but your business doesn’t have to start from scratch when building a policy. </p>
<p>You won’t be alone in your efforts, as nearly 2 in 5 travel managers expect their policies to change in the next 12 months to comply with sustainability goals. A new <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainability_travel_policy\">template </a>from SAP Concur can serve as a roadmap, whether you’re under a deadline or trying to get out ahead of the challenge. </p>
<p>The template covers the arc of creating a policy, from enlisting input and support, to building knowledge, to considering diversity and inclusion implications, to engaging employees, to the roles of suppliers, data, and reporting. Then, once you’ve built a foundation and framework, it supplies targeted tips for policy areas including air travel, rail and cars, essential trips, accommodations, and events. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Building Sustainability into Your Travel Policy </h5>
<p>Get our new template for best practices as you consider and develop a policy to track and lessen the environmental impact of your business. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/sustainability_travel_policy\">Download it here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Getting Started </h2>
<p>It’s vital to lay a foundation by understanding and articulating what your sustainability priorities are and how they align with the company’s overall goals and key performance indicators. Make sure senior leadership is familiar with and supportive of your policy initiative. </p>
<p>There is much to learn about regulations and guidelines affecting your program, so deepen your understanding of such standardization frameworks as the IFRS, GRI, and others and how certain portions of the GHG Scope 3 apply to travel. With priorities determined, ensure that you capture and see applicable data, create reports for pertinent metrics, and have the technology solutions to support it all. </p>
<p>Diversity, equity, and inclusion should be part of a travel program, so those initiatives, along with social responsibility and human rights goals, should be part of a sustainability strategy. They can be a piece of broader duty of care and health and safety management. Examine your suppliers and their sustainability priorities, including whether they mesh with yours in that area and diversity and inclusion and other social goals as well. See if they have appropriate certifications and don’t forget to look at your suppliers’ suppliers, too. </p>
<p>A sustainability policy will be less effective if travelers and others don’t understand it and recognize their roles in the effort. From the start, engage fellow employees and continue to keep them informed and involved via internal communication channels, meetings, and newsletters. </p>
<h2>Getting Specific </h2>
<p>Now that you have a foundation, it’s time to define some specifics in the policy. </p>
<p>Trips are a place to begin, and the overarching factor should be whether it’s essential. You should have a preapproval process, limit trips of two days or less, encourage videoconferencing, and build stay vs. go forks into the process that help travelers understand policy and foster sustainability. </p>
<p>Air travel without a doubt contributes greatly to emissions and impact. Use your policy and solutions to direct travelers to lower-emission flights, encourage direct flights, and go with trains instead of planes wherever possible. Rail not only is less-polluting but also reduces the time travelers spend driving to departure points, going through security, and getting to meetings. Urge employees to take public transit, but if they must use a car, prioritize electrics, hybrids, or the most-efficient gas-powered vehicles. </p>
<p>Where travelers stay and do their work matters. Guide them to policy-compliant, greener accommodations within walking distance of their destinations, and avoid luxury hotels and resorts, as their environmental impacts are often higher. Apply some of the same criteria to event facilities, making sure greener lodging is available nearby and are accessible to public transit and trains. </p>
<h2>A Route for Going Greener </h2>
<p>Developing and implementing as sustainability policy requires much thought and preparation. Download the template to jump-start your policy. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Keep Track of Business Expenses Effectively
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-keep-track-business-expenses-effectively
2024-01-30T03:07:33Z
2023-11-30T09:52:37Z
Businesses are turning to technology to automate and improve expense management. Read this blog to learn how to keep track of business expenses effectively.
<p>Tracking business expenses is an important and often challenging element of running a business. </p>
<p>Business expenses come in multiple types and need to be tracked accurately and in a timely manner. Doing so ensures that leaders have information about spending that can be used to make important, real-time decisions about finances, budgets, and strategic priorities. </p>
<p>Today, businesses are increasingly turning to technology to automate, accelerate, and improve expense management. </p>
<h2>The Importance of Accurate Expense Tracking </h2>
<p>Tracking business expenses can often seem like a chore, taking you away from other more critical activities. </p>
<p>Having a strong system in place is the best way to keep track of business expenses. It’s empowering and, in today’s competitive business climate, essential. </p>
<h3>Why Focus on Tracking Business Expenses </h3>
<p>The most critical reason is that without a clear indication of your costs, where they are and the trends associated with them, you’re lacking visibility. </p>
<p>You will not have a clear indication of your company’s financial standing and will have incomplete information when making strategic decisions. </p>
<p>In contrast, with a clearly defined set of expenses close at hand, you can make data-informed decisions about where to spend or cut money. As you look to grow your business, these insights are crucial. </p>
<p>Here are some of the major benefits to accurately tracking business expenses: </p>
<ul>
<li>Strong Financial Records. Accurate financial records are important for independent audits of your company. You’ll also need good records if the government audits your company </li>
<li>Better Financing. If you’re seeking loans from banking institutions or investors, they’ll want to understand your financials. Having accurate records of your expenses is critical when applying for financing </li>
<li>Financial Clarity. Do you know your cash flow? With accurate expense records, you’ll have transparency and clarity about where your company’s money is going and what needs to be done to strengthen your financial position </li>
<li>More Accurate Financial Planning. A good system of expense tracking lets you analyze, target, and project future financial positions. Using a system that helps you generate reports and identify trends can help you adjust when needed and plan for your future </li>
<li>Tax Benefits. Many business expenses are deductible, helping to reduce your taxable business income. By tracking your expenses thoroughly, you can reduce your tax burden and have more cash for operating your business </li>
<li>Fraud Identification. Financial fraud can disrupt or cripple an organization. With a clear handle on your expenses and consistent reporting, you can more easily spot fraud before it can harm the business </li>
</ul>
<h2>Best Practices for Recording Business Expenses </h2>
<p>When you want to effectively track business expenses, follow these best practices. </p>
<h3>Open a Business Bank Account </h3>
<p>Separating your personal and corporate expenses is critical. Using a business bank account makes it easier to track expenses and pay bills without commingling your finances. </p>
<p>Using an account exclusively for your business finances is important from a liability perspective. If you mix your personal and professional, courts could determine that your personal assets are subject to judgements. </p>
<h3>Select the Right Accounting System </h3>
<p>Choose accounting software and an expense management system to help keep your books accurate and up to date. </p>
<p>Accounting and expense automation software allows you to quickly enter and pay invoices, reconcile accounts, and produce the reports necessary to show spending and expenses. </p>
<h3>Choose the Accounting Method </h3>
<p>You have a choice for how you manage your accounting processes. Most small businesses or sole proprietors use a cash accounting business, in which they simply record transactions as they occur. </p>
<p>In the other method, accrual accounting, income is recorded when a product is sold, not when payment is received for the product. Business expenses are recorded similarly, when you receive a bill, not when it’s paid. </p>
<p>Accrual accounting is usually used for growing and larger businesses. </p>
<h3>Manage Receipts </h3>
<p>Keeping track of receipts is essential for managing your expenses. It allows you to reconcile expenses and confirm amounts paid and to whom. It also allows you to verify expenditures later should an audit arise. </p>
<p>Using expense management tools, including software and apps, allows for easy receipt management. Look for solutions that scan receipts, populate expense reports and ledgers, and store digital copies. </p>
<h3>Connect Financial Institutions </h3>
<p>Having interconnected business systems drives efficiency and productivity. The same goes with external systems. Connecting your accounting and expense management systems to your financial systems makes it easier to complete transactions from paying bills to issuing employee paychecks. </p>
<h3>Establish Performance Measures </h3>
<p>Once you’ve determined the technology you’ll be using for your business expense management, you’ll want to identify the right measures to use. Having <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-business-spend-management-with-automation">clear, well-defined key performance indicators (KPIs)</a> lets you measure progress and make course corrections as necessary. </p>
<h2>Strategies for Detecting and Preventing Expense Fraud </h2>
<p>Expense fraud can take many forms. Knowing how to spot it and prevent it is smart financial strategy, </p>
<p>Expense fraud types include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Fake Expenses. These false expenses can include claiming an expense for free meals, seeking reimbursement for items that were not bought or making fake receipts and submitting them for reimbursement </li>
<li>Double Billing. This practice involves submitting the same receipt or invoice multiple times for reimbursement </li>
<li>Filing Personal Expenses. An employee may try to dupe the company by filing for reimbursement for personal expenses </li>
<li>Refund Reimbursement. This practice occurs when an employee buys an item, returns it for a refund and still submits the expense </li>
<li>Inflated Expenses. Employees may overestimate the costs of an item, claim to have a missing receipt and ask to be reimbursed for the larger amount </li>
</ul>
<p>How can you prevent fraudulent expenses? Here are some tips: </p>
<ul>
<li>Have <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-reimbursement-guide-to-efficient-expense-management">a well-defined employee expense policy</a> that spells out what can and cannot be expensed </li>
<li>Review expenses and flag questionable entries </li>
<li>Scrutinize client meal and gift claims </li>
<li>Look for time and date discrepancies </li>
<li>Develop a method for verifying and approving employee expenses </li>
<li>Use corporate credit cards </li>
<li>Compare expenses across departments </li>
</ul>
<h2>Technology and Expense Management </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/say-bye-bye-to-finance-hacks-in-3-simple-steps">Technology is transforming the way companies manage expenses</a>. Business automation tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning help to accelerate the expense approval and verification processes. </p>
<p>Technology can simplify the way your company operates. SAP Concur is a leading provider of expense management tools. </p>
<p>SAP Concur provides easy-to-use, intuitive solutions for financial management, including expense, invoice, travel, reporting and analytics, and integrations with leading accounting and finance systems. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can help you manage your business expenses and gain insights into your spending</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Is a Travel Allowance? Definitions and Insights
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-travel-allowance-definitions-and-insights
2023-12-13T09:00:00Z
2023-11-30T09:41:19Z
A travel allowance can be an effective way to manage employee travel expenses and manage costs for the employee. Learn more in this blog.
<p>A travel allowance can be an effective way to manage employee travel expenses and manage costs for the employee. </p>
<p>When employees travel for business, there are myriad expenses, from hotels to taxis or ride-sharing services. Using a travel allowance can help give travelers flexibility and control while increasing compliance with tax regulations. </p>
<h2>What Is a Travel Allowance? </h2>
<p>A travel allowance is compensation paid by an employer to employees to cover expenses incurred when traveling for business. In addition to lodging and transportation, travel allowances are typically used for airfare, meals, and other expenses related to business travel. It is business travel compensation, provided either before or after travel is completed. </p>
<p>Managing business travel compensation can be complex and hard to manage. The way businesses handle travel compensation is changing, as leaders look to implement tools that aid travelers and companies alike. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improve-employee-experience-with-mobile-apps-and-digital-platform-adoption">Technology is transforming how companies manage all aspects of employee travel</a>, including the creation and coordination of travel allowances. </p>
<h2>Types of Travel Allowance </h2>
<p>There are many types of travel allowances, which can be given upfront or based on a reimbursement schedule. Here is a look at some of the most common. </p>
<h3>Fixed Travel Allowance </h3>
<p>A fixed travel allowance is a flat rate that is offered to an employee, irrespective of the level of expenses incurred. Employees are responsible for managing their travel expenses and determining how to use the money best to accommodate their needs. It is commonly used with employees for short trips or who travel infrequently. </p>
<p>Typically, with a fixed allowance, if the employee spends less than the allocated amount, the employee can keep the difference. If the employee spends more, they are responsible for making up the difference. Businesses using fixed travel allowance should work with their tax professional to understand the implications of this practice. </p>
<h3>Daily Travel Allowance </h3>
<p>Also called a per diem, a daily travel allowance is an amount used for each day of travel and can be used for lodging, transportation, meals, and other travel expenses. Typically, a traveler will reconcile the per diem by submitting an expense report and receipts. The traveler will be reimbursed for any expenses they spent in excess and will return money that was unspent. </p>
<h3>Travel Reimbursement </h3>
<p>This travel allowance requires the traveler to submit receipts for actual expenses incurred, which are then reimbursed. This process can be cumbersome and time-consuming for the traveler. If reimbursement is not done in a timely manner, it can be burdensome for the employee, who is essentially lending money to the company. Fortunately, there are technologies available today to simplify this work. </p>
<h3>Mileage Allowance </h3>
<p>This type of allowance pays the employee for miles traveled on business. It is typically used when employees use their own car for business-related travel. Technologies can tracking and reimbursing for mileage simpler and more accurate. </p>
<h2>Methods for Calculating Travel Allowances </h2>
<p>When using travel allowances as part of a corporate travel program, one key consideration is how the travel allowances are calculated. </p>
<p>The process often has to consider the distance traveled and the time spent traveling. Here is one way to calculate a travel allowance. </p>
<h3>Location and Days of Travel </h3>
<p>Start by determining the location of the traveler at midnight on each day of travel. A day of travel is defined as a 24-hour period an employee is conducting business while traveling. </p>
<p>The day of travel ends when the next day starts or they return home from a business trip to their home or office. For example, if an employee leaves for a trip at 4 p.m., the first day of travel is from 4 p.m. that day until 4 p.m. the next. </p>
<h3>Lodging </h3>
<p>Lodging allowances are provided based on whether an employee spends the night in accommodations other than their own home. Typically, lodging allowances are based on the location and the current price rates for various hotel categories, based on company preferences for the level of hotels allowed. </p>
<p>Unlike with other categories, usually lodging is an either/or determination. Employees are either allowed the lodging allowance or not based on the circumstances of the trip. </p>
<h3>Meals </h3>
<p>Like with lodging, meal allowances are usually based on the prevailing costs of meals in each location. It assumes that a traveler will have three meals a day. </p>
<p>Typically, a meal allowance covers both meals and incidentals, such as snacks. Often it is prorated based on the time in any given day a traveler is on the road. </p>
<p>The meal allowance may also be reduced if there are meals provided as part of the work travel, such as part of a conference registration fee or transportation ticket. </p>
<h2>Managing Travel Allowances </h2>
<p>Managing travel allowances is a complex task. Here are some tips on how to effectively implement and manage a program: </p>
<ul>
<li>Develop a Clear Policy. Travelers need to understand the specifics in your travel program and how allowances are used. The policy needs to spell out, for example, what expenses are allowed and not allowed and the ways in which allowances are calculated. Transparency is essential to ensure all employees understand how travel expenses are covered </li>
<li>Consider Incidentals. Business travelers face many complexities and challenges. You want a policy that makes it easy for travelers to navigate while on the road. Be sure your policy covers costs that may arise, including parking, fuel, tips, laundry services, printing, internet fees, and luggage check fees </li>
<li>Analyze Data. You need a system in place that collects and reports on travel data to allow you to better understand trends, shifts and challenges. With visibility into your travel program, you can make timely, well-informed decisions </li>
</ul>
<h2>Developing Travel Allowance Policies and Guidelines </h2>
<p>If your company wants to develop a travel allowance policy, where should you begin? </p>
<p>The policy should be rooted in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">broader travel policy</a> which should consider the following: </p>
<ul>
<li>Scope. What aspects of business travel will your policy cover? </li>
<li>Coverage. Determine which elements of travel the policy will cover, such as air travel, lodging, meals, incidentals, and ground transportation </li>
<li>Reimbursement Types. Will your company use travel allowances and, if so, which types? </li>
<li>Participation. How will policies be determined? Be sure to include staff from human resources, finance, and departments that frequently travel, in determining the policy </li>
<li>Safety. Be sure your policy provides <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">protection for employees while they are traveling</a> </li>
<li>Expense Reporting. Develop tools or adopt that will be used for the reporting of travel expenses, with an emphasis on scalability, technology integration, and ease of use </li>
</ul>
<h2>Technological Advancements in Travel Allowance Management </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-management-automation-and-why-should-you-go-paperless">Technology is changing the way companies manage business travel</a>. There are powerful platforms available today that integrate travel policies, allow for the booking of travel and itinerary management and provide robust data collection and travel. </p>
<p>Employees need access to easy-to-use tools that allow for the recording of receipts and other transactions, let them reconcile expenses and generate expense reports, and simplify approvals and routing. </p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can provide companies with integrated business travel, expense, and invoice solutions. With SAP Concur solutions, companies can book travel, manage expenses, integrate with business systems, manage invoices, and more. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/credit-card-reconciliation-one-click-listen-our-customers-success-pivoteq">Learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can simplify your travel management</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Predictions for 2024
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-predictions-for-2024
2023-12-06T09:29:21Z
2023-11-29T10:29:29Z
Discover our predictions for the new year.
<p>After several years of slow progress for the industry, 2023 felt different. We <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-priorities-for-business-leaders-in-2023">predicted</a> that organizations would have to do more with less budget and fewer resources. We also <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/look-for-greater-integration-and-connection-in-2023">expected</a> that this year would introduce greater integration and connection in workplace tools. However, 2023 also brought exciting technological advancements to market, accelerated the NDC transformation, and marked substantial progress in the return to travel (albeit at higher costs).</p>
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is the connecting thread among our executives’ predictions for 2024. Although SAP Concur solutions have had AI at their core for about a decade, increasing visibility inspired by generative AI in 2023 has brought these technologies to the forefront. AI is changing how all business is conducted, and travel, expense, and invoice (TEI) management is no exception.</p>
<p>Below are SAP Concur executives’ predictions for the year ahead.</p>
<h2><strong>Virtual Payments Will Simplify Reimbursement</strong></h2>
<p>“We’ll see business digitalization efforts go a level deeper—and become substantially more integrated—in 2024. Continued adoption of AI, automation, and virtual forms of payment will drive streamlined processes in TEI. Instead of using a company credit card, employees will be able to expand their use of virtual payments for all business expenses, including travel.</p>
<p>“In turn, we’ll start to see two types of transactions emerge: trusted and exceptions. Most transactions will use trusted payment methods, and AI will quickly validate them as compliant, enabling near-immediate reimbursement. Exceptions will trigger AI-driven, automated audits to ensure compliance. In both cases, payments will be issued faster with more ease, and employees will have more time to focus on what matters most to them and the organization.”</p>
<p>– Christopher Juneau, Head of SAP Concur Market Strategy</p>
<h2><strong>Technology—and Some Budget Flexibility—Will Boost Confidence</strong></h2>
<p>“The theme of 2023 is doing more with less, and that will continue to be the case as economic uncertainty carries over into 2024. Although the outlook is improving, global developments including continued inflation, supply chain flux, and geopolitical unrest will have an impact on how businesses operate in the year ahead.</p>
<p>“Organizations should take a realistic approach to planning for 2024, build in some flexibility to course correct as needed, and lean into the benefits of emerging technologies. Embracing AI, automation, and data analysis will help finance teams bring more strategy to the organizational table and find a greater sense of confidence amid the uncertainty.</p>
<p>“And while we aren’t quite there yet, I expect that generative AI will have a very compelling use case in forecasting and budgeting. Finance teams spend significant time on financial planning. Soon, we may be able to ask generative AI to prepare a full budget based on available data from multiple sources, freeing up finance’s time to focus on quality control and decision-making instead of the busy work that goes into budget preparation.”</p>
<p>– Tom Lavin, Chief Controlling Officer, Marketing and Solutions</p>
<h2><strong>Predictive Analytics for Spend Management Will Emerge</strong></h2>
<p>“Organizations today have access to a multitude of financial data, but they lack the resources to make sense of it easily and rapidly. Existing spend management tools offer dashboards that compile information in one place for an employee to analyze, which takes time and considerable skill.</p>
<p>“Building on the technological progress that we saw this year, AI—especially generative AI—will begin to change this in 2024, creating an organizational ‘back office’ where computers work together to run the show. We’ll start to see more predictive analytics tools emerge in the year ahead with the capability to analyze data and derive trends, insights, and solutions to inform, improve, and optimize business operations, in spend management and beyond.</p>
<p>“For example, instead of manually analyzing the data to make informed guesses, someone in finance, travel, or operations could simply delegate that work to a computer. Using generative AI, the computer could then provide data-backed recommendations—factoring in patterns that a human may never even notice—like the ideal time to book a business trip or the optimal date for a team meeting to minimize travel costs, ensuring the company is using resources in the best way possible.”</p>
<p>– Tim Lebel, Vice President and Head of Spend Products</p>
<h2><strong>Cost-Cutting Measures Will Create Business Travel Tension</strong></h2>
<p>“As organizations hammer out their business travel plans and policies for 2024, another year of budgetary caution will become a source of rising tension with employees. Although budgets may increase, doing more with less in response to inflation will remain the organizational mantra of 2024. </p>
<p>“We’re already seeing friction between employees and employers regarding flexibility and hybrid work. Increasing Gen Z workforce representation will also drive employers to adopt the latest technologies and treat sustainability as a top organizational priority to compete for young talent.</p>
<p>“Adding to this strife, the <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fblog%2Farticle%2Fmajority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds&data=05%7C01%7Candi.bean%40edelman.com%7C0bc0cd9703864df85ef408dbdfb9ba2f%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C638349761059949592%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=AdM065ClSCuZydVH%2BBJ0rAl%2B3fQ%2FyJmBItKqc5e0pgw%3D&reserved=0">majority</a> of global business travelers (67%) are very willing to hit the road and most (92%) say the future of their career depends on it. They also continue to see health and safety as the biggest threat to business travel. As organizations increasingly explore cost-cutting measures, like requiring that employees stay in less expensive accommodations that could potentially be in unsafe areas, enthusiastic business travelers are likely to put the pressure on employers to better meet their needs and expectations.” </p>
<p>– Amy Padgett, Vice President, Travel Marketing Strategy</p>
<h2><strong>Corporate Social Responsibility, NDC, and AI Will Be Front and Center in Travel</strong></h2>
<p>“We’re going to see a combination of costs and benefits from travel industry trends in 2024. For instance, larger corporate initiatives like improving sustainability and diversity, equity, and inclusion will keep carrying over to company travel programs, putting new, higher-purpose responsibilities on travel managers, procurement, HR, and accounting departments.</p>
<p>“Acceleration of NDC among airlines, GDS, TMCs, and OBTs will push the industry into a when, not if, mentality. NDC, combined with reduced supplier payments to TMCs may create growing pains and put pressure on existing industry economic arrangements. TMCs will continue to look for more efficiencies and alternate sources of revenue, which may also lead to continued consolidation.</p>
<p>“AI has enormous potential to improve the employee and traveler experience. This potential will outpace past megatrends like blockchain, which often felt like a solution looking for a problem. Further into the future, we also could see continued adoption of driverless cars end up translating to other forms of transportation, and the industry embracing concepts like a one-pilot cockpit.</p>
<p>“As use cases for AI grow, companies that have fully integrated corporate platforms—not just TEI integration but also finance, procurement, HR, and other ERP functions—will realize the greatest gains from generative AI and large language models.”</p>
<p>– Charlie Sultan, President, Concur Travel</p>
<p>For more 2024 trends and predictions to watch, download our eBook, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/2024_trends_predictions">Travel and Expense 2024”</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Expense Reconciliation: Improving Financial Clarity and Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-reconciliation-improving-financial-clarity-and-control
2024-01-30T02:58:10Z
2023-11-28T09:27:28Z
Companies are using technology to accelerate the expense reconciliation process and ensure proper, consistent, and precise financial management. Learn more.
<p>Reconciling employee expenses is an important accounting process to ensure accuracy and compliance. Increasingly, companies are using technology to accelerate the expense reconciliation process and ensure proper, consistent, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/13-ways-to-keep-your-organizations-budget-on-track">precise financial management</a>. </p>
<h2>What is Expense Reconciliation </h2>
<p>Expense reconciliation is the overarching process used by accounting departments to balance the books, ensuring that payments to vendors and employees are accurate. </p>
<p>It involves checking submitted expenses to ensure they are compliant with company policies, entered in the correct expense categories, and charged to the proper budget lines. </p>
<p>What does it mean to reconcile? </p>
<p>For example, when a company looks to reconcile expense reports from employees who travel on company business, it will review to ensure that the employee expenses were appropriate given travel policies. </p>
<p>It will then look to make sure that the expenses such as air travel, hotel stays, ground transportation and meals, are filed under the appropriate categories. Finally, it will make sure the expenses are being charged to the employee’s department account and paid for from the right budgets. </p>
<h2>The Importance of Expense Reconciliation </h2>
<p>Expense reconciliation is <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-intelligent-travel-and-expense-management-drives-future-work">a critical financial process</a>. Some crucial reasons for diligent expense reconciliation follow. </p>
<h3>Fraud Management </h3>
<p>Reviewing financial records, employee credit card usage, and purchases ensures that employees are spending the company’s money properly. Reconciling transactions is an effective way to identify or confirm suspicious activity. </p>
<p>The process allows you to highlight questionable transactions and ask clarifying questions or for additional information. It can flag indicators of problematic spending and allows you to take steps to prevent future misuse. </p>
<p>The due diligence can be used in multiple ways: </p>
<ul>
<li>Identify unauthorized financial transfers </li>
<li>Find and correct duplicate charges </li>
<li>Confirm proper deposits and withdrawals from company bank accounts </li>
</ul>
<p>Detecting fraud is the first step to preventing it. </p>
<h3>Error Prevention </h3>
<p>Not all errors found in the reconciliation process are fraudulent or malicious. In some cases, simple mistakes are made in the calculations, data entry, or approval process. </p>
<p>A thorough expense reconciliation process helps to ensure that multiple entries, incorrect entries, or gaps in information are detected and can be resolved quickly. The process can help identify opportunities for further educating employees about how to properly enter information and how they can help in reducing errors in the future. </p>
<h3>Financial Health </h3>
<p>A good reconciliation system is an essential element of a strong accounting process. It’s a useful tool in assessing your company’s overall financial health. Balancing your books, and being confident in the data presented, helps you make informed decisions about spending, budgets, priorities, and needs. </p>
<p>It helps provide a clear financial picture of spend in various expense categories and may illuminate ways to reduce expenses. </p>
<h2>Streamlining Data Collection </h2>
<p>One of the challenges of expense reconciliation is the time-intensive process it entails. If your expenses are kept on paper records or multiple spreadsheets, it can be overwhelming to track down data. </p>
<p>Data collection and recording is challenging for several reasons: </p>
<ul>
<li>Multiple Data Sources. Expense data comes from various sources – purchase orders, emails, invoices, credit card statements, approval forms. With such a diverse range of sources of your data, reconcilers need to work with and find information in multiple ways </li>
<li>Formatting Differences. The data may also be listed in multiple format types. Converting and accurately recording this information in accounting systems can be a tedious task, as it includes making sure that information is using the right general ledger accounts and codes. When done manually, this can be time-consuming and fraught with potential errors </li>
<li>Reporting Delays. Getting the right information in a timely manner can be a challenge. Credit card statements and invoices may be delayed and employees may get behind in reconciling their expenses. These delays can lead to challenges in reconciling the books </li>
<li>No Context. If documentation or explanations are missing, it can be challenging to complete reconciliation </li>
</ul>
<p>These challenges and more are why it’s critical for businesses to streamline the collection and management of data. Using advanced technology can accelerate the process, replace paper, and ensure accurate and timely reconciliation. </p>
<h2>The Role of Automation in Expense Reconciliation </h2>
<p>Automation may already be a part of your accounting practices and reconciliation lends itself to using technology for better results. </p>
<p>Software can scan thousands of entries in seconds to match records and identify gaps. By freeing up time in reconciliation, your team can focus on more mission-critical tasks. </p>
<p>Digitization is at the core of reconciliation automation. Today, paper can be problematic. However, automation allows you to leverage best practices for better results, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>E-receipts that can be attached digitally to transactions or expense reports </li>
<li>Digital invoice storage to reduce paper and route paperwork electronically </li>
<li>App-based submission and approval of expense reports </li>
</ul>
<p>Automation tools can also log transactions and ensure that approvals are completed in a timely manner for better end-of-month accounting work. </p>
<h2>Reconciliation Best Practices for Different Business Types </h2>
<p>While your business may have different units that operate slightly differently, there are fundamental best practices to use during the reconciliation process, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Planning, categorizing and tracking expenses consistently across units and business types </li>
<li>Shifting to paperless systems whenever possible </li>
<li>Creating clearly defined and simple workflows for staff to use during the reconciliation process </li>
<li>Having a well-defined employee expenses policy that outlines what expenses are allowed and not allowed </li>
</ul>
<h2>Evolving Reconciliation Practices </h2>
<p>The shift to automation is revolutionizing the way finance departments operate. Automation can transform all aspects of the business, from <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-should-i-move-from-sap-travel-management-to-concur-travel-expense">travel expense management</a> to expense report filing to bank statement reconciliation and ledger distribution. </p>
<p>A strong automation tool can simplify and improve the accuracy of intra-company accounts, foreign accounts or business units and balance sheet creation. It allows for smoother audit processes and fewer errors. </p>
<p>By shifting to automation, you’ll have a clearer understanding of company finances in real time, with accurate data to make informed financial decisions. </p>
<p>SAP Concur is an industry leader in expense management. With SAP Concur solutions, you have visibility and insights into your spending, automatic capture of invoices and expense reports and customizable settings to fit your business needs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/why-are-you-working-so-hard-on-corporate-card-reconciliation">Learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can help</a> automate your reconciliation and expense processes. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How a Travel Management Company (TMC) Can Help Simplify Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-management-company-tmc-can-help-simplify-business-travel
2023-12-11T07:02:05Z
2023-11-28T09:21:19Z
Using a travel management company can be an effective way to save resources, ensure policy compliance, and increase adherence to travel guidelines. Learn more.
<p>For companies of all sizes, simplifying the complex, dynamic tasks related to business travel can be expensive and time-consuming. Using a travel management company can be an effective way to save resources, ensure policy compliance, and increase adherence to travel guidelines. </p>
<h2>What is a Travel Management Company (TMC) </h2>
<p>A travel management company handles corporate travel needs while specializing in business travel. </p>
<h3>How Do TMCs Operate? </h3>
<p>Travel management companies operate on the surface much like travel agents or travel agencies. They are equipped to handle all the components of a company’s business travel. </p>
<p>A TMC handles all the details of managing a business trip and will create an itinerary and assist the traveler while they are on the road. </p>
<p>The TMC assists with booking air travel, hotel reservations, car rentals, train reservations, and car service as needed throughout the entire trip. </p>
<p>Using online booking tools and other technologies, travelers can enter preferences, frequent flyer/stay credentials, and other details to ease the management of travel. </p>
<p>TMCs usually charge on a subscription basis or by charging a fee for the services used. In exchange, they manage all travel logistics, customer support, policy compliance and data collection. </p>
<h2>Cost Savings and Other Benefits to Working with a Travel Management Company </h2>
<p>There are considerable benefits to using a travel management company for business travel management services. Here is a look at some of the major TMC benefits: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Streamlined Processes. With a TMC, you can automate many of the processes used in business travel, resulting in more efficient operations, and time savings. Employees can save time searching for optimal flights or hotels, for example. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Better Data Gathering. With an integrated travel management solution, your company can gather, compile and report on travel information from a centralized location. This data can help business leaders analyze costs, set budgets, manage risk, and make policy adjustments as needed. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Travel Assistance When Needed. If a flight is canceled late at night or there is a problem with a hotel reservation, the travel management company is there to resolve issues. A TMC typically provides 24/7 support for business travelers, who may feel better supported with a more streamlined experience. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Better Prices. Travel management companies typically can arrange for better prices for flights, hotels, and rental cars. With strong business relationships in place across airlines and travel chains, they can help locate travel deals and minimize time spent searching. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Advice and Insights. Staff at TMCs often have extensive experience working on business travel. They can be a valuable resource for travelers and managers, especially with complex travel itineraries. They can help provide better travel experiences and reduce travel costs, especially in industries with nuanced or specialized travel demands. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Alerts and Warnings. Travel today often is not easy. With the right TMC in place, you can be sure your business travelers are alerted to any delays, cancellations, or safety issues that arise while they are on the road. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Concierge Service. A travel management company provides concierge-level service, from the point of booking to the return home. With trusted, experienced staff, the TMC ensures that every convenience is provided and hassles are resolved promptly. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Newest Technology. Advances in technology are radically changing the travel industry. When you work with a travel management company, they will likely provide a list of top tools and apps to meet your business travel needs. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Policy Compliance. Your TMC can offer suggestions to increase policy compliance throughout the travel process, saving time and driving efficiency. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>More Visibility Into Travel Patterns </h2>
<p>A TMC can help you set up your travel program to give you more visibility into your travel patterns and can help you plan for the future. </p>
<p>Business travel has evolved. Data-driven insights help you adjust your program and policies to meet the ever-evolving demands of travel today. </p>
<p>With a strong TMC as your partner, you can gain insights into an entire industry and make smarter, better decisions. </p>
<p>SAP Concur has a robust network of travel management company partners who can help businesses manage their travel programs. Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-travel-management-companies-your-true-partners-travel">travel management company partners</a> or<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction"> contact us today</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Management Solutions for Small Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-management-solutions-for-small-businesses
2023-12-11T07:04:04Z
2023-11-28T09:16:37Z
Read this blog and learn how small businesses can effectively manage business travel expenses using innovative technology.
<p>Managing travel expenses as a small business grows more complex as the company changes. At first, travel management for small business may involve few employees and few trips. However, as your business expands or changes, implementing policies and practices related to business travel becomes more critical. </p>
<h2>What Is Travel Management? </h2>
<p>Travel management is the disciplined practice of using policies to track and coordinate aspects of business travel. The practice provides integration and consistency to the booking of travel, recording expenses, and reimbursements. </p>
<p>The practice of travel management covers everything from <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/does-small-business-need-employee-expense-policy">the development of travel and expense policies</a> to the management of vendors and approval of travel reimbursements. It often includes booking travel and developing itineraries on behalf of your corporate travelers. </p>
<p>In addition, travel management covers the monitoring and reporting on travel and travel-related costs and expenses. With a strong travel management approach, businesses can gain insights into how their employees are traveling and make informed decisions about changes or enhancements that save money and help employees. </p>
<p>Oversight of travel and related expenses often falls to an individual traveler’s manager. However, that management should be grounded in the policies that determine everything from allowable airfare classes, hotel prices, and requirements for booking and changing travel. </p>
<p>Managing small business expenses can be a complex endeavor. However, developing a business travel policy may help businesses alleviate headaches and provide fair and proper guidance to on-the-road expenses. </p>
<h2>Use Technology for Travel Expense Management </h2>
<p>Many businesses today opt to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">use technologies that can simplify travel management</a>. These platforms help ensure that employees understand travel policies and use the same tools for recording expenses and being reimbursed. </p>
<h3>Why use technology to manage your business travel? Here are some of the core benefits: </h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Reduced Costs. A travel management solution can help save costs for your company. It will ensure that travelers are using the best available rates. In addition, a travel management solution can help ensure your travelers are compliant with policy and ease the management of your overall business travel program </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Booking and Itinerary Management. A travel management solution empowers travelers to book their own travel and create itineraries using online booking tools. These technologies enable travelers to select from policy-approved options and create or modify itineraries as needed </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Expense Reporting and Reimbursement. A travel management solution works best when paired with an expense tool. This allows travelers to coordinate all their travel expenses in one place, allowing for fast and convenient reporting and reimbursement for expenses </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Access to Support. A good travel management solution is backed by a strong team of experts who know the travel industry and can help your travelers save time and solve any problems that arise. You may consider a travel management company, which can provide industry-specific and general support to assist with the booking and management of travel and the analysis of your travel program </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Better Rates. By consolidating travel management to a single solution, you may gain access to preferred rates, reducing the costs of airline tickets, hotel stays, car rentals, rail tickets and other essential elements of your travel program </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Access 24/7. With a travel management app, your travelers and managers have access to the technology 24/7 on any device from anywhere. This access makes it easier for travelers to record expenses, make changes, and gain access to helpful tools no matter the time zone or location </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Risk Management. With a good travel management solution, you can reduce the risks to travelers and ensure they feel safe and secure while on the road. If employees are traveling in potentially dangerous areas, travel management tools can issue alerts and help in the case of natural disasters, civil unrest, or other unnerving disruptions </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Consolidated Reporting. When all your business travelers are using the same tools, your reporting and analytics are much stronger. The application you choose can help with the generation of reports that show the costs and expenses by division, department or traveler. Analytics can provide deep insights for decisions about budgets and policy </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Tips for Small Businesses </h2>
<p>If your small business is looking for help in creating a travel management program, follow these suggestions: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Create a Travel Policy. It’s important to have a travel policy that covers all elements of your travel program. Involve human resources and finance staff in developing the policy, along with representatives from the departments that travel frequently. Be sure to be clear about the objectives of the policy and cover what expenses are eligible, the booking process, reimbursement policies, and expense categories </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Communicate Often. Be sure to communicate to your employees about your travel policy, especially if it’s new. Tell them why it’s necessary and be transparent about what the policies are achieving </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Consider a Travel Management System. A travel management system will simplify and automate key elements of your business travel program. With the right travel management tools, you’ll have expense software for small business, tracking and reporting tools and simpler, smarter reimbursement and expense management for travelers and managers alike </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>SAP Concur offers solutions for small businesses looking for a comprehensive travel management solution. SAP Concur solutions are easy to use for travelers, offer 24/7 customer support and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-integrations-sap-concur-solutions-and-american-express-benefit-small-businesses">integrate seamlessly</a> with other business systems. </p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, your employees can book policy-compliant travel and submit expenses from anywhere. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">Learn more about how SAP Concur can enhance and empower your small business travel program</a>. <br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
T&E Tools Can Help as ESG Regulations Ramp Up
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/te-tools-can-help-as-esg-regulations-ramp-up
2023-11-15T10:00:10Z
2023-11-15T09:50:17Z
An SAP Concur-commissioned survey with Forrester found that sustainability is one of the top five company-wide initiatives, and 60% of decision-makers identified it as a critical or high priority.
<p>An <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">SAP Concur-commissioned survey</a> with Forrester found that sustainability is one of the top five company-wide initiatives, and 60% of decision-makers identified it as a critical or high priority. However, an organization is only as sustainable as its technologies enable. Without access to data or the ability to quickly analyze and interpret it, a company’s footprint is a loosely informed estimate at best.</p>
<p>And the regulations are coming. A bevy of new rules—for instance, those brought on by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—are set to take shape beginning in 2024, raising big (and potentially expensive) compliance questions for companies. Missing, misleading, or late disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors could result in stiff fines. </p>
<p>Yet, less than half the professionals surveyed in a recent <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/DeloitteUS/few-are-confident-in-their-organizations-ability-to-report-on-esg-financials">Deloitte poll</a> (45.7%) said they were confident in their company’s ability to meet new requirements. Even fewer (16.4%) could identify a manager in their organization dedicated to ESG. While there are bright spots—including a <a href="https://business-iq.net/assets/11218-cfo-insights-how-to-steer-sustainability-performance-with-a-financial-agenda?locale=en&locale_int=1">26%</a> increase in sustainability accounting compared to last year—at least one thing remains clear: Many organizations are not ready. </p>
<h2><strong>A Solution</strong></h2>
<p>Next-generation travel and expense (T&E) technology is critical to changing employee behaviors, reducing impact, and accomplishing this high-ranking initiative.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can help organizations prepare for the shifting paradigm and the reams of new data to be collected and interpreted. Our tools offer an end-to-end approach with the incorporation of eco-conscious partners and suppliers to guide sustainable travel practices, track results, and better evaluate trends and the behaviors behind them.</p>
<p>With our expanding partner ecosystem that connects to SAP Concur solutions, our partners help our customers account for emissions based on their T&E data and devise broader carbon reduction and offset strategies as new regulations take hold.</p>
<h2><strong>A Case Study</strong></h2>
<p>One company that has made a substantial commitment to sustainability is PwC. Among its goals are reducing its CO<sub>2</sub> emissions by 50% in the near term and fully offsetting remaining emissions by 2030. To do its part in helping achieve this goal, PwC Italia decided to standardize its entire T&E process and improve its end-user experience with a change to its business travel management system.</p>
<p>Before making this change, the lack of software integration made it difficult to empower employees’ sustainable decision-making. It was also challenging to report the environmental impact of business travel. By allowing its 8,000 employees to use <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">SAP Concur solutions</a> for the entire T&E process—from booking a trip to filing an expense report—with enhanced filtering capabilities and messaging alerts to nudge employees to more sustainable choices, PwC Italia is able to give employees the information they need to plan sustainable business travel and easily report on CO<sub>2</sub> emissions.</p>
<p>Ultimately, PwC Italia reduced its CO<sub>2</sub> emissions by 53% from 2019 to 2022, and 25% of its employees now prefer sustainable travel choices.</p>
<h2><strong>An Answer</strong></h2>
<p>Regulators from across the U.S., UK, and Hong Kong—among other geographies—are rewriting their rules on environmental reporting and the social governance systems that surround them. And yet, globally, a full three-quarters of companies surveyed for a recent <a href="https://kpmg.com/xx/en/home/media/press-releases/2023/09/kpmg-esg-assurance-maturity-index.html">KPMG report</a> were not ready to have their ESG data audited. Another <a href="https://business-iq.net/assets/11218-cfo-insights-how-to-steer-sustainability-performance-with-a-financial-agenda?locale=en&locale_int=1">31%</a> of companies said they struggle to implement the right programs and policies, despite the desire to become more sustainable.</p>
<p>With new regulations soon set to kick in, this could prove to be an expensive reality for many. SAP Concur solutions can help, by generating, tracking, and evaluating the data needed to build sustainable strategies and by building greater organizational transparency to contribute to a more sustainable world.</p>
<p>Learn how you can build more sustainability into your travel program with SAP Concur solutions <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">here</a>.</p>
Christopher Juneau
On Business Travel, Parents and Non-Parents See Things Differently
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/on-business-travel-parents-and-non-parents-see-things-differently
2023-11-09T09:00:00Z
2023-11-06T13:39:25Z
"The past three years have been challenging for parents and caregivers, with the pandemic making it difficult to balance childcare and work responsibilities. According to a survey, nearly all parents
<p>The past three years have been undeniably difficult for parents and caregivers. It is a challenging and rewarding role even in the best of times, but the pandemic made it virtually impossible to dedicate attention solely to the responsibilities of childcare or employment. This experience impacted how caregivers approach work, the importance of flexibility, and—as our annual survey found—business travel.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">2023 Global Business Travel Survey</a>, nearly every parent surveyed this year (99%) said that they are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months. However, these business travelers also report that they are being tapped for business travel more than they’d prefer. Forty-four percent of surveyed parents say they are traveling for work more than they’d like, compared to 25% of non-parents and 38% of business travelers overall.</p>
<p>Our survey data suggests that parents who travel for business may be experiencing the circumstances of 2023—the uncertainty, the geopolitical conflicts, the urgency of climate change—through a different lens than those without children. Overall, parents are more likely to identify a threat to their business travel today than non-parents (95% vs. 86%, respectively). They are more likely to say that health and safety concerns (48% vs. 37%) and international or local conflicts and tensions (37% vs. 27%) are among these threats. Parents are more likely than non-parents to say that the uncertain economy is affecting their company's business travel (90% vs. 79%). And 93% of parents plan to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business over the next 12 months, compared to 81% of non-parents.</p>
<p>To ensure their health and safety, parents are more likely than non-parents to expect their company to allow travel choices outside of company policy (94% vs. 82%), and they are more willing to decline a business trip if it doesn’t meet their expectations (94% vs. 85%). Their top reasons to justify booking outside of company policy—which parents are more likely to select than non-parents across the board—include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ensuring they feel safe when traveling to certain areas of the world (51% vs. 40%).</li>
<li>Supporting their ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance (50% vs. 40%).</li>
<li>Booking more sustainable travel options (39% vs. 30%).</li>
<li>Adding personal travel to their work trip (36% vs. 29%).</li>
<li>Booking for a conference (34% vs. 23%).</li>
<li>Having ideological or lifestyle differences with their travel destination (33% vs. 22%).</li>
</ul>
<p>Protecting their health and safety is imperative to this group, further underscored by the fact that three in five parents (62%) have changed their accommodations on a business trip in the past 12 months specifically because they felt unsafe, and one-third (34%) have done so more than once. In contrast, around one-third (36%) of non-parents have done so in the past 12 months, including 15% who have done so more than once.</p>
<p>It should be noted that just under a quarter of parents (23%) would decline a business trip due to challenges with finding childcare, suggesting that the majority have support systems at the ready or are determined to make a business trip happen, no matter what. Also, only 17% of responding parents feel they haven’t always had an equal opportunity to take business trips compared to co-workers due to their status as a parent or caregiver.</p>
<p>It is important that organizations consider these findings as they adjust their travel policies to accommodate the evolving needs of the workforce, including working parents and caregivers. Flexibility is crucial: The <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace">Women in the Workplace 2023</a> report, published by McKinsey and LeanIn.org, found that women and men rank workplace flexibility higher among employee benefits than parental leave and childcare.</p>
<p>For more information about the 2023 Global Business Travel Survey, including additional findings, please download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travelers_report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travel_managers_report">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB business traveler</a> whitepapers.</p>
<p><em>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by </em><a href="https://wakefieldresearch.com/"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 7-28, 2023, among 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Procurement Leaders Are Driving Digital Transformation: An SAP Concur Conversations Podcast with Amazon Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-procurement-leaders-are-driving-digital-transformation-sap-concur-conversations
2023-11-07T08:33:27Z
2023-11-06T09:25:21Z
Amazon Business joins us to explore how procurement leaders are leveraging the power of integrations to make their organizations more efficient, agile, and competitive than ever before.
<p>Procurement teams have long been tactical powerhouses, delivering functional value that keeps their organizations’ operations running smoothly and within budget. Now often aided by ever-growing digital capabilities, the role of procurement teams has expanded far beyond a tactical mandate to something far more strategic. Today’s procurement leaders are digital transformation evangelists, making strategic contributions to bottom-line decisions and driving smart business buying. With system integrations, they’re improving spend visibility and empowering business buyers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/procurements-gone-digital-smart-business-buying-journey-amazon-business">In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Satya Mishra, Director of Product Management at<a href="https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/streamline-procurement-process/integrations?=b2b_eng_3Pblog_US_all_ConcurPodblog"> Amazon Business,</a> speaks with Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, about the shift in procurement’s role from tactical to strategic, how today’s procurement teams are digital transformation evangelists, and the transformational power of integrations.</p>
<p>Below are highlights from their conversation, including how e-procurement — the process by which businesses purchase products and services from other businesses online — paired with systems integration reduces manual reconciliation, provides company-wide financial insights, and keeps business buyers happy.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/procurements-gone-digital-the-smart-business-buying/id1525744763?i=1000633353103">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JHpeZO7naFdWDf5Y8VVUm">Spotify,</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<h2>E-procurement accelerates smart business buying</h2>
<p>When systems talk to each other automatically, this seamless data sharing reduces manual reconciliation. Systems integration might mean, for instance, connecting your company’s procurement system to your expense systems and suppliers. For example, “If an employee purchases something on Amazon Business, instantly the purchase data flows into Concur,” Mishra says. “It gets auto-reconciled.” That’s one of the many benefits of combining e-procurement with systems integration when it comes to saving organizations time and money. “Integrations, or connected systems, can help them achieve that goal quicker in a quick and easy fashion,” Mishra says.</p>
<p>“Integrations are really empowering transformation across the organization,” Dion adds. “It’s not just a technology project. It is a game changer.” Having a procurement system in its own silo can create inefficient processes for collaborating teams. “If you can’t connect it to anything else, you really can’t deliver the type of transformation that you’re trying to deliver across the organization,” she says.</p>
<h2>Increased spend visibility can limit rogue purchasing</h2>
<p>One of the biggest benefits of system integration for businesses is increased spend visibility and implementing automated approval workflows. Procurement leaders are capitalizing on these benefits.</p>
<p>“They need to have better visibility into spending so that they can make better buying decisions,” Mishra says. “Doing this through online buying — having tools to have centralized spend, having tools to control spend — is going to open more opportunities for them to better save in cost and bring in more convenience and value, not only for themselves but their business buyers too.”</p>
<p>Company-wide, other teams like finance as well as the business buyers also benefit from improved spend visibility in multiple ways, including increased control over purchase tracking, more automated policy adherence, and deeper insights into past purchasing. “You want to make your spend converted to a managed spend where you have full control and visibility,” Mishra says.</p>
<p>“Business leaders, finance leaders, have better visibility into that data,” he adds. “They also have better visibility into the insights that it can provide for future purchase behavior. You are able to better manage that spend.” Moreover, easily accessible, ongoing access to data can prevent spend surprises down the line. “In finance, the last thing you want to be is surprised,” Mishra says.</p>
<h2>Make purchasing a satisfying employee experience</h2>
<p>Another example of the transformative power of procurement and expense management integrations is the streamlined buying experience for employees. Tools can guide business buyers, helping them to make selections that adhere to purchasing policies and facilitate getting their requests approved and delivered in a timely way.</p>
<p>Organizations can gain internal awareness of procurement policies and increase user satisfaction by educating employees in communications such as emails and intranet portals. Mishra recommends acknowledging employee support. “Make sure that if you have employees who are becoming champions in procurement, you reward them and bring their story in front of others, so that it encourages others also to follow the best practices,” Mishra says. “Proactively track the benefits and share the benefits with employees so that they know why this is important.”</p>
<p>Learn about the transformative power of procurement and expense management integrations and the benefits of smart business buying in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/procurements-gone-digital-smart-business-buying-journey-amazon-business">SAP Concur Conversations podcast.</a></p>
<h2>About Amazon Business</h2>
<p><a href="https://business.amazon.com/en/find-solutions/streamline-procurement-process/integrations?=b2b_eng_3Pblog_US_all_ConcurPodblog">Amazon Business </a>combines the selection, convenience, and value customers have come to know and love from Amazon, with unique benefits and integrations designed for businesses of all sizes. From purchasing professionals to occasional buyers, Amazon Business has hundreds of millions of items to help meet the needs of your organization.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Three Tips to Manage the End-Of-Year Expense Report Rush With Ease
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-tips-to-manage-end-year-expense-report-rush-with-ease
2023-11-17T09:00:00Z
2023-11-06T09:18:24Z
The end of the year doesn’t only mean season’s greetings, holiday shopping, and taking that much-needed vacation. For your finance team, year-end close and making sure invoices, purchase orders, and e
<p>The end of the year doesn’t only mean season’s greetings, holiday shopping, and taking that much-needed vacation. For your finance team, year-end close and making sure invoices, purchase orders, and expense reports are submitted, approved, and paid before ringing in the New Year can be anything but relaxing. </p>
<p>And while your employees not only been wrapping up gifts – but that last business trip of the year – they’re also working on submitting any leftover business expenses. According to our own customer data from 2022, the volume of expense reports in the month of December was 20% higher compared to the rest of the year. This influx in volume during what is already a busy time for finance and accounting can put added pressure on your staff. It can also increase the risk of late reimbursements to employees and your corporate card partners. </p>
<p>Luckily, there are some ways you can prepare your finance team for this influx of expense reports, so it doesn’t put you in a pickle come year-end close. </p>
<h2>3 Tips to Prepare for the Wave of Expenses: </h2>
<h3>Tip #1: Plan for this inevitably busy period. </h3>
<p>The first step to being prepared is to anticipate! Are any of your current processes underperforming? How long does it take on average to process a single expense report? Wow many approvers or auditors are involved in the process? How long does each step take to approve? </p>
<p>Identifying these metrics can help you formulate a game plan for handling the influx of expenses. It can also help the team to be better prepared, and ensure a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/importance-healthy-financial-process">healthier financial process</a> for the year ahead. </p>
<h3>Tip #2: Be clear about your expense policy. </h3>
<p>Make sure everyone knows when, where and how they need to submit their expenses. Send your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policy </a>around as a friendly reminder and don’t be afraid to set boundaries for cutoff dates. For example, request that employees don’t ‘sandbag’ their expenses as this behavior can affect cashflow and your visibility into employee spending. Need to give your policy a refresh before year-end? Check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/simple-4-step-expense-policy-refresh">4-Step Expense Policy Refresh</a>. </p>
<h3>Tip #3: Use automation to your advantage. </h3>
<p>Intelligent technology can help buoy your team’s processing time and efficiency and give you added visibility into your cashflow and forecast. It also works to reduce costly errors that you’ll have to correct in the New Year. </p>
<p>Enable employees on systems and the process before the rush so everyone can work quickly and effectively. </p>
<h2>Expense Payment Manager: A New Resolution for a Smoother Year Ahead </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp6eW_hgkmc">Expense Payment Manager</a> used with Concur Expense can help lift the load during the end-of-year rush and year-round. With Expense Payment Manager you can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Save time and money by automating payments to employees and corporate card partners – reducing errors, eliminating costly late fees, and freeing up finance and accounting team time. </li>
<li>Integrate the entire expense process from spend to reimbursement. You and your employees will have insight into when payments are going out the door and the finance team gains a more comprehensive view of spend. </li>
<li>Simplify global payment processes for your team with payments available in 25 currencies around the world and more freedom to choose the right payment partner for your business. </li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Making these changes now leads to a smoother year ahead. Make it your new year’s resolution to get your expense process into shape and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/payment-solutions">learn more.</a> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Six Best Practices for Managing CME Spend Management in Healthcare
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-best-practices-for-managing-cme-spend-management-in-healthcare
2023-11-13T10:37:32Z
2023-11-03T12:00:20Z
Without the right system and procedures in place, accurately tracking CME spend is a complicated process—from knowing what’s already been spent to ensuring the funds are used in an appropriate way. So
<p>Continuing Medical Education (CME) is critical to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">healthcare providers</a>—keeping them up to date on the latest medical advances and legally licensed to do their jobs. Although every organization allocates funds for these events and classes, managing CME travel and expense can be a painful experience. </p>
<p>Without the right system and procedures in place, accurately tracking ongoing CME spend is a complicated process—from knowing what’s already been spent to ensuring the funds are used in an appropriate way. Charting costs, managing compliance, and avoiding “surprise” reimbursement requests, can feel like a full-time job for many travel managers. </p>
<p>So how do you make CME travel and expense management easier and more efficient? Here are six ways to get started: </p>
<h2>1. Create a fair and sensible expense policy. </h2>
<p>It doesn’t have to be a long and complex document; just something that clearly explains what your organization considers a legitimate CME expense. For example: </p>
<ul>
<li>Are flights or meals for spouses covered? </li>
<li>Are there limitations on types of beverages approved? </li>
<li>What are the approved uses of the funds? </li>
</ul>
<p>Also, consider inviting healthcare providers to help participate in creating the policy. When employees can bring their own ideas–such as including parameters to utilize loyalty programs–your policy can go a long way when it comes to boosting satisfaction. Here’s an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policy builder</a> to help get you started. </p>
<h2>2. Put tools in place to make CME compliance easier. </h2>
<p>Since happier employees often results in more compliant spending, the easier you make it for busy physicians, nurses, and allied providers to book CME travel and spend within guidelines, the better success you will have. Here are some tools to help make CME spend compliance easier to manage: </p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> gives CME travelers the freedom to choose lower travel rates and make supplier direct bookings, without having to worry about being outside of their managed travel programs. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget</a> gives near to real-time visibility into what’s going on into each healthcare providers spend, so you can ensure there aren’t any surprises – such as being over-budget due to a miscalculation, misunderstanding, or potential fraud. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by Oversight</a> simplifies compliance by automatically reviewing healthcare provider expense and receipt data to increase visibility into spending, drive regulatory and policy compliance, and quickly detect fraud before it drains funds. </li>
</ol>
<h2>3. Send out regular CME budget balances. </h2>
<p>According to our customers, physicians can often accidentally exceed their organization’s amounted budget for CME expenses each year. To prevent this from happening, keep CME top of mind by sending out monthly or quarterly communications detailing each healthcare provider’s CME allocation, the amount spent, and the remaining balance—as well as a notification when he or she has depleted all funds. </p>
<p>This continual communication flow helps your providers better manage their budgets and avoid last-minute scrambles at the fiscal year-end. You can even automate notifications with Budget to alert employees and healthcare providers once they reach a specific threshold, that way you can make budget adjustments and head off issues before they occur. </p>
<h2>4. Create a CME audit plan to maintain insight and control. </h2>
<p>An audit plan will ensure that money is being spent accordingly to the pre-established budget and expense policy guidelines: </p>
<ul>
<li>Identify what you’re looking for and then respond to CME expenses that divert from the pre-established guidelines. </li>
<li>Look for a solution that offers both automating and human-based auditing services based on your established policies to ensure CME expenses are appropriate and within your guidelines (like not allowing charges for alcohol). </li>
<li>Determine whether you want the compliance reminders to be “hard” (“You are outside of CME expense guidelines.”) or “soft” (“When booking car rentals, remember that we get a significant discount with XYZ corporation.”). </li>
</ul>
<p>These services help guide employees along the expense process, ensuring compliance and control – all while removing the burden of oversight from you. </p>
<h2>5. Maintain visibility even when CME travel is booked outside of your travel system. </h2>
<p>One of the biggest challenges of CME travel is that many conferences require attendees to book through the event’s hotel website. In fact, the same SAP Concur healthcare customer survey showed an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/solving-the-challenges-of-cme-spend-management">average of 45%</a> of hotels booked for CME travel currently falls into the direct-bookings category. </p>
<p>To maintain visibility and control without restricting your CME travelers, implementing a tool like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>, can enable you to capture every flight, hotel, and ground transportation reservation – no matter where travel is booked. Plus, it helps your organization stay connected with travelers to serve duty of care obligations. </p>
<h2>6.Make filing CME expense reports easy for your providers. </h2>
<p>Your providers, like you, are busy people. So, it comes as no surprise that there’s often a lag time between the actual CME travel and when the expense report, receipts, and supporting paperwork make it to the processing system. </p>
<p>Offer mobile solutions that are simple to use and available on the go. When your expense system is on your staff member’s mobile phone, they can begin their expense report while attending a CME course. For example, with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/app-center/listing/nAxRIoe9KZZywRocH66NlgvrI/ExpenseIt-Pro-from-Concur">ExpenseIt</a>, they can take a picture of their receipt and have it automatically uploaded to SAP Concur solutions in a matter of seconds. This helps both your back-office staff and your providers save time, reduce errors, and reduce end-of-quarter bottlenecks. </p>
<h2>Solving the Challenges of CME Spend Management </h2>
<p>While CME expense reporting is only one part of the finance operations at healthcare facilities, it can be one of the most difficult to manage. Healthcare organizations following these tips are enjoying more accurate CME tracking and reducing the hassle often associated with CME travel management. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about the top challenges for healthcare finance teams when it comes to managing CME spend and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/solving-the-challenges-of-cme-spend-management">download our infographic</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
See How Your Business Stacks Up on Its T&E Performance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/see-how-your-business-stacks-up-on-its-te-performance
2023-11-15T09:00:00Z
2023-11-02T10:29:30Z
To address a business challenge often requires two things: Good data and perspective on how you’re doing. Our Travel and Expense Performance Benchmark Report delivers both, focusing on goals where top
<p>How long does it take to approve and pay an expense report at your company and what percentage of reports get rejected? How often do employees use corporate cards vs. more problematic spending by cash or personal credit card? Do you have visibility into what percentage of trips are booked through your travel solution, directly with suppliers, or by a travel management company? </p>
<p>With the right data and tools, you can put numbers to those and other questions and develop plans of action if the answers you receive don’t measure up. Our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-and-expense-performance-benchmark-report">Travel and Expense Performance Benchmark Report</a> provides both perspective and aspirations, as it details why metrics for key business goals are important and is based on data from the top 25% best-performing SAP Concur customers worldwide </p>
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<h5>Find Out How Your Business Measures Up </h5>
<p>The latest Travel and Expense Performance Benchmark Report, built on data from top-performing SAP Concur customers, helps you spot gaps in travel and spending processes and develop a plan to close them. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-and-expense-performance-benchmark-report">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>Making the report’s statistics even more relevant to each company, data is broken down by global regions and for businesses under 1,000 employees and those with 1,000 or more. The priorities of your business and how you’re doing in a given area will, of course, guide the emphasis you put on addressing specific goals. So will a close look at the statistics on how top-performing businesses do on each metric. The gaps you identify might fuel a shift in your strategy, which an array of our solutions can help execute. </p>
<h2>Goals Critical to Efficiency, Compliance, and Success </h2>
<p>Here are a few examples of goals to pursue: </p>
<p><strong>Take better control of spending</strong> at your business by increasing the use of corporate credit cards. By reducing the use of cash and personal credit cards, you’ll gain visibility and be less susceptible to accidental and intentional misuse. Another way to attack risk and waste is electronically capturing receipts and submitting expenses through a mobile app with advanced OCR technology such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a>, which cuts time, paperwork, and errors. </p>
<p><strong>Improve your view of spending</strong> with a travel solution that can collect bookings from a number of channels, including your corporate travel booking platform, travel management companies, and directly with suppliers. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> solutions can help you capture all booking itineraries wherever they happen. You can see where your dollars and employees are going and ensure their safety, too, as <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a> manages itineraries and delivers updates and safety information about destinations. </p>
<p><strong>Make audits more efficient </strong>by using intelligent solutions to increase the number of expense reports your company audits and improve the accuracy of submitted reports so that fewer are rejected. Your team will spend less time chasing paperwork. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">Verify</a> solution helps streamline processes and see spending better, while the <a href="https://www.concur.com/intelligent-audit">Intelligent Audit service</a> uses a team of auditors to improve compliance and spot possible fraud. </p>
<p><strong>Gain productivity all around</strong> with improved processes and technology that reduce manual tasks, paper chases, and other inefficient steps that eat time and money. Businesses that take a comprehensive approach see results they can measure, with expense reports and payments moving through their system more quickly. </p>
<h2>Your Next Steps </h2>
<p>Now that you’ve considered possible goals, gather your company’s pertinent numbers, sit down with the report, and then: </p>
<ul>
<li>Use the report’s worksheet to identify gaps between your business and top-performing peers. </li>
<li>Develop a plan of action for closing that gap, including policy and process changes and additional solutions and extensions that provide the tools. </li>
<li>Take your plan of action live, then measure and adjust. </li>
<li>Consult with members of your SAP Concur account teams to refine your data, assess your progress, and develop additional ways to improve. </li>
</ul>
<p>Get the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-and-expense-performance-benchmark-report">benchmark report</a> to start closing the gaps that hinder efficiency, productivity, spending visibility, and compliance with the help of SAP Concur solutions. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Automated Invoice Processing: A Game-Changer for Modern Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automated-invoice-processing-game-changer-for-modern-businesses
2023-12-11T07:24:08Z
2023-10-30T09:17:41Z
Unleash efficiency with automated invoice processing. Grasp its benefits and revolutionize your business workflow for top productivity.
<p>Invoice processing is a pivotal aspect of any organization, playing a crucial role in maintaining the efficient flow of financial transactions. But the daunting task of collecting, verifying, and managing information from diverse sources such as purchase orders and payment receipts can be a constant uphill battle. As businesses expand, the challenge of tracking invoices and ensuring proper reconciliation becomes even more overwhelming.</p>
<p>Thankfully, there is a better solution than the manual, paper-intensive, "old school" approach to this work: automated invoice processing.</p>
<h2>What is Automated Invoice Processing?</h2>
<p>Automated invoice processing uses specialized computer software to process invoices for a company's accounts payable (AP) department. Moreover, it facilitates instant updates of invoice data into the organization's larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.</p>
<h2>What Are the Benefits of Automated Invoice Processing?</h2>
<p>Automated invoice processing offers a host of advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>Time savings: It significantly reduces the time spent on invoice processing, enabling your team to focus on more critical tasks.</li>
<li>Paperless operation: Eliminating the need to find and store paper invoices contributes to a more efficient workflow.</li>
<li>Error minimization: By automating the process, human errors are minimized, increasing data accuracy and financial integrity.</li>
<li>Centralization and enhanced visibility: All invoices are centralized, offering increased visibility into the financial health of the business.</li>
</ul>
<p>Processing invoices is inarguably a critical task, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automating-invoice-process-to-get-answers-your-company-needs">playing a key role in maintaining the financial health of any business</a>. But the process of finding and storing paper invoices, processing them manually, and reconciling all available information takes up a great deal of time.</p>
<p>With automated invoice processing, however, all that changes. Not only are invoices processed quickly, but the results are far more accurate. Plus, it frees up the invaluable time of employees, so they can focus on more important meaningful work— like strategic or revenue-generating initiatives.</p>
<p>In addition to the time-consuming nature of manual invoice processing, each step in the process is another potential opportunity to introduce human error into the situation. Important documents can be lost or misplaced. Data can be entered incorrectly. Mistakes happen.</p>
<p>But with automated invoice processing that leverages machine learning, processing happens automatically and accurately via a predictable, repeatable process. Human error is minimized, while your employees’ time is maximized.</p>
<h2>How Automated Invoice Processing Works</h2>
<p>Automated invoice processing is made possible through many different techniques, from general AI (artificial intelligence) to the application of machine learning, neural language processing, and more.</p>
<p>Key values like bank account information or item numbers are extracted from an invoice, at which point it is then cross-referenced with data from sources like purchase orders, contracts, and the like. Other information might include addresses and other contact information, social security or tax identification numbers, and more. All data is present in a unified system, at which point even the approval process can be automated based on predefined workflow criteria that must be met to achieve a successful settlement.</p>
<h2>Your Path to Increasing Productivity Starts Here</h2>
<p>Automated AI invoice processing <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-most-every-ap-moment-automated-invoice-management">increases productivity</a> by significantly streamlining the invoice approval workflow.</p>
<p>For an average invoice to be approved, it must go through a series of lengthy steps. First, invoices must be matched against a purchase order. Any irregularities, like improper purchase order numbers, then need to be resolved.</p>
<p>That invoice then needs to be sent to a manager or other team leader for approval. Once granted, the business's ERP system will need to be updated to accurately reflect this. Only then can a payment then be issued to a vendor.</p>
<p>Automated invoice processing helps streamline this series of steps in almost every way. By reducing manual data entry, it virtually eliminates the types of time-</p>
<p>consuming errors most AP professionals are accustomed to dealing with. Invoice matching happens automatically, invoices are instantly routed to the right approvers, and the company's ERP is updated in an instant. Invoices can now be approved in a fraction of the time, or roughly an average improvement of about 90%.</p>
<h2>The Intricacies of Mobile Invoice Processing</h2>
<p>With mobile invoice processing, the same benefits can be achieved using the smartphones and tablets that employees are already comfortable using. They can accept and generate invoices in the field, or while they're working remotely.</p>
<p>All records are still centralized, creating a "single source of truth" for the business. The difference is invoice processing doesn't have to wait until that employee returns to the office — invoices can be easily submitted and processed almost as quickly.</p>
<h2>Integrating OCR Technology: What You Need to Know</h2>
<p>Another opportunity for simplifying invoice processing comes through OCR (optical character recognition) technology. OCR software can swiftly and accurately convert images into text, making critical data more accessible to accounting teams.</p>
<p>While OCR software can't necessarily produce an invoice on its own, it can be used to digitize existing invoices — even images of them — in a way that makes the data easily storable and searchable. It can also pull information from various sources like contracts and purchase orders in a way that makes generating accurate invoices simpler and faster.</p>
<p>Automated invoice processing, like automation in general, is not about replacing human employees with AI but empowering them to work more efficiently. By streamlining invoice approval workflows and reducing errors, it ensures the financial health of the business is well taken care of while freeing up employees' time for more meaningful tasks.</p>
<p>To learn more about how automated invoice processing can optimize your business operations, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/three-way-match">contact us today.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Key Steps for Successful Business Travel Planning
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/key-steps-for-successful-business-travel-planning
2023-12-11T08:24:21Z
2023-10-26T13:02:11Z
Dive into the essential steps of business travel planning, from complying with company policies and budgeting, to ensuring employee safety and achieving business goals.
<h1>Essential Steps for Successful Business Travel Planning </h1>
<p>Business travel planning covers every aspect for an employee's journey when they are on business trips. Planners need to ensure all aspects of each trip comply with company policies, fall within the travel budget, allow employees to achieve the goals of the trip, and account for travelers' safety and well-being. </p>
<p>As a travel manager oversees this process, you should understand the travel industry, price trends, and other fundamental factors. But the job also involves curating itineraries so that they fit with the goals of the trip and the unique needs of each traveler. This process requires researching destinations, assessing risk, and, sometimes, negotiating with service providers to get corporate rates when booking. </p>
<p>Here are the steps to take to meet all the requirements of business travel planning. </p>
<h2>How a business travel planner handles cost controls and productivity needs </h2>
<p>Cost control is an important factor in travel planning. Recent surveys about travel have found that companies are taking fewer business trips and creating strict guidelines for travel and spending. </p>
<p>You also have to balance the requirements of employees with cost-control policies. There is a link between <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-employee-engagement">employee engagement</a> and satisfaction with travel plans and arrangements. Employees who feel valued are likely to be more productive on the road. </p>
<p>This balancing act may require negotiating upgrades with vendors, finding low-cost perks, and learning the standards and preferences of each employee. </p>
<p>Travelers need access to the tools and systems necessary to remain productive. This can include items like in-room Wi-Fi, cell phone coverage, and transportation options for getting to appointments on time. </p>
<h2>Steps to Streamline the Business Travel Process </h2>
<p>Organizations can streamline the travel process and also make future trip plans easier. </p>
<h3>Steps to consider for organized business travel planning </h3>
<ul>
<li>Create a database of employees and include personal details needed to book travel, special requirements, and preferences. You can use these details instead of asking the employee again for each trip. </li>
<li>Make a business travel itinerary template and include all necessary details. This form ensures you do not miss any vital details and provide all necessary information about the trip. </li>
<li>Establish a system for employee feedback. A survey, post-trip debriefing, or informal meeting gives employees a chance to express needs and lets you know if your planning process and strategies are working. </li>
<li>Notify employees of travel policies and announce changes. This step educates employees about expectations for their trip. It also gives them the knowledge and understanding to comply with these policies. </li>
<li>Define a procedure for special travel requests. You can give employees specific steps to take to ask for accommodations that are outside of normal travel policies. </li>
<li>Build a checklist to assess itineraries for policy and budget compliance. You can compare each itinerary item and booking to ensure it meets travel policies and budget constraints. This step can also help keep standards consistent. </li>
</ul>
<p>You can also consider relying on software and applications to plan trips, manage bookings, and track travelers after they leave. </p>
<h3>Apps to help with travel business planning </h3>
<p>These apps can help you organize plans and add helpful details. </p>
<ul>
<li>FLIO is an app that provides information for navigating airports. You can use it to provide details to travelers, such as directions to car rental kiosks and the location of lounges with Wi-Fi access. </li>
<li>Clime provides detailed forecasts for destinations. It can help you tell travelers weather details and what to pack for their trip. The app can also notify you about potential weather problems, like hurricanes, in the destination. </li>
<li>Google Travel can help with the research phase of travel planning by allowing you to organize all necessary information in one place and bookmark it for easy reference. It's easy to share these insights with travelers, as well. </li>
<li>CityMapper can assist with trip planning outside of hotels, airlines, and car rentals. It allows you to decide how to get to different locations around the city and is useful for managing transport and helping travelers find alternatives if necessary. </li>
</ul>
<p>You can use these tools alongside SAP Concur, which manages expenses, centralizes booking and reservation data, and serves as the overall backbone of your travel planning process. </p>
<h2>Account for cultural differences while networking </h2>
<p>A business travel planner can help employees prepare for international trips by offering insights into their destination's culture. An understanding of culture and etiquette can help your team feel comfortable on their trip. Of course, many international businesspeople will not expect visitors to understand their cultural practices. However, preparing travelers for the host country's customs can set the stage for success and help them build rapport with local partners during the journey. </p>
<p>Preparations can include researching the destination's business culture practices and confirming your findings with people in that country or employees who went there before. </p>
<h2>Plan for delays, cancelations, and other unexpected events </h2>
<p>The unexpected can happen during business trips. 1-2% of flights get canceled, and 20-25% are delayed by more than 15 minutes. One such incident could throw off an entire itinerary, leaving the travelers scrambling to get back on schedule. </p>
<p>Business travel planning involves preparing for these situations. Contingencies can be helpful, and you should also always purchase travel insurance. These policies can include coverage for lost baggage and illnesses, as well. </p>
<p>Your travel policy should include a set of steps travelers can take if they encounter problems. You should give them information about who to contact, where to go, and resources they can use. </p>
<p>In almost all cases, a cloud-based travel management platform is invaluable for changing plans, sharing information, and staying in contact during crises. </p>
<h2>Use SAP Concur for travel planning </h2>
<p>As a business travel planner, you have to juggle many different tasks. <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> allows you to put the most important aspects of managing corporate travel, from budgeting to booking to expense tracking, on one platform. You can also <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/multi-channel-future-your-travel-program-ready">look to us to provide valuable insights</a> as you try to plan your management strategies in the evolving travel marketplace. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/">Visit us</a> to experience an interactive demo, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">connect with us</a> to learn more. </p>
SAP Concur Team
AI that Solves Business Problems, Retains a Human Focus
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-that-solves-business-problems-retains-human-focus
2023-11-02T09:00:00Z
2023-10-26T09:07:49Z
For nearly a decade, we have been infusing AI and machine learning into business solutions like ExpenseIt, Verify, and Invoice Capture. For us, technology is part of a commitment to innovation and mee
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) will be transformative for businesses, and that’s why SAP® Concur® has been working with and infusing the technology in our solutions for nearly a decade. </p>
<p>In a time of global instability, economic uncertainty, a tight labor market, and other uncertainties, solutions embedded with AI promise to make your business ready for change. Many finance leaders recognize the possibilities, with 82% telling us they hope AI makes business operations more efficient.1 </p>
<p>AI is part of our commitment to innovation and meeting the needs of businesses for efficiency, insights, and – in a competitive world – speed in operations and decisions. Our new whitepaper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/artificial-intelligence-for-business-ai-travel-expense-solutions">Artificial Intelligence, Real Solutions for Business,</a> explores how SAP Concur brings two distinct advantages – experience and a wealth of data – to filling those needs for businesses. And how throughout the effort, we will take an ethical approach. </p>
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<h5>Artificial Intelligence, Real Solutions </h5>
<p>Learn about where SAP Concur has been with AI, where our technology is headed, and how we always focus on solving business problems. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/artificial-intelligence-for-business-ai-travel-expense-solutions">Get the Whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p>Finance leaders see AI as a tool for resilience as well as improvement, with 62% calling it an essential tool for managing the unexpected.2 One statistic in our recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">CFO Insights: Why Finance is Ready for a Breakout Transformation with Artificial Intelligence</a> is unsettling but points to the extensive advances in efficiencies and insights companies could make: Just 11% of finance managers demonstrate digital competency.3 </p>
<p>“Finance leaders have a responsibility to help their organization and business understand how AI can be applied in ways that are truly impactful for employees, customers, and other stakeholders,” says John DiPlacido, CFO of SAP North America. </p>
<p>The SAP Concur team recognizes the power – and responsibility – of AI. “Only two other innovations during our lifetimes have been as transformative as AI’s large language models,” says Fred Fredericks, SAP Concur SVP, Chief Product Officer, and Head of Engineering. “The first is Google’s web search. The second is the iPhone, which put computing devices in our pockets.” </p>
<h2>Where AI and SAP Concur Are Heading </h2>
<p>Building on AI-infused solutions such as ExpenseIt® for travel and Verify for auditing expenses, we are developing ways to further incorporate AI into solutions. We draw on partnerships our parent SAP has developed with seven trusted large language models and work with other SAP units including Ariba and the SAP Business Technology Platform. </p>
<p>Atop the development list are solutions that would: </p>
<ul>
<li>Accurately estimate travel costs through a mix of AI, traveler data, company policy, and other sources. </li>
<li>More effectively itemize receipts from hotels and others through a combination of AI and optical character recognitions (OCR). </li>
<li>Make mobile expenses even easier by letting users, after photographing a receipt, tell the app to create an expense item and then tell it to make corrections as needed – without having to type and, with generative AI translating, in multiple languages. </li>
</ul>
<p>Gains in efficiency and speed come by moving tasks and information further upstream in the business process. AI can provide faster implementation and development – allowing solutions to be deployed in multiple languages and locations, for example, because the technology translates. </p>
<p>AI excels by poring through massive amounts of data – something SAP Concur has gathered safely and securely through work with many customers over many years. The data now provides insights that inform customer policy and decision-making, and that ability will accelerate. </p>
<p>“With AI-infused solutions, the system will advise them of the problem and say, ‘We can fix it right now – just click this button.’ This is where customers will start realizing the value of AI, and it will lead to a back office that practically manages itself,” says Tim Lebel, Vice President and Head of Spend Products at SAP Concur. We'll be able to provide customers insights before they even think about asking the question.” </p>
<h2>What Businesses Should Consider </h2>
<p>There’s much to learn about AI. Even developing a grasp of terms like machine learning, generative AI, large language models, neural networks, and more can take a while. While business leaders have many questions, they should ask this central one when considering AI and how their company could use it: Exactly what business problem are you trying to solve? </p>
<p>Finance leaders identify three core areas for transformation. One is to deliver personalization while enhancing finance incomes, such as using AI to offer flights, lodging, and other travel options according to a traveler’s preferences. Second is to build a technology infrastructure that not only enables a company to weathers disruption but allows employees to draw on AI’s predictive abilities to make better decisions. Third, a business should focus on opportunities that improve the employee experience, such as accelerating the financial close process and freeing employees for more engaging work. </p>
<p>In addition to financials, “Finance leaders must also consider the three underlying aspects of how a company runs: skill development, culture, and employee safety and well-being,” says Sinead Fitzmaurice, CEO of TransferMate Global Payments and CFO of Taxback.com </p>
<p>Guiding any conversation and strategy should be the realization that the technology, though leaping ahead, is still developing. It’s fallible, giving false answers at times. It is better at some tasks than others, like language and not always math. Surprisingly, it’s good with line items from receipts – who knew? (we did). </p>
<h2>Ethics and Customer Security </h2>
<p>With transformation comes concerns about what AI could do, from bias to job losses to machines overtaking humanity. We take seriously the balance between eliminating mundane tasks – one of the great advantages of intelligent technology – and ensuring humans continue to exercise the judgments they excel at. </p>
<p>Customers place their proprietary information and trust in SAP Concur, and we are guided by an ethical, human-centered approach. Oversight and deliberation are focuses of the ethical principles developed by SAP, the first European company to do so. Since then, SAP has released a global policy and an <a href="https://www.sap.com/documents/2023/03/7211ee96-647e-0010-bca6-c68f7e60039b.html">AI Ethics Handbook</a>. </p>
<p>“Automating processes that are repetitive and follow certain patterns and business rules is the easiest application of AI,” says Peter Habelitz, CFO of Cycas Hospitality. “The next step is using the technology to analyze data and make predictions such as profit-and-loss variations – which will always require a human touch to detect and address exceptions.” </p>
<h2>Expand Your Knowledge </h2>
<ul>
<li>Get the whitepaper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/artificial-intelligence-for-business-ai-travel-expense-solutions">Artificial Intelligence, Real Solutions</a>, to learn more about how SAP Concur is infusing businesses solutions with AI, leveraging experience and data to make businesses run better and be ready for change. </li>
<li>Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">CFO Insights: Why Finance Ready for a Breakout Transformative with AI</a> to find out how finance leaders expect AI to enable greater efficiency, savings, and compliance at their businesses. </li>
</ul>
<h6>1, 2. CFO Insights Report: A New Role In Managing Uncertainty, SAP Concur, 2023, October <br />
3. Gartner Says Lack of Digital Skills Among CFOs Key Obstacle to Autonomous Finance,” Gartner, March 29, 2023</h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
New Report Explores the Changing Role and Responsibilities of the CFO
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-report-explores-changing-role-and-responsibilities-cfo
2023-10-26T09:06:24Z
2023-10-26T09:02:05Z
The CFO role continues to evolve to match the changing needs of organizations. SAP Concur recently surveyed 220 finance leaders from seven markets to better understand the current challenges, opportun
<p>The CFO role continues to evolve to match the changing needs of organizations. With responsibilities that traditionally centered around the financial health of a company, the CFO now plugs in to employee experience, sustainability efforts, transformation through technology, and more—previously, responsibilities held exclusively by other C-level executives. Today, the CFO partners with colleagues in the C-suite, like the CHRO, to ensure each facet of the organization runs smoothly. </p>
<p>SAP Concur recently surveyed 220 finance leaders from seven markets to better understand the current challenges, opportunities, and evolving responsibilities that their role now encompasses. Key findings from the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">report</a>, released today, include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Four out of five top external business challenges—from the perspective of the finance leader—relate to global economic turmoil. Geopolitical tensions, worsening financial conditions, rising costs of capital, and increasing operating expenses all make the list, with regulatory compliance rounding out the top five. </li>
<li>In response to the uncertainty, CFOs say they are adapting by increasing monitoring of market conditions (57%) and investing in innovation (40%) and cutting-edge technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence (33%). Fifty-five percent of CFOs are investing in data analytics and reporting tools right now. </li>
<li>Many CFOs are wary of artificial intelligence: 68% believe it threatens their own position. However, they also acknowledge its benefits to organizational efficiency, as 82% believe it will make business operations leaner. </li>
<li>Only 11% of finance leaders included climate change among their top three external challenges—likely impacted by the current economic landscape. Interestingly, they report feeling the greatest pressure to operate sustainably from investors, not their customers, government, employees, or regulators. </li>
<li>CFOs at mid-size companies face unique challenges. Nearly twice as many mid-size firms are tightening budgets compared to larger companies. Only 16% of CFOs at mid-size organizations say they are investing in cutting-edge technology, versus 42% at large firms. And 42% of finance leaders at mid-size companies say their forecasting is hindered by their lack of analytics capabilities. </li>
<li>As noted previously, CFOs are finding themselves working more closely with other C-level executives. Eighty percent of survey respondents believe they must work more effectively with HR heads, and 87% say the crossover between finance and HR is more significant than ever. </li>
</ul>
<p>For more information, download the full report, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/cfo-insights-report-new-role-managing-uncertainty">CFO Insights Report: A New Role in Managing Uncertainty</a>.” </p>
<p><em>The SAP Concur CFO Insights survey was conducted via phone to web survey by <a href="https://www.alan-agency.com/">alan.</a> between July 28 – August 18, 2023, among 220 finance professionals in organizations with a headcount of >500 in 7 markets: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Mexico, UK, and U.S. </em></p>
Christopher Juneau
A Buyer’s Guide to Choosing a T&E Solution for Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/buyers-guide-to-choosing-te-solution-for-your-business
2023-11-17T09:00:00Z
2023-10-24T11:37:37Z
Your company is undoubtedly not alone in pursuit of efficiency, productivity, insights, and better ways to do business. And, amid many unknowns, making the business ready for change – good or bad – is
<p>Your company is undoubtedly not alone in pursuit of efficiency, productivity, compliance, insights, resilience, and better ways to do business. And, amid many unknowns, making the business ready for change – good or bad – is critical.</p>
<p>Many finance and IT leaders see travel and expense management and solutions as a good place to more fully realize the benefits of streamlined and automated processes, including advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Nearly 4 in 5 decision-makers – 78% – say they’d like a single solution to handle their entire T&E process.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>Deciding that the lack of integration, information, and efficient workflows might be holding the business back is a natural conclusion, but it brings you to another challenging step: Selecting a T&E management solution that fits your needs, delivers promised benefits, and is easily implemented and adopted.</p>
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<p><strong>Selecting a T&E Solution That’s Ready for Change</strong></p>
<p>Read the travel and expense solution buyer’s guide for help choosing a system that’s right for your company today and in a future packed with unknowns.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<p>Our guide, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution"><strong>How to Choose the Right Travel and Expense Solution</strong></a>, is designed to help you research and evaluate options on a T&E journey. It discusses the benefits of intelligent, automated solutions, covers features a company should expect, and provides key questions to ask of providers.</p>
<h2><strong>How a Business Benefits</strong></h2>
<p>An easy-to-use, intelligent T&E solution delivers greater compliance and other improvements across the business, allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks.</p>
<p><strong>Employees</strong> can book trips and submit expenses on the go while receiving in-app guidance that steers them to compliance.</p>
<p><strong>Managers </strong>see trip and spending information in one place, providing pre-approvals before dollars go out the door.</p>
<p><strong>Finance teams</strong> obtain a fuller picture of spending and cashflow, enabling faster decisions and adjustments as business requires.</p>
<p><strong>IT teams</strong> can more readily unify data across different solutions and the business.</p>
<h2><strong>Features to Look For</strong></h2>
<p>A comprehensive, seamless solution can help improve spending visibility, boost efficiency of processes, clarify policies, and reduce user frustration.</p>
<p>Among the features the solution and the vendor should provide are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Support for integration with ERP, AP, HR, and other systems that help run your business. It should also include an array of partner solutions and services, from ride sharing to sustainability.</li>
<li>Data security that features the latest protocols and fraud-finding capabilities.</li>
<li>Intelligent automation, including AI and machine learning that provide real-time streaming data to ensure compliance and supply insights.</li>
<li>Advanced payment methods so you can eliminate paper-based manual processes and cut the time spent processing reimbursements.</li>
<li>Analytics that support advanced reporting and dashboards, so managers can track travel, spending, and sustainability measures.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Key Questions to Ask</strong></h2>
<p>With a better idea of what T&E management solutions should provide – and how that fits your company’s needs – you can start asking key questions to help narrow the list of possible providers.</p>
<p>Questions such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>How do you capture receipts and turn them into entries on an expense report? (and does that involve and machine learning)?</li>
<li>Can expense reports be submitted, reviewed, and approved on the go from any device?</li>
<li>Can it capture outside travel bookings?</li>
<li>How much time does the solution take to implement?</li>
<li>Will it evolve and grow with employee travel needs and preferences, including sustainability?</li>
<li>What does your regular support entail and can we get extra help with some complex issues, because I know we’ll have them?</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>SAP Concur as Your T&E Platform</strong></h2>
<p>With SAP® Concur® solutions, a company can integrate its travel and expense processes and technology into a single platform. Organizations receive a near real-time view of spending that fosters compliance, better decisions, and the ability to scale and adapt policies and processes as priorities and the business environment shift. Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution"><strong>Buyer’s Guide</strong></a><strong> </strong>to learn more about how a platform ready for anything can make a business ready for change. </p>
<h6><!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <em>Empower the Future of Work with Intelligent Travel and Expense Solutions</em>, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur, May 2023</h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
AP Teams Can Help Drive Efficiency, Profits, and Resilience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ap-teams-can-help-drive-efficiency-profits-and-resilience
2023-11-01T09:00:00Z
2023-10-24T11:32:15Z
Even well-crafted spending plans shouldn’t be set in stone. Amid economic uncertainty, global instability, and changes in where and how we work, clay is more like it. That’s because a business must be
<p>Even well-crafted spending plans shouldn’t be set in stone. Amid economic uncertainty, global instability, and changes in where and how we work, clay is more like it. That’s because a business must be ready to remake their spending and their plans as conditions and priorities demand – and accounts payable must be equipped to play a key role.</p>
<p>By automating the technology and processes, AP team uses can help reduce out-of-policy spending and risk, increase visibility into spending, boost productivity, and contribute to profitability instead of being seen as a drain. They are benefits that also can increase the agility and resilience of a business and make it ready for change – and change seems one of the few certainties a company can count on.</p>
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<p><strong>Make AP Ready for Anything</strong></p>
<p>Our new whitepaper examines ways that intelligent automation and processes can make accounts payable departments more productive, efficient, and profitable.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/4-ways-improve-accounts-payable-adaptability-and-prepare-unpredictability">Get it here</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>What Automation Delivers</strong></h2>
<p>An automated solution handles the AP process from purchase order to invoice to approval and finally to payment. By reducing manual tasks, the solution eliminates a paper-based process that’s costly, slow, and prone to mistakes and fraud. The AP team can then focus tasks that add value – such as finding savings – instead of chasing invoices</p>
<p>With the ability to see and manage invoices in one place, the AP team can follow up on invoices that the AI-infused solution flags as potential duplicates or fakes. The same AI tools can check for compliance with your spending policies and help satisfy tax and regulatory compliance. Overall, the team and the company can spot problems and stop non-compliant spending before it occurs.</p>
<p>Automation delivers noticeable gains in productivity, as AP teams using automation and consistent workflows process twice as many invoices per FTE.<sup>1 </sup>Employees and managers across the company benefit as well, as mobile tools allow submittals and approval of purchase requests, invoices, and payments on the go.</p>
<h2><strong>How Visibility and Insights Grow</strong></h2>
<p>Through automation, your company can capture invoices in all the ways they come – via the post office, in email, by fax. Through credit card and purchase card feeds, it catches additional receipts and invoices. Dashboards and reporting tools informed by real-time data help the AP team identify employees with consistent out-of-policy spending and managers slow to sign off on approvals.</p>
<p>With a clearer and more timely view of spending and a greater ability to spot problems, AP has the power to manage cash flow better and make better decisions. And the company and its spending are more flexible because it knows where its money is at and where it could be better spent.</p>
<h2><strong>What Specifically Should I Look For?</strong></h2>
<p>The solution should use conditions you define – dollar thresholds, exceptions, and more – to make sure that your process is followed, and that data goes to the ERP quickly. It should also automate the payment process and help you earn early payment discounts and avoid late fees.</p>
<p>The system should also automatically perform three-way matching and use a mix of technology – including AI – and human verification to review invoices down to the line item. It should have reporting tools that track invoice aging and accrual, see spending by vendor, and find unsubmitted invoices. The solution, of course, should easily connect with ERP or accounting systems, adapt to new payment methods, and scale with your business.</p>
<h2><strong>Resources to Improve Your AP</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/4-ways-improve-accounts-payable-adaptability-and-prepare-unpredictability"><strong>whitepaper</strong></a><strong> </strong>to find out more about how an AP department can reduce non-compliant spending and risk, increase efficiency and visibility, contribute to profitability, and boost productivity.</li>
<li>Get our automation checklist, <strong>The Best Invoice Management Choice</strong>, to see how Concur Invoice can improve processes and efficiency and make your business more adaptable and resilient.</li>
</ul>
<h6><!--[if !supportLists]-->1. Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM), World-Class AP Performance: Effectiveness Benchmarking Performance, 2021</h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The New Challenges of Tax Compliance Management and How to Overcome Them
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-challenges-tax-compliance-management-and-how-to-overcome-them
2023-11-03T09:00:00Z
2023-10-24T10:50:05Z
"Employee benefits have come a long way from the days of life insurance, a two-week paid vacation, and, if you were lucky, casual Fridays. Today, human resources departments are getting creative with
<p>Employee benefits have come a long way from the days of life insurance, a two-week paid vacation, and, if you were lucky, casual Fridays. Today, human resources departments are getting creative with benefits and employee perks to attract and retain top talent. </p>
<p>From gym memberships and massages to home-office Wi-Fi and food delivery, these pumped-up packages are increasing employee loyalty and retention — and making life a lot more challenging for corporate tax managers. </p>
<p>Whereas benefits like car allowances and health care are taxed through payroll, and are fairly simple to track and manage, many of these new benefits are employee purchases, coming through on expense reports. That not only makes these taxable expenditures difficult to identify without a line-by-line review, but, also requires knowledge of tax laws that govern the state and countries where the employees making the purchase live and work. A task made more challenging in today’s hybrid, remote, and work-from-anywhere models. </p>
<h2>Navigating the Gray Areas </h2>
<p>While there are federal guidelines on what’s taxable and what’s not, some states have additional regulations on top of federal mandates. Corporate tax managers are now responsible for knowing where employees are based, whether that gives your organization a taxable presence in those locales, and what those tax requirements are. </p>
<p>There are also a lot of gray areas. Even seemingly straightforward scenarios, such as employee parking expenses, reveal the intricacies tax managers face. For example, if you have a $5 charge at your office building’s parking garage, and you give your employees $5 to cover that cost, that’s not a taxable benefit. But if your employee pays $5 to park at the train station for their daily commute to your office, and you provide $5 to that employee, that $5 is a taxable benefit. </p>
<p>Yet, on an expense report, both would be categorized under “parking.” </p>
<p>This is just one of many examples of the nuances of taxable vs non-taxable employee benefits. </p>
<h2>Combatting the VAT Dilemma </h2>
<p>Tax managers in global organizations must also navigate rapidly changing value-added tax (VAT) regulations — the European Union’s consumption tax — for employee purchases. For the most part, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hidden-potential-vat-reclaim">VAT expenses</a> occur when goods or services are purchased explicitly for business purposes. The challenges come when those goods and services can also benefit the employee’s personal life — like Wi-Fi or a cell phone, or any other of those items that straddle that ever-blurring line of demarcation. </p>
<p>Yet despite the complexity, most organizations are still trying to manage VAT and employee benefits tax compliance manually — a practice that is not only inefficient and error-prone, but also puts the company at greater risk. </p>
<p>The problem is, while you haven’t automated, the tax authorities have. </p>
<p>In recent years, these authorities, like other government agencies, have digitally transformed their operations, investing in technology to streamline their compliance and audit functions. </p>
<p>That means they now have greater visibility and oversight, and a simpler way to share their findings with other jurisdictions. All of which make it harder to fly under the radar. </p>
<p>Organizations need a way to stay one step ahead, or be liable to hefty fines, increased government scrutiny, and reputational risk. </p>
<h2>Making Tax Management Less Taxing with Automation </h2>
<p>Employee benefits and business models will never go back to the way they were. In an environment where the workforce remains decentralized, and employees independently make taxable purchases, manual tax management is no longer sustainable. </p>
<p>If your organization is still processing expenses manually, that’s problem one. Having a digital expense management system with audit rules and end-to-end visibility is critical to not only tax management but overall fiscal management. </p>
<p>With an automated solution in place, organizations are positioned to add tax management tools that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate employee benefits and VAT compliance. The technology essentially “reads” the expense report, creating contextual meaning from receipt data to accurately identify, track, and calculate taxable spend. </p>
<p>Instead of continually updating spreadsheets with federal, state, and global compliance rules, the solution makes these updates automatically. Instead of culling through expense reports, you can monitor progress through a custom dashboard that segments the tax liability by category, provides detailed audit trails, and offers the insight you need to analyze what’s happening in your organization. </p>
<h2>Making Tax Management Everybody’s Business </h2>
<p>Tax management is no longer an isolated function, but a collaborative effort involving multiple stakeholders. Take these three steps to enhance your organizational readiness: </p>
<p><u>1. Partner with Your Benefits Team </u></p>
<p>The benefits team has to understand the tax ramifications for every benefit they propose, before it’s approved and announced. How many employees will or can take advantage of it? Where are they located? How will the benefit be claimed — through the benefits department, a regional office, or via expense report? </p>
<p>Define a process for vetting current and proposed benefits, and a regular review process as tax laws change. </p>
<p><u>2. Work with Executive Leadership to More Clearly Define Your Policies </u></p>
<p>If you provide an employee benefit, incentive, or gift for a specific achievement or job well done, who will be responsible for the taxes? If the company reimburses a remote worker for the purchase of a desk, a chair, and a lamp, is that company property, or the employee’s property? If it’s company property, what happens when that employee leaves? </p>
<p>Work with executive leadership to answer these questions and clearly define corporate policies and processes for managing these types of expenditures. </p>
<p><u>3. Educate Your Managers and Supervisors </u></p>
<p>Rewarding a job well done with a gift card to a favorite retailer or season tickets to a sporting event can be a great motivator — that is, until you realize that those gifts are considered taxable income by the IRS. So, those gifts must be tracked, and reported on the employee’s W-2, just like their annual pay. </p>
<p>All of a sudden, those gifts aren’t quite so motivating, after all. </p>
<p>It is imperative to educate your managers and supervisors on the difference between taxable or non-taxable employee gifts, and how to report these to payroll. Consider developing an approved list of gift types, or a mechanism for vetting and approving prior to purchase. That way your employees can get the rewards they deserve, without any unpleasant surprises. </p>
<p>By educating stakeholders and putting the tools and technology in place for automated tax compliance management, tax managers can protect their companies from risk, improve oversight, and better adapt to a new business environment. </p>
<p>For more information on how you can get ahead of changing tax requirements, read our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-reduce-risk-and-manage-tax-compliance-work-anywhere-world">whitepaper</a> and listen to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/viable-vat-verifying-ins-and-outs-domestic-and-foreign-tax-compliance-blue-dot">podcast.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Change is Constant. Here’s How Your Business Can Get Ready
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/change-is-constant-heres-how-your-business-can-get-ready
2023-11-07T09:00:00Z
2023-10-23T10:49:59Z
Economic uncertainty and armed conflicts. AI provides leaps in opportunities and efficiencies. 90% of CFOs believe that their top task is preparing for the unexpected. Is your business will be ready t
<p>Economic uncertainty and armed conflicts. A pandemic accelerates remote and hybrid work while shattering some markets and opening others. Artificial intelligence provides leaps in opportunities and efficiencies. Sales rise and fall, taking budgets with them and altering even the best-laid plans. The list goes on, with some scenarios imaginable and others beyond what businesses can envision.</p>
<p>Finance leaders recognize the need to pivot, with 90% of CFOs agreeing or strongly agreeing their top task is preparing for the unexpected.<sup>1</sup> So the question isn’t whether the ground will shift under your business. The question is whether your business will be ready to shift with it. But whether change is seen coming or not, companies can be ready with the right tools and a strategy to increase flexibility and resilience as the next calendar year or fiscal year approaches.</p>
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<p><strong>4 Ways to Future-Proof Your Business</strong></p>
<p>Read our new whitepaper for steps on mastering cash flow and compliance, strengthening visibility and analytics, adapting processes and policies, and boosting productivity and employee experience.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/be-ready-four-ways-future-proof-your-business">Get it here</a></div>
</div>
<p>The benefits of greater spend visibility, efficiency, control, and compliance apply not just in crises but in good times, like having the ability to scale up when new markets open, sales zoom, and the team expands in number or location. They apply to areas of your business beyond travel and expense, but T&E provides a particularly good example because it touches so much of a company’s operations.</p>
<h2><strong>Using a Single Platform</strong></h2>
<p>One cloud-based platform for travel, expense, and invoice safely and securely connects data, your finance team, and employees across departments and locations. The integration with ERPs and other finance systems also helps you cut down on silos of technology and decision-making.</p>
<p>When you have a single streamlined and automated system, data moves back and forth easily. Company policies are embedded and communicated to employees, guiding them to preferred choices and stopping non-compliant spending before it takes place. Because policies are built-in, they can adjust as conditions change.</p>
<p>The automated platform, backed up with compliance-protecting AI, brings you digital control and confidence to your two big sources of spending – travel and expense-, so you can make sure that – no matter what happens – all your spending is quality spending.</p>
<h2><strong>Gaining Visibility and Insights</strong></h2>
<p>Poor visibility into employee spending stymies decisions and flexibility, and about 6 in 10 decision-makers say their finance leaders lack a transparent view.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p>Advanced analytics allow you to examine all your data to ensure spending is on track or to accommodate new priorities. Strong reporting tools and standard and customizable dashboards make the data understandable, easing the complexity of budgeting and forecasting. And with intelligent solutions providing more accurate data, managing tax compliance is easier. Human expertise adds to the power by helping refine data and adjust policies and processes.</p>
<p>Together, technology, people, and processes deliver insights and resilience. Read our solution guide, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/how-build-more-resilient-business-and-adaptable-te-program"><strong>How to Build a More Resilient Business and Adaptable T&E Program</strong>,</a> to further explore how the combination can make your company ready for change.</p>
<h2><strong>Improving the Employee Experience</strong></h2>
<p>Better solutions and processes simplify work and reduce frustration. Manual tasks are replaced by more engaging work for employees. Virtual assistants lead them through workflows and to compliance.</p>
<p>Providing tools such as mobile apps empower employees on-the-go and remote work. When essential tasks like managing receipts and expense reports become less of a chore, your team’s satisfaction is likely to increase. And along with increasing productivity, that might make keeping and hiring talent less disruptive.</p>
<p>Employees nowadays have concerns about well-being and sustainability. When booking a business trip, provide a solution that highlights greener choices or information about the neighborhood safety score to help them make a better decision. It’s every leader’s job to make the employee experience as good as it can be. With the right solution, you can make sure your ever-changing workforce feels satisfied and supported.</p>
<h2><strong>Finally, Measure Progress</strong></h2>
<p>Once you’ve developed a strategy for resilience, look to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-and-expense-performance-benchmark-report"><strong>Travel and Expense Benchmark Report</strong></a><strong> </strong>to see how your business stacks up with top-performing SAP Customers around the world on goals involving spending compliance, visibility, employee safety, efficiency, and productivity. With your company’s own performance numbers in hand, you will have a baseline to track your progress and target improvements.</p>
<h6>1.SAP Concur CFO Pulse Survey, 2023<!--[if !supportLists]--><br />
2.Empower the Future of Work with Intelligent Travel and Expense Solutions, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur, May 2023</h6>
SAP Concur Team
The CFO’s New Role in Managing Uncertainty
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cfos-new-role-in-managing-uncertainty
2023-10-24T10:42:00Z
2023-10-23T10:13:14Z
Even well-crafted spending plans shouldn’t be set in stone. Amid economic uncertainty, global instability, and changes in where and how we work, clay is more like it. That’s because a business must be
<p>In the face of economic uncertainty and confusion, companies are looking to their financial leaders to help make sense of the chaos. According to SAP Concur research, nine in 10 CFOs agree that their key task today is to prepare business for the unexpected. This will push savvy CFOs to higher standing as they help steer the organization through economic turmoil toward a more stable, sustainable future. </p>
<p>These and more research findings will be published in the upcoming SAP Concur report, “CFO Insights Report: A New Role in Managing Uncertainty.” </p>
<p>The report looks at how growing uncertainty has pushed CFOs to focus on forecasting and risk management. The findings provide a wealth of ideas and insights to help tackle the challenges this evolving “chief uncertainty manager” role brings—and grasp the opportunities. </p>
<p>Topics addressed include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Investments in analytics and artificial intelligence to help improve forecasting, risk management, and strategic decision-making. </li>
<li>Pressures to report on sustainability, and what stakeholders are holding the organization most accountable from the CFO perspective. </li>
<li>The unique challenges faced by mid-size organizations and how their CFOs are responding. </li>
<li>The evolving relationship between CFOs and other members of the C-suite, particularly CHROs, with comments and insights from Megan Smith, head of HR for SAP North America. </li>
</ul>
<p>To best fulfill their responsibilities as the unofficial chief uncertainty manager, CFOs need a range of new technologies, skills, and capabilities. If they act quickly, they will fill a critical role in today’s organization—and reap the benefits well into the future. </p>
<p>Stay tuned for our new report, “CFO Insights Report: A New Role in Managing Uncertainty,” publishing on Thursday, October 26. </p>
Christopher Juneau
SAP Ranks No. 1 in 2022 Market Share for Travel and Expense Management Software
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-ranks-no-1-in-2022-market-share-for-travel-and-expense-management-software
2023-10-20T09:00:00Z
2023-10-19T12:59:43Z
SAP has maintained its #1 ranking in market share for Travel and Expense Management Software according to IDC Market Share: Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2022: Evolv
<p>SAP Concur is pleased to announce that SAP has maintained its #1 ranking in market share for Travel and Expense Management Software according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-and-expense-management-software-market-shares-2022">IDC Market Share: Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2022: Evolving Travel Models Pushing Digital Transformation</a>. In addition to holding 49.4% of market share, the IDC report found that travel and expense from SAP generated $1.281 billion in revenue and 16.3% year-over-year growth in 2022. </p>
<p>This annual IDC forecast report publishes the competitive market for travel and expense management software and considers the trends, mergers and acquisitions, and significant market developments that shaped business travel and expense over the past year. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">2023 Global Business Travel Survey</a>, over two-thirds (67%) of global business travelers are very willing to travel for work in the next 12 months, an increase of 12 percentage points over last year. Additionally, as addressed in the IDC report, the U.S. Bureau of Transportation reported that the number of passengers on U.S. airlines increased 30% between 2021 and 2022. Factors contributing to this rebound in travel—both business and leisure—include growing numbers of digital nomads, additional blended travel, and the normalcy of remote working. To best support employees, a company’s travel and expense solutions and policies must anticipate these trends as well as increasing interest in artificial intelligence, sustainability, integration, virtual cards, and more. </p>
<p>"Every business is a people business and providing flexibility in how your employees can work and </p>
<p>travel makes you better able to keep top performers and makes your business more attractive to top-tier talent,” said Kevin Permenter, research director, Financial Applications at IDC. “For companies looking to provide a high-level employee experience, upgrading to a model travel and expense solution is a must." </p>
<p>SAP is proud to be among the companies and solutions included within this report. SAP Concur gives businesses the power to automate, connect, and simplify their travel and expense processes with an integrated, intelligent portfolio of solutions, including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>. </p>
<p>Learn more about the travel and expense software landscape by downloading <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-and-expense-management-software-market-shares-2022">this excerpt</a> from the IDC study, Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2022: Evolving Travel Models Pushing Digital Transformation. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Making Sure How You Spend Matches Your Business Growth Priorities
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-sure-how-you-spend-matches-your-business-growth-priorities
2023-11-01T09:00:00Z
2023-10-19T12:50:26Z
Every business wants to grow, but you might grow right into trouble if you don’t plan for how spending will change.
<p>Every business wants to grow, but you might grow right into trouble if you don’t plan for how spending will change.</p>
<p>As your business grows or shifts, it’s likely spending will increase and decentralize, invoices proliferate, different markets develop, and workflows deviate across locations. But whether growth has already happened or is expected to occur, the risks expand along with your business.</p>
<p>Our new eBook helps answer a big, overarching question – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/does-your-business-spending-match-realities-business">Does Your Business Spending Match the Realities of Business? </a>From invoices to tax requirements to policies, workflows, and analytics, we examine different scenarios your business may face as it expands or grows, as well as how SAP Concur solutions can help ease “growing pains“ through increased spend visibility, efficiency, consistency, and confidence.</p>
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<h5>Ease the “Growing Pains” of Business with Finance Automation</h5>
<p>Read the eBook to help determine whether your spending processes, policies, and solutions reflect the realities of your business.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/does-your-business-spending-match-realities-business">Download Here</a></div>
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<h2>Can our accounts payable team handle all those invoices?</h2>
<p>Risks of error, fraud, and an exhausted AP team rise when the number of invoices grow. Intelligent automation bring scale to vendor invoice management processes, capturing invoices in emails and other channels, lowering the dangers and finance team workload.</p>
<h2>Are we spending well as we spend more?</h2>
<p>As budgets expand, more people are making spending decisions, making costs harder to corral. An automated expense process can make spending rules easier to understand and follow.</p>
<h2>Is our express process ready for market expansion?</h2>
<p>When you start doing business in new states, countries, or markets, you contend with new taxes and regulations. The right expense management solution can provide the right tools, expertise, and experience to adapt.</p>
<h2>How can we make our expense process consistent across locations?</h2>
<p>As a business evolves, complexity and work for employees increases. Consistency can falter, with different locations following different expense processes and policies. The right automated expense solution can bring both consistency and flexibility.</p>
<h2>As our spending spreads out, how can we analyze it all?</h2>
<p>Where once you could see all the dollars, it’s harder to get an accurate spending picture as your company grows and becomes more decentralized. With the right reports and dashboards, you can see where your spending is at and have the insights to make better decisions.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/does-your-business-spending-match-realities-business">eBook </a>to learn how intelligent finance technology can help support different growth scenarios to ensure that, as your business grows and changes, you can keep up with the new realities of business spending.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Sources of Insight and Inspiration: Books and Podcasts We Love
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sources-insight-and-inspiration-books-and-podcasts-we-love
2023-10-30T09:00:00Z
2023-10-19T12:39:55Z
Just as SAP Concur knows travel and expense solutions, members of our team and our customer community of professionals know good books and podcasts when they read and hear them.
<p> </p>
<p>Just as SAP Concur knows travel and expense solutions, members of our team and our customer community of professionals know good books and podcasts when they read and hear them. The kind you share with friends because they are enlightening, entertaining, or energizing. </p>
<p>So here’s our current list full of recommendations by team members working in a wide variety of roles at SAP Concur and member from our customer community. And though nobody knows travel and spending like we do, the topics range well beyond business and management (there’s several of those, too). </p>
<p>You’ll find podcasts on motivation and money. You’ll see books new and old, some fiction and much nonfiction, some classics and some newer. There’s advice from Barbara Bush, Stephen Covey, Dr. Becky Kennedy, and Dr. Seuss – oh, the places you’ll go! There are tales of swashbuckling adventure and ill-fated explorers. The founders of Nike and Pixar and a podcaster and one-time monk share memories and lessons learned. Books and podcasts on customer service, productivity, vision alignment, and parenting deliver insights readers can use in the office as well as their personal lives. </p>
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<h5>This Year's Reading and Listening List</h5>
<p>Barbara Bush’s advice, Dan Simmons’ historical thriller, and the parenting and life tips from Dr. Becky Kennedy are just a few of our 15 recommendations. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">Get the Full List</a></div>
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<p>Our team members and community of customer professionals use words like hope, perseverance, practical, authentic, wisdom, grit, hope, humility, failure, purposeful, and patience to describe why these books and podcasts resonated. Read on for their takes on the three entries atop the list. And then, in the spirit of a tantalizing back-cover blurb, you’ll have to click away and see the rest of the list. Because we didn’t want to give away the ending. </p>
<p><strong>Pearls of Wisdom: Little Pieces of Advice (That Go a Long Way)</strong> by Barbara Bush </p>
<p>Recommended by Vikki, Staff Accountant: “First off, this book is not political, so it is a great, short read even if you are not a fan of the Bushes. But who could not be a fan of Barbara Bush, Mom, Grandmother, First Lady, and best of all wife! Great quotes for leadership, love, hope and perseverance. I loved it and it touched me in many ways, personal and professional.” </p>
<p><strong>The Terror</strong> by Dan Simmons </p>
<p><em>Recommended by Josh, Senior Market Development Manager</em>: “This book is an outstanding work of historical fiction. The author takes the historical account of the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage and creates a suspenseful page turner (warning, there are 800 pages to turn!). I was drawn to the characters as much as their story of hardship, determination, and grit.” </p>
<p><strong>Good Inside</strong> by Dr. Becky Kennedy </p>
<p><em>Recommended by Kayla, Senior Manager:</em> “As a working parent, I love the ‘Good Inside’ podcast because I can apply Dr. Becky’s tips and tricks both at home and at work. Practical approaches to everyday issues like reframing problems so that you and your counterpart(s) are on the same team working to defeat them, reflecting on your triggers and understanding their sources, and embracing the power of repair can improve the quality of all relationships, whether personal or professional.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">Check out the full list</a> to see what else we recommend and why. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Have a Problem? The SAP Concur App Center Likely Has a Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/have-problem-sap-concur-app-center-likely-has-solution
2023-10-27T09:00:00Z
2023-10-17T14:38:00Z
Need your ERP to work better with your SAP® Concur® solutions? Want to help employees make more cost-effective travel choices – and think rewards might help?
<p>Need your ERP to work better with your SAP® Concur® solutions? Want to help employees make more cost-effective travel choices – and think rewards might help? Want to accelerate reimbursements – and cashflow accuracy – by simplifying receipt capture and expense submittal? </p>
<p>Three companies and many others have found “yes” answers to those and other business questions at the ever-growing SAP Concur App Center. Available to customers using our travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, the app center is the place to find apps and services to fuel savings, increase efficiency and productivity, and take aim at priorities ranging from compliance to sustainability. </p>
<p>The options include payment providers, carbon emission trackers, trip planners, duty of care providers, mileage calculators, tax-recovery tools, ride sharing, dozens of ERP connectors, major hotel chains, airlines, car rentals, and more. </p>
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<h5>Apps by the Hundreds </h5>
<p>Visit the SAP Concur App Center to choose from among over 300 applications and services to your business needs. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">Go Now</a></div>
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<h2>Different Apps for Different Needs </h2>
<p>Some apps are ones we created, like Concur for Mobile that manages and tracks expenses and TripIt for managing itineraries. But the great majority come from our wide range of partners, including apps endorsed after undergoing rigorous review. </p>
<p>The apps come in two broad types: user connections and enterprise applications. Fee-free user connections are, as the name applies, for travelers and other end users in your business, who can download and link them to solutions on their own. </p>
<p>Enterprise applications, which are fee based, are tools administrators of SAP Concur solutions can enable for use by the company and its employees. </p>
<h2>How Businesses Are Helped </h2>
<p>No matter the category or the partners, the apps are intended to fill needs and solve problems. </p>
<ul>
<li>A live entertainment production company, for instance, sought to control travel costs, a sizable part of its operating expenses. It saved 36% on travel spending with the Rocketrip app, which estimates the appropriate amount a trip should costs and splits savings between the company and the employee who made choices to beat the budget. Motivated to book in advance, fly early, rent smaller cars, and more, travelers earn points they can redeem for rewards from cash cards to charitable donations. </li>
<li>With a combination of Concur Expense®, ExpenseIt® (now part of Concur Mobile), Wipfli ExpenseConnect, and other solutions, a cybersecurity software provider cut 16 days off its expense reimbursement window. </li>
<li>Bogged down by the time and tedium of manually inputting expenses into its ERP, an animal nutrition company used WIPFLi ExpenseConnect to link SAP Concur solutions and the ERP, turning an 8-12-hour process into a 30-minute one. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Making the App Center Work for You </h2>
<p>With 300-plus apps, there is much to consider and look over at the app center. To narrow your options, you can tighten your focus by searching in a dozen major categories, including air & travel, cars & trains, finance & HR, compliance, sustainability, duty of care, and ERP integrations. </p>
<p> Many of the broader categories are broken down into subcategories. You can find apps that work with our travel, invoice, and expense solutions or with specific ERP systems. Or by country or region in which the app is available. Whatever path selected, the common denominators you’ll find are solutions that fill needs and extend the value and utility of SAP Concur solutions. </p>
<h2>Find Out More </h2>
<ul>
<li>Read our new guide to the app center, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/ask-sap-concur-app-center">How Do You Answer Travel, Expense, and Invoice Questions?</a> </li>
<li>Visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">app center</a> and begin finding apps and services that solve business problems, simplify tasks for employees, and help make your company ready for change. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Saving Time, Resources to Bring Year to Smooth End
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/saving-time-resources-to-bring-year-to-smooth-end
2023-10-25T09:00:00Z
2023-10-17T10:56:59Z
Where does the time go? A good question most any day but a particularly relevant one for businesses and finance teams as the end of the year – or fiscal year – approaches.
<p>Where does the time go? A good question most any day but a particularly relevant one for businesses and finance teams as the end of the year – or fiscal year – approaches. </p>
<p>Sadly, you cannot make more hours in a day, but you can take steps to save the time you have for the most essential, value-adding work at your business. </p>
<p>Our new checklist, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-successful-fiscal-year-end">Bring the Year in for a Landing</a>, looks at seven steps that can buy you time and efficiency, steps can leave the company better positioned to adapt and adjust and be ready for change that comes its way. </p>
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<h5>Bringing the Year in for a (Smooth) Landing </h5>
<p>Explore seven steps that provide a flight plan for focusing your team and company’s efforts, so the year doesn’t have a bumpy landing. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-successful-fiscal-year-end">Get the Checklist</a></div>
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<h2>Focus on What Matters Most </h2>
<p>It’s not possible to do everything and it’s a wasteful drain of energy to try. So look closely at operations and processes and set priorities. By deciding what will get done and what won’t, your business gains time and focus. </p>
<h2>Pitch the Paper </h2>
<p>Piles of paper and the manual tasks fueling them make it difficult to find things, including accuracy and insight. Look to online and cloud-based finance solutions for managing vendor invoices and other work, and you’ll lighten the workload and spirits of the finance team by streamlining approvals, payments, and reimbursements. </p>
<h2>Automate Tasks and Processes </h2>
<p>With a streamlined travel, expense, and invoice system, you will have a clear and timely view of spending. Concur® Expense begins the automation process, which can be extended to Concur Travel and Concur Invoice, enabling employees to book and manage their own travel and helping finance teams capture, process, and pay vendor invoices. Our solutions provide near real-time insights and reporting, with additional services, our team of reporting experts can create bespoke reports based upon your specific needs to maximize your business results. </p>
<h2>Integrate You Technology Solutions </h2>
<p>To get the most from automated expense and travel solutions, they must communicate with existing systems, such as your ERP and finance systems. With integrated solutions, you get increased efficiency and spend visibility. </p>
<h2>Don’t Leave Them Guessing about T&E Policies </h2>
<p>If employees can readily understand company T&E policies and processes, they’re likely to follow them and make the desired spending decisions. So create a clear and concise policy or revise the one you have. And with the SAP® Concur® platform, the policy is embedded, easily updated, and guides employees as they book and purchase. </p>
<h2>Enable Work on the Go </h2>
<p>Employees are traveling and working from home, the office, or some combination. So give them mobile tools to perform the tasks and manage the travel, expenses, invoice, and other processes that allow them – and your business – to operate. With cloud-based solutions and tools like the Concur mobile app, they can. </p>
<h2>Outsource Tasks When You Can </h2>
<p>A key part of conserving time and money is taking a closer look at what you do best and what others could do better for your business. Consider hiring outside experts to examine your data, provide forecasts, deliver tax counsel, and evaluate your policies and processes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-successful-fiscal-year-end">Download the checklist</a> for a closer look at the steps that can bring the year to a smooth financial landing so that your business is ready for change. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How AP Automation is Fueling the Era of Strategic Procurement
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-ap-automation-is-fueling-era-strategic-procurement
2023-10-30T09:00:00Z
2023-10-17T10:48:34Z
"The role of procurement is more challenging than ever before. The expansion of spending channels and payment methods, a decentralized workforce, and new vendor scrutiny have added complexity to the p
<p>The role of procurement is more challenging than ever before. The expansion of spending channels and payment methods, a decentralized workforce, and new vendor scrutiny have added complexity to the process. </p>
<p>Factor in rising inflation, global political unrest, and ongoing economic uncertainty, and it’s easy to see why organizations are looking for ways to amp up their budgetary oversight. Every excess dollar spent pokes a hole in profitability. </p>
<p>With the help of automated tools, like e-invoicing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and software-based travel and payment solutions applied to the accounts payable (AP) process, organizations can increase control and take a more strategic approach to procurement and spend management. </p>
<h2>Managing Spend with X-ray Vision </h2>
<p>Processing invoices and expenses manually is not only inefficient and error-prone, but makes these expenditures difficult to manage. There’s always a lag between what’s been spent, what’s been processed, and what’s been posted, with minimal controls built in along the way. Yet, fewer than 20% of organizations have fully automated AP processes, and an astounding 70% of all global invoice processing is still paper based.</p>
<p>By automating the payable process for travel, expense, and invoice, procurement gains the insight to proactively manage all of this spend, wherever it occurs. That’s a game-changer. </p>
<p>In an automated environment, procurement can access spend data in near real time, instead of looking at reports after the fact. They can look at the big picture, then dig in on a more granular level — slicing and dicing expenditures by traveler, department, region, and supplier. And they can effectively monitor key performance indicators, like policy adherence and the use of preferred vendors, track fees, and look for pattern changes in specific spend categories. </p>
<p>In short, data becomes procurement’s superpower — for better supplier negotiation, improved compliance, and more effective oversight of overall spend. </p>
<h2>Bringing Long-Tail Purchases Out of the Shadows </h2>
<p>What began as a lockdown necessity has evolved into an accepted fact of business life for most organizations: not all employees work in the office. So, instead of going to the supply closet for printer paper and inkjet cartridges, or requisitioning equipment and office furniture, many employees are making these purchases on their own. </p>
<p>Historically, this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/managing-tail-spend-why-its-worth-effort-and-how-ap-automation-can-ease-burden">long-tail spend</a> — low-cost, high-volume indirect expenditures made directly by employees, from a broad range of non-contract vendors — has had little to no procurement oversight. But, if left unchecked, that blind spot has the potential to cause some serious budgetary damage. </p>
<p>Those little purchases can add up fast. </p>
<p>“We’re seeing more and more long-tail spend ending up on expense reports, simply because the volume of this spend overwhelms the AP department,” explained Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP® Concur®. “With AP automation, organizations can actually move this long-tail spend off the expense report and into the proper channel, like a purchasing card or an invoice, so, it can be actively managed.” </p>
<p>This comprehensive view of where and how dollars are being spent enables procurement to more easily spot trends around these types of purchases, and uncover opportunities for vendor consolidation and preferred pricing. They can also standardize and align approval workflows to ensure that only those individuals with the delegated authority to execute certain contracts or approve certain dollar amounts and types of expenses can approve them. This greatly reduces the risk of maverick spend and fraud. </p>
<h2>Positioning for a Changing Business World </h2>
<p>Spending less time aggregating data and more time analyzing it, procurement can develop a more holistic vendor strategy — one that extends beyond contracted cost per item. </p>
<p>For example, many companies have launched extensive corporate programs around sustainability to meet growing consumer and shareholder demand. But, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/buying-into-a-more-sustainable-value-chain">according to McKinsey</a> & Company, about two-thirds of the average company’s environmental, social, and governance footprint lies with its suppliers.2 So, to be successful, the initiative has to extend throughout the organization’s value chain. </p>
<p>As a result, more procurement teams are now vetting suppliers’ carbon footprints, looking at their use of renewable energy, their manufacturing process, and their commitment to green initiatives. They’re also increasingly reviewing supplier diversity programs and inclusion efforts, as well as actively seeking out more qualified, minority-owned vendors. </p>
<p>By automating now, and creating an integrated, end-to-end finance workflow, organizations will be better positioned to add new automation tools for contract management, e-sourcing, and sustainability tracking in the future. </p>
<h2>Big Paybacks in Cost Savings, Compliance, and Time </h2>
<p>While we’ve focused on the strategic spend management benefits that come with AP automation, the inherent operational benefits — and associated cost savings — are impossible to ignore. </p>
<p>Automating AP <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/infographic-ap-process-working-smarter-harder">reduces processing time</a> by an average of 16%, and decreases invoice processing costs by an average of 29%. When you consider the fact that it costs approximately $9.25 to process an invoice (According to 2022 research by Ardent Partners), it’s easy to see the savings potential. </p>
<p>Building audit rules within the automated process also has a bottom-line impact, delivering an average cost savings of <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/digital-mro-procurement-new-solutions-for-capturing-and-sustaining-more-value">as much as 20%</a> just by reducing the incidence of non-compliant spend. </p>
<p>At the same time, because the AP process is faster and more streamlined, there are fewer late payments, missed discounts, and errors. When it’s time for an audit, all the information you need to hand off to your auditors is only a just a few clicks away. </p>
<p>It’s hard to find a downside. </p>
<h2>The Perfect Storm for Change </h2>
<p>If you’ve been waiting for the “right time” to put your AP automation initiative into action, that time is now. </p>
<p>“AP automation has the power to increase operational efficiency, visibility, and control, all while enabling organizations to be more strategic and intentional on where and how they spend their money,” Dion said. </p>
<p>In today’s business environment, that’s a value proposition that every organization can get behind. </p>
<p>For more on how your organization can automate AP for increased efficiency and oversight into procurement, read our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-ap-automation-fastest-route-strategic-spend-management">whitepaper</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation-revolutionizes-business-operations">listen to our podcast.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
8 Corporate Travel Policy Best Practices
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/8-corporate-travel-policy-best-practices
2024-03-01T14:22:49Z
2023-10-13T13:37:32Z
Take a closer look at some of corporate travel policy best practices to consider. It can help your organization decide what should be included in a travel policy and your business travel guidelines.
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-te-mean">Corporate travel policies</a> need to address some of the most complex and important issues related to business travel. </p>
<p>When written well, corporate travel policies provide both employees and employers with clarity and answers to common questions and scenarios. </p>
<p>Developing, reviewing, and revising corporate travel policies is an ongoing process, one that should consider multiple perspectives and needs and evaluate data. A business travel policy for employees should also adapt to changing patterns of travel, employee needs, and practical considerations. </p>
<h2>Best Practices in Corporate Travel Policies </h2>
<p>Here is a closer look at some corporate travel policy best practices to consider. It can help your organization decide what should be included in a travel policy and your business travel guidelines. </p>
<h5>1. Involve Key Stakeholders </h5>
<p>Your travel policy will touch nearly every employee and department within your organization. Involving key stakeholders in human resources, payroll, finance and operations ensures that the policy reflects their unique perspectives and needs. If there are departments that are frequent travelers, they too should be included in conversations. </p>
<p>Bringing together the major players allows for better collaboration and discussion of complex or controversial elements of the policy. Regular meetings among the stakeholders allows for a well-rounded policy and can ease the process of review and revisions when necessary. </p>
<h5>2. Track Expenses for Reporting and Analysis </h5>
<p>Your organization needs systems that will collect, report on, and analyze data related to your corporate travel program. These data points help leaders understand what’s working and not working within the program and provide insights that can guide revisions to the policy. </p>
<p>Having the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-back-office-to-tip-spear-how-ai-will-transform-te">right tools and applications</a> provide those in charge of the policy with information necessary to make important decisions. The company needs a standardized system for completing expenses to avoid data duplication and creating a consistent reporting process for all employees. </p>
<p>Accurate expense reporting helps to develop the true return on investment of your corporate travel program. </p>
<p>When developing your systems, consider integrating your policy with your travel management software. Doing so creates automated enforcement of certain policy elements, makes it easier for employees and managers to remain in compliance with the policy and helps accelerate processing and approval. </p>
<h5>3. Factor in Employee Satisfaction, with a Focus on Communication </h5>
<p>For travelers, a policy can generate lots of emotions and feelings, especially if policy changes force changes in the way people travel for business. For example, some employees prefer certain hotel or airline brands. A change to mandated providers can create significant ill-will. </p>
<p>The key is to communicate regularly about the process by which the policy is created, evaluated, and modified. There may be generational or departmental differences in how employees prefer to travel and any changes can become problematic. </p>
<p>Remember to emphasize why a corporate travel policy is necessary and important. The policy itself should be clear and easy to understand, using subheadings, bullet points, examples, and short paragraphs to make it more readable. </p>
<h5>4. Provide Resources </h5>
<p>A good corporate travel policy does more than just list do’s and don’ts. It can also be an effective resource that employees and managers turn to. Among the resources to include are: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Links to your travel management and booking platform </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Forms for expense reporting </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Travel insurance coverage with a link to your carrier </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Lists of purchases that are and are not allowed </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What to do in case of an emergency </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Key phone numbers – human resources, finance, corporate travel office (if applicable) </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h5>5. Set Clear Policies for Booking and Costs </h5>
<p>Your policy can clear up many gray areas around corporate travel. Be sure that the policy addresses some of the following areas that can cause concern for travelers and administrators: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Whether travelers must use a corporate travel agency or website </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Expected turnaround times for expense reports and reimbursements </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Budgetary guidelines for airfare, hotel and ground transportation, including whether there are mandatory vendors </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Guidance on bleisure (<a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-more-time-for-yourself-on-your-next-business-trip">combining business and leisure travel</a>), including whether it’s allowed and cost-sharing guidance </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Procedures for handling rejected expense submissions or requests </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h5>6. Understand Duty of Care and Reflect in the Policy </h5>
<p>Employers are responsible for <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">duty of care</a>, the legal obligation to research and develop a plan that reduces the risk for employers traveling on behalf of their employers. </p>
<p>The policy should explain what duty of care is and the employer’s commitment to its employees and how far that extends. </p>
<p>Begin by discussing any necessary changes to the policy with travelers who regularly must complete high-risk business travel and their managers. Examine global risk trends, discuss past experiences, and draft initial guidelines. </p>
<p>Your policy needs a pre-travel process and a standardized risk assessment report, especially when traveling to high-risk areas. Incorporate travel alerts into the itinerary and ensure that the company has access to employee contact information and health records, if applicable. </p>
<p>The policy needs to have multiple contingency plans detailed and ready to implement if needed. Be sure that employees have access to technology that can help them if problems occur while traveling. </p>
<h5>7. Include Travel Risk Management Considerations </h5>
<p>Travel risk management is the practice of anticipating, preventing, and reacting to issues that may arise while employees are traveling. The risk can run the gamut from weather issues and natural disasters to social unrest and terrorism. </p>
<p>The goal of travel risk management is to identify and prepare for potential risks and decrease the risk of those threats materializing, if possible. If threats do materialize, the risk management also develops the plans to address with them. </p>
<p>Travel risk management and duty of care are interrelated and often overlap. Both are critical to keeping employees safe. </p>
<h5>8. Practice Continuous Improvement </h5>
<p>Keeping corporate travel policies up to date requires diligent scrutiny of the policy itself and the supporting data. Factoring in employee safety, costs, and compliance requires regular review of the policy. Doing so allows your company to have policies that continue to benefit the organization and employees alike. </p>
<h2>Why Are Corporate Travel Policies Important? </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-intelligent-travel-and-expense-management-drives-future-work">A well-constructed corporate travel policy</a> is a powerful tool. It can help shape employee engagement, recruitment and retention. </p>
<p>By engaging key stakeholders, communicating regularly, gathering data, integrating systems and focusing on safety, your corporate travel policy will serve all employees well. </p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we help businesses seamlessly integrate business travel, expense and invoice management. Our solutions simplify and automate travel mechanics, integrating real-time data and artificial intelligence to drive efficiency and accuracy. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Take the T&E Assessment Today</h5>
<p>Learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can improve your company's corporate travel operations. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">More on Travel</a></div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Your Shortcut to Success with Concur User Assistant by WalkMe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-shortcut-to-success-with-concur-user-assistant-by-walkme
2023-10-18T09:00:00Z
2023-10-11T14:21:51Z
How Concur User Assistant by WalkMe improves the employee experience and increases time to value for SAP Concur customers
<p>Adopting new technology should be seamless, frustration-free and quickly become second nature for employees. SAP Concur solutions are designed to create exactly that scenario. But how do you know if employees are fully utilizing the solutions you’ve invested in, to reap all the benefits and maximize your return on investment (ROI)? If the answer is “I’m not sure” then the solution is Concur User Assistant by WalkMe.</p>
<p>In this blog we’ll explore how to encourage consistency and confidence in using your spend management solution, with the help of Concur User Assistant by WalkMe.</p>
<p>First, we’ll look at why this is so important to businesses today.</p>
<h2>Supporting Your Employees AND Optimizing Cost</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are designed to make employees’ lives easier. They simplify processes and reimburse employees faster, while embedding policy compliance and analytics. But did you know that Concur User Assistant by WalkMe enables your organization to deliver these benefits with greater speed and efficiency?</p>
<p>Today’s hybrid working environment means that helping employees help themselves is crucial to keeping them productive.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-snapshot-navigating-dynamic-future-work-digital-adoption-platform">42%</a> of businesses say they have changed to remote/hybrid work policies to retain/attract talent, this creates new challenges for support. Not giving these employees the support they need is a risky business, with only <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-us-report-empowering-your-people-enterprise-businesses?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">38%</a> saying they think their employers’ policies and technologies effectively enable flexible work and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-us-report-empowering-your-people-enterprise-businesses?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">22%</a> saying they are actively looking for a job.</p>
<p>Giving employees the tools they need to undertake their everyday tasks without frustration has never been more important.</p>
<h2>Technology for All</h2>
<p>It’s important to ensure that all employees’ needs are catered for when introducing a new digital solution. Not everyone adopts and uses technology in the same way; getting everyone up to speed at the same time and in the same way is crucial.</p>
<p>Common tech adoption pitfalls are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Complete solution abandonment if it becomes too challenging for certain users.</li>
<li>A default tendency to rely on support channels for self-help problems.</li>
<li>Ignoring structured training methods.</li>
<li>Neglecting to address variations among user types.<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></li>
</ul>
<p>By avoiding these technology adoption pitfalls you can create a digital solution that increases employee productivity and optimizes costs.<br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<p>Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs), such as Concur User Assistant by WalkMe, are the way forward. In fact, IDC predicts that by 2025, CIOs who invest in DAPs and automated learning technologies will see a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-snapshot-navigating-dynamic-future-work-digital-adoption-platform">40%</a> increase in productivity, delivering greater speed to expertise.</p>
<h2>Concur User Assistant by WalkMe in Action</h2>
<p>Concur User Assistant by WalkMe bridges the gap between learning and practical use. It acts as a trusty companion who checks in regularly and shows – rather than just tells – users how to undertake tasks when they get stuck. Employees can access the guidance, content and support they need, when they need it most, while they’re using the platform.</p>
<p>It helps reduce productivity interruptions, as it swiftly guides users through solutions with on-screen prompts, visual cues and helpful tips. Plus, there's a chatbot on standby, ready to assist and answer any questions. The result? Reduced reliance on external support and a more engaging, interactive learning experience.</p>
<p>It encourages employees not only to use your SAP Concur T&E solutions, but to use them regularly, correctly and even enjoy the experience. As Francesco Contino, Solutions Consultant at SAP Concur, says in our recent webinar <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/emea-deep-dive-improving-employee-experience-concur-user-assistant-walkme?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">EMEA Deep Dive: Improving Employee Experience with Concur User Assistant by WalkMe</a>: “It’s already easy. This just makes it even easier.”</p>
<h2>Benefits Now and in the Future</h2>
<p>Your business will reap the benefits of Concur User Assistant by WalkMe both in-the-moment, as employees tackle everyday tasks, and in the long-term, in the form of ongoing improvements to processes, compliance and digital solution optimization.</p>
<p>Here are some of the key benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Onboarding, re-boarding, application refresh:</strong> Interactive and contextual guidance helps users resolve questions, leading to higher user adoption rates and a reduced need for support requests.</li>
<li><strong>Personalized AI guidance:</strong> AI and machine learning provide personalized guidance, identifying areas for improvement and optimizing the user experience.</li>
<li><strong>Compliance and policy control:</strong> Facilitate correct tool usage and regulatory compliance, ensuring employees work within T&E policies throughout the expense management process.</li>
<li><strong>Customized reports</strong>: Pre-built templates allow for in-depth analytics, aiding in continual enhancement of the user experience.</li>
<li><strong>Optimization and growth:</strong> Foster consistency during business growth phases and major project implementations.</li>
<li><strong>Enhanced employee experience:</strong> Contextual help and automating repetitive tasks enables quicker and more accurate completion, improved overall experience and freedom to focus on strategic work.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What Does Success Look Like?</h2>
<p>Many of the benefits of Concur User Assistant by WalkMe translate into significant time savings, ensuring that your valuable time is used effectively and efficiently.</p>
<p>A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study, commissioned by WalkMe, reported that businesses see:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.walkme.com/pages/forrester-tei-study/?eco=TEI&camp=TEI&abt1=7014G000001GN5J?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">100%</a> increase in training and onboarding efficiency</p>
<p><a href="https://www.walkme.com/pages/forrester-tei-study/?eco=TEI&camp=TEI&abt1=7014G000001GN5J?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">50%</a> decrease in IT support and helpdesk tickets</p>
<p><a href="https://www.walkme.com/pages/forrester-tei-study/?eco=TEI&camp=TEI&abt1=7014G000001GN5J?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">35%</a> increase in user confidence</p>
<p><a href="https://www.walkme.com/pages/forrester-tei-study/?eco=TEI&camp=TEI&abt1=7014G000001GN5J?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">10%</a> growth in opportunities over three years</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.walkme.com/pages/forrester-tei-study/?eco=TEI&camp=TEI&abt1=7014G000001GN5J?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">100%</a><u> </u>were either satisfied or very satisfied with their WalkMe engagement.</p>
<p>Many of these benefits were experienced by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/standard-chartered-bank?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">Standard Chartered Bank</a>, when they introduced Concur User Assistant by WalkMe to their SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>“We want to make sure that our Travel and Expense system adopts the “user-centred design” approach. We decided to collaborate with WalkMe to deploy the on-screen, interactive guidance so that we can reach out to our users to inform them what they should pay attention to in the entire user journey or alert them when we introduce new features in the system,” says Dorothy Chan, Head – SCM & Sustainability Change at Standard Chartered Bank.</p>
<p>“We also rely on the WalkMe analytics to analyze where in the process our users may get stuck, we can therefore continually improve our interface design, assist our users and make sure that it is a fun and easy journey. It helps us achieve the fine balance between user experience and adequate insurance,” she adds.</p>
<h2>Time to Walk the Walk</h2>
<p>Concur User Assistant by WalkMe offers different types of assistance to accommodate different kinds of learners and employees. Customized content can be added to the tool’s pre-built options, to drive outcomes specific to your organization and workflows.</p>
<p>These ensure that every interaction with SAP Concur solutions is optimized, which means you reap the benefits of your investment more quickly and consistently.</p>
<p>With minimal input from IT, you enhance the employee experience and boost productivity and efficiency, all whilst ensuring compliance management across every corner of your business, regardless of location or user expertise.</p>
<p>Overall, it keeps employees moving forward efficiently in their daily tasks, so they have more time to focus on strategic work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">Find out</a> how Concur User Assistant by WalkMe can elevate your employees’ day-to-day experiences when things don’t run smoothy, while increasing your time to value on that all-important spend management investment.</p>
<p>For a full run down of the features and functions of Concur User Assistant by WalkMe, check out this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/get-faster-time-value-concur-user-assistant-walkme?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">guide</a>.To cut straight to the benefits checkout our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/10-business-benefits-concur-user-assistant-walkme?sfdcid=7017V000001l5Zs&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=Global_Customer_WalkMe_2023_Blog">infographic.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Employee reimbursement: A Guide to Efficient Expense Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-reimbursement-guide-to-efficient-expense-management
2023-10-19T09:00:00Z
2023-10-11T13:51:29Z
Understanding what employee reimbursements is and how you can better plan and manage this critical part of business operations.
<h1>Employee reimbursement: a guide to efficient expense management </h1>
<p>Most businesses rely on employees to handle and manage a certain level of responsibility when it comes to business expenses. Sometimes employees need to make purchases and spend money to perform their duties. And when owners and managers need to reimburse employee expenses, it is important that there is a plan in place. It is our hope to help remove some of the confusion and misconceptions surrounding employee reimbursements and to help you better plan and manage this critical part of business operations. </p>
<h2>What is employee expense reimbursement? </h2>
<p>First, you need to know what business expense reimbursements are and why they are so important to business management and financial planning. In their most simplistic form, these are reimbursements employers give to their employees to help cover business-related expenses that were incurred during authorized business operations. But what exactly counts as employee business expenses? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.irsvideos.gov/Governments/Employers/WhatyouneedtoknowaboutAccountablePlans">According to the IRS</a>, the following can be included in your policies and procedures as reimbursable expenses: </p>
<ul>
<li>Business-related travel expenses and costs </li>
<li>Approved or required education or training </li>
<li>Business supplies, office supplies, and materials </li>
<li>Business tools and hardware/software </li>
<li>Miscellaneous business-related expenses </li>
</ul>
<p>It is important that you understand how these expenses play into the day-to-day operations of your business and how they can help you save money. Knowing to what extent your employees are covering costs and how you can help offset that burden goes a long way in keeping productivity levels high. Clear guidelines for what can be reimbursed and quick payment processes will keep employer-employee relations in good standing. </p>
<h2>Travel and Expense Management - Understanding Reimbursement Options </h2>
<p>One of the most common reimbursement claims filed by employees is travel expenses. As a business owner or leader, you want your employee reimbursement policy to align with T&E policies and legal regulations. You should be familiar with the most common methods of tracking and paying travel-related expenses. This will make it easier to understand how proper planning and organization make the process more manageable and streamlined. </p>
<p>There are various expense management software platforms available that allow employees to submit expense reports electronically. Managers can review and approve these reports; the software can integrate with accounting systems. </p>
<p>Business leaders can also use cloud-based systems to track employees' expenses and payments. With automated tracking, you can set up shared folders for employees to upload receipts, and they can use spreadsheet or document apps within these platforms to maintain records. </p>
<h2>Managing Receipts and Documentation for Reimbursement Payments </h2>
<p>What does reimbursement mean for your company or team? Our team recommends the following tips to help you attain straightforward and organized expense tracking: </p>
<ul>
<li>Implement a strong expense policy: Develop an inclusive expense policy and make sure all employees understand it to ensure everyone is on the same page with reimbursements. </li>
<li>Use a centralized system: Set up a central all-access place for employees to log, report, and check their expense records for easy collaboration and fewer paper-trail-related issues. </li>
<li>Check itemized receipts: Request employees record and submit receipts for all claims made and double check amounts match those being requested for reimbursement. </li>
<li>Set clear expectations: There must be clear deadlines for receipts and reimbursement requests to ensure accurate tracking, less confusion, and fewer errors with payments. </li>
<li>Perform audits periodically: Automated checks and audits can help ensure the accuracy of reports, prevent unethical behaviors, and keep everyone on the same page and held to the same standards. </li>
<li>Monitor spending trends: Keep an eye on pending trends with digital tools and real-time monitoring to watch for usual spikes in employee claims or times of excessive spending. </li>
<li>Integrate new technology: Integrate any new or existing expense tracking system with other departments to simplify data transfer and maintain accurate financial records. </li>
</ul>
<p>By following these tips, employers can establish an organized and efficient expense tracking process, reducing the chances of financial discrepancies and making it easier to manage company finances. </p>
<h2>Importance of Intelligent and Adaptable Expense Management for Employee Reimbursement and Monitoring </h2>
<p>There are several benefits of an intelligent, automated, scalable, and easy-to-use solution. These include: </p>
<p> 1. More extensive business spending control </p>
<p>Traditional employee reimbursement and financial management processes often provide only a disjointed or fragmented solution and are an overall inconsistent process for tracking and monitoring important data. </p>
<p> 2. Improve compliance and reduce fraud </p>
<p>With business going global, and with such a focus on digital work, remote jobs and wide-spread collaborations, an up-to-date planning and management system is critical to meeting the demands of employee reimbursements. </p>
<p> 3. Data-driven support for employers </p>
<p>A well-rounded financial and employee management solution offers employee and employer alike visibility, insights, customization, and control over the entire process, from recording expenses to ensuring payments are received. </p>
<p> 4. Improves employee experience </p>
<p>Traditional employee reimbursements rely on cumbersome manual data entry of travel expenses, which is slow, prone to errors, and wastes employee time, whereas innovative tracking and payment methods are the exact opposite. </p>
<p>Whether the funds are used to purchase office supplies, travel to and from work, attend required training classes, or business-related food expenses, reimbursement is an important part of the puzzle. It is important that you understand the different types of employee reimbursements and how to account for them. </p>
<h2>How to Build a Clear and Fair Framework for Reimbursement </h2>
<p>Businesses across all industries will find there are times they need to reimburse employees for various expenses. Here at SAP Concur, we understand how complicated these processes can be as well as how integral they are to smooth operations and continued growth. Regardless of how you decide to reimburse employees, having an updated and integrated expense reimbursement policy is critical to smooth payments and accurate expense tracking. </p>
<p>Adopting an expense management solution like SAP Concur provides your company with near real-time data and takes advantage of AI to analyze transactions. SAP Concur allows businesses to see what they’re spending, improve compliance, and avoid possible blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur imagines a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves, helping businesses run at their best every day. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us today</a> to see how we can help make managing employee reimbursements easy and low-stress. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Effective Communication in the Workplace
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/effective-communication-in-workplace
2023-10-17T09:00:00Z
2023-10-11T13:43:03Z
Explore our blog to understand the crucial role of effective communication in the workplace and its benefits for productivity and employee engagement.
<h1>Effective Communication in the Workplace for Building Stronger Teams </h1>
<p>Poor workplace communication negatively impacts trust among team members and their leaders. But at the same time, one of the most important things to understand about communication is that there is no "one size fits all" approach to getting it right. </p>
<p>Different people will naturally have different styles and, as a leader, one must make sure they all fit together into the cohesive whole they were meant to be. Getting to that point isn't necessarily difficult, but it will depend on your ability to lean into a number of core best practices along the way. </p>
<h2>The Importance of Effective Communication </h2>
<p>The chasm between communication and effective communication can be a deep one. </p>
<p>Effective or positive communication is important because it creates a two-way street. It's not just about relaying information, but rather explaining things in a way that makes it easy for people to understand even complicated ideas. It's about providing solutions to tasks that enhance collaboration. </p>
<h2>Benefits of Effective Communication in the Workplace </h2>
<p>Even in the context of a business, a team is nothing if not a relationship between several people who are all focused on the same goal. For any relationship to be successful, it needs to support trust, respect, empathy, and understanding in all involved. This is accomplished by clearing up confusion, particularly when it comes to spending. If purchasing something for work is confusing thanks to complicated policies and protocols, people can't be expected to do it right - at least on the first try. Likewise, teams need accurate information to work from, especially with regard to financial matters. They can't be going from a gut instinct or feeling - the budget is the budget, after all. Effective communication can help clear up all these pain points and more, bringing people closer together in the process. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-moments-will-change-how-you-manage-employee-spend">Effective communication</a> does that, particularly when it comes to something as important for the long-term success of the business as communicating spending policy. It allows for the effective management of relationships between not only staff members but also customers/clients and other key stakeholders. Never forget that the reverse is also true: poor communication can damage those relationships in a way that harms company culture, that pushes away clients through lowered productivity or poor quality work, and that can and often does result in lost sales. When you also consider the long-term reputational damage that a business can sustain, it's easy to see why this is so essential. </p>
<p>Not only does this improve productivity and increase employee engagement, but it also helps to keep people motivated as well. </p>
<h2>Effective Communication in the Workplace Examples </h2>
<p>Effective communication in the workplace can happen in many formats - from verbal to nonverbal to written communication, visual communication, and more. A one-on-one conversation between a team leader and team member would be an example of verbal communication, as would a meeting that the entire department is required to attend. Written communication could take the form of a memo or email, while visual communication could be a chart, graph, or some other type of image-based guide. </p>
<p>Regardless of the delivery mechanism, all effective communication tends to share a few common characteristics in that it sends a clear, correct, and complete message. </p>
<h2>Understanding Different Communication Styles </h2>
<p>One common type of communication style in the workplace is what is called being an assertive communicator. This means that regardless of any disagreements or conflicts, you still value the feelings of the person you're talking to. You're willing to stand your ground in a disagreement to stick up for yourself or what you believe in, but you're not willing to let it hurt someone else. </p>
<p>An aggressive communicator, on the other hand, does not care about the other person's feelings. This doesn't mean they don't care about them as a person - just that in this conversation they've decided that a more direct attitude is appropriate. For effective communication, you will likely need to switch up your own style based on who you're speaking to. </p>
<h2>Why Active Listening Matters </h2>
<p>When you're in conversation with another person, always try to avoid missing essential information. Don't wait for someone to stop speaking so that you can talk. Meaning, don't politely stand in silence, not listening, until you can convey whatever information you wanted to. Listen to what they're saying and digest that information. Be prepared to respond to it and add to it. </p>
<p>Don't just ignore it and say whatever you were going to say in the first place. That's not a conversation. Listen to what someone is saying and make an effort to understand them. Maintain eye contact with them. Show them you're listening. This is called active listening, and it helps make sure all parties feel both seen and understood. </p>
<h2>The Power of Nonverbal Communication </h2>
<p>Sometimes, what you don't say when you're communicating is just as important as what you do. Certain gestures or facial expressions convey quite a bit. By paying attention to things like body language you can tell when someone is angry, confused, unhappy, or in a similar emotional state even if they never come right out and tell you this is the case. Then, you can respond accordingly. </p>
<p>Be mindful, because your own facial expressions and body language convey the same thing so be sure to always use the most appropriate gestures given how you really feel. </p>
<h2>Building Trust Through Communication </h2>
<p>The easiest way to build trust through communication in the workplace is to always "say what you mean and mean what you say," as the old phrase reminds us. Be mindful of the ways in which communication might show that we actually distrust someone in a given situation. Micromanaging certainly doesn't convey trust in someone's abilities, even if your words are meant to reassure them. </p>
<p>Likewise, don't set expectations for people that you are unwilling to follow. Insisting on one thing and then failing to practice that harms trust, morale, and the ability for a team to function. </p>
<h2>Setting Clear Expectations </h2>
<p>If you're trying to communicate effectively with another person, you need to be as clear as possible about what your goal is or what your expectations are in a given situation. The words you use should be easy to understand, and you should speak in complete sentences whenever possible. </p>
<p>This is especially evident when you're talking about something like the communication of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">travel and expense-related matters</a> and invoice policies. The financial stability of any team or business depends on people complying with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">spending guidelines</a> that were put into place for a reason. But again, people can't comply with those guidelines if they don't understand them because they're too confusing or if they're unaware that they exist at all. Those expectations must be crystal clear to everyone involved if the group has a hope of meeting them, both as individuals and as a collective. </p>
<p>Keep any policy like this clear and concise while still covering the fundamentals. Have key stakeholders and department heads review drafts to make sure that everything stays fair and that the policies are easy to understand. Anything that is confusing or ambiguous should be removed. Don't just do this for financial policies - do it for any policy you create on a company-wide basis. </p>
<p>This is one of the many ways in which technology and automation can also offer positive ways to not only communicate important information, but to also help reduce errors in communication as well. Not only can tech-driven tools help streamline the document creation process, but they can also distribute it to key stakeholders for review easier and with a paper trail, so you know who has seen something and contributed to it before it is then disseminated to the larger business. </p>
<p>In the end, effective communication in the workplace is about so much more than just literally understanding what someone is saying. It's about encouraging people to actively listen and to embrace diversity. It's about adequately resolving conflicts through action rather than allowing them to negatively impact morale. Doing so not only builds trust an empathy, but also <a href="http://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-work-environment-your-employees-will-love">stronger and more productive teams</a>, which in and of itself is the most important benefit of all. </p>
<p>If you'd like to find out more information about the importance of communication in the workplace, or if you're interested in related topics like how to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improve-employee-experience-with-mobile-apps-and-digital-platform-adoption">improve your employee experience</a> in a tech-driven way, please <a href="https://www.concur.com/">contact us today</a> or follow us on social media. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Management Options No Matter How Big (or Small) Your Needs May Be
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-management-options-no-matter-how-big-or-small-your-needs-may-be
2023-10-13T09:00:00Z
2023-10-09T15:47:35Z
SAP Concur examines solutions that can meet customer needs – no matter how big or small they may be - and make businesses future ready. Topics include: Booking, Traveler Experience, Wellness & Safety
<p>Businesses want travel spending to match their budgets and policies. They also need to know where travelers are going, whether they’re safe, and what they’re spending. And everyone – from the sales rep to the owner – wants the process to be simpler. Because they have better things to do and because, with many unknowns in today’s business environment, companies must be ready for change.</p>
<p>Whether your sales team drives to every customer in the region or jets from continent to continent, SAP® Concur® offers multiple solutions, apps, and plans that can fit your needs, be they large or small. Because nobody knows travel and spending better.</p>
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<h5><strong>Getting Your Business Where it Needs to Go</strong></h5>
<p>Our new eBook, Better Ways from A to B, examines five areas of SAP Concur solutions that can make travel simpler and more efficient at your business.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_management_solutions">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<p>Companies need travel to get and stay ahead, but just because it’s important doesn’t mean it – and its costs – must be difficult to plan and track. Let’s consider five areas where our solutions help make each trip smoother for a company and its travelers</p>
<h2><strong>Booking Travel</strong></h2>
<p>Shopping for flights, car rentals, hotels, and other parts of a trip can consume time and inflict frustration. Each choice affects budgets, safety, and compliance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking"><strong>Concur</strong><strong> Travel</strong></a> is our booking solution, guiding travelers to compliant options, preferred vendors, and sustainable choices, while reminding them of policies as they go. Add <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions"><strong>Concur Request</strong></a> to handles trip preapprovals so you know the facts before money is spent, and use<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink"><strong>Concur TripLink</strong></a> to let travelers book directly with suppliers without the company losing sight of bookings and costs.</p>
<h2><strong>Experiencing Travel</strong></h2>
<p>Travel means being on the go, and a travel solution should be just as mobile. The SAP Concur mobile app makes that happen and is a tool that enables others as well.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/pro"><strong>TripIt Pro</strong></a>, travelers can organize trip information, receive advisories of shifting itineraries, track rewards points, and gauge the environmental impact of trips. As a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management"><strong>Concur Expense</strong></a> user, your employees can snap pictures of receipts and send the information directly to an expense report – easing paperwork and giving you better spending visibility. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center"><strong>SAP Concur App Center</strong></a> is a rich source of options, with easy integrations of apps like Uber and Lyft.</p>
<h2><strong>Ensuring Traveler Safety</strong></h2>
<p>Keeping team members safe is the responsibility of your business and top of mind for employees, too. TripIt Pro serves as an information hub by providing health and safety details for destinations including pollution, crime, police presence, political unrest, and risks for women and LGBTQ employees. In addition, the SAP Concur App Center provides health, safety, and communications tools to keep travelers informed and support.</p>
<h2><strong>Reporting and Analyzing Travel</strong></h2>
<p>Knowing where travel dollars went and are going is essential, of course, but it’s just a start. But how about tools that help determine ROI, so that you can better justify travel?</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence"><strong>Intelligence</strong></a> solution provides ready-made reports and dashboards to analyze your travel and expense data, identify savings, and establish the ROI. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management"><strong>Budget</strong></a> serves a similar role, giving managers a clear and timely view of spending so they can readily make adjustments. And expert, human assistance is available through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis"><strong>Consultative Intelligence</strong></a>, with specialists designing reports to match your exact needs.</p>
<h2><strong>Tracking Those Miles</strong></h2>
<p>Few areas of travel management – and spending – are more confounding than mileage. It’s often inaccurate, and employees dislike tracking it but also count on being reimbursed. Within Concur Expense, employees can insert the beginning and ending points of trips and have the math done for their route. Even easier, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker"><strong>Drive</strong></a> app automatically tracks trips for travelers using GPS, taking human error – or even fraud – out of the equation.</p>
<h2><strong>More on the Better Ways from A to B</strong></h2>
<p>Read the eBook and learn more about solutions from SAP Concur that make managing travel and travel spending easier for your business. It includes a quick checklist of solutions, services, and tools to fit your needs and make you ready for the future.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Tips to Help Travel and HR Managers Deliver Duty of Care
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-tips-to-help-travel-and-hr-managers-deliver-duty-care
2023-10-11T09:00:00Z
2023-10-09T15:19:32Z
"Blog addresses current risks for employees – whether in the office, working from home or traveling for business – and, offers guidance and tips to help to prevent them, or in worse case scenarios man
<p>When 6 out of 7 risk professionals find the world a more dangerous place than a year ago, it reinforces why ensuring the health and safety of employees is a top concern for travel and HR managers and their companies. Travelers agree, with 52% concerned about security threats in the next year.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p>With the increase in hybrid work, duty of care has become a greater responsibility for companies of all sizes, even ones that travel less. But while managing risk and duty of care is both the right thing and good business, research points to challenges in doing it right:</p>
<ul>
<li>98% of travel managers need timelier information to perform their daily duties.<sup>2</sup></li>
<li>46% of travelers book directly with airlines or other providers, increasing the visibility challenge for travel programs.<sup>2</sup></li>
</ul>
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<h5>A Guide to Managing Today’s Duty of Care</h5>
<p>Read our guide, The Single Most Important Part of Your Job, to explore 5 tips to help your business consider and address health and safety concerns.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/duty-of-care">Download Now</a></div>
</div>
<p>SAP Concur, for 25 years a leader in travel management, and International SOS, a pioneer in global health management and traveler safety, have come together to provide a guide, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/duty-of-care">The Single Most Important Part of Your Job</a>, to help managers perform this complex and critical responsibility. It looks closely at five focuses to help a company move from concern to practice, navigate today’s challenges, and be ready for the change ahead.</p>
<h2>Start Smart</h2>
<p>You need timely, reliable information to provide travelers and other employees trusted guidance, properly assess safety risks, and support your team when needed.</p>
<p>To build a framework of reliable information, consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>Integrating data of sources including health advisories, weather, security updates, and transportation disruptions. Capture data from multiple booking sources to increase visibility.</li>
<li>Building a risk scoring system to evaluate destinations and guide employees.</li>
<li>Exploring risk scenarios to measure the impact of incidents on your employees and operations.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Continuously Adjust to Constant Geopolitical Crises</h2>
<p>Global instability and rising political polarization heighten the risks of terrorism, protests, and other violence. This means leaders must follow changing rules, and that some travelers – women and LBGTQ team members, for example – have particular concerns.</p>
<p>To address ongoing shifts, conduct regular reviews to identify risks that could hinder travel, operations, and your employees. In addition, weigh cultural and political environments of travel destinations and assess whether your travel policies and processes can flex with disruptions. Of course, ensure that you have system in place to communicate with your employees about risks and resources to help when situations go sideways.</p>
<h2>Ready Yourself for the Rise in Risks to Physical Health</h2>
<p>While natural disasters and geopolitical disruptions certainly can affect the health and safety of your employees, health incidents are seven times more likely to occur than security incidents.<sup>3</sup></p>
<p>Outbreaks like COVID-19 are becoming more common and so, too, are mosquito-borne illnesses thriving among the heat of climate change. Businesses should prioritize education about risks, prevention, and resources that ease access to medical attention while on trips. Emphasize the importance of reporting health incidents and preparing for pandemics and other health crises.</p>
<h2>Make a Commitment to Mental Health</h2>
<p>The disruption and uncertainty of the pandemic affected the mental health of many, and it’s an issue that should remain top of mind for managers and their companies. Factors such as cost of living, security threats, and natural disasters continue to weigh heavy – both on travelers and employees working remotely in isolation.</p>
<p>To address the issue, companies can promote awareness and openness about mental health, make mental health considerations a factor in travel polices, provide such resources as counseling, hotlines, and coping tools for travelers.</p>
<h2>Prioritize Employee Health and Safety for Those Working from Home</h2>
<p>The business world is, in many corners, still trying to determine and adjust its stance on hybrid and remote work. That said, policies and workplaces are unlikely to revert to their pre-pandemic ways. Businesses should formulate guidelines on home office safety, establish protocols for tech safety, and provide opportunities for team members to interact and engage, from regular check-ins with managers to virtual social events.</p>
<h2>Resources to Manage Your Duty of Care Duties</h2>
<ul>
<li>Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/duty-of-care">The Single Most Important Part of Your Job</a> for a detailed look at helping ensure the health and safety of employees.</li>
<li>Visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">Duty of Care</a> section of the SAP Concur website to take an assessment of your organization’s travel risk and find other timely information.</li>
<li>Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5787ad4ac5cec4160011e8df">International SOS app</a> in the App Center and discover how they can play a role in duty of care.</li>
</ul>
<h6>1., 3. Risk Outlook 2023, International SOS<br />
2. SAP Concur Global Business Travelers Report, 2023</h6>
SAP Concur Team
Navigating the Path to Expansion with SAP Concur Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-path-to-expansion-with-sap-concur-solutions
2023-10-09T09:00:00Z
2023-10-05T10:54:52Z
"Business expansion offers many exciting opportunities to deliver positive financial impact. And whether you're exploring or actively embracing it in your strategy, SAP Concur is a scalable solution t
<p>Business expansion offers many exciting opportunities to deliver positive financial impact. </p>
<p>And whether you're exploring or actively embracing it in your strategy, SAP Concur is a scalable solution that can accommodate expanding business needs and handle business spend across multiple regions. </p>
<p>Navigating the complexities of expansion is crucial to maintaining financial health and driving sustainable success. As an SAP® Concur® customer, you're already perfectly positioned to make the maximum gains as you extend your reach. </p>
<p>Expansion comes in many forms, from acquiring or merging with other companies (31%), opening a new location domestically (35%) or expanding internationally (30%).1 Whichever route you are taking, there are specific best practices and spend management solutions that will ensure your company’s continued success. </p>
<p>In this blog, we’ll explore the two stages of expansion — exploring and embracing — and discover how by leveraging your SAP Concur solutions across your organization, you can enhance efficiency, ensure compliance and drive future growth. </p>
<ol>
<li>Navigate Expansion as You Explore Opportunities </li>
<li>Navigate Expansion as You Embrace Strategies </li>
</ol>
<p>Let’s look at the two stages of business expansion and learn how a holistic approach to spend management can help you reach your business potential. </p>
<h2>1. Navigate Expansion as You Explore Opportunities </h2>
<p>If expansion is under consideration for your business and you’re exploring possible opportunities, there’s good news. At this stage, you have a clear chance to establish scalable, consolidated financial processes that will adapt effortlessly as you turn your ideas into plans. </p>
<p>An integrated end-to-end spend management solution will scale and adapt with you, ensuring seamless spend data flows across all entities as finance teams manage different currencies, languages and cross-border tax regulations. This means that as you expand, you enhance productivity and profitability and reduce risk and non-compliance. </p>
<p>Here are some of the ways SAP Concur solutions will support you in the early, planning stages of expansion and as you build on that success in the future. </p>
<h3>Time to Innovate </h3>
<p>Your best people should be focused on strategic and innovative work – not undertaking time-consuming manual financial tasks. </p>
<p>By rolling out Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Expense </a>and Concur<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog"> Travel</a> to every corner of your expanding organization, you will quickly gain valuable business spend insights that will help you reach your goals faster. You’ll also have a head start on competitors who decide to stick with disparate financial systems that don’t talk to each other. </p>
<p>WW T&E users of SAP Concur solutions reported 148 estimated hours saved by finance/AP teams per week.2 </p>
<h3>Automate Vendor Payments and Invoicing </h3>
<p>Don't just stop at expanding your T&E solutions. Automate all your business spend, including vendor payments and invoicing. A centralized Accounts Payable process will unlock cost savings and ensure healthy cash flow management across territories. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Concur Invoice</a> enables you to get ahead of vendor spending, reduce the risk of fraud and capture data to make better business decisions. </p>
<p>38% of businesses worldwide say faster processing/payment times is a top benefit of an automated vendor invoice management solution.3 </p>
<h3>Accurate Spend Data – Everywhere </h3>
<p>Ensure that business spend data will flow seamlessly between regions and countries and be localized to drive accuracy and compliance. SAP Concur solutions increase spend visibility and control, regardless of location. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Budget</a> allows you to effortlessly capture and consolidate data for a holistic view of employee spending throughout your business, no matter where they are based. This gives you the ability to adapt budgets to meet evolving business requirements as your expansion plans are put into action. <br />
</p>
<p>73% say that access to near real-time data and analytics will help them achieve strategic goals.4 </p>
<h3>Regional Compliance </h3>
<p>Each country has its own set of complex tax laws and regulations which, if not properly managed, can result in considerable amounts of money being left on the table. With the increasing implementation of indirect taxes such as VAT (Value Added Taxes), worldwide manual processes will soon become inefficient, ineffective and costly due to country-specific and constantly changing regulations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Concur Tax Assurance by Blue dot</a> helps you comply with global tax regulations by optimizing the integrity of your data, protecting against audits and penalties. With visibility into reclaimable VAT, you can maximize profitability and reallocate savings to the areas of business that need it the most. </p>
<p>26% of businesses worldwide saw an increase in tax reclaim (e.g., VAT, GST (Goods and Services Taxes)) savings through SAP Concur solutions or SAP Concur partners.5 </p>
<h3>Sustainable Travel </h3>
<p>Be ready for the possibility that employees might be traveling further and more frequently. How can you ensure they are booking the most cost-effective air fares and are safe when traveling to new destinations? </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Concur Travel</a> employees can pre-plan their trips and benefit from optimized air fares and more sustainable choices. By centralizing the travel booking process you can gain increased visibility for Duty of Care and compliance purposes. </p>
<h3>Where Next? </h3>
<p>Once you’ve decided that expansion is the next step for your business, you’ll probably have many more questions about how to proceed and what exactly you need to do to maximize success. </p>
<p>Check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/exploring-expansion-best-practice-tips-unlocking-potential?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Exploring Expansion: Best Practice Tips for Unlocking Your Potential </a>tipsheet for six specific examples of what best practice spend management looks like and the solutions that help businesses achieve this. </p>
<h2>2. Navigate Expansion as You Embed Strategies </h2>
<p>If your expansion plans are already underway and you want to stay on track, it's time to focus on embedding these strategies across all your spend management functions. </p>
<p>At this stage, data-driven decisions and robust reporting become the catalyst for scalable expansion and ongoing success. Localization of tax requirements, automated compliance checks and real-time reporting are crucial to ensuring that future rollouts go according to plan. </p>
<p>Here are some of the ways SAP Concur will support you in reaching your full potential as you expand. </p>
<h3>Enhance Risk Detection </h3>
<p>Empower finance managers to effortlessly consolidate and manage cashflow across multiple entities to reduce costs, ensure compliance and reduce fraud. You can utilize <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Concur Detect by Oversight</a> to identify patterns of erroneous behavior and high-risk spend. Using AI and machine learning, it analyzes expenses pre-and/or post-payment to identify errors, waste, patterns of misuse and fraud that would be difficult, if not impossible, to spot by human detection. </p>
<h3>Built-in Audits and Policy-Adherence </h3>
<p>Best practice global spend management ensures local audit and policy rules are built into your financial processes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Intelligent Audit</a> helps fuel business momentum by automatically evaluating your processes and proactively identifying and addressing issues before they inflict harm on your financial performance or result in non-compliance. </p>
<p>By automating policy enforcement, generating robust reports and facilitating audits, you can ensure adherence to regulations and maintain accurate financial records as you expand, saving time and money. </p>
<p>42% found non-compliance resulting in time wasted during expense audits was the biggest risk/compliance related challenges of not using a dedicated T&E and/or invoice management automation software. </p>
<h3>Robust Reporting for Localized Spend Control </h3>
<p>With the right spend information (localized for language, currency and policy) at the right time, SAP Concur solutions empower you to make informed decisions with consistent data in the form of reports and dashboards. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/consultative-intelligence?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Consultative Intelligence</a> combines the human expertise of our consultants with our AI-driven technology. This provides you with more accurate, meaningful spend data for ongoing improvements and refinements to spending behavior and compliance. </p>
<p>69% of companies worldwide believe T&E has improved their ability to make data-driven decisions.6 </p>
<h3>Drive Adoption Across Your Business </h3>
<p>Adopting new technologies doesn't have to be challenging. Drive adoption, ensure policy compliance, streamline processes, boost productivity and enhance end user engagement with <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Concur User Assistant by WalkMe</a>. Your employees gain access to valuable, easy-to-follow, local language training content seamlessly integrated within the SAP Concur user interface, making user engagement easier and maximizing your business's return on investment as quickly as possible. </p>
<p>The SAP Concur platform also incorporates multilingual and localized formats and templates, allowing for accurate spend control and a stress-free employee experience. </p>
<p>By 2025, 70% of organizations will use digital adoption solutions across the entire technology stack to overcome still insufficient application user experiences.7 </p>
<h3>You’re Not Alone – Help Is At Hand </h3>
<p>As you continue to extend your SAP Concur solutions your requirements will evolve. </p>
<p>You might need to configure your existing SAP Concur solutions or add new tools to your suite. It might be that you’re not fully utilizing all the features and you want help in optimizing your spend management solution. </p>
<p>A comprehensive change management program, comprehensive support options and a <a href="https://community.concur.com/?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">community</a> of more than 90,000 users helps create a seamless rollout of your spend management solution. In addition, the multilingual and localized formats and templates make the user experience stress-free. </p>
<h3>Where Next? </h3>
<p>As your business expands, so will your business spending habits. It’s crucial to ensure you’re maximizing your spend management platform and that you’ve got all the necessary tools to oversee expansion in all offices and countries. </p>
<p>Work through our practical <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/embracing-expansion-checklist-reach-your-full-potential?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Embracing Expansion: A Checklist to Successfully Reach Your Full Potential</a> to see how eight key challenges can transform into opportunities for successful expansion. </p>
<h3>SAP Concur Solutions: Your Ticket to Success </h3>
<p>For optimal spend visibility and control, scalable SAP Concur solutions simplify financial operations, streamline processes, reduce manual data entry and enhance data-driven decisions. On the compliance side, SAP Concur automates compliance checks and provides comprehensive audit trails to ensure efficiency and mitigate risks. </p>
<p>For further insight into the common questions Finance Managers ask during discussions about business expansion, and the solutions to overcome them, read our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/spending-keeping-your-business-or-vice-versa?sfdcid=7017V000001cdYK&status=Responded&pid=email&cid=USSMBClient_Expansion_Q423_Blog">Is Your Spending Keeping Up with Your Business – or Vice-Versa eBook</a>. </p>
<p>Alternatively, for further help and support you can contact your Account Executive. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Finding Security in Data Intelligence and the Cloud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finding-security-in-data-intelligence-and-cloud
2023-10-10T01:31:32Z
2023-10-03T07:15:16Z
Artificial intelligence (AI), cloud technologies, and advanced data analytics have the potential to revolutionize how organizations manage travel and expense (T&E) operations. However, concerns about
<p>There’s immense excitement today about how <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-back-office-to-tip-spear-how-ai-will-transform-te">artificial intelligence (AI)</a>, the cloud, and advanced data analytics will transform the way that organizations manage and optimize their travel and expense (T&E) operations.</p>
<p>Yet, that enthusiasm is also tempered by some apprehension. Seven in 10 decision-makers (72%) say they’re concerned about personal and company data security, according to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">SAP Concur-commissioned survey</a> with Forrester. While modern spend management solutions can help make T&E more responsive and agile, they can also introduce new challenges around security and data protection if a mindful approach is not taken from the beginning.</p>
<p>SAP Concur has incorporated AI and machine learning technology into its spend management solutions for nearly a decade. Three words have guided our strategy since day one: relevant, reliable, and responsible. We employ this technology in a way that protects our customers, including barring it from using customer data to train the model for use outside of their organization. We are actively and intentionally taking steps to proactively protect our customers’ data and security.</p>
<p>Looking for more specifics? Here are just a few ways that SAP Concur embeds security and privacy into every solution we deliver, while enabling our customers to make the most of data intelligence and the cloud.</p>
<h2>Hybrid Security Measures</h2>
<p>The shift to hybrid and remote work has unlocked productivity and brought more work-life balance to employees. At the same time, it’s also introduced new complexities and security challenges for organizations. Expanding the definition of the workplace to include the home office, the hotel lobby, the coffee shop, and other makeshift working environments can increase risk—if the right security measures are not in place.</p>
<p>As a company deeply rooted in the T&E landscape, we are well versed in ensuring the solutions we offer are secure regardless of location, since our customers can be in the office one day and on a plane the next. We understand that organizations need T&E solutions that empower everyone to thrive in the hybrid working environment while ensuring compliance. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">71% of surveyed decision-makers</a> say that increased security and data protection is the top benefit of implementing a modern T&E solution.</p>
<p>For example, whether customers are working remotely or in office, we’ve instituted secure options for logging into our tools. Customers can choose to log in with single-sign on (SSO) initiated by an identity provider (IdP) or with a username and password—with two-factor authentication coming soon for those who choose the latter. We enable companies to customize according to their preferences and security policies (e.g., making SSO optional). We’ve also put safeguards in place to automatically alert managers of profile changes, such as when a user’s email address is updated.</p>
<h2>End-to-End Privacy Controls</h2>
<p>In recent years, there has been growing scrutiny into how technology companies collect, process, protect, and use the personal data of their customers. The rise of AI systems, trained on massive stores of data, have only further heighted those concerns.</p>
<p>SAP Concur upholds the importance of implementing safeguards that protect our users’ data, which is why we’ve embedded data protection functionality and privacy features into all our products and services, including data masking and data encryption. Our Data Privacy and Protection team evaluates and must approve every use case leveraging customer data. We are compliant with all personal data protection regulations in place, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We also make use of robust application programming interfaces (APIs) and secure file transfer protocols (SFTPs), more secure methods of transferring and integrating data than manual imports and exports.</p>
<p>This approach extends to how we develop, deploy, and use AI systems. In 2022, SAP published its <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/trust-center/data-privacy.html?pdf-asset=a8431b91-117e-0010-bca6-c68f7e60039b&page=1">Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) </a>Ethics Policy, which defines our approach to AI development in alignment with our organizational values, such as our commitment to developing systems that do not de-anonymize already anonymized data.</p>
<h2>Modern, Robust Data Security</h2>
<p>Ensuring our customer data is safe and maintains the highest security standards is a top priority. As more organizations move increasing amounts of data into the cloud, security has become more critical than ever to ensure that data remains private and bad actors never gain access. This is exceptionally true for T&E platforms, which handle large amounts of personal identifiable information. Strict data security standards must come built in.</p>
<p>To that end, SAP Concur has used industry standards and compliance and regulatory requirements to build a robust security foundation. We back this up by offering System and Organization Controls (SOC) reports to give organizations insights into the effectiveness of internal control systems implemented within cloud delivery units.</p>
<p>In addition, we’re audited regularly for compliance with the leading global standards of security and service management, assuring our customers that we maintain data confidentiality, integrity, and availability at all times. The written results of many of these audits are available on request.</p>
<h2>A New Era for Data Intelligence and the Cloud</h2>
<p>With the right approach, modern spend management solutions can alleviate any security and data protection woes, allowing organizations to focus on moving their teams forward, not stressing over whether their data is protected. And SAP Concur is leading the charge.</p>
<p>Learn more about how SAP Concur builds, runs, and maintains secure operations for our customers by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/data-security">clicking here.</a></p>
Christopher Juneau
You Don’t Need to Be Big to Need Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-dont-need-to-be-big-to-need-automation
2023-10-03T09:00:00Z
2023-10-02T06:35:39Z
“Do you have the receipt?”, “Are these expense details accurate?”, and “Was this claim approved?” are three questions no employee wants to hear and finance teams big and small are tired of asking.
<h2>You Don’t Need to Be Big to Need Automation </h2>
<p>“Do you have the receipt?”, “Are these expense details accurate?”, and “Was this claim approved?” are three questions no employee wants to hear and finance teams big and small are tired of asking. </p>
<p>It’s not surprising then that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/choose-the-right-travel-expense-solution-for-your-small-midsize-business">nearly two-thirds of small to medium-sized businesses</a> say improving employee satisfaction has become a top priority. Close behind is the desire to free employees from mundane tasks so they can focus on more strategic work. </p>
<p>In other words, digitizing and automating expense management processes is no longer a nice-to-have. And for a not-so-big business, it can be mission-critical. </p>
<h2>Will Your Employees Love Using Concur Expense? </h2>
<p>While we can’t speak for how your employees will feel about using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">Concur Expense</a>, they will have an easier time getting their expense tasks done. </p>
<p>Here’s why: </p>
<ul>
<li>Whether in the office, at home, or out in the world, your employees will be able to use the <a href="https://www.concur.com/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a> to quickly snap a pic of their receipt. </li>
<li>Our proprietary OCR and machine-learning technologies then automatically itemize and categorize each expense, plus flag any potential out-of-policy claims. </li>
<li>The only thing left for an employee to do is quickly review the expense report, add any additional info needed, and press submit. </li>
</ul>
<p>No more lost receipts, lost hours, or lost peace of mind. </p>
<p>The same goes for your managers and finance team: </p>
<ul>
<li>Concur Expense will send them a notification as soon as an expense report has been submitted. </li>
<li>Each expense report and attached receipt photos can be then easily reviewed on a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop. </li>
<li>All that’s left to do is press the approve button or send a message right within the app to the employee if further details are required. </li>
</ul>
<p>It’s easy. <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Take a Concur Expense self-guided tour</a> and see for yourself. </p>
<h2>Your Employees Are Worth it – and So Is Your Business </h2>
<p>Over 51,000 businesses of all types and sizes use SAP Concur solutions. So, we understand the need to make every dollar count, especially for those businesses without big budgets. </p>
<p>Why are we so confident? Because our customers regularly share with us the real-world ROI of automating spend management processes. </p>
<p>Concur Expense users have reported<sup>1</sup>: </p>
<ul>
<li>47% reduction in missing receipts </li>
<li>32% reduction in the time taken to approve expenses </li>
<li>$54K estimated money saved on an annual basis </li>
<li>Only 8 months to see positive ROI </li>
</ul>
<p>And that’s just for starters. </p>
<p>Of course, the real ROI comes from how Concur Expense can help boost your employees’ happiness and productivity. Those are big benefits that can resonate for years to come. Learn more about what your business can gain with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">automated spend management</a>. </p>
<p>We’re here to answer any questions you may have. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Talk to us today</a>. </p>
<h6>1 Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. </h6>
SAP Concur Team
Business Meals and Entertainment Expenses Surpass Pre-Pandemic Levels
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-meals-and-entertainment-expenses-surpass-pre-pandemic-levels
2023-10-03T09:00:00Z
2023-09-29T07:24:21Z
SMBs experienced a 32% rise in entertainment expenses and meal expenses increased by nearly 10% since 2019. To manage expenses, communicate policies, and utilize technology for expense report audits.
<p>The past few years saw a change in business spending, as expense reports that once centered around business travel and related expenses shifted to “Office” or “Other” expense categories for remote work equipment. </p>
<p>With the first half of 2023 behind us, we’re once again seeing a shift that we expect to continue—at least through the end of the year. In 2022, 192M expense reports flowed through Concur Expense. And based on the data from January through June 2023, spending on entertainment and meals surpassed pre-pandemic levels. </p>
<h2>Small Businesses Splurge on Entertainment </h2>
<p>Work hard, play hard? Entertainment expenses suggest that in the first six months of this year, employees spent more on non-work events than in the past three years. Even though entertainment expenses are no longer tax deductible, spending on entertainment increased more than 10% (11.86%) in the first half of 2023 compared to the first half of 2019. </p>
<p>What exactly does entertainment entail? The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-18-76.pdf">defines</a> entertainment expenses as, “entertainment, amusement, or recreation, such as entertaining at night clubs, cocktail lounges, theaters, country clubs, golf and athletic clubs, sporting events, and on hunting, fishing, vacation, and similar trips, including such activity relating solely to the taxpayer or the taxpayer’s family." </p>
<p>The greatest contributors were small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), which saw the largest increase in entertainment at 32%. That’s compared to a four percent increase at large businesses. </p>
<p>It’s possible that workers are simply entertaining clients or partaking in group outings more, or it’s the uptick in cost from inflation. The average entertainment expense increased 23% from 2019 to 2023, from $123 to $151. Although, that’s down from a high of $155 in 2022. </p>
<p>Vikki Rondeau, staff accountant at Motley Rice LLC confirmed, “spending did increase significantly, mostly due to inflation and travel, but we are hosting more events and working hard on business development and all these things are simply touched by the high cost of everything.” </p>
<h2>Inflation Hikes the Average Cost of Meals </h2>
<p>Whether it’s a quick lunch with a client or a to-go meal on a business trip, spending on meals in the first half of 2023 increased nearly 10% (9.1%) compared to the first half of 2019. </p>
<p>What does the average meal expense look like? It’s probably less than a three-course meal and more than a coffee and baguette. The average meal expense costs $55, but like entertainment expenses, that’s up 23% from $43 in 2019. </p>
<p>The increase in meal and entertainment spending has been partially driven by the return to office (RTO). Many companies have been using things like team happy hours and office lunches to attract employees back to the office. More than one out for four (28%) workplace leaders used onsite meals as RTO incentive and 11% used social events, according to workplace platform <a href="https://envoy.com/blog/return-to-office-incentives/">Envoy</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, Lisa Simpson, travel and card services specialist at J.M. Huber Corporation attributed the increase in meal and entertainment spending on an “increase in face-to-face meetings and in travel as well as 'collaboration day' events and meals.” She said, “we provided a subsidy to a meal delivery service when we initially returned to the office.” </p>
<p>At Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation, Senior Credit Card Specialist Christine Makai said, “while overall meal cost has increased as a part of travel, our company has also had ‘on-campus’ events with food as well as more breakfast and lunch gatherings as an incentive to be ‘in office.’” </p>
<p>Looking a bit closer, SMBs seem to spend more on meals with a $64 per expense report average. On the flip side, large businesses are a bit lower at $53. The difference in average meal expense likely stems from expense policies and the guardrails around what may and may not be expensed. </p>
<h2>How to Prepare for the Busiest Expense Season </h2>
<p>One of the busiest times of year for entertainment and meal expenses is the final quarter of the year, with end-of-year holiday parties, and the final push to reach year-end goals. Indeed, data in Concur Expense reveals that entertainment and meal spending peaks in Q4 each year with October being the busiest month for meal and entertainment expenses. </p>
<p>As the busy season approaches, here are a few words of advice to prepare – especially since meals and entertainment are two categories that have a lot of grey area in expense policies. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Clearly communicate expense policies</strong>. Remind employees of what is and isn’t covered in meal and entertainment expenses. Past SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">research</a> found that nearly all finance managers saw an increase in non-compliant expenses after the pandemic. </li>
<li><strong>Be strategic in planning RTO tactics.</strong> Keep in mind that while entertainment expenses are not deductible in year-end taxes, meals are. As part of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/133/text">Consolidated Appropriations Act</a>, food and beverages will be 100% deductible if purchased from a restaurant—and that applies to 2023 taxes. As such, it may make more financial sense to encourage year-end meals instead of entertainment outings. </li>
<li><strong>Use technology to audit expense reports.</strong> November and December make for a busy spend management season as procurement departments work to collect final payments and issue invoices, employees submit expense reports before the end of the fiscal, and finance departments process and influx of reports and requests. Finance managers should use advanced expense management solutions to automatically check reports for errors. VMware saved an estimated 8,000 FTE hours by using Concur Audit to automate its manual internal audit process. Concur Verify is another solution that uses AI and ML to automatically check 100% of expense reports for errors. </li>
</ul>
<p>At SAP Concur, we believe that nothing can replace the value of in-person interactions. Business travelers feel similarly. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a> found that 92% of global business travelers say the future of their career is dependent on successful business travel in the next year because it’s important for maintaining client relationships (42%) and starting new ones (41%). </p>
<p>At The Mosaic Company, Continuous Improvement Manager Brad Barton noted, “we had suspended international travel and a lot of sales trips, but now we have opened everything up again.” </p>
<p>We’re thrilled to see signs of lunches with colleagues, sporting events with clients, work events at restaurants, and morning coffees at airports return to pre-pandemic levels. The return has us looking ahead to what’s next for business and travel. </p>
<p><sub>Methodology: SAP Concur analyzed expense reports filed by SAP Concur customers in Concur Expense between January 1, 2023, through June 30, 2023, and equivalent time periods from 2019 and 2022. Expenses for this analysis were tagged as “meal” or “entertainment.” </sub></p>
Chris Juneau
How Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning Are Helping Organizations Reduce Non-Compliant Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automation-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-are-helping-organizations
2023-10-02T09:00:00Z
2023-09-29T07:11:12Z
Over the past few years, we've witnessed a fascinating transformation in the realm of travel and expense (T&E) compliance. This article offers valuable insights into the challenges organizations face
<p>Over the past few years, we've witnessed a fascinating transformation in the realm of travel and expense (T&E) compliance. During the "Great Resignation," companies were more lenient with their expense policies to retain employees. Home office expenses, home internet, and enhanced benefits all found their way onto the reimbursement list. Compliance took a back seat. Non-compliance challenges emerged from various corners. Employees overspent or simply forgot the T&E policy due to extended periods without travel, new hires were unfamiliar with the rules, and workforce changes created knowledge gaps within T&E teams. Outdated manual processes further exacerbated these issues. </p>
<p>But as business activities resumed and cost management became critical, the spotlight shifted back to ensuring adherence to policy. The resurgence of business travel and the surge in inflation demanded a closer look at expenses. Many organizations began exploring ways to manage costs and improve efficiency. Enter automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). </p>
<p>This new reality is explored in great depth in our on-demand webinar, <a href="https://go.concur.com/080123_all_compliance_7017v000001l7yg_registrationpage.html">Reduce Non-Compliant Spend with Automation and Machine Learning</a>, which offers valuable insights into the challenges organizations face in ensuring T&E compliance and how cutting-edge technologies like automation, AI, and ML can be harnessed to overcome these challenges. Below, we highlight the key takeaways from this webinar. </p>
<h2>T&E Compliance: The Shifting Landscape </h2>
<p>In today's dynamic business environment, managing T&E compliance has become more crucial than ever. And yet the T&E compliance landscape continues to shift, making it hard for organizations to find steady footing on shaky ground as they work to evolve their T&E policies to align to the realities of today. </p>
<p>While the Great Resignation led many companies to relax their expense policies to enhance employee retention, as business and travel resumed, inflation pressures and cost management are top of mind, causing a shift back to compliance enforcement. As travel regained momentum and costs soared, organizations began to closely scrutinize their spend. </p>
<p>Trends in non-compliant spend, which is simply spend that falls outside an organization’s established policies — including duplicate submissions, misuse, and even fraud — closely align with the changing post-COVID landscape. Travel has rebounded significantly, but travel spend has surged even higher due to inflation. The data shows that hotel and airline spending had increased by 81% and 82%, respectively, with a substantial rise in violations. Interestingly, violations are not limited to travel expenses but also extend to business services and supplies, constituting approximately 75% of all violations. </p>
<p>Then, of course, is the prevalent, elephant-in-the-room trend: AI is taking the world by storm. And while there are two sides to the AI coin, the bottom line is there are great benefits for organizations that lean into the capabilities of automation, AI, and ML to drive compliance in their T&E programs. There is some very well-researched and well-proven AI focused on automating the detection of risk, misuse, and fraud. AI that can find patterns in the data that humans would otherwise miss, and that empowers small teams to be able to do much more with much less. This AI helps organizations stop doing the manual processes and audits they used to do, whereby they only had the ability to audit 10-20% of transactions; now, powered by AI, these teams can monitor 100% of those transactions in a fraction of the time. Organizations are not only detecting more, and looking at more, but they’re also doing it with less effort, so now their teams can focus on resolving high-impact issues and making higher-level decisions. </p>
<p>Key Takeaways: </p>
<ul>
<li>Trends show a resurgence in corporate travel and an increase in non-compliant spend, particularly due to inflation. </li>
<li>The Great Resignation and policy changes have led to challenges in compliance. </li>
<li>Automation, AI, and ML empower organizations to tackle non-compliance efficiently. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Leveraging Automation and AI/ML for Compliance </h2>
<p>With the changing workforce landscape and the departure of institutional knowledge, automation has become instrumental in supporting new teams and travelers. Automation, a powerful ally in the battle for compliance, has been instrumental in driving adherence to T&E policies. </p>
<p>Audit rules — those warning messages and hard stops that can be configured in the system — are a natural starting point for automation. begins with clear and concise audit rules configured within the system, which is where organizations often see the biggest impact and value. These audit rules serve as guardrails, guiding users and preventing policy violations. </p>
<p>Additionally, simple yet effective automation tools like email reminders can replace manual tasks and significantly enhance compliance by standardizing processes and allowing teams to focus on more valuable tasks. For some organizations, something as simple as leveraging email reminders frees up hours of valuable employee time each week, standardizing and eliminating previously manual work so the team can focus on more high-value, high-impact tasks. </p>
<p>A point of caution: organizations can get carried away with the use of compliance checks in the </p>
<p>solution, to the point where it severely inhibits the user experience. So, how do you keep employees compliant to policy but not compromise their experience using a tool? Striking that balance between compliance and user experience is crucial. While ensuring compliance is vital, overcomplicating the process can hinder the user experience, so aim to keep it simple and streamlined. Understanding and prioritizing the user experience is essential for achieving the delicate balance between compliance and efficiency. So as organizations turn to automation, they’re strongly advised to consider the user experience as a top guiding principle as they work to drive change across their workforce. </p>
<p>Key Takeaways: </p>
<ul>
<li>Automation when done right (think: audit rules and email reminders) effectively drives policy compliance. </li>
<li>Audit rules should be designed for efficiency and effectiveness. </li>
<li>Balancing compliance checks with a positive user experience is crucial. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Compliance Analytics, Benchmarks, and Trends </h2>
<p>Leveraging reporting and analytics is an often-overlooked tool in the compliance arsenal. By gaining insights from spend data, organizations can pinpoint areas of risk and focus their attention effectively. Put plainly, the ability to track compliance patterns and monitor behavior gives organizations a leg up. </p>
<p>Organizations must have effective reporting strategies in place to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as corporate card utilization and spend by expense type. This allows organizations to effectively analyze trends to understand compliance patterns and identify areas for improvement. </p>
<p>Take traveler compliance behavior as an example of how understanding trends can help organizations more effectively drive impactful change. Around 70% of business travelers are generally compliant, while 25% may occasionally falter, and 5% consistently engage in high-risk behavior. By focusing on the 25% with occasional issues, organizations can achieve significant savings and compliance improvements. Identifying and tracking trends like these can lead to more significant cost savings and better overall compliance. By tracking the behavior of the 25% of employees with occasional issues and the 5% who regularly violate policies, organizations can implement targeted interventions to improve compliance. And when organizations intervene and communicate with these travelers on specific issues, their behavior becomes more compliant over time, saving the organization money and ensuring the entire program is more compliant. Tracking these trends allows organizations to see not only financial savings, but how the overall risk and compliance within their program is changing over time. </p>
<p>Key Takeaways: </p>
<ul>
<li>Reporting and analytics offer insights into areas of risk and improvement. </li>
<li>Tracking employee compliance behavior can guide interventions. </li>
<li>KPIs and trend analysis are essential tools for understanding compliance. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Internal Audit and Control Strategies </h2>
<p>There are simple steps your organization can take to enhance audit process efficiency. Start by reviewing the effectiveness of your audit rules, categorizing issues, and prioritizing high-impact items for more efficient compliance management. Automation should be leveraged wherever possible, saving time, ensuring consistency, and ensuring that institutional knowledge is preserved within automated processes. </p>
<h3>3-Step Process to Drive Compliance with Automation, AI, and ML </h3>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p>Analyze the efficiency of your audit process. To do this, follow these three steps: </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Compile audit issues. Gather your audit rules, eliminate duplicates, and gather data on the results of your audit rules to determine their effectiveness. For example, for any audit rules that were triggered, how many were sent back to an employee? What percentage constituted a real problem? And what percentage were non-issues, and just noise distracting from the true problems? </li>
<li>Categorize the issues. Identify the cause or type, and whether payment was reimbursed or denied. </li>
<li>Prioritize for action. Determine which items are high priority based on whether payment/reimbursement was denied. Low-priority items include instances when payment/reimbursement was made, but a reminder was needed as a means of changing future behavior. </li>
</ul>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>Assess which AI-based tools meet your needs. Understand the capabilities of the compliance and automation tools you have access to and what can be achieved by leveraging the technology you already have. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Define priority goals: Clearly outline your top goals, such as risk identification, behavior change, and efficiency optimization. This will guide your selection of AI-based tools. </li>
<li>Evaluate automation tools: Familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the automation tools available to your team. Understanding what different tools can and can't do is essential for optimal implementation. </li>
<li>Leverage the right AI-based tools: Identify AI-powered solutions that align with your priority goals and can address your automation needs. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur® Detect by Oversight</a> can be a valuable tool to aid in risk identification. </li>
</ul>
<ol start="3">
<li>Automate wherever possible. Understand which tasks you can automate, which you want to keep as manual processes, and which tasks you can eliminate altogether. </li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>List current tasks: Compile a comprehensive list of all the tasks involved in the audit process. This will help you identify areas where automation can be implemented effectively. </li>
<li>Identify current manual tasks: Create a separate list of tasks that are currently managed manually. These are the areas where AI tools can potentially have the most significant impact. </li>
<li>Decide what to automate: Assess each task on your list to determine whether it can be automated, removed entirely, or should remain as a manual process. Automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks can significantly improve efficiency, especially during team changes and onboarding. </li>
</ul>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Want to take this 3-step process on the go?</h5>
<p>Download our tip sheet, 3 Steps to Reduce Non-Compliant Spend with Automation & Machine Learning. </p>
<p><a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/3-steps-reduce-non-compliant-spend-automation-machine-learning">Download</a></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Finally, when incorporating AI-based tools, it's vital to set clear goals, identify gaps in compliance, and choose tools that align with your objectives. Before you implement any technology or tool, you must first understand your priority goals. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to identify risk more effectively and efficiently? Do you want to change out-of-policy employee behavior? Regardless of your goal, always keep the employee experience top of mind. Once you know what your goals are, identify gaps in existing processes and select AI tools that best fill those gaps. </p>
<p>Key Takeaways: </p>
<ul>
<li>Streamlining audit processes through automation improves efficiency. </li>
<li>Automating tasks reduces the impact of workforce turnover. </li>
<li>AI-based tools should align with organizational goals and fill existing gaps. </li>
</ul>
<h2>T&E Compliance is an Opportunity, not an Obstacle </h2>
<p>Compliance isn't just about rules but also about leveraging technology, automation, and data to create a seamless and efficient travel and expense management process. With these strategies, organizations can reduce non-compliant spending, mitigate risks, and enhance the overall employee experience. </p>
<p>In an era where every dollar spent must be accounted for, organizations can find solace knowing that cutting-edge technologies offer practical solutions to the challenges of T&E compliance. And by prioritizing automation, data-driven insights, and user experience, organizations can navigate the complex landscape of compliance more effectively, ultimately achieving greater efficiency and cost savings in their T&E programs, and strategically optimizing their compliance efforts to meet the realities of an ever-changing world. </p>
<p>For more exclusive insights and actionable strategies for reducing non-compliant spend through automation and machine learning, watch our on-demand webinar, <a href="https://go.concur.com/080123_all_compliance_7017v000001l7yg_registrationpage.html">Reduce Non-Compliant Spend with Automation and Machine Learning.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Fostering Gratitude: How to Truly Appreciate Your AP Team
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fostering-gratitude-how-to-truly-appreciate-your-ap-team
2023-09-27T12:25:04Z
2023-09-27T11:37:40Z
AP Recognition Week (APRW) is the perfect time to acknowledge your back-office team’s contributions and elevate its profile. Give your team the tools they need to partner with you and achieve more str
<p>For many organizations, accounts payable (AP) is a back-office outpost whose work happens far out of view. But without a well-oiled AP department staffed by knowledgeable professionals, your organization would come to a standstill; imagine not being able to pay vendors or having accurate books to ensure proper forecasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>What is AP Recognition Week?</h3>
<p>AP Recognition Week (APRW) is the perfect time to acknowledge your back-office team’s contributions and elevate its profile. So, be sure to draw attention to everything that AP does that makes your organization run smoothly and empowers these professionals to thrive. But recognition doesn’t end there. Go one step further and show your AP team that you believe it has a central role to play in influencing your company’s path toward greater growth and profitability.</p>
<p>Give your team the tools they need to partner with you and achieve more strategic bottom-line initiatives: ease tedious work, prevent mistakes and fraud, gain insights for forecasts, and better manage working capital for increased cash flow.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<h3>Give AP more time for more meaningful work</h3>
<p>Your AP team would love to reduce the dull, manual work like keying in invoices, printing check runs, emailing approval reminders, and tracking down payments. Look to show appreciation by equipping them with powerful tools to reduce manual work and speed up workflows, so they can spend more time on fulfilling work that contributes to career advancement.</p>
<p>Adding <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-ap-automation">AP automation</a> to your current process is quickly becoming one of the top ways businesses of all sizes are moving away from manual, paper-based systems. Say goodbye to lost receipts, printed invoices, check runs, and stamps. Automating such tasks isn’t just a morale booster – it benefits the whole organization. With more time, team members can focus on higher-reward projects. In fact, organizations that create exceptional employee experiences see a 10% to 22% higher employee engagement productivity and a 21% to 28% lower turnover, according to <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx">Gallup State of the Global Workplace</a> survey. <a>And when invoices </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/use-automation-to-reduce-cost-of-invoice-processing">cost four times less to process</a> – from $6.30 versus $1.45 per invoice – you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.</p>
<p>The digital transformation of AP is key to advancing strategic growth initiatives. Automation in AP gives organizations the ability to standardize data collection and obtain valuable insights that drive smarter decision-making. For example, seeing the frequency of invoices to a particular vendor can help you negotiate discounts – freeing up working capital that can be reallocated to other growth opportunities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Help AP staff improve their skills</h3>
<p>In today’s tight labor market, top talent has many choices when it comes to employers. By investing in your AP team’s careers, you can make your company stand out as a great place to work. Whether you want to bring in professional development opportunities or connect them with outside conferences, continuing education, and webinars, you’ll be doing your staff and organization a favor – employers without learning and growth opportunities risk losing employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The SAP Concur team can help:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Encourage your AP team to attend our fireside chat on October 4th.</strong> During our <a href="https://go.concur.com/100423_all_aprw_7017v000001cdb4_registrationpage.html?pid=blog%E2%80%8B&cid=motwa_aprw_blog_7017v000001cdb4_20231004">free one-hour educational webinar</a> you’ll join Jeanne Dion, Vice President of Value Experience at SAP Concur, along with other special guests in AP and financial leadership as they discuss a day in the life of their forward-thinking teams. Earn 1 CPE credit for your live attendance!</li>
<li><strong>Provide them with a bigger toolbox. </strong>Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/accounts-payable-recognition">AP Recognition Week center</a>, which includes content to help your AP and finance teams take on a greater strategic role in your organization, including:
<ul>
<li>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/five-steps-better-invoice-management-checklist">Better Invoice Management checklist</a> that includes five steps to achieve the full benefits of AP automation</li>
<li>Our recently updated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started?bypass=form">Vendor Invoice Policy template</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Sign up to join the SAP Concur community.</strong> <a href="https://community.concur.com/">Connect with thousands of your peers</a> to find success through our online digital community. We have several ways you can exchange tips and tricks, forge connections, and learn how to solve the challenges facing your organization.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h3>Four more ways to recognize your AP team</h3>
<p>Need more ways to show how much you value your AP team? Here are some ideas:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Write a simple thank you note: </strong>In our digital world, never underestimate the value of a handwritten thank you.</li>
<li><strong>Encourage them to go to events: </strong>In-person and digital events allow your AP team to have continuing education and professional development opportunities. Look for regular user groups or leadership councils within your region to ensure your AP team has the knowledge to transform your organization.</li>
<li><strong>Give them leadership opportunities:</strong> Invite AP team members to sit in on leadership meetings to share their ideas and insights. Encourage them to dive into SAP Concur solutions dashboards and reports to find new ways to better support the business, whether it’s through cost savings, training opportunities, or identifying and removing workflow blockages. </li>
<li><strong>Don’t forget the bagels and balloons:</strong> Who are we kidding? The way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach, and AP is no different. Bring on the party.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h3>For your AP professionals, sharing is caring</h3>
<p>Sharing knowledge and best practices is a key part of how AP professionals help their organizations address critical business challenges. Don’t hesitate to share the links in here with your AP team to let them know you’re thinking about them and support them.</p>
<p>And don’t forget to give your AP staff time to attend our free, virtual fireside chat on <strong>Wednesday, October 4<sup>th </sup></strong>so they can earn a CPE credit. They'll discuss the transformation of automating AP processes, the positive impact of AP automation on employee experience, hidden team challenges, areas that need more support, and unique ways of appreciating your AP teams year-round.</p>
<p>Spread the word by <a href="https://go.concur.com/100423_all_aprw_7017v000001cdb4_registrationpage.html?pid=blog&cid=motwa_aprw_blog_7017v000001cdb4_20231004">sharing our registration link</a> and get ready to hear the great new ideas your AP team has to help your organization rise to the next level.</p>
<div>
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</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Small Business Employees Use Business Travel to Boost Career
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/small-business-employees-use-business-travel-to-boost-career
2023-09-27T08:00:00Z
2023-09-26T11:08:45Z
1,650 employees at small and midsize companies, SMB travelers are hungry for business trips to build their careers.
<p>The past year has been hard on small businesses. The National Federation of Independent Business’ Small Business Optimism Index <a href="https://www.nfib.com/surveys/small-business-economic-trends/">revealed</a> that for the 20th straight month in August, business owners scored their outlook below average. With a year strained by inflated prices, staffing shortages, continued supply chain issues and more, it’s understandable.</p>
<p>Yet, when we delve into small and medium-sized business (SMB) employees and their stance on business travel, we see a resilience to succeed. SAP Concur partnered with Wakefield Research to conduct the fifth-annual Global Business Travel Survey. Based on responses from 1,650 employees at small and midsize companies, SMB travelers are hungry for business trips to build their careers.</p>
<h3><strong>Business Travel Builds Relationships</strong></h3>
<p>Travel willingness among SMB workers has increased over the past year. Two-thirds (67%) of SMB travelers are very willing to travel for business in the next 12 months. That’s compared to 54% from our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-top-mind-smb-travelers-2022">2022 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a>. While 39% of SMB travelers were traveling less than they’d like in 2022, only 18% say the same this year. </p>
<p>All in all, nearly all SMB travelers (95%) are at least somewhat willing to travel for business this year. For SMB employees, it’s about career success: The vast majority (92%) believe the future of their career depends on successful business travel in the coming year, particularly as it relates to their relationships with customers. About two out of five say business travel is critical for maintaining strong relationships with their clients and establishing relationships with new clients. </p>
<p>“Business travel is more important than ever,” says small business expert Steve Strauss. “Not only are employees clamoring to get on the road and meet colleagues at in-person live events, but even more importantly, they want to get out there and see their old customers, or — even better — get some new ones. They know only too well that Zoom can only take you so far; the best way to get over the goal line is to meet customers and prospects face-to-face, and that means business travel has to be on the agenda.”</p>
<p>Indeed, fewer SMB travelers report reduced travel budgets in response to the uncertain economy than their counterparts at larger companies (39% vs 46%). But that doesn’t mean SMB travelers are staying at five-star hotels. Outside of budget reductions, SMB travelers report their company has required them to stay in lower-quality accommodations and/or less safe areas (34%). </p>
<p><strong>Tip:</strong> Small businesses should reconsider this budget-cut option and take a page from larger companies’ playbook. More business travelers from larger companies report reductions in the number of overnight trips and requiring more same-day returns (37% vs 32%), tightening business/premium class travel policies (34% vs 27%), and emphasizing lower fares even if they include layovers, indirect routes, or alternative airports (33% vs 31%). These cost-saving measures are safer for employees.</p>
<h3><strong>Supporting Travelers with Flexible Policies </strong></h3>
<p>Small business leaders can support their employees’ ambition with the right travel policies, and if they learned anything during the pandemic, it’s that employees want flexibility. Nearly three in 10 SMB travelers (29%) would decline a business trip that lacks the flexibility to make adjustments to the trip outside of company policy. Indeed, nearly all SMB travelers with a corporate travel policy (94%) expect to be allowed to make travel choices outside of company policy.</p>
<p>It's not a want, it’s a need. Nearly half of SMB travelers expect to be able to surpass company policies to ensure they’re safe when traveling. Of the 93% that are willing to refuse a business trip, safety or social concerns about traveling to certain parts of the world and health concerns about the destination are the top reasons.</p>
<p>Why? The unfortunate reality is many SMB travelers have faced these issues during business trips:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly 3 in 5 (58%) have changed their accommodations on a business trip in the past 12 months specifically because they felt unsafe, with over a third (34%) reporting they did this more than once. </li>
<li>Nearly a quarter (23%) have experienced a situation while on a business trip where they felt they were in immediate danger. </li>
<li>Health and safety concerns (46%) are by far the most viewed threats to business travel today among SMB travelers, followed by last-minute delays and cancellations by airlines (38%) and inflation (37%). </li>
</ul>
<p>“For small businesses, employees are more than just a number, which is why it is important for them to know where their people are,” says Kacey Flygare, General Manager and Global Business Head of SMB at SAP Concur. “The first step is making sure you have the visibility into business trips and then establishing a plan to care for them. Policies and procedures should outline how companies will be able to communicate with traveling employees and protocols for if they get sick or need emergency care.”</p>
<p>There are other concerns impacting travelers’ willingness as well. Nearly a third of SMB travelers (29%) would refuse a business trip if it required travel to a location with a government or culture they don’t support. One out of five (25%) would refuse a trip over concerns about the environmental impact of the trip.</p>
<p><strong>Tip: </strong>Creating an effective travel policy is complex and with employee concerns rising, it’s worth consulting an expert. SAP Concur offers many resources to help business owners develop travel policies, including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">templates</a> and App Center partners that can provide senior health and security experts to advise on comprehensive plans and procedures. Visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">website</a> to learn more about our duty of care services.</p>
<p>For more information on the research, download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB whitepaper</a> and read this year’s broader Global Business Travel Survey findings on the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">SAP Concur blog</a>.</p>
<p><sub>The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 7 and April 28, 2023, among 1,650 business travelers, including 1,103 from small to midsize companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and 547 from companies with 1,000 or more employees in 6 market: US, Canada, UK, France, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), and Japan. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</sub></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Wins TrustRadius Awards in 2023
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-wins-2023-tech-cares-award
2023-11-17T10:25:56Z
2023-09-26T10:14:57Z
SAP Concur Wins the 2023 Tech Cares Award
<p>We're thrilled to announce that SAP Concur has achieved a remarkable milestone winning the TrustRadius 2023 Best Of Award including Best Value, Best Relationship, and Best Feature Set. </p>
<p>This achievement joins a long list of accolades that SAP Concur has proudly received, reflecting our consistent dedication to delivering exceptional value and fostering meaningful relationships with our clients. These awards include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Tech Cares Award 2023</strong>: This award signifies a company's outstanding commitment to corporate social responsibility in the tech industry. TrustRadius recognizes companies excelling in areas like environmental sustainability, support for women in tech, diversity and inclusion, employee support, philanthropy, and volunteerism.</li>
<li><strong>Top Rated Award 2023</strong>: Winning this award requires three key criteria: recent user reviews (at least 10 in the past year), category relevance (0.5% of traffic), and an excellent rating (minimum four stars with a trScore of 7.5+). This award signifies consistent product quality and user satisfaction.</li>
<li><strong>Most Loved Award 2023</strong>: Products that receive the highest ratio of "love" mentions to the total number of reviews stand out as the most adored by reviewers on TrustRadius. This award celebrates products that have earned exceptional user affection and trust.</li>
<li><strong>Best Of Award Winter 2023</strong>: This award recognizes a product's excellence in multiple aspects: Best Feature Set, Best Value for Price, and Best Relationship. Winning this award signifies all-around excellence, value, and strong user relationships in its category.
<ul>
<li><strong>Best Feature Set</strong></li>
<li><strong>Best Value for Price</strong></li>
<li><strong>Best Relationship</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We are excited to celebrate these awards and also to utilize our expertise and resources to create a better, more connected, and sustainable future. Read more about our reviews and ratings <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/reviews">here</a>. </p>
<p>Learn more about SAP’s corporate social responsibility and sustainability efforts <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/company/our-values/csr.html">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
What is Business Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-business-process
2023-12-11T07:17:16Z
2023-09-26T09:21:38Z
What is business process? What is a task in a business process? Those questions might seem simple, but you'd be surprised at how many business owners, managers, and executives need to understand them
<h1>What is Business Process: Understand the Foundation of Efficiency</h1>
<p>What is business process? What is a task in a business process? Those questions might seem simple, but you'd be surprised at how many business owners, managers, and executives need to understand them fully.</p>
<p>A business entity must fully understand business processes and how vital they are to reach its full potential. Our goal is to help you understand what the term means and to share how improving your business processes can take your operation to soaring new levels.</p>
<h2>What Is a Business Process?</h2>
<p>In layperson's terms, a business process is a set of activities that accomplish a specific business goal. There can be hundreds of business processes within an organization, and they can fit into subcategories under a departmental umbrella.</p>
<p>We'll take the finance department, for example. The finance department is typically responsible for managing the business's income and expenditures.</p>
<p>Thus, these individuals would oversee payroll budgets, traveling expenses, manufacturing costs, etc. Expense reimbursement is another area this department would likely handle, and the process would look something like this:</p>
<h3>Employer Sets Expense Reimbursement Guidelines</h3>
<p>The first step in this process is setting the guidelines and policies for expense reimbursement. Decision makers determine which items their employees are eligible to receive reimbursement for, how much they can receive, and when they should submit their claims.</p>
<p>Mileage is an excellent example of something a business might reimburse its employees for. Traveling salespeople may be eligible to receive $1 per mile if they have to use their personal vehicles, for instance. They may be eligible for these funds once per pay cycle, once a month, or every quarter.</p>
<p>Once the employer sets the policies, they must distribute them to the workers, so they understand the claims procedure they must undergo to receive their reimbursement. This "procedure" is only part of the overall process, and it has a very specific set of detailed instructions set by the financial department.</p>
<h3>Employee Tracks and Records Expenses</h3>
<p>An employee completes his or her job-related tasks and tracks the expenses to prepare for the reimbursement request. Such tracking may include stockpiling receipts or using specialized software that streamlines and simplifies the process. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Concur Drive</a> is an example of an app that can help ensure employee mileage is recorded and reimbursed accurately. It has the ability to track workers' driving miles, receive receipts, and show the employer real-time expenses.</p>
<h3>Employee Submits a Claim</h3>
<p>The employee submits a request for reimbursement using the technological tools provided or an alternative method as per the finance department's instructions. This process may include completing an online form, calculating mileage, and submitting all fuel, maintenance, and repair receipts.</p>
<h3>Employer Verifies the Expense</h3>
<p>The employer reviews the documentation and calculates the total for all payable expenses. They then approve or deny the claim after checking it against the guidelines.</p>
<h3>Employer Reimburses the Worker for the Expenses</h3>
<p>The employer pays approved claims according to the methods determined in the reimbursement policy. Examples of payment methods include direct deposit, check, and pay card.</p>
<p>All the above-mentioned tasks are part of a business process. The purposes of that particular business process it to utilize mobile employees the most productively while providing them with a benefit that helps them succeed.</p>
<h2>Why Business Processes Matter</h2>
<p>Numerous additional business processes exist that are paramount to a company's success. These are some of the top reasons such processes matter:</p>
<h3>They Boost Efficiency</h3>
<p>Business processes make operations vastly <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-main-cfo-challenges-and-how-do-you-solve-them">efficient</a>. They teach workers and management staff how to do things more easily and with fewer hiccups.</p>
<h3>They Help Raise Awareness</h3>
<p>Implementing business processes helps raise awareness of problematic areas, risk potential, and the need for procedural improvements. They can also shed some light on potential solutions.</p>
<h3>They Introduce Adaptive Opportunities</h3>
<p>Undergoing specific business processes opens the doors to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-for-unexpected-with-business-continuity-plan">adaptive opportunities</a>. An example of an adaptive opportunity is using business process software. Such software carries an array of benefits, which we will discuss later in this piece.</p>
<h3>They Increase Clientele and Sales</h3>
<p>Business processes can bring more clients and sales to any organization. For example, marketing campaigns can make people more aware of the company's products and services and their need for them.</p>
<p>Offering referral programs can also multiply the list of faithful consumers. Existing customers feel appreciated when they know they can receive a monetary "bonus," and potential clients usually trust the words of friends and family members. Thus, pushing referrals can play an integral role within the operational umbrella and promote <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/growth">growth</a>.</p>
<h2>Examples of Business Processes</h2>
<p>Various types of business processes exist. Primary business processes include the operational procedures that create, sell, and deliver products and services. These include marketing and sales, payments, and shipping processes.</p>
<p>A good operations business definition and example is launching a marketing campaign. That process has a specific goal of garnering new potential clients. Another one of the most understandable day to day business operations examples is pitching a product to a prospective client.</p>
<p>It's crucial that you understand the definition of business operations in contrast to supportive and management processes. So, we'll explain that, too.</p>
<p>Supportive processes include various back-end procedures, like the above scenario above where the finance department reviews a worker's reimbursement claim. They can also include financial reporting, budget forecasting, or researching funding options.</p>
<p>Management processes are those that involve governing workers, policies, finances, or expansion capacity. Managing labor costs is one of those processes.</p>
<p>All business process implementation can be broken down into multiple procedures that complete them. It is vital that all these processes run efficiently and merge together to achieve the business's largest goals. Business process software can make that happen.</p>
<h2>Benefits of Using Business Process Software</h2>
<p>Business process software can add a new layer to your business's success. Here's how using it can help:</p>
<h3>Reducing Time Spent on Tasks</h3>
<p>Time is something you never have enough of. However, you can save more of it by using tools that significantly reduce the time spent on a task. For example, automating recurring financial tasks can open time slots for more vital tasks.</p>
<h3>Saving Money on Payroll</h3>
<p>Business process software can reduce payroll tasks. It can eliminate the need for as many employees or reduce the instances of overtime.</p>
<h3>Making Tasks Easier</h3>
<p>The business process software can also simplify specific tasks. Many such products include AI-centric operations that don't deviate from the target goal.</p>
<h3>Improving Collaborative Efforts</h3>
<p>This unique software can allow workers and management staff to communicate and collaborate on projects seamlessly. That feature alone makes it worth the investment.</p>
<h3>Heightening Organizational Control</h3>
<p>Business software can also make it easier for management personnel to oversee project implementation. They may have access to live data, reporting, notation, and other features that can enrich the process.</p>
<h2>Business Process Cycle Steps</h2>
<p>Businesses processes typically have five steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Define the goal.</li>
<li>Map the process.</li>
<li>Set the actions.</li>
<li>Test the process.</li>
<li>Implement the process.</li>
</ol>
<p>Business software can help in all the above-mentioned steps and even contribute to some additional ones, like creating business processes. These tools have an array of features that will pay for themselves over time and surpass <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">ROI </a>expectations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel </a>is an example of one product that can save money within a business process. This smart program can keep business travel expenses compliant with budgeting guidelines while finding the most cost-effective booking options. A wealth of additional invaluable products is at your fingertips.</p>
<p>We strive to suggest products that fall within reasonable price ranges and offer tremendous results. You can contact <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/3-ways-mitigate-risks-while-maximizing-profitability">SAP Concur</a> for more information about intelligent software solutions and other tools that streamline and simplify your processes. An agent will be happy to assist you in broadening your horizons by helping you choose success-story-worthy options.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Ways to Get More Budget Clarity Across Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-ways-to-get-more-budget-clarity-across-your-business
2023-09-27T09:00:00Z
2023-09-26T09:09:46Z
For many companies, gaining clear insight into financial resources, spending patterns, and overall financial health can be a challenge. Yet, maintaining a tight grip on your business’s budget isn’t ju
<p>For many companies, gaining clear insight into financial resources, spending patterns, and overall financial health can be a challenge. Yet, maintaining a tight grip on your business’s budget isn’t just recommended — it’s required. To do that, you need a clear understanding of how travel, expense, and invoice automation can help you steer your business confidently towards its goals. It's time to transform confusion into clarity, complexity into simplicity, and uncertainty into optimism. Here are five ways to get more budget clarity across your business: </p>
<h3>1. Automate processes to foster financial clarity and efficiency </h3>
<p>Managing employee spend shouldn’t be daunting – even if you work at a large enterprise. Instead, it's an opportunity waiting to be seized. </p>
<p>Automated systems can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/best-practices-strategic-spend-management">increase employee spend oversight,</a> dive deep into your financial data and sift through the intricate web of transactions with remarkable precision. They can meticulously examine each transaction, pattern, and anomaly, far faster than Lucy in accounting. Automated systems can scour vast datasets, and identify duplicate invoices, erroneous charges, and non-compliant expenditures that often remain hidden from your coworker Fred. </p>
<p>We have nothing against Lucy or Fred. . . In fact, automation can help them be more efficient and productive in their jobs. For example, even those tricky out-of-policy expenses can be captured and brought back in with the right automated solution. Take <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> as an example — it far exceeds any human in uncovering hidden bookings. </p>
<p>The result of process automation is a transformative shift — a newfound understanding of how your employees spend money throughout the organization. And no, it’s not to point fingers, unless Dave really overspent on bagels (again) at that client event. Instead, automation is all about operational efficiency, increasing visibility, and identifying areas to minimize waste. This is where fostering financial wellness for your business comes in: Automation makes it possible to identify and redirect resources towards more strategic initiatives for growth and innovation. Which brings us to our next point. </p>
<h3>2. Align valuable budget resources to key business objectives </h3>
<p>Once you’ve unlocked this new level of visibility, now you can start aligning your budget to your business objectives. Think of it as if you were on a road trip: You have a clear map that shows all the roads, landmarks, and destinations. Or in this case, all employee expenses, travel bookings, event spend, and supplier invoices. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget</a>, an SAP Concur solution that visualizes spending all in one place, is like a map, but for your company's money. You can see where your money comes from, where it goes, and how it's being used at any given time. This helps your company make smart decisions about spending, saves you from surprises (like bagel lover Dave), and lets you plan with confidence. Just like a map helps you navigate smoothly, automated tools like Budget help your company steer its finances in the right direction. </p>
<p>With more budget visibility, even large enterprise organizations can empower decision-makers to make informed choices. When budget owners can easily track where money is coming from and where it's going, they’re better equipped to allocate resources wisely, identify cost-saving opportunities, and ensure that financial goals align with your business’s overarching strategies. That sounds a lot like accountability if you ask us. </p>
<h3>3. Enhance transparency for a culture of accountability and collaboration </h3>
<p>Yes, automation certainly enables accountability. It allows different departments and teams to take ownership of their expenditures and assess whether or not they're staying on track. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/playing-your-cards-right-getting-most-your-corporate-card-and-p-card-programs">Procurement cards</a> (P-Cards) and corporate cards offer easy ways to enhance the transparency of spending while empowering employees to make choices on behalf of the business. And because every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization, this helps foster responsible, transparent spending and encourages a culture of accountability and collaboration. Employees know they are being counted on to make the best spending decisions, while technology ensures there are proper controls to receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. </p>
<p>On the other hand, limited insight into your organization’s spending makes it difficult to know when and where spending happens with enough time to influence it. And if you can’t see spend, you lose the power to negotiate with vendors and the ability to optimize your payment strategies for better cashflow. Cue the robots: with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by Oversight</a> you can leverage the optimal intelligence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to work on your behalf. AI and ML are masters at: </p>
<ul>
<li>Tracking and automating when you make payments. </li>
<li>Seeing when you can capture early payment discounts. </li>
<li>Ensuring employees are booking with preferred vendors. </li>
<li>Utilizing added savings to help fund the next big opportunity. </li>
<li>Auditing expense reports to flag out-of-policy or noncompliant spend. </li>
</ul>
<h3>4. Consolidate your data to power your business strategy </h3>
<p>Now that you’ve automated your processes and hired robots to enforce the rules, it’s time to dig into the details. This is where the magic truly happens. Your business strategy should be defined by accuracy – this means <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/running-numbers-key-improve-your-spend-control">running your numbers</a> and using correct, clear, up-to-date contextual information to guide you. So, when managers must decide how to spend their precious budgets, finance teams must determine how to revise a forecast, or program leaders must adapt policies or re-negotiate with suppliers, the data needed to drive these decisions is all in one place, and it’s easy to see the right choices for your business. </p>
<p>With this approach, businesses can transform a once fragmented financial landscape into a cohesive, comprehensive story that shows where their employees' time and energy are focused. But it isn’t just about collecting numbers. By harnessing the wealth of information with analytics tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Intelligence</a> you can propel your business forward and unlock insights that keep you ahead of the competition. Armed with data, you can anticipate trends, optimize resource allocation, and navigate unexpected complexities with confidence. In a world where information reigns supreme, embracing data isn't just a choice — it's a necessity for resilience, growth, and lasting success. </p>
<h3> 5. Stay on top of ever-changing tax rules and regulations </h3>
<p>Financial regulations are always changing. As governments struggle with declining tax bases, they’re working to capture every source of revenue they can. These shifting regulations and tax issues could create a moment of pause and concern for your company. It’s important that all your employees can stay in the know and act to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/intelligent-automation-improves-te-processes">ensure your organization remains compliant</a> whenever they can. And when your view of spending is disconnected or budget management tasks are unclear, you run the risk of keeping employees in the dark. The move to hybrid work, for instance, has created new categories of spending that may be considered taxable benefits – and, as a result, need to be identified and included in the payroll. Just consider <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Concur Tax Assurance by Bluedot,</a> and see what our latest technology can help uncover. With help from AI and machine learning it can automatically identify VAT-eligible expenses, validate receipts, and optimize reclaim potential. </p>
<p>And when it comes to keeping your policies up to date, automation can help ensure your employees are never caught off guard. So, you can turn a moment of risk into a moment of opportunity; a moment to boost confidence in your ability to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/3-ways-mitigate-risks-while-maximizing-profitability">manage tax and regulatory compliance</a> and protect your budget along the way. You can start by tackling taxable employee benefits (TEBs), using AI to parse out which expense report charges are TEBs and take the manual work off your team while creating a comprehensive, reliable audit trail. Thanks to technology, staying attuned to the ever-changing regulatory environment has evolved from a challenge. Give it a chance and position your business at the forefront of ethical and compliant practices, all while fostering growth and innovation with an unwavering spirit. </p>
<h2>Sharpen your budget clarity with these additional resources </h2>
<p>Finally, intelligent technology that offers a cohesive platform to track expenses, manage invoices, and monitor travel costs, all in real-time. And with a personal assistant, too, thanks to AI. With the data at your fingertips, you can say goodbye to tedious spreadsheets and manual calculations and welcome a clearer, more streamlined approach to financial management. It’s time to empower every budget owner to see what’s happened and what’s ahead and give them the right tools to take action before it’s too late. </p>
<p>Further your knowledge with these budget resources: </p>
<ul>
<li>See what it takes to get a comprehensive view of spend — <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/four-challenges-controlling-business-costs-automation">download the eBook</a> </li>
<li>Learn how to better manage tail-spend — <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/managing-tail-spend-why-its-worth-effort-and-how-ap-automation-can-ease-burden">get the infographic</a> </li>
<li>Uncover the challenges standing in your way — <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-five-budget-challenges-for-organizations">download our tipsheet</a> </li>
</ul>
Kyla Kent
What is Employee Engagement?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-is-employee-engagement
2023-11-01T09:33:12Z
2023-09-19T09:16:23Z
To create a healthy working environment, employees should feel a connection. They should be connected to their work, the people they work with, and the organization they work for. This connection is k
<p>To create a healthy working environment, employees should feel a connection. They should be connected to their work, the people they work with, and the organization they work for. This connection is known as employee engagement. Many leaders may wonder what is employee engagement, really? Or, more specifically, how can I drive better engagement? This article answers that question and offers a blueprint for fostering strong employee engagement within your organization.</p>
<p>First, it’s helpful to understand that there are four main groupings regarding employee engagement. On the favorable end, there are highly engaged employees who think positively about their company. These feelings of connection encourage employees to stay and work hard for their organization.</p>
<p>On the other side, there are disengaged employees. These employees think negatively about their workplace and generally perform with lower quality or effort. When employees think negatively about their workplace, there is often a loss of trust and failure to meet responsibilities.</p>
<p>For your organization to be successful, you must understand the impact of employee engagement within your company, and how to cultivate a positive employee experience.<br />
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<h2><strong>What are Three Key Elements of Employee Engagement?</strong></h2>
<p>While employee engagement does not refer to the happiness level of an employee at work, job satisfaction is one of the critical elements of employee connection.</p>
<h2><strong>Satisfaction</strong></h2>
<p>Fulfillment and contentment in a job role translate to the satisfaction one feels. The more an employee feels gratification from their job, the more likely they will be engaged and motivated to work harder. When employees feel their <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/meaningless-work-what-you-hired-people-do">skills are being used</a> for their job, they are more satisfied. On the flip side, employees are unhappy when they feel their skills aren’t being used at work, and their talents aren’t being recognized Employees want their employer to recognize the contributions they make.</p>
<h2><strong>Commitment</strong></h2>
<p>Loyalty and dedication are indicators of employee commitment. When employees are committed, they feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership. These employees are also willing to take the extra steps to achieve goals. They are less likely to leave and find another job. To encourage commitment, organizations must foster an environment of support and growth while rewarding achievements. When employees feel connected and valued, they are more engaged and committed.</p>
<h2><strong>Involvement</strong></h2>
<p>Engaged employees feel like they are actively involved in their work. They also have control over their tasks. Companies can enhance the involvement of employees by empowering them to have a role in decisions. Strong communication in the workplace also encourages a feeling of involvement. When employees feel like they know what’s happening within the company, they feel more involved and part of a team. In addition, they feel as though they have contributed to the overall success of the organization. They see themselves as a part of the overall operation.</p>
<h2><strong>Benefits of Employee Engagement</strong></h2>
<p>The higher the employee engagement, the greater the benefit for the employees and the organization. The more invested an employee is, the more productive they are. In addition to producing more work, they do it more effectively and efficiently. Plus, engaged employees are more likely to take it upon themselves to find ways to complete their tasks.</p>
<h2><strong>High Performing</strong></h2>
<p>Engaged employees are higher performers. They work at their peak performance while continuing to improve their skills. Employees operating at this level set challenging goals for themselves and work hard to achieve them. They perform higher individually and encourage the team to do the same. They remain motivated, even during challenging times, which increases productivity for the organization.</p>
<h2><strong>Profitability</strong></h2>
<p>Employees who are engaged and satisfied in their work are more productive, committed, and motivated to contribute their best efforts to the organization. They are more likely to share knowledge and best practices with their colleagues while also encouraging them to improve their own skills. Knowledge transfer helps develop a skilled and capable workforce, reducing the need for external hiring and associated recruitment costs.</p>
<h2><strong>Innovation</strong></h2>
<p>Creativity and innovation are positive byproducts of engagement. These Employees who embrace a creative mindset generate new ideas and consider new solutions to problems. These skills create a dynamic work environment where employees are encouraged to contribute their unique perspectives. When businesses aren’t innovative, they become stagnant and may find success difficult to sustain.</p>
<h2><strong>Increased Retention</strong></h2>
<p>When employees engage at work, they want to be there. They spend more time at work and are highly productive while there. There is less turnover when employees are more engaged. This means it’s easier for organizations to keep employees — and retaining employees is far more cost-effective than replacing them.</p>
<h2><strong>How to Measure Employee Engagement?</strong></h2>
<p>When you want to know the state of your employee experience, it’s essential to measure your employees’ level of engagement using several effective measures.</p>
<h2><strong>Job Satisfaction Surveys</strong></h2>
<p>Job satisfaction surveys aim to assess how employees feel about their job roles and environment. Surveys explore areas like career growth, opportunities, and balance.</p>
<h2><strong>Pulse Surveys</strong></h2>
<p>Pulse surveys are real-time and short surveys that detail engagement and morale. These surveys allow companies to address issues quickly while also tracking them.</p>
<h2><strong>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</strong></h2>
<p>The NPS is a number (typically ranging from 0 to 10) that measures the willingness and likelihood of employees to recommend the company as a workplace. This gives employers valuable knowledge about how willing employees are to advocate for the company, and to potentially recruit more talent into the organization.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Practices for Employee Engagement</strong></h2>
<p>There are many best practices employers can implement to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-work-environment-your-employees-will-love">encourage employee engagement.</a></p>
<h2><strong>Positive Culture</strong></h2>
<p>A supportive and inclusive work culture values diversity, promotes open communication, and encourages collaboration. Businesses should celebrate success and recognize employees’ contributions. Consistent expectations are also critical to maintaining a positive culture. Employees appreciate knowing the rules and seeing them enforced across all levels. When management is unpredictable, it can have a negative impact on an employee's emotions and feelings of safety in the workplace.</p>
<h2><strong>Opportunity for Growth</strong></h2>
<p>Employees value professional development and growth opportunities. This includes things like training programs, mentorship, and leadership development. Employees using technology for training and collaboration can learn new skills while giving themselves more time. This allows for real-time communication and feedback, which reduces communication barriers and fosters a stronger connection. It provides a way for employees to work faster while learning new skills.</p>
<h2><strong>Transparent Communication</strong></h2>
<p>Communication is an essential part of keeping employees engaged. Communication includes organizational changes, goals, and strategies. Two-way communication is critical so employees feel their voices are heard and valued. When that communication door is open, you can receive employee engagement ideas directly from those who matter most — your employees.</p>
<p>Employee engagement is essential to the success of your company. Following these steps can encourage stronger engagement, which in turn makes your employees feel more valued and want to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-experiences-new-key-retention">stay with your company</a>. For more information about engaging your employees successfully, follow us on social media.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur
Travel Safety Guidelines for Employees: Ensuring Safe and Secure Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-safety-guidelines-for-employees-ensuring-safe-and-secure-business-travel
2024-03-13T09:02:31Z
2023-09-14T10:16:58Z
These travel safety guidelines for employees will help you strengthen the security of business travelers and establish a plan for corporate travel safety.
<p>As a business owner with employees who travel, you have a duty and responsibility to keep them safe. Communication and training are key to preparing them for their next business trip. And because you never know what’s going to happen, it’s best for travelers to be prepared for anything. </p>
<p>Travelers can face health issues, physical safety concerns, and delays or disruptions. Using these travel safety guidelines for employees helps strengthen the security of travelers and establish a plan for productive corporate travel safety. </p>
<h2>Pre-trip Planning and Preparation </h2>
<p>Anytime an employee travels outside of an area they are familiar with, they should research the area on their own, or check to see if their employer has any specific guidance for that region. Every area has local regulations and cultural differences; it’s important to adhere to the rules so travelers stay safe. When you prepare ahead of time with these safety tips for business travel, you can anticipate some potential traveling pitfalls. </p>
<h2>Extreme Weather </h2>
<p>All around the world, there are weather events travelers may not know about. Floods and earthquakes are common in some places. Your traveler should stay up to date about the weather in the area. They can use apps and other resources to get weather warnings. </p>
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<h5>Your most important duty is duty of care</h5>
<p>Learn five tips for ensuring employee health and safety.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/duty-of-care">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Cultural Differences </h2>
<p>Local customs change quickly across different areas. When travelers aren’t familiar with them, they are likely to make mistakes. While some mistakes are embarrassing, others are more severe and could come with fines or imprisonment. Business etiquette is also an essential part of travel. If the traveler is going to an area where a different language is spoken, they should learn a few phrases. </p>
<h2>Local Civil Unrest </h2>
<p>Depending on where travelers are going, there could be political instability. These concerns can impact travel and often cause dangerous situations. Understanding the political climate of an intended area of travel is crucial for traveler safety and when determining if the traveler can add some <a href="http://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-tips-successfully-mix-business-travel-pleasure">personal travel experiences to their business trip</a>. </p>
<h2>Proper Documentation </h2>
<p>If traveling internationally, travelers must prove they are legally allowed to enter the area. This means always carrying proper documentation. Documentation could include travel tickets, a passport, and possibly a visa. In addition, it’s imperative to keep all documents safely in one place. Travelers should also keep insurance information, car rental documents, and hotel reservations together in case they need to provide them. </p>
<h2>Travel Training and Support </h2>
<p>Doing the research for any impending travel for your company only gets you halfway there. You also need to share this information with those who are going to travel. It’s important to let your staff know that you won't be able to control every situation. However, you can guide them on common threats and how to handle them. Training should be centered more on employees preventing themselves from getting into dangerous situations. It’s easier to avoid danger than to remove yourself from it. </p>
<p>Training should include what to do when a traveler gets into a dangerous situation. In certain areas, there may be common scenarios that highlight a danger. When discussing these, you want to talk about what to do in the event they are caught in one of these situations. With proper training, they should feel competent about responding properly. Educating travelers properly can save their lives. While it may sound dramatic, it’s true. The more you discuss the risks with your travelers, the better they can identify and avoid them. </p>
<h2>Travel Tips </h2>
<p>When talking to employees who travel, you want to stress the importance of safety guidelines. For some, it may seem like excessive worry for no reason. However, they should understand that you are giving them guidelines for their own safety. </p>
<p>Some of the top examples of safety guidelines include: </p>
<h3>Keep Belongings Safe </h3>
<p>Anytime an employee is traveling, they should stay on high alert. They should follow their gut and stay aware. Travelers should avoid unfamiliar or low-lit areas, especially at night. Always keep your <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-and-expenses-key-role-improving-employee-experience">documents and valuables</a> in a secure place that is not obvious. </p>
<h3>Keep Emergency Contacts </h3>
<p>It’s pertinent for travelers to carry emergency contacts with them. This includes the contact information for the consulate or embassy as well as contacts from home. By carrying a contact list, the traveler won't have to rely on memory or digital contact storage. </p>
<h3>Transportation </h3>
<p>Only consider reputable transportation options. Use licensed taxis, reputable companies, or public transportation. Travelers want to be sure to wear seatbelts or hold onto the handrails. Even if no one else is, they should. The rules of the road are different in other countries. </p>
<h3>Health Concerns </h3>
<p>Making an appointment with travel health professionals or a travel clinic can be helpful before your employees travel. Those professionals can alert the employee of any health concerns in the area. Travelers must have appropriate vaccinations and medications for the destination. </p>
<p>Comprehensive travel insurance may be a requirement for your traveler. This can cover medical emergencies, trip cancelations, and other unforeseen events. All travelers should carry a card or document with important medical information, including allergies, blood type, and any existing medical conditions. </p>
<p>When your employees follow these tips, it allows for a safer and, perhaps, slightly more relaxed travel experience. There are some steps all travelers should take to ensure their safety. These tips are essential for your employees to have a memorable and stress-free journey. If you want more information about how to help your employees travel safely, follow us on social media. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Four Tips for the Higher Education Back Office as They Head Back to School
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-tips-for-higher-education-back-office-as-they-head-back-to-school
2023-09-14T09:00:00Z
2023-09-12T09:48:45Z
Recently, SAP Concur hosted a webinar “Back to School for the Back Office” with Michigan State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and University of California San Diego.
<p><strong>Recently, SAP Concur hosted a webinar “Back to School for the Back Office” with Michigan State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and University of California San Diego. Read on for our four takeaways or watch the webinar </strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/he_backtoschool_aug9_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=bpoph_schoolbackoffice_sales_20230809"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Travel within higher education has always been a large part of academic, athletic, and research activities. Professors, researchers, sports teams, and administrators often travel for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from attending meetings to conducting field research. However, travel for these institutions has evolved significantly, influenced by both technological innovations, and global events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we explore the various parts of travel at higher education institutions diving deep into schools<a> like universities and community colleges</a> to simplify processes, ensure duty of care, and use technology to improve the travel experience. Here are the four tips for back office workers as they head back to campus:</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]-->1. Simplify travel reporting and audit processes </h2>
<p>One of the key challenges faced by higher education institutions in managing travel is the often complex and time-consuming expense reporting and audit process. <a>Institutions have recognized the need to simplify these processes to administrative burdens and assure accuracy and compliance</a> to reduce administrative burdens. The adoption of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">automated expense reporting tools</a> and connected systems has become essential. Solutions like SAP Concur have gained popularity as they allow travelers to capture expenses, snap photos of receipts, and integrate with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for efficient processing. Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/george-washington-university-0">this case study</a> to see how George Washington University uses SAP Concur solutions for better efficiency and visibility.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]-->2. Support uptick in travel for advanced research</h2>
<p>As institutions transition from pandemic restrictions, a backlog of research requirements has emerged. Researchers and academics are eager to resume their studies, leading to more frequent visits to faraway places for research projects. However, this return to travel sometimes comes with a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/2023_smb_business_travelers_insights">sense of anxiety</a> and concerns about health and safety. <strong>More than 9 in 10 business travelers (91%)</strong> are willing to decline an assigned trip that conflicts with these needs, values, and preferences.<sup>1</sup> Duty of care has become an even more important consideration. Higher education schools must give comprehensive information, including State Department warnings, health advisories, and safety guidelines, to ensure the well-being of their travelers. Because of all these considerations duty of care is often too big to take alone, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/duty-of-care">App Center</a> to check out our full ecosystem of duty of care partners.</p>
<h6><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travelers-report-2023">2023 Global Business Travelers Report</a></h6>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]-->3. How to reduce traveler frustration while improving compliance</h2>
<p>The travel process can be daunting, especially for infrequent travelers within higher education schools. To address this challenge, institutions are investing in tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant">Concur User Assistant by WalkMe</a>, which guides users through their travel process step by step. This individualized guidance not only reduces confusion but also improves compliance with established travel policies. By customizing these tools to the institution's specific needs, universities can ensure a smoother experience for all <a>travelers. </a>Having a tool to walk travelers through the process step-by-step means less time and resources need to be dedicated to training and retraining users.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]-->4. Make travel information easily accessible</h2>
<p>Technology plays an important role in improving the travel experience for travelers of every experience level. <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt</a>, for instance, offers a centralized platform to organize travel itineraries, making it easier for travelers to access essential information. Also, online booking tools and preferred travel management companies (TMCs) simplify the booking process, whether through user-friendly interfaces or phone assistance.</p>
<h2>Elevate Your Institution’s Travel with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Making better travel decisions within <a>your</a> higher education institutions takes multiple influences from technology, safety considerations, and financial constraints. By embracing automated tools, individualized guidance systems, and comprehensive duty of care measures, you can ensure a smoother travel experience for your employees. The return to travel presents an opportunity for college and university leaders to reimagine their travel management processes, improve user experiences, and support the diverse needs of their workforce. As technology evolves, your higher education institutions can navigate travel challenges with greater efficiency and effectiveness.</p>
<p>To learn more about SAP Concur solutions visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">higher education homepage</a> and watch <a href="https://go.concur.com/he_backtoschool_aug9_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=bpoph_schoolbackoffice_sales_20230809">Back to School for the Back Office</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
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Nicole Ike
Say Bye-Bye to Finance Hacks in 3 Simple Steps
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/say-bye-bye-to-finance-hacks-in-3-simple-steps
2023-09-11T09:59:59Z
2023-09-11T09:45:54Z
Let’s talk about “finance hacks” for a moment. You know, those manual workarounds that companies often use to bridge their disconnected business systems. As spend management experts, we’ve pretty much
<p>Let’s talk about “finance hacks” for a moment. You know, those manual workarounds that companies often use to bridge their disconnected business systems. As spend management experts, we’ve pretty much seen them all. Some of the more common ones include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Stapling receipts to printed expense reports </li>
<li>Tracking approvals with sticky notes </li>
<li>Printing invoices to re-key them back in </li>
<li>Saving employee self-booked travel plans in calendar invites </li>
</ul>
<p>Necessary, perhaps, but far from efficient. </p>
<p>Rather than help control costs, these types of finance hacks can make processes more complex, obscure risks and fraud, decrease employee productivity, and slow your cash flow. </p>
<p>So, what’s a forward-looking businessperson such as yourself to do? Here are three simple steps you can take today. </p>
<h2>Step 1: Let the ROI of automation be your guide </h2>
<p>A global survey of finance and IT leaders found that the average company processes 252 vendor invoices and 244 travel or expense reports each month1. That’s a lot of paper cuts. But here’s the difference automation can make. </p>
<p>In the same survey, businesses with SAP Concur solutions reported on average: </p>
<ul>
<li>47% reduction in missing receipts </li>
<li>32% reduction in the time taken to approve expenses </li>
<li>$54K estimated money saved on an annual basis </li>
<li>Only 7 months to see positive ROI </li>
</ul>
<p>Feel free to share those stats with your colleagues. In fact, we recommend it, because knowing the measurable benefits of automation can help guide a deeper look at your own processes. </p>
<p>Curious about what your company could possibly save? Use the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Concur Expense ROI Calculator</a> to find out in less than a minute. </p>
<h2>Step 2: Show your people what’s possible </h2>
<p>Unless you’re a company of one, you’ll likely want to build a business case for automation that the rest of your team can get behind. </p>
<p>Building a business case may seem like a daunting task but <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-secure-buy-in-for-smarter-expense-reporting">this guide</a> makes it easy. </p>
<p>The guide includes easy-to-follow tips and suggested soundbites for addressing the needs of your finance leader, finance team, IT, and company leadership. Once you bring them on board, you can get started with automation in practically no time. </p>
<p>And speaking of “no time,” if you’re pressed for time, you can also <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/building-business-case-expense-management-automation">watch this quick summary video</a> for tips on building a business case. </p>
<h2>Step 3: Get started today by updating your policies </h2>
<p>Even companies of one can’t easily automate finance processes overnight. But here’s a way you can boost control over spending starting today: </p>
<p>Download these <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">tips and guidelines for creating a more effective expense policy</a>. </p>
<p>With a well written, up-to-date expense policy, you’ll make it easier for your employees and managers to understand what can — and can’t — be expensed. This results in more control over costs and compliance, less frustration for your finance team, and no more reimbursement surprises for (well-meaning) employees. </p>
<p>So, there you have it. Three steps you can take today to say bye-bye to finance hacks for good. </p>
<h2>Get around your workarounds. Let’s automate that. </h2>
<p>We’ve helped over 51,000 businesses worldwide automate their spend management — for a more efficient, future-ready finance process. We’d be more than happy to show you how. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Reach out to us today</a>. </p>
<h6>1 Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. </h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Buckle in, tray tables up: Concur Travel’s biggest update in years is about to take off
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/buckle-in-tray-tables-up-concur-travels-biggest-update-in-years-is-about-to-take-off
2023-12-04T15:57:17Z
2023-09-11T08:42:43Z
Concur Travel will deliver a new end-to-end booking experience for customers whose TMCs use the Sabre GDS from the US point of sale for air, hotel, and car rental bookings.
<p>When SAP Concur began this journey to re-platform Concur Travel, we knew it would take time. Evolution is, if nothing else, a gradual process that requires patience and attention to detail. When your mission is to evolve the most robust and flexible travel platform in the world, it’s a predictably difficult and time-consuming task.</p>
<p>Now, after years of work to make countless, under-the-hood upgrades to Concur Travel, we’re about to deliver our biggest update to the platform in years with our Q4 2023 release.</p>
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<h5>The SAP Concur Travel evolution is underway!</h5>
<p>Sign up to receive email updates about the evolution of Concur Travel.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://go.concur.com/Travel-Evolution.html">Sign up here</a></div>
</div>
<p>To reach the greatest number of customers, the Q4 release will introduce a new end-to-end booking experience for customers whose TMCs use the Sabre GDS from the US point of sale for air, hotel, and car rental bookings. No specific traveler access change is required. Travelers will continue to use their same URLs, logins, passwords, and mobile app. </p>
<p>Rarely does a software company flip a switch and change everything all at once. The reason we’re rolling out our new platform through multiple releases is simple: we can’t wait for users to start experiencing the new Concur Travel. Even as it continues to evolve.</p>
<p>What’s most exciting is that this release marks the start of significant, ongoing software updates that will be released over time. You’ll see many new features with this release, some features will revert to the existing experience, and others, if still enabled, will preclude you from using the new platform. There are also a handful features that will be unavailable and therefore require customers to opt out of the new experience if they want to continue using them.</p>
<p>We’re sure many of you have questions about who is eligible for new features and when they’ll be available. To clear up confusion, let us tell you what you can expect from this update.</p>
<h2><strong>What you’ll see in the updated Concur Travel</strong></h2>
<p>In addition to a redesigned user interface for both mobile and desktop, users will see:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Improved Content and Images</strong>: Increased global content coverage including New Distribution Capability (NDC) content, more engaging imagery, and richer product descriptions.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Time Savings & User Experience</strong>: A streamlined booking and checkout process, along with a consumer-grade user experience (UX), and functionality improvements on both mobile and desktop.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Sustainability Options</strong>: Travelers can reduce their carbon footprint and make environmentally conscious travel choices thanks to new search filters and improved sustainability information.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Search Capabilities</strong>: Omni-search capability that automatically merges options for many locations such as airports, city centers, or company locations, and improved filters.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Concur Expense </strong><strong>Integration</strong>: The new experience maintains its integration with Concur Expense to create a seamless, end-to-end travel and expense process.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>For more details please see <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-unveils-new-experiences-for-concur-travel">SAP Concur Unveils New Experiences for Concur Travel</a></p>
<h2><strong>Easy, seamless redirects to the current Concur Travel </strong></h2>
<p>Our system is designed to give users a seamless experience. If a traveler tries a feature that’s not yet supported, they will simply be redirected to the existing booking flow and have access to all existing capabilities. As features are added over time, redirects will be less frequent.</p>
<p>Here are the features and scenarios that are not yet available and will automatically redirect users back to the current Concur Travel experience: </p>
<ul>
<li>Travelers who need to book a multi-city trip</li>
<li>Users who select the ground transportation tab</li>
<li>Non-profiled bookings for guests</li>
<li>Users with American Airlines AirPass attached to their profiles (AA plans to sunset AirPass in March 2024)</li>
<li>Companion travel bookings</li>
<li>Bookings made via the meeting tab or third-party meeting links</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Automatic opt-out</strong></h2>
<p>A handful of new features will not be available for the Q4 2023 release. Customers who have these features enabled will be automatically opted out of the new release. If customers want to utilize the new experience, they must disable these choices in their settings.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Southwest Direct Connect</strong>: Southwest Direct connect content will not be supported. However, Sabre GDS content will continue to be available. Note that Southwest Direct Connect will opt a customer out of the new air experience. However, it is possible that they will still receive the new car and hotel experience. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Custom Trip Fields</strong>: If a Custom Trip Field has anything selected in the “Itinerary Rules for Display” section of Custom Trip Field Administration, which are powered by itinerary-level travel policy rules, you will not be eligible for the Q4 Travel release. Additionally, post-booking custom trip fields that depend on another custom trip field which uses a Conditional Display Setting of, “Display at the start of booking,” and Custom Trip Fields that use if/then settings based on the, "Has a value/Has no value" options, are not eligible for the Q4 Travel release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Choose Your Rule Class</strong>: Clients who allow users to pick a Rule Class with the option, “User can select the rule classes tied to this agency,” are not yet supported. However, allowing users to pick a Rule Class with other options will be supported in this release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Concur Request: </strong>Request-Approve then book, as it exists today, will not be supported in the new booking experience. Instead, a more flexible Concur Request integration will be provided in a future release. Request - Book then Approve will be supported in the future with several enhancements. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>You don’t need every feature to experience these updates </strong></h2>
<p>While there is a subset of features that will not be available in the Q4 release, customers can still take advantage of the new experience. Timing of these enhancements will be updated on the quarterly <a href="https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?PRODUCT=089E017A62AB1EDA94C15F5EDB3400E1&range=2023Q1-2024Q1#Q3%202023">SAP Road Map Explorer</a>. If these features are critical to your business, you’re free to opt-out of the new experience so you can continue to use them. </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Trip Changes</strong>: Trip changes are not yet supported before or after ticketing. The change reservation link will be hidden. Customers will need to either cancel and rebook, contact the supplier directly, or contact their TMC. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Virtual Payments via Conferma Pay</strong>: Virtual payments with Conferma will be unavailable at launch. If your business relies on this, you can opt out and continue to use it with your existing Concur Travel experience.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Mixed Air/Rail search</strong>: As we transition between the existing and new travel experiences there may be instances where combined Air and Rail search results are not available. Travelers should use the Rail tab to book rail and the Air tab to book air. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Placing</strong><strong> trips on hold</strong>: Until this feature is released, the Hold Trip button will be hidden on the Review and Book page. It’s worth noting that less than 1% of trips are placed on hold.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Approve then book</strong>: This feature, as it exists today, will not be supported in the new booking experience. Instead, a more flexible Concur Request integration will be provided in a future release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Meeting Match</strong>: Meeting Match with third-party meetings is not yet available with the new booking experience.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We hope this explainer helps you prepare for Concur Travel’s upcoming release. This is a big moment for both SAP Concur and our users. The evolution of Concur Travel is about to make its biggest leap yet, and we can’t wait to share more updates with you soon. Until then, thank you for your patience and continued support as we work to deliver the most elegant and intuitive travel experience the world has ever seen.</p>
<p>Keep your eyes on the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a> for updates about the evolution of Concur Travel. Also, <a href="https://go.concur.com/Travel-Evolution.html">join our mailing list</a> for regular Concur Travel updates.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How CFOs Can Develop a Talent Strategy for Diversity and Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-cfos-can-develop-talent-strategy-for-diversity-and-growth
2023-08-29T09:47:23Z
2023-08-29T09:39:15Z
Attracting and keeping a talented and diverse team requires more than just competitive salaries, although pay without a doubt plays a key role as costs rise for companies and workers alike.
<p>Attracting and keeping a talented and diverse team requires more than just competitive salaries, although pay without a doubt plays a key role as costs rise for companies and workers alike. </p>
<p>Building diversity, equity, and inclusion at your company – possibly seen as just the province of HR – is a responsibility that should extend into the realm of finance leaders. After all, job dissatisfaction and lower morale can reduce productivity, hinder growth, and influence whether talented people want to become part of your business. </p>
<p>“Every business investment, technology choice, or strategic decision doesn’t have to come down to strictly money,” observes Peter Habelitz, CFO of Cycas Hospitality BV. “There are many more qualitative factors in talent management that also impact financial performance indicators.” </p>
<p>Informed by research and insights from Habelitz and other CFOs around the globe, the latest in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-talent-management-can-drive-financial-opportunity">CFO Insights Series, How Talent Management Can Drive Financial Opportunity,</a> focuses on three key areas for finance leaders to consider. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>It’s Not Just Money: Making Workplaces Diverse, Inclusive, and Attractive </h5>
<p>Read the paper to learn more about the connections between a diverse workforce and good business. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-talent-management-can-drive-financial-opportunity">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>1. Weigh Business Costs and Benefits Beyond the Balance Sheet </h2>
<p>Monitoring and managing spending and other key performance indicators are, of course, at the core of a finance leader’s responsibilities. But indicators that go beyond the numbers can provide a more rounded view of the company’s health and help guide its talent strategy. </p>
<p>For example, alongside travel and expense data you can measure how employees view their jobs and assess why people leave – or stay – with the organization. Or provide a deeper understanding of what people want from their current roles and how they’d like their careers to develop. </p>
<p>With better systems in place to gauge the employee experience, you might learn your team members value flexible work environments and the ability to concentrate on higher-value tasks – something intelligent automation can bring –as much as they value monetary rewards. With motivated employees, productivity and profitability can grow. And those are things both finance and HR leaders can measure. </p>
<p>“The advantage of having a diverse organization is clear – both within the finance organization and the business itself,” observes John DiPlacido, CFO of SAP North America. “When bringing different perspectives and backgrounds to the table, you find new ways to solve problems while driving productivity with innovation, creative thought, and generational insights.” </p>
<h2>2. Consider DE&I as a Contributor to Financial Performance </h2>
<p>Research shows that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) can make good business sense, establishing a link between the right thing to do and committing dollars to such efforts. </p>
<p>Gender, age, and race are just a few of the focuses of an effective DE&I strategy that can play roles in financial performance and make a company attractive as an employer. Fostering and supporting flexible and hybrid work environments can be part of making your company more inclusive, as our parent company has found. </p>
<p>Last year, for example, SAP reported that its ongoing commitment to flexible, hybrid, and trust-based work schedules had increased its attractiveness as an employer of choice to 80% and that 81% of its employees maintained or improved their productivity.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>“Nowadays, discussions around building and supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce are becoming commonplace for executives,” says Gina McNamara, CFO of the Asia-Pacific region and Japan at SAP. “But for finance leaders, they are opportunities to partner with their CHRO, showcasing how employees help increase profit, profitability, and financial performance when supported with the right training, education, and work assignments.” </p>
<h2>3. Help Employees Secure Their Physical and Mental Health and Safety </h2>
<p>With 46% of employees saying it takes so much time and effort that they don’t bother to seek reimbursement for smaller amounts<sup>2</sup>, many companies clearly have a quality of work-life issue. </p>
<p>There are bottom-line costs to processes and technology that complicate life for employees, like the 91% who are more likely to book outside of company policies to if they think their health, safety, and work-life balance would be negatively affected<sup>3</sup>. That’s the type of concern that can affect compliance, budgets, and duty of care. </p>
<p>“When people understand why they should adhere to finance processes and policies, they can weigh their expense decisions more creatively, strategically, and compliantly,” Habelitz observes. </p>
<p>With intelligent T&E solutions and processes, companies can improve efficiency and the employee experience. And the employees can see that their concerns have been taken seriously because expense processes become less frustrating at the same time that they are provided valuable information on such things as medical assistance and safety of the places they might travel. </p>
<h2>More Insights for CFOs </h2>
<p>Download <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-talent-management-can-drive-financial-opportunity">How Talent Management Can Drive Financial Opportunity</a> to learn about best practices fueled by research and insights from finance leaders at SAP and other businesses. </p>
<p>For additional CFO insights on other topics of the times, read other parts of our recent series: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-navigate-inflation-and-other-signs-economic-change">CFO Insights: How to Navigate Inflation and Other Signs of Economic Change</a> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-another-year-uncertainty-cfos-become-paragons-business-resiliency">CFO Insights: In Another Year of Uncertainty, CFOs Become Paragons of Business Resiliency</a> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-steer-sustainability-performance-financial-agenda">CFO Insights: How to Steer Sustainability Performance with a Financial Agenda</a> </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h6>1. “<a href="https://www.sap.com/about/company/our-values/diversity.html">Moving Towards Greater Impact: 2022 Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Report</a>,” SAP, 2023. <br />
2. “<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resource-centre/reports/expense-management-times-inflation">Expense Management in Times of Inflation: How to Improve Employee Experience</a>,” SAP Concur, 2022. <br />
3. “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travelers-report-2023">Global Business Travelers Report</a>,” Wakefield Research sponsored by SAP Concur, 2023. </h6>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Travel Experiences and Expectations Differ by Generation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-experiences-and-expectations-differ-by-generation
2023-08-29T09:00:00Z
2023-08-28T12:12:02Z
The findings of the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, now in its fifth year, cover a lot of ground—from the impact of economic uncertainty, to discrimination and equal opportunity issues, to s
<p>The findings of the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, now in its fifth year, cover a lot of ground—from the impact of economic uncertainty, to discrimination and equal opportunity issues, to sustainable travel plans. This year’s data also reveals the differing experiences and expectations spanning baby boomer to Gen Z business travelers.</p>
<p>Below are some of the key generational findings from our global survey of 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets, which address willingness to travel and satisfaction with current schedules, the changing expectations of business travelers, travel’s role in career advancement, and more.</p>
<h2><strong>Willingness and Satisfaction</strong></h2>
<p>While nearly all global business travelers (98%) are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months, satisfaction with their current travel schedule varies significantly by generation. Baby boomers are most likely to be satisfied, as 59% are fine with their current schedule. In contrast, only 39% of millennials say the same—16% say that they’re traveling less than they’d like and 45% are traveling more than preferred.</p>
<h2><strong>Economic Impact</strong></h2>
<p>The state of the economy remains in flux, and that fact isn’t lost on Gen Z. Forty-one percent of Gen Z business travelers see inflation as a top challenge to business travel today, compared to 35% of millennials, 31% of Gen X, and 23% of baby boomers. Surprisingly, nearly one-fifth of baby boomers (18%) didn’t consider any factors as challenges to business travel today, and 32% say that their company's business travel has not been affected by economic uncertainty.</p>
<h2><strong>Changing Expectations</strong></h2>
<p>Tracking to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-whitepaper-how-will-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-change-travel-and-expense">whitepaper</a> published earlier this year, we expect that as Gen Z continues to enter the workforce—and eventually becomes the predominant generation in the workplace—aligning travel policies to their expectations will be crucial. For example, 97% of Gen Z business travelers expect their company to allow them to make travel choices that are outside of company policy, with top reasons including ensuring they feel safe when traveling in certain areas of the world (53%), supporting their ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance (51%), and ideological or lifestyle differences with their travel destination (37%).</p>
<p>While millennials are largely aligned—93% share this sentiment—Gen X and baby boomers are less so at 84% and 79%, respectively. As these generations largely represent the higher ranks at many companies, it is important to acknowledge that younger generations have <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-whitepaper-how-will-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-change-travel-and-expense">expectations</a> of their own, and embracing the variety in perspectives will be essential to attracting and retaining younger talent and conducting business. In fact, 96% of Gen Z business travelers would decline a business trip that doesn’t align with their expectations—compared to 94% of millennials, 86% of Gen X, and 77% of baby boomers—including a third (33%) who would decline due to lack of flexibility to make adjustments to the trip outside of policy.</p>
<h2><strong>Career Advancement</strong></h2>
<p>More business travelers from younger generations consider business travel as critical to their career success in the coming year, compared to older generations (Gen Z: 94%; millennials: 94%; Gen X: 89%; baby boomers: 75%). Establishing (41%) and maintaining (42%) relationships with clients are the top reasons, across the generational board.</p>
<h2><strong>Safety, Discrimination, and Equal Opportunity</strong></h2>
<p>Overall, 53% of global business travelers say they have changed their accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe. This includes 64% of Gen Z, 61% of millennials, 40% of Gen X, and 15% of baby boomers. Of note, roughly half of each have done so in this timespan more than once (30% of Gen Z, 33% of millennials, 20% of Gen X, and 8% of baby boomers).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, 74% of global business travelers across generations have personally experienced some form of discrimination while on a business trip, including 87% of Gen Z, 79% of millennials, 62% of Gen X, and 43% of baby boomers. <em>(Related: Read more about our findings tied to LGBTQ+ experiences </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/survey-considers-lgbtq-business-travel-experiences"><em>here</em></a><em>.)</em></p>
<p>This year’s survey found that <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">nearly two-thirds of global business travelers</a> feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to travel for business compared to their coworkers. According to these travelers, their age was the most cited reason for this perceived inequality. And this perception was consistent across generations: 29% of Gen Z, 22% of millennials, 16% of Gen X, and 16% of baby boomers attributed it to their age.</p>
<p>And as the data above may suggest, the majority of Gen X (53%) and baby boomers (63%) said that they have never felt that they didn’t have equal opportunity to take business trips compared to their coworkers, versus a minority of Gen Z (25%) and millennials (33%).</p>
<h2><strong>Sustainability</strong></h2>
<p>Aligned with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-are-going-green">findings from 2022</a>, Gen Z (93%) and millennials (92%) are more likely to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business over the next 12 months, compared to Gen X (85%) and baby boomers (71%). Gen Z (23%) and millennials (25%) would also be a bit more likely to decline a business trip due to concern over the environmental impact of the travel, compared to Gen X (19%) and baby boomers (18%).</p>
<p>Across generations, business travelers’ most popular actions to reduce environmental impact while traveling will include using public transportation (34%), reducing total number of trips by combining nearby ones into a longer trip (33%), and prioritizing alternatives to air travel, such as car or rail (31%). An important consideration for organizations’ travel programs and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals: Purchasing carbon offsets is the least likely step to be taken in the year ahead, at 19%.</p>
<p>For more information about the 2023 Global Business Travel Survey, including additional findings, please download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travelers_report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travel_managers_report">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB business traveler</a> whitepapers.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey was conducted by <a href="https://wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 7-28, 2023, among 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Journey of Finance Transformation for County Government Organizations
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/journey-finance-transformation-for-county-government-organizations
2023-08-28T09:00:00Z
2023-08-23T15:40:05Z
County government organizations face significant challenges that demand a fresh approach to their financial processes. Finance transformation is the key to achieving better outcomes for these organiza
<p>County government organizations face significant challenges that demand a fresh approach to their financial processes. Finance transformation is about improving how a company manages its money and systems to achieve better results. Finance transformation is the key to achieving better outcomes for these organizations. In <a href="https://www.naco.org/events/county-finance-transformation-improve-efficiency-productivity-and-compliance">a recent webinar on finance transformation</a> hosted by SAP Concur and the <a href="https://www.naco.org/">National Association of Counties (NACo)</a>, we explored finance transformation. The webinar also spoke to the challenges, and the practical steps to a finance transformation. </p>
<h2>Why Finance Transformation Matters </h2>
<p>County governments operate under tight budgets, changing regulations, and increasing demands for transparency and accountability. Finance transformation is necessary to navigate these challenges successfully. By revamping financial processes, increasing efficiency, and improving decision-making, counties can simplify their operations and achieve their financial goals more effectively. <br />
<em>Three reasons why finance transformation matters:</em> </p>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p><strong>Efficiency and Accuracy </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Human resources (HR), payroll, travel & expense (T&E), Accounts Payable, and compliance integration is essential in the modern financial landscape. Using analytics and real-time data lets government organizations make better-informed financial choices. These analytics can also <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-keys-optimizing-county-spend">help with budget forecasting and reducing costs</a>. Implementing automation, digitization, and data integration are practical ways to improve efficiency and accuracy. </p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p><strong>Addressing Workforce Changes </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>With the challenges of the "Great Resignation" and generational shifts in the workplace, the workplace is changing. Technology solutions allow your county’s processes to stay in place among workforce changes. </p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p><strong>Compliance and Accountability </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>County government organizations can easily track real-time budgets and department-level spending through finance transformation. Customizable metrics allow for better tracking of financial performance, and automated report sending simplifies communication. Read this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-digitizing-spend-management-supports-government-mission">whitepaper on digitizing spend management</a> for more information on reducing fraud and improving spend control. Furthermore, finance transformation speeds up problem identification, maintains audit readiness, and assures compliance with county requirements. It also gives improved tools for booking and managing travel securely, while protecting data against potential threats. </p>
<h2>Four Steps for a Finance Transformation: </h2>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p><strong>Evaluate the Current State </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Before a financial transformation, evaluating the organization's current state is essential. This process involves evaluating existing financial processes, systems, and capabilities to identify areas that need improvement. By conducting a comprehensive assessment, counties can gain valuable understandings into their strengths and weaknesses, forming a solid foundation for the transformation process. </p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p><strong>Define the Objectives </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Clear goals are essential to guide the finance transformation journey. County government organizations must determine the future state of their financial operations and outline measurable goals to track progress. This transformation will align the efforts of all stakeholders with clear goals throughout the entire process. </p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p><strong>Develop a Road Map </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Creating an action plan is important for navigating a financial transformation effectively. It involves setting specific milestones, such as choosing a technology solution and talking to stakeholders to see what is important to them, to achieve the defined goals. A well-structured roadmap helps break down the transformation into manageable steps, assuring steady progress. </p>
<ol start="4">
<li>
<p><strong>Talk to Stakeholders </strong></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>The success of finance transformation heavily relies on stakeholder engagement and input. County officials, employees, and other relevant parties must be actively involved throughout the process. </p>
<h2>Building a Better Financial Future </h2>
<p>Finance transformation is a critical undertaking for County government organizations to overcome their challenges and achieve their financial goals. By evaluating their current state, defining a clear path forward, and involving stakeholders, counties can create a road map toward a more efficient and effective financial future. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-turn-ap-more-productive-cities-counties">This eBook</a> is a valuable resource for helping you think about your county’s finance transformation journey. </p>
<p>To learn how SAP Concur can help your county’s finance transformation, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">visit our state and local government home page</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
Nicole Ike
The SAP Concur Community for Public Sector: Three Reasons to Join Our Community
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-community-for-public-sector-three-reasons-to-join-our-community
2023-08-23T13:48:01Z
2023-08-23T13:17:22Z
Staying ahead in your industry demands more than just innovative technology; it demands collaboration, knowledge sharing, and staying up to date with the latest industry trends.
<p>Staying ahead in a regulated industry or public sector organization requires more than just innovative technology; it demands collaboration, knowledge sharing, and staying up to date with the latest industry trends. These challenges are where the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a> can give you an advantage. The SAP Concur Community offers a wealth of resources tailored to regulated industries, helping professionals like you elevate their careers and simplify operations. </p>
<h2>1. Learn from the Collective Knowledge of Your Industry </h2>
<p>The <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a> is a hub of collective expertise, designed to help professionals from various regulated industries. This virtual space serves as a platform for you to engage, discuss challenges, and share understandings, all while accessing different kinds of valuable resources. </p>
<p>There are dedicated industry groups for people who work in the public sector, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions">federal, state, or local government</a> organizations and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">higher education</a> institutions. There are also industry groups for those in regulated industries including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-contractor-solutions">government contracting</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">healthcare</a>. These dedicated groups help foster collaboration among like-minded professionals. </p>
<h2>2. Join SAP Concur Community Industry Groups </h2>
<p>What are industry groups? They serve as a space to discuss challenges specific to you and your peers, explore best practices, and learn from those peers who understand your unique industry better than anyone else. In turn, the community can help your own team develop best practices that align with your organization's travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) policy and strategy. </p>
<p>Even if a specific industry group isn't available, there's a treasure trove of resources waiting for you. The SAP Concur Community is a diverse ecosystem with content that spans across industries, guaranteeing that every member of the community can find value. </p>
<h2>3. Join SAP Concur Community Industry Groups <br />
</h2>
<img alt="graph" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3c264c9c-60b7-4bf1-b58d-a4f74a38ea2b" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/294522_GettyImages-1354411889_small_jpg.jpg" />
<p><br />
What are industry groups? They serve as a space to discuss challenges specific to you and your peers, explore best practices, and learn from those peers who understand your unique industry better than anyone else. In turn, the community can help your own team develop best practices that align with your organization's travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) policy and strategy. </p>
<p>Even if a specific industry group isn't available, there's a treasure trove of resources waiting for you. The SAP Concur Community is a diverse ecosystem with content that spans across industries, guaranteeing that every member of the community can find value. </p>
<p>Starting Your Journey </p>
<p>Ready to dive into the world of collaborative learning and growth? If you’re a customer, you can join the SAP Concur Community by visiting the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">community website</a>. You’ll get access to resources that can reshape your approach to regulated industries. </p>
<p>In a world where rules are always changing, the SAP Concur Community serves as an anchor for professionals. It's not just a platform; it's a community that thrives on collective expertise, fostering innovation, and growth in regulated industries. Join today and unlock a world of possibilities for your career and organization. </p>
<p>For more information, visit our regulated industry pages: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/federal-government">Federal government</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">State or local government</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-contractor-solutions">Government contracting</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/energy-utilities">Utilities</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">Healthcare</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">Higher education</a> </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
Nicole Ike
2023 Global Business Travel Outlook
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2023-global-business-travel-outlook
2023-08-23T09:00:00Z
2023-08-21T09:27:09Z
Exclusive business travel insights from the 2023 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey.
<p>Managing global business travel for an organization has always been challenging. But over the past few years it has become even more so. That’s because, according to the 2023 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, employee travel needs and preferences have changed; employees require a lot more flexibility in traveling now than they have in the past; and protecting and supporting the human rights of marginalized populations (such as LGBTQ+, people of color, and others) has risen to the forefront. As a result, there’s mounting pressure on organizations to increase equal access to business travel among their employees and improve their duty of care.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/grounded-horizons-realities-and-opportunities-business-travel-today">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Nathan Richter, Senior Partner at Wakefield Research, a global market research consultancy, and Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, discuss some of the findings from the 2023 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, which are outlined in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travelers-report-2023">2023 Global Business Travelers Report</a> and the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travel-managers-report-2023">2023 Global Business Travel Managers Report</a>. Now in its fifth year, the SAP Concur Business Travel Survey offers insights into the current state of business travel and what the next year will bring. Below is an overview of the conversation. </p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/grounded-horizons-the-realities-and/id1525744763?i=1000623199767"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0qmmkmcXxxq9bjyfXuGdeb"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRjYThlNTIyOWU3NDIwMDExM2NhZjRh?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiI67rbvdCAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<h2><strong>Providing employees with equal access to business travel </strong></h2>
<p>According to our 2023 Global Business Travelers Report, 92% of business travelers believe the future of their careers depends on business travel. Yet:</p>
<ul>
<li>62% of business travelers haven’t had equal opportunities to take business trips compared to their colleagues due to differences in demographics and sexual orientation, physical appearance, or health conditions.</li>
<li>Among LGBTQ+ business travelers, 31% feel that their sexual orientation has prevented equal access to business travel.</li>
<li>23% of women believe their gender led to fewer opportunities for business travel.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of the most common obstacles survey respondents believe limit their business travel include having an accent (17%), physical appearance (16%), ethnicity or race (15%), their status as a parent or caretaker (13%), and disability (7%).</p>
<p>“Business travel is not a door someone gets to walk through once. It’s a road that one walks down on the way to their next professional accomplishment and their next personal accomplishment,” Richter says. He explains that for travel managers this “really begins with understanding travel needs and expectations, which is at the heart of this research.” After all, 91% of travelers say they will decline a business trip if some of their needs are unmet, and those needs consistently center around areas such as safety, social, and health concerns.</p>
<p>Dion agrees. “It’s not about, do you want to travel or are you going to travel, or can I relieve the stress of your travel? There’s way more of an investment than that,” she says. “Travel isn’t an option anymore to somebody’s career. It actually ties directly to their career growth and advancement.”</p>
<h2><strong>Employees want more flexibility in business travel </strong></h2>
<p>While business travel has resumed and most employees are willing to travel for their organization, employees want and expect more flexibility in traveling now than they have in the past. The reasons?</p>
<ul>
<li>48% want flexibility to ensure that they feel safe when they travel to certain parts of the world. [This is especially important because in the past 12 months, more than half (53%) of global business travelers said they have changed their accommodations because they felt unsafe.] </li>
<li>47% want flexibility to help them maintain a healthier work-life balance.</li>
<li>34% cite the need to add personal travel to work trips.</li>
</ul>
<p>“What we’re seeing here is a more empowered traveler, a traveler who has maybe not greater needs, but a greater comfort with expressing and acting on those needs than what we’ve seen traditionally,” Richter says.</p>
<p>Dion shared that as a bleisure person herself, knowing that she can combine business travel with personal leisure travel makes her more willing to travel, more open to travel, and more excited to travel. “It gives me a work-life balance even while I travel,” she says. “It’s a nice balance for me.”</p>
<p>With this shift to flexible travel, there is added pressure and stress on travel managers and a change in the approach to duty of care. “Five years ago, duty of care was really about keeping people safe, and it still is, but these days, the definition of safety extends beyond just physical safety. It really is a more holistic approach,” Richter says.</p>
<p>Dion agrees. “It’s not just there’s a hurricane coming, or there’s a flood, or there’s a war breaking out. There’s many, many more aspects to think about. There’s health. Can I get healthcare in the place that I’m traveling to? Will people be reacting to my accent, my look, my affectations, my gender? So, this becomes really that duty of care is no longer just a compliance checkpoint, it’s a lifestyle.”</p>
<p>To learn more about the findings from the 2023 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, listen to the podcast episode <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/grounded-horizons-realities-and-opportunities-business-travel-today">Grounded Horizons: The Realities and Opportunities of Business Travel Today</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
From Back Office to Tip of the Spear: How AI Will Transform T&E
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-back-office-to-tip-spear-how-ai-will-transform-te
2023-10-10T01:32:38Z
2023-08-16T14:13:58Z
45% of finance leaders see opportunities for AI to improve their payments process, expense management, and analytics.
<p>With budgets tightening, market competition intensifying, and skilled talent increasingly harder to come by, there are growing expectations for teams across every organization to do more with less. And finance teams are no exception.</p>
<p>This pressure, however, comes at an opportune time. The increased availability of artificial intelligence (AI) tools for the general population over the past year has catapulted the technology into the mainstream, sparking widespread speculation about—and enthusiasm for—its potential impact. Finance leaders are equally excited. Nearly half (45%) of businesses see opportunities for AI to improve their payments process, expense management, and analytics, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US49057822">according to IDC</a>.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are designed to help businesses capitalize on these shifts, relevantly, reliably, and responsibly. At SAP Concur, AI technology has underpinned our core travel, expense, and invoice solutions alongside our market leadership position for the past 10 years. Our solutions are making it easier than ever to capture, manage, and analyze spend. In a world where these technologies will practically manage themselves, our customers can focus on what matters to them, unlocking new opportunities for innovation and new avenues for growth.</p>
<h4>Streamlining User Experience While Ensuring Compliance</h4>
<p>For end users, submitting travel and other expenses can be a time-consuming, complex process. This, unfortunately, is often a necessary byproduct of the strict compliance needs of finance teams. For them, ensuring the accuracy of expense reports is critical to control costs.</p>
<p>However, with <a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">Verify</a>, our self-serve audit solution within <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, this tradeoff between a good user experience and complex compliance needs disappears. Using AI and machine learning, Verify automatically reviews expense reports to identify potential compliance issues, such as duplicate receipts across employees, out-of-policy spending, and incorrect dates. A company’s finance department no longer must worry if their random audits are sufficient to identify non-compliance. Verify will perform 100% of an audit on their behalf, and only those reports with Verify exceptions require review by a human auditor. And as AI technology continues to mature, over time, the tool could flag policy exceptions early on, preventing problems from reoccurring while further reducing time and cost associated with the process.</p>
<p>Using AI and machine learning to capture expense receipts in the moment has proven to drive compliance earlier in the expense reporting process as well. When our customers adopt <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a>, they’ve seen returned expense reports drop from 14% to 1.2%. Employees can spend an average of 18 minutes correcting a previously submitted expense report, costing roughly $52, according to a <a href="https://www.gbta.org/how-much-do-expense-reports-really-cost-a-company/">2020 GBTA study</a>. Assuming a company’s employees submit 1,000 expense reports each month, using Concur Expense with ExpenseIt could save an estimated $47,320 in productivity cost improvements and 273 personnel hours monthly.</p>
<p>The result: With AI and machine learning, users get a better, more streamlined experience, and compliance teams get the accurate, comprehensive expense reports they need. It’s a win for both sides.</p>
<h4>Generating Insights</h4>
<p>We are combining advances in generative AI with our unrivaled customer data and in-house machine learning to leverage AI in ways that no other travel and expense management company can.</p>
<p>Business travel and its related expenses generate a tremendous amount of data. This makes end-to-end travel and expense (T&E) ideal for AI use cases, as the technology can sift through data to recognize patterns that aren’t visible to the human eye—even a human with the most advanced reporting tool. </p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by Oversight</a>, our AI-powered expense auditing solution that primarily focuses on post-payment analysis to identify anomalies and potential fraud. By looking at expense data collected over weeks and months, Concur Detect can analyze post-payment trends and patterns to identify instances of fraud and misuse.</p>
<p>But spotting fraud is just the start. The true power of solutions like Concur Detect is unlocked when businesses use this data to inform future decisions. For example, by extrapolating travel and spending trends, finance teams can better plan and negotiate their expense budgets. AI could provide the insights necessary to adjust or rewrite travel and expense policies based on business needs and realities. Additionally, this technology could help finance teams and travel managers determine actual return on investment of individual business trips and other expenses, providing lessons that can guide decisions for the company.</p>
<h4>Improving Employee Satisfaction</h4>
<p>When it comes to AI, automating processes is not the end game. Instead, the true promise of the technology is to eliminate laborious, mundane tasks that reduce employee satisfaction and distract them from the creative, strategic elements of their job.</p>
<p>For example, consider the expense audit process. In 2022, $1.6 billion in spending exceptions went unexamined by finance teams, according to an <a href="https://www.concur.com.au/sites/default/files/au/report-sap-concur-oversight-spend_insights_ent_au.pdf?pid=pr&cid=bling_sud_a3_20220720">analysis</a> of spending data from Oversight customers. This is perhaps unsurprising given how time-consuming the manual auditing process can be.</p>
<p>AI, however, changes that. Ninety-seven percent of the 2.8 million expense reports that passed through Verify between January 2022 and June 2023 were audited automatically, leaving only 3% to be audited by a finance colleague. And when finance teams can automatically identify common cases of misuse, waste, and non-compliant spending, it frees them up to focus on higher-value work that contributes more to the future of the business, such as forecasting and risk analysis.</p>
<h4>Defining a New Role for T&E</h4>
<p>The bottom line: When used properly, AI doesn’t just offer finance teams new ways to reduce costs. It also provides better insights and greater confidence in the state of their business. In this context, T&E plays a key role in shaping where business goes next.</p>
<p>AI will sever the historical tradeoffs organizations were forced to make between efficiency and compliance in the T&E process. The result of this seismic shift is an organization that is more intelligent, more resilient, more sustainable, and, ultimately, more profitable.</p>
<p>To learn more about how Verify and other SAP Concur solutions can transform your T&E operations, <a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit/">click here</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
Christopher Juneau
Concur Invoice ROI Review: Why walk when you can run?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-invoice-roi-review-why-walk-when-you-can-run-0
2023-08-17T09:00:00Z
2023-08-14T10:19:21Z
"Missing or misplaced invoices. Tedious data entry and PO matching. Duplicate payments and—yikes—late payment penalties. Isn’t accounts payable fun? For our Concur Invoice users it is. Okay, maybe ‘
<p>Missing or misplaced invoices. Tedious data entry and PO matching. Duplicate payments and—yikes—late payment penalties. Isn’t accounts payable fun? For our Concur Invoice users it is. </p>
<p>Okay, maybe ‘fun’ is overselling it. But when you look at the real-world ROI of automated invoice management, it’s easy to understand why our customers have a newfound love of all things AP. </p>
<h2>Top 10 Concur Invoice features </h2>
<p>Manual steps at any point in your AP process can lead to lost employee productivity, data entry errors, increased costs, unseen risks, and damaged vendor relationships. But you probably already know that. </p>
<p>When we talk with AP managers and finance leaders, they’re often well aware of what’s not working in a procure to pay workflow. What they’re surprised to learn, however, is how easy and cost-effective it can be to overcome these challenges with intelligent automation technologies. </p>
<p>Here are the 10 <a href="https://www.concur.ca/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> features our customers say they love most: </p>
<ol>
<li>Scans and extracts data from electronic and paper invoices using intelligent technologies </li>
<li>Splits invoices into multiples for allocation to cost centers and separate approvals </li>
<li>Provides employees with an easy-to-use mobile app for invoice review and approvals on the go </li>
<li>Uses AI to flag abnormalities, such as duplications, unauthorized charges, etc. </li>
<li>Stores processed invoices and original document images on the cloud </li>
<li>Integrates with other billing, procurement, accounting, or ERP software </li>
<li>Enables custom approval workflows (e.g., different approval paths based on employee type, Invoice type, amount of spend, etc.) </li>
<li>Matches invoices with purchase order/sales orders and goods received receipts </li>
<li>Configurable reporting on invoice spend and processing trends </li>
<li>Ability to schedule payments via ACH, credit card, or third-party payment processor </li>
</ol>
<p>Want to see some of these features in action? </p>
<p>Take a run through our <a href="https://www.concur.ca/self-guided-demo-invoice-en-ca#/">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a> or just sit back and watch our <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/videos/why-concur-invoice-ap-solution-your-entire-company-waiting">day-in-the-life video</a> of a business with Concur Invoice. </p>
<p>But before you do, let’s look at those ROI numbers… </p>
<h2>Real-world ROI of automating AP with Concur Invoice </h2>
<p>When it comes to automating finance processes, accounts payable tends to take a back seat to payroll and expense management. And yet, as any Concur Invoice customer will tell you, invoice management automation can make just as significant of an impact on productivity, efficiency, and the bottom line. </p>
<p>How big of an impact? </p>
<p>After automating accounts payable workflows with Concur Invoice, our customers reported: </p>
<ul>
<li>29% reduction in time spent by AP/finance teams on capturing invoices </li>
<li>26% reduction in budget overspending because of increased visibility into spending data </li>
<li>11% cost savings realized through supplier-negotiated rates and discounts </li>
</ul>
<p>Our customers also reported that the above efficiencies resulted in: </p>
<ul>
<li>134 estimated hours saved per week by AP teams </li>
<li>$43K estimated money saved on an annual basis </li>
<li>Only 7 months to see positive ROI </li>
</ul>
<p>Impressive, we know. Feel free to use these stats when building your own business case for AP automation. Want some expert help for getting your leadership and stakeholders onboard? </p>
<p>Download our guide on <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/whitepapers/guide-how-build-business-case-ap-automation">How to Build a Business Case for AP Automation</a> or watch the quick <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/videos/building-business-case-expense-management-automation">overview video.</a> </p>
<h2>Move your business forward with Concur Invoice </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.ca/contact">Talk to us today</a> to learn more about how AP automation could benefit your company. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Expense ROI Review: Why walk when you can run?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-roi-review-why-walk-when-you-can-run-0
2023-08-16T09:00:00Z
2023-08-14T10:03:57Z
"Ever jumped off a dock into a lake, but insisted your friend goes first so you know how cold the water is? We often look to the experience of others to inform our own decisions. In fact, when growing
<p>Ever jumped off a dock into a lake, but insisted your friend goes first so you know how cold the water is? We often look to the experience of others to inform our own decisions. In fact, when growing a business, it can be a risk management superpower. </p>
<p>With that in mind, we’re sharing the real-world ROI of <a href="https://www.concur.ca/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> as reported by real SAP Concur customers. </p>
<p>Granted, these insights won’t give you the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but we do like to think of them as giving you X-ray vision into the value of spend management automation. </p>
<h2>What are your top expense management challenges? </h2>
<p>Missing expense receipts, error-prone manual data entry, slow approvals and reimbursements, or even worse, undetected fraud. These challenges can have a costly impact on your company’s productivity, efficiency, and bottom-line. </p>
<p>Here’s where Concur Expense can make all the difference. </p>
<p>Using the latest AI-powered intelligent technologies, Concur Expense can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Provide your employees with an easy-to-use mobile app to capture and approve expenses on the go </li>
<li>Pre-populate expense reports from e-receipts, scanned receipts, and credit card data </li>
<li>Identify potential errors and out-of-policy expenses in real time when creating an expense report </li>
<li>Allow for configurable approval workflows based on employee or spend type, spend purpose, amounts, etc. </li>
<li>Integrate with over 250+ of the world’s top ERP/accounting solutions and business apps </li>
<li>Generate insights, guide actions, and improve decisions based on configurable reporting and trend visibility across employee groups and spend categories </li>
</ul>
<p>Want to see these benefits in action? </p>
<p>Take a <a href="https://www.concur.ca/self-guided-demo-expense-en-ca#/">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a> or sit back and watch our <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/videos/concur-expense-solution-your-entire-company-will-love">day-in-the-life video</a> of a business with Concur Expense. </p>
<h2>Real-world ROI of expense management automation </h2>
<p>SAP Concur customers include over 51,000 businesses of all types and sizes. Each of these customers were at one point looking for ways to boost operational efficiency, employee productivity, spending visibility, and control over costs. In other words, they wanted to run, not walk. </p>
<p>We helped them do just that. </p>
<p>After implementing expense management automation, Concur Expense customers reported: </p>
<ul>
<li>47% reduction in missing receipts </li>
<li>32% reduction in the time taken to approve expenses </li>
<li>28% reduction in mileage excess claims </li>
<li>26% reduction in budget overspending </li>
<li>26% increase in tax reclaim (e.g., VAT, GST) savings </li>
</ul>
<p>Our customers also reported that these increased efficiencies resulted in: </p>
<ul>
<li>148 estimated hours saved by finance teams per week </li>
<li>$54K estimated money saved on an annual basis </li>
<li>Only 7 months to see positive ROI </li>
</ul>
<p>Feel free to use these stats when building your own business case for automation. </p>
<p>Want some expert guidance? Download our guide on <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/whitepapers/how-build-business-case-expense-management-automation">How to Build a Business Case for Expense Management Automation</a> or watch the <a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/videos/building-business-case-expense-management-automation">quick overview video</a>. </p>
<h2>Move your business forward with Concur Expense </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.ca/contact">Talk to us today</a> to learn more about how expense management automation could benefit your company. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Navigating Event Management Challenges in Regulated Industries: Challenges and Trends
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-event-management-challenges-in-regulated-industries-challenges-and-trends
2023-08-16T09:00:00Z
2023-08-11T11:05:34Z
This blog explores challenges and trends in regulated industries event management as well as how technology can help alleviate these challenges.
<p>Event management plays a significant role in the success of any gathering, whether it’s a professional conference, trade show, or social event. You don’t have to be a professional event planner to know that coordinating events often comes with a unique set of challenges. Let’s explore how event management platforms can alleviate the key challenges faced by event organizers and highlight emerging trends in the field. By understanding these factors, event planners can better navigate the complexities of their role and deliver exceptional experiences.</p>
<img alt="body image" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="a8402741-ec51-4896-a379-c8ef9d4f3a56" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/282036_GettyImages-174601328_low%20%28Custom%29%20%28Custom%29.jpg" />
<h2>Event Organizers Face Various Challenges That Can Impact the Outcome of Their Events. Some Common Hurdles include:</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Venue Selection and Logistics:</strong> Finding a good venue is difficult when balancing factors like capacity, accessibility, and technical infrastructure. Coordinating with vendors, ensuring proper use of space, and managing transportation also pose significant challenges. <br />
<strong>What to look for</strong>: A single solution option that can help simplify the coordination of events. A centralized system makes coordinating with vendors, sponsors, speakers, and participants makes sure everyone is aligned. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/5-tips-higher-education-better-manage-events-and-group-travel">See why a centralized approach </a>is essential for keeping your team on the same page.</li>
<li><strong>Budget Management: </strong>Staying within budget while delivering a remarkable event can be a delicate balancing act. Event organizers must allocate funds wisely, negotiate contracts with vendors, and find creative solutions to maximize resources while making sure that they are compliant with their organization’s policies.<br />
<strong>What to look for:</strong> Look for a platform that manages all aspects of event management, including budget tracking. Let a technology solution make this easier for your team and avoid potential errors. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/simplify-state-and-local-government-meeting-and-event-management">see how state and local governments can use event management platforms to stay compliant with regulations and easily analyze spending.</a></li>
<li><strong> ROI (Return on Investment) and Measurable Outcomes:</strong> Event organizers are increasingly expected to provide measurable outcomes. Measurable outcomes can be tracking attendance, gathering feedback, and delivering insights that highlight the event’s impact on participants and the organization.<br />
<strong>What to look for: </strong>Consider a solution that can make seeing measurable outcomes easier. This looks like a platform equipped with a range of reporting features including attendee reporting, budget, and expense reporting.</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/5-tips-choosing-right-event-management-solution">Check out this tip sheet </a>for more help with choosing the right event management solution for your organization.</p>
<h2>To Stay Ahead in the Event Management Landscape, Event Planners Should be Aware of the following Trends:</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Hybrid and Virtual Events: </strong>The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual events. Even as in-person events return, hybrid formats that blend physical and virtual components are gaining popularity. Event planners must embrace technology to create engaging experiences for both in-person and remote attendees.</li>
<li><strong>Personalization and Customization</strong>: Attendees now expect personalized experiences tailored to their preferences and needs. Event organizers can use data analytics and technology to offer customized agendas, targeted content, and networking opportunities that cater to individual interests.</li>
<li><strong>Sustainability and Green Initiatives: </strong>There’s a growing emphasis on sustainability in event management. Organizers are incorporating eco-friendly practices such as reducing waste and promoting sustainable transportation options.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Embracing the Future: A New Era in Event Management</h2>
<p>By understanding the common problems faced by event organizers, setting clear expectations, and staying informed about emerging trends, planners can deliver the best events. Effective communication, careful planning, and embracing innovative technologies are key to meeting the demands of attendees. By staying adaptable and constantly evolving their practices, event organizers can create unforgettable experiences that leave a lasting positive impression on participants. To learn more about creating great events, check out <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/blueprint-better-event-democratizing-meeting-planning-groupize">“A Blueprint for a Better Event: Democratizing Meeting Planning with Groupize.”</a></p>
<p>To learn more about Concur Event Management by Groupize, <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">visit our page.</a></p>
Nicole Ike
The SAP Concur Community-Centric Approach to Financial Efficiency in Higher Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-community-centric-approach-to-financial-efficiency-in-higher-education
2023-08-10T14:26:23Z
2023-08-10T14:20:30Z
Learn how to achieve financial efficiency in higher education through community and technology solutions.
<p>Achieving financial efficiency is important for any institution to thrive. With recent industry challenges, such as staffing issues, and managing a disconnected travel and spend landscape, SAP Concur is here to keep your institution running smoothly. Our solution offers practical strategies and a supportive community to overcome these obstacles, with approximately 700 schools already benefiting from our innovative solutions and the <a href="file:///C:/Users/I589609/Downloads/MDEzLUdBWC0zOTQAAAGNTAl2RxDz44UKHtuxcU9bP6rH0uc8erJ0mXkLURiaNMiEmmVu2IIdJ">SAP Concur community</a>. </p>
<p>In this blog, we’ll talk about financial efficiency in higher education, exploring practical approaches to tackle the challenges ahead. From achieving stability to unlocking the potential of technology solutions, we aim to equip institutions with the tools they need to create a successful financial future. </p>
<h2>Collaborative Strategies for Future Success </h2>
<p>Collaboration and engagement within the higher education community play a significant role in maximizing financial efficiency. Explore the following collaborative strategies from SAP Concur: </p>
<ol>
<li>Industry Engagement: SAP Concur is dedicated to learning from higher education leaders. We believe learning from education leaders is at the core of our success. We foster collaboration through the Concur Higher Ed Leadership Forum (CHELF) and the Concur Higher Ed Advisory Board (CHEAB). These vibrant communities enable schools to engage in meaningful conversations with one another and discuss top-of-mind challenges the community is facing. Our firm belief is that higher education institutions can thrive when they learn from one another, and we learn and grow by listening. </li>
<li>Sharing Best Practices: Platforms for sharing ideas and experiences help finance, travel, accounting, and auditing professionals exchange knowledge and learn from each other. SAP Concur supports and sponsors various events in higher education, including the <a href="https://www.nacubo.org/About/Who-We-Are">National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)</a> conference, as well as all regional CUBO events, NAEP, SCTEM, CCBO, and others across the nation. These events provide valuable opportunities for learning and collaboration. </li>
</ol>
<p>Our commitment to supporting higher education institutions remains a top priority. SAP Concur has over 300 members participating in our SAP Concur higher education community platform where SAP Concur and higher education institutions work together to improve financial efficiency and simplify operations. For more information on how it can benefit your institution, you can find more details <a href="https://community.concur.com/?mkt_tok=MDEzLUdBWC0zOTQAAAGNTAl2RxDz44UKHtuxcU9bP6rH0uc8erJ0mXkLURiaNMiEmmVu2IIdJ-Onds-79zSJIm2vLYTYtnMzEU3vMDkZ">here</a>. </p>
<h2>The Future of Higher Ed: Charting a Path to Financial Stability </h2>
<p>Higher education institutions must navigate the following challenges: </p>
<ol>
<li>Instability: Finally, a new school year begins with a return to normal operations! After a period of instability, higher education institutions are aiming for stability, and this stability necessitates a thorough reevaluation of budget priorities. SAP Concur has solutions that make the efficient allocation of resources simpler and an inventory of back-office solutions that will keep your school on a path to continued success. </li>
<li>Staffing Woes: Institutions face challenges because of retirements and the need to fill vacancies left by departing personnel. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/its-time-level-spend-management-higher-ed">43 percent of back-office teams “...are managing three or more new responsibilities as a result…” of staff shortages</a>. With hundreds of vendors to manage and a shrinking staff, managing your institution’s accounts payable (AP) processes can be difficult. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-streamline-your-end-end-ap-invoice-process">SAP Concur can help you simplify your process.</a> </li>
</ol>
<h2>Unlocking Efficiency with ERP Solutions </h2>
<p>Maximizing the power of your school’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions can significantly improve your financial process efficiency by delivering a holistic view of your institutional spend across an often-splintered landscape. Consider the following strategies: </p>
<ol>
<li>Using ERP Solutions: Institutions should optimize ERP systems to simplify operations, automate workflows, and improve financial visibility. By implementing comprehensive ERP solutions like travel, expense, and invoice platforms, institutions can manage vendor relationships, automate accounts payable processes, and gain better control over financial transactions. Whatever your current ERP is, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/integrate-your-erp-sap-concur-receive-best-financial-insight">watch this short video</a>, to learn more about how your ERP enables your institution to receive the best financial insight. </li>
<li>Getting Value from ERP Investments: Institutions need to align their ERP implementation with their long-term financial goals. Learning from the experience and insights of Higher Ed peers who have successfully automated and simplified their financial processes can be valuable. See how the University of Alabama, George Washington, Penn State, Bridgewater State, and others went from a “completely paper-based” invoice and expense process to SAP Concur solutions. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy?field_casestudy_industry_value=Education&field_case_study_range_value=All&field_case_study_product_s_deplo_value=All">Explore our Higher Ed case studies here</a>. </li>
</ol>
<h2>Finding a Path to Financial Efficiency in Higher Education </h2>
<p>Enhancing financial efficiency in higher education requires a focused and pragmatic approach. SAP Concur is here to help take the strain off institutions by helping them optimize their AP processes, travel operations, and policy compliance. By using technology, engaging in industry networks, and sharing best practices, institutions can maximize financial efficiency and lay a solid foundation for long-term success. </p>
<p>To learn more about how we can help your institution navigate financial challenges, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">visit our Higher Ed home page</a>. Connect with industry professionals, access valuable resources, and actively participate in knowledge-sharing within the higher education community. Together, we can navigate the road ahead and prepare our institutions for a prosperous future. </p>
<p> </p>
Nicole Ike
Report: Travel Managers Face More Challenges Than Ever
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/report-travel-managers-face-more-challenges-than-ever
2023-08-13T12:49:49Z
2023-08-10T13:58:00Z
Nearly half of global travel managers say their role is more stressful now than 12 months ago. Unsurprisingly, the top challenge is inflation driving up the cost of business travel.
<p>The travel manager role has evolved significantly over the past few years, from travel budgets to policy administration, to managing health and safety factors during the pandemic. Today, their role continues to change as socioeconomic factors like inflation, sustainability, and geopolitical issues like international conflicts impact their responsibilities.</p>
<p>The fifth annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey explores how the travel manager function has evolved and the challenges and priorities that continue to reshape their responsibilities and corporate travel programs.</p>
<p>According to the global survey of 700 travel managers in seven markets:</p>
<h4><strong>The Travel Manager Role Only Gets More Stressful </strong></h4>
<p>Nearly half (47%) of global travel managers say their role is more stressful now than 12 months ago. Unsurprisingly, the top challenge is that inflation is driving up the cost of business travel, as felt by 41% of respondents.</p>
<p>But it’s more than that. Travel managers are challenged by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ensuring traveler safety in areas becoming hostile to marginalized groups (38%).</li>
<li>Ensuring traveler safety against illness or natural disasters (38%).</li>
<li>Finding more environmentally sustainable travel options (37%).</li>
<li>Inadequate staffing with their travel management company (30%).</li>
</ul>
<p>Travel managers are hungry for tools to improve visibility into all aspects of travel. Nearly all global travel managers (98%) say their job is hindered by lagging data and analytics, particularly when it comes to ensuring traveler safety (39%), demonstrating ROI to senior leadership (39%), reporting on the company’s travel emissions (38%), complying with regulations and industry standards (37%), setting budgets (37%), and updating travel policies (37%).</p>
<p>“The job of the travel manager is more complex than ever,” says Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel at SAP Concur. “Their responsibilities span so much more than managing travel and expenses, and they’ve experienced layoffs and staffing shortages over the past few years, both within their own teams and with their travel management companies.”</p>
<h4><strong>Threats to Business Travel</strong></h4>
<p>There is continued debate about when or if business travel will return to pre-pandemic levels. At SAP Concur, total spending on airfare is on pace to exceed 2022 levels and continues to tick toward 2019 levels. This may be partially influenced by rising ticket prices: the average airfare is up 11% from 2019.</p>
<p>However, according to global travel managers, the biggest threats to business travel are last-minute delays and cancellations by airlines (45%) and travel industry suppliers changing how they sell and book travel (38%). You can read how SAP Concur customers can navigate changing access to fares in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-access-american-airlines-fares-in-concur-travel-if-american-removes-them-from">blog</a>.</p>
<p>Global travel managers identify cuts to travel budgets or travel freezes (35%) and inflation (32%) as threats, but interestingly, they don’t see cost as within the top three threats to business travel.</p>
<h4><strong>Travel Policy Changes</strong></h4>
<p>As further proof that change is the new normal, in the next year, 98% of global travel managers expect their company to change their travel policies. The most common change will be to enable better tracking to ensure employee safety in certain parts of the world, according to nearly half (42%) of respondents.</p>
<p>Additionally, in the next 12 months, travel managers say their company’s travel policies will change:</p>
<ul>
<li>To accommodate travelers’ need for flexible options (e.g., booking directly with suppliers) (38%).</li>
<li>To better comply with internal and external sustainability goals (37%).</li>
<li>To reduce their travel costs (37%).</li>
<li>To increase cost visibility and traveler visibility (36%).</li>
</ul>
<p>For some travel managers, the change in policy will be a return to normal. More than one out of three (34%) say they’ll go back to pre-pandemic policies.</p>
<p>For more information about the survey, including additional findings, please download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travelers_report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travel_managers_report">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB business traveler</a> whitepapers.</p>
<p><em>The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey was conducted by </em><a href="https://wakefieldresearch.com/"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 7-28, 2023, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, SEA Countries (Malaysia and Singapore), UK, and U.S. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Unveils New Experiences for Concur Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-unveils-new-experiences-for-concur-travel
2023-08-13T12:49:33Z
2023-08-10T12:38:28Z
Reinventing the world’s leading online booking tool is no small feat. We are evolving Concur Travel to better address the current and future needs of our travelers with new technology.
<p>This week marks the 54<sup>th</sup> annual <a href="https://convention.gbta.org/">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention</a> where travel managers, suppliers, and other industry members come together to discuss the current and future state of corporate travel. We look forward to the event each year as an opportunity to connect with our partners and customers, showcase what’s new with SAP Concur, and contribute to the success of the industry as the global leader for travel and expense management software.</p>
<p>This year is especially notable as we mark new milestones in the return to business travel. Concur Travel bookings are up eight percent from Q2 2022, ticking ever closer to pre-pandemic levels. Employees are keen to get a jump on their career: the fifth annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a> finds that nearly all respondents (94%) are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months and 92% say the future of their career depends on successful business travel, because it’s important for maintaining client relationships (42%) and starting new ones (41%).</p>
<p>Business travel is changing. So are we. At SAP Concur, we’re continuing to roll out new experiences as part of the evolution of Concur Travel – a journey that will reshape corporate travel programs as we create a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves.</p>
<h2><strong>Evolution of Concur Travel</strong></h2>
<p>Reinventing the world’s leading online booking tool is no small feat. We are evolving Concur Travel to better address the current and future needs of our travelers, customers, and partners more quickly and effectively, by leveraging new, adaptable technology. Next quarter, we will introduce a new end-to-end booking experience across air, hotel, and car rental bookings for Sabre GDS from U.S. point of sale.</p>
<p>“Our customers are at the center of everything we do – as their needs change and the corporate travel industry continues to advance – so do we,” said Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel at SAP Concur. “The evolution of Concur Travel rises above a flashy user interface. We’ve designed it to be scalable and ready for future innovation, capable of quickly deploying new features, functionality, and UI enhancements to benefit the entire corporate travel ecosystem.”</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bWii9LiN1aU" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p>The new booking experience within Concur Travel features a consumer-grade user experience (UX), robust content, and smart solutions. It aims to make everyone involved in booking and expensing business travel more productive. Customers can expect: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Content and Images</strong>: Increased global content coverage including NDC, better imagery, and richer descriptions, all consolidated into one view. The new UX will make browsing content seamless and intuitive, with the ability to easily view sustainability ratings and cost information. </li>
<li><strong>User Experience</strong>: A streamlined booking and checkout process, including a more user-friendly and intuitive UI, makes the experience more like that on consumer sites and apps. The new UX is adaptable on both mobile and desktop, designed to give users the ability to meet their needs and drive compliance across the end-to-end process.</li>
<li><strong>Sustainable Options</strong>: Sustainability continues to be a major priority for our customers. With the new Concur Travel experience, travelers can view information and filters to help limit their carbon footprint and make sustainable choices, making it easier to comply with company policies and limit the environmental impact of business travel.</li>
<li><strong>Search Capabilities</strong>: Omni-search capability that automatically merges options for many locations, such as airports, city centers, or company locations, delivered by a robust travel ecosystem. Companies have the freedom to choose from among a wide range of suppliers, sources and content to support global travel requirements.</li>
<li><strong>Time Savings</strong>: Optimized booking workflows and faster checkout process. The new experience integrates with Concur Expense for a seamless end-to-end travel and expense process – from planning and booking to expensing, auditing and reimbursement all the way to the company general ledger.</li>
</ul>
<p>SAP Concur has been working closely with Delta Air Lines and other airlines to revamp our new airline shopping experience in Concur Travel. We are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with our airline partners to deliver the best travel experience for our customers in a modern travel management solution.</p>
<p>“The evolution of Concur Travel is an exciting breakthrough moment for booking tool displays,” said Steve Sear, executive vice president of global sales at Delta Air Lines. “We’re delighted to contribute to SAP Concur’s modernization and provide feedback based on our experiences and conversations with corporate customers.”</p>
<h2><strong>Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport+ Users</strong></h2>
<p>The new booking experience will be available first on Sabre, for customers whose configurations use the settings and features available at release time and whose TMCs are ready for migration. For organizations that need more time, we’ll help them manage through the transition period and maintain their current experience until they are ready.</p>
<p>Amadeus customers can expect the new booking experience within Concur Travel in 2024.</p>
<p>Additionally, SAP Concur will add connectivity to Travelport+ to the roadmap for the evolution of Concur Travel for delivery in 2024. Connectivity will include support for both legacy/EDIFACT and NDC, as well as full access to the Travelport+ hotel and car rental content and services.</p>
<p>The addition of Travelport+ means that the enhanced Concur Travel will be available to users of Sabre, Travelport+, and Amadeus in 2024.</p>
<p>We look forward to meeting with GBTA Convention attendees for an on-site preview at the SAP Concur booth #1730. Keep an eye on the SAP Concur blog for additional information about travel enhancements and work with your SAP Concur representative to prepare for the evolution of Concur Travel.</p>
SAP Concur Team
JTB-CWT Concur TripLink Integration: Enhancing Business Travel in Japan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/jtb-cwt-concur-triplink-integration-enhancing-business-travel-in-japan
2023-09-26T11:12:54Z
2023-08-08T14:47:50Z
We are delighted to announce the JTB-CWT integration with Concur TripLink, offering companies with domestic business travel in Japan a seamless and comprehensive Travel and Expense (T&E) experience.
<p>As travel evolves with a multitude of booking options, SAP Concur continues to innovate to simplify travel management for businesses. We are delighted to announce the JTB-CWT integration with Concur TripLink, offering companies with domestic business travel in Japan a seamless and comprehensive Travel and Expense (T&E) experience. This integration enables travelers to book air, hotel, and rail travel through JTB-CWT's B+PLUS online booking tool while automatically syncing those bookings with their SAP Concur solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What is JTB-CWT and B+PLUS?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>JTB-CWT Business Travel Solutions is a local Japan TMC (travel management company) that provides business travel solutions to a wide range of industries. Their online booking tool, B+PLUS, offers access to a rich inventory of domestic travel content within Japan, including air tickets, rail tickets, and hotel reservations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Why JTB-CWT Integration?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Founded in 2000, JTB-CWT is a market leader in Japan's business travel management sector, combining the strengths of two world-leading travel agencies, JTB, and Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT). With an integration with JTB-CWT, businesses gain access to an expanded inventory of local air, hotel, and rail bookings in Japan.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Benefits of JTB-CWT Integration in Concur TripLink</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Flexible Booking Options:</strong> The integration provides businesses with access to a wide range of domestic booking options in Japan, allowing them to choose from various domestic travel content, flights, accommodations, and rail bookings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Streamlined Data Integration:</strong> Itinerary data from B+PLUS is seamlessly integrated into SAP Concur in real-time, ensuring accuracy and consistency throughout the travel and expense management process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visibility and Compliance:</strong> The integration allows businesses to gain expanded visibility into their travel spending in Japan, improving compliance and enabling more accurate reporting and spend management.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Enhanced Duty of Care:</strong> With Concur TripLink capturing travel itineraries from various channels, including JTB-CWT, businesses can extend their duty of care responsibilities by locating and assisting travelers more effectively.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The JTB-CWT Concur TripLink integration offers organizations with business travel within Japan an enhanced T&E experience, providing flexible booking options, streamlined data integration, improved visibility and compliance, and enhanced duty of care capabilities. Companies can leverage the strengths of both JTB-CWT and SAP Concur to optimize their travel management processes, enabling them to focus on their core business objectives. With this integration, SAP Concur reaffirms its commitment to simplifying travel management and empowering businesses to navigate the complexities of corporate travel with ease and efficiency.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Maximizing Your Investments through Efficient Event Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maximizing-your-investments-through-efficient-event-management
2023-08-01T11:35:50Z
2023-07-31T10:13:57Z
Learn how to maximize your investments through efficient event management. Find new areas of saving, manage expenses, simplify your processes, and keep participants safe using Concur Event Management
<p>Organizations worldwide use significant resources for travel and meetings to foster collaboration and network with industry peers. However, without effective management, these experiences can become burdensome on the bottom line. Learn more about cost-effective solutions for meetings and events by <a href="https://go.concur.com/042723_groupize_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=ksoen_groupize_sales_7017v0000013ncp_20230427">watching </a>SAP Concur’s webinar on Navigating a Dynamic Workforce. This article explores strategies for efficient event management. We'll delve into event expense simplification and highlight key measures to maximize financial outcomes. </p>
<img alt="imagr" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="138f3b87-88b2-4bc3-8e84-dd881c725cc5" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/282037_GettyImages-174601305_low%20%28Custom%29.jpg" />
<p>Efficient Event Management: Key Solutions for Financial Optimization </p>
<p><strong>1. Problem: Finding New Areas of Savings </strong></p>
<p>Solution: Data-Driven Decision-Making through Simplified Dashboards </p>
<p>To identify new areas of savings, organizations need access to clean and organized data. Implementing an event management solution that gives comprehensive understandings into event-related expenses enables organizations to make informed decisions. Integrated analytics allow organizations to gain visibility into various cost components such as venue expenses, travel costs, accommodation, catering, and more. Armed with this data, organizations can identify areas for cutting costs and distribute resources more effectively. </p>
<p><strong>2. Problem: Managing More with the Same Budget </strong></p>
<p>Solution: Improving Negotiating Power and Cost Savings </p>
<p>Unifying the event planning process and aggregating the needs of many events lets organizations negotiate better deals and discounts with suppliers. This consolidation of event management talent allows organizations to use their buying power, securing favorable rates from vendors and service companies. These cost savings contribute to maximizing organizations’ returns while keeping the quality of an event experience. </p>
<p><strong>3. Problem: Keeping Expenses Compliant and Useful </strong></p>
<p>Solution One: Simplified Budget Tracking and Control </p>
<p>Efficient event management platforms offer improved visibility and control over event finances through robust tracking and reporting features. Real-time expense tracking and automated reporting simplify financial management, allowing for agile decision-making and cost control. </p>
<p>Solution Two: Measuring Success with ROI (Return on investment) </p>
<p>Event management solutions equipped with ROI calculators enable organizations to evaluate the payoff of their event investments. By inputting data such as event costs, participant feedback, lead generation, and business outcomes, your organization can gain valuable understandings for future events. </p>
<p><strong>4. Problem: Complicated and Time-Consuming Event Planning </strong></p>
<p>Solution: Simplified Event Planning Process </p>
<p>By using event management solutions, organizations can automate various tasks, remove manual processes, and simplify the planning process. These time-saving features ease the burden on event organizers, allowing them to focus on strategic aspects of event management. You can start streamlining this process by <a href="https://go.concur.com/042723_groupize_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=ksoen_groupize_sales_7017v0000013ncp_20230427">watching Concur’s webinar</a> on simplifying the event planning process. </p>
<p><strong>5. Problem: Keeping Participants Safe </strong></p>
<p>Solution: Prioritizing Safety and Security </p>
<p>Reducing risks related to event planning is important for ensuring the safety and security of participants. Event management solutions that focus on compliance with financial regulations, track attendance, and generate detailed reports provide a secure environment for event management. These technology solutions reduce potential liabilities and enhance the overall event experience. </p>
<h2>Unleashing Your Organization’s Financial Potential </h2>
<p>Efficient event management practices enable organizations to optimize their investments, reduce expenses, and improve financial outcomes. By incorporating data-driven decision-making, negotiating power, budget tracking, and ROI measurement, organizations can achieve cost savings and drive results from their event investments. <a href="https://go.concur.com/042723_groupize_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=ksoen_groupize_sales_7017v0000013ncp_20230427">This </a>webinar explains how Concur Event Management by Groupize allows organizations to transform their event management experience. By embracing efficient event management practices, organizations can unleash their financial potential and position themselves for long-term growth. </p>
<p>To learn more about Concur Event Management by Groupize, <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">visit our page</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Managed Travel Programs Are Changing - What to Do in a Multi-Channel World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managed-travel-programs-are-changing-what-to-do-in-multi-channel-world
2023-08-01T08:40:07Z
2023-07-28T11:43:56Z
The stakes of change are high, in terms of control and visibility, as 46% of global business travelers make supplier-direct bookings and 60% of spending data lacks visibility.
<p>Like it or not, corporate travel is changing. New supplier distribution strategies mean organizations are confronting new content distribution channels, while continuing to juggle challenges including cost, duty of care, and travelers’ demands for choice and flexibility.</p>
<p>You can choose many paths – and technologies – to access content, with online booking tools, travel management company (TMC) agents, alternative GDS solutions, supplier direct booking sites and apps, all among the options. All the choices have pros and cons based on your company’s specific needs. But a choice must be made on how travel content is accessed.</p>
<p>The stakes of change are high, in terms of control and visibility, as 46% of global business travelers make supplier-direct bookings<sup>1</sup> and 60% of spending data lacks visibility.<sup>2 </sup></p>
<p>Our new white paper <strong>– <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/multi-channel-future-are-you-ready">A Multi-Channel Future: Are You Ready?</a></strong> –Built upon independent research SAP Concur commissioned with consultancy FESTIVE ROAD, is designed to help travel managers and their companies determine a path forward amid the disruption and opportunity. It delves deep into the current landscape, discusses common misconceptions, helps assess where your operation now stands, and examines strategies and paths that can prepare you for change.</p>
<h4>Myth: "I don't need to address blind spend; it's minimal."</h4>
<h4>With direct and outside bookings on the rise, the ability to account for blind spend brings greater spending control and understanding of how your program works. </h4>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The Trends Fueling Change</strong></p>
<p><strong>A push and pull: </strong>Airlines are executing on New Distribution Capability (NDC) by distributing content through more channels than ever – traditional distribution systems, supplier direct websites and apps, and API connections via third parties. At the same time, business travelers are pushing their companies for flexibility and choice in where and how they book. Those travelers are a loyal bunch, too, wanting to stick with and earn points from their favorite suppliers. The challenge for travel managers is to balance traveler desires while retaining fare visibility, achieving discounts, and ensuring policy compliance.</p>
<p><strong>The tech stack is growing:</strong> With technology enabling connectivity among business travel players, travel programs can access a wider variety of content and corral more useful data. New solutions also capture supplier direct bookings and enable NDC connections. However, travelers who are accustomed to the consumer experience in their personal lives want that level of user experience in whatever corporate travel tool they’re using.</p>
<p><strong>Some managers are taking control:</strong> With so many tools available, some travel managers are taking the lead on technology, harnessing the array of options to provide flexibility but retain control of duty of care, compliance, and data. Depending on the approach, you can categorize a program as a closed shop, open shop, department store, or build your own (BYO).</p>
<blockquote>
<h4><strong>Myth: </strong>It’s too hard to capture all your travel data.</h4>
<h4>Actually, you can access tools that will capture the data, driving policy decisions and enabling better savings and negotiations.</h4>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Steps to Crafting a Strategy</strong></p>
<p>Pioneer? Early adopter? Capture and control? Focused mandate? These are the four types that FESTIVE ROAD discovered in its research to describe travel managers and the range of strategies they’re using amid the multi-channel environment. As you might imagine, these types range from those all-in to those sticking to traditional sources like agents and online booking tools.</p>
<p>Travel managers seeking to craft a response should start by taking a close look at the current state of their program. This involves asking questions such as, “How often are supplier-direct bookings made?” and “Are the patterns of traveler demands influencing content choices?” Then digging down to put numbers to the questions and see what traveler surveys and interviews tell about your program and the choices travelers make.</p>
<p>Next, investigate what your current suppliers say about access to content and possible implications involving cost and reporting. Having gained a better understanding of the current state, start exploring and considering what’s to be gained from new technologies and service channels. With considerations and information in hand, you can decide whether being a pioneer, pursuing a focused mandate, or something in between is the strategy that best fits the goals and needs for your company and its travelers.</p>
<p><strong>Read Further and Learn How to Develop Your Strategy</strong></p>
<p>Download a copy of the <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/multi-channel-future-are-you-ready">whitepaper</a> </strong>to learn more about multi-channel trends, move beyond common misconceptions, and discover how you can build a multi-channel strategy that delivers the flexibility, compliance, and control your company requires today and in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-travelers-report-2023">Global Business Travelers Report 2023, SAP Concur</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Global Business Travelers Report 2022, SAP Concur</a></li>
</ol>
SAP Concur Team
How AP Automation Benefits Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-ap-automation-benefits-your-business
2023-08-01T08:40:41Z
2023-07-26T11:46:53Z
To help organizations better understand AP automation, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, spoke with Grace Swain, Senior Consultant at TCG Consulting, about what A
<p>Most organizations have finance and accounts payable teams. However, 70% of organizations aren’t automated across their financial processes, especially in accounts payable (AP). Consequently, research shows it currently takes organizations up to 9.5 hours to process a single invoice manually. More importantly, when invoices are processed manually, it can pose a lot of unnecessary risks to an organization.</p>
<p>To help organizations better understand AP automation, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, spoke with Grace Swain, Senior Consultant at TCG Consulting, about what AP automation is and why it’s important, the different elements of AP automation, how and where to start automating, what the journey to full automation entails, tips for driving change across your organization, and the benefits AP automation brings to your business.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/automated-advantage-unlocking-business-benefits-through-ap-automation">SAP Concur Conversations channel</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-automated-advantage-unlocking-business-benefits/id1525744763?i=1000620956131">Apple</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5h6QtqveKw9NB6hHxEPloZ">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRhZjI2MmFjNzdlYTAwMDExMmNjM2Ew?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjo342z6qiAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2><strong>AP automation: What it is and why it matters</strong></h2>
<p>AP automation is the practice of using technology such as e-invoicing, OCR technology, and automated travel and expense and payment solutions to take control of your accounts payable process.</p>
<p>There are many different pieces of AP automation that an organization can tackle, such as AP processing, integration, digitization, supplier portals, payment automation, and others.</p>
<p>A benefit of using technology to automate AP is your organization can gain more visibility into your spend, spend categories, and supplier usage. Such visibility allows you to determine how often you pay certain suppliers and if you need to renegotiate any of your contracts with them to take advantage of early payment discounts and prevent duplicate payments.</p>
<p>Automation technology also provides better reports for decision-making and forecasting cash flow. What’s more, it offers an automated flow with exception processing built in that reduces risk, both internally and externally, and lowers costs. In short, as Dion says, it’s the kind of automation that “can align with signature authority matrices because you can actually control that workflow and it doesn’t just sit in somebody’s head.”</p>
<h2><strong>Where to start automating AP </strong></h2>
<p>Dion likes to think of AP automation as a journey that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Swain says if your organization is thinking about automating AP, start small and prioritize what to automate based on what your organization does, where your employees spend the most time, and where your high-risk areas are, as automation is the perfect tool to lower that risk.</p>
<p>For example, if you’re a sales company that has hundreds of employees travelling all the time, your biggest expenses may be travel-related. So, the best place to start might be automating your travel and expense system. By comparison, if you’re a huge manufacturing company that manually processes thousands of paper-based invoices a month or you have a high risk of invoice fraud because your employees are too overloaded with work to scrutinize individual invoices, you may want to start automating by setting up a supplier portal where your suppliers can digitally submit their invoices to your AP team.</p>
<p>During the middle stage of your organization’s journey, you might transition to an OCR technology that automatically reads an invoice and matches it to a purchase order. Or, later, integrate your process with your ERP system. “It’s a little bit like a set of Legos where you can keep adding on over time,” Swain explains.</p>
<p>Plus, when you take this approach, your whole organization benefits. “It’s not just one piece that you reduce risk on,” Dion says. “It reduces risks in every single area of the organization.”</p>
<p>That said, a crucial part of automating AP processes is having a strong executive sponsor who can drive change across your organization and make your team feel like they’re part of it. This includes ensuring everyone is well-trained, educated, and ready to help the AP team. “The scariest thing for the people who are in the day-to-day is not knowing what their job looks like in three, four months,” Swain says. It’s important to show them that their job isn’t going away, but rather how their job is changing into higher-level activities.</p>
<p>Dion agrees and adds, “It doesn’t reduce the workload, it just changes how you do it. In the customers that I’ve worked with implementing invoices, and even in the past groups that I’ve worked in, anytime we’ve automated a process, the actual amount of work has never really lessened. The manual effort has lessened, but it’s opened up entire opportunities and horizons for all of us because now we were able to see things we didn’t have time to see before, or we were able to spend time fixing problems that really mattered instead of getting caught up in things that really didn’t need our attention.”</p>
<h2> <strong>AP automation: The more efficient and effective way to manage spend</strong></h2>
<p>In the end, AP automation is really about having the power to manage your organization’s spend in a far more efficient and effective manner. And since automation tools can help significantly streamline AP processes, even the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is considering changing its guidelines for completing documentation from 45 days to 15 days. They specifically stated the reason is because automation tools and software make it much easier for everyone to complete their documentation earlier.</p>
<p>When your organization has manual procedures and invoicing, not only are you delaying the process, but you could also be adding to your workload if you enter something incorrectly and the auditors ask you to increase your sample size. “That’s going to be really heavily weighing on the AP resources that are at the same time juggling their day-to-day responsibilities and having to get all that documentation over to the auditors in an even shorter amount of time,” Swain says.</p>
<p>If your organization needs to automate AP processes but isn’t sure where to start, SAP® Concur® solutions can help. We’ll show you where to step into AP automation and the actions needed to gradually transition to full AP automation over time — at your own pace and budget.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/automated-advantage-unlocking-business-benefits-through-ap-automation">Listen to this SAP Concur Conversations podcast to learn how to better your business with AP automation.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
More Productivity, Less Paperwork: How AP Automation Revolutionizes Business Operations with AvidXchange
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation-revolutionizes-business-operations
2023-08-04T09:00:00Z
2023-07-26T11:39:16Z
In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Chris Elmore, Chief Evangelist of AvidXchange, explores this question, and provides colorful commentary about how the AP profession has evolved
<p>Change is hard. But what if the pain of the same was greater than the pain of change? When it comes to accounts payable (AP) automation, this is the question businesses should be asking.</p>
<p>Automation is arguably one of the more controversial topics of recent times, evoking visceral reactions and strong opinions alike. Perhaps that’s why although AP automation has the power to increase operational efficiency, visibility, and control, all while reducing complexity, fewer than 20% of businesses have fully automated AP processes, and 70% of all invoice processing globally is still paper based. So, what’s stopping businesses from going all in on AP automation, or at the very least taking the first step towards automating their time-consuming AP processes?</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Chris Elmore, Chief Evangelist of AvidXchange, explores this question, and provides colorful commentary about how the AP profession has evolved, the optimization opportunities AP automation opens for organizations, and how automation forces organizations to be more strategic and intentional with where and how they spend their time and resources.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation/id1525744763?i=1000608605558"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hSa3NPit7ckMHyN9MwFg2"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjQzNjJlNjQ5OTk2MmMwMDExZTI0NmI1?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjg9qrWmKiAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCg"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, and welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm Jeanne Dion, and I'm the vice President of the Value Experience Team here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers to bring about positive business outcomes based on data-driven insights. And today I am joined by Chris Elmore of AvidXchange, and we are going to talk about the evolution of the AP function, and how to leverage the power of AP automation to optimize operational efficiency in your organization. Because that was easy for me to say, I guess. But let's get to know you a little bit, Chris, before we start in on our topic.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore:</strong></p>
<p>All right. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. This is great. And I'm looking forward to our dialogue. Now, I've been with AvidXchange for 23 years, and the company's been around for 23 years. You can do the math on that. It's pretty simple. I'm not necessarily a founder of the organization. I like to say that I was kind of the first employee, or an early employee, but that just means that I've kind of seen firsthand the whole rise of AvidXchange, and had a front row seat to accounting, and finance professionals trying to deal with this new world that we're all dealing in this new digital age. So, it's been kind of interesting.</p>
<p>Couple of other maybe background points. I work in the mergers, and acquisition groups at AvidXchange. And also I teach at UNC Charlotte. I've been teaching, I'm a professor of entrepreneurship, and innovation there, and I've written 12 books, eight on the accounts payable process. And if you want to clear room at a party, you tell them you've written an AP book. But I have a feeling that people who are listening to this podcast are like me, and kind of nerd out a little bit when it comes to accounts payable, so we're all family here.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yes. Well, I am one of those nerds, big fan. I love that you're passionate about it, passionate enough that eight of your books are around AP.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>And we could write books about AP all day, but I want to get a little bit strategic about how AP works. So, I've heard it said that each generation is going to bring change to the world of business, that it's going to be transformational, because we've built them to grow up on technology. And we've actually seen some of it in the past from agricultural to industrial based when technology was introduced. I've even seen some of it in my own experiences with some of the newer employees looking at some of our processes, and saying, "Oh, my God, why couldn't we do this a little bit better?" But you really have a different viewpoint on that, if I'm not mistaken, you once said to me that at least in the AP world, we're training the next generation to do the work the way we've always done it. So, I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on that for me.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't know if it's a blessing, or a curse, but I have a tendency to look at the other way of this, and call it the devil's advocate, or whatever. And I have a colleague here at AvidXchange that's a senior leader, and in his notion is that over time, as the millennials take over, they're not going to stand for these manual tasks, these paper driven tasks. And so just by virtue of them taking over, the whole thing's going to be digitized, because their lives are digital, and they've grown up just like you said. But I don't believe that at all. And I'd love to hear what you think about this, because there's a couple of base principles that I do think applies to accounting, and finance, especially accounts payable. And one is that the population that does this work is risk adverse.</p>
<p>Now, if you hear something like that, it could seem like a negative, but it's absolutely a positive. In being risk adverse, what's the opposite of risk-adverse?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Reckless. I believe the word is reckless.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, let's say you are reckless. Let's say you are a controller that had a bent on being reckless. You're not going to be a controller for long. So, the base concept is that it's a risk adverse population. It should be a risk adverse population, and that's a good thing. So, when you take that into account, the younger generation that's getting their sea legs on the processes are getting trained by the older generation on this is how you do it. And so that becomes the way that you do it. And so the idea would be as a younger generation takes over, they're going to continue the old task for one very good reason. And that is they're going to have to have a really strong list of reasons why they should switch from something that actually works pretty well. What do you think? What do you think?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, so I think you're right. And I think about it in this sense. I mentioned earlier, we've grown this set of generations to be really technologically dependent that they believe that everything is going to happen from a technology perspective. We grew them that way. We cannot fault them for that. We actually did this to them. How many of us went to a restaurant, and handed a kid a tablet so that the grownups could talk? We did this, so we can't really fault them for it. But I start to think about the AP groups of today are starting to age out of the workforce. We're starting to see them leave, and they're training people into the new way of work that they've always done it versus a new way of work.</p>
<p>And I sometimes wonder if because we're doing this to this next generation of AP teams, are we really limiting the type of people that we're going to be hiring, or the caliber of mind that we're looking to bring into that finance, and AP world? So, I kind of challenge that, in that we're hiring the same sets of people, but should we be? Should we be hiring people who have a little bit more from a strategic perspective, and are taking a bigger picture view, and are willing, and open to have manual processes be taken up by automation?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, by the way, I like that. I haven't really thought about the people that are attracted to the job not changing, but there's all kinds of... What's accountants never get older. They only lose their balance. There's the one joke. And then joke number two is why did the accountant cross the road? Because that's exactly what they did the same time last year. So, falsely, there's this view of accounting people of being rigid, and not willing to change, and uncreative, that's the one that really bothers me more than anything. And then the work that I do at the university, the students that are in this have none of those traits. They are creative. They're full of ambition. They're driven.</p>
<p>They're excited about getting into to the work, and getting into the workforce. And making things happen. And when they get there, they get stopped by people who don't feel like the risk is good enough. And I don't want to use this word, but I will. But they're stymied by people saying that we've never done it that way. Don't rock the boat. If it's not broken, don't fix it. And all of those are things that I think are killing the younger generation for them to just say, "Okay, well then I'll just do it that way."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. I think it ties to that whole idea that when something becomes the way in capital letters the way. And it's really hard to change the way, and you can see why it kind of happens, because if you were audited, every step of what you did was audited a million times a year. Whether it's a monthly audit, a quarterly audit, an internal audit, an external audit, an IRS audit, if you were audited consistently, you would be incredibly risk averse. It should be kind of a badge of honor.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yes, absolutely. I remember in the middle of discussions with these teams, if you called them paranoid, they'd say, "Well, thank you."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, thank you, sir.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate that. I'll tell my family you said that. But Jeanne, I wanted to go back to something that you brought up just anecdotally that I think is actually really important when it comes to technology, and the view of technology in the workforce. And that is the generation that's grown up on tech. They haven't known... One of the things that I love so much is my part of my personal elevator pitch is the last time I had a first date, there was no such thing as the internet, and there was no cell phone.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>And it wasn't so long ago, it was 30 years ago when I met my wife. And by the way, I think it needs to go on record that if my wife ever leaves me, I'm going with her. Okay, here we go. These are the jokes, folks. I put that one right in the middle of the podcast to make sure that people were listening.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I love a good dad joke.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>I don't know what you're talking about, dad joke, it's a threat, and a promise. It is a threat, and a promise all at the same time. I love that woman. But here's the thing that you mentioned anecdotally, is that you kind of hand the kid the tablet, so the grownups can talk. The association that the technology generation that's supposed to automatically transform us into a business digital age is largely, largely based on entertainment. And so the association to technology, they've had technology their entire life, but it's almost exclusively been wrapped around entertainment. So, what happens is when they go into the workforce, and I'm not going to be shocking anything, or breaking down any barriers on this next statement, because I'm going to say that the workplace is not the most entertaining place in the world. It's a job. It's work. It's not supposed to be arduous, but it is work. It's not necessarily all the time fun. Although what we're doing right now, Jeanne, is.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>It's a lot of fun. That's probably the most fun I have at my job all the time.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>I'm running my mouth, I'm talking. But the thing is, in order for the technology generation to make that leap, they're going to have to cut the entertainment value out of the tech, and then focus more on, and this is something I know we're going to get into. Focus more on the mission, the purpose, and the outcome of the technology, and how that's associated to the business, and how that affects the business outcomes.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So, that's a great segue to this next thing that I was going to ask, because if I'm thinking, if I make the assumption, if I agree with your assumption that the next generation really is not going to save us by highly automating those manual processes, who's the right group that we're going to be looking to for changes to process within an organization? I mean, wouldn't the people who do the work daily be the right people to make those changes? Because they're the experts at what they do. Are we looking at the right group to bring in change?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, and I'm not going to make any friends on this one, but I got to say it. And that is that people, in my experience now, I've had close to 9,000 conversations with these groups about this topic. And by, and large, the clear assumption in their mind is because they know accounts payable, they do know accounts payable automation, and that's actually false. And here's the thing, folks, at the sound of my voice, if, first of all, if that irritates you, I do apologize for that, but it is my job here to make everyone mad. That way we'll go viral. No, it's not my job to do that. But here's the thing is that, let me give you a key indicator that you're actually in the middle of this, and that is, if you're talking about things like how does it get coded, how does it get approved?</p>
<p>What's the dependencies of the codes, and who approves it? If you're having conversations like that with your service provider, you're not talking about the right things. Now, it's important to get your arms around that from a feature set, but those are not the things that'll make the decision. Those are not the reasons why you should decide it. If it's easy to code, if it's easy to prove, if it has flexibility in the approval process, you need all of those things. But those aren't the reasons why you need to do this. It always frustrates me when I get an RFP, because on the RFP, they list all of these features out. And I'll tell you this, Jeanne, there's only so many ways that you can digitize an invoice, put it into an approval process, and present it to an accounting system. They're all going to look really similar. So, the question is, why are they different? Maybe this is a good time for you to... I mean, what makes them different?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So, it's funny you say that because I've watched hundreds of customers take their expense process that was sitting on an Excel spreadsheet, and just translate it into a quote automated system, because that's how they always did it. And they're not looking to actually look at it from a strategic perspective of what could we do better? How could we make this work more efficiently, or effectively, how do we make the technology work for us rather than us work for the technology? So, to your point, if you're sitting there talking about, "How do I code this invoice", and "Well, 20% of my invoices don't follow this workflow, so what am I going to do with those?" Or "How do I ensure that what I've always done manually is going to get done electronically, and so I'm going to watch every single line item as it comes through just to make sure that the technology is doing its job." You've totally missed the point of the exercise.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Which is really to reimagine or envision change that affects the entire corporation, not just the tactical day to day, but what is happening. You are looking at this from a, "I have to look at every line item. I have to do everything because my job is on the line if I don't", rather than thinking about what if I spent 90% of my time on 5% of the problems, the problems that really matter, instead of spending 90% of my time on a hundred percent of every single line item of which only a small fraction will be a problem? What could I reimagine in the system? What could I do in addition to what I'm doing now that would add value to the company overall that would add value to the bottom line. That would add efficiency to the process that makes it easier for everybody to work. And I think that's where we get caught up. That's where people get tripped up in looking at automation of AP. It's not just taking what you do by paper, and making it electronic. It is actually re-imagining your entire system. So...</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>That's the hardest part because you, you've now got to go to a professional who has maybe 10, 15, 20 years on this same process, and the process is their baby. I have a thing that says you should never tell them their baby's ugly. You can't roll in there and say, "Oh, you're messed up three ways to Sunday on this thing." You can't do that, because these are their processes, and by, and large, they work. And so the thought is, it's so difficult for a human being to take an objective look at something that they've known for 15 years, and they developed themselves. And now I'll give you a little, if someone wants to do additional research, we study this in my class. It's called the curse of knowledge. We talked about this in our prep. And the reason why the curse of knowledge is interesting is because one, it's both a psychological condition and an economic condition. It can kind of be studied either way, and it has applications both way. I say that because it's trying to make myself sound really smart to SAP Concur.</p>
<p>The curse of knowledge is a really simple fundamental principle which says the people who are doing the work, and are closest to the work are the ones that are least likely to innovate. And we have personal experience at this at AvidXchange, because hopefully this is okay, is that we ultimately created an accounts payable application, and nobody knew anything about accounts payable, because our customers over the years pulled us in that direction. We found ourselves in that, we're right there. So, what we had to do is it forced us to get feedback from over 200 companies on how to do this thing, and it created a really flexible application in its wake. But my students are always shocked when I tell them things like that, because they think in order to create something, you have to know everything about it. And that's actually faults. It's that the curses of knowledge, it has you stay in these invisible lanes that are so paralyzing that it's really hard to look outside of them.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, yeah, because you're looking at the tactical. You're looking at the day-to-day. You're not looking at what could be. So, we are actually looking at, continuing to look at green ledger pads that we've just moved onto a screen of some sort, and we're looking at the DOS entry screens that are going in, and we're still looking at cabinets full of paper, because we don't trust the scanning machines, and we're not really looking or moving to that age of the futurists where we've got flying cars, and robot maids, and true exception handling in AP. None of that is happening.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>You just described the Jetsons.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yes, I did, because I'm that old. But that's what it is. I mean, we understand what the problem is. We understand how to move ourselves, but yet we cannot make ourselves move forward. In the scheme of things, automation really is the same for everybody, isn't it? I mean, there's nothing new about the automation we're talking about. I think you had mentioned to me once about when you're looking at automation, it's the same for everyone. It has to be driven by your mission, or your purpose, or your outcome. So when you're concentrating on that tactical, you're never going to be successful because your mission is never tactical. It's always lofty. It's always strategic, in a way.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, and so I'm glad you brought that up, because I'm desperate to get to, let's talk about what to do about it. So, now we kind of...</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yes, yes!</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I've taken over the podcast. Jeanne, let's talk about what to do about it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's exactly where we were going.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>And hopefully there's been some thought-provoking things that we've said in the inspiration side of this, and some motivated things, and hopefully when you hear Jeanne, and I talk about the issues, or the problems, it's more to kind of tell you you're not alone. Because I go from company to company to company, and all these companies have tons of paper, and they're like, "Don't tell anybody that we're this far behind." And I'm like, "You know what? You're all like that. Everyone's like that." The percentage of people that are fully automated are just low.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Small.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>It really is. And so I'm glad you brought up the... And so what do you do about it? And so here's my answer to that. My answer is you do have to focus on the mission outcome, and purpose of the technological initiative, whether it's accounts payable automation, Salesforce automation, marketing automation. And I get a lot of inspiration from manufacturing who... They've already figured this out, and they have six sigma, and lean process, and all of these things that kind of back up their need to automate. And so if you think about mission, purpose, and outcome, what is it supposed to do? And then here's the loop, the loop is real simple. The best outcome in any automation, accounts payable, or anything else is that it frees up time, and that's its best outcome. That's its product. It could have a financial ROI to it, but it's real reality is that the organization is going to get a certain amount of time out of that. Let's call that 5,000 hours. And this is something that's just standard in my world.</p>
<p>So, if I'm talking to an accounting department, I'm talking to them, in terms of how are you going to invest that 5,000 hours? Now, the word investment is really important. How are you going to invest that 5,000 hours? And then when you make that investment, and maybe I could say it even simpler, if I give you 5,000 hours, which projects are not getting done, that should be getting done? And when those new projects get done, how is that going to affect the company? And then who in the company is going to be excited about that effect at the highest level? And then lastly, this is the most important. How is that going to affect your career? So, where are you going to invest it? How's that going to affect the company? Who at the highest level's going to get excited about that? And then how's that going to make you look? That is whole mission, purpose, and outcome.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, that's a real futurist view, right? Because I think a lot of AP departments, I can say this, having worked in many of them, automation typically brings the fear of losing a job.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>It really doesn't work that way. Automation typically brings you a better job.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>It doesn't take anything away. It actually expands your horizons, and gives you a chance for future growth. And so I think that whole idea of focusing on mission, purpose, outcome is really the only way to make these kind of AP automation plays successful for everyone in the organization, not just the vendors who might be getting paid better, or faster, or quicker, or somebody who doesn't have to put in as many journal entries because the coding's done. There's a broad purpose that comes with this. So, I'd love that viewpoint.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>By the way, it's a pencil, and paper exercise. It's not a let's hire a bunch of consultants, and now I'm off all the consultants now. It's not hire a bunch of consultants. It's not like, let's get into a room, and brainstorm. It's not a whiteboard exercise. It's not a whiteboard with sticky notes exercise. What's some other things that corporate America does that drives me crazy?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Murals.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>It's a pencil to paper. It's a imaginary exercise, and it's not an event either. It's a process. It's an ongoing thing. Is that how am I going to spend my 5,000 hours? By the way, yours might be 10,000 hours. How am I going to spend my 10,000 hours? And it is a real pencil, and paper exercise, and it doesn't need to be more than that. And that's what the best results come from. And I'll tell you, just to back up what you said is that, and I deal a lot in my class with history, because history has a tendency to give you the whole view. In 1900, the loom industry was automated 90%. And the thing was, did jobs go up for looms, or did jobs go down? Now, traditionally, you would think if 90% of the work was automated, there'd be all these loom workers that were out of jobs.</p>
<p>But the reality is, it went way up because what happened was the automation reduced the cost to produce the fabric, and people started using fabric in different ways, and it opened up brand new markets. And therefore, even though you had to do 10% of the job, they just needed more people to do 10% of the job, that the jobs were easier, and they paid more too, and they required more intellect. Automation has a tendency to do that over, and over, and over, and over again. It forces you to go on to things that are more important. That's why I use the word, if I give you 5,000 hours, how are you going to invest it?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Right. Well, it reminds me of your loom example reminds me of the whole conversation around artificial intelligence, and how people are so afraid that artificial intelligence is going to replace them. And you said something really interesting to me. It was that artificial intelligence wasn't going to replace that person, but a person using artificial intelligence would replace that other person, I think it ties right exactly to that loom example. We've seen this happen before. We become a better, faster, stronger organization for it. And so I think it's just a place to go. And you mentioned something about this is a paper, and pencil exercise. And I would say, you're going to see what you need to do in that first 5,000 hours, right? And you're going to get that done. Then there's going to be that second round. This is iterative.</p>
<p>This type of change becomes iterative. It's a cycle of innovation. It's a cycle of reinvention. It's not just, well, I've found my 5,000 hours, and then I'm just going to keep doing this 5,000 hours, and I'm going to keep doing what I was doing. It frees you to then continue to work on that more important work of strategic oversight, and strategic viewpoints of how you can continually improve. I always like to say that this type of project, an AP automation project is really just continuous finance improvement, because it's going to drip into every part of the finance organization, which in turn, will then drip into every part, as you pointed out, every other part of the organization, because finance is the beating heart, and the rest of the organization will gain that circulation from that beating heart. So, we have to keep moving forward.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, it's a habit. And really, if you think about it, we're not just talking about accounts payable automation. We're talking about any technology that any company consumes. Mission, purpose, and outcome. If it's cool, that's fine, but I need to know it's mission, purpose, and outcome. If it's really neat, okay, that's good. But I'm always shocked on how many people buy on cool, and neat. It's got to go beyond that. And that that's that thing that will permeate through the entire organization. It's a habit on, and I have a saying, hopefully the saying will hit, but it kind of encompasses this whole... We probably should print up a bunch of t-shirts. But the saying is that technology is only as good as the people that it serves, and it's got to have that human impact element to it, or else it's just pretty much useless.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. So, if you're going to print those up, should we just post them out here, and let people order online?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Oh, I would. And I'm going to put a Sasquatch on the back that says I believe.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. Okay. All right. Sign me up. Well, I want to thank you, Chris, for sharing all your insights with us. This was really fantastic, and I'd like to encourage everybody, if they can, to go out, and take a look for Chris's work. I think for those of us who are AP nerds, his books are fantastic, and I think you're going to get a lot out of them. So, thank you again for joining us. I hope we can have you back another time.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>You ask, I'm going to come back. And so anytime, anywhere, it was absolutely my pleasure. And then the only caveat that I say is that next time you have me on the podcast, we have to do it live in Charleston at your favorite restaurant, which is?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>All right.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>What is...</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Oh, gosh. Vern’s.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>Vern’s.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Vern’s.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>There it is. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll invite everyone to Vern’s.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. We'll be there. You, and me both. We'll get them shut down, and we'll bring an audience in.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Elmore</strong>:</p>
<p>I love it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, and I want to thank everybody for listening to this episode as well. We really appreciate you tuning into the SAP Concur Conversations Podcasts. To hear more exclusive insight, and interviews from the world of business, travel, expense, and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us for our next SAP Concur Conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a>, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Breaking Barriers: How Digital Transformation is Reshaping Spend Management with Dermalogica
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/breaking-barriers-how-digital-transformation-is-reshaping-spend-management-with
2023-08-03T09:00:00Z
2023-07-26T11:33:27Z
In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Jenny Chen, Senior Accountant at Dermalogica, and Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, discuss Dermalogica’s
<p>Change management is hard. And digital transformation can be overwhelming. So being tasked with the job of guiding employees through the changes digital transformation brings might feel nothing short of intimidating. But with a commitment to meeting your employees where they are and a game plan that considers the current state of your T&E systems and processes and maps to the desired end state, the change can be seamless.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Jenny Chen, Senior Accountant at Dermalogica, and Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, discuss Dermalogica’s recent digital transformation, the smart approach the company took to change management, and why intentionally taking a long-term view in creating scalable systems and processes was crucial to Dermalogica’s success.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/breaking-barriers-how-digital-transformation-is-reshaping/id1525744763?i=1000621660941"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6oqYFdRg8IkMsLxbgdvxyi"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRiNjMyMjFjYWJmY2QwMDExNGI1NDFl?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwj44s6n052AAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast. Each episode, we sit down with industry experts, visionaries and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend and travel programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm your host, Jeanne Dion, and I'm the Vice President on the value experience team here at SAP Concur. My team works with customers to bring positive business outcomes based on data driven insights. And today, I am joined by Jenny Chen of Dermalogica. Dermalogica has undergone a very impressive digital transformation over the past few years and Jenny has been at the helm of that change management process. She's been very intentionally creating scalable systems and processes that can grow with the company, taking a real long-term view that will help the company scale to its desired future state, while very masterfully guiding employees through the transition.</p>
<p>So today, Jenny and I are going to talk about that journey. But Jenny, first before we get started, would you please introduce yourself to our audience?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Hi, Jeanne. Hi, everyone. My name is Jenny Chen and I work for Dermalogica down in Australia. So I've been in the company for five years now I believe, and it was previously a five person company down in Australia, which has now grown to 150 strong. So you can obviously imagine the internal controls and processes which once worked needed improvement and efficiency upgrades. And we were just trying to find a good mix of what we needed out of a small to medium enterprise versus a corporate structure. And we were taken over by a tiny little organization called Unilever. They probably own everything in your kitchen and your bathroom, probably your fridge, I'm not too sure about that one. And that also propelled the growth that we see today. So I'm very happy to be invited to talk to you all about how we had implemented controls with the SAP Concur platforms. We had implemented I think four, four of the platforms for SAP Concur. We won an award. Actually, we won a couple of awards for the travel platform, the expense platform, and the purchase request and invoice platform.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I'm glad you mentioned that because I want to get to that digital piece. You said something really interesting to me in a previous conversation. You all won that SMB Digital Innovation award in 2022, and you were also honorable mention for The Best Run in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's correct.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So I want you to tell me what your coworkers said when you told them you won those awards.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's a funny conversation, actually. Most of our stakeholders actually asked me, "Jen, why did we win the Innovations Award? I don't see the innovation that you're talking about that we're awarded for. What efficiencies? What controls? I don't understand." And for me, that was the greatest compliment because it not only envisioned what I wanted for my stakeholders for the enterprise, I wanted to make sure that everyone in our company was on the same track that it didn't disrupt their workflow, that efficiencies were seamless, that they didn't see the effects of trying to create these efficiencies and improvements in our organization. So that was a big win I think personally for me and also for the company, very ironically. That's how I saw that.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>But I think it talks really to your unorthodox way of doing this type of work and bringing innovation to your organization. And you have a really interesting view about innovation, that innovation really isn't the problem. It's the rate of change and the message that comes with it, which is really hard to control when you have a lot of change management happening. So I'm just wondering. As you looked at this problem of needing to innovate what you were doing, and I think this applies to any company regardless of the size, how did you approach this? What was it that you did that got them to realize this really isn't a big deal in my everyday life, but it was enormous for the corporation and how you operate?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, first off, we never really saw it as an innovation project or a transition project. We wanted to make an impact without annoying or disrupting workflow in organization. So when I approach this certain project, I don't go to my stakeholders and say, "Well, this is what's going to happen in week one, in the first month, within the first three months." I would approach them with the aspect of, okay, so let's sit down and have a conversation. And why don't you tell me what is your pain point in your particular area? And make sure I talk to not just the people in management, but the people on the stomping grounds too, which is I think a very crucial aspect in any project.</p>
<p>I guarantee you, if you stay by the water cooler, if you do the coffee rounds with people, you will get a more descriptive, more better insight into what needs to be improved, where efficiencies should lie, and I don't follow trends, Jeanne. So how I approached it, I looked at specifically what the company values were. I looked at specifically what kind of stakeholders I'm working with, predominantly where their weaknesses and strengths were, and I probably planned the entire platform around what they could handle and progressively infused change. So by the end of this one year mark, or by the end of the two year or six month mark regardless, they would all be on the same page. And I made sure that I made the time to sit with them one on one, or as a team, or create the workshops that were the pain points for a specific departments.</p>
<p>And we didn't just stop there. We continuously made sure that was a routine lesson in our organization. And by the time we won that Innovations Award, they had no idea what had happened. They just knew that they had changed in the last five years and it was a gradual, seamless procession in our organization.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So it sounds like you did a lot of focus with your evangelists, those people who were going to pull it forward. Right?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Correct.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>You did a lot with a focus on the squeaky wheels as well, those laggards, those naysayers, to kind of bring them along and to get that feedback so you could head off some of the negativity upfront. Would you say that was kind of how you worked this entire process? And I don't want to call it a project because I know you don't call it a project.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>No. We didn't have a name for it. We just said, "We're going to look at some efficiencies, look at some controls." We didn't want to scare our stakeholders, Jeanne. So we wanted to make sure they were at ease. I did mention to you, lots of flowers and chocolates were involved too. Who can complain when their mouth is full of chocolates. Right?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>We made sure that we consistently went into the system and pulled out specific trends that we saw. So if we knew that we had specific people that usually would create expenses on a weekly basis and had now dropped to one or two a month, we would reach out and go, "Hey, is there something wrong? Do you need some extra help in particular areas? Why don't we have a one on one and sit down to see if we can make this process easier for you?" Because sometimes people don't want to bother or they just don't have the time to try and find those pain points at that particular moment. So we do this on a monthly basis, we made sure everybody was upskilled in our organization, so that no one was left behind consistently.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's an amazing way to do it and I think it becomes ... I think your success shows how that concentration really helps manage that change and helps people understand you have changed a few things, but you haven't changed everything in the world. The world still needs the work that you're doing, and we may have changed a few of the tools in the toolbox, but the whole world didn't change.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's correct. I'll give you an example. So we had some issues with our expense platform, and what they were previously doing with their expense platform was they would complete 20 fields in a platform and they would upload their receipt. So instead of taking that process away from them and giving them a new one, we basically said, "Hey, it's the same process. We've just cut down the number of fields you need to populate," which is great. We streamlined it so that maybe eight out of the 10 fields are already auto-populated because we know what division you're in. We know what channel you're in. And if you go and upload the receipt, which was one of the controls that we wanted, we wanted a receipt submission, if you upload that, it makes it even better because it auto-populates everything for you.</p>
<p>So all you need to do is press submit, so we didn't take the process away from users, we just tried to follow the same course, but improve the actual process of the user interface. On the backend side, that was where all the magic was. That was 100% magic because we no longer had to manually key in transactions. We basically made sure the API was integrated into our ARP system, so all a finance officer had to do now was walk into the office, log in, and do an eyeball check, and post. So the beauty of what we had done for these platforms and controls was create an end to end solution instead of automating and creating automation for one process in finance than the entire solution that we were looking for.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. And we keep talking about entire solution. I do want to come back to the efficiency, but you've done something that's really unusual and a little different than a lot of other customers do. You actually started with part of the platform that most customers do last, and that was the implementation of the invoice tools first. So can you tell me a little bit around why you went with that first, and how that helped pave the way for what came after it with the T and E solutions?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. Well, we started off with the purchase request invoice system because we're crazy. We had a lot of control issues around the purchase request and invoice procedures as it was. As you all know with small organizations, it's quite straightforward. You would have a top down approval. There would be a dozen or so vendors that you had to pay off. So it's very easy to streamline that. But when it gets to triple digits in an organization, and different departments, it's a lot harder to track your approval. And we did have one poor bugger who would go and print out all the purchase orders at the end of the week and print out all the invoices that were received at the end of the week and manually match them.</p>
<p>So it wasn't the greatest process, but it was a process that was grandfathered down. And we found that was probably not the most efficient way of hiring someone, nor was it the most easiest way for someone. There's a lot of errors and manually keying in and manually banking and processing payment for these vendors went from 10 invoices a week to 50 or 80, so it was a very voluminous amount, so we knew that we needed something, just something, because it was wasting our human resource time to hire someone and create these payments.</p>
<p>When we looked into the purchase request and invoice system, I already had an idea what I wanted. But I not only wanted finance automation on the back office side, I wanted accountability from the get go of the creation of the request. So that's what we started off, we just started off looking at the policy first. Do we need to change the policy of how purchase requests and orders are actioned and how they are approved? Yes, we did. Once those policies were in order, we slowly started to infuse those changes. We made sure that the SAP Concur solution could basically provide the transparency, the order trail, and accountability, not just from top to bottom, but from bottom to top.</p>
<p> So not only were the request users able to track their own requests, we gave, I think we gave the approvers five days to approve. If they didn't, it jumped to the approver's approver. We gave that approver five days, which ultimately jumped to the general manager. And the general manager could actually track this entire process down to the date of origination for these requests. So as I said, approval accountability from top to bottom and bottom to top. That's what we wanted the most out of this process.</p>
<p>On the finance side, we made sure that one, the invoices and purchase orders were automatically mapped. There was no poor bugger in our office trying to manually map these. We also wanted a controls check to make sure if the purchase order did not align with that invoice, it will go through a human eyeball check, and ultimately a final round of the invoice approval. So a three-way approval flow was the ultimate goal for finance, but we made sure an end to end solution was done for our process for purchase order invoice platforms.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Wow. So now that you have that in place, how did that pave the way for you to be able to then just pull in the travel and expense side of the house to move that through? Did it make it easier because you had more time to work on it, or did it make it easier because you had already gone through some of the pain points that you would have during an implementation? How did that help you kind of smooth the path for T and E?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, because we were able to create such efficiencies in the purchase request invoice platform, the stakeholders could actually see an improvement in payment turnarounds. They could see what they were actually doing, so the accountability of the process for any operational procedures now was intact. In order to create the expense and travel platform, we basically took similarities in the policies of how we had created the purchase request and invoice platform and we inserted it there. But bear in mind, Jeanne, we didn't change everything. We just basically said, "Your expense procedures were roughly the same. It'll be on a different platform. We are just streamlining it down from 20 fields of population to five." And guess what, it will be auto-populated for you when you scan your receipt. That is the main point. And as I said before, finance automation was very important, but we didn't just focus on finance automation. We made sure source data was clean from the get-go.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. That is critical. Right? That source data that you have to put together. And you talked a little bit, you mentioned this too, the idea that you looked at your policy first before you started going into the configuration and the ideation around the pain points and where you could move that. I think that is a critical component to anybody doing an implementation of any type of tool because you can't build something for the future if you're building it on ideas of the past. And I know that's critical for Dermalogica. Right, Jenny? I mean, you guys are growing at an enormous scale. So when you thought about this, how did you think about building for the future versus just building for the now?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's a great question because when we talked to vendors about these platforms, obviously every vendor is going to say, yes, they can do everything, they can do the world. But what I wanted out of the platform was not a right now solution. I am looking at right now, plus five years, plus 10 years. Is it easy for someone like me to have access to upgrade divisions, the change the workflow, to keep everything in line with the current company policy? So we wanted to make sure we could play with that, not just me as an administrator, someone in the IT office may be able to upgrade that if I'm not around. We wanted that to be seamless and accessible to the people that are working in the office. We didn't want to create a platform whereby we always had to hire a consultant. We wanted to make sure the rules and policies worked specifically for our current company policy and that it was easy for someone like me, as an administrator, to upgrade with a 24-hour turnaround.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So I'm hearing you talk about this idea of ownership. Right? You talk about accountability within your users, but you also talk about accountability for yourself. You have taken this mindset of it is continuous growth, the platforms have to grow with the company. And in that growth, you have to be able to control that and understand what's going on. So talk to me a little bit about how you are doing that continuous learning to improve and the tools that you're using for that because I think it's a unique approach. It's one that I took when I was doing things that I always wanted to know everything about how it worked so that when somebody came to me with a problem, I could say, "Oh, yes. We can handle this, and here's the best way to do it." But I'm not sure that it's always something that we think about when we start to implement a tool, so just curious how you have gone about doing this to ensure that you are up-to-date and always able to answer those questions.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>I'm going to divulge a secret now, which may or may not be good. Listen, when we started, we didn't know anything about SAP Concur. Actually, we didn't know anything about trying to implement a new platform. And the secret basically is to do your homework and you go to the conferences. You go to the free seminars. And whenever you embark on a new platform, they will give you every information on this Earth. And people do get inundated and ignore that. But what I've found was that the SAP Concur support platform, I think it's called Contact Support, it's like a Google platform for Concur. And you literally go and you populate the field like how to upgrade divisions. And then it will give you a list of information, of documentation, or of people actually asking the same question and how to go about that.</p>
<p>So we used that quite extensively in the first year. Obviously, we didn't want to rely on consultants or expertise. We want to make sure we could play with that ourselves. And it is literally at our fingertips. Now the main point I want to stress to you all who are listening is you cherry-pick. Do not get flustered or feel overwhelmed. You cherry-pick specific conferences, specific seminars that will work to your company values. So that way, it won't be so overwhelming and it's not so much confusion around what you should do. You have to always make sure that your main value, your main focus, is how the company is heading, so that's how I approached it. I still use this specific contact support platform even to this day because I know, like you, Jeanne, the buck stops with me here. I have to be able to answer anything, everything, update, and we have to make sure the system is running smoothly. We make sure that we could update policies on a 24-hour turnaround. So you've got to do your research. You're thinking the long run, and you prep yourself for it with this particular platform.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So in this case, you were really an advocate, not only for your program, but you're an advocate for yourself. Right? It takes time to do this.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. It takes a lot of time and you have all these other things happening. Would you have some sort of advice for somebody who says, "I've got a full-time day job. I'm managing this project. And now you're telling me that I need to go out and learn everything about the tool"? I'm sure you felt the same way when you were looking at it and saying, "There aren't enough hours in the day." Right?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>What would be your advice to somebody who comes back to you and says, "I am so overwhelmed. I can't do this"?</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. The first thing I would say is, calm down, get a stiff drink. And then the second thing I would say is approach it how you would if you ever raised a child, or if you have had a situation in your job, focus on just the one. So try to simplify that entire platform into the one thing first. And when you are able to resolve one, and then you resolve the next one, you will feel yourself calming down. And as I said with our previous conversation, you cherry-pick because if you go and try to learn an entire platform of what they can do from A to zed, you will, one, you'll lose focus because you won't put your company as the first priority. And two, you won't be able to create efficiencies that you want to see.</p>
<p>So when we started, I just said, "Okay, there's too much to improve. What the hell?" So I just thought, "Okay, let me have a look at where the data's coming from." That's where I would start for anyone who's starting. And even if it's not in finance yet, you just look at where the data was coming from. You try to connect the dots and you find one process that is simpler because when you start with the simple things first, the harder things get easier because you've created that efficiency in a simpler process from the data of origination, so that's how we started first. We looked at what the users were creating because that was the source data for us. And if we could clean that up, then at least at the back end of finance automation, the pain points were a lot cleaner.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yep. I love that approach and I also like that idea that you have really taken ownership of learning the administrator side of the platform, and that's really helping you exponentially in the idea of how you're strategizing on making change and how you strategize for your corporation's growth. By keeping up with that, I think it's something that is a difficult piece to do, but to know every piece of how that administration of it works helps you get to the least amount of work for your stakeholders and for your users, but it also allows you to be really efficient and effective to support the growth of your organization. And for customers who are in the throes of an implementation, or are thinking about implementation, one of the great resources for this is talking to people at Concur.</p>
<p>We can actually identify areas, to Jenny's point, that are important for you to know right off the bat. We can help you understand and identify those areas that are going to give you, I guess we'd call it the best reward for the least amount of effort, and then we can move forward from there, so something for everybody to keep in mind. One of the things that I did want to talk to you about is all of this change and growth, all of this understanding of where your company is going, you really had to have a North Star for this entire process. And would you mind sharing with me how you came to that North Star and who you used to help continue to drive that North Star through all of the transformation that your organization came to.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, that's quite an easy one because I basically focused on my staff members, everyone in our organization. And at Dermalogica, their values are predominantly based on that they have a very cohesive organization and people are very much in each other's pockets. So you need to be able to make sure that they are the priority. And because we are a small to medium enterprise, we're not in the thousands yet, we can actually focus on divisions and values of what our corporation is instilled with. So as I said, we don't look at it as a project, we look at it as trying to help them. If you use different words when you speak to your stakeholders, you will get a different reaction. And we did actually make the time to look at the structure, look at the values, look at the requirements of particular divisions.</p>
<p>Because we were intimately involved with all the transactional keying in of particular expenses and purchase requests and invoices, we were very intimate with what each division or each stakeholder needed. And that really helped because if the platform could throw us A, B, and C, we would say, "No. Thank you, but we only need A and B," because we were very sure of what we needed for our particular organization. And I do want to stress to you all out there that you don't go and follow the trend. You look towards what your company specific unique identities are and you work with that. And don't create a right now approach, look in the long run. Look what you want in the next five years, in the next 10 years. Look what kind of values your organization is working on because every time you work for your company alone, your unique identity for a company, you'll always, always win that goal.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, I could talk to you for a lot longer, but I want to be mindful of your time. I know there's a lot going on in your world because as we're recording this, it's getting close to the end of the month, and as all of us know from an accounts payable perspective, that's a busy time. That's a very busy time.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>It's a do not disturb online time.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Correct. So I want to thank you first for coming in and doing this, but I want to kind of summarize a couple of the key learnings and just make sure that I've got it right for our group. So you said it really quite eloquently about not chasing the trends. But I think that really translates into you need to understand your business and the tools that run your business because if you do that, you will have both the strategic and tactical views that you need to not only create that North Star, but to create that growth scenario.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's correct, yes. It's very hard sometimes when you are in growth and you don't know where you are sitting. But what you do know is that you will be expanding. So most small to medium enterprises are on that trajectory. It's a matter of knowing your staff members and it's a matter of knowing whether a particular platform is able to coordinate with your particular growth. So if you know that you are working with less technology driven people, then you work with that, so you don't go an implement a platform within your three months. You try to extend that to your six months. You infuse that transaction, that automation for particular platforms in stages rather than sprints, as people call it in the project world. And that is the key to gaining the efficiencies that you want without disrupting anyone's workload.</p>
<p>I mean, I could have 150 people on my back saying, "I have a job to do, Jen." You can't go and create these transitions and then leave me hanging. You can't give them that kind of overwhelming instability in a job. So I think from our point of view, if someone told me I don't know what we want, I would say, "Great. That's an amazing feat. We've done well in our organization."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That kind of leads me to that second takeaway that I have from you, which is that idea that ties back to the: Why did we win the award? You made this such an easy and seamless process. You made the change feel fluid and seamless and accessible. I think at one point and time you explained to me you kind of kept it simple. You designed it for a grandma. You designed it for somebody who wasn't always tech savvy, but it still provided the right technology that you needed. And I think that simplification of the whole process for end users to feel free to do their best work and not overwhelm them with all of the innovation, but just bring it to them and say, "Hey, look, this rate of change is going to happen. A lot is going to stay the same, but some things are going to change. And they're going to change for the better. We're going to make it easier for you. But here's all the pieces that are going to stay the same," so you can get success from that and get buy in from the get-go.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's correct. That's correct. When you look at particular platforms, the ones that are very successful in the world, it's very straightforward because they are looking at the whole world as a stakeholder. So I guess when I do look at a platform, I'm thinking, "I'm finance, I understand expenses. I understand how to create a platform." But if I was talking to someone in marketing, I don't expect them to know how to use a platform. Or if they're in sales, I don't expect them to spend another 20 minutes online to figure out how to create a request or submit something. I want it to be within a second. I want it to be within less than a minute for submission. So how do I go around doing that?</p>
<p>And I think the best way to try and get an idea is you do need to talk to your people and you do also need, as you said, Jeanne, take it from point of view where you are literally throwing this to your own grandma, to people out in the world. Would they understand it? If they don't, then go back to the drawing board. Simplify that because the best platforms I've seen are the easiest. So I think that also helps in regards to trying to implement controls, trying to implement platforms into your organization.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So the final thing that I learned is that in my next life, I want to come and work at Dermalogica because I'm a big fan of chocolate.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Oh, thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>And so that idea of chocolate and coffee as motivators kind of silly in the way that I'm thinking about it, but in the end, it really does help you bring those people. You don't just need the evangelists who are there. You need the people who have come in for that chocolate and coffee who were kind of the naysayers to help you go ahead and bring forward the project and head off some of those complaints or concerns before they hit the masses. And I think that's a really important thing that you did that was really helping you be successful.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>That's correct. We made sure that this platform could not only advance the millennials as we call them in our office. They grew up with a phone in their hand, and obviously, they would know how to use an app or a platform to their advantage, so we made sure that platform was flexible enough for the millennials so they weren't bored. It was fast enough for them. But we also made sure that it started from a simplified process. So even if you weren't very confident in your technology, one, you didn't have to populate a lot of fields. It was the same process and you always, always have someone in the office that can help you, whether it be a one on one, a workshop. We made sure that the whole company, not just the millennials, but the whole company was continuously upskilled. I think that's a very important thing to remember, that technology is always going to change. Your current company policy will always change.</p>
<p>And if your platform always stays the same, then no one will be innovating and transitioning as you had wanted. And that's when you throw in those words, and then that's when you get the request as, "Why? What did we win? I don't understand." So that's how I look at it. You need to be able to try and pinpoint where those, as you call them, the laggards, are. And you don't go and banish them. You work with them, a continuous improvement and up-skilling of your organization is very important, Jeanne. I cannot stress that any more than what I'm saying now. It is so important to make sure that your policies are in line with the stakeholders and that the stakeholders are continuously being upgraded, continuously having those coffees with you because then that's when the whole organization's moving forward.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you so much, Jenny, for saying it that way. And thank you for your time today.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I really enjoyed talking with you and I know we have a lot of people listening in who have taken a lot away from this conversation. It's really been a great one.</p>
<p><strong>Jenny Chen</strong>:</p>
<p>Thank you. I really enjoyed speaking to you, Jeanne. So hopefully, I will have helped you guys out there. And please email me or find me on LinkedIn if you need some pointers because I'm very passionate about trying to improve these small to medium enterprises. People that get you into these enterprises, you must remember to keep them as the North Star, as the priority in any platform that you look to.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Wow. Thank you for that. That's a very generous offer, so I want to thank you for that. And I also want to thank everyone for listening to this episode of The SAP Concur Conversations Podcast. To hear more exclusive insights or interviews from the world of business, travel, expense, and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us again for our next SAP Concur Conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a>, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Digital Transformation of Spend Management: Journeying Towards Streamlined Processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/digital-transformation-spend-management-journeying-towards-streamlined-processes
2023-07-31T09:00:00Z
2023-07-26T11:22:14Z
When a company is small, its business processes are usually simple because there aren’t that many people or touchpoints involved. As a company grows and more people work together across different depa
<p>When a company is small, its business processes are usually simple because there aren’t that many people or touchpoints involved. As a company grows and more people work together across different departments, those same processes can become unwieldy and no longer make sense for the business. At that point, most companies must transition to a new solution, streamline their existing processes, and establish additional internal controls to improve efficiency. This can be an overwhelming and time-consuming journey, but fortunately, for those who succeed, it’s well worth the effort.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Jenny Chen, Senior Accountant at Dermalogica, and Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, talk about Dermalogica’s recent digital transformation, the approach the company took to change management, and why intentionally taking a long-term view in creating scalable systems and processes was crucial to Dermalogica’s success. Below are some highlights from their conversation. </p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/breaking-barriers-how-digital-transformation-is-reshaping/id1525744763?i=1000621660941"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6oqYFdRg8IkMsLxbgdvxyi"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRiNjMyMjFjYWJmY2QwMDExNGI1NDFl?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwj44s6n052AAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<h2><strong>Assessing company needs and charting a course for the future </strong></h2>
<p>Over time, Dermalogica grew from a small, five-person company to more than 150 employees today. It had a variety of internal paper-based processes that were inefficient and had spread to other areas of the business and become far more complicated than they needed to be. Worse, these processes often led to overspending and increased the risk of duplication, errors, and fraud in financial reporting.</p>
<p>To simplify the company’s processes and continue to support its growth, Dermalogica sought to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gain a better understanding of its existing processes and its desired future state.</li>
<li>Digitize and automate its manual, paper-based processes and increase its internal controls to improve efficiency.</li>
<li>Find and implement new solutions.</li>
<li>Help employees transition to the new solutions and oversee the change management process.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>6 steps to secure buy-in of new spend management solutions</strong></h2>
<p>Dermalogica selected and implemented the SAP Concur travel platform, the expense platform, and the purchase request and invoice platform. Chen said her overarching goal for the implementation was to “make sure that everyone in our company was on the same track and that it didn’t disrupt their workflow, that efficiencies were seamless, and that they (our employees) didn’t see the effects of trying to create these efficiencies and improvements in our organization.”</p>
<p>To accomplish that, Chen and her team:</p>
<ol>
<li>Looked at the company’s values, the types of stakeholders they had, and where those individuals’ strengths and weaknesses were</li>
<li>Met with people in management, as well as those on the ground level to discuss the pain points they were experiencing and where the company was headed. During this time, Chen said she deliberately avoided talking about the changes in terms of shifts that were going to happen in the first week, first month, first three months, and so on.</li>
<li>Researched and implemented new solutions that would not only work for Dermalogica at that time but also well into the future</li>
<li>Planned the entire platform around existing workflows and what users could handle, and then gradually infused changes over time</li>
<li>Created workshops that addressed each specific department’s pain points. Chen and her team also learned the administrative side of the platform to assist everyone.</li>
<li>Proactively went into the system on a monthly basis and identified any issues so that no one was left behind. For example, if someone in their organization typically created expense reports every week but then only created one or two a month, Chen and her team would contact them to find out why and ask if they needed any help completing their expense reports.</li>
</ol>
<p>The end result for Dermalogica was a signification reduction in the amount of time required for the company to process invoices (from 30-35 hours a week a month to one hour) and allowed for faster payment turnarounds. Supplier invoices are now paid on time, and Dermalogica has complete and real-time visibility into all its expenses and payments. </p>
<p>Moreover, Dermalogica won<strong> </strong>the SMB Digital Innovation award in 2022, as well as an honorable mention for The Best Run in 2022. “By the time we won that Innovations Award, they had no idea what had happened,” Chen said. “They just knew that they had changed in the last five years, and it was a gradual, seamless process in our organization.” And that, as well as the new solutions, have allowed and will continue to allow Dermalogica to keep moving forward for many years to come.</p>
<p> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/breaking-barriers-how-digital-transformation-reshaping-spend-management">Get more tips on how to successfully transform and modernize your organization’s spend management program in this SAP Conversations podcast.</a></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Automated Advantage: Unlocking Business Benefits Through AP Automation with TCG Consulting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automated-advantage-unlocking-business-benefits-through-ap-automation-with-tcg
2023-08-01T09:00:00Z
2023-07-26T11:12:44Z
Content must be 200 characters or less...In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Grace Swain, Senior Consultant at TCG Consulting, shares how, where, and why to start automating your
<p>Only 10% of businesses have fully automated their accounts payable (AP) processes, which means most businesses aren’t fully taking advantage of the visibility, control, and savings that AP automation affords. And while it’s not uncommon for most AP processes to be heavily manual, it’s certainly a major organizational disadvantage. Between better visibility into spend, more time back in the workday, fewer errors and costly mistakes, and empowered employees, the benefits of AP automation far outweigh the time and monetary costs to automate processes and effectively drive change across your organization.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Grace Swain, Senior Consultant at <a href="https://tcgconsulting.net/">TCG Consulting</a>, shares how, where, and why to start automating your AP processes, what the journey to full automation entails, tips for driving change across your organization, and the benefits AP automation brings to your business.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/the-automated-advantage-unlocking-business-benefits/id1525744763?i=1000620956131"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5h6QtqveKw9NB6hHxEPloZ"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRhZjI2MmFjNzdlYTAwMDExMmNjM2Ew?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiwx7S37KeAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm your host Jeanne Dion. I'm the Vice President of the Value Experience Team here at SAP Concur, and my team works with our customers to bring about positive business outcomes based on data-driven insights. Today I'm joined by Grace Swain of TCG Consulting, and we're going to talk about all things AP automation, breaking down how to get it started, what the journey to full automation entails, and what it takes to drive and manage this caliber of change across an organization. So Grace, I'm really excited to talk to you today. So to start, could you please take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Sure. Thanks, Jean. I'm Grace Swain. I'm located out of Oklahoma. I work with TCG. I'm a senior consultant, and I've been in AP for about 10 years. So very excited to talk to you today.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Grace, it's such a pleasure to have you here today. So as we talk about AP automation, in a previous life I lived some of what we were talking about, and I know you've lived it as well, 10 years in the business, so I understand the benefits, but since there are still some of those who are in the dark, and since it's changed since the dark ages in which I worked in it, there's still 70% of companies that aren't automated across their financial processes, and especially in accounts payable, and they're estimating that it takes somewhere up to nine and a half hours to process an invoice manually when you're not using automation. So I think people still don't understand what this is. So would you mind explaining exactly what AP Automation is and why it's important to an organization or what are the benefits that they can gain from AP automation?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. So AP automation is using tools like e-invoicing, OCR technology and automated travel and expense and payment solutions to really take control of your accounts payable process. And a few of the main benefits that I've seen from it, which I'm sure we'll get into, are things like reducing risk, both internally and externally, lowering costs and increasing your visibility into your cash spend.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So why don't companies do this? There's so much benefit to it, just clearly from what you just stated. What are the barriers to companies not really choosing to automate anything?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, so in particular, I think companies are most intimidated by the cost of automation. It's a bigger upfront cost, but in the end you end up reaping those costs back as you go. Another area that companies seem to be intimidated by is the sheer volume of AP. It's a huge thing to automate. If you're processing hundreds of invoices per month, companies are intimidated to touch a process that large and they don't want to fix it if it's not broken, not realizing that just not being automated is kind of a form of being broken. And then the change management aspect. So there's going to be pushback internally and externally when you go to automate. So internally, your employees are always scared of the change that they're going to experience in their jobs and their processes, and externally it's hard to get suppliers who don't really owe you anything to help you along your journey to automation.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So you mentioned a really big point there as it regards to change and the volume of what's happening and the idea that just because it's working now doesn't mean it's not broken, it just means that it's working. We recently had somebody who talked to us about the idea that the pain of change, once it gets to be less than the pain of staying the same, then becomes a motivator. So when I think about the different pieces of AP automation, there's processing, there's integration, there's digitization, there's supplier portals, there's payment automation, there's a lot of different pieces there that anybody can tackle. Is there a rule of thumb that you have or some sort of idea or recommendation for companies, whether they're big or small or whether they have large processing volumes? Is there something that you could recommend that they tackle first or in order that you think they should go in as they're looking at this to kind of alleviate some of that change concern?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. So I think it all depends on the company and what they do. So for a sales company who's traveling all the time, maybe the biggest cost for them is in travel and expense. And that might be the first thing they look at, is automating their travel and expense system. If you're a huge manufacturing company, you're going to want to look at invoicing because that's your biggest area. So it all depends on the type of company.</p>
<p>But I think, again, starting small can be just as helpful as anything. So if today your invoices are being sent in old school, they're mailing them in for you, you can start with a supplier portal where the suppliers are sending invoices digitalized to your AP team. If you're doing that now, maybe you transition to more of an OCR technology where the invoice is read for you and matched to a purchase order. If you're doing that, maybe then you look at integrating into your ERP system. So it's quite the building process and it's a little bit like a set of Legos where you can keep adding on over time.</p>
<p>So I would say start small and prioritize where you see your resources spending the most amount of time. If they're spending the most amount of time on the T&E side, start there. Get people off of Excel and into more of an automated tool. If you're spending a lot of time on the invoice side or you're seeing a high risk of fraud, especially on the invoice side, you want to make sure you're automating there because maybe your employees are overloaded and they're not catching that kind of thing. So really just looking at your organization as a whole and taking all those things into account.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So when I listen to you say that, I can't help but think of AP automation is truly just tied to procurement strategy, right? Because for a lot of companies, even if 100% of their spend isn't on purchase orders, they still have a lot of invoices that are coming through, to your point, that are overwhelming staffs and causing them to not be able to pay as close attention to what's happening. And so can you talk a little bit about AP automation as it relates to a procurement strategy, that ability to manage your tail spend in a really effective and efficient way?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of the times those tools are giving you the benefit of reporting, and so you have a higher visibility into your spend, how often you are paying certain suppliers, if you need to recontract with those suppliers and really taking advantage of some early payment discounts. So it can really benefit you in forecasting in your cash flow. So very, very important to get that reporting visibility for your decision making at your company.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I think about that, that true visibility into the spend and the spend categories and the vendor usage because then you can have better negotiation skills. Maybe we got people who are spending with this vendor and we just didn't know that spend was happening. I love the idea about that, not missing your discounts or overspending or making duplicate payments. The other piece that it ties, to me at least anyway, that kind of automation can align with signature authority matrices because you can actually control that workflow and it doesn't just sit in somebody's head. In so many places, it's like, well, it goes to the cost center owner and then it goes to their manager and then it goes to a VP, unless it's a Tuesday and there's a full moon, and then it goes to the vice president of overlap. But whatever it happens to be, but it all sits in an AP person's head versus has an automated flow with exception processing built in. Is that a benefit that you could see happening with AP automation?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So there's a few risks with just having the workflow in that one person's head, like you said. So the risk is that you're not even following the correct workflow. So an internal auditor might come in and say, "You haven't been sending these invoices to the right person," or even worse, people haven't been approving them. There's some risk also of fraud if you don't have your workflows automated because the person in AP might be generating an invoice, sending it to a friend, and then going and having another friend approve it. There's a huge risk of fraud when workflows aren't automated.</p>
<p>And then, also when you have your workflow automated, it's reducing that time. You can take advantage of those early payment discounts because you're getting an invoice from point A to point B very, very quickly, where when you're doing it manually, like you said, Jean, it can take a very long time, even if somebody's keying in the invoice. Maybe it got stuck in somebody's desk drawer for six months and then you have late fees. So huge, huge benefits in automating that workflow.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Grace, I think I might have outed you at this point. I believe you were an auditor in a past life, and so that's why you're so good at this. But I wanted to talk a little bit about this because you having been an auditor in a past life is really important when we start to talk about risk because I think AP automation is really clearly all about risk. So when we think about this, I saw a few weeks back, and while this is an outside audit perspective, but the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or the PCAOB for those of us in the know, have a proposal in front of them that are lowering the guidelines for completion of audit documentation from 45 days to 15 days. And the reason for this that was stated specifically is because there is an automation of audit tools and other software, so it should make it much easier for everybody to complete their documentation earlier.</p>
<p>But if I think about a company that still hasn't automated their AP, that's a really critical miss when it comes to, especially if they're a public company. So can you talk a little bit about that pressure on auditors to get things done in a very timely fashion?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So I think that that's going to be really heavily weighing on the AP resources that are at the same time juggling their day-to-day responsibilities and having to get all that documentation over to the auditors in an even shorter amount of time. So like you said, when everything's automated, they're pulling down a few things from their computers, printing it off, and here you go. When it's manual, first there's a much higher risk that during the process something went wrong, you know, overpaid a supplier, you entered something in incorrectly, so you already have that risk that the auditors are going to find something wrong, and when they find something wrong, they just ask you to pull more stuff.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>So not only are you delaying the process when you have manual procedures and invoicing, but you also could be adding to your workload because they’re going to ask you to increase your sample size if you've entered something in incorrectly.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So I think about automation as a journey. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. So thinking about where does a company start? We just recently talked to Chris Elmore from Avid Exchange and he talked about setting some priorities, setting up the reason, the mission of why you're doing this. So now you have the mission. So where do we go from there if we're going to look at a full automation? Do we start in high risk areas? Do we start in areas that are just easy to tackle first? Where do you think we should start in that journey? How do we prioritize where to start?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, I always would recommend starting in high risk areas because automation is the perfect tool to lower that risk. And once you've identified that, then, again, you just have to look at your company as a whole and see where can I lower cost? Where are my resources spending all that time? So how you can go about that, you can start with simple softwares, like I said, e-invoicing tools. You can move into more advanced softwares, like Concur for example, that can do a full process from beginning to end for both invoicing and travel and expense. And then the more complex automations that I like to see done upfront, but aren't always is the integration into your ERP system and getting those journal entries automated because all of those areas carry its own risk. You want to lower the manual touches as much as possible, and some of those can be at the end of the process, even after you've entered in the invoice, it's been approved. Now you're entering it into your actual accounting system and paying the provider. There's a lot of risk there as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Sure. A lot of chance to fat finger in wrong or to put it under the wrong spend category, so yeah. Okay, those are great pieces of advice. And then I do want to just circle back one more time into something that you mentioned earlier around change management and driving this kind of caliber of change across an organization. Are there a couple of areas that you think that people should really focus on as they're embarking on this journey of automation around accounts payable and payables platforms?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. I think that change management all starts with a very strong executive sponsor. So someone who's really going to pioneer the change within your company, and they're not going to stop even when people say, "Hey, I like how things are." They just persevere through it. So very strong executive sponsor to kind of drive that change and then making the team feel like they're a part of it. The scariest thing for the people who are in the day-to-day is not knowing what their job looks like in three, four months. So having them be a part of it, showing them that their job may not be actually going away, it might actually be changing into a higher level of expertise. They could even be providing more benefit to their company and kind of guiding them through that whole process. They're going to be the ones who are a part of the project at the highest level because they're going to be touching the project every day, providing details, making all those decisions with the executive sponsor. So it's really important to make them feel involved.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that in the customers that I've worked with implementing invoice, and even in the past groups that I've worked in, anytime we've automated a process, the actual amount of work has never really lessened. The manual effort has lessened, but it's opened up entire opportunities and horizons for all of us because now we were able to see things we didn't have time to see before, or we were able to spend the time in fixing the problems that really mattered instead of getting caught up in things that really didn't need our attention. It's that idea of looking for the needle in the haystack. If you can automate something to bring the needles to you, imagine the amount of time that you can spend analyzing all the needles instead of just a small percentage of the needles that you happen to find while you were tripping through the haystack. So I think you're exactly right about that. It doesn't reduce the workload, it just changes how you do it.</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>It does. And another benefit of AP automation is increasing those guardrails to your policies and procedures. So you can have a tool where you build in your policy rules and of course the workflow, and so then you can actually build in what the AP team needs to see on a day-to-day basis. Instead of them focusing so much on treading water and getting those invoices into your system, it could be more about analyzing high risk invoices, high cost invoices, things like that, that maybe the company in the long run is more interested in evaluating.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So if I were to think about the three key points that we would take away from this conversation, I think the idea that the evolution of your AP process, bringing it into a more automated, less manual, more strategic focus, is really an exercise in risk reduction across multiple areas. It's not just one piece that you reduce risk on. It reduces risks in every single area of the organization, whether it is related to processing, integration, digitization, supplier management, or payments. Every single one of those has a risk, and automation can reduce risk in every single one of those places. Would that be correct?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. And when you lower your risk, you're also lowering your cost because you're reducing those duplicate payments, you're capturing those early payment discounts. So I think that those two go hand in hand as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>And then the second piece that I think is that change management is going to go well beyond your immediate team. It's going to expand to your entire organization and even outside of your organization, but that is not a reason to avoid doing it. It needs to be done, it just needs to be managed, and with strong executive sponsorship, you may be able to drive your change management in a positive direction. Is that correct?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely, yep. And like you said, internally, not only with the AP team, but with end users training them up and making sure that they're on board with the new tools, because AP touches a lot more than just the finance team, so you're going to have a lot of people using something that they might not be familiar with. So making sure that not just the AP team feels like they're a part of it, but everybody feels well-trained and educated and ready to help the AP team get automated.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yep. That's good. So I've got my final takeaway. Hopefully you agree with this one. There's so many areas of automation to choose from, right? We just listed off at least five of them, but it doesn't mean that it just, because there's a lot of areas it doesn't apply to you. Whether you're big or small regardless of the industry, you just kind of need to pick the areas that make the most sense for you and do it. It's kind of like selecting a menu. Some people are going to select the appetizer, the main entree, and two desserts, and others are just going to have a glass of wine and an entree. Whatever works best for you is what you should pick, but you should just pick it and do it. Would that be correct?</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Yep. Move forward. Like I said, it's a building block, so start small if you feel like you need to and then grow your practice up to fully automated.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I think I heard you say once, Grace, that you just have to rip off the Band-Aid, and I think that that's the right thing, right? That's the way to think about it. It's a Band-Aid that needs to come off, so let's just rip it off and see what happens.</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yep, absolutely. There's so many benefits. It encompasses more than if you left the Band-Aid on, right? You have to do it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>At a certain point in time it heals. You have to move on.</p>
<p><strong>Grace Swain</strong>:</p>
<p>Yep.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>You don't want those Band-Aid tan lines. So I want to thank you, Grace. Thank you for spending time with me today. I really appreciate it. And I want to thank everybody for listening to this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. To hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of business travel, expense and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us again for our next SAP Concur conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a>, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Great Balancing Act: How to Incorporate Sustainability Into Your Business Strategy with CHOOOSE
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/great-balancing-act-how-to-incorporate-sustainability-into-your-business-strategy-with
2023-08-01T08:41:00Z
2023-07-25T09:47:24Z
In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Nina Birger, Vice President of Climate Solutions for CHOOOSE, answers these questions and more as she explores how leaders can balance sustaina
<p>Organizations with an eye towards tomorrow are increasingly incorporating sustainability not just into their travel practices, but into their broader business strategy. But any business leader working towards sustainability goals will tell you it’s a balancing act. After all, sustainability and other business priorities such as cost containment don’t always go hand in hand.</p>
<p>How can organizations appropriately prioritize their sustainability initiatives? How can they best understand their sustainability baseline and make the decisions that make the most sense for their organization? And as business travel regains momentum, how can organizations take action to reduce the inevitable carbon footprint of their business travelers?</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Nina Birger, Vice President of Climate Solutions for <a href="https://www.chooose.today/">CHOOOSE</a>, answers these questions and more as she explores how leaders can balance sustainability goals against other competing demands to build a more sustainable business, and how they can effectively promote sustainable business travel.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on Apple | Spotify | Google or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Hello and welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward thinking spend programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm your host, Jeanne Dion, and I'm the vice president of the Value Experience Team here at SAP Concur.</p>
<p>My team works with our customers to bring positive business outcomes based on data-driven insights. And today I am joined by Nina Birger of CHOOOSE. And we are going to tackle the not so small topic of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, exploring how leaders can incorporate sustainability into their broader business strategy, balance sustainability goals against often competing demands, and really just promote sustainability travel practices. Nina, I can't wait to dive in, but first I was hoping you could take a minute and introduce yourself to our listeners.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Thank you again for having me today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I'm Nina and I am the VP of Climate Solutions at CHOOOSE. CHOOOSE is a software company, we provide a technology platform that supports our partners in embedding climate action into their customer experiences. I've been with CHOOOSE for about a year now, and my background's really in corporate sustainability.</p>
<p>I've been in the nonprofit side of things. I've been in the for-profit side of things and thrilled to be on team CHOOOSE right now. And one of the very fun parts of my job is getting to be super involved in a partnership we have with SAP and SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Wow. Well, thank you for coming here today and I'm super excited for this. Today we're going to focus a little bit on sustainability, but it's a broader topic. It's bigger than just carbon footprint.</p>
<p>For me, sustainability is really about social justice. It's about employee improvement and involvement. It's about being good corporate neighbors and stewards. So I was just wondering, because it's such a broad topic, would you mind starting by framing that phrase, ESG, and talk a little bit about where that fits in today's corporate world?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. And I'll say at the start, when I think about climate and the environmental movement, for me personally, it's always completely tied into justice. So it's completely tied into environmental justice and climate justice, love trees, but I really love people and that's why I care about climate.</p>
<p>So a little personal stance. And then to bring it more kind of technical and to respond directly to the question, ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. And in the world of corporate sustainability, sustainability departments are often responsible for those three pillars or those three metrics.</p>
<p>I think if you look back, that stems from the fact that early corporate sustainability work was really focused on engaging with investors. And investors would often look at environmental, social, and governance together as opposed to as separate items. So ESG refers to that at large.</p>
<p>When you talk about ESG reporting, companies are often reporting across those different dimensions. Companies structure their departments differently, so sometimes you have an individual responsible for environment and somebody else responsible for governance. Sometimes it's all bundled together, but that's really what it stands for. And then I think you can think about certain sustainability categories, for example, climate, as potentially stemming across multiple of these pillars.</p>
<p>So climate is obviously an environmental issue, and if you're thinking about measuring carbon, which we'll talk about today, that falls there. But there are also very much social impacts related to climate as well. And you can think about it from a governance perspective too, how a large company is thinking about, say, incentivizing their board to care about climate and the company's climate performance.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So it is a huge topic. I think we're kind of in alignment there with thinking about the justice part of it. It really truly boils down to that. But I do want to jump in a bit to that idea of sustainability around perhaps carbon footprint in travel?</p>
<p>I know at our fusion event, many of our customers were starting to look at eliminating the lowest logical fair option and really pushing for those direct or non-stop flights as part of their effort to reduce carbon footprint because sometimes cost isn't always the most costly part of spend. So I was wondering if you were seeing that with your customers as well?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, we definitely do see that with customers, whether it's consumer travelers or corporate travel management departments or individual corporate travelers are looking to be carbon informed. They want to understand what the emissions associated with the decisions they are making, and then the kind of bookings that they are flying or staying are. So that is definitely important, I think, to both individuals and companies. And it has to be the starting point to taking any different action.</p>
<p>And then I think to that point you were making about the lowest fare versus let's say the most carbon efficient fare, it has bubbled up. We've heard that in bits and pieces. And I think one of the things that is interesting and complicated at the same time about carbon and carbon management is there are going to be areas where there are really clear win-wins from both a cost savings and a carbon savings perspective.</p>
<p>So one example of that is if you are flying first class, that is much more expensive. It's also much more carbon intensive because you're taking up more space within the plane. That's not to say no one should ever fly first class, but that is an example where, "Hey, if you're flying economy, it will be more cost efficient and more carbon efficient." And then there are these other areas like the one you pointed to where it's going to be a trade off, flying direct is going to be a bit more expensive, it's going to be more carbon efficient as well, but you can't really make informed decisions about those trade-offs until you have that information. You have that carbon awareness or carbon knowledge to build decisions based on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That makes so much sense to me. And I think about this, I hear this phrase thrown around a lot, carbon neutrality. And I hear it tossed around as it ties back to mostly larger companies. Is this specific to a particular industry to become carbon neutral or larger companies? Or is it kind of across the board? Are there any trends we can determine with corporations becoming more aware and trying to be carbon neutral in their work?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I would really say it is truly across industries. It's across companies of all different shapes and sizes. Organizations are very much at different places in their journey. So it's not to say all large companies are already well on their way, not at all. Everyone is at a different place and that's okay. It's about figuring out what's the right next step or first step for you. But it really is across industry. It really is across company size.</p>
<p>And then I think where things get interesting is depending on the specifics of your company, and that has to do with what industry you're in, but it also just has to do with all of your operational details. What your pathway to carbon neutrality looks like is going to be really different. And so while it is kind of a goal and a movement we are seeing across the board, there are many, many, many different pathways to carbon neutrality. And that's going to depend a lot based on your industry and your sector and what you're actually doing.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>It's interesting you say that. I hear a lot about carbon neutrality as it ties back to carbon offsets. People are buying carbon offsets to become more neutral. Can you explain to us what carbon offsets are and are they truly an effective tool for a company to use as part of their sustainability strategies?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>So what a carbon offset is, is essentially it equates to a ton of carton that has been avoided or removed based on a project somewhere outside of your value chain as a company. So there are these certified carbon offsetting projects. They have to go through a whole process to be certified, and then they issue carbon offsets. And the carbon offsets need to be verified to confirm that they have actually removed or reduced the amount of carbon. And these projects have to prove that they would not be able to exist. They would not be able to avoid carbon, they would not be able to remove carbon if it wasn't for the financing from the carbon offsets.</p>
<p>So they prove this amongst other things. They issue these carbon offsets. And then you, as individuals or companies, can purchase them. And your financing of these offsets allows those projects to continue to exist and to continue to have that climate impact.</p>
<p>So at the highest level, that is what they do. And when you're hearing about carbon offsets, for the most part, we're talking about a voluntary carbon market here. There's a little bit of compliance based stuff going on, and we might see more of that in the future, but for the most part right now it's voluntary.</p>
<p>And then to the second part of your question about what role do they have? Do they really make a difference? I personally think they can be an effective tool for supporting projects that are going to have a positive climate impact. I'd even go so far as to say I think they're an important tool, but they're not the be all end all.</p>
<p>In climate there isn't a silver bullet. It's not one solution. It's quite urgent. We really need everything and we need it all at once. And so I think as corporation thinking about offsets, they can be very valuable. They can be part of your broader climate effort. They can do a lot of good, there's a lot of strengths there. But then you also need to think about what role they play in your broader strategy. You don't want an entire climate program or sustainability program that depends only on purchasing offset.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Right. Well, I think about it this way when you explain it for me, it's that idea of, "Well, I'm going to run to keep myself in shape, but then I'm going to sit there and eat potato chips on my couch while I watch TV." I can't have both. I've got to figure out how to make both of them in balance. I could have them, but I have to balance it better. So I guess that would be kind of where I go with it.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. I can't think of a good way to build off that lovely metaphor. I love both running and potato chips. But to build on that a little further, offsets really depend on making efforts to reduce as much as possible first. And then as a company, you should be using them to act against or address the remaining emissions. I was going to try to make a joke about the potato chips, but I lost it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's okay. I think that it makes total sense to me, and I think that's a really great hint on how we use as an organization, those two pieces. It is a hand in hand. It's not one is better than the other or one is more efficient than the other. It is a full-blown program that looks at every piece of the sustainability puzzle.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>It should be a multifaceted program.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So speaking of multifaceted, I was harping on airfare because that's one of the things that we do here. But I was thinking about some of the other places where we are really not very sustainable. I think about mileage. We have a lot of customers, people who drive a lot of miles, whether it's their personal cars or we have that idea of company cars and fleet cars. Is there something that we can focus on as corporations to work sustainability into those type of programs?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. Well, let me provide a little bit of framing and then I'll get to that directly. I think for any company, the first step you want to take if you are thinking about managing your carbon and reporting on your carbon is understanding what that carbon footprint looks like in the first place. And so you think about travel and transportation that you do within a corporation.</p>
<p>It doesn't really make sense to think about policies and think about actions that are specific to company cars or specific to flights until you know what the carbon emissions associated with all of that is, and you know which piece is most material. What is contributing most to that category of emissions? Is it actually the cars and the commuting or is it something else? Because that will then inform what it is that the action that you want to take.</p>
<p>When you're talking about ground transportation, there are lots of different ways you can think about it. Public transportation is going to be more cost efficient than everybody driving in their own individual car. Driving an EV is going to be more carbon efficient than driving a kind of traditional vehicle. But it really depends on the specifics there. And I don't think you can take responsible action as a company until you're really aware of what are the big drivers of emissions in your specific context.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So if I think about something like that in your framing, it's a broader picture of the carbon footprint. So maybe you shouldn't be focusing on just rental cars and airplanes. You should be looking at your entire picture and then kind of narrowing down to the areas that make the most sense to control so that you can be precise in what you're calculating?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Exactly. Yes. And then at the same time, I think you can think about, so let's say you're a company and you're a manufacturing company, so the majority of your emissions are actually coming from the manufacturing. However, at the same time, you have employees that do a lot of business travel. It's not to say you shouldn't care about the business travel and the emissions because you're a manufacturing company. It still matters. And to bring this back to travel, I think one of the things that is really interesting about sustainability and climate action in the business travel space is business travel is so personal.</p>
<p>It's one of the most personal things you do as an employee. And so many companies that we speak to really see what they are doing as it relates to embedding sustainability into their business travel programs and policies as a form of employee engagement. And so for some companies, business travel is a huge part of their overall footprint. For others it isn't. And I'm not saying just because it isn't, doesn't mean you shouldn't take action. There might be other good reasons to do that. It's just good to know. It's good to know as a starting point, what might have outsized impact.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because I think about when I travel a perfect example, our hotels. I am that person who puts the, "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door, I reuse my towel, I don't have my sheets changed. I don't even have them empty my trash every day. I'm like, "I'm in there for the duration and I take it off when I leave and I'm done." It's my little thing that I do all the time.</p>
<p>So if we think about it, I see more and more when I look at hotels in our booking tools that there's a lot more that hotels are putting out there, talking about their own footprint in the world. Are there methodologies or things that we should be looking at when we look at even hotel stays and how we interact with that lodging type of situation?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>So there are some established methodologies for estimating the carbon emissions associated with a given hotel stay. CHOOOSE has deployed this across some of our programs and partnerships so that as somebody who's booking a hotel, you can see estimates on the carbon emissions associated with the stay. We use the Greenview Hotel Footprinting tool, which builds on this large carbon measurement data set that I believe comes out of the Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking index. So that's a bit of a mouthful. Long-winded way of saying there are ways to estimate the carbon emissions associated with the hotel stay.</p>
<p>I will say it's not quite as precise as, for example, you can get with measuring the carbon emissions associated with flights. That has to do with the fact that it's really difficult to manage and collect all of the very location specific data that you would need across all hotels in order to really do that comparing and contrasting.</p>
<p>But again, there are established strong ways to estimate the amount of carbon associated with a hotel stay. And then I do think, you as an individual, when you stay at a hotel, they're often doing a pretty good job trying to communicate to individual travelers what they are doing. Things like, "Put your towels on the ground if you want them washed again. Please know it consumes this amount of water."</p>
<p>So following those signs to the extent that makes sense to you is another way you can think about embedding sustainability as an individual in your day to day.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So I think about that whenever I look at those things. I often wonder, I hear this term called greenwashing, and I wonder sometimes if they're just kind of "greenwashing" what they're doing. And I was just curious, could you define for us what greenwashing is and tell us a little bit about why we need to be aware of the potential dangers of that?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Greenwashing is a practice that is more often than not discussed in a corporate context and refers to a corporation that goes ahead and makes a big deal out of something small that they did as it related to sustainability without taking really kind of meaningful, broader action and without focusing perhaps on what matters the most.</p>
<p>So if you are a company that doesn't really like driving is a teeny, teeny, teeny little part of your organizational carbon footprint and you have a bike program and you talk all day every day about that bike program and that is your trophy of your sustainability program, but you're not making any efforts to do anything else. That's an extreme example of greenwashing. I think oftentimes they're not quite as obvious as that, but that's how I think about it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>You mentioned something to me earlier in a conversation that we had about a term that I had never heard before and it's greenhushing. Would you mind explaining what that is as well? Because I found it fascinating.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. So greenhushing is this concept that I've started to see kind of floating around in my circles that refers to when companies very intentionally stay quiet and don't talk about their sustainability goals or what they're doing. They never go ahead and make that public because they're so afraid of being labeled as greenwashing or as doing something wrong.</p>
<p>And I personally see that as a risk because if we really want the kind of scale and type of action that we need as quickly as we need it, we're going to get there faster if companies are making public commitments and then staying to them. When you don't make the commitment public, you're not held to it in the same way.</p>
<p>So not to underestimate greenwashing or letting anyone off the hook for it, greenwashing is bad. You shouldn't greenwash as a company. But I also think we have to be careful that we don't all become terrified to talk about what we're doing or what we're trying to do as individuals or organizations.</p>
<p>I know we also joked about this, there's a real risk in letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and just not taking action at all because we're so paralyzed by doing the wrong thing and we don't have time for that in the climate context.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>No, and it's an interesting thing that you mentioned because you also mentioned something a little bit earlier that I want to tie back to. So hopefully this won't be a tortured tieback, but when you think about that idea of being quiet, about not doing something, being afraid to talk about something because you're afraid of doing it wrong, I think about the generations that are coming into the workplace today, and I think about how hard it is for us to not only recruit, but retain employees, and climate justice is one of the top categories for that age group that's coming into the marketplace now.</p>
<p>So to not say something like that actually hurts you in a lot of other areas, not just in your climate awareness. So have you been hearing or seeing that from customers that this is becoming more of an employee benefit and a retention tool?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Completely. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard from a company that a key driver, part of their making the business case internally for specific sustainability actions has to do with talent recruitment and employee of retention and employee benefits.</p>
<p>Trying to tie it back to travel, again, travel is a personal thing. Oftentimes when we see companies having policies in place that tie into offsetting the emissions associated with their business travel, that's something they can communicate to these employees who are doing the business travel as a benefit. And so it very much comes up. And to go back to the greenwashing versus greenhushing, you also don't want to greenwash potential talent or employees, they'll call you out on that.</p>
<p>But I think explaining what you are trying to do and why you are trying to do it really authentically and transparently only has benefits in terms of setting yourself up for success and achieving what you want to achieve and then reaping the benefits that may come from things like employees feeling really attached to your organization and proud to work there.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So speaking of transparency, I've always thought that you cannot manage what you can't measure. I think that's probably something that you also believe in quite strongly. So when I think about that, what are the KPIs, those key performance indicators, that we are looking for as an organization? And do they differ from small to large company? Or is there something that is very specific that any company could start with?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>So across environmental, social, and governance, right across those different pillars, you'll have a very diverse set of KPIs. If we are talking about climate specifically, the thing that you are measuring is carbon emissions. So the tons CO2 emitted associated with your operations as an organization.</p>
<p>Again, there are lots of other things you can measure. You can measure water, you can and should measure diversity in your leadership teams. Lots of different metrics across environmental, social, and governance. But if we're talking about climate specifically, carbon is going to be the starting point. And we do see companies, large and small, measuring carbon.</p>
<p>It can be a complicated exercise, but there are kind of first steps for everyone. And I personally think it's relevant across any organization of any size in any industry.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So when I think about these measurements you just mentioned, it can be complicated. Can some of this be automated at all, or is it all truly just manual calculation, which leads companies to want to not do it?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. One of the things, so if you ask me, What are the first steps you should do in your carbon journey?" One, it's establishing your baseline because you can't manage what you can't measure, and you need to understand what that baseline is. So you know which sets of activities are the ones that are contributing most meaningfully to your carbon footprint. Because those are probably the ones that you're going to want to measure very precisely because that's how you'll make the data actionable. So that's always my first recommendation.</p>
<p>But my second one is automate what you can. There are absolutely tools out there that support the automation that will allow you to, without manual spreadsheets, translate activity data into carbon data. And I think the thing with climate and sustainability is there's a lot that you can't automate. There's a lot of internal stakeholder kind of management and communication that maybe ChatGPT, whatever, will eventually figure out how to do for us. But today you can't automate that.</p>
<p>And so automate what you can so you can spend the time on the things that are stickier and more difficult.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. Well, I know our time is coming close to an end, so I just want to, every time I talk to somebody, I try to take three takeaways that I and the rest of our audience can focus on. So hopefully you'll agree with me on these, I'm going to list them out and see how you feel about them.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Great.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>My first one is something that you said almost off the top. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just start. Would you say that's a really good place to just start your journey and your thought process and how you're moving forward?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. Then the second piece that I'm going to take away is don't look at environmental action as something that just costs your company money. There are win-wins that you can find that will be better for sustainability, will also potentially benefit your budget, and will certainly benefit your employees and your corporate neighbors and your neighbors around you to make you a better company, to make you a better corporate citizen.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Completely. And I'll just add on that and say, I think particularly if you are very early in your climate journey as an organization, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that there's some low hanging fruits there.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Okay. Ooh, nice.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>And then the final one I think of is measurement is your friend. Have a clear understanding of what matters to your organization so you can support your business and your company with some real impactful KPIs that show exactly what you're doing. And this is an iterative process. So you pick the first few, it might take you a little while to get it up and running because it takes a little bit of some automation, some manual. But once you've done one, you can go back and tackle some of the other ones because you can see what your baseline is. Would that be true?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Measurement, definitely your friend, your best friend.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>So is there anything that I might have missed in my curiosity about this topic? I love talking about this topic, so is there anything I might have missed?</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>We could talk for another three hours, but I think you already summarized three very concrete, and hopefully, somewhat actionable takeaways.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I just want to thank you, Nina, for coming. I have really enjoyed this and I hope you come back again so we can talk a little bit further about the topic.</p>
<p><strong>Nina Birger</strong>:</p>
<p>I can't believe you're saying that even after I said I could talk for another three hours.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I want you to come back and talk for another three hours. I would love that. So thank you again for participating. We really appreciate it. And thank you all for listening to this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast.</p>
<p>To hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of business travel expense and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us again for our next SAP Concur Conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a>, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Making an Impact with Verify
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-impact-with-verify
2023-07-28T09:56:30Z
2023-07-24T14:46:34Z
Verify is the audit solution within Concur Expense automatically checks 100% of expense reports to identify potential compliance issues using AI and machine learning.
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) has received mixed reviews. On the one hand, its ability to automate tasks, process vast amounts of data, and interact with users has been proven to create efficiencies and enhance productivity. But on the other hand, there are concerns about AI replacing humans and taking away jobs.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, AI technology underpins our core travel, expense, and invoice solutions. It’s also what powers Verify, our self-serve audit solution within Concur Expense that automatically checks 100 percent of expense reports to identify potential compliance issues. It uses AI and machine learning (ML) from SAP Concur to tap decades of expense user data that helps identify hard-to-detect spend issues and anomalies.</p>
<p>Verify is a great example of how humans remain an important part of today’s workforce, and an example of how humans plus AI technology can deliver better results than either could independently. Even the most advanced AI systems have gaps. For those, at SAP Concur, we augment the technology with a 24/7 team of human auditors to keep accuracy high and false positives low.</p>
<p><strong>Verify Auditors</strong></p>
<p>In the past year, Verify performed over 38 million audit checks on expenses reports submitted through Concur Expense. Each month, on average, one third of expense reports analyzed by Verify are flagged for organizations to review potential errors and policy violations.</p>
<p>Before errors are flagged to organizations, the AI results are validated by a team of Verify auditors. The team represents a special part of our workforce because most of them have some form of hearing loss. Not only has AI created their roles, but as technology becomes more and more accessible, it’s provided valuable career opportunities to the deaf community. We rely on these workers to help SAP Concur drive a strategic part of our innovation strategy to help make auditing easier for Concur Expense customers.</p>
<p>“The Verify auditors are very special to us,” said Tom Olsen, VP of Managed Business Services at SAP Concur, who works directly with the team. “We partner with Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) to create a diverse, inclusive, and accessible workplace that includes a sign language interpreter to develop training and work materials, even down to fire safety and emergency plans.”</p>
<p><strong>New Audit Checks </strong></p>
<p>We’re thankful for our team of Verify auditors as well as our customers, whose feedback makes us run our best. As we continue to learn from Verify customers, we’ve recently added 10 checks that alert customers of potential issues prior to reports being paid. Scenarios include duplicate receipts (even across employees), old dates, personal use of a company card, unreasonable amount, improper merchant category, and more.</p>
<p>These additional checks, inspired by the companies using Verify, will increase the amount of policy variation that can be enforced by the tool. It will also improve speed to reimbursement by allowing common issues to be identified early in the workflow. Additionally, it will create efficiency for auditors by reducing the need to manually check reports for noncompliance.</p>
<p>That’s not all that’s new. Verify is now generally available for enterprise customers in the U.S. and Canada as well.</p>
<p>Learn more about Verify at <a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Our Commitment to a Mission-Centric Government
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-commitment-to-mission-centric-government
2023-07-26T07:05:12Z
2023-07-24T12:47:27Z
SAP Concur has proudly served the U.S. Government for over 20 years and committed to helping agencies be mission-centric, and value strong partnerships.
<h2>Why a Mission-Centric Government Matters </h2>
<p>We’re midway through 2023, and by now you recognize the term modernization as a popular buzzword in most industries. It’s used alongside other technological trends such as transformation, digitally native, and mobile-first. But modernization is more than just an organizational or investment strategy. It’s a commitment. A commitment to change, and more importantly, a commitment to an optimized future. </p>
<p>To those serving the needs of a modern government, the supreme purpose is to drive and help enhance operations, accelerate projects and timelines, and achieve economies of scale. Even more so, and specific to the government information technology (IT) community, new technology acquisitions can make the impossible possible. And both the art and the beauty of making bold technological decisions is that the right investments allow for the government to maintain a sharper focus on the mission at hand. When the government spends more time focusing on the mission, it can focus on what is truly important – the safety, security, and trust of the nation’s citizens and the millions of US federal, state, and local government employees.</p>
<h2>How SAP Concur Solutions Have Enabled Government for Over 20 Years </h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions have helped organizations take on the challenge of modernizing travel and expense management for more than 20 years. By leveraging our end-to-end travel and expense platform, organizations have simplified and streamlined processes and delivered transparency and value to the employees and citizens they serve. Within regulated industries, SAP Concur solutions have led transformative projects to enhance user experiences, automate expense management, drive reconciliation and transparency in booking invoices, build out an enhanced ecosystem of partners, and much more. </p>
<p>Delivering value for customers, whether they are focused on missions or profits, has always been the number one goal. For instance, SAP Concur solutions have provided a centralized travel and expense service for the <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/travel/agency-services/egov-travel-services-ets">E-Government Travel Service (ETS) Program</a> since 2003, empowering the federal civilian sector to digitize travel and expense operations, streamline voucher management, and decrease audits. Essential-care provider, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/cardinal-health">Cardinal Health</a> also engaged with our solutions to adopt a continuous innovation system that gives their employees time back, in hospitals and pharmacies. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/university-alabama">University of Alabama</a> found a reliable partner in SAP Concur when it was looking to streamline and automate its travel, expense, and invoice management processes. Similarly, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/national-mortgage-insurance">National Mortgage Insurance</a> was able to drive visibility and transparency into its spend management operations through the adoption and rollout of SAP Concur systems. Finally, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/payment-processes-making-bills-make-cents-vertex-aerospace">Vertex Aerospace</a> moved ahead of the payment processing curve, by finding ways to embed automation into its invoice management system. These powerful commitments can produce compounding effects, when results produce more results due to continuous innovation. In regulated industries, where adhering to policies, directives, and government regulations is critical, it’s paramount to commit to change and adapt in real time.</p>
<h2>The Importance of Investing in Investments </h2>
<p>Dedicating time and resources (budget and people) toward ensuring the success of an investment is of utmost importance. When hiring new employees, we train them, give them mentors, and open our doors to questions over the first few weeks and months. When learning to drive a car, we take comprehensive courses, take road tests, and endure “training wheels” or provisional periods where we are limited in driving to/from certain places, with certain people, or at certain times. And when we invest in IT, we connect new processes with existing ones, assign oversight to leaders or groups of individuals, and put together agile plans to reach milestones on the implementation journey. </p>
<p>To commit to change management in regulated industries is how an organization can prove its commitment to modernization. The government has a reputation of <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/podcast/business-of-government-hour-podcast/why-government-is-failing-in-the-digital-age-and-how-we-can-do-better-a-conversation-with-jennifer-pahlka/">lagging behind in the digital age</a>. This is partly because of the restrictions and regulations that stymie the pace and rate of innovation. However, finance, technology, and acquisition departments can combat this by making confident decisions. These government entities have a duty to protect and maximize taxpayer dollars, thereby striving to reduce improper payments over time. They also hold a responsibility to keep employees and citizens safe and progress towards a more sustainable platform. With many priorities and legacy systems that can fail to keep up, it’s imperative to invest in your investments, by allocating time, money, people, and programs to ensure proper onboarding and a path to success. Without this omnipresent type of planning, new investments can be left neglected. </p>
<h2>The Elements of a Successful Partnership </h2>
<p>All successful partnerships share similar core tenets: trust, transparency, effective communication, defined strategies, and mutual investments. In the IT world, trust is earned through proof of concepts, proper listening and learning, and solving problems together. Transparency is established by bringing parties together, opening “the books” where appropriate by sharing key priorities, and delivering on what you promised. And finally, effective communication accelerates a relationship, by establishing short and long-term goals, enjoying success, and learning from failures along the way. Together, these tenets are powerful, without one, a strong partnership can be challenged. </p>
<p>Vendors and industry participants deserve to reap the rewards of a successful partnership, when both parties can come together with one another’s best interests to deliver mission outcomes. In the public sector, government stewards and managed service providers also double as community citizens. Therefore, when modernization efforts allow organizations to provide tangible value to their communities, it’s a win-win. </p>
<h2>The SAP Concur Commitment </h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions provide a single platform, range of software technologies, robust partner ecosystem, and continuous innovation to guide government organizations on their modernization journeys. All journeys are different, and this flexibility to deliver purpose-built processes gives customers what they need most, when they need it most. Today, SAP Concur solutions are trusted by hundreds of government entities to deliver mission-centric outcomes. To keep up with ever-shifting regulations and maintain industry-leading security and performance, a partner who listens first and can tap into the depth of agency-specific travel, expense, or invoice management solutions is a partner you need.</p>
<p><strong>Join the <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Federal-State-Local-Government/cmp-p/grouphub:StateLocalFederalGovernmentGroup">SAP Concur government community</a> to see how other government organizations are solving their challenges or <a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions#inline_asset_form">engage with an SAP Concur solutions expert</a> today. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Snap, Tap, & Done: Concur Expense Was Made for You!
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/snap-tap-done-concur-expense-was-made-for-you
2023-07-20T09:57:55Z
2023-07-20T09:52:42Z
"Imagine turning messy, time-consuming expense management tasks into a streamlined process from capture to reimbursement. With Concur Expense, controlling costs is as easy as snap, tap, and done."
<p>Imagine turning messy, time-consuming expense management tasks into a streamlined process from capture to reimbursement. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, controlling costs is as easy as snap, tap, and done. </p>
<p>We’re not just talking about making things easier for your finance team. From employees to managers, IT to HR, audit team to senior leaders, Concur Expense simplifies the expense management workflow for everyone. This means no more frantically searching for missing receipts. No more filling out paper expense reports and complicated spreadsheets. And reduced risk for out-of-policy surprises, out-of-sight errors, and fraud. </p>
<p>When you automate expense management with Concur Expense, it’s possible to: </p>
<ul>
<li>See the big picture of the organization’s spend, not just parts of it </li>
<li>Minimize manual paperwork and data entry </li>
<li>Reimburse employees quicker and easier </li>
<li>Boost policy compliance across the organization </li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s also not forget that minimizing administrative headaches can translate into happier and more productive employees at all levels of your business. </p>
<p>Want an outside perspective? Here are some snappy automation ROI stats <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-roi-review-why-walk-when-you-can-run">recently reported by Concur Expense users</a><sup>1</sup>: </p>
<ul>
<li>47% reduction in missing receipts </li>
<li>32% reduction in the time taken to approve expenses </li>
<li>$54K estimated money saved on an annual basis </li>
<li>Only 7 months to see positive ROI </li>
</ul>
<p>SAP Concur was also recognized as a <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-recognized-as-2023-top-rated-software-by-trustradius">2023 Top-Rated Expense Management Software</a> in both the Expense Management and Travel Management categories by TrustRadius. They even gave us a fancy badge. </p>
<p>Of course, nothing can take the place of experiencing snap, tap, and done first-hand. We have three easy ways you can do that right now: </p>
<p> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/concur-expense-solution-your-entire-company-will-love">Watch our video</a> on a day-in-the-life of a business with Concur Expense </p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/concur-expense-solution-your-entire-company-will-love">Watch our video</a> on a day-in-the-life of a business with Concur Expense </li>
<li>Take a <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense self-guided tour</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">Test-drive Concur Expense</a> for free for 15 days </li>
</ol>
<p>It couldn’t get any simpler. </p>
<p>Actually, it can. How about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">reaching out to us</a> to discuss what integrating Concur Expense would look like for your business? </p>
<p>Concur Expense can make controlling costs as easy as snap, tap, and done. </p>
<h6>1 Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. </h6>
SAP Concur Team
Make More Time for Yourself on Your Next Business Trip
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-more-time-for-yourself-on-your-next-business-trip
2023-07-19T14:14:44Z
2023-07-19T14:00:51Z
Four ways to optimize your domestic and international business travel for work and leisure.
<p>Whether you’re a first timer or a frequent flier, there are always new ways to optimize your business trips—including finding more time for yourself between meetings or long days in the office. </p>
<p>But splitting a trip between work and leisure time means having to be even more efficient—and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/intentional-travel-benefits-tips"><u>intentional</u></a>—with your travel planning. The good news? There are tools available to make this process feel like a breeze. </p>
<p>Here are four ways to find more time for yourself on your next business trip. </p>
<h2>1. Automate your itinerary </h2>
<p>Right now, it might feel like every post on your LinkedIn feed is about how AI is shaping our work, life, and world. And while some tech will stick around, and others won’t, I’m confident one tool is making life easier for business travelers everywhere: <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/free"><u>TripIt</u></a>. </p>
<p>With TripIt, you can forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and TripIt will <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/free/how-it-works"><u>create a comprehensive itinerary</u></a> for every trip. Or, if you have a Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Outlook account, you can set up automatic submission of your travel emails to TripIt by <a href="https://tripit.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/103000063336"><u>authorizing Inbox Sync</u></a> for your account. Then you have all of your travel plans in one place—seamlessly organized and easily accessible. </p>
<h2>2. Mix business with leisure </h2>
<p>Many business travelers know that mixing business with leisure is a great way to maximize the time they’re spending on the road. In fact, in a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-survey-new-travel-normal"><u>recent TripIt survey</u></a>, 35% of Americans said they’re planning a business or bleisure trip this summer.</p>
<p>Want to turn your next business trip into a bleisure trip, but not sure how? Start small. After work, block your calendar and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/walkable-cities-guide"><u>explore the surrounding neighborhood on foot</u></a> or check out a new restaurant near your hotel. </p>
<p>With TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places"><u>Nearby Places</u></a> feature, you can easily find places that are within walking distance from where you’re staying. For example, if you’re looking for a restaurant that’s close to your hotel, simply tap on the restaurants option in Nearby Places to view an interactive map with each option tagged. Tap the tags to view useful information like the restaurant’s contact details, hours, reviews, and more. If you find a place you want to visit but can’t get there right away, you can save it in TripIt to visit later.</p>
<p>You can also extend your next business trip into the weekend—giving you even more time to explore a new city. </p>
<h2>3. Get notified when you need it </h2>
<p>If you’re using <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/pro"><u>TripIt Pro</u></a> for business travel, you’re already familiar with the <a href="https://tripit.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/103000063296-travel-alerts"><u>alerts</u></a> for checking in, flight delays and cancellations, where to head to pick up your bags from baggage claim, and more. </p>
<p>And if you’re making your next business trip a bleisure trip, there’s even more TripIt can do to help you to stay organized. For example, remember that restaurant you found with Nearby Places—and added to your TripIt itinerary? If you have an iPhone, you can add the TripIt widget to your Lock Screen so that your upcoming plans—including restaurant reservations—are constantly visible on your phone, without the need to unlock it. </p>
<p>With the TripIt Lock Screen widget for iOS, you can also see your:</p>
<ul>
<li>Upcoming trip or plan, whether it’s a flight, train, rental car, hotel, or stop on your road trip.</li>
<li>Relevant flight information, including the flight number and departure time, arrival countdown, plus gate number when available.</li>
<li>Post-landing details, whether that’s a rental car reservation or hotel booking details.</li>
</ul>
<h2>4. Beware of business travel burnout </h2>
<p>The same <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-survey-new-travel-normal"><u>TripIt survey</u></a> found that of those who said they’d be traveling more in the year ahead, more than a third (34%) attributed it to increased business travel. And whether you relish your life on the road or not, too much of anything—especially without proper rest and recovery—can lead to burnout; business travel included. </p>
<p>I asked Grant Gurewitz, marketing leader at Qualtrics, founder of <a href="https://schoolofloggingoff.com/"><u>School of Logging Off</u></a>, and anti-burnout advocate, for his advice for combating business travel burnout. </p>
<p>“For starters, opt not to get WiFi on every flight to give your mind a break from the moment-to-moment hum of work,” said Grant. “There's beauty in being unreachable and it's understood when you're traveling. </p>
<p>“Instead, I love using this work travel time to read or listen to podcasts/books to further my career and/or jot ideas down in the notebook I bring with me.”</p>
<p>And once you’re on the ground? “If you travel to the same city for work regularly, try to experience something different each time you visit so it doesn't burn you out. Maybe visit a new attraction, walk around a new neighborhood, or try a new restaurant. </p>
<p>“Do a little research (or ask your colleagues/clients in that city) and find something cool to do that's unique to that location—and turns your downtime into <strong>you</strong> time.” </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team, Amanda Wowk
From the Annual HFMA Conference Floor: Embracing Digital Transformation for Success
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-annual-hfma-conference-floor-embracing-digital-transformation-for-success
2023-07-17T09:00:00Z
2023-07-13T13:46:11Z
SAP Concur recently attended the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s annual conference to learn how healthcare finance officers navigate ever growing challenges in digital transformation.
<p>In an ever-changing landscape, healthcare organizations find themselves at a critical juncture: How can they continue balancing financial uncertainties with the rising costs of travel and compliance such as the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute? SAP Concur employees attended the recent <a href="https://events.hfma.org/event/e5c80b52-e34d-4e45-9761-d353672c6b71/summary">Healthcare Financial Management Association’s (HFMA) annual conference</a> to learn from and engage with industry experts who offered their perspectives on these challenges and insights on how healthcare financial officers can navigate them successfully. </p>
<img alt="HFMA body image" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="061ef660-0ff4-4ccb-89d7-53424fc233fd" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/HFMA_body_image.jpg" />
<p> </p>
<p>Recognizing the importance of these issues, SAP Concur recently hosted a webinar focused on digital transformation and its implications for the Stark Law. For those interested, <a href="https://go.concur.com/020123_all_medpro_s7017v0000013klu_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=bpoph_hcmedpro_sales_7017v0000013klu_20230201">the webinar is accessible here</a>. </p>
<p>To gain a deeper understanding of these challenges and explore potential solutions, continue reading to learn about the specific obstacles healthcare organizations face. </p>
<h2>Challenge One: Funding Sources and Enhancing Cost Transparency </h2>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.hfma.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Outlook-Survey-Report-First-Quarter-2023.pdf">HFMA Outlook Survey Report 2023</a>, one of the most pressing challenges for healthcare professionals in the coming year is funding sources. This includes tackling the complexities of costs, ensuring price transparency, and managing budget pressures. Healthcare organizations are grappling with maintaining cost-effectiveness while providing quality care. </p>
<p>The cost-effectiveness of healthcare services has become a significant concern for individuals, prompting healthcare providers to explore innovative solutions and streamline processes. As individuals increasingly seek cost-effective healthcare options, providers must find innovative ways to balance financial sustainability while delivering high-quality care. </p>
<h2>Challenge Two: Rising Airfares and Room Rates Complicate Travel </h2>
<p>“Live-event attendance appears poised to be a big growth driver…” (<a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/transportation/corporate-travel-study-2023.html">Deloitte Insights</a>). </p>
<p>Corporate travel has witnessed a resurgence, but it comes with its challenges. <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/transportation/corporate-travel-study-2023.html">Deloitte Insights</a> revealed that professionals are facing higher airfares and room rates. Financial considerations remain at the forefront of healthcare organizations’ minds, especially considering the pandemic’s aftermath. Healthcare professionals attending conferences and industry events, which are expected to drive travel growth in 2023, may face increased expenses due to these pricing conditions. The rising costs of travel impact on healthcare organizations, affecting their overall operational costs and budget allocations, and needing careful resource allocation, financial planning, and cost management strategies.</p>
<h2>Challenge Three: Navigating Compliance Considerations for T&E (Travel & Expense) Policies </h2>
<p>Developing T&E policies takes on a renewed significance as healthcare organizations strive to adapt to the evolving landscape. Compliance considerations related to the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute were highlighted during the conference. </p>
<p>Common factors to consider in strategic planning for hospitals and health systems are: </p>
<ul>
<li>Provider and payer consolidations </li>
<li>Value-based care payment initiatives </li>
<li>Alignment strategies with physicians and other providers </li>
<li>Compliance with the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute (this includes requirements, exceptions, and safe harbors) </li>
</ul>
<p>These factors are crucial when developing strategic initiatives involving healthcare providers and administration. Recent government settlements, investigations, and proposed changes to these regulations affect healthcare operations and strategic planning, requiring organizations to stay vigilant and ensure compliance. </p>
<h2>Challenge Four: Overcoming Staffing Issues with Technology </h2>
<p>Healthcare, like many other industries, hasn’t been immune to staffing issues. As the hospitality and travel industry grapples with challenges, the healthcare sector also faces workforce shortages. An HFMA panel discussion illuminated the severity of the situation. The panel discussed significant shortages that hospitals and health systems are experiencing in their revenue cycle management (RCM) workforce. This shortage adds pressure to the existing clinical workforce crisis that healthcare organizations must navigate. </p>
<p>Implementing improved processes through harnessing technology is crucial to mitigating the negative impact on productivity. The panel discussion focused on how technology can enhance in-house and remote processes and workflows, offering potential solutions to address healthcare staffing issues and improve operational performance. </p>
<h2>The Solution: Digital Transformation Is a Necessary Step for Healthcare Organizations </h2>
<p>In today's rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the need for digital transformation has become clearer than ever. According to <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2019/workforce-engagement-employee-experience.html">a survey conducted by Deloitte</a>, a significant percentage of workers in the healthcare industry express dissatisfaction with their day-to-day work practices, work-related technology, and the level of autonomy they have to make decisions. Only 42 percent of workers reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their work practices. An even lower percentage of 38 percent expressed satisfaction with work-related tools and technology and autonomy to make good decisions. Digital transformation in finance plays a crucial role in addressing these challenges and enhancing overall resilience in the face of disruptive forces. </p>
<p><em><strong>Implementing digital transformation initiatives in healthcare finance brings numerous benefits: </strong></em></p>
<ol>
<li>Healthcare providers operate within an evolving regulatory environment with thin margins, making the need for digital transformation in finance even more critical. Healthcare organizations can run better by optimizing finance operations and refining team structures. Using ROI-driven technology allows them<strong> to streamline financial processes, enhance decision-making capabilities, and reduce overall costs. </strong></li>
<li>Providing employees with the tools and technology lets them perform their jobs efficiently and effectively. This enablement, in turn, can <strong>improve job satisfaction and productivity</strong> among healthcare professionals. </li>
<li>Furthermore, digital transformation enables healthcare organizations to navigate regulatory complexities more effectively. By optimizing financial systems and automation, they can<strong> ensure compliance</strong> with changing regulations,<strong> reduce the risk of errors,</strong> and <strong>improve overall financial accuracy and transparency.</strong> </li>
</ol>
<p>The healthcare industry must embrace digital transformation in finance to address challenges and drive resilience. Areas of focus are navigating funding sources, managing rising costs, and ensuring compliance with federal regulations. By leveraging technology, streamlining financial processes, and optimizing team structures, healthcare organizations can enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, and deliver better outcomes for their employees and patients. </p>
<p>A digital transformation is no longer an option; it’s a necessary step toward building a more resilient and thriving industry in today's healthcare landscape. <a href="https://go.concur.com/020123_all_medpro_s7017v0000013klu_registrationpage.html?pid=sales&cid=bpoph_hcmedpro_sales_7017v0000013klu_20230201">Learn more about digital transformation and Stark Law here</a>. </p>
<p>To learn more about SAP Concur solutions for Healthcare visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">industry page</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Your Organization Can Do Today to Support Sustainability
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-your-organization-can-do-today-to-support-sustainability
2023-07-18T09:00:00Z
2023-07-12T11:12:41Z
More and more organizations are incorporating sustainability into their broader business strategy, including their travel practices. And by doing so, they’re reaping real benefits.
<p>More and more organizations are incorporating sustainability into their broader business strategy, including their travel practices. And by doing so, they’re reaping real benefits, such as a lower carbon footprint, potential cost savings, and increased employee engagement.</p>
<p>Nina Birger, Vice President of Climate Solutions at CHOOOSE, talked about corporate social responsibility and sustainability with Jeanne Dion, Vice President, Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, on the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Below are some of the key takeaways from their conversation.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/great-balancing-act-how-incorporate-corporate-sustainability-your-business-strategy">SAP Concur Conversations channel</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-balancing-act-how-to-incorporate/id1525744763?i=1000619542770">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6mJyKVs5tM9Wj3vBSwSgXl">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjRhNjUzZTQ1MThiNmUwMDExZDFkZDEy?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjA9ZuVrYiAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2><strong>What is ESG—and why does it matter?</strong></h2>
<p>Sustainability often falls under the larger umbrella of ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance. “Early corporate sustainability work was really focused on engaging with investors,” says Borger. “And investors would often look at environmental, social, and governance together as opposed to as separate items.”</p>
<p>Organizations now use the ESG framework to encompass the work they do to address environmental and social issues, like sustainability, and measure their impact in those areas. “Sustainability is really about social justice,” Dion says. “It’s about employee improvement and involvement. It’s about being good corporate neighbors and stewards.”</p>
<p>Certain sustainability categories, for example, climate, cross multiple pillars. “Climate is obviously an environmental issue,” says Birger. “But there are also very much social impacts related to climate as well.” Birger says organizations may even think about it from a governance perspective. For example, a large company might incentivize its board to care about climate and the company’s climate performance.</p>
<p>“Don’t look at environmental action as something that just costs your company money,” Dion advises. “There are win-wins that you can find that will be better for sustainability, will also potentially benefit your budget, and will certainly benefit your employees and your corporate neighbors.” Taking effective ESG action will make you a better company and a better corporate citizen, she adds.</p>
<h2><strong>Start with a baseline so you can measure your sustainability success</strong></h2>
<p>Before starting or changing a sustainability program, Birger encourages organizations to take stock of where they are and identify where they may be able to make the biggest impact. “If you are very early in your climate journey as an organization, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that there’s some low-hanging fruits,” Birger says.</p>
<p>A vital first step is to establish a baseline. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and you need to understand what that baseline is, so you know which sets of activities are the ones that are contributing most meaningfully to your carbon footprint,” says Birger. She adds that you’ll want to measure those precisely because that’s how you’ll make the data actionable.</p>
<p>After all, as Dion notes, you need to “have a clear understanding of what matters to your organization, so you can support your business and your company with some real impactful KPIs that show exactly what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>Birger agrees and adds, “[There are] lots of different metrics across environmental, social, and governance. But if we’re talking about climate specifically, carbon [emissions are] going to be the starting point.”</p>
<p>In conjunction with this, Birger recommends automating tracking wherever you can. For example, with flights and hotel stays, there are already established methodologies for estimating an organization’s carbon emissions impact.</p>
<h2><strong>Sustainability: The key to employee recruitment and engagement </strong></h2>
<p>Having a baseline and measuring KPIs enables your organization to make more informed decisions. “There are going to be areas where there are really clear win-wins from both a cost savings and a carbon savings perspective,” Birger says. For example, flying economy rather than first class is both more cost and carbon efficient. Other actions may require a financial tradeoff. For example, flying direct is more carbon efficient than taking connecting flights but may cost more.</p>
<p>Sustainability programs—for instance, when part of an organization’s business travel program and policies—can also have a positive impact on employee recruitment and engagement. “Climate justice is one of the top categories for that age group that’s coming into the marketplace now,” Dion says. Because of this, many organizations are even leveraging this fact to gain internal support for taking sustainability actions.</p>
<p>“One of the things that is really interesting about sustainability and climate action in the business travel space is business travel is so personal,” Birger says. “It’s one of the most personal things you do as an employee. And so many companies that we speak to really see what they are doing as it relates to embedding sustainability into their business travel programs and policies as a form of employee engagement.”</p>
<h2><strong>The transparency traps of greenwashing and green-hushing</strong></h2>
<p>Two traps that organizations can fall into are “greenwashing” or “green-hushing” their sustainability work.</p>
<p><em>Greenwashing </em>is when an organization makes a big deal out of something small it did related to sustainability—without taking any broader, meaningful action. For example, an organization might publicize it has a bike program but not do anything about the much bigger issue—the environmental impact of its business travel.</p>
<p>By comparison,<em> green-hushing</em> is when companies intentionally stay quiet about their sustainability goals and what they’re doing. Dion explains that in many of these cases, organizations may never make their plans public because “they’re so afraid of being labeled as green-washing or as doing something wrong.”</p>
<p>But as Dion points out, “If we really want the kind of scale and type of action that we need as quickly as we need it, we’re going to get there faster if companies are making public commitments” about their sustainability programs.</p>
<p>“Explaining what you are trying to do and why you are trying to do it really authentically and transparently only has benefits in terms of setting yourself up for success and achieving what you want,” Birger says. “[You also reap] the benefits that may come from things like employees feeling really attached to your organization and proud to work there.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/great-balancing-act-how-incorporate-corporate-sustainability-your-business-strategy">Learn about kickstarting your sustainability journey in this SAP Conversations podcast.</a><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
SAP Concur Team
Reimagining AP and Moving Beyond Digitization: An SAP Concur Conversations Podcast
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reimagining-ap-and-moving-beyond-digitization-sap-concur-conversations-podcast
2023-07-20T09:00:00Z
2023-07-12T11:03:56Z
We often assume that because Gen X through Gen Z have been brought up with technology-increasingly ubiquitous and advanced- people in younger generations will usher in the “next big thing”
<p>We often assume that because Gen X through Gen Z have been brought up with technology — increasingly ubiquitous and advanced — people in younger generations will usher in the “next big thing” in digital automation. But in a risk-averse area such as accounting, is it too much to expect a revolution in the way, for example, accounts payable (AP) tools will serve us?</p>
<p>To share insights on what stands in the way of innovation and how AP and other functions could evolve to serve business at a higher level, Chris Elmore, Chief Evangelist at AvidXchange, talked to Jeanne Dion, Vice President, Value Experience Team at SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on our </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation-revolutionizes-business-operations"><strong>SAP Concur Conversations</strong></a><strong> channel | </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation/id1525744763?i=1000608605558"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hSa3NPit7ckMHyN9MwFg2"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjQzNjJlNjQ5OTk2MmMwMDExZTI0NmI1?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjI_-uguKr-AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<h2>Younger workers are trained to uphold the status quo</h2>
<p>Accounting professionals, whether in AP or other areas, work in an increasingly digital world. The logic, therefore, is that younger workers would be putting on the pressure and introducing innovation to bring on the inevitable goal of a paperless world.</p>
<p>Not so, cautions Elmore — at least not without encouragement.</p>
<p>“I have a colleague here at AvidXchange, and it’s his notion that over time, as the millennials take over, they’re not going to stand for these manual tasks, these paper-driven tasks. And so just by virtue of them taking over, the whole thing’s going to be digitized, because their lives are digital, and they’ve grown up [with devices in their hands],” Elmore says. “But I don’t believe that at all.”</p>
<p>The key inhibitor to innovation is that in accounts payable, for example, no one is incentivized to disrupt the status quo.</p>
<p>“Let’s say you are a controller bent on being reckless. You’re not going to be a controller for long. So, the base concept is that it’s a risk-averse population. It should be a risk-averse population [overall],” Elmore points out. “When you take that into account, the younger generation that’s getting their sea legs on the processes is getting trained by the older generation on ‘this is how you do it.’”</p>
<h2>Younger workers have much to contribute — if encouraged</h2>
<p>That doesn’t mean there isn’t a hunger for change, though.</p>
<p>“Falsely, there’s this view of accounting people of being rigid and not willing to change, and uncreative — that’s the one that really bothers me more than anything,” Elmore says. “The students [I teach at university] have none of those traits. They are creative. They’re full of ambition. They’re driven.”</p>
<p>They’re excited about getting into to the work and making things happen. But when they get there, they are stopped by people who don’t feel like the risk is worth the possible reward. The mentality is that “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”</p>
<p>It is true that technology can only take things so far. If going paperless is the only goal, that isn’t doing much to move the business forward. There are only so many ways one can digitize an invoice, put it into an approval process, and present it to an accounting system.</p>
<p>The thinking needs to be more like, “What if I spent 90% of my time on 5% of the problems — the problems that really matter — instead of spending 90% of my time on 100% of every single line-item, of which only a small fraction will be a problem?”</p>
<p>The question that older professionals who are doing the supervising and training and younger professionals who are coming up the ranks need to ask is: “What could I do in addition to what I’m doing now that would add value to the company overall, that would add value to the bottom line?”</p>
<p>In other words, there needs to be a re-imagining of the entire system that goes beyond just digitalization — something that would add efficiency to the process and make it easier for everybody to work. It’s not just automating AP. It’s not just taking paper-based processes and making them electronic.</p>
<h2>Evolving the technology elevates accounting</h2>
<p>Often, people worry that automation will potentially eliminate their jobs — even accountants — when the truth is that automation opens up opportunities for accountants to make more valuable contributions to their organization.</p>
<p>“You have to focus on the purpose of the technological initiative, whether it’s accounts payable automation, Salesforce automation, marketing automation,” Elmore says. “And I get a lot of inspiration from manufacturing. They’ve already figured this out, and they have Six Sigma, and lean process, and all of these things that back up their need to automate.”</p>
<p>The best outcome in any automation, accounts payable or otherwise, is that it frees up time. It could have a financial ROI to it, but time is the real product — time that can be invested in new ways of working and advancing the company.</p>
<p>“In 1900, the loom industry was automated 90%. And the thing was, did jobs go up for looms or did jobs go down? Now, traditionally, you would think if 90% of the work was automated, there’d be all these loom workers that were out of jobs,” Elmore remarks. But instead, the opposite happened — the number of jobs went way up because “automation reduced the cost to produce the fabric, and people started using fabric in different ways. It opened up brand new markets.”</p>
<p>The technology that any company uses must focus on mission, purpose, and outcome, Elmore says, adding, “If it’s really neat, okay, that’s good. But I’m always shocked on how many people buy on cool and neat. It’s got to go beyond that. And that’s the thing that will permeate [good ideas] through the entire organization [to move it forward].”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/more-productivity-less-paperwork-how-ap-automation-revolutionizes-business-operations">Learn more about reimagining AP automation in this SAP Concur Conversations podcast.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Building Effective Travel Programs for Business Travelers: An SAP Concur Conversations Podcast
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/building-effective-travel-programs-for-business-travelers-sap-concur-conversations
2023-07-17T09:00:00Z
2023-07-12T10:49:13Z
In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Hansini Sharma, who leads the Travel Practice at Acquis Consulting Group, spoke with Jeanne Dion, Vice President, Value Experience Team at SAP
<p>Business travelers are on the road and in the skies again. But there have been and continue to be significant changes in the travel experience. That’s why it’s more important than ever for travel managers to know who their travelers are, make sure they are making the most cost-effective decisions, and provide employees with a good travel experience that meets their expectations.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Hansini Sharma, who leads the Travel Practice at Acquis Consulting Group, spoke with Jeanne Dion, Vice President, Value Experience Team at SAP Concur, about how and why it’s crucial for travel managers and business leaders to change the way they approach their travel programs and policies to reflect the expectations of their travelers. She also shares why she believes the traveler experience is “the next big thing” in corporate business travel. Below are some of the key takeaways from their conversation.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/traveler-personas-and-traveler-experience-next-big-thing-business-travel">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channels| <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/traveler-personas-and-the-traveler-experience-the/id1525744763?i=1000617033010">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5mh0xOPreDSLp8BpxrCyTt">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwjg4Nvv4Yj9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google </a>or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<h2>Realigning the travel experience with traveler needs</h2>
<p>The pandemic spurred significant changes in the travel experience over the past few years. There’s also been a dramatic increase in the volume of travelers to where airports are now packed. So, it’s crucial for travel managers to understand who their travelers are, where they are going, what kind of travel they are doing (e.g., business-only travel, bleisure travel, etc.) and capture the detail needed from every aspect of the traveler experience while maintaining compliance and cost control and meeting their KPIs. Travel managers also need to identify their traveler personas, categorize the different types of travelers they have, understand what’s most important to those travelers, and prioritize their needs.</p>
<p>When working with companies, Sharma asks, “What are the goals of this trip? And how do you want someone to experience this trip? Is it having the most cost-effective trip? Is it having the most productive trip? Is it having the most convenient trip?” Because those can all be different things and “that’s truly what a traveler experience is — considering all pieces of the journey.”</p>
<p>Consequently, companies today must build travel programs that are far more progressive and flexible and offer more options to travelers than they have in the past.</p>
<h2>Empowering the new era of business travelers</h2>
<p>Nowadays, we all recognize we have work to do and we’re going to spend a lot of time with our work colleagues, but we also all want the flexibility to live our own lives how we want and in a way that works best for us. Thus, we’re learning to work and collaborate with people in new ways, and this model has become the new standard way of living and working. As a result, most companies need to rethink how they are supporting travel.</p>
<p>“The newer generations like the idea of being able to work wherever they are and have flexibility,” Sharma says. Some companies are leveraging this fact to their advantage while others are missing out. In many cases, flexibility and the ability for employees to seamlessly blend their personal lives with their</p>
<p>business travel has “become a point of retention,” which is making it the “next big thing” in corporate travel.</p>
<p>Dion agrees, “Travel is so definitively personal. I think in some cases it’s even more personal than how much you make. It affects every part of your life. It affects every part of you. And so, what you’re really trying to do is to humanize travel.”</p>
<p>Once companies know what’s needed, they can leverage digital technology to better understand how their employees are interacting with their travel solutions and adjust their travel policies accordingly. They can also build travel programs that enable people to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Feel comfortable and empowered to book the travel they want and also incur legitimate business expenses in a way that complies with their company’s policies.</li>
<li>Have what they need to be the most productive and effective while traveling.</li>
</ul>
<p>Sharma says that in her experience “when people are happier with the experience they’re having, they’re like, ‘Okay, maybe I don’t need to go rogue.’” And that can make all the difference between a successful or unsuccessful travel program.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/traveler-personas-and-traveler-experience-next-big-thing-business-travel">Learn how to create a travel program your travelers will love in this SAP Conversations podcast.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Survey Considers LGBTQ+ Business Travel Experiences
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/survey-considers-lgbtq-business-travel-experiences
2023-06-30T12:38:59Z
2023-06-30T11:51:23Z
Nearly all (94%) of LGBTQ+ business travelers experienced discrimination while traveling for work.
<h4>Nearly all (94%) of LGBTQ+ business travelers have personally experienced discrimination while traveling for work.</h4>
<p>As we write this blog post, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently <a href="https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights">tracking</a> 491 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the United States, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/roundup-of-anti-lgbtq-legislation-advancing-in-states-across-the-country">counted</a> more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures in 2023. Additionally, a <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/year-review-anti-lgbtq-hate-extremism-incidents-2022-2023">report</a> recently published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and GLAAD found that there were more than 350 reported anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in the U.S. between June 2022 and April 2023. These circumstances led HRC to <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/for-the-first-time-ever-human-rights-campaign-officially-declares-state-of-emergency-for-lgbtq-americans-issues-national-warning-and-guidebook-to-ensure-safety-for-lgbtq-residents-and-travelers">declare</a> its first “state of emergency” in June 2023 for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.</p>
<p>In 2019—the inaugural year of the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey—we explored challenges that the LGBTQ+ community faced while traveling for business. Five years later, unfortunately, little has improved in the community’s responses.</p>
<p>According to the findings of <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds">the 2023 Global Business Travel Survey</a>, 90% of LGBTQ+ business travelers globally have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip, with the top reasons being safety issues (55%) and privacy issues (55%). Forty-six percent said that they have hidden their sexual orientation because they felt that their business goals had a better chance of success if they did so. Thirty-eight percent hid this information because the region they visited has laws that are anti-LGBTQ+.</p>
<p>Safety while traveling is a key consideration for many employees, which we see reflected in our survey data year after year. In 2023, 44% of global business travelers say that health and safety concerns are among the biggest threats to business travel today, and 44% would decline a trip due to safety or social concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world.</p>
<p>However, the data suggests that those who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely to have their travel plans impacted by safety concerns than the average business traveler. Our survey found that 82% of LGBTQ+ business travelers have changed their accommodations in the past 12 months while on a business trip specifically because they felt unsafe—compared to 53% of all business travelers—and 64% have done this more than once.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for global business travelers in general to experience discrimination while traveling; nearly three-quarters (74%) say they have personally experienced it while on a business trip. But the rate at which LGBTQ+ business travelers experience discrimination is staggering, as nearly all (94%) say that they have personally experienced it.</p>
<p>Discrimination also occurs within organizations: Nearly two-thirds of global business travelers (62%) feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to travel for business compared to their coworkers. This includes 92% of LGBTQ+ business travelers, for reasons such as their sexual orientation (31%), gender (34%), or physical appearance (27%).</p>
<p>While many organizations spend significant energy and resources to attract and hire more diverse employees, the above findings suggest that more can be done to ensure that these employees experience the equity, inclusion, and belonging necessary for them to stick around.</p>
<p>Career growth opportunities are an essential component, and according to the employees we surveyed this year, traveling for work is critical for career advancement. Ninety-two percent of global business travelers say that the future of their career is dependent on business travel in the coming year, including 98% of those who identify as LGBTQ+.</p>
<h4>How to make a difference</h4>
<p>To better support employees while they travel, business leaders and travel managers should pay close attention to destinations’ LGBTQ+ laws. Travel and legal departments should work together to adjust policies and approaches to fulfill duty of care.</p>
<p>Technology can help with this. For instance, SAP Concur partners with duty of care solution providers, and TripIt Neighborhood Safety Scores make it easier to track the safest destinations and neighborhoods for LGBTQ+ travelers. Reference resources like <a href="https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/LGBTQ-Guidebook-for-Action.pdf">HRC’s guidebook for the LGBTQ+ community</a> often. Keep the lines of communication open: Talk with LGBTQ+ identifying employees to understand and address any concerns directly.</p>
<p>Ensuring that LGBTQ+ employees have equitable access to travel opportunities while protecting their safety requires that organizations take a close look at how they empower and support employees, whether on the road or in the office.</p>
<p>For more information about the 2023 Global Business Travel Survey, including additional findings, please download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travelers_report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travel_managers_report">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB business traveler</a> whitepapers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by <a href="https://wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 7-28, 2023, among 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</p>
Christopher Juneau
Hybrid Work Raises Your Tax Risk and Complexity
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hybrid-work-raises-your-tax-risk-and-complexity
2023-06-30T13:28:06Z
2023-06-22T09:52:40Z
VAT and employee taxable benefits are situations full of complexity because the expenses mix personal and business uses, like mobile phones, for example.
<p>Your employees are still getting the job done, but where they work has shifted, often to home. They’ve bought desks, computer monitors, internet service, and more – legitimate business expenses but also potentially taxable employee benefits. It’s just one of many issues of a changing workplace: 30% of business leaders told IDC that managing hybrid work is an organizational challenge<sup>1</sup>.</p>
<p>And if your company has overseas operations or travels abroad, it likely pays value-added tax (VAT) and other taxes on goods and services – in varying amounts and multiple locations. The purchases are for business purposes, so you’re eligible to reclaim some of the payments and return that money to the bottom line. Your company isn’t alone in the hunt for answers, as 61% of business and IT decision-makers think VA will significantly affect their tax management within two years<sup>2</sup>.</p>
<p>VAT and employee taxable benefits are situations full of complexity because the expenses mix personal and business uses, like mobile phones, for example. Determining how much of each expense benefits the employee and the company is no simple challenge. </p>
<p>Both are areas where companies sometimes lack the expertise to track eligible expenses, because they rely on manual processes or are unable to pluck relevant information from the data they have. Remote and hybrid work, as well as VAT, occurs in numerous locations, bringing many tax authorities and structures into play. And the rules change with regularity. All are factors that result in regulatory risk and lost opportunities and dollars. </p>
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<h5>A Finance Leader’s Guide to Tax Compliance </h5>
<p>Get the guide to learn how your company can handle VAT, taxable benefits, and compliance with greater efficiency and certainty. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/finance-leaders-guide-tax-compliance">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<p>With the intelligent technology, SAP Concur solutions like Concur Tax Assurance service by Blue dot and Concur Benefits Assurance service by Blue dot can do the work for you, helping you sort through the challenges and minimizing uncertainty. </p>
<h2>Concur Tax Assurance by Blue dot </h2>
<p>Concur Tax Assurance automatically identifies eligible employee transactions and enriches the data with additional information that authorities require for tax recovery. Data from multiple expenses is aggregated and then checked to ensure it satisfies recovery rules, while applying country-specific rules so that you don’t have to. All the information is available on a dashboard, which allows you to drill down by date and business unit. You can see what’s eligible and what’s not, allowing you to drive traveler behavior and raise recovery in the future. Each month, you receive a file that allows you to reconcile charges, submit to multiple authorities, and get back money the business is owed. </p>
<h2>Concur Benefits Assurance by Blue dot </h2>
<p>Is that mobile phone a perk or a legitimate expense – or both? Concur Benefits Assurance is a digital, end-to-end service that flags expenses that could be taxable employee benefits. Using intelligent technology, it digs through and interpret expense reports to categorize spending and spot possible taxable benefits. It applies continuously updated rates from multiple locations, informed by global regulatory requirements and your company’s own rules or prebuilt ones it selects. The service provides a dashboard where you can see flagged expenses by country, date, type of rules, and other factors. You see what’s taxable, what’s not, and what’s a problem needing review. Monthly reports allow you to reconcile benefits with payroll and stay in compliance. </p>
<h2>Learn more and comply </h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Read “A Finance Leader’s Guide to Tax Compliance” to discover more about identifying expenses that are taxable benefits, reclaiming VAT and other taxes, and ensuring compliance with the help of intelligent solutions. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Learn more about the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Concur Tax Assurance</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance">Concur Benefits Assistance</a> and how they can help make each spending decision a moment of confidence instead of confusion. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>1-2: IDC Info Snapshot sponsored by SAP Concur, Meeting the Challenge of Expense Management in a Hybrid Work Environment, Doc #US49971522, March 2023 </p>
SAP Concur Team
Hear Why Companies Chose SAP Concur to Run and Grow Their Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hear-why-companies-chose-sap-concur-to-run-and-grow-their-businesses
2023-06-29T16:50:45Z
2023-06-22T09:23:03Z
Worldwide, more than 48,000 customers are using our solutions to automate and simplify travel and expense processes and obtain insights that drive better decision-making. Their specific needs vary.
<p>Major manufacturers of trucks and premium sportwear. A financial services company and one of the world’s largest accounting and consulting firms. A pharmaceutical giant and a global cloud infrastructure provider. </p>
<p>They’re among the many customers who tell us they are satisfied with the SAP Concur® solutions they’ve chosen for their businesses. In fact, 83% of SAP Concur users give our solutions 4 or 5 stars on G2, while 93% say on GetApp that they would recommend us to a friend or colleague. </p>
<p>Worldwide, more than 48,000 customers are using our solutions to automate and simplify travel and expense processes and obtain insights that drive better decision-making. Their specific needs vary – updating outdated technology, seeking efficiency and productivity, increasing compliance, promoting sustainability among them – but gaining visibility into and control of spending is a common goal. </p>
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<h5>Hear What Customers Gained from SAP Concur Solutions </h5>
<p>Read Success Stories from customers about how they’ve put our solutions to work to improve their businesses. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/success-stories-how-sap-concur-solutions-help-companies-run-and-grow-their-business">Download Success Stories</a></div>
</div>
<p>One customer, the global truck manufacturer PACCAR, used our solutions to close gaps in spending visibility and control, gaining savings, compliance, and better deals with suppliers. </p>
<p>“You can’t really manage what you don’t know,” observes Nari Narvani, Global Travel, Expense and Corporate Card manager at PACCAR. </p>
<h2>Reason 1: Integrated Solutions </h2>
<p>If a business can’t see – and link – spending data, it’s not getting the full picture necessary to make the best decisions. Our integrated solutions provide a full, wide-angle view with near real-time communication, easy-to-use workflows, and better compliance and security. </p>
<p>Standard Chartered Bank, a global financial services provider, uses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, and other solutions for spending clarity as well as to track the environmental impact of the company and its employees. </p>
<p>“Our spend visibility has dramatically improved with the implementation of SAP Concur. We now have the capability to forecast flight costs, hotel, and sundry expenses and adjust guidelines accordingly to meet business objectives,” says Warren Forgas, Chief Operating Officer, Supply Chain Management, Standard Chartered Bank. </p>
<h2>Reason 2: Continued Connectivity </h2>
<p>Whether it’s linking with ERP systems or integrating with numerous travel, consumer, or other apps, connection is key. And solutions from us and our partners provide those connections. </p>
<p>ASICS Europe, designer and producer of sportswear and shoes, put mobile tools in the hands of employees as part of an automation initiative that was a major step up from spreadsheets and paper receipts. As a result, they solidified their audit trail, slashed reimbursement times, and standardized their approach – valuable when operating in 18 countries and multiple languages. </p>
<p>“For the first time, we’re able to see with certainty where our employees are, and what they’re spending on,” says Marco Leeuw, Concur Project Manager at ASICS Europe. </p>
<h2>Reason 3: Future-Focused </h2>
<p>The amount of data often isn’t the challenge. Connecting data sources and plumbing them for insights is another matter. Our solutions do both. Dashboards and reports from <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Intelligence</a>, for example, increase spending transparency and forecasting and budget abilities. Another, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">Consultative Intelligence</a>, is a service where consultants help businesses dig deep into data and performed sophisticated and customized analysis and reporting. </p>
<p>“SAP Concur has helped us cast the net across everything, so we can provide meaningful data to help business leaders make better decisions from a budgeting standpoint, look at employee behavior, and really drive accountability,” says Brian Dela Pena, Senior Director, Accounting Operations, VMware. </p>
<h2>Reason 4: Enterprise Expertise </h2>
<p>With 30 years of experience and decades working with businesses across the globe, we know and can meet the needs of large companies and organizations with multinational operations. And we can customize our solutions and support to handle country-by-country needs – from unique regulations to language and cultural differences. </p>
<p>Pharmaceutical giant Merck benefited from the ability of our solutions to scale with the largest of businesses. Saddled with outdated technology designed for in-office operations, the company struggled to adapt as remote and hybrid work increased. Data was trapped in siloes, and the system was difficult to use. </p>
<p>With the help of SAP Concur solutions and our team, the company overhauled spend management across over 75 companies. As part of the implementation, Merck issued 40,000 payment cards in 10 months and greatly reduced the number of employees required to support the cards. </p>
<h2>Reason 5: Inclusive Support </h2>
<p>Travel, expense, and invoice solutions are less of a solution if you do not receive help implementing and supporting them. Adoption can suffer and frustration grow without support – whether you’re an IT team member or an everyday user. At SAP Concur, our support extends beyond system administrators – they get assistance, of course – to managers and other employees using the solutions in their daily roles. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/user-support-desk">User Support Desk</a> provides access to solution expertise, while <a href="https://www.concur.com/essential-care">Concur Essential Care</a> delivers administrative and configuration expertise. In addition, we have fostered a global community of user groups and leadership councils sharing tips and best practices. All the pieces work together to make sure you get the most out of our solutions and your investment. </p>
<p>“With the global SAP Concur solution, we have created a consistent standard that also offers us enough flexibility. This is a very convenient solution to add to our global network of countries,” says Stefan Frühauf, Partner and Global Project and Change Leader at PwC. </p>
<h2>Deeper Reasoning and Customer Successes </h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Download <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/5-reasons-sap-concur-is-the-right-solution-for-spend-management">5 Reasons SAP Concur is the Right Solution for Spend Management</a> to learn how an integrated, data-fueled approach and support make us a market leader. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/success-stories-how-sap-concur-solutions-help-companies-run-and-grow-their-business">Success Stories: How SAP Concur Helps Enterprises to Run and Grow Their Business</a> to hear more from our customers about how they gained spending visibility and compliance while reducing costs and improving efficiency and the employee experience. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Spend Insights Report Zooms in on T&E Dollars and Sense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spend-insights-report-zooms-in-on-te-dollars-and-sense
2023-06-22T09:15:01Z
2023-06-22T09:07:19Z
Here’s an overview of the report’s numbers and insights, information that can turn each spending decision into a moment of confidence and clarity instead of doubt and risk.
<p>Spending is climbing back toward where it was before, up 73% last year over 2021 with travel expenses leading the charge, positive but not shocking news with the economy opening back up. </p>
<p>But as companies climb closer to business as usual, the recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-spend-insights-how-will-last-year-make-2023-better">Spend Insights Report</a> also reveals a troubling number reflecting a business-as-unusual after-effect of the pandemic: Employee out-of-pocket cash spending jumped 81% and is the top category we found, clouding insight and compliance. </p>
<p>So after a stretch of policies shifts and companies spending freely and differently to keep operations rolling, are employees confused, resistant, or taking advantage when using cash instead of purchasing cards? Well, it can be hard to know if you don’t look closely at purchases – and violations – or take advantage of technology that can help you uncover improper expenses and enforce the spending policies you have put in place. </p>
<p>The insights report, produced in partnership with Oversight, an industry-leading provider of AI-based risk mitigation and spend monitoring solutions, examines the past, present, and future of business by looking at millions of transactions and billions in purchases. In addition to putting numbers to what you may see firsthand, the report looks at trends – like violation rates and which categories are rising or falling – and provides suggestions for how your business can get a better handle on where its dollars are going. </p>
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<h5>Prepare for future with Spend Insights Report</h5>
<p>Get detailed report to learn how last year spend insights can make 2023 better? </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://sap.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/125765/EY4Zt4Vryk5EsI1LzHtAthIBKOmauswAjSDMBmR6FDZWrg?e=dg8KgH">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<p>Here’s an overview of the report’s numbers and insights, information that can turn each spending decision into a moment of confidence and clarity instead of doubt and risk. </p>
<h2>Spending by the numbers </h2>
<p>Overall dollars: T&E spending is approaching levels not seen since early 2020, with a year-over-year increase of 73% in 2022 vs. 2021. </p>
<p>Travel-specific: Dollars spent on airfare, lodging, transportation, and other trip expenses increased 178% from Q1 to Q4, 2022. Zooming in, airline spending was up 400% and lodging up 207%, </p>
<p>Business services: Spending increased 43% on consulting, software, insurance, professional services, and other purchases that shouldn’t be part of T&E spend, a matter worthy of attention. </p>
<p>Costly violations: Spending violations went up 7.9% year to year, costing companies $91.3 million – a 9.83% hike. </p>
<p>That pesky cash: Excessive out-of-pocket spending transactions flagged for something out of the ordinary added up to nearly half – 44% – of all violations uncovered. Many possible reasons come into play. Employees might not be keeping up with policy changes, or businesses could do better educating team members of changes. Employees might just have become accustomed to not using company-issued cards during the pandemic. No matter the cause, companies will have to increase scrutiny and education if they want to reduce bad habits. </p>
<h2>Policing violations pays off </h2>
<p>Employees forget or ignore policy. Receipts go missing. Expenses get entered incorrectly. Managers override a policy they shouldn’t. Those are just some of what goes wrong. </p>
<p>Don’t be lulled by a quick look at overall violation rates, which averaged 2.33% over the past four years. Because here’s the thing: The more businesses look at the spending exceptions they flag, the more violations they find and the more money they save. That 2.33% jumps to nearly 13% when companies more intensely audit and review flagged exceptions. </p>
<p>Wondering where to begin? Start with the top 5 violation categories we found: excessive out of pocket, travel fraud risk, suspicious expense line keywords, duplicate expenses from the same employee, and travel card policy misuse. </p>
<h2>Prevention and other steps </h2>
<p>It takes multiple approaches and tools to better understand and control T&E spending so your business can take advantage of opportunities. Here are some suggestions from the report to consider: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Make training and education a priority. For example, use the communication and messaging options in your booking and expense reporting tools to guide team members to compliant choices and answer questions, too. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Funnel electronic receipts from travel providers into expense reports and the right categories. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Give employees mobile apps that snap pictures of receipts and send them to reports, where technology incorporating AI and machine learning can improve accuracy. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Examine your policies and, again, work your exceptions. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Seek audit tools that use intelligent technology to reveal trends and problems – and maybe even explaining why violations for “publishing services” skyrocketed 2,469.8% last year (What the heck?!). </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get the report, get insights </h2>
<p>Download a copy of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-spend-insights-how-will-last-year-make-2023-better">report</a> for a more extensive look at how last year’s spending compares to that of years past and about the trends, approaches, and technology that can prepare you for what’s ahead. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Traveler Personas and the Traveler Experience: The Next Big Thing in Business Travel with Acquis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/traveler-personas-and-traveler-experience-next-big-thing-in-business-travel-with
2023-06-27T09:00:00Z
2023-06-20T12:03:34Z
"The traveler journey, traveler personas, and providing an optimized traveler experience…these haven’t historically been areas of focus for many businesses — especially during times of economic hardsh
<p>The traveler journey, traveler personas, and providing an optimized traveler experience…these haven’t historically been areas of focus for many businesses — especially during times of economic hardship where cost containment is often priority number one — but according to Hansini Sharma, who leads the Travel Practice at <a href="https://www.acquisconsulting.com/">Acquis Consulting Group</a>, they certainly should be.</p>
<p>“When I think about these personas and how we build programs, I think we want to think about how to build them without creating additional friction. How can we be creative in leveraging the tools that we have? How can we leverage our online booking tool solution to provide the maximum number of options to our travelers? When you give someone just a little bit of wiggle room, the likelihood of them adhering to the new policy or the new update is exponentially higher…”</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Hansini discusses how and why travel managers and business leaders should change the way they approach their travel programs and policies to reflect the expectations of their travelers, and explains why she believes the traveler experience is “the next big thing” in corporate business travel.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/traveler-personas-and-the-traveler-experience-the/id1525744763?i=1000617033010"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5mh0xOPreDSLp8BpxrCyTt"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjQ4OWRmMDIyNmZiMjEwMDExZjBjZTM0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiY9u3vn9L_AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBg"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders, as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm your host, Jeanne Dion. I'm the vice president of the Value Experience Team here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers to bring positive business outcomes based on data-driven insights. And today I am joined by Hansini Sharma of Acquis Consulting Group, and we are going to talk about all things business travel. From how businesses should change the way they think about their travel programs and policies, to how business leaders can balance the traveler experience against other often competing business priorities. Hansini, we've got a lot to cover in a really short period of time, but before we jump in, could you please give a moment and introduce yourself to our listeners?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jeanne, for having me today. My name is <strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>, as Jeanne already mentioned, and I'm the practice lead for corporate travel at Acquis Consulting Group. I myself am a huge travel enthusiast and a very, very frequent business traveler. We're recording this podcast on May 15th, and I think I've flown almost 40,000 miles just this year. Not mileage the qualifying miles, but physical distance, which I think is important to note the difference. I love this topic because I think I've seen so many changes at airports, hotels, expense reports, things like that. Excited to jump in and talk about it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I am not as prolific a traveler as you, but it's starting to pick up again. I've had two international flights in less than three weeks to two different locations, and I'm noticing a lot about what you're talking about. In my most recent flight, I actually got called to the desk at the gate to ask if I would swap seats with someone, and I was really taken aback because of course I had a middle seat at the time and I said, "They want my middle seat?" And it was because the family was broken up, they couldn't get seats together. They took whatever they could get, and then they were just asking people throughout the flight, "Could somebody switch with this person?" I'm seeing a lot of crowds. I'm knowing that travel is back, both business and personal, but I'm curious from you, what changes are you noticing in airports? Because I'm noticing a lot of changes.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, I feel like traveling these days is like playing travel Hunger Games, if you've read the books or seen the movies. And I don't think it's necessary, that has a negative connotation, but I don't necessarily think it's bad. Personally, I love that airports are full again. It's a sign of so many positive things. I love that. I mean, even the economy aside, I love that. We're seeing more children and families traveling, I think it's just a wonderful experience. From a business travel perspective, I think it's gotten a little bit more challenging. I was on a trip a couple of weeks ago and I had a layover in Salt Lake City. And it took me 30 minutes to get into the lounge because the line was so long, but everywhere was packed. Even if I wanted to just grab a snack, it was early because I had a connecting flight from Palm Springs very early in the morning, but the bagel place was packed.</p>
<p>I could have picked something up, but there was nowhere for me to sit. In my mind I was like, "Well, I guess I should just wait here because my layover was three and a half hours." I was at JFK last week, and the line to get into the lounge must have been 70 people deep. But I'm seeing it even on flights. You're seeing fully business women and men and people dressed in complete business clothes trying to work at their tiny little seats, which I think in years past, they were typically in first class or premium economy or whatever class of service on your airline of choice. There's certainly a significant change in volume of travelers and just how we're making it work.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I think you're right. I've noticed the same thing too, right? I've noticed every time that I go into a club, all the business section is taken up. There's very few places to sit or even plug anything in because there are so many people. They have the privileges based on credit cards or they've bought a day pass or whatever it happens to be. And there's been a couple of times where I've actually found it's been quieter and more peaceful at the gate to get my work done. I don't necessarily like to do it there because it's out in the wide open and I don't want anybody to see what I'm working on, but it's still starting to show that way. And when I think about this from a business perspective, how are travel managers hitting this type of problem now? Are they paying attention to it? Do we even know if they're aware of what's happening for their business travelers?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think a lot of the conversations I've had are about bringing all the pieces together. Because that's truly what a traveler experience is. Considering all pieces of this journey you're going on. From the point in time where you decide, "Hey, I need to go on this trip," all the way through to when you're reimbursed or your corporate card is paid off for the expenses on the trip. And I'll answer this in a roundabout way, but a number of years ago I used to be a sourcing consultant for a company. And one of the things that we would always look for when we were doing RFPs or even doing onsite visits, I love that you brought up outlets.</p>
<p>But it was such a big thing in 2015 where when you went to a hotel, there had to be an outlet next to the bed and it was very specific, but not a lot of hotels had it. And so if they didn't have it, they were immediately thrown out of the process. And I take that detail because we would be so mindful in the hotel RFP process about this aspect of an experience. I mean, we would move mountains to make sure that happened. But right now I think travel managers are catching up to understanding how to capture these level of details in every aspect of the traveler experience, while also maintaining compliance, cost control, and just the general meeting, the KPIs they have to. In many ways a lot of the questions that I'm asking people and also the conversations I'm forcing people to have are like, "What are the goals of this trip? And how do you want someone to experience this trip? Is it having the most cost-effective trip? Is it having the most productive trip? Is it having the most convenient trip?"</p>
<p>Because those can all be different things. And so we're encouraging travel managers to think through what's most important to them, and then that way you're able to prioritize. Speaking specifically to the airport experience. A lot of what we've talked about is does it make sense to buy lounge passes that you give to frequent travelers, especially if they have a layover longer than three hours. Doesn't make sense to add that into your expense policy, but it's okay to do that if your layover is X amount of minutes or you arrive very early and your meeting is not until 4:00 p.m. but you've landed in Atlanta at 10:30 a.m. You're better off sitting in the lounge and maybe taking a shower there and then waiting and then taking your car to your business location. But we're trying to figure out how to categorize different types of travelers to enable us to think through what makes most sense for their trip.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up. Would you mind delving a little bit into the travel persona way of travel manager identifying who their travelers are, and how to best service that particular person within their organization?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. This is one of my favorite topics, and I think it's so interesting. Because a persona essentially, it's like an avatar. When you create a little bitmoji on your phone and you decide with your hair and your glasses and all of that, I look at it very similarly. There are many personas in travel, but there's three that I always think about. One is the new entrant to travel. Typically, our youngest workers, the newest recent college grads, millennials, gen Z, things like that, they typically are bleisure travelers. They care a lot less about where they're staying. Their loyalties are less important to them in terms of hotels and airline affiliations. Because they just want to get where they need to get and they want to be able to see their friends on the weekend or take advantage of this beautiful city that they've had the opportunity to travel to. And that's one type of persona.</p>
<p>There's another type of persona where they are, I call them the space cadet, if you will. They're just unaware of what's available to them. It's not that they're trying to be non-compliant or they're trying to do things wrong, they're just lost, and it happens. And then you tell them to do it and they're like, "Oh, I didn't know that." It's frustrating for a travel manager because they've probably received no less than 3,000 emails about this topic. But a little bit out to lunch, a little in outer space.</p>
<p>And then the third one, I like to call the pirate who, I guess I shouldn't go on record saying this, but here we are. I'm definitely the pirate where I'm like, "I'm just going to book whatever makes sense for me. I need to be here, then I'm going to go here. And then we're just going to figure it out afterwards."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Don't be like me. That's bad. There are many like me that exist.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I was going to say, you're a frequent traveler. You know what you like. You're doing this so often. The number of miles that you've put in so far this year in five months is really astonishing. Why wouldn't you be a pirate in that sense? Why wouldn't you take the ability to travel the way that you need to travel in order to accommodate your yourself? Because there's a lot of travel happening for you and you're putting yourself out there. I don't want to say it's an inconvenience, it's part of work, but it also bleeds into your personal life in a really great way.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I think you hit the nail on the head here. Because your original question is, how do travel managers think about this. I think it's about building a program that might not be as traditional as we've looked at in the past. There is a way to build programs where you're offering multiple options to your travelers. At the end of the day I think that it's really important to travel managers to know where their travelers are, that they are making cost-effective decisions, maybe not the cheapest. I think it's important, it's an important but subtle nuance, and that they're able to be productive and effective on their trips. I think the ROI of travel, and we don't have enough time to get into that today, but it's something that's so topical at the moment and we're constantly discussing, "Was this trip worth it?" But I don't know that we're ever going to figure that out until we build programs where people feel comfortable and empowered to book travel they want to do without being non-compliant.</p>
<p>When I think about these personas and how we build programs, I think we want to think about how to build them without creating additional friction. It's to reduce friction. How can we be creative in leveraging the tools that we have? How can we leverage our online booking tool solution to provide the maximum number of options to our travelers? Perhaps we need to revisit our travel policy to say, maybe you don't need to have such restrictive conditions where someone's going off the deep end and booking direct with the airline, rather than just showing all of the options available to them through the booking tool. Or maybe we loosen limits on expense reports a little bit. I can't remember what I read the other day, but it was basically showing, it wasn't directly related to travel and expense, but it was about cognitive decision making. Where when you give someone just a little bit of wiggle room, the likelihood of them adhering to the new policy or the new update is exponentially higher than just saying you just rejecting outright that they can't go over a certain amount.</p>
<p>If you apply that to travel, if you say you have a $50 limit and we will never reimburse you for over $50, versus saying, "You know what? Let's say up to 70, let's do up to 70." You have some wiggle room, people will more frequently be compliant to that. I think if we can continue to think through and learn about how travelers are traveling, these bleisure travelers, for example. How can we enable them to book multi trip stops, or multi-stop trips in a way that they can have their bleisure experience but still use all the tools? How do we collect feedback after a trip? Is it an email? Probably not. No one's going to answer an extra email, but maybe we're watching the steps leveraging some of these amazing digital technologies that we have available to us, so we can understand how people are interacting with the solutions that we're enabling. And all of that fits into building out these personas and building a more comprehensive program that can achieve both goals on both sides.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>And when you talk about these programs and getting this information, I know a lot of times people are concerned with data privacy. And being too nosy, for lack of a better term. Where does this type of collection of data fit into a GDPR policy? Knowing what I like and what I want and almost reading my mind about it, how does that fit? Where does this fit in the entire business world?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I love this question, because I think it's such an important conversation to have. I'm going to answer the question within an analogy. When I went to grad school or business school at NYU and one of the classes I took was this advanced strategy course. And in the course we had to pick a company and just understand everything about it. How has it been profitable? It had to be a profit positive company for at least eight years at that point or something like that. Just based on okay, obviously they're doing something right.</p>
<p>My team chose the company Inditex, which most people would probably know as the parent company to the store ZARA among a number of other stores. ZARA is a fast fashion company and they produce the highest number of articles, unique design clothing out of any store in the world ever in the history of fashion by almost three and a half times. So, ZARA on average produces about 10 to 11,000 unique designs of clothing each year. And in second place is H&M, which is around 2,500 to 3,000. The reason I bring this up is because ZARA actually creates a lot of their designs and funnels through their designs because of data collected in stores from their shoppers. Their people are actually trained to collect data points and information on the happenings in their store. The way that they do that, and maybe the next time you walk into a ZARA, just be aware of how things are set up, how things are folded. I mean, every little thing counts, the way the shoes are facing, the way the bags are labeled.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>They'll count how many times something has been ruffled through. Obviously they have the hard data of which products have been purchased the most frequently, which have been asked about. The sales associates are also trained to watch people in the store. To see where are they spending the most amount of time, where are they not, which section was most messed up, which one was most messed up? Who sold the most stuff? Which sizes were sold most frequently? What's interesting about that is, none of that is personal information. There's no name, there's no age, there's no gender, there's no credit card, there's no nothing.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Every piece of data they've collected has been from observation and things that have been physically touched in their store. When I think about travel and extrapolate that back to customer experience, there are ways that you can collect that type of data. There are software solutions where you can track how people are moving on a website.</p>
<p>Many companies engage this or employ these types of technologies because essentially what they do is they understand where the jump off point is on their page. Where are they getting confused? We can do that with our solutions. Its non-invasive, there's nothing invasive about your personal information. It doesn't record anything. It's purely just seeing what your habits are. There are ways that you can implement surveys in subtle ways throughout a type of journey. There's also multiple ways to collect feedback at every point on a trip. If you have phone-based application, you can integrate certain widgets and things like that to just ask you, "How's this going for you today?" Or it's checking to see how much time, a time in motion study is an incredibly powerful tool.</p>
<p>When you're thinking about all of these data points that you can collect, I mean the list is never ending. I think what I'd encourage travel professionals to do, is to be more creative. You don't need to know the name of the person to know what their preferences are. You can figure out their persona based on how they're behaving on the tools that they're using. I think there's a lot of ways to do that. I'm sorry it was a very long-winded answer, but I think the ZARA analogy actually makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>It does, and I think about that. If you look at the way that I travel, I live in a city where the airport is not necessarily good for nonstop flights. And I know that every time that I go to look for international flights, I will actually drive to another international airport that has more options for me. And what I've been noticing lately is that as I start to do that and as I start to look at those things, my search patterns are changing. And so it's something that my travel manager could probably run some data on and say, "She's really traveling outside of Charlotte more than she is of Charleston. And so maybe we should be pushing more of those Charlotte trips and maybe we should be giving her a couple more things that happen in the Charlotte area to push her to there because the flights are cheaper or they're nonstops that we see that she's doing and it saves us for sustainability."</p>
<p>And there's so many different things that it hits on that it might actually be a great way for them to use the data that's in the system to show exactly how I travel. Because you'd be able to see a record of that. You'd be able to tell my persona pretty darn quick.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Oh my gosh. I mean, there's also so many organizations out there now that use predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to determine how you fly. I think it's a controversial topic, but I'm a huge believer in that more and more will be blockchain enabled in the future. I think travel is the perfect market for something like that for many of the reasons we're talking about today. But I do see a world in which business travelers can go onto an AI bot and say, "Hey, I need to travel. My name is <strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>. I need to travel for business on Tuesday, May 16th to Chicago for two nights. Send me my itinerary, please. I want to fly this airline and I need to stay in a Marriott hotel."</p>
<p>And I feel very confident that in the short term we're probably going to have a solution where within 10 minutes I have a fully booked itinerary in my email. And all I had to do was just type in where I was going and how. I'm sure I would be on my airline of choice. I would be sitting in a window seat, because I'm a window seat person as close to the front of the plane as possible. I'm a crazy person, so I travel first flight out as frequently as possible, no matter how early it is. I'm sure all of those things, which I won't have to tell this artificial intelligence bought any of these things, because they'll just have all that information.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. Well, it's funny. Some of that is available now, when I book my flights, my Concur knows that I like an aisle seat. I do like it at the front of the plane. There's all different preferences that I prefer, a low sodium meal, all those kind of things. It's really nice to have those preferences I prefer that I really enjoy. I think you're right, that is coming. There is one thing though that we haven't talked about. We've danced around it, but I think about travel as a retention strategy or a benefit. As we're talking about these personas and getting a better idea of who our travelers are, how they like to travel, what they're traveling to and from, I think this becomes a huge piece of recruitment and retention. And I don't think it's something that we've ever thought about as a benefit, until now. Have you been seeing this trend within organizations, done any research around that?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I have done research around this and I think it's actually shifted pretty significantly in just the last couple of years. At a Concur Fusion in 2021, I talked about this topic, largely around the great resignation at that time. I'm sorry, not 2021, 2022. And the point that we were making in 2022, early in the year, leveraging data from the prior two years was actually the opposite, where travel was actually a reason that people were resigning because of the hesitation and the concern around travel and the idea that they had more recently been able to relocate to places closer to family, maybe out of big cities. The flexibility of working from home at that point had finally set into being a good thing as things were reopening and we were kind of emerging from some of the darkest times of that period.</p>
<p>Now I'm seeing a flip because of the way companies operate. A lot of companies are either fully remote or they have some type of hybrid, but what I'm seeing more and more of, and Ralph Colunga actually cited this in one of the articles he recently published for Concur about how a lot of the newer generations like the idea of being able to work wherever they are and have flexibility, but they want the optionality of being able to travel into their home office, or to meeting their colleagues a few times a year. This all hands concept, these annual meeting concepts are becoming much bigger and bigger and bigger. And I mean, Concur has a number of very cool solutions to plan these types of meetings very easily. And you're seeing that become more and more prevalent. I'm talking about these solutions with my customers frequently to enable this type of in-person interaction.</p>
<p>I'm seeing it more and more. I actually, I have a younger cousin, she's 25, she lives in Seattle. She currently works for a massive software company as a software engineer. And she's looking for another job right now. And the reason that she's looking for another job is because she doesn't get to travel on her current one. Yeah, she has a bunch of friends who work for these really cool startups and FinTech organizations and other technology companies, and they'll get stipends to do a week in some cool location. They'll get $1,000, for example, to go work in Hawaii. Just to have a little bit of a mental break, but also that they're encouraging you to get out and do something different. These are tangible, and these are big companies. And some of them are small too, startups that are allocating very limited funds to this type of mentality.</p>
<p>So absolutely, I think it's become a point of retention. And I also love why. I think that we're learning a different way of collaborating with people. And I think it's in just a much more human way, which is like we need to have our space and we need to be able to live our lives in the way we want them, but work is still work and we spend a lot of time with our colleagues. And it's nice to see that we're finding ways to encourage and enable this type of collaboration and to build community in a way that's maybe not what we thought of or grew up with traditionally, but is now becoming a new way of living and working.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I love that. I like that idea of this stipend and having people work from wherever they want. And it does become an enormous tool for retention as your cousin is clearly showing. I know from my daughter it's a big thing, the ability to travel and see friends and do some leisure travel. Because when you think about having to replace somebody, if they're leaving because of those type of restrictions that you're talking about somewhere around maybe 50 to 60% of that person's salary being the replacement cost.</p>
<p>Sometimes those overall costs around it, not just replacing that person, but then the disruption that it causes to your organization, the retraining, the amount of time that it takes to get them up and running and get them into a sweet spot of productivity, now you're talking closer to 90 to a 100 to even 150% of what that person is actually making in lost revenue in time across all people. So, it becomes a huge way of keeping somebody happy for what may seem like a princely sum of money to begin with. But when you start to add in all the benefits and the salaries and everything else, it's actually a minimal cost for a company to keep somebody happy that way.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>It is. And I think this also goes back to what we were talking about earlier, it's understanding who your travelers are. I mean, I know we're on a podcast and it's difficult to ... You can't see a picture, but something that I've been trying to visually express to people is for decades we've looked at the traveler journey in a linear way. There's your pre-trip, on trip, post-trip, and I mean, how many times have you heard a solution described that way? If I had a dollar for every time, I'd have a very expensive shoe collection, but it's not linear. In fact, it looks like Pollock painting, stuff splattered all over the place. And it's just, it's different. And that's okay. That doesn't make it bad, it just makes it what it is. And I think that we've tried to fit a square peg in a round hole, and that's probably where a lot of our challenges with compliance and leakage and complaints about solutions have come into play over the years.</p>
<p>But the reality of the situation is that if we can be more understanding and now leverage some of these new age technologies to understand what people really want, we can do exactly that, which is what you're saying is avoid some of these, not just cost, but is it worth losing a really high potential valuable employee because they want to travel a little bit more? I mean, I look at my cousin and she graduated top of her class from a university in software engineering with honors. She's been an all-star performer and she wants to leave because she can't travel as frequently for her job. Or she feels like she can't go spend two weeks in Hawaii with all of her friends when they rented a house and decided to, "I'll just work there." Because she has to go into the office once a week to work in an office by herself, because they don't even work in the same room.</p>
<p>And so things like that seem so shortsighted to me. I understand there's a lot of business decisions around it, but I think we need to just be spending more time on understanding these personas. I also think that, this is a conversation I have with travel managers frequently. A lot of the pushback I get when we talk about things like this is that no one's really listening to me. They're only concerned about the bottom line of travel. They're so concerned about the bad experience they had calling the agency to get a change on their flight. And it's very narrow-minded, not because they're not understanding, but because people, travel is very personal. I think it's difficult. When your P2P system breaks, no one's taking that personally. They're like, "We need to figure out a better solution." When your flight is delayed, you think that you're the only person that it's happening to because you're experiencing it in a very personal way.</p>
<p>And I think that we just need to be a little bit more mindful of how we are articulating this to broader parts of the organization. And I think this is such a cool opportunity for travel managers to take this incredibly valuable data and information they have on our people who are the most valuable asset to any organization, and say, "Hey, this is what our people want. This is how they're expressing it. How can we work together to make our organization better? What are things that we can do operationally, financially, just tactically to make this a better place to work?" Especially in a job market like this where it's so competitive. This is a very unique opportunity to level up a role as a travel manager as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>This ties back to that idea of the different travel personas you were mentioning that you were a pirate. I would argue that you're not necessarily a pirate, you're just trying to humanize your travel. Travel is so definitively personal. I think in some cases it's even more personal than how much you make. It affects every part of your life. It affects every part of you. And so what you're really trying to do is to humanize travel, not necessarily through the personalization. You're not trying to buck any trends within the organization. You're not trying to flaunt any policies. You are just trying to live as a human. You're no longer a statistics that's just moving through the airport. You're a person who is having to do something on behalf of someone else.</p>
<p>And I think that's where we come down on this travel process and the way that we're traveling now. We have to start to remember, we're no longer just numbers moving through an airport. We're no longer just numbers sitting there waiting after our flight has been canceled and there's no other flights. And we're desperate to try to find an airport hotel that will take us for the overnight so we can get into that next flight the next day. We're just people trying to do the best that we can.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I agree. The one thing I will say to anybody listening to this podcast is, just remember when your flight gets canceled or there is a delay, whoever you're reaching out to or asking for help, it is not their fault this happened, so please be nice. I would say the worst of people at airports, I think it's everybody's manners just get checked at the door. I'm not sure what happens, and a flight gets canceled. And my friends often joke, they're like, "You're not that relaxed of a person in general, but you're such a relaxed traveler. It's so much fun to travel with you." And I always tell them, I'm like, "It's because nobody in this airport, unless they're actively being rude to you, has any control about what's about to happen on this flight."</p>
<p>Hotels I think are a little bit different. But once you step in, the gate agent, if the pilot timed out, that is not their fault. They are just doing their best, so you screaming at them about not having an update is not going to help. Your flight's delayed for three hours because a part broke, wouldn't you rather be on the ground still? I would. I think it's really important to remember that side of it too, that, I mean, I've just, I'm sure Jeanne, you've seen some stuff. And I just look at that, look up and I'm like, "We just all, as my mom says, just eat a banana and take a walk and try again."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>I take the walk, I don't eat the banana. But I take the walk and I go down to the nearest coffee shop in the airport and I just buy a slew of coffee drinks, and then I head back to the gate and I hand them out to the people behind the counter, because they are probably having an awful day. And it makes me feel better to make them feel better, even though I'm sitting in this airport trying to get somewhere desperately. You're right. For me it's a wellness thing and a mental health thing for myself to do that. I know it affects other people, but it just makes me feel better that I could help them feel better, because they don't have any control over that situation.</p>
<p>And I think about that a lot, that the mental health of our travelers, especially our business travelers with many of the things you're talking about, flights are delayed because the crew is timed out. We've got weather, we've got all sorts of craziness happening. We've got storms, we've got whatever it happens to be. And we're not always well-equipped within the policy to help with that wellness of a person who's stranded at an airport. It would be nice to be able to get a massage at the airport when you're having to wait because your flight has been delayed for four and a half hours, but that isn't covered by the policy. Those kind of things, again, going back in, it really makes a difference for your travelers to help them stay well on the road as well.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I mean, there's so many, and we didn't even get into this, the wellness options available to us. I think it's really cool what we're seeing on a number of airplanes since we've talked a lot about air travel in particular today, I've noticed on, I'm loyal to one particular airline and they recently introduced a partnership with Peloton. And so in flight you can do breathing exercises or short meditation exercises from your head back entertainment. And I did a couple and I was like, "This is actually really cool." One of them was a breathing exercise and the other was a mini workout. I'm more of a Barry's gal, so I like the boot camp, so this workout wasn't quite doing it for me, but it was still very cool. Something to stretch a little bit without being disruptive to my neighbor.</p>
<p>I've noticed that the options at airports in general have become slightly healthier. I'm based in New York City, so I fly in and out of JFK a lot, and there's salad vending machines now. And even in the lounges or at the restaurants I'm finding so many more options of being able to take care of myself if I choose to do so. I'm more of a Shake Shack and couple glasses of wine gal, but-</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Well, Minnie deserves that now. And again,</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>If I were a green juice and salad person, there are multiple options available to me, which I don't think there were in the past. Not in the same quantity.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>There weren't, there weren't. But everything in moderation. A Shake Shack and a couple of glasses of wine is really fine, as long as on the other end you pick up a couple of pieces of fruit and maybe a handful of nuts.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>And I try to do that, but sometimes there's nothing better than a burger and a chardonnay every now and again. But-</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I do appreciate that just in general as an industry we are making changes and tangible and measurable changes to focus on the wellness part also, because that directly bleeds into everything else we're talking about. It bleeds into productivity. It bleeds into retention. It bleeds into honestly compliance. I think when people are happier with the experience they're having, they're like, "Okay, maybe I don't need to go rogue." It's almost like being insubordinate at points of actively choosing not to use the solutions available to you because you think you can do it better. I think it's very cool that we're doing that, but there's still some ways to go, but.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah, I know that I could talk to you for a very long time, but we do have to wrap it up. I do want to thank you very much for your time today, Hansini. This has been really an exciting conversation for me anyway, and I hope at some point you'll come back and we can talk a little bit more about the things we didn't get to cover.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma</strong>:</p>
<p>I will come back anytime and chat with, Jeanne. Thank you, this is so fun.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion</strong>:</p>
<p>Yeah. Well, and thank you all for listening as well to this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast. To hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of business travel, expense, and invoice processing, please be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And join us again for our next SAP Concur Conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a>, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Let’s Bust Some Myths Regarding AP Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lets-bust-some-myths-regarding-ap-automation
2023-06-16T11:17:01Z
2023-06-16T10:59:20Z
We dispel four common misconceptions around accounts payable automation.
<p>Accounts payable (AP) automation has helped many businesses change the way they work for the better, not just through digitizing paper but also to ensure better spend controls are in place. Despite this, there are still many common misconceptions around the use of technology when it comes to supplier invoicing. </p>
<p>Businesses that rely on paper-based systems are prone to errors, at risk of fraud and don’t have full visibility of an organization’s outgoings. This can prevent businesses from growing and reaching their full potential. </p>
<p>Some organizations are holding back from implementing automation because they don’t realize the benefits of using technology. Whether it’s breaking up bottlenecks in your processes or streamlining and optimizing them, automation can help you create moments that make your business run better.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look at some of these common misconceptions and find out why they are just myths. </p>
<h3>Myth one: I will lose my job</h3>
<p>It’s a common misconception that automation is synonymous with job loss and that technology will take over people’s roles within their organization. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, automation takes away the mundane day-to-day tasks that bog down AP teams, like manually inputting data into spreadsheets or cross-referencing paper invoices. This then gives them a chance to work on projects that they enjoy and spend time on value-adding tasks that will help to grow the business. </p>
<p>Ask yourself “Are you and your AP team reviewing debt balances, invoice aging and prepayment accounts on a monthly basis?” These are all important tasks that AP teams should be focusing on. By investing in AP automation, you can help your AP team realize their potential. Not only that, but you’ll have time to negotiate new discounts, involve your AP team in cash forecasting and bring some money back into the business.</p>
<h3>Myth two: Size matters</h3>
<p>In short, no it doesn’t, at least not when it comes to benefitting from technology. Whether your business is public or private, it’s never too small to justify automating manual tasks and strengthening controls. By automating now, you can be confident that you’ve invested in a solution that will scale as you grow and you’ll be supported at every step as your business’s needs become more complex.</p>
<p>Similarly, no organization is too big to benefit from technology either, even if you think your processes may be too complex. AP automation can help streamline those difficult processes while adhering to any local requirements. On top of this, employees can become more flexible in the way they work through using a mobile app and support is offered no matter what time zone your offices are in. </p>
<h3>Myth three: It takes too long to implement</h3>
<p>It’s a very common misconception that AP automation takes months to implement and it’s complex and clunky, but this isn’t the case. One of the major benefits of cloud technology is how easy and fast it is to implement. In most cases, implementation takes weeks, not months. Cloud technology itself is built ready-to-go, but involvement from you is required for the fine tuning and to make sure all your requirements are met.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is you’re not alone on this journey. We offer support right from purchase, to onboarding, to implementation and beyond. You’re in the hands of people who do this day in and day out and we’ll guide you through the process so you can be confident that adoption rates will be high. </p>
<h2>Myth four: It’s too expensive </h2>
<p>Before concluding that AP automation is too expensive for your business, first consider how much your current manual process are costing you, both in time and money. Finance technology can help businesses shine a light on areas where manual processes have previously had hidden costs. Once you have visibility of spend across your business, you can identify areas that need improvement and create a plan to streamline and optimize relevant processes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/automated-management-financial-and-accounts-payable-operations-value-snapshot">SAP Concur customers typically see</a> a three-year ROI of 634% and break even on their investment in four months. So, although investment in AP automation might seem like a lot to begin with, the return on your investment goes far beyond just monetary gain to include more far-reaching opportunities and benefits.</p>
<p>When business leaders get caught up in these common misconceptions, it stops them from being able to take their AP team to the next level because they’re stuck spending time completing mundane tasks. With AP automation, you’ll be able to make informed decisions based off real data that’s captured in real time. To find out how SAP Concur solutions can work for your business, try our Concur Invoice <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice"><u>self-guided demo</u></a>.</p>
Sonia Nash
Capturing Multi-Channel Bookings Made Simple with Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/capturing-multi-channel-bookings-made-simple-with-concur-triplink
2023-06-16T11:30:00Z
2023-06-16T09:45:56Z
Concur TripLink users and experts share how TripLink makes it easy to capture outside bookings and allows their travelers access to the best content at the best rate.
<p>In this brief video, real <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> users and experts share how TripLink makes it easy to capture bookings made outside your managed travel platform. They explain how this flexible solution allows their travelers to access the best content at the best rate, including NDC content. Hear their story in the video above or read the transcript below: </p>
<p><strong>Cathy Sharpe, director, strategic sourcing, global travel and expense management services, Illinois Tool Works (ITW):</strong> When we came out of the pandemic, all of a sudden there was this big travel boom, and Concur TripLink really gave us a bird's eye view. And we have always strived to ensure that we bring the best possible experience to our employees.</p>
<p>When one of our employees books on a airline or hotel website, that information flows directly into SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Glenn Hollister, vice president, sales strategy & effectiveness, United Airlines: </strong>So United was the first airline actually to implement Concur TripLink. With corporate travel and business travel being so important to us, we feel it's always important to be innovative and to be answering our customers' needs.</p>
<p><strong>Ed Phillips, university travel manager, Michigan State University:</strong> We use Concur TripLink at Michigan State University. So we have this generation, this rising generation, and they are mobile savvy like you can't believe. And by our understanding what the features and benefits are of <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a>, of Concur TripLink, of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a>, and how efficient that makes the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">request</a>, the booking, the expense reconciliation processes, that only enables us to offer better products to our end users.</p>
<p><strong>Hollister: </strong>It's really hard to run a managed travel program when you don't know where your people are going or how much you're going to spend. Some programs find it really useful just for capturing leakage.</p>
<p><strong>Sharpe:</strong> You can't manage what you can't see. You can't negotiate with what you don't know either. So there's been a great benefit to really roping in all of that spend and being able to leverage it.</p>
<p><strong>Hollister:</strong> We have content on our website and our app that we cannot push through EDIFACT.</p>
<p><strong>Sharpe:</strong> When I go to a Marriott website or United or American Airlines website, I want to see the best that they have to offer. Now, with NDC around the corner, we want to make sure that we're getting the best content at the lowest rates.</p>
<p><strong>Hollister:</strong> So travelers ultimately get more choice and better price points using Concur TripLink and shopping on united.com than they would in traditional channels.</p>
<p><strong>Sharpe:</strong> I think a lot of travel buyers don't really know that you can push your Concur TripLink data directly to your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care</a> provider.</p>
<p><strong>Phillips:</strong> So that now the data is captured at the time of booking, so we know where they are should a catastrophic event occur.</p>
<p><strong>Hollister: </strong>I think <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">travel managers</a> absolutely have to think of themselves as innovators, because in most companies they're the only people who understand the travel ecosystem well enough to actually figure out what innovation could happen and how to make it work.</p>
<p><strong>Sharpe:</strong> If I was talking to somebody who was on the fence about turning Concur TripLink on, I would tell you that you should try it. Try it, and check and see what pearls of wisdom you derive from that.</p>
<p>And it's going to make you better for it and it's going to make your travelers better for it too. It's an omnichannel, if you will. And we believe in it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ready to learn more? See <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/concur-triplink-demo-bite">how Concur TripLink works</a> in our brief demo bite. <br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Are the Main CFO Challenges and How Do You Solve Them?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-main-cfo-challenges-and-how-do-you-solve-them
2023-07-27T03:24:45Z
2023-06-16T09:27:46Z
Learn the five key challenges CFOs need to overcome, and how SAP Concur solutions can support these goals.
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<p>Finance leaders have always felt a heavy responsibility for financial success. Ask one today, and they will likely confess to never feeling more pressure to find ways to improve their business.</p>
<p>They must grapple with some of their biggest business challenges – emerging technology, increasing employee demands and supply chain issues – all while optimizing cash flow and undertaking financial planning for long-term growth.</p>
<p>Despite current economic instability and rising inflation, the focus is not just on reduced costs and survival, it’s on identifying opportunities for success in order to reach business goals. <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/pulse-survey/executive-views-2022/cfo.html">53% of CFOs</a> want to increase agility to better operate in a turbulent business environment.</p>
<h2>What are the main challenges for CFOs?</h2>
<p>Before they even try to reach these goals, CFOs and FDs need to overcome five key challenges of:</p>
<ul>
<li>Talent recruitment and retention</li>
<li>Supply chain issues</li>
<li>Complex employee benefits</li>
<li>Improving cash flow</li>
<li>Financial forecast and planning</li>
</ul>
<p>Businesses can improve their financial situation by streamlining their finances whilst building resilience, to ensure they prosper whatever the weather.</p>
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<h5>Five Trends for CFOs to Watch</h5>
<p>What leaders need to consider as they establish priorities for their finance team and their company in the near- and long-term</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch">Get the list</a></div>
</div>
<h2>How do you resolve financial challenges?</h2>
<p>Key to finance management is digital transformation and the automation of expense, travel and invoice processes. A combination of data integration, advanced data analytics and AI helps build resilience. <a href="http://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-05-19-gartner-says-78-percent-of-cfos-will-increase-or-maintain-enterprise-digital-investments-through-2023-even-if-inflation-persists">Gartner predicts</a> that 78% of CFOs will increase or maintain enterprise digital investments through 2023, even if inflation persists.</p>
<p>Let’s look at five of the top business challenges facing the people running the finance team and how finance automation can help tackle them and support long-term success.</p>
<h3>1. How do finance leaders overcome talent recruitment and retention challenges?</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.gartner.com/en/articles/how-executives-can-drive-business-resilience-growth-and-profits-in-2023">According to Gartner</a>, up to 81% of the eligible workforce will be hybrid or remote in the future and turnover will be 20% higher moving forward. The flexibility of hybrid working has increased pressure on finance leaders, who need to ensure productivity and satisfaction (not to mention security) doesn’t plummet and that expenses stay on track.</p>
<p>Equipping finance teams with mobile access to spend management platforms such as SAP Concur solutions enables employees to submit their expenses seamlessly and finance teams to process claims faster – both with reduced stress.</p>
<p>Think about those time-consuming, manual finance tasks that heighten stress levels and generate opportunities for errors and fraud – drastically reducing them with finance automation can have a big impact on the level of talent acquisition and retention.</p>
<h3>2. How do finance leaders overcome supply chain issues?</h3>
<p>The economic turmoil caused by the pandemic has exposed many vulnerabilities in supply chains, including long lead times, material shortages, increasing logistic costs, changing consumer demand and reduced operations due to staff shortages.</p>
<p>By using automated invoice management solutions such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>, which streamlines the accounts payable process for timely supplier payments, finance leaders can evaluate potential supply chain bottlenecks and issues at the press of a button. Businesses realized 11% cost savings through supplier negotiated rates and discounts with SAP Concur solutions in place.<fn value="1">Analysys Mason 2022 Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study</fn></p>
<p>By using additional reporting tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Intelligence</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">Consultative Intelligence</a>, finance leaders get further transparency and insight into payments, enabling them to maintain better relationships with suppliers and negotiate better early payment discounts and supplier rates.</p>
<h3>3. How do finance leaders overcome the complexity of employee benefits?</h3>
<p>The management of employee benefits has become more complex coupled with the need to boost employee satisfaction in order to retain key members of staff. Finance teams must navigate the cost of benefits, digital access to benefits, regulatory requirements, government policies, data security issues, employee productivity, rising salaries and tax implications. Staying up to date with the evolving regulatory landscape and ensuring compliance can be a significant challenge.</p>
<p>One way to alleviate some of these stresses is to implement <a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance">Concur Benefits Assurance by Blue dot.</a> This solution uses innovative AI and ML technology to seek out taxable employee benefits hidden deep within expense reports. Once identified, these benefits are managed according to local regulations, streamlining the process while increasing accuracy and compliance.</p>
<h3>4. How do finance leaders overcome the challenges of improving cash flow</h3>
<p>Streamlined finances and optimized cash flow is a common reaction to economic uncertainty. By effectively managing expenses, identifying cost-saving opportunities and implementing tighter controls, finance leaders can improve cash flow by reducing cash outflows and increasing profitability.</p>
<p>With an automated expense management platform, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, spend data is captured in real time so finance leaders gain visibility into spending patterns, can identify areas where cash outflows occur and take swift action to meet the business’s cash flow objectives.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions also help accelerate the approvals and reimbursement cycle, which helps reduce the risk of cash flow bottlenecks within the organization. Automatic notifications of out-of-policy spending can also reduce cash flow leakage.</p>
<h3>5. How do finance leaders overcome the challenges of financial planning?</h3>
<p>A huge challenge for finance leaders lies in accurately predicting future market conditions, managing uncertainties and ensuring the financial health of the organization.</p>
<p>By turning hidden data into actionable insights, finance leaders gain the tools to drill down into exactly what’s happening across the business, what’s being spent and what needs to change in the future.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions <a href="https://www.concur.com/integrations">integrate</a> with other financial systems for a holistic view of organization-wide spend. This means that CFOs can generate accurate forecasts and project future spend related to employee expenses, which leads to better corporate financial decision making.</p>
<h2>It's time for your business to improve its financial situation</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that it’s time to make digital investments count. <a href="http://www.gartner.com/en/articles/how-executives-can-drive-business-resilience-growth-and-profits-in-2023">Gartner research shows</a> that 89% of boards agree digital is an implicit part of growth strategy, but 81% report they have not made progress toward or achieved their digital business transformation goals.</p>
<p>Senior finance professionals need to embrace digital transformation to reach their long-term business goals. With finance automation, you’ll create a stronger environment within which to focus on these goals and spend less time fighting the fires that come between you and success.</p>
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Lara Edwards
Majority Feel Business Travel Isn’t Offered Equally to All, Survey Finds
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/majority-feel-business-travel-isnt-offered-equally-to-all-survey-finds
2023-06-29T15:21:34Z
2023-06-08T12:34:09Z
Nearly all (94%) business travelers are willing to travel for business, but two-thirds feel they haven’t had equal opportunity.
<p>The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey has served as an annual touchpoint to assess the realities of the business travel landscape, including challenges faced by business travelers, travel managers, and their organizations. Each year’s survey has cast a light on how large-scale issues—COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, and inflation, to name a few—can have granular impact on how business is conducted through travel.</p>
<p>In its fifth year, our survey explores some of the most pressing challenges facing business travelers today, including remote work and equal opportunity to travel. It also revisits a few key themes from the past to gauge where things now stand, including duty of care and LGBTQ+ traveler experiences.</p>
<p>According to our global survey of 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets:</p>
<h5>Nearly two-thirds of global business travelers feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to travel for business compared to their coworkers, and they attribute this primarily to their age, accent, or gender.</h5>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly all global business travelers (94%) are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months, including 67% who are very willing.</li>
<li>In fact, 92% say the future of their career is dependent on successful business travel in the next year, because it’s important for maintaining client relationships (42%) and starting new ones (41%). More than a third (38%) say business travel is important for staying updated on the latest trends, technology, and advancements.</li>
<li>Yet, nearly two-thirds of global business travelers (62%) feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to travel for business compared to their coworkers. Even more U.S. business travelers (72%) feel they haven’t had equal opportunity.
<ul>
<li>Global and U.S. business travelers attribute this to the following reasons:
<ul>
<li>Their age (global: 21%, U.S.: 27%)</li>
<li>Their accent (17%, 23%)</li>
<li>Their gender (17%, 26%)</li>
<li>Their physical appearance (16%, 25%)</li>
<li>Their ethnicity or race (15%, 22%)</li>
<li>Being a parent or caretaker (13%, 18%)</li>
<li>Their sexual orientation (8%, 17%)</li>
<li>Their disability (7%, 14%)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h5>Remote workers say business travel is critical for workplace relationships. Yet, more remote workers feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to take business trips because of where they live or how often they come into the office.</h5>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>More than three in 10 remote workers recognize that business travel is critical to forming meaningful connections with co-workers (38%) and building stronger relationships with managers (37%), compared to in-office workers (27% and 24%, respectively).</li>
<li>However, half of remote workers (50%) say they’re traveling more than they’d like, compared to hybrid (37%) and in-office (29%) workers.</li>
<li>At the same time, more remote workers feel they haven’t had equal opportunity for business travel—77%, compared to 61% of hybrid workers and 52% of in-office workers—because of where they live (20%, 13%, and 13%, respectively) and how often they come into the office (17%, 11%, and 8%, respectively).</li>
<li>It is particularly challenging for remote workers who are parents or guardians: 16% say they haven’t had equal opportunity for business travel because of their status as a parent, compared to hybrid (12%) and in-office (11%) workers. Remote workers are also most likely to decline a business trip due to challenges finding childcare (19%, 14%, and 14%, respectively).</li>
<li>More remote workers say the uncertain economy is affecting their company’s business travel than in-office workers (91% vs 80%), with noted changes including reducing overnight trips (36% vs. 27%), staying in lower quality accommodations (39% vs. 26%), requiring a minimal number of meetings per business trip (35% vs. 23%), and requiring more advance approvals (31% vs. 22%).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h5>Global business travelers still say that health and safety is the biggest threat to business travel—more so than inflation or budget cuts/travel freezes.</h5>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Global business travelers still say that health and safety is the biggest threat to business travel (44%)—more so than international or local conflicts and tensions (34%), inflation (34%), budget cuts or travel freezes (31%), and remote work and virtual meeting options (28%).</li>
<li>That’s not to say that an uncertain economy isn’t having an impact: Travelers have observed budget cuts (40%), reduced overnight trips (32%), staying in lower quality accommodations (31%), emphasis on lower fares (31%), and a minimum number of meetings per business trip (28%) in their organization.
<ul>
<li>Of note, more U.S. business travelers have observed these changes (44%, 36%, 39%, 42%, and 36%, respectively).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Travelers expect their company to allow them to make out-of-policy bookings to ensure their safety (global: 48%, U.S.: 56%), support work-life balance (47%, 53%), book sustainable options (36%, 37%), take bleisure trips (34%, 41%), book for conferences (31%, 46%), and support ideological or lifestyle differences with travel destination (30%, 41%).</li>
<li>Safety (44%) and health (41%) are still the biggest reasons to decline a business trip, more so than feeling burnt out on travel (27%) and challenges finding childcare (15%).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h5>In the past 12 months, more than half of global business travelers have had to change their accommodations because they felt unsafe.</h5>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Fifty-three percent of global business travelers have had to change their accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe, and more than a quarter (28%) have had to change more than once.
<ul>
<li>It’s even higher in the U.S., where more than two-thirds of business travelers (70%) have had to change their accommodations because they felt unsafe, and nearly half (47%) have had to change more than once.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Business travelers, particularly those in the U.S., have experienced unfair treatment on their trips, including:
<ul>
<li>Being ignored by service workers (global: 31%, U.S.: 41%).</li>
<li>Unfair or improper security screening (26%, 32%).</li>
<li>Being asked if they are traveling with their spouse (25%, 34%).</li>
<li>Feeling in immediate danger (23%, 31%).</li>
<li>Being the target of unwanted sexual advances or comments (22%, 36%).</li>
<li>Derogatory language directed at them (20%, 27%).</li>
<li>Fellow travelers assuming they work at the hotel (19%, 29%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Globally, younger generations also feel more uncomfortable. In the past 12 months, almost two-thirds of Gen Z (64%) and millennials (61%) have changed their accommodations for a business trip because they felt unsafe. That’s compared to 40% of Gen X and 15% of baby boomers. In fact, 85% of baby boomers say they’ve never had to use this practice.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h5>The majority of global LGBTQ+ travelers have hidden their sexual identity on a business trip, and more than a third have attributed it to anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the region.</h5>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>More than half (54%) of global LGBTQ+ business travelers say the biggest threats to business travel are health and safety concerns, and 45% would decline a business trip due to safety or social concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world.</li>
<li>That said, most global LGBTQ+ business travelers (90%) have hidden their sexual identity on their business trip, with the top reason being safety and privacy issues (55%).</li>
<li>A little less than half (46%) hid their orientation for business reasons, meaning they felt that their business goals had a better chance of success if they hid their identity.</li>
<li>More than a third (38%) were forced to hide their identity due to anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the region.</li>
<li>In the past 12 months, 82% of LGBTQ+ business travelers have had to change their accommodations because they felt unsafe.</li>
<li>Nearly all (94%) have experienced unfair treatment on a business trip, including being ignored by service workers (45%), being the target of unwanted sexual advances or comments (40%), and unfair or improper security screening (33%).</li>
<li>Ninety-two percent of LGBTQ+ business travelers feel they haven’t had equal opportunity to take business trips compared to their co-workers due to their age (38%), gender (34%), and sexual orientation (31%).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information about the survey, including additional findings, please download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travelers_report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/business_travel_managers_report">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/smb_business-travelers-report-2023">SMB business traveler </a>whitepapers.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by <a href="https://wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 7-28, 2023, among 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</p>
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SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Recognized as a 2023 Top-Rated Software by TrustRadius
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-recognized-as-2023-top-rated-software-by-trustradius
2023-06-14T15:24:54Z
2023-05-30T11:10:15Z
Each month, over a million B2B technology buyers use more than 464,934 verified reviews and ratings on TrustRadius.com to make informed purchasing decisions.
<p>We're excited to share that SAP Concur Travel & Expense has again been named a Top-Rated Expense Management Software in both the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/expense-management">Expense Management</a> and <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/travel-management">Travel Management</a> categories by TrustRadius. What's more, we are honored to earn the 2022 Most Loved Award, granted to products that earned the highest ratio of “love” per review across the entire TrustRadius platform.</p>
<p>Since 2015, the TrustRadius Top Rated Awards have become the industry standard for unbiased recognition of B2B technology products. Each month, over a million B2B technology buyers use more than 464,934 verified reviews and ratings on <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/">TrustRadius.com</a> to make informed purchasing decisions. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are based entirely on customer feedback and have never been influenced by analyst opinion or status as a TrustRadius customer. (To learn more about TrustRadius Top Rated awards, check out the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring">TrustRadius scoring criteria breakdown</a>.)</p>
<p>The 1,300+ <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/products/concur/reviews">reviews</a> from verified users of SAP Concur highlight features like a positive user experience, visibility into budget, mobile receipt capture, and time savings – both when using the product and receiving reimbursements. Reviewers love the way in which it integrates with productivity tools and appreciate the convenience of the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>See what some users think about SAP Concur Travel & Expense in their own words:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>“In implementing SAP Concur we have been able to give our employees a user-friendly system that improved reporting efficiency and reduces their time committed to the administrative struggle of expense reporting.” – <a href="http://trustradi.us/I48V3">SAP Concur Admin</a></li>
<li>“SAP Concur is a great way for employees to record expenses and receipts. The tool is intuitive, and I believe it is helping a lot of employees submit expenses report.” – <a href="http://trustradi.us/RKLHX">SAP Concur User</a></li>
<li>“The expense reimbursement process was manual prior to Concur implementation. It used to take 2 weeks to process expense reports. Implementing Concur has helped to reimburse in 48 hrs of expense report approval.” – <a href="http://trustradi.us/81M3P">SAP Concur User</a></li>
</ul>
<p>“Buyers have a wide range of Expense Management options to choose from,” said Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. “SAP Concur earned a Top Rated award based directly on customer feedback. Reviewers on TrustRadius highlight SAP Concur’s variety of features, customer service, and overall ease of use.”</p>
<p>We would like to say a big “thank you” to all who shared reviews of our products on TrustRadius. Customer experience is a big part of our history and continues to be our passion. Helping you achieve your goals and listening to your feedback is critical to our success.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Take it for a spin in our free </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/"><strong>self-guided demo</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
From Solutions to Support, SAP Concur Meets Your Needs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-solutions-to-support-sap-concur-meets-your-needs
2023-06-14T15:25:07Z
2023-05-24T09:00:00Z
Get the checklist to learn how our solutions provide the flexibility, visibility, scalability, and support that efficient and resilient businesses seek.
<p>Consider, for a moment, how well your business could run and meet today’s challenges:</p>
<ul>
<li>If employees could readily work on the go and weren’t bogged down by manual tasks.</li>
<li>If travel, expense, and invoice management technology grew and adapted with your company.</li>
<li>If you had an accurate and timely view of spending, empowering decisions and improving compliance.</li>
<li>If the technology enabling all of the above was seamless, integrated, and came with support, training, and a commitment to improve.</li>
</ul>
<p>Forrester Consulting recently found that 78% of surveyed decision-makers want a single platform to handle their business’ entire travel & expense process. In addition, 61% said improving their business’ ability to innovate and adapt is a companywide initiative.</p>
<p>Earning market share requires creative products, service to support the technology and the users, and a commitment to evolving as businesses do. In a new checklist, we explore four key ways that SAP Concur and our solutions can free your business to reach its potential.</p>
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<p><strong>4 Reasons to Move Your Business Forward with SAP Concur</strong>,</p>
<p>Get the checklist to learn how our solutions provide the flexibility, visibility, scalability, and support that efficient and resilient businesses seek.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/guides/four-reasons-move-your-business-forward-sap-concur-solutions">Download Here</a></div>
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<h2><strong>Flexibility and freedom for your teams</strong></h2>
<p>By automating T&E processes, you can free employees for more value-adding work, a move especially important with hiring difficult and budgets under pressure. SAP Concur solutions bring travel, expense, and invoice management into one connected platform, with easy-to-follow interfaces and connections to HR, finance, payroll, and other existing systems. They are easy to implement, and new features can be added without overburdening the IT team.</p>
<h2><strong>Solutions that scale with your business</strong></h2>
<p>Cloud-hosted, our solutions are readily adaptable and extendable as your business grows or confronts new challenges. By integrating with finance systems, you can reduce spending blind spots. With a wide range of payment options, you can pay vendors and employees in the way they prefer. A network of apps and partners lets you tackle specific challenges, like Value-Added Tax (VAT) and HST/GST reclaim and recovery, and capture spending that often gets missed, like meals and ride-shares.</p>
<h2><strong>More visibility and control to empower your business</strong></h2>
<p>The processes are automated but customized to your business needs. With dynamic policy controls, you can automate actions based on your business’s unique rules, policies, and industry regulations, while aligning the solution to your workflows. Spending can be analyzed by category, department, or employee, so you can fine-tune processes and spot inefficiencies. You can institute pre-approvals or set audit rules to spot violations before an expense is reimbursed. With hundreds of report options and the ability to customize, businesses gain the tools insights to make better forecasts and decisions.</p>
<h2><strong>Committed customer service</strong></h2>
<p>Your business will get the most from its technology investment if it comes with proper, readily accessible support. SAP Concur deliver personalized customer service and training that’s there when your business needs it. We offer 24/7 service representatives – live ones – and regularly share best practices and other tips for specific industries. Our products adapt to the way your business works instead of the other way around.</p>
<h2><strong>Read on, move forward</strong></h2>
<p>Businesses of all sizes worldwide use SAP® Concur® solutions for their T&E processes. With more than 53,000 customers worldwide and over 80 million end users, Concur Travel and Expense are the world’s most widely adopted corporate (T&E) solutions with 49% market share.<sup>4</sup></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.ca/resource-center/guides/four-reasons-move-your-business-forward-sap-concur-solutions">Get a copy of the checklist</a> to learn how SAP Concur can be a partner in innovating and adapting.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Tough Get Going
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/tough-get-going
2023-05-26T09:00:00Z
2023-05-22T09:26:17Z
7 travel challenges and the strategies peers are using to address them
<h2><strong>Ready to Go: Travel Leaders Take on Change and Challenge</strong></h2>
<p>Yes, business travel has seen more challenges in the last few years than at any other time since the invention of narrower seats in economy class. But instead of sitting down and accepting it, you and your corporate travel peers are standing up to those challenges in all sorts of ways.</p>
<p>And there’s a lot you can learn from each other. Because when you take a minute to dig deeper into the obstacles of modern travel, the first thing you’ll see is that you’re not alone in it. You’ve got thousands of peers facing the same problems and formulating real plans.</p>
<p>SAP compiled the insights from a few of these peers in a recent report: <u><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_challenges">7 Travel Challenges and the Strategies Your Peers are Using to Address Them</a>.</u> It walks you through some familiar territory and a few surprising responses – along with specific examples from travel leaders at Alkermes, Standard Charter Back, ADTRAV, and even SAP, among others.</p>
<p>In the <u><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_challenges">eBook</a>,</u> you’ll find out how fellow travel leaders are:</p>
<p><strong>Getting ready for NDC</strong> by evaluating the current challenges against the current benefits, and by taking a wait-and-see approach through the first few months of NDC growing pains.</p>
<p><strong>Meeting more demand with less budget</strong> by expanding preferred supplier relationships and working with those suppliers to come up with creative solutions.</p>
<p><strong>Creating programs that prove how much they care about their travelers</strong> by teaming up with HR to build competitive, compelling travel programs with perks travelers want most.</p>
<p><strong>Tackling the impacts of work-from-home travel</strong> by modifying policies to ensure remote and mobile workers can confidently manage expenses and travel.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_challenges"><u>eBook</u> </a>highlights the importance of examining (and when necessary, enhancing or extending) travel management systems to address the realities of today’s travel. And showcases the importance of taking a good, hard look at processes to see what can be simplified, automated or, in many cases, tossed out entirely.</p>
<p>It’s a great way to discover the support that’s out there and the strategies you can employ in your own organization. It’s an even better way to find out what tools and technologies your colleagues and counterparts are using successfully.</p>
<p>More importantly, knowing that you’re not the only travel leader facing changing travel norms can go a long way toward standing up to today’s challenges. So when you run into a hurdle, you know you’ve got a wealth of peers and professionals who’d be happy to help you over it. Or at least around it.</p>
<p>And that makes it easier to go through it.</p>
<p>Check out the eBook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_challenges"><u>here</u></a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Cut the Cost and Time of Invoice Processing with Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cut-cost-and-time-invoice-processing-with-automation
2023-06-14T15:25:22Z
2023-05-18T12:29:11Z
With automation, employees access a single platform that manages invoices, payments, and overall spend. All sizes of business can process invoices from email, supplier portal, or other sources, with d
<p>If asked what finance function eats the most time, labor, and paper, you might echo the answer many industry peers gave<sup>1</sup> in a recent survey: accounts payable.</p>
<p>Here are some examples of why AP comes up often and is a target for automation:</p>
<ul>
<li>AP departments lacking automation and consistent processes spend four times as much to handle each invoice – $6.30 vs. $1.45 – as those using full automation and consistent processes.<sup>2</sup></li>
<li>Departments using end-to-end automation and consistent processes can handle more than double the number of invoices per FTE.<sup>3</sup></li>
</ul>
<p>Those are just a few insights from a recent Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM) white paper sponsored by SAP® Concur® that draws on extensive research to discuss the costs of manual and semi-automated processes and ways full automation can reduce inefficiency and risk.</p>
<p>The downsides of handling invoices and payments with outdated processes and tools extend beyond lost productivity. Work is more tedious, making jobs less attractive. Your company has less visibility into where dollars went or are going, hindering decision-making and agility. Control and compliance are harder, raising the chance of fraud and penalties.</p>
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<p><strong>How Automation Reduces the Cost of Invoice Processing and Disbursements</strong></p>
<p>Get the white paper to learn more about the role of automation in lowering costs and achieving visibility.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/use-automation-to-reduce-cost-of-invoice-processing">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<p>All those bad keystrokes, data trapped on paper and PDF, time spent chasing approvals, and other error-inducing and efficiency-sapping factors add up. That’s lost opportunity at any time but especially when budgets are tight, hiring difficult, and work increasingly remote or hybrid. Let’s look at some important ways automation can turn moments of spending uncertainty into moments of confidence.</p>
<h2><strong>Streamlines processes to improve efficiency</strong></h2>
<p>With automation, employees access a single platform that manages invoices, payments, and overall spend. All sizes of business can process invoices from email, supplier portal, or other sources, with data pulled automatically and consolidated. Because the process is mobile-enabled, managers and the AP team can perform their roles from anywhere. Your business can readily see links between purchase orders, invoices, and payments – and gain a better audit trail, too.</p>
<p><strong>Vital statistic: </strong><em>Just 7% of transactions need correction in AP departments with full automation and consistent processes</em>.</p>
<h2><strong>Improves cash flow visibility</strong></h2>
<p>With a clearer picture of cash flow from a timely and better capture of spending, your business can make better-informed decisions about where and when allot its dollars. The finance team will be able to provide leadership the data and insights they’re asking for – because manual work is no longer clogging their days. And with the whole process moving faster, you can take advantage of early payment discounts.</p>
<p><strong>Vital statistic: </strong><em>59% of AP departments plan to automate data capture</em>.</p>
<h2><strong>Improves back-office productivity</strong></h2>
<p>Automation certainly cuts the amount of keying – and related errors – that employees perform. It also can accurately extract data from emails, PDFs, and other sources and match it to receipts and purchase orders. Businesses can integrate data from multiple processes and systems, including ERPs, and consolidate information on cash flow, spending, and operations. With better information and less back and forth for numbers and answers, you can improve both collaboration and productivity.</p>
<p><strong>Vital statistic: </strong><em>57% of AP departments plan to automate purchase order-to-invoice matching</em>.</p>
<h2><strong>Strengthens controls and compliance</strong></h2>
<p>Automated processes can provide greater clarity and accountability than paper ones. Controls allow a business to limit access by role, prevent alterations and deletions that allow fraud, and meet regulatory requirements from tax authorities or other government entities. With real-time reconciliation, you can identify problems quickly. And by paying electronically instead of paper check, you’re reducing the risk of fraud.</p>
<p><strong>Vital statistic: </strong><em>40% of AP departments had multiple cases of attempted or actual fraud last year</em>.</p>
<h2><strong>Delivers more accurate and timely spending data</strong></h2>
<p>Have an employee who regularly overspends or a budget out of whack? Automation allows you to drill down into spending quickly and accurately and stop or adjust it before serious damage is done. You also can see patterns that give the company leverage in supplier negotiations. With one platform integrating AP and travel expense, you gain a view of employee and company spending that lets you manage and learn from it with consistency.</p>
<p><strong>Vital statistic: </strong><em>97% of AP departments that plan to replace current invoice processing and </em><em>disbursement</em><em> systems cite inconsistent process as the primary driver</em>.</p>
<h2><strong>Better understand the costs of outmoded processes</strong></h2>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/use-automation-to-reduce-cost-of-invoice-processing"><strong>white paper</strong></a><strong> </strong>for a broader look at what finance leaders say about automation and the benefits they seek from better processes and technology.<strong> </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Getting Your Company on Board with Automating Company Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/getting-your-company-on-board-with-automating-company-spend
2023-05-31T09:00:00Z
2023-05-18T12:04:00Z
Ready to automate your company’s spend management process but still need to get others on board? Use these tips and talking points to get buy-in on digitizing your company spend.
<p>Most companies are feeling pressure to digitally transform how they do business—to stay competitive, build resilience, and more. But in today’s climate, they also need to get more done with fewer resources—and less money.</p>
<p>That means it could be tough to get other stakeholders at your company on board with investing in finance automation. After all, if your paper-based spend management flow works well enough, why not keep it for now?</p>
<p>If you’re all-in on automating your company’s finance process, but other company stakeholders want more information, we have some helpful tips and talking points to help you get people on board.</p>
<h2><strong>44K+ reasons to automate your spend management</strong></h2>
<p>In a twist on a familiar saying, sometimes you need to spend money to save money. Especially when it comes to building your company's technology infrastructure. And the sooner you can get up and running, the better.</p>
<p>Spend management automation can help businesses quickly start saving money on travel, expense, and vendor invoice processes—seeing positive ROI within 8 months, on average, of adopting the technology, according to the Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study. The study also found that companies that adopted spend automation reported saving an average of $44K yearly on vendor invoice management and $52K yearly on travel and expense management as a result.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more:</strong> <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/automating-finance-on-way-digital-transformation">Automating Finance on the Way to Digital Transformation</a></p>
<h2><strong>What are your company’s goals for digital transformation?</strong></h2>
<p>The shifting economic landscape has made a lot of businesses redefine their long-term strategies, including using automation to improve their processes. The Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study found:</p>
<p><strong>Top finance leader pain points included...</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Incomplete documentation</li>
<li>Fraud/risk management</li>
<li>Difficulty tracking spending trends and behaviors</li>
<li>Employee experience issues with manual expense and invoice management workflow</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The top three expected benefits of digital transformation included...</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Improving business process efficiency</li>
<li>Enabling the business to run successfully whether employees are in the office or working remotely</li>
<li>Making faster progress in digitizing finance processes</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>And the savings reported after adopting SAP Concur solutions for spend management included...</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>28% reduction in excess mileage claims</li>
<li>26% reduction in budget overspending because of increased visibility into spend data</li>
<li>26% increase in tax reclaim</li>
</ul>
<p>You can keep these points in mind when you have conversations with other stakeholders. But it’s also important to acknowledge the issues your stakeholders and their teams are dealing with that spend automation can specifically address.</p>
<h2>Get aligned: Connect with stakeholders' interests </h2>
<p>To get a clearer picture of what your stakeholders’ needs are, ask them how the following benefits could impact their teams in the everyday and the longer term:</p>
<ul>
<li>Streamlining processes, eliminating manual processes, and improving compliance with policies.</li>
<li>Ensuring corporate data security and regulatory compliance, built-in policy compliance, and meeting duty-of-care requirements.</li>
<li>Having clearer visibility into employee spend, financial reporting, and spend management processes.</li>
<li>Getting control over costs and savings through supplier negotiations.</li>
<li>Improving safety, satisfaction, and ease of support for travelers.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Aligning with your finance leader</strong></h2>
<p>Your finance leader or CFO knows your company’s finance process inside and out—including its pain points. They might also already see how the company could benefit from automating its spend management.</p>
<p>So they might not ask, “Why?” but “Why <strong>now</strong>?”—which is a good opportunity to lead with the speed to ROI. In addition, remind them that automation can also help them bridge the gap in finance processes for all work arrangements, gain real-time visibility into cash flow, and keep up on shifting compliance regulations.</p>
<p><strong>Helpful resources for finance leaders include: </strong>the <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Concur Expense ROI Calculator</a> and <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">Concur Invoice ROI Calculator</a>, and the eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Oxford Economics Global + US Report: Leadership in a New Era</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Are you a finance leader looking for talking points to get buy-in from others? Check out: </strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-cfo-can-create-partnerships-and-boost-company-roi"><strong>How the CFO Can Create Partnerships and Boost Company ROI</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<h2><strong>Aligning with your AP team</strong></h2>
<p>With an automated spend management solution, you can connect all your company’s finance applications and platforms for a much more efficient, streamlined process. And when your accounts payable team has an up-to-date view of all outstanding AP items, finance decision-makers have a clearer idea of what decisions need to be made—and when.</p>
<p>AP automation can help your team avoid making late payments, find opportunities to pay earlier for discounted rates, and get insights to help negotiate better rates with vendors.</p>
<p><strong>Helpful resources for AP include:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/invoice-roi-calculator">Concur Invoice ROI Calculator</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/8-questions-ask-about-your-ap-system">8 Questions to Ask About Your AP System</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Are you an AP pro looking for talking points to get buy-in from others? Check out: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-ap-teams-can-create-cross-functional-partnerships-and-boost-company-roi"><strong>How AP Teams Can Create Cross-Functional Partnerships and Boost Company ROI</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<h2><strong>Aligning with your IT team</strong></h2>
<p>Your IT team will play a major role in the company’s transition to full spend automation. Be sure to communicate that cloud-based automation of your finance processes can help your IT team: Centralize finance technology into a single platform, protect company and customer data, and create secure and integrated back-end systems.</p>
<p><strong>Helpful resources for IT include: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Oxford Economics Global + US Report: Leadership in a New Era</a>, a video on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/top-integration-questions-it-leaders">Top Integration Questions from IT Leaders</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/data-security">learn about our world-class security</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Are you an IT pro looking for talking points to get buy-in from others? Check out: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-it-can-help-boost-company-roi-automated-spend-management"><strong>How IT Can Help Boost Company ROI with Automated Spend Management</strong></a></p>
<h2><strong>Aligning with your HR team</strong></h2>
<p>Your human resources leader is familiar with employee pain points and can help determine the best way to use automation to solve these issues. Talk to your HR team about how automating the finance process can benefit the company and its people by: Reducing manual tasks for employees—for submitting and processing expenses and invoices—so they can focus on higher-value and more rewarding work, as well as ensuring duty of care for all employees.</p>
<p><strong>Helpful resources for HR include: </strong>this eBook on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/better-employee-experience-finance-teams">how to make employees happier</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Are you an HR pro looking for talking points to get buy-in from others? Check out: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-hr-can-align-across-teams-better-employee-experience">How HR Can Align Across Teams for a Better Employee Experience</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Connecting your finances, connecting your teams</strong></h2>
<p>When you meet with decision-makers in your company, ask about their challenges and work together to help solve those issues. Take note of who seems clearly ready for change and on board with digital transformation. And be sure to collaborate with the team members who can help you get buy-in across the entire company.</p>
<p>Being a good listener is key to building bridges and finding ways to set up your company—and its people—for greater efficiency and success.</p>
<p>Ready to start a transformation conversation? Feeling stuck in your journey? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Intelligent Travel and Expense Management Drives the Future of Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-intelligent-travel-and-expense-management-drives-future-work
2023-05-12T10:58:20Z
2023-05-12T10:49:56Z
Talk about a balancing act. Businesses hunt for cost savings and efficiency amid inflation, global instability, and other challenges. At the same time, travel is recovering as companies recognize that
<p>Talk about a balancing act. Businesses hunt for cost savings and efficiency amid inflation, global instability, and other challenges. At the same time, travel is recovering as companies recognize that virtual meetings cannot fully replace the relationships – and business – that are built face to face. </p>
<p>Businesses can balance and meet such competing needs by increasing the automation of technology and processes, concludes Forrester Consulting in its new thought leadership paper commissioned by SAP Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">Empower the Future of Work with Intelligent Travel and Expense Solutions.</a> </p>
<p>The benefits of intelligent travel and expense (T&E) solutions not only automate the process but also incorporate artificial intelligence technology to extend benefits beyond productivity, savings, and travel. The intelligent T&E solutions provide better spending visibility, decision-making, and employee experience, according to Forrester, whose analysis and recommendations derive from a global survey of T&E software decision-makers working in finance, travel, IT, or procurement. </p>
<p>Among the many interesting findings: </p>
<ul>
<li>76% of decision-makers say increasing automation to improve efficiency and productivity is a high or critical priority, with two-thirds citing a more automated T&E platform as a way to accomplish that priority. </li>
<li>78% prefer a single platform to manage their T&E processes. </li>
<li>64% report their companies are under pressure to manage costs. </li>
<li>77% believe travel is important or very important to managing customer relationships – and 67% cite its role in obtaining new customers. </li>
</ul>
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<h5>Empower the Future of Work with Intelligent Travel and Expense Solutions </h5>
<p>Read the paper for Forrester Consulting’s analysis of their survey and to see their recommendations for businesses of all sizes. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">Get the paper here </a></div>
</div>
<h2>Current solutions fall short </h2>
<p>When Forrester asked, many respondents readily described how their current T&E solutions fell short. Just over half say they’re stuck with a solution unable to scale and adapt to changing needs, a failure negatively affecting their business. </p>
<p>Other T&E challenges decision-makers mention include difficulty tracking spending (54%), employee frustration with the expense process (59%), and a lack of timely data to make decisions (47%). Looking at the numbers, Forrester observes that there is something seriously wrong when organizations don’t have the data needed to make decisions. </p>
<h2>An integrated travel and expense platform makes a difference </h2>
<p>Insights pop up when Forrester examines how the views of decision-makers at companies with an integrated T&E platform compare with the views of those using fragmented solutions. </p>
<p>For example, respondents working at businesses with fragmented systems are 1.5 times more likely than single-platform peers to struggle with timely visibility into data, processes, and systems. Just 17% of those respondents say their current systems can automatically provide alerts to changes in T&E policies and procedures, vs. 64% of single-platform respondents. And only a quarter say their current solution easily connects to their business’ other systems, as opposed to 60% of those with an integrated platform. </p>
<h2>What they recommend </h2>
<p>Businesses clearly can see the challenges and obstacles current travel and expense solutions place in front of them. </p>
<p>Overall, about a quarter of businesses are what Forrester calls “implementers” – those that have already sought out an integrated T&E platform that’s AI-driven. Others surveyed – 39% – intend to implement an updated solution within a year, while 34% are interested but haven’t yet made plans. </p>
<p>The “implementers” have lessons and gains to share. Nearly 7 in 10 say their spending visibility increased, with 54% finding they can provide insights that drive action. A total of 68% report their integrated platform improves the employee experience, reflecting a better user experience from less burdensome work. </p>
<p>As Forrester recommends, companies wanting to achieve similar benefits should: </p>
<ul>
<li>Develop a business case for an intelligent T&E platform. </li>
<li>Ensure their T&E platform can integrate everywhere you need (and adapt and grow with the business). </li>
<li>Empower your employees through intelligent automation. </li>
<li>Make an important contribution to your organization’s sustainability journey. </li>
<li>Have short-term goals but plan for the long haul. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Read further </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">Get the paper</a> for a deeper look into the recommendations, research, and analysis from Forrester Consulting and discover how your business can grow, improve its culture, and empower the future of work. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Learn How CFOs Can Foster Sustainability, Achieve Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/learn-how-cfos-can-foster-sustainability-achieve-growth
2023-06-14T15:25:37Z
2023-05-12T10:40:15Z
CFO Insights How to Steer Sustainability Performance with a Financial Agenda
<p>Finance leaders seeking to improve both sustainability and growth at their businesses should consider looking closely at how they manage their travel & expense processes and the technology that makes them happen. </p>
<p>T&E is a great place to start when addressing both those challenges, as it provides opportunities for increasing efficiency as well as measuring and influencing your business’s impact on the planet. That’s one takeaway from our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-steer-sustainability-performance-financial-agenda">CFO Insights, How to Steer Sustainability Performance with a Financial Agenda,</a> which is informed by research as well as regional CFOs at SAP. </p>
<p>Businesses, of course, invest in sustainability and other social and governance improvements for many reasons: lowering costs, raising productivity, avoiding financial penalties, and improving brand value. Woven through all those is reducing their environmental impact. </p>
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<h5>CFO Insights: How to Steer Sustainability Performance with a Financial Agenda </h5>
<p>Download the paper to learn ways to convert moments of spending uncertainty into moments of confidence, sustainability, and growth at your business </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-steer-sustainability-performance-financial-agenda">Download Here</a></div>
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<p>The fortunate thing is that an automated T&E solution is well placed to accomplish both growth and sustainability goals. For example, a solution can reduce paper, provide employees sustainable travel options, free employees for meaningful work, and deliver information that measures sustainability and drives better business decisions. </p>
<p>“Measuring financial and non-financial KPIs is critical for turning sustainability into a leading indicator into the overall health of the business,” said Gina McNamara, Chief Financial Officer of SAP Asia Pacific region and Japan “Finance teams can transparently communicate how well the business performs by benchmarking, measuring, and managing T&E data with a comprehensive and flexible foundation of technology, processes, data, and talent.” </p>
<p>Here are three areas that CFOs in SAP offices worldwide suggest focusing on to move businesses forward. </p>
<h2>1. Measure Performance with a Trusted, Flexible Foundation </h2>
<p>Businesses wanting to improve – and measure – their impact have the good intentions. What they often lack are the tools and processes to make it happen. Nearly a third – 31% – struggle to put the right programs and policies in place.</p>
<p>Maybe your finance team already has efficient ways to gather data for sustainability measures and use that information to ensure compliance and satisfy regulatory needs. But advanced analytics and tools can take you past that point and let you move faster and more fully to greener outcomes. One way is to provide travelers with flights, lodging, and meeting locations that are more sustainable choices because they are data-driven choices. </p>
<h2>2. Expand Your Focus from Efficiency Gains to Business Optimization </h2>
<p>CFOs and other finance leaders must perform a balancing act with sustainability and growth. You know the value of travel to building relationships, but also are tasked with gauging and limiting the environmental effects of those trips. And you know employees are concerned, as demonstrated by 49% of business leaders saying employees are highly active in sustainability efforts. </p>
<p>Providing employees the tools to assess and minimize their impacts can be an effective approach in your balancing act. In-app messaging help them make greener choices when make flights, hotels, and other travel options. Electronic receipts can derail the paper trail. Meanwhile, the finance team gains more accurate and timely spending data. All the while, sustainability becomes part of your culture. </p>
<h2>3. Find Value in Every Step of the Sustainability Journey </h2>
<p>It’s natural, though less wise long term, that businesses set aside sustainability strategies somewhat while contending with inflation and other disruptions. But lessening the attention you pay to sustainability can affect growth over time. Maintaining focus is important even with budgets under pressure. </p>
<p>A recent study3 revealed 61% of finance leaders don’t have near-real time visibility into their spending data, a lack of clarity affecting both sustainability and decision-making. Consistently pursuing sustainability measures and investing in intelligent technology can help close that gap and deliver the ability to pursue new markets, innovate, and increase your customer base. </p>
<p>Get a copy of the latest <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-steer-sustainability-performance-financial-agenda">CFO Insights, How to Steer Sustainability Performance with a Financial Agenda</a>, to learn how to achieve both greater sustainability and business growth for your business. </p>
<p>For more CFO insights on how to improve business resilience, read this additional content: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-navigate-inflation-and-other-signs-economic-change">CFO Insights: How to Navigate Inflation and Other Signs of Economic Change</a> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-another-year-uncertainty-cfos-become-paragons-business-resiliency">CFO Insights: In Another Year of Uncertainty, CFOs Become Paragons of Business Resiliency</a>. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2023
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/accounts-payable-automation-trends-2023
2023-05-11T09:00:00Z
2023-05-08T11:12:25Z
Conducted by the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership (IFOL) and sponsored by SAP Concur, the research examined the current state of automation for AP teams worldwide, and uncovered shifts i
<h2><strong>More than 80% of accounts payable teams are still manually keying invoices into an ERP/accounting software.</strong></h2>
<p>This is one of the eyebrow-raising findings to come out of the <strong>2023 Accounts Payable Automation Trends</strong> report.</p>
<p>Conducted by the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership (IFOL) and sponsored by SAP Concur, the research examined the current state of automation for AP teams worldwide, and uncovered shifts in automation and the adoption of AI over the last few years. </p>
<p>The data shows that although AP teams recognize how technology can improve invoice management processes, the rate and speed of automation failed to pick up much pace over the last three years.</p>
<p>This is especially perplexing when you consider that:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li><strong>51%</strong> of AP teams process between 500 and 5000 invoices per month</li>
<li>Over half of AP teams<strong> (56%)</strong> spend more than ten hours a week processing invoices</li>
<li><strong>41%</strong> spend over ten hours a week processing supplier payments</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/accounts-payable-automation-trends-2023">Read the full report</a> to learn more about the accounts payable challenges and opportunities facing businesses of all sizes worldwide, including the top issue caused by poor processes. Hint: it has nothing to do with the bottom-line.</p>
SAP Concur Team
10 Tips for Creating a Duty of Care Program That Supports All Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/10-tips-for-creating-duty-care-program-that-supports-all-employees
2023-09-12T08:52:41Z
2023-05-03T11:47:00Z
Caring for your organization’s most valuable asset – your employees – is not just a “nice-to-have,” but a moral and legal obligation. During times of local and global emergencies, locating and assisti
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<p>Caring for your organization’s most valuable asset – your employees – is not just a “nice-to-have,” but a moral and legal obligation. <a>During times of local and global emergencies, locating and assisting employees can be challenging, whether they’re in-office, work-from-home, or traveling. Organizations need to actively monitor where employees are located around the world at all times, identify those affected at the time of the emergency, and provide assistance in a timely manner.</a></p>
<p>Here are the top 10 tips for creating a <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">duty of care program</a> that supports your employees anytime and anywhere:</p>
<h3><a><strong>1. Identify a Crisis Management Team</strong></a></h3>
<p>If an established crisis management team exists at your company, become an active member. If not, reach out to your various counterparts, in particular your security department, to agree on the proper departmental protocol in the event of a disaster or emergency impacting the company.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Align with Your Travel Management Company (TMC)</strong></h3>
<p>Connect with your TMC regarding their emergency programs and alerts as the first line of communication. Establish 24/7 support services for your global travelers, ensuring no matter where they are, that someone is available to assist or can provide reporting and information about your travelers.</p>
<p><strong>See more: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-transform-your-program-evolution-business-travel">Read How to Transform Your Travel Program for the Evolution of Business Travel</a></p>
<h3><strong>3. Outline an Emergency Contact Procedure</strong></h3>
<p>Develop clear emergency contact information for employees to use in case of a disaster, incident, or health exposure and implement a support solution. <a>Here are some questions you should ask your TMC to get clear on their procedure:</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Does your TMC know who to call within the organization if they receive a call from an employee in an emergency?</li>
<li>What is their established protocol and how does this align with your travel risk management (TRM) program?</li>
</ul>
<p>Require the employee to input their mobile number into their traveler profile as well as an emergency contact. Make sure to establish a “one call does all” via your after-hours numbers with service providers.</p>
<h3><strong>4. Develop a Safety Policy</strong></h3>
<p>Establish <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-create-an-effective-business-continuity-plan">a clear policy</a> that provides guidance for employees around safety and security and emphasize how the employee has a responsibility to be aware at all times, no matter where they are. And don’t forget to extend your <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-you-should-extend-traveler-safety-protect-your-rideshare-users">safety policy to include rideshare</a>.</p>
<h3><strong>5. Determine Risk Level by Country</strong></h3>
<p>Know your global travel destinations and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-your-travelers-their-destination-neighborhood-safety-scores-tripit-pro">establish a ‘Country Risk’ rating</a><!--[if !supportNestedAnchors]--><!--[endif]--> – Low, Medium,<br />
High. Develop a collaborative approach internally to impose travel restrictions – country or region-specific restrictions – with your security department and senior leadership. Allow travel to high-risk countries only when deemed business critical.</p>
<p><strong>Stat callout</strong>: 38% of business travelers say during the trip is now the most stressful stage of travel, including ensuring their personal safety and health.</p>
<p>-<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Wakefield, Global Business Travelers Report, 2022</a></p>
<h3><strong>6. Establish an Employee Tracking System</strong></h3>
<p>Implement an employee tracking system with your TMC and/or a third-party duty of care service provider so you know where your people are at all times, no matter if they’re traveling, working from home, or in <a>the office. </a> Keep in mind that some travelers may be more at risk than others, including younger travelers, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.</p>
<p><strong>See More: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-deloitte">Listen to Duty of Care: Protecting Your Travelers Protects Your Bottom Line podcast</a></p>
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<h3><strong>7. Institute a Two-Way Mobile Communication System</strong></h3>
<p>Ensure your organization has a two-way mobile communication process in place via text message or email, where your security and risk team can communicate emergency situations as well as next steps, and employees can check in or request help.</p>
<p><strong>See More</strong>: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/planes-trains-and-automobiles-navigating-business-travel-post-pandemic-world">Read Navigating Business Travel in a Post-Pandemic World</a></p>
<h3><strong>8. Consider a Global Medical Support Service</strong></h3>
<p>Investigate if aligning with a global medical support service provider is necessary, especially<br />
if your travel program is servicing a multi-national company. Service firms, like HX Global, typically provide medical support for your employees when traveling outside their host country, as well as evacuations services, security assistance, risk ratings, and more. Consider outsourcing all your duty of care responsibilities to a service provider that can monitor, locate,</p>
<p>communicate, and assist your employees on your behalf. Outsourcing these activities to an expert is especially important for organizations that don’t have the time or resources to effectively fulfill their duty of care requirements.</p>
<p><strong>See More:</strong> Find a complete list of our <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center?category=duty-of-care">duty of care App Center</a> partners here<!--[if !supportNestedAnchors]--><!--[endif]-->.</p>
<h3><strong>9. Create a Culture of Care</strong></h3>
<p>Educate and train your travelers as much as possible about their safety and security. Share <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/creating-culture-care-how-to-incorporate-duty-care-into-your-company-culture">company expectations</a> and helpful tips and tricks about safe travel and tailor sessions for traveler genders. Use apps that provide up to date information on country customs, proper protocol on ways to conduct business, etc. Security briefings/mobile numbers should be required for high-risk countries.</p>
<p><strong>Stat callout</strong>: 62% of travel managers plan to improve their tracking process to ensure employee safety.</p>
<p>-<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-manager-report-2022">Wakefield, Global Travel Managers Report, 2022</a></p>
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<h3><strong>10. Communicate Clear and Concise Messaging</strong></h3>
<p>Develop clear, concise messaging for employees during a disaster or emergency. Tailor your messaging to inform but not to alarm or cause panic. Create communication templates to drive a consistent look and feel – for a standard communication expectation from your travelers.</p>
<p>With these 10 tips, your organization will be able to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/policy-purpose-how-create-travel-program-meets-both-employer-and-employee-needs-fox-world-travel">develop a duty of care policy</a> that can proactively manage emergencies when they occur, and ensure your employees are aware of the processes in place to protect them – both at home and abroad.</p>
<p><a><strong>Want to dive deeper into your duty of care policy?</strong></a> <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/filling-gaps-duty-care">Download this checklist</a> to learn about common gaps in duty of care for different types of employees and actions organizations can take to better support them.</p>
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SAP Concur Team
Outdated Travel Policy? 5 Tips to Update It Today
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/outdated-travel-policy-5-tips-to-update-it-today
2023-08-17T07:20:14Z
2023-04-20T08:47:22Z
"An outdated travel policy can cost your organization in many ways, including financially, strategically, and culturally. Today’s best-in-class travel policies are based on regularly assessed, achieva
<p>An outdated travel policy can cost your organization in many ways, including financially, strategically, and culturally. Today’s best-in-class travel policies are based on regularly assessed, achievable, and measurable goals; reflect organizational cultures and values; and provide flexibility and agility.</p>
<p>To learn how organizations can best craft and update their travel policy, Barb Bammer, a Senior Solutions Consultant at SAP Concur, talked to Ben Claxton, Online Technology Manager for Fox World Travel, and Jeff Saydah, Director of Global Client Solutions for Fox World Travel.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/policy-purpose-how-create-travel-program-meets-both-employer-and-employee-needs-fox-world-travel">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/policy-with-purpose-how-to-create-a-travel-program/id1525744763?i=1000597400852">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZqpoS1u2UvzFiDMXm6BWX">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/policy-with-purpose-how-to-qNUlAc6_r28/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/policy-with-purpose-how-to-create-a-travel-program">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjNkODlmMjNiZTc3YmYwMDExYzk2ODM5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjg4Nvv4Yj9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCg&hl=en">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/policy-with-purpose-how-to-create-travel-program-that-meets-both-employer-and-employee">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Tip #1. Don’t Wait to Reassess Your Travel Policy </strong></h2>
<p>Many organizations fail to update their travel policy on a regular basis. “Travel policies are put in place, and they just move on their own and no one takes a look at them — and I think that’s very typical,” Saydah says. However, the “set it and forget it” mentality of years past is not only outdated, but inadequate in today’s dynamic business environment. “Over the last almost 10 years, a lot of things have changed,” Claxton notes. “Your workforce has changed, your goals as a company have changed, so [you] want to continue to reassess.”</p>
<p>External events, such as the pandemic, are forcing organizations to revise their travel policy. “When they’re prodded by some external need, then all of a sudden eyes are opened up to this,” Saydah says. Instead of waiting, assess where you are currently and reevaluate on a set basis, such as quarterly or at least annually.</p>
<h2><strong>Tip #2. Set Goals for Your Travel Policy — And Revisit Them Often</strong></h2>
<p>When setting goals, Saydah recommends that you ask yourselves questions such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>What’s best in class for travel policy?</li>
<li>What’s going to work for our organization?</li>
<li>How do we get there?</li>
</ul>
<p>Claxton adds that you also need to examine the extent of your success by asking questions such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are we making progress?</li>
<li>Are we moving forward in the way that we need to?</li>
<li>If not, where can we tweak travel policy, the travel program, or the data set we’re getting?</li>
</ul>
<p>“Everyone’s goal is to save money to have a better travel experience,” notes Claxton. “The number-one way to save money in a travel program is through the better application of travel policy.” There are, however, multiple avenues to achieve this. Factors that will influence your choices may include cost perspective, time perspective, and sustainability preferences.</p>
<h2><strong>Tip #3. Align Your Travel Policy with Your Values</strong></h2>
<p>Travel policy reflects your organization’s values, which in turn represent your company culture. Saydah views a travel policy as an agreement between the organization and the traveler. “It’s a compact that says, ‘Here’s a statement of our shared values, here’s the statement of our culture, and here’s how we are going to address what we think is important within that policy,’” he says. This approach helps define how a traveler’s going to interact with the policy and how an employer is going to interact with the traveler.</p>
<h2><strong>Tip #4. Keep Employee Experience Top of Mind</strong></h2>
<p>Organizations are increasingly prioritizing employee experience in addition to organizational goals when it comes to shaping employee travel. “We need to take a healthy look at how we’re managing things so we can better move forward and create a better experience, not only for the people that are traveling on our behalf but the organization as a whole,” Bammer explains.</p>
<p>One way to improve employee experience is to involve employees and travelers, along with executives and department leaders, in the conversation as travel policy is crafted, Saydah says. Claxton adds that it also helps when you’re setting goals to view a travel program as a service to the people who are traveling and to keep their needs and wants in mind.</p>
<h2><strong>Tip #5. Track Your Successes, Learn from Your Failures</strong></h2>
<p>When you’re setting travel policy goals, make sure they’re achievable and include a way to measure success. “You want to make sure that you are getting feedback and understanding what’s working and what’s not,” Bammer notes.<strong> </strong>Assessing where you’re at right now, where you’re going, and what the pathways are to get there are key steps when you’re determining how to measure success, Saydah says.</p>
<p>In terms of metrics, don’t try to measure everything or make tracking progress too complicated. Instead, prioritize where you’re most looking to increase adherence to a policy and begin with those top goals, Saydah says. “It could be as simple as online adoption for a certain segment of your travelers,” he says. Other metrics may include savings in terms of average ticket price or costs associated with the bookings.</p>
<p>Claxton adds that measuring success relies on being data driven and that organizations should ask questions such as: How can we make measurement data driven, and how can we move forward in that same direction?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/policy-purpose-how-create-travel-program-meets-both-employer-and-employee-needs-fox-world-travel">Learn more about crafting a best-in-class travel policy in this SAP Concur Conversations podcast.</a></p>
<p><a>Whether you’re making updates to your travel policy, or starting from scratch, </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/travel_policy">this template is your step-by-step guide for crafting a travel policy</a> that supports your organization's goal and aligns to your organization's culture.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Take the Pain Out of Travel with Clear Policies
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-pain-out-travel-with-clear-policies
2023-07-19T09:55:57Z
2023-04-20T07:51:59Z
Travel policy template guidelines.
<p>If one of your business travelers tries to put a third checked bag or the cost of replacing a forgotten toothbrush on an expense report, your reaction might be, “You’ve got to be kidding.” But even so, how can the employee truly know if your company doesn’t spell out what’s allowed and what isn’t?</p>
<p>Having clearly defined and readily adaptable travel policies and processes is critical in today’s changed business environment. Clear travel policies can help give employees the flexibility and choices they want. And, as a result, businesses of all sizes can manage costs and ensure the wellbeing of travelers, turning each travel decision into a moment of confidence.</p>
<p>Our ebook, <a href="http://https://www.concur.com/travel_policy"><strong>Guidelines for Effective Business Travel Management</strong></a>, examines how your company can create effective travel policies and processes and the role an automated T&E solution can play in delivering both compliance and better satisfied travelers. It discusses topics and tips involving policies, from formalizing them to ways they can cover flights, lodging and other travel-related expenses.</p>
<p>Before exploring those topics and tips, here is some recent research on trends and results that can inform the conversation:</p>
<ul>
<li>100% of travel managers anticipate changing policies in the coming year allowing business travelers to book travel and accommodations that meet their needs and allow them to feel safe on trips.</li>
<li>94% of business travelers are looking to take their own steps to ensure greener travel over the next 12 months.</li>
<li>72% of companies agreed an automated T&E solution allows better response to business challenges thanks to improved visibility of company spend data.</li>
<li>34% of businesses instituting T&E management automation saw a reduction in the number of reports rejected due to issues with receipts.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Start by clarifying and formalizing T&E policies</strong></h2>
<p>Moving beyond informal guidelines should be a company’s first step. Create unambiguous policies that your employees can readily understand and locate. Be sure to get input from travelers about their experiences and preferences to write and adjust the policies. And set reasonable expense limits and mine your spending data to get better deals from vendors.</p>
<h2><strong>Getting there safely and affordably</strong></h2>
<p>Which suppliers and booking methods are preferred? Is there a greener choice that satisfies both the employee’s inclinations and your company’s sustainability goals? Is a neighborhood safe to stay in? Those are policy and practical questions an automated travel solution can help answer while increasing compliance and the ease of booking and safely taking a trip.</p>
<h2><strong>Accommodations: balancing cost and employee happiness</strong></h2>
<p>Where a traveler can lay their head greatly affects how they feel about a trip. Policies can spell out preferred hotel chains and booking methods, maximum daily room expenditures, and other more specific matters such as what happens if the traveler upgrades their room or stays with relatives. And with a T&E solution that makes itineraries and other travel information visible, your company can locate travelers if problems arise.</p>
<h2><strong>Food and entertainment: separating essential from what’s not</strong></h2>
<p>Because meals and entertainment are easily confused – and abused – categories, it’s important to be clear on what is acceptable and how much detail a traveler must provide on an expense report. Spell out when and if alcohol can be claimed and set per-diems for meals with and without clients. A mobile app incorporated into an automated T&E solution can snap pictures of receipts and funnel charges onto expense reports, easing the workload for travelers and improving spending visibility for the company.</p>
<h2><strong>Be specific but be flexible, too</strong></h2>
<p>When creating clear and enforceable travel policies, it’s important to cover as much ground as you can. Be specific on what’s an acceptable tip percentage. Or whether you’ll reimburse parking - but not the parking fine - when the employee forgets to feed the meter.</p>
<p>At the same time, recognize that there are gray areas, so build in flexibility, too, so travelers don’t feel like they are left holding the bill. That, along with a clear chain of command to resolve issues and take suggestions, can result in smoother travel and more satisfied employees.</p>
<h2><strong>Digging deeper on policy</strong></h2>
<p>Read the <strong><a href="http://https://www.concur.com/travel_policy">ebook</a> </strong>to learn more about how travel policies can satisfy business goals, control costs, and decrease risk and how an automated T&E solution can help enforce compliance, increase efficiency, and make life easier for travelers.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Choosing a T&E Automation Solution That’s Right for Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/choosing-te-automation-solution-thats-right-for-your-business
2023-04-20T07:38:05Z
2023-04-20T07:24:54Z
A SMB T&E Buyers Guide
<p>Many companies are using technology to automate their work, and all of us are immersed digitally in everday life. But is your business and its travel and expense management still navigating a paper trail and using processes like this?</p>
<ul>
<li>Employees must keep a pile of paper receipts and printouts from taxis, restaurants, flights and other expenses.</li>
<li>Expense reports are filled in manually in spreadsheets or forms, with receipts stapled or taped for doublechecking and approval.</li>
<li>Travelers use their own credit cards instead of company ones and must float the costs until you pay them back.</li>
</ul>
<p>Managing T&E in those inefficient ways not only takes a toll on productivity but also frustrates employees, managers, and anyone else spending time on the process. Because they have better things to do, and you likely want them to be doing them.</p>
<p>The costs extend beyond time and frustration. Automated T&E management solutions can provide an accurate, up-to-date view of travel spending that manual methods cannot. It’s a view that can help control costs, improve cash flow, and better target spending. In other words, you gain insights to make better, more timely decisions.</p>
<h2><strong>Working for businesses of all sizes </strong></h2>
<p>Once seen as just for large corporations, cloud-based, automated T&E solutions are now more affordable and easier to implement for small- and medium-sized businesses. Determining which option might be right for your business is no simple process.</p>
<p>Our e-book,<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/choose-the-right-travel-expense-solution-for-your-small-midsize-business"> <strong>Integrated, Automated Travel and Expense Management</strong></a>, is designed to help you ask the right questions as you seek a solution that works for you.</p>
<p>A well-designed solution seamlessly captures travel bookings no matter where the employee makes them, consolidates trip information in one place, and sends purchases right to an expense report so employees don’t have to fill them out manually, speeding up processing and reimbursements. Along the way, you see spending before, during, and after trips.</p>
<p>Automated T&E solutions also deliver savings and productivity gains that are measurable. For example, Analysys Mason recently found<sup>1</sup> that businesses using SAP Concur T&E solutions save an estimated $54,000 a year and 148 hours weekly for finance or accounting teams.</p>
<h2><strong>What to look for</strong></h2>
<p>As you consider various technology vendors, a number of features should be in the mix.</p>
<p><strong>Integration.</strong> The T&E solution should readily connect to ERP, accounts payable, human resource, and other essential solutions. Also consider whether payments and expense reports are integrated, and how secure the solution is, which is particularly important with so many electronic payments.</p>
<p><strong>Ease of use.</strong> A good solution should make it easier for employees to do their jobs – from anywhere. It should have features like the ability to snap a picture of a receipt and send the expense data to a report. Whether from a desktop or mobile device, workflows should be understandable and conversational, just like many digital tools we encounter in our everyday lives. A solution like this is more likely to be adopted and bring savings and satisfaction.</p>
<p><strong>Visibility and control.</strong> Automated controls built into the solution can help ensure compliance with spending policies. Dashboards and analytics tools can show spending by vendor, category, employee, and other areas. With the insights gained, costs can be contained, and better deals negotiated with vendors.</p>
<h2><strong>Questions you can ask</strong></h2>
<p>Learn. Question. Learn more. Question more. That’s largely the process involved in making an investment to make your business run better, including choosing a travel & expense solution.</p>
<p>Here are some questions you can put to vendors who are making a case for their technology:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are you experienced with companies of our size selling our kind of product?</li>
<li>Can you give me a hands-on demo using our live data?</li>
<li>Do you plan to invest in the solution in the next few years and incorporate AI and machine learning technology?</li>
<li>Can your solution accommodate and help adjust our workflows?</li>
<li>Will support be available and will you help my employees master the solution?</li>
</ul>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can provide answers to those questions and more as you seek a T&E solution that’s right for your business, helping turning moments of business uncertainty into moments of confidence. Download our<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/choose-the-right-travel-expense-solution-for-your-small-midsize-business"> <strong>e-book</strong></a> to learn more about essential topics and capabilities that matter when seeking an automation solution.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Learn How CFOs Can Navigate Inflation and Other Disruptions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/learn-how-cfos-can-navigate-inflation-and-other-disruptions
2023-04-18T12:15:38Z
2023-04-18T12:10:01Z
Modernizing business applications and augmenting data are approaches IDC recommends1. With cloud-based solutions for travel and spend management, you can gain the flexibility and timely insights your
<p>CFOs and other finance leaders certainly understand the concept of inflation but, not having experienced it like this before, you’re likely learning and living the reality of it </p>
<p>And with soaring rates and back-and-forth signals – one day better, one day worse, rinse, repeat – it’s the education you never wanted. But there are ways to better prepare for inflation, global instability, banking turbulence, and other disruptions coming your way. </p>
<p>Modernizing business applications and augmenting data are approaches IDC recommends1. With cloud-based solutions for travel and spend management, you can gain the flexibility and timely insights your business needs to turn moments of doubt into moments of spending confidence. And fulfill the expectations your company has for your role. </p>
<p>Our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-navigate-inflation-and-other-signs-economic-change">CFO Guidebook: How to Navigate Inflation and Other Signs of Economic Change</a> is designed to provide a path past confusion and disruption. It discusses three core focuses to consider and draws on input from CFOs experiencing the same issues you are. </p>
<p>As one finance leader, Renaud Heyd, chief financial officer of SAP UK and Ireland, observes: “Businesses have the luxury to accept some degree of inefficiency and low productivity during good financial times. But when the economy is no longer comfortable, the math doesn’t work anymore. CFOs must keep organizations honest about how business is done and what should be achieved.” </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>CFO Guidebook: How to Navigate Inflation and Other Signs of Economic Change</h5>
<p>Get SAP CFOs insights on strategies and best practices to navigate inflation and other signs of economic change.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-navigate-inflation-and-other-signs-economic-change">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>1. Rethink priorities to get ahead of change </h2>
<p>Travel and operational costs might not be the biggest chunks of your spending, but they can be readily controlled and provide transparency and insights into overall spending. With digital solutions, automation can reduce manual processes and increase your team’s speed and accuracy. In addition to boosting productivity across the organization, you can take specific actions to guide spending decisions, such as establishing criteria within the technology solution that helps employees weigh whether a trip or a virtual meeting best accomplishes a business goal. </p>
<h2>2. Align actions with long-term goals </h2>
<p>With inflation and other disruptions, it’s natural and sensible for companies to focus on the short term, because cost-cutting and other actions can reduce uncertainty. But if you don’t ensure those immediate moves are in step with medium- and long-term business goals, you can sacrifice strategy in pursuit of short-term gains. Cloud-based solutions can guide employees to choices that align with goals, while enabling them to readily report expenses. With timely data and organization-wide spending visibility, you have the information to adjust as conditions change. </p>
<h2>3. Invest in people when transforming digitally </h2>
<p>While watching finances, seeking speed and productivity, and implementing technology, don’t forget a valuable asset: employees. That should include your team as well as employees across the business. Digital solutions that are seamless, user-friendly, and let team members focus on value-adding work instead of tedious tasks are more likely to be adopted and deliver the return on investment you seek. So be sure to factor the employee experience into your calculations and get hard data on what they’re thinking. </p>
<h2>Explore navigating inflation more extensively </h2>
<p>Read the guidebook to learn more about the three areas that CFOs and other finance leaders can focus on to help their businesses work through inflation and disruption and achieve confidence in each spending moment. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Best Practices to Meet Today’s Automation and IT Challenges
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/best-practices-to-meet-todays-automation-and-it-challenges
2023-04-24T15:25:06Z
2023-04-18T11:50:31Z
With multiple strategies to weigh and many day-to-day responsibilities, that’s much to consider. But the fact is, investment in digital solutions is expected to continue despite the challenges of the
<p>The challenges – and opportunities – are deep for IT leaders leading the adoption, integration, and implementation of new business applications and processes at their companies. </p>
<p>The labor market is tight, for IT professionals and talent across the business. </p>
<p>The economy is squeezing budgets, driving the need for greater efficiency and productivity via automation. </p>
<p>And as roles have grown, IT leaders are tasked with incorporating sustainability and other social goals into metrics to provide a fuller picture of the impact of the business. </p>
<p>Those factors add up to having to do more with less. That may seem daunting, but the right technology, processes, and strategy can turn moments of uncertainty into moments of confidence. </p>
<h2>Top priorities, top efficiencies </h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-it-executives-lead-digital-transformation-drive-efficiency">report</a> by Oxford Economics and SAP® Concur® details what IT leaders and others across the globe are doing. </p>
<ul>
<li>46% say increasing functional efficiency is their organization’s top priority. </li>
<li>75% use basic automation to boost efficiency. </li>
<li>68% say advanced automation is raising more efficiency. </li>
</ul>
<p>The report’s description of approaches used by AI Strategy Leaders is especially insightful. They’re a select group of industry peers using advanced automation – incorporating AI and machine learning – to achieve efficiency at rates above the norm. </p>
<p>AI Strategy Leaders are more likely than non-leaders to: </p>
<ul>
<li>Have a detailed and adaptable automation and AI strategy. </li>
<li>Customize technology to the specific needs of their business. </li>
<li>Have integrated platforms connecting travel, expense, and invoicing solutions with their ERP. </li>
</ul>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>How IT Leaders Gain More Efficiency from Automation</h5>
<p>Learn how IT leaders are leading digital transformation with automation and intelligent technology to gain more efficiency.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-it-executives-lead-digital-transformation-drive-efficiency">Read More Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Strategies that can succeed </h2>
<p>Knowing the strategies that can bring results is one thing. Deciding key ones to focus on is more complicated, especially with IT teams and resources under stress. </p>
<p>We recently discuss with Acquis Consulting Group, was awarded the 2023 Partner Innovation Award from SAP Concur, and suggest these 4 areas IT leaders should focus: </p>
<p>Make integration less complex. With prebuilt connectors and other approaches, you can link travel & expense, HR, and other solutions to ERPs and other systems without affecting business continuity and eating up your team’s time. </p>
<p>Provide wide-ranging support. From an experienced provider, your company and its employees can access support to drive your pursuit of efficiency. That can include in-person support and self-service digital adoption platforms. </p>
<p>Secure your data, systems, and people. Your team has a critical role in cybersecurity, and that extends to ensuring automated business applications are secure and that users are confident in their safety. </p>
<p>Measure sustainability. As companies increasingly factor environmental, social, and governance concerns into goals, IT leaders can help deliver the capabilities and metrics to track and support them. </p>
<p>With multiple strategies to weigh and many day-to-day responsibilities, that’s much to consider. But the fact is, investment in digital solutions is expected to continue despite the challenges of the times. And, as an IT leader, you’re uniquely positioned to play an essential role in driving change with effective tools, processes, and security. </p>
<h2>Deepen understanding and tools </h2>
<ul>
<li>Download the Oxford Economics report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-it-executives-lead-digital-transformation-drive-efficiency">Becoming More Efficient: How IT Executives Lead the Digital Transformation</a>, for more about what peers are doing with automation, as well as steps to consider. </li>
<li>Read our white paper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/priorities-and-strategies-it-leaders-build-business-resilience">As Economic Outlook Shifts, IT Leaders Act Decisively with New Priorities,</a> for more on the challenges facing IT leaders and how SAP Concur solutions deliver integration, support, and other features to help meet them. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Meeting the Business Travel & Spend Management Challenges of 2023
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/meeting-business-travel-spend-management-challenges-2023
2023-04-19T06:29:45Z
2023-04-17T14:20:11Z
What does the world of T&E and accounts payable (AP) look like right now? Travel and spending are rebounding and quickly approaching pre-pandemic levels.
<p>Three years ago, the pandemic forced organizations to quickly pivot strategies to keep their operations on track. Today, the global community faces continued and new pressures following the fundamental shift in how, where, and when business happens. I have spent significant time reflecting on the ripples from this shift, as the impact on the travel and expense (T&E) landscape has been substantial. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, what does the world of T&E and accounts payable (AP) look like right now? Travel and spending are rebounding and quickly approaching pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, SAP Concur processed 192 million expense reports, a 42% increase over 2021. We also had nearly 43 million travel transactions, a 110% jump compared to the year before. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Although returning to familiar levels, the reality is that this spending is far from familiar. Business spend used to be fairly consistent, with similar transaction types that could be managed through repeatable processes and protocols. However, health and safety considerations and the rise of remote and hybrid work have resulted in more complexity in processing spend. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For instance, according to expense reports processed in SAP Concur, the use of public transportation as an expense category dropped from as much as 30% pre-pandemic down to 10% today as more travelers opt for rental cars and spend on mileage, parking, tolls, and more. The “other” expense category soared from 4% in 2019 to as high as 25% in 2021, and it now remains in the top three expense categories for organizations. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The move away from the familiar requires new policies, processes, and levels of oversight to effectively manage company and employee spend in this current landscape. Employees have demanded more control of how they work in recent years. As employees continue to navigate new ways of working, they’re questioning the specifics around corporate travel programs: “Why do I have to travel in this way?” “Why should I follow this policy and use this tool?” Business travelers need solutions that enhance their experience and provide a comfortable, intuitive way to manage their travel and spending. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Simultaneously, economic uncertainty and dynamic labor trends have contributed to a remarkable change in organizations. Paired with a new generation entering the workforce, we see many new faces running travel, expense, and AP programs. While these folks bring new perspectives and innovative thinking, turnover can make navigating complicated infrastructure and nuanced processes even more challenging. Sustainability, duty of care, and tax and regulatory pressures layer on the complexity. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite these demands, I am optimistic about <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-fusion-updates-coming-to-concur-travel-and-concur-invoice">what SAP Concur and our industry partners are doing</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>At SAP, we’re focused on reducing complexity through innovation and helping our customers use the latest technology and data to make tackling these challenges easier. We are investing in a new travel experience that will better address the needs of our travelers, customers, and travel partners. Users can expect a more approachable interface, desktop-mobile content parity, greater sustainable travel options, improved policy compliance capabilities, intelligent integrations across SAP products, and more. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>On the expense side, we migrated 36,000 customers to our next-gen expense user interface (UI) for a better experience managing travel and spending in ways that work for them and their business. The new UI was built to improve functionality, visibility, accessibility, and reporting capabilities across the mobile and desktop experience. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We are also working to provide <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-fusion-updates-coming-to-concur-travel-and-concur-invoice">virtual card payment options</a> in Concur Invoice for U.S. and Canadian currencies and greater flexibility and control, with features that allow users to schedule payments and give executives the option for final approval. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I’m excited to begin delivering many of these updates to customers this year, as we navigate the ever-changing business travel and corporate spend landscape together. </p>
Christopher Juneau
The Connection Between Intelligent T&E Automation and Better Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/connection-between-intelligent-te-automation-and-better-compliance
2023-04-27T09:00:00Z
2023-04-14T11:37:50Z
Integral to keeping tight control over the money your employees spend is to bring simplicity and intelligence to every spending moment. This provides the comfort of knowing that employees are being gu
<p>Refining your travel and expense processes (T&E) with intelligently automated and digitized processes is a natural step in digitally transforming your finance function. Some of the benefits are obvious: less paper to wrangle, less data to type up, fewer data entry errors, and no more nagging reminders to manually email each month. Your organization’s expense data becomes timelier and more trustworthy as employees’ expense reports almost write themselves with mobile receipt capture and e-receipt processing – so finance staff can focus on bigger fish to fry.</p>
<p>Two of those very big fish that sometimes get left behind when there’s too much manual work to manage are: controls and compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Spend matters: It’s where fraud and misappropriation of funds can hide</strong></h2>
<p><br />
Miscategorized spend can cause budget, tax, and compliance issues. Business travel itineraries and employee spend inform and uphold duty of care standards, so you can take care of your employees when they’re traveling. And if they travel internationally, steering clear of anti-bribery penalties — <a href="https://www.sec.gov/enforce/sec-enforcement-actions-fcpa-cases">up to $2 million in fines for each violation</a> — is vital and requires a hyper-vigilant eye on foreign travel spend.</p>
<p>It’s also critical that expenses are well-documented and accurate and have a strong audit trail. For example, the SAP Concur and Oversight <em>Spend Insights Report 2021</em> found that <strong>excessive missing receipts were up 58.6%</strong>, and <strong>expense header keyword match violations were up 26.7%</strong> over 2020. In addition, <strong>duplicate mileage submissions leapt 2,127%</strong> from Q3 to Q4 2021.</p>
<p>Finally, many organizations are enacting more spend control and tightening budgets so they can focus more funds on growth and resilience initiatives.</p>
<p>Integral to keeping tight control over the money your employees spend is to bring simplicity and intelligence to every spending moment. This provides the comfort of knowing that employees are being guided to the right decisions with built-in controls and assistance, that you’re minimizing the risk of fraud and noncompliance, and that business funds are being spent prudently.</p>
<h2><strong>The power of automated T&E controls</strong></h2>
<p>By incorporating controls into expense reporting and approvals processes, employees can make better decisions in the moment, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-determine-high-risk-business-transactions-and-reduce-non-compliant-spending">avoiding noncompliant spend</a> or quickly snapping a photo of a receipt so that documentation isn’t lost.</p>
<p>Via customizable controls that support your organization’s specific rules and regulatory compliance requirements and intelligent analysis, your system can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Require manager preapprovals for certain types of spend.</li>
<li>Steer employees to preferred vendors.</li>
<li>Include helpful reminders to guide employees on how to categorize charges.</li>
<li>Capture travel booked outside of your system to help you perform duty of care.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Intelligent automation</a> lends a huge helping hand. As expenses are captured, intelligently automated T&E can use AI to flag questionable spend based on your policies, missing receipts, and other flags, and kick exceptions up to human reviewers, relieving your AP staff from auditing every expense. It can parse out and track spend that’s considered taxable employee benefits (TEB), like home office supplies or furniture, as well as help you <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplifying-your-vat-reclaim-te-program-resilience">control VAT/GSM reclaim</a> to get all that is due back to your organization. You can also set up dashboards to alert you to unusual spend patterns, such as a large jump in a particular category.</p>
<h2><strong>Staying on top of change</strong></h2>
<p>With centralized controls and digitized processes, it’s easy to keep employees informed of spend rules and processes that shift due to updated policies, new regulatory or tax requirements, or changes to the business. Staff will no longer show up with out-of-policy spend jotted down on last year’s out-of-date expense form. Instead, you can update controls across your T&E solution and add alerts to inform employees of changes.</p>
<p>With automated T&E, you can gain control over spend in so many more ways than just the amount of dollars being spent. Intelligent, automated tools enable you to prevent, catch, and remediate issues that get lost or buried in more manual processes or less intelligent solutions.</p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur can help your organization gain and stay in control of spend, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/intelligent-automation-improves-te-processes">read our tip sheet</a>.</p>
Kyla Kent
3 Ways T&E Can Contribute to Utility and Energy Company Sustainability
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-te-can-contribute-to-utility-and-energy-company-sustainability
2023-04-21T07:14:34Z
2023-04-13T10:46:58Z
As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s an apt time to consider how small sustainability changes can lead to big results. For utilities and energy companies, all eyes are on grid investments and clean energy
<p>As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s an apt time to consider how small sustainability changes can lead to big results. For utilities and energy companies, all eyes are on grid investments and clean energy as the White House aims to build a national grid of 100% clean energy by 2035, and consumers pressure their utilities to enact more <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/3-steps-run-sustainable-business">sustainable practices</a>.</p>
<p>While clean energy is a critical goal, there are other ways that utilities can embed greener practices throughout their organizations, such as financial and administrative processes that can be reviewed and reimagined in more sustainable ways. One such area of opportunity is travel and expense (T&E) management, as it affects nearly every employee across an organization. Turning to cloud-based software to manage T&E — or further <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/zoom-saas-management-lower-cost-and-compliance-zylo">optimizing the SaaS</a> your organization already uses — can help you create more sustainable processes and influence employees to recognize the environmental impact of their travel and purchases. These changes can save money too, so you can demonstrate to customers that your organization practices strong economic and environmental stewardship.</p>
<h2>Digitized T&E Processes Help Move the Needle</h2>
<p><strong>Here are three ways</strong> that digitized T&E processes can help move the needle on sustainability across utilities and energy companies:</p>
<p><strong>1. Reduce paper waste</strong></p>
<p>If there’s any spending-based paper passing through your organization — printouts of PDF receipts or forms for expense reports — now’s the time to digitize these processes. While it’s easier than ever to source paper from sustainable suppliers that use recycled pulp and have responsible forestry and sourcing certifications, it’s still better to reduce than reuse.</p>
<p>Providing simple <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/theres-no-spend-waste-concur-expense">digital methods to create expense reports</a>; to automate PDF receipt, credit card transaction, and invoice data ingestion; and to compile travel itineraries can save employees and accounts payable (AP) staff time and headaches. Data errors — and the time it takes to track them down and fix them — will decrease. Last, and certainly not least, you’ll save some trees and minimize your organization’s contributions to methane emissions caused by paper decomposing in landfills.</p>
<p><strong>2. Provide sustainable guidelines and guardrails for employees</strong></p>
<p>Employees want to conduct business travel more sustainably: A recent SAP Concur survey of 1,000 business travelers found that <strong>the majority (88%)</strong> are willing take actions to reduce their environmental impact when traveling for business. Most of these travelers also said they’d like to see sustainability information when <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-sustainability-your-travel-program">booking business travel</a>, such as comparing sustainability measures for different accommodation and transportation options.</p>
<p>By providing such information at the point of business travel booking, you can guide employees to make smarter, environmentally friendly choices, providing knowledge they may bring to their own personal travel as well. Additionally, you may choose to put rules in place that need approval to override, such as using certain travel partners or transportation methods that align with your organization’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, you can embed these approvals and guidelines into your organization’s travel planning activities, plus use in-app messaging and reminders to guide employees to the most sustainable choices. You can also set up alternative options when emergency or outage-related travel arises and it’s not feasible to use company vehicles when traveling to a site. In both scheduled and unexpected travel cases, you can help employees track their emissions and expense those costs as needed.</p>
<p><strong>3. Measure success and find areas for improvement</strong></p>
<p>When you digitize T&E, you get more than efficiency. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/analytics">Robust tracking and analytics</a> can help you turn employee spending decisions into visibility and tangible measurement of sustainability actions. By bringing data together, you can track progress, share results, and include these details in communications to employees, leaders, customers, regulators, and the greater community.</p>
<p>For example, with SAP Concur solutions, you can deliver monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-pro-tip-carbon-impact-reduction">travel carbon emissions</a>, analyzed by employee, department, route, or any other category you prefer. You can also examine trends, like rental car use or common airline or hotel choices, to learn if you should promote greener options.</p>
<h2><strong>Partnering for a More Sustainable Tomorrow</strong></h2>
<p>One relatively simple way to increase sustainability within your organization is to choose technology partners that prioritize environmental initiatives. SAP is on its way to reaching <a href="https://news.sap.com/2021/03/sap-carbon-neutrality-goal-2023/">carbon-neutrality this year</a>, and SAP Concur is committed to bringing sustainable features to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel">solutions</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center?category=sustainability">App Center</a>, including partner applications from Choose Climate, Thrust Carbon, and Jet-Set Offset.</p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur can help your organization optimize its spending for greater stewardship and resilience, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-tips-make-measurable-gains-through-sustainability-energy-and-utilities-companies">read our sustainability tip sheet for utilities</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Acting Like Our Future Matters
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/acting-like-our-future-matters
2023-04-13T10:45:47Z
2023-04-13T10:38:33Z
"Supports the asset, No More Promises: How to Build Tangible Sustainability Into Your Business TL content with partners: CHOOOSE, Thrust Carbon, TripKicks & Everstream Analytics"
<p>Climate change has been big talk for years. But now, we’re seeing big movements in climate <em>action</em>. Businesses are putting their money where their mouth is. They’re walking the walk, so to speak – joining competitors, communities, and families who are each doing their part to operate more sustainably.</p>
<p>They’ve seen the future and, well, they want it to still be there. So they’re no longer just paying attention to energy consumption and carbon emissions, they’re actively trying to reduce them. They’re no longer merely dreaming of diversity, equity, and inclusion, they’re changing policies to make them come true in their organizations. They’re done talking about net-zero goals, they’re on their way to meeting them.</p>
<p>Now, we can’t just pat ourselves on the back and move on. Our customers, and your customers, and <em>their</em> customers have inspired and instigated all this. They’ve put their collective foot down and have asked for more sustainable policies and practices. Employees are, too, happily declining to set foot on a plane if there are better, greener, safer business travel options out there.</p>
<p>People are pushing businesses toward greener pastures – moving them beyond corporate-responsibility promises into effective environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments. And businesses are turning their good intentions into deliberate actions.</p>
<p>And it’s working. 60% of business leaders say sustainability has a moderate or strong effect on long-term competitiveness and profitability. And 59% believe environmental issues are, or soon will be, material to business results.</p>
<p>But how do <em>you</em> turn <em>your</em> company in that direction? Or if you’ve been aiming at sustainability for years, how do you finally get enough traction to gain some ground?</p>
<p>A recent<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/building-tangible-sustainability-your-business"> thought leadership piece</a> on the subject helps shed some light on what other organizations are doing, as well as the practices your company can put into effect. This includes determining what matters most and where you can make the biggest difference. It means creating a realistic path to net-zero emissions and proving measured progress toward that goal. And it involves top management modeling sustainable behaviors as a way to steer the culture of your organization. </p>
<p>It's a rich informational resource, whether you’re just getting started on sustainability, if you’re building momentum, or if you’re setting the pace for what’s next.</p>
<p>The piece was compiled by SAP® Concur®, but since we’re experts in technology, not sustainability, we looked to our partners and customers to see where they’re making the most impact. The findings are quite interesting, and as you’ll find out, there are a host of small, simple steps you can take to build sustainability and social responsibility into your core processes. You don’t have to right the ship all at once, in other words, to help keep the waters beneath it clear and blue.</p>
<p>You can’t just coast, though, either.</p>
<p>Your path to ESG and sustainability will be different from any other company, but the point here is progress. Just like in business: If you’re standing still, you’re losing. The difference here, of course, is that if business stops making progress toward a cleaner, greener way of doing things, we <em>all</em> lose.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/building-tangible-sustainability-your-business">Take a peek at the SAP Concur ebook. </a>It’ll give you concrete steps to take, show you what’s working for similar companies and industries, and help you use tools you may already have to make it easier for travelers to make smarter, sustainable choices.</p>
<p>Because no business can afford to ignore its future.</p>
SAP Concur Team
From the Experts: Evolving Landscape of Travel & Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-experts-evolving-landscape-travel-expense
2023-04-12T16:43:06Z
2023-04-12T16:01:47Z
Our latest webinar, The Changing Travel & Expense Landscape, is designed to help business decision-makers across the globe better understand the topics and challenges they face now and in the future.
<p>Today’s T&E programs – whether at a 150-person local company or a 50,000-employee global operation – saw more change in the last few years than in the past 10. For many of us, these fast-moving changes tested our resiliency, requiring that we challenge outdated processes but ultimately opening new opportunities for growth. </p>
<p>Programs must flex to traveler expectations about their own health and safety. The next generation of T&E users – Generation Z – will rely on technology, advocate for the planet, and want to work within a company culture that resonates with them. Data must provide actionable information instead of just numbing volume. And digital innovation will continue, even as budgets tighten, costs rise, and economic and global uncertainty continue. </p>
<p>Our latest webinar, <strong>The Changing Travel & Expense Landscape</strong>, is designed to help business decision-makers across the globe better understand the topics and challenges they face now and in the future. </p>
<p>Moderated by Amy Padgett, SAP Concur VP of Travel Marketing Strategy, the session features Lilli Donahue, Business Development & Strategic Partnerships for Capital One, and Michael Forrester, Vice President, Business Development for ADTRAV. Throughout, the panelists share expertise and address questions, while an in-session poll of industry peers delivers collective insights. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Over 700 business professionals took part in the live session, hearing expertise and predictions like these: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>“We’re going to see a really big shift,” Donahue observes. “The old manual entry way of doing T&E slowly and exhaustively will fizzle out. Employers are going to need to keep up with these needs and demands. And so investing in new technology is exactly what they’ll need to do.” </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>“Any type of task that can be automated or that’s repetitive is going to be taken care of with AI and these emerging technologies,” Forrester says. “And any company that does not invest in that is going to be significantly behind.” </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Watch the full session at your convenience to learn more, but here’s a glimpse of what was discussed. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Travel program flexibility</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Key number:</strong> 91% of business travelers have travel flexibility expectations they see as essential for ensuring their health and safety while traveling .<sup>1</sup> </p>
<p><strong>Expert insights:</strong> As business travel increases - and work-from-anywhere remains – post pandemic travel flexibility continues to be both important for the business and traveler. And when you add in the element of compliance, balancing flexibility can be complicated for companies to manage. With the past few years proving more business can be conducted remotely, each trip must increasingly be justified, especially amid inflation and tight budgets. Companies increasingly are using pre-trip approvals, encouraging alternate modes of travel, educating workers about new policies, and bringing employees together as they recognize the value of face-to-face contact to build relationships and teamwork. </p>
<p><strong>Peers say:</strong> 54% of webinar poll respondents say business travelers “often” ask for more flexibility. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Next generation of travel and expense users </h3>
<p><strong>Key number:</strong> 98% of Gen Z respondents plan to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business over the next 12 months.<sup>2</sup> </p>
<p><strong>Expert insights:</strong> The Gen Z generation expect work to be mobile-enabled and able to be performed wherever they are located. Technology should reduce manual tasks and free them for challenging work, while minimizing their impact on the environment. Businesses are responding – and must continue to – by providing mobile booking tools that are personalized and promote sustainable options. Anything on paper – from booking to travel documents to expense reports – is history. </p>
<p><strong>Peers say: </strong>41% report their company offers “remote work” or “work from anywhere” to attract younger talent. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>The power of data </h3>
<p><strong>Key number:</strong> 61% of finance and IT leaders tell us their finance leaders don’t have enough visibility into near-real-time employee spend data.<sup>3</sup> </p>
<p><strong>Expert insights: </strong>Making data-driven decisions is much more difficult when you are swimming in information instead of gaining insights from it. That makes consolidating data from bookings, credit cards, and other expense sources critical to success. Dashboards can help you connect the dots that empower decisions. And metrics must go beyond trip costs to include traveler satisfaction and sustainability. </p>
<p><strong>Peers say: </strong>27% say disparate, disconnected systems make timely data-driven decisions challenging. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Digital innovation </h3>
<p><strong>Key numbers: </strong>72% of businesses think digital transformation is key to their business growth.<sup>4</sup> </p>
<p><strong>Expert insights: </strong>The travel and expense space still has plenty to gain from automation and intelligent tools. Areas for investment include such digital payment options as virtual cards and mobile payments. Artificial intelligence is expected to deliver benefits in how employees access information on flights and hotels and explore – and see –destinations in depth, while companies can predict travel patterns and get the most from each dollar. </p>
<p><strong>Peers say:</strong> 27% want technology to automate outdated paper and manual/semi-manual processes, while 25% hope to make financial data and reporting more accurate and timely. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Listen up and learn more </h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Watch the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/event/webinar/changing-landscape-0423">full webinar</a> to discover more about current travel and expense challenges and access resources that can convert each spending decision from a moment on uncertainty into a moment of confidence. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/events">events section</a> to learn about upcoming opportunities to stay informed. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Sources </strong></p>
<p>1, 2. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">SAP Concur Global Business Traveler Survey</a> </p>
<p>3. Study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur </p>
<p>4. Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study </p>
SAP Concur Team
Latest Resources for Accelerating Your Finance Career
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/latest-resources-for-accelerating-your-finance-career
2023-11-20T08:37:14Z
2023-04-11T09:03:24Z
We work with a wide range of industry experts to gather and develop resources that help finance leaders, like you, advance their leadership skills, industry knowledge, and professional growth. Below y
<p>We work with a wide range of industry experts to gather and develop resources that help finance leaders, like you, advance their leadership skills, industry knowledge, and professional growth. Below you’ll find our curated list of resources, which is updated on a regular basis. Make sure to bookmark this page and keep coming back to see what’s new and noteworthy. </p>
<h2>Leadership Skills </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">New Finance Leader Checklist: 30-60-90 Day Action Plan</a> <br />
Your first 90 days as a finance leader will likely be a whirlwind. Learn how to create a plan and map the steps that will keep you on track and measure your progress during this busy time. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/finance-professional-personality-test/">Finance Professional Personality Test</a> <br />
Take this 11-question quiz to find out what finance personality you exemplify in the workplace. Complete the test and you’ll also receive a free Expense Reporting Toolkit. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/create-business-agility-transformational-leadership">eBook: Create business agility with transformational leadership</a> <br />
This eBook reveals how finance and IT can create business agility, employee success, and growth through transformational leadership. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-cfo-can-create-partnerships-and-boost-company-roi">Guide: How the CFO Can Create Partnerships and Boost Company ROI</a> <br />
Every decision made by every employee has a cost. Use this guide as a reference for solving common pain points so your teams do their jobs more effectively. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/creating-certainty-in-uncertain-times">From Budgets to Decision Making, Create Certainty in Uncertain Times</a> </p>
<p>This whitepaper will help to get the equation using just two common areas of your business and you’ll learn how it can help you maintain a healthy bottom line and increase stability. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-another-year-uncertainty-cfos-become-paragons-business-resiliency">CFO Insights: In Another Year of Uncertainty, CFOs Become Paragons of Business Resiliency</a> <br />
In this paper, CFOs at global SAP business units share their best practices for digital investments, inflation management, sustainability strategy, and talent retention. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-your-business-find-certainty-in-uncertain-times">How Can Your Business Find Certainty in Uncertain Times? </a> </p>
<p>In this blog post, you will gain insights on the importance of financial control and compliance within a business, especially in times of change and uncertainty. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-technology-systems-and-best-practices">New Finance Leader Checklist: Technology Systems and Best Practices</a> </p>
<p>This eBook provides a helpful starting point for immersing yourself in your role and the company's operations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-build-key-relationships">New Finance Leader Checklist: Build Key Relationships</a> </p>
<p>This eBook will help you to build strong internal relationships using a simple framework within 90 days. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-why-finance-ready-breakout-transformative-ai">CFO Insights: Why Finance Ready for a Breakout Transformative with AI</a> </p>
<p>In this Whitepaper, you will learn more about best practices fueled by research and insights from CFOs at SAP and other businesses. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-talent-management-can-drive-financial-opportunity">CFO Insights: How Talent Management Can Drive Financial Opportunity</a> </p>
<p>Download the Whitepaper to learn more about best practices and insights from CFOs to enhance financial success. </p>
<h2>Industry Knowledge </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-trends-finance-leaders-should-know-about-improving-resilience-technology-and">5 Trends Finance Leaders Should Know About Improving Resilience, Technology, and Employee Experience</a> <br />
Get insights into five trends that can help you satisfy an overarching goal: turning moments of uncertainty into moments of clarity and confidence so your business runs better. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-for-unexpected-with-business-continuity-plan">Prepare for Unexpected with a Business Continuity Plan</a> <br />
Take a close look at why and how to develop a business continuity plan, including action steps to consider and questions to ask. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-snapshot-navigating-dynamic-future-work-digital-adoption-platform-0">IDC Snapshot: Navigating a Dynamic Future of Work with Digital Adoption Platform</a> <br />
New for 2023, this snapshot reveals how digital adoption platforms and integrated applications will pave the way for a more automated and autonomous employee experience. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/ebook_foresight_2023_ent_rc.pdf">Foresight 2023: 4 Trends in Travel and Expense Management</a> <br />
No one knows exactly what’s next, but there’s a way to be ready for whatever the future holds. Finance leaders are looking for savings, efficiency, productivity, and certainty, and they’re finding them in the following trends. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-authentic-corporate-culture-and-why-you-should">How to Build an Authentic Corporate Culture, and Why You Should</a> <br />
How can you best develop an authentic culture that supports and empowers employees? Get insights from Anna Crowe, author of Get Real: The Power of Genuine Leadership, a Transparent Culture, and an Authentic You. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-work-environment-your-employees-will-love">How to Build a Work Environment Your Employees Will Love</a> <br />
Learn four ways your company can positively impact the employee experience, keeping them happy, productive, and focused on value-added responsibilities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/track-and-zap-shadow-it-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-about-saas-management-zylo">Track and Zap Shadow IT: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation About SaaS Management with Zylo</a> <br />
Learn about what organizations need to do to gain more visibility into all the SaaS applications they have, how they’re used, and the overall spend management of those applications. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/demonstrating-value-your-travel-program-c-suite">Demonstrating the Value of Your Travel Program to C-Suite</a> <br />
This ebook provides 5 tips for getting clear assessment of your travel program’s performance and ROI. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-it-executives-lead-digital-transformation-drive-efficiency">How IT executives lead digital transformation to drive efficiency</a> <br />
What tools are the most successful organizations adopting and how are IT executives making the most of those technologies? Read this global report to find out. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Oxford Economics Global + US Report: Leadership in a New Era</a> <br />
Learn how the pandemic has impacted finance and IT functions in this global survey report by Oxford Economics and the SAP Concur business unit of SAP. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/how-improve-cash-flow-top-tips-finance">How to Improve Cash Flow: Top Tips for Finance</a> </p>
<p>Learn in more detail the five ways finance automation can help improve your business cash flow. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-efficient-audits-can-help-fuel-growth-digital-transformation">5 Ways Efficient Audits Can Help Fuel Growth for Digital Transformation</a> </p>
<p>This ebook helps you to learn how Intelligent Audit from SAP Concur solutions can help you increase controls and compliance while improving employee experience. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/the-future-of-work-with-travel-and-expense-solution">Empower The Future of Work with Intelligent Travel and Expense Solutions (Forrester)</a> </p>
<p>Discover how AI-powered travel and expense platforms that are integrated can unlock employee value while also saving costs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-ways-your-finance-processes-can-help-future-proof-your-business">7 Ways Your Finance Processes Can Help Future-Proof Your Business</a> </p>
<p>Learn today seven future-proofing steps you can take to improve your finance processes, so you’ll be better positioned to respond, adapt, and survive in an uncertain business climate. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-how-navigate-inflation-and-other-signs-economic-change">CFO Insights: How to Navigate Inflation and Other Signs of Economic Change</a> </p>
<p>Learn more about strategies that help companies navigate economic uncertainties effectively. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/travel_challenges">How your peers are addressing today's business travel challenges </a> </p>
<p>Download the ebook to learn more about their approaches and successes, examples that can turn moments of uncertainty into moments of confidence each time you spend on travel. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/business-spend-insights-how-will-last-year-make-2023-better">Business Spend Insights: How will last year make 2023 better?</a> </p>
<p>Discover 2022 business spend trends and apply report recommendations to enhance compliance and spending management. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/building-tangible-sustainability-your-business">Building Tangible Sustainability Into Your Business</a> </p>
<p>Lear what organizations like yours are doing to make sustainability a fundamental part of their business, and specifically, their travel and expense management. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/accounts-payable-automation-trends-2023">Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2023 (IFOL)</a> </p>
<p>This report supported by SAP Concur, delves into the automation progress of worldwide Accounts Payable teams, discussing challenges and changes in technology adoption. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-successful-fiscal-year-end">Tips for a Successful Fiscal Year-End</a> </p>
<p>This guide will provide you 7 Tips for a Successful Fiscal Year-End, helping your company to be ready for all the unknowns and lead through the change, saving time and working more efficiently. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">Expense Policy Template</a> </p>
<p>This ebook will help you understand how to build a best-practice expense policy and will also explain what each section should cover. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">Invoice Policy Template</a> </p>
<p>Download our free template to help create or update your business’s vendor invoice policy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/ultimate-guide-sap-concur-solutions-for-businesses">Unlocking Business Efficiency: The Ultimate Guide to SAP Concur Solutions</a> </p>
<p>Get our ebook to learn more about SAP Concur solutions and gain valuable insights on comprehensive spend management and technology integration. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">5 Ways Finance Automation Can Help Your Growing Business</a> </p>
<p>This short checklist will help your company establish a proper system for financial processes, gain up-to-date visibility into your cash flow, and achieve much more. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/say-bye-bye-to-finance-hacks-in-3-simple-steps">Say Bye-Bye to Finance Hacks in 3 Simple Steps</a> </p>
<p>Explore the full details and insights in this blog post, on how automation can revolutionize your financial processes and discover practical steps to get started. </p>
<h2>Professional Growth </h2>
<p><a href="https://go.concur.com/051921_Bookinar__RegistrationPage.html">Leading with Impact: 5 ways to become an awesome manager</a> <br />
This on-demand webinar teaches how to identify and accentuate your strengths, the value of a learning mindset, and how technology can help you set yourself and your company up for success. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/time-measure-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-about-sustainability-thrust-carbon">Time to Measure Up: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation About Sustainability with Thrust Carbon</a> <br />
Get a better understanding of what an emission is, how to calculate emissions from business travel, and how to measure and report on sustainability. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-experience-evolved-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-ey-about-power-employee">Employee Experience, Evolved: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with EY About the Power of Employee Sentiment Data</a> <br />
Hear about the growing importance of using employee sentiment data to create outstanding employee experience from EY’s industry expert, Andrew Walker. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/event/webinar/finance-jobs-0223">How Finance Jobs Have Expanded in the New World of Work </a> <br />
Join us for this 30-minute recorded webinar, where you’ll get an in-depth look at some of the forces behind the evolution of finance roles and tips for advancing your finance career. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch">5 Trends for CFOs to Watch</a> <br />
Learn more about five current trends that CFOs and finance leaders need to consider as they establish priorities for their finance team and their company in the near- and long-term. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/preparing-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-how-younger-generations-will-change-business-travel-and-expense-management">Preparing for Gen Z and Gen Alpha: How Younger Generations Will Change Business Travel and Expense Management</a> </p>
<p>Learn more about how Younger Generations will change business Travel and Expense Management over time, in an ever-changing business environment. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/how-finance-jobs-have-expanded-new-world-work-webcast-preview">How Finance Jobs Have Expanded in the New World of Work Webcast Preview</a> <br />
View this preview of our thought leadership webcast full of tips and tricks to advance your finance career. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-habits-to-help-finance-leaders-meet-challenge-change">7 Habits to Help Finance Leaders Meet Challenge of Change</a> </p>
<p>Hear about the challenges faced by finance leaders in a rapidly changing environment and insights on how to develop key habits to thrive in their roles. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/bouncing-forward-grit-shade-zahrai">Bouncing Forward with Grit with Shadé Zahrai</a> </p>
<p>Listen to Shadé Zahrai, a Harvard-trained coach, as she explores the importance of grit in enhancing performance and resilience in the face of failures and challenges. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">Top Books, Podcasts, and Videos Thought Leaders in T&E Management Love</a> </p>
<p>Download this year’s book and podcast list to get the full list of insightful and inspiring books and podcast our staff and pros love. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Prepare for the Future of Work with Digital Adoption Platforms
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-for-future-work-with-digital-adoption-platforms
2023-05-04T12:57:20Z
2023-04-10T12:24:13Z
Process advancements and disruptions need not be an impediment to taking advantage of hybrid work models. Instead, with the right assessments of employee needs and governance requirements, digital ado
<p>The work processes designed to facilitate hybrid and flexible work are evolving quickly in sync with increasingly sophisticated digital work platforms. With the disruption of the pandemic replaced by more immediate economic pressures, employers seek to ensure a balance between developing compelling employee experiences and driving greater operational efficiencies. Globally and especially in North America, the focus on employee experience is a key component as workforce turnover continues. At the same time corporations need to adjust and learn to navigate the complex regulations now evolving to address the conditions of hybrid work. </p>
<p>These elements need not be at odds. It is not a question of trimming staff to fund technology investments or cutting back on operational upgrades so that employees have a frictionless work experience. With so much churn as employees shift to new roles or switch to new departments when colleagues leave or newcomers come on board, the challenge is to invest in and maintain operational best practices that support the shifting needs of employees and employers. </p>
<p>This is where digital adoption platforms have come to play a key role. </p>
<p>A digital adoption platform (DAP) is a codeless software addition to an enterprise application designed to make the app easier to use by simplifying processes needed to complete an action. Once the DAP is integrated into the website, web app, or desktop application, it can provide guidance cues within the user interface or tool tips to prompt the user to take a best-path action. DAP products can help to improve user onboarding and training for employees as well as guide interactive experiences for customers. For example, if a new hire needs assistance in selecting employee benefits, the DAP can guide them through the HR application using a series of prompts to complete the process with minimal disruption. </p>
<h2>The Shift to Self-Service for Employees and Adoption of DAP Capabilities </h2>
<p>As organizations are forced to do more with less, employees must learn new applications and ways of working on their own. Recent IDC research shows 87% of the line of business respondents surveyed are automating their own work. Without automated guidance, however, they run the risk of wasting time on navigating software, or making errors while familiarizing themselves with new or seldom-used platforms. This is why companies need training to ensure automation self-service initiatives are successful. </p>
<p>Consider corporate travel. After a long hiatus, employees are getting reacquainted with or learning new tools for documenting their travel and expenses (T&E). Many of these processes have been upgraded and integrated like capturing receipt data on a mobile phone or automating expense tracking. The challenge is that employees may not be familiar with these tools or how they work together end to end. The good news is that shifting to cloud-based and automated T&E reporting can help employees spend less time tracking and submitting information and more time focusing on client needs. This is but one example. Most importantly, self-service digital adoption platforms not only simplifying employee tasks like expense reporting, but they also give workers more consolidated time to focus on client needs. </p>
<p>Travel has long been the dominant pathway for employee spend to manifest within the business. However, the recent change in employee work models is shifting the expense management paradigm. Expense management now must include support for workers in remote work or hybrid work environments and for those utilizing decentralized purchasing practices. The range of expense types is also growing more complex. It now includes items like remote work equipment and services, project-based expenses, and accessibility-related equipment like large monitors or text-to-speech synthesizers. For employees, integrated walk-through DAP technology helps to simplify and shorten expense reporting, making clear next best actions and required documentation. For employers, DAP capabilities offer greater insight into where reporting processes are causing delays or frustrations for workers. These insights offer opportunities to improve the speed and accuracy of reporting, boost application usage, and build more efficient work practices. </p>
<h2>The Added Burden of Managing Tax Regulations for Employers </h2>
<p>With more than 170 countries participating in a value-added tax (VAT) system, the tapestry of VAT compliance laws is shifting at an unprecedented rate around the world. Two examples spring to mind: Making Tax Digital (MTD) in the U.K., and the Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) in the European Union (EU). SAF-T is taking hold in Italy, Norway, Germany, Belgium, and Hungary, all of which are implementing slightly different versions of it. There's also the rise of marketplace facilitator laws that require facilitators to collect and remit VAT, which adds an additional layer of complication for businesses operating in the digital economy. </p>
<p>Complying with VAT remains as difficult and complex as it has ever been, especially for companies without the necessary tools to simplify the process. And compliance is set to only get more complex over the next few years as global tax authorities push VAT initiatives forward at a rapid pace. </p>
<p>VAT complexity is primarily a result of the lack of uniform approaches among member nations. VAT returns can differ greatly from country to country. Compliance issues also differ from industry to industry as well as from country to country. In addition, the list of eligible transactions and exemptions is constantly changing as geopolitics continue to shift. In fact, countries like France, Poland, India, Norway, and Chile have implemented VAT changes over the past 24 months, adding to the complexity of compliance. This shift adds a significant amount of uncertainty into the corporate tax management processes, especially for companies with interests in one or more VAT countries. </p>
<p>However, VAT looks to be a transformative force within businesses involved with e-commerce and digital products and services. Tax software vendors have invested resources into enhancing or launching products that address the taxation of digital goods and services across borders. </p>
<p>Businesses looking to navigate the global economy and sell products/services internationally must consider investing in a modern digital tax compliance solution. The drawbacks to non-compliance are clear from a regulatory standpoint: potentially heavy fines and penalties. However, penalty avoidance is simply the first layer of benefits to investing in modern compliance applications. Operational efficiency gains and improvement in customer and supplier experiences are potential advantages of modernizing the VAT compliance process. Given the momentum of VAT changes and the rapidly increasing pace of business globally, it is essential for businesses to make the leap to a tool that allows companies to adapt and enforce critical organizational policies, especially in an increasingly remote or hybrid work environment. The need for digital adoption platforms for managing the constant uncertainty around global VAT is vital to supporting the needs of modern businesses. </p>
<h2>Key Recommendations </h2>
<p>IDC predicts that by 2025, CIOs who invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technologies will see a 40% increase in productivity, delivering greater speed to expertise (IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Work 2023 Predictions, October 2022). </p>
<p>As part of deploying a DAP, organizations should: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Identify which processes require the greatest support as employees move through onboarding, taking on new roles, retiring, or reboarding. Recognize that challenges in navigating enterprise applications can erode employee engagement, retention, and brand loyalty. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Eliminate friction points so all tax and other governance mandates are seamlessly and accurately addressed. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Process advancements and disruptions need not be an impediment to taking advantage of hybrid work models. Instead, with the right assessments of employee needs and governance requirements, digital adoption platforms have the potential to improve employee retention and corporate governance which in turn strengthens the bottom line. </p>
<p>To learn more on how future of work impact businesses and employees, read the latest IDC Snapshots sponsored by SAP: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-snapshot-navigating-dynamic-future-work-digital-adoption-platform-0">Navigating a Dynamic Future of Work with Digital Adoption Platform</a> </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/meeting-challenge-expense-management-hybrid-work-environment">Meeting the Challenge of Expense Management in a Hybrid Work Environment</a> </p>
</li>
</ul>
Amy Loomis , Kevin Permenter
Key Ways to Bring County Spending Under Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/key-ways-to-bring-county-spending-under-control
2023-04-18T09:00:00Z
2023-04-06T09:10:18Z
Getting a handle on spending for county governments can be challenging, especially if your organization uses manual processes, spreadsheets, and semi-automated systems that provide an incomplete and o
<p>To make better, more strategic financial decisions, your organization must know what’s in the bank right now and what’s going to hit the ledgers soon.</p>
<p>Getting a handle on spending can be challenging, especially if your organization uses manual processes, spreadsheets, and semi-automated systems that provide an incomplete and outdated picture of where the dollars are.</p>
<p>Here are just a few ways spending goes astray and bogs organizations down in tedious tasks:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travel Expenses:</strong> Employees that travel on business and hang on to receipts delay submitting expense reports because the process is time-consuming. As a result, the organization doesn’t know the total cost of those travel expenses until weeks after they occur.</li>
<li><strong>Accounts Payable Invoices:</strong> It takes an estimated 11 days<sup>1</sup> to get sign-off approval for a vendor invoice payment from time of receipt. With invoices that are received by paper and over email, the whole process can be slower than it needs to be. And without a system to track the spending throughout the process, the accounting team doesn’t have a clear, accurate view of overall spending.</li>
<li><strong>Overall Processing Time:</strong> As for accounting and finance team members, they each spend an estimated 14 hours<sup>2</sup> a week processing expenses and another 13 hours<sup>3</sup> handling vendor invoices. With that amount of time punching details into spreadsheets, fewer hours are left for the value-adding work your county needs and team members want.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are examples where a more automated finance process would help reduce time spent on manual work and increase control over compliance, giving you the clarity needed to make decisions and seize opportunities.</p>
<h2><strong>Capture spending early on</strong></h2>
<p>The inherent challenge with manual processes is that the clear view of spending they provide often comes too late to make sound organizational decisions. Spreadsheets and paper forms also can trap information in silos instead of making it available to eyes across the organization that need it.</p>
<p>As organizations grow, so does the paper trail – making the process even more challenging. Automated expense and invoice solutions, on the other hand, can scale up as your county grows.</p>
<p>One way to gather spending numbers earlier in the process is a central portal for submitting vendor invoices. Additionally, using a purchase order process lets you know spending is coming before it hits your books.</p>
<p>On the expense side, a mobile app can reduce the spending-data lag by letting employees snap pictures of receipts and automatically adding the expense to an expense report. At that point, you know what expenses are coming and aren’t waiting on employees who are slow to file reports. The employees, too, will appreciate not having to tote around piles of receipts.</p>
<h2><strong>Cut errors and fraud risk</strong></h2>
<p>Mistakes occur when you combine people, paper, and manual data entry.</p>
<p>Cutting and pasting details between receipts, forms, and spreadsheets is a time-consuming task prone to error, whether by the traveling employee or a member of the accounting staff. On the AP side, duplicate invoices can be another recurring problem.</p>
<p>Manual processes carry another risk beyond simple error: the potential for fraud, whether it’s fudging on mileage or faking invoices for goods or services never received.</p>
<p>Automation solutions that incorporate intelligent technology can detect overstated, non-compliant or phony expenses and close the gaps in processes that can foster unintentional error or potential fraud. They can spot invoices that came from unrecognized suppliers or didn’t match purchase orders or use a built-in mileage tracker to accurately measures mileage expenses.</p>
<p>*Separate callout* Interested in learning more about how automation can bring control to your AP spend? Take a look at our tip sheet, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-essentials-bringing-control-and-compliance-unmanaged-spending-local-governments">7 Essentials for Bringing Control & Compliance to Unmanaged Spend</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Make better decisions with holistic data</strong></h2>
<p>Automated spending processes bring visibility and unity to data currently hidden on paper or amid disconnected systems across the county.</p>
<p>By gathering data from multiple sources into a single platform, you and others who need to can see spending no matter where or when it occurs. With data presented in an easy-to-use format, you can identify areas to cut costs, highlight risks, and negotiate discounts with suppliers.</p>
<p>With the assistance of automation, your finance team can be confident in the spending numbers and insights they can see and share. And your county will gain the visibility it needs to make critical spending decisions.</p>
<h2><strong>Automating and controlling spending</strong></h2>
<p>Regardless of where you’re at in your automation journey, it’s important to continue moving forward so you can keep up with the status quo and fuel future growth. For additional insights into controlling spend with SAP® Concur® solutions, check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-five-ways-improve-control-over-spend">Top Five Ways to Improve Control Over Spend</a> eBook, or visit the SAP Concur partner page at the <a href="https://www.naco.org/sponsor/sap-concur-0">National Association of Counties</a><u>.</u></p>
<p>Ready to see what SAP Concur solutions can do for your county? Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">solutions for State and Local Governments page</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Why Should I Move from SAP Travel Management to Concur Travel & Expense?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-should-i-move-from-sap-travel-management-to-concur-travel-expense
2023-04-05T09:00:00Z
2023-04-03T07:20:42Z
Moving to the cloud-based Concur Travel & Expense solution requires minimal implementation costs so ROI can be realised sooner, while mobile- and web-based tools mean there’s little to no additional i
<p>This a common question we often hear from customers using the SAP Travel Management (on-premise) solution to manage employee expenses.</p>
<p>Think about where you are today. Then think about where you want to be in the future. How much more could your team do, and how smooth could expense management be? </p>
<h2><strong>What’s the difference between SAP Travel Management and Concur Travel & Expense? </strong></h2>
<p>Concur Travel & Expense is SAP’s cloud-based business travel management tool. It simplifies travel & expenses for employees and managers by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Providing an end-to-end travel and expense (T&E) experience that’s easy for employees to use.</li>
<li>Applying customizable policy rules automatically, removing the guesswork for employees and approvers.</li>
<li>Allowing work on the go by making the expense management process accessible inside or outside the company walls.</li>
<li>Speeding up approvals so employees are reimbursed faster.</li>
<li>Freeing up time for employees, managers, and finance teams to focus on important work.</li>
<li>Automatically create an expense report by taking a picture of the receipt.</li>
<li>Seamlessly integrating with Concur Expense for efficient spend management.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>How can </strong><strong>SAP Concur’s automated travel and expense management solution benefit your business?</strong></h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Employee Experience</strong> -With an end-to-end process, business travel and expense information can be prepopulated into expense reports. Then it’s much easier for employees to quickly and accurately submit claims for reimbursement.</li>
<li><strong>World-Class Mobile App</strong> - Employees can book travel, capture receipts, submit claims, and approve wherever they travel and work.</li>
<li><strong>Improved compliance</strong> - Using an automated solution enables you to quickly update your policies when necessary or flag exceeded spend thresholds to employees.</li>
<li><strong>Increased Productivity -</strong> When expenses go digital, managers can access them anywhere at any time. Finance can also see all the open but unapproved expenses in the system, giving them visibility of their upcoming cash flow.</li>
<li><strong>Improved visibility – </strong>With built-in analytics and reporting you can see the big picture, pick up on trends, and make strategic business decisions.</li>
<li><strong>Duty of Care - </strong>Deliver on your duty of care commitment by identifying employees on business travel who need help, connecting with them, and getting them home safely.</li>
<li><strong>Connect to company systems</strong> - Easily integrate finance solutions and connect data across your existing business systems like SAP ECC or SAP S4/HANA.</li>
<li><strong>Sustainable Business Travel - </strong>Build sustainability into your travel program and equip employees with tools to achieve sustainability goals with SAP Concur partners like CHOOOSE and Thrust Carbon.</li>
</ol>
<p>Moving to the cloud-based Concur Travel & Expense solution requires minimal implementation costs so ROI can be realised sooner, while mobile- and web-based tools mean there’s little to no additional infrastructure required. SAP Concur also manages maintenance and functionality upgrades, meaning less work for your business.</p>
<p>Implementing Concur Travel & Expense is faster and easier than you might think. Ready to see it in action? Watch our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/depth-travel-and-expense-demo">in-depth demo</a> today.</p>
<p>This post was contributed by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jindalankur/">Ankur Jindal</a>, director of solution consulting at <a href="https://innovelconsulting.com/">Innovel Consulting</a>.</p>
Innovel Consulting
These 5 TripIt Features Can Save You Money on Your Next Trip, According to TripIt Customers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/these-5-tripit-features-can-save-you-money-on-your-next-trip
2023-04-04T09:00:00Z
2023-04-03T07:09:05Z
The feeling’s mutual: We love saving you money on travel, and our customers love when the app helps them save money, too.
<p>The feeling’s mutual: We love saving you money on travel, and our customers love when the app helps them save money, too. </p>
<p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Qw2nV-vF2T5zRtmdwUR0AszW8vjmQzV65Cu5w477_myUD6em1Q13aMC6nzSGHG6QHiKOsoN2rYFzKovE1z72t5oYSGiHFnvxwUCy34_PXURBELaW8YqASZC2itSnPfeAywgJxtIdn7pJP0z4PtWHtQ" /></p>
<p>We wondered what features help customers the most, so in a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-survey-americans-optimistic-about-travel-2023"><u>recent TripIt survey</u></a>, we asked travelers if TripIt had saved them money on travel and which features had helped them do so. </p>
<p>Of those who said TripIt features saved them money: </p>
<ul>
<li>37% said Fare Tracker saved them money </li>
<li>16% said Nearby Places </li>
<li>14% said International Travel Tools </li>
<li>12% said Navigator</li>
<li>9% said Point Tracker </li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s take a closer look at how these five features make travel easier; save you money <strong>and</strong> time; and can help you plan your next trip. </p>
<h2>1. Fare Tracker</h2>
<p><a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/226107147-Fare-Tracker-"><u>Fare Tracker</u></a> is a TripIt Pro feature that monitors your flight itineraries for fare reductions. </p>
<p>For U.S. itineraries, TripIt Pro monitors your flights for ongoing changes in price. If we find a lower fare, we’ll send you an email, SMS text, or push notification when a potential airline credit or refund may be available.</p>
<p><strong>Related reading: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/get-money-back-fare-tracker"><u>Get Money Back on Your Flights With Fare Tracker</u></a></p>
<p><strong>How it can save you money: </strong>You'll be automatically notified if a potential airline credit or refund is available to get money back on your flight. We suggest contacting your travel agency or airline as soon as you receive a fare reduction alert as airfares change rapidly. In some cases, your TripIt Pro membership might pay for itself! </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you time:</strong> No need to spend time keeping track of your already-booked flights’ price fluctuations. TripIt Pro automatically does this for you, and will send you an alert if a refund might be available. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_KmM_GVKWgJey4n4emds0a4VsPp3p_PlYGEi9HFg4_fvbQFY1AIyfz2Okn7zw1PF1JyAK6ucUK1tdQBktgC4t0veu_-85DXyWp6VLeRPwTWkhPjQ3OUTU3M6wCfH3YvLnPLvZjZk3O48hIMwsVYpGtU" /></p>
<h2>2. Nearby Places</h2>
<p>TripIt’s <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000864270-Nearby-Places"><u>Nearby Places</u></a> makes it easy to find places close to where you’re staying. You can also use the tool to make informed spending decisions. </p>
<p>Whether you’re looking for a restaurant, hospital, clinic, gas station, pharmacy, bar, cafe, or ATM—TripIt has you covered with the closest locations for each. If you find a place you like but can’t get there right away, you can save it in TripIt to visit later. </p>
<p>Within the lodging, rental car, activity, or restaurant details screen of your TripIt phone app, you’ll see Nearby Places. Simply select the type of place you’re looking for, and TripIt will find what’s close by. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you money:</strong> Say you’re looking for a bite to eat near your hotel. Simply tap the Restaurants option in the Nearby Places feature to see useful information about hours, reviews, as well as dollar signs to indicate price level. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you time: </strong>Nearby Places also gives you useful information like the restaurant’s contact details, hours, reviews, and more—right in the app. If you want to see where the restaurant is located in relation to your accommodations, TripIt will also show you an interactive map with each option tagged.</p>
<h2>3. International Travel Tools </h2>
<p>It can be hard to keep track of different cultural customs and norms when you’re traveling abroad. TripIt Pro’s <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002036264-International-Travel-Tools"><u>International Travel Tools</u></a> provides country-specific information so you can more easily navigate what’s expected of you as a traveler. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you money: </strong>Consult the tipping guidelines to tip responsibly without overpaying. You can also view currency exchange rates, so you can make informed decisions at an ATM or currency exchange center and when choosing your payment methods (e.g., you might save money on international transaction fees by paying with your travel credit card). </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you time:</strong> With TripIt Pro’s International Travel Tools, you’ll be in the know when visiting new places. For example, you don’t have to spend time looking up a currency exchange rate when you’re standing outside an ATM, or how much to tip when the bill arrives—all of that information is right in the app. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-save-money-on-travel-with-tripit"><u>How to Save Money on Travel With TripIt </u></a></p>
<h2>4. Navigator </h2>
<p>TripIt’s <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000245272-Navigator"><u>Navigator</u></a> feature allows you to search transportation options available to you. Pick any address within your itinerary and Navigator will display the different transportation options available to you. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you money: </strong>Navigator<strong> </strong>shows you the estimated costs for each option, so you can decide which works best for your wallet. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you time:</strong> The feature also displays the estimated travel times for each transportation option, so you can decide which one works best for your schedule, too. </p>
<h2>5. Point Tracker </h2>
<p>Maximize your rewards with <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/226107407-Using-Point-Tracker-"><u>Point Tracker</u></a>, and keep track of your reward program points and miles in one spot. </p>
<p>For more than 150 programs—including airlines, car rentals, hotels, dining, and credit cards—TripIt Pro stores all your account numbers, balances, and expirations in one place. It’s easy to monitor all your expiration dates so you can take advantage of your points and miles before they expire. </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you money:</strong> Booking trips with points is one of the best ways to save money while traveling—it can make you feel like you scored a free vacation! </p>
<p><strong>How it can save you time:</strong> No need to constantly monitor when your points might expire. TripIt Pro will alert you via push notification when it looks like they’re about to expire. </p>
<p>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</p>
<p>This post originally appeared on the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/customers-say-these-5-tripit-features-save-you-money">TripIt blog</a>.</p>
TripIt
Are Your Business Spending Processes, Metrics Up to the Times?
https://www.concur.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-business-spend-management-with-automation
2023-03-30T11:47:49Z
2023-03-30T11:20:48Z
Look at key areas and ways to adopt or extent automation solutions that could help your business spend management program
<p>The past few years, without a doubt, disrupted spending patterns at your company and across the economy. As spending changed, your processes to manage business travel, other expenses, invoices, and other key business elements likely changed with the spending shifts.</p>
<p>Amid that business spending evolution, the moments of clarity and confidence in each business spending decision may have become moments of uncertainty for the finance team and others. It’s a fair question to ask if some measures you once counted upon still measure up.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do you know all your spending numbers and how much certain categories cost to oversee? It’s difficult to control what you can’t see.</li>
<li>Have you adjusted your key performance indicators – adding some KPIs, jettisoning others – to track and reveal the challenges and opportunities of the times?</li>
</ul>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Business Spend Management KPI Scorecard</h5>
<p>Download the free spend management KPI scorecard with new metrics to help you deliver the impact and results your changing business needs.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-your-spend-management-kpis">Download Here</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>What are the key areas and business metrics to consider for using automated spend management solutions?</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>
<h2><strong>Paying expenses using corporate cards improves business spend control.</strong></h2>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Paying business expenses with cash can reduce control and increase risk. Encouraging team members to use corporate cards instead of cash can improve spending visibility and the amount your company receives in card rebates. Multiply eligible expenses by your card’s rebate rate – up to 2% – and you’ll get a good idea of the possible savings. Automated business expense and invoice solutions, and their dashboards can help you stay on top of both cards and cash.</p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider: </strong>Measure cash vs. card use in such categories as airfare and hotels; track late fees for corporate cards and invoices.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<h2><strong>Managing receipts with automated spend management software.</strong></h2>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Manual receipts and processes consume time and resources. Give employees a solution that lets them take a picture of receipts, as it not only truncates the paper trail but also can send the gathered information directly to reports. Automation and integration also can allow you to collect receipts electronically from suppliers and corporate cards, increasing the timeliness and accuracy of your spending picture. If you want to see the time lost to manual transactions – and the potential of automation – just divide the number of manual transactions by the minutes in an hour. The tally may surprise you. Companies that use SAP® Concur® solutions average time savings of 36% in expense report handling and processing.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider: </strong>Track the number of receipts requiring follow-up; measure the number of required receipts attached to reports, as well as unnecessary ones included.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<h2><strong>Measuring business mileage efficiently.</strong></h2>
</li>
</ul>
<p>For business travelers and finance teams, tracking mileage is time- consuming and hard to get right. Did you know that manual tracking can result in as much as 15% more miles than were actually traveled? A GPS-enabled mobile app that automatically tracks and submits trips can improve accuracy and reduce overpayments.</p>
<p><strong>KPI to consider: </strong>Identify high-travel employees to check mileage accuracy and see if they’re using the right tools and modes of travel.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<h2><strong>Business automation secures auditing accuracy.</strong></h2>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Auditing business expense reports can be a big drain on finance team time, hours and even days that could be better spent on work that adds greater value. Solutions that use artificial intelligence, bolstered by the help of outside experts, can analyze those expense reports, flag exceptions, and reduce the burden on your team’s productivity.</p>
<p><strong>KPI to consider: </strong>Compare percentage of reports audited by people vs. those by automation.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<h2><strong>Simplify the expense processes for improved accuracy.</strong></h2>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Gaining the ability to measure and tally spending is an opportunity to clean up and hone your processes and solutions. You can fine-tune or remove spending categories, clarifying and simplifying the business expense process and employee experience. Or you can confirm that the data received is accurate and comprehensive. You can better see how business spending matches forecasts and budgets or uncover issues for correction.</p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider:</strong> Gauge the difference between what’s budgeted and what’s spent; scrutinize the number of expense refunds or updates to employees; identify business spending categories to add or remove.</p>
<p>The examples are just starters when assessing the ways automation solutions and better processes can improve accuracy and efficiency – and how you measure progress – at your company. They are steps small and large, but they all add up. When you can see all your spending and obtain both answers and insights, those moments of doubt can become moments of clarity and opportunity.</p>
<h2><strong>Learn more</strong></h2>
<p>To find out more about adjusting your KPIs, calculating spend management costs and learning how SAP® Concur® solutions can help, read these guides:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-your-spend-management-kpis"><strong>Spend is Changing. Are Your KPIs Keeping Up?</strong></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/running-numbers-key-improve-your-spend-control"><strong>Running the Numbers. The Key to Your Spend Management Story.</strong></a></p>
<h6><!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjDs7vOs-j7AhU0GTQIHTrYAoAQFnoECCkQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fidc_infographic_te_business_value_2021_ent_rc.pdf&usg=AOvVaw35E9bUSw-nojggG-kDzGOF">SAP Concur Helps Organizations Optimize Employee Spend Management While Improving Business Efficiency, IDC, 2021</a></h6>
SAP Concur Team
Financial Times Series: Adapting to Change That Never Stops
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/financial-times-series-adapting-to-change-that-never-stops
2023-04-03T10:51:01Z
2023-03-20T12:48:38Z
For travel, sustainability is increasingly important. Productivity and efficiency are paramount for small and medium-sized businesses squeezed by costs and labor
<p>In life and the world we live in, very few things can be taken for granted. But the pandemic, geopolitical unrest, economic uncertainty, and the past several years in general point to one thing we can count on: Change is the new normal. </p>
<p>As unsettling as change can be, it also brings opportunities you and your business should be prepared to seize, as a series of <a href="https://www.ft.com/partnercontent/sap-concur/hearts-minds-and-the-bottom-line.html">new articles</a> in the Financial Times recounts. The three articles, published in a partnership with SAP Concur, examine travel and expense trends and feature input from thought leaders and businesspeople who are managing change while pursuing growth. </p>
<p>A guiding thought – a mindset to keep you pushing ahead amid disruption – is that businesses and employees have proven remarkably adaptive and will likely continue to be. For example, hybrid work has largely worked well, with companies shifting technology and processes to support it. “It did provide an opportunity to think about new ways of managing spend,” says Cathryn Reiner, COO of SAP Concur. </p>
<p>Travel has returned but is different. Sustainability is increasingly important. Productivity and efficiency are paramount, especially for smaller and medium-sized businesses squeezed by costs and a tight labor market. Information is key to managing all of the above. And running through those and other trends discussed in the articles is the fact that customers and employees alike want to have flexibility and the user-friendly technology they encounter in other parts of their lives. </p>
<h3>Finding efficiencies</h3>
<p>With budgets under pressure and hiring difficult, businesses are scrutinizing their spending and processes for savings and productivity. Improved and more timely visibility into spending can help you identify the best targets, allowing a more surgical approach that doesn’t cut growth opportunities along with costs. Technology, like travel and expense automation, can reduce manual tasks and free employees for higher-value work, which is especially valuable when short-staffed. </p>
<h3>Evolving travel</h3>
<p>Business travel has proven resilient instead of dead, with budgets approaching pre-pandemic levels. But what travel looks like has changed, as many companies have realized virtual meetings can’t fully replace in-person ones. Businesses may send fewer people on a trip or take longer jaunts while avoiding shorter ones. Or you may bring your dispersed team together more often to work and build culture. Automated travel management can help make the process more efficient while providing visibility into which trips deliver the best return. </p>
<h3>Getting sustainable </h3>
<p>The pandemic led many, including your employees, to seek more purpose in their careers and lives, from a work-life balance to what they buy and do. Amid climate change, they want their employers to focus on sustainability, too. Technology solutions can help guide employees to greener choices for trips and hotels, while providing data showing both the carbon and financial impacts of travel by your business. </p>
<h3>Fast, flexible, intuitive </h3>
<p>Your employees and customers are accustomed to technology having real-time functionality in other parts of their lives, so why shouldn’t they find it at your business as well? Removing obstacles and steps with automation and intent can bring your business in line with the fast-paced change that one business leader put this way: “We’ve seen shifts in customer habits and expectations that would normally take as long as 10 years.” </p>
<h3>Read further in the Financial Times </h3>
<p>For a more detailed look at what business and thought leaders say about trends and opportunities in travel and expense management, read the <a href="https://www.ft.com/partnercontent/sap-concur/hearts-minds-and-the-bottom-line.html">articles</a> and gain insights and tools that can turn moments of uncertainty into moments of confidence. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Automated credit card reconciliation: You Don’t Need to be Big to Get Big Returns
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automated-credit-card-reconciliation-you-dont-need-to-be-big-to-get-big-returns
2023-03-14T07:59:57Z
2023-03-14T07:45:54Z
With solutions like Concur Expense and Concur Invoice, you can do all that and more. Your business will be able to automate and speed up the credit card reconciliation process, increase visibility int
<p>I love reviewing my monthly credit card statements and comparing line items to my crumpled receipts – said no one ever. Unless you’re an accountant perhaps. But even then, don’t you have more important things to do?</p>
<p>We think so, and that’s why we’re big fans of automated expense management, especially when it comes to reconciling credit card transactions. So, let’s get right to what everyone leading a smaller business needs to know.</p>
<h2>The hidden costs of manual credit card reconciliation</h2>
<p>Aside from papercuts and dried up highlighters, what do you think about when we mention credit card reconciliation? You may think of the hours spent staring at statements each month just to catch a $7 Uber charge from an employee’s night out with friends. In other words, time wasted that should have been spent on more important things. But don’t let those kinds of low cost “oops” lull you into a sense of complacency.</p>
<p>Out-of-policy spending and even outright fraud can easily fly under the radar when using a manual reconciliation process. If your company has multiple employees sharing a single corporate credit card or if you allow business expenses to be paid with personal credit cards, those risks can quickly multiply, too.</p>
<p>The result? Hidden costs that significantly impact your cash flow, business agility, and growth. Your business could also be hit with tax penalties and get a bad reputation for corporate fraud — a double whammy no business needs.</p>
<p>And here’s a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide">statistic</a> not to be ignored:</p>
<p><em>The average time span fraud lasts before detection is 14 months, and 76% of cases are committed at the employee or manager-level.</em></p>
<p>That might mean your risk exposure is being prodded higher by the star pitcher on your company softball team who needed a new softball glove or by loyal employee #3 who thinks they’ve earned the right to claim an increasing number of personal expenses each month.</p>
<p>Of course, we wouldn’t be mentioning all this without a solution to offer. So, here’s how you can make credit card reconciliation a breeze while avoiding difficult conversations with the employees you rely on most.</p>
<h2>SAP Concur solutions make credit card reconciliation fun</h2>
<p>Okay, perhaps not fun, but like most things in life there’s always room for improvement of your back-office financial processes. Imagine for a moment being able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Spot expense claim errors, discrepancies, and duplicates immediately</li>
<li>Identify unusual transactions and possible fraud</li>
<li>Easily access up-to-date financial data</li>
<li>Make more-informed decisions and plan more effectively</li>
</ul>
<p>With solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/invoice">Concur Invoice</a>, you can do all that and more. Your business will be able to automate and speed up the credit card reconciliation process, increase visibility into spending, and make life easier for everyone.</p>
<p>Here are some <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/automating-finance-on-way-digital-transformation">top benefits SAP<sup> </sup>Concur users have reported</a> after automating their expense process:</p>
<ul>
<li>32% less time to approve expenses</li>
<li>13 hours saved per finance/accounting employee per week</li>
<li>$18 saved per expense report</li>
<li>8 months to positive ROI</li>
</ul>
<p>As you can imagine, this results in lot of fan email from customers and partners. And ya, we’re big fans of them, too.</p>
<p>Ready to ditch the paper statements and highlighters? Take a closer look at how other smaller businesses have already <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">automated spend management</a>.</p>
<p>It’s easier than you may think. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Talk to us today</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Adopting Spend Automation to Maximize Your New Funding
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/adopting-spend-automation-to-maximize-your-new-funding
2023-03-29T13:42:55Z
2023-03-07T08:32:16Z
Congratulations on getting new funding for your business! This resource roundup offers tips to use digital transformation to make your money work better for you.
<p>When your business gets a new infusion of cash, you have a good problem on your hands. Many a business faces the dilemma of how to spend their new funding. There’s often a strong case for investing in everything from new equipment to new talent to replacing worn-out office furniture. The list goes on, and before you know it, that money can quickly get spent.</p>
<p>That’s why you want to prioritize your spending in ways that will give you the greatest return. So how do you get the most mileage from your funding? By managing it better from the start.</p>
<p>Let’s look at some ways you can digitally transform your finance process to make your funding work better for you.</p>
<h2><strong>How does spend management automation work?</strong></h2>
<p>Digitizing and automating spend – such as employee expenses, vendor invoices, and travel costs – can give your business a stronger foundation to help ensure future growth and resilience. Digital transformation is also a major priority for businesses of all sizes – to make sure operations run better, employees work more productively, and get better control of cash flow.</p>
<p>Furthermore, many companies are looking for digital innovation solutions with faster implementation times, especially as they seek faster ROI and digitization wins.</p>
<p>Automation is a broad – and sometimes misunderstood – concept. You can get a basic understanding here of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">How AI and ML Automation Solutions Solve Business Problems</a>.</p>
<p>When it comes to automating your finance process, this guide, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/6-ways-grow-your-business-spend-management-automation">6 Ways to Grow Your Business with Spend Management Automation</a>, shows how to maximize automation and remove the gaps for spend to fall through and get ahead of your cash flow.</p>
<p>And keep in mind: Your competitors are thinking about digital transformation and automation, too. See <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch?bypass=form">Five Trends for CFOs to Watch</a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch"> </a>to see what’s top priority for businesses and their finance leaders.</p>
<h2><br />
<br />
<strong>Do you really need to automate <em>your </em>spend management?</strong></h2>
<p>Even if you have processes in place for managing finance tasks, do you know how well they can support you as your business evolves?</p>
<p>The first step to determining how well your company’s spend management process is actually working is using this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/interactive-tools/controls-and-compliance-financial-fitness-scorecard">Controls and Compliance Financial Fitness Scorecard</a> to make a quick assessment of where your business stands and how it could improve.</p>
<h2><strong>Using data for smarter decision-making</strong></h2>
<p>Today’s businesses are embracing more data-driven decision-making. Automation can give you the tools to improve business intelligence and gain actionable insights.</p>
<p>When charting the path for your new funding, it helps to use tools to make contingency plans for strategies to weather uncertainty, strengthen your working capital, improve company spend visibility, and find cost-saving opportunities. See <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/6-strategies-finance-resiliency-digital-transformation">6 Strategies for Finance Resiliency via Digital Transformation</a> to learn more.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong>Get greater transparency into spending</strong></h2>
<p>Gaining greater transparency into your spend – for internal tracking as well as for any reporting you might need to provide to stakeholders outside of the business – is key to seeing where you stand and how you can rein in costs.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Oxford Economics Global + US Report: Leadership in a New Era</a>, business leaders who were surveyed reported seeing increased visibility into spend, better cash flow management, greater cost savings, and improved financial forecasting after digitizing the business finance process.</p>
<p>Finding the right tools can help you better leverage business analytics to ensure travel and expense policy compliance, improve budgeting, forecasting, and more. See <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/reports-you-need-without-spending-time-you-dont-have">Reports You Need Without Spending Time You Don’t Have</a> to learn more.</p>
<h2><strong>Ways to ensure compliance</strong></h2>
<p>Staying on top of compliance can be challenging, but it’s key to maintaining control over your spending and reducing errors and fraud. It’s also crucial to staying within business regulations and staying in alignment on any business agreements you may have.</p>
<p>Now is the time to review where you stand on spending policy and fraud reduction. Use this tip sheet, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-tips-build-culture-compliance">Top Tips to Build A Culture of Compliance,</a> to consider the policies and processes that keep your bottom line in line while protecting your company and its people.</p>
<p>Roughly 20% of expenses fall out of policy. Think about how much that can impact your bottom line – and eat into your new funding. But strengthening your expense policy and communicating it properly are the first steps to getting that under control. Start with this easy-to-use <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">Expense Policy Template</a>. You’ll also want to review your vendor invoice policy, and this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">Invoice Policy Template</a> can help.</p>
<p>And finally – organizations lose an estimated 5% of revenue to fraud each year. So, you definitely want to nip that in the bud. See our short guide <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/fending-fraud">Fending Off Fraud</a> for ways to reduce fraud.</p>
<h2><strong>What's the ROI on spend management automation?</strong></h2>
<p>When it comes to investing your new funding, the big question, of course, is: <strong>How soon will this pay off?</strong></p>
<p>Many companies are realizing that they’ll see faster ROI with solutions they can get up and running faster. Check out this case study, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/gallagher">Gallagher Rolls out SAP Concur Solutions in Two Weeks</a>, to learn more.</p>
<p>In a 2022 survey by Analysys Mason, <strong>companies saw, on average, positive ROI within 8 months</strong> after implementing a travel and expense and/or vendor invoice management solution. Check out this infographic, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/automating-finance-on-way-digital-transformation">Automating Finance on the Way to Digital Transformation</a>, to see how much companies have saved by automating their travel, expense, and vendor invoice management.</p>
<p>Want to see what your company’s ROI could be? Try the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">ROI Calculator for Companies and Employee Expense Management</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">Concur Invoice ROI Calculator</a>.</p>
<p><br />
<strong>Ready to invest in your business with </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business"><strong>spend management solutions</strong></a><strong>? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact"><strong>Let’s chat</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
2023 Trends to Watch in Travel and Expense Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2023-trends-to-watch-in-travel-and-expense-management
2023-03-17T18:52:38Z
2023-03-02T10:21:24Z
Companies will continue to invest in digital solutions to accomplish a number of goals, from savings to program flexibility to sustainability.
<p>Can you see the future with absolute accuracy when it comes to travel and expense spending and management? Don’t you wish. </p>
<p>But armed with insights from leaders and innovators in the field, you can prepare for change and disruption and avoid being blindsided. A key step is taking inefficient processes and wasteful spending out of the equation. </p>
<p>Our new e-book, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/foresight-2023-4-trends-travel-and-expense-management">Foresight 2023: 4 Trends in Travel and Expense Management,</a> discusses areas where efficiency and savings can be found, areas that can help convert moments of spending uncertainty into moments of confidence. </p>
<p>If there’s an overarching theme among the predictions for the months ahead, it’s that companies will continue to invest in digital solutions to accomplish a number of goals, from savings to program flexibility to sustainability. </p>
<p>As stated by Alexander Bant, chief of research at Gartner® Finance Practice <a href="http://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-05-19-gartner-survey-shows-significant-rise-in-number-of-cfos-planning-cost-cuts-due-to-inflation">in a press release<fn value="1">Gartner Press Release, Gartner Survey Shows Significant Rise in Number of CFOs Planning Cost Cuts Due to Inflation, May 19, 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.</fn></a>: “CFOs are increasingly looking to the long-term benefits of digital investments, including automation, that can permanently reduce the cost of doing business.” </p>
<h2>The promise of digital tools </h2>
<p>Economic forecasts are less than inspiring, while talent and budgets are tight. Digital tools can streamline processes and help overloaded teams cover the bases and gain productivity. </p>
<p>They can give your employees a simpler, mobile way to manage travel and expenses, improving their work lives in the process. They employ AI and machine learning to manage spending and improve accuracy and the process itself. </p>
<h2>Flexibility is paramount </h2>
<p>Business travelers want to travel in ways that work for them, which means they must have tools that are varied and flexible. </p>
<p>Today’s T&E solutions must bring together numerous travel sources, from third-party aggregators to chosen suppliers to the global distribution system. Attaining flexibility requires multiple partners and channels integrated into one easy-to-use, on-the-go solution. </p>
<h2>Travel must be purposeful </h2>
<p>Businesses are taking a harder look at the necessity of trips these days, asking such questions whether they deliver measurable results, fortify relationships, or are sustainable. </p>
<p>An effective T&E solution can provide the numbers and information to answer those questions and others, while guiding travelers to the most cost-effective and sustainable choices and bolstering compliance in the process. </p>
<h2>Integrated reporting is growing </h2>
<p>The days of companies keeping financial reporting in a silo, separate from their other important initiatives, are over. </p>
<p>Integrated reporting incorporates spending data as well as measures that reflect the environmental, governance, and social goals of your business. It connects talent, manufacturing, and services to create a unified, measurable picture of the effects of what your business makes and does. </p>
<h2>Build your preparedness and agility </h2>
<p>Preparing your company and team for what lies ahead requires staying aware of trends and best practices. Download a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/foresight-2023-4-trends-travel-and-expense-management">Foresight 2023: 4 Trends in Travel and Expense Management</a> to understand more about T&E trends and how SAP Concur solutions can be the automated, digital tools that deliver the spending efficiency and insights you need. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Should You Expect from AP Automation?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-should-you-expect-from-ap-automation
2023-03-06T12:55:56Z
2023-03-02T10:12:43Z
As economic turmoil tightens budgets, fully automating accounts payable processes can provide businesses the efficiency and insights to weather disruptions.
<p>Capturing invoices. Auditing. Routing. Approving. Paying on time. With accounts payable, there are plenty of steps where things can go sideways. Where what should be a straightforward, efficient process bogs down into manual tasks, doublechecks, and corrections that consume time and money. </p>
<p>Amid those breakdowns and tedious tasks, your company can lose the accurate and timely picture of spending required to seize opportunities, mitigate risks, and manage cashflow. Spending decisions become moments of uncertainty instead of moments of confidence. </p>
<h2>A key time to do better </h2>
<p>While having doubts about whether expenses are worthwhile is always a concern, the consequences of such doubts – and the inefficiency and possible waste fueling them – deepen amid inflation and fears of a global recession. </p>
<p>As economic turmoil tightens budgets, fully automating accounts payable processes can provide businesses the efficiency and insights to weather disruptions. And to thrive when times improve. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>The Best Invoice Management Choice</h5>
<p>It’s time to tackle this spend area. Our checklist will help you identify what the best solution should offer.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/best-invoice-management-choice">Get the checklist</a></div>
</div>
<h2>What should an AP automation solution do for you? </h2>
<p>Knowing the gaps and weaknesses in your AP processes is one thing. Assessing the automation options and what they offer is another matter. Our new checklist, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/best-invoice-management-choice">The Best Invoice Choice</a>, can help guide the conversation. </p>
<p>An all-too-familiar challenge for most companies is capturing all the invoices and expenses coming in. Sales seminar costs, utility bills, and other spending that evades traditional procurement process can complicate the process and consume resources to nail down. An end-to-end digital solution can close the gaps and curtail the weaknesses. </p>
<p>Here are some questions to think about if considering adding AP automation or enhancing the automation you already use: </p>
<ul>
<li>Can it automatically match purchase orders, invoices, and payments, uncovering problems before vendors are paid instead of after? </li>
<li>Will it automate processes to speed payments and earn early-pay discounts instead of late fees? </li>
<li>Does it incorporate AI and machine learning to improve accuracy and efficiency, so your team can do value-adding work instead of tedious tasks? </li>
<li>Does it provide an accurate, nearly-real-time view of cash flow and give you insights that guide better decision-making? </li>
<li>Is it scalable and supported by a company that continuously improves the solution to incorporate new technology and meet new business needs? </li>
</ul>
<h2>How can Concur Invoice meet your needs? </h2>
<p>Substitute Concur Invoice for the “it” in the questions above, and the answer to each – and many others – is “yes.” Another resource from us, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/6-reasons-concur-invoice-right-you">6 Reasons Concur Invoice is Right for You</a>, explains how our solution delivers that answer. </p>
<p>Businesses using our AP automation solution can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Capture expenses quickly and accurately with character recognition, AI, and other tools. </li>
<li>Have a seamless, end-to-end process extending from purchase requests to supplier payments for goods and services. </li>
<li>Find all their spend data in one place through integrations with ERP and other systems. And it’s visible and comprehensible via dashboards and reports. </li>
<li>Meet the challenges of change, disruption, and growth. Concur Invoice and our portfolio of business solutions undergo continuous improvement, and we continue to add partners and extend options – VAT reclaim, for example. We’ll scale as you do. </li>
</ul>
<p>That’s enough from us. Consider what some of our customers say: </p>
<ul>
<li>“Prior to Concur, one invoice would take 17 days to approve, and it would cost the university roughly $130. That invoice now takes four days to approve, costing us around $4.” </li>
<li>“Concur allowed us to streamline the whole progress and process of an invoice through payment. Adding Concur Invoice has decreased the amount of time that I’ve spent chasing down paper invoices by 50%.” </li>
</ul>
<h2>Explore AP automation, Concur Invoice further </h2>
<p>Get a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/best-invoice-management-choice">The Best Invoice Choice</a> to learn more about what you should expect – and questions to ask about – from an AP automation solution. </p>
<p>Then get our brochure, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/6-reasons-concur-invoice-right-you">6 Reasons Concur Invoice is Right for You</a>, for closer look at how our SAP Concur solution meets those expectations and can limit that doubt that can creep into each spending decision. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Improve Employee Experience with Mobile Apps and Digital Platform Adoption
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improve-employee-experience-with-mobile-apps-and-digital-platform-adoption
2023-08-03T09:51:09Z
2023-03-02T09:54:55Z
Driving the use of mobile and digital adoption platforms can extend the effectiveness of your existing investments in SAP Concur solutions even further.
<p>No doubt, more of your employees are out of the office, either working remotely or traveling. Providing the right digital travel and expense tools can make team members and the company more productive, potential to tap amid tight times and a shortage of talent. </p>
<p>Driving the use of mobile and digital adoption platforms can extend the effectiveness of your existing investments in SAP Concur solutions even further. And help make new and existing employees “happy customers” while giving your business greater speed, accuracy, compliance, and insight into spending. </p>
<p>The mobile apps put T&E management right into the hands of employees and team leaders while delivering a timely view of spending. A digital adoption platform can help on-board new employees and easily and quickly teach current team members the automated and mobile tools you provide. </p>
<p>With these self-service options, employees save time and frustration by learning as they use, while the company avoids the expense and resources that more intensive training and support require. Investing in a digital adoption tool can pay dividends, as IDC predicts CIOs who invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technology will see a 40% increase in productivity, delivering greater speed to expertise by 2025.<fn value="1"> IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Work 2023 Predictions, October 2022 *doc #US49968522, February 2023 </fn></p>
<h2>Self-service tools let you work faster </h2>
<p>Getting more from the team you have is more critical than ever. That applies to current team members learning new skills to cover gaps and higher workloads due to the labor shortage as well as to bringing new employees – if you’re fortunate to hire some – up to speed so they can be productive faster. </p>
<p>A recent IDC Info Snapshot, sponsored by SAP Concur, Navigating a Dynamic Future of Work,* notes that a digital adoption platform can be particularly effective for familiarizing employees with T&E solutions and processes that have undergone great change in recent years. Our new checklist, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-drive-travel-and-expense-management-efficiency-2023">Make More of Every Spending Moment</a>, examines three self-service tools that can help improve the employee experience while helping increase productivity and adoption. </p>
<p>Manage travel on the go: The SAP Concur mobile app lets users’ book and manage trips and log expenses as they occur. You’ll be able to track their travels and the company’s spending faster and more accurately, while employees can more easily comply with spending policies. </p>
<p>Scrap the paper: Few people enjoy navigating paper trails and filling out expense reports. The ExpenseIt mobile app allows your employees to snap a photo of their expense receipts and send them directly to expense reports, with numbers quickly available for you and decision-making. </p>
<p>Learn while using: Concur User Assistant by WalkMe is a digital adoption service that walks team members through a solution with on-screen prompts while guiding them with visual cues and tips. A chatbot helps them complete tasks and addresses questions. Instead of getting frustrated, they learn the process and technology. They can focus their time and energy on work that matters, while the business achieves efficiency and spending compliance. </p>
<p>With the combination of core solutions and self-service mobile and digital adoption tools, your company can attain the efficiency and insights that covert each spending decision into a moment of clarity and confidence. That’s valuable at any time, but especially now. </p>
<h2>Learn more from a closer look </h2>
<p>Read our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/tips-drive-travel-and-expense-management-efficiency-2023">Make More of Every Spending Moment</a> checklist for more on how the SAP Concur mobile app, ExpenseIt and WalkMe can help your team and business run at its peak abilities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-snapshot-navigating-dynamic-future-work-digital-adoption-platform">Get the IDC Info Snapshot, Navigating a Dynamic Future of Work</a>, to learn more about trends and challenges that CIOs and other leaders expect in the years ahead. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Expense ROI Review: Why walk when you can run?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-roi-review-why-walk-when-you-can-run
2023-03-09T09:00:00Z
2023-02-28T09:48:12Z
Ever jumped off a dock into a lake, but insisted your friend goes first so you know how cold the water is? We often look to the experience of others to inform our own decisions. In fact, when growing
<p>Ever jumped off a dock into a lake, but insisted your friend goes first so you know how cold the water is? We often look to the experience of others to inform our own decisions. In fact, when growing a business, it can be a risk management superpower. With that in mind, we’re sharing the ROI of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> as reported by our customers.</p>
<p>Granted these insights won’t give you the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but we do like to think of them as giving you x-ray vision into the real-world value of spend management automation. Let’s dive in.</p>
<h2>Expense management solution must-haves</h2>
<p>When we talk with finance and IT leaders, we begin by asking them what they’re looking for in a cloud-based expense management solution. Business requirements tend to be specific to each company, however, there are some must-haves that bubble to the surface.</p>
<p>Today’s business leaders look for a proven solution that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Provides employees with an easy-to-use mobile app to capture and approve expenses on the go</li>
<li>Pre-populates expense reports from e-receipts, scanned receipts, and credit card data</li>
<li>Identifies potential errors and out-of-policy expenses in real-time when creating an expense report</li>
<li>Allows for configurable approval workflows based on employee or spend type, spend purpose, amounts, etc.</li>
<li>Offers out-of-the-box integrations to ERP and accounting software</li>
<li>Includes configurable reporting and trend visibility across employee groups and spend categories</li>
<li>Uses intelligent technologies to generate insights, guide actions, and improve decisions</li>
</ul>
<p>Concur Expense checks off all these requirements and more, but you likely already knew that. And hey, if not, feel free to take a <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a>.</p>
<p>The real question is not what our proprietary AI-powered technology can do, however, but rather what measurable benefits these capabilities provide.</p>
<h2><strong>Boost efficiency, productivity, visibility, and control</strong></h2>
<p>Our customers include over 48,000 businesses of all types and sizes. Each are looking for ways to boost operational efficiency, employee productivity, spending visibility, and control over costs. In other words, they don’t want their business to merely walk, they want it to run. We help them do just that.</p>
<p>After automating, our Concur Expense customers report<sup>1</sup>:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% reduction in misplaced receipts</li>
<li>32% reduction in the time taken to approve expenses</li>
<li>50% less time to reimburse expenses</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>26% reduction in budget overspending because of increased visibility into spending data</li>
</ul>
<p>And for those of you who prefer the bottom-line number, our customers say it took only 7 months to pay back on their initial investment and resulted in a three-year ROI of 628%.</p>
<p>Feel free to use these stats when building your own business case for automation. And if you would like some expert guidance, download our buyer’s guide on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/choose-the-right-travel-expense-solution-for-your-small-midsize-business">Choosing the Right T&E Solution for a Small-to-midsize Business</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>It’s time to build business momentum with Concur Expense</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Talk to us today</a> about your specific business needs and to learn more about how the best run with SAP Concur solutions. Jump on in, the water’s fine.</p>
<h6><sup>1</sup> AMI, Business mindset for 2022 and beyond and the benefits of automating travel, expense and invoice management: Global study findings, 2022</h6>
SAP Concur Team
7 Habits to Help Finance Leaders Meet Challenge of Change
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-habits-to-help-finance-leaders-meet-challenge-change
2023-05-31T12:34:24Z
2023-02-28T09:39:44Z
To stay on top and get ahead – of an unpredictable economy, talent shortages, and the drive for productivity – you must purposefully grow your skills to meet the growing expectations for your role.
<p>The change and challenges come fast and furious when you are a finance leader. </p>
<p>To stay on top and get ahead – of an unpredictable economy, talent shortages, and the drive for productivity – you must purposefully grow your skills to meet the growing expectations for your role. </p>
<p>But knowing where to begin so you have a conscious plan instead of a reactive approach to improvement can be a challenge. In our new e-book, <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-key-habits-successful-finance-leaders">Seven Key Habits of Successful Finance Leaders</a></em>, finance leaders share insights and approaches they have developed. </p>
<p>They range from learning to get outside your comfort zone when assessing opportunities to finding and closing your skill and technology gaps. The habits vary widely but have this in common: You must be intentional about improvement, for the sake of you, your team, and your company. Together, they are habits that can help turn moments of uncertainty into moments of business confidence. </p>
<h2>Stay on the cutting edge of technology: </h2>
<p><em>“I create a road map of the right combination of people, processes, and technology, knowing that mix will shift over time. You can’t be afraid to change as your needs, the market, and technology adapt.” </em></p>
<p>– Cameron White, SVP of Finance, AvidXchange</p>
<p>To eliminate manual tasks and raise productivity, it’s critical to stay up on the latest technology. It requires a multipronged approach: reading business papers and finance publications, monitoring networking sites, and talking up finance colleagues about technology solutions they’re using. With a clear view of what solutions can do, you can not only better discern how they can improve work and processes but also better communicate to top leadership the benefits of making the investment. </p>
<h2>Identify blind spots: </h2>
<p><em>“Blind spots can mean lots of things. It can mean relationships, skill sets, or how you manage your team.” </em></p>
<p>– Brian Vance, COO & VP Market Assessment/Planning, SAP Concur </p>
<p>Have an open door and get feedback from inside and outside your team. Take a hard look at technology and processes that once worked well. Assess a project after it wraps up. Seek out opportunities to learn what other teams do. Set aside time for professional development, for you and team members as well. Those are all steps you can take to eliminate blind spots and build your skills and teamwork. </p>
<h2>Embrace “yes”: </h2>
<p><em>“It’s a snowball effect. Once you stretch and say yes once or twice, you realize what you’re capable of. Stepping out of your comfort zone is always the hardest step.”</em> </p>
<p>– Melanie Pereira, SVP Finance, Emerald </p>
<p>Instead of instinctively dismissing a project or job opportunity because it’s not in your comfort zone, give it serious consideration. That opportunity can help grow your skills and range, and it might not come again if you turn it down. A “say yes” philosophy can apply to technology, too, in that being open to new approaches and tools can get you past the “we’ve always done it that way” trap. </p>
<h2>Commit to continued learning: </h2>
<p><em>“It’s an existential threat if you’re not doing continuous learning. I know it can be difficult, but you have to allocate a certain amount of time on a daily basis, even if you’re just reading an article a day while having your coffee.” </em></p>
<p>– Chris Gledhill, Independent FinTech Advisor </p>
<p>Information – and learning opportunities – is everywhere. But only by taking it in from white papers, blogs, thought leaders, friends, and other sources do you develop the knowledge base to filter and determine what’s most important to your company. So carve out time on a regular basis to read, learn, digest, and then discern who and what is particularly worthy of your attention. </p>
<h2>Other areas to grow and learn more </h2>
<p>Those are just several examples of successful habits you can develop. Finding a mentor and even volunteering in your community – what better way to flex your leadership skills and widen your circle? – are others that can foster the ability to navigate change. Once you begin your own intentional journey, you will likely discover additional ones that can benefit you, your team, and your business. </p>
<p>Download a copy of <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-key-habits-successful-finance-leaders">Seven Key Habits of Successful Finance Leaders</a></em> from SAP Concur to learn more about approaches that can help you meet the challenges and change of the times. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Invoice ROI Review: Why Walk When You Can Run?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-invoice-roi-review-why-walk-when-you-can-run
2023-03-06T13:11:26Z
2023-02-28T09:29:14Z
When you look at what our customers have gained with automated invoice management, you’ll better understand why they have a new-found love of all things AP. No leap of faith required.
<p>Missing or misplaced invoices. Tedious data entry. Head-scratching P.O. matching. Duplicate payments and late payment penalties. Difficult conversations with frustrated vendors. Isn’t accounts payable fun? For our Concur Invoice users it is, precisely because they don’t have to deal with any of the aforementioned challenges.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe ‘fun’ is overselling it. But when you look at what our customers have gained with automated invoice management, you’ll better understand why they have a new-found love of all things AP. No leap of faith required.</p>
<h2><strong>Happier days with procure to pay</strong></h2>
<p>Manual steps at any point in your AP process can lead to lost employee productivity, data entry errors, increased costs, unseen risks, and damaged vendor relationships. But you probably already know that. When we talk with AP managers and finance leaders, they’re often well aware of what’s <em>not</em> working in their procure to pay workflow. What they’re surprised to learn, however, is how easy and cost effective it can be to overcome these challenges.</p>
<p>Yes, we’re talking of course about automating invoice management with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>. And here are the features our customers say they love most about our cloud-based solution:</p>
<ul>
<li>Scans and extracts data from electronic and paper invoices using intelligent technologies</li>
<li>Automatically codes invoice data for accelerated processing</li>
<li>Splits invoices into multiples for allocation to cost centers and separate approvals</li>
<li>Provides employees with an easy-to-use mobile app for invoice review and approvals on the go</li>
<li>Uses AI to flag abnormalities, such as duplications, unauthorized charges, etc.</li>
<li>Stores processed invoices and original document images on the cloud</li>
<li>Integrates with other billing, procurement, accounting, or ERP software</li>
<li>Enables custom approval workflows (e.g. different approval paths based on employee type, Invoice type, amount of spend, etc.)</li>
<li>Matches invoices with purchase order/sales orders and goods received receipts</li>
<li>Configurable reporting on invoice spend and processing trends</li>
<li>Ability to schedule payments via ACH, credit card, or third-party payment processor</li>
</ul>
<p>All that and a bag of chips. And if you want to get a better taste of these tasty features, make sure to check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a>.</p>
<p>But first, let’s get to the point of this article. Here are some real-world insights into the real-world ROI of Concur Invoice.</p>
<h2><strong>The ROI of Concur Invoice as reported by our customers</strong></h2>
<p>When it comes to automating finance processes, accounts payable tends to take a back seat to payroll and expense management. As our Concur Invoice customers will tell you, however, invoice management automation can make just as significant impact on operational efficiency.</p>
<p>How big an impact? After automating AP with Concur Invoice our customers report<sup>1</sup>:</p>
<ul>
<li>60% reduction in missing invoices</li>
<li>29% reduction in time spent by AP/finance teams on capturing invoices</li>
<li>26% reduction in budget overspending because of increased visibility into spending data</li>
<li>11% cost savings realized through supplier-negotiated rates and discounts</li>
</ul>
<p>And for those of you who prefer the bottom-line number, our customers also report that it took only 7 months to pay back on their initial investment and generated an estimated $43,000 saved on an annual basis. What’s not to love?</p>
<p>Feel free to use these stats when building your own business case for automation. And if you would like some expert guidance, download our <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">Accounts Payable Automation: A Buyer’s Guide</a></em>.</p>
<p>Ready to take the next step?</p>
<h2><strong>It’s time to build business momentum with Concur Invoice</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Talk to us today</a> about your specific business needs and to learn more about how the best run with SAP Concur solutions. Your AP team and vendors will thank you. Profusely.</p>
<h6><sup>1</sup> AMI, Business mindset for 2022 and beyond and the benefits of automating travel, expense and invoice management: Global study findings, 2022</h6>
SAP Concur Team
New Whitepaper: How Will Gen Z and Gen Alpha Change Travel and Expense?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-whitepaper-how-will-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-change-travel-and-expense
2023-03-06T12:50:10Z
2023-02-23T15:12:50Z
Further transformation will be required as younger generations enter the workplace and bring with them a host of new expectations.
<p>Having worked in the travel and expense (T&E) industry for more than four decades, change is the one certainty that I’ve come to expect. Each decade has brought new challenges, opportunities, and perspectives to this line of work. And, if history is any indication, I expect further transformation in the coming years as younger generations enter the workplace and bring with them a host of new expectations. </p>
<p>Travel managers: I’ve been where you are today. In 2008—during the Great Recession—I started as the new director of T&E at a large, cloud-based software company. This organization had strong and growing millennial representation in its workforce. My immediate responsibilities included better understanding and meeting the needs of, at that time, the youngest workers in the business. </p>
<p>The differences that distinguish each generation will inevitably lead to changes in the workplace. Organizations will have to pivot to accommodate its business travelers’ needs, not the other way around. As a travel manager today (and quite possibly a millennial yourself), you are now likely seeking to better understand and meet the needs of the youngest workers in your business—Gen Z and, in just a few years, Gen Alpha. </p>
<p>To help, SAP Concur has published a new whitepaper, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/preparing-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-how-younger-generations-will-change-business-travel-and-expense-management">Preparing for Gen Z and Gen Alpha: How Younger Generations Will Change Business Travel and Expense Management</a>. Inspired by leading research into the characteristics and expectations of these generations and backed by my own professional experience in transforming T&E, this whitepaper explores three of the biggest changes that organizations can expect in the years ahead. It should serve as an initial guide to help travel managers and company leaders level-set on where things stand and how T&E operations may need to adjust going forward. </p>
<p>How will the changes brought about by Gen Z and Gen Alpha workers shape T&E best practices? Download the SAP Concur whitepaper <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/preparing-gen-z-and-gen-alpha-how-younger-generations-will-change-business-travel-and-expense-management">here</a> to learn more. </p>
SAP Concur Team, Ralph Colunga
SAP Concur Announces 2023 SAP Concur Innovation Award Winners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-announces-2023-sap-concur-innovation-award-winners
2023-03-06T12:50:41Z
2023-02-23T15:05:35Z
SAP Concur Fusion brings our customers and partners together with no shortage of opportunities to learn and share.
<p><a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> brings our customers and partners together with no shortage of opportunities to learn and share. Every year, we also take time to recognize customers and partners who exemplify the ways in which SAP Concur solutions can bring more certainty, efficiency, and savings to their business. </p>
<p>This year, we are honoring five Innovation Award winners who share our passion for making every spending moment matter. </p>
<p><strong>Standard Chartered Bank</strong> </p>
<p>At Standard Chartered Bank, the rollout of SAP Concur solutions is part of Project Aspire, the company’s financial transformation effort. In preparing for the implementation of the SAP Concur platform, the company dramatically simplified T&E policies, taking 67 pages of legalese and condensing down to a simple two-pager with easy-to-understand principles. </p>
<p>In addition, SAP Concur technologies allow Standard Chartered Bank to make sustainability real. The company uses functionality within Concur User Assistant by WalkMe to deliver pop-up messages to advise employees of their carbon impact when booking flights. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more in the Standard Chartered Bank </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/standard-chartered-bank">customer story video</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Merck </strong></p>
<p>Moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, Merck knew it could provide a better experience for its users, improve its corporate card program, and increase policy compliance. With the help of the Concur Select Care team, Merck deployed SAP Concur solutions in more than 75 countries and issued 40,000 payment cards in the span of 10 months, completely transforming its expense process. </p>
<p>With Intelligent Audit, the company inserts audits of policy prior to manager approval, increasing speed to reimbursement, reducing delinquency, and eliminating work from the system. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more in the Merck</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/merck">customer story video</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Gallagher </strong></p>
<p>Gallagher rolled out SAP Concur solutions in two weeks across six regions seeing massive improvements in admin and finance processes. With a focus on providing a positive user experience and driving cost savings, Gallagher streamlined its expense claims process by eliminating paper-based, time-consuming manual processes and automating its goods and services tax (GST) and fringe benefits tax (FBT) calculations. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more in the Gallagher</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/gallagher">customer story video</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Acquis</strong> </p>
<p>Our Partner Innovation Award winner is Acquis Consulting Group, a company that has been working with SAP Concur and its customers since 1998. In 2013, Acquis became one of the first certified implementation partners and since then has supported more than 225 customers in 110 countries. </p>
<p>With a shared commitment to customer success, Acquis and SAP Concur bring expertise to every step of the T&E process from pre-trip through reconciliation and reimbursement. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more in the Acquis</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/acquis-consulting-group">partner video</a>. </p>
<p><strong>PwC Italia</strong> </p>
<p>PwC has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030 and through enhanced reporting, alert messaging within the booking tool and improved filtering, PwC Italia has gained visibility into CO2 emissions associated with business trips and encouraged employees to make more sustainable travel choices. </p>
<p>After rolling out SAP Concur solutions to its 8,000 employees in Italy, PwC Italia has made strides toward its NetZero 2030 commitment by reducing travel-related CO2 emissions by 53% since 2019. </p>
<p>Hear PwC Italia’s story at the free virtual Fusion experience at fusion.concur.com. </p>
<p>We are proud these organizations have found success with SAP Concur solutions and it's an honor to recognize each as a 2023 SAP Concur Innovation Award winner. </p>
SAP Concur Team, Chris Juneau
SAP Concur Fusion: Updates Coming to Concur Travel and Concur Invoice
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-fusion-updates-coming-to-concur-travel-and-concur-invoice
2023-03-06T13:15:47Z
2023-02-23T14:42:09Z
During this year’s SAP Concur Fusion, we’re revealing several developments to Concur Travel and Concur Invoice solutions with benefits to companies, travelers, and partners.
<p>Today marks the beginning of <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a>. Our annual event helps attendees optimize their investment in—or learn more about—SAP Concur solutions. With educational sessions and opportunities to engage with the broader community, SAP Concur Fusion empowers attendees to influence organizational change so that their business can be ready for anything. </p>
<p>During this year’s event, we’re revealing several developments to Concur Travel and Concur Invoice solutions with benefits to companies, travelers, and partners. Here are some of the highlights: </p>
<p><strong>Concur Travel </strong></p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we are evolving the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> online booking tool with new technology to better address the current and future needs of our travelers, customers, and travel partners. SAP Concur will soon introduce the initial new car rental booking experience in Concur Travel—starting with customers whose TMCs connect to Concur using the Amadeus global distribution system (GDS)—with a restricted release planned for Q1 2023. </p>
<p>This enhanced experience will feature a more user-friendly interface with desktop-mobile content parity. With new and improved content and functionality—such as intuitive delivery and collection, average car emission ratings, option to filter electric vehicles, and improved ancillaries’ descriptions—travelers will have the information needed to make cost-effective, compliant, and sustainable choices when booking rental cars. </p>
<p>Additionally, travel managers will benefit from expanded content, allowing more granular control over booking criteria. Compliance improvements such as access to vendors at off-airport locations will help ensure travelers choose the most policy-compliant option. Meanwhile, core functionality including the ability to display corporate rates and enhanced visibility into rental car spend provide additional tools to control travel costs, all while delivering a superior experience for travelers. </p>
<p>The evolution of Concur Travel will continue over time to include other GDSs, other verticals and additional content sources for hotel, air, and rail. For instance, an upcoming hotel booking experience – with a restricted release planned for end of Q2 2023 – will introduce more options for sourcing and curating content through Custom Hotel Source providers. With richer imagery and enhanced filtering options, users will be able to easily find their desired property, as well as expanded property and rate content with clearer pricing data. </p>
<p><strong>Concur Invoice </strong></p>
<p>In addition, SAP Concur is planning to unveil upcoming changes to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> expected by Q2 2023. </p>
<p>Concur Invoice will offer a new form of payment for U.S. and Canadian currencies: virtual cards. The benefits of using virtual cards, as opposed to current options like checks and the Automated Clearing House network (ACH), include faster payments, increased visibility into payment status, increased security, reduced fraud risk, access to rebates, and greater efficiency and automation. </p>
<p>Customers also have expressed interest in having greater flexibility and control within Concur Invoice, and SAP Concur will soon introduce an extended service, Invoice Payment Manager, with two new features to help address this feedback: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Batch scheduling:</strong> Users will have the ability to schedule payments on a preferred day and time, so they can simply set it and forget it. </li>
<li><strong>Manual Payment Release:</strong> Financial executives will have the option to provide final approval before a payment goes out the door. </li>
</ul>
<p>These changes are on the way, so stay tuned via the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a>—we’ll share more updates soon. And don’t miss the informative sessions and networking opportunities at this year’s SAP Concur Fusion, taking place in person in Houston, Texas, from February 28 through March 2, 2023, and virtually on March 1 and March 2, 2023. Learn more and register to attend the virtual event <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">here</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Prepare for Unexpected with a Business Continuity Plan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-for-unexpected-with-business-continuity-plan
2023-03-06T13:17:58Z
2023-02-23T10:45:27Z
A business continuity plan must cover a lot of ground and contingencies. Our template can help jump-start the discussion on a number of fronts.
<p>Maybe it’s a flood, tornado, or 24 inches of snow quickly followed by another foot. Possibly it’s a man-made calamity like a cyberattack. If you’re fortunate, it’s a good but challenging problem like increased sales. </p>
<p>No matter the cause, businesses can suffer unexpected disruptions that have ruinous effects on operations and the bottom line. By crafting and testing a business continuity plan, your company can have a road map that partially or fully disaster-proofs the business from events ranging from sales dips and spikes to rebuilding the main office. It’s a resource that helps companies react to unforeseen events in a more comprehensive way instead of dealing with issues piecemeal. </p>
<p>As part of detailed business continuity and disaster recovery plan, you can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Construct processes and beef up technology that allow even more employees to work remotely than already do. </li>
<li>Further shift to digital solutions that reduce such menial, manual task as filling out expense reports, performing data entry, or sending payments to vendors, since that kind of automation allows work to be done from anywhere. </li>
<li>Stress-test your systems and tech vendors to ensure they will hold up under pressure and determine how to create and access backups as needed. </li>
</ul>
<p>Those are, of course, just some broad elements of a plan. Our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-create-an-effective-business-continuity-plan">whitepaper and business continuity plan template</a>, created through a partnership of SAP Concur and B2B payments expert TransferMate, takes a close look at ways to develop a plan, including action steps to consider and questions to ask. With the guide and a commitment to follow through, your company can be prepared for change and turn moments of uncertainty into moments of confidence. </p>
<h2>Start planning a plan </h2>
<p>A business continuity plan must cover a lot of ground and contingencies. Our template can help jump-start the discussion on a number of fronts. </p>
<p>Assessing impacts. Ask what sites are critical or how many people are needed at each location or could go fully remote. </p>
<p>Find technology gaps. Determine whether your IT team can quickly recover data and whether your tech vendors are able to keep your data secure and respond during a disaster. </p>
<p>Scrutinize communications. Determine whether you will have the tools to stay in touch with your employees and reinforce your commitment to keeping them safe. And make certain that customers, too, can connect and be reassured. </p>
<p>Prepare for the worst. Map out what-if and worst-case scenarios, from being unable to access data and buildings to securing them from damage. </p>
<p>Because you can’t imagine every last thing that could go wrong, expect and plan for all the flexibility you can and ensure you have the resources in hand to pull it off. And make sure one of those resources is a leadership team that’s aware of and onboard for the continuity plan you’ve worked hard to create. </p>
<h2>Creating continuity </h2>
<p>Read our whitepaper, <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-create-an-effective-business-continuity-plan">How to Create an Effective Business Continuity Plan</a></em>, for insights on preparing your business to operate no matter what disruption it faces, as well as information on how SAP Concur expense, travel and invoice solutions can make it easy to conduct business on the go. </p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Trends Finance Leaders Should Know About Improving Resilience, Technology, and Employee Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-trends-finance-leaders-should-know-about-improving-resilience-technology-and
2023-03-06T13:22:01Z
2023-02-23T10:37:58Z
You are being asked to do more with less, and intelligent solutions that increase efficiency and productivity can help you do that. Keep an eye on these trends.
<p>Staying on top of the financial situation is, of course, a major part of your job. But today more than ever finance leaders also are expected to keep up with change. </p>
<p>You and your team are being asked to look further down the road than in the past and play a wider role in the business at large. And top company leadership looks to you to be a partner with them, IT, and others to lead the company’s digital transformation. Because with an unpredictable economy, a labor crunch, regional conflicts, and other factors affecting the business, it’s vital to streamline processes and gain productivity. </p>
<p>Our new white paper, <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch">5 Trends for CFOs to Watch</a></em>, examines topics that matter for finance leaders seeking to meet the challenges thrust upon them, including business resilience, technology and automation, employee experience, and data insights. The intent is to provide guidance that can help you satisfy an overarching goal: turning moments of uncertainty into moments of clarity and confidence so the business runs better. </p>
<h2>Strengthen your company </h2>
<p>Natural disasters, inflation, global instability, supply chains, sales that zoom and plummet. Who knows what comes next, but the fact is you must prepare the business to be more resilient no matter the disruption. </p>
<p>Greater efficiency and productivity can build resiliency and automation that reduces manual work and processes can help. You aren’t alone in the pursuit of efficiency and productivity, as 65%1 of finance and IT leaders told1 Analysys Mason they are a top strategy for containing costs. </p>
<p>Travel, expense, and invoice management solutions that incorporate AI can monitor expenses and get smarter with each transaction, allowing your team to focus on work that matters while also providing the information and resources to better contend with disruption when it occurs. </p>
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<h5>5 Trends for CFOs to Watch</h5>
<p>Learn how resilience, elevated employee experience, and transformative technology solutions will shape tomorrow’s organizations</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-trends-cfos-watch">Get the trends</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Speed the digital transformation </h2>
<p>Businesses like yours shifted to more hybrid work in recent years, and it’s unlikely to go away because you’ve learned to support it and employees like it. </p>
<p>The new world of work drove the digitalization of processes and technology, and that shift is here to stay. Finance and business leaders are well aware, with 72% saying2 digital transformation is central to their growth. Intelligent automation – solutions embedded with AI and machine learning – brings speed, automation, and simplicity to once-manual processes, while giving your team greater agility and productivity. </p>
<h2>Improve the employee experience </h2>
<p>Many employees can now readily work from home as well as the office, and the shift in work environment has brought a change of mindset among both employees and employers. Any business seeking to attract and keep the best employees in a tight labor market must keep that change in mind. </p>
<p>Providing the technology to enable flexible work – from cloud-based solutions to mobile apps – is a major step. So is seeing those solutions as a tool to improve the quality of work, by reducing the tedium and paper trails that come from tracking receipts, filling out expense reports, and maintaining spreadsheets. Seamless digital solutions can let your team focus on better work and, with talent tight, help cover labor gaps. </p>
<h2>Turn data into insights and decisions </h2>
<p>Data is not much help if you drown in it, unable to find the insights amid all that information. </p>
<p>Intelligent solutions for travel & expense and other functions can give you a nearly real-time view of your company’s spending, providing accuracy along with greater compliance. Solutions that learn as they check expenses can deliver forecasts that enable sound spending decisions and allow you to quickly spot and pursue opportunities. </p>
<h2>Prioritize investments and spending </h2>
<p>You are being asked to do more with less, and intelligent solutions that increase efficiency and productivity can help you do that. </p>
<p>Deciding on the right technology solutions – and making the case to invest and save – can require a bit of a team approach. So finance leaders guiding the process should work closely with IT leaders – and downstream users – to assess the business applications that will achieve their business goals and better prepare their business for disruptions good and bad. </p>
<h2>Learn more, build resilience </h2>
<p>Read the white paper to further explore trends you should watch and learn how intelligent travel, expense, and invoice management solutions can help you meet the disruptions that are undoubtedly ahead. Not only is your company likely to be ready and resilient, but you and your career can be as well. </p>
<p> </p>
<h6>1, 2. Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study </h6>
SAP Concur Team
Reducing Risk: 6 Reports to Close Your Spending Loopholes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reducing-risk-6-reports-to-close-your-spending-loopholes
2023-03-01T09:00:00Z
2023-02-16T09:31:48Z
The financial health of your enterprise comes down to two things: income and expenses. In today’s uncertain economy, your organization is likely doing everything it can to increase sales, find new cus
<p>The financial health of your enterprise comes down to two things: income and expenses. In today’s uncertain economy, your organization is likely doing everything it can to increase sales, find new customers, and drive new revenue streams. However, you might be surprised to learn how much you lose due to non-compliant expenses. As the adage goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. The more you can reduce non-compliant spend, the less financial pressure your enterprise will face when it comes to meeting your earnings, profit, and operating cash goals.</p>
<h2><strong>Facing the Facts of Fraud During Economic Uncertainty</strong><br />
<!--[endif]--></h2>
<p>While fraud is preventable, actually preventing it is still a challenge for many enterprises. According to the ACFE, 51% of surveyed respondents have uncovered more fraud since the onset of the pandemic, and nearly half of reported cases of fraud occurred due to lack of internal controls. In today’s fluctuating economy, actively managing spend is the key to getting a handle on the mistakes, double-entries, and mis-categorizations that can often go unnoticed and undetected as fraud.</p>
<h2><strong>Reduce Organizational Risk with 6 Reports</strong></h2>
<p>Your SAP® Concur® solution provides the data you need to increase control and compliance—and make fraud less tempting. Use these six reports to help reduce non-compliant spending and potential fraud.</p>
<p><br />
<strong>1. Route Data</strong><br />
Paper-based mileage reports are too easily manipulated to include trips or mileage that didn’t take place. Automated mileage capture includes route data that helps ensure you only pay for the mileage and trips employees actually took for business. While this helps eliminate both accidental and fraudulent overages, it can also benefit employees who may be underestimating their mileage expenses.<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Receipt Attachments</strong><br />
A pattern of expense reports without receipts can indicate that employees are filing false or exaggerated submissions. This report can help you focus on improving your substantiation policy, finding repeat offenders, or identifying expense categories being abused.</p>
<p><strong>3. Cash vs. Card Expense</strong><br />
Cash spend is unaccountable and easily abused when compared with corporate card spend. The more cash spend (including personal card spend that is reimbursed) that you can move to corporate cards, the easier it will be to flow accurate, reconcilable data into your SAP Concur solutions – helping you validate and control spend.</p>
<p><strong>4. Reports Approved Receipts Not Viewed</strong><br />
Receipts aren’t helpful if they aren’t being confirmed as valid. This report can show if expense reports are getting approved without being properly reviewed by the manager.</p>
<p><strong>5. High-Risk Expense Categories</strong><br />
High-risk expense categories, like gifts, special projects, miscellaneous, or catering, tend to have a higher potential for misuse. These categories should be given extra scrutiny during the audit process to identify non-compliant spend as well as to uncover opportunities for employee education.</p>
<p><strong>6. Travel Expenses on Cash</strong><br />
While you’re likely capturing major travel expenses, such as hotel, car rental, and airfare, on corporate cards, there are many other cash travel expenses that you may incur each month. The more detail that you can associate with these expenses, the easier it is to encourage employees to put them on the corporate card. Card use for all transactions allows for greater transparency and the reduction of risk for fraud or non-compliant spending.</p>
<h2><strong>Data Brings Value</strong> </h2>
<p>Non-compliant spend, whether fraudulent or accidental, can be costly. By using the right data, reporting, and tools, you can automatically identify the non-compliant spend that is holding your company back while increasing the value of your SAP Concur solutions investment.<br />
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<p>Want to learn more about these reports and the tools available to help increase compliance? Contact your Client Success Partner today!</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Access All American Airlines Fares with SAP Concur Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-access-american-airlines-fares-in-concur-travel-if-american-removes-them-from
2023-04-14T10:55:48Z
2023-02-08T14:33:27Z
With a lot of questions swirling about readiness of the industry, we want to be clear about what this means for Concur Travel customers.
<p><strong>April 3, 2023 Updates</strong></p>
<p>Customers are making different choices when it comes to responding to American Airlines’ removing certain fares from the traditional GDS channel. Some are blocking American content, some are enabling Concur Select Access and/or Concur TripLink, and some are in ‘watch and wait’ mode. We do know the impact on managed travel programs could be significant.</p>
<p>American is providing all of its publicly available fare content in ATPCO beginning in April, but not making some content ticketable. SAP Concur has confirmed with Travelport, Amadeus, and Sabre that American’s modern retailing (NDC) fares will be filtered out from GDS shopping responses through EDIFACT (ATPCO path) by applying ATPCO Category 15 - Sales Restrictions at the time of shopping. Customers that have not enabled American Airlines NDC content via Concur Select Access can expect only American’s ticketable fares will be displayed in Concur Travel via traditional GDS. Customers that have enabled Select Access will be able to shop and book all American Airlines content.</p>
<p>We continue to track GDS progress in connecting to airline NDC APIs. Some still do not yet include important tools that business travelers and travel managers rely on including items such as interlining, code share, Known Traveler Number (KTN, for TSA PreCheck<sup>®</sup>), the ability to exchange tickets, and key aspects of TMC servicing. This progress remains a key element in the evolution of Concur Travel, where merchandising and retailing concepts will come to life through GDS NDC APIs.</p>
<p>Beyond American Airlines, airline distribution changes will continue to impact our customers’ travel programs. We recently added Hawaiian Airlines’ intra-island fares not part of the GDS, Finnair is available in Concur Select Access, and we are evaluating other airlines that have either announced fare actions or surcharges.</p>
<p>Travelfusion is one of several non-GDS content sources that SAP Concur makes available to customers via our Select Access program. Travelfusion is a registered UK-based company that has partnered with SAP Concur since 2005 to bring content into Concur Travel from suppliers who do not participate in the GDS, or who have limited content in the GDS.</p>
<p>Travelfusion complies with all PCI Security and Data Protection provisions both in the UK and under EU legislation. These fundamental rules are fully incorporated into all Travelfusion customer license agreements and ensure that no personal nor any sensitive or confidential information is shared outside the UK/EU. Travelfusion’s datacenters are all located in the UK and the company has in place processes ensuring that only UK-based staff have access to the datacenters. These policies and processes are independently audited by multiple accredited auditing firms, including Deloitte, on an annual basis, which is done in compliance with GDPR and PCI requirements. </p>
<p>Concur Travel customers can reach out to their Concur Travel client executive or TMC for additional guidance and more information on Concur Select Access or Concur TripLink.</p>
<p><strong>+++</strong></p>
<p><strong>February 9, 2023</strong></p>
<div>The SAP Concur New Distribution Capability (NDC) journey has been well underway for years. In 2019, we announced NDC content from British Airways and Lufthansa Group, then added United Airlines and American Airlines NDC content in <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concur-travel-connecting-united-airlines-ndc-content-charlie-sultan/">2021</a>.</div>
<p>American Airlines recently announced it would start reducing availability of its fares in the traditional GDS channel and have full content available only via its NDC API or direct channels. American also announced agreements with all three GDSs to support its API. American has stated that GDSs would be ‘ready’ to support this API-powered ecosystem by April 2023, and that over 40% of its fares will become exclusively available via its API and direct channels. </p>
<p>With a lot of questions swirling about readiness of the industry, we want to be clear about what this means for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> customers.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we understand the need to push the industry forward and advance the decade-long ‘retailing revolution.’ We built a connection to American’s NDC API through Concur Select Access a year ago and are ready to support customers who need immediate access to content that American removes from the GDS. We have been ahead of the business travel industry in connecting to airline APIs while leveraging the best and only technology available.</p>
<p>The good news is that Concur Travel customers are protected. Customers that need access to American fares that are no longer in the GDS can connect to American’s NDC APIs through Concur Select Access. They will be able to shop, book, select paid or unpaid seats, and pay by credit card - all in Concur Travel with the standard user interface and full support for travel policies. And Concur’s API connection has been enhanced recently to allow TMC (as opposed to airline) ticketing and ARC settlement. TMC ticketing is more attractive to TMCs, and several are moving to connect that way.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> is another solution for companies concerned about losing American content. TripLink customers can shop on American’s website or mobile app, realize their corporate discounts, and capture duty of care data. TripLink is even more noteworthy considering that American was quoted during The Beat Live event as saying: “There may be some special sales from time to time on AA.com that we don’t make available to any travel agencies [unless] they’re NDC-connected.” </p>
<p>The foundation of Concur Travel’s Air evolution is being built using IATA’s NDC schema version 21.3, the newest, best available version for normalization and servicing of content. The schema is backwards compatible to accommodate for all NDC schematics currently being leveraged by airlines around the globe. This will position Concur ahead of the NDC technology curve, we will also be able to support earlier schema versions in use today.</p>
<p>It is important to note that SAP Concur has been tracking GDS progress in connecting to airline NDC APIs and some do not yet include important tools business travelers and travel managers rely on. For example, it appears that key servicing functionality like exchanges may not be included in the initial version.</p>
<p>SAP Concur understands the importance of connecting to airline APIs via the GDS. We are active participants in Sabre NDC testing that began just a few weeks ago, in mid-January 2023. Participation in this analysis is a key element in the evolution of Concur Travel, where merchandising and retailing concepts will come to life with GDS NDC APIs.</p>
<p>The reality today is that even a flawless API delivered in April by the GDSs will take time for us and your TMCs to connect. We can’t realistically predict how long that will take because the APIs are not fully built yet for necessities of corporate travel. How should customers handle possible content gaps?</p>
<ol>
<li>Companies need information to evaluate the likely impact disappearing content will have on their programs. Depending on exactly what goes missing, it may not be critical to wait for GDS/NDC technology. </li>
<li>If a customer needs that content, however, they should discuss Concur Select Access with their TMC or with Concur. Concur Travel has been creating thousands of NDC orders each month in Europe for years and is one of the biggest NDC enablers in corporate travel.</li>
<li>Another, and maybe simplest interim solution may be to deploy Concur TripLink and have travelers use that to shop AA.com. While it will require some traveler education, no discounts or other content will be missed. </li>
</ol>
<p>Concur Travel customers can reach out to their Concur Travel client executive or TMC for additional guidance in obtaining American NDC content.</p>
<p>Concur Travel has been ahead of the airline distribution curve for years and offers solutions to customers now. We continue to make significant investments to develop the travel platform of the future across our entire ecosystem and innovate to connect with new content channels today while planning for the inevitable changes of tomorrow.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Why SAP Continues to be a T&E Solutions Leader
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-sap-continues-to-be-te-solutions-leader
2023-02-10T12:00:18Z
2023-02-07T12:15:07Z
Being recognized year after year as a market leader in cloud-based travel & expense solutions is something we are proud of at SAP.
<p>Being recognized year after year as a market leader in cloud-based travel & expense solutions is something we are a bit proud of at SAP. </p>
<p>But what means more than the recognition in the recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/enterprise-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-and-expense-applications-enterprise-2022-2023-vendor-assessment/">IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud Enabled Travel and Expense Applications for Enterprise 2022-2023 Vendor Assessment (doc # US49022122, December 2022)</a> report are the reasons we remaina Leader . They’re reasons worth close examination for businesses seeking travel & expense technology to meet their needs now and in the future. And, together, they’re among the ways our scalable, flexible solutions can help turn each spending decision into a moment of confidence. </p>
<p>Let’s look at what the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/enterprise-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-and-expense-applications-enterprise-2022-2023-vendor-assessment/">IDC MarketScape</a> is seeing in the market and then at a tool to help you assess your current travel & expense capabilities. </p>
<h2>How is travel & expense changing? </h2>
<p>Informed by its research, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/enterprise-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-and-expense-applications-enterprise-2022-2023-vendor-assessment/">IDC MarketScape</a> identifies a number of market trends. </p>
<ul>
<li>A still-growing emphasis on health and safety </li>
<li>A rising focus on sustainability and diversity </li>
<li>Greater in-company travel to bring teams together as remote work increases </li>
<li>A desire for fully digital solutions that employees find easy to use </li>
<li>Great acceptance of corporate cards, improving both control and traveler experience </li>
</ul>
<h2>How can we meet changing T&E needs? </h2>
<p>Safe and sustainable travel. From booking choices that guide travelers to greener flights to in-app resources that keep employees apprised of health and location concerns, SAP® Concur® solutions can help keep the team safe and satisfy sustainability goals. A mobile app can snap pictures of receipts and send information straight to expense reports – shortening wasteful paper trails. </p>
<p>Seamless and digital. From pre-approvals to booking to taking in purchase information to expense reports and invoicing, our solutions are fully digital and connected to one another. Data seamlessly moves across solutions and other company systems, using dashboards and other tools to provide an accurate financial picture and accelerate decision-making. </p>
<p>Changing workplaces. More employees doing some or all work remotely is just one change the past few years brought. One consequence is more companies bringing employees together in person to build teams and foster culture. Just as our solutions can accommodate travel to meet customers, they can manage these in-company trips. The pandemic also reinforced the need for automation and tools to conduct business remotely. Greater use of corporate cards is an example, providing advantages ranging from quickly feeding expenses onto ledgers to increasing policy compliance. </p>
<h2>Assess your current T&E solutions </h2>
<p>Understanding the state of the travel & expense market is helpful. The next step to consider hits closer to home: assessing the state of your company’s solutions and processes. </p>
<p>Knowing the right questions to ask can be time-consuming on your own, so we created an <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">Travel & Expense Maturity Assessment</a> tool to help determine where your stand. </p>
<p>Here’s what the tool involves: </p>
<ul>
<li>Questions. Subjects range from booking to the automation of expense reporting to whether your current systems link to your ERP. </li>
<li>Goals. Name your top T&E goals for the year ahead, and you’ll be guided to targeted questions that can help find a path to reaching them. </li>
<li>Recommendations. Receive suggestions that take aim at your goals, such as how increasing use of corporate cards can help reduce noncompliant spending. Learn, too, how your business compares to what others are doing. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Understand T&E market and where you stand </h2>
<p>Download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/enterprise-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-and-expense-applications-enterprise-2022-2023-vendor-assessment/">IDC MarketScape</a> excerpt to better understand the T&E market and questions to ask about technology solutions. With that knowledge in hand, use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">Travel & Expense Maturity Assessment tool</a> to learn where your current practices stand and how you can gain efficiency with SAP Concur solutions. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
CFOs Remain Committed to Digital Tools Despite Economy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cfos-remain-committed-to-digital-tools-despite-economy
2023-02-10T12:04:05Z
2023-02-06T13:01:47Z
Think of digital transformation as a way to boost your company’s resiliency so it can better navigate major disruptions like recession as well as the normal ups and downs of business cycles.
<p>Inflation is a problem around the globe again, squeezing budgets and driving concerns about the possibility of worldwide recession. But as the years of certainty roll on, many CFOs expect one recent trend to continue unabated: investment in digital tools that can deliver efficiency and insights. </p>
<p>As a finance leader, you likely realize digital solutions involving automation, advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning can fuel the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of finance functions. So if you haven’t already improved your travel & expense technology and processes, you might be considering it. </p>
<p>But there’s another, broader way to look at the issue when trying to turn spending decisions into moments of confidence instead of uncertainty. Think of digital transformation as a way to boost your company’s resiliency so it can better navigate major disruptions like recession as well as the normal ups and downs of business cycles. </p>
<h2>From the CFO’s perspective </h2>
<p>CFOs representing SAP units around the globe see and experience some of the factors reflecting this broader view. With their roles, they have insights on those areas, which include sustainability, recruitment and retention, and confronting inflation-related challenges across the business. </p>
<p>One of the CFOs, Gina McNamara of the Asia-Pacific Region and Japan, SAP, sees the metrics and skills finance leaders bring to the table translating to matters beyond budgets and managing cash flow. She and colleagues share their views in part of our CFO Insights Series, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-another-year-uncertainty-cfos-become-paragons-business-resiliency">In Another Year of Uncertainty, CFOs Become Paragons of Business Resiliency.</a> </p>
<p>“Looking forward into the future of the global economy, the stakes for technology investments are only growing higher. Finance teams rely on data and reporting that steer not only financial decisions, but also non-financial strategies and actions,” McNamara says. </p>
<h3>Getting strategic on inflation </h3>
<p>CFOs can help their organizations assess overall objectives, identify risks and how to counter them, and guide high-level conversations on purchasing and other areas affected by rising prices. Seamless digital solutions with advanced analytics and data integration can automate processes and give you the information and insights to drive important discussion among leadership. </p>
<p>“Businesses have the luxury to accept some degree of inefficiency and low productivity during good financial times. But when the economy is no longer comfortable, the math doesn't work anymore. CFOs must keep organizations honest about how business is done and what should be achieved.” – Renaud Heyd, Chief Financial Officer of SAP UK and Ireland, SAP </p>
<h3>Fostering sustainability </h3>
<p>Measuring sustainability can go hand in hand with how effectively a company controls expenses and manages cash flow. With finance teams keeping track of indicators for sustainability and finances as well, they are positioned to help hold businesses accountable. Using their expertise with indicators and metrics, they can give teams across the company the tools to measure and predict business outcomes. </p>
<p>“There are substantial mid- and long-term costs when not running a company intelligently and sustainably – especially given resource limitations. CFOs have to make decisions that add value to not only the brand, but also the environment in which the business operates.” ‒ Brian Vance, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of <br />
Market Assessment and Planning, SAP Concur </p>
<h3>Focusing on retention and recruiting </h3>
<p>Finding and keeping good employees who are productive and innovative is valuable at any time but especially critical during uncertain times. CFOs can collaborate with their human resources counterparts to set pay and benefits, establish an attractive culture, improve training, and support and promote a workforce that can grow the business. You can’t make inflation go away, but a good team can be a resilient team. </p>
<p>“Financially speaking, attrition is costly – especially if the business loses talent it would love to keep. So it really pays off when CFOs communicate the link between the bottom line and the employee experience to executives and organizations managers.” – Carl-Christian von Weyhe, Chief Financial Officer <br />
of the Middle and Eastern European Region, SAP </p>
<h2>Build your resiliency </h2>
<p>Learn more from the new entry in our CFO Insights Series, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cfo-insights-another-year-uncertainty-cfos-become-paragons-business-resiliency">In Another Year of Uncertainty, CFOs Become Paragons of Business Resiliency,</a> which includes a broader discussion of steps your company can take to grow resilience and the roles CFOs can play in navigating unsettling times. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How CFOs Are Leading Transformation and Driving Enterprise Reinvention
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-cfos-are-leading-transformation-and-driving-enterprise-reinvention
2023-02-07T08:20:42Z
2023-02-06T09:50:00Z
We talk to Accenture experts about how CFOs can make better, faster, and more strategic decisions that will future-ready their organizations and set the stage for success.
<p>Whether it’s optimizing operations and upping productivity or accelerating growth and addressing sustainability, today’s CFOs are being asked to take on more responsibility for enterprise reinvention. It’s “to the point where 68% of CFOs are driving three or more enterprise-wide transformation initiatives in parallel,” says Aneel Delawalla, who leads Accenture’s CFO and enterprise value strategy practice.</p>
<p>To talk about how CFOs can make better, faster, and more strategic decisions that will future-ready their organizations and set the stage for success, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, spoke to Delawalla and Paul Carr, Accenture’s HXM Ecosystem Lead for Solutions, which includes SAP Concur.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/historian-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready-their-organizations-age-complexity">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/from-historian-to-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready/id1525744763?i=1000593694517">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7p8xP2b3tCyCliG8tN0WsK">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/from-historian-to-soothsayer-o5HblycTds9/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/from-historian-to-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready-their">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjNiZTkxMzc5ODM3OGQwMDExNGVkY2Y4?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjAwaDU58_8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-historian-to-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready-their-organizations-in-age">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Run Initiatives in Parallel to Break Down Siloes</strong></p>
<p>Enterprise-wide transformation initiatives led by CFOs “span the gamut from sustainability and ESG-type items, to workforce and workplace, to drive improved employee experience, to digital and process transformation, to yield productivity and processes,” Delawalla says. “It’s really about the step forward CFOs are taking and leveraging the insights of a digital core that enables them to collaborate better, but also be more predictive and prescriptive as well.”</p>
<p>Successful initiatives are not happening serially or in silos. “The ones that are truly unlocking business benefit, truly driving differentiated employee experience, are ones that are interconnected but running in parallel, rather than operating in their own silos, where T&E is doing something separate from accounting, separate from procurement, separate from FP&A, separate from HR,” Delawalla explains. Further, running initiatives in parallel has the benefit of compressing the timeline for enterprise reinvention.</p>
<p><strong>Increased Emphasis on Employee Experience</strong></p>
<p>Organizations are increasingly focused on differentiating the employee experience, and CFOs are part of this effort in numerous ways, says Dion, including automating expense processing.</p>
<p>Expectations for expense processing have evolved with increased digital experience. A whole generation of people joining the workforce expect to interact with an app, Carr explains. “They want to be able to do everything digital on the go,” he says. “They want to have this ecosystem of solutions behind there that makes life easy.”</p>
<p>Additionally, employees want to focus on creating value for the company and not be bogged down by administrative activities, Carr continues. By making expense processing as easy as possible, the finance team supports this goal. Also, automating expense processing by using AI, for example, frees up time for the finance team to focus on higher value activities. “You’re actually working on delight of the employee and getting the most that you can out of every employee, to ensure that their skillset is being used at the highest value for an organization,” says Dion.</p>
<p><strong>Where to Begin? How to Choose a Starting Point</strong></p>
<p>One of the biggest challenges for organizations embarking on a broader transformation journey is knowing where to start. “As powerful as CFOs are, two-thirds of them feel paralyzed, at times, because of the volume and velocity of choices coming at them and then the implications of their decisions,” says Delawalla.</p>
<p>Carr recommends starting with areas, such as expense management, that will engage your employees from the beginning. There are processes you can take out in isolation before you go into a mega transformation or completely change your whole operating model or the way that you work, he says. Start with pilot projects that you can build upon and have employees give feedback. That way, you can get the employees involved while you find out what does and doesn’t work, Carr recommends.</p>
<p><strong>Looking Ahead: 3 Ways to Future-Proof Your Organization</strong></p>
<p>Looking to the future of enterprise reinvention, here are three ways CFOs can differentiate their organization:</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]--><strong>Scenario-planning capability: </strong>Successful CFOs have one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow, says Delawalla.<strong> </strong>A robust scenario-planning capability with the right internal and third-party data sources that can generate accurate scenario plans quickly will make your organization more agile and competitive.</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]--><strong>Collaboration:</strong> When it comes to implementing enterprise initiatives, organizations need collaboration across the C-suite, Carr says. For example, a CFO may work with the CHRO and the CIO to enhance the expense management system. Today’s successful CFOs are also collaborating across the company by “bringing people to the table, making people feel like they’ve been heard and seen,” says Delawalla.</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->3. <!--[endif]--><strong>Continuous improvement:</strong> “Changes that are happening are not just static—they’re not one and done,” says Dion. It pays to cultivate a mindset of continuous improvement, so that you’re constantly learning from your experience. “Whether it’s an expense software or procurement software, or anything else, it’s that idea that this will continually grow and change,” Dion says.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/historian-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready-their-organizations-age-complexity">Listen to this SAP Concur Conversations podcast to learn more about how CFOs are leading enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Policy with Purpose: How to Create a Travel Program that Meets Both Employer and Employee Needs with Fox World Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/policy-with-purpose-how-to-create-travel-program-that-meets-both-employer-and-employee
2023-02-07T08:25:04Z
2023-02-06T09:20:34Z
In this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, experts share the “secret sauce” for building a world-class travel program (spoiler: your travel program is NOT a rotisserie chicken).
<p>As the role of corporate travel managers has evolved from gatekeepers of travel policy to crafters of value-rich, culture-aligned business travel experiences, there is a growing need to shift the mentality around travel policy to meet these new expectations. The “set it and forget it” mentality of years past is not only outdated, but inadequate. Today’s travel policies — and the policies of tomorrow —must be agile, regularly reviewed and adjusted, and created in support of company goals and in alignment with company culture.</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/policy-purpose-how-create-travel-program-meets-both-employer-and-employee-needs-fox-world-travel">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Ben Claxton, Online Technology Manager for Fox World Travel, and Jeff Saydah, Director of Global Client Solutions for Fox World Travel, share the “secret sauce” for building a world-class travel program (spoiler: your travel program is NOT a rotisserie chicken), detail how to leverage data to inform travel policy and program decisions, break down how to measure the success of your travel policy and program, and discuss how the best programs both shape and are shaped by company culture.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/policy-with-purpose-how-to-create-a-travel-program/id1525744763?i=1000597400852"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZqpoS1u2UvzFiDMXm6BWX"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjNkODlmMjNiZTc3YmYwMDExYzk2ODM5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi4x6zP0PL8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend and travel programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends its time, energy, and money.</p>
<p>My name is Barb Bammer and I'm a Senior Solutions Consultant here at SAP Concur. I help customers understand the value and benefit of SAP Concur solutions and services. Today I'm joined by Ben Claxton and Jeff Saydah of Fox World Travel, and we're going to dive deep into the how, what, and why of building a best-in-class travel program. To start, Ben and Jeff, please take a moment to introduce yourselves. Ben, let's start with you.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Barbara. My name's Ben Claxton. I'm the Online Technology Manager here at Fox World Travel. So anything related to Concur Travel or online booking itself through the support or maintenance of the sites itself, or support of the end users comes through my team. Thanks for having us today, Barbara.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. And Jeff?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>My name's Jeff Saydah. I am the Director of Global Client Solutions at Fox World Travel. I manage the team of, in a sense, account managers that are dealing with the day-to-day needs of our customers.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today. So one of the things that I did in preparation for our conversation was I took a look and reminded myself of how great Fox World Travel is, and one thing that I noticed is that you have a tagline of, your success is our success. And that resonated with me because we here at SAP Concur agree to that sentiment. So can you talk through how you prepare yourselves for customer conversations knowing that you're armed and ready to help them succeed and how do you approach it if they're not willing to share as much as you'd like in order for you to help them along that journey?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>I guess I can start with this one. So we're dealing with customers that have various stages of development of travel policies and travel programs. So part of what we do on the client solutions team is really, our goal is to really understand where they are in that level of development. And what we do from a consulting standpoint is, after we do some evaluation and we take a look at their travel policy, we really want to go to them and say, "Hey, there's some things within your policy that either are missing or you should have. We want to understand your organization better so we can help you figure out where we can help you enhance your travel policy."</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly Jeff. And then so from that standpoint, when Jeff and his team work with the clients directly and get that information, they ask those questions, they dig in deep to see what are your goals, how can we help you succeed. Because like you said, our client success is our success. So they dig in and really get to the meat of what those questions are and what those goals might be from an organizational standpoint. And then from the online team, from my team's perspective, we get to take that information and then really, where the rubber meets the road and really apply that directly. So we do that through a lot of different channels at Concur, whether that be through additional policy getting added through messaging, through the way we sort results, we are able to really take their goals through all these questions that Jeff has asked and his team and really get to the heart of what their goals are and then really be able to apply those directly into Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>That's great. I know that in my past as an implementation person quite some time ago, one of the things that I tended to be challenged with was the fact that a lot of times you start your conversation around policy and you get to understand when the last time the policy was updated. And at times, the answers were a little shocking. I won't name the company, but recently I found out there was one that hadn't updated theirs since 2013. And so I think it's pretty prevalent in a lot of areas where there's this “set it and forget it” mentality. And I'm sure that those are things that you guys have come across. And I find it interesting, especially in this day where employee experience is really, really huge. The Great Resignation really forced organizations to reevaluate their employee experience. And I think a lot of finding that their travel policy or their travel program is a reflection of their culture in their organization, and that their culture could or should be reflected through their travel program.</p>
<p>And so have you found through those conversation that that's pretty accurate or have you come up against trying to get to the root of why a specific policy has been set? Maybe because there's some challenge in interpreting it and how it's going to be enforced, whether it be in the online booking tool or whether it be via the agent consultant. Have you found that has maybe revealed a little bit more about the organization and has it drummed up some aha moments in that regard?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I would say a couple things about this. Sometimes it takes an external event to get people to pay attention to the travel policy. Typically, you mentioned travel policies are you put in place and they just move on on their own and no one takes a look at them. And I think that's very typical, but think about COVID in terms of how that impacted organizations when they had to all of a sudden understand how are they going to manage duty of care, how are they going to manage their expenses, how are they going to get people out on the road during these times? So I think for many organizations, they don't quite realize the impact their travel policy has number one on, you mentioned a couple things, employee satisfaction, the financial aspects of how they're managing travel. So I just think that it takes at times some external need for someone to pay attention to it.</p>
<p>And once they do, then they start understanding that the policy itself touches so many different things because it's generally travel and expense policy associated with it. So it touches so many different aspects of any organization that when they're prodded by some external need, then all of a sudden eyes are opened up to this. And then they have to go through, I think through a process of understanding or trying to figure out, well what do I do next now that I understand this is a need, what should I be doing? What's best in class? What's going to work for my organization? How do I get there? And that's where we as consultants come in and try to help them.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly, Jeff, I'm on the same path there. So just like you said, Barb, your travel program and really your travel policy, both, they're not a rotisserie chicken. You can't just set it and forget it or and move on and then go about your day and work on the other stuff. So when we look at, like Jeff was talking about, sometimes it takes that external event and sometimes it is an internal event, something within your company. What we know is, your company, no matter which company it is, most likely different than it was in 2013. So over the last almost 10 years, a lot of things have changed, your workforce has changed, your goals as a company have changed. So we want to continue to reassess. And that doesn't happen once a decade. That is happening every year. You're getting new people into the workforce, you're getting some people retiring.</p>
<p>The goals that you have as a travel program should be a little bit different. Now we're not talking wholesale changes, but we're talking a little bit different year over year. So we want to reassess that. Like I said, everyone's goal is to save money to have a better travel experience, but there's different avenues of that. So the number one way to save money in a travel program is through the better application of travel policy. So we know that, and Concur gives that ability to encourage better choices, whether that is better choices from a cost perspective, whether that's better choices from a time perspective, whether that's better choices from a sustainability preference. So there's a lot of avenues. What is it? Yeah, sustainability in 2013 wasn't the same conversations we're having right now.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Correct, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>So all of those things have changed. And again, we don't want to do it one decade at a time, but we want to look at it from an annual or even quarterly basis of, what are your goals and are we still accomplishing those goals? The goals don't need to change every quarter, they shouldn't even change every year. But are these still the goals that you have? Are these still the goals that your company has? And are we actually making progress on those goals? Are we moving forward in the way that we need to? If not, where can we tweak that policy, that program, that data set that we're getting? What information can we gather or what are the information are we gathering that's not helping? We continually basis of the maturation of your travel program to continue to move you forward towards the goals. Even if those goals are changed now, where are the new goals and how do we keep moving forward in that direction?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>And just to reiterate just quickly on that, when you're looking at goals, they need to be realistic in terms of... I think we could call all come up with a list of a hundred things we want to change right now, but you need to prioritize within any event where you're looking to increase adherence to a policy. So again, they should be measurable, but they should be achievable and they should be minimum number that you're looking at, your top couple priorities every time. And then once you're done with those, then you can reprioritize and then bring in the next set of prioritizations.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>But Jeff, to that point, you can't manage what you can't measure. So exactly. So if they have to be ones that we can, whether it's from a data set that we can capture, whether it's whatever that avenue is or whatever that goal is that we have to be able to measure it so we know if we're capturing it or we know we're moving in that direction or not. Because we got to can be data driven, is the goal we have for whatever your goal might be. How can we make it data driven and how can we move forward in that same direction?</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, data is king. Right?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Data is king. And I do think it's important what we've all been through the last couple of years. My hope is that others have caught up to the idea that their travel program or travel policy should be ever-evolving and should be iterative. I do think there are some leaders that, a good number of organizations that have known that, and they are best in class and I think others are trying to catch up. I've had numerous conversations with folks admitting that yeah, we have been forced by an external event or an event, a compelling event, internal or external, which has required us to take another look at what our program is doing for our organization, but not only for our organization, what's it doing for our employees?</p>
<p>And I think the shift should be, when a customer is open that with you, what questions do you tend to raise that they should be thinking about when it comes to them realizing that we need to take a healthy look at how we're managing things so we can better move forward and create a better experience, not only for the people that are traveling on our behalf, but the organization as a whole? So what types of questions or what types of conversations do you have or what types of things would you suggest they think about when starting to reevaluate their program or policy?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's a good question. So the first thing is, who's going to be involved when you think about a policy. Who is involved in actually crafting that policy? Who are the key constituents of any organization that should have a role in defining what the policy is going to be? Typically you would think executives would be involved, department leaders, but I also think travelers and employees need to be a part of the conversation as well. Because the way I look at a travel policy, it's in a sense an agreement between the organization and the traveler. It's a compact that says, here's a statement of our shared values. Here's the statement of our culture and here's how we are going to address what we think is important within that policy. That will help define how the traveler's going to interact with the policy. It's going to help define how the employer is going to interact with the traveler within that policy. And it's going to really define what the goals are, the overarching goals of your travel policy is.</p>
<p>And to your point as well, I think that employees are looking at travel policy, especially those that are doing a lot of travel for their employers to see, well, is this going to be difficult? Is this going to be hard? And again, it's a statement of value. It's against that compact. That's how I look at it.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Another question I'd probably ask also is, who is traveling and why are they traveling? Is all your travel internal? Are you going to other offices, other locations? Is it all salespeople traveling to get new business? Is it all one off, people are traveling for a conference or is it big meetings that you're traveling a bunch of people at once? So you got to determine why your travelers are traveling. That also helps when we talk about crafting that travel policy is, why are they traveling? And maybe you have more than one travel policy because you have one group that is traveling under a certain set of circumstances, maybe they're all traveling last minute because of whatever. And then maybe you have another portion of your company that is traveling under different set of circumstances.</p>
<p>So the more about your traveler base, the people who are actually traveling, who they are, where they're going, why they're traveling, is most of their travel domestic, is most of it international? That leads you to knowing what the goal should be and how we can create a travel policy and a travel program that really serves them, not just to have a policy and have a program, one that actually serves the people who are doing the traveling.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>I think travel policy with a purpose, instead of it being what a lot of employees I think tend to think of as being just a bunch of arbitrary rules that are put in there just to make their lives challenging. And as somebody who travels, there are moments where you feel that way, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Sure.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>In regards to, and I think those are all really great points. In fact, my brain started firing in a couple of different directions with those responses, so thank you very much. What are some of the things that organizations should be wary of, like little gotchas. What type of rabbit holes should they not fall down or fall through when they are looking at their travel program? And I'll just give one example, anticipating unintended consequences, some things like that. Are there any things that they should be wary of as they do this, as they reorganize their program and policy?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Number one, make it simple. I'd say the first thing you want to do with any policy, it should never be complex. If the policy is complex and it makes it difficult for not only travelers, but those who are enforcing it and monitoring it to understand what's going on, then it'll never work. So the policy needs to be simple and to the point. It needs to answer the why as to why we're doing this. So clearly having that statement of purpose, here's why we are crafting our policies this way. We're taking into account, we want to make sure culturally that we're meeting, that we're addressing the company's culture. We want to address the financial aspects of travel. So those are two things that I think of immediately when I am starting to think about travel policies.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Only thing I would add to that is, Jeff, you mentioned it earlier, of trying to do too much at once. If you can go from zero to a hundred and it's too hard for your travelers to catch up. So if you go from booking wherever they want to mandating a certain booking site or booking platform and then incorporating all this policy of approvals and all, we can write all those. But if you go in from a zero to a hundred, your travelers won't be able to keep up and it becomes too much at once. Your goals become too scattered and you won't be able to accomplish anything individually because you're working on too many across the board. So I would say take it in incremental bites, take a little bit out of one. If our goal is to get to a hundred, let's start out by doing a little bit along the way so we can get there. It just doesn't have to all be happen once.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>So, one of my last questions for you two lovely gentlemen is, what is your recommendation in terms of measuring the success of a travel program? I'm sure a lot of organizations come to you and say, "Well, we thought we knew what we were doing, but clearly after talking to Fox World Travel, we have some reassessing to do." So what would you tell them in terms of the best way to measure the success of their program?</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Again, we talked about making things simple in beginning. So if we could define a couple items at the very front that we're going to measure, and it could be as simple as online adoption for a certain segment of your travelers, domestic travel, things of that nature, which should typically designed for tools like Concur. So how do you measure that? You are going to understand where you're at right now, where you're going to set a goal and then achieve a pathway to get there. Could be that we engage with Ben’s team, provide training to our customers, help them understand, train those people in order to use tools better, do tons of communication out to those travelers, things of that nature. So that becomes a very measurable thing to manage. It's the low hanging fruit, but it's a very impactful type of change.</p>
<p>And again, we know that we can get from 60% to 80%. There is not only good... You can measure that. You can measure the savings in terms of average ticket price, in terms of any costs associated with the bookings. It becomes, again, something that is, we can help you establish what those goals are and by understanding your program help you lay out the pathway, how we're going to achieve that, and then work with you.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. We've talked about a lot of things today, so I'm going to just assess some of the key things that I heard through our conversation — three elements that would help an organization become best in class from a summary perspective. I'm going to start with expectation-setting and communication. I think those two go together. You want to make sure that you're setting the expectation of your employees, those people that are going to be traveling on behalf of your organization, but also the leadership team that you're going to work to. Because ultimately, whoever manages the travel program, whether that's travel manager or procurement, they've got to walk a fine line between those two groups of people. So, expectation-setting and good communication.</p>
<p>I think the other thing is, that you all brought up is, identifying the key constituents of that policy. Who is this serving and why? The why? I think that's key. That's a really big part of it, in fact. And I think the third thing is recognize and embrace the idea of an iterative program. Be assessing it regularly. And it doesn't have to be once a month. It could be a quarter, it could be twice a year. At the very least it should be yearly, I would think. But ultimately it needs to be iterative. You want to make sure that you are getting feedback and understanding what's working and what's not. Is it reflecting your culture if that's your goal? And I've come to believe that it's a signifier of an organization's culture, the policy is. So, I do believe that those are three key items that are heads of the travel program of their organizations. That's how you can set yourself on a path of being best in class.</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Saydah:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks Barb.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Claxton:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks so much.</p>
<p><strong>Barb Bammer:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks for listening to this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. To hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of business travel expense and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us again for our next SAP Concur conversation.</p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your/id1525744763?i=1000590315951">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tn57jQp2lCILafEAKsFLw">Spotify</a>, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Creating a Culture of Care: How to Incorporate Duty of Care into Your Company Culture
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/creating-culture-care-how-to-incorporate-duty-care-into-your-company-culture
2023-02-07T08:27:58Z
2023-01-30T09:58:43Z
With this organizational shift top of mind we spoke with Oren Geshuri of Deloitte about how companies are embracing and evolving their mindset about duty of care.
<p>In the last few years as the Great Resignation ushered in a transfer of power from employer to employee, employee wellness — overall employee physical and mental well-being — has taken center stage.</p>
<p>Leading companies are now internalizing a culture of care that encompasses many facets of work at the office but also extends beyond the office walls. Progressive leaders are embedding employee wellness into many employee benefits, including revamped corporate travel and expense policies.</p>
<p>With this organizational shift top of mind, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, spoke with Oren Geshuri of Deloitte about how companies are embracing and evolving their mindset about duty of care.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-deloitte">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your/id1525744763?i=1000590315951">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tn57jQp2lCILafEAKsFLw">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/duty-of-care-protecting-your-xs5gRftwpkD/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-with-deloitte">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Keeping Employees Safe in a Complex World</strong></h2>
<p>The phrase “duty of care” describes an organization’s legal obligation to protect their employees from harm. Laws governing this vary across the globe, but the common denominator is that duty of care is a basic company responsibility — and it’s the right thing to do. “It’s the duty of the organization to ensure the safety and we’ll add in well-being of that traveler, of the travelers that they are sending out in the world on behalf of company business,” Geshuri explains.</p>
<p>For employees traveling the world on company business, what does “being kept safe away from the office” look like in a complex world? Traveler safety and well-being used to involve dealing with employee sickness on the road and protecting employees from dangerous situations.</p>
<p>But with the awareness of the importance of mental health and the rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), viewing employee safety through a modern lens illuminates broader issues. Well-being now includes mental wellness. Safety now includes issues of identity and consideration of religion, gender, sexual orientation, and color. “I think, systemically, we need to reframe that conversation and say to really be an inclusive travel program, an inclusive environment, we need to open up to all these marginalized [groups],” Geshuri says.</p>
<p><strong>New Tools and More Information</strong></p>
<p>Technology has given employers new tools to understand and mitigate travel risks and share that information with employees to build true trust in travel. This is particularly important for groups at high risk like women and the LGBTQ+ community. “We have a lot of tools at our disposal,” Geshuri notes. “There are great apps out there, one of them being GeoSure, that actually rate neighborhoods for various safety factors: female safety, LGBTQ+ safety, robbery safety, political activity safety.” Organizations like Mobility International provide information on how various countries handle accessibility and how that might impact a disabled traveler.</p>
<p>Savvy and concerned employers work hard to provide a brief assessment and understanding of risk factors for each employee trip. They prepare their travelers to think in advance about their destination and whether they will encounter safety concerns during their trip, both domestic and abroad.</p>
<h2><strong>Relaxing Travel Policies</strong></h2>
<p>In addition to providing much more empowering information, employee-focused companies are also adjusting their travel policies away from a laser focus on cost control measures toward a balance between managing cost and ensuring that employees feel both safe and comfortable while on the road.</p>
<p>As Geshuri points out, there are plenty of studies that show an investment in travel improves an organization’s overall bottom line. “There is a definite benefit to making a trade. You might be spending a couple of dollars more, but the overall impact to your employee is going to be immeasurable.”</p>
<p>These changes — flight choices that include minimal layovers, paid use of the hotel gym, or TSA PreCheck — increase an employee’s physical and mental well-being while traveling and help increase employee appreciation and retention.</p>
<h2><strong>Acknowledging Generational Differences</strong></h2>
<p>Multiple generations comprise the workforce today, but most travel managers are older — baby boomers and Gen X. It follows, then, that “old school policies are de facto non-inclusive” as Geshuri points out. Perceptive companies watching the rise of younger generations in the workforce, and the changing social norms that define Gen Z and Alphas, are making the time to re-write their entire travel policy from the ground up. They’re striving to create more inclusive and egalitarian policies by soliciting the internal voice of all their travelers — not just the power travelers — to be sure all generations are included in the feedback.</p>
<p>Progressive companies are making their programs more inclusive to future-proof their organization. Otherwise, as Geshuri explains, they risk younger generations “joining [the] organization, getting a feel for how rigid that organization is, and just noping it,” when savvy interviewees or employees ask about a specific policy and decide it’s a non-starter.</p>
<h2><strong>Value Trumps Cost</strong></h2>
<p>Smart companies are realizing that adjusting their policies and being willing to spend a few more dollars on T&E can have an immeasurable positive impact on employee satisfaction and wellness.</p>
<p>Organizations with a modern, inclusive travel policy signal that they care about all employees. This attitude builds employee trust and loyalty, improves employee experience, increases retention, and bolsters business continuity. The right travel policy can be a strategic tool in today’s ultracompetitive environment. Gehsuri notes, “It really is creating a program that sets the stage for all of your folks, all of your travelers, to be safe, to be secure in their own self, and to grow the company as a true leader in advancing the agenda of all your employees.”</p>
<p><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-">Learn more about the strategic and lasting value of reframing the meaning of “duty of care.”</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
From Historian to Soothsayer: How CFOs Can Future-Ready Their Organizations in the Age of Complexity with Accenture
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/from-historian-to-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready-their-organizations-in-age
2023-02-01T09:00:00Z
2023-01-30T09:19:33Z
In recent years, the role of financial leaders has evolved from historian to soothsayer, and yet CFOs don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future. Whether it’s optimizing operations and upping pro
<p>In recent years, the role of financial leaders has evolved from historian to soothsayer, and yet CFOs don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future. Whether it’s optimizing operations and upping productivity or accelerating growth and addressing sustainability, today’s CFOs are being asked to drive enterprise reinvention and navigate an overwhelming number of complex decisions. It’s “to the point where 68% of CFOs are driving three or more enterprise-wide transformation initiatives in parallel,” says Aneel Delawalla, who leads Accenture’s CFO and enterprise value strategy practice.</p>
<p>With the increasing weight of large-scale organizational decisions resting on their shoulders, how can CFOs rethink the ways they approach business challenges and productively and proactively guide their organizations through transformation? How should they reassess and reimagine their decision-making to activate change more effectively? And how can they maximize the effectiveness of their strategic decision-making to better navigate today’s fast-paced and complex business environment, and better ready their organizations for the challenges ahead?</p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Aneel Delawalla, Managing Director of Accenture Strategy, CFO & Enterprise Value, and Paul Carr, Accenture’s HXM Ecosystem Lead for Solutions, explore how CFOs can make better, faster, and more strategic decisions that will future-ready their organizations and set the stage for success.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/from-historian-to-soothsayer-how-cfos-can-future-ready/id1525744763?i=1000593694517"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7p8xP2b3tCyCliG8tN0WsK"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjM5YjY0NWI1MDlhZWYwMDExNzcxNGY3?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjQ-LHGw7H8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode, we sit down with industry experts, visionaries, and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward-thinking spend programs. Our goal is to get you to think differently about how your organization spends money. My name is Jeanne Dion, and I am the vice president of the value experience team, here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers to bring positive business outcomes, based on data-driven insights. Today, I'm joined by Aneel Delawalla and Paul Carr of Accenture, and we're going to talk about how CFOs can make better, faster, and more strategic decisions that will future ready their organizations and set the stage for success. Gentlemen, would you mind introducing yourselves? Aneel, let's start with you.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on. By way of introduction, I lead Accenture's CFO and enterprise value strategy practice, and I work with CFOs and their leadership teams across two dimensions. One, really transforming and driving optimization across the finance function, but also partnering with them to drive enterprise wide transformation, given the unique role CFOs tend to play in an enterprise. So, thanks again for having us. Paul, over to you.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Aneel, and likewise, a pleasure to be part of this podcast. So, I do sit within our SAP intelligent business platform technology business. I am the HXM ecosystem lead for solutions, which includes SAP Concur, and my real focus is in driving the employee experience, powered by SAP solutions. So, looking forward to having this conversation. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, thank you both for being here today. I think about this in many different ways, but one of the first things I think about, when I think about finance and the finance motion, I actually do think about history because reporting what has happened has typically been a predominant role for our finance organization and for our finance leaders, really. But there's a movement to move from that historian aspect to almost a soothsayer for the organization as itself.</p>
<p>That digital transformation has hit the C-suite. There's other areas that have digitized and automated, but now, those C-level executives are actually being asked to fuel an enterprise look at organizations. So, I'm going to toss it back to you all, to see what have you been hearing, and why is that CFO the focus of this reinvention of the interconnected enterprise highway?</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>You are so right, and I love the way you've summed it up, in terms of that interconnected highway. So, more and more, what we are seeing and hearing from our CFO clients is the increased responsibility that they're taking on for enterprise reinvention, total enterprise reinvention. That study that you mentioned at the top, around paradox of choice for CFOs, what we found was more than 90% of CFOs are feeling like they're being asked to do more than their predecessors were asked to do, more than they have done in prior years. And they're being asked to do that across the enterprise, whether that's optimizing the operations and finding productivity or accelerating growth and driving top line.</p>
<p>And ultimately, it's because of the unique role the CFO plays in a company. They obviously, along with the CEO, have a unique relationship with the board, but they're also responsible for driving collaboration and transformation across the C-suite, in partnership, in an interconnected way, to the point where 68% of CFOs are driving three or more enterprise-wide transformation initiatives in parallel. And those span the gamut from sustainability and ESG type items, to workforce and workplace, to drive improved employee experience, to digital and process transformation, to yield productivity and processes. So, it's really about the step forward CFOs are taking and leveraging the insights of a digital core that enables them to collaborate better, but also be more predictive and prescriptive as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And I know, when I hear this, I think about it from a perspective of value, value to the organization, value to the employees, value to the shareholder. It's an entire ecosystem of value, but what does value mean to an organization when we're looking at this type of digitization and pulling together a strategy to make it a more cohesive unit of operation?</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Maybe I'll start and then ask Paul to chime in here, particularly around the experience angle, but the way we think about value is a 360 degree notion of value. So, there's the traditional notion around financial value, around what are you adding to the top line and the bottom line, but there's also elements around sustainability, around the ESG agenda. There's elements around customer experience and how loved you are by your customers, around employee experience. There's elements that are also very specific to any industry that you may be in. It may be around having a transparent supply chain. It may be around making sure you have resources that are coming from conflict-free zones, so on and so forth. So, it really is about taking an entire stakeholder lens of value and not just the traditional, financial lens.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And for me, some of it, from an employee perspective, is they want to be able to focus on their core job, their core function within the business, and not be bogged down by administrative activities. And so, if you think about expense management, it's something that all employees have to do. Even though we've had this tough time with the pandemic, there's always still been a level of expense being generated, even if policies have changed with the work from home, etc. But as an employee, I want to be able to do my expenses quickly, effectively, get them submitted through the process, be reimbursed so that I can focus on the value creation that I'm looking to deliver for the company, in the role that I have. And then, for the CFO, they'll be looking at it in terms of their team, who've got to process those expenses. They've got to audit those. They want that activity to be seamless and as easy as possible so that, again, they can focus on the slightly more strategic or more higher value activities within their particular function.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that higher activity, Paul, because I think about work being tactical, versus strategic, and so many of the people coming into the workforce, these days, have a lot of experience and focus on strategic, because many of the tactical functions have been taken care of through automation. Correct? So, when you're looking at that employee experience, and you're looking at that automation of process and reinventing your systems, can you talk a little bit about how employee experience is really a crux in that type of piece for the organization and that why CFOs are really having to pay attention to it? It's not just the chief human resources officer that's looking at this anymore. It's really involving the CFO. Would you mind talking a little bit about that?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>And yeah, sure. So, what we're seeing, again, is that you've got a whole generation of people joining the workforce, who've got a set of expectations and a set of views on how they want to interact with systems, and expense management is one of those ones where they're not used to spreadsheets. We're having a whole group of people coming in. They're not used to spreadsheets. They're used to wanting to do things on an app. They want to be able to do everything digital on the go. They want to have this ecosystem of solutions behind there that makes life easy. So, if I go off and entertain someone, or I go to a hotel and stay, I just have to worry about checking in, checkout. It's all touchless, but all of that data is being provided to a system, without me having to do much to interact with it.</p>
<p>So, that's just one of the starting points around that employee experience. If that admin activity is seamless and easy for me, I feel like, okay, I can focus on what I've been asked to do for the company, and then that will start to expand that into the procurement function or to other business functions, as well, for those employees. And again, as I mentioned earlier, if you're going into that finance function, you're going to be looking at how do I add more value? How do I do things for the company? That doesn't mean I'm sitting there, checking receipts, because it's automated. There's some AI being involved for this, to be able to check things, and I'm looking at just those outliers or anomalies, more than anything else.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I often — I'm sorry. Go ahead, Aneel.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>No, I was just going to build on Paul's point of the concept of these transformations that occur in parallel, the ones that are truly unlocking business benefit, truly driving differentiated employee experience, are ones that are interconnected but running in parallel, rather than operating in their own silos, where T&E is doing something separate from accounting, separate from procurement, separate from FP&A, separate from HR. It's this notion of enterprise reinvention, where there's this concept of it being a compressed transformation, compressed in the sense that they're happening in parallel, in a compressed timeframe, rather than serial and siloed. And being able to coordinate that with the lens of how is this going to impact my employees and impact the experience, that makes it truly powerful.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>When I think about this, I joke that, Pete, nobody comes out of college, these days, saying, "I want to be an AP clerk," or, "I want to be a line item auditor. That's really what I want to do with my life." It's that old monster.com ad. I want to be a mid-level manager. I think about it as the idea that this becomes a competitive advantage, these types of roles, because it's not just where you're working on business problems of sustainability or customer delight. You're actually working on delight of the employee and getting the most that you can out of every employee, to ensure that their skillset is being used at the highest value for an organization. And I think that's really where these projects tend to move forward. Would you disagree with that or have anything to add?</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>No, you're spot on. And I would actually take it further, in the sense that it's not only an expectation that employees and customers have, but they are very adept at picking out where it's not true transformation, and it's only transformation theater, where there's an illusion of change and an illusion of transformation, and it's the words behind it, but the investment and the behaviors that are needed to follow through on it aren't there. Employees are saying, "I don't want to play along with that transformation theater anymore. I truly want to go deep and be part of the winning culture that is going to the better promised land, so to speak.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>And just to add to that, again, that's one of the biggest challenge that I can see currently, with some of the clients that I'm engaged in and talking to, who are on a much broader transformation journey, is they don't really know where to start. There's a lot of risk. There's a lot of unknowns. There's a lot of discomfort.</p>
<p>And to pick up on the point that Aneel made about making this transformation a real journey, why not start with something that will bring your employees along from the beginning? Get them involved. Use it as a trial. From a business transformation, there's certain processes that you can take out, in isolation, before you go into a mega transformational or completely changing your whole operating model or the way that you work.</p>
<p>Why not take something small? Use that as the pilot for the next thing because you can build upon that. You can learn from it. You can get that feedback. You can get the employees involved and engaged and find out where it's not worked. Okay. Again, it's expense management. It's not mission critical. It's not business critical. But it's got a high emotional impact if it goes wrong, and so doing something like this is a great way of testing up that transformation journey and, to the point Aneel was making, making it real, not just a bit of theater.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>This reminds me of this thing that I've run into with our customers. Our customers are getting paralyzed with trying to figure out where to start. There's some sort of analysis paralysis because when you look at what organizations are facing, there's changes related to sustainability, and how are we going to bring that to the forefront? And it affects almost every single piece of the organization, so how do we tie all that data together? We've got that whole idea about employee retention and recruitment. How are we going to get that next level of leader, that next level of worker, who is engaged and feels like they're part of what they're doing?</p>
<p>We have that operational scalability. We can do it in one area, but we've never really scaled it across. There's process improvement. There's cost containment. There's increased revenue growth. There's so many things, and when you look at it, all at once, it becomes this, "Oh my God, what do I do?" And you talked about things running in parallel. How does a CFO's style and persona affect how this can become a very positive outcome for the organization, versus sitting there, paralyzed about what we're going to be doing?</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And that's the fundamental premise of the paradox of choice. And to put a finer point on it, what we found was, as empowered, as powerful as CFOs are, two-thirds of them feel paralyzed, at times, because of the volume and velocity of choices coming at them and then the implications of their decisions. And so, we see CFOs that are successful, doing a couple of things. One of them gets exactly to their style and their decision-making attitude.</p>
<p>The first is this concept of running and reinventing, in parallel, and having the foot in today and the foot in tomorrow and the balance between being a financial steward and the balance between being the communication lead to external stakeholders, but also internal to the company so that you're setting the expectations on what this transformation's going to look like, what are the key moments in that journey going to be, and what are the benefits each of those stakeholders can expect?</p>
<p>And in that way, they really light up the second dimension that successful CFOs have, which is they are collaboration creators. So, the days of where the CFO issues a top-down target and a top-down mandate and then just pounds their fist on the table, we're seeing that that type of CFO isn't achieving the transformational, enterprise-wide outcomes.</p>
<p>But instead, what we're seeing is CFOs that are helping their C-suite peers break down decision-making silos, deconstruct decisions and understanding the interconnected nature of them, bringing people to the table, making people feel like they've been heard and seen and are bought in, and then framing those decisions in a concept of strength, from a competitive posture perspective.</p>
<p>Those collaboration creating type of CFOs really are up-leveling the performance of the enterprise, and ultimately, that comes back to a style and a persona of the CFO, and have they developed that muscle? Have they developed the articulation of that collaboration, as they got to the post?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>And that's key, as well, in terms of the actual implementation. You need that collaboration across the C-suite because if you think about ... And again, just putting it in the simple context of expense management, you need to engage with your CHRO because, typically, they may own certain policies. You need to engage with the CIO and your technology because it's got to integrate into your different systems. So, if you can start that journey, and again, the CFO is the person who's going to drive this, if they can build that collaboration across the C-suite, get them all on board in the journey and where the values are and where it's going to be a benefit to the business, test it out and run it, you're going to start building up that network and trust in each other, to then be able to take that next step in that bigger transformation journey, that really has a significant impact across the enterprise.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You bring a really great point up there, Paul. It's that idea that these changes that are happening are not just static. They're not one and done. This is a mindset of continuous improvement, so building those foundational elements of cooperation and being part of a larger organization that's looking at a broader view of how you do business and when you do business and what you're using to do that business, to your point, whether it's an expense software or procurement software or anything else, it's that idea that this will continually grow and change. You can't really just sit and rest on your laurels anymore, can you? And it's a different skillset than what you had before, where you were highly analytical and just constantly looking at numbers. This requires people to have a broader set of people skills and, to your point, collaboration skills, to be successful in this role, which is really different than it was maybe 30 years ago or even 20 years ago.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>I would add to that and say that's why digital core and data type digital core become even more important because of your call-out around this being a continual renewal, a continual reinvention, in an continuous improvement type of way. Without the right data and platforms enabled by cloud and AI, with the right security around it, it really becomes difficult to continue the journey after the first step and then the second step. It really begins to break down, rather than being this continuous upward trajectory, where you continue to benefit from visibility and transparency of data, around predictive nature of algorithms, around the benefit of having a infrastructure that is protected and always improving. And so, it goes hand-in-hand with, in order to have business outcomes that reflect continuous reinvention, I need to have a digital core that has a renewal and a refresh rate embedded within it, to keep up with the business.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That leads me to a question around, I know we toss this phrase around a lot, but the future proofing or that planning for the future. This really is continuous improvement, really is truly planning for the future. And current situations that are happening now really, honestly happened in the past, but you mentioned the phrase velocity and volume. I don't think these things have all happened at once, where we've had a 12-month period, where we've had supply chain issues, a pandemic, civil unrest. We've had just a myriad of things. When you wake up every day, you're like, "I'm sure locusts are coming soon. I'm just waiting for them."</p>
<p>So, when we think about that, and we think about those current situations, in that current environment, is there any advice that you can give to CFOs and people in the C-suite, as overall, as to what they should be doing to ensure that they have that future proofing, that they have that positive [inaudible 00:22:03]? Is it around investing in the organization? Is it around staying the course, even if there's some bumps in the road? What would you recommend?</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>And you didn't even mention inflation and geopolitical tensions, and it keeps amplifying.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I ran out of breath.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>But in terms of the capabilities we see, in order to cope with this myriad of factors coming at them, at ever-increasing velocity and volume, we're seeing a couple of things that really differentiate and allow certain organizations to out compete and outperform. One, it's the ability to have a scenario-planning capability, a robust scenario-planning capability, that has the right data sources, it's agile, so you can make quick terms on it, and it doesn't take you a month to do a scenario. But ultimately, it brings together data that you have internal to the company, data that you're getting from third-party data sources or macroeconomic type information, to say, "Where should I make decisions?" Not in a monolithic sense, but in a customer segment by customer segment, market by market, channel by channel type of way.</p>
<p>And then having the wherewithal, from a leadership capacity perspective, but also a investment capacity perspective, to say, "If I pull back the reins on all of my investments, I am consigning myself to the fate of falling behind." And so, you may need to move investments around on the game board, but realizing what investments are you going to allow you to take share and allow you to differentiate, and doubling down on those while, perhaps, rationalizing the other things that you had on the table. But stepping away from all of those investments is really going to limit your ability to not only compete in the now, but set yourself up for the future, as well, whether that's from an employee lens or a customer lens.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I think about this from the idea of the good expense, versus the bad expense, and I think of something near and dear to my heart, travel bans. As you start to look at how you're going to pull expenses back and be cost containing, many organizations just say, "That's it. Nobody's traveling for the rest of the year." But in some cases, this actually is an investment that you may need to make, and you may need to not make this broad declaration that this is going to happen, and this is how it's going to be, because you leave yourself in the lurch and open yourself to a, perhaps, competitor getting in there, who has taken a look at the data and really thought about what they want to invest in, from a good expense, versus a bad expense perspective.</p>
<p>And Paul, I was just going to ask, from your perspective, as we look at expense reporting and expenses overall, whether it's travel based or non-travel based that come through expense reports, are we seeing customers still working to those travel bans? I know I've seen some open up. I heard some statistics, this morning, that the majority of airfare rebound and hotel rebound has not been through business travel. It has been through individual travelers. So, do we have any advice on how you would take a look at those pieces of spend within your organization, to optimize it?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>So, I'll give you my perspective, I think, on how businesses have responded and reacted. So, there were some significant cost savings, when the pandemic came along and travel stopped, because it was enforced, and a large number of businesses were able to continue functioning and operating, to such a point that even though things are becoming a slightly easier, and there's more freedom to travel, businesses are still saying, "We could survive, and we did well." In fact, in some cases, businesses improved significantly and managed their costs by not having people travel.</p>
<p>But I think, as individuals, we miss that interaction with people in person, so I think you were seeing the stats coming up that are on individual travel because people who got fed up with working from home offices, they wanted to get out and about again. But what I am seeing though, as a trend, is a lot more companies are putting in preapproval processes, to really justify, in advance, the reason for the travel and why they're going and what's the value proposition from it and really putting in, now, a lot more preapproval, rather than you had blanket approval, you could go and travel and off you go, no problem, no questions asked, to really, now, preapproval.</p>
<p>And a lot of it is really to manage and contain some of that spend and just really make sure it's the right spend, and then, when it is approved, it's going via the right channels to get that data back in and also to add to it that traceability of where are your employees. If something, as you said in this climate that we have, something untoward was to happen, we could help our employees get them back home from wherever they are.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I often describe that pre-approval for travel as almost a purchase order for traveling. We're so used to making purchase orders and putting in purchase requests around larger dollars spend, and corporations have gotten really used to it. Travel is probably the last frontier where that pre-approval isn't organized or automated in a way that it has been in a purchasing perspective, so that's a really great perspective there that you have. Thank you for bringing that up. It's always at the top of my mind, purchase orders for traveling.</p>
<p>So, I know I could talk to you for a very long time, and I'm hopeful that I will get to talk to you again because, in addition to the paradox of choice for the CFO, there is going to be an additional study coming out as almost a follow-up or an additional extension of what you're describing here. And so, I would recommend to anybody, please go out and take a look at that study. It's really fascinating, and there's some incredible information in there. So, go out onto the Accenture website, and please feel free to request a download of it. But I know you're going to be coming back, I hope, fingers crossed, to talk to me about that next level.</p>
<p>I could talk to you all day, but what I really want to just see if I can encapsulize what we talked about here, so that idea that now CFOs, instead of being a back office function, where really only the analysts ever saw them and served with them, they're really up there, leading from the front, now, from a larger, organizational perspective, in some ways filling a role that's similar, you would see, across other areas of the C-suite. They're back up there, and they're coordinating. And they're actually the ones who are putting together some of this scenario planning.</p>
<p>They need to take a look at how they're doing their work. They need to make sure that the organization is working together, in a cooperative way, rather than in silos and bring that organization into a more structured, long-term planning type of view, rather than just that historical, this is what happened. This is not only what happened, this is what's happening now, and this is where we're going in the future. And you need to be on board with me, and there's how we're going to get there.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Good, I got it.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>You passed the test and-</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Passed the test.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>...Yeah, you're ready for your second level exams.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Fantastic. I'm excited for that second level, and again, I want to thank everybody for listening in with us. I want to thank you both for being part of this conversation. It's really been a pleasure to talk with you and learn from you. This is really quite an extraordinary topic, and it's one that I've been thinking about for a long time. So, I'm thrilled to have you here.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Carr:</strong></p>
<p>Great.</p>
<p><strong>Aneel Delawalla:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you so much.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks for listening to this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. To hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of business, travel, expense, and invoice processing, be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us again for our next SAP Concur conversation.</p>
<p>Learn more about how CFOs can overcome the paradox of choice, accelerate strategic decision-making, and unlock greater shareholder value from an enterprise reinvention agenda in Accenture’s whitepaper, <a href="https://www.accenture.com/pl-en/insights/consulting/cfo-decision-paradox-success-paradigm"><strong>The Paradox of Choice for CFOs: A guide for Enterprise Reinvention in the Age of Complexity</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your/id1525744763?i=1000590315951">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tn57jQp2lCILafEAKsFLw">Spotify</a>, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Future-Proof Your Organization for the Next Era of Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/future-proof-your-organization-for-next-era-business-travel
2023-02-05T12:16:04Z
2023-01-30T09:13:34Z
With Gen Z on track to make up roughly 30% of the U.S. workforce by 2030, meeting the expectations of these tech-savvy employees makes good business sense.
<p>Changing employee demographics are driving a paradigm shift in business travel. While the travel industry has largely been focused on the wants and needs of the millennial traveler for the past several years, future-looking organizations have expanded their focus on Gen Z. With Gen Z on track to make up roughly 30% of the U.S. workforce by 2030, meeting the expectations of these tech-savvy employees makes good business sense.</p>
<p>To learn more about this demographic-driven shift and how to future-proof your organization for the next era of business travel, Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with SAP Concur Thought Leader Ralph Colunga, a thirty-year travel industry expert.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/rewriting-rules-how-next-generation-shaping-future-business-travel">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-next-generation-is/id1525744763?i=1000588502063">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-rvyidgWGJLt/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-next-generation-is-shaping-the-f">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjM4YTAwYzA4ZTIxM2MwMDExMGU4NmY5?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjT0MGHo-P7AhVvAzQIHaEvB1kQjrkEegQICBAF&ep=6">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rewriting-rules-how-next-generation-is-shaping-future-business-travel">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Embrace and Reexamine Your Technology </strong></h2>
<p>Organizations working to future-proof their T&E systems are continuously reexamining how they deploy technology. While millennials have adapted to technology, they still grew up balancing an analog and digital world. In contrast, Gen Z members (born from 1997 to 2012) expect access to technology to make their lives better, as will Alphas (starting with 2013), who will be entering the workforce by 2030. “These are two generations that are very well in tune to technology,” says Colunga.</p>
<p>The acceleration of technology used in travel and expense management, such as AI, machine learning (ML), blockchain, and biometrics, is moving faster than anybody thought possible — and advanced technology resonates with the Gen Z audience. “It’s also saving companies millions of dollars in handling typical mundane tasks, reducing and eliminating human error,” Colunga explains. “In our increasingly AI- and ML-driven world, organizations that embrace and understand the importance of data algorithms and the effective use of computation are the ones that will thrive.”</p>
<h2><strong>Gen Z Wants to Have a Say</strong></h2>
<p>Part of successfully managing business travel for Gen Z involves moving away from a command-and-control model to one that enables choices and empowers employees, says Colunga. The messaging is now “sell, don’t tell.” It’s about selling the value proposition but allowing employees to make their business decisions based upon their business needs within the framework of your travel policies, he says.</p>
<p>For example, Gen Z often likes to have the option to extend travel before or after a business trip to take vacation, see friends or family, or explore their destination. They also might want to stay somewhere that feels more like a home than a hotel. Travel policies that accommodate this desire for flexibility around issues like booking dates and lodging appeal to Gen Z.</p>
<h2><strong>Three Ways to Future-Proof Your Travel Program</strong></h2>
<p>Colunga offers these three additional recommendations to future-proof your travel program to meet business goals and appeal to all generations.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Think bigger picture.</strong> Colunga urges travel managers to let go of trivial things that put them in the role of policing travelers. Instead, he recommends thinking strategically and looking deeply at how your organization can improve the experience for your travel community members. “It’s a matter of focusing on how do you serve them and serve them well? How do you sit down and understand that your role is to help provide them the tools that they need to allow them to be successful in business?” he says.</li>
<li><strong>Align with your travel community.</strong> Keeping your ear to the ground will help you know what travelers need and want and deliver it more quickly. “You have to keep your finger on the pulse of their expectations in this rapidly changing and really evolving business landscape,” Colunga notes. Again, he encourages travel managers to address Gen Z’s interests, such as sustainability, but to also keep in mind that the goal is to improve your travel program to make sure it’s meeting all the business needs that it possibly can.</li>
<li><strong>Go forward with an innovative mindset.</strong> To enable your T&E programs to become more agile, Colunga recommends adjusting policies to the current business landscape and simplifying and automating processes with technology as much as you possibly can. Look for innovative ways to remove friction points for the employees and support “an inclusive environment where employees feel like they’re being heard and actually helping to make a difference in a positive way,” he says.</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Why the Employee Experience Matters</strong></h2>
<p>It’s a tight labor market, and attrition is costly. Improving the employee experience in any way, including with your travel program, can contribute to retention. One way to do this is to address Gen Z members’ needs and wants. “They’re going to prefer to work for companies that align with their principles,” says Colunga.</p>
<p>“Most corporate travel programs are really geared toward the prior generations of travelers, and most companies are hanging on to policies and processes that were born from the kind of pre-digital timeframe,” explains Colunga. To get ahead of the crowd and appeal to all generations, embrace technology, empower employees, look at the big picture, align with your travel community, and move forward with an innovative mindset.</p>
<p><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-next-generation-is-shaping-the-f">Learn more about how SAP Concur can help your organization future-proof your travel.</a></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
13 Ways to Keep Your Organization’s Budget on Track
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/13-ways-to-keep-your-organizations-budget-on-track
2023-01-26T13:29:46Z
2023-01-26T13:12:50Z
Budget management is complex and highly specific to each organization, but one thing rings true across industries: being proactive with budget management reduces operational interruption by keeping an
<p>Budget management is complex and highly specific to each organization, but one thing rings true across industries: being proactive with budget management reduces operational interruption by keeping an organization’s cashflow adaptable to change. But how is it done?</p>
<h2><a><strong>What Are Budgetary Control Techniques?</strong></a></h2>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>1. </strong><!--[endif]--><strong>Keep expense data handy</strong></p>
<p>Our experts always recommend keeping your <em>Expense Category Summary</em> data handy to maintain bumpers for your budget and stay on track. Once you have your data ready, it’s easier to compare your organization’s key performance metrics (KPIs) to peers in the industry, use benchmarks, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment">assess your spend management</a>. That way you’re ready to adjust spending as needed while also building out a plan for the next budgeting season.</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>2. </strong><strong>Educate and train employees</strong></p>
<p>Although control of employee discretionary spend – items such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/updating-your-expense-policy-employees-working-home">home office expenses</a>, mileage, meals, or seminar registration – certainly has changed, you can regain control over expenses with clear education on how to categorize expense types and promote the best practices to an efficient approval process. Spending can stay within existing budget allocations or be adjusted with minor interruption to business operations.</p>
<h2><strong>Setting Goals for a Healthy Budget</strong></h2>
<p>Here are some recommendations on how to maintain a healthy budget to stay agile and resilient in the years to come:</p>
<h3><strong>1. Verify spending is aligned with your budget</strong></h3>
<p>Comparing expense category spend to budget allocation may uncover challenges in spend management. When you compare a report of your expense types year over year (YoY), it’s easy to identify the highest spend categories – that is, if your team is accurately reporting them! Educating employees and using audit rules on expense policy spend categories are fundamental to effectively managing spend against budget – both in the short and long term. When employees submit properly categorized expense reports the first time, managers can verify the expense or invoice they are approving aligns with their operating budget and that the correct categories are reported. This accuracy, in turn, will illuminate trends and cashflow status.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Maximize the value of a single platform</strong></h3>
<p>While allowing employees a certain level of autonomy is valuable, providing them with multiple options to report expenses can cloud your visibility, particularly when an emergency occurs and there is a temporary gap in the utilization of expense reporting. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resource-centre/whitepapers/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend">spend management poll</a> of 500 finance leaders from businesses of all sizes, “75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets. And even more agree that their expense, travel, and invoice systems need to be better connected for a single view of spend.” Maximizing the use of a single platform keeps both the process and the data as clean as possible.</p>
<h3><strong>3. Ensure the alignment of spending and goals</strong></h3>
<p>Once you understand the YoY total spending of your organization, you’ll be able to identify trends over time. This helps you build a budget and plan that everyone can stick to. Equipping decision-makers on your team with accurate expense type data will empower them to make the right choices for your organization’s successful budget management and overall operational performance.</p>
<h2><strong>US Benchmarks for Spending by Expense Category</strong></h2>
<p>Once you have leveraged our tips, we recommend regularly running a report of your <em>Spend by Expense Category</em>. You’ll be better able to spot and reduce budget overages through this level of granularity. Let’s see how you compare this year:</p>
<figure role="group"><a class="use-ajax image-popup" data-dialog-options="{"dialogClass": "wysiwyg-popup", "width":"645"}" data-dialog-type="modal" href="/concur_image_popup/render/7866/"><img src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/kylablogimage5_0.png" /></a>
<figcaption class="text-center"> </figcaption>
</figure>
<p><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<h2><strong>Best Practices to Keep Spend on Track</strong></h2>
<p>After comparing your expense categories to those of other SAP Concur customers, here are some best practices to keep your organization’s T&E program aligned with your budget:</p>
<ol>
<li>Submit expenses in the time period in which they occurred</li>
<li>Observe real-time spend to budget access</li>
<li>Control spending before it occurs with pre-approval</li>
<li>Integrate travel program to expense tool, and reduce <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-bring-invisible-employee-spend-your-radar">“invisible” spend</a></li>
<li>Allocate <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-cards-and-p-cards-get-better-insight-employee-spend">P-Card spend</a> as soon as it occurs</li>
<li>Maximize <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-pro-tip-benefits-corporate-credit-cards">corporate card</a> use</li>
<li>Distribute <em>Actual vs Budget Spend</em> reports to department managers on a weekly cadence</li>
<li>Automate mileage expense submission</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Better Manage Budget with These Resources</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Use our handy <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment">spend management assessment tool</a> to determine how your systems measure up and learn what you can do to take your processes to the next level.</li>
<li>Listen to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-your-buck-zero-based-budgeting-demystified-accenture">this podcast</a> to learn the basics of zero-based budgeting, and how to combat the Great Resignation, harness the power of spending technology, and disambiguate the financial priorities for your organization today.</li>
<li>Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/importance-healthy-financial-process">this whitepaper</a>: What does a healthy financial process look like? We asked some SAP Concur and Deloitte experts to weigh in and share their insights.</li>
<li>See how <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-budget-sap-concur-works">Budget by SAP Concur</a> works.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div>
<div class="msocomtxt">
<p><!--[endif]--></p>
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SAP Concur Team
6 Questions to Ask When Incorporating Duty of Care into Your Travel Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-questions-to-ask-when-incorporating-duty-care-into-your-travel-program
2023-01-26T13:12:25Z
2023-01-26T13:05:19Z
Over the past few years, employee wellness has taken center stage. Leaders are increasingly expected to weave wellness into the fabric of their companies, which means creating a culture of care is no
<p>Over the past few years, employee wellness has taken center stage. Leaders are increasingly expected to weave wellness into the fabric of their companies, which means creating a culture of care is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. And that’s exactly why duty of care — an organization’s legal obligation to protect employees from harm — matters.</p>
<p>When business leaders create a safe environment for their employees, it establishes employee trust and loyalty. Beyond that, predicting risk, taking preventative measures, and responding quickly to crises help maintain business continuity. The bottom line? Businesses are beginning to view duty of care as a strategic tool to protect their workers while strengthening and sustaining their organization. One that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Elevates inclusivity and ensures the safety of ALL employees.</li>
<li>Includes mental health and well-being.</li>
<li>Increases visibility into travel data — no matter how it is booked.</li>
<li>Drives compliance with customized settings on company policies.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, when the time comes to update your own duty of care program, be sure to arm your fellow team with this helpful list of discovery questions:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>1.</strong><strong>How did they book that?</strong></h2>
<p>The more employees use the booking tools you provide, the easier it is for you to ensure their safety. Offering employees booking tools will automatically make their travel data visible. However, some organizations say they still do not manage data for travel risk management.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <!--[endif]--></p>
<img alt="graph" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="ea7efcc2-7707-4e03-bc66-e40cb2791035" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/kylablogimage3.png" />
<p>Since many employees still have their preferred ways to book and plan itineraries, comparing the level of adoption of tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> and My Travel Network (MTN) cross-referenced with travel-related expenses will help give you a clear idea of who is booking inside and outside of the system, and still allow you to track all bookings – regardless of where they occur.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img alt="graph" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="0beba9ee-dbc3-4536-abd6-a7f8da83618d" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/kylablogimage4.png" /><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<p>Course correction towards increased adoption of your preferred booking tools is achievable. Something small like reviewing your new employee onboarding process can have a big impact over time. Do you require that they set up a profile and opt into the tools you offer, like My Travel Network? Based upon your annual onboarding volumes, a slight change with new employees could lead to significant improvement of visibility in the future.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>2.</strong><strong>Where did they buy that?</strong></h2>
<p>When an employee makes a purchase on a corporate card rather than cash, you can leverage this information to know where they are. In the absence of more current information, card data can provide a traveler’s last known location. Additionally, traveling with substantial amounts of cash can make any traveler a target for criminals. Corporate card usage can serve as a significant line of defense in a duty of care program. While corporate card usage is a valuable spend management tool, you can also evaluate the risk threshold of your duty of care program by reviewing the level of corporate card adoption. By encouraging your employees to use their corporate cards, you add another layer of protection from crisis.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>3.</strong><strong>When did they book that?</strong></h2>
<p>The earlier the booking, the more time you will have to ensure the proper precautions are taken. Most executive stakeholders consider traveler safety reports extremely or especially important, so having these measures in place is crucial. Even though we live in a completely connected society, advances in technology haven’t really helped us become better planners when it comes to business travel. Review your travel request policy to see if you can balance the planning-to-<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/last-minute-travel">booking window</a> that prioritizes employee safety.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>4.</strong><strong>Who did they ride with?</strong></h2>
<p>If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely, would you? Of course you would. <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ground-transportation-rideshare-safer-less-expensive-than-taxis">Our quick fix</a>: increasing rideshare over other ground transportation options. Travel by car is still one of the primary modes of business travel. Rideshare apps allow travelers to share their route information with others, so others can track their ETA. This empowers travelers to take ownership of their own safety. Electronic payment within rideshare apps also reduces the need to carry cash and can automatically route data for expense report completion.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>5.</strong><strong>How safe is it?</strong></h2>
<p>A study from the <a href="https://www.travelguard.com/travel-resources/travel-safety/womens-travel-safety">Travel Guard</a> said that 84% of people claimed they weren’t aware of any tools that would give them safety tips, or that their employers didn’t provide that kind of safety tip or resource. Reviewing the risk levels of a destination using tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>, the <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel.html">U.S. Department of State portal</a>, or TripIt <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/trip-it-pro-neighborhood-safety-scores">neighborhood safety scores</a> before approval, booking, departure, and during travel, prioritizes employee safety and can be a simple check. Determining the right level of safety for your organization and reflecting this in your travel policy will help maintain a level of risk that everyone is comfortable with. Considering the request process and incident response procedures, especially in destinations that score high on risk, are valuable steps in your policy review process.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>6.</strong><strong>How can you improve?</strong></h2>
<p>Actively monitoring where employees are located around the world and having a way to communicate with and assist them during a crisis is no small feat. Encouraging employees to book their trip in advance, using the tools and corporate cards that you provide, will allow your organization to offer a duty of care program that is relevant and effective.</p>
<p>Here are some of our best practices to get started:</p>
<ol>
<li>Establish a task force that includes HR, travel managers, finance, and security</li>
<li>Regularly review your travel and expense data for trends</li>
<li>Maintain up-to-date employee information</li>
<li>Provide timely travel advisories (pre-trip and ongoing)</li>
<li>Ensure the ability to identify employee location through a system of data and communication points</li>
</ol>
<p>Smart companies are realizing that adjusting their policies and being willing to spend a few extra dollars on T&E (travel & expense) can have an immeasurable positive impact on employee safety, satisfaction, and wellness.</p>
<h2>More Duty of Care Resources</h2>
<p><br />
Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Travel Risk Quiz</a> to see how well your organization is managing employee risk.</p>
<p>Listen to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-deloitte">our podcast with Deloitte</a> to learn how protecting your travelers protects your bottom line.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/taking-charge-of-duty-of-care-hr-should-take-the-lead">Read our eBook:</a> Taking Charge of Duty of Care? Why HR Should Take the Lead.</p>
<p>Enable travel managers to spot invisible spend, capture travel data, and ensure traveler safety – <a href="https://www.concur.com/resource-center/infographics/getting-clear-accurate-view-of-travel-spend">download our infographic</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Digging Into Essentials of Automated Expense Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/digging-into-essentials-automated-expense-management
2023-02-26T09:00:00Z
2023-01-26T09:00:00Z
Nearly half of finance leaders worldwide say fraud and risk management are their biggest risk and compliance challenges.
<p>Nearly half of finance leaders worldwide say fraud and risk management are their biggest risk and compliance challenges.</p>
<p>The same number – 44% – say they cannot make informed decisions involving cash flow, budgeting, and forecasting because they lack timely financial information. The absence of that data can turn what should be moments of decisiveness into moments of uncertainty each time you spend a dollar.</p>
<p>So those findings from a study SAP® Concur® commissioned with Analysys Mason<sup>1</sup> might hit home. And leave you a bit unsettled at a time when finance leaders are increasingly asked to step up and deliver the strategic insights that fuel growth and power companies forward.</p>
<p>The last few years certainly helped hone the skills to manage change. The question, though, is how to move beyond just reacting to challenges – putting out fires – to seizing the opportunities they provide. After all, with the pandemic, hybrid work, and now inflation, change isn’t likely to slow down.</p>
<h2><strong>A costly paper trail</strong></h2>
<p>Missing receipts. Time-consuming expense reports. Purchases that don’t meet policy. Unclaimed VAT and other taxes. Heightened fraud risks. Frustrated employees on the finance team and across the company. A general feeling of, “I know we have that data somewhere but …”</p>
<p>Many companies, no matter their size, may have already adopted some automated solutions that target certain aspects of expense management, such as apps that let employees digitally capture receipts. But if you haven’t fully automated expense management, you may not realize that there are still many manual processes costing your business time and money. As a result, finance leaders and their teams often spend their time working with manual or partially automated processes and systems that don’t communicate well with one another. </p>
<p>An expense management solution can help mitigate the risks of fraud and noncompliance, improve productivity and profitability, and increase employee satisfaction. You, the finance team, and company managers will be able to readily access timely information and help guide decisions. Moments of uncertainty can become moments of clarity that allow the business to identify and take full advantage of opportunities.</p>
<h2><strong>Best practices and how to achieve them</strong></h2>
<p>Your company may have adopted targeted technology solutions – like mobile apps to scan receipts – but still lack a comprehensive solution to automated expense management that eliminates distracting manual tasks and provides timely information and answers.</p>
<p>A comprehensive solution like Concur Expense helps seamlessly cover the steps of the spending process from purchase to payment.</p>
<p>Expenses automatically enter the system from such sources as photos of receipts, corporate cards or preferred-supplier purchases. Mileage is tracked and submitted via a mobile app, reducing the risk of error or bad behavior.</p>
<p>Employees can complete and submit expense reports on the go and any out-of-policy purchases are flagged automatically. Managers can approve reports quickly, since they can see if the spending is out of policy to determine whether the purchase is justified.</p>
<p>With automation and intelligent technology accurately capturing purchases, the finance team can focus on flagging spending exceptions and trigger follow-up. An auditing service can double-check for policy exceptions while also verifying receipts to reclaim VAT or other taxes.</p>
<p>Having submitted expense reports via an easier-to use process than in the past, employees are now closer to what they most want: reimbursement. With the technology, they can easily check on the status of their report and payment – without the bother of a phone call to finance.</p>
<p>Most important, during all those steps, up-to-date spending data is accessible in and moving through the company’s finance systems, including their accounting system or ERP. Finance and leadership alike have an accurate picture of company spending, and advanced analytics and reporting dashboards provide the insights they need to make decisions. Time and information lags are reduced</p>
<h2><strong>Fallacies and facts</strong></h2>
<p>You’re likely to run into some recurring arguments against automated expense management solutions. You might even share some of the concerns. Here’s some reasons to rethink them.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>It’s only for big companies. </strong>Cloud-based solutions actually require few IT resources or infrastructure.</li>
<li><strong>Manual processes don’t take long.</strong> Even if well organized, employees struggle with spreadsheets and paper reports. Their time is better spent on the value-added tasks that matter most to your business.</li>
<li><strong>It’s too expensive.</strong> Spreadsheets and manual processes consume productivity. Our study estimates a T&E solution saves 13 hours weekly for each finance or accounting team member.</li>
<li><strong>Our finance team will be redundant.</strong> In reality, team members will be free focus on more essential projects and initiatives that support growth and profitability.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Satisfied customers, satisfied employees</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur customers attest to the advantages of automating expense management. One reports they spend 65% less time processing expense reports. Another says, “Concur Expense has been transformational … allowing us to focus on service as opposed to back-office administration.”</p>
<p>Your finance team knows all too well about the drudgery and time wasted by manual processes and disconnected information, because they live it. So, too, do the employees and leadership they serve. Consider giving them the time – and the solution – to be more productive, creative and strategic.</p>
<p>As a result, your company can be well on its way to fulfilling the potential uncovered by another finding of our study: 72% of businesses believe digital transformation is key to their growth<sup>2</sup>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Learn more</strong></h2>
<p>Get a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/the-essential-guide-to-expense-management"><strong>The Essential Guide to Managing Expenses</strong></a><strong> </strong>for a blueprint of better expense management and how Concur Expense can play a role.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1,2 Analysys Mason 2022, Trave</p>
SAP Concur Team
Save Costs on Ground Transportation Spend with Rideshare
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/save-costs-on-ground-transportation-spend-with-rideshare
2023-01-30T11:57:35Z
2023-01-26T08:57:45Z
If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely, would you? Rhetorical question — of course you would! Our quick fix: increase rideshare over other ground transportatio
<p>If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely, would you? Rhetorical question — of course you would! Our quick fix: increase rideshare over other ground transportation options and encourage employees to share their trip status as part of a personal safety plan.</p>
<h2>Start here: policies, spend, and communication</h2>
<p>Although traveling by car is still one of the primary modes of business travel, our customers have found a simple way to save costs by making small configuration adjustments to their rideshare expense and insurance policies. To get started, ask questions like:</p>
<ol>
<li>How much are we spending on ground transportation today?</li>
<li>What does our organization’s<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz"> expense policy </a>say about rideshare?</li>
<li>Does our insurance policy include rideshare?</li>
</ol>
<p>After you’ve addressed these questions, review how rideshare expenses are configured in Concur Expense. Make sure the App Center is enabled and that your SAP Concur solution notifications are being sent to your team, so they are encouraged to use rideshare over other forms of ground transportation, like taxis.</p>
<h2>Rideshare industry benchmarks: How do you compare?</h2>
<p>While digging into the data, look at the year-over-year (YoY) rideshare spend percentages. This metric will help you gauge whether your organization is on par with others in your industry, or if some adjustments are needed. Best practice percentages range between 38% to 87% depending on the industry.</p>
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<h2>Rideshare formula: How to calculate your potential savings</h2>
<p>And now for the fun part: Calculating your potential savings. Use this simple formula to see how much you can save:</p>
<p>(TAXI MEDIAN RATE – RIDESHARE MEDIAN RATE) X (25% OF TOTAL TAXI TRANSACTIONS) = POTENTIAL SAVINGS AMOUNT</p>
<p>So, how did you measure up?</p>
<h2>Encourage rideshare for ground transportation</h2>
<p>When employees use rideshare apps, they have:</p>
<ul>
<li>Autonomy over their itineraries and locations.</li>
<li>Peace of mind knowing they can safely share their location.</li>
<li>The ability to reduce carbon emissions for sustainability.</li>
</ul>
<p>Plus, it empowers your organization to fulfill its duty of care responsibility to keep employees out of harm’s way. To accommodate ridesharing into your organization’s T&E policy<a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-you-should-extend-traveler-safety-protect-your-rideshare-users"> read our blog</a> detailing how to prioritize the safety of your employees while offering a highly satisfying travel experience. Then, visit our App Center for more information on how to integrate apps like <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57868dac4659a61200efc32d">Uber </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5a7cbd2fe641c7120085eeca">Lyft </a>for business.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Cloud for Public Sector Now Listed on the FedRAMP® Marketplace
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-cloud-for-public-sector-now-listed-on-fedramp-marketplace
2023-01-31T08:01:03Z
2023-01-24T08:01:39Z
Concur Cloud for Public Sector became listed on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Marketplace as “in process” for a FedRAMP Moderate agency authorization.
<p>On January 18, 2023, Concur Cloud for Public Sector became<a href="https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#!/products?sort=productName&productNameSearch=sap%20concur"> listed on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Marketplace</a> as “in process” for a FedRAMP Moderate agency authorization. This is the formal confirmation by the sponsoring federal agency that they are committed to partnering with SAP Concur for initial FedRAMP Authorization with plans to have an assessment by a 3<sup>rd</sup> Party Assessment Organization (3PAO), and they intend to issue an Authority to Operate within 12 months. The 3PAO assessment of Concur Cloud for Public Sector has been completed and is in the final stages of review and approval.</p>
<p>Concur Cloud for Public Sector is the only commercially available multi-tenant, fully integrated travel and expense platform purpose-built to U.S. government FedRAMP security standards. It limits access to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and includes oversight by a team of security experts that continually monitors, detects, and responds to threats. It is a Government Only Community model, defined as holding only government data. Customers can be federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), contractors working on behalf of the government, or lab entities.</p>
<p>These organizations need to meet the evolving and increasing security requirements required to protect data residing in the cloud. However, the challenge for many is how to meet strict access control, data protections, and other security requirements, while still providing a user-friendly, mobile experience within their travel and expense management solution. To meet this need, Concur Cloud for Public Sector provides the same user-friendly solutions enjoyed by the commercial sector, with access through standard web browsers via a URL or by using SAP Concur mobile applications.</p>
<p><strong>The Benefits of FedRAMP</strong></p>
<p>FedRAMP was established in 2011 to provide a cost-effective, “do once, use many times” security assessment framework for the adoption and use of cloud services by the federal government. It empowers agencies to use modern cloud technologies, with an emphasis on security and protection of federal information.</p>
<p>FedRAMP is a government-wide program that promotes the adoption of secure cloud services by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies and federal agencies.</p>
<p>The program is meant to ensure the security of cloud services used by the U.S. government and standardizes the security assessments, authorizations, and continuous monitoring of cloud service offerings (CSOs) used by federal government agencies.</p>
<p>Benefits include:</p>
<p>• Reducing duplicative efforts, inconsistencies, and cost inefficiencies</p>
<p>• Establishing a public-private partnership to promote innovation and the advancement of more secure information technologies</p>
<p>• Enabling the federal government to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing by creating transparent standards and processes for security authorizations and allowing agencies to leverage security authorizations on a government-wide scale</p>
<p><strong>Concur Cloud for Public Sector Overview</strong></p>
<p>Concur Cloud for Public Sector enables government agencies and the commercial entities that support them to deliver cost-effective, secure, scalable, reliable, and sustainable spend management solutions by combining the benefits of cloud technology, cybersecurity, and risk management. By using a commercial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach, it continually improves and leverages advanced security analytics, threat management, workflow automation, and orchestration tools to eliminate manual action.</p>
<p>In addition, Concur Cloud for Public Sector benefits the entire workforce by providing a highly secure, mobile-friendly platform that reduces cumbersome processes and paperwork, increases employee satisfaction, and drives policy compliance—providing the right balance between security and usability.</p>
<p>For more information, visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">Concur Cloud for Public Sector site</a> or the <a href="https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#!/products?sort=productName&productNameSearch=sap%20concur">FedRAMP Marketplace</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The FedRAMP name is a registered trademark of GSA (USPTO registration number 5725620).</p>
SAP Concur Team
IDC MarketScape Recognizes SAP as a Leader in T&E Management Software for Enterprise and Midmarket
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/idc-marketscape-recognizes-sap-as-a-leader-in-te-management-software-for-enterprise-midmarket
2023-01-31T08:04:54Z
2023-01-20T14:07:09Z
We are excited to announce that SAP has maintained its position in the Leaders Category in the enterprise and midmarket 2022–2023 IDC MarketScape for worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-e
<p>We are excited to announce that SAP has maintained its position in the Leaders Category in the enterprise and midmarket 2022–2023 IDC MarketScape for worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-enabled Travel and Expense Applications market.</p>
<p>These recurring IDC MarketScape assessments evaluate vendors in the travel and expense (T&E) management software, with particular focus on expense management offerings and their integration with travel management services and networks. They serve as informative, valuable resources for enterprise and midmarket companies that outline key criteria to help guide their selection of corporate travel booking solutions.</p>
<p>Recent years have proven challenging for the corporate travel industry. As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic created an urgent need for solutions to help protect business travelers’ health and well-being with enhanced duty of care, flexibility, and visibility. The most successful T&E offerings ensured that companies and their business travelers felt immensely supported during this moment of change, so they could return to travel with confidence.</p>
<p>"More businesses took the opportunity to add new features to control travel spend or provide more duty of care-related functionality and controls,” said Kevin Permenter, research director, Financial Applications at IDC. “This was an especially powerful differentiator for software vendors with preexisting ties to new emerging areas within corporate travel booking such as auditing, sustainability, virtual cards, and duty of care.”</p>
<p>Also, as economic uncertainty continues into 2023, companies have another host of requirements to conduct business efficiently and effectively. The solutions in this category are poised to equip companies with what they need, and SAP Concur is proud to be among them.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions—including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>—integrate T&E processes and provide a unified view into travel bookings and spending data, all in one place. According to the IDC MarketScape, strengths of these offerings include:</p>
<ul>
<li>A large global reach to better support businesses with complex multinational profiles—including 80 million end users in more than 150 countries, support for 29 languages and all ISO registered currencies, and sales and service support offices in 30-plus countries.</li>
<li>Experience with small and midmarket businesses, informing tailored approaches to their specific needs.</li>
<li>Simplicity in spend management with integration of solutions across travel, expense, and invoice.</li>
<li>A substantial SAP Concur partner network consisting of more than 300 partners, with the ability to tap additional resources through partners associated with related SAP offerings.</li>
</ul>
<p>Learn more about what to look for when selecting a T&E solution, and upcoming trends to watch, by downloading the excerpts of the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Travel and Expense Applications 2022-2023 Vendor Assessment excerpts for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/enterprise-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-and-expense-applications-enterprise-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">enterprise</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">midmarket</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Taking the Wheel with Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/taking-wheel-with-travel
2023-01-24T09:22:16Z
2023-01-19T11:02:27Z
It’s no surprise that travel programs have been all over the road in the last few years. And as you’ve tried to straighten things out again, leadership has been asking with more and more regularity th
<p>It’s no surprise that travel programs have been all over the road in the last few years. And as you’ve tried to straighten things out again, leadership has been asking with more and more regularity that you help them see even further down the road. They’re asking you to help them lead and asking your travel program to help drive the business. </p>
<p>Specifically, they want visibility into the value (the ROI in real numbers) of your travel program – while at the same time, travelers are demanding safer, smoother experiences, or they’ll simply say “no” to the trip. </p>
<p>So what does it take to grow your leadership role within the company while growing your travel program? Good question. You’ll find the answers, and a good deal more, in a recent eBook entitled “Guiding Travel through Uncharted Territory: 6 Tactics for Personal and Program Growth.” </p>
<p>But first, a few more questions. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Do your travel program goals align with your organizational goals? </strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Your CEO and CFO need travel to drive business performance, so they need your program to be more finely tuned and effective than ever. Getting there means demonstrating how you’re going to meet the C-suite’s objectives.<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/guiding-travel-through-uncharted-territory"> Learn more. </a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Are your processes flexible enough to adapt to changes in the market? </strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Examining your policies and program more frequently is the key to resiliency in a fluctuating economy. And shortening your planning cycles is the key to staying agile. Learn more. > </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Do you have a backup for TMC labor shortages? </strong></li>
</ul>
<p>If you think you have travel questions, think of the questions your travelers have. So much has changed that they’re flooding understaffed TMCs with calls no one can answer. Your booking tool will have to pick up the slack. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/guiding-travel-through-uncharted-territory">Learn more.</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Where does the traveler experience rank on the list of things you’re thinking about? </strong></li>
</ul>
<p>If booking after booking and trip after trip are a pain in the process for travelers, it can mean the difference between them staying in their jobs or looking for a new ones. You need to find new ways to listen to them and make travel more enjoyable. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/guiding-travel-through-uncharted-territory">Learn more. </a></p>
<p>While these might be concerns, they aren’t conundrums. There are answers and insights, technologies and tools – and as the “Guiding Travel” eBook points out, a series of tactics you can take to drive the business forward by driving a better travel program. </p>
<p>You just need to take the wheel. </p>
SAP Concur Team
The C-Suite is Wondering What Travel is Up To
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/c-suite-is-wondering-what-travel-is-up-to
2023-01-19T11:11:09Z
2023-01-19T10:53:59Z
Naturally, what matters to leadership matters to everyone. But the stress their scrutiny is causing is often only felt by the folks at the helm of your travel program. Like you, for example. And when
<p>Budgets are tight, costs are out of control, and every inch of the travel process seems to be in constant flux – from shifting regulations to shaky supplier reliability. So naturally, the business wants to see that you’re measuring every travel dollar, yen, and euro with care.</p>
<p>So what should you do first?</p>
<h2><strong>Start with the right questions. </strong></h2>
<p>The C-suite is asking you for more, so you need to ask yourself how you’re going to get it. A recent “Measure Up” eBook highlights <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/demonstrating-value-your-travel-program-c-suite"><u>five ways to demonstrate ROI in your travel program</u></a> – in other words, it offers just about every answer you’ll need.</p>
<ul>
<li>The first question: Are all the recent shifts in strategy getting in the way of getting things done? Yeah. They certainly could be. But if there’s a way to focus on your foundational priorities, like adoption, approvals, compliance, and so forth, you’ll get a sense of what the C-suite needs you to measure. And instead of metrics being some sort of guessing game, you’ll find the right measuring tools.</li>
<li>Next, take a look at visibility. Are you able to see all of your outside bookings, unused tickets, cancellation charges, and things like cash spending? It’s easy for this kind of data to fall through the cracks, and when it does, your budget goes with it.</li>
<li>How much VAT and GST reclaim are you leaving behind? This isn’t the simplest question you’ll ever answer, but with millions of unclaimed taxes out there, your CFO, other stakeholders, and even shareholders will welcome a solution that brings cash back into the business.</li>
<li>Another issue to consider is the metrics themselves. Travel has changed, travel <em>priorities</em> have changed, and if you want to keep up, you need to change what you’re measuring and how you measure it. Are you tracking the traveler experience? Do you have sustainability goals and ways to meet them? Do you have a handle on meetings booked outside your program? If not, you’re not going to be able to prove your ROI.</li>
<li>Finally, ask yourself what you’re showing the C-suite and what you <em>should</em> be showing the C-suite. Better yet, ask the C-suite. They’ll likely want to see the high-level data that tie to your organization’s overall goals.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Why does that matter? </strong></h2>
<p>Naturally, what matters to leadership matters to everyone. But the stress their scrutiny is causing is often only felt by the folks at the helm of your travel program. Like you, for example. And when 100% of travel managers expect their jobs to be more challenging in the <em>next</em> 12 months than they were <em>last </em>year, you know you’ve got trouble.<sup>*</sup></p>
<p>Avoiding that stress – and too-tough-to-tackle questions from the C-suite – takes more than a few good reports and a couple lucky guesses. It takes the right tools measuring the right data, then showing the right findings to the right people.</p>
<p>Fortunately, you’ve got the right tricks up your sleeve. Read the “Measure Up” eBook, and you’ll find <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/demonstrating-value-your-travel-program-c-suite"><u>five tips for demonstrating the value of travel management</u></a>. You’ll also find the answers to the questions you’re asking yourself, not the least of which is: How am I going to do it all?</p>
<p><sup>*</sup>2022 Global Business Travel Report</p>
SAP Concur Team
We Answer: What Are Expense Reimbursements? And Other FAQs.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-expense-reimbursements-and-other-faqs
2024-01-29T20:31:18Z
2023-01-11T09:20:44Z
We have all the answers to your top employee expense management questions.
<p>If managing employee expenses sounds time-consuming to you, you’re not alone. We answer some common questions to help you simplify the process.</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li><a href="#what-is-an-expense-reimbursement">What is an expense reimbursement?</a> </li>
<li><a href="#what-expenses-are-reimbursable">What expenses are reimbursable? </a></li>
<li><a href="#do-i-need-receipts-to-reimburse-employees">Do I need receipts to reimburse an employee?</a></li>
<li><a href="#how-do-i-pay-expense-reimbursements">How do I pay expense reimbursements?</a> </li>
<li><a href="#how-long-to reimburse-expenses">How long do I have to reimburse expenses?</a></li>
<li><a href="#are-reimbursed-expenses-taxable">Do expense reimbursements count as income? And are reimbursed expenses taxable?</a></li>
<li><a href="#are-there-alternatives-to-expense-reimbursements">Are there alternatives to expense reimbursements?</a> </li>
<li><a href="#is-concur-expense-good-for-small-businesses">Are SAP Concur expense reporting and reimbursement services affordable and efficient for small businesses?</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="what-is-an-expense-reimbursement"></a>What is an expense reimbursement? </h2>
<p>An expense reimbursement is the payment made from your business to an employee for business-related expenses they have incurred personally. The reimbursement amount should exactly match the amount of the expense. </p>
<h2><strong><a name="what-expenses-are-reimbursable"></a>What expenses are reimbursable? </strong></h2>
<p>Two parties have control over which expenses are reimbursable. The first is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). All expenses incurred by your employees fall under the same <a href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535">IRS guidelines</a> as your other business expenses, like rent and wages. Simply put, to be valid, expenses must be reasonable and incurred for the purpose of earning income. </p>
<p>Of course, the second party in control of what is and is not reimbursable is the business owner or company finance leader. Can employees book business class flights? Can they expense unlimited alcoholic beverages when entertaining clients? The easiest way to ensure employees are clear on what they can and can’t expense (before the money is spent) is to have a clear <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policy</a> in place.</p>
<p>If you don’t currently have an expense policy, SAP Concur has developed an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policy builder</a> you can customize to your needs for free. </p>
<h2><a name="do-i-need-receipts-to-reimburse-employees"></a>Do I need receipts to reimburse an employee? </h2>
<p>Yes! Never reimburse expenses without a receipt. Not only is it important as a business owner to confirm that every expense is valid, receipts are non-negotiable if you are audited by the IRS. </p>
<p>To qualify for reimbursement, your employee should create an <a href="https://concur.com/blog/article/we-answer-what-are-expense-reports-and-other-faqs">expense report</a> documenting the details of each business expense incurred. Itemized receipts should be provided for every expense claimed. (For mileage, employees should keep mileage logs or use a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">distance tracking app</a>.) </p>
<p>Saving receipts is a huge pain point for employees and business owners alike, which is one reason many businesses are turning to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">paperless expense reporting</a>. </p>
<h2><a name="how-do-i-pay-expense-reimbursements"></a>How do I pay expense reimbursements? </h2>
<p>You can integrate reimbursements directly into your payroll system or reimburse employees separately for expenses via check or direct deposit. While convenient for the employer, keep in mind that expense reimbursements via payroll may mean employees have to wait longer to receive their money back. </p>
<h2><a name="how-long-to reimburse-expenses"></a>How long do I have to reimburse expenses?</h2>
<p>No matter what the amount, reimbursing an employee’s personal funds should occur promptly. As a best practice, ensure employees get reimbursed for business expenses before their credit card bills have a chance to arrive. </p>
<h2><a name="are-reimbursed-expenses-taxable"></a>Do expense reimbursements count as income? And are reimbursed expenses taxable?</h2>
<p>To answer both questions: No. For the employee, expense reimbursements are not considered income since the reimbursed funds are simply replacing personal funds expended. Therefore, expense reimbursements do not need to be reported by the employee to the IRS (the original personal income has already been taxed). Even if the funds are reimbursed through payroll, the expense reimbursement amount should appear as a separate item that is not subject to any taxes. </p>
<p>For the business, an expense reimbursement is considered an expenditure and will likely reduce the amount of tax you’ll pay. </p>
<h2><a name="are-there-alternatives-to-expense-reimbursements"></a>Are there alternatives to expense reimbursements?<strong> </strong></h2>
<p>In most cases, expense reports and reimbursements cannot be entirely avoided. But some of the common alternatives/complements to traditional reimbursements include: </p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Advances </li>
<li>Per diems </li>
<li>Corporate cards </li>
<li>Purchasing cards (P-cards) </li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="is-concur-expense-good-for-small-businesses"></a>Are SAP Concur expense reporting and reimbursement services affordable and efficient for small businesses? </h2>
<p>If managing expense reports and reimbursement sounds time-consuming to you, you’re not alone. We work with small businesses from coast to coast every day to eliminate the hassles, risks, and costs of paper-based expense processes.</p>
<p>Our services are not only affordable for businesses of all sizes but designed to cost less than manual expense reporting. See how it works in our five-minute <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a> or check out our one-minute <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/beginners-guide-sap-concur-solutions">beginner's guide to SAP Concur</a>.</p>
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SAP Concur Team
We Answer: What Are Expense Reports? And Other FAQs.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/we-answer-what-are-expense-reports-and-other-faqs
2023-02-20T16:36:55Z
2023-01-11T09:10:54Z
If managing expense report paperwork sounds time-consuming to you, you’re not alone. We answer some common questions to help you simplify the process.
<p>Expense reports are by far the best way to manage and track employee business expenses. Such business expenses commonly include:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Travel expenses</li>
<li>Client meals/entertainment</li>
<li>Mileage</li>
<li>Supplies </li>
</ul>
<p>Employees naturally expect any personal funds expended for business to be paid back to them. An expense report allows employees to document each business expense, provide a corresponding receipt, and get reimbursed from company funds.</p>
<p>However, the true beneficiary of expense reports is the business owner. Expense reports make it easy to stay on top of expenditures and ensure the proper amounts are deducted from overall revenue — so you don’t pay more in taxes than necessary. Learn more about expense reports by clicking through the questions below. </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#what-is-a-travel-expense-report">What is a travel expense report?</a></li>
<li><a href="#what-is-an-income-and-expense-report">What is an income and expense report?</a></li>
<li><a href="#what-should-an-expense-report-include">What should an expense report include?</a></li>
<li><a href="#do-i-need-receipt-for-every-expense-report">Do I really need a receipt for every expense on an expense report?</a></li>
<li><a href="#who-approves-expense-report">Who approves expense reports?</a></li>
<li><a href="#what-to-do-if-i-find-invalid-or-personal-expense">What should I do if I find an invalid or personal expense on an employee’s expense report?</a></li>
<li><a href="#how-do-i-create-expense-policy">How do I create an expense policy?</a></li>
<li><a href="#is-concur-expense-affordable-efficient-for-small-businesses">Are SAP Concur expense report services affordable and efficient for small businesses?</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="what-is-a-travel-expense-report"></a>What is a travel expense report?</h2>
<p>For most businesses, the distinction between expense report and travel expense report isn’t necessary. Some organizations ask employees to document and claim expenses for a particular business trip on a separate travel expense report form immediately following the trip. The same employee may submit a separate non-travel expense report for business expenses unrelated to the trip. </p>
<p>This strategy can help separate spending for different reasons into different buckets (expenses specific to the business trip would be easy to tally). It can also ensure employees get paid back promptly for large expenditures like plane tickets and accommodations. However, the bottom line is that there is no need for two different types of expense reports, and it isn’t necessary to require a separate expense report for travel.</p>
<h2><a name="what-is-an-income-and-expense-report"></a>What is an income and expense report?</h2>
<p>An income and expense report is entirely different from an expense report and is often created using accounting software or by a company’s accountant or finance department. Such a report is also commonly referred to as a profit and loss statement or income statement. It details all the funds coming in for a specified time period (e.g. one month) and all the funds going out (rent, wages, insurance, utilities, etc.) during the same time period.</p>
<h2><a name="what-should-an-expense-report-include"></a>What should an expense report include?</h2>
<p>While an expense report should be customized to suit your business needs, a standard expense report often includes the following fields:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Employee name</li>
<li>Total expense reimbursement amount</li>
<li>Advances received (if applicable to be subtracted from reimbursement)</li>
<li>Subtotal</li>
<li>Your own coding (you may want to code expenses by client, business purpose, or department, for example)</li>
<li>Amount of each expense</li>
<li>Date each expense was incurred</li>
<li>Description of each expense (e.g. hotel, meal, etc.) and reason </li>
</ul>
<p>An expense report should always be submitted with itemized receipts matching the totals claimed.</p>
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<h5>Expense Policy Template</h5>
<p>Creating an expense policy can be tedious, but we make it easy with our free template that explains what to include, FAQs, best practices, and more. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">Get started today</a></div>
</div>
<h2><a name="do-i-need-receipt-for-every-expense-report"></a>Do I really need a receipt for every expense on an expense report?</h2>
<p>Yes! Not only is it important as a business owner to confirm that every expense is valid, receipts are non-negotiable if you are audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If a claimed expense does not have an acceptable corresponding receipt, that expense can be disallowed, and you will be responsible for any taxes and penalties.</p>
<p>The IRS expects you to provide general documentary evidence, like receipts, canceled checks, or bills, to support your claimed business expenses.</p>
<p>Saving receipts is a huge pain point for employees and business owners alike, which is one reason many businesses are turning to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">paperless expense reporting</a>.</p>
<h2><a name="who-approves-expense-report"></a>Who approves expense reports?</h2>
<p>Depending on your business, you may decide to require one or more levels of approval for your expense reports. For instance, with just 10 employees, the business owner alone may accept responsibility for reviewing and approving all expenses. With 100 or more employees, that model would be less feasible, and perhaps both a department and finance manager would review and approve expense reports before allowing reimbursement.</p>
<h2><a name="what-to-do-if-i-find-invalid-or-personal-expense"></a>What should I do if I find an invalid or personal expense on an employee’s expense report?</h2>
<p>When the money has already been spent by an employee, it’s an uncomfortable situation. However, it’s important to manage the incident quickly to ensure non-compliant spending doesn’t become part of company culture. </p>
<p>We recommend sending a letter via email to the employee to inform them that the submitted expense can’t be reimbursed. The letter should include the reason for refusal (e.g. the submitted expense doesn’t comply with your expense policy, the purchase wasn’t used for business, etc.). </p>
<p>The best way to prevent improper expense claims and eliminate any gray area surrounding which expenses are reimbursable is to have a clear <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policy</a> in place.</p>
<h2><a name="how-do-i-create-expense-policy"></a>How do I create an expense policy?</h2>
<p>SAP Concur has developed a fully customizable <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policy template</a> U.S. small and medium businesses. It’s absolutely free and takes just minutes to customize. Your finished expense policy will include:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Statement of purpose</li>
<li>Employee and manager responsibilities</li>
<li>Zero-tolerance fraud clause</li>
<li>Itemized reimbursable expenses</li>
<li>Exclusions</li>
</ul>
<p>Alternatively, your HR department can create an expense policy.</p>
<h2><a name="is-concur-expense-affordable-efficient-for-small-businesses"></a>Are SAP Concur expense report services affordable and efficient for small businesses?</h2>
<p>If managing expense report paperwork sounds time-consuming to you, you’re not alone. We work with small businesses from coast to coast every day to eliminate the hassles, risks, and costs of paper-based expense reports.</p>
<p>Our services are not only affordable for businesses of all sizes but designed to cost less than manual expense reporting. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/concur-expense-overview">Watch this two-minute video</a> to see exactly how Concur Expense works. If you like what you see, test out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided Concur Expense demo</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Making the Case for AP Automation at Your Company
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-case-for-ap-automation-at-your-company
2023-02-20T10:09:52Z
2023-01-11T08:59:29Z
Less paper and manual entry. Fewer lost invoices and late payment fees. More early pay discounts. Increased efficiency and productivity overall. Let us count the ways...
<p>Less paper and manual entry. Fewer lost invoices and late payment fees. More early pay discounts. Increased efficiency and productivity overall. A more accurate and timelier picture of cash flow.</p>
<p>You’ve probably heard the advantages and arguments for fully automating accounts payable. For moving past doing invoices and payments on paper or with only partially automated methods seen as “good enough.”</p>
<p>But whether you’re the CEO, the finance director, or in another role and have been convinced yourself, you still might need to justify the switch to others for it to occur and be well received. That’s true if you’re pushing down from the top or making a case to those higher up the food chain. Either way, it’s worth stressing that the result can be this: The clarity and confidence you now lack in spending decisions can become moments of certainty.</p>
<p>Helping others see the benefits of an automated accounts payable solution like Concur® Invoice can take a multipronged approach. Numbers that demonstrate efficiencies and savings are, of course, a place to start. Backing them up with a more personal “what’s in it for you” strategy can be as essential and effective.</p>
<h2><strong>What’s the company gain from AP automation?</strong></h2>
<p>Businesses that fully automate their invoicing and payment systems save money and time, both of which can be put to use elsewhere. The time saved is valuable, as finance and accounting team members can concentrate on higher-value work instead of pushing paper. In a competitive labor market, better and more satisfying work can translate into better hires and retention.</p>
<p>Let’s look at money first, from a survey of businesses we commissioned with Analysys Mason<sup>1</sup>. Businesses that have implemented invoice management solutions see:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>$44,000</strong> in estimated annual savings</li>
<li><strong>122 hours</strong> saved weekly by finance/accounting teams</li>
<li><strong>8 months</strong>, estimated time to achieve positive ROI</li>
</ul>
<p>Another set of statistics points to opportunities lost to the poor and outdated information that can result from little or incomplete automation. Greater efficiency and savings aren’t the only benefits a fully automated accounts payable solution can deliver. Possibly as important are providing an up-to-date view of your company’s financial position and incorporating analytics tools. Together, that can mean having the ability to confidently plan and make business decisions.</p>
<p>Many business leaders tell us they’re flying blind in that regard, as an Oxford Economics <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">study</a> found not long ago<sup>2</sup>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>34%</strong> lack data analysis tools and technologies</li>
<li><strong>31%</strong> lack adequate data</li>
<li><strong>39%</strong> lack technology infrastructure</li>
</ul>
<p>Those numbers and the gains and voids they show can complement the more nuanced personal approach of building automation allies in your organization.</p>
<h2><strong>How’s automation good for the business and us?</strong></h2>
<p>In some ways, you’re fortunate to be making the case these days. Hybrid work and the ever-competitive business environment have shown how important automation and easily accessible, cloud-based technology are to a company’s ability to operate.</p>
<p>That said, businesses can be resistant to change and concerned that a new solution might prove worse than the “good enough” they were using. Here are some approaches that can help you bring accounting, finance, IT and other key stakeholders aboard the automation team, approaches that share how a comprehensive invoice and payment system could make their lives better and help the business grow and succeed. That last one is something everyone has a stake in.</p>
<h2><strong>Managers and the finance team</strong></h2>
<p>From department managers who must review and approve invoices to members of your finance and accounting teams who process them and reconcile budgets, no one enjoys manual, tedious work. It’s a drain on their time and not, mostly, what they were trained to do. And they bear the brunt of the dissatisfaction when vendors don’t get paid on time.</p>
<ul>
<li>Talk to them about how automation can improve submittals and approvals.</li>
<li>How they won’t have to regularly track down invoices that go astray.</li>
<li>How late payment fees could be avoided and how the company could earn more discounts.</li>
<li>And how they could they better watch cash flow and focus on the work that matters most.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>The IT department</strong></h2>
<p>The questions anyone handling information technology at your company ask will likely zero in on support, integration, security, and the time involved.</p>
<p>You can reassure them that automation solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Connect with existing systems and won’t require new integrations.</li>
<li>Use cloud-based technology that simplifies updates.</li>
<li>Meet compliance and security standards.</li>
<li>Offer training, resources, and other support.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Top leaders and owners</strong></h2>
<p>This conversation probably will circle back to cost at first, so have those money, time, and payback stats in hand. Then be ready to talk about how an automation solution could be implemented quickly and securely and could grow as the company does. You can tell them how compliance and employee satisfaction could both improve.</p>
<h2><strong>Making a Case, Doing the Math</strong></h2>
<p>Don’t forget to emphasize to fellow employees that, with a better grasp of cash flow, they can have the information to make better, more strategic decisions for the business and its future. That they’ll have moments of clarity instead of uncertainty with each spending decision. By taking the time to share what you’ve come to know about automating accounts payable, you likely can build a pool of allies. And then the question won’t be whether to automate but how soon.</p>
<ul>
<li>For a more detailed look at strategies advocating for invoice automation, read our E-book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation"><strong>Building a Business Case for AP Automation</strong></a>.</li>
<li>To tally how your business could save with automation, try our <a href="https://www.concur.com/invoice-roi-calculator"><strong>Concur Invoice Business ROI Calculator</strong></a>.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>1. Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study</p>
<p>2. % of respondents. Source: Oxford Economics, Leadership in a New Era, 2021</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Can Your Business Find Certainty in Uncertain Times?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-your-business-find-certainty-in-uncertain-times
2023-02-07T09:00:00Z
2023-01-11T08:54:46Z
Few things can better prepare a business for both tough times and good times than having solid control of spending and the compliance that supports it.
<p>Few things can better prepare a business for both tough times and good times than having solid control of spending and the compliance that supports it.</p>
<p>By gaining the ability to better see and allocate spending – and do so in nearly real time – your company can achieve moments of confidence and clarity instead of moments of uncertainty. In other words, you can make better decisions and improve stability, whether you’re navigating a storm or sailing clear and calm waters.</p>
<p>OK, let’s step ashore and see what you can do to weather change and uncertainty. Both are regular concerns in business, but the past few years of pandemic, hybrid work, travel stops-and-starts, global turbulence, supply chain disruptions, and inflation have made it more vital to prepare for and manage that change and uncertainty.</p>
<p>As mentioned, taking control of company spending is a key. So, too is corralling compliance – with spending policies, regulations, and more. To successfully tackle those two complementary steps, your company can consider enlisting connected automation solutions across its travel and expense functions, from request to purchase to expense submittal and approval to, finally, payment.</p>
<h2><strong>How can we better control of spending?</strong></h2>
<p>Information – data – is at the center of many of the specific areas you can focus upon. Fully automating functions now done by hand – a method with excess costs itself – or performed through processes only partially automated can supply that information. And do so in nearly real time.</p>
<p>Let’s consider some good targets.</p>
<p><strong>Put data in one place.</strong> Whether from travel or other purchases, employees spend in many ways and locations, and hybrid work has shifted and complicated the picture. A solution that can thoroughly gather information from travel suppliers, credit card companies, vendors, and a variety of other sources can give a fuller view of that information. With data in a central location, it can inform decision-making, strategy, and responses when change comes your way.</p>
<p><strong>Stick to budgets.</strong> Many businesses find it hard to keep to the budgets they create, whether the cause is overspending or underspending. This, of course, creates difficulties at the moment but also makes it harder to accurately draft future budgets. By keeping to budget – or at least knowing the reasons you haven’t – your company can likely do a better job of handling disruptions or growth when they come.</p>
<p><strong>Fine-tune invoice process.</strong> By taking a close look at the process from purchase order to payment, you can adjust such points as invoice matching to make sure you got what you paid for before the check goes out. The scrutiny can help identify inefficiencies and discrepancies that affect the bottom line. An automation solution can streamline the process, allowing you to get early-pay discounts and bundle payments.</p>
<h2><strong>How can we improve compliance and how it’s seen?</strong></h2>
<p>Compliance doesn’t have to be a dirty word. Handled well, it can be viewed as something we have to follow in so many areas of life: a set of rules (for employees and companies alike). Getting to that more acceptable view can require steps that make it easier for employees to do the right thing.</p>
<p><strong>Make the purpose clear.</strong> When employees understand a policy, they’re more likely to follow it. So explain the implications, such as tax penalties. Or that policies are intended to streamline spending decisions. As they book travel or weigh other purchases, an automation solution can make them aware of policies and notify them of changes. It can simplify the process, guiding them to right choices, collecting receipts and expenses, and making forms easier to fill out. Make it simpler and compliance is more likely to follow.</p>
<p><strong>Consider audits.</strong> For companies, auditing expenses can be seen as process improvement instead of the tax collector descending. The role can be performed both by humans and intelligent automation solutions. Target a percentage of reports and then check such things as whether all required receipts are attached and match the line items. Check expense classifications and purchases made in cash or deemed “miscellaneous.” With the results, you can spot persistent out-of-policy expenses, seek the cause, and even compile a list of employees who should always – or never need be -- audited. And with improved processes, the company can satisfy tax and other regulations and avoid fines or other penalties that can affect profitability and how you operate.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Handling Change, Gaining Certainty</strong></h2>
<p>By addressing those areas and more, you can get the information and clarity you need to better run your business. You’ll find yourself having moments of confidence when you’re making spending decisions instead of moments of doubt.</p>
<p>Get our white paper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/creating-certainty-in-uncertain-times"><strong>Creating Certainty in Uncertain Times</strong></a>, to further explore cost controls and compliance and learn how SAP Concur solutions fit into the picture.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Are Your Spending Processes, Metrics Up to the Times?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-your-spending-processes-metrics-up-to-times
2023-01-10T11:44:53Z
2023-01-10T11:38:12Z
Amid that evolution, the moments of clarity and confidence in each spending decision may have become moments of uncertainty for the finance team and others. It’s a fair question to ask if some measure
<p>The past few years, without a doubt, disrupted spending patterns at your company and across the economy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As spending changed, your processes to manage travel, other expenses, invoices, and other key business elements likely changed with the spending shifts. Because they had to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Amid that evolution, the moments of clarity and confidence in each spending decision may have become moments of uncertainty for the finance team and others. It’s a fair question to ask if some measures you once counted upon still measure up.</p>
<ul>
<li><!--[endif]-->Do you know all your spending numbers and how much certain categories cost to oversee? It’s difficult to control what you can’t see.</li>
<li>Have you adjusted your key performance indicators – adding some KPIs, jettisoning others – to track and reveal the challenges and opportunities of the times?</li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s look at some key areas, metrics to consider, and ways adopting or extending automation solutions could help your business and team.</p>
<h2><strong>Using corporate cards vs. cash</strong></h2>
<p>Paying expenses with cash can reduce control and increase risk. Encouraging team members to use corporate cards instead of cash can improve spending visibility and the amount your company receives in card rebates. Multiply eligible expenses by your card’s rebate rate – up to 2% – and you’ll get a good idea of the possible savings. Automated expense and invoice solutions, and their dashboards can help you stay on top of both cards and cash.</p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider: </strong>Measure cash vs. card use in such categories as airfare and hotels; track late fees for corporate cards and invoices</p>
<h2><strong>Managing receipts</strong></h2>
<p>Manual receipts and processes consume time and resources. Give employees a solution that lets them take a picture of receipts, as it not only truncates the paper trail but also can send the gathered information directly to reports. Automation and integration also can allow you to collect receipts electronically from suppliers and corporate cards, increasing the timeliness and accuracy of your spending picture. If you want to see the time lost to manual transactions – and the potential of automation – just divide the number of manual transactions by the minutes in an hour. The tally may surprise you. Companies that use SAP® Concur® solutions average time savings of 36% in expense report handling and processing.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider: </strong>Track the number of receipts requiring follow-up; measure the number of required receipts attached to reports, as well as unnecessary ones included.</p>
<h2><strong>Measuring mileage</strong></h2>
<p>You already probably know that, for travelers and finance team alike, tracking mileage is time- consuming and hard to get right. Did you know that manual tracking can result in as much as 15% more miles than were actually traveled? A GPS-enabled mobile app that automatically tracks and submits trips can improve accuracy and reduce overpayments.</p>
<p><strong>KPI to consider: </strong>Identify high-travel employees to check mileage accuracy and see if they’re using the right tools and modes of travel.</p>
<h2><strong>Auditing accuracy</strong></h2>
<p>Auditing expense reports can be a big drain on finance team time, hours and even days that could be better spent on work that adds greater value. Solutions that use artificial intelligence, bolstered by the help of outside experts, can analyze those reports, flag exceptions, and reduce the burden on your team’s productivity</p>
<p><strong>KPI to consider: </strong>Compare percentage of reports audited by people vs. those by automation.</p>
<h2><strong>Cleaning up, gaining accuracy</strong></h2>
<p>Gaining the ability to measure and tally spending is an opportunity to clean up and hone your processes and solutions. You can fine-tune or remove spending categories, clarifying and simplifying the expense process and employee experience. Or you can confirm that the data received is accurate and comprehensive. You can better see how spending matches forecasts and budgets or uncover issues for correction.</p>
<p><strong>KPIs to consider:</strong> Gauge the difference between what’s budgeted and what’s spent; scrutinize the number of expense refunds or updates to employees; identify spending categories to add or remove.</p>
<p>The examples are just starters when assessing the ways automation solutions and better processes can improve accuracy and efficiency – and how you measure progress – at your company. They are steps small and large, but they all add up. When you can see all your spending and obtain both answers and insights, those moments of doubt can become moments of clarity and opportunity.</p>
<h2><strong>Learn more</strong></h2>
<p>To find out more about adjusting your KPIs, calculating spend management costs and learning how SAP® Concur® solutions can help, read these guides:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-your-spend-management-kpis"><strong>Spend is Changing. Are Your KPIs Keeping Up?</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/running-numbers-key-improve-your-spend-control"><strong>Running the Numbers. The Key to Your Spend Management Story.</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>1. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjDs7vOs-j7AhU0GTQIHTrYAoAQFnoECCkQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fidc_infographic_te_business_value_2021_ent_rc.pdf&usg=AOvVaw35E9bUSw-nojggG-kDzGOF">SAP Concur Helps Organizations Optimize Employee Spend Management While Improving Business Efficiency, IDC, 2021</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Highlights from Fusion Exchange DC 2022 for Regulated Industries
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/highlights-from-fusion-exchange-dc-2022-for-regulated-industries
2023-01-11T12:48:18Z
2023-01-10T11:12:47Z
For the first time in three years, Regulated Industry attendees from Federal, State & Local Governments, Higher Education, Government Contracting, Utilities, and Healthcare gathered in-person for know
<p>For the first time in three years, Regulated Industry attendees from <a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions">Federal</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">State & Local Governments</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/education-solution">Higher Education</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-contractor-solutions">Government Contracting</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/energy-utilities">Utilities</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">Healthcare</a> gathered in-person for knowledge sharing and networking at Fusion Exchange D.C. (FXDC). This unique peer sharing event addressed travel, expense, and accounts payable challenges community members face within their organizations.</p>
<p>“It’s great to be able to spend time with our peers in the community and get questions answered by SAP Concur experts in one place. This has more than paid back my investment in time to get here,” one FXDC attendee shared.</p>
<p>Here’s an overview of highlights from the event.</p>
<h2><strong>Peer-to-peer collaboration energizes the SAP Concur Community </strong></h2>
<p>Community members from Higher Education, Government Contracting, and Government came together to network and collaborate on solving key challenges with their industry peers. From presentations to networking roundtables, thought leaders and peers dissected and discussed a variety of key topics, including: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Return to travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/p-card-reconciliation">Expense reconciliation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel">Sustainability</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/guide-reinventing-te-management-sap-concur-solutions">Change management</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/select-care">Support services, engagement, and collaboration</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-you-should-extend-traveler-safety-protect-your-rideshare-users">Travel safety</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/leveraging-your-sap-concur-data">Data & reporting</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-audit-service">Auditing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/control-cost-and-compliance">Cost control & compliance</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Based on the participation and attendee sentiment, these community discussions, as well as the event itself, was a rousing success. In fact, most requested that SAP Concur add another day to the event next year, so they could have even <em>more</em> time together. </p>
<h2><strong>Drawing from collective brain power to share key insights</strong></h2>
<p>During the keynote presentation, Christian Wolfe, Head of Client Development for the Americas at SAP Concur, unveiled numerous initiatives of particular interest to Regulated Industry clients. He talked about the investment SAP Concur has made in machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence (AI), and the company’s commitment to apply these tools earlier in the expense process to reduce error and non-compliant spend.</p>
<p>He was later joined on stage by <a>Ermias Desta</a> , Business Information Security Officer for SAP Intelligent Spend and Business Network, to discuss progress on Concur Cloud for Public Sector, hosted in Amazon Web Services GovCloud. The platform, which was architected on NIST 800-53 security requirements and is maintained by U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, is now FedRAMP in progress. <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/balance-and-security-emerge-as-key-themes-at-fusion-exchange-dc-2022">Read the keynote recap.</a></p>
<p><br />
The keynote was followed by a panel of peers that represented each sect of the Regulated Industries. They discussed the impacts on their programs over the past two years, and how they’ve adjusted policies going forward. Breakout sessions and micro forms followed, all focused on how organizations are addressing their greatest challenges, and their best practices for navigating a new working environment. The SAP Concur roadmap session was extremely well attended, as attendees learned about new releases and functionality on the horizon.</p>
<p>Here are some top <a>takeaways:</a></p>
<p>1. Travel has resumed and providing <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">duty of care</a> has significantly evolved.</p>
<p>2. <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-cards-and-p-cards-get-better-insight-employee-spend">Payment and card management</a> require more significant oversight, but automation greatly reduces strain on resources.</p>
<p>3. ERPs benefit from <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transform-your-financial-data-actionable-insights">integrated spend management</a> technology.</p>
<p>4. Technology adoption is on the rise for <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-audit-options-explained">auditing and compliance</a>, operational efficiency, and change management.</p>
<p>5. Providing on-demand end user support and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/employee-engagement">exceptional employee experience</a> are paramount.</p>
<p>6. Data-driven decision making is gaining additional focus to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/intelligent-spend-management">control spend</a>, particularly with increases in employee turnover and remote workforces.</p>
<p>7. Lowering <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-sustainability-profitable-and-profitability-sustainable">carbon footprints</a> and other <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure">sustainability initiatives</a> need to be a greater focus.</p>
<p>8. <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/using-automation-end-invoice-and-spending-frustration">Automating invoices</a> cuts costs and reduces frustration.</p>
<p>9. Adopting <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">centralized meeting planning</a> makes the event planning process faster, easier, and more cost effective</p>
<p>10. <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant">Real-time user assistance</a> is an effective way to aid adoption and change management.</p>
<h2><strong>Making time to get together — and giving back</strong></h2>
<p>As a truly inspiring close to the event, attendees came together and took the time to give back by creating care packages for the residents of the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Children’s Inn serves as a residential home away from home for families with seriously ill children, teens, and young adults participating in NIH research studies. </p>
<p>It was the perfect cap to an event that, after a two-year hiatus, all agree was worth waiting for.</p>
<p>“It’s amazing to be in a room of like-minded T&E managers who face the same challenges I do on a daily basis and work through solutions together,” one attendee said. “Next time can we add another day of peer sharing?!”</p>
<h2><strong>What could you learn at our next event?</strong></h2>
<p>Want to level up your spend management, learn from your peers, and experience firsthand all the ways SAP Concur supports the unique needs of Regulated Industries?<strong> Make plans to attend SAP Concur Fusion, February 28-March 2, 2023. </strong><a href="https://fusion.concur.com/"><strong>Register for Fusion</strong></a><strong>.</strong><strong> </strong></p>
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SAP Concur Team
Duty of Care: Protecting Your Travelers Protects Your Bottom Line with Deloitte
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-with-deloitte
2023-01-17T11:11:39Z
2023-01-10T10:49:36Z
Businesses balance many competing priorities. But no matter what else is stacked up against it, employee well-being tips the scale of importance every time. Over the past few years, employee wellness
<p>Businesses balance many competing priorities. But no matter what else is stacked up against it, employee well-being tips the scale of importance every time. Over the past few years, employee wellness has taken center stage as leaders are increasingly expected to weave wellness into the fabric of their companies, which means creating a culture of care is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. And that’s exactly why duty of care — an organization’s legal obligation to protect employees from harm — matters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Keeping employees safe is, of course, the right thing to do. But it also makes good business sense. When business leaders create a safe environment for their employees, it establishes employee trust and loyalty, both of which help with retention. Beyond that, predicting risk, taking preventative measures, and responding quickly to crises helps maintain business continuity. The bottom line? Businesses are beginning to view duty of care as a strategic tool; a way to protect their workers while strengthening and sustaining their organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, Oren Geshuri of Deloitte explores what it means to keep employees safe in a complex world and how top business leaders embed employee wellness into their travel programs and policies and incorporate duty of care into their company culture. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your/id1525744763?i=1000590315951"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tn57jQp2lCILafEAKsFLw"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> |</strong> <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjM5YjY0NWI1MDlhZWYwMDExNzcxNGY3?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjQ-LHGw7H8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Read the transcript from this episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast below:</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, this is Jeanne Dion. I am the Vice President of the Value Experience Group here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers to bring positive business outcomes based on data-driven insights. I'm here today with Oren Geshuri, who is from our Deloitte partnership. You may recognize Oren from a few other podcasts. Oren, would you like the go ahead and introduce yourself here?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, Jeanne. Great, thanks for having me here. Oren Geshuri, I've been around the block once or twice in these circles, but I'm looking forward to a great conversation today. This is one of the topics that are near and dear to my heart.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Today's conversation is going to be based all around travel and looking at foundational elements to make our traveler well-being and traveler considerations stronger and create programs for further future-proofing our travel programs. Oren, when we think about traveler well-being, it's really taken a turn in the past two years. It started with the pandemic, but there have been a number of other things that are happening. When I think of this in sense of duty of care, I think of it as a broad term. I think of it related to business continuity, but really, when I think about that duty of care standard, it is changing rapidly in today's business world and in just the regular environment overall. Would you mind sharing with us a little bit about duty of care and if the standards differ across the world?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. It's a great question. We truly live in a world of uncertainty more so than ever. Now obviously, generation-to-generation, they're going to say, "Well, I experienced the worst thing ever," but I think objectively, the world has become more crazy, especially with recent pandemics and things. Duty of care is a concept. It is really, really interesting. It's, essentially, if we can define it briefly, it's the obligation of an organization. We're talking about corporate travel here, so we're framing this in terms of the corporation. It's the duty of the organization to ensure the safety and we'll add in well-being of that traveler, of the travelers that they are sending out in the world on behalf of company business. That's the nutshell. Especially in the past few years, it's gotten a lot of attention because of all the COVID lockdowns and how everybody had to pivot to this work-from-home scenario and now extending some of that duty of care obligation to now that employee is working at home and they're performing work duties at home, so the line is blurred a little bit in the past couple of years.</p>
<p>We've seen across the world different approaches to how duty of care is handled. There are some countries, England, for example, they have the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act back in 2007, which is a great name. It's one of the better-named laws I've ever heard. But even in France, they have the Duty of Vigilance Act, and there are other countries around the world that are really starting to put some attention to this. Really, in those laws, it's talking more about negligence, even more about gross negligence, and so the duty or the standard of proof is based on that. But the US, though there's no federal law protecting or talking about this to some extent, there are different state laws, especially I'm in crazy California. California, when something happens in California, eventually it's going to bleed across the rest of the country. This really is becoming a focus of legislation to fill in the gaps where the organization has not brought to bear, basically.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yep. In thinking of duty of care, the way that you've identified it, we've always thought about it from safety, but you mentioned the word well-being in there. We always thought about it, when I were in a program, it was, how do we help somebody who gets sick abroad? How do we help keep people out of danger? But as we look at the lens of travel now through equality and diversity and inclusion, this really becomes a bigger process. It's no longer looking to see, "Oh, there's a hurricane coming or a snowstorm." It's really looking at your employees, maybe their religion or their gender or their color or even sexual orientation. We've seen that recently in just recent world events. When you think about this, what are you seeing out there? Are there things that really come to mind to you at this point?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, absolutely. One of the biggest knock-on effects of the past several years of pandemic and other world events is actually in the mental health space. Mental health has truly been impacted. My wife and I were constantly talking about how people aren't acting like they used to. The kettle is boiling over, so to speak. There's a lot of frustration in a lot of places, and that has come to play in the relationship between employees and employers as well. We've just gone through a period, what we call The Great Resignation or The Great Reshuffling or whatever the great thing is. That was really a rebalancing of power between employee-employer, especially because employees realize that they might be able to take, wrestle control of their career.</p>
<p>They didn't have to stay in that mental health critical zone. Maybe they use that as a factor to look for another position, another job somewhere, or to renegotiate better terms where they are already working. That's been an interesting aspect of this. If we broaden this, you mentioned some recent world events, especially with some marginalized groups, World Cup, which we're currently in the middle of and I won't talk about any teams playing back and forth at this point, because it's been a lot of surprises. One of the interesting things is, since this is in Qatar, Qatar is a Sharia law nation, it is a Muslim nation, and it is de facto illegal to be in the LGBTQ+ community or to be openly as part of the LGBTQ+ community. We're seeing, right now, there are 69 countries in the world that, in some form, criminalize LGBTQ+ activity.</p>
<p>Now, some of those laws, maybe they date back to the 1800 and they just have never been stricken from the books, but the fact is they haven't been stricken from the books. They're right for exploration or right for being taken advantage of for political purposes or whatnot. Also, let's take a look at just other marginalized communities, the disabled who travel. The US, we have the ADA. George H.W. Bush signed that into law, and since then, there's been a slow movement towards making things more accessible. But that's the US, that's not happening in the rest of the world. There are a lot of countries who don't even think twice about it. They have high curves and things. There's a lot to be said for the company preparing their travelers, as they send them out into the world for various purposes, to think about what the destination is and what that particular travel's disposition, how they will be embraced or not embraced when they go to that country.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Wow. Yeah. I think about that, you mentioned accessibility, that becomes really critical because the work-from-home and hybrid experiences that we've all been experiencing over the past two years have brought many, many more people into the corporate work world that may not have been part of it before. As we start to think about how we're working with our employees when we send them out to travel, this becomes a real critical challenge to spend maybe more on what we would consider before to be marginalized groups. Maybe the idea of how they're booking their travel or the type of travel or the type of room. Do we see that coming into play? How can companies actually get some assistance or think about that in ways that they hadn't thought about it before? Does it tie back directly to policy?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>It absolutely does. I think organizations are going to need to start loosening purse strings a little bit, because there's always been this driving inclination to just say whatever the lowest cost is to travel, some exceptions here and there for various groups. I think, systemically, we need to reframe that conversation and say, to really be an inclusive travel program, an inclusive environment, we need to open up to all these marginalized not just disabled, we talked about LGBTQ+, women travelers have just as much of a challenge sometimes when compared to their male counterparts, even other marginalized groups. When I use the term marginalized groups, here in the US, we're probably talking about some of the minority groups in terms of race, but also gender. But in other countries, marginalized groups may be different. I don't want to say anything here that's going to be a blanket statement for marginalized groups, but let's just home in on a couple of these things.</p>
<p>For example, women travelers. What's interesting about, there was a study a couple of years ago by the GBTA, the Global Business Travel Association, about women travelers. More than 8 in 10 women, over 80%, like 83 some odd percent of women say that they've experienced some real safety-related concerns while traveling for business. They also believe there's a huge portion of this who truly believe that they face greater risk than their male counterparts, general safety risks, sexual harassment and assault risks. When they go to certain countries and cities, even assault and kidnapping, although that's maybe less of an actual risk, it is still a risk. When we adjust a policy to allow women to have a little bit more of a trusted trip, trusted travel, well, obviously, looking to book at trusted hotel chains, that's something, but consider the safety of the neighborhood.</p>
<p>We have a lot of tools at our disposal. There are great apps out there, one of them being GeoSure, that actually rate neighborhoods for various safety factors, female safety, LGBTQ+ safety, robbery safety, political activity safety. It pays to have that extra caution when booking travel to say, "Okay, this is where my hotel is going to be, or this is where the office is or my client is. I need to do a brief risk assessment and understand what are the risk factors as I go to that location." Looking for hotels closer to the work site, I'm sure most organizations have great negotiated rates with hotels near major offices, but that's not always the case. Airbnb is an interesting question and other, I don't want to pinpoint Airbnb, but other home-sharing type, property sharing type things-</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And the rest, yeah.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, exactly, exactly. Even every hotel brand now, Marriott and Hilton, they all have an equivalent of this now. These are typically owned by individuals, and so there are certain ... we've all heard the horror stories in the news about cameras and other things in some of these shared properties, so we have to make sure that we curate the available property, is that we even target if we allow them in our policy, making sure that only top rated properties are allowed or looking at the security index of those areas. I think policies are key. In that study from GBTA, there was mention that over 2/3 of the women who travel for work are focused, think that their company should modify policy to specifically address those female concerns, but only 18% of policies really touch on it even. It's a big disparity.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. A lot of what you're talking about rings true. I've been traveling since I was young. Not going to say how old I am, but I was traveling since I've been young. I had never really thought about it until my actual manager came in and his wife constantly traveled for work. He recommended certain things to me. Stay in a hotel room that's close to the exit or close to the elevator area. Don't let anybody say your room number out loud. Don't let them even direct you to where you're going or even mention a floor that you're on, and I never really thought about that. He actually even had me order room service in certain areas because he didn't want me going out by myself in the dark in areas where we had to work because he was afraid for my safety, I was a single female walking down a street. Even though it was a decent area and there would be lots of crowds, he didn't want to expose me in that way.</p>
<p>It's fascinating that you say that because I recently read a study from Travel Guard that said 84% of people had said they weren't aware of any tools that would give them safety tips or that their employers didn't provide that kind of safety tip or resource. If we think about that, that's a huge amount of the traveling public that has that disconnect with how we keep people safe. I did want to jump back though to something that you had said earlier about the traveling and Airbnb. It triggered in my head, like I said, I traveled before when I was younger, when I was 26, I started traveling-</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Before the sharing stuff was the thing.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Before the sharing stuff happened, yeah. My daughter is 26 and traveling for work now, and her safety concerns and the way that she travels and her generational view of how she travels and the tools that she uses are super different than when I went to travel. If I look back at travel programs, even if I look at my own travel policy here at SAP Concur, it's written for a certain generation of traveler.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Without exception.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That generation is moving out of the work world. Do you have any thoughts around that idea of how travel managers can future-proof that program, so that they're keyed into some of these new generational challenges as well?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>It's a great question. In fact, I think in the podcast released on this feed just today by Ralph Colunga, talked a lot about generational travel. It's a super-interesting topic, especially as morals and social norms change from generation-to-generation. A perfect example, in the US, there are 7.1% of adults self-identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. But if you pinpoint just generation Z, which is currently the youngest generation in the workforce, 21% similarly identify. Whether it's a question of people being more comfortable about coming out or whatever the case is, the statistics are very clear that the younger generations entering the workforce, we're talking millennials had started, to some extent Gen X, but millennials for sure, and of course, Gen Z looking to the alphas after Gen Z.</p>
<p>It is, in the US, the most diverse, the most non-Hispanic, white mix of people that we've ever seen in the workforce. Now, by 2020 already, millennials and Gen Z were 50% of the workforce. By 2030, it's expected that the Gen Z and alphas are going to be in that same index. Most of our travel managers, and I'm not trying to cast aspersions here, but most of our travel managers in corporate America come from an older generation, boomers and maybe-</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Boomer, millennial.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Maybe even some Gen X in the mix there.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>They might not have the same social framing as these digital natives and as these people who have grown up in a more egalitarian type of environment, a more inclusive environment. With that said, we're also seeing, we're in a state now where, if you look at the trans murder monitoring, we have a lot more trans activity than we ever have before. That project, there have been almost 400 transgender, gender-diverse people who were murdered between October 2020 and after, which is an increase from the prior year. There are certain countries where that is more prevalent, and by the way, the US is one of those countries. We need to inform our travelers, and awareness is really the key here. For any of these sort of groups, marginalized groups, that is the first step, awareness of what the issues are and understanding that there are others that maybe hold different beliefs and different things and that is in direct conflict with my autonomy or my "freedom", so that has to be part of the calculation.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>When you think about that, I think about this. We've got a changing of the guard from a demographic perspective, we've got a change in the order of things within the general world view, women, people of color, LGBTQ+, we've got even native groups that are indigenous groups. When we think about that, how do we bring people who have not always had a voice or who we maybe not have seen from an overall perspective in pulling together policy? We may not have seen them at the table with us voicing their concerns, how would you recommend we bring those people into the process for our travel managers to really make a broader, more inclusive policy and program to future-proof the organization?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>It's funny. When I engage with certain clients or I have conversations with people at conferences or whatever, I ask them, "Oh, when's the last time you dusted off your policy?" Most of them will say, "Oh, I did in the past year, a year or two, or something." "When was the time that you rewrote the entire policy from the ground up?" They say, "Well, for the past 20 years, it's basically been just minor modifications of the original one from back in the day." Gladly, none of them still mention seatback phones in airplanes, at least that's gone. A lot of them don't understand that, or maybe don't fathom that those types of old school, and I will call them old school, old school policies are de facto non-inclusive. Some of them are still written with different gradings of VPs and above get this and different travel classes, things like that, and that is just inherently non-inclusive.</p>
<p>There is a lot of effort to try and get some internal voice of the customer, and that is the thing that I have to recommend to everybody is, just set up a focus group, talk to some of your people, but don't just target necessarily your power travelers, because the power travelers, in an organization in the US at least, are probably of a certain demographic or at least predominantly of a particular demographic. Mix it up a little bit. Put an open call to all groups and say, "We really want to hear your experience in traveling on behalf of company business and how we can give you the tools to be safer and to have a better state of mind as you travel." First of all, the open calls, especially if you serve lunch, you know what I mean?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Definitely. You're going to have people flocking to help with you. The problem is, most travel programs, they just do things in a silo. Maybe the compliance person is there, maybe the legal person is there, but it's still basically a very small panel of people with very little input from the body population.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Really, it's a change in focus to not just dictate from the mountain how things should be, but to include from the bottom up to the top to ensure that everything is inclusive from the organizational perspective and get all those perspectives in there to have a better, more comprehensive policy and program that speaks to the actual needs of the employees, as well as to the needs of the organization.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Some would argue that it is, and in fact, I also argue, that it is absolutely in the interest of the organization to bring in the voice of the employee. There is this inclination, or corporations are not democracies, so we don't need to necessarily have this egalitarian approach. But we've seen a shift in that balance of power. We talked about that earlier, Great Resignation and whatnot, and that is happening and continues to happen because some of the more traditional organizations are just not opening the mail. They're not reading the letter from the new generation saying, "We don't care for this," or, "We won't stand for this", right?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Yeah. I think this all ties back to that recruitment and retention of employees, it's part of the employee experience. Organizations are inclined to tie almost specifically to cost measures. You can't have a black car, you can't be in business class, you can't spend more than X number of dollars, I don't want you eating from the mini bar, I don't want you ordering room service," and it's that idea now that maybe that cost is really costing you in a greater way for retention recruitment, for bringing people in and making them feel safe and comfortable. Are you seeing those thought processes where they're opening up to maybe allowing for black cars in specific areas where people are traveling or reducing or minimizing or taking away some of the restrictions around how people travel and what they can expense on the company's behalf? Are you seeing any of that happening? Are you seeing the start of it?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, we're definitely seeing it, and some industries might be a bit more open to that than others, some of the newer tech sectors. The TMT as we call it, tech, media, telecom, those are more open to some of those modifications. The more traditional sectors like financial services, in some cases, manufacturing, they're a little bit more resistant to that concept. I don't know if you remember a few years ago, there's a great thought leader in this area, Scott Gillespie, who talked about the total cost of travel, which is balancing the cost of travel against the overall well-being of the traveler, because there's a calculus there. Forgetting about marginalized groups for a moment, you send the 6'5" guy into economy class and he's going to have his knees shoved in his neck while he's traveling. That's not a great experience either.</p>
<p>The total cost of that travel, if you're too rigid on spending a little bit extra money where it would be advantageous, how much money are you going to spend retraining the person who you had to hire to replace the guy who quit? Before I was in consulting, I was in the entertainment industry. I worked at a few studios here in Los Angeles, and it was, I don't want to say common, but it was a fact that when a new executive, a VP, SVP, especially some hotshot coming from one studio to another, when they were coming into the studio and negotiating their package, they would often ask for a copy of the travel policy ahead of time and negotiate exceptions for themselves. Or sometimes they would look at a really horrible policy and say, "You know what? If this is how the organization is? Hard stop. Nope." They would just nope it. We're seeing a lot of that now. Maybe not to that extent, but you are seeing, especially millennials and Gen Z, who are joining organization, getting a feel for how rigid that organization is and just noping it.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I will say it's not just from the entertainment industry. I had worked in biotech. We actually had executives who did the same thing. They came in and they were just like, "I am not traveling this way. This is how I travel. This is the exception that you're going to make for me." I think that's probably more common than we think, and so we need to probably think about it on a broader scale. If that's what we have certain people coming in and asking for, maybe this is something we should consider from a larger perspective for the organization as a whole.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. Making it more inclusive up and down but also, I think plenty of studies, I don't have any statistics off the top of my head, but there are plenty of studies that show that investment in travel actually improves your overall bottom line, in terms of sales, revenue, et cetera, et cetera. There is a definite benefit to making a trade. You might be spending a couple of dollars more, but the overall impact to your employee is going to be immeasurable.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. You mentioned something earlier, and I'd like to bring it back to something that we just spoke about. You talked about the cost of travel from Scott Gillespie, but I also think about it as it relates to well-being. You talked about you and your wife having those conversations about people's mental health and that stress that people are feeling. Everybody's at that point about ready to bubble over.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>We've seen all the news articles about people attacking flight attendants, people going berserk in airports, people just losing their minds over things that may not have caused that type of reaction in other travel times. As we think about our employees' mental health and the cost of travel to them as a person, do you have any recommendations for organizations about what they should keep in mind as they're building out their policies for the future?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>It just so happens that some of the rules that might reduce the mental stress around travel can also be part of a sustainability agenda as well. A great example is the number of layovers a person has to have. A lot of times an organization is going to say, lowest logical airfare, which is going to route me through Albuquerque or wherever it is, nothing against Albuquerque. But the thing is, the more legs on a flight you have or on a trip you have, that's more carbon footprint and more stress to the traveler. You can kill two birds with one stone in a way.</p>
<p>But if you expand the thought process, people need to, as they're traveling, there are a lot of pressures. I'm a road warrior, I know about this, and I just happen to be stubborn, so I just roll with the punches. A lot of people, they want to go workout at the gym at the hotel, which might cost a little money. Who cares if they pay $10 bucks for the day? A lot of hotels include it, and I have seen recently, policies slowly starting to allow it, but it's by no means common yet, things like that. Unless you're a government contractor or something, I want a glass of wine with my meal, is that so bad? So, what?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>TSA Pre, that's a great example, and I'll include global entry. Other countries have different equivalents, but this is essentially from the ability to bypass some measure of security or at least to skip forward. They just reduced the price on it too. It used to be $80, now it's $75 for five years. Why would a company not pay for this? It boggles my mind.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's an amazing investment from a time perspective, and it also gives your employee the sense that, "Hey, they care about my time, they care about the fact that they're making me leave home to do something on behalf of the company, and I really feel a loyalty to them because they're taking me into consideration."</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, exactly so, but let me add. It's also about that company proactively, or that organization, I'll say, proactively providing information. Really, it is about information. A great example. We have disabled travelers, people who might need some special accommodations going to countries that may not comply with what we think of as accessibility. Well, there's a great organization, Mobility International, they have a website, you just go to the website and you can look at most countries around the world and it'll show you how that country handles accessibility and what their thought and their moray is and different things around that. Just telling your traveler, your disabled traveler about the site is a step in the right direction. Just arming them with the tools, whether it's the State Department website or your own internal resources just for that employee, for that traveler to give them enough information to do a little mini risk assessment that makes them comfortable with the travel.</p>
<p>That goes a long way, and a lot of companies don't even do that. They don't even mention it. If you're traveling, they might have the indicator when they, booking travel, "Oh, you're going to such and such place that requires a visa or whatever," but it doesn't say, "Oh, you happen to have, in the US, this new gender marker X," which is now available, but most countries in the world don't recognize that. When you go to this country, how is that going to apply or how is that going to come into effect?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Wow. Okay. I could talk to you all day.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, seriously.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>We could talk for hours, but we probably do have to wrap it up, I want to be mindful of your time. If I could just summarize what we're talking about. It's really that review of policies as you relates to travel for inclusion, making sure that everybody in your organization has consideration in how they travel and where they're traveling to. The other piece of it is in information, information, information. We need to share resources, we need to make sure that our traveling employees and our employees who only travel on a minimal basis, whether you're a road warrior or somebody who only takes two trips a year, that they know where the information is, they have access to the information, and we as travel managers are providing it to them.</p>
<p>Then finally, it's that idea of cost over value. It's that idea of, yes, this is going to save you money, so from a cost perspective, it's being very cost-conscious. But what do you lose in value? Are you losing your employees? Are you losing the ability to be more sustainable? Are you losing the chance to set yourself up as a market leader or a market forerunner for how business is going to be working in the future? I think that's what I've gained from our actual conversation.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Yeah, you nailed it all. I would just say, I would actually implore travel managers to take a moment and just step in the shoes or imagine yourself in the shoes of some of these groups that we've talked about today and what their travel experience is like. I know it's difficult for me sometimes to step out. I'm a cisgender white dude, big hairy white dude, so I don't have a lot of things against me societally speaking, except when I travel, I have experienced stuff. It's not just for the people we've talked about today. It really is creating a program that sets the stage for all of your folks, all of your travelers, to be safe, to be secure in their own self and to grow the company as a true leader in advancing the agenda of all your employees.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yep. You said it much better than I did. Thank you so much.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, thank you.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for your time today, Oren. We really appreciate it, and hopefully, we can have you back again to talk about any number of other topics as it relates to travel. I really do truly enjoy, and I know that our listeners enjoy listening to you as well. You're really a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much for your time today.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you so much for having me. I love doing these things. I'm a nerd on a lot of topics, so happy to participate.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Fellow nerds unite.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, when I was in school, nerds were always like, "Oh, you're such a nerd." Now, nerds rule the world, right?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. For everybody else, thank you so much for listening and we really appreciate it, and on behalf of SAP Concur Conversations, I'm Jeanne Dion. We hope to hear you the next time in our conversation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to hear more conversations like this one? Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, and be sure to subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/duty-of-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your/id1525744763?i=1000590315951">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tn57jQp2lCILafEAKsFLw">Spotify</a>, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Save Money on Travel With TripIt
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-save-money-on-travel-with-tripit
2023-01-17T11:11:13Z
2023-01-05T15:07:25Z
In today’s economy, travel-related costs can add up quickly. Planning a trip often means budgeting for high gas prices, fluctuating hotel and flight rates, inflation, and extra security measures, like
<p>In today’s economy, travel-related costs can add up quickly. Planning a trip often means budgeting for high gas prices, fluctuating hotel and flight rates, inflation, and extra security measures, like travel insurance. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-survey-shoulder-season-travel"><u>TripIt survey</u></a>, one-third of Americans said cost is a major concern when planning a trip. More than half (57%) of Americans said inflation has impacted their travel plans in the year ahead. Inflation (52%) is also the primary driver for those travelers who say they’ll spend more on travel in the year ahead. </p>
<p>In addition to inflation, travelers also attributed rising airfare (49%) and gas prices (29%) to the reasons why they’re spending more on travel these days.</p>
<p>That’s why<strong> TripIt—your travel companion—is here to help you find cost savings </strong>along the way and make informed decisions about your travel-related purchases. Check out these seven money-saving features from TripIt. </p>
<h2>1. Fare Tracker</h2>
<p>Cha-ching! Nothing like the sound of money <em>back</em> in your pocket. With Fare Tracker, TripIt Pro monitors your itinerary for ongoing changes in your flight price. If your airfare price drops after you book, we’ll send you an alert. You'll be notified if a potential airline credit or refund is available to get money back on your flight. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>With Fare Tracker, your TripIt Pro membership might pay for itself! </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/matshazit/status/1593027751757643776"><u><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/H5XAGF7TbR86LA7m1cMid2v2UK4t4FJ4E22z9NaEkDrilQKH3xMAQ9D38ZsxdnYNnmK5loyAw-fHA0uIUQPHoR6Ifm1v3ss1mmGVqi7yVcCOGvMpI72WiO78WktKWdglkWRlSpT6MauOUpBD91y5EW_y-o5VBetPqWYd4E3O7PtzimFHXL39QKrrb7NI0g" /></u></a></p>
<h2>2. CLEAR partnership</h2>
<p>Thanks to TripIt’s partnership with CLEAR, you get the advantage of speeding past airport security lines. A CLEAR membership typically runs at $189 per year. However, with TripIt Pro, you can try CLEAR with a four-month free trial and receive a discounted annual rate of $149 (saving you $40 a year). Don’t miss out—this might be the deepest discount of CLEAR on the market! </p>
<p>DYK? Taking advantage of the free trial alone already exceeds the value of your Pro purchase. Here’s the math: Four months of CLEAR comes out to $63, meanwhile TripIt Pro costs just $49 per year. It’s a win-win. </p>
<h2>3. AirHelp partnership </h2>
<p>If you experience a flight disruption while on a trip to, from, or within Europe (EU) or Brazil, TripIt will email you if your flight is likely eligible for compensation and will help you file a claim through AirHelp. </p>
<p>Once your claim is filed, AirHelp does the rest of the hard work for you, including the paperwork and communication with the airlines—helping you claim compensation for your inconvenience. </p>
<p><strong>Related reading: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/flight-disruptions-tripit-partner-airhelp"><u>Canceled or Delayed Flight? TripIt Can Help with Compensation</u></a></p>
<h2>4. Point Tracker</h2>
<p>Maximize your rewards with Point Tracker, and keep track of your reward program points and miles in one spot. </p>
<p>Whether for airlines, car rentals, hotels, dining, credit cards, or more (150+ programs!), TripIt Pro stores all your account numbers, balances, and expirations in one place. It’s easy to monitor all your expiration dates so you can take advantage of your points and miles before they expire. </p>
<p>Plus, TripIt Pro will alert you via push notification when it looks like your points are about to expire. Booking trips with points is one of the best ways to save money while traveling—it can make you feel like you scored a free vacation! </p>
<p>Points-and-miles expert Julia Menez uses Point Tracker and TripIt Pro to monitor her loyalty status. <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/going-places-julia-menez"><u>Find out how ></u></a> </p>
<h2>5. International Travel Tools</h2>
<p>It can be hard to keep track of different cultural customs and norms when you’re traveling abroad. TripIt Pro’s International Travel Tools provides country-specific information, including currency exchange rates, so you can make smart purchase decisions at the ATM and when choosing your payment methods. </p>
<p>You can also see tipping guidelines by the type of service, so you can tip responsibly without overpaying. With TripIt Pro, you’re always in the know—especially in new places. </p>
<h2>6. Nearby Places</h2>
<p>TripIt’s Nearby Places makes it easy to find places close to where you’re staying. You can also use the tool to make informed spending decisions. </p>
<p>For example, if you’re looking for a bite to eat near your hotel, tap the Restaurants option. You’ll see useful information about the hours, reviews, as well as dollar signs to indicate price level. </p>
<p><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places"><u>From Care to Convenience: Find What You Need Most with Nearby Places</u></a></p>
<h2>7. Navigator</h2>
<p>Use TripIt’s Navigator feature to search transportation options available to you. It will show you the estimated costs and travel times for each option, so you can decide which works best for your schedule—and your wallet. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Plus, when you use TripIt to help you save money, you won’t have to cut back as much on your other interests and experiences. Saving money on travel can give you more freedom to spend where you need, whether that's on this trip or your next one. It can also help you save money to spend on experiences during your trip, souvenirs, a once-in-a-lifetime meal, and so much more.</p>
<p><br />
Want to share how TripIt has saved you money? <a href="https://twitter.com/TripIt"><u>Tweet us</u></a> or tag us on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tripitcom/"><u>Instagram</u></a> to share your story!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</strong></p>
TripIt Team
Automating Invoice Process to Get Answers Your Company Needs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automating-invoice-process-to-get-answers-your-company-needs
2023-01-17T11:17:13Z
2022-12-20T15:46:57Z
When the accounts payable team manages invoices and payments by hand, on paper, and with spreadsheets instead of taking advantage of automation, the costs go deeper than time spent processing forms an
<p>When the accounts payable team manages invoices and payments by hand, on paper, and with spreadsheets instead of taking advantage of automation, the costs go deeper than time spent processing forms and chasing answers.</p>
<p>There are likely insights lurking on that paper and in spreadsheets that could increase the growth and efficiency of your business. But even if you could ferret out the insights, they probably will not come in a timely enough manner for you to pursue opportunities.</p>
<p>Business done manually is less likely to provide a fully reliable and up-to-date picture of spending and cash flow. What should be moments of clarity and decision are instead moments of doubt and lost opportunity.</p>
<p>A scalable, cloud-based solution can automate the invoice process from submission to approval to payment, delivering both efficiency and answers. You might think your company handles accounts payable with proficiency. While it may be being efficient, it’s efficiency with an outdated process.</p>
<p>Findings from a recent study we sponsored with Analysys Mason<sup>1</sup> can help guide conversations around automated invoice solutions.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Lacking clarity.</strong> 43% of finance leaders say lack of visibility into cash flow and spending is the biggest shortcoming of going without automated invoice management.</li>
<li><strong>Wasting time</strong>. 47% report that lost invoices and incomplete documentation are the top time-related challenges resulting from not automating.</li>
<li><strong>Avoiding late fees</strong>. Late payments fell 24% with automated invoice management.</li>
<li><strong>Getting deals.</strong> Businesses net 11% in cost savings from discounts and supplier-negotiated rates when they use SAP® Concur® solutions.</li>
<li><strong>Reducing overspending.</strong> With better visibility from SAP Concur solutions, budget overspending dropped 26%.</li>
</ul>
<p>Statistics in hand, you might ask three critical questions to assess where your business stands regarding invoice management and financial visibility.</p>
<h2><strong>Where is that invoice?</strong></h2>
<p>The move to hybrid work added another level of complexity to paperwork. Whether it’s a paper invoice falling off a desk or an emailed one consigned to a spam folder, invoices can get lost without a systematic way to capture and track them. An automated solution logs invoices right away after a vendor submits them. Intelligent technology gathers line-item information, minimizing error-prone manual entry, and can check for duplicates. Your team will know where an invoice is in the process at any given time.</p>
<h2><strong>When do I get paid?</strong></h2>
<p>Once a vendor sends an invoice, their next and completely fair question centers on when payment is coming. An automated AP solution keeps them informed every step of the way, with notifications confirming receipt of the invoice, approval, and expected pay date. Intelligent technology flags potentially noncompliant items for a closer look, either automatically or by a team member. Overall, the approval-to-payment window is shortened, and suppliers are happier. So is your company, as it’s better able to obtain early payment discounts that add to the bottom line and more likely to avoid late payment fees that cut into it.</p>
<h2><strong>What is our cash position?</strong></h2>
<p>This might the most crucial question, because all too often it cannot be answered with precision. It’s hard, even risky, to base strategy and chase growth when guided by outdated reports and inaccurate forecasts derived from manual processes that don’t allow a full picture of your financial position. With AP automation providing better visibility into finances, a company can gain better control of cash flow, budget more effectively, and get the most from spending. Most importantly, by knowing how much is in the bank, you have the information to confidently make decisions.</p>
<p>AP automation can also improve another area that contributes to the success of your company – how employees feel about their jobs. By taking the tedium out of their tasks, finance employees can focus on meaningful, strategic work that adds value to their roles and the bottom line.</p>
<p>As important as employee satisfaction is in a time of shifting expectations and a tighter labor market, it can be more difficult to measure. If more concrete numbers are needed to gauge an investment in automation, consider these from our research of businesses using invoice management solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>$44,000</strong> in estimated annual savings</li>
<li><strong>122 hours</strong> saved weekly by finance/accounting teams</li>
<li><strong>8 months,</strong> estimated time, to achieve positive ROI</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Where Can I Learn the Keys to AP Automation? </strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Get <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/essential-guide-accounts-payable-automation"><strong>The Essential Guide to AP Automation</strong></a> to discover how to improve invoicing, gain timely information to make better decisions, and learn how Concur Invoice can help achieve both.</li>
<li>Hear how one customer realized 50% time savings by streamlining their invoice process by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/recordati-rare-diseases"><strong>watching this case study</strong></a>.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><!--{C}%3C!%2D%2D%5Bendif%5D%2D%2D%3E-->1. Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Ways to Prepare Your Business for Unexpected Change
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ways-to-prepare-your-business-for-unexpected-change
2023-01-12T09:00:00Z
2022-12-19T15:06:26Z
Hurricanes, flooding, and other natural disasters. A pandemic, economic disruption, and now inflation. Even in normal times, business cycles can leave a company feeling flush, flat, or flailing – all
<p>Hurricanes, flooding, and other natural disasters. A pandemic, economic disruption, and now inflation. Even in normal times, business cycles can leave a company feeling flush, flat, or flailing – all periods where revenue and stability can be challenging to manage.</p>
<p>The past few years forced us all to be resilient, whether we were inclined or not. Adopting best practices can prepare your business for disruptions ranging from a storm knocking offices offline to a sales spurt taxing supply chains and staff. The practices won’t make challenges and change go away but can prepare you to effectively adapt to them.</p>
<p>Broader automation of finance processes can be part of the picture, as it can help business go on no matter where team members are working or the challenge they’re facing. By reducing manual processes, you can minimize the errors that change tends to compound and gain improved information and insights about your business. With better practices and technology in place, moments of doubt and disruption can become moments of confidence and opportunity.</p>
<h2><strong>Set and communicate priorities</strong></h2>
<p>When change forces all hands on deck, managers and employees alike can better respond if they know what to focus on first. This is especially true if team members must pick up tasks that they don’t usually perform so the business can regain its footings. Cross-training and clear communication are vital, while automated processes can free finance and accounting for more urgent work.</p>
<h2><strong>Target cash flow, identify savings</strong></h2>
<p>Having a timely and spot-on view of money on hand and what will soon go in or out can help you address change and re-allot spending as needed. Running “what if” exercises for the months ahead can help identify areas to cut costs temporarily or permanently and reveal opportunities to implement new processes and technology. An automated expense solution can bring more spend control and data together from multiple sources, help prevent mistakes, and reduce manual work to free staff to focus higher-priority tasks.</p>
<h2><strong>Establish remote work policies</strong></h2>
<p>If your business allows flexible work, the next step is to create policies and tools to make it go smoothly. Cloud-based solutions for invoices and other finance tasks can allow everyone to access vital financial information and get suppliers paid whether your team is working from home or a hotel room. The fact is, it’s harder to operate with information hidden in desk drawers and spreadsheets at an office you can’t access. </p>
<h2><strong>Debrief and fine-tune processes</strong></h2>
<p>Taking the time to step back and look at what went well and what didn’t is a key to equipping you company for the next unexpected challenge, whether it’s a disaster or sales outpacing all estimations. Determine what processes didn’t work, which areas faltered with employees offline, and whether customers were kept apprised of issues. Use that information to refine your operating procedures or to guide consideration of technology solutions that can help you gain visibility into finances and other sectors so you can conduct business despite the challenge.</p>
<h2><strong>Building the resilience you need</strong></h2>
<p>Get a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-best-practices-for-weathering-unexpected-change"><strong>Seven Best Practices for Weathering Unexpected Change</strong></a><strong> </strong>to learn more about steps to help your business run better and learn how SAP® Concur® solutions can prepare you to encounter challenges.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Key Ways to Bring Company Spending Under Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/key-ways-to-bring-company-spending-under-control
2023-01-09T09:00:00Z
2022-12-19T14:57:05Z
To respond to the ups and downs of business and make better, more strategic financial decisions, your company must know what’s in the bank right now and what’s going to hit the ledgers soon. Getting
<p>To respond to the ups and downs of business and make better, more strategic financial decisions, your company must know what’s in the bank right now and what’s going to hit the ledgers soon.</p>
<p>Getting a handle on spending can be challenging, especially if your business uses manual paper-based processes, spreadsheets, and semi-automated systems that provide an incomplete and outdated picture of where the dollars are.</p>
<p>Here are just a few ways spending goes astray and bogs companies down in tedious tasks.</p>
<ul>
<li>Employees travel on business and hang on to receipts and delay submitting expense reports because the process is time-consuming. As a result, the company doesn’t know the tally for meals, cab fares, and other expenses until weeks after they occur.</li>
<li>It takes an estimated 11 days<sup>1</sup> to get sign-off approval for vendor invoice payment from time of receipt. With invoices coming on paper and by email, the whole process can be slower than need be. And without a system to track the spending throughout the process, the accounting team doesn’t have a clear, accurate view of overall spending.</li>
<li>As for accounting and finance team members, they each spend an estimated 14 hours<sup>2</sup> a week processing expenses and another 13 hours<sup>3</sup> handling vendor invoices. With that amount of time punching details into spreadsheets, fewer hours are left for the value-adding work the company needs and team members want.</li>
</ul>
<p>The examples are each part of broader strategies for improving control of spending with an assist from more fully automated finance processes. All can help turn what are now moments of fuzziness turn into moments of financial focus, giving you the clarity needed to make decisions and seize opportunities.</p>
<h2><strong>Capture spending early on</strong></h2>
<p>The inherent challenge with manual processes is that the clear view of spending they provide often comes too late to make sound business decisions. Spreadsheets and paper forms also can trap information in silos instead of making it available to eyes across the company that need it.</p>
<p>The challenge only grows as a company does and the paper trails grows longer and muddier. Automated expense and invoice solutions, on the other hand, can scale up as a company does.</p>
<p>One way to gather spending numbers earlier is a central portal for submitting vendor invoices. Another is to use a purchase order process that lets you know spending is coming before it hits you and the books.</p>
<p>A mobile app can reduce the spending-data lag by letting employees snap pictures of receipts and then putting the numbers and purchase information into expense reports. At that point, you know what expenses are coming and aren’t waiting on employees slow to file reports. The employees, too, will likely appreciate not having to tote around piles of receipts.</p>
<h2><strong>Cut errors and fraud risk</strong></h2>
<p>Mistakes occur when you combine people, paper, and manual data entry.</p>
<p>Cutting and pasting details between receipts and forms and spreadsheets is a mind-numbing task prone to error, whether by the traveling employee or a member of the accounting staff. Optical character recognition can improve accuracy and save time, while giving the accounting staff time to peruse supplier invoices for inaccuracies or to ensure employees complied with spending policies.</p>
<p>Duplicate invoices can be another recurring problem. Automated processes can cross-check invoices and receipts and hunt down duplicates – before a second payment goes out.</p>
<p>Manual processes carry another risk beyond simple error: the potential for fraud, whether it’s fudging on mileage or fake invoices for goods or services never received.</p>
<p>Automation solutions that incorporate intelligent technology can detect overstated, non-compliant or phony expenses and close the gaps in processes that can foster unintentional error or potential fraud. They can spot invoices that came from unrecognized suppliers or didn’t match purchase orders. Or they can use a built-in mileage tracker to accurately measures that expense. Few employees are likely to miss jotting down trips.</p>
<h2><strong>Make better decisions with better data</strong></h2>
<p>Automated spending processes can bring visibility and unity to data now hidden on paper or amid disconnected systems across the company.</p>
<p>By gathering data from multiple sources into a single platform, you and others who need to can see spending no matter where or when it occurs. With data presented in an easy-to-use format, you can identify areas to cut costs, see risks, negotiate discounts with suppliers, and target opportunities with the best ROI.</p>
<p>With the assistance of automation, your finance team can gain confidence in the spending numbers and in the insights they can now share. And your company can gain the agility needed to respond to changing business conditions.</p>
<p>And, circling back to those hours spent chasing expenses and invoices, you can gain time and efficiency. And that’s something both the company and employees can enjoy.</p>
<h2><strong>Automating and controlling spending</strong></h2>
<p>Download a copy of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-five-ways-improve-control-over-spend"><strong>Top Five Ways to Improve Control Over Spend</strong></a> for additional insights into controlling spending and to learn how SAP® Concur® solutions can help with automating expense and invoice processes.</p>
<p>1, 2, 3. Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study</p>
SAP Concur Team
Where Are Your Travel & Expense Savings Hiding?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/where-are-your-travel-expense-savings-hiding
2023-01-04T09:00:00Z
2022-12-19T09:18:55Z
Much of the savings come by reducing the inefficiencies of doing business on paper, with spreadsheets or with semi-automated solutions. Things like the time spent filling out and submitting expense re
<p>You probably have heard a few times about how automated travel and expense solutions can save your company money.</p>
<p>So a fair question to ask is, “Just how and where can I find those dollars?”</p>
<p>Much of the savings come by reducing the inefficiencies of doing business on paper, with spreadsheets or with semi-automated solutions. Things like the time spent filling out and submitting expense reports. Or time spent chasing errors, missing receipts, and approvals. From sales reps to the finance team, everyone could instead focus on work that adds value instead of monotony and distraction.</p>
<p>Other savings come by improving your ability to spot and target savings that can hide in plain sight. Like ensuring mobile phone expenses don’t skyrocket when employees travel. Or that the company reclaims value-added or other taxes on purchases made during overseas travel.</p>
<p>One of the most important improvements a comprehensive travel and expense (T&E) solution can provide is giving you a more complete – and timely – picture of spending. You can know when, how, and where money has been and will be spent. That means you can more easily identify waste, out-of-policy expenses, and potential fraud. And you can better set priorities and strategies for the weeks, months, and year ahead. What are now moments of doubt can instead become moments of clarity and confident spending decisions.</p>
<p>Before detailing how your business could save with automation, consider what other business leaders say about taking a seamless approach like SAP® Concur® solutions provide.</p>
<p>One purchasing manager reported that his company was “able to avoid fraudulent charges and excessive spending by using SAP Concur solutions.”</p>
<p>Another offered a more expansive view, telling us, “SAP Concur solutions help us to increase efficiency and productivity. It makes our work process easier, simplifies tedious tasks, allows us to get things done faster, and now we can concentrate on other important work.”</p>
<h2><strong>Fewer mistakes, greater accuracy</strong></h2>
<p>Mistakes happen, especially when people, numbers, and typing are involved.</p>
<p>Instead of leaving things to chance, fully automated travel and expense solutions can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Collect individual charges from credit cards</li>
<li>Gather receipts from airlines, hotels, and other providers and place them in expense reports</li>
<li>Let travelers photograph a receipt and send the information straight to an expense report</li>
<li>Speed the entire process, allowing you to pay corporate cards sooner and earn bigger rebates</li>
<li>Connect with your existing accounting or ERP system, increasing your view of finances</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Fewer steps, less time</strong></h2>
<p>From requesting and booking trips to completing and approving reports, travel and expense involves time-consuming steps. Removing steps or reducing the work involved can increase productivity all around.</p>
<p>With fewer administrative burdens:</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]--></p>
<ul>
<li>Employees can easily submit reports because they are not having to collect paper receipts and manually itemize expenses.</li>
<li>Managers can quickly review and approve reports because information is in hand.</li>
<li>Finance team members can focus on more important work instead of correcting reports and chasing receipts and employees.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Fewer bad spending decisions</strong></h2>
<p>Automated solutions can help make it easy for employees to follow spending policies and mitigate risk as well.</p>
<p>They can include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Request tools that guide employees to preferred, compliant choices</li>
<li>External auditors that can identify issues and mitigate fraud</li>
<li>Intelligent audit technology that matches receipts and line items and frees finance staff to focus on higher-level skills instead of the weeds of the process</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>More ways to save</strong></h2>
<p><strong>Stop the roaming charges</strong>: A traveling employee can easily ring up unexpected mobile charges. Travel and expense solutions can help you expect those charges ahead of time – so you can avoid them with plan changes or discriminating use.</p>
<p><strong>Receive the best price:</strong> By pulling in and consolidating spending data, you have an accurate and up-to-date view of where all your money is being spent – and with whom. And that is knowledge you can use to negotiate better rates from suppliers.</p>
<p><strong>Limit taxes, reclaim more:</strong> Targeted solutions can help the company, especially with hybrid work, track payroll tax liabilities along with the VAT and similar taxes paid during foreign travel. By detailing the tax implications, your company can adjust travel accordingly and manage tax reclaim instead of leaving money behind.</p>
<p>A recent study we commissioned with Analysys Mason found that 26% of businesses saw their tax reclaim increase by using SAP Concur solutions or partners<sup>1</sup>. Perhaps that’s indicative of the hidden savings your business can uncover through the closer look a systematic, automated approach can bring.</p>
<h2><strong>Explore ways to save</strong></h2>
<p>Get the E-book, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide"><strong>Six Ways to Save on Travel and Expense</strong></a>, to further explore ways to control costs and hear what other business leaders have to say about travel and expense automation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]--><em>1. </em><!--[endif]--><em>Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study</em></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Determine High-Risk Business Transactions and Reduce Non-Compliant Spending
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-determine-high-risk-business-transactions-and-reduce-non-compliant-spending
2022-12-13T12:23:02Z
2022-12-13T12:16:32Z
Our employees are our most valuable assets, however, managing their spending across a growing number of expense categories and payment methods often leaves room for error and non-compliance. These are
<p>Our employees are our most valuable assets, however, managing their spending across a growing number of expense categories and payment methods often leaves room for error and non-compliance. These are serious (and time-consuming) issues that can create mistrust, misuse, and an overall waste of your organization’s time. But with clear expense policies and relevant expense type categories, you can reduce most of the ambiguity and non-compliance, saving you time and money while reducing your organization’s risk.</p>
<p>Whether internal guidelines or external regulatory requirements, the way an organization defines and enforces policies determines its risk for fraud and non-compliance. Having checks and balances, in the form of clear expense policies, makes it easier for employees to comply, and simple for you to mitigate, detect, and prevent losses from accidental errors or fraudulent activities. While sound policies are only part of the equation, efficient and consistent enforcement through technology can help close loopholes that could leave you exposed.</p>
<p>Using this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">interactive expense policy builder</a>, you can create a policy to prevent non-compliance before it happens. Read on for our best practices to optimize your organization’s spending compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Determining High-Risk Expense Types and Business Transactions</strong></h2>
<p>Identifying top high-risk expense types in your organization is a great first step to mitigating non-compliance. High-risk expense categories are those with a higher potential to have uncommon expense types that people may be using inappropriately for one of two reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>They may be used for expenses that should not be submitted at all (a hiding place for non-compliant expenses).</li>
<li>There may be confusion about the correct way to submit the expense or the circumstances under which the policy allows for reimbursement.</li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s a list of the top 14 expense types found with spend in high-risk categories across<br />
SAP Concur customer data. These are categorized as high risk because they have the greatest room for fraud or non-compliant spending. We recommend running your top expense types then using this list to prioritize your auditing process for non-compliant or fraudulent spending:</p>
<h2><strong><u>The Top 14 High-Risk Expense Types</u></strong></h2>
<ol>
<li>Dues and subscriptions</li>
<li>Training and seminars</li>
<li>Advertising</li>
<li>Marketing research</li>
<li>Merchandise</li>
<li>Guest receivables</li>
<li>Mobile/cellular Phone, Skype, VOIP</li>
<li>Passport/vaccinations/visa Fees</li>
<li>Internet/Wifi</li>
<li>Gifts for hosts/guests</li>
<li>Bank fees</li>
<li>Business license and registration fees</li>
<li>Meeting space rental – Marketing</li>
<li>Miscellaneous/other</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Managing Hidden Spend and Growing Expense Types</strong></h2>
<p>While these high-risk spending categories are important to watch, it’s equally important to monitor the category labeled as <em>Miscellaneous/Other, </em>as well as<em> </em>gift cards and the amount of growing expense types.<em> </em></p>
<p>Jim Coufal, Senior Principal and Advisor from TCG Consulting, sat down with Jason Grunin, Sr. Value Consultant at SAP Concur, during the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/futureproofing-financial-disruption-3-things-do-right-now">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a> and explained that it’s important to “understand what's actually being booked” to the miscellaneous/other category. And that “it will help you determine if you need to add more expense types.”</p>
<p>“Our recommendation would be to err on the side of simplification because the more categories you have, the harder it will be for employees to accurately identify these expenses,” Coufal said. “You want to balance it with the controls and compliance that you need from an organizational perspective, to manage the spend, and to maintain compliance based on policies.”</p>
<p>Another tip? Coufal recommends keeping an eye on gift cards, especially around the upcoming holiday season. For example, he sees “Amazon charges getting booked to office supplies, postage, Starbucks cards into meals, and Best Buy cards for office equipment.”</p>
<p>Grunin shared his own experience, agreeing that gift cards can be risky and hide among different spending categories. One customer in particular “ran some reporting on their travel and expense program and looked for the [keywords] ‘gift’ or ‘card’ in any of the comments. And what they identified was over $150,000 in spend across 12 different expense types.” Grunin said.</p>
<p>Constant evaluation and evolution of your expense policies to accommodate new categories, retire old, retrain employees, or broaden expense types where it makes sense will help ensure your travel and expense program is efficient and accurate.</p>
<h2><strong>Eight Best Practices to Reduce Non-Compliant Spending</strong></h2>
<p>After evaluating your high-risk expense types, digging through your <em>Miscellaneous/Other</em> category to clean up hidden spend, here are some more best practices to keep your organization’s spending aligned to policies and regulations:</p>
<ol>
<li>Establish clear and appropriate expense policies.</li>
<li>Provide continuous and comprehensive training and support for all current users and new hires.</li>
<li>Update training materials when new policy guidelines or product features are introduced.</li>
<li>Offer employees booking, expense reporting, and authorization tools with functionality to prevent or identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, limit spending, unauthorized use of expense types).</li>
<li>Encourage mobile receipt capture and mileage tracking with smart phones.</li>
<li>Conduct regular audits to check for policy adherence.</li>
<li>Use what you learn about your own data to drive policy changes and configuration updates.</li>
<li>Assess the miscellaneous/other category to see if new expense types should be created or if training is needed.</li>
</ol>
<h2> <strong>What You Can’t See Can Cost You: Minimizing Fraud, Maximizing Compliance</strong></h2>
<p>Keeping a pulse on your organization’s <em>Highest Expense Spend</em> categories is an excellent barometer for the health of your overall spend management program. What more could you be doing to guide your employees towards responsibly stewarding your organization’s dollars while protecting your organization from potential risks?</p>
<p>Here are some resources that might help you get started:</p>
<ul>
<li>Leverage our handy <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz"><strong>expense policy builder</strong></a> to keep yours relevant in these ever-changing times.</li>
<li>Watch the video to learn about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-pro-tip-healthy-financial-process"><strong>healthy financial processes</strong></a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/futureproofing-financial-disruption-3-things-do-right-now"><strong>Listen to our podcast</strong></a>: Futureproofing Financial Disruption, 3 Things to Do Right Now</li>
<li>Register for our <a href="https://go.concur.com/20364-sg-a-balanced-approach-to-scaling-back-employee-discretionary-spend-lp.html"><strong>on-demand webinar</strong></a> to learn more about how to manage discretionary employee spending.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Increase Audit Efficiency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-to-increase-audit-efficiency
2022-12-13T12:15:33Z
2022-12-13T12:10:49Z
Auditing is a powerful and fundamental operation for every organization. But how much money and time should be spent on it, and how do you measure accuracy? Which operations do you adjust first to hav
<p>Auditing is a powerful and fundamental operation for every organization. But how much money and time should be spent on it, and how do you measure accuracy? Which operations do you adjust first to have the greatest impact? Having the proper tools, processes, and procedures in place to successfully audit expenses enables you to get the most of out your time and dollars spent on auditing. </p>
<h2><strong>How much does a manual audit cost?</strong></h2>
<p>YES, you can calculate the estimated cost to perform all tasks related to manual expense report auditing; so logically, improving efficiency lowers cost. With this calculation, you can quickly determine if this is how you want to invest the time of your most valuable resource — your employees — or if it makes sense to automate or outsource some of the work and allow your employees to focus on other areas of your organization. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">recent IDC report </a>found that automating the audit process:</p>
<ul>
<li>Is 36% more efficient for expense report intake and handling</li>
<li>Takes 43% less time to fill out an expense report</li>
<li>Results in 65% more expense reports that are compliant with company policies</li>
</ul>
<p>Not sure automation can help? Use our handy formula to see for yourself:</p>
<p><em>Time to Audit Formula</em></p>
<img alt="How to Increase Audit Efficiency" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="4b0f3efa-193b-4c3e-9784-37760031003a" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/How%20to%20Increase%20Audit%20Efficiency.png" />
<h2><strong>Which auditing type is your organization?</strong></h2>
<p>Non-compliant spending happens in every business and audits are essential for catching it. Having the proper tools, processes, and procedures in place to successfully audit expenses will optimize auditing efficiency and accuracy. Typically, organizations are using audit methods that fall into one of three categories:</p>
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li><strong>Reactive:</strong> Audits are initiated only when fraud is suspected.</li>
<li><strong>Random:</strong> Manual audits are conducted on a random sample of expense reports.</li>
<li><strong>Manual:</strong> Manual audits are conducted on all expense reports. While effective at finding fraud, this method is the most difficult, expensive, and time consuming.</li>
</ol>
<p>Consider whether it is most cost-effective to outsource auditing, implement automation, or better support your in-house auditing teams.</p>
<h2><strong>Streamline audits to improve compliance: 8 auditing best practices to leverage</strong></h2>
<p>Evaluating your top <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-business-expense-categories-and-how-can-you-improve-them">expense categories</a> can determine which areas, teams, or categories require more or less of your auditing attention and will help you optimize your organization’s auditing efficiency. Consider things like clarifying expense submission procedures and creating automated rules around approvals or notifications, supported by consistent and scalable policies. Here are some of our best practices to get your auditing process on-track:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reduce internal auditor effort:</strong> Use process improvements like outsourcing manual audit tasks or using machine learning tools to review each line item in a more holistic way. Then, bring the high-risk items to your auditors for resolution. This reduces the amount of time they spend on policy-compliant, low-risk entries.</li>
<li><strong>Increase data entry accuracy: </strong>Use a receipt image capture or scan tool, like <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt from SAP Concur</a>, and OCR conversion to populate required fields in expense reports to reduce exceptions that cause audits.</li>
<li><strong>Use data to identify improvement opportunities: </strong>When corporate policies change, it may result in a higher number of expenses flagged for audit. By using data to identify areas of consistent non-compliance, you can pinpoint the cause and update your policy to reflect current business needs. We recommend using your organizational reports to review exceptions and re-determine the correct approach.</li>
<li><strong>Use pre-authorized requests to match actual expenses: </strong>Use pre-authorized spending tools to match forecasted, approved spending to actual spend, like the way purchase orders work against invoices. This way, the review cycle and approval process happen prior to the transaction, reducing the amount of time and effort spent auditing after the fact. If the actual expense matches the requested amounts, little or no review is necessary. If the actual amount does not match the requested amount, it triggers the auditor to take a closer look.</li>
<li><strong>Reduce the number of exceptions over time:</strong> Review the report trend “audit rule exceptions”. The number of exceptions in an expense report significantly increases the amount of time your team spends auditing it. Decreasing this trend reduces the burden on audit resources and increases employee productivity.</li>
<li><strong>Improve first pass ratio: </strong>Reduce multiple touches. Expense reports that repeatedly cycle between submitter, approver, processor, and auditor are costly. In the best-case scenario, reports go through the process only once.</li>
<li><!--[endif]--><strong>Increase card adoption. </strong>Review the report “spend channel adoption”<strong>.</strong> Card feeds ensure the accuracy of amounts submitted and reduce the need for manual validation. Simplify the auditing process by making corporate cards and p-cards your preferred payment method when employees are spending company dollars.</li>
<li><!--[endif]--><strong>Provide ongoing training and support for employees:</strong> Provide continual training to educate users on policies and tools and ensure employees know how to apply policy correctly. Review these programs and materials on an annual basis, at a minimum. Most employees want to be compliant but don’t have access to all the available resources to answer their questions. Providing a help desk to address these questions can help reduce the number of potential non-compliant entries and actions.</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Auditing resources to get started</strong></h2>
<p>After reading our best practices, here are some resources that you may find helpful while on your auditing transformation journey:</p>
<ul>
<li>Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/finance-professional-personality-test">Finance Personality test</a> to see where you stand</li>
<li>Read our eBook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-efficient-audits-can-help-fuel-growth-digital-transformation">5 ways efficient audits fuel business growth</a></li>
<li>Get the whitepaper: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/importance-healthy-financial-process">The Importance of a Healthy Financial Process</a></li>
<li>Are your audits on track? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/are-your-audits-on-track-7-ways-measure-your-audit-efficiency">7 Ways to Measure Audit Efficiency</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
24 Tips to Optimize Airfare Spend and Lower Travel Costs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/24-tips-to-optimize-airfare-spend-and-lower-travel-costs
2023-02-16T10:30:31Z
2022-12-13T11:59:48Z
To understand the true cost of travel, you must first crunch the numbers to learn how they affect your planning and bottom line. Fortunately, we’ve done some of the analysis for you.
<p>There’s a commonly held belief that the cost of airfare continues to rise every year and the cost of last-minute travel follows suit. With soaring jet fuel prices, a high demand to return to travel, and pilot shortages all coinciding to drive up airfares, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/03/20/airfares-soaring-good-deal/?sh=d0bb99eb1915">according to Forbes</a>, there’s more to the cost of travel than meets the eye.</p>
<p>To understand the true cost of travel, you must first crunch the numbers to learn how they affect your planning and bottom line. Fortunately, we’ve got the data and have done some of the analysis for you. Check out these 24 tips to optimize airfare spending and lower travel costs.</p>
<h2><strong>Ancillary Fees – The True Cost of Air Travel</strong></h2>
<p>While the total amount spent on airfare has decreased significantly, travel is starting to come back, and with it, the price per ticket. In 2020, the inflation rate for airline fares plummeted, and as of now, it’s climbed back up into the positive range, rising far above previous years’ inflation rates dating as far back to 1980, according the <a href="https://www.in2013dollars.com/Airline-fares/price-inflation">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. Something else worth noting, fees continue to increase.</p>
<h3><strong>Are airfare pri</strong><strong>ces going up?</strong></h3>
<p>Why do airfares seem so much higher these days? It’s simple: Airlines have been out of business and are trying to make up for lost time by charging incremental fees for services like extra leg room, checked luggage, and onboard sales of food and beverages. These fees cover things like personal protective equipment, additional luggage, or cabin sanitization recommended by the <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/uploadedFiles/Covid/Management/TAMS-SOS-Report.pdf">Traveler and Meeting Standards</a> committee to standardize a way that ensures traveler safety. This ancillary airline revenue amounts to big bucks.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/us-government-to-regulate-airlines-ancillary-fees/144533.article">billions of dollars</a> coming from ancillary fees, it has never been more important for managers to track these costs as part of the price of the overall flight. By creating policies and tracking employee spending, it is possible to avoid surprise charges and have a much clearer picture of travel spending.</p>
<p><strong>TIP #1: </strong>We recommend creating a report that tracks these top ancillary fees:</p>
<h3><strong>Top Ancillary Fees to Track</strong></h3>
<ol>
<li>Baggage charges</li>
<li>Seat selection</li>
<li>Changes and cancellations</li>
<li>Booking changes</li>
<li>Travel insurance</li>
<li>In-flight entertainment</li>
<li><!--[if !supportLists]--><!--[endif]-->Food and beverage/ meal services</li>
</ol>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Navigating business travel in a post-pandemic world</h5>
<p>In our free whitepaper, industry experts from Acquis, EY, and Huron group share insights about business travel, hybrid work, and corporate travel best practices.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/planes-trains-and-automobiles-navigating-business-travel-post-pandemic-world">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>Prepare for the Return of Travel</strong></h2>
<ul type="disc">
<li><strong>TIP #2: Factor in the price of ancillary fees</strong>: When considering travel options, travelers need to factor in the price of ancillary fees when booking. Fees to check bags, upgrade a seat and board early, or additional cleaning methods may add up to the price of a first-class ticket on some airlines.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #3: Seize the opportunity to revisit contracts:</strong> Travel managers should seize the opportunity to revisit primary and secondary contracts as prices fluctuate due to macroeconomic factors. Airlines are likely to discount fares but still may include fees for additional cleaning and safety services.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #4: More volume, more leverage</strong>: The more volume your company gives an airline, the more leverage you’ll have when negotiating rates, including ancillary and change fees.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Set Clear Booking Expectations in Your Travel Policy</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>TIP #5</strong>: Enforce a travel policy that encourages employees to book at least eight days prior to departure.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #6: </strong>Booking a one-way ticket based on a known departure or arrival date can help optimize last minute travel costs. For example, in markets where lower one-way fares are an option and only the return date is unclear, it makes sense for the traveler to at least book outbound travel to lock in savings and book the return flight at a premium later.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #7: </strong>If there is a good chance plans will change, a traveler should consider booking refundable tickets, even on a non-preferred carrier. That way, the traveler will have the ability to cancel and eliminate change fees if a more desirable fare is found later.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #8</strong>: Reward employees for consistently booking within policy and avoiding booking at the last minute.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Manage Employee Booking Behavior</strong></h2>
<p>Even though we live in a completely connected society, advances in technology haven’t helped us become much better planners when it comes to business travel. In fact, planning horizons have remained relatively stable over the past few years.</p>
<p>BOOKING BEHAVIOR OF BUSINESS TRAVELERS (2019 – 2021)</p>
<img alt="planning travel" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="defabdc4-1d9c-47e1-8754-acf4ff065b65" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/pPicture1.png" />
<h2><strong>Why is planning travel important?</strong></h2>
<p>To nail the best planning window. The data indicates that planning windows aren’t getting any wider, which makes sense considering a fluctuating economy and the need to use last-minute resources to close big sales, win new customers, or address urgent issues in person.</p>
<p><strong>TIP #9: </strong>Our customers here at SAP Concur find that optimizing airfare costs involves using proactive methods to manage booking spend, such as moving a percentage of tickets from the <strong>2 to 6-day window</strong> to the <strong>14 to 20-day window,</strong> which helps save substantial costs.</p>
<h2><strong>Cost premium: Last-minute or just in time?</strong></h2>
<p>Last-minute travel is one of those inevitabilities of life. We’d all love to plan our trips far in advance, but sometimes it’s just not possible. So, if we accept that booking at the last minute is going to happen, we can begin to understand the impact of timing on the premiums paid and how to make the most of a less-than-ideal situation.</p>
<p><strong>TIP #10:</strong> We define “premium” as the incremental amount paid over and above the average price paid for a ticket purchased <strong>more than 14-days in advance</strong>.</p>
<h3><strong>The best planning windows</strong></h3>
<p>We all lead busy lives, and as time goes by, technology and business just keep moving faster. This means our window for planning keeps getting shorter and shorter.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>TIP #11:</strong> If a business traveler has the luxury of advance notice, the best bet is to book at least <strong>14 days in advance</strong> of departure and, if that’s not possible, <strong>at least 8 days out</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #12: </strong>Booking travel within a week or less incurs a considerably higher premium, but there’s a plus side. If a traveler must book less than a week in advance, the cost savings will be negligible whether the flight is purchased six days, three days, or one day before the flight.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>Every Season Has Its Price</strong></h3>
<p>Timing is everything. How many days you book trips in advance is a big factor in the overall price of a ticket, but so is the time of year. We know there are certain times of year, like summer and winter holidays, when airfares are almost always higher. But what’s interesting is that the premium paid for last-minute travel during these times is relatively low compared to the overall cost of the flight.</p>
<p> Consider these tips for seasonal travel:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li><strong>TIP #13:</strong> When travel is flexible, travelers should opt not to travel during summer months with peak fares, especially if travel costs make up a large portion of your overall budget.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #14:</strong> If employees must travel at the last minute during peak summer months, they will spend less of a premium to travel last minute, which may make it easier to justify the cost.</li>
<li><strong>TIP #15:</strong> When booking large events, consider doing so during off-peak months or in alternative locations.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>You Can Still Save, Even at the Last Minute</strong></h3>
<p>Booking last-minute travel is just one of those inevitabilities of the modern business landscape. Regardless of whether last-minute travel is the result of true need or poor planning, there are ways to keep costs down and improve efficiency within your organization. Here are some ways to get started:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li><strong>TIP #16: </strong>Provide rewards for smart travel booking</li>
<li><strong>TIP #17:</strong> Offer ongoing education regarding the best practices for booking</li>
<li><strong>TIP #18:</strong> Establish and enforce travel policies</li>
<li><strong>TIP #19:</strong> Negotiate optimal rates with frequently used airlines and partners</li>
<li><strong>TIP #20</strong>: Use travel booking tools</li>
<li><strong>TIP #22: </strong>Configure settings within your travel booking tool to notify travel managers when employees are booking within a seven-day window</li>
<li><strong>TIP #23:</strong> Use data to identify behavior and target the areas that will provide the most financial impact</li>
<li><strong>TIP #24: </strong>Use mobile apps and self-service check-in kiosks to cut down on travel times</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Planning the Next Travel Era</strong></h2>
<p>We’re interested in seeing how the airline industry continues to change and adapts to trends in the future. With additional fees becoming commonplace, airline apps becoming more and more sophisticated, and gas prices continuing to fluctuate, the only constant we can count on is change. Use these resources for more information on the next era of business travel:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Learn more in</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/planes-trains-and-automobiles-navigating-business-travel-post-pandemic-world"><strong>this whitepaper</strong></a> where industry experts from Acquis, EY, and Huron share their best practices for corporate travel today and beyond.</li>
<li><strong>Listen to </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/rewriting-rules-how-next-generation-shaping-future-business-travel"><strong>this podcast</strong></a><strong>, </strong>join the evolving conversation of corporate travel, traveler behavior, and what it all means for the next generations.</li>
<li><strong>Watch </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-travel-works"><strong>this video</strong></a><strong> </strong>to see how Concur Travel works.</li>
<li><strong>Use </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/4-tips-re-establishing-travel"><strong>these four tips</strong></a><strong> </strong>to re-establish travel at your own organization.</li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Look for Greater Integration and Connection in 2023
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/look-for-greater-integration-and-connection-in-2023
2022-12-12T11:32:28Z
2022-12-12T11:30:11Z
Advancements in T&E technology couldn’t be timed better, helping create a little more certainty in uncertain times.
<p>Technology continues to change and enhance how we work in incredible ways. Consider its impact on expense management—from early, fundamental accounting software for finance leaders, to more approachable cloud solutions for the average employee, to the introduction of smartphone applications for submitting expenses on the go. We’re now on the cusp of the next evolution in expense management technology.</p>
<p>Today’s workforce has a wide range of tools at their disposal to support every business need. However, more isn’t necessarily better. For instance, according to an <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fblog%2Farticle%2Fnew-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions&data=05%7C01%7CAndi.Bean%40edelman.com%7Ce9d89b034b7a43d0338108dad1a4ed13%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C638052803563535108%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ef%2BAWUuQMuWfG2pRIrarUvzqKwtHwX4pM%2B2kvUx2Wps%3D&reserved=0">SAP Concur pulse survey</a> in early 2022, the majority of U.S. finance managers (57%) were using multiple applications to perform their role—and 17% used multiple applications with no integration between them. Additionally, an integrated system for travel and expense reporting was among the top resources in which U.S. business travelers said they’d like to see their company invest. Technology has helped streamline work—in this moment of change, it’s time to streamline the technology.</p>
<p>Beginning in 2023 and extending into 2024, we’ll see a marked shift in how workplace tools connect and integrate. These changes will create new efficiencies for traditional departments, like finance and HR, which will bring a ripple effect of benefits to employees and customers.</p>
<p>For example, more integrated travel and expense (T&E) solutions will provide better visibility into company spending, create more efficient finance processes, and ultimately lead to faster expense approvals and reimbursements. This is important because, according to the aforementioned pulse survey, all finance managers (100%) said that their role had changed—and become more challenging—since the start of the pandemic. Their top reasons included taking on additional work caused by staffing shortages (59%), additional auditing and paperwork requirements (45%), and new or added involvement in internal communications (45%). On average, they spent six hours each week on these tasks collectively.</p>
<p>It's also important for employees more broadly. In our pulse survey, 86% of business travelers reported that their company had been delayed in reimbursing their business expenses at least once in 2021, and 89% said that a delay in receiving reimbursements impacts their personal finances.</p>
<p>These findings suggest that greater integration and connection could help alleviate some of the <a href="http://concur.com/blog/article/travel-priorities-for-business-leaders-in-2023">pressure and strain </a>being felt by both businesses and individual employees from current macroeconomic factors including inflation. For instance, integrated, connected tools generate comprehensive data, enabling full visibility of business spending and more accurate forecasting through intelligent and automated reporting, dashboards, and analysis. With increasing government regulations for organizations to measure, report on, and take actions to reduce or offset their CO<sub>2</sub> footprint, T&E data produced from this deep integration will be the gold standard for how footprints are calculated going forward.</p>
<p>Greater integration and connection can empower employees to spend their days doing their best work—not busywork—while freeing businesses from unnecessary risks and costs. These advancements in T&E technology couldn’t be timed better, helping create a little more certainty in uncertain times.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div class="msocomtxt">
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Christopher Juneau
Travel Priorities for Business Leaders in 2023
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-priorities-for-business-leaders-in-2023
2022-12-12T11:33:23Z
2022-12-12T11:26:37Z
With lingering uncertainty as 2022 ends, 2023 will bring new challenges as a test of leaders’ abilities to do more with less. Here are Charlie Sultan's top predictions for the new year.
<p>Unprecedented challenges have become the running theme in recent years for companies and their leaders. With lingering uncertainty as 2022 ends, 2023 will bring new challenges as a test of leaders’ abilities to do more with less. Here are my top predictions for the new year:</p>
<p><strong>Leaders will need to weigh the costs and benefits of their corporate travel program in maintaining key business relationships.</strong> The pandemic taught us a lot about the value of business travel. Many companies’ programs were put on pause between 2020 and 2021 to protect business travelers’ health, safety, and well-being, with an unfortunate impact to revenue. According to <a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fblog%2Farticle%2Fnew-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions&data=05%7C01%7CAndi.Bean%40edelman.com%7Ce9d89b034b7a43d0338108dad1a4ed13%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C638052803563535108%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ef%2BAWUuQMuWfG2pRIrarUvzqKwtHwX4pM%2B2kvUx2Wps%3D&reserved=0">SAP Concur pulse survey findings</a> from early 2022, most U.S. finance managers (88%) said their company experienced a revenue loss in 2021 as a direct result of employees’ inability to travel at pre-pandemic levels.</p>
<p>It’s important that leaders keep these learnings in mind as they prepare for uncertainty in 2023. In this moment of change, they’ll have to balance saving money where it counts while positioning their company for growth when the economy stabilizes. For example, the <a href="https://www.mycwt.com/global-business-travel-forecast/">GBTA CWT Global Business Travel Forecast 2023 report</a> found that the cost per event attendee is expected to be around 32% higher in 2023 than in 2019. A business may choose to cut down on meetings and events or less necessary trips in the coming year to conserve travel budget for customer-facing opportunities with strong revenue potential.</p>
<p><strong>2023 will test how companies maintain progress on important workplace initiatives, including </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/look-for-greater-integration-and-connection-in-2023"><strong>technology adoption</strong> </a><strong>and supporting a hybrid workforce, employee experience and well-being, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and sustainability goals.</strong> Trimming here and there may be necessary, but it will be important to prioritize these efforts to ensure that progress continues and employees feel supported.</p>
<p>The talent issues that companies face are likely to remain in 2023, regardless of the economy. Leaders shouldn’t mortgage the company’s future for short-term cost gains.</p>
<p>For instance, the incremental cost of bringing a junior team member on a business trip to gain client relationship skills and see how a senior executive closes a deal is a worthwhile investment in the long run as they progress in their career.</p>
<p>Additionally, some organizations have downscaled their physical offices to accommodate a more hybrid future of work, driving high demand for bookable meeting spaces or internal travel to hold in-person gatherings. Associated costs could be worth it, for the sake of employee experience, workplace culture, and retention in this labor market.</p>
<p>Many companies won't achieve all of their DEI goals by freezing external hiring—and even more importantly, DEI capability-building and employee experience should remain priority investments to retain diverse talent.</p>
<p>And while leaders could be tempted to pause sustainability initiatives to save money until uncertainty has passed, it may not be in the company’s best interest. The benefits of these initiatives extend to corporate reputation and talent attraction and retention. Leaders should strongly consider how sustainability can fit into 2023 plans—including the company’s corporate travel program—as the cost of not doing so will impact long-term growth.</p>
<p>Leaders have a lot to consider as they prepare for what 2023 may bring, with impact to how they approach every facet of their travel program. SAP aspires to serve as a supportive resource that can help guide organizations through the challenges they face, offering travel and expense solutions that create key efficiencies and better experiences for employees in the year ahead.</p>
Charlie Sultan
Rewriting the Rules: How the Next Generation Is Shaping the Future of Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rewriting-rules-how-next-generation-is-shaping-future-business-travel
2022-12-09T10:42:03Z
2022-12-09T10:35:27Z
Business travel has, without question, changed drastically over the past few years, leaving many wondering if it will ever be the same again. While it’s hard to know what exactly the future holds, the
<p>Business travel has, without question, changed drastically over the past few years, leaving many wondering if it will ever be the same again. While it’s hard to know what exactly the future holds, there is one certainty: a new era of business travelers is upon us. While for the past several years the travel industry at large has predominantly focused on the wants and needs of the millennial traveler, those eager to stay ahead of the game have shifted their focus to Gen Z — and for good reason. With Gen Z on track to comprise roughly 30% of the workforce by 2030, bringing with them an entirely different set of expectations than the generation before, organizations must be prepared to evolve the employee experience to meet these new expectations that aren’t just anticipated — they’re inevitable.</p>
<p>“We have and are experiencing what I would describe as one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the evolution of the travel and expense industry,” reflects resident SAP Concur thought leader Ralph Colunga. “This is going to require a modernization of the T&E [travel and expense] management mindset, and of the end-to-end processes in use today in order to meet not only the current employee experience expectations with this paradigm shift we're in, but also then the new one of the next coming generations.”</p>
<p>So, how can organizations evolve their T&E program from a recovery state to one of resilience and adaptability for these next generations as they enter, and will soon dominate, the workforce? Find out in this episode of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a> as thirty-year travel industry expert, Ralph Colunga, breaks down how organizations can ready themselves for the next era of business travelers — and why they should.</p>
<p><strong>You can listen to this episode on </strong><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-next-generation-is/id1525744763?i=1000588502063"><strong>Apple</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/52PEJxdY1EdL31Gh9tzP8f"><strong>Spotify</strong></a><strong> | </strong><a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-rvyidgWGJLt/"><strong>Listen Notes</strong></a><strong> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/rewriting-the-rules-how-the-next-generation-is-shaping-the-f">Acast</a> | </strong><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjM4YTAwYzA4ZTIxM2MwMDExMGU4NmY5?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwiA8tqsjOj7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong></a><strong> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Transcript:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion, and I'm the host of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. I am the Vice President of the Value Experience Team here at SAP Concur, and my team works with customers on thinking through business outcomes, and using data to provide new and exciting ways to solve for problems. Today I have Ralph Colunga with me. Ralph, would you go ahead and introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Sure, you bet. Thank you so much, Jeanne, and it's a pleasure to join you on this podcast discussion today. And as Jeanne said, I'm Ralph Colunga, I'm a thought leader here at SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>So thought leadership. I think today what we're going to be talking about here is travel. And I was thinking about this conversation with you, Ralph, I think about it every time I talk to you about travel. I was talking to my daughter the other day who is working. She's 26 years old and she travels a lot for work. And I was thinking about how when I was that age traveling for work, heavens, I had only been on a plane maybe three times in my life. I wasn't very travel savvy. But I think about my daughter now at 26. She's been to multiple countries. She started traveling when she was two months old.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>She's had a lot of... Yeah, yeah. I started taking her along. And she's had a lot of travel experiences, a lot of opinions on how she travels, her loyalty to brands. She's got the idea that she would prefer to stay in a place that makes her feel more like home rather than a hotel. That whole idea of going earlier, staying later, because she's still with her friends all spread around the country, she wants to visit them and so if she's in an area where they're near, she'd love to extend her travel or even take vacation time to areas where she had never really been before. And I started thinking, all this really ties back to how generations are really adapting to how they travel. It's not just technology, but it's who they are. It's the time they were born in and what we brought to it. So I was just thinking, have you been seeing that kind of change? My daughter hopefully isn't an anomaly, is she?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Oh, not at all. And let me just state that you're absolutely correct, Jeanne, in that each decade has bought new challenges, new technologies, new opportunities, and a next generation's level of expectations. And a new generation's approach to work and problem solving will simply be different from the previous generations.</p>
<p>Now, what I'm absolutely astounded, when we start talking about this topic, and I get really excited about it. And in one way I get excited, but it's also a little bit concerning, and that concern really is this. Is that no one could have predicted the devastating global impact that the C-19 pandemic had.</p>
<p>And as the pandemic morphs to becoming endemic, we have and are experiencing what I would describe as one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the evolution of the travel and expense industry. That's something that we've just lived through. And also really it's not only the paradigm shift of the industry, but also it's the management thereof in terms of these services.</p>
<p>Now, while the fundamental pillars of teeny programs remain. Being compliant, spend governance, employee experience, process optimization. The rapidly coming new paradigm shift as I see it, which we can predict and prepare for, it'll be a generational one. And what I mean by that is that this is going to require a modernization of T&E management mindset, and of the end-to-end processes in use today in order to meet not only the current employee experience expectations with this paradigm shift we're in, but also then the new one of the next coming generations. And how this is really about moving your T&E program forward from a recovery state to one of resilience and adaptability for these next generations that are coming.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>I know you've mentioned to me before as it relates to the differences in how we used to run programs to how we're looking at this new age of hybrid work and the changing of the guard as if it were from the leadership to the next new sets of leadership. It's more of a sell, don't tell approach. I know I've lived through some of the old ways where it was always that you shall do this. How is that changing, and how is that resonating with our travelers as we move into these new phases and new generations of travel?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>I think when we're talking about the generations, and we should probably kind of define that. But it's interesting, I'm a Baby Boomer. And of course after Baby Boomers you had Gen X, then Gen Y or the Millennials, or Gen Y not as I call them. And then from there we go to Gen Z. But then we're coming into, in addition to that, the Alpha generation, and I'll go into a little bit more detail on each of these.</p>
<p>Now, pretty much the millennials as I see it, are moving into certainly positions of power. And the millennials were born anywhere from 1981 to 1996, but they are definitely moving into positions to where they're going to start taking over the management. And then you've got Gen Z, which were born pretty much 1997 to 2012, and then again, Alphas follow after that, starting with 2013. Now when we start thinking about, again, each generation being a little bit different, I normally try to focus, I guess really all of my attention on what I would say are the Zoomers or Gen Z, if you will, as well as then what we have to really start thinking about is the Generation Alpha, and I'll describe a little bit more why that's so important.</p>
<p>But one of the things, generally speaking, with Gen Z and the Alphas, Millennials were smarter than certainly Xers or Baby Boomers with regards to their adaptation of technology and understanding that use a little bit more. Now in many ways, millennials were kind of reared on technology, but not completely absorbed in it, as they had to kind of balance between the analog and digital worlds. Now, with regards to Gen Zs, and especially Gen Alphas going forward, there is definitely, these are two generations that are very well in tune to technology. Now certainly with Gen Zs, as we kind of witnessed with kind of the great resignation in '21 and '22, they're not afraid to leave a job if they're not happy with it. They're willing to stand up for causes that they believe in. They socialize online, it's kind of their main method of interaction, and they definitely are hardworking and somewhat risk-adverse as far as that goes.</p>
<p>And I think for the most part they are quasi-independent, although they like traveling in groups. Definitely strong advocates on things like sustainability, et cetera, and I give them a lot of credit for driving that forward. Gen Alphas, again, because they are so in tune to technology, kind of technology wins over human connection. They're definitely going to be very heavy social media users. I think that they have really a much more, they're going to be hyper connected. Their social acceptance is going to be of high significant importance, meaning how they interact, because they're going to utilize the mobile tools, if you will, for that interacting much more, and probably much more efficiently than any previous generation. They're independent. They have their independent needs, and they want those adhered to, or they want those taken care of. Kind of think personalization, if you will.</p>
<p>And they're going to be very versed, obviously, in digital learning, highly opinionated. And again, I think in some ways it's probably true with both these generations, the future generations we just described and talked about. There are going to be somewhat, I would describe that as being somewhat, their attention spans are not, I guess they're going to be definitely multitaskers. Now, when you talked about the value proposition, let me, if you don't mind, let me just kind of revert back to... These are almost, this is nothing new in terms of these generational changes, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>And certainly, I didn't want to be like my parents, and on and on and on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>But when I think back with regards to, specifically around the area of travel and expense management. Now, where this is a kind of deja vu moment for me when I think about the travel expense managers of today and what they're going to be going through very shortly here, is that when I joined Salesforce back in 2008, the average age of the company at that time, I was told, was 27 years of age.</p>
<p>Now, that would be just about the tail end of the Millennial generation. And my age was two times that, plus a few. So as I came on board as this new director of travel and expense management, and I had been in the industry for 20 something, almost going 20+ something years, one of the things that I had to immediately figure out was, how do I understand and manage to the expectations, and in addition to that, communicate with this younger generation?</p>
<p>Now, the bottom line is that it required, it really required that I change. That I think differently if I were going to survive in this strange new environment, if you will. Not so much as, again, I understand travel and travel management, but this wasn't about me teaching these employees how travel expense was to be managed in the corporate world. But really, rather how I needed to listen and move away from the old command and control mentality that I knew about, to one more about employee empowerment and choice enablement. And so it really was moving away from a sell, not tell, if you will messaging, meaning it was about selling the value proposition, but allowing employees to make their business decisions based upon their business needs within the framework of our policies. But it wasn't about me just telling them how they had to do things. It was a quite different, it was quite a shock for me to step away from that, quite honestly.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>And I think about that, what you just said really resonates with me because I look at my team, they're all X and Ys, and the way that they travel is far different than what I remember traveling at their age, where it was really tied to exactly what the policy could say or do. We're going out and we are looking for things, we're trying to find the best food truck in the area that we're going to, or we're looking for that really amazing experience that we've seen on social media that we want to experience when we get there with my team.</p>
<p>And I love that about them. It's the experience of travel, they're still seeking experience in that type of travel, whether it's business travel or personal travel. And I think about that often as well, because I think about it from a cost savings perspective. Where we're looking at these things, part of what policy is there to do is to help guide on cost savings, but it's really not about that straight travel savings anymore, is it? It's across multiple areas. You mentioned how we have generations now who are really invested in the sustainability, not just the carbon footprint, but all sorts of pieces of sustainability. We're talking about the, you said they're willing to move if they have to. They're not tied to an organization if it doesn't meet what they're looking for, they will get up and move. So those costs across the entire organization, retention, recruitment, how are we looking at travel policies to accommodate that travel savings, but also the savings to the organization in many different areas?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. It's really interesting that most corporate travel programs are really geared towards the prior generations of travelers, and most companies hanging on to policies and processes that were born from the kind of really a pre-digital timeframe. And it's always been kind of a new generations approach to work and problem solving from the previous generations. And it's not that the new generations can't learn from the previous generations, but there's a newer approach and a more diverse approach and a more open mindset that comes with each of these newer generations. So as a result, I think it is something about these next generations. They're going to prefer to want to work for companies that align with their principles and really embrace how they see a diverse work environment should work for them, quite frankly.</p>
<p>Now, it's definitely, we have to keep in mind... I think one of the concerns with regards to the great resignation, as an example. And to your point earlier, we got to keep in mind that it's estimated that the average cost of an employee is about a $100,000.</p>
<p>Now that's just rough estimates, and that was last year. And it's pretty safe to say that you can look at an employee and the cost to replace that employee is anywhere from 100 to 150% of their base salary. And for the C-suite over 200% of their salary. So if an employee makes a $100,000, that's what it's going to take to cost and/or more to replace that employee at a minimum. And then to your point, we have not only the recruiting costs, the onboarding cost, the lost productivity, potential impact for employee morale if they're seeing a lot of people leaving the company, you've got the training cost, the lost institutional knowledge, and then I think there's the potential for culture impact as well whenever someone leaves a company. So those are things I think we definitely have to consider going forward, because those things are real cost, real dollars to the bottom line, and have a real impact, without question.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>You just made me remember, one of my first customers in the value space was looking at T&E as a retention tool. Because they were a high tech organization, and so they were hiring people who were whizzes at High Tech.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>But their back office and their travel policies were outdated. And so as these employees came on board and started to have to travel and were running into issues along the guidelines and the policy itself, and then the tools they were using and how they were put in place, they started to lose people because they felt that the company wasn't walking the walk. And I think it's something that we all have to keep in mind as we move forward as an organization. It isn't so much talking about how high tech we are or how we are able to support all areas of the business, we actually have to support all areas of the business in the best and most advanced way possible that makes sense for the organization.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I could not agree more. The keeping up with technology is something that is just, it's just going to be, you're have to do this without question, you know?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Right. Because we have things like artificial intelligence, and then you bring in blockchain, you bring in biometrics, you bring in virtual, even as we go down to things like virtual car usage, the usage of mobile. All of these pieces are, to your point, something that the next generation of leaders have lived with for the majority of their lives.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>They've come up with technology, they are just expecting technology to make their life better. And if it doesn't, they're willing to move forward. So if we talk a little bit about that, can you give me a little bit of insight into where we should be looking from a technology perspective for these next generations?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. The acceleration of technology is, it's really happening faster than anyone ever thought possible. And all those areas that you just mentioned, whether it's AI, machine learning, blockchain, biometrics, et cetera. But it's moving faster than anybody thought, both in subtle and not so subtle ways. And as an example, artificial intelligence is not something that's coming, but it's already here, and impacting and influencing, really enriching our lives in every way. And technology will just keep accelerating as it's continuously improving itself. And it's also saving companies millions of dollars in handling typical mundane tasks, reducing and eliminating human error. The fact that it can conduct work 24/7 365, and really that helps with increasing work productivity. So what companies wouldn't want that within their business operations. And in our increasingly AI and ML driven world, organizations that embrace and understand the importance of data algorithms and the effective use of computation, are the ones that will thrive, and in the very near future.</p>
<p>Now, in addition to this tidal wave of coming new T&E technologies, again, as we previously mentioned, it's going to be essential to line these with a dynamically shifting employee demographics. And just to keep in mind, just as an example of this. It is estimated by 2025, just two short years from now, Gen Y and Gen Z will make up the demographics in the workforce. And these generations will be the early adopters of new technologies as it will be what comes natural to them. And by 2030, just five more additional years from 2025, Gen Z will be the largest workforce demographic, and Gen Alpha will be coming on board.</p>
<p>So, in less than a decade, we got two major shifts that'll be taking place. And two major shifts that are very, very astute with regards to, and the use of technology. And at least for Gen Z, study after study is showing their requirement for greater travel flexibility, personalization as you mentioned before, and really this increased use of mobile devices and apps. Generation Alpha will be the most technology advanced generated generation to date. Growing up with mobile devices, AI, ML, social media, and really robotics as part of their everyday lives, and thus they're going to be, again, considered to be the most technology infused demographic to date as well. And Gen Alpha and technology are so intertwined, that it's estimated by the time they are eight years old, they will surpass their parents in technology skills. Think about that. I mean...</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>I believe it. I believe it. 100% I believe it.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>I do too. No doubt about that. And also, the Alpha generation will never know a world without the internet of things, smart technology and virtual reality. The Alpha generation are really born at a time when technology devices are getting smarter, everything is connected, the physical and digital world are coming together, and as a result, as they grow up, new technologies will become part of their lives, their experiences, their attitude and expectations of the world.</p>
<p>Now, collectively, these two trends being technology and employee demographics, will reshape the necessary rethinking of travel and expense management as their expectations become norm over time.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>There's no getting around that.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>No, not at all. I mean, you mentioned about the Alphas being so far advanced technologically. I was talking to a friend of mine who has a grandchild in that age group, and he was staying with her, and she asked him to turn on a light and he kept saying, Alexa, turn on the light.</p>
<p>And her lights weren't attached and she said, no, you used this switch. And he had never actually turned on a light from a switch. He just would walk in a room and say, Alexa, turn on the lights. So I get what you mean about that. As we face these changes, as we look to how we future proof what's happening and rethink those norms of travel to not only attract and retain, but actually survive these changes, if you were to have three recommendations for companies to really kind of future ready their travel programs, what would they be?</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Well, I think that the first thing I'd say is that, with in particular to travel, specific to travel and expense management. I would say to the travel and expense managers to think bigger picture, and more strategically. It's so many of the travel managers really have used their roles to be the police, if you will, and I would just strongly urge them not to do that. Don't waste the time on trivial things that really don't matter all that much. Realize that it's more important for them to sit down and try to focus on, how do they improve things overall for their travel community? And also, I think, recognize their place in their role within the larger picture, meaning that, this isn't about their needs, meaning that the needs of one being the travel managers don't outweigh the needs of many, being the travel community.</p>
<p>And so it's a matter of focusing on how do you serve them and serve them well? How do you sit down and understand that your role is to help provide them the tools that they need to allow them to be successful in business? So that's one of the things I firstly remind people about how to improve that.</p>
<p>The second thing I would say is, it's extremely important to align with your travel community, really like never before. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of their expectations in this rapidly changing and really evolving business landscape. Again, focusing on what will the next generations need and want within the program. And how can you help, again, improve your program to make sure it's trying to meet all those business needs that you possibly can?</p>
<p>And lastly, I would just state that this is a moment of change. It's an opportunity for these leaders, if you will, to go forward with an innovative mindset, allowing your teeny programs to become more agile by adjusting policies to the current business landscape, by simplifying and automating processes with technology as much as you possibly can. And really by eliminating as many friction points for the employees, and supporting, if you will, an inclusive environment where employees feel like they're being heard and actually helping to make a difference in a positive way across so many different areas. And that would really be my advice.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>So, if I can just kind of summarize that back to make sure I've got it right, it's that whole idea of thinking strategically, not tactically.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Yep.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Let's really make sure that we're serving the people that we're there to serve.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>The company and the travelers. Aligning with those travelers so that we know what they need and maybe what they want so we can deliver more quickly on what they need and what they want, because we've got our ear to the ground. And then that idea that change brings opportunity. And if we can eliminate friction and show them that we are listening and that we care about the things they care about, we become more agile as an organization.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I could not have said it better.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>All right. Well, Ralph, I know you are deep in research all the time as one of our thought leaders, so I can't wait to hear what you're looking at for even a more expansive future proofing of our organization. So I hope to have you back on the podcast at some other time to talk a little bit further about some of these topics in a deeper discussion.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga: </strong></p>
<p>Yep, I'd gladly welcome that Jeanne, anytime.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion: </strong></p>
<p>Yay, yay. On behalf of Ralph Colunga and I, I want to thank you for your time today in listening to our SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Please feel free to drop us a line and let us know how you liked it, if there's any topics you'd like us to explore further. So on behalf of SAP Concur, thank you again and talk to you the next time on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast">SAP Concur Conversations</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is Your Accounts Payable Automated Enough? Let’s Find Out.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/accounts-payable-ap-automation-process-workflow-vendor-payments
2023-08-24T15:15:43Z
2022-12-07T11:28:22Z
Rising inflation, regulatory hurdles, unseen compliance risks, and uncontrolled budget overspend. Think your accounts payable (AP) processes are automated enough to meet these ongoing challenges and o
<p>Rising inflation, regulatory hurdles, unseen compliance risks, and uncontrolled budget overspend. Think your accounts payable (AP) processes are automated enough to meet these ongoing challenges and others to come? For most businesses, the research says it’s unlikely.</p>
<p>According to a global survey<sup>1</sup>, the most strategically important cost containment goal of finance and IT leaders is to increase operational efficiency & productivity.</p>
<p>Manual tasks—such as keying in vendor and purchase details—don’t just make invoice management less accurate and efficient. They can lead to increased operational costs, decreased employee productivity across an organization, and lots of frustrated vendors. Equally concerning—or perhaps more so if you work in AP—any number of manual processes can hamper a finance team’s ability to add strategic value to the organization.</p>
<p>Not sure whether your invoice management could be more streamlined? Here’s how to evaluate your accounts payable processes, identify your current level of AP automation, and learn how to level-up your visibility and control over spending.</p>
<h2><strong>First, evaluate your current accounts payable workflow</strong></h2>
<p><br />
If you listen in on a finance team meeting, you’re likely to hear the following three questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Where’s that invoice?</strong> In a manual world, it could be anywhere – on someone’s desk, in an envelope in the mailroom, or hiding in an employee’s inbox.</li>
<li><strong>When can we expect payment?</strong> More than likely, you have vendors calling with the same question. Some daily.</li>
<li><strong>What is our cash position? </strong>It’s hard to know where the dollars are at when an invoice hits your desk or inbox weeks, if not months, after an employee has made the purchase.</li>
</ul>
<p>When you multiply those complexities by the sheer volume of invoices most companies have to deal with, the picture gets even less clear. A survey of finance and IT leaders<sup>2</sup> found that the average company:</p>
<ul>
<li>Processes <strong>252</strong> <strong>vendor invoices</strong> each month</li>
<li>Spends <strong>13 hours</strong> <strong>per week</strong> processing vendor invoices</li>
<li>Takes <strong>11 days </strong>to get sign-off approval for vendor invoice payment from time of receipt</li>
</ul>
<p>Now imagine if those 252 invoices had to be scanned (or worse, manually entered), emailed, printed, and then scrutinized with highlighter in hand. We have just three words: no thank you.</p>
<p>You may instead be thinking, “We created an Excel spreadsheet that seems to work okay” or “We have this fancy ERP system, so surely that’s good enough for our AP team”. But is that spreadsheet or ERP system giving you the employee-facing automation and data connectivity needed for full visibility and control—particularly when it comes to managing the entire procure-to-pay workflow?</p>
<p>Here’s what we suggest for evaluating your current AP processes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ask your AP team what obstacles they face and what changes could help them overcome the issues.</li>
<li>Ask your employees who make purchases and maintain vendor relationships whether the invoice process has gaps, creates unwanted work, or causes unnecessary frustration. </li>
<li>Examine your current process with finance requirements in mind. Does it generate a clear picture of cash flow before, during, and after those 252 invoices roll in?</li>
<li>Don’t forget to consider how you work with vendors. How and how long does it take to process and pay their invoices? Are you regularly pushing the limits of their payment terms?</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Next, identify your current level of AP automation</strong></h2>
<p>You can think of accounts payable automation as having four levels, although keep in mind that digital transformation is an ongoing journey for all businesses. Review each level, identify where you’re at, and then consider what would be required to level-up your automation capabilities. </p>
<h2><strong>LEVEL ONE: We have little to no AP automation</strong></h2>
<p>Remember the statistic at the start of this article? Nearly two-thirds of companies still process invoices using paper. That means hours of manual data entry for employees, managers, and finance team members around the world each day.</p>
<p>Now also consider that up until a few years ago, AP teams could at least physically walk paper invoices around the office to get them approved by different people and collect check signatures. With the shift to remote and hybrid working, those traditional methods have become more than just inefficient. They’ve become impossible to do.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising then that <strong><em>46% of finance leaders worldwide say manual workflows are the biggest employee experience challenge of not automating.</em></strong><em><sup>3</sup></em></p>
<p>If this is your reality, the time to move to the next level was a few years ago. That said, today is a great day to start. By automating mundane tasks, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice management</a>, you can improve employee happiness and retention and create an environment in which both employees and the business can grow.</p>
<h2><strong>LEVEL TWO: We have some AP automation</strong></h2>
<p>Yes, that impressive Excel spreadsheet could qualify as automation. And yes, we’re using the term automation quite broadly here. But in our opinion, any amount of digitization is a move in the right direction.</p>
<p>Accounts payable workflow steps often digitized first include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Accepting vendor invoices by email, and even passing invoices back and forth through email for review and approval.</li>
<li>Automating the digitization of invoice details instead of relying on data entry. For example, using OCR technologies to extract line items from a scanned invoice.</li>
<li>Using cloud-based file-sharing technologies, such as DropBox or SharePoint, to review, organize, and store approved invoices.</li>
</ul>
<p>Remember, the more you can replace spreadsheets and paper with AP automation, the higher the levels of accuracy, efficiency, and visibility you can achieve.</p>
<p>Need to build a business case? Include the following numbers reported by invoice management users of SAP Concur solutions<sup>4</sup>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>134 hours</strong> estimated saved by finance/AP teams per week</li>
<li><strong>$43K</strong> estimated saved on an annual basis</li>
<li>Only <strong>7 months</strong> to see positive ROI after implementation</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>LEVEL THREE: Our AP is fully automated</strong></h2>
<p>To move to the level of fully automated accounts payable, your business will need a scalable, connected invoice management solution that can capture and route invoices digitally from approval to payment, regardless of format.</p>
<p>Your chosen AP solution should also:</p>
<ul>
<li>Be able to <strong>analyze and extract</strong> invoice data from a PDF or scanned document and automatically generate a digital invoice</li>
<li>Include a <strong>mobile app</strong> that makes it simple to review invoices and authorize vendor payments while on-the-go.</li>
<li>Offer automatic <strong>two- and three-way matching</strong> so your AP team can quickly resolve discrepancies in invoices, POs, and receivables.</li>
<li>Feature a <strong>centralized dashboard</strong> and <strong>predefined reports</strong> for a full, real-time view into spending.</li>
<li><strong>Integrate</strong> with a wide range of ERP and accounting systems and connect with vendors across the procure-to-pay lifecycle.</li>
</ul>
<p>The benefits that come from the above capabilities, such as faster processing times and better cashflow visibility, are obvious. But here are some additional real-world metrics to go with them.</p>
<p>After implementing an automated invoice management solution<em><sup>5</sup></em>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>36%</strong> of businesses cited finance/accounting employee time savings as one of the top benefits, and</li>
<li><strong>46%</strong> cited increased employee satisfaction.</li>
</ul>
<p>The same finance leaders also reported a <strong>24%</strong> reduction in late invoice payments and an <strong>11%</strong> cost savings through supplier-negotiated rates and discounts.</p>
<p>If your company is already enjoying those benefits of automation, definitely give yourself a well-deserved high-five. Afterwards, keep building your business momentum by exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can give you even more control.</p>
<h2><strong>LEVEL FOUR: We’re elevating our AP automation with AI</strong></h2>
<p>Before you skip past this part of the article, we’d like to address the proverbial elephant in the room. Yes, adopting, let alone understanding, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can seem too complicated, too costly, or both. But regardless of the size of your business and resources, AI and ML are quickly becoming table stakes in an increasingly digitalized world and shouldn’t be discounted so quickly.</p>
<p>As Stela Koleva (VP, EMEA Services & Support and Country Director at SAP Concur) explains, it’s time to re-examine those perspectives:</p>
<p><em>“The journey to AI does not have to be complex, expensive, or chaotic because other companies may have already developed what you need.”</em></p>
<p>So, rather than putting AI into a “someday” category, here are three important reasons why AI-powered automation should be moved to the top of your ongoing optimization plans:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Mitigating risk and compliance in employee spend:</strong> AI algorithms can automatically scan transactions and identify risk and compliance issues that could expose your organization to fines and reputational risks.</li>
<li><strong>Improving Audits:</strong> Intelligent technologies can look at every line item, cross-checking them against multiple databases, faithfully executing each step of the process. Then, they can flag exceptions to human auditors who can solve problems instead of wasting time trying to spot them.</li>
<li><strong>Managing taxes:</strong> AI-powered spend management systems can digitalize the compliance process, automatically checking transactions against local tax regulations to find significant reclaim opportunities.</li>
</ol>
<p>These are just a few examples, but the possibilities will be truly endless as new technologies and how businesses operate continue to evolve.</p>
<p>If you want to find out more about how AI can enhance your processes, take a look at our ebook on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">How AI and ML Automation Solutions Solve Business Problems</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>It’s time to take your AP automation to the next level</strong></h2>
<p>Regardless of where you’re at in your accounts payable automation journey, it’s important to keep moving forward so you can stay competitive and fuel future growth. For tips and best practices, follow our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/10-step-guide-efficient-vendor-invoice-process">10-step guide</a> for modern vendor invoice management.</p>
<p>Ready to see what Concur Invoice can do?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Talk to us</a> today or visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/momentum">concur.com/momentum</a>.</p>
<p><em><sup>1,2,3,4,5</sup> Analysys Mason, Business mindset for 2022 and beyond and the benefits of automating travel, expense and invoice management: Global study findings </em></p>
SAP Concur Team
Balance and Security Emerge as Key Themes at Fusion Exchange DC 2022
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/balance-and-security-emerge-as-key-themes-at-fusion-exchange-dc-2022
2022-12-07T10:13:29Z
2022-12-07T10:07:59Z
While security is always a major focus, SAP Concur has taken that commitment to the next level by migrating its cloud services from its own data centers to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This
<p><strong><em>What is Fusion Exchange DC (FXDC)?</em></strong><em> It’s the premier conference hosted by SAP Concur for Regulated Industries customers, held on November 15-16, 2022, at the Ronald Reagan Building and the International Trade Center in Washington DC. This invitation-only event brings together representatives from government agencies and contractors, higher education and healthcare, as well energy and utility companies for interaction, idea exchange, and training, all focused on this sector’s unique, travel and expense (T&E) management needs. </em></p>
<p>The November 16<sup>th</sup> general session started with a keynote address given by Dr. Christian Wolfe, Head of Client Development, Americas, for SAP Concur. He spoke about the challenge of balancing multiple, competing priorities — keeping costs down, managing risk and compliance, staying on top of and adjusting to changing regulations, all while delivering the best employee experience possible.</p>
<p>It's a tall order. But, according to Wolfe, with the right travel and spend policies, processes, and infrastructure in place, organizations can achieve that balance.</p>
<p>“By linking the choices and spending decisions your travelers make, all the way through to supplier payments and employee reimbursement, you can create an interconnected, digital process, built to be responsive,” Wolfe explained. “You can deliver an immersive experience for travelers that guides them through new requirements and enables them to make safer, smarter travel and spend choices <em>at </em>every and <em>in</em> every moment. We, at SAP Concur, are committed to bringing you that in-the-moment adaptability.”</p>
<h2><strong>Bringing Balance to Travel and Spend Management with Advanced Technology</strong></h2>
<p>To support that commitment, SAP Concur is continuing its investment in Machine Learning, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and applying these tools earlier in the expense process to reduce error and non-compliant spend.</p>
<p>“Imagine the mobile experience being smart enough to quickly identify and solicit feedback on potential policy issues like excessive mileage, alcohol on a meal receipt or an excessive tip,” Wolfe said. “That would make the process more efficient for managers, approvers and auditors alike, while reducing compliance issues and speeding up reimbursement.”</p>
<p>Wolfe also unveiled plans to bake more sustainability features into the Concur Travel booking tool to help employees lower carbon emissions by making greener choices, and an in-the-works partnership for Carbon Offset Calculation and Carbon Offset Certificate handling.</p>
<p>But, perhaps the first mike-drop moment in the conference came when Wolfe revealed plans to modernize the entire SAP Concur travel platform, across all products and partners.</p>
<p>“Over the past two years, we’ve hired more than 200 engineers and product managers to build a more scalable, reliable, flexible solution,” Wolfe said. “This will enable us to deploy innovative features, launch the SAP Concur suite of travel products into the next generation, and deliver a streamlined platform that will enable an integrated, end-to-end travel experience on both desktop and mobile.”</p>
<h2><strong>A New, Secure, Cloud Platform Built to Federal Government Security Requirements</strong></h2>
<p>The next big reveal came when Ermias Desta, Business Information Security Officer for SAP Intelligent Spend and Business Network (ISBN), joined Wolfe on stage to discuss progress on Concur Cloud for Public Sector, which is currently in process for FedRAMP agency authorization.</p>
<p>While security is always a major focus, SAP Concur has taken that commitment to the next level by migrating its cloud services from its own data centers to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This move will not only enhance scalability, reliability, and geographic reach, but it will also enable SAP Concur to address complex requirements around data governance, including the tenancy requirements and stringent security protocols Regulated Industry clients require. </p>
<p>“Concur Cloud for Public Sector offers core SAP Concur travel and expense solutions, hosted in AWS GovCloud, and is specifically designed for U.S. public sector clients that run sensitive workloads in the cloud,” Desta explained. “It is maintained only by U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, follows strict access and security controls, and, in accordance with the government standard for cryptography, the applicable technologies are Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validated. It’s not open to everyone. Clients must meet security and legal tenancy requirements to be hosted there.”</p>
<p>The Concur Cloud for Public Sector infrastructure was architected on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 security requirements, the U.S. Department of Defense Cloud Computing Security requirements for an impact level 4 system, privacy controls for Personal Identifiable Information, and FedRAMP security controls for a moderate system level. It is planned to be listed on the FedRAMP marketplace by year end. </p>
<p>Of course, even with all these protocols in place, security is never a once-and-done process. It’s a continuum that starts with the infrastructure, but also requires constant vigilance to stay one step ahead of new threats as they inevitably evolve. Desta ended the session by reaffirming SAP Concur is committed to the cause.</p>
<p>“We don’t ever want to stand still. We invest in our people and our technology to make sure we’re well sourced and can be responsive, not only to new threats, but any changes to government standards,” Desta said. “We are also part of a greater organization, SAP, that puts security at the forefront, which compounds our strength in that area.”</p>
<h2><strong>Get Ready for 2023!</strong></h2>
<p>Want to position your organization for the coming year, and level up your spend management, learn from your peers, and find out all of the ways SAP Concur supports the unique needs of Regulated Industries?</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Make plans to attend SAP Concur Fusion, February 28-March 2, 2023</strong>. <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">Register for Fusion</a>.</li>
<li><strong>Learn more about Concur Cloud for Public Sector. </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud"><strong>Visit us online</strong></a><strong>.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Find out more about SAP Concur solutions for </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions"><strong>Government</strong></a><strong>, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/education-solution"><strong>Education</strong></a><strong>, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare"><strong>Healthcare</strong></a><strong>, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-contractor-solutions"><strong>Aerospace & Defense</strong></a><strong>, and </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/energy-utilities"><strong>Energy & Utilities</strong></a><strong>.</strong></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
How Utilities and Energy Companies Can Improve the Employee Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-utilities-and-energy-companies-can-improve-employee-experience
2022-12-08T09:00:00Z
2022-11-30T13:16:53Z
Want to learn more about how to improve the employee experience for Utilities and Energy organizations? Download our tip sheet to learn how SAP Concur solutions can help you deliver a positive employe
<p>Having qualified and experienced employees has always been important to utilities and energy companies, but in today’s world, it’s crucial. Not only is it harder than ever for organizations to retain their employees—and expensive to replace them—but experienced employees are increasingly hard to find and hire.</p>
<h2><strong>Why Does Employee Experience Matter?</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Gartner expects employee turnover to be 50% to 75% higher than companies have previously experienced.<sup>1</sup></li>
<li>Gallup shows it costs up to two times an employee’s annual salary to replace them.<sup>2</sup></li>
<li>78% of employees strongly believe their employer is responsible for helping them increase their job satisfaction and well-being.<sup>3</sup> </li>
<li>34% of employees expect a seamless technology experience in their workplace but feel they don’t have one.<sup>4</sup></li>
</ul>
<p>To show your employees you value their daily contributions and reduce employee turnover, your organization must make every moment of the employee experience count. To start, we recommend using a tool like <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">Concur Experience Optimizer</a> to capture your employees’ sentiment, that way you can truly understand the context and build a solution that works for everyone.</p>
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<h5>Why Employee Experience Matters</h5>
<p>Read more in our whitepaper.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-employee-experience-matters">Download</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>Three ways to improve the employee experience </strong></h2>
<p>While there are many ways to improve the employee experience, a few easy places to start are by:</p>
<ol>
<li><em>Improving employee satisfaction with enterprise applications</em>. Because many employees can get frustrated using enterprise software if it’s not easy to use, a provide employees with state-of-the-art systems like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel and Concur Expense</a>. Adopting proven processes for managing travel booking, expense reimbursement, purchasing card reconciliation, and invoice payment with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> will streamline the process of navigating and complying with your organization’s spend policies and procedures for your employees.</li>
<li><em>Automating the expense reporting and approval process</em>. Capturing and reporting expenses can be difficult and time-consuming for your employees. By using technology like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> to automate the process of creating and submitting expense reports, <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> to capture receipts, and approving reimbursements, your organization can significantly reduce the amount of time your employees spend manually filling out expense reports and approving them. You can even automate the flow of charges on corporate credit cards using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/p-card-reconciliation">Company Bill Statements</a> to directly integrate your organization’s expense reporting tools. Plus, an automated online solution is more accessible and easier to use for employees who work remotely.</li>
<li><em>Automating mileage capture.</em> If your utility or energy company is like most, you have employees who often use a company vehicle to drive back and forth to job sites. This likely requires your employees to manually track, document, and self-report the amount of mileage they use, which can lead to errors or unnecessary costs. By automating mileage capture with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Drive</a>, you can greatly reduce the amount of time your employees spend preparing and submitting mileage reports for reimbursement. An automated process can also improve mileage reimbursement accuracy and provide your organization with more control over mileage expenses to save both time and money.</li>
</ol>
<p>Automating routine, time-consuming tasks can also improve your back-office productivity in areas including human resources, auditing, program administration, purchasing, IT, and risk management. Plus, your accounting and finance teams won’t have to wrestle with paper or chase down overdue receipts or misplaced invoices. The result? Your employees will spend less time on manual tasks, leaving them able to focus on their core responsibilities.</p>
<h2><strong>Deliver a Positive Spend Management Experience with SAP Concur solutions</strong></h2>
<p>Want to learn more about how to improve the employee experience for Utilities and Energy organizations? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/improve-end-user-experience-utilities-and-energy-sap-concur-solutions">Download our tip sheet</a> to learn how SAP Concur solutions can help you deliver a positive employee experience when it comes to travel, expense, and invoice management.</p>
<p><em>Sources</em></p>
<p><sup>1 </sup>“It’s time to reimagine employee retention,” Gartner, 2022. <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/07/its-time-to-reimagine-employee-retention">https://hbr.org/2022/07/its-time-to-reimagine-employee-retention</a></p>
<p><sup>2 </sup>“The fixable problem costs U.S. businesses $1 trillion,” Gallup, 2019. <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx">https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx</a></p>
<p><sup>3 </sup>“Care to do better,” Accenture, 2020. <a href="https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Thought-Leadership-Assets/PDF-3/Accenture-Care-To-Do-Better-Report.pdf">https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Thought-Leadership-Assets/PDF-3/Accenture-Care-To-Do-Better-Report.pdf</a> </p>
<p><sup>4 </sup>“Empowering your people: How executives can jump-start the flexible workplace,” Oxford Economics, 2022. <a href="https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/empowering-your-people-how-executives-can-jump-start-the-flexible-workplace/">https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/empowering-your-people-how-executives-can-jump-start-the-flexible-workplace/</a></p>
<p> </p>
Bryana Britton
New SAP Concur Partnership Integrates BlueSky with Concur TripLink to Bring End-to-End T&E Experience to China Market
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-partnership-bluesky-concur-triplink-end-to-end-te-experience-china
2023-01-04T09:28:01Z
2022-11-16T13:15:44Z
To expand SAP Concur's travel options in China, in collaboration with select TMC partners, a new BlueSky integration with Concur TripLink provides an end-to-end travel and expense management solution.
<p>We are pleased to announce BlueSky will join Concur TripLink’s network of corporate booking portal integrations to bring an end-to-end T&E experience to customers based in, or doing business within, China. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A new integration between TravelSky and Concur TripLink will allow companies with business travel in China to book air and hotel travel via BlueSky, and have those bookings automatically sync with their SAP Concur solution. This integration provides an end-to-end solution for clients with business travel in China who need to streamline travel requests, bookings, and expenses, while maintaining the other benefits of their SAP Concur platform. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Benefits of this new partnership include: </p>
<p>• Expanded travel options in China. BlueSky owns all domestic air content in China with over 400k domestic hotels and 100k foreign hotels in inventory. </p>
<p>• Integrated booking, requests, and expense processes. Get an end-to-end view from shopping and booking, to spend approval and expense reporting. </p>
<p>• Enhanced visibility into travel program spending. Get complete reporting and insight on your travelers’ spending trends and buying behavior. Concur TripLink integrates reservations booked with BlueSky to ensure travelers and staying within budget and policy. </p>
<p>• Simplified employee experience. Capture required itinerary information at the time travel is confirmed and imported – saving employees time and reducing errors. </p>
<p>• Extended policy to maintain compliance. Apply your policies, complete audits, and report on bookings made across multiple channels, including those made through BlueSky. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur remains committed to delivering industry-leading solutions that simplify processes, strengthen controls and compliance, and deliver exceptional business outcomes. Concur TripLink gives travelers the ability to incorporate their bookings into their business spend and optimizes efficiencies when it comes to expense reports. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information, please visit us <a href="https://www.concur.com/china-business-travel">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Streamlining Spend Management to Better Support Education Opportunities for International Students
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/streamlining-spend-management-better-support-education-opportunities-international
2022-11-29T14:36:18Z
2022-11-04T12:00:42Z
Globally ambitious people around the world dream of expanding their horizons by studying abroad, but securing a place at the right university or college can be difficult. As the global leader in inter
<p>Globally ambitious people around the world dream of expanding their horizons by studying abroad, but securing a place at the right university or college can be difficult. As the global leader in international education services, IDP Education (IDP) helps international students find the right learning opportunity. IDP is the only organization by students’ sides, from their first course search, until they have found their feet in their new country. IDP is also a proud co-owner of IELTS, the world’s leading English test for study and migration.</p>
<p>With a team of more than 1,400 trusted education experts across the world, combined with a leading global digital platform, IDP ensures that students can connect to life-changing study opportunities. IDP has offices in more than 50 countries and partners with more than 800 leading universities, schools, and colleges across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. IDP’s network of counsellors help students navigate applications and all the hurdles required to study abroad, but importantly, they help students find the course where they will thrive. Educational organizations also count on IDP’s data insights to help ensure that policies and offerings are informed by the needs of a diverse community of students.</p>
<p>Connecting students with institutions from around the globe requires expert people supported by world-class technology. IDP has focused on building trusted human relationships for more than 50 years and in recent years, its investment in digital technology and customer research has enhanced these personal connections, enabling IDP to deliver global success to more students, test-takers and partners. <br />
<br />
To that end, IDP boasts a robust digital transformation and growth strategy that applies to customer-facing services as well as back-end operations. So, when manual, inconsistent purchase-to-pay processes and disparate procurement systems were becoming a challenge at a number of IDP offices, it was time for a change.</p>
<p>“The inconsistencies in expense submissions were challenging,” explains IDP’s global procurement lead, Ben Koh. “To compound this, IDP was operating across numerous platforms, making it hard to track travel requests. Ultimately, this was counterproductive, and the team’s ability to drill down on data was limited.”</p>
<p>IDP knew it needed a cloud-based system that would make it easier to share documents and data and provide the flexibility of mobile access for team members working and traveling around the world. That’s where SAP Concur and SAP Ariba solutions came in.</p>
<p>IDP deployed the Concur Expense and Concur Travel solutions to automate expense management, resulting in much more streamlined processes. However, invoicing continued to pose an issue when IDP teams needed to interpret the chart of accounts in a globally aligned way. “What was considered marketing in one country was considered advertising in another,” explains Koh. “This created challenges when negotiating with vendors and critical suppliers.”</p>
<p>To solve the problem, IDP became the launch customer with SAP to deploy and integrate SAP Ariba solutions for its purchasing with the Concur Invoice solution for its payment processing. The project took nine months from start to finish, with the third and final phase being managed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a year of going live, user feedback was incredibly positive. Employees were learning the new system quickly, discovering new ways to innovate and evolve to increase efficiency and productivity.</p>
<p>Now, a purchase order can be created in the SAP Ariba buying solution, and critical data is mapped over to Concur Invoice. IDP utilizes the Invoice Capture service for automated entry of invoices into the SAP Concur system, leveraging AI features and eliminating manual input into data fields. Management teams can also access the files and information they need from anywhere using the SAP Concur mobile app. Business intelligence tools within the Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice solutions are giving IDP insights into spending trends, movement, processing speed, and efficiency that they never had before. Plus, audit trails in Concur Invoice make it possible to see exactly where an invoice is in the lifecycle – from submission through manager approval, accounting review, and payment. The result is greater accuracy and timelier payments.</p>
<p>“With processes fully automated, efficiencies have increased and the team spends less time on those manual activities,” says Koh, “[which] has been a key takeaway from this deployment for IDP.”</p>
<p>Since the initial implementation, Koh and his team have expanded IDP’s SAP Ariba solution portfolio in order to further streamline procurement processes. He adds, “These will strengthen the way IDP meets our goal of always being innovative, utilizing data insights, and providing the best customer and partner experience.”</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/idp-education">full story</a>, then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to discover how SAP solutions can help take your travel, expense, and invoice management to the next level.</p>
SAP Concur Team
A Return to SAP Concur—at the Best Moment Possible
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/return-sap-concur-best-moment-possible
2022-11-29T14:07:37Z
2022-10-25T07:52:04Z
At a time when SAP Concur is best positioned in the market for a new chapter of growth and innovation, I know that this is the perfect moment for me to return.
<p>I’m excited to once again be part of the SAP family—now as head of SAP Concur market strategy—although, in many ways, I feel like I never left. I have a long history with SAP Concur, going back to 2001 when I served as a product marketing manager well before Concur was acquired by SAP. In fact, this is the second time I’ve boomeranged back to the company.</p>
<p>It’s because I love our industry. I love the people—at SAP, SAP Concur, and our partners and customers. I love our mission of reinventing travel, expense, and invoice management to create better experiences. That purpose resonates with me. At a time when companies are consciously refining their approach to employee travel and business expenses, and when SAP Concur is best positioned in the market for a new chapter of growth and innovation, I know that this is the perfect moment for me to return.</p>
<p>At SAP, we continue to be ranked #1 in travel and expense (T&E) technology, with 49% total market share according to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-and-expense-management-software-market-shares-2021">latest report</a> from IDC. We have the only truly integrated global T&E platform, and Concur Travel is the largest online booking tool (OBT). Our depth of experience and our scale enable us to keep on top of continuously evolving global complexities and compliance requirements, from digital tax compliance to receipt handling to validation for tax reclaim purposes. SAP Concur solutions empower customers with confidence, flexibility, and the options that they demand.</p>
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<h5>IDC Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2021</h5>
<p>SAP continues to be ranked #1 in travel and expense (T&E) technology, with 49% total 2021 market share.<strong> </strong></p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-and-expense-management-software-market-shares-2021">Read the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>Consider the challenges and the changes that the corporate travel industry faces as it reinvents itself for a more sustainable future. Our fourth annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-are-going-green">Global Business Travel Survey</a> found that almost all business travelers (94%) plan to take steps over the next 12 months to reduce the environmental impact of their business travel. Employees also expect their company to support these efforts, as 92% of business travelers would like to see sustainability information incorporated into their company’s booking tools. Given the increased importance of operating sustainably, potentially within an adjusted travel budget, this is the moment for companies to turn intention into action.</p>
<p>In addition, companies’ digital transformation efforts continue to progress while they place a premium on improved employee experiences and access to decision-making insights. This is driving increasing demand for data management and automation technology. Organizations require enterprise-grade, global solutions that address complex travel, expense, and invoice workflows and needs of users, delivering a connected, seamless experience. In fact, according to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">SAP Concur pulse survey</a> conducted earlier this year, 100% of U.S. finance managers expect their company to make financial technology investments in 2022.</p>
<p>As Kevin Permenter, research director of financial applications at IDC, noted in the recently published Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2021, “Building out essential data management features like advanced APIs and artificial intelligence (AI)-based automation capabilities will form foundational software elements to compete in this highly dynamic space.”</p>
<p>These considerations—combined with ongoing conversations with customers, TMCs, suppliers, partners, and others—validate the excitement around SAP Concur modernizing our entire platform to best address the changing needs of the industry and our vision for the future. Customer feedback and data insights, gathered with the support of the SAP partner ecosystem, are helping us to deliver a better experience in this pivotal moment in time for businesses. The evolution of Concur Travel through 2023 will lead to a consumer-grade UX that is intuitive and modern, sustainable travel options, improved policy compliance capabilities, and intelligent integrations across SAP products.</p>
<p>In his recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-travel-evolution-building-travel-platform-future">blog post</a>, President of Concur Travel Charlie Sultan couldn’t have said it better: “This endeavor is one of the most significant development investments ever made in the history of SAP Concur.” As an employee who has experienced firsthand the growth of our business and its solutions over the past two decades, I couldn’t agree more. I look forward to participating in this moment of change that will bring SAP Concur that much closer to fulfilling our mission and helping our customers run at their very best.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Christopher Juneau is the Head of Concur Market Strategy</em></p>
Christopher Juneau
Let’s Get Automating: Why You Should Modernize Your County’s Expense System
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lets-get-automating-why-you-should-modernize-your-countys-expense-system
2024-02-13T13:06:17Z
2022-10-04T09:39:17Z
Managing your county’s budget is no simple task and outdated manual expense systems make it even harder. That’s why more counties are turning to automated solutions such as SAP Concur to modernize the
<p>You’re not alone if your county’s process for submitting and approving expense reports is still manual or even paper based. Unfortunately, as much as local governments work to optimize taxpayer dollars, legacy expense systems and outdated technology too often hamper this effort due to their inefficiencies and lack of transparency and visibility. Let’s look at some of these challenges that counties face with expense reimbursement and consider how automation could help. </p>
<h2>For Honesty’s Sake: Manual Expense Systems Are a Pain </h2>
<p>Manual systems are slow and labor intensive for both the employee filling out an expense form and for the finance team processing it. Filling out spreadsheets or forms, stapling receipts, and matching expenses take time away from more strategic pursuits. Lengthy approval processes also mean that you never have completely up to date spend information. </p>
<p>Manual expense systems are also prone to human error—especially given the tedious tasks required to manually track employee expenses—with a risk of expenses, like mileage, going unreported and non-compliant charges being approved. Both instances lead to an inaccurate picture of your spend. In addition to human error, acts of fraud can more easily slip under the radar with legacy expense systems. </p>
<p>The lack of transparency and visibility may be one of the biggest problems with legacy expense systems. You can’t manage what you can’t see, and compliance is especially critical when it comes to government funds. To make better decisions regarding your budget, you need clear, accurate, and up-to-date information and the right tools for effective oversight. </p>
<p>Read: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-keys-optimizing-county-spend">4 Keys to Optimizing County Spend</a> </p>
<h2>The Time Is Now: Transform Your Expense System </h2>
<p>Automating your expense process addresses these drawbacks of manual systems, speeding up cycle times, eliminating human error, reducing fraud, and providing clear visibility into expenses. You can also quickly spot inconsistencies and highlight issues such as duplicate claims or missing receipts. Here are three more areas where counties can benefit from an automated expense process: </p>
<p>Spend management: Automated expense processes can tell you in near real-time who’s spending how much and where, giving you transparency and visibility into your spending and cash flow. With the right financial data and analysis tools at your fingertips, you can also plan more accurately because you can identify trends and improve spending forecasts. </p>
<p>Control and compliance: An automated expense system can also flag and prevent non-compliant transactions from going through. For example, with your local government’s compliance policies built right in, your finance team can get more transparency into tracking expenses, increase your control with pre-approvals, and greatly simplify reports and audits with intelligent tools like analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). </p>
<p>Employee experience: Let’s face it: Employees don’t like cumbersome manual expense processes. Automation simplifies the expense process experience, making it more efficient, easier, and less error prone. For example, a GPS-based app can be used to automatically track car mileage, or a digital interface can offer new employees the help, guidance, and training assistance needed when using new tech for the first time. The time that automation saves can be spent in more strategic work to serve your constituents. </p>
<p>Read: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-digitizing-spend-management-benefits-state-and-local-governments-and-their-constituents">7 Ways Digitizing Spend Management Benefits State and Local Governments and Their Constituents</a> </p>
<h2>The Solutions You Need, the Automation You Deserve </h2>
<p>Managing your county’s budget is no simple task and outdated manual expense systems make it even harder. That’s why more counties are turning to automated solutions such as SAP Concur to modernize their expense systems and track expenses when and where they happen, with the convenience of mobile apps. SAP Concur solutions make the process simpler and more efficient for everyone involved—and give your county a complete picture of how your funds are truly serving your constituents. With the unparalleled automation of SAP Concur, you’ll know more so you can do more. </p>
<p>Read: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/four-tips-help-county-leaders-maximize-budget">Four Tips to Help County Leaders Maximize Budget</a> </p>
<p>See how SAP Concur solutions can help modernize your county’s spend management challenges, so you can focus on serving citizens. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">Visit us online</a>. </p>
<p>To learn more about how to digitize your county’s financial operations, visit the SAP Concur partner page at the <a href="https://www.naco.org/sponsor/sap-concur-0">National Association of Counties</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Increase Expense Policy Compliance in Four Steps
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-expense-report-policy-compliance-and-employee-reimbursements
2023-02-21T12:34:38Z
2022-10-03T11:16:09Z
If you look at how today’s best run businesses control cashflow, you’ll find that AI-powered automation technologies now play an essential role. These solutions can simplify, streamline, and accelerat
<p>Do your employees look forward to filling out their expense reports each month? We already know the answer, of course. It’s rare to find someone who enjoys sifting through crumpled business receipts and manually entering expense claim details into an Excel spreadsheet, only to print out the expense report so the paper receipts can be stapled to it.</p>
<p>As for expense policy compliance, that’s more often a ‘cross your fingers’ afterthought.</p>
<p>Even without bad intent, expense reimbursement policies have a way of stretching and bending when undefined circumstances arise. Complicating matters even further are the sweeping changes to employee spending patterns, how and where employees get their work done, and the rapidly evolving expectations around employee health and safety over the past few years.</p>
<p>In fact, policy violations for excessive personal expenses were up a staggering <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">21.8% from 2020 to 2021</a> alone.</p>
<p>If that all sounds too familiar, here are four steps you can start taking today to increase your business expense policy compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Step One: Review and refine your current business expense categories</strong></h2>
<p>Like ‘em or not (and let’s be honest, who actually likes them?), employee expenses are a necessary part of running a business. How you categorize those expenses, however, is what will lay the foundation for how efficiently you can capture, validate, approve, reimburse, and audit business expenses initiated by employees.</p>
<p>Granted, you likely have your business expense categories already defined, and if so, that’s great news. The less great news is that many businesses have seen the use of the “Other” or “Miscellaneous” expense categories increase significantly over the past few years. In fact, those two expense types ballooned to more than <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-3-spend-categories-and-tips-optimize">60% of spending</a> from 2019 through 2021.</p>
<p>If your “Other” expense category is similarly as high, it’s time to dig a bit deeper to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-business-expense-categories-and-how-can-you-improve-them">assess whether your business expense categories need to be updated</a> and/or if your employees need additional education around how to properly categorize new expense types, such as meal delivery services, rideshares, and AirBnB-style lodgings.</p>
<h2><strong>Step Two: Write a more effective expense reimbursement policy</strong></h2>
<p>Chances are that most, if not all, of your employees will be happy to follow your lead when it comes to why, when, and how to spend company dollars. If you’re noticing a high rate of expense policy non-compliance, however, it could be that your spending rules are too vague, too complicated, or both. The result? Out-of-policy claims, unexpected costs, budget overspending, and even misuse of company funds and outright fraud.</p>
<p>That’s right, a flat screen TV probably doesn’t qualify as a home office expense for your company.</p>
<p>To create a more effective employee expense policy, start by looking at when yours was last updated. If it was prior to 2020, your company policy and business expense categories are definitely overdue for review.</p>
<p>When you start the revision process, keep in mind these expense policy best practices:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use simple, clear language.</li>
<li>Be succinct (fewer than 10 pages).</li>
<li>Explain the “why” behind the policy.</li>
<li>Be consistent in tone.</li>
<li>Regularly update with new types of spend.</li>
<li>Consider global legal requirements.</li>
<li>Review your training practices.</li>
<li>Keep in mind your industry and corporate culture, as well as your employee headcount and generational makeup.</li>
</ol>
<p>Worried that it’ll take too much time and effort to revise your existing policy? Fear not. We have an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">employee business expense policy template</a> that can help you update your company policy in no time.</p>
<p>And yes, if you’re running a smaller business, an employee expense policy is still a great idea. No matter what the size of your growing business, we have a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/expense-policy-entrepreneurs">small business expense policy guide</a> that will suit your needs, too.</p>
<h2><strong>Step Three: Automate expense reports and employee reimbursements</strong></h2>
<p>If you look at how today’s best run businesses control cashflow, you’ll find that AI-powered automation technologies now play an essential role. These solutions can simplify, streamline, and accelerate how you capture, validate, approve, track, and reimburse employee expenses. With automation, your business will also be able to reduce costs, free up employee time for more revenue-producing activities and enjoy a positive return on investment.</p>
<p>But don’t take our word for it. After automating, our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">SAP Concur customers reported</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% less time to fill out and submit expense reports</li>
<li>65% more compliant business expense claims submitted</li>
<li>50% less time to reimburse employees for business expenses</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Step Four: Hear what your business expense tracking is telling you</strong></h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">global survey of finance and IT leaders</a> found that 42% of companies saw increased employee productivity thanks to automated expense management processes, such as digitizing expense receipts and auto-populating expense reports using a mobile app. When you combine that with accelerated employee expense reimbursements, it’s easy to see how automation can help foster a happier, more loyal employee base.</p>
<p>That’s not even the full story.</p>
<p>Your expense reports also contain within them a wealth of spend data that can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">inform and power your business growth strategy</a>. By being able to track spending patterns and trends in near real-time, you can more quickly adjust to any business challenges that lie ahead and take advantage of new business growth opportunities as they arise.</p>
<h2><strong>One Final Step: Talk to us about your expense management challenges</strong></h2>
<p>So, there you have it. Four steps you can take to increase expense policy compliance at your company. And we have one more step to recommend: Reach out to us today to learn how your business can use spend management automation to build momentum for what’s next.</p>
<p>Visit concur.com/momentum to learn more.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Business Travel Technology Trends and Apps - Looking to the Future
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travel-technology-trends-and-apps-looking-future
2024-01-29T20:14:18Z
2022-10-03T10:18:52Z
The right travel apps and tools can eliminate many of the most stressful aspects of business travel, which helps business travelers do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
<p>It's hard to believe, but the lingering effects of the pandemic aren't the only risks business travelers, and travel managers face today. Geopolitical developments, extreme weather, cybersecurity, flight disruptions, labor shortages, higher costs due to inflation, etc., are all instances that may impact the business traveler's experience. And while ever so grateful that business travel continues to increase, albeit at a modest pace, it's likely to face its share of challenges over the coming months and into 2023.</p>
<h2><strong>How can the travel management community aid in helping to alleviate some of the burdens of business travel?</strong></h2>
<p>The most obvious answer is business travel technology. Employers must arm business travelers with the mobile apps and tools they need to make informed travel decisions based on information that is always accessible and convenient.</p>
<p>Business travelers are connected to their smart devices more than ever. They rely on mobile technology to guide them during trips – from alerts that indicate traffic conditions and flight disruptions to locating amenities in foreign locations. Smartphones provide constant access to vital information while out on the road.</p>
<p>So, lean strongly into a mobile-first approach to arm travelers with information and capabilities that help them feel confident and safe while traveling.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>2024 SAP Concur Trends and Predictions</h5>
<p>No one knows exactly what’s next, but there’s a way to be ready for<br />
whatever the future holds.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2024-trends-predictions">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>What does this mean for the road warrior communities out there? </strong></h2>
<p>Some say, "more travel on fewer shoulders" and "more flexibility." These may be part of the answer, but the reliance on business travel technology, especially mobile technology, can help solve many of the issues business travelers face today.</p>
<p>From the beginning to the end of a road warrior's travel day, advances in business travel technology are making every step easier and more efficient. Biometrics at security checkpoints, keyless entry, and touchless payments are just some of the advances that make business travel more comfortable. The right travel apps and tools can eliminate many of the most stressful aspects of the journey, which help business travelers do their jobs more efficiently and effectively than the competition.</p>
<h2><strong>What business travel technologies should I be leveraging? </strong></h2>
<p>Here are some business travel technology must-haves:</p>
<h3><strong> Apps</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web"><strong>TripIt</strong></a><strong> and <a href="http://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a>:</strong> The world's highest-rated travel organizing iOS app. TripIt organizes all your travel plans in one place, so you know where to be and when. TripIt Pro (a premium service) gives you access to additional features and functionalities like real-time flight alerts, terminal and gate reminders, interactive airport maps, and more!</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.google.com/maps">Google Maps</a>: </strong>One of the more substantial global country map guides with over 220 countries and territories. It provides real-time GPS navigation, traffic, and transit information.</li>
<li><strong>Rideshare Apps:</strong> Traveling for business has never been easier. Connect your account(s) like Uber and Lyft to SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center?category=rides">in our App Center</a>, and your business trip receipts will automatically be sent to Concur Expense.</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/">Xe Currency Converter</a>:</strong> Provides reliable and up-to-the-minute exchange rates for road warriors traveling out of the country.</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://triplingo.com/">TripLingo</a>:</strong> An excellent all-around language translation app that offers users help with translations covering 44 countries, cultural knowledge, safety, and travel tools, and even a free international Wi-Fi dialer.</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.travelexinsurance.com/">Travelex</a> </strong>(travel insurance): Helps provide essential coverage for unforeseen incidents like medical emergencies, trip cancellations or delays, lost or stolen valuables, and missed connections. The additional expense for peace of mind is worth every penny!</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app"><strong>ExpenseIt</strong></a><strong> </strong>(within the SAP Concur mobile app): Simply take a photo of your receipt, and ExpenseIt will review and itemize the data for you so you can enjoy a paperless expense claim process.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wi-Fi<strong> </strong></h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>In-flight Wi-Fi:</strong> With the increased dependency on mobile phones, laptops, and tablets, free Wi-Fi is no longer considered a perk; it's an expectation—even while flying. Employees can stay productive during long-haul flights with faster in-flight internet access with high-speed internet in the cabin.</li>
<li><strong>Virtual Private Network (VPN): </strong>Install and use your company VPN on your phone and computer. A VPN provides privacy and anonymity by creating a private network from a public internet connection. Check with your IT and or security department to help thwart cyber thieves.</li>
<li><strong>Beware of public Wi-Fi:</strong> It's good practice not to allow devices to connect automatically to new Wi-Fi networks and disable Bluetooth as much as possible. Research conducted by cybersecurity company <a href="https://nordvpn.com/blog/85-of-holidaymakers-are-worried-theyll-get-hacked/">NordVPN</a> revealed that one in four travelers have been hacked while using public Wi-Fi on their travels abroad. And most of those attacks occurred while people were in transit at airports and bus or train stations.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Health</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Digital health pass / vaccine passport: </strong>While we all hoped the endemic<strong> </strong>would be far behind us this year, it remains<strong> </strong>the primary concern for many travelers. The good news is there are multiple choices for digital documentation of your vaccination status. Some digital health pass providers include <a href="https://www.iata.org/">International Air Transport Association</a> (IATA) <a href="https://www.travelpassgroup.com/">Travel Pass</a>, <a href="https://myverifly.com/#/">VeriFLY</a>, <a href="https://www.vhealth.io/">V-Health</a>, and <a href="https://www.thecommonsproject.org/">CommonPass</a>, to name a few.</li>
<li>One of the challenges of the vaccine passport is identifying a universal platform, so be sure and check what platform the country or airline accepts.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Will technology continue to shape the future of business travel? </strong></h2>
<p>Business travel has already changed tremendously over the last two years. Going virtual has proven to be a valuable addition to many companies' business tool kits, thus altering many travel budgets going forward. But travel remains a crucial part of any business, and technology continues to play an essential role in keeping business travelers informed and providing guidance to travel managers.</p>
<p>There's no denying that next-gen technologies—augmented reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence—will continue to redefine the way we travel and shape the way we seek and select our travel experiences now and in the future.</p>
<p>But, despite all the advancements in travel technology, one thing remains consistent: our instinct to want to explore, learn about different cultures, and meet new people in unfamiliar environments. Traveling is deeply rooted in the human psyche, and our inner workings remain the primary driver of travel, whether for business or pleasure.</p>
<p>Happy travels!</p>
Ralph Colunga
The Busy Person’s Guide to Spend Management Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/busy-persons-guide-spend-management-automation
2023-10-23T09:02:48Z
2022-09-28T15:37:50Z
Okay, this isn’t a guide really. It’s more of a round-up of helpful resources on spend management automation for anyone with limited time in their day. In other words, for all of us. The goal is for y
<p>This isn’t a guide, really. It’s more of a quick roundup of helpful resources on spend management automation. Short on time but want to learn how to streamline finance processes and save your company money and time? Read on! </p>
<p>Resource #1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/building-business-case-expense-management-automation">3½ minute video on How to Build a Business Case for Expense Management Automation</a> </p>
<p>In this quick video, we highlight the needs of four key stakeholders: the finance leader, finance team, IT, and company leadership. You’ll get tips on how to build a business case for expense management automation that checks off your stakeholders’ requirements. </p>
<p>Resource #2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/simple-4-step-expense-policy-refresh">Newly updated Expense Policy Guide & Template</a> </p>
<p>Want to start boosting policy compliance today? This easy-to-follow guide and template can help you create a more effective employee expense policy. </p>
<p>Resource #3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-your-spend-management-kpis">Spend is changing. Are your KPIs keeping up?</a> </p>
<p>We love a good scorecard, and this one is a favorite among finance leaders we share it with. Use it to measure the success of your current spending program, your travel and expense technologies (assuming you have some), and your company’s spending to see where you could improve. </p>
<p>Resource #4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/expense-automation-solutions-buyers-guide">Expense Automation Solutions: A Buyer’s Guide</a> </p>
<p>Personally, we think the right choice for expense automation is obvious. That said, this guide covers why automation is crucial for business momentum, which automation features are a must-have in today’s business climate, and the top 10 questions to ask solution providers <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">like us</a>. </p>
<p>Resource #5: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">Accounts Payable Automation: A Buyer’s Guide</a> </p>
<p>Learn what truly automated AP looks like (no, PDF invoices don’t count), the steps for successfully transforming your invoice management processes, and how to choose the right solution and solution partner (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about-concur">spoiler alert</a>). </p>
<p>So, there you have it. Five spend management automation resources for when you’re busy building business momentum for what’s next. </p>
<p>Ready to increase productivity, not paperwork? <a href="https://www.concur.com/momentum">We’ll show you how.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Hit the Road with Mileage Tracking Automation That’s Just Right for You
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hit-road-mileage-tracking-automation-thats-just-right-you
2022-11-14T13:00:18Z
2022-09-28T11:00:22Z
Part of the Concur mobile app, Drive uses your mobile phone’s sensors and GPS tracking to measure the distance driven. Drive also integrates with Google Maps, so it’s easy to see trips and remember if
<p>Businesses everywhere rely on employees to use their personal cars to connect with customers and make sales. Yet, mileage reimbursement too often remains a cumbersome manual process with employees stuck self-reporting their miles, which takes time, can lead to inaccuracies, and lacks an audit trail. Further, padding mileage is a known issue that can cost organizations money.</p>
<p>Let’s look at two solutions integrated with Concur Expense that will give your organization more accurate mileage tracking along with detailed documentation and increased visibility into car expense reimbursements:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Drive</a>, a business mileage tracker that’s part of the Concur mobile app</li>
<li>Motus FAVR, an SAP Concur–endorsed app designed for workers who drive more than 5,000 miles per year</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Drive makes per-mile reimbursement easier and more accurate</strong></h2>
<p>Part of the Concur mobile app, Drive uses your mobile phone’s sensors and GPS tracking to measure the distance driven. Drive also integrates with Google Maps, so it’s easy to see trips and remember if they’re business or personal. Available globally, the app is designed for drivers who are reimbursed on a fixed per-mile rate.</p>
<p>You can choose to have Drive <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-calculate-mileage-drive">automatically track travel</a> during pre-set times. Whenever you travel within those timeframes, Drive will measure the distance traveled in the background without the driver needing to be in the app. There’s also an option to manually start and stop tracking a trip, which is helpful in the event of personal errands or other instances where the driver might need to switch back and forth between work and personal needs. </p>
<p>Each trip is automatically added to a draft expense claim in Concur Expense. You can then submit eligible trips as personal car mileage on the expense claim, so your organization’s reimbursement rate can be automatically applied.</p>
<p>Fully integrated with Concur Expense, Drive has multiple benefits, including automated mileage capture, ease of use, time savings compared to manual processes, increased accuracy, detailed documentation, and greater visibility into car expense reimbursements.</p>
<p>Watch the video to see it in action: </p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sC5AZz9F8ro" width="640"></iframe></div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>Motus FAVR targets high-mileage drivers</strong></h2>
<p>If you have employees in the United States who drive their personal vehicles for job-related purposes more than 5,000 miles each year, it might make sense for your business to reimburse them for car expenses using a <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-your-companys-mileage-reimbursement-program-favr">fixed and variable rate (FAVR)</a> instead of a fixed per-mile rate. (Both are IRS-approved methods where employees do not have to pay taxes on the reimbursement.)</p>
<p>The FAVR model is commonly built on six components—three fixed and three variable—all of which are incorporated into reimbursement calculations customized for each driver. Fixed costs include license and registration fees, taxes and depreciation, and insurance premiums. Variable costs include maintenance, fuel and oil, and tire wear.</p>
<p>If you choose to use the FAVR reimbursement, Motus FAVR is an SAP Concur–endorsed app that also fully integrates with Concur Expense. Employees use Motus FAVR to track miles in real time, review trips, and automatically generate an expense report, which is submitted monthly in Concur Expense to a manager for approval. Available in the United States, Motus FAVR is scalable and cloud-based, adjusting for fluctuations based on location, vehicle type, and other factors.</p>
<h2><strong>So what’s the difference?</strong></h2>
<p>FAVR reimbursement personalizes employee reimbursement by accounting for location-specific cost differences. This benefits both employees and your organization because reimbursement is based on actual miles driven rather than the estimated out-of-pocket vehicle usage costs. Essentially, you avoid overpaying and employees get their fair share.</p>
<p>Learn more in this video: </p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jE3nN79qG80" width="640"></iframe></div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>Save money and time by automating mileage tracking</strong></h2>
<p>Mileage spend is consistently one of the top expense categories for many industries, but it remains an area that too often relies on manual reporting. Providing your employees with an automated solution, like Drive or Motus FAVR, makes it easier for them to accurately track mileage. Both solutions integrate with Concur Expense, which allows you to fold them seamlessly into existing administrative and reimbursement systems, giving your organization an audit trail of documentation and much improved visibility into car expense reimbursements.</p>
<h2><strong>Use these resources to learn more about automated mileage reimbursement</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wheels-change-are-spinning-fast-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-optimizing-mileage">The Wheels of Change Are Spinning Fast: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Optimizing Mileage Spend</a></li>
<li>Blog: <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/road-again-track-whats-important-optimizing-mileage-spend">On the Road Again: Track What’s Important by Optimizing Mileage Spend</a></li>
<li>Blog: <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/calculating-mileage-doesnt-have-be-painful">Calculating Mileage Doesn’t Have to Be Painful</a></li>
<li>Tip sheet: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/handling-the-headaches-of-mileage-reimbursement">Handling the Headaches of Mileage Reimbursement</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Get in touch with your SAP Concur rep to learn more about how Drive and Motus FAVR could benefit your organization.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Is Top of Mind for SMB Travelers in 2022?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-top-mind-smb-travelers-2022
2022-09-22T09:00:00Z
2022-09-21T09:42:17Z
The majority of the world’s businesses—including more than 30 million in the U.S. alone—fall within the small to medium-sized business (SMB) category. Defined for the purposes of the SAP Concur Global
<p>The majority of the world’s businesses—including more than <a href="https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/05122043/Small-Business-FAQ-2020.pdf">30 million</a> in the U.S. alone—fall within the small to medium-sized business (SMB) category. Defined for the purposes of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel">SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a> as companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, these organizations have a unique set of perspectives and needs, including when it comes to travel and expense.</p>
<p>Consider the findings of this year’s survey, which explored the responses of over 1,100 business travelers at SMBs in ANZ (Australia and New Zealand), Canada, France, Japan, the UK, and the U.S.:</p>
<h2><strong>Travel Budgets and Inflation Are Top Concerns</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>As the economic landscape shifts, more than a third (34%) of business travelers at SMBs say diminished travel budgets are among the top three threats to business travel.</li>
<li>SMB employees hold slightly higher concern about rising oil prices and inflation than those at larger organizations: Half of business travelers at SMBs (50%) include this among the top three threats to business travel, compared to 44% of business travelers at organizations with more than 1,000 employees.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Eager Travelers, Disappointing Schedules</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Business travelers at SMBs are eager to hit the road again: Nearly all (98%) are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months, including over half (54%) who are very willing to do so. </li>
<li>Despite this, three in five travelers (60%) at these organizations report their current travel schedule is falling short of expectations. </li>
<li>Nearly two in five (39%) are currently traveling less than they’d like, while around half that many (21%) are traveling more than they want.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Travel Is a Retention Risk</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Nearly half of SMB business travelers who are unhappy with their current travel schedule (48%) are willing to take action, either within their company or elsewhere, if things don’t improve.</li>
<li>In fact, more than a quarter of those who are unhappy with their current level of travel (26%) will search for a new position if their schedule doesn’t change.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Declining a Trip Remains an Option</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Nearly nine in 10 SMB business travelers (89%) are willing to decline a business trip assigned to them for safety, personal, or environmental reasons. </li>
<li>The top reasons for doing so are health concerns related to COVID-19 (47%) and safety concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world (47%).</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Sustainability Is a Top Priority</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Nearly all SMB business travelers say that it’s important to have sustainability information for each travel option when booking their business travel (94%) and that they are planning to act in the next 12 months to reduce the environmental impact of their travel (94%).</li>
<li>These actions include:</li>
<li>Making transportation-related efforts, like using alternative travel methods or public transportation (52%).</li>
<li>Taking lodging-related steps, such as staying in greener hotels or requesting less frequent cleaning service (52%). </li>
<li>Combining nearby trips into one longer trip (41%).</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information, download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-smb-travel-report-2022">SMB white paper</a> and read this year’s broader Global Business Travel Survey findings on the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel">SAP Concur blog</a>.</p>
<p><em>The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey was conducted by </em><a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 1,650 Business Travelers, defined as those who traveled for business 3+ times in the past 24 months, in 6 markets: US, Canada, UK, France, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), and Japan. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
SAP Concur Team
Take the Risk and Confusion Out of Tax Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-risk-and-confusion-out-tax-compliance
2022-09-16T11:14:29Z
2022-09-16T10:58:29Z
A trusted partner providing both technology and human expertise can help interpret and respond quickly to tax and reporting changes. The result can provide the clarity you need to make better spending
<p>As the economy and world of work evolve, governments worldwide are attempting to shore up tax collections with new sources of revenue.</p>
<p>And that puts the spotlight – and responsibility – on you and your business to comply. The risks of noncompliance involving work-from-home taxable benefits or e-commerce sales tax collections are great, including fines and other penalties</p>
<p>Still, the shifting landscape of tax codes and regulations presents opportunities. What were once considered job perks – like home Internet service – can now be deductible. Valued-added taxes (VAT) and goods and services taxes (GST) can be reclaimed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hidden-potential-vat-reclaim"><strong><em>$74.9 billion</em></strong></a><em>: amount of potential global VAT reclamation</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hidden-potential-vat-reclaim"><strong><em>54%</em></strong></a><em>: VAT left unclaimed each year</em></p>
<p>The trick – no small challenge – is keeping up with ever-changing rules and requirements that can come from over 150 countries, as with VAT and GST. Or combing through expense reports line by line to identify taxable – or deductible – purchases. Most finance teams likely don’t have the time even if they have the knowledge. And that means a risk of noncompliance, error and lost opportunities, all of which can chip at the bottom line.</p>
<p>It's a matter that calls for new approaches involving both technology and expertise. With the right tools and processes and use of AI and machine learning, your company can obtain a faster, more targeted way to find eligible expenditures and dig through mountains of data to identify whether an expense is fraud or simple error.</p>
<h2><strong>Solutions for your compliance problems</strong></h2>
<p>If you’re one of the 70% of executives who think AI and machine learning are keys to raising productivity and efficiency, as an Oxford Economics <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/becoming-more-efficient-how-finance-and-it-are-leading-way">study</a> found recently, then you might look closely at two SAP® Concur® solutions that deliver both automation and human expertise to tax compliance challenges.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance"><strong>Concur Benefits Assurance by Blue dot</strong></a>, automatically tracks, reports, and calculates taxable employee benefits within expense reports. It can be customized to update company policies and do so on a country-specific basis, overcoming one of the biggest challenges confronted by a company doing business all over.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions"><strong>Concur Tax Assurance by Blue dot</strong></a>, takes the automation of compliance a further step by optimizing the integrity of your company’s business and tax data. It, like our benefits solution, keeps up with country-by-country shifts in regulations, protects against audits and penalties, and ensures you don’t leave VAT-eligible expenses unclaimed.</p>
<h2><strong>Taking a deeper look at risks, opportunities</strong></h2>
<p>Once you delve into tax compliance, you’re likely to come up with a long list of questions about the best approach.</p>
<p>Our new tip sheet, <strong>Three Ways to Mitigate Risks While Maximizing Profitability</strong>, is intended to help guide your exploration. It examines three broad areas to help you better understand where you stand and where you can go next:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Put Regulatory Changes into Action Quickly and Accurately</strong></li>
<li><strong>Maintain an Updated Source of Compliance Requirements</strong></li>
<li><strong>Forming Tax Strategies with Expert Guidance and Insights</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>A trusted partner providing both technology and human expertise can help interpret and respond quickly to tax and reporting changes. The result can provide the clarity you need to make better spending decisions, minimize risks, and make the most of your money.</p>
<h2><strong>Learn more</strong></h2>
<p>Get a copy of our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/3-ways-mitigate-risks-while-maximizing-profitability"><strong>tip sheet</strong></a> to learn how you and your business can minimize tax compliance risks while also boosting its bottom line.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Lock Screen Joins Suite of TripIt Widgets for iOS
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lock-screen-joins-suite-tripit-widgets-ios
2022-09-14T15:56:23Z
2022-09-14T15:08:40Z
We all know the feeling of racing through the airport with one hand on our luggage, and the other holding a coffee, passport, cell phone, child’s hand, or all the above. It can be challenging to look
<p>We all know the feeling of racing through the airport with one hand on our luggage, and the other holding a coffee, passport, cell phone, child’s hand, or all the above. It can be challenging to look up details like your gate number when you need to unlock your phone by typing in a passcode or removing your mask to use Face ID. </p>
<p>Thankfully, TripIt has introduced a series of widgets for iOS—including our newest, the TripIt Lock Screen widget for iOS—to help you better anticipate what comes next when you’re on the go. </p>
<h2>Introducing the TripIt Lock Screen widget for iOS</h2>
<p>Today, Apple released iOS 16, enabling iPhone users to add widgets to the Lock Screen. TripIt is proud to be among the first to offer a Lock Screen widget.</p>
<p>With the new TripIt Lock Screen widget for iOS, you can easily glance down at your iPhone for the most relevant details for your upcoming trip or activity—without having to unlock it. It shows you the information you need most, the moment you need it, by displaying dynamic details that update throughout your trip. </p>
<p>Need more information? No problem. With a simple tap on the Lock Screen widget, we’ll take you to the TripIt app, where you can view your full itinerary.</p>
<h2>What are the benefits of using the TripIt Lock Screen widget?</h2>
<p>The TripIt Lock Screen widget is constantly visible on your iPhone with glanceable details about the upcoming activity in your trip—no need to unlock it! </p>
<p>Quickly glance at your iPhone Lock Screen to see your:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Upcoming trip or plan</strong>, whether it’s a flight, train, rental car, hotel, restaurant, or stop on your road trip.</li>
<li><strong>Relevant flight information</strong>, including the flight number and departure time, arrival countdown, plus gate number when available.</li>
<li><strong>Post-landing details</strong>, whether that’s a rental car reservation or hotel booking details.</li>
</ul>
<p>With just a tap on the widget, you can also quickly open the TripIt app for more detailed information about your itinerary.</p>
<p>Want to try the new Lock Screen widget? First, be sure your app is updated to the latest version of TripIt, and your iPhone is updated to the latest version of iOS (iOS 16+). </p>
<p>Then, to add the TripIt widget to your Lock Screen, swipe down from an unlocked phone to view your Lock Screen, and tap and hold to add, edit, or switch between different wallpapers and widgets. In the Add Widgets pane, find TripIt and tap the widget preview or drag and drop it into position on the Lock Screen. </p>
<h2 id="h-are-other-tripit-widgets-available-for-ios">Are other TripIt widgets available for iOS?</h2>
<p>There are two other <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-widget-for-iphone-and-ipad.html">TripIt widgets for iOS</a>: the medium and small widgets for iPhone.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/whats-new-tripit-app-2022.html">medium widget</a> for iPhone was designed to present links to the most relevant feature at any point in your trip, based on where you are or what you’re doing. With the medium widget, you can see enhanced trip details right on your Home Screen, plus links to helpful TripIt features such Nearby Places for cafes or gas stations and Navigator to see transport options to the next location in your itinerary. </p>
<p>Want just a quick view of your upcoming travel plans and/or a shortcut into the app? The <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-widget-for-iphone-and-ipad.html">small widget</a> for your Home Screen is perfect for you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Behind-the-Scenes Tips to Successful Automation Planning: An SAP Concur Conversations Podcast with Flexso
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/behind-scenes-tips-successful-automation-planning-sap-concur-conversations-podcast
2022-09-15T09:00:00Z
2022-09-14T11:27:37Z
Implementation partner and reseller Flexso helps customers integrate SAP solutions for a wide range of business lines. Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Roeland
<p>When your organization purchases an automation tool, it’s tempting to assume that once it’s in place, everything will work perfectly. But in reality, there’s a lot of hard work that goes into preparing for any tool. Planning in key areas, such as change management and systems integration, is essential to a successful implementation.</p>
<p>Implementation partner and reseller Flexso helps customers integrate SAP solutions for a wide range of business lines. Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Roeland Vanbeselaere, Project Manager of SAP SuccessFactors and Concur at <a href="https://www.flexso.com/en">Flexso</a>—a recent SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award winner—about what organizations and their partners can do during the planning process to smoothly build and implement automated, back-office finance systems.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/magic-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-magic-of-keeping-it-simple-implementing/id1525744763?i=1000578869713">Apple</a> | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0f003b6a-444b-43ec-a02e-37da3939d11f/episodes/1949d209-5d7e-4112-a859-48615c09d592/sap-concur-conversations-the-magic-of-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2VH1Hpjpexdrx5ZfAmBDzU">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/the-magic-of-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-a">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjMxYTNjNzc0YjI5NWUwMDE0ODE1NmM5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi4wvDenob6AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/magic-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Change Management Happens—Let’s Plan for It</strong></h2>
<p>One way to help an automation project succeed is to include change management and training requirements in the project plan at the start, rather than as an afterthought. “Wherever you implement a tool, you can develop it in the best way, but it needs to be used in the correct way as well by the business,” says Vanbeselaere. And your employees “need to accept it in their day-to-day activities.” It’s partly a matter of preparing an organization for change, creating clear training materials, and making sure stakeholders know the training will be required to best optimize a new tool. That way, no one is surprised during or after a project if there’s something new to learn.</p>
<h2><strong>Involve the Right People</strong></h2>
<p>Another way to help an automation project succeed is to know from the beginning who needs to be involved with the project so you can include them from the get-go. For example, multiple departments may need to be aligned, including HR, finance, IT, and procurement. If you’re implementing an SAP Concur solution, external partners, such as a travel agency or credit card companies, may also be involved. Identifying clear business owners and resources upfront will save headaches down the road.</p>
<h2><strong>Be Ready to Integrate</strong></h2>
<p>While systems integration is often not visible to all the end users, it can make life easier for them, and it pays to plan for it upfront. For example, aligning HR and finance data can help organizations do away with manual processes and win back time for more strategic pursuits. “It’s in the small things,” says Vanbeselaere, like being able to log in smoothly and swiftly to back-office finance systems, especially as a first-time employee on the job. “That’s so important for the end users and also the back offices.”</p>
<h2><strong>Partner Up for Greater Success</strong></h2>
<p>Resource planning is vital to any project plan. Partners such as Flexso, which has 450 consultants around the world focused on SAP solutions, can fill in the gaps when it comes to the technical knowledge needed to successfully implement a new automation tool. “A partner can come in and really enhance the experience for you by providing that resource expertise and the special skills that you need to make these projects successful,” says Dion. Supplementing native expertise helps free up time for an organization to concentrate on strategy.</p>
<p>“It’s always important that the client is in the driver’s seat,” says Vanbeselaere. “We’re there to guide them on how to [make] the change, how to do the training, and really teach them on how to make improvements on that.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/magic-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation">Learn more about building a successful tool implementation from the start with the SAP Concur and Flexso partnership.</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
The Magic of Keeping It Simple: Implementing Travel, Expense, and Invoice Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/magic-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation
2022-09-15T11:53:09Z
2022-09-09T09:01:01Z
Join us for this episode of SAP Concur Conversations as we dive into the importance of system integration and how project management experts, like those at Flexso, put the customer in the driver’s sea
<p>“Wherever you implement a tool, you can develop it in the best way, but it needs to be used in the correct way as well by the business,” said Roeland Vanbeselaere, Project Manager of SAP SuccessFactors and Concur at <a href="https://www.flexso.com/en">Flexso</a>, during a recent episode of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. As an implementation partner and reseller, Flexso has had great success in helping customers integrate Concur, <a href="https://www.sap.com/cmp/dg/success-factors-constellation-research/index.html?campaigncode=crm-ya22-int-1517073&source=ppc-1na-google_ads-search-71700000093491867-58700007791561949-hxm_hxm-x-x-x&dfa=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwmJeYBhAwEiwAXlg0AVnotcy_6kBFRuWhCeJqQmTKSNxuuuIpIkiJnRgoisi2v_g4OCFy8hoCQ30QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds">SuccessFactors</a>, and other <a href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">SAP systems</a>. The secret to that success? “It's in the small things,” said Vanbeselaere, as he described the importance of being able to log in smoothly and swiftly to back-office, finance systems, especially as a first-time employee on the job. “That's so important for the end users and also the back offices.”</p>
<p>Join us for this episode of SAP Concur Conversations as we dive into the importance of system integration and how project management experts, like those at Flexso, put the customer in the driver’s seat, helping them build smooth systems that automate manual, front- and back-end finance office processes. “That's really when they are happy with it. It goes automatically and then they can really focus on their key activities,” Vanbeselaere said. “We're there to guide them on how to [make] the change, how to do the training, and really teach them how to make improvements on that.”</p>
<p><em>This four-episode podcast series celebrates Flexso as one of the </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-partner-summit-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner">SAP Concur Partner Award</a><em> recipients. Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/magic-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-and-invoice-automation">SAP Concur Conversations</a><em>, </em><em>for best practices on managing your travel, spend, compliance programs, and more. You can also listen to this episode on: </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a><em> | </em><a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0f003b6a-444b-43ec-a02e-37da3939d11f/sap-concur-conversations?ref_=dmm_acq_mrn_ds_rh_b&ref_=dmm_acq_mrn_d_ds_rh_z_-c_c_616024154141_g_133483500380&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpeaYBhDXARIsAEzItbEGaSgmaafl_Am7O6fPNutq9NnfO5kf9bYV6cx9mU2ZXixORO6JJbwaAuCzEALw_wcB">Amazon</a><em> | </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a><em> | </em><a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">ListenNotes</a><em> | </em><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/the-magic-of-keeping-it-simple-implementing-travel-expense-a">Acast</a><em> or </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjMxYTNjNzc0YjI5NWUwMDE0ODE1NmM5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjQ0LyAlIb6AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a><em>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion. I'm the Vice President of Value Experience here at SAP Concur. My team works with customers on solving for business challenges to help support your goals and objectives, throughout your year and throughout your business. Today, I'm going to be talking to Roeland Vanbeselaere from Flexso. Flexso is one of our partner award winners. And so Roeland, I'd love for you to be able to introduce yourself to us, as well as Flexso to us.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>So hi Jeanne, thanks for, first of all, thanks for the award. Think it's always great to receive something and it's a recognition of the work that we do together with SAP Concur, so very happy with that. So thanks, first of all. Maybe something to introduce myself, so indeed, I'm a project manager within Flexso focusing on the one hand SuccessFactors implementations. And on the other hand, focusing on SAP Concur. Think I'm working for Flexso already, it's around 10, 11 years when I started in the company. Always worked on SAP products, mainly focusing on HR, part finance as well. During the years, I've gained a lot of project experience and also some business experience. Six, seven years ago, I changed from Flexso to one of our clients to work as an HR business partner. And I got to the like three years ago had to come back to Flexso. So now again, I can combine the business expertise `and as well, the project, the SAP experience together in one hand.</p>
<p>Think that's a bit about me. Think about Flexso, Flexso started 2004 as a small company focusing really on SAP with a small team. I think during the last 18 years it’s really grown to being a very reliable end to end partner for everything that is within the SAP ecosystem. Today, we are with more than 450 consultants focusing on a variety of aspects within SAP. And we really want to be that end to end partner. Together with our clients and together with the team. I think we started in Belgium many years ago. Now we also expanded to Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria. So we're really expanding and broadening our expertise and doing in more than 40 countries, different projects. And we have at this moment more than 150 active customers. I think within Flexso, we really are a partner for our all our clients to really focus on everything that has to do with SAP. If it's HR, if it's finance, ERP, technical parts integration, digital innovation, that's really what we focus on within the whole company.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I was thinking that you were keeping it all in the family when you were talking about your work across SuccessFactors and then into Concur, it really is keeping it all within the SAP family. I'm fascinated too. You have a similar story to me and to many people who work within the SAP ecosystems, you had been in business, and then you came to the organization. In your case, you were in the organization, you went back out into business and then came back in. Do you think having that experience of working in a business in these environments, has this helped you to bring a more customer centric focus to your work within Flexso?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think absolutely and I can compare the two periods. I think now it's much more easier because I speak the same language as the clients. I think that's so important if they're talking about competencies, we're talking about compensation about payroll. I lived it, I did it as an end user, and I know where the gains and the pitfalls are within the systems. And I can now really put them together and I can much more understand the client than I did before. So for me, that's such an added value that I have that experience really on the shop floor and really understanding the language of the client. So that really helped me during the projects I have been doing the last three years to really have more efficient implementations, more efficient knowledge, and really trying to close the gap between the system and the requirements of the clients. Within SuccessFactors, SAP Concur I think with other examples as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>What you say resonates with me very deeply. I think that it's true. Once you've been in the business world and you've been on the other side of the applications, you tend to your point speak the same language, and you have that valuable experience, especially in the change management and implementation areas of a project. So when you think about a customer who's coming to Flexso to do an implementation, how does the company keep that strategy and that customer goal focus in place while you're doing those implementations across any number of product?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>I think they're very interesting question. I think there for us, for example, change and training, that's, that's so key of our strategy. If you look at, for example, SAP Concur, that's so important I think. As I said in the beginning, we want be that end to end partner for our organization. And for us change training, transformation is really key to that. A lot of projects, you often think, "Okay, we just need to implement a tool and then everything will go well afterwards."</p>
<p>I think we are really convinced. It's not only about a tool. I think it's very important that wherever you implement a tool, you can develop it in the best way, but it needs to be used in the correct way as well by the business. And they need to accept it in their day to day activities. And that's why, if you look at change and training within Flexso, really have managed that within our project methodology. We always start with that very much upfront, really try to focus on preparing the business, making sure that you know, what change and training will be about during the project to really focus on that together with them.</p>
<p>What is the process? How will this be implemented? How will the business need to do it then as well after the project, during the different phases, we really try to reinforce them and really focus on, okay, we have now done this project. What is the added value? What can we further improve? And really making sure that throughout the project that we aligned very well with the project plan. And we have seen that if you look at our strategy within Flexso for cloud tools, I think SAP Concur is one of them. We see that strategy really suits all the pieces. That's why we really bring that within our strategy. I think that's also a very important one for us during the different projects</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>For me, you said something that's critical. And I think that every customer forgets it. It's that idea that you've purchased the tool and you just make the assumption once that great tool is in place, everything is going to work perfectly. But the reality is there's a lot of hard work that goes in preparing for that tool and then supporting that tool and the processes around it, once the tool is in place and people get to the end of the project and they realize, "Oh, gosh, I didn't think about that before." And when, really, to your point, that change management should be placed at the very beginning of your strategic conversation about your project. So I really love that you shine that spotlight on it, right from the beginning.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>I think it's so crucial for us. So think that's, if you can really focus on the change and training next to the tool, then I think you always have a successful project.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So we've talked a little bit about the change management and in your strategy around implementation and how to run the project. I'm curious, is there an example or two that you can give me of some of the challenges that your customers are facing and how you solved for it? Is there one particular area that they're looking into very clearly, maybe cost containment or employee satisfaction? Are there some things that you could share with us?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think we have done a lot of projects, not only the implementation, but also the change in training for SAP Concur. Think everybody always thinks, okay, SAP Concur, it's about only expenses, but it's much more than that. Think two clients. And then where we have worked a lot of times before together, they wanted also to implement Concur and we also had the opportunity to do the full change on training there. And if I look at yeah, the challenges that we encountered, if we talk together with the client, okay, what are the challenges that you have? And that's possibly, we could see think if you look at change in training, there's a lot of times the lack of bandwidth within the business. So we look at the internal resources and everybody's working, working, working, doing their day to day activities. Then on top of that, you need to do a project.</p>
<p>And on top of that, they also need to do a change and training, and then it's about choosing your priorities. And then people often think, or have the impression that change is not needed. And again, as I mentioned before, think change really is a crucial one. And that's one of the challenges that we see. For example, another challenge that we see is the business does not always have the technical knowledge on how to implement, for example, a new expense tool. And there, we also see that there are a lot of technical things, functional things. And the combination that we do not always have the correct experience. Also, that's where we come in place as a partner, as Flexso. We know what the best practices are within training, for example, think SAP Concur and as an expense tool, that's not a rocket science, but that's more or less the question on how can we approach that and really see that the user has a modern way and efficient way of doing training, for example. So those are really challenges that we see within change and training.</p>
<p>And how we give an answer to that with Flexso think in a variety of topics. I think once again, that it starts with preparing the business, making sure that their expectations are clear at the beginning of the project. And it's always important that the client is at the driver's seats. We're there to guide them on how to do the change, how to do the training and really teach them on how to make improvements on that.</p>
<p>And again, that's also the story of Flexso. We want to focus on the peace of mind during a project. I think the business was involved with implementing a certain project. They need to focus on their added value. And as a partner, we take away all the other things. And that's where we really focus on that and really simple in a last, maybe last solution. I think there's very important that we have a clear change training plan and strategy with having clear training material, making sure that they are well aware within the business, making sure that the sponsors are involved, the good communication plan and so on and one and on. So I think that's the way we try to answer on those challenges, making sure that we have a successful project.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I really like that explanation because it really speaks to how partners can make a difference in your project. The idea that the prioritization of time and tasks, the prioritization of skill sets and bringing in special skills that you may not have native within your organization. And the idea that you have somebody who's there while you are still driving the project as a corporation or organization, you have additional resources to help you be successful at it. You don't have to be everything to everybody, but you can provide that framework and outline and drive the project while a partner can come in and really enhance the experience for you by providing that resource expertise and the special skills that you need to make these projects successful.</p>
<p>Because we don't always hire people based on, "Oh, do you know how to run a technical project?" We don't normally hire people that way unless they're really working in technical projects all the time. So when we talk about something like that, you mentioned a little bit about the difference that a partner makes and alluded to the kinds of steps that a customer should probably be taking as they prepare to work with a partner. But could you expand a little bit on there? Are there critical parts that really need to have focus from our customer base?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Think if you mean more or less on how we can prepare, for example, think there. What I always give us an advice to the clients is at the beginning of the project, during the sales part of it know who you need to involve within the project. And there, if I look at SAP Concur, that specifically, a tool where multiple departments need to be aligned with each other. You have IT, you have HR, you have finance, you have your business. And it's very important that you are realigned and involved at the beginning of the project. And that you have clear business owners on that. I think that's a very important one, not only the internal partners, but as well, the external partners. If you look at SAP Concur, for example, you were together with a travel agency. Important that they are also good board and that they know what is expected from them, credit card company and so on.</p>
<p>So I think there, it's very important that those preparations know who is involved within the project. And next to that, making sure that there's correctly planned with your project, planning, your resource planning and so on. I think that's a very important first part of it. And if I look there next to that preparation, what I always give as an advice as well is during the project think where you want to land as a company or as a project and making sure that what is for you a successful project, what are the end state of the tool that you want to know and think that's a very important one.</p>
<p>Another awareness should start very soon within the presales within the presales phase. I think that's an advice that we always give on how we can prepare. Maybe another one also have a good visibility. If you look at SAP Concur, make sure that you have a good visibility on your finance processes and each division, each country, each department, and know what your company does today, but also be open to it and try to adapt to the best practices. SAP Concur is a cloud tool. So it has best practices, really making sure that they have that balance correct to have the correct expectations. And I think the last one as well, I think the resources, it's always about resources, making sure that they are available.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I like that full blown look at it because a lot of the things you just mentioned are things people don't think about until they're knee deep in a project, until they're midway through. And when things start to fail, there's no real ability to go back to an original plan or go back to the original thought process because you're already too far into the project and it slows things down and can even stop the project because it hasn't been thought of previously.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Fully agree.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yep. So we've, we've gone through the approach of Flexso, we've gone through the reasons why a partner is an appropriate and sometimes can make the difference between a good project and a great project. But you mentioned something earlier that I'd like to circle back to if that's okay. And that's the whole idea of the technical, those pieces, those integration pieces within an organization, within our customers working, we talk about process, but we don't talk a lot about those integrations with preexisting systems. Things that are going to feed the Concur systems or things that are going to take information from the Concur systems. Can we talk a little bit about what integration means to the success of a project and how Flexso works from an integration perspective?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think the technical and the integration part is as well, even important, equal important. I think there, the integration part is not always visible to all the end users, but it can make life easier of the business who is working day to day with. And that's why integrations are so important because with having good integrations, then I think you can win so much time as a business, for example, as a finance team, with SAP Concur. If you have the good integrations and you can win time and you can focus on the added value or the things that you need to do as a person. I think challenges that we have seen there with integrations, for example, within SAP Concur, the HR data, the finance data is not aligned with each other. So people need to manually enter. For example, a new employee changes within an employee or need to book expenses, for example, manually within the finance system.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>And then we really see that the HR teams, the finance teams with SAP Concur, they really need a flexible solution that can integrate with their tools. And if I look there at SAP Concur and again to the SAP ecosystem, think SAP Concur really suits to that. For example, connecting it with a success factor system with the SAP FICO system. That's, that's really important because those two go together. And as I said, it's not always visible, but very important. And that's something as Flexso we really focus on.</p>
<p>I think we are very experienced and integrations with whatever systems and the SAP ecosystem and therefore as well with SAP Concur and we try to create a connected approach. So we really go to client and say, "Okay, how does your landscape, your architecture look like?" And we really try to build a connector that makes sure that SAP Concur is connected with your HR data, with the finance data in an automatic way. And that's again, the story that Flexso stands for being that end to end partner with the SAP. And that's where we make the difference as well. If we combine it at competitor tools, that's really where we make the difference together with SAP Concur. And then that gives that added value back automatically that return on investment that a client will receive at the end, not always visible, but very, very, very important.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I 100% agree with that as somebody who has implemented Concur on a global perspective, but also somebody who has worked with customers to build out Concur platforms. Integration is probably one of those things that is a make or break on a project. And we talk a lot about employee experience, but we tend to focus on the traveler, that back office experience that you mentioned Roeland in the HR teams, in the finance teams, you can have the slickest system up front and if it works very easily for your users in the front end, but in the back office, they're having to do everything manually, everything you've gained with your front end users, you've lost with your back office team.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. It's in the small things. Your first day you were starting, you open up Concur and automatically you logged on. If that is all integrated, your HR data is available. You enter and expand it automatically paid back a couple of days later. And that's so important for the end users and also the back offices. That's really where they are happy with, it goes automatically and that they can then really focus on their key activities.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I sometimes think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but my experience has been, people think about cost savings as it ties back to the savings that you'll make on the booking tools and being able to provide compliance around the spend, which I'm not saying isn't important. It's very important, but there's actually a significant amount of cost avoidance when you do the integration right. Not having to spend, as you mentioned that time manually entering employees into the system or doing manual outside of the system journal entries from a finance perspective, all those pieces add up to a lot of time and money that could be avoided if they could just be automated.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think that's why SAP Concur is greater. You can expand it easily. For example, you can start in two, three countries and the first wave and then second wave you add countries, you built already the integration. So it just counts up and that's yeah. That's where it's the flexibility of the solution comes out and that's great to see. And we always see that the clients are very happy with that. And that's really the added value.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. The scalability is tremendous. So we've talked now about how we manage, how the Flexso team keeps those strategies and goals in place. How you look at things from an end to end, we've talked a little bit about those integrations and how somebody can prepare. How would you measure success on a project? I know every company is a little bit different, but is success measured by the number of people using it? Is it measured by the lack of manual interventions? How do you measure those successes on a project from a Flexso perspective?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>I think first, for me, if I look at our active customers, as I said in the beginning, we have more than 150 active customers and those are customers from the beginning. We started two, three years ago with SAP Concur projects and those clients where we started that are still on board. And that's very important that we can say, okay, we've done a project with you, but you also look at Flexso and being a strategic partner on the long term. And together now we are improving as a SAP Concur improving their process. And really making sure that they have a better solution at the end. And that's for me, one of the first measurements of success, if the project would not have been a success or the implementation have not been a success, the clients would not come back to us.</p>
<p>And then we see that in our support organization, but, and on, on the strategic part, we see that. So that's very important, but that's not always the metrics. Doing the metrics are very important as well. How intensely is the system used? But then I often link that those metrics, how much does the company use it? How much expense reports are there. But I link that to the questions that we receive and support.</p>
<p>So for example, if you see, okay, we get a lot of complex questions within the support that it means, okay, that the basics of the tool are good. Everybody can, as I said, it's not rocket science can use the system in an easy way. And then we see indeed and the supporters, we receive more complex questions. That's for me as well, also a measurement of success. So that leveling out, it's not always about the amount of reports that are generated, but as well, if you look at your support organization after the project, after the go live, then we see what questions do we have. And that's for me very important to know the success of the implementation of the change and training of all the aspects within the project.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for that. Yeah. Those are all, I think critical. We tend to focus mostly on KPIs, but what you're talking about is really those process improvements that are incremental and programmatic improvements that often get lost in the mix and aren't put front and center. So I love that you're looking at it from that type of success measurement. So we've pretty much talked about all of these pieces. One thing you just mentioned that is intriguing to me, you have a lot of customers who have stayed with you for a very long time. In that particular case, we know that the tools are scalable. Are you helping them to expand their footprint and to maybe respond to different changes in the business environment? We know that business doesn't stay the same from one day to the next. There's so many different pieces that are affecting it, whether it's a pandemic or recession, how do you continue to support those customers who start with you on these projects and continue to stay with you?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>I think there it's important that we look back at the project. What were the goals when we started the project and then where do we want to end that? And that we try to do together with the client to see where are small improvements that could save you as a team, as a business more time. And that can be, for example, if you look at SAP Concord, the usage of mobile, for example, if you see there that only 30, 40% of the business uses the mobile application and you say, okay, how could we improve that? Because the mobile SAP Concur application is so great that can save you a lot of time. How can we make sure that we reach 80, 90%? And then together with the client, we really think about, can we improve change training? Can we make new training material?</p>
<p>Can we promote something more and then really look at usage of the system, but how could we change that? But also think expanding can be important. A lot of new applications appeared within SAP Concur as well. How can we integrate with that? For example, if a client uses a certain model, not yet, for example, during the pandemic, the example that you are giving, think we have seen a lot of clients not using travel because travel was down completely. And we just did expense at that moment. And now we are seeing that clients are coming back, okay, how could we integrate now, the travel flow in it. And that's really looking together with them. And again, that strategic roadmap together with the client, what are the things that can bring you added value and making sure that you have that return investment with SAP Concord. And that's what we really try to focus on. So evaluating together, them giving them small tips, hints of what could be an improvement, and then they can think about it. And then we can for example, start an improvement wave.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So when you think about it, if I were to look at how you address your customers, you're not only just addressing in a one off project, you're becoming a trusted advisor across the lifetime of the platform because you know who they are and you can provide that extra value their process their business. And so they don't have to re explain to new resources who they are or what they do. You're there to be able to say to them proactively, "Hey, I think you should really look at this." That's an incredibly valuable service to provide.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think for us, and as myself being more focused on HR and finance, I think it's about the employee life cycle. So somebody starts within the company. How does the onboarding goes like. How does he, or she does the training? How is the compensation like, but as well, a small part as somebody has made as an employee, an expense, how can he make sure that there is reimbursed and in the correct way. And that's really where we look together with the client, which parts in that employee life cycle have been touched or can be touched or can have an added value within the organization. And each organization is different. And I think there as a implementation partner, we bring that best practices, that experience that we have from other projects. And we can then really combine into the, the best possible tool, full tool for the client.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You know, it's that whole hire to retire, where do we fit in? We fit in almost everywhere. We fit in during the hiring we fit in during the entire life cycle and then the retirement. So I love that perspective of the marriage between finance and HR. It really makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. So I know I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but I was wondering, is there anything that I might have forgotten to ask you about or something that you wanted to talk about that I haven't brought up today?</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>I think we discussed already a lot of topics. Thanks for all the questions. Yeah, and I think again, there think we're so happy. And then the last two, three years together with the tool SAP Concur. I think with the evolution that we have been making it together with SAP, that has been a great journey and I hope we can continue with for a long time.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Roeland to you and everyone at Flexso. We love having you as part of the SAP family. And we look forward to continuing working with you, with our customers, and making their lives a little bit easier and making their business goals and objectives a little easier to attain. So really thank you so much for your time and for all your care that you take with our customers. We truly appreciate it.</p>
<p><strong>Roeland Vanbeselaere:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So this is Jeanne Dion on behalf of SAP Concur. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us, dear your audience. And if you have any questions or you're looking for more information about either Flexso or SAP Concur, please go ahead, and take a look at our website, <a href="https://www.concur.com/">concur.com</a>. We'd love to have you ask any questions that you might have, or reach out to your account executives if you're already a customer. And thank you so much again, and we'll talk to you next time on our next SAP Concur conversation.</p>
<p><em>Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>, </em><em>for best practices on managing your travel, spend, compliance programs, and more. </em></p>
Kyla Kent
Three Ways Technology Helps Alleviate Inflation Challenges
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-ways-technology-helps-alleviate-inflation-challenges
2022-09-15T15:44:51Z
2022-09-07T11:46:17Z
For many organizations worldwide, SAP solutions are already one of the most effective means of protecting their financial strength during times of inflation. And they will continue to alleviate their
<p><em>By: Neil Krefsky, Eamon Ida, Haresh Chhaya, and Max Hendrickx</em></p>
<p>Inflation has become central to the business zeitgeist in a way that it had not for decades. With <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/">historically high rates</a> for most of the developed world, organizational leaders are making decisions – such as reducing production, increasing prices, or seeking out new suppliers – based on the latest monthly economic report and less-than-precise outlooks.</p>
<p>But no matter where nations are on the roller coaster of steep rises, dramatic declines, and seemingly stable plateaus, inflation brings wide-ranging impacts that vary across industry, geography, and supply chain design. Adequate liquidity for smooth business operations can be affected. Centralized banking actions on interest rates can ease or restrict short-term lending and borrowing activities. Even <a href="https://news.sap.com/topics/supply-chain-management/">supply chain</a> challenges can dissipate or intensify as costs fluctuate and inventory on hand becomes less or more expensive.</p>
<p>There is no simple, magical financial instrument that can help businesses plan around the realities of <a href="https://www.sap.com/programs/inflation-management.html">inflation</a>, but intelligent technology can help. Tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics can help companies anticipate and see around the corners of their operation, simulate and prepare for multiple contingencies, and pivot their business models as needed. Best of all, they gain numerous options to understand economic circumstances, predict the impact, take near-term actions, and establish structures to secure a position of strength.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>The Impact of Inflation on Supply Chain Security</h5>
<p>Taulia’s experts consider the effects of – and the responses to – inflationary pressure on supply chains and working capital flows.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/impact-inflation-on-supply-chain-security">Get the article</a></div>
</div>
<p>Below are three key areas where these types of technologies can help companies understand the impact of inflationary challenges, act quickly, and prepare for what’s next.</p>
<h2><strong>Move Cash with Intelligence and Confidence</strong></h2>
<p>The overall value of money and assets reduces in the future, and having cash sooner allows a business to quickly accomplish more. To mitigate this risk, companies must recognize the potential impact of various scenarios, ranging from rising prices on commodities to shortages of raw materials. This knowledge then needs to be translated into comprehensive and clear cash flow projections and flexible strategies that can be adjusted to manage liquidity shortfalls and surpluses effectively.</p>
<p>Using <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/spend-management/working-capital-management.html">working capital management solutions from Taulia</a>, <a href="https://news.sap.com/2022/03/sap-completes-acquisition-of-taulia/">now part of SAP</a>, finance leaders can guide their business down the best-possible pathways. They can choose to adjust receivables and payables strategies or tap the lowest-cost credit line available from their banking institution. Plus, working capital assets can be unlocked with financial tools such as dynamic discounting and supply chain financing.</p>
<p>The working capital management solutions accurately reflect inflationary conditions with AI-enabled forecasts and updated views that are always available to the business planner. From planning and simulation to picking the right funding alternatives and controlling processes, these functions work synchronously to help ensure effective coordination of cash movements – using a single source of trust integrated smoothly across the enterprise.</p>
<p>While every decision boils down to the movement of cash, the combination of well rounded, real-time information, auto-generated possibilities, and predictive insights can help businesses make the best choices with confidence. And as their values change over time, goods and assets can be purchased and maintained in the future at the original price with a carrying cost that’s less than the inflation rate.</p>
<h2><strong>Limit Exposure from Global Differences</strong></h2>
<p>Different geographies rarely have the same experience with inflation, but a rise in commodity prices inevitably increases raw material costs. And in higher or unstable inflation regions, currencies can depreciate quickly, causing exchange rates to spike.</p>
<p>These global economic fluctuations can be particularly risky for corporations that have borrowed capital in response to low interest rates over the last few years. Inflation is already eroding their planned repayment strategy for outstanding loans. And additional exposure to another region’s instability can further exacerbate cost pressures, squeezing margins tighter and limiting access to cash.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/financial-management/treasury-risk-management.html">SAP Treasury and Risk Management</a> application, treasury managers and financial leaders can monitor risk positions, commodity price changes, and currency conversion rates, even during the most volatile economic situation. They can develop compliant hedge accounting strategies with a complete audit trail, while staying compliant with regulations such as the Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and the most recent version of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 9).</p>
<p>Treasury teams can also gain insights to tackle debt and manage investments more effectively. SAP Treasury and Risk Management offers information such as available cash, balance risk, and return on investment (ROI) and monitors investments against potential interest rate fluctuations. In addition, borrowing and lending transactions through the life of a loan can be captured, analyzed, and reported as they occur.</p>
<h2><strong>Act Quickly Today and Prepare for Tomorrow</strong></h2>
<p>When the engineering and production of manufactured goods grow more expensive, businesses must decide on whether to reduce margins or pass additional costs to the customer. It is a tough choice, especially when people already feel financially overburdened.</p>
<p>By integrating <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/scm.html">SAP Digital Supply Chain</a> solutions with <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/business-network.html">SAP Business Network</a>, procurement, supply, and logistics organizations can get the insight they need to generate more revenue from every spend event and optimize cost reduction. Together, they can run simulations and what-if analyses to identify and engage trading partners with the capacity and expertise to handle emerging situations such as scaled-up production and further drive down financial and material waste.</p>
<p>Of course, effectively managing inflationary risks requires businesses to have access to the right data to make decisions and move their supply chains forward. The combination of SAP Digital Supply Chain and SAP Business Network enables companies to manage resources more strategically in ways that help increase productivity, decrease operating costs, and free up employees for more mission-critical work. In addition, organizations can get ahead of supply chain delays and downtimes to prevent revenue loss and avoid unforeseen costs with visibility into inventory and production capacity, asset maintenance, and logistics processes.</p>
<h2><strong>Come from a Position of Financial Strength</strong></h2>
<p>With recent inflationary events in mind, understanding and managing the financial risks in the supply chain play a significant role in the race for survival. And companies that can step up and make the right decisions at the right time are the ones that have clear visibility over their procurement, supply chain, and logistics data and processes.</p>
<p>For many organizations worldwide, SAP solutions are already one of the most effective means of protecting their financial strength during times of inflation. And they will continue to alleviate their challenges as the portfolio continues to evolve to meet the needs of a changing economy and competitive landscape.</p>
<p>Inflation impacts costs, interest rates, and supply chains worldwide. <a href="https://www.sap.com/programs/inflation-management.html">Find out how SAP can help you address inflation challenges head on</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://news.sap.com/2022/08/inflation-challenges-technology-alleviates/"><em>This piece originally appeared on the SAP News Center</em></a></p>
SAP News Center
Easily Make Global Payments: An SAP Concur Conversations Podcast with TransferMate
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/easily-make-global-payments-sap-concur-conversations-podcast-transfermate
2022-09-07T09:40:24Z
2022-09-07T09:36:38Z
Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Michael Cullen, Vice President of Sales at TransferMate, a recent SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award winner, about the challen
<p>Paying vendors in multiple currencies in multiple countries is a significant challenge for most organizations. Processes tend to be highly manual, time consuming, and complex. Plus, exorbitant bank fees add up quickly, and security and compliance issues abound. In short, international payments can be a <em>huge</em> headache for finance teams.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Michael Cullen, Vice President of Sales at <a href="https://www.transfermate.com/">TransferMate</a>, a recent SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award winner, about the challenges of cross-border payments.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international-payments-businesses-transfermate">SAP Concur Conversations</a> channel | <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a> | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0f003b6a-444b-43ec-a02e-37da3939d11f/sap-concur-conversations?refMarker=dm_wcp_af_r&gclid=Cj0KCQjw39uYBhCLARIsAD_SzMTcN9TjzZx142BQ2OlizIlujeNi-ZyMHV4m6mFhjO-3d1cUqvlzpXAaAn5sEALw_wcB&ref_=dmm_acq_mrn_ds_rh_b&ref_=dmm_acq_mrn_d_ds_rh_z_-c_c_616880769289_g_133483500380">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://play.acast.com/s/sap-concur-conversations/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international-pa">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjMwZGVjZDYzZmUzNzQwMDEyMmJhZWVj?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjY5amppoH6AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international-payments-businesses">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Legacy Manual Processes Sap Labor</strong></h2>
<p>Why are cross-border payments so complex? Cullen says many of the financial institutions that companies use to handle cross-border transactions have manual processes built upon manual processes. (For instance, organizations often must manually upload individual files to their bank.)</p>
<p>When these processes were originally designed, they didn’t have the foresight to know what a modern, global technology-driven landscape would look like, so modern processes have often been built upon poor foundations.</p>
<p>As a result, traditional processes are time consuming and expensive. Fortunately, new technology and approaches allow finance leaders to drastically reduce the amount of people required to format, submit, and reconcile international payments.</p>
<h2><strong>Streamlining Cross-border Payments</strong></h2>
<p>Integrating and automating this workflow—for example, automatically red flagging potential security issues and sanctioned countries, as TransferMate does—decreases the amount of labor needed to process cross-border payments. Payments can also be made immediately. “You can take what normally took 10 AP [accounts payable] staff for a small- to medium-sized organization a full day to do and condense that down to two to four key people. This allows you to redeploy that resource and time gained elsewhere,” says Cullen.</p>
<p>TransferMate stitches together what can be two separate bank processes: approvals for invoices and approvals for international payments. Cullen says, “When those systems speak together, you don’t need to double- and triple-check everything because the system is doing that for you.” The result? Increased accuracy and reduced labor.</p>
<h2><strong>Automating What Makes Sense</strong></h2>
<p>When it comes to automating invoice approval and international payments, it’s important for your organization to figure out what needs to be automated and what the optimal solution needs to be instead of just automating an existing manual process. Dion recommends that organizations look at the entire process and reimagine how it can be more efficient and effective.</p>
<p>When organizations do that, Cullen explains it enables them “to take away those processes—and also the preconceived ideas around those processes—and do what actually makes sense.”</p>
<p>“It’s really about finding a solution that connects your invoice and your payment process in a way that allows and accounts for different teams’ objectives,” Cullen says.</p>
<h2><strong>A Better Way to Make Global Payments</strong></h2>
<p>Making B2B international payments can be challenging, especially because they so often involve manual steps and separate processes, and are costly in terms of fees, labor, and time.</p>
<p>However, TransferMate’s technology and global banking infrastructure enables organizations to make and receive payments in 162 countries and 134 currencies, at any time, backed by comprehensive security and cost efficiency. Pairing TransferMate with Concur Invoice enables your organization to make payments easily and instantly around the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international-payments-businesses-transfermate">Learn more about how your organization can tap into the power of the SAP Concur and TransferMate partnership to automate and optimize your international payments.</a></p>
Kyla Kent
If This Was a Game, You’d be Winning
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-was-game-youd-be-winning
2022-09-01T11:15:53Z
2022-09-01T11:07:21Z
travel management isn’t a game, but if you have the right tools, you can definitely win. If you want to keep looking and discover even more, check out this Fusion webinar for all the facts.
<p>Remember playing hide-and-seek with your little brother? He’d sneak into the broom closet every single time, and you’d have to act like you couldn’t find him, just so the game would last longer. It wasn’t even any fun for you because you always knew where he was. </p>
<p>It’s not quite that simple as a travel manager, and it certainly isn’t a game. When your travelers book trips directly with suppliers (circumventing your travel program), they are, in essence, hiding from you. They’re hiding their destination, they’re hiding their itinerary, they’re hiding their spending – not on purpose, perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t find them, and if they run into trouble, you can’t protect them. </p>
<p>And that’s far more expensive than the hidden spend you can’t control. </p>
<p>Doing your duty of care depends on knowing where your travelers are and where they’re headed next. So does doing your day-to-day job of managing their travel and your companies’ travel spending. You simply can’t do it if you can’t see their bookings. </p>
<p>So why can’t you just ask them to book within your system and through your preferred suppliers? Of course, you have already asked them to follow the rules. You’ve created reams of policy to try to guide them to use your corporate booking tool. But in the end, they want options and flexibility. They want control over their own plans. </p>
<p>So you get stuck trying to police them instead of focusing on the more important work of building your travel program. </p>
<p>But what if – and this isn’t that big of an if – what if you could simply plug in a tool that captures every booking your travelers make, inside and outside of your booking program? “C’mon,” you’re saying to yourself. “A tool like that doesn’t exists.” </p>
<p>Well, no. It actually exists, and it’s remarkably simple. </p>
<p>In this simple summary, we lay out a <a href="https://www.concur.com/resource-center/infographics/getting-clear-accurate-view-of-travel-spend">compelling argument for Concur® TripLink</a> – our tool that connects you to a global network of suppliers, so you can see where trips are being booked. And if your travelers should go outside that network to get the trip they want, they can use TripIt – packaged with Concur TripLink – and forward the details to plans@tripit, so everything gets uploaded into your SAP Concur system. Automatically. </p>
<p>You get visibility into traveler reservations <em>across booking channels</em>, so you can see every itinerary detail anywhere in the world. </p>
<p>It’s like knowing your little brother is in the broom closet, but instead of simply finding him, you discover lower costs through corporate discounts; increased traveler safety by fulfilling security responsibilities; improved productivity because your travelers are happier; and finally, you find compliance on both corporate and regulatory levels. And those are all good finds. </p>
<p>Sure, travel management isn’t a game, but if you have the right tools, you can definitely win. If you want to keep looking and discover even more, check out this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/getting-clear-accurate-view-travel-spend-sap-concur-fusion-2022">Fusion webinar</a> for all the facts. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Start Your Digital Transformation Journey with Finance Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/start-your-digital-transformation-journey-finance-automation
2022-09-15T11:58:24Z
2022-09-01T10:37:25Z
To help you take this critical step with confidence, senior analyst at Analysys Mason Joseph Bertran and SAP Concur solutions consultant Matt Clark teamed up on a recent webcast.
<p>Digital transformation does not happen overnight. It’s a journey that businesses take one step at a time. The key is determining which steps to take in order to make the most of every moment.</p>
<p>Your organization may already have implemented some digital tools that are helping you run better. But to make the most of those investments, you need a long-term digital strategy that will allow you to maintain momentum and flexibility well into the future.</p>
<p>A good launching point is finance automation.</p>
<p>To help you take this critical step with confidence, senior analyst at Analysys Mason Joseph Bertran and SAP Concur solutions consultant Matt Clark teamed up on a recent webcast. The first thing they want you to remember is that digital transformation is a continual process. As your business evolves, so must the technologies you use to support it. For example, despite having a core ERP or finance system in place, you may still be using manual paper- and e-mail-based processes for travel, expense, and vendor invoice management. Automating these processes will make them simpler, faster, and more accurate and will give you the data you need to better control cash flow and discover opportunities to save or grow.</p>
<p>In fact, a recent study by Analysys Mason and commissioned by SAP Concur, a business unit of SAP offers insight into why and how businesses like yours are thinking about finance automation. Surveys were conducted with finance and IT leaders in seven countries across four continents to discover how the shifting business landscape is impacting decision-making around travel, expense, and vendor invoice management.</p>
<p>In the United States and Canada, more than 60% of respondents saw their revenue increase in 2021 as compared to 2020. Nearly 90% are also expecting to hire more employees. More than 50% of U.S. companies and more than 40% of Canadian ones want to add new domestic locations – and more than 50% from both countries believe that the expectation of flexible work will be the new normal.</p>
<p>As for the challenges ahead, U.S. respondents put technology investment and protecting against cyber threats at the top of the list. For Canadians, it was growing the business while controlling spending and improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. To address such issues, finance and IT leaders in both countries are looking for solutions that will help them to automate and integrate processes and operations across lines of business to contain costs, boost efficiency, improve employee satisfaction, and make it possible to manage IT systems remotely from the cloud.</p>
<p>Some of the factors driving this move included incomplete documentation, mundane tasks that detract from strategic work, and delayed expense reporting. Time wasted on dealing with audits due to noncompliance was another top issue for U.S. firms, with Canadian firms also citing overall fraud and risk management. Canadian firms complained of submission and approval of nonqualified expenses, and U.S. respondents reported dealing with invoices from nonqualified vendors. Difficulty tracking spending trends, a lack of timely financial reporting, and a lack of visibility into cash flow were additional problems.</p>
<p>From an employee experience perspective, time-consuming manual workflows for expense and invoice management were a major source of frustration, as was manual expense report submission. Basically, any processing that slows work down and creates room for fraud and error proved detrimental to employee morale.</p>
<p>Since automating their spend management, survey respondents have seen significant improvements. In the United States and Canada:</p>
<ul>
<li>68%–77% say an automated travel and expense solution improves responses to business challenges, thanks to improved visibility of company spend data</li>
<li>73%–78% say an automated travel and expense solution helps reduce time spent on administrative tasks, allowing employees to focus on growth and strategic planning</li>
<li>70%–76% are seeing greater cost savings due to better ROI from travel, expense, and vendor invoice management solutions</li>
</ul>
<p>So, how can you get started on achieving the same results for your business?</p>
<p>First, evaluate your current level of automation to identify where you are still using paper, e-mail, scanners, and spreadsheets. Then examine your reporting and analytics and determine whether you have the visibility you need right when you need it. Also, consider whether all your systems are integrated. Furthermore, ask whether your people can work from anywhere – at home or from a mobile device on the go.</p>
<p>You can then conduct an audit to determine which finance automation improvement is the top priority and should be tackled first. Depending on your business, it may be travel and expense reporting, invoice capture, categorization, processing, or reimbursements to employees and suppliers. Whatever the case, this will give you the information you need to make a finance automation plan and get all your internal stakeholders on board.</p>
<p>Last, but certainly not least, you will need to choose a trusted finance automation technology vendor to help implement your plan. This is where we come in. Worldwide, businesses using a travel and/or expense solution are seeing an average, estimated savings of US$52,000 annually and businesses using a vendor invoice management solution are seeing an average, estimated savings of US$44,000 annually.</p>
<p>Watch the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/event/webinar/finance-automation-0622">full webcast</a> to find out more. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Generational Perspectives on Business Travel and What They Mean for Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/generational-perspectives-business-travel-what-they-mean-for-business
2022-09-01T09:12:36Z
2022-08-30T09:30:19Z
See what our Global Business Travel Survey found, and how we recommend business leaders and travel managers use this information to guide their next steps.
<p>Do generational differences exist in the workplace, and if so, do they matter?</p>
<p>OK, that is a question that is far too large and complex for us to address in a single blog post. However, the results of this year’s SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel">Global Business Travel Survey</a> suggest that the four primary generations comprising today’s workforce—baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z—may have some differing expectations regarding business travel.</p>
<p>Although their perspectives vary, their needs can likely be addressed with relatively wide-sweeping solutions. Here's what our survey found, and how we recommend business leaders and travel managers use this information to guide their next steps:</p>
<h2><strong>All generations are enthusiastic about returning to business travel and generally want to travel more</strong></h2>
<p>Our survey found that nearly all respondents across generations (98%) are largely willing to travel for business over the next 12 months. However, Gen Z is less likely to be “very willing” at 43%, compared to 55% of millennials, 56% of Gen X, and 55% of baby boomers.</p>
<p>Of note, when it comes to current business travel schedules, baby boomers are most likely to be satisfied (49%) or would prefer to travel more (45%). Only 7% of them would prefer to travel less than they are.</p>
<img alt="Chart showing how much each generation prefers to travel" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3f41de33-8e6e-430e-8cd9-4e0c6c3a226b" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/Travel%20Schedule%20Chart_8%2026%2022%5B79%5D%20copy.jpg" />
<p><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<p><strong>How to use this:</strong> Most employees, regardless of generation, are open to travel, but the amount of travel that they expect may vary. Leaders should have honest conversations with business travelers about their willingness, desired schedule, and what might be holding them back.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Health and safety expectations differ between younger and older generations</strong></h2>
<p>Gen Z (94%) and millennials (94%) are more likely than Gen X (86%) and baby boomers (82%) to consider some flexible travel and booking options as essential for their company to allow to protect their health and safety when they travel for business.</p>
<p>Additionally, the top essential requirement for health and safety generally differs by generation:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gen Z expect to select their preferred mode of travel (37%) and book their travel directly on supplier websites (37%), such as airlines and hotels.</li>
<li>Millennials expect to select their preferred accommodations (47%).</li>
<li>Both Gen X and baby boomers expect to select their preferred mode of travel (46% and 44%, respectively).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>How to use this:</strong> Employee expectations will vary. Travel managers can get ahead of this by tailoring travel policies with an eye toward overall flexibility, to best address the health and safety needs of most business travelers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Younger generations feel slightly more empowered to decline a business trip that doesn’t match their expectations</strong></h2>
<p>Although 91% of business travelers, regardless of generation, would consider declining a business trip, Gen Z (96%) and millennials (93%) are somewhat more likely than Gen X (88%) and baby boomers (82%).</p>
<p>The top reason to consider declining is having safety concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world (53%), although Gen Z (46%) and baby boomers (48%) are just slightly more willing to take the risk than millennials (55%) and Gen X (53%).</p>
<p><strong>How to use this: </strong>Reasons that employees would decline a business trip span the personal (e.g., needing a break) to the global (e.g., COVID-19 concerns), and employers that remain flexible and understanding are likely to come out ahead in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-considers-business-travels-talent-implications">competition for talent</a>. Leaders should make this part of their conversations with business travelers and be open to assessing things on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Sustainability matters, especially among younger employees</strong></h2>
<p>While <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-are-going-green">sustainability</a> is a consideration across generations, it appears most important to Gen Z and millennial business travelers. For instance:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gen Z (22%) and millennials (28%) are more likely than Gen X (18%) and baby boomers (12%) to consider declining a business trip if it requires using non-sustainable travel options.</li>
<li>Also, 98% of Gen Z and 96% of millennials plan to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business over the next 12 months, compared to 92% of Gen X and 80% of baby boomers.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>How to use this: </strong>Offering sustainable travel options and helping employees make informed choices is rapidly becoming a requirement for businesses. On the fence? Bear in mind its importance for younger employees and the impact of losing them to competition. Sustainable practices can be both good for the planet and good for business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Among those unhappy with their current travel schedule, Gen Z may be the one to watch</strong></h2>
<p>Based on our survey findings, among those who are unhappy with their current level of travel, Gen Z is the most likely to take action (63%) and the greatest flight risk (35%), compared to an average across generations of 46% and 23%, respectively.</p>
<p>On a related note, perhaps it’s their higher-than-average satisfaction with their current travel schedule (49% vs. 39%) or where they are in their careers, but baby boomers are slightly less likely to take a new position that requires more business travel (88% vs. an average of 97%). That said, those who would consider it are less likely to require lures like a larger salary, more vacation time, or the ability to work from home (75% vs. an average of 92%). Gen Z and millennials would largely need to be lured (both 95%).</p>
<p><strong>How to use this: </strong>If looking to hire for roles that require business travel, the above considerations will be essential from an attraction standpoint. The overall benefits package will play a significant role—especially when it comes to hiring for more junior and mid-level positions.</p>
<p>It’s important to note that attracting and retaining employees from all generations is key to success. However, while Gen Z only comprised a 12.6 percent share of the U.S. labor force in 2020, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/graphics/labor-force-share-by-age-group.htm">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> projects that to increase to 21.3 percent by 2030. Meanwhile, millennials’ share will largely remain the same (roughly 43.8 percent vs. 42.6 percent, respectively). Anticipating the unique perspectives and expectations of younger business travelers will give companies a competitive edge in the years ahead.</p>
<p>For more business traveler responses to our fourth annual Global Business Travel Survey, access the broader findings in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">global whitepaper</a>.</p>
<p><em>The SAP Concur Global Business Traveler Survey was conducted by </em><a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 3,850 business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business three-plus times in the past 24 months, in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
SAP Concur Team
Is That an Unabridged Dictionary or Your Travel Policy?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/unabridged-dictionary-or-your-travel-policy
2022-08-24T16:28:28Z
2022-08-24T16:22:52Z
A recent SAP Concur travel policies webinar helps put it all into perspective. In less than 30 minutes, it shifts prevailing corporate policy from status-quo, rules-heavy travel manuscripts to simple
<h2>Creating a slimmer, more modern guide to getting there. </h2>
<p>There’s a good chance you were instrumental in crafting your company’s travel manual. There’s an equally good chance you haven’t read it cover to cover in quite some time. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s a 100% chance your travelers haven’t read it all. </p>
<p>There’s a reason for that: Travel policies are often long-winded enough to make most readers heavy-lidded. What are meant to be simple, helpful, instructional guides about the best way for Employee A to get to Point B, end up being some sort of magnum opus packed with every procedure, policy, restriction, and requirement a committee could ever come up with. </p>
<p>And if that’s the case, how are employees supposed to pick their way through it, let alone follow the rules cleverly hidden inside? After all, they’ve got jobs to do and job-related trips to plan. </p>
<p>But don’t get me wrong: Pulling together a plethora of policies your company has been following for years, then trying to parse your way through the policies that sprung up out of the pandemic like cows in a tornado, is not easy. No wonder the rules book starts to read (and weigh) like an MBA-level economics textbook. </p>
<p>Modern travelers need a modern experience, and that begins with reimagined travel policies. Just imagine, for example, if there was a better balance between traveler well-being and the overall performance of your travel program. Or if all travel was purposeful travel. Of if you could get all your execs to see how a positive traveler experience (safe, simple, flexible, and personalized) equates to a successful business. </p>
<p>A recent SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/defining-modern-day-travel-policies-sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-2022">travel policies webinar</a> helps put it all into perspective. In less than 30 minutes, it shifts prevailing corporate policy from status-quo, rules-heavy travel manuscripts to simple guides that make it easy for travelers to do the right thing. Instead of leaning on regulations (they’re in there, of course, this is a policy manual after all), they help travelers the way they want to be helped – with intuitive tools and engaging communication that leads them to their best travel decisions. </p>
<p>And you know what? This doesn’t just help the traveler, it helps the business. When policy moves away from DOs and DON’Ts and instead becomes a living, breathing guide, travelers naturally gravitate toward using your booking tool, calling your agency, selecting your preferred suppliers, and so on. </p>
<p>Like you, modern travelers don’t want to told what to do. They want to be heard, and they want to be helped. </p>
<p>When you do that, you can write a travel policy that’s readable and relatable – one that’s not only easy to follow, it actually fits in your carry-on. </p>
<p><br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/defining-modern-day-travel-policies-sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-2022">Watch the webinar,</a> and take a few minutes to see how companies are approaching modern travel policy. You’ll see that you don’t have to wedge in every word in the world to get it to work. </p>
SAP Concur Team
It’sTime to Take the Wheel.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/itstime-take-wheel
2022-08-24T14:26:19Z
2022-08-24T14:19:25Z
Reshaping travel in your company isn’t like landing an aircraft, but to be honest, it might feel that way. Either way, it’s time to take the wheel of your program and start steering it in the right di
<p>When the flight attendant comes on the intercom and asks if anyone knows how to fly the plane, it’s usually best to let somebody else raise their hand. But when your travel program is floundering with outdated policies, evolving expectations, and nosediving budgets, it’s up to you to grab the helm. </p>
<p>Yes, that’s a hefty responsibility, but let’s not get nervous and wait for some other passenger or peer in your company to steer things right again. Let’s instead look at this as your time to shine. The spotlight that’s pointing at you (and highlighting all the wildly unpredictable changes in corporate travel) creates an opportunity to rethink and reshape your entire travel program. It is a chance for you to build what your business and your travelers demand. </p>
<p>It is a moment – <em>the </em>moment – for you to lead. </p>
<p>So… Where do you go? And because those lining up behind you might ask: How do you get there? </p>
<p>These are good questions, and we could spend months on the answers. In fact, you probably will as you revise and roll out your updated travel program. But for now, let’s take a quick look at four key pillars to build into your program – and a webinar essential to knowing where travel is headed next. </p>
<p>The webinar, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/exploring-impactful-trends-travel-sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-2022">Exploring Impactful Trends in Travel,</a> goes straight to the list of things that are likely keeping you up at night. Things like increasing costs, staffing shortages, and other travel-industry challenges guaranteed to impact your T&E program. After a healthy discussion of what’s going on, the keynotes address the top two trends in travel today: </p>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p>The Rise of Traveler Expectations</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Great Reshuffle (hybrid work, virtual travel, supplier costs, etc.) </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>We could go into great detail here, too, about travelers’ desires to get back out there again, and how “work from home” has become “work from anywhere,” which increases the burden on your travel budget. But if you <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/exploring-impactful-trends-travel-sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-2022">watch the webinar</a>, your questions will get answers. </p>
<p>Now, as you begin to think about rethinking your travel program, think about these four pillars proven to support effective travel: Flexibility, Sustainability, Safety, and unsurprisingly, Return On Investment. </p>
<p>One: If you’re running a rigid system in an era defined by undeniable unpredictability and that demands flexibility, your program is going to stay on the ground. You need a way to immediately adapt to changing regulations, surprise mandates, and suppliers pulling the rug out from under you. You’ll also want a way to do it all while giving your travelers (and, of course, the C-Suite) more choices and more control. </p>
<p>Two: Sustainability has never been a bigger topic, so instead of talking about it, act on it. Give travelers a clear and simple way to choose suppliers that match your company’s sustainability goals. Make it easy to take a train when it’s a better option than booking a flight. Stay in hotels that have strong environmental ratings. And build it all into your program from the beginning. </p>
<p>Three: The pandemic scared everyone, and even though people are itching to hit the road again, they’re unwilling to throw caution to the wind. Your program must help travelers make safe, smart choices – like sharing COVID-19 protocols for their destination – and showing them neighborhood safety scores when they’re selecting a hotel. Keep your travelers safe, and you keep them happy. And that makes it far easier to keep them, period. </p>
<p>Four: It’s always a good idea to demonstrate that your travel budget is a good investment. So look for ways to illustrate which trips are essential and what kind of ROI to expect. Use tools that help dissect your spending, so you can see (and then show) how your organization’s investment in travel is paying off. And give the other leaders in your company the clarity and confidence to continually reinvest. </p>
<p>Reshaping travel in your company isn’t like landing an aircraft, but to be honest, it might feel that way. Either way, it’s time to take the wheel of your program and start steering it in the right direction. This really is a moment to lead, and no one is more qualified than you. </p>
<p>And again, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/exploring-impactful-trends-travel-sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-2022">take a peek at that webinar</a> to get started. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Anywhere, Any Currency, Any Time: Transforming International Payments for Businesses with TransferMate
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international-payments-businesses
2022-08-31T10:27:30Z
2022-08-23T15:18:35Z
Concur Conversations as we sit down with Michael Cullen, Vice President of Sales at TransferMate, to discuss how the company became instrumental in the international payments space, providing business
<p>Paying international vendors and employees in multiple currencies is a significant challenge for most businesses and was made even more challenging during the 2020 pandemic. Thankfully, customers were able to turn to <a href="https://www.transfermate.com/">TransferMate</a> to help enable cross border payments, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-partner-summit-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner">in 2021</a>, transaction volumes rose by over 800% as customers looked to optimize their payment processes. Join us for this episode on SAP Concur Conversations as we sit down with Michael Cullen, Vice President of Sales at TransferMate, to discuss how the company became instrumental in the international payments space, providing businesses with the ability to make and receive payments anywhere in the world, in any currency, at any time – with utmost security and cost efficiency.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This four-episode podcast series celebrates TransferMate as one of the </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-partner-summit-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner">SAP Concur Partner Award</a><em> recipients. Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>, for best practices </em><em>on managing your travel, spend, compliance programs, and more</em><em>. You can also listen to this episode on: </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/anywhere-any-currency-any-time-transforming-international/id1525744763?i=1000577790960">Apple</a><em> | </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a><em> | </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4kNwkM46lF4cCHifhnl7Eb">Spotify</a><em> | </em><a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">ListenNotes</a><em> | </em><a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/sap-concur-conversations">Acast</a><em> or Google your favorite place to find podcasts.</em></p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jean Dion. I'm the vice president of the value engagement team here at SAP Concur. My team is responsible for working with our customers on solving business problems and getting to the root of where you want to go to meet your goals and objectives. Today, I have Michael Cullen from TransferMate with me. He is the Vice President of Sales with that group. And TransferMate just recently won one of our partner innovation awards. So, Michael, I'd love to go ahead and ask you to introduce yourself and introduce us to TransferMate.</p>
<p><strong>Michael <a name="_Hlk111627084">Cullen</a>:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So thanks for having me on Jean. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak with you today and even more delighted to be receiving the partner innovation award. As you said, I'm the senior VP of sales for TransferMate global payments. And at our core, what we do is we move funds from A to B using methods that allow us to have more control over both ends of the transaction. And we take that business model and implement that into technology solutions that finance departments use every day, such as Concur Invoice or any other invoicing tools or ERP systems and systems such like that.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So I know that many of our customers are used to Concur from a T&E expense perspective where we're paying out employees for T&E expensive, but this is really a B2B payment tool that's tied to AP function. So was wondering if you could give our audience a broader perspective into why cross border payments are so complex and somewhat highly manual at most companies. I know that it includes things like exchange rates and setting up accounts, and even just the sheer number of people it can take to create that payment. So could you elaborate a little bit more as to why this process should really be top of mind for our customers' finance executive teams?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And manual really is actually an understatement, but in terms of why cross border payments tend to be so complex, the reason is because the financial institutions that companies use to handle these transactions have those manual processes built upon manual processes. When these were designed, they didn't have the foresight into what a modern, global technology driven landscape would look like. So modern iterations of these processes were built upon poor foundations. You take the SWIFT network. For example, SWIFT was founded in 1973 and before SWIFT, we had Telex, which was first used in 1933. Most companies today are still messing around up manual files for upload to their bank.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And the banks are still using outdated messaging systems. It takes a lot of people a lot of time, and it's costing companies a lot of money to do it that way. And this should be top of mind for finance leadership because they can drastically reduce down the amount of people that's required to format, submit, and finally reconcile international payments. And even more so, the lack of transparency on the true cost of foreign exchange rates. And the fees that are applied to these transactions is really staggering. So for anyone that says they can't afford to take the time to revisit these processes, I argue you can't afford not to.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I remember Telex. I'm that old that I remember Telex. So it's fascinating that we've got a system that moved into replaced Telex back in the good old days, and it's still here. And I think that kind of outlines, Michael, and you could correct me if I'm wrong, but it kind of outlines some of the gaps that showed up in payment processes during the most recent pandemic issues. And that whole idea of that movement back to work and people working for multiple places. I'm guessing this applies to some of our treasury counterparts, too, that they are involved in these payment processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They're highly manual. You need to actually be in the same building, because you're running pieces of paper around or you're creating files and checking with other people. And because of that, what are some of the advantages that a company can gain by automating a process like this, by not really fully, depending entirely on some of those outdated pieces? Is it really... Is it time? Is it error reduction? Is it risk mitigation? Is it all of the above? Have I missed anything? Can you talk a little bit about those gains that companies are going to get?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's exactly that. You captured it perfectly there. When you look to automate these processes, you can take what normally took 10 AP staff for a small to medium sized organization a full day to do and condense that down to two to four key people. And this allows you to redeploy that resource and time gained elsewhere in the organization to focus on scaling or even provide attention to the tasks you can't automate yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I've spoken to a lot of SMEs mid-market and enterprise clients over the years, and what really shocked me was in most cases, the only difference in their processes was the amount of people that took to run their AP department. Going from an SME to an enterprise, there wasn't much difference in the sophistication of the software used or their processes, but instead of there being five people in the AP department, there might be 50. And if you can automate in the right way, the processes scale as you grow without the need of further investment into how many people it takes to look after these processes. And this really allows you to grow and scale in a way that wasn't previously available for organizations.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's fascinating. So the scalability of it is just by throwing people at it rather than throwing technology at it or using technology to get a gain. And that's concerning to me as somebody who worked in an AP team before and managed parts of it. When you think about it, the average AP team is about five to 10 years away from retiring. So these processes and tasks sit in their head and they're going to leave when our people leave. And we don't necessarily have a lot of people going to college to say, I want to be an AP clerk when I leave. So they're built on automation. They've had automation their entire life and they're somewhat expecting it. So I think that idea of bringing automation in it, isn't just even a job and a time and error reduction play. It's actually also a play around recruiting and retaining employees as you move forward.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly. And it's finding people whose idea of automation isn't optimizing an Excel sheet, optimizing a manual process. It's actually looking to get to the fundamental issue or the fundamental problem and apply a solution to that.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And I know that we've talked a little bit about this reduction in time, the reduction of resources, the scalability, but payments across borders also carry a certain amount of risk and certainly some strict regulatory control. So would you be able to elaborate a little bit on those areas of concern for a finance organization and maybe even identify some of the common traps or missteps organizations can find themselves in as they go through this process?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and that's so relevant today, especially in an environment where remote working has become so popular. Security and fraud prevention needs to be at the forefront of any discussion. A study by IBM reported that 95% of successful attacks were due to lapses in manual controls or relying on people to detect red flags. I mentioned earlier that some people find the lack of time in their day to take a look at these processes because they're too busy. That's a huge trap to fall into, especially if the very thing that's keeping you busy can be automated in a way that accounts for your organization's internal security controls. If you can automate a process to detect red flags, transfer in-house sensitive data, this is by far safer and more improved way than relying upon someone to manually look for these things or manually enter in information, especially sensitive information regarding transfer of money or bank details.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So we've been mostly talking or I've been mostly focusing in on the finance aspect of this, but when we think about this, we're adding other cross-functional teams, right? We're looking at other teams that might, to your point, security and fraud prevention. So what other kind of teams would we be involving in review of this process that we may not even be thinking of during the manual process?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, again, it could be risk, it could be compliance. It could be IT. It could be security. It could be any number of those departments. And it's really about finding a solution that connects your invoice and your payment process in a way that allows and accounts for all of these different teams' objectives.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So if we're speaking about risk a little bit, one of the things that pops to the top of my mind, especially with all the things that are happening in the world today, I wanted to talk a little bit about that sanctioned country activity. So compliance for that is huge and more and more spend is being pushed into that employee initiated spend category. And just because a company shipped you something from France, doesn't mean it's not headquartered in a country with whom we should not be doing business with and to whom we cannot make a payment to. So if you could kind of talk a little bit about TransferMate's capabilities when it comes to risk mitigation for those kind of sanctioned countries, as it relates to payments.</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>That's a great question. Along with our technology that checks and raises red flags on certain criteria, we do have a dedicated risk and compliance team that monitors transactions for this kind of activity. So we check all vendors and beneficiaries off the OFAC sanctions list and flag anything that looks suspicious. We then work with the clients to either clarify or gather more information or ultimately if we need to even halt the transaction completely in order to protect the client.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And one of the things that I was thinking about, for a lot of customers, this may not have been a priority before. Because of changes in supply chain and needing to add more vendors into the system fairly quickly, they haven't really had to deal with anything like this. So is there anything you can recommend to customers for whom this type of activity has not been a priority until recently?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. I'd recommend always taking a look at these processes and seeing is there a way first and foremost to automate, do it more efficiently, and then compliment that with, is there a way in order to do it safely? And the number one thing I think of when I look at a process in that way is trying to find a payment provider that has visibility into both sides of the transaction. We spoke about that at the beginning of this conversation and most payment providers are banks. They're perfectly fine for their domiciled market and they have visibility into the flows for payments on that side of the transaction. But there are providers out there that can have and offer visibility into the other side of the transaction, where you're actually sending funds into. And that makes those payments infinitely more safe because they can see both sides of the transaction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They understand the local regulatory requirements for both sides of the transaction. And then when you take a look at these processes [inaudible 00:11:28] and make sure that it's safe and find something to compliment your internal securities, the next thing you want to look at is are we doing it more efficiently? And you can do this by connecting the different departments. We talked about security, IT, compliance, risk, but even in a finance department, you do have some sections within that structure that sometimes don't speak to each other. You might have a tax department, you might have an invoice, you might have a payment side. And all of these departments are typically using different systems. And we live in a landscape now where you can find a solution that connects these different departments together in a way that's in a secure, safe environment. It's technology driven. So you're not reliant on passing documents around the office or hoping that somebody thinks to run that document by somebody's desk for a signature. It's in a platform that actually makes all that visible and provides some checkpoints for everybody to tow along with.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's a really great point. We do tend to have multiple systems across multiple teams. Everybody uses what works best for them. And sometimes integration is very difficult. So this gives you that feeling of control and support. As you move across multiple platforms, you still have that check and balance when you're there. So that's really great. I think about that a lot, because I'm going to turn to something that I have that I think I still have PTSD from it. And that is from a past AP life. I know that payments aren't always linear. People don't always follow timelines. People don't always... We can say, oh, we only pay on a certain day of the week, or the check runs here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We only do wires until three o'clock in the afternoon. And your late submission, isn't going to be a fire drill for my payment team, but we know that is not the case. We're always jumping and hopping because we need to make these payments. It's what makes the business run. So I'm just kind of curious, can we talk a little bit about how TransferMate can handle some of those internal, I would call them non-compliant process situations that kind of come up when it comes to payments? Like, I need this today. I need this right now. I need this in a specific currency transaction as soon as possible. How do you guys handle that?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So I find it interesting that you phrase that as a process that might be non-compliant, because as you know, those kind of situations can actually be a regular occurrence. So to treat them as non-compliant within an organization can sometimes feel like you're going against the tide, but that's actually how a lot of companies treat these kind of things. We reimagine those workflows and allow users the flexibility to pay their vendors on demand using local payment rails in over 130 different currencies across more than 160 countries in a secure and compliant environment. So they can make those same day payments in our available currencies without the need of requesting these multicurrency capabilities to be switched on. And all of this is done in an environment that follows the digital approval process that would've been configured in your Concur invoice setup. So our platform complements and leverages those uniquely designed security requirements and turns those non-compliant fire drills into something that's perfectly fine, safe, and compliant to do so. It takes your invoice approval process and pairs that with your payment approval process, rather than having those as two separate lines of work.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You mentioned something that just triggered in my head and that idea of following the appropriate approval workflow. There's a lot of control. And I think what people don't understand about finance teams, especially those that are doing payments, they are really compliance machines. They are making sure that everything gets done in the proper way. So they need to have a significant amount of control and ownership on how they manage that cash and how they make those payments. So would you be willing to talk a little bit about how much control a team does have over the process if they're using a service like TransferMate?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So when you're pushing your invoices through an invoice approval process, typically what you have is you would then go outside of that system and go into your bank and you'd have a separate approval process. We essentially take those two different approval processes and connect them together. Yes, there's an invoice platform and there's a payment platform, but ultimately what we're actually doing is connecting two different approval processes and stitching them together in a way that doesn't make [inaudible 00:16:20] staff have to double and triple check the payment or who they're paying. Because the last thing they want to do is pay someone in the wrong amount or even worse pay somebody they didn't intend to. And that's why they have these checkpoints in two systems. But when those systems speak together, you don't need to double and triple check everything because the system is doing that for you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So you can leverage that approval process on the invoice and that approval process almost serves as the data entry role in your AP staff. And then you can just have a payment approver come in and push out the payment. It gives them complete control over it because they don't have to double and triple check information that's not necessary to do so. So all they have to do is focus on is the task at hand and they can push out same day payments and pay in over 130 different currencies. So it gives them that flexibility and control, but it makes it safe and compliant to do so.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And I know that sometimes even though we've gone through and we've looked at what needs to be paid and it comes to the point of time to make the payment and we decide for whatever reason, maybe the shipment was delayed or maybe we've got some issues with the supplier because what we've purchased, isn't really up to par, it's gone through IQ, and it's just not meeting our specifications. If there's a change in what is going to be paid out to a supplier, is there some sort of process that's happening within the TransferMate tool or is that going right back to the beginning and going through a process of a workflow for approval to just make sure that everybody's aware the change has been made?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So that's a good question. So when something changes, it has to go back to the beginning, and the reason we do it that way is because we don't want anybody to be able to change the amount or redirect the payment to somewhere that wasn't intended to. So as soon as there's a change in that workflow that was previously approved, it will kick it back to those previous steps. And it's in an automated environment where you want it to, but it's still accounts for those security checkpoints you want in your organization. Some details changed that is different than what I approved on Monday. I'm going to want to take a look at that again. And that system will recognize that if that's what the organization wants and feed it back through that loop again. So it goes through those necessary checkpoints before it'll arrive at the destination of pushing out the payment. So it does account for those kind of things and it can be tailored to what an organization actually needs because every company is different.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They have their own security and control points that they're going to want to see in these processes. Some of them are consistent across all organizations and we will see recurring ones that pop up and they're in the platform. But ultimately if there's pieces that an organization or a company wants in their workflow, that can be designed into that workflow as well for them.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. So there is a lot of control here and a lot of process expansion. So this makes a lot of sense. If I'm working in an AP team, we've talked about the ability to scale without having it be manual, we don't need to throw more people at it. And in fact, we can take the people that are already doing some of these manual tasks and have them working on some more value related activities, something that brings real value to the program and maybe even be a little more strategic about how it works. We've talked a little bit about the security requirements and what's in place from a security perspective. We've talked about mitigating the risk and now we've talked about that control. So is there anything else that I might have missed or that you'd like to bring up that I haven't thought about in my infinite world of AP processing that I'm thinking about?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Cullen:</strong></p>
<p>No, I think we've covered it all, but I think just bringing everyone's kind of mind back onto the task at hand and why they might want to take a look at these processes. It goes back to what we spoke about about Excel files. Most people's interpretation of maximizing the opportunity when taking a look at these processes is how can we take our current process and make that more efficient and the best way to actually look at it is let's take away what we're currently doing, and let's start from the beginning, and what does the optimal solution look like? And that's really what automation looks like when you take a product like Concur Invoice and pair it with PaymentsHub. It allows you to take away those processes and also the preconceived ideas around those processes and lets you start from the beginning and think what actually makes sense. And that's what I think is brilliant about technology providers coming together and designing a solution.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That is a really great point. It's that idea that automating a system doesn't necessarily mean that you're just using the same steps that you would use in a manual process into machine learning. You are actually taking a look at the entire process and reimagining how it can be more efficient and more effective to meet your corporate goals and objectives. So I love that. I love closing on that. That's really perfect. I want to thank you, Michael, for your time today. I really appreciate it. And I want to congratulate you again on the innovation award. This is really a wonderful tool and I think would be very beneficial to our customer bases. I'm Jean Dion. I'm here for SAP Concur. If you have more questions about the Concur Invoice tools or the TransferMate tool and service, please feel free to visit us at sap.com or transfermates.com. We'd love to hear from you. Also, if you're a current customer, please reach out to your account executive, but on behalf of the SAP Concur podcast, please have a great day and thank you for listening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>, for best practices </em><em>on managing your travel, spend, compliance programs, and more</em><em>. </em></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Is Your Utility or Energy Company Addressing Spend Compliance?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-your-utility-or-energy-company-addressing-spend-compliance
2022-08-30T10:00:59Z
2022-08-23T15:13:49Z
Now is a great time to update your systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your organization insert important spend controls and gain more visibility
<p>Utilities and energy companies are required to comply with municipal, state, and federal regulations, including those of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). However, many of these organizations have multiple outdated, on-premises legacy financial systems to maintain and audit employee spend data.</p>
<p>This can make it difficult to:</p>
<ul>
<li>See how money is being spent and by whom.</li>
<li>Review and control employee spend before it happens.</li>
<li>Enforce and improve compliance with spend policies and accounting and financial regulations.</li>
<li>Spot data patterns that may be hidden across channels or systems.</li>
<li>Actively identify and mitigate spend fraud, waste, and abuse.</li>
</ul>
<p><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<h2><strong>The Answer? Modernize and Automate</strong></h2>
<p>To overcome these issues, utilities and energy companies need to modernize their systems so they can automate spend control and improve compliance.</p>
<p>This enables internal teams to:<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<ul>
<li>Capture digital records and improve the accuracy of expense reports.</li>
<li>Insert controls at the point of purchase to reduce fraud and manage non-compliance.</li>
<li>Gain visibility into future travel and spend with spend requests and approvals.</li>
<li>Provide a secure, cloud-based solution across teams and locations.</li>
<li>Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically review expense and receipt data.</li>
<li>More importantly, it will provide more clarity and certainty to make better and more informed decisions about spend.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Then…Audit Spend</strong></h2>
<p>When spend happens, organizations must also have the right tools, procedures, and processes in place to audit employee spend and expense reports. Because doing an audit manually can be time-consuming, stressful, and expensive, these organizations should look for a technology solution that can simultaneously automate the audit process and improve efficiency and compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Practices for Inserting Spend Controls to Achieve Compliance</strong></h2>
<p>As your organization levels up its spend management systems, be sure to apply best practices for spend control to ensure compliance, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Create straightforward spend policies</em>. Make sure these encourage spending that supports your utility organization’s goals.</li>
<li><em>Provide ongoing training on your travel and expense policies and tools</em>. This will enable your employees to make more policy-compliant spend choices.</li>
<li><em>Require pre-spend authorization before spending occurs. </em>Have managers review spending for office expenses, equipment, mileage, etc., in advance to prevent non-compliant activity.</li>
<li><em>Use an online booking tool with built-in policy by traveler. </em>Restrict different types of travelers’ ability to select out-of-policy options to increase compliance and modify behavior.</li>
<li><em>Use an expense reporting system with built-in policies and user guidance. </em>Insert spending thresholds, flags, and other automatic notifications to help guide users when filling out expense reports. This can help prevent and identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, overspending, unauthorized use of expense types, etc.).</li>
<li><em>Use mobile receipt capture and point-to-point GPS mileage tracking. </em>Not only will this eliminate the need to scan or attach paper receipts to an expense report and ensure accurate mileage reporting, but it also increases the accuracy of data entry.</li>
<li><em>Regularly conduct audits to ensure compliance with your policies. </em>This will help you identify any areas where training may be needed.</li>
<li><em>Implement robust reporting to analyze spend and make improvements.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Now is a great time to update your systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your organization insert important spend controls and gain more visibility into employee spend, but it will also increase compliance with your company’s spend policies. </p>
<p>Want to learn more about how to level up your utility or energy company’s spend management? Use these resources to help your organization get started today:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/addressing-challenges-control-and-compliance">Download this one-pager</a> to learn about some of the biggest challenges organizations face with controls and compliance, and tips to address them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-measure-your-audit-efficiency-regulated-industries">Download this eBook</a> for 4 ways to measure your audit efficiency using your SAP Concur solutions.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Writing T&E policy is easy. Getting people to follow it is another story.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/writing-te-policy-easy-getting-people-follow-it-another-story
2022-08-22T09:51:41Z
2022-08-18T12:12:20Z
The trick to functional, effective policy isn’t about getting people to read it, it’s about getting people to do it. Just because you cram in all the rules, regulations, and restrictions the senior ex
<h2>A quick guide to crafting effective T&E. </h2>
<p>The trick to functional, effective policy isn’t about getting people to read it, it’s about getting people to do it. Just because you cram in all the rules, regulations, and restrictions the senior exec team wants, it doesn’t guarantee anyone will follow them. Or understand them. </p>
<p>Or even read them. </p>
<p>There’s a new<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-your-travel-expense-policy"> SAP Concur eBook out,</a> however, that has an abundance of good words in it – words that outline precisely how to write the right T&E policy. I’m talking about a proven policy that your traveling teams will actually consume and comprehend. And if you’re wondering if you need this kind of policy because you already have one that’s, you know, pretty good, ask yourself: </p>
<p><em>Are your current policies flexible enough to meet ever-changing governmental requirements and fast-moving health restrictions? </em><br />
<em>Do they adequately address traveler safety and wellness? <br />
How about sustainability – is that even in your current plan (because it’s certainly on your travelers’ minds)?</em> </p>
<p>Answer those questions honestly because it impacts the health of your organization and your travelers. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-your-travel-expense-policy">eBook</a> will walk you through the fundamentals of writing an effective T&E policy, then dive quite deeply into the details – offering resources ready to help you and tips and tricks you maybe haven’t heard of before. Like how to get your C-suite on board, how to establish accountability, and how to easily audit and report back to the company that your policies are actually working. There’s even a suggestion or two to help reduce the friction points between your policies, your travelers, and the experience they have when they’re out on the road. </p>
<p>Sure, there’s a sales pitch in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-your-travel-expense-policy">eBook</a> for automated, integrated T&E software (a specialty of SAP Concur, as you know). But regardless of whether you’re looking for that level of solution, you will gain a wealth of insight into crafting a simpler, more successful T&E policy. </p>
<p>Don’t have enough time right now for the eBook? Check out the<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/4-steps-build-your-travel-and-expense-policy"> 4 Steps to Building Your T&E Policy infographic. </a></p>
<p>It’s also a good read. A lot like this blog. </p>
SAP Concur Team
More Clarity, More Certainty, More Compliance with Automated Spend Management for Higher Education and K12 Schools
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/clarity-compliance-spend-management-for-higher-education-k12-schools
2022-08-30T09:55:18Z
2022-08-16T10:21:32Z
Higher education institutions and K12 schools are required to comply with a variety of government laws, regulations, and oversight.
<p>Higher education institutions and K12 schools are required to comply with a variety of government laws, regulations, and oversight. However, many schools have multiple outdated, on-premises legacy finance systems that contain faculty, staff, and sometimes even student spending data. Before this data can be used by a school, it must first be manually combined in a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>This can make it difficult for your school to:</p>
<ul>
<li>See how your money is being spent and by whom.</li>
<li>Review and control faculty and staff spend before it happens.</li>
<li>Enforce and improve compliance with spend policies.</li>
<li>Spot data patterns that may be hidden across channels or systems.</li>
<li>Actively identify and mitigate spend fraud, abuse, and waste.<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>The Answer? Modernize and Automate</strong></h2>
<p>To overcome these issues, higher education institutions and K12 schools need to modernize their systems so they can automate spend control and improve compliance.</p>
<p>When your school does, you will be able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Capture digital records and improve the accuracy of expense reports.</li>
<li>Insert controls at the point of purchase to reduce fraud and manage non-compliance.</li>
<li>Gain visibility into future travel and spend with spend requests and approvals.</li>
<li>Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically review expense and receipt data.</li>
</ul>
<p>More importantly, it will provide your school with more clarity and certainty so you can make better and more informed decisions about spend.</p>
<h2><strong>Then…Audit Spend</strong></h2>
<p>When spending happens, higher education institutions and K12 schools must also have the right tools, procedures, and processes in place to audit faculty and staff spend and expense reports. Because doing an audit manually can be time-consuming and expensive, these schools should look for a technology solution that can simultaneously automate the audit process and improve efficiency and compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Practices for Inserting Spend Controls to Achieve Compliance</strong></h2>
<p>As your school levels up its spend management systems, be sure to apply best practices for spend control to ensure compliance, such as:</p>
<p><em>Create straight forward travel and expense spend policies</em>. Make sure these encourage spending that supports your school’s goals.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Provide ongoing training on your school’s travel and expense policies and tools</em>. This will enable your faculty and staff to make more policy-compliant spend choices.</li>
<li><em>Require pre-spend authorization before spending occurs. </em>Have managers review spending for airfare, hotels, car rentals, etc., in advance to prevent non-compliant activity.</li>
<li><em>Use an online booking tool with built-in policy by traveler. </em>Restrict different types of travelers’ ability to select out-of-policy options to increase compliance and modify behavior.</li>
<li><em>Use an expense reporting system with built-in policies and user guidance. </em>Insert spending thresholds, flags, and other automatic notifications to help guide users when filling out expense reports. This can help prevent and identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, overspending, unauthorized use of expense types, etc.).</li>
<li><em>Use mobile receipt capture and point-to-point GPS mileage tracking. </em>Not only will this eliminate the need to scan or attach paper receipts to an expense report and ensure accurate mileage reporting, but it also increases the accuracy of data entry.</li>
<li><em>Regularly conduct audits to ensure compliance with your policies. </em>This will help you identify any areas where training may be needed.</li>
<li><em>Implement robust reporting to analyze spend and make improvements.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Now is a great time to update your school’s systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your school insert important spend controls and gain more visibility into faculty and staff spend, but it will also increase compliance with your school’s spend policies. </p>
<p>Want to learn more about how to level up your school’s spend management? Use these resources to help your Higher Education institution or K12 school get started today:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/addressing-challenges-control-and-compliance">Download this one-pager</a> to learn about some of the biggest challenges organizations face with controls and compliance, and tips to address them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-measure-your-audit-efficiency-regulated-industries">Download this eBook</a> for 4 ways to measure your audit efficiency using your SAP Concur solutions.</p>
Kyla Kent
How Is Your City or County Addressing Spend Compliance?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-your-city-or-county-addressing-spend-compliance
2022-08-30T09:53:08Z
2022-08-16T09:39:47Z
Now is a great time to update your state, city, and county government systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your back-office teams insert important
<p>City and county finance teams are required to comply with various government laws and regulations. However, many state and local government organizations have multiple outdated, on-premises legacy finance systems that contain employee spend data. Before this data can be used by an organization, it must first be manually combined in a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>This can make it difficult for your city or county to:</p>
<ul>
<li>See how your money is being spent and by whom.</li>
<li>Review and control employee spend before it happens.</li>
<li>Enforce and improve compliance with spend policies.</li>
<li>Spot data patterns that may be hidden across channels or systems.</li>
<li>Actively identify and mitigate spend fraud, abuse, and waste.<br />
<!--[endif]--></li>
</ul>
<h2>The Answer? Modernize and Automate</h2>
<p>To overcome these issues, state and local government organizations need to modernize their systems so they can automate spend control and improve compliance.</p>
<p>When your organization does, you will be able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Capture digital records and improve the accuracy of expense reports.</li>
<li>Insert controls at the point of purchase to reduce fraud and manage non-compliance.</li>
<li>Gain visibility into future travel and spend with spend requests and approvals.</li>
<li>Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically review expense and receipt data.</li>
<li>More importantly, it will provide your organization with more clarity and certainty so you can make better and more informed decisions about spend.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Then…Audit Spend</h2>
<p>When spending happens, city and county back-office teams must also have the right tools, procedures, and processes in place to audit employee spend and expense reports. Because doing an audit manually can be time-consuming and expensive, state and local government organizations should look for a technology solution that can simultaneously automate the audit process and improve efficiency and compliance.</p>
<h2>Best Practices for Inserting Spend Controls to Achieve Compliance</h2>
<p>As your city or county back-office team levels up its spend management systems, be sure to apply best practices for spend control to ensure compliance, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Create straight forward travel and expense spend policies</em>. Make sure these policies encourage spending that supports your city’s or county’s goals.</li>
<li><em>Provide ongoing training on your organization’s travel and expense policies and tools</em>. This will enable your employees to make more policy-compliant spend choices.</li>
<li><em>Require pre-spend authorization before spending occurs. </em>Have managers review spending for airfare, hotels, car rentals, etc., in advance to prevent non-compliant activity.</li>
<li><em>Use an online booking tool with built-in policy by traveler. </em>Restrict different types of travelers’ ability to select out-of-policy options to increase compliance and modify behavior.</li>
<li><em>Use an expense reporting system with built-in policies and user guidance. </em>Insert spending thresholds, flags, and other automatic notifications to help guide users when filling out expense reports. This can help prevent and identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, overspending, unauthorized use of expense types, etc.).</li>
<li><em>Use mobile receipt capture and point-to-point GPS mileage tracking. </em>Not only will this eliminate the need to scan or attach paper receipts to an expense report and ensure accurate mileage reporting, but it also increases the accuracy of data entry.</li>
<li><em>Regularly conduct audits to ensure compliance with your policies. </em>This will help you identify any areas where training may be needed.</li>
<li>I<em>mplement robust reporting to analyze spend and make improvements.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Now is a great time to update your state, city, and county government systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your back-office teams insert important spend controls and gain more visibility into employee spend, but it will also increase compliance with your state or local government’s spend policies. </p>
<p>Want to learn more about how to level up your state, city, or county spend management? Use these resources to help your organization get started today:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/addressing-challenges-control-and-compliance">Download this one-pager</a> to learn about some of the biggest challenges organizations face with controls and compliance, and tips to address them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-measure-your-audit-efficiency-regulated-industries">Download this eBook</a> for 4 ways to measure your audit efficiency using your SAP Concur solutions.</p>
Kyla Kent
AMA Recap: Travel Policies and New Travel Trends
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ama-recap-travel-policies-and-new-travel-trends
2022-08-15T09:22:12Z
2022-08-11T09:35:41Z
Read the recap of our first SAP Concur Community AMA all about travel policies and new travel trends.
<p>Did you miss our first SAP Concur Community AMA? No worries, watch our recap video (or read the below transcript) in which Ralph Colunga talks about some of the top takeaways from our Travel Policy and New Travel Trends AMA. </p>
<p>To participate in future AMAs for SAP Concur admins, be sure to join the <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/User-Admin-Group/gh-p/useradmingroup">User Admin Group</a> on SCC.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Kevin Dorsey: </strong></p>
<p>Hello everyone. Welcome to the Ask Me Anything: Travel Policies and New Travel Trends recap. My name is Kevin Dorsey, I’m one of the SAP Concur Community Site Managers. I have with me today Ralph Colunga the main star of the AMA to recap some questions we wanted to highlight from our Ask Me Anything event.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Ralph Colunga:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for this opportunity, Kevin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, no problem. Happy to have you. So, we're just going to jump right in here. Let's start with somebody had asked:</p>
<p><em>“Would appreciate any direction you can provide to find detailed explanation of risk measurement guidelines or sources used to determine changes in risk ratings. How they align with the risk ratings, one through five, and how often the destination location ratings are updated.”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Yep, you know this is largely dependent upon what third party partner the customer utilizes in support of their risk management program, which would include duty of care. Each service provider aligns and sources this a little differently and just as an example, you know here at SAP we have a risk intelligence function that evaluates the geopolitical as well as other targeted risk areas and utilize both global and US intelligence data sources. As well as our service provider, which is international, so we receive information from them and then we're also considering any COVID related information from let’s say the World Health Center. Taking their information as well as our own service providers along the space That is then aligned with our travel safety program who works to communicate and really coordinate with employees. As much as providing them the most up-to-date information that we possibly can, that's pretty much how we handle it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD: </strong></p>
<p>All right, great. That was a good question.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it was.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>All right, let's go on to the next one. This one's a little bit longer but I think it's also one that has an acronym I’ve never heard before. But I’m sure you'll explain it in detail:</p>
<p><em>“What are the plans associated to new distribution capability where the airlines can bundle pricing. For example, for “x” price you get two check bags and wi-fi, or for the “y” price you get one page and preferred seating as examples. All the talk I’ve heard is that it isn't available for travel agencies or programs like Concur Travel, it will force the purchase through the airline direct which is not good for me as a travel manager. It will inhibit our ability to monitor and force policy duty of care.”</em></p>
<p>By the way that's not me asking that question, I’m rereading one of the questions. I’m not a travel manager but just wanted to clarify that, so I’ll let you go ahead and take that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC: </strong></p>
<p>Yeah, you know a new distribution capability is something that is pretty much where the airline industry is heading in terms of wanting to offer different varieties of solutions and services directly with clientele. There's a value proposition to the airlines to go ahead and if you will go business to traveler so to speak. I mean cutting out any type of middlemen in terms of their service offerings.</p>
<p>Now in a nutshell what Concur offers NDC connections through Travel Fusion, to multiple carriers like, the Lufthansa group, United Airlines, and American Airlines. Travel Fusion basically enables Concur users to shop and book hundreds of low-cost carriers that aren't typically in the GDS's or the global distribution systems that are offered out there to provide airline inventory to customers as well as travel agencies. It also enables any direct connect schedule airlines, those offerings are available to customers. Travel Fusion is the leading online travel content aggregator for any direct connect global distribution solutions. It's basically a single platform allowing your business to search, shop, book, merchandise, pay, and really for seamlessly across, I think there's some over 300 airlines as well as 42 NDC direct airlines, but NDC again is pretty much the direction where things are heading now. It is shown in the same integrated display as a GDS offering from other carriers so you can do comparison shopping that does work within the Travel Fusion function in sight. The real issue is whether the airlines are offering enough value to get the TMC or their TMC really to support a non-GDS channel is what it boils down to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD: </strong></p>
<p>Okay, wow. Interesting. I can definitely see everything. The issue there with all those bundled packages and then how can we offer that but I’m sure we've been pretty good over the years to try and keep up with trends and what's happening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, Travel Fusion has been in effect for many years, so it's something I think we really are extremely proficient at offering. So, I would strongly recommend they check out Travel Fusion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>All right, next question here again is coming from one of the questions asked during the AMA.</p>
<p><em>“How can individual travelers understand the environmental impact of their flights before and after booking? And how do travel managers inform their travelers on how to be sustainable?”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, certainly. We have seen in the last two years this incredible rise of sustainability to a top-tier level of focus from corporations. One of the most recent studies I was looking at just showed the sheer number of just the last two and a half years an incredible movement of corporations basically moving to accept or push sustainability as part of their company branding. Which is something that we've never seen at least certainly from my standpoint being in this industry over 40 years. We always talked about sustainability, but it was almost looked upon as being accepting. Kind of an acceptable pollution in that, hey we've got to do our business, so therefore we must fly, and therefore, we'll go out and buy some carbon credits. But all of that has really changed because of the pandemic and if there was a silver lining in the pandemic it's really kind of sustainability and duty of care. Those things have been elevated for health and safety reasons as well as you know impacts to the environment with almost no travel over the last two years. You really see the positive effects in terms of it's had on the environment and the awareness that I think is also being generationally driven by I would say millennials and gen z in terms of how important sustainability is to a company program.</p>
<p>Awareness of what the company position is and what the company is asking each employee is key. I would suggest again offering training to help inform employees understand the importance of the actions they can take on an individual level to help make a difference with regards to sustainability. As well as what the company is doing with regards to embracing sustainability efforts and how that's going to be a measure of their success going forward. How really utilizing partner suppliers who embrace sustainability also matters to the company. How using as an example, rail versus flying if it's available as an option how much that can really help with regards to reducing the carbon footprint. Companies also need to make sure that they adjust their policies and procedures. Based upon measuring sustainability results ensure continued progress and greater impact over time and make sure that they're reporting that information back out to their populace, in terms of how the company is doing and with regards to marked progress.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>All right. Yeah, I can see that a lot of the kind of younger generations are more environmentally aware.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>I would agree.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>That is good points you make, and I do think that travel managers are wondering, “How do I get this message out?” Training I know is always a good thing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Sure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>I think probably utilizing the company notes section, on the Concur home screen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>You can put announcements there. Those are just a couple things that come to mind. Great information. Thanks.</p>
<p>All right last question:</p>
<p><em>“With the growing number of supplier direct booking or SDB how do travel managers take control? How do travel managers deal with the new attitudes of travelers, such as wanting to take direct flights?”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. You know this this is a discussion that's been coming up more and more, especially with regards to the amount of I would say a transition and shift in travel programs. Where the travelers want more control or engagement with regards to their travel plans going for the future. We've seen in survey after survey to where the travelers are saying, “Hey look I am willing to travel on behalf of the company, but I’m only willing to travel on my terms because of my health and safety issues, as well as my commitment to sustainability.” Having been a former travel manager for the past 30 plus years and managing several major enterprise companies, I ultimately came to the realization that it's not actually about travel managers quote on quote “taking control”. To me has been really losing venture as I see it and what I mean by that is that almost every program I’ve ever seen you're going to have individuals going supplier direct for a host of reasons.</p>
<p>So, to me ultimately you know how you get control of a program. it's really about transparency and to me, transparency equals compliance. It's about obtaining visibility into all bookings taking place across a travel program. Irrespective of the booking source it really shouldn't matter where it's booked in effect because again for a host of reasons you might very need to have your travelers going supplier direct. So, I don't think SDB’s are necessarily a bad thing in many ways, they are the most cost-effective method for a company and as I said before we live in this age of travel personalization and flexibility of choice for health safety and sustainable reasons. This is only going to continue to grow, and all data points over the last two years is what we're seeing so our trip link solution provides the SDB visibility and feeds all this information back into Concur travel and expense. So, when a traveler book supplier direct and you've got Triplink turned on within your program and I go to United.com those bookings and my corporate rates and discounts are available. Negotiated rates are available within the united landing site or web page. When you book those bookings, they flow back into Concur, so you have that transparency and visibility. You can not only see what type of affairs and booking class that your employees are booking but you can also ensure that information is then passed on to your duty of care service provider etc. it's kind of a back flowing of information. Because that information is passed to your TMC as well as to your duty of care service provider and then again you also have that visibility to see the type of fare that was being utilized by the employees so it's really a win-win situation. To have that that transparency as I talked about within your program.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>All right great. As you were answering I was also thinking of, it's kind of travel related but, I think some companies could then also ask if travel managers are worried about extra spend because they are taking direct flights that usually cost more is, ask the travelers, “do you actually have to make that trip or can you do this meeting on a on a Zoom or Teams? Or online can you meet with the customer or your clients that way?” In some instances if there's worries about costs being too high for the airfares. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>I think that's something that's a critical point and I this goes back to again when I mentioned that they can be the most cost-effective method. One of the things about booking supplier direct when you look at airlines like Lufthansa or British Airways and or other airlines now moving forward in this direction to say if you're not booking on our travel websites, we're going to charge an extra $15 to $20 per booking. If you're going through a TMC or through another channel versus coming to our website and booking directly in effect you're not paying this fee if you have Triplink enabled basically again with those Triplink partners those bookings are taking place on the airline reservation site are not charging that extra 15 to 20 per ticket and so that's a cost savings back to the company. You're not having to pay your TMC for the fulfillment if you will because it's booked directly with the airlines and that information is again back flowing directly into Concur and invisible for the travel manager as well as your duty care service providers etc. so it really is one of the most cost-effective methods going forward. That's why SDB’s are growing so rapidly because companies are beginning to realize we have one large enterprise customer and they're one of the largest companies in the world who've actually instructed their employees to book directly with Lufthansa on the Lufthansa site because there's that cost savings. Which is actually €16 which is about $20 savings back to the company by booking supplier direct and all those reservations are coming back to the company via Triplink so again it's without a question Triplink is a proven methodology that works without question.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize airlines were doing that. I could kind of see it, like those concert ticket resellers who add all those fees like, oh it's convenient to book on our site. You better look at the total price of the ticket it's 25 higher than what they listed because all these add-on fees because you went through a resale.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely and this ties back to NDC which is again new distribution capability. That's where a lot of the airlines are heading because again, they want to go B to T in terms of the transactions which is business to traveler, so the airlines want to deal directly with the travel communities. Again, that's really kind of the wave of the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>Great. All right, thank you so much Ralph for all this great information.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC: </strong></p>
<p>It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much again for the opportunity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>KD:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. All right everyone, we appreciate you watching. To see the AMA in its entirety, you can use the SAP Concur Community search and enter, “AMA” then select the article labeled, “<a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/User-Admin-Group/CLOSED-Ask-Me-Anything-AMA-Travel-Policies-amp-New-Travel-Trends/m-p/33580#M3113">(CLOSED) Ask Me Anything (AMA): Travel Policies and New Travel Trends</a>” and there you'll see the entire Ask Me Anything thread. Thanks again for watching.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>RC:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Our Travel Evolution: Building the Travel Platform of the Future
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-travel-evolution-building-travel-platform-future
2022-08-15T08:45:34Z
2022-08-10T14:50:56Z
With the evolution of Concur Travel, we’re not just redesigning our corporate booking tool. We are building the travel platform of the future, across all travel products and partners.
<p>At SAP Concur, we’ve been the leader in travel and expense (T&E) technology for a long time. We have the only truly integrated global T&E platform and Concur Travel is the largest online booking tool (OBT) for enterprise customers who need flexibility and help with compliance requirements. We give our customers unparalleled options: we are multi-TMC, multi-GDS, and multinational with the only integration to the world’s leading expense solution, Concur Expense. No one else can address the unmatched complexity of SAP Concur’s 50,000+ customers at global scale nor deliver the level of integration we do—including with over 700 partners in the SAP Concur partner ecosystem—which enables customers to maximize the value of their SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>A key priority for us is ensuring we are frequently meeting with customers, TMCs, suppliers, partners, and others in the industry to understand what their needs are and what we should be delivering. We’ve heard from customers and business travelers alike that change is in order, and we recognize that SAP Concur needs to continue to evolve. Those conversations, in addition to SAP’s ongoing commitment to innovation, led us to re-platform Concur Travel.</p>
<p>We are modernizing our entire platform and building in a way that's as flexible as possible so in the future, we can deliver the best experiences and accommodate evolving requirements of customers, travel managers, sustainability leaders, and procurement professionals. Over the past two years, we hired more than 200 incremental engineers and product managers to rebuild the global platform that will support future travel innovation and offer a completely new look and feel for a seamless travel booking experience. This endeavor is one of the most significant development investments ever made in the history of SAP Concur.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Car rental, hotel, and air booking experiences</h2>
<p>SAP Concur will begin rolling out a new car rental experience by the end of 2022. We’re upgrading the user experience (UX) and driving process efficiencies through improved error avoidance while adding new ways to explore car rental options across suppliers both on-airport and off-airport. Our fourth annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel">SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey</a> of 3,850 global business travelers across 25 markets found that almost all business travelers (94%) plan to take steps over the next 12 months to reduce the environmental impact of their business travel. We agree – and we are committed to building solutions for more sustainable travel. In addition to hybrid and electric search filter capabilities, we’re also providing guidance on vehicle emissions to give business travelers more control over the environmental impact of their trip.</p>
<p>Our brand new, end-to-end hotel booking experience for Concur Travel will start rolling out in early 2023. SAP Concur users will enjoy an enhanced UX with features including better imagery and upgraded filtering and sorting capabilities.</p>
<p>By next year’s GBTA Convention 2023, we expect to begin introducing a new air experience, which will offer a revamped UX, enhanced content, and a better ability for travelers to compare amenities across products.</p>
<p>We will continue to build on the new rail experience that was launched last year, with plans to bring additional rail carriers across Europe and the US.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>The travel platform of the future</strong></h2>
<p>Business travel needs to be more adaptable than ever. With the evolution of Concur Travel, we’re not just redesigning our corporate booking tool. We are building the travel platform of the future, across all travel products and partners.</p>
<p>It’s built from scratch using the latest in microservices technology, which allows Concur Travel to be even more scalable, reliable, and flexible. It enables us to efficiently deploy innovative features, launch the SAP Concur suite of travel products into the next generation, and deliver a streamlined ecosystem and platform that will enable an integrated, end-to-end travel experience regardless of whether users are on desktop or mobile.</p>
<p>These enhancements reflect SAP Concur’s commitment to making continuous investments in the future of travel that proactively anticipate customers’ needs. The evolution of Concur Travel will lead to a consumer-grade, intuitive and modern UX; even more relevant content; improved policy compliance capabilities; sustainable travel options; and intelligent integrations across SAP products. </p>
<p>We are building a platform that meets the business travel needs of employees, customers, partners, and suppliers and we are incredibly proud of the work our team has accomplished to date. We look forward to showcasing examples of some of the new experiences at the SAP Concur booth #1929 at GBTA Convention 2022.</p>
<p><em>Charlie Sultan is President of Concur Travel</em></p>
Charlie Sultan
Business Travelers are Going Green
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-are-going-green
2022-08-15T08:45:50Z
2022-08-10T14:39:52Z
Ninety-four percent of global business travelers plan to take steps over the next 12 months to reduce the environmental impact of their business travel.
<p>Sustainable business travel through reducing carbon emissions is important. Our April <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-explores-current-us-business-travel-experience">study</a> of 1,000 U.S. business travelers found that they’re more likely to consider the environmental impact of their choices for business travel than personal travel (60% vs. 40%). Some companies provided sustainable travel options and information for their employees, but business travelers have preferences of their own.</p>
<p>We recently conducted our fourth annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Global Business Traveler Survey</a> of 3,850 global business travelers across 25 markets. We learned that almost all business travelers (94%) plan to take steps over the next 12 months to reduce the environmental impact of their business travel, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Combining nearby trips into one longer trip (40%).</li>
<li>Prioritizing alternatives to air travel, such as car or rail (34%).</li>
<li>Prioritizing trips with shorter distances (32%).</li>
<li>Staying in a less preferred but greener hotel (32%).</li>
<li>Avoiding layovers (31%).</li>
<li>Using public transportation (31%).</li>
</ul>
<p>Overall, around half plan to take actions related to lodging (50%) and transportation (53%). Nearly a quarter of business travelers (24%) would go so far as declining a business trip if it required using non-sustainable travel options.</p>
<p>Ninety-two percent of business travelers would like to see sustainability information incorporated into their company’s booking tools, including the following methods: </p>
<ul>
<li>Viewing the impacts of each option (35%). </li>
<li>Showing visual indicators of the impacts next to each option (29%). </li>
<li>Showing the options with the least impact first (28%). </li>
</ul>
<p>Each business traveler is different, and feelings toward sustainable travel vary by generation. Younger business travelers place greater emphasis on sustainable travel options. For instance:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gen Z and millennial business travelers are also more likely to take steps to reduce the environmental impact of their business trips in the next 12 months (Gen Z: 98%; millennials: 96%; Gen X: 92%; baby boomers: 80%).</li>
<li>Gen Z and millennials are also more likely to consider declining a business trip if it requires using non-sustainable travel options (Gen Z: 22%; millennials: 28%; Gen X: 18%; baby boomers: 12%).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Sustainable travel technology</h2>
<p>Technology is evolving to help business travelers and their companies monitor the environmental impact of business trips. At SAP Concur, we help business leaders gain clarity and act with certainty with sustainability features throughout the travel and expense process, from pre-trip booking, to during the trip, and post-trip visibility and analytics. The power of the Concur Ecosystem also allows us to provide solutions by partnering with specialists in this space. For example, we work with <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/61c100567af52e0015492c0f">Thrust Carbon</a> to help organizations and their travelers monitor and control the environmental impact of their business trips. Our Concur Travel and Expense solutions connect with Thrust Carbon, making it easy to calculate emissions from travel spend and itinerary data, providing organizations with actionable insights to lessen the environmental impact of their travel program.</p>
<p>We also partner with <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/628ebd52747a7e00163dc5a2">CHOOOSE</a>, a carbon emissions management solution that, when connected with Concur Travel and Concur TripLink, helps organizations measure, reduce, and manage their aviation emissions. Currently available in EMEA, travel managers can easily set carbon budgets and then view and assess their live flight emissions against these targets. The app enables organizations to track the performance of their corporate carbon program through a live carbon emissions dashboard.</p>
<p>Travelers can also monitor the environmental impact of their trip with the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/new-tripit-update-your-flights-carbon-footprint-at-your-fingertips/">TripIt Carbon Footprint</a> feature. Post-booking, travelers can see their flight’s carbon emissions, track their annual carbon footprint for air travel, and receive practical suggestions on how to offset and reduce their environmental impact.</p>
<p>“We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in how businesses respond to climate change,” according to Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel at SAP Concur. “This moment requires leaders to infuse sustainability and corporate responsibility into how business gets done and when business travel makes sense. SAP Concur is committed to providing integrated travel and expense solutions for the moments that make businesses run better, and the bar is getting higher to make impactful decisions to your travel policies while striving to provide the best experience for your travelers.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Check out the full findings from the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel"><strong>here</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Audit Options Explained
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-audit-options-explained
2022-08-10T13:34:51Z
2022-08-10T12:44:42Z
See what auditing tools and services we have available and find out which one is right for your business.
<p>Looking for additional support when it comes to auditing employee expense reports? SAP Concur has you covered.</p>
<p>We offer three services that are available as additions to the Concur Expense solution: Intelligent Audit, Verify, and Concur Detect by Oversight. To help you compare, we have outlined some of the key features of each:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th> </th>
<th>Intelligent Audit </th>
<th>Verify</th>
<th>Concur Detect by Oversight</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>How are the audits executed?</th>
<td>By SAP Concur</td>
<td>*By the Concur Verify tool</td>
<td>By the customer</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Custom compliance checks</th>
<td>Yes, with Intelligent Audit Advanced</td>
<td>No</td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Who handles implementation?</th>
<td>SAP Concur</td>
<td>**Customer (with light SAP Concur guidance)</td>
<td>Oversight with assistance from customer</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>UI languages</th>
<td>All supported product languages</td>
<td>All supported product languages</td>
<td>English only</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Receipt and policy languages</th>
<td>16 languages</td>
<td>***16 languages</td>
<td>Approximately 50 languages</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>SAP Concur edition</th>
<td>Standard and Professional</td>
<td>Standard and Professional</td>
<td>Standard and Professional</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Implementation consulting</th>
<td>Comprehensive</td>
<td>Add-on</td>
<td>Comprehensive</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>% of reports audited</th>
<td>****Customer sets threshold from 25%-100%</td>
<td>100%</td>
<td>100%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>When does audit occur?</th>
<td> <br />
Pre and Post Payment</td>
<td> <br />
Pre and Post Payment</td>
<td> <br />
Pre and Post Payment</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Supports Company Billed Statements</th>
<td>No</td>
<td>No</td>
<td>Yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Supports Sunshine Act</th>
<td>Yes, with Intelligent Audit Advanced and the Professional platform</td>
<td>No</td>
<td>No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th> </th>
<td><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-audit-service">More about Intelligent Audit</a></td>
<td><a href="https://www.concur.com/verify-expense-audit">More about Verify</a></td>
<td><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">More about Concur Detect</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>*Concur Verify audits 100% of reports, but the customer will need to audit reports where Concur Verify has raised an exception on the report</p>
<p>**Customers cannot use Intelligent Audit and Concur Verify at the same time</p>
<p>***No more than 1/3 of the receipts can be non-US English</p>
<p>****If your site allows sending back single expenses or splitting of reports, be aware of possible overage of your allowed submissions due to failed audits.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For an even deeper dive, check out the videos below to hear from product experts who have provided more information about each service.</p>
<h3>Verify FAQ:</h3>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ERWBxuTWLM" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p> </p>
<h3>Intelligent Audit FAQ:</h3>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sj8m5-N-mUM" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p> </p>
<h3>Concur Detect by Oversight FAQ:</h3>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h3rpEUC9ltE" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p>* Christopher Juneau was formerly Chief Marketing and Product Marketing Officer at Oversight. He is now Head of SAP Concur Market Strategy. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ready to explore what these audit products can do for <em>your</em> company? Reach out to your existing SAP Concur account representative, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> today!</p>
Kevin Dorsey
More Clarity, Certainty, and Compliance with Automated Spend Management for Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/clarity-compliance-spend-management-for-aerospace-defense-and-government-contracting
2022-08-30T09:49:18Z
2022-08-10T10:51:49Z
Government contractors need to achieve and maintain DCAA compliance. However, some may have multiple outdated, legacy financial systems that make it stressful to stay on top of all of the spending acr
<p>Government contractors need to achieve and maintain DCAA compliance. However, some may have multiple outdated, legacy financial systems that make it stressful to stay on top of all of the spending across their ever-changing and growing organizations.</p>
<p>This can make it difficult to:</p>
<ul>
<li>See how money is being spent and by whom.</li>
<li>Review and control employee spend before it happens.</li>
<li>Enforce and improve compliance with spend policies.</li>
<li>Spot data patterns that may be hidden across channels or systems.</li>
<li>Actively identify and mitigate fraud, waste, and abuse.<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>The Answer? Modernize and Automate</strong></h2>
<p>To overcome these issues, organizations need to modernize and standardize systems to automate spend control and improve compliance.</p>
<p>This enables organizations to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Capture digital records and improve the accuracy of expense reports.</li>
<li>Insert controls at the point of purchase to prevent non-compliant spend.</li>
<li>Gain visibility into future travel and spend with spend requests and approvals.</li>
<li>Leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically review expense and receipt data.</li>
</ul>
<p>More importantly, it provides more clarity and certainty to make better and more informed decisions about spend.</p>
<h2><strong>Then…Audit Spend</strong></h2>
<p>When spend happens, government contracting organizations must also have the right tools, procedures, and processes in place to audit employee spend and expense reports—to in turn prepare for DCAA audits. Because doing audits manually can be time-consuming, stressful, and expensive, organizations should look for a technology solution that can simultaneously automate the audit process and improve efficiency and compliance.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Practices for Inserting Spend Controls to Achieve Compliance</strong></h2>
<p>As your organization levels up its spend management systems, be sure to apply best practices for spend control to ensure compliance, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Create straightforward travel and expense spend policies</em>. Make sure these encourage spending that supports organizational goals.</li>
<li><em>Provide ongoing training on your organization’s travel and expense policies and tools</em>. This will enable your employees to make more policy-compliant spend choices.</li>
<li><em>Require pre-spend authorization before spend occurs. </em>Have managers review spending for airfare, hotels, car rentals, etc., in advance to prevent non-compliant activity.</li>
<li><em>Use an online booking tool with built-in policy by traveler. </em>Restrict different types of travelers’ ability to select out-of-policy options to increase compliance and modify behavior.</li>
<li><em>Use an expense reporting system with built-in policies and user guidance. </em>Insert spending thresholds, flags, and other automatic notifications to help guide users when filling out expense reports. This can help prevent and identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, overspending, unauthorized use of expense types, etc.).</li>
<li><em>Use mobile receipt capture and point-to-point GPS mileage tracking. </em>Not only will this eliminate the need to scan or attach paper receipts to expense reports and ensure accurate mileage reporting, but it also increases the accuracy of data entry.</li>
<li><em>Regularly conduct audits to ensure compliance with your policies. </em>This will help you identify any areas where training may be needed.</li>
<li><em>Implement robust reporting to analyze spend and make improvements.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Now is a great time to update your organization’s systems and automate spend management. Not only can a great spend management solution help your organization gain more visibility into employee spend, but it will increase compliance with your organization’s spend policies as well as DCAA compliance. </p>
<p>Want to learn more about how to level up your aerospace, defense, and government contracting organization’s spend management?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/addressing-challenges-control-and-compliance">Download this one-pager</a> to learn about some of the biggest challenges organizations face with controls and compliance, and tips to address them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-measure-your-audit-efficiency-regulated-industries">Download this eBook</a> for 4 ways to measure your audit efficiency using your SAP Concur solutions.</p>
Kyla Kent
Level Up Spend Management to Provide Transparency and Accountability in Energy and Utilities
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-provide-transparency-and-accountability-energy-and-utilities
2022-09-12T14:41:00Z
2022-08-10T09:32:13Z
One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of expenses are imperative to any organization’s success.
<h2><strong>Embracing Change for Continued Success</strong></h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that utilities organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your organization forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2><strong>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. <strong>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</strong> These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<p><em>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</em></p>
<h2><strong>Risks Are Evergreen</strong></h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance issues to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p><a>Fraud continues to be a serious problem in all industries.<sup>2</sup> Sixty-nine percent of fraud occurs in for-profit companies and median losses are nearly $120,000.<sup>3</sup> Some of the industries with the highest dollar value loss of fraud are:<sup>4</sup></a></p>
<ul>
<li>Utilities $200K</li>
<li>Government $150K</li>
<li>Healthcare $100K</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Spend Smarter</strong></h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps organizations receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how they control spend.<sup>6</sup> Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better employee experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you <strong>level up</strong> employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).<sup>7</sup></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their expenses, travel, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in efficiency:<sup>8</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution” ebook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-utilities">here </a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">SPEND INSIGHTS | How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk (SAP/Oversight Systems)</a></p>
<p><sup>2, 3, 4, 5</sup> <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">ACFE Occupational Fraud 2022, A Report to the Nations</a></p>
<p><sup>6</sup> <a href="https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Digital World (November 2019)</a></p>
<p><sup>7</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Oxford Economics, Leadership in a new era: IT steps up (October 2021)</a></p>
<p><sup>8</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">IDC white paper “The Business Value of SAP Concur Solutions for Optimizing Travel and Expense Operations” (February 2022)</a></p>
<p> </p>
<div><!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->
<hr /><!--[endif]-->
<div><!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->
<div class="msocomtxt"><!--[endif]--><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a name="_msocom_1"></a><!--[endif]-->
<p> <!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomoff" href="#_msoanchor_1">[GM1]</a><!--[endif]-->Keep for Utilities and omit for ADG</p>
<!--[if !supportAnnotations]--></div>
<!--[endif]--></div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Level Up Spend Management to Ensure Compliance and Accountability for State and Local Government
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-ensure-compliance-and-accountability-state-and-local-government
2022-09-12T14:39:26Z
2022-08-10T09:21:00Z
One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of employee expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to i
<h2><strong>Embracing Change for Continued Success</strong></h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that state and local government organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of employee expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your organization forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2><strong>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits. These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<h2><strong>Risks and Fraud Are Evergreen</strong></h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>Fraud continues to be a serious problem in all industries.<sup>2</sup> Sixty-nine percent of fraud occurs in for-profit companies and median losses are nearly $120,000.<sup>3</sup> Some of the industries with the highest dollar value loss of fraud are:<sup>4</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>Utilities $200K</li>
<li>Government $150K</li>
<li>Healthcare $100K</li>
</ul>
<p>As for government agencies, the extent of fraud varies by the level of government organization.<sup>5</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>National government – 46% affected ($200,000 median loss)</li>
<li>Provincial/state government – 27% affected ($56,000 median loss)</li>
<li>Local government – 25% affected ($125,000 median loss)</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Spend Smarter</strong></h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps organizations receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how they control spend.<sup>6</sup> Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better employee experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you <strong>level up</strong> employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).<sup>7</sup></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their travel, expenses, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in efficiency:<sup>8</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-state-and-local-government">Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution for State and Local Government</a>” ebook.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">SPEND INSIGHTS | How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk (SAP/Oversight Systems)</a></p>
<p><sup>2, 3, 4, 5</sup> <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">ACFE Occupational Fraud 2022, A Report to the Nations</a></p>
<p><sup>6</sup> <a href="https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Digital World (November 2019)</a></p>
<p><sup>7</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Oxford Economics, Leadership in a new era: IT steps up (October 2021)</a></p>
<p><sup>8</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">IDC white paper “The Business Value of SAP Concur Solutions for Optimizing Travel and Expense Operations” (February 2022)</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Level Up Spend Management to Provide Transparency and Accountability in Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-provide-transparency-and-accountability-aerospace-defense-and
2022-09-12T14:34:12Z
2022-08-09T10:21:23Z
The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that aerospace, defense, and government contracting organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess
<h2>Embracing Change for Continued Success</h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that aerospace, defense, and government contracting organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your organization forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. <strong>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</strong> These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<p><em><strong>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</strong></em></p>
<h2>Risks Are Evergreen</h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance issues to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<sup>1</sup></p>
<h2>Spend Smarter</h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps organizations receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how they control spend.<sup>6</sup> Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better employee experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you <strong>level up</strong> employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).<sup>7</sup></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their expenses, travel, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in efficiency:<sup>8</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution” ebook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-aerospace-defense-and-government-contracting">here.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">SPEND INSIGHTS | How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk (SAP/Oversight Systems)</a></p>
<p><sup>2, 3, 4, 5</sup> <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">ACFE Occupational Fraud 2022, A Report to the Nations</a></p>
<p><sup>6</sup> <a href="https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Digital World (November 2019)</a></p>
<p><sup>7</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Oxford Economics, Leadership in a new era: IT steps up (October 2021)</a></p>
<p><sup>8</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">IDC white paper “The Business Value of SAP Concur Solutions for Optimizing Travel and Expense Operations” (February 2022)</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Employee Benefits are Expanding: What Businesses Need to Know for Tax Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-benefits-are-expanding-what-businesses-need-know-tax-compliance
2022-08-12T09:00:00Z
2022-08-09T10:07:08Z
To ensure the financial health of your organization, managing spend and guaranteeing your organization stays compliant are key. So, when remote and hybrid work became a reality, organizations sought t
<p>To ensure the financial health of your organization, managing spend and guaranteeing your organization stays compliant are key. So, when remote and hybrid work became a reality, organizations sought to quickly evolve their compensation packages to keep up with employee driven demand. Travel costs, for example, used to account for 65% of expense spending in 2019, according to internal SAP Concur customer data. But with outfitting remote offices, the proportions have shifted, and travel now accounts for only 33% while ‘miscellaneous stores’ accounts for almost 24%.</p>
<p>This shift in company expenditures is a clue into how the demands of the workforce have changed. No longer are employees satisfied with free coffee and snacks as incentive to come into the office. Instead, they want the flexibility of working remote, along with other, more self-driven benefits to help them get ahead. So, businesses started offering wider employee benefits packages to include attractive perks, such as free Wi-Fi and monthly allowances for meals, cell phones, fitness, well-being, and so on.</p>
<p>Often, these perks are submitted through their companies’ travel, expense, and invoice processes, making it harder on finance and back-office teams to sort through the difference. For instance, a cross-customer analysis conducted by <a href="https://www.bluedotcorp.com/">Blue dot</a> has found that <strong>10-20% of transactions carry potential taxable employee benefits</strong>, causing managing tax compliance to become much more convoluted, as it can be difficult to distinguish between what is or isn’t a taxable employee benefit.</p>
<p>So, where exactly do you draw the line? And how is this impacting your organization? First, let’s dive into what exactly makes up a taxable employee benefit.</p>
<h2>What Are Taxable Employee Benefits?</h2>
<p><strong>Taxable employee benefits</strong> are perks an employee receives from their employer, alongside their salary, that the government subjects to taxation, unless the law specifically excludes it. Some examples of taxable employee benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Payroll</li>
<li>Bonuses</li>
<li>Company provided vehicles</li>
<li>Employee allowances for meals, car, cell phone, Wi-Fi, childcare, wellness, etc.</li>
<li>Office supplies or IT materials</li>
<li>Work from home peripherals</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Nontaxable employee benefits:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>On-premise meals</li>
<li>Health insurance</li>
<li>Life Insurance</li>
<li>Educational assistance *Only non-taxable up to a certain amount.</li>
</ul>
<p>To get reimbursed for these expenses, employees are using company expense and invoice processes for more things, and in more categories. Some of these benefits are taxed at source through payroll and are relatively simple for businesses to track and manage, like healthcare, car allowance, and supplemental life insurance. Then, there are other benefits that are not taxed at source like a personal cell phone plan, IT materials for work from home, or being able to expense home Wi-Fi.</p>
<h2>Why is Managing Taxable Employee Benefits Relevant Today?<br />
<!--[endif]--></h2>
<p>Now more than ever, the spotlight is on expenses, accompanied by the systems and processes businesses have put in place to capture employee spending, verify it, and report it for tax and compliance. Here are three reasons why it matters now more than ever to stay on top of evolving employee benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li>Governments are investing more in digitalizing their processes to maximize tax revenue. This increases the pressure on companies to streamline their compliance and audit processes, so they can respond to authorities’ reporting requests.</li>
<li>Employees are now able to get reimbursed for even more types of expenses. This creates opportunity for misclassification of expenses, as well as inaccurate handling and reporting of tax information.</li>
<li>The “Great Resignation” has also put pressure on companies to modify or increase their benefits packages to attract and retain talent. This makes keeping track of the benefits and all their implications an increasingly difficult task.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Three Approaches to Managing Taxable Employee Benefits</h2>
<p>Today, most enterprise organizations are typically managing their spend management compliance program through a highly manual auditing effort, including having auditors:</p>
<ul>
<li>Complete line-by-line reviews</li>
<li>Review context for reason to purchase</li>
<li>Compare it to geographic and regulatory knowledge and expertise</li>
</ul>
<p>But the challenging part about using a manual auditing approach to detect taxable employee benefits from regular employee expenses is that there are many gray areas and nuances that come with broadening the scope. These nuances, for example, vary state to state, company to company, and even employee to employee.</p>
<p>“With employee benefits, fringe benefits, taxable employee benefits, however you would call them, one of the differences here is that it's not optional,” Dr. Mark Stirling, Sr. VP of Global Channels at Blue dot, comments on our latest episode of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/viable-vat-verifying-ins-and-outs-domestic-and-foreign-tax-compliance-blue-dot">SAP Concur Conversations</a>. “Organizations are required to have processes in place to look for and track, and to demonstrate, whether you are ruling them in or ruling them out…”</p>
<p>Businesses typically have three options to help manage their taxable employee benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Do nothing:</strong> the organization is unaware that they are required to report employee taxable benefits.</li>
<li><strong>In-house:</strong> the organization uses an internal auditing team.</li>
<li><strong>Outsource:</strong> the organization outsources manual, contractual services.</li>
</ul>
<p>With the constant changes to benefits packages and tax regulations across different jurisdictions, all these options entail risk. However, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have made easy and consistent compliance achievable.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></p>
<h2>Easily Comply with Tax Regulations and Streamline Back-Office Processes</h2>
<p>Organizations that lag in transforming their spend management processes could find it hard to keep up with the growing demands of employee expectations, expense reports, and rising tax obligations. Having an automated system that helps with financial reporting, can be accessed by various departments, and helps prove your organization is compliant is highly valuable.</p>
<p>It’s your responsibility to make sure you’re not opening your company to risk, as employers are required by law to report all taxable employee benefits. If they don’t, it can lead to audits and costly penalties.</p>
<p>Fortunately, SAP Concur and Blue dot partnered together to develop a solution to help ease the manual lift and mitigate compliance risk. <a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance">Concur Benefits Assurance by Blue dot</a> can help your business automatically pull hard-to-find benefits out of expense reports and accurately report them. With a customizable, technology-driven platform, you’ll be able to incorporate and update company and country-specific policies, and accurately track, report, and calculate taxable employee benefits. Learn more about Concur Benefits Tax Assurance by <a href="https://www.concur.com/benefits-assurance">visiting us online</a> today.</p>
Kyla Kent
Redefining the Meaning of Paper Trail: An SAP Concur Conversation with George Washington University
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/redefining-meaning-paper-trail-sap-concur-conversation-george-washington-university
2022-08-09T09:00:00Z
2022-08-08T09:57:20Z
Learn how George Washington University revolutionized their spend management system from outdated and clunky to streamlined and efficient by implementing SAP Concur solutions.
<p>Learn how George Washington University revolutionized their spend management system from outdated and clunky to streamlined and efficient by implementing SAP Concur solutions. “Back prior to going into [SAP] Concur, we were at about a 60% electronic [invoices], which means using interfaces or other processes to get things [to] us, and the rest was all manually keyed. And now we're at about a 98% of all electronic coming into our systems,” shared Shelley Shearer, Director of University Payables at GWU. In this compelling podcast, you will hear from Shearer and Donna Ginter, Associate Vice President of Supply Chain at GWU, about their 10-year transformation story with SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p><em>Listen to this podcast on our channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/redefining-meaning-paper-trail-sap-concur-conversation-george-washington-university"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>. You can also listen to this episode on: </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/redefining-the-meaning-of-paper-trail-an/id1525744763?i=1000570730394"><em>Apple</em></a><em> | </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><em>Amazon</em></a><em> | </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ezY5skLtKcHyAPSN7HENa"><em>Spotify</em></a><em> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/#podcast">ListenNotes</a> | </em><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/redefining-the-meaning-of-paper-trail-an-sap-concur-conversa"><em>Acast</em></a><em> or Google your favorite place to find podcasts.</em></p>
<p><strong>Transcript:</strong></p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Today, we're talking to George Washington University's Shelley Shearer and Donna Ginter about how modernized financial management systems help the university to streamline its processes and drive greater transparency. Shelley is director, university payables, and Donna is associate vice president, supply chain. Hi Shelley, hi Donna.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>Hi.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>Hello.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Can you give us a quick history about GWU's use of SAP Concur? Where did you start off and how did the use cases expand?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>So this is Shelley, I can start in and then Donna can jump in after that. We started with expense, I think travel started prior to that, but in 2012, and we were completely paper-driven prior to that, the stacks of paper on desks, everything got in our company.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>And when we went live with expense, we went as it required to use Concur for all employees going forward, no pilot groups or rollouts for that. And then in 2019, we added the invoice pilot phase that we did do in a phased approach.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>This is Donna. GW started with Concur as part of an RFP to do an integrated travel and expense system. I think the RFP went out in 2010 and ultimately was awarded in 2011. We went live with travel before expense because we had a lot of integration required for the expense component, but travel for the most part was brought to us through a TMC. GW currently uses travel, expense, request, invoice, expense pay, anything else I missed, Shelley?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>Reporting and Capture, which is under invoice.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>Reporting and Capture, yes. And we have intelligence as part of all of that.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>And you've recently started leveraging these tools in support of the Medical Faculty Associates or MFA. Who makes up that user base and why do they need a new approach to financial management?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>The Medical Faculty Associates is a practice of doctors in a variety of disciplines, along with the staff that support the doctors, but those doctors and the medical faculty associates group are also faculty for the George Washington University.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>They are faculty and part of the GW system, let's say, when they deal with research and teaching requirements and so forth. But when they move over into their doctor's office, let's say, and they're practicing the medicine that they teach at GW, they become part of the medical faculty associates, which is a separate affiliate, let's say, of the university.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>So that's who they are, and why did they need new tools around financial management?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>There was a turnover in leadership at the MFA and GW used to be unified with the MFA years ago. The financial integration that currently exists grew out from a former relationship. And instead of having the MFA stand alone, they decided they would bring them back in under the university umbrella to give greater support to them since it was part of the GW, let's say, umbrella of services.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>And the most efficient way of doing that was for GW university to share its infrastructure with the medical faculty associates, which was itself a much smaller organization than the university. And the MFA was more than happy to move into Concur. They knew that they had some issues with their financial system that didn't allow for great reporting or visibility into spend or reimbursements.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Let's talk about visibility. What can the MFA see now that they couldn't see before and why does it matter?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>Shelley, you want to start?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>I'll start on this one, this is Shelley. Concur has given them the ability to see the whole spectrum of the invoices. Since before their invoices were just paper going to various desks, now they can see it since we're using Capture, the invoices coming in, where they're assigned, who they're with, they can see the entire process of who they go to for approval, we can now benchmark how long things are spending with certain people, spending with departments.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>They didn't have any kind of reporting or really visual of the overall spend of these departments or where things were going and now that we're getting them onto POs and we're getting reporting out to them for their accrual bases, they're being able to see everything from start to finish, so they know what their spend is across the board.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>It also gives them access to the request tool, which we're a little bit different. We don't use that for travel so much as we use it for all of our forms. And now we've also implemented the p-card usage with MFA, which they had not had previously really.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>So they're able to now put a vast majority of some of their spend on p-cards, getting that out to the suppliers faster, making supplier relationships better because things aren't being held up by paper invoices going through a process. So they're getting a lot of use out of this and we've had some positive feedback so far.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Well, let's go further down that road of outcomes. Can you give some other specific examples of how these new processes have benefited the MFA or even the university in general? What specifically does this enable?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>Shelley, I'll take this question. So the MFA processes prior to joining GW's umbrella with Concur were very basic. They would use an Excel spreadsheet to make a request for a good or a service. That request would go over to the procurement office and the procurement office would create a requisition, then create a purchase order.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>The way invoices were paid against those purchase orders where the invoice would come into the various different practices at the MFA, somebody would write an account code on it and then send it back to procurement for processing. And given the technology that's available these days, that certainly isn't the best practice.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>They were also finding that they were losing their invoices left and right, there were disgruntled vendors not getting paid on time and GW, as part of this enablement or encompassing of their systems over there, we gave them the ability to notify their vendors to send the invoices into the Capture website. We shortcutted it, it's invoice@mfa.gwu.edu.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>The folks at the MFA, unlike the university, embrace the use of Capture right upfront. They've even put that requirement within the signatures that they have on their email addresses so that when they speak to the vendor community, the vendors know right away, "Okay, if I have an invoice, I'm sending it into Capture."</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>And from that, suddenly we saw everything that needed to be paid out there for the MFA. And this has given us great reporting as far as what needs to be accrued at the end of the month, what invoices had not been paid in the prior year because we went live on day one of a new fiscal year, so we could see what was going on.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>Now, that doesn't mean we have a complete picture immediately because we're still discovering things that we weren't aware of, and this is six months into the transition at this point, but it is far better than anything we've seen before. Concur allows us not only to automate the invoice receipt process and get it into a system that routes for approval and allocation and all that sort of thing, but the system also watches and tracks when people haven't taken action on something.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>So if an invoice has been submitted for approval, for instance, it will be tracked, and after a certain number of days, kicked back to the person who submitted it for approval saying, "Hey, listen, you need to contact that manager or the person who approves this after you so that they can formally approve it because it's just been sitting in their inbox for a while, it can't sit there any longer, so it returned."</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>So that helps us keep things moving along, plus the reporting out of Concur allows us to see the status of anything at any given time, which is wonderful. I'd also like to put a plug in for the fact that as administrators, Shelley, and myself and the people on Shelley's team, we're able to quickly see what's coming in, see that it might be assigned to the wrong person, move it around to the right person and get things moving all the time, almost like a train conductor, let's say.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>We're moving stuff around and making sure it's going through the system as it should be. That's very difficult to do when you have just a paper based operation.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>And on top of that, it's given us a lot of ease of removing other manual things. The MFA also... This is Shelley, sorry. They also had to do things such as anytime a new employee came on board, they had to manually add that person to their system to pay the expenses from as well as attach accounting codes to each and every person and then remove that if there was a transfer or a change over, whereas we get all that into Concur from a daily feed.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>So that's a huge load off of manually keeping track and of the potentially errors being put in the system so they can have all that. And now that we have all these audit rules built in, it helps us with getting things in in a timely manner, we have a 60-day rule to have out of pockets put through which they did not have previously, so now we're getting that stuff hitting our books much faster and on a much more regular basis.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>We have things like the Amazon Business integration, where we get those receipts on our p-cards, the rich card data, which has helped alleviate a lot of the receipts that we needed to get. We also use the per diem aspects and the missing receipt affidavits. So we try and utilize every aspect we possibly can. We're very strong on going as automated as possible.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>And I pulled a couple of numbers. Back prior to going into Concur, we were at about a 60% electronic, which means using interfaces or other processes to get things into us, and the rest was all manually keyed. And now we're at about a 98% of all electronic coming into our systems. You're probably never going to get to a hundred percent because there's always those outliers that still need to be touched, but we're at a really high basis of being as paperless as possible and we want to keep expanding that wherever we can.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Along those same lines, a lot of universities wrestle with purchase order management in particular. How does your approach simplify that?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>GW is very fortunate to be a private nonprofit university. We are not subject to the same guidelines, for instance, that state universities follow. That allows us to be a bit more creative in how we handle our finances. Now, when I say creative, that doesn't mean we're giving up the necessary controls or checks and balances, but what we're able to do is determine what can and cannot be processed with a purchase order.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>We have a lot of exemptions to purchase orders that grant us flexibility in how we use the Concur system. We're able to require POs for certain things that have documentation requirements. And those sorts of things are federal funds and grants and things that require competition.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>But if we've deemed that something is being acquired that doesn't require competition or is of a special nature, for instance, let's say it's a purchase being made from a governmental entity, take a permit, let's say, for construction, we have said we don't need to have a PO for that, you have options on how you can process that request for payment. You can put it directly in Concur and we can cut you a check, you can use your procurement card, which ultimately the transaction runs through Concur and we see it there.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>The purchase order management component where most institutions require a purchase order created from a requisition that then goes to a receiver in order to get paid, we use the Concur system as the authorization to make a payment because the approval or the submission of the invoice by the end user with the subsequent approval from the secondary person on that invoice is our proof of receipt of the good or service and we just go ahead and pay it.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>So purchase order management has become easier for us. We save that, let's say, for the more complex purchases that we make, not the majority of the small dollar items that we're putting through.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>In addition to the ways already mentioned, how does SAP Concur help to support your ambitions to be a paperless enterprise?</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>This is Donna. When we went live with SAP Concur... The overall use of Concur is a significant investment by any organization. And of course you want to make the highest and best use of technology that you can, you want to get the most bang for your buck when you use Concur. GW does not require pre-trip authorizations, which is typically what the request module is used for by Concur's customers.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>GW took a look at requests and said, "Hey, this is a great tool, how can we use this to remove paperwork that we have that supplements the payment processes across the university?" As an example, I'll use some of the forms that we have created. We took the procurement card application form, placed that form online through Concur's request module with multiple fields and customized it so that someone now will go into Concur and place a request for a p-card.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>That routes through the system with approvals and ends up with Shelley's team for the p-card office, where the form is extracted and then sent off to the card program. We ensure that we have all the information we need using a Concur profile to create a card request through the bank. Ultimately that's issued.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Let's talk about governance and compliance. At a higher level, how do these tools help to drive policies and procedures, both to shape them and to enforce them?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>This is Shelley, I can start on this one. We use reporting quite a bit to determine where we want to move forward and where we have issues. We use it to determine what departments might need more training or refresher training, and it also helps us determine our audit rules, and actually going back to the paper list thing, remove extra paper.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>For instance, we were for the longest time requesting itemized receipts for anything $35 and under. And we were able to move that up to $75 and under based on doing a mass review of a year's worth of spend to see what those small dollar items are and what kind of risk they've presented by not getting those receipts, do we really need a receipt for every bottle of water or cup of coffee?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>And you think in terms of someone traveling for two weeks, that's every $2 receipt they've got to upload, and then someone has to review it and approve it, and then on our side, someone then has to review it again for an audit trail. So taking out those hundreds of line items of small, low risk things, based on our report's findings, saved a great amount of time and processing time for getting a person from entry into the system and paid.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>So using reporting, we're able to find areas like that where we can speed up processes and change how we manage expenses and make it a more user friendly area.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>Finally, let's take a look at what's ahead. Are there any future plans for further expansion of your SAP Concur implementations?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>Do you want our whole wishlist or-</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>How long is it?</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>Well, GW, we tend to be Guinea pigs kind of thing, we always want to try the new things. We are very game to be as electronic as possible and use AI and get away from every manual concept we can. As part of what Donna was saying, we use the request forms, and one of the things we use that for is our correction forms when you need to move an account from one to another.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>And currently we only use that for our GL side, and I'd really like to see the grant side go through that as well, that has a bit more complex complexity to it. Personally, I would like to, and I believe Donna as well, we want to streamline our invoice processing. That role of invoice oversight only recently came under us and we're trying to really reevaluate it and see where we can do some of those reporting and audit rules and make that flow through much quicker.</p>
<p>Shelley Shearer:</p>
<p>We're also adding employees to our expense pay program, which is another thing I don't think we mentioned, but we use the expense pay process through expense. We really try and use all of Concur that we can. I think Donna might have other wishlist items.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>We always are pushing you all or Concur to do more with the tools that you have. We run Concur expense and we run Concur invoice, and those are two separate modules that at this point don't really talk to each other. We run our p-card transactions, and at GW, you can use your p-card to pay a whole slew of invoices outside of running them through the invoice system.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>But Shelley is charged with also making sure that if you're processing a p-card transaction for a payment, that the university or that Concur has not been used to process an invoice for the same item. So we are checking for duplicate payments to ensure that we don't have them, not after the fact, but in advance.</p>
<p>Donna Ginter:</p>
<p>We are looking to see what we can do to blend the two systems within Concur, expense and invoice, to make sure that we catch invoice payments that potentially could be duplicates in advance of making them and not after the fact. So we're pretty good at catching them after the fact if they occur, which is rare, but we'd like to catch them beforehand. So that's what's on the horizon for us.</p>
<p>Interviewer:</p>
<p>That's great. I'd like to thank both of you for taking the time today. This was extremely informative and I appreciate the level of detail that you've provided in helping us all to understand how you're putting the tools of SAP Concur to use.</p>
Kiersten Conner
Navigating the World of Business Expenses and Tax Compliance: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Blue dot
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-world-business-expenses-and-tax-compliance-sap-concur-podcast-conversation
2022-08-09T09:00:00Z
2022-08-08T09:25:57Z
Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Dr. Mark Stirling, Senior Vice President of Global Channels at Blue dot, a recent SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award winner, a
<p>Taxes can be a complicated and confusing subject. Most organizations want to be reimbursed for <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplifying-your-vat-reclaim-te-program-resilience">Value-Added Tax (VAT)</a> but reclaiming VAT has traditionally been a manual and time-consuming process. The reality is most organizations are set up to manage their own business not VAT, which requires a high degree of understanding, as some countries reimburse for VAT while others don’t.</p>
<p>However, there are plenty of reasons for your organization to get VAT right, especially since it can help recoup business costs and ensure compliance.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Dr. Mark Stirling, Senior Vice President of Global Channels at Blue dot, a recent SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award winner, about domestic and foreign tax compliance.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-ins-and-outs/id1525744763?i=1000570001593">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3bzW5ue4drasGHExgiaAhD">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-yFkzgE0M6WR/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-ins-and-outs-of-domestic-and-fo">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjJkMTMwM2UwM2Q4MGYwMDEyZjliOGYw?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjo4I68lI35AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCg&hl=en">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/viable-vat-verifying-ins-and-outs-domestic-and-foreign-tax-compliance-blue-dot">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>Tracking and Proving Business Expenses</h2>
<p>If an employee travels for business within their own country and they incur legitimate and eligible business expenses while on that trip, their employer can reclaim those expenses as domestic VAT (via a tax deduction). Anytime that employee travels outside their own country, that is international VAT.</p>
<p>There are two parts to reclaiming VAT: <!--[if !supportLists]--></p>
<ol>
<li>Eligibility, which means expenses you can reclaim if all your data is correct and the country where the costs were incurred reimburses for VAT.</li>
<li>Disqualification, which refers to VAT you could get back, but you don’t have the right evidence to qualify for it yet.</li>
</ol>
<h2>The VAT Refund Process</h2>
<p>To reclaim VAT, employees must track and expense every part of a business trip. Then, your organization must go through the process of qualifying, auditing, and proving that those costs were legitimate and eligible business expenses. After that, your organization can submit a request for VAT reimbursement to the country where the expenses were incurred. If the authorities in that country agree with the request, they will remit payment to your organization.</p>
<p>To get to that point though, your organization must:</p>
<ol>
<li>Design your expense system to capture the right data.</li>
<li>Educate your employees on what must go in the data.</li>
<li>Have the right review processes in place to ensure the data is accurate.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Understanding VAT Disqualification</h2>
<p>If your organization has expenses that are being disqualified, you need to know why you aren’t getting VAT back:</p>
<ul>
<li>What can you do to change disqualification of VAT?</li>
<li>Do you not have the right processes in place?</li>
<li>Do you not have visibility into data and/or reports to reclaim VAT?</li>
<li>Does your organization need to do more training?</li>
</ul>
<p>Dion says that when it comes to expenses, taxes, and VAT, organizations need to be looking at “what you already have in place for controls, where the gaps in your controls are, and where an automated tool like a Blue dot tool could close some of those gaps for you.”</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that the government can do an audit and check the controls that your organization has in place for those processes. For instance:</p>
<ul>
<li>How do your organization’s employees understand what business expenses they are incurring?</li>
<li>How does your organization know those expenses are legitimate?</li>
<li>Do you have the right evidence to justify a tax deduction?</li>
</ul>
<p>There can be fines and penalties if your organization isn’t in compliance. But the bigger concern for most organizations is potentially being blacklisted by domestic or international authorities.</p>
<h2>A Better Way to Regaining Tax & Managing Compliance</h2>
<p>Because reclaiming VAT is such a highly complex process, Dr. Stirling says Blue dot knew it had to remove people from the process and add automation, so that business travelers and organization spenders didn’t have to know or keep track of all the tax laws, regulations, and rules related to tax and VAT; or review and double-check processes before submitting their expenses.</p>
<p>The Blue dot technology essentially does all the heavy lifting for organizations by understanding the expense report and event and adding in all the VAT information that’s needed before it is submitted for reclamation.</p>
<p>Dr. Stirling says that employees want to do the right thing by their employer when it comes to these processes, but organizations must make it easy for them. In addition to removing people and complexity from the process, organizations also need a tool that will “provide the insights that they need to modify their policy and modify behavior.”</p>
<p>All of this can make a tremendous difference in managing tax compliance and reclaiming VAT.</p>
<p><strong>CTA:</strong> <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-ins-and-outs-of-domestic-and-fo">Learn more about how your organization can leverage the SAP Concur and Blue dot partnership to streamline and improve your organization’s VAT reclamation processes.</a> </p>
Kyla Kent
Track and Zap Shadow IT: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation About SaaS Management with Zylo
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/track-and-zap-shadow-it-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-about-saas-management-zylo
2022-08-08T09:24:20Z
2022-08-08T09:20:45Z
Most people today are familiar with software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and others. But did you know that the average mid-size organization today is buying and
<p>Most people today are familiar with software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and others. But did you know that the average mid-size organization today is buying and using more than 300 SaaS applications, and at large enterprises, that number can be in the thousands?</p>
<p>Since 37% of SaaS applications are purchased over the internet by employees and paid for through expense reports or P-Cards, many organizations aren’t aware of all the SaaS applications they have and are unknowingly spending more than $65 million on stealth SaaS application purchases annually—with 40% of those purchases going to waste. That $26 million dollar loss doesn’t have to be your organization’s norm. </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value Teams at SAP Concur, spoke with Ben Pippenger, Co-founder of <a href="https://zylo.com/"><strong>Zylo</strong></a>, a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-partner-summit-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner"><strong>SAP Concur Partner Innovation Award</strong></a> winner, about what organizations need to do to gain more visibility into all the SaaS applications they have, understand how those applications are being bought and used across their organization, and optimize the licensing, rationalization, and overall spend management of those applications.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on desktop at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/zoom-saas-management-lower-cost-and-compliance-zylo"><strong>SAP Concur Conversations</strong></a> or on mobile via <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/zoom-into-saas-management-for-lower-cost-and/id1525744763?i=1000569789914"><strong>Apple</strong></a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><strong>Amazon</strong></a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xipnBos8TSdusRGBEjhcG"><strong>Spotify</strong> </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/zoom-into-saas-management-iZ9poXkMLt5/"><strong>Listen Notes</strong></a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/zoom-into-saas-management-for-lower-cost-and-compliance-with"><strong>Acast</strong> </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjJjZWQwMDFmZTAxNzUwMDEyY2ExNjRm?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiA2K-to4r5AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCg&hl=en"><strong>Google</strong> </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/zoom-saas-management-lower-cost-and-compliance-zylo"><strong>read the transcript</strong></a>.</p>
<h2>Uncovering Hidden SaaS Purchases</h2>
<p>Unless an organization has a formal procurement department that buys everything it needs, there is usually not a single, centralized owner of SaaS or software (even in IT departments, several different people may make purchases). That means hundreds of employees may buy SaaS applications for their organization and pay for those purchases through a variety of different spend channels. This can result in multiple purchases of the same SaaS applications and shadow IT—the purchasing of IT systems, devices, software, applications, and services without explicit IT department approval—as well as create security and compliance risks.</p>
<p>What’s more, the larger an organization gets, the bigger and more expensive the problem can be. “Our data shows that within the average large organization, <strong>90 SaaS applications</strong> are purchased by more than one employee,” Pippenger says. Zylo further reports that on average, eight new SaaS applications enter an organization every month, and that around <strong>55% of the apps </strong>have not been expensed as software purchases.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These hidden purchases can be especially problematic for publicly traded companies, which have specific signature authority requirements, typically based on the type of purchase, since software is such a big expense item. For these companies, SaaS applications are not just an IT or procurement team problem—they can become a significant conversation for finance departments during audits, and when doing budgeting and forecasting. </p>
<h2>The Smarter Approach to SaaS Management</h2>
<p>Fortunately, there is a better way to handle SaaS management. Zylo helps organizations find and gather up all their SaaS applications by running discovery against <strong>20,000 applications</strong>. Once all the organization’s SaaS applications are identified, it can then ask questions such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>What does each application do? What are its capabilities and functions?</li>
<li>Who bought it? Why did they buy it? What department is responsible for it?</li>
<li>How many licenses of this application do we have? How many people in our organization are using this application?</li>
<li>How much are we spending on it? When does this application renew, and can we negotiate a better price?</li>
</ul>
<p>From there, the organization can streamline and optimize its SaaS licenses, spend, and renewals; reduce security and compliance risks; and better manage its SaaS applications. The Zylo platform also helps organizations create a catalog of all the SaaS applications that are approved and available to employees. In other words, employees still have the freedom to buy SaaS applications for their organization. The organization just has more control over the process.</p>
<p><strong>CTA:</strong> <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/zoom-into-saas-management-for-lower-cost-and-compliance-with">Learn more about how your organization can tap into the power of the SAP Concur and Zylo partnership to uncover and better understand your organization’s SaaS applications.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5e9761216fa77c0013b08625">Get the app</a></p>
Kyla Kent
Digitally Transform Your Finance One Step – And Many Moments – At a Time
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/digitally-transform-your-finance-one-step-and-many-moments-time
2022-08-25T09:00:00Z
2022-08-08T09:12:54Z
Recent market disruptions and changing work environment and lifestyles have almost certainly prompted a change in how you interact with customers. Perhaps you’re connecting with them remotely, finding
<p>Long-term business success means keeping pace with a continually evolving world. Between new products, new competitors, fluctuating markets, changing customer demands, global crises, and more, expecting the unexpected is the new normal. Technology is critical to maintaining business stability and agility in any situation – but like everything else, digital transformation is a journey made up of many moments of opportunity. </p>
<p>Often, the big question facing businesses contemplating digital transformation is, “Where do I start?”</p>
<p>For many businesses, the answer lies in finance automation.</p>
<p>Recent market disruptions and changing work environment and lifestyles have almost certainly prompted a change in how you interact with customers. Perhaps you’re connecting with them remotely, finding new distribution channels, or allowing them to pay in new, more convenient ways. Whatever the case, you’ve most likely already taken your first steps toward digital transformation. But if your employees are still using paper- and e-mail-based processes for travel and expense management and vendor invoicing, then you’re missing a critical moment of opportunity to take control over business spend, improve cash flow, and prepare for whatever lies ahead.</p>
<p>The first step in your digital finance transformation should be to evaluate where you are today.</p>
<p>Figure out where paper and e-mail are still being used to track and manage spend and spend-related communication. Also examine your ERP system to determine whether the functionality you have is delivering the near-real-time spend insight and streamlined payment processes you need. Finally, take a look at where and how your employees work to see if your systems are giving them the flexibility to stay productive from the home office or on the go.</p>
<p>Once you’ve got all these processes mapped out, it’s time to determine what’s working and what’s not. Travel and expenses are a great place to start. Ask your people about your expense reporting process – how long does it take, how often are there errors, how much time do managers and account payable (AP) spend chasing down missing submissions and approvals? How long does it take people to get reimbursed? Next, examine your vendor invoicing for the same issues of simplicity, speed, and accuracy, and ask yourself whether lost invoices, late payments, and missed discounts are impacting vendor relationships and your bottom line. Finally, check in with your finance teams to see if they have the spend visibility that they need to prevent wasteful spending, improve cash flow, and align spend strategy with your business goals.</p>
<p>In addition to considering spend processes, you’ll want to examine spend policy. This includes measuring out-of-policy spending as well as your employees’ familiarity with spend policy. You need a spend policy that covers the full spectrum of your spend activity while also delivering the desired business impact of reduced errors, greater cost savings, stronger security, and increased compliance. Spend policy should be easy to find, understand, and apply – and should ideally be built right into your spend management processes.</p>
<p>Now that you know which problems need to be solved, it’s time to rally your people and get them on board with implementing a solution.</p>
<p>Your stakeholder list should include leaders, managers, and folks on the ground from AP, procurement, HR, finance, IT, and any other department that deals with spend processes regularly. By bringing all these people together, you’ll be able to ensure a clear understanding of how digitalizing your spend management can improve process efficiency, visibility, cost control, cash flow, security and compliance, and employee safety and satisfaction. Not only will this help demonstrate the need for change, but it will also ease the transition to your new automated system.</p>
<p>For those who are still on the fence or feeling nervous about change, remind them that digital, cloud-based spend management can save finance and accounting employees 12 to 13 hours per week while also giving them the freedom to do their job from anywhere.<sup>1</sup> For the conservative budget hawks, be sure to present a cost-benefit analysis that considers all the money you will save by reducing errors, curbing out-of-policy spending, and increasing remittance discounts – not to mention the savings that can be uncovered through greater spend visibility. As for IT, make sure they know that any digitalization plan includes partnering with a reputable vendor that can provide the support they need for a smooth rollout and operations going forward.</p>
<p>Seventy-two percent of business leaders agree that automated travel and expense management solutions provide the improved spend visibility they need to better respond to business challenges – proving that there has never been a better moment for finance automation.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/financial-automation-guide-5-steps-toward-digital-transformation">Read our latest e-book</a> to find out more. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1.–2. “Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study,” Analysys Mason, 2022.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Canceled or Delayed Flight? TripIt Can Help with Compensation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/canceled-or-delayed-flight-tripit-can-help-compensation
2022-09-14T15:56:44Z
2022-08-04T17:10:59Z
If you experience a flight disruption that may be eligible for compensation in the EU or Brazil, TripIt will automatically email you and help you file a claim through AirHelp.
<p>We know many travelers have waited patiently to get back to exploring the world. We also know that traveling during the past several months—whether you were impacted by flight disruptions, lost luggage, or the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/american-travelers-budget-thousands-rising-travel-costs.html">rising cost of travel</a>—has required patience, as well. </p>
<p>At TripIt, we’re always looking to improve your travel experience, and we want to help you when things don’t go according to plan. That’s why we <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001661750-AirHelp">partner with AirHelp</a>, a company that specializes in helping air passengers claim compensation for eligible delayed, canceled, and overbooked flights to/from/within the European Union (EU) and Brazil. </p>
<p>Haven’t heard of AirHelp, or need a refresher on how it works in TripIt? We’ve got you covered with all the details, below. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2 id="h-how-does-airhelp-work">How does AirHelp work?</h2>
<p>It’s really simple: If you experience a flight disruption that may be eligible for compensation in the EU or Brazil, TripIt will automatically email you and help you file a claim through AirHelp. </p>
<p>Once your claim is filed, AirHelp does the rest of the hard work for you— including the paperwork and communication with the airlines—to help you claim compensation for your inconvenience.</p>
<p>All this is possible because of air passenger rights regulations in certain regions that protect passengers against lengthy delays and other travel disruptions. </p>
<p>More good news: You can also connect your TripIt and AirHelp accounts to see if you’re eligible for compensation for any EU or Brazil flight disruptions you’ve experienced in the past three years. To connect your TripIt and AirHelp accounts visit <a href="https://app.airhelp.com/">AirHelp</a> and sign in with your TripIt credentials. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What flights are eligible for compensation? </h2>
<p>Compensation eligibility varies by country: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.airhelp.com/en/air-passenger-rights/#in-europe-ec-261">Click here</a> for eligibility on flight disruptions to/from/within the EU. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.airhelp.com/en/air-passenger-rights/#in-brazil-anac-400">Click here</a> for eligibility on flight disruptions to/from/within Brazil.</li>
</ul>
<p>As a reminder, you will not be eligible to receive compensation when a flight disruption is out of the airline’s control (and thus, does not qualify for compensation), such as with weather complications. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Does it cost anything to use AirHelp? </h2>
<p>In short, no. AirHelp will only deduct a service fee from your total compensation amount if your claim is successful. If AirHelp is unable to assist you in receiving compensation, you aren’t charged anything. </p>
<p>With more than 16 million travelers helped, AirHelp has the resources and expertise to handle the complex claim process. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.airhelp.com/">AirHelp</a> or TripIt’s <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001661750">Help Center</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</strong></p>
TripIt Team
New Research Considers 2022 Impact on Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-considers-2022-impact-business-travel
2023-07-26T09:24:17Z
2022-08-03T12:16:55Z
Overall willingness to travel for business in 2022 is high. Yet, 38% of global business travelers say that the trip itself is the most stressful stage of travel—a seven-point increase since 2021.
<p>The initial findings from the fourth annual survey commissioned by SAP Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-considers-business-travels-talent-implications">unveiled</a> during the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-industry-summit-moment-change-industry">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> in June, suggest that the return of business travel has important implications for talent attraction and retention.</p>
<p>But who are the global business travelers at risk of attrition, what are their expectations, and why is travel volume so closely tied to job satisfaction? Broader survey findings and a series of global white papers—all released today—provide further insights.</p>
<p>According to this year’s survey of 3,850 global business travelers across 25 markets and 700 global travel managers across seven markets:</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img alt="Icon of a traveler with suitcase" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e48886fb-44be-4c9a-b132-ffd623642df4" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/284612_Traveller_Female_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Global Business Traveler Report 2022</h5>
<p>These findings come from a survey of 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets commissioned by SAP Concur through Wakefield Research. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Current levels of business travel are threatening job satisfaction</h2>
<p>Overall willingness to travel is on par with <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">2021</a> at 98%, and nearly all global business travelers (96%) are eager to reclaim the advantages of travel this year. </p>
<ul>
<li>These advantages include personal benefits to be gained through business travel, such as experiencing new places and cultures (44%), going out to nice dinners and events (39%), and simply taking a break from everyday life (34%). </li>
<li>Business travelers are also eager to restore aspects beneficial to their business, including the relationship-building opportunities of in-person connections (46%) and the productivity of in-person meetings (41%).</li>
</ul>
<p>However, three in five business travelers (61%) report that their current travel schedule is falling short of their expectations. Many say a change in corporate travel direction may be to blame: Around four in five business travelers (82%) report their company is returning to pre-pandemic levels but with a “more travel on fewer shoulders” approach.</p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly two in five business travelers (39%) want to travel more, while 22% want to travel less.</li>
<li>Executives are more likely to say they’re traveling more than they like (30%) compared to non-executives (17%). Also, more executives strongly agree (39%) that their company is taking a “more travel on fewer shoulders” approach than non-executives (25%).</li>
<li>Business travelers at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)—defined for the purpose of this survey as companies with fewer than 1,000 employees—are more likely to be traveling less than they’d prefer right now. Nearly two in five (39%) report that they are traveling less than they want, compared to under a third of business travelers from companies with 1,000-plus employees (32%). Additionally, business travelers from larger companies are more likely to say they’re traveling more than they’d like (27%) than those from SMBs (21%).</li>
<li>Those in Europe are particularly likely to be traveling less than they desire (44%), compared to those in the Americas (37%) and APAC (35%). Travelers in APAC (28%) and the Americas (25%) are more likely than those in Europe (15%) to report traveling more than they prefer right now.</li>
</ul>
<p>Nearly one in four business travelers who are not traveling at their ideal frequency (23%) say they’ll look for a new position if their travel schedule doesn’t improve. </p>
<ul>
<li>Thirty-five percent of Gen Z say they will look for a new position if things don’t improve, compared to 24% of millennials, 20% of Gen X, and 16% of baby boomers.</li>
<li>In general, Gen Z is more likely to take action if things don’t change: 63% of Gen Z business travelers say they will do something, compared to 49% of millennials, 39% of Gen X, and 34% of baby boomers.</li>
</ul>
<p>Why is travel volume so closely tied to job satisfaction? Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">2021 survey</a> found that the ability to travel directly impacts personal growth.</p>
<ul>
<li>The majority of business travelers—68%—said they were pushing for a return to business travel, while just 32% felt their company was requiring them to do so.</li>
<li>Four in five business travelers worried that unless they increased business travel last year, their company (80%) and they personally (80%) would suffer.</li>
<li>Professional concerns included the ability to develop and maintain business connections (45%), making less money (38%), and not advancing in their career (33%).</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The return of business travel calls for a policy reshuffle</h2>
<p>But that doesn’t mean travelers are willing to compromise on their newly elevated expectations for business travel. In fact, those expectations remain largely unchanged from <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">2021</a>. </p>
<ul>
<li>In 2022, 91% consider some flexible travel and booking options as essential for their company to allow to protect their health and safety when they travel for business—compared to 89% in 2021.</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, business travelers are feeling empowered to decline a business trip if it doesn’t match their expectations or comfort level. Overall, 91% of business travelers say they are willing to decline a business trip assigned to them.</p>
<ul>
<li>APAC travelers are most likely to decline a business trip (94%, compared to 91% in Europe and 90% in the Americas).</li>
<li>Safety concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world is the most common reason business travelers say they’d decline a business trip, with over half of business travelers (53%) saying they’d do so. In fact, four in five business travelers (82%) say their business travel has been impacted by the war in Ukraine.</li>
<li>Half of business travelers (51%) are willing to decline a business trip their company assigns if they have COVID-19 related health concerns about it.</li>
<li>A quarter of business travelers (26%) are willing to nix a business trip assigned by their company if they’re feeling burnt out with travel and need a break.</li>
<li>A quarter of business travelers (24%) would decline a trip assigned to them if it required using non-sustainable travel options.</li>
</ul>
<p>However, given the power dynamics in today’s labor market, business travelers intend to ask for more in order to accept a position that requires more travel: 92% say they’d need additional salary, benefits, or travel flexibility to make a move.</p>
<ul>
<li>While nearly three in five (59%) would want a larger salary and/or bonus to take a position that requires more travel than their current one, others could be attracted by benefits to make their work more enjoyable. Nearly two in five business travelers (39%) would need additional vacation time, and nearly as many (37%) want the ability to work from home as a lure. </li>
<li>Additional vacation time would be of particular interest for business travelers in APAC, where 44% say this could attract them to a position with more travel.</li>
<li>Successfully attracting executives to positions requiring additional travel may take more than higher salaries and bonuses. In fact, little more than half of executive-level business travelers would take a position with more travel based on this perk (51%).</li>
<li>While nearly two in three business travelers at larger companies (65%) would need an increase in salary or a bonus to accept a position with more travel, just over half of travelers from SMBs (55%) say more pay is a must.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Travel departments face new pressures in a turbulent landscape</h2>
<p>The travel industry has had myriad challenges in 2022, including lingering health and safety concerns associated with COVID-19, increasing travel costs, and rampant travel cancellations and delays. In fact, business travelers are more concerned about travel cancellations and delays (61%) than the typically dreaded task of filing the expense report for their trip (39%).</p>
<p>In turn, we’ve seen a noted shift in stress levels before, during, and after business travel. Nearly two in five global business travelers (38%) say that during the trip is the most stressful stage of travel—a seven-point increase from the 31% of business travelers who said this in <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">2021</a>.</p>
<img alt="Chart showing the most stressful stages of a business trip" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="d74741e2-7e28-49b9-818b-c7eb5f4550dc" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/GBTS%20Stress%20Level%20Graphic_7%2022%2022_2.jpeg" />
<p>More than half of travel managers (55%) report their job is already as stressful or more now than during the previous year, and all surveyed travel managers (100%) expect their role to be more challenging in the next 12 months compared to last year. </p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly half of global travel managers (49%) report the stress is caused by increased scrutiny from above, through increasing pressure from senior leadership to demonstrate the ROI of their role.</li>
<li>Forty-nine percent of travel managers anticipate challenges adjusting to frequent staffing changes, and 47% anticipate the challenge of accommodating more travelers in secondary markets and smaller towns.</li>
<li>Half of travel managers (50%) say the increasing number of expense reports will add challenges to their job in the coming year, and two in five (40%) say the same about increasing travel volume. Nearly as many travel managers predict challenges from reduced travel budgets (39%) and adjusting to staffing changes in their department (36%).</li>
</ul>
<p>“Year-over-year changes in business travelers’ stress levels are some of the most telling findings about the state of business travel,” said Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel. “They remind us that industry challenges aren’t theoretical. In these moments of change—the pandemic, the Great Resignation, and inflation—the impacts are very real, and global business travelers are feeling and experiencing them directly.”</p>
<p>This year’s survey also offers insights into sustainability trends, generational differences among business travelers, and more. Download our new global white papers—on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">business traveler</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-manager-report-2022">travel manager</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-smb-travel-report-2022">SMB</a> survey responses—and stay tuned for upcoming deep-dive analysis on the SAP Concur blog.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by <a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 3,850 business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business three-plus times in the past 24 months, in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global travel manager survey was conducted by <a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, SEA Countries (Malaysia and Singapore), UK, and U.S. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em><br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
Does it Feel Like Smaller Companies Have Bigger Problems?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/does-it-feel-smaller-companies-have-bigger-problems
2022-08-05T10:48:50Z
2022-08-03T12:07:46Z
Just because you don’t have thousands of employees, doesn’t mean your problems are small. Our survey shows how that affects business travel.
<p>Just because you don’t have thousands of employees, doesn’t mean your problems are small. In fact, if you were to compare your small- to medium-business apples to enterprise-size apples, your problems would probably take up a bigger slice of the pie. Because smaller companies have less margin, and therefore less room for error.</p>
<p>And that’s when the problems start to show up.</p>
<p>Let’s imagine, for example, that a handful of employees quit their jobs because they were unhappy with their travel schedules. (Okay, we don’t actually have to imagine. This is reality, and, according to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-smb-travel-report-2022">new Global Business Travel Survey</a> aimed at small to midsized businesses, it’s becoming more and more likely.) One in four dissatisfied business travelers will look for a new position if their travel schedule doesn’t improve. And roughly 9 out of 10 employees are willing to decline an assigned business trip for safety, personal, or environmental reasons. Like COVID-19. And the war in Ukraine. They’re also putting their foot down when it comes to a trip’s carbon footprint – if it doesn’t match their sustainability threshold, they’re not going.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img alt="Icon of a traveler with suitcase" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="45253805-bcac-4ced-b679-8cb5f38978f0" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/284612_Traveller_Female_R_purple_1.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Global Small-Medium Business Traveler Report 2022</h5>
<p>We surveyed 1,650 business travelers in 6 markets to gain insight into the state of business travel at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-smb-travel-report-2022">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>So what should you do? In a word: Flexibility. Today’s business travelers equate safe travel with flexible travel – getting to pick their preferred mode of transportation, deciding for themselves how long their trips will last, and so on.</p>
<p>They want options, so if the neighborhood where their hotel is located doesn’t feel safe, or if a train is more eco-friendly than a flight, they can make a change without repercussions. Your travelers also want to be able to book their trips themselves – directly on supplier websites. This gives them more control over where and when they’re traveling, amping up the flexibility, comfort, and ultimately the engagement in and productivity of their trip. What that means for your company, unfortunately, is growing volumes of hidden spend and the inability to pinpoint where your people are at any given time.</p>
<p>There are tools to capture those bookings, however, and when you can see every single itinerary, you and your travelers each get the control you demand.</p>
<p>Really, what it comes down to – and you’ll see this explained in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-smb-travel-report-2022">our survey</a> – is making sure your travelers know you care about them, their well-being, and their overall safety. Demonstrate that by adjusting to their needs, and you’ll find you don’t have as big a problem as you thought.</p>
SAP Concur Team
One Way to Reduce the Stress of Travel Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/one-way-reduce-stress-travel-management
2022-08-05T10:48:21Z
2022-08-03T11:57:18Z
According to our new Global Business Travel Survey, the challenge of being a travel manager in today’s constantly evolving travel environment is more of a struggle than ever.
<p>According to our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-manager-report-2022">Global Business Travel Survey</a>, the challenge of being a travel manager in today’s constantly evolving travel environment is more of a struggle than ever.</p>
<p>To put a finer point on it: 55% of global travel managers said that this year is already as or more stressful than the last. And 100% of them – that’s every darn one of them, if you’re counting – admitted that they expect the next 12 months to be even worse.</p>
<p>Travel managers’ sentiment is not surprising, given the disruptions plaguing the travel industry and the rising costs of just about everything. In fact, the most dominant concern among the 700 travel managers surveyed across seven markets is the rising price of oil and inflation in general. A related point, of course, is concern about shrinking budgets. In between are fears of exposing travelers to COVID, efforts to build sustainability into their travel programs, and the challenge of providing travelers the flexibility they now demand.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img alt="Icon of a traveler with suitcase" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="04f49c7c-f0f2-4387-a506-5933adcce09e" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/284612_Traveller_Female_R_purple_0.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Global Business Travel Manager Report 2022</h5>
<p>We surveyed 700 travel managers in 7 global markets to gain insight into the state of business travel and what the next year will bring for travel managers.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-manager-report-2022">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>If that wasn’t enough, travel managers are also facing pressure to manage an increasing number of expense reports, navigate their way through staffing changes, take care of travelers in smaller markets, and do even more with even less while proving the ROI of their efforts.</p>
<p>So yes, it’s an interesting time for travel managers.</p>
<p>Well then, what are they (and you!) supposed to do about it? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-manager-report-2022">Our report</a> highlights an unexpectedly simple answer: Capture every booking detail. As you can imagine, when you know where people are headed, how they’re getting there, what they’re spending, where they’re staying, and so forth, it’s far easier to control their costs, do your duty of care, and prove the value of your company’s investment in travel itself.</p>
<p>But when people book outside of your system, you don’t know who’s going where or what it costs. It comes down to the old adage: You can’t control what you can’t see.</p>
<p>Seeing every booking, therefore, is at least one of the keys to simplifying and de-stressing your job. And also, according to the report, companies in the best position to overcome these and other travel barriers are those who can count on their booking tools to quickly adapt to policy changes and traveler demands.</p>
<p>In other words, travel managers can make their jobs manageable by capturing every booking and itinerary detail – regardless of whether a traveler used their corporate booking tool or made reservations directly with a supplier.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about whether that’s possible, the answer is “Yes!” The tools exist to easily collect travel details from both inside and outside your system, putting you in control of everything from costs to COVID fears to keeping up with sustainability goals.</p>
<p>And you can find them on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel & Expense</a> page.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Business Travelers are Ready to Go, but First a Few Requests
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-are-ready-go-first-few-requests
2023-11-09T14:26:14Z
2022-08-03T11:46:08Z
Business travel continues to change, and business travelers are speaking up about the changes they’d like to see.
<p>Business travel continues to change, and business travelers are speaking up about the changes they’d like to see.</p>
<p>They, like every other employee, have long been tired of what they feel are unreasonable employer demands. And now, as business figures out its new normal, travelers have come up with relevant demands of their own. Like safety, for example. And the flexibility to pick where they stay and how they get there. To top it off, they would love to help save the planet at the same time.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Global Business Traveler Report 2022</h5>
<p>See the findings from our survey of 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets for insight into what's at the top of their minds. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>But instead of addressing these requests and rethinking their travel programs, many companies are attempting to get back up to 2019-era travel by placing more and more trips in fewer roller-bags.</p>
<p>According to this year’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">Global Business Travel Survey</a> of 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets, “most business travelers say their companies are returning to pre-pandemic travel levels but are spreading it among fewer employees, an approach that leaves the majority unhappy with their travel frequency.”</p>
<p>Unhappy? How unhappy? Well, our findings say they’re unhappy enough to leave their jobs.</p>
<p>To business travelers, flexibility now equates to safety and freedom of choice. If they’re visiting a certain city and choosing their carrier and accommodations, they want to be able to pick their preferred airline and select a hotel in a safe neighborhood. They want to decide how long their trip will be because they don’t want to be away from home or their families for weeks at a time. And they want to be able to change travel plans without repercussions, so if there’s an outbreak in their destination, they can skip the trip.</p>
<p>Providing for these preferences might require rather significant changes in your corporate travel policy—changes that could be a key strategy for retaining your talent. Nearly a quarter (23%) of business travelers who are traveling more than they like say they’ll search for a new position if things don’t change.</p>
<p>And speaking of change, travelers are taking sustainability into their own hands, booking air, lodging, and car rentals based on how those suppliers match their personal ecological goals. And again, these travelers are speaking out: 24% of them are ready to refuse a business trip if it requires using non-sustainable travel options.</p>
<p>No, business travelers aren’t in the back seat anymore. But—as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/2022-global-business-traveler-report">our findings</a> point out—if we want to drive real change in corporate travel, maybe it’s time we let them take the wheel.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Get the Right AP Automation System to Stay Nimble, Efficient, and In the Moment
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/get-right-ap-automation-system-stay-nimble-efficient-and-moment
2022-08-16T09:00:00Z
2022-08-02T14:30:58Z
Today’s markets are in constant flux, and your business may change at a moment’s notice. No wonder you’re continually looking for ways to stay nimble, efficient, and cost-effective while maintaining t
<p>Today’s markets are in constant flux, and your business may change at a moment’s notice. No wonder you’re continually looking for ways to stay nimble, efficient, and cost-effective while maintaining the high quality and service levels your customers have come to expect. Nearly half of businesses like yours are looking to streamline operations by digitally transforming their finance processes.<sup>1</sup> Yet too many are still trying to keep pace with the same outdated, manual invoice management they’ve been using for ages. The result can be ill-defined expense and invoice policies, an inability to track spending trends and behaviors, and an average of 13 hours spent just processing vendor invoices each week.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p>The moment to take advantage of automated accounts payable (AP) technology is here.</p>
<p>In a world of unpredictable supply chains, everyone must be prepared to bring new vendors and payment types into the mix. This can mean higher transaction volumes for your AP staff – many of whom may now need the flexibility to work remotely. In addition to allowing them to get more done in the day, automation also takes tedious, error-prone data entry off their plate. Not only does this help avoid delays, late fees, double payments, and lost documentation that can affect cash flow, but it also improves compliance and allows AP staff to stay focused on strategic, value-adding work.</p>
<p>On top of streamlining processes overall, the right automated AP system should give you the advanced reporting and analytics you need to monitor spending across your enterprise. The system should also include the ability to quickly pinpoint errors and flag potential fraud, waste, and abuse as well as identify spending trends and opportunities to develop a more impactful spend management strategy.</p>
<p>So, let’s take a moment to examine what truly automated AP looks like.</p>
<p>To start, your invoices should be immediately and automatically scanned and inputted into the system – no need to manually enter data from e-mails and paper into spreadsheets. Everything from workflow notifications to approvals to PO matching from POs to goods or services received should be automated to help ensure accuracy and efficiency at every touch point. But you also need the flexibility to customize and adapt routing rules, policies, and processes to meet your needs in the moment. Another must-have is comprehensive, up-to-date reporting that gives you clear spending oversight and an accurate picture of cash flow. Your system should also be integrated with your back-end ERP or finance solution so that the same data can inform your forecasting and budgets. Cloud-based software is always a good bet for ease of integration, scalability, and lower total cost of ownership. And last but not least, all of your data and processes should be easily accessible via mobile devices so that your people can stay productive in the office, at home, or on the go.</p>
<p>In fact, companies that have seized the moment and automated their AP are seeing up to 22% fewer misplaced invoices, 12 hours saved processing invoices each week, and an estimated annual cost savings of $44,000.<sup>3</sup></p>
<p>The case for AP automation is clear – and the moment is now. The next question is: How do I get there?</p>
<p>First, you’ll need to get the right people to the table. This means your CFO, AP team, IT and procurement leaders, and anyone else who will be impacted by the new system. Learn their processes, find out what’s working and what’s not, identify gaps, and use their insights and ideas to map today’s operations to tomorrow’s goals to improve performance and deliver greater value going forward. The next step will be to clearly establish your business and technology requirements. This step includes finding a solution that will work well with the systems you already have in place but will also give you the flexibility to expand and grow. Finally, be realistic about the challenges you may face so that you can meet them head on and minimize disruption along the way. Automated AP will ultimately make everyone’s life easier, but you also want getting there to be as simple as possible. It might even be worth engaging a third-party consultant to help you and your people manage the changes ahead.</p>
<p>To learn more about the questions you should be asking AP automation solution providers as you search for the right software, read our complete <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">AP automation buyers guide</a>.</p>
<p>Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see if SAP Concur solutions are right for you.</p>
<p>1.–3. “Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study,” Analysys Mason, 2022.</p>
Kayla Tollefson
Make the Most of Every AP Moment with Automated Invoice Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-most-every-ap-moment-automated-invoice-management
2022-08-17T09:03:29Z
2022-08-02T14:26:13Z
Concur Invoice fully integrates with the Concur Expense and Concur Travel solutions as well as with most major ERP and finance systems and an array of third-party apps and services, you can fit your
<p>In the world of business, every moment matters. Every decision must be informed by the need to increase efficiency, optimize performance, control costs, maximize profitability, and drive sustainable growth – all while maintaining the highest levels of quality and service for your customers. At the same time, businesses like yours are contending with the new world of hybrid work, where employees expect the flexibility to work from anywhere.</p>
<p>Nowhere do we see all these imperatives converge more than in accounts payable (AP).</p>
<p>Supply chain disruptions, skyrocketing costs, and market fluctuations have many finance teams scrambling to manage new vendors, new payment types, and increased transaction volumes – while also keeping a sharp eye on the bottom line. Yet AP – which sits at the center of it all – is often the last of the finance functions to be automated.</p>
<p>Managing invoices with paper, e-mail, and spreadsheets means countless moments of frustration for buyers, suppliers, and AP teams alike. Manual workflows often lead to forgotten or duplicated payments, missed deadlines, and a lack of insight into payment status and cash flow. Such an approach also leaves behind countless opportunities to increase efficiency and optimize performance.</p>
<p>In fact, nearly a third of companies worldwide that aren’t using some type of dedicated spend management automation software see duplicate invoices as one of their biggest financial challenges. And nearly half report manual expense and invoice management workflows as their biggest employee experience issue. Add that to 43% reporting a lack of visibility into cash flow and company spending as their biggest strategic shortcoming and we clearly have a problem.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>It's time to turn all those moments of frustration into moments of clarity with truly automated invoice management.</p>
<p>With the right invoice management software, you can streamline your AP processes from start to finish. This includes automating invoice intake, approvals, matching, and payments as well as providing mobile access to workflows. Not only does this reduce errors, rework, and the risk of delays and compliance violations, but it also frees up time so that employees can stay focused on the moments that matter for your business. Agile, user-friendly reporting should also be a key component of any software you choose so that your finance teams can gain a more accurate picture of money coming in and out. Plus, when you have a solution that integrates with your backend ERP or finance system, those same teams can more easily use all that valuable AP data to inform forecasting, budgets, and overall spend strategy.</p>
<p>In terms of time and money, the benefits are clear. Companies that have a truly automated invoice management software system save their finance or accounting team an estimated 122 hours per week and save their business an average of $44,000 per year.<sup>2</sup></p>
<p>Luckily, the Concur Invoice solution has you covered.</p>
<p>By offering all the features and functionality you need in an automated invoice management solution, Concur Invoice gives your buyers, AP, and broader finance team the tools and information they need to make the most of every moment and do their best work.</p>
<p>Optical character recognition and machine learning functionality make it possible to automatically scan invoices and input data right when it comes in. Then two- and three-way matching helps ensure that invoices are never overlooked and that POs and invoices align so that you aren’t being overcharged. The result is that your AP team can more easily find and resolve discrepancies that would otherwise hurt your bottom line.</p>
<p>The increased efficiency and optimized performance you get with Concur Invoice speed up your AP processes overall, making it easier to take advantage of perks from your suppliers, such as early payment discounts. And automated, mobile-enabled notifications and alerts for finance teams and accounting managers help them stay on top of compliance issues and reduce the risk of fraud. Comprehensive, up-to-date reporting gives you total insight into invoice and payment status, so you can stay on top of cash flow and supplier liability. Combine that with advanced analytics, and you have the visibility you need to find the many efficiency improvements that can help your business run better. Plus, because Concur Invoice fully integrates with the Concur Expense and Concur Travel solutions as well as with most major ERP and finance systems and an array of third-party apps and services, you can fit your invoice data into your overall forecasting and budget equation.</p>
<p>So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to seize the moment.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/your-current-ap-process-truly-automated">Read our latest paper</a> to find out why more than 49,000 businesses like yours are using SAP Concur solutions to take control of their expense, invoice, and travel management. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to get started today.</p>
<p>1.–2. "Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study,” Analysys Mason Sponsored by SAP, 2022.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Seize Every Moment with a Strong and Agile Spend Management Strategy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/seize-every-moment-strong-and-agile-spend-management-strategy
2022-08-17T09:03:53Z
2022-08-02T14:19:58Z
Ultimately, the right spend management strategy is one that moves your business forward by helping your finance team, buyers, travelers, partners, and vendors work more efficiently and effectively to
<p>In the world of business, change is the only constant. As you pivot to meet every new moment, keeping operations flexible, efficient, cost-effective, and profitable is the key to success. And the only way to get there is to stay on top of spending – from the highest level down to the smallest detail.</p>
<p>Whether you’re running global operations or a small or midsize local business, a strong spend management strategy can really make an impact. It is by integrating travel spend, expense management, and vendor invoice management and aligning that spending with your broader business goals that you can boost performance, support business continuity, improve employee productivity and job satisfaction, and lower costs – ultimately helping driving growth.</p>
<p>A good place to start is spend policy. Your goal is to improve performance and find savings, so your policy needs to guide employees on how to make purchases based on cost, efficiency, and sustainability. Then, once your policy is in place, strong governance is a must. That’s where a fully integrated spend management solution that allows you to build policy compliance into every workflow comes in. Gone are the days of the paper compliance manual. With automatic compliance checks at each stage of the travel, expense, and vendor invoice management process, you make people accountable for their own spending choices. Not only does this relieve managers and finance teams of the burden of overseeing everyone’s spend, you help build a culture of smart spending across your employee base. And when there are mistakes – or even potential fraud – built-in alerts make them much simpler to flag and address before payments are made.</p>
<p>Another key element of any spend management technology must be flexibility. No matter how well thought out your spend management strategy, always remember that everything is subject to change. Take, for example, the supply chain disruptions we are seeing across every industry. Or the rapid shift to the hybrid work environment. In order to act in the moment, you need a comprehensive spend management solution that allows you to pivot quickly, whatever the market may bring. And as home offices and business travel both take off, you must be able to provide everyone with travel and expense management data and workflows that can be accessed and executed from anywhere. There is simply no place for outdated, paper-based processes, lost receipts, spreadsheets, and email follow-ups. Full automation is the name of the game – and mobile access is a necessity. Not only are you improving the work experience for your staff, the digitalization of your spend management processes means they can be completed faster and more accurately that ever before – reducing errors, delays, and late fees; speeding reimbursements; and improving vendor relationships and the employee experience.</p>
<p>Beyond making life easier for employees and saving them time that can be focused on value-adding work, the right spend management strategy supported by a comprehensive spend management solution greatly increases business insight. By bringing all your travel, expense, and vendor invoice data together and offering robust reporting and advanced analytics, you can get a clear picture of spend across your business – from the bird’s-eye view to the smallest detail. This allows finance to spot trends – good and bad – uncover opportunities, and make spend decisions that improve business performance. And, if you choose a system that integrates with your back-end ERP or finance systems, you get the added bonus of using that same spend data to inform forecasting and budgets as you plan for the road ahead.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the right spend management strategy is one that moves your business forward by helping your finance team, buyers, travelers, partners, and vendors work more efficiently and effectively to meet customer needs. Greater process governance and data accuracy improves compliance and reduces the risk of waste and fraud. And comprehensive reporting and analytics give everyone the information they need to make the best spend choices for your people and your business. The savings opportunities you uncover will help optimize cash flow and seize the moment to reinvest in what matters most.</p>
<p>To find out more, read our complete <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/5-steps-strategic-spend-management">guide to achieving strategic spend management</a>. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
ICYMI: What's New in the TripIt App
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-new-tripit-app
2022-07-26T09:00:32Z
2022-07-21T09:25:02Z
We’ve been making a series of updates to the TripIt app—to help make the experience more intuitive and inclusive for our TripIt users.
<p>Between travel plans, barbecues, music festivals, kids’ camps, and everything else a busy summer can entail, you might have missed that we’ve been busy with plans of our own. That is, we’ve been making a series of updates to the TripIt app—to help make the experience more intuitive and inclusive for our TripIt users.</p>
<p>Missed what’s new? Not to worry—we’ve summarized the updates, below.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>We updated the look of the TripIt app</h2>
<p>If you’ve been poking around the TripIt app lately, you might have noticed things look a little different. The More tab has become the Account tab, structured with better organization of profile features and settings, such as your personal information and account management, your Travel Stats, as well as your personalized safety alerts and travel contacts.</p>
<p><strong>Tip:</strong> Continue to reference the <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us">Help Center</a> for answers to your questions. </p>
<p>The Trips tab also has a fresh new look. You’ll see your upcoming, past, and shared trips organized into distinct categories, to make finding your itineraries more intuitive.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>TripIt is now available in Spanish</h2>
<p>For our travelers around the world—and as part of our efforts to make our app more inclusive to users—you can now use TripIt in Spanish, in addition to English, French, German, and Japanese. If your mobile phone is set to one of these, the TripIt app will also operate in that language. For all other languages, the app will remain in English.</p>
<p>You can also forward booking confirmation emails written in Spanish to <a href="mailto:plans@tripit.com">plans@tripit.com</a> to create an itinerary.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>You can download our new medium widget for iOS</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-widget-for-iphone-and-ipad.html">TripIt widget for iOS </a>displays the most relevant details for your upcoming trip or event, so you can quickly see the information you need without having to open the TripIt app. The TripIt widget is also available on the Today View of your iPad, so you’ll always know where to be and when.</p>
<p>And while the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-widget-for-iphone-and-ipad.html">small widget</a> gives a quick view of your upcoming travel plans and acts as a shortcut into the app, we’ve introduced our new medium widget for your iOS home screen and Smart Stack so you can do even more.</p>
<p>With the medium widget, you can see additional trip details, plus links to helpful TripIt features such Nearby Places for cafes or gas stations and Navigator to see transport options to the next</p>
<p>location in your itinerary. It was designed with this very logic in mind—to present links to the most relevant feature at any point in your trip, based on where you are or what you're doing</p>
<p><strong>Related reading: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-widget-for-iphone-and-ipad.html">Introducing the TripIt Widget for iPhone and iPad</a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>We increased access to Neighborhood Safety Scores for Android users</h2>
<p>TripIt shows safety scores from 1 to 100, representing low to high risk, including a Health and Medical score that factors in COVID-19 data. This information is available in the Neighborhood Safety Scores section within your TripIt itinerary.</p>
<p>For Android users, we’ve recently added Neighborhood Safety Scores to activity, meeting, tour, theater, and concert plans.</p>
<p><strong>Tip:</strong> Set your <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/neighborhood-safety-scores-personal-risk-level.html">personal risk level</a>, and we’ll warn you if you’re planning on visiting an area that’s above your threshold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</strong></p>
TripIt Team
Expanding Partner Solution Progression Through SAP Concur Endorsed Apps
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expanding-partner-solution-progression-through-sap-concur-endorsed-apps
2023-02-28T07:25:03Z
2022-07-19T12:22:18Z
Our goal is mutual success. The SAP Concur partner ecosystem is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers and partners.
<p>Partnerships make the world go round—at least that’s how we feel about them at SAP Concur. They are essential to our business and bring success to both our customers and partners alike. That’s why we continue to invest in partner solution progression, helping innovative partners to quickly scale through collaboration, showcasing their applications on our global <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">App Center</a>, and identifying opportunities for growth.</p>
<h2><strong>What is partner solution progression?</strong></h2>
<img alt="external solution photo" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="a04ca1c0-c696-4406-9375-3f57138ebdda" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/1Picture1.png" />
<h2><br />
<strong><!--[endif]--></strong></h2>
<p>The SAP® Concur® App Center offers 270+ partner applications that connect to and enhance SAP Concur solutions, enabling businesses to optimize travel and spend management programs. To strengthen our investment in our partners, we are expanding the ways partners can grow and evolve with us by introducing a new category for partner solutions: SAP Concur Endorsed Apps.</p>
<p>Select App Center partner applications will progress to become an SAP Concur endorsed app, reserved for partners with proven customer success or in rapidly growing categories, that have completed an additional security review to ensure they meet the requirements of the endorsed app premium certification.</p>
<p><img alt="endorsed app photo" data-align="right" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="8ebedd36-7829-4c46-8e46-50e98feb7e4d" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/endorsed%20app%20photo.jpg" /></p>
<p>For a select few partner applications, there is an additional progression to become an SAP Concur Solution Extension, which is a category of solutions that can be purchased directly from SAP Concur.</p>
<h2><strong>Why partner with us? </strong></h2>
<p>Our partners have innovative applications that businesses around the world need – applications that solve critical challenges we can’t tackle on our own. Together, we can bring partners’ expertise to customers, open new doors for their businesses, and help build a path to sustainable growth. For example, partners with an SAP Concur endorsed app are provided with a path that brings additional opportunity, backed by marketing and sales support from us.</p>
<h2><strong>What value do these partnerships bring to our customers? </strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur nurtures a community of partner applications, so our customers can bring innovation to their organizations at a faster pace. These are the disruptors delivering breakthrough ideas for tackling detailed processes, taking on unique industry requirements, and applying intelligent technology in new ways across every line of business.</p>
<p>Customers can discover these diverse options on the SAP Concur App Center, where we’ve curated the best applications that can extend their SAP Concur solutions – bringing ideas that represent immediate value to their businesses and deliver more return on their investments in SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<h2><strong>More on endorsed apps. </strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions cannot solve all our customers’ business challenges alone. Our partner ecosystem provides additional innovations to help customers on their journey to become an intelligent enterprise and a best-run business. This new initiative allows customers to take advantage of complete, proven solutions, with the most innovative technology brought to them by partner apps endorsed by SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>Since last summer, we have launched our first five endorsed app partnerships:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/628ebd52747a7e00163dc5a2">CHOOOSE</a>: Enables organizations to easily measure, reduce (via Sustainable Aviation Fuel), and manage travel-related carbon emissions based on Concur Travel and Concur TripLink data.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/560c29ba34857ae301684cf3">Motus</a>: Empowers companies to reimburse employees for the business use of personal assets —vehicles, devices, broadband, etc.— in a tax-free, fair, and accurate way. This simplified reimbursement process integrates directly with Concur Expense. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5e9761216fa77c0013b08625">Zylo</a>: The Zylo integration for Concur Expense provides comprehensive visibility into software purchases made by employees – empowering companies to organize, optimize, and orchestrate all enterprise SaaS applications from one system of record.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expanding-partner-solution-progression-through-sap-concur-endorsed-apps">MedPro</a> Concur Connect solutions: Empowers Life Sciences organizations to effortlessly search, capture, and export accurate healthcare professional (HCP) data to comply with U.S. Federal <a href="https://www.concur.com/open-payments-compliance">Open Payments</a> (Sunshine act), state, and international transparency reporting regulations.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5787ad4ac5cec4160011e8df">International SOS</a>: Provides duty of care solutions with real-time tracking, health and security intelligence, and alerts with 24/7 assistance, integrating with booking data from <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Regional availability varies for every endorsed app. To learn more each partner and its availability, please visit the listing in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a>. Endorsed apps are identified by a purple “Endorsed App” banner.</p>
<h2><strong>Evolve and grow with SAP Concur. </strong></h2>
<p>Our goal is mutual success. The SAP Concur partner ecosystem is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers and partners, and the new enhancements available to partners benefit customers by providing the innovations they want. Our partners can take advantage of SAP Concur solutions and data to deliver additional value to new audiences. Together, we can take our businesses to places they’ve never been before.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Travel & Expense Recognized as a 2022 Top-Rated Software by TrustRadius
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-travel-expense-recognized-top-rated-software-trustradius
2022-07-19T11:37:35Z
2022-07-18T11:32:32Z
We're excited to share that Concur Travel & Expense has again been named a Top-Rated Expense Management Software in two categories by TrustRadius
<p>We're excited to share that Concur Travel & Expense has again been named a Top-Rated Expense Management Software in both the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/expense-management">Expense Management</a> and <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/travel-management">Travel Management</a> categories by TrustRadius. What's more, we are honored to earn the 2022 Most Loved Award, granted to products that earned the highest ratio of “love” per review across the entire TrustRadius platform.</p>
<p>Since 2015, the TrustRadius Top Rated Awards have become the industry standard for unbiased recognition of B2B technology products. Each month, over a million B2B technology buyers use more than 384,000 verified reviews and ratings on <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/">TrustRadius.com</a> to make informed purchasing decisions. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are based entirely on customer feedback and have never been influenced by analyst opinion or status as a TrustRadius customer. (To learn more about TrustRadius Top Rated awards, check out the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring">TrustRadius scoring criteria breakdown</a>.)</p>
<p>The 800+ <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/products/concur/reviews">reviews</a> from verified users of Concur Travel & Expense highlight features like a positive user experience, visibility into budget, mobile receipt capture, and time savings – both when using the product and receiving reimbursements. Reviewers love the way in which it integrates with productivity tools and appreciate the convenience of the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>See what some users think about Concur Travel & Expense in their own words:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>"Automating the AP process with Concur Invoice has led to less data entry, less errors, and improved efficiency." - <a href="http://trustradi.us/7ITZE">SAP Concur user</a></li>
<li>"Concur has saved employees of my company thousands of hours creating and submitting expense reports for reimbursement." - <a href="http://trustradi.us/61L6Q">SAP Concur user</a></li>
<li>"SAP Concur certainly did its part in making our employees much more productive, which directly helped in the company's growth." - <a href="http://trustradi.us/LAAW4">SAP Concur user</a></li>
</ul>
<p>“Concur Travel & Expense has won two Top Rated awards, in the Expense Management and Travel Management categories,” said Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. “Users highlight SAP Concur integrations with other finance systems and native automation capabilities. These features help users quickly record and process receipts and travel expenses at scale, according to reviewers.”</p>
<p>We would like to say a big “thank you” to all who shared reviews of our products on TrustRadius. Customer experience is a big part of our history and continues to be our passion. Helping you achieve your goals and listening to your feedback is critical to our success.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Take it for a spin in our free </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/"><strong>self-guided demo</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Am I Supposed to Do With This?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-am-i-supposed-do
2022-07-26T14:11:30Z
2022-07-18T09:52:40Z
It’s something you probably ask yourself when opening an invoice you didn’t expect or can’t believe (or perhaps you use a different, more colorful phrase we can’t repeat here). The fact is, no matter
<p>It’s something you probably ask yourself when opening an invoice you didn’t expect or can’t believe (or perhaps you use a different, more colorful phrase we can’t repeat here). The fact is, no matter how perfect a procurement process you have, some spending is going to fall outside your system. And when those invoices start rolling in, the question of what to do with them falls to you. </p>
<p>Take, for example, invoices from your utility providers. Or from marketing, catering, and events. Or really from any purchases people have to make beyond the bounds your procurement system. Or from vendors who aren’t on your approved list. How do you know what these things are for? How do you know what to do?</p>
<p>If you can’t easily answer those questions, is it maybe time to rethink your invoice solution? There’s a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-essentials-brining-controls-and-compliance-unmanaged-spending">spending tip sheet out there</a> with the answers, but let’s ask a few more questions first.</p>
<h2><strong>Are you approving spending <em>before</em> it’s spent, so you can curb out-of-policy spend? </strong></h2>
<p>If this seems like a no-brainer, that’s because it is. When you have the option (or a new solution gives you the option) to hold the reins on spending before your money goes out the door, the answer to that option is always “yes.” Pre-spend authorization lets you proactively control costs, be confident in compliance, and more easily manage cashflow – all while driving your people to approved vendors.</p>
<h2><strong>Do you have to open envelopes or emails to get your invoices? </strong></h2>
<p>This isn’t a bad thing – it’s how invoices are delivered after all – but if you and your teams are still keying in all that information, someone is going to make a mistake and you’re going to fall behind. Wouldn’t you rather have a solution that automatically scans invoices whether they’re paper or PDF, whether they’re from an approved vendor or from someone you’ve never heard of, and all the information just works into your workflow? Again, the answer is yes.</p>
<h2><strong>Are you earning supplier discounts because you’re automatically paying invoices early?</strong></h2>
<p><br />
Or is it more like this: You wait until the last minute because a) You haven’t seen the invoice yet, b) Cash is tight, or c) It’s coming from outside your system, so you don’t even know what it is. Your solution should automatically pay your invoices in a way that meets your policies and your suppliers’ terms. So you can make the most of discounts and keep more money in your pocket.</p>
<h2><strong>Can your employees easily review invoices from their sofa? </strong></h2>
<p>People are working from everywhere these days, and if they can’t look at an invoice at the drop of a hat, well, you probably already know you’ve got a problem. You want a solution with a simple mobile app that lets your users review, accept, and reject invoices in an instant – from anywhere. That way, you’ll have answers on all your invoices, no matter where they came from or where your reviewers happen to be</p>
<p>These are pretty simple questions, and while the answers might not be so easy, the solution actually is. You just need to know what to look for. Again, it’s all outlined in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-essentials-brining-controls-and-compliance-unmanaged-spending">7 Essentials Spending Tip Sheet.</a> Essentially, it all amounts to this: An easier way to ensure you’re spending policies are being followed, that you’re ahead of all the surprises, and that you’re paying the right amount at the right time.</p>
<p>If you can’t keep up with all that, you need a new invoice solution. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-essentials-brining-controls-and-compliance-unmanaged-spending">Find out what you should be looking for in the 7 Essentials Spending Tip Sheet.</a></p>
<p>What have you got to lose?</p>
SAP Concur Team
Getting Clarity and Compliance with Each Policy Shifts
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/getting-clarity-and-compliance-each-policy-shifts
2022-07-18T09:51:39Z
2022-07-18T09:49:02Z
In line with employee preferences and government directives, your company has sustainability goals. A range of capabilities can help. Policy preferences and in-solution tips can guide employees to gre
<p>Your company undoubtedly shifted spending policies as work from home and the stops and starts of travel disrupted business and altered the paths dollars took.</p>
<p>Supply-chain chaos and inflation have further clouded the policy picture. Employees are pushing budget limits to satisfy customers. Many employees have trouble keeping up with policy because, honestly, the changes can be confusing. A few, no doubt, see an opening to slip an expense by the company and take advantage.</p>
<p>Our research at SAP® Concur® validates what many finance managers are seeing. Last year, the spending violation rate <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">increased</a>, meaning more violations per dollar. Overall, excessive personal expenses jumped nearly <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">22%</a>. That’s plenty of dollars and policy violations on the loose.</p>
<p>It’s challenging to keep policy and the systems and people using them aligned. But it’s possible to stay ahead of noncompliance if you put the right mechanisms in place – ones utilizing automation and digital controls. Once you do, employees can keep up with changes. And you’ll have the clarity needed with each spending decision.</p>
<p>Our tip sheet, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/5-tips-safeguarding-your-spend-times-change">Turn Policy Shifts into Clarity</a>, covers five questions to help you examine where your business stands on navigating policy changes, along with tips on how you can improve management of your T&E policy processes.</p>
<h2><strong>Do your auditing processes run frequently, quickly, and accurately?</strong></h2>
<p>Automation is a start, because a smooth digital process lets you collect expense data and allows your finance team to focus on exceptions and mitigating risk. Incorporating AI and machine learning is a second step, as it can scrutinize expense reports for policy and other compliance issues and detect the difference between errors and outright fraud. The result is regular, accurate audits and employees getting reimbursed faster and at lower cost.</p>
<h2><strong>How confident are your employees in their ability to stay compliant?</strong></h2>
<p>Employees hear all the time that policies are changing but may wonder how that filters down to their spending and expense reports. Automated workflows let you guide employees to compliant choices, giving in-solution counsel as they book or make other spending decisions. They’ll know if an expense is incorrect without having to know policy word for word, and the company creates a culture of compliance. You’ll gain a better grasp of spending behavior and have the information to adjust policies.</p>
<h2>Do your employees have the support to adhere to policy workflows and updates?</h2>
<p>For employees to follow current policies, your internal systems and processes must be in sync with those policies. Business and technology experts can work with you to ensure alignment and quickly make adjustments. They can advise on configuration changes and managing travel allowances. In addition, your company can provide 24/7 access to dedicated support. All approaches aim to get the most from your implemented solutions and increase employee adoption and satisfaction.</p>
<h2>Can you adapt spending and auditing processes as quickly as policies change?</h2>
<p>Speed, efficiency, and competitiveness can coexist with compliance as policies evolve. A cloud-based platform combining human expertise, AI, and machine learning can support that coexistence. AI and machine can automatically detect suspicious or out-of-policy spending and flag those expenses so human auditors can take a closer look. Overall, the combination improves the efficiency and accuracy of auditing processes. And the technology allows you to capture documentation for tax requirements.</p>
<h2><strong>Are your policies effective enough to achieve corporate sustainability goals and requirements?</strong></h2>
<p>In line with employee preferences and government directives, your company has sustainability goals. A range of capabilities can help. Policy preferences and in-solution tips can guide employees to greener choices during booking. They can also gain insights into their carbon footprints, along with ways to offset the effects of travel. With the trend and expense data collected, you can better assess the travel choices the company provides and weigh greener options for the future. You’ll also be able to maintain compliance with environmental and labor policies and regulations.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Get a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/5-tips-safeguarding-your-spend-times-change"><strong>our tip sheet</strong></a> for a deeper look into those five questions and the policy clarity you seek.</li>
<li>Read this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/enhance-your-compliance-and-spend-management-sap-concur-solutions"><strong>brief brochure</strong></a> to learn about the comprehensive portfolio of SAP Concur solutions that improve spending visibility and help ensure compliance.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Gaining Accuracy and Confidence in Every Spending Decision
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/gaining-accuracy-and-confidence-every-spending-decision
2022-09-02T08:46:29Z
2022-07-18T09:45:35Z
Paperless booking, fuel-efficient flights, and electric ground transportation are the kinds of green options employees and companies seek. Leaders, though, are often unsure how to embed sustainability
<p>Whether your precious budget is generous or tight, business expenses can get out of control quickly. The easier – and faster – you can access accurate information, the better you can manage costs and make more strategic choices.</p>
<p>Work from home and the return to travel shifted spending and made policy compliance – already challenging – even more difficult. Look at how excessive personal expenses jumped 21.8% in 2021, as our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">Spend Insights Report</a> found. Or that the average questionable travel expense ran $3,397, as our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-pulse-surveys-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">Pulse Survey</a> revealed.</p>
<p>Now, inflation is pummeling budgets and certainty. All these factors make transparency, coordination, collaboration, and communication across budgeting, planning, and spending even more important.</p>
<p>Our new tip sheet examines five ways to gain greater clarity. They are areas that SAP Concur solutions can help bring visibility so your company can move forward while managing cash, costs, and compliance. That’s no small accomplishment as spending and requirements evolve.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>5 Tips for Making Spending Decisions More Strategic and Confident</h5>
<p>Learn how to make more confident, strategic spending decisions</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/5-tips-making-spending-decisions-more-strategic-and-confident">Get the tip sheet</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Improve spend visibility across the business</h2>
<p>Bringing travel, expense, and invoice data together in one location is a first step that allows you to capture and review spending. Next, by integrating employee spend data with your ERP or financial system, you can provide boardroom members better spending visibility across the business. To more effectively track trouble areas, you might consider a way to capture supplier-direct bookings or use a mobile app with GPS-enabled technology that collects employee mileage with pinpoint accuracy.</p>
<h2>Make your budgets work for you</h2>
<p>Your budget is likely different than that of another company or department. What you have in common is needing to see precisely where the company stands with spending, so you can spot problems and opportunities. An intuitive, cloud-based platform can let you see spending when or before it happens – no matter where you are – and deliver alerts when problems arise. Gathering real-time information about travel and other expenses can give a truly comprehensive view of spending that provides actionable insights and confidence as well.</p>
<h2>Govern budgets with greater precision</h2>
<p>Budget forecasting is truly effective – and trusted by you and colleagues – when built upon accurate, timely data. With interactive dashboards and customized reports of a business intelligence system, every part of your organization can achieve a fuller understanding of their spending and how it aligns with company goals. Smoothly connecting expense, travel, and accounts payable data allows managers to effectively monitor trends, update allocations, enforce policies, and head off problems. That kind of insight guides better decisions.</p>
<h2>Gain valuable insight for better, more-informed decisions</h2>
<p>If your company is among the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-pulse-surveys-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">98%</a> whose finance managers saw more noncompliant expenses last year, you might need new approaches. Budget reports help but a more targeted approach may provide additional oversight and mitigate risks. An outside expert can help hone your approach by taking an extensive look at your reporting needs, challenges, and overall goals. With expert advice, you can configure reports and dashboards to deliver insights to the right decision-makers at the right times.</p>
<h2>Guide employees toward greener options</h2>
<p>Paperless booking, fuel-efficient flights, and electric ground transportation are the kinds of green options employees and companies seek. Leaders, though, are <a href="https://insights.sap.com/sustainabilitys-role-in-business-performance/">often unsure</a> how to embed sustainability into their systems. With the right travel solution, your company can set policy parameters that guide travelers to the right choices while letting you analyze your carbon footprint along with travel and spending patterns.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><!--[endif]-->Get a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/5-tips-making-spending-decisions-more-strategic-and-confident">our tip sheet</a><strong> </strong>for a more extensive look at those five areas where you can improve accuracy and gain the insight for better spending decisions.</li>
<li>Read this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/enhance-your-compliance-and-spend-management-sap-concur-solutions">brief brochure</a> to learn about how the comprehensive SAP Concur solution portfolio can improve visibility into spending and help ensure compliance with both com</li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Four Moments that Will Change How You Manage Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-moments-will-change-how-you-manage-employee-spend
2022-07-18T09:42:57Z
2022-07-18T09:39:01Z
Making spending decisions now – at your organization, which takes place in real life – is considerably more difficult. You have to know what to buy, where to buy it, and how to pay. You have to find o
<p>Let’s say you’re in college, and you’d really like some pad Thai because it’s barely midnight and you haven’t eaten since, like, 10:00. You have $14 to your name, so you’re good, right? Wrong. Your favorite band is in town this weekend, and that’s a $10 cover, so pad Thai now means no party later.</p>
<p>It’s a tough choice, and it’s often only decided by a call to your mom’s wallet.</p>
<p>Making spending decisions now – at your organization, which takes place in real life – is considerably more difficult. You have to know what to buy, where to buy it, and how to pay. You have to find out if someone has negotiated discounted rates with a specific vendor. You have to take into account any regulatory restrictions that might impact taxes or reimbursements or otherwise negatively impact your company. And you have to understand that it adds up to millions of dollars.</p>
<p>Or, more accurately, every employee in your organization has to understand these things.</p>
<p>So when we say that spending decisions present a moment of risk, you believe us. We’d also like you to know that spending decisions are moments of opportunity.</p>
<p>As our recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/turning-moment-momentum"><u>ebook</u></a> points out, there are four things you can do to take control of those moments, thereby controlling cash, costs, and regulatory compliance along the way. Because when you equip your company to manage every spending choice, you can build on opportunities to build momentum all across your organization.</p>
<p><strong>If buying something for work is confusing, how can you expect anyone to do it right?</strong> When audits and approvals or policies and protocols make it difficult to decide how best to spend the company’s money, you can be certain that – a good portion of the time – your well-meaning employees are going to spend the wrong amount at the wrong place. And it’s going to take weeks or even months to get it all sorted out again. Bring intelligent tech into the process, however, and you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/turning-moment-momentum"><u>turn confusing processes into moments of clarity</u>.</a></p>
<p><strong>When’s the last time the government said “You know what? We don’t need more of your money.”?</strong> Regulations change. Requirements shift. Companies scramble. It’s the name of the game, and the rules are always in flux. But when things like VAT reclaim and taxable employee benefits can mean leaving tens of thousands (or even millions) on the table, it’s something you can’t sweep under the rug. But put the right spend management solutions in place, and you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/turning-moment-momentum"><u>turn regulatory shifts into moments of certainty</u>.</a></p>
<p><strong>Do your teams have accurate information or gut feelings?</strong> The budget is the budget, no matter how you feel about it. So your managers, your program leaders, your entire finance department – they all need clear, accurate, and up-to-date contextual information to guide the policies they create and spending choices they make. Make precise data your default, and you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/turning-moment-momentum"><u>turn spending decisions into moments of accuracy</u>.</a></p>
<p><strong>Does it feel like invoices take all of your attention most of the time?</strong> Simply put, invoices should be easy to capture, audit, route, approve, and pay. Because when they’re easy to manage, it’s easier to replace late fees with early payment discounts. It’s also easier to see what’s paid, what’s pending, and what’s next – and if what you’re paying for is what you wanted and/or what you received. Because when you have this type of insight, you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/turning-moment-momentum"><u>turn frustrating invoices into moments of confidence</u>.</a></p>
<p>Yes, these are all significant moments in the spending process, but improving the tools you use (or more effectively using the tech you have), can significantly improve the way your employees spend – not to mention your ability to control it.</p>
<p>So you can have your pad Thai and eat it, too.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Using Automation to End Invoice and Spending Frustration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/using-automation-end-invoice-and-spending-frustration
2022-09-06T16:57:00Z
2022-07-18T09:23:14Z
Capturing these spending decisions – the moments that can turn your company by degrees or turn it on its head – is critical.
<p>The invoice rolls in from the caterer for a company party. Marketing ordered big banners for a customer event and now the specialty printer wants a check.</p>
<p>They’re probably legit expenses and justified choices. But they involve vendors outside your procurement system and supplier network, so extra care is needed to ensure the expense complies with policy and the right business and amount get paid at the right time.</p>
<p>The process – or lack thereof – makes managing spending, controlling costs, and gaining confidence that much more difficult.</p>
<p>Invoices arrive in so many ways, by paper, PDF, or email, that it’s hard to capture them all. And capturing them – and wrestling them into compliance – costs time and money better spent on other tasks.</p>
<p>Businesses can benefit from technology that incorporates pre-spend authorizations, automatically captures all those varied invoices, and turns them into useable and verifiable data. It then compares the purchase order, receipt, and invoice to make sure they match. Then the data flows into your accounting system.</p>
<h2>It’s reality, not just a dream</h2>
<p>If that sounds a bit like fantasy, it shouldn’t, because those solutions are available. The advantages to the company and the finance team are many.</p>
<p>By automating and streamlining invoicing and payment processes, the speed you gain ensures you’re taking full advantage of supplier discounts. And not getting dinged for late payments.</p>
<p>Invoicing and payment are just part of the process. Integration with your company’s ERP can provide a more comprehensive picture of spending, a picture top executives and others can use to plan and make decisions. It’s information securely flowing back and forth instead of hiding in silos.</p>
<p>You gain confidence and control, because the when, who, how, and what of each spending decision is readily available. You can further company goals by seeing savings and cost-cutting opportunities and making better forecasts.</p>
<h2>I’m convinced, but what about the boss and the board?</h2>
<p>OK, maybe you’re on board with the technology solutions. But you likely need to take the case for greater automation to others at your company. And there is a case.</p>
<p>First, statistical evidence: Organizations running SAP Concur Invoice earn a <a href="https://www.concur.fi/resource-centre/infographics/idc-the-business-value-of-concur-invoice">505% ROI</a> over five years. Second, moving a company forward involves persuasion and strategy. Terminology is important, as top leaders might not understand the difference between a simple digitized process and a completely automated one with mobile features and nearly real-time access to data via the cloud.</p>
<p>Seek allies across the organization. Reach out to the managers who review invoices, AP personnel who process them, and IT people who manage data. Connect over shared frustrations with manual tasks, cumbersome processes, and late payments.</p>
<p>Those talking points should resonate with the wider finance team, because they can tally lost time, money, and opportunities. The IT department might only see additional work and costs. Discuss with them how an automation solution can connect with existing systems without new integrations. Or how cloud-based technology simplifies software updates. And how end-user training and support accompany the solutions.</p>
<p>Having built an automation team, together you can address the concerns of finance and business leaders. Those discussions can include ROI, implementation, employee satisfaction, scalability, and data security. You can, of course, readily discuss how a strategic investment manages spend, ensures compliance, and supports business growth.</p>
<p>And when you hear the argument that the company doesn’t have the resources to automate, you can – with confidence and allies – counter: “We don’t have the resources to <em>not automate</em>.”</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Get our tip sheet, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-essentials-brining-controls-and-compliance-unmanaged-spending"><strong>7 Essentials for Bringing Control and Compliance to Unmanaged Spending</strong>,</a> for a deeper look at how to do just that and how SAP Concur solutions can help.</li>
<li>If you’re convinced of the need for a fully automated invoice process, read about strategies to persuade others in our E-book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation"><strong>Building a Business Case for AP Automation</strong>.</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Viable for VAT? Verifying the Ins and Outs of Domestic and Foreign Tax Compliance with Blue dot
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/viable-vat-verifying-ins-and-outs-domestic-and-foreign-tax-compliance-blue-dot
2022-07-18T09:09:20Z
2022-07-18T09:04:32Z
Employees are back to traveling for business, and with it, the requirement to track both domestic and foreign expenses for tax compliance initiatives abroad.
<p>Employees are back to traveling for business, and with it, the requirement to track both domestic and foreign expenses for tax compliance initiatives abroad. “There were a lot of complex processes,” Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value team, recalls in a previous life when she worked in tax. “Whether it was VAT or any other type of tax… it required a certain amount of… manual effort from our employees.” Still, Blue dot finds <u>23% of expense reports have tax information that’s wrong</u>. “There were about 100 changes that had happened across a number of countries, which in itself is a big number,” shares Dr. Mark Stirling, Sr. Vice President of Global Channels at Blue dot. “If you think about all the people… in that process, every one of them would have to be trained on this and take some action.” Join us for this episode as Dr. Mark Stirling discusses tax compliance with SAP Concur Conversations.</p>
<p><em>This four-episode podcast series celebrates Blue dot as one of the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>, for best practices and more. </em><em>You can also listen to this episode on: </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-ins-and-outs/id1525744763?i=1000570001593"><em>Apple</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><em>Amazon</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3bzW5ue4drasGHExgiaAhD"><em>Spotify</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-yFkzgE0M6WR/"><em>ListenNotes</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/viable-for-vat-verifying-the-ins-and-outs-of-domestic-and-fo"><em>Acast</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B6PG7DWW?ref=a_pd_SAP-Co_c3_lAsin_0_0&pf_rd_p=625c212d-b95a-47db-8d56-d35a359de6e9&pf_rd_r=47A68KB5B8W4VJW6HVB0"><em>Audible</em></a><em> or </em><em>Google</em><em> your favorite place to find podcasts.</em></p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jean Dion here today on the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast. I'm the Vice President of the Value team here at SAP Concur. Our role is to work with customers to solve business problems and to work on their goals and objectives in support of their corporate roles.</p>
<p>Today I have with me one of our Partner Innovation Award winners, Dr. Mark Stirling from Blue dot, and we're going to talk about tax. Tax can be really confusing, but Mark has a great way of explaining and making it all simple. So Mark, I'd like to go ahead and let you go ahead and introduce yourself.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. Thanks Jean. My name's Mark Stirling, as Jean said, from Blue dot. I'm a senior vice president of global channels for the organization, responsible for working with our key partners to bring our joint technologies to market, supporting them in not only the delivery of these services to their customers, but helping to ensure the customers are maximizing the value from those services once they have decided to use them.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Great, thanks. So I want to dive right into this, because tax can be a complicated thing. I remember in a former life, I had to work along that tax and thought mostly about it as a compliance issue, and I knew there were a lot of complex processes that were required in order to reclaim tax, whether it was VAT or any other type of tax, and it required a certain amount of, well, actually a significant amount of manual effort from our employees.</p>
<p>Whether they were a traveler or somebody in the back office doing the reconciliation and auditing of receipts or et cetera, it was a lot of work and it seemed to be somewhat confusing for everyone. So, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what Blue dot does to relieve some of that pain? Kind of walk me through that process for tax reclaim. I was wondering if we could start with the difference between domestic and international VAT collections?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Of course, let me try to summarize. As you say, there are two main domains within the recovery of VAT around the world. Countries might call it a different thing, but I'll refer to it as VAT for the purpose of this session. Domestic, let's start with definitions of what domestic means. Domestic relates to the country of the employee that's concurring the spend. So as you can probably all tell from my accent, I based here in the UK, so for me, the UK is my domestic. My colleague who's based in Paris will have France as their domestic.</p>
<p>The way it works within the realms of VAT, especially the VAT that's concurred on employee-based spend is that all the spend that I incur in my own country that we can demonstrate and prove is for business purpose that is eligible and qualifies with the rules can be reclaimed by my employer as part of their domestic VAT processes. It's actually a deduction that they put together.</p>
<p>So, you need to understand what did I do? Where was I? Traveling in the UK, business traveling the UK, staying in a hotel, using my car and so on. Then we need a process to track that that spend was incurred, that it's legitimate, that I've got the right supporting evidence, and then to aggregate it all together and put it in the financials as a deduction on our next return.</p>
<p>Critical to understand there's no money transfer's hands here. The government doesn't reimburse this money typically, it's a deduction. Actually, you could describe it simply as a trust system, but the authorities can come in and audit. So, they will ask to come in and they'll check the controls that you have in place on those processes. How do I as a traveler understand what I'm doing? How does the employer understand that it's legitimate, that we have the right evidence? If the controls are found to be lacking, the authorities can impose sanctions leading through to fines and penalties for non-compliance. That's the process that's associated with domestic.</p>
<p>Now I talk about fines and penalties for non-compliance, of course these days, in fact, the bigger concern is more likely to be getting on the authorities’ blacklists, and often organizations will find themselves in the news for VAT challenges. So yeah, there's a lot of reasons why you want to make sure you get this process right.</p>
<p>The other part of this process is foreign VAT. You call international, I'll say foreign. So foreign VAT, again, it's foreign to me as a person. So for me traveling to Paris, all the spending that I've now done in France would be my foreign VAT. My French colleague who's traveling with me in France however, for him, that would be domestic. So there are various treaties in place around the world on which countries will reimburse VAT to other countries, but in this basis France will reimburse certain aspects of their VAT to a UK-based organization.</p>
<p>So similarly, I need to track and expense every part of my journey, my employer that needs to go through the process of qualifying, auditing, understanding exactly what I did, demonstrating, beyond reasonable doubt, that this was incurred in the course of doing business and the spend is eligible. Then they go through a submission process where, through various mechanisms depending on some of the nuances around the world, you submit a request to the foreign authorities to reimburse the VAT you believe you're entitled to from that country.</p>
<p>It goes into their authorities, they review your request, which are typically line itemized, and should they agree with your requests, they will then remit the funds back to you, so physical money transfer's hands. So unlike domestic where the penalties for doing it wrong are that they'll come in and audit you and you can get in trouble with the authorities, for foreign, there's a lot of complexity in the submission processes and the penalties for getting it wrong are that you will not get the money back, so you lose money in that instance.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So when I hear that, when I hear that description, two things pop into my head. It's the quality of the data, and it's the risk that a company runs when they're going through a reclaim process of really identifying. Because at the end, as we all know, there is the possibility of audit, and so every time that there is a misstep within the process, you risk something of consequence for your company.</p>
<p>So, I know there are two different pieces of reclaiming the VAT. I know it's eligibility and disqualification, and if you wouldn't mind telling me the difference between those two and how we can use that to let's first tackle that risk part of it. What's the difference between eligibility and disqualification and how does it tie to your tax reclaim process?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, of course. I'll pick up on that word risk, because of course one of the reasons we're here is to reduce and remove that risk, and that's what we're going to be talking about in this process. So the two concepts, eligibility and disqualification. Eligibility refers to the VAT that is in your, in this case, your expenses, that you could reclaim should all things be perfect in the way that the data is there.</p>
<p>There are examples around the world, they're always changing, but there are examples around the world where spend may not be eligible. There may be a country, for example, that just simply doesn't reimburse VAT to vote from another country, it's referred to as reciprocity, and the treaties that are in place just may not allow that to happen. So, it doesn't matter how much you spend as a business traveler traveling from one country to another if that country won't reimburse it.</p>
<p>There are also some local rules where countries will not allow you to reclaim elements of your spend. There's an example that I often talk about in France, where hotel rooms, that the hotel line itself in France is just not something you're allowed to reclaim. So even if the VAT is there, it's not eligible. There's nothing we can do about that, right? That's the law, that's the way the rules work.</p>
<p>The second concept though, which is something we can control, when I say we, I'm talking about all of us as business travelers, or as people who spend on behalf of our employer, and that is disqualification. Disqualification refers to the VAT that you could get back, but you've not been able to get back, because something's wrong, you've not got the right evidence.</p>
<p>There are examples around the world in you don't have the right address on a receipt, you've got a credit card slip rather than the correct hotel [inaudible 00:09:45], for example. Disqualification is something you want to target. You want to understand why am I not getting the VAT back? What can I do to improve that position? Is it a question of training? Do my employees not have the right knowledge? Have I not got the right processes or visibility and reports into that data to allow me to do that?</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So that's a great segue, because as I mentioned, I think there's two pieces to that VAT reclamation. It's the risk and controlling that risk, but it also requires a lot of data mining based on rules. I'm just curious, because I know I live in the US, so our tax rules are constantly changing and there's always some sort of flux around interpretation.</p>
<p>So when I think about this overall, are the rules really steady or do they change frequently? I can imagine that it's probably difficult to keep all these rules straight, especially if you're an organization that's working in 10, 15, 20, 40, 70 countries around the world. Is that the case? Is it hard to keep it straight? If you could just kind of give me a simple version of what's happening in the world as it relates to rules.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>I mean, the simple answer is yes. What we're finding and the reason why we do what we do is that organizations are not set up for the purpose of managing their VAT. All organizations are set up for the purpose of doing their line of business, that's what they do. The knowledge, the skills, the processes required to manage the VAT processes in the employee spend are quite complicated. It requires quite a lot of understanding on a number of different parts. You've got to design your expense systems to capture the right data, you've got to have employees that are educated on exactly what should go into that data. You've got to have the right review processes afterwards to ensure that the data that's being, as you say, mined and understood is accurate.</p>
<p>This whole process relies on people. This is what we've learned and this is where we come from as a business in the provision of this service. This historically has been a very manually driven process. Whether you're talking about internal processes or shared service centers, outsourced providers, they rely on people. People have finite memories, people understand their own rules, or you would argue understand some of the rules in their countries. But as you say, no one person can understand the complexity all around the world that goes with this.</p>
<p>So, we start on the premise that we have to remove the person from the process. We have to remove the need for the business traveler or the spender on behalf of the organization understanding exactly what the rules are and whether they have the perfect quality receipt as applied to that in every part of what they do. We have to remove the reliance on people and all these organizations around the world having to research and understand all the changes in the regulations. I'll touch on that in a moment, and we need to remove people from that process of understanding how to review, double-check, insanity check these processes prior to submission.</p>
<p>This is where we come from. We're 100% focused on the automation, and our organization has applied to why we're having this conversation. We're rapidly dominating in the technology space with patented technology, and we're seeing so much demand for this service right now, where the secret source in what we're doing is understanding the expense report, the expense event, adding in all the VAT information that we need totally by technology before taking it forwards and doing the submissions or giving you the data you need to do your deductions and removing humans from the angle.</p>
<p>Now, what we talk about when we talk about the changes and whether this is a steady state thing is we did some research a few months ago actually into the primary countries that our clients are active in, and how many rules had changed around VAT in that time. Bearing in mind, the pandemic had triggered some of this. The number I was given was about 100. There were about 100 changes that had happened across a number of countries, which in itself is a big number. If you think about all the people I just described in that process, every one of them would have to be trained on this and take some action.</p>
<p>If we look at some of these rules, and I'll give, again, a local example to my country, help to eat out, which was a scheme that was introduced to encourage us all after the end of the first lockdown during the pandemic to get back out into the hospitality sector and go to restaurants and help those organizations stay afloat, so the VAT rate was temporarily reduced.</p>
<p>I remember rightly, that reduction was actually extended once, if not twice before that scheme ended, which meant that one change actually became three, if not four changes that needed to be tracked, all of which would've had to have date controls and training that went onto it.</p>
<p>But there's another angle as well, Jean, in this data that I wanted to highlight, which is it's the evolving pattern of the spend itself.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>So the rates and rules are changing, yes, but so is actually the data that we're seeing in the expense systems. Go back a few years, expense systems were largely speaking driven by the same events, business travel. We were booking flights, we were staying in hotels, ground transportation, meals. It was very consistent in what was happening there, and the spend in those systems that wasn't related to a business trip was quite small. In fact, we see it as being less than 5% of the spend that was going through.</p>
<p>Post-pandemic, we've seen quite a significant increase in what you might call the other expense category, the spend that's not associated with the business trip. In fact, up to 25% of the data, according to our analysis, a 20 point increase. I hear you say, yes. This is us at home as travelers, I call it the decentralization of some of the purchasing controls. We as individuals are now making purchasing decisions on behalf of our employer. We're buying laptops and monitors and keyboards and mice from our preferred suppliers using our own cards and putting those through our expense systems. Hopefully everyone recognizes that scenario. It introduces another whole big suite of change, Jean, that I'll highlight.</p>
<p>The first part is those expense types are not consistent anymore. You see a whole variety of spending there that no longer suits a scaled say human process, where if somebody's seen a particular hotel receipt a few times, they think they now know how to interpret that going forwards. Every single line could be different. You've got a much greater level of scrutiny that's needed on that expense as it comes through with the complexity that that will drive. Previously manual processes or work-arounds, or even dare I say it organizations that kind of ignored this [inaudible] because it was so small, it'd become too big a part of the data now and it can't be overlooked.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. I think this ties back to changes in how we're, to your point, viewing work, but also things that we would never typically think about as what we would call a taxable benefit. Something like phone or internet or hardware to keep your home office going, because now you're working remotely or you have that flexibility. We wouldn't think about reimbursement of that as a benefit necessarily, but in the end, that's really kind of what's happening.</p>
<p>We've also seen on expense reports some other things, like employee recognition or tuition reimbursement. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't be on an expense report, but it means that it requires, to your point Mark, extra scrutiny, and it needs to be thought about in how that's working.</p>
<p>So taxable benefits have always been a thing, we have a lot of data that's coming in. So, can you talk a little bit about where the Blue dot philosophy fits into that? There's the risk that is around it, and then there's also that data mining. I'm assuming that it's the same process that's being used for that particular type of data. Would that be true?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>It is exactly true, yes. I mean, the risk that you're talking about is the risk of the employee, myself, making a purchasing decision, putting that through the system. Unless you've got the appropriate checks and controls in the system, that decision that I made and the way that I chose to code it can flow straight into your financials and can define the financial risk position of the organization. We don't want that.</p>
<p>With employee benefits, fringe benefits, taxable employee benefits, however you would call them, one of the differences here is that it's not optional. Organizations are required to have processes in place to look for and track, and to demonstrate whether you are ruling in or ruling them out to demonstrate that you're looking for what we might call the invisible, the hidden benefits that are flowing through processes.</p>
<p>We all know about the visible benefits, your health insurance that your organization is providing that's been taken care of and the central process and appears through your payroll or your end of year tax declarations, but there's other aspects of it. I'll use an example just to help people understand what might be happening here.</p>
<p>Here in the UK, if you have a personal mobile phone that your employer is reimbursing, then the line rental of that mobile phone is considered to be a taxable benefit that should be submitted as part of your end of year tax declarations to the authorities. You're getting a benefit from your employer, but not necessarily if it's being provided by your employer as a central phone I feel like on their bill and they comply with the rules around that. So, it's super important to scrutinize the data in the same way. From our side, it's a very similar process that we put into controlling this.</p>
<p>Our service breaks down into three core parts. This is true of our VAT service, as well as our benefits service. The first thing that the service is doing is it's looking at that expense event. Which once upon a time was predominantly travel, these days is a much greater spread of the data in that. Understanding what's on the receipt, understanding what the employee thinks they did. Looking for and enhancing the tax data that is associated with that event to truly understand what happened, and removing therefore the burden on the employee or any review processes you've got from developing that understanding.</p>
<p>Then there's the application of the tax rules. Whether those tax rules are the VAT rules or the organization's benefits policy and how that's being developed, to again, understand exactly what you wish to do with that data, how you interpret that data and how it's going to be processed. Benefits are a little bit more subjective and they need to be fine-tuned. So if you're looking at the complexity of it we talked about before, that's where we've removed the human angle I talked about before, we've removed the complexity of understanding all the rules, because we take care of that for you.</p>
<p>Then a third part of it, and it's really important in both VAT as well as benefits is we then have the analytics and the reports and dashboards that will allow you to monitor and improve your position. So, for example, if you see all your employees in the UK are using their personal phones, expensing them and they're all picking up a benefits charge, you may want to consider putting in place a corporate plan and removing that issue from everybody, but also putting in place really clear dashboards and tools for the authorities to look at when they come in to audit you to show that you've got superior controls in place. That's what you get with a service that eliminates the need for people and applies a consistent rule set to the data as it works its way through.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That is actually a very good point. It's that overall control, not just control of risk, but control of how you're spending and spending thoughtfully around the different types of things that are showing up on reports and how we're putting it together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There's one piece though that we haven't touched on yet, and it's one of my favorites, it's that new term called bleisure, that blending of business and leisure. We're seeing a lot of expansion of that, especially after the pandemic people are raring to go and get out and travel. If you're going someplace really interesting, the idea that if you have meetings on Monday, maybe you show up on Saturday. How does that tie into taxable benefits? Where does that fit in the overall? Is that something that can be reclaimed from a VAT perspective, or does it fall back into the employee benefits type thing?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Great question, and it does apply totally to both. So, I talked earlier about the need to really understand the expense report. One thing I didn't touch on is that within our service and overall the years we've been operating, we developed this artificial intelligence brain. Our CTO doesn't like it when I refer to it as a brain, but I think of it as a brain that's evolved just like our own that understands what typical employee-based spend looks like.</p>
<p>What does a business trip look like that I do working from home, what does typical spend at home look like? It's typical patterns of human behavior and it uses it to extract contextual meaning from the expense report. Again, a mechanical process would look at what's on an expense report, because rarely does any technology look at what's on the receipt, it's typically what the employee enters, it's a simple sum of what the employee has entered. But what's our technology looks at is what does it mean?</p>
<p>So, you used that example of traveling over the weekend and adding a couple of days to the business trip and how do we manage that? Think of a scenario where you do a business trip from a Wednesday to Wednesday. I'm based in the UK, let's say I travel to Australia, there's no way I'm going home for the weekend. I need to be there for the week and I need to be there for the weekend, so in that particular scenario it's really easy to say that is valid for business purposes. But the typical leisure that you're talking about, a phrase that doesn't trip off my tongue very easily, I'm not quite used to that yet, would be, yeah, again, my colleague in France.</p>
<p>So I travel to see my colleague in France, and as you say, I tack on a couple of days at the weekend. Those two days in most scenarios are, because it's personal spend, because I stayed there two days over the weekend, I wasn't working, though of course there are some areas where you can demonstrate that you were, those two days are personal spend. As a result of that as its personal spend, not business spend, whether or not your employer chooses to reimburse it, you shouldn't be reclaiming that for VAT purposes, because it's not demonstrable business spend.</p>
<p>Similarly now, if we've identified it as personal spend, and that's what the contextual meaning in our AI is trying to look at, it should now count towards your benefits. So you should track that hotel stay if that's what we're talking about, and it should be fed to your payroll team as part of a taxable benefit, and then there's a company policy on what you do about it. Are you going to gross it up and pay it on behalf of the employee, or is it a charge that gets passed to the employer?</p>
<p>So yeah, you used the example of the weekends, there are plenty of examples actually that qualify. For example, many environments, they look at the percentage of alcohol on a meal receipt, and if a receipt contains more than a certain amount of alcohol, then it can qualify as a personal event or entertainment rather than a business meal. That can have an implication on, again, whether it's considered to be something you can reclaim VAT or whether it should be collected for the purposes of benefits.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. When we're talking about those employee benefits, it's if the company has reimbursed the employee for the full hotel stay, right? So, that if an employee has stayed for the weekend and has claimed it as personal and has paid it out on their own and the company hasn't paid it, then it doesn't show up as an employee benefit. Correct?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Correct, correct. So what our service is looking at, it's the approved spend that is then reimbursed to the employee. That's part of the control here. It's on an expense report, you've reimbursed it as an employer, so we know you've accepted that as a business charge. So, that's part of the qualification process for this as a business charge. But then I guess we're talking here, guess is the wrong word, what we're talking about here is the eligibility track we had at the start. Is it eligible? If it's personal spend, it's not eligible, it's personal spend. Whether or not it's reimbursed by your employer, that's between you and your company's expense policy.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So, this ties back actually to even how your policy's written within the organization and what the company's willing to provide and not provide. So, it kind of brings me to a point of thinking about how companies prepare for this type of a service. So we've talked about the risk, we've talked about the data mining, we've talked about the differences in data and how we really need that brain. You talk about the brain, but that it's truly what artificial intelligence is. It's that brain that learns as we do and is able to identify in a more automated fashion what we need to be looking at.</p>
<p>So when teams are preparing for this, are they tying it to how they write their general procurement and travel or employee-initiated spend policies? Are they preparing by updating or reviewing their processes for gaps and seeing how they can clear that together? Are they looking at global tax strategies? Are they looking at all three? What are we talking about when they're preparing for an effort like this?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>Great question, Jean. Thank you for giving me the chance to help organizations understand this. Again, I'll pick up on that word risk. We're here to minimize the worry of risk and to help you control a previously non-scalable process. We're seeing organizations as they approach this looking at it in a few ways. There are some that come to us and they know categorically what they need to do. It's about understanding and controlling the data. They're looking for our tool to help them not just remove all the people from this process and their complexity, but also provide the insights that they need to modify their policy, to modify their behavior.</p>
<p><br />
They'll come to us understanding they've got a human risk, they've got a cost, they may be overpaying and want to reduce that, and so they tend to come in with a deploy the service as it stands. Let's deploy our current practices in there, and then you do the fine-tuning after the tool is in place, because it's the tool that gives you the insights that you need to make those changes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, I think what's also interesting in this world of benefits, which is increasingly becoming talked about as a concern as organizations are seeing that the processes aren't scaling. Now, we would advise our clients to go and just take a look at the expense data today. Pick a sample, a few hundred expense reports and take the time to go through them and understand what is in there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just make a note in your ledger each time you come across a receipt that you don't understand the position of. Is it taxable? Is it not? Should it have a benefit charged to it? Should you reclaim the VAT? Let that process guide you on the challenge that you might be facing, and therefore how we can help you to go through that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our own analysis has shown, and the data that we're processing on behalf of our clients has shown that as much as 23% of expense reports have the tax information in them that's wrong or potentially wrong that would need a level of scrutiny to go through. Not saying the whole report is wrong, but there might be a line or two that's in there. That's one of the things we're seeing our clients doing to try to understand how to go through this process, looking at their data, understanding what's in that data and then coming to us to ask us to see how we can help.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and when I think about it, I think about to your point, that whole idea of examining the data and understanding what your process looks like. I also think about it behaviorally and thinking about how are we training our employees around the process itself and what can we do to improve that, so doing a little bit of gap analysis there. That whole idea don't throw away your receipts, or taking a look even at, if you are looking to reclaim something, identifying what you're losing if you're only taking in receipts that are $100 or more in your currency. Do you need to lower that in order to gain on your VAT reclaim?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>I also think about some of those organizational things and taking a look at your current process to think about what you already have in place for controls and where the gaps in your controls are, and where an automated tool like a Blue dot tool could come in and close some of those gaps for you. I always go back to that biggest risk, that manual work being the biggest risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One thing that I might recommend to our Concur customers. If you have tax tables that you've got in your system, think about the last time you updated them, how often or frequently you're updating them, and who's required to update them. This might be the first place to look to ensure that, from a compliance perspective and from a gap analysis perspective, that you've got all your bases covered, or that you can identify some of the gaps that are happening that would demonstrate a need for something like an automated solution. That's a lot of work on those tax tables, and I think that manual work, as Mark has highlighted earlier, comes with a lot of risk, because every human is, well, human, and that's how we are.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Mark, I want to thank you. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Is there anything that I haven't covered or anything that I haven't asked that you're dying to share with the audience?</p>
<p><strong>Dr. Mark Stirling:</strong></p>
<p>There's one thing actually that you've caused me to think of based on what you were just saying. You're absolutely right about the tax tables. I've seen to my own personal experience so many times the organizations have deployed them and left them in place, breathe a sigh of relief and found years later they've not been updated. Remember I mentioned hundreds of hundreds of changes.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>But I'd like to think of it in this way. Employees, all of us want to do the right thing by our employer when it comes to these processes, but we've got to make it simple for them. I've talked about and you've talked about having the insights and the controls, the first thing that we'd encourage our clients to do once they've deployed the tool is to simplify the process for the employee.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>If you don't need to ask them for quite so much data anymore because the tool's doing that for them, take all that off. Make it as simple as possible and then let them focus on the two or three things you really do need them to get right. If you're at a meal and there are other people at the table with you, we need to know who they are. Are they employees, business guests, family? That has an impact on the tax handling. So simplify it so that the things you do need them to do is easier for them to do it, because at the end of the day, happy employees are what most travel programs are trying to accomplish.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah, well, I love the whole idea of easing up on the employee experience and making it simpler, but still driving compliance. That solves so many business outcomes, my mind is reeling now. So, thank you for your insights and thank you for sharing all this with me. I have a better understanding of that tax world, and I'm hoping that everybody in the audience does as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I want to thank everybody for listening in. If you have any further questions or would like to get more information about the Blue dot platforms or the Concur platforms, please go ahead and visit our SAP Concur website. We'd love to see you there and answer your questions if you have any. So on behalf of our SAP Concur Conversations and our guest today, Dr. Mark Stirling, I'd like to say thank you and have a great day.</p>
Kyla Kent
Zoom into SaaS Management for Lower Cost and Compliance with Zylo
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/zoom-saas-management-lower-cost-and-compliance-zylo
2022-07-21T11:37:00Z
2022-07-18T08:54:34Z
Employees are using company funds to buy necessities for work, such as tools, applications, office supplies, and subscriptions.
<p>Employees are using company funds to buy necessities for work, such as tools, applications, office supplies, and subscriptions. “People feel that they have the ability to pay for something, or to buy something, and they use many different spend channels to do it,” shares Jeanne Dion, Vice President of the Value teams at SAP Concur. It was a growing problem that many organizations felt: “There was a growing and escalating issue around the number of applications and the amount of money that companies were spending on SaaS applications, and so we went out to solve that problem,” said Ben Pippenger, Co-Found of Zylo.The average company spends $65 million annually on SaaS and has an average number of 323 applications - nearly 40% of it going to waste. Join us for this episode as we zoom into SaaS management with Ben Pippenger.</p>
<p><em>This four-episode podcast series celebrates Zylo as one of the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. Listen to each of these featured award winners on our podcast channel, </em><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes"><em>SAP Concur Conversations</em></a><em>, for best practices and more. </em><em>You can also listen to this episode on: </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/zoom-into-saas-management-for-lower-cost-and/id1525744763?i=1000569789914"><em>Apple</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V"><em>Amazon</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xipnBos8TSdusRGBEjhcG"><em>Spotify</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/"><em>Listen Notes</em></a><em> </em><em>| </em><em><a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/zoom-into-saas-management-for-lower-cost-and-compliance-with">Acast</a> </em><em>| </em><a href="https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B6FYNQDT?ref=a_pd_SAP-Co_c3_lAsin_0_0&pf_rd_p=625c212d-b95a-47db-8d56-d35a359de6e9&pf_rd_r=B56R8H014YVPPVMAFDEN"><em>Audible</em></a><em> | or </em><em>Google</em><em> your favorite place to find podcasts.</em></p>
<p><!--[if !vml]--></p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion. I'm the Vice President of the value teams here at SAP Concur. And today, I have the distinct pleasure of having a conversation with Ben Pippenger, who is one of the founders of Zylo. Zylo is one of our partner innovation winners, and they provide unprecedented visibility, actually, into a customer's ecosystem surrounding IT purchases, specifically software asset management, which, I know, is a significant problem for some companies. So Ben, wouldn't you please go ahead and introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Hey, Jean. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be on your podcast today and talking a little bit more about Zylo. As you mentioned, my name is Ben. I'm one of the co-founders of a company called Zylo. We are a SaaS management platform.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>To give a little history, we started our company about six years ago, really as the pioneers around SaaS management. And the reason we really started the business was we knew that there was a growing and escalating issue around the number of applications and the amount of money that companies were spending on SaaS applications, and so we went out to solve that problem. And really, what we've built is a platform and a system that organizations can use to, number one, organize and get visibility to all of the different SaaS applications that are being bought and used within an organization. Number two, optimize those SaaS applications from both a licensing perspective, from a rationalization perspective, from an overall spend management perspective. And then, lastly, help with orchestration of those applications to automate and tie those applications and all that data together to get a good picture and create a system of record for SaaS software and how it's being used across your organization.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>As somebody who has had to pay for programs like that in a previous life, this is really intriguing to me, especially the way that business runs today. It's not just because of the pandemic, but we have a really big push within our customer bases around that employee-initiated spend. People feel that they have the ability to pay for something or to buy something, and they use many different spend channels to do it. So with the way that businesses run today, and we see customers paying for things that really aren't necessarily part of a normal expense report or P-Card, or they're doing it one-off, not opening up a PO, what are you seeing? Have things changed since you started the business? Has it gotten bigger, or are things still just ramping up?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I love this question. One of the first integrations that we built at Zylo was into Concur, and we've had a longstanding app center relationship and partnership for that reason, because we knew the term shadow IT. If you've heard that term before, it gets different reactions based on who you're talking to, but some people think shadow IT is good, some people think it's bad, some people just call it employee-led purchasing, but it's always been out there, right? It's always been a way that SaaS applications are purchased. It's one of the great things about SaaS is that you can go try these best-of-breed applications a lot of times for free, and put a credit card in and turn into a paying customer and use some of these great tools that are out there.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>But to answer your question directly, we see, on average, across our customer base, we see about 300, or a little over 320, applications in use. And that varies as you go up into larger enterprise, we see over a thousand applications, oftentimes, in the larger companies. And across those 323 apps, that's about $65 million in SaaS spend per company, per customer on average annually. So there's a lot of apps out there. There's a lot of money going towards those applications.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>And when you think about how that relates directly back to how people are buying those applications, employee expense is a big part of that. It's even a bigger part when you think about just the number of apps that are being pushed through expense reports. About 37% of applications that are bought are bought by employees or employee-led purchases on expense reports or P-Cards. And that accounts for about 7% of the overall spend. So 7% of that $65 million is coming through employee spend. So you can see that percentages are higher for the number of apps versus the spend, just because typically those larger dollar apps are going through the PO process and those sorts of things. But it is definitely a problem, and it's definitely something that people do need to get their visibility around to know what's going on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So I love the term shadow IT, because really what it is, it's lurking in the shadows. We don't really have a clear picture of it. It's hidden but hidden in plain sight. So I want to set a baseline, though, for everybody who's talking, and perhaps you can help me with this. When we talk about the 320 apps, are we talking about apps that people download on their phone through an app store? Are we talking about things that they're just purchasing online? Are we talking about some of the larger applications that might be able to be used in a business perspective with a license, but now have moved more to that consumer-driven model, or is it all of that?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>The 320, so those would be software as a service applications, so SaaS applications that are delivered over the internet. And that can be everything from like a large purchase, like a Salesforce, something along those lines, to something that employees are purchasing on their own, like a Miro, where they're out swiping a credit card and buying those applications on their own. So it runs the gamut there. I mean, it's across the board.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Perfect. Yeah. I just wanted to set that baseline so that everybody's singing from the same song sheet here. So when we look at that idea that 37% of those purchases are employee-led spend, that employee-initiated spend, we see a lot of that, and employee-initiated spend does end up on expense reports primarily. But you're not just looking at expense reports, are you? Are you providing that single source of truth across multiple platforms where these might be hiding?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>For sure. Yeah. Expense reports are a great area of discovery for us. I mean, that's oftentimes where the unknown lives, because usually those purchases haven't gone through an approval process other than someone approved the expense report for payment back to the employee. So we also hook into more traditional purchasing flows as well. So you think about the normal PO process or the normal way you're paying your vendors through your ERP system. We're plugging into all of those areas where we really, truly find 100% of the SaaS applications that are being bought across your organization, regardless if they're going through expense or through the normal purchasing channel.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>So yeah, we pride ourselves on giving customers 100% visibility to all SaaS applications that are being bought and bringing it together into a system that makes sense of it all too. So, I mean, it's important that when we find it, we've got a... We call it our Zybrary that's the Zylo library of applications, deliver 20,000 applications that we're running discovery against. And that, we bring to the table, then, data about those apps. So what that app does? Categorization, functionality, so that not only are we finding it, but we're helping you understand, "Well, who bought it? What department's responsible for it? How much are we spending on it, and what does that app do? What are the actual capabilities and functionality of that application?"</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. Okay. So it's really a one-stop shop for anybody who may... It eliminates that idea of having to search around to figure out what it does, who bought it, why they bought it, why it might be important to them. It brings it all right there, in addition to understanding how much was spent on that particular SaaS product.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly. Yeah. How much and then what do we do, right? Like there's a lot of waste. There's a lot of potential security risks that are introduced by people using these applications and uploading sensitive data there. So then helping people not only get the visibility, but then how do we solve these problems? How do we remove risk from our environment? So, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. So when I put on my procurement hat, I think a little bit about misclassification, and I think about that hidden spend that hides in places where this is listed like a subscription or dues or fees. When you are looking for this within an organization, across multiple platforms, how are you looking for this? Is it through that categorization and name recognition of what's out there, or are there other ways that you're using?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>So we invested early in building out an algorithm that essentially goes through the individual line item details of both what an employee is putting into an expense report, so both the charge name, as well as the description that they're entering into their expense report. And also goes through the line item details within an ERP system to really uncover what was purchased, what that employee was actually buying. So the system is very smart. It's seen a lot of data to be able to process through all that and accurately represent those software titles back into our application. Then we, of course, rationalize all that data and normalize it so that it's standard as you're looking inside of the Zylo platform.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So when I think about this then, we've got the employee-initiated spend. We give employees freedom to purchase without having to go through a larger process. And there are some customers who really like that, right? There are some organizations that really love that visibility plus the freedom of choice. But I'm sure there are going to be some customers who are saying, "What's the big deal? We have people who are purchasing like this all the time. I don't understand why it's important to us." And if you could talk to me a little bit about the importance around this. Is it tied to compliance? Is it tied to security and risk? What's the importance for knowing why these things are in your system and why people are using them?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Totally. And really, it's all of the above. There's security risk, there's compliance risk, there's spend risks, there's employee productivity issues that can come from this. Some of our data shows that within the average large organization, 90 SaaS applications are purchased by more than one employee. So you just think about the wasted time and wasted spend there just on that one stat alone, where you've got a whole bunch of apps that individuals are going and buying on their own. So what results in that? Well, they're probably agreeing to some click-wrap agreement that no one's really reviewed. They're just checking the box to go forward. Who knows if those applications are compliant with your own internal controls and regulations and policies and standards that you're trying to live up to in order to deliver your services to your customers. Who knows what sort of data's being brought into those applications and where that data's being hosted around the world?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>So lots of questions you can start to peel back. And then, I think one of the biggest things is really just around cost optimization. And you just think about the amount of money that's being spent on all these applications. And as we enter into a different economic climate than we have been in, people are definitely thinking more about how do I cut back a little bit, tighten the belt in order to control my costs a little bit more. And that's a big part of this as well, especially coming off the pandemic where a lot of software was purchased to enable employees to work from home and have a hybrid experience. How do I then think about level setting now and making sure that the tools are there that my employees need to use and that they want to use, and all those important questions that need to be answered? So there's a lot of problems that we can solve by just bringing that level of visibility to then drive change within an organization to make them operate better.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You brought up something that I hadn't really thought about, hadn't really hit my mind. The location of where the data is stored and where the service is coming from, the country or region. There are so many rules around who we can and cannot do business with from a federal government perspective, at least in the US. That becomes a really critical compliance point and could be a real problem for organizations now.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. We help customers with that all the time when they think about those related security risks. And yeah, so that's a big part of the compliance angle that we bring to the table as well, is just, again, it's just bringing that level of visibility, which is nearly impossible to have, and to have in an accurate manner, without having a tool like Zylo in place to do it for you.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. So we've talked about the why's and the problems that it solves for that ability to have visibility into everything that's going on, the ability to continue to allow your employees to have a bit of freedom while you still have some control over the process, the ability to remove some of the compliance and risk perspectives by having this as an overlay. But really, when we think about this, how do you know as an organization that you have this problem? Are there specific things that people should be looking for or types of reports they can run, or just, are there any tips on how you can find this?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>I like to say that any company that's using software likely needs a SaaS management system. And so really, that's every company, because you think about the evolution of going from on-premise and data centers to the cloud. When people think about that problem, they oftentimes think about the cloud providers like, "How do I get something I built and hosted myself onto an Azure, or onto an AWS, or onto a GCP or onto any of those clouds that are out there? How do I make that migration?" which is a big problem, and there's people there that help you solve those problems and optimization around those things. But SaaS is just as big of a problem that oftentimes gets overlooked because within organizations there's not really a centralized owner for SaaS or for software. But the spend is higher when you look in totality across what people are spending on SaaS applications versus cloud. It is a big problem, and I think, back to your question, affects all types of organizations.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>And I think symptoms, I guess, of how this is an issue is you're missing renewals. Are you caught on your heels and are reactive to vendors coming to you saying your renewals coming up? And then you're stuck in situations where you can't negotiate. You don't really know what you're using or how you're using it to be able to effectively go in and get a good renewal done. Things like lack of a software purchasing policy, right? So you think about the employee expense side. Do employees know if they can purchase software or not? Even if they don't know, are you tracking that? Are you monitoring that to know if that's accurately happening or not?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Another good one would be just when you think about how software's bought within your company, is it going through centralized purchasing? Who's responsible for that? When you think about a procurement function, we talk a lot to procurement folks because they are typically one of the only groups within an organization that's got visibility across all the different departments and what they're buying. And so I think those are some good areas to start. I mean, in the larger enterprises, we work with a lot of software asset management teams. And those software asset management teams, they're in place, or the reason that they were put into place is to help remove risk from the business.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>So, rewind the clock back 15, 20 years, when SAM teams were put in, it was to help against audits of software. So if you had a larger software vendor come in and was going to check to see how you were using the software, that the SAM teams would be able to respond to those and show how that software's being adapted and used. They've had to change their mind a little bit to now start to think about SaaS, and not necessarily from an audit perspective, but how do I get out ahead to know that all these tools are being used effectively by my company and the value's there, and we're preparing for renewals and all those things I talked about earlier.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>So it touches lots of different parts and pieces, but I think back to how do you know if there's a problem for using software, which I would guess you are, especially if you're listening to this podcast with SAP Concur, you probably need to think about how to get your arms around SaaS.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. And so when I think about it, too, those are all really great ways to think about it. And I think about it just from the expense perspective. If you're using some sort of expense reporting tool or a P-Card tool, like a Concur system, either the company billed statement or our expense tool, take a look at your reporting and look for certain categories, things along the lines of dues, subscriptions, fees, sometimes they're falling in under office supplies, equipment. You may, even if you have software listed as an expense type, it may be under software, actually under software. It might be hidden in plain sight, who knows? So those are the places that I would really take a look at. You might also want to take a look to Ben's point. Sometimes people are really very descriptive in business purpose or comment fields for those particular type of expenses. Take a look and run a report against those business purposes because it might be software for X project or update to software that I bought during pandemic.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>There's a lot of ways to look for this in your expense tools that might be hidden in plain sight. It might be rolling up into another cost center that you wouldn't even think of providing reporting with within your ERP because it's hidden. It's hidden in a more consolidated way. So these are ways, if you're a Concur customer, to take a look and see what's out there. The other piece of it would be, if you're looking under your P-Card processes, take a look at the MCC codes that you've got coming through, and to your point, then the vendor names, run a report against that. See what's going on. See if they're being hit into the right categories. They might be under supplies. They might be under other type of office equipments and supplies that are under the P-Card as well. So take a look at those places as indicators that you might have some work to do in trying to find and solve this problem and get yourself set up.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>We've talked about what the indicators are, but as you're getting ready to prepare for this effort, how do you get everybody on board? Because you've mentioned a number of teams, we've got our procurement teams, we've got finance teams, we've got vendor management, we've got a lot, we've got risk. How do you get them together?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>That's a great question, but I'm going to throw one more stat at you before I answer it.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. I'd love a stat.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Based on just how you were just talking about hidden software spend. So 55% of apps we find are not attributed as software purchases. So 55%, over half of the applications, are not categorized correctly inside of expense. Yeah. So it's a lot. It's a lot. That's why we find so much. That's why we're finding all these applications inside of employee expense, because it's an employee putting it in and they may not know, or if there's no purchasing policy, like we talked about earlier, they're unclear on how to put it in there, or they might be trying to hide it. To be honest, they might be trying to just sneak the expense in. So it is something definitely to be aware of.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Or there might be there isn't a proper expense type. So they're just taking a shot in the dark. Right? What meets best? "Oh, office supplies."</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, we see it in travel and we see it in meals. I mean, we'll find it. We'll find it all over the place and-</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, I love a good... Yes</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, you can hide. With Zylo, you can't hide.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I love a good software meal. I've seen some things like this under airline baggage fees as well. So yeah, I love that.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. So, but back to the question about preparing and getting everybody, all the different teams on board. Who do you typically see being included to make sure that the rollout of this overlay of looking for the SaaS applications, who do you see really involved and critical to the success of the project?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, like I said, that's a great question. I think when you think about software within organizations, I mentioned earlier that it's decentralized. So what I mean by that is you've got, typically, you have your CIO buying the large, what we call wall-to-wall applications. So those things that you're deploying across the business. You then have your department heads, so you might have your CMO, or your head of HR, or your CTO, out buying software they need, in order to enable their teams to do their jobs that hit their goals that they're trying to accomplish. And then you have the employee-led purchasing that we're finding in expense reports and things like that from Concur. So it's across the board. But when it comes back to who really cares about solving this problem, and we go back to what we talked about earlier, around the things that we're helping people solve, it's risk, it's compliance, it's cost savings, it's employee productivity.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>All of those items are things the CIO really thinks about and cares about, right? So those are things that they need to be worried about, things that they need to be measured on. And so end of the day, it really rolls back over to the CIO and they're in the office of the CIO to need and want to solve this problem. But also do it in a collaborative way, because they're going to have to work with, lots of times SAM teams are reporting to the CIO, and lots of times IT procurement is its own group that reports into the CIO. So they've got the right people, but then they're going to have to partner with the business on these tools that are being bought by the different parts of the organization to make sure that they're going through the right approval processes and putting them through the right security reviews, and they're doing that on a regular basis and all those sorts of things. So all those things are very important and we help solve those problems. And like I said, it rolls back over to the world of the CIO.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And I think about it too, from the finance perspective, especially if you're a publicly held company, you have a specific signature authority, typically based on the types of purchases. So if these are going through systems that aren't set up for the proper authority on signature alone, that too becomes a problem for finance.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>For sure.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>It's not just a problem for IT or procurement. It's a problem for finance. It becomes a significant conversation during audits.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So something to keep in mind there as well.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And for finance teams too, just the practice of going around and forecasting and budgeting what spend's going to look like. That's super hard to do with software, and it's a big expense item. So we oftentimes will help with that too, where finance teams want to understand what are people actually buying and what does usage actually look like, and how does that go into planning mode for growth within the company so we know we're budgeting appropriately for upcoming years? So yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. All really critical, especially during these economic times, right? There's a lot of uncertainty. I sometimes like to say if you do business continuity right, things like the current economic situation or things that are happening from a worldview, you already have a plan in place, but it feels like everything's coming all at once. We're usually used to having only one or two at a time. It feels like 15 of them are happening all at once. So it becomes really critical when you're trying to figure out how to keep your business running, how to keep the lights on, and how to keep growth happening. This sounds like a logical way to help at least get visibility into where things are going.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yes. Yeah, totally.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You mentioned something that it still is mind-boggling to me about on an expense report, about 55, or even in other places, 55% of these purchases are misclassified.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yep.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I always love a good horror story. So do you have anything that you can share about the craziest misclassification you might ever have seen? We're not going to mention any names. We're just going to... what you might have seen?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Well, like I said, we see misclassifications and meals, and entertainment, and things. I mean, we see a lot of subscriptions that come through for things like music services, and video games, and some other services that I probably wouldn't mention on a podcast that pop-up. But I mean, I think, typically, people are trying to do their best to get things in. And I don't have a, unfortunately, a specific... I mean, we have seen some pretty crazy stats where single employees were expensing thousands and thousands of dollars of software through the expense report process. And those things are obviously things we call out really quickly. And it could be lots of different reasons for that. I mean, it could be a department head that's just expensing stuff, but usually if that's occurring, the procurement teams and the buying teams want to get their arms around that pretty quickly, because obviously they can likely get better rates and better deals and things going through all the right processes.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And I'm guessing these were probably done on a corporate credit card as well.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yep.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, because I seem to remember there was, what did you have, one company had an employee expense more than $100,000 worth.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yep. On a company credit card. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, they're certainly busy. I'll give them that. Really busy.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Lots of points, maybe. Hopefully they're getting points for that. I don't know.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Some free flights.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Anyway, so to wrap up, the things that have stuck out to me really clearly are just the sheer number of apps that are hidden in this shadow IT area. Anywhere, on average, about 320, but for some of our larger customers, it's up to a thousand that are hidden and maybe not easily visible unless we're really seriously looking for them and investing a lot of resource time to go and look for them using this AI and machine learning. Might be another avenue for some of our customers. The other thing that stands out to me is, 30% of these purchases are employee led. So I don't see that getting any smaller anytime soon, do you?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>I don't. We actually have seen it increase in the last 12 months too. So maybe things will plateau with, hopefully, things going back to normal and people settling into their work environments now. I'll tell you what is not changing too, is just the amount of applications that are entering into new businesses, as well. So, you mentioned the upwards of a thousand for the large enterprise, we see on average about eight new apps entering into those environments on a monthly basis. So, even when you think about, I get the visibility, check the box, oh, six months later, I've got a whole new problem because I haven't been tracking to see what's new and what's entering into the environment. So it's definitely not a one-and-done thing. You get the visibility and then you got to put process and things in place to help manage it going forward.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. Well, this has really been enlightening. I think that as the business climate changes, as we move to more hybrid types of organizations, as we continue to look towards that retention and recruitment style, where we want to allow our employees a certain amount of freedom of choice and a certain amount of freedom to work as they need with tools that make their work easier, this becomes an even more critical part of all of those employee experience and spend governance topics that companies and customers are talking about. So I want to thank you for your time today, Ben. I really appreciate it and give you a chance for any last words, anything we might have missed, anything that I haven't asked about?</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>I don't think so. I really appreciate obviously, the time and for those that are listening, for listening. It's been a pleasure and looking forward to continuing the conversations.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, congratulations to both you and Zylo again on your partner innovation award. We're really thrilled to have you as a partner and really are excited to see our customers solving for some of the bigger business outcomes that they have facing them today.</p>
<p><strong>Ben Pippenger:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. 100%. We definitely couldn't be where we are without a lot of great Concur customers and help them bring visibility. So appreciate the award and appreciate the partnership.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Anytime. Well, thanks. This is Jeanne Dion, here for the SAP Concur conversations. You can find information about the Zylo partnership and conversations around spend governance and employee experience out on our SAP Concur website. Thank you again for joining us and please keep in touch. We'd love to hear suggestions from you on what we can talk about next.</p>
Kyla Kent
How Can SMBs Use Tech to Overcome Challenges, Drive Growth, and Meet the Future Head-On?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-smbs-use-tech-overcome-challenges-drive-growth-and-meet-future-head
2022-09-26T17:02:29Z
2022-07-11T11:40:21Z
To succeed in the modern world of business, the right technology is a must. Every moment of opportunity can be seized sooner, faster, and more effectively when a business has the IT tools it needs to
<p>To succeed in the modern world of business, the right technology is a must. Every moment of opportunity can be seized sooner, faster, and more effectively when a business has the IT tools it needs to overcome challenges, drive growth, and stay ahead of the competition. But how exactly are small and midsize businesses (SMBs) like yours using technology to their advantage?</p>
<p>To find out, the research experts at Forbes Insights and SAP teamed up to survey 300 financial decision makers at SMBs in the United Kingdom and North America. They then used that data to inform a series of business scenarios that reflect the ways in which technology can help SMBs get ahead.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>The SMB Tech State of Play</h5>
<p>How can SMBs best use tech to succeed? Company leaders survey their solutions. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/smb-tech-state-play-company-leaders-survey-their-solutions">Read the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p>To begin with, technology has incredible potential to enhance business performance by making standard processes smarter and faster. Take, for example, paper- and e-mail-based invoice management that requires hours to key data into spreadsheets and can result in errors; missed, late, or duplicate payments; and negative impacts on vendor relationships and cash flow. With intuitive vendor invoice management technology that integrates with core ERP systems, the entire process can be streamlined using intelligent data capture and automated invoice review, matching, approval workflows, and payments. The result is faster, more-accurate invoice management that’s easier for business and finance teams alike. Plus, with all the invoice data and analytics in one place, SMBs have the expanded spend visibility and control they need to stay one step ahead of the competition and the market.</p>
<p>It's no wonder that the vast majority of survey respondents (85%) agree that process redesign featuring advanced technology is good for business and that more than half (57%) are increasing their investments in tech and process automation.</p>
<p>Simpler processes also lead to happier employees. Staying with the topic of spend management, let’s imagine an SMB with 200 employees that’s growing fast. Managing budgets for countless expenses can quickly become overwhelming – making fast, in-the-moment budget decisions nearly impossible. In order to see where things stand, finance teams have to stop everything and crunch the numbers – a frustrating and unsatisfying task that can mean burning the midnight oil. With the right spend management technology, all that information is available at a click in a simple, user-friendly dashboard, giving finance the immediate insight needed to make the right decisions and keep work hours within the workday.</p>
<p>This is why 82% of survey respondents report that advanced technology gives them more time to focus on value-adding activities and 81% say that it improves productivity, creativity, work-life balance, and overall job satisfaction. When you add that to the 83% reporting that tech speeds decision-making and fosters greater certainty, you find you have a winning solution that can increase capacity without overburdening staff.</p>
<p>Another new business reality is anytime, anywhere work. Nearly 40% of SMBs are expanding business process outsourcing, and 41% of SMBs are relying on independent contractors and freelancers. Almost half of survey respondents also report recruiting and relying on “digital nomads,” who expect to work from wherever and have the technology to do so efficiently.</p>
<p>With workers like these, technical inconveniences can cause major frustration. Take, for example, travel and expense management. When workers are on the road, they need to stay focused. Traveling is stressful enough without the added burden of saving paper receipts, wondering if a purchase complies with company policy, and coming home to fill out complicated expense report spreadsheets. Tech-savvy workers expect the same consumer-grade payment technology at work that they use in their daily lives. The answer is mobile-friendly travel and expense management technology that allows them to log expenses on the go, flags noncompliant purchases right away, automatically generates reports, and speeds reimbursement. Plus, with the same level of reporting and analytics we saw in our invoice management example, supervisors and finance teams can quickly see where dollars are going, spot spending trends, and adjust spend management policy and strategy as needed.</p>
<p>SMBs like yours are not just using technology to better manage operations today; they are also using it to facilitate growth for the future. Cloud-based solutions that integrate with existing ERP systems are key to this endeavor. Not only do they allow you to expand IT capacities gradually as needed, but they also make the adoption of new tools much easier for business users. This explains why 70% of survey respondents say that tech experimentation is taking place in lines of businesses rather than just in IT.</p>
<p>Over the next three years, 80% of survey respondents plan to invest in cloud technology, and 73% will invest in a distributed IT architecture. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/smb-tech-state-play-company-leaders-survey-their-solutions">Read the full report</a> to help decide if you should do the same.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Level Up Spend Management to Provide Transparency and Accountability in Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-ensure-compliance-and-accountability-in-aerospace-defense-and-government-contracting
2022-08-11T10:55:05Z
2022-07-08T16:45:13Z
SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you level up employee spend management, you make those moments count.
<h2><strong>Embracing Change for Continued Success</strong></h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that aerospace, defense, and government contracting organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your organization forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2><strong>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. <strong>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</strong> These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<p><em>When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits.</em></p>
<h2><strong>Risks Are Evergreen</strong></h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance issues to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<sup>1</sup></p>
<h2><strong>Spend Smarter</strong></h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps organizations receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how they control spend.<sup>6</sup> Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better employee experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you <strong>level up</strong> employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).<sup>7</sup></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their expenses, travel, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in efficiency:<sup>8</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>[CTA] </strong>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution” ebook here [insert link].</p>
<p> </p>
<p><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">SPEND INSIGHTS | How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk (SAP/Oversight Systems)</a></p>
<p><sup>2, 3, 4, 5</sup> <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">ACFE Occupational Fraud 2022, A Report to the Nations</a></p>
<p><sup>6</sup> <a href="https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Digital World (November 2019)</a></p>
<p><sup>7</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Oxford Economics, Leadership in a new era: IT steps up (October 2021)</a></p>
<p><sup>8</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">IDC white paper “The Business Value of SAP Concur Solutions for Optimizing Travel and Expense Operations” (February 2022)</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Level Up Spend Management to Exercise Fiscal Responsibility and Minimize Waste for Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-exercise-fiscal-responsibility-and-minimize-waste-for-education
2022-08-11T10:53:38Z
2022-07-08T16:40:42Z
SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you level up employee spend management, you make those moments count.
<h2><strong>Embracing Change for Continued Success</strong></h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that higher education institutions and K-12 school districts have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is staff and faculty spending. Better visibility into and control of expenses are imperative to any school’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your school forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2><strong>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits. These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<h2><strong>Risks and Fraud Are Evergreen</strong></h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>Fraud continues to be a serious problem in all industries.<sup>2</sup> Sixty-nine percent of fraud occurs in for-profit companies and median losses are nearly $120,000.<sup>3</sup> Some of the industries with the highest dollar value loss of fraud are:<sup>4</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>Utilities $200K</li>
<li>Government $150K</li>
<li>Healthcare $100K</li>
</ul>
<p>As for the education industry, the median loss of an occupational fraud scheme is $56,000.<sup>4</sup></p>
<h2><strong>Spend Smarter</strong></h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your school. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps schools receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how they control spend.<sup>6</sup> Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better staff and faculty experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</strong></h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you <strong>level up</strong> employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).<sup>7</sup></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their travel, expenses, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in efficiency:<sup>8</sup></p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution” ebook for:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-higher-ed">Higher Education Institutions</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-k-12-school-districts">K-12 School Districts</a></li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">SPEND INSIGHTS | How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk (SAP/Oversight Systems)</a></p>
<p><sup>2, 3, 4, 5</sup> <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">ACFE Occupational Fraud 2022, A Report to the Nations</a></p>
<p><sup>6</sup> <a href="https://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Digital World (November 2019)</a></p>
<p><sup>7</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Oxford Economics, Leadership in a new era: IT steps up (October 2021)</a></p>
<p><sup>8</sup> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">IDC white paper “The Business Value of SAP Concur Solutions for Optimizing Travel and Expense Operations” (February 2022)</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Level Up Spend Management to Provide Transparency and Accountability
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/level-spend-management-provide-transparency-and-accountability
2022-07-11T11:38:52Z
2022-07-08T16:34:06Z
Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their travel, expenses, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in
<h2>Embracing Change for Continued Success</h2>
<p>The pandemic unexpectedly forced organizations to rapidly digitize their processes. Now that aerospace, defense, government contracting, and utilities organizations have some breathing room, it’s time to assess the rushed fixes. Are they effective or do they need to be fine-tuned? Are there blind spots? Can they uncover new opportunities or areas to innovate and get ahead of the competition?</p>
<p>One critical area to evaluate is employee spending. Better visibility into and control of employee expenses are imperative to any organization’s success. Every decision to spend is an opportunity to invest. But these spending decisions—the moments that move your business forward—carry both opportunity and risk. By underpinning your moments of decision with comprehensive data and trusted insights, you can act with clarity and confidence.</p>
<h2>Collaborate to Seize Monumental Moments</h2>
<p>It starts with collaboration. Get your finance and IT departments together to discuss the added benefits of digitizing finance processes. Determining your desired outcomes is a natural place to start. Whether you want to gain a more comprehensive view of spend, proactively control budget, improve employee experience, or drive policy changes to increase compliance, a spend management platform helps you get there. Here’s a little insider tip: Digital spend management tools automate manual operations, connect disparate data, and allow for rapid insights. When finance and IT unite to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, the entire organization benefits. These data insights allow departments and teams to seize opportunities and act decisively and strategically during key moments of decision.</p>
<h2>Risks and Fraud Are Evergreen</h2>
<p>Managing spend has never been more complex, and although the pandemic slashed spending and grounded travel, it increased risk and enabled compliance to creep up in unexpected ways. The abrupt shift to a remote/hybrid work model drove spend in high-risk categories like miscellaneous and mail/phone order. From 2019 to 2020, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.</a></p>
<p>Fraud continues to be a serious problem in <a href="http://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">all industries.</a> Sixty-nine percent of fraud occurs in for-profit companies and median losses are nearly $120,000. Some of the industries with the highest dollar value loss of fraud are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Utilities $200K</li>
<li>Government $150K</li>
<li>Healthcare $100K</li>
</ul>
<h2>Spend Smarter</h2>
<p>Every spending decision is an opportunity to invest in your organization. Making better spending decisions and inserting the proper controls helps organizations receive better discounts, manage costs and risk, and minimize fraud. Ninety percent of decision-makers in a recent IDC Report say there’s room to improve how <a href="http://www.ariba.com/resources/library/library-pages/the-future-of-spend-management">they control spend. </a>Their top priorities are to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enhance data accuracy and completeness of metrics (39%)</li>
<li>Manage complexity of regulation and compliance policies for spending (36%)</li>
<li>Improve their ability to stop poor spending decisions before they occur (33%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Accurate and complete metrics along with real-time data and reporting help executives manage day-to-day activities. They also allow organizations to have more confidence in the insights that underpin their significant moments of decision.</p>
<p>When people, processes, and technology come together to empower the future of spend management, the benefits include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increased visibility into company spend</li>
<li>Better alignment of spend with business goals</li>
<li>Improved cash flow management and policy compliance</li>
<li>Better employee experience (employees spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on the fulfilling strategic work that satisfies and retains them)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Level Up for Life’s Monumental Moments</h2>
<p>SAP Concur knows it’s the meaningful moments that make organizations run better. When you level up employee spend management, you make those moments count. For organizations with strong IT and finance collaboration that have rolled out digitized, automated spending solutions, they have seen improvements in <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">organizational agility (47% increase), productivity (43% increase), and spending visibility (37% increase).</a></p>
<p>Organizations that deploy an integrated spend management platform like SAP Concur solutions, manage their travel, expenses, and invoices in one simple platform, and see measurable savings and gains in <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">efficiency</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>$777,000 annual savings on business travel and expense reporting costs</li>
<li>65% more compliant expense reports submitted</li>
<li>52% fewer errors in reporting expenses</li>
</ul>
<p>To learn more about how to level up to an integrated spend management solution, download our “Level Up to an Integrated Spend Management Solution” ebook for:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-aerospace-defense-and-government-contracting">Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-integrated-spend-management-solution-utilities">Utilities</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Employee Experience, Evolved: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with EY About the Power of Employee Sentiment Data
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-experience-evolved-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-ey-about-power-employee
2022-07-08T16:54:14Z
2022-07-08T16:20:31Z
Walker and Schoenhals say there is no better time to start creating employee experiences than today. Yes, organizations research potential job candidates before they hire them. But the same is also tr
<p>Employee experience was considered a nice-to-have before the pandemic. But now, with so many organizations losing employees due to the Great Resignation, it’s become essential. Most organizations are being forced to address employee sentiment whether they want to or not. And it’s spurring many organizations to completely re-think their approach.</p>
<p>Andrew Walker, Principal Architect on the Value Experience Programs Team at SAP Concur, spoke with Crystal Schoenhals, a Consultant for Travel and Expense at EY, about the growing importance of using employee sentiment data to create outstanding employee experience.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-the-great-reset/id1525744763?i=1000564017765">Apple</a> | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0f003b6a-444b-43ec-a02e-37da3939d11f/episodes/f973ce47-814b-406b-a6b8-b9c9eff128a9/sap-concur-conversations-taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-the-great-reset">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/286CmPLf4FMG9G71cz4UMf?si=ijqGFfLLTRq0zXkNGYfUww">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://lnns.co/r6kBZD7isIE">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-the-great-reset">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjI4ZjkyOTZjNmI4OGYwMDEzZWQyYWY3?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiunNHHy4_4AhVCHzQIHd1UCmoQjrkEegQIAhAF&ep=6">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-the-great-reset-podcast">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>Reading the Employee Tea Leaves</h2>
<p>When it comes to creating positive employee experiences, Schoenhals said many organizations don’t know where to start. They’re also not sure what to prioritize. Yes, they may have operational data, but that’s a lagging indicator. They want to know…</p>
<ul>
<li>How do you gather employee experience data?</li>
<li>How do you segment that data?</li>
<li>How do you make the data actionable and meaningful to truly affect positive change and build fantastic employee experiences?</li>
</ul>
<p>Oftentimes, there’s a disconnect between what an organization’s leaders think is important to their employees, and what is actually important to them. Finding out what your employees want and creating a true employee experience is not accomplished with a one-time survey; it’s an ongoing process that requires continually collecting and acting on just-in-time employee sentiment data and feedback. Walker notes that the collection of sentiment data and how you leverage it “has to be operationalized.”</p>
<p>Schoenhals explains that for many organizations, the top reasons employees leave are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Total compensation</li>
<li>Flexibility in work hours, time off, travel, flexibility of travel (ability to take personal travel when they have a business trip), technology, etc.</li>
<li>Benefits</li>
<li>Well-being</li>
</ul>
<p>If your organization is waiting to ask your employees during an exit interview why they are leaving, “that’s the worst point to collect data if you’re trying to make a change,” according to Walker. The opportunity to keep them from leaving has already passed. If you want to keep your employees, you must be proactive about finding out what your employees want and creating positive employee experiences to encourage them to have a long career with you.</p>
<p>This means finding out where your organization currently stands versus where your employees expect you to be and closing that gap. It also means figuring out what type of action and effort will be required as each employee will have a unique answer to each question.</p>
<h2>Start Now. Don’t Wait.</h2>
<p>Walker and Schoenhals say there is no better time to start creating employee experiences than today. Yes, organizations research potential job candidates before they hire them. But the same is also true in reverse—job candidates research potential employers (their mission, values, policies, compensation packages, etc.). It’s hard to hire anyone if your organization does not have a good reputation as it relates to positive employee experiences. There’s no such thing as playing catching up. </p>
<p><strong>CTA:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-great-reset">Learn more about how your organization can use employee sentiment data from SAP Concur and EY to create outstanding employee experiences.</a></p>
Kyla Kent
Small Steps: The Key to Accounts Payable Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/small-steps-key-accounts-payable-automation
2022-07-08T16:20:15Z
2022-07-08T16:16:33Z
Your organization’s accounts payable (AP) department, while operating in the background to most, has an impact on many parts of your company’s operations. It’s responsible for reviewing invoices, issu
<p>Your organization’s accounts payable (AP) department, while operating in the background to most, has an impact on many parts of your company’s operations. It’s responsible for reviewing invoices, issuing payments, and paying vendors on time. When your organization has effective AP processes, they can help you maximize your cashflow to execute on your larger business goals. Enter AP automation. Through optimizing AP processes, an automated AP solution helps provide your organization with the visibility and insights needed to see and understand exactly how much you’re spending and where to make better and more informed decisions, while successfully managing the timing of purchases and payments.</p>
<p>Most organizations know they need to automate their AP processes and reduce complexity but aren’t sure where or how to begin. Many assume it will be time consuming and complicated, but we’re here to tell you that’s not true. The reality is that your company can step into AP automation wherever you are today and take small steps to gradually transition into full AP automation over time—all at your own pace and flexible budget.</p>
<p>Here are the three most common stages organizations and AP teams find themselves in while on the path to AP automation:</p>
<p> </p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><em>Manual, paper-based processes</em></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>-The AP team deals with huge piles of paper invoices.</p>
<p>-They usually physically walk invoices around to different people to get them approved and/or manually write checks.</p>
<p>-They’re exhausted from all the manual effort and processes required to get invoices approved, issue payments, and pay vendors on time.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><em>Some automation</em></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>The AP team may…</p>
<p>-Automate the data capture of invoices instead of relying on data entry.</p>
<p>-Receive invoices through email, and even pass invoices back and forth through email for review and approval.</p>
<p>-Use technology such as SharePoint to review and approve invoices.</p>
<p>-Automate invoices in a particular document type.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They may have also started the process of layering in automation for workflows or parts of documents (such as non-PO invoices or certain types of check requests). If they are getting invoices via email, they may still be doing a lot of manual work, such as data entry and coding to record business transactions in the general ledger.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><em>Full automation </em></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>The AP team may use technology to automate, filter, and handle a majority of their AP transactions (i.e., around 75-80% of the AP process may be automated). Now, instead of manually handling invoice approvals, the team can spend their time resolving issues, ensuring vendors are paid on time, and negotiating with vendors for discounts.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Small Steps Lead to Big Wins</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>When you start where you are and take small steps over time it can lead to big wins such as:</li>
<li>More time to think about your organization’s higher-level business goals.</li>
<li>More visibility and insight into your employee spend.</li>
<li>Improved payment strategy, so you can drive employee purchasing.</li>
<li>Faster and more accurate reimbursements to employees and vendors.</li>
<li>Increased opportunities to cash-in on early payment discounts and card program rebates.</li>
<li>Improved AP cycle times, processing efficiency, budget compliance, and cashflow.</li>
<li>The ability to maximize your supplier relationships and negotiate better rates.</li>
<li>Increased revenue to the bottom-line.</li>
</ul>
<p>All of that can make a huge difference to your business.</p>
<p>For information on the path and steps to AP automation, download the SAP Concur infographic “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/small-steps-big-wins-step-accounts-payable-automation">Small steps. Big wins. Step into Accounts Payable Automation</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Are Business Expense Categories and How Can You Improve Them?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-business-expense-categories-and-how-can-you-improve-them
2022-07-08T16:08:49Z
2022-07-08T15:55:51Z
With the constant evaluation and updating of your expense policies to accommodate new categories of spending, SAP Concur solutions can help make your employee spend program more efficient and accurate
<p>It’s a simple fact: the better we take care of our bodies, exercise, eat right, and get enough sleep, the more likely we are to maintain good health. In many ways, the same is true for financial management. The healthier the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/importance-healthy-financial-process#:~:text=The%20healthier%20the%20financial%20processes,inefficiencies%20weighing%20the%20organization%20down.">financial processes</a>, the better the oversight, the stronger the compliance, and the fewer inefficiencies that weigh the organization down.</p>
<p>While there are many best practices and tips that we recommend for increasing your financial health, refining and optimizing your business expense categories and policies is a great place to start.</p>
<h2>What are Business Expense Categories?</h2>
<p>Business expense categories – also known as expense types – are categorized buckets of employee spending used by companies to track and manage outgoing spend. A robust list of expense types allows companies to increase oversight into employee spend and help establish guard rails that ensure compliance. For example, if an employee travels to Boston for a client meeting, they could submit expenses for Airfare, Car Rental, Meals, etc. </p>
<p>Some other commonly used expense types include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Advertising/Marketing</li>
<li>Parking</li>
<li>Office supplies</li>
<li>Professional services</li>
<li>Utilities</li>
<li>Meals & entertainment</li>
<li>Mileage</li>
<li>Other/Miscellaneous</li>
</ul>
<h2>As the Environment Changes, So Should Your Expense Types</h2>
<p>Aligning expense types with the way employees travel and spend can be tricky, and there isn’t always a perfect solution. As businesses grow, more expense types are added to financial systems for employees to choose from. Or, on the reverse, to simplify a growing list, companies might create one category to encompass multiple expense types. Take <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state-huron-consulting">Penn State University</a> as an example: With the help from <a href="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/expertise/?utm_source=adwd&utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_term=huron%20consulting&creative=589157066614&keyword=huron%20consulting&matchtype=b&network=g&device=c&creative=589157066614&keyword=huron%20consulting&matchtype=b&network=g&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAjwqauVBhBGEiwAXOepkTGLzhrRQ9F9ODzi2vk6-f014rU-5el_XanY6sx2EAzaHxXVTPo2RxoCI5kQAvD_BwE">Huron Consulting,</a> Penn State University was able to reduce the number of expense types from 1,000 to 200 — and map these to the general ledger — without negatively impacting transparency into spend. </p>
<p>[Pull quote]<br />
<strong>“With the help from <a href="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/expertise/?utm_source=adwd&utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_term=huron%20consulting&creative=589157066614&keyword=huron%20consulting&matchtype=b&network=g&device=c&creative=589157066614&keyword=huron%20consulting&matchtype=b&network=g&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAjwqauVBhBGEiwAXOepkTGLzhrRQ9F9ODzi2vk6-f014rU-5el_XanY6sx2EAzaHxXVTPo2RxoCI5kQAvD_BwE">Huron Consulting</a>, Penn State University was able to reduce the number of expense types from 1,000 to 200 — and map these to the general ledger — without negatively impacting transparency into spend.”</strong><br />
[End Quote]</p>
<p>While what works for each individual company will look very different, <strong>it’s important to strike a balance between having enough detail to know exactly where business dollars are being spent, and not overwhelming employees with too many expense types to choose from</strong>. And companies should continue to periodically review their expenses to maintain balance, because as the environment inevitably changes, so will spending habits, as well as your organization’s visibility. Here’s what you can do to optimize your expense management process. </p>
<h2>Three Best Practices to Optimize Your Current Expense Types</h2>
<p><strong>1.Refine Existing Expense Categories</strong></p>
<p>Are you getting too much detail? Or not enough? Are employees having a difficult time picking the right expense type? Or are finance teams needing to dig into receipts to see exactly what is being expensed? These are some questions that you should ask while reviewing your current list of expense types. </p>
<p>Start by grouping expense types together into similar categories. For example, under an Office Expenses category, there could be:</p>
<ul>
<li>Office Supplies</li>
<li>Software</li>
<li>Hardware</li>
<li>Equipment</li>
<li>Furniture</li>
<li>Building Expenses </li>
</ul>
<p>Once you have these categories, see if anything could be expanded or condensed. Should Building Expenses be expanded into Rent and Utilities? Could Hardware and Equipment be combined into one? </p>
<p>And don’t forget to dig into the data – what you think employees should be doing, and what they’re actually doing, could be completely different. Sometimes it’s easier to adjust your strategy based on what employees are already doing, rather than trying to re-train them to adopt a new method. For example, when gift cards are used, Starbucks cards might turn into meals, or Best Buy cards could be applied to office equipment. <strong>Reviewing past purchases can help you spot trends and establish criteria for future purchases. Utilize auditing and reporting to review receipts, and cross-check with the expense type that was used to look for trends. Of course, routinely training employees to adopt widespread rules is always the best policy to make sure everyone is onboard with the adjustments.</strong></p>
<p>A refined list of expense types will make the expensing process easier for your employees, reducing the chance of error and fraud, while giving your back-office enough data to accurately manage budgets, forecast future spend, and ensure policy compliance.</p>
<p><strong>2.Unpack the Expense Type “Other” or Miscellaneous</strong></p>
<p>The pandemic drastically changed the definition of “business as usual.” Employees started working from home and traveling less. But that doesn’t mean they stopped submitting expense reports – they just started spending on other things.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-3-spend-categories-and-tips-optimize">SAP Concur Customer Data</a>, many organizations saw the use of the “Other”, or “Miscellaneous”, expense type account for more than <strong>60 percent</strong> of spending from 2019 through 2021. This jump is largely due to an increase in expenses most companies haven’t used before, such as PPE, so a separate expense category was never needed to track this spend.</p>
<p>Reexamine your “other” category and find out what employees are spending on. This could result in adding new expense types and revising your expense policy to include, and possibly limit, these areas of spend. Also, consider requiring receipts for any expense labeled as “Other” so you know exactly where money is being spent and ensure compliance with your policies going forward.</p>
<p><strong>3.Ensure Your Policies Align with Your Expense Categories</strong></p>
<p>Managing employee spending across a growing number of expense categories and payment methods often leaves room for error and non-compliance. These are serious (and time-consuming) issues that can create mistrust, misuse, and an overall waste of your organization’s time. But with clear expense policies, you can reduce most of the ambiguity and non-compliance – saving you time and money while reducing your organization’s risk.</p>
<p>If employees are frequently out of compliance, it could be that your T&E policies are not clear enough to understand; or that your policies aren’t tight enough to prevent misuse and overspend. Read through your policy and ask yourself these questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>When is the last time it was updated?</li>
<li>Have any expense spending limits changed?</li>
<li>Does it give clear parameters around every T&E spending scenario? </li>
<li>Is it easy to understand? </li>
<li>Do employees know where they can access it?</li>
<li>When was the last time we trained employees?</li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t forget to make sure any policy adjustments are clearly communicated to your employees. We recommend holding trainings or sending out an alert with changes highlighted to ensure users are aware. This will help reduce the number of policy violations, saving your employees, and your finance team, both time and frustration.</p>
<p>[Separate stat callout] From 2019 to 2020, the T&E spend violation rate skyrocketed 292%.<br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">-SAP Concur customer Data,</a> 2020</p>
<h2>Expense Management for the Future and Beyond</h2>
<p>Aligning expense types with the way employees travel and spend can be tricky, and there’s not always a perfect solution. A key lesson many organizations learned during the pandemic is that new patterns of travel – or lack of travel – and spending are always arising. How you manage to track and record these changes in spending can provide insight into where to tighten the reins or redirect spending to impact revenue.</p>
<p>With the constant evaluation and updating of your expense policies to accommodate new categories of spending, SAP Concur solutions can help make your employee spend program more efficient and accurate. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us </a>to learn more.</p>
<p>Are your expense categories and policies already up to date? Take the next step of controlling costs by reading this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/ebook-four-challenges-strategic-spend-management">eBook. </a></p>
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Kiersten Conner
Transform your Financial Data into Actionable Insights
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transform-your-financial-data-actionable-insights
2022-07-08T15:50:11Z
2022-07-08T15:31:36Z
Integrating your spend data does not mean you have to settle for a sup-par tool to track travel, expenses, and accounts payable invoices – you can get the best of both worlds.
<p>There’s no question that accurate, actionable data is key to business success. But if your financial systems are disconnected, it’s difficult to have visibility into data and spend – leaving opportunities for budget overages, inefficient processes, and exposure to regulatory, policy, and compliance risks.</p>
<p>By integrating your organization’s ERP with your travel, expense, and accounts payable data, you’ll have visibility into all outgoing spend, transforming your data into actionable insights that will help you manage your company’s funds effectively.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You don’t have to sacrifice functionality for integration</h2>
<p>Integrating your spend data does not mean you have to settle for a sup-par tool to track travel, expenses, and accounts payable invoices – you can get the best of both worlds by selecting a solution that connects to your current ERP without extra burden on your staff. Choosing the right tool will provide your organization with:</p>
<p><strong>1. Greater Visibility</strong></p>
<p>Seamless integration between your finance, travel, expense, and accounts payable systems gives you a complete view of your financial data, all in one place. Customizable dashboards and easy, robust reporting provide stakeholders with the tools and information they need to make better business decisions, from the immediate discovery of excess spend and out-of-policy spending to ensuring compliance with current tax rules and regulatory standards.</p>
<p><strong>2. Increased Efficiency</strong></p>
<p>Manual and paper-based systems can lead to revenue leakage, loss of savings, and inefficiencies across the entire expense management process. An integrated solution automates this process from end-to-end, allowing for continual communication between systems and automatic syncing of data. No more time-consuming manual data extracts and imports.</p>
<p>Before choosing a spend management solution, ask these questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is integration simple to set up?</li>
<li>Will it require significant resources?</li>
<li>How will the setup and rollout time be minimized?</li>
<li>How much support will I get during the process?</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Effortless integration with SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>Integrating a spend management solution with your ERP doesn’t have to be complicated, nor should it require a significant investment in time and energy from your IT and finance teams. <a href="https://www.concur.com/integrations">SAP Concur connectors and partners</a> make integration easy with multiple options to connect to virtually any ERP:</p>
<p><strong>Option 1:</strong> Utilize one of more than 55 pre-built and cloud-based direct integrations.</p>
<p><strong>Option 2:</strong> Allow the SAP Concur Integration Engineering team to build a connector using a Hosted Custom Solution (HCC).</p>
<p><strong>Option 3: </strong>Leverage resources internally or from 3<sup>rd</sup> party partners to build a custom integration solution using Client Web Services (CWS).</p>
<p>Easily connect systems through flexible and accurate mapping to your general ledger. Integration and deployment are simpler than ever with our trained implementation team supporting you every step of the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Discover how easy it is to get accurate, timely, integrated financial data all in one place. </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact"><strong>Contact Us</strong></a><strong> to find the right connector for your organization, or visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/integrations">integrations page</a>.</strong></p>
Kiersten Conner
The Great Resignation Effects on Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/great-resignation-effects-travel
2022-07-08T15:29:30Z
2022-07-08T10:05:50Z
One thing is certain – as the business travel landscape continues to change, we must come together to navigate new travel supplier challenges and increasing inflation. The coming months will be a time
<p>First seen last summer, the cultural phenomenon dubbed the “Great Resignation” has crept across almost every industry, resulting in powerful numbers we've never seen before. In February alone, 4.4 million Americans, or about 2.9% of the workforce, quit their jobs.</p>
<p>The <strong>World Travel & Tourism Council</strong> (WTTC), representing the global private Travel & Tourism sector, revealed an <a href="https://wttc.org/News-Article/US-Travel-and-Tourism-saw-labor-shortfall-of-almost-700000-in-2021">analysis</a>, conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics, of staff shortages showing a U.S. labor shortfall of almost 700,000 workers during 2021. And for 2022, projects up to one in 13 jobs will remain unfilled.</p>
<p>The continued labor shortage in the Travel & Tourism sector negatively impacts every travel industry supplier, including airlines, lodging, restaurants, and ground transportation. According to one recent Wakefield and SAP Concur study, 100% of respondents said the Great Resignation had impacted their business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Great Resignation labor shortage impacts travel industry customer service</h2>
<p>One of the most notable shortages in the Travel & Tourism sector is the lack of customer-facing staff. As many travel restrictions ease, taking a trip may seem somewhat “normal.” However, the labor shortage means there are not enough employees to meet the pent-up demand.</p>
<p>I experienced this firsthand while checking into a hotel during a recent business trip to Orlando, FL for the SAP Concur Fusion Conference. It was evident there was a significant lack of staff, and many of the retail shops were shuttered. And while supply and demand are set to adjust gradually throughout 2022, this issue is likely to remain.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Great Resignation and the emergence of pilot shortages and canceled flights</h2>
<p>A “perfect storm” of factors has created a pilot supply shortage of global proportions for the aviation industry. For many, what once seemed like a stable and lucrative career path, now looks much less secure. It's believed that 25,000 to 35,000 current and future pilots may choose an alternative career path over the next decade. In fact, according to a recent Oliver Wyman <a href="https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2021/mar/after-covid-19-aviation-faces-a-pilot-shortage.html">study</a>, the U.S. alone will face a pilot shortage of over 12,000 in 2023.</p>
<p>Without a doubt, we’ve all experienced the impacts of the work shortage. During the Memorial Day weekend this year, over 2,500 flights were canceled. And almost every major airline in the U.S. has announced they’re preemptively removing thousands of flights from airline schedules this summer in the face of staffing and other issues.</p>
<p>Suppliers with staff shortages, cancelations, reduced inventories, longer wait times, ever-increasing prices, etc., are the kind of disruptions travelers can continue to expect for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. </p>
<p>For those of us in corporate travel, we should be asking ourselves these questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>What other short- and long-term effects will arise in the wake of the Great Resignation?</li>
<li>Is a wave of higher costs looming that will have to be passed onto us by travel suppliers who must compete for new hires demanding higher wages?</li>
<li> <!--[endif]-->Will suppliers continue to curtail services due to a lack of customer service employees?</li>
<li>If the traveler experience declines due to the burdens of travel shortages, will this further increase the use of virtual solutions instead of travel?</li>
</ul>
<p>One thing is certain – as the business travel landscape continues to change, we must come together to navigate new travel supplier challenges and increasing inflation. The coming months will be a time of opportunity to strengthen relationships, explore new ways of thinking, and demonstrate the ability to adapt and excel in a changing world.</p>
Ralph Colunga
Travel Industry Summit: A Moment of Change for the Industry
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-industry-summit-moment-change-industry
2022-11-13T15:53:02Z
2022-07-07T13:39:57Z
Reflecting on sessions, conversations, and announcements during the 2022 SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit.
<p>Our third annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit (TIS)</a> is officially in the books! </p>
<p>On June 9, travel industry professionals and experts virtually convened to define the future of travel. We heard from industry trailblazers and travel executives during thought-provoking presentations and engaging panels, covering important and timely topics such as sustainability, strengthening the integrated travel ecosystem, and better understanding the needs and mindsets of today’s business travelers. We also unveiled initial findings from our fourth annual global business travel survey. </p>
<p>Businesses face continued uncertainty around the ongoing return to offices and the pandemic-associated evolution of business travel. Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel, underscored the opportunity in this moment to lead. As Charlie noted, this is “your moment to rebuild business travel in a way that gives you more control, more visibility, more built-in safety, and better experiences for your travelers. More confidence and clarity in your travel spending and the ROI it's delivering. It's your moment to build flexibility into your program and sustainability into your policies.” </p>
<p>TIS sessions addressed topics ranging from creating a sustainability action plan, to real-world examples of—and lessons from—fraudulent behavior, to a compelling hands-on experience with Unanimous AI’s Swarm platform. Insights shared during “The Balancing Act: One Travel Program with Many Priorities” were especially timely and relevant for travel managers as business travel volume increases. For instance, panelists suggested identifying your travel program’s many priorities, then determining where some may overlap to help speed things up. If one priority is controlling costs and another is sustainability, as an example, there may be a way to double up efforts to address both priorities at once. During “Exploring Impactful Trends in Travel,” Deloitte’s Oren Geshuri underscored the changing dynamic between employers and employees and how travel policy has become a point of negotiation for new hires. These are just a couple of the constructive and interesting conversations that took place during the event—all of which can be viewed <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">on demand</a> through the end of June. </p>
<p>We also unveiled high-level findings from our fourth annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-considers-business-travels-talent-implications">global business travel survey</a> during TIS. Our survey underscores that unless employers globally address employee demands for flexibility, health, and safety while traveling for business, their ability to retain key talent remains at risk. The key findings from this year’s survey include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Sixty-one percent of business travelers report that their current travel schedules are falling short of their expectations, and 82% of business travelers report their company is returning to pre-pandemic levels but with a “more travel on fewer shoulders” approach. </li>
<li>Nearly a quarter of business travelers who are not traveling at their ideal travel frequency (23%) say they’ll look for a new position if their travel schedule doesn’t improve. </li>
<li>At the same time, aware of the labor market, travelers aren’t willing to accept a position that requires more travel without added perks: 92% say they’d need additional salary, benefits, or travel flexibility to take a position with more travel. </li>
<li>On that note, flexibility remains a priority in 2022: 91% consider some flexible travel and booking options as essential for their company to allow to protect their health and safety when they travel for business—compared to 89% in 2021. </li>
<li>Meanwhile, travel managers are feeling the pressure: All surveyed travel managers (100%) expect their role to be more challenging in the next 12 months compared to last year, with nearly half (49%) reporting that the stress is coming from above, through increasing pressure from senior leadership to demonstrate the ROI of their role. </li>
</ul>
<p>Read <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-considers-business-travels-talent-implications">New Global Survey Considers Business Travel’s Talent Implications</a></em> and watch our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqxOkeZDoy4">video</a> for additional information from this year’s survey, and stay tuned for the reveal of the full report in the coming weeks. </p>
<p>We hosted the first TIS in 2020 to bring the travel sector together to help address the challenges our community faced at the start of the pandemic. As the landscape continues to change, TIS remains an essential moment to come together, challenge the status quo of travel, and explore new ways of thinking. Thank you for sharing this moment with us. </p>
<p>If you missed this year’s event or you’d like to revisit a particular discussion, <a href="https://concurtravelindustrysummit2022.sapevents.com/?pid=direct&cid=direct">register</a> or <a href="https://vshow.on24.com/vshow/SAPConcurSummit/exhibit/region-select?regPageId=17172">login</a> to access on-demand content through June 30. We hope to see you at TIS in 2023! </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 3,850 business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business three-plus times in the past 24 months, in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking. </em></p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global travel manager survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, SEA Countries (Malaysia and Singapore), UK, and U.S. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking. </em></p>
SAP Concur Team
Gaining greater visibility when it comes to your carbon management with SAP Concur and CHOOOSE
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/gaining-greater-visibility-when-it-comes-your-carbon-management-sap-concur-and-chooose
2022-07-07T13:27:40Z
2022-07-07T13:24:47Z
There is more pressure than ever from customers, stakeholders, and senior managers to deliver sustainability solutions. CHOOOSE helps organisations integrate climate action simply and easily into thei
<p>With travel continuing to rebound and get back to normal, sustainability and managing carbon compensation programs has become a priority for many companies. For every company that travels, addressing travel-related carbon emissions is an important part of their decarbonisation journey. SAP Concur research found that 37% of businesses have carbon compensation as a key objective for their 2022 sustainability agenda. However, sometimes, the process of calculating and compensating emissions can be cumbersome and manual.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://chooose.today/">CHOOOSE</a> announced an <a href="https://www.news.chooose.today/chooose-climateapp-sapconcur?utm_source=sap&utm_medium=sapconcur&utm_campaign=saplaunch">SAP Concur partnership</a>, launching its new CHOOOSE Climate App, a carbon emissions management solution now available on<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/app-centre"> SAP Concur App Center</a> in the SAP Concur Endorsed Apps category. This means that customers can connect Concur Travel and Concur TripLink to the CHOOOSE Climate App. The CHOOOSE Climate App will help organisations worldwide to measure, reduce, and manage their travel emissions. Any travel manager can now easily set carbon budgets in line with company-specific goals, such as a 30% reduction of emissions by 2030, and then view and assess their live travel emissions against these targets. The app enables organisations to track the performance of their corporate carbon program through a live carbon emissions dashboard.</p>
<p>The CHOOOSE Climate App integration with Concur Travel and Concur TripLink allows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Automated measurement and reporting on the carbon emissions associated with your company’s corporate air travel.</li>
<li>Tracking, managing, and reporting on the performance of your corporate program through the live carbon emissions dashboard.</li>
<li>Accessing rich content to track and learn about selected climate solutions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) they impact for Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) reporting and communication purposes. </li>
<li>Accessing and selecting from high-impact, vetted carbon solutions, including Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).</li>
<li>Collaborating with a trusted decarbonisation partner – CHOOOSE works with companies worldwide, including Air Canada, Heathrow Airport, Japan Airlines, Lonely Planet, Norwegian Air, Southwest Airlines, LATAM, and others.</li>
</ul>
<p>There is more pressure than ever from customers, stakeholders, and senior managers to deliver sustainability solutions. CHOOOSE helps organisations integrate climate action simply and easily into their corporate travel program. It helps equip travel managers to make sustainable choices, while having a single, centralised location for measuring, monitoring, reducing, and managing emissions.</p>
<p>We are committed to helping our customers adapt to the new world, with SAP Concur tools that enable them to reinvent and transform their organisation.</p>
<p>CHOOOSE is now available in the <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/app-centre/listings/628ebd52747a7e00163dc5a2">SAP Concur App Center</a>.</p>
Pierre-Emmanuel Tetaz
Time to Measure Up: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation About Sustainability with Thrust Carbon
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/time-measure-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-about-sustainability-thrust-carbon
2022-07-08T10:02:03Z
2022-07-07T13:07:04Z
Your organization doesn’t need to commit to net zero today or completely change your travel policy. But if you start measuring and understanding, Brenna assures that “everything will be exponentially
<p> </p>
<p>To know how your organization is performing you must measure numerous aspects of it ranging from travel and expense data to carbon emissions. This will allow you to establish important baselines and continually make improvements. Yet, when it comes to environmental impact, many organizations are still trying to understand what an emission is, how to calculate emissions from business travel, and how to measure and report on sustainability. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jason Grunin, Principal Value Consultant at SAP Concur, spoke with Kit Brennan, the Co-founder and Head of Product at Thrust Carbon, about creating change around carbon impact reporting, reduction, and education for SAP Concur users.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure/id1525744763?i=1000562784546">Apple</a> | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0f003b6a-444b-43ec-a02e-37da3939d11f/episodes/0c1a434d-72f5-482b-b836-ff84031f77e4/sap-concur-conversations-effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0QKDuPrSGnlAmbhGBUcPm2?si=hv6fek_aS1ammWb9TE5hpQ">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://lnns.co/FpaoqiHkBXQ">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjI4NzU4M2IwNTE4NTQwMDE1MDEzOWZm?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahgKEwjItJaK7PX3AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQoAE">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure-an-sap-concur">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Measure to Manage </p>
<p>Sustainability is the practice of using the earth’s resources in a way that will support the needs of both current and future generations. An emission is a release of gas that will warm the atmosphere above normal. Most people refer to this release as global warming.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The average effect of all those emissions is a carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent. Brennan says if we want to prevent climate disaster, we need to “reduce as many of those emissions as possible and ultimately get down the net emissions to zero.” To do that, organizations must measure and manage their carbon emissions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ideally, every system in the world would have a meter that measures how much gas is released. But in the real world, when you buy a plane ticket, there isn’t a meter on the plane engine that measures your environmental impact. In those situations, we must use methodologies that convert the data we have to measure the most likely emission levels.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In other words, “it’s a data collection exercise, and then applying the right methodology to that particular data set,” Brennan says. Often the most difficult part is getting the data because if the data you need isn’t consolidated in one place, like it is if you have a unified T&E platform, it will be harder to do the job.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As with financial accounting, it’s crucial to treat carbon accounting as a balance sheet and determine what emissions look like for every unit of your business. If you are capturing carbon, what that capture looks like, too. Then you’ll have a balance sheet you can use to start either getting to carbon neutral or net zero.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ready or Not, Reporting Requirements Are Coming</p>
<p>Beyond the environmental investment, organizations need to pay attention to their environmental footprint because there are already several reporting requirements in place today, and even more are coming. In addition to the international requirements for every country, there’s the:</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra)</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Removal</p>
<p><!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being aware of all these reporting requirements is incredibly important because organizations are responsible for complying with the rules in the country or countries in which they operate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Organizations also need to be prepared to meet shareholder requirements. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issues rules about carbon reporting and financial disclosures related to sustainable travel. More and more, large shareholders are requiring that the organizations they invest in publish sustainability reports. When organizations don’t, some shareholders are rebelling.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A new generation of employees is also entering the workforce who care deeply about all levels of business sustainability from travel and operations to sourcing. It’s so important to them that they’ll even change jobs to work for an organization with aligned priorities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Your organization doesn’t need to commit to net zero today or completely change your travel policy. But if you start measuring and understanding, Brenna assures that “everything will be exponentially easier because you’ll actually have the insights to draw on to know what your next steps even look like.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>CTA:</strong> <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure">Learn more about how your organization can leverage the partnership between SAP Concur and Thrust Carbon to measure and manage your organization’s sustainability initiatives.</a></p>
Kyla Kent
New Global Survey Considers Business Travel’s Talent Implications
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-considers-business-travels-talent-implications
2022-07-01T11:46:42Z
2022-07-01T11:43:40Z
Sixty-one percent of global business travelers are unhappy with their current travel schedules. Nearly a quarter of them are a flight risk.
<p>The Great Resignation. The Great Attrition. The Great Reshuffle. We’ve all heard of these, and many workers have participated in or been impacted by these seismic shifts in employment. Most employers are hopeful that this trend is on the downturn.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, SAP Concur data shows that since March 2021 we’ve seen a strong, steady increase in business travel transactions, with the exception of an Omicron-induced dip in January 2022. Companies loosened their policies around pre-trip approvals through the spring and, as a result, saw a spike in bookings due to pent-up travel demand.</p>
<p>However, initial findings from the fourth annual 2022 SAP Concur global business travel survey underscore that unless employers at global scale address employee demands around flexibility, health, and safety while traveling for business, their ability to attract and retain key talent is at risk.</p>
<p>“This year’s survey revealed that a degree of unhappiness and anxiety persists among business travelers and travel managers worldwide,” said Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel. “If things don’t change, nearly a quarter of global business travelers will consider looking for a new job—bad news for any business struggling with attrition, skills gaps, and a labor shortage.”</p>
<p>Unveiled during the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>, key findings from the survey of 3,850 global business travelers across 25 markets and 700 global travel managers across seven markets include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Three in five business travelers (61%) report that their current travel schedules are falling short of their expectations. Many say a change in corporate travel direction may be to blame: Around four in five business travelers (82%) report their company is returning to pre-pandemic levels but with a “more travel on fewer shoulders” approach.</li>
<li>But that doesn’t mean travelers are willing to compromise on their newly elevated expectations for business travel. In fact, those expectations remain largely unchanged from 2021: In 2022, 91% consider some flexible travel and booking options as essential for their company to allow to protect their health and safety when they travel for business—compared to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-to-business-travel">89% in 2021</a>.</li>
<li>Additionally, business travelers are feeling empowered to decline a business trip if it doesn’t match their expectations or comfort level:
<ul>
<li>Four in five business travelers (82%) say their business travel has been impacted by the war in Ukraine, and safety concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world is the most common reason business travelers say they’d decline a business trip, with over half of business travelers (53%) saying they’d do so.</li>
<li>Half of business travelers (51%) are willing to decline a business trip their company assigns if they have COVID-19 related health concerns about the trip.</li>
<li>A quarter of business travelers (26%) are willing to nix a business trip assigned by their company if they’re feeling burnt out with travel and need a break.</li>
<li>A quarter of business travelers (24%) would decline a trip assigned to them if it required using non-sustainable travel options.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Nearly one in four business travelers who are not traveling at their ideal travel frequency (23%) say they’ll look for a new position if their travel schedule doesn’t improve. At the same time, aware of the labor market, travelers aren’t willing to accept a position that requires more travel without added perks: 92% say they’d need additional salary, benefits, or travel flexibility to take a position with more travel.</li>
<li>Meanwhile, travel managers are also feeling the pressure: All surveyed travel managers (100%) expect their role to be more challenging in the next 12 months compared to last year, with nearly half (49%) reporting that the stress is coming from above, through increasing pressure from senior leadership to demonstrate the ROI of their role.</li>
</ul>
<p>The SAP Concur Global Business Traveler Report, featuring additional findings from the fourth annual global business travel survey, will be published in the coming weeks. Check out our global business travel survey video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqxOkeZDoy4">here</a>, and follow SAP Concur on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/sapconcur/">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/SAPConcur">Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SAPConcur">Facebook</a> to stay up to date on the latest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by </em><a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 3,850 business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business three-plus times in the past 24 months, in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
<p class="small-size"><em>The SAP Concur global travel manager survey was conducted by </em><a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/"><em>Wakefield Research</em></a><em> between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, SEA Countries (Malaysia and Singapore), UK, and U.S. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.</em></p>
SAP Concur Team
New SAP Concur Partnership Aims to Bring More Benefits to Travel Managers and Their Travelers Through Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-partnership-aims-bring-more-benefits-travel-managers-and-their
2022-07-01T11:41:29Z
2022-07-01T11:38:05Z
Aeromexico prepares to integrate with Concur TripLink to support Latin America travelers
<p>We are pleased to announce Aeromexico will join the Concur TripLink ecosystem of suppliers, giving corporate customers the ability to bring direct supplier bookings back into SAP Concur solutions. Travel managers will gain additional visibility, improve program controls and efficiencies with Aeromexico itineraries and bookings, whether they occur in the Concur Travel booking tool or directly with Aeromexico. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> customers will have the added benefit of connecting their Aeromexico Club Premier account to their SAP Concur profile to earn rewards and exclusive offers. </p>
<p>Aeromexico is Mexico’s flagship airline and leader in Latin American aviation with Mexico City International Airport as their main hub. They provide customers with an extensive destination network featuring the United States, Canada, Central America, South America, Asia, and Europe. Aeromexico is also a founding member of the SkyTeam airline alliance, which serves 170 countries with its 19 SkyTeam airline partners. With Aeromexico’s partnership, SAP Concur customers will have access to more content and capacity to meet the growing demand for both domestic and international markets. Aeromexico started the current year with 122 aircraft, reaching 133 in May and plans to add 14 aircraft to reach 147 by the end of the year. With the growth of its fleet and adjustments to its connectivity network, it currently operates 88 routes: 45 domestic and 43 international. Aeromexico's total international capacity increased by 93.9% compared to April 2021, while domestic capacity grew by 25.7% year over year.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink launched in 2013 as a travel solution designed to help travel managers and financial stakeholders gain a more complete view and better controls over their managed travel programs. The solution offers the ability to capture bookings where they happen, realize negotiated rates, and initiate efficient spend management. Today, Concur TripLink serves a growing set of suppliers, is used by over 14,000 companies, and supports more than 11 million business travelers. Concur TripLink is the tool travel administrators need to prepare and embrace the new era of business travel with access to flexible booking options without risk of non-compliance and invisible spend. Concur TripLink brings bookings made outside of traditional channels into a managed travel program through the SAP Concur global network of connected suppliers and offers travelers a complimentary TripIt Pro subscription.</p>
<p>With Concur TripLink, companies can apply their policy to direct supplier spend, manage negotiated rates, maximize savings, reinforce duty of care, and provide connections to additional channels that align with a customer’s preferred booking methods. By expanding access to regional content and providing more shopping options, travelers have the flexibility to book direct, stay within policy and travel managers gain access to aggregate travel data to inform their managed travel programs.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink gives travelers the ability to align to policies and book directly with their company’s preferred air, hotel, car, and rail providers when necessary. Travelers experience the ease of expense reporting with automatic itinerary and e-receipts captured in Concur Travel and Concur Expense.</p>
<p>Aeromexico joins a growing network of recognized brands including American Airlines, Avis, Booking.com, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Hertz, HRS, Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Lufthansa, Marriott International, SIXT, Trainline Europe and United Airlines along with recently announced partnerships with Southwest Airlines and Amtrak.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Those Who Fail to Plan (Travel), Plan to Fail (Audits)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/those-who-fail-plan-travel-plan-fail-audits
2022-07-01T11:31:05Z
2022-07-01T11:25:54Z
As business travel continues to come back, it is time to dust off our understanding of the rules around travel cost reimbursement by the government.
<p>As business travel continues to come back, it is time to dust off our understanding of the rules around travel cost reimbursement by the government. We mentioned in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/back-on-the-road-so-much-changed-so-much-is-the-same">previous blog</a> that FAR 31.205-46 will continue to govern this key audit area. Government contract expense management should be supported by a system that will guide your employees to follow your procedures. As an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/neosystems-llc">SAP Concur Partner</a> and with over 18 years of experience with government contractors, <a href="https://www.neosystemscorp.com/products-solutions/sap-concur/">NeoSystems</a> has found a great balance between usability and compliance in the Concur Expense solution.</p>
<p>From a compliance standpoint, a government contractor’s procedures need to ensure advance planning takes place to meet the requirements for allowability. The first of these procedures is combining visits within the same geographical area into a single trip. Granted, there is what we could consider loophole language of “wherever feasible and economically practical,” but this is a double-edged sword. Considering what is feasible and what is practical leaves room for interpretation by not just the contractor but also the auditor. Contractors (and their systems and procedures) must support not only the ability to combine trips, but the documentation for not combining trips. Concur addresses this by<strong> making it easy to travel to multiple locations and allow the system to track location specific information such as GSA per diem rates for meals and lodging. Concur will easily track these for the traveler and apply them to the expense report with minimal input required from the user.</strong></p>
<p>Next, to the maximum extent possible, a contractor must make use of the lowest customary standard, coach, or equivalent airfare accommodation available during normal business hours. There is a lot to unpack in this requirement alone. Lowest – is the airfare the least expensive? Customary standard coach – even if it is the lowest, is the airfare in standard, coach class seating? Normal business hours – even if the airfare is the least expensive and coach class, is it also for flights during normal business hours? This is an exercise in searching and documenting what the lowest coach class airfare during normal business hours would be and then finding other similar or lower ticket prices. Concur solutions help address this by<strong> partnering with and providing tight integration between the expense system and the travel management companies (TMCs). Partnering with a TMC allows the users to search for travel within Concur. Rules can be established to promote company-specific requirements such as preferred vendors. Reports are provided to allow tracking of compliance and exceptions, giving management full visibility into who is travelling and where and when policies are being followed or abused.</strong></p>
<p>Last, a contractor needs to coordinate travel in a way that minimizes the number of trips to the same location. Many times, this may translate to weekend travel time. If the cost of a flight home and back on Friday and Monday were more than the cost of the additional weekend stay, it could be more beneficial to the government to have a contractor stay through the weekend. This can be a tricky one, but again, documentation is key. When travelling to the same location on numerous occasions, especially in sequential days and weeks, it is important that your procedures dictate, and your system supports, the ability to provide a reason for why the extra stay was taken or not. In Concur, the traveler can<strong> easily determine the cost of lodging for comparison to airfare to make this justification.</strong></p>
<p>All-in-all, the auditor is going to review individual trips to determine a few things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is the contractor complying with its travel policies and procedures (and does the system support them)?</li>
<li>Is the trip for an allowable purpose (direct or indirect cost to a contract)?</li>
<li>Are the travel costs documented and allowable per FAR </li>
</ol>
<p>SAP Concur solutions support the process necessary to follow the rules and also the audit because they enforce company policies by ensuring the purpose of the travel is captured, clearly documents the travel costs, and automatically separates the unallowable costs into their own accounts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Brad Mitchell is Vice President of Professional Services ERP Systems at <a href="https://www.neosystemscorp.com/professional-services/">NeoSystems LLC</a></em></p>
Brad Mitchell
Ready to Flip the Switch for the Next Disruption in Business Continuity?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ready-flip-switch-next-disruption-business-continuity
2022-02-12T07:56:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Listen to our podcast with Huron Consulting Group for tips on building a resilient travel and expense program The disruptive environment of the pandemic has unified our workforce...
<h2>Listen to our podcast with Huron Consulting Group for tips on building a resilient travel and expense program</h2>
<p>The disruptive environment of the pandemic has unified our workforce through empathy, humility, and resourcefulness, all of which have helped promote business continuity. Communication and work policies around business travel have become more focused on ensuring employee safety in addition to compliance. Managers assessing whether to approve a business trip must determine if it’s worth both the financial and human capital risks. Building contingency plans around the outcomes for business continuity are also about being ready to flip the switch when the next disruption occurs.</p>
<p>Listen in to Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur solutions, as she chats with Katheryn Nolfo, Consulting Director of Huron Consulting Group, on how organizations are shifting from measuring the ROI of travel to the Return on Travel (ROT). From car rentals to pre-approvals and home office environments, they discuss the new focal points of a resilient travel and expense program that’s ready for the next disruption in business continuity.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ready-to-flip-switch-for-next-business-continuity-disruption/id1525744763?i=1000526299159" target="_blank">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V" target="_blank">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0RX2aKjy6D8ngRAFMJqRq4" target="_blank">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/" target="_blank">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/ready-to-flip-the-switch-for-the-next-business-continuity-di" target="_blank">Acast</a> or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<p>Transcript:</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. Hi, everyone. This is Marchelle Klippenstein with SAP Concur again today. With us for this podcast event is Kathy Nolfo of Huron Group. Actually, Kathy, why don't you introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. As you said, I am with Huron and the Director within our Spend Management practice, specifically focusing on T&E and AP automation. We have been doing this for a long time from a business process perspective, in partnership with Concur for a very long time. But really, my goals within the organization is to continue educating our groups on what are the trends happening within travel and expense? What has the pandemic done to the industry? How do those industry impacts then bubble up to organizations and impact their travel policies and initiatives, and so forth? I have a little bit of a hybrid role here. That's one of the areas that I focus on.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. How long has Huron been a partner? You said a long time. How long?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so our partnership actually goes back unofficially since about 2010.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We did our official pen to ink partnership in 2012.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, great. Well, you guys have obviously some industry focuses, which I'm sure we'll get into throughout the conversation. Quickly, I'll just introduce myself. It's Marchelle Klippenstein. Again, I'm the VP of our Value Experience Group. I love hosting these podcasts. I love having just this open dialogue. I hope you the listeners enjoy these topics. We're going to walk through or kind of just discuss the state of the state. It's not shocking that the world is starting to open back up. We have a new state of business travel to look forward to. I don't know about you Kathy, but I was seeing the holiday travel for leisure was definitely ticked up. It's starting to really, I don't know if the term is get back to normal. It's kind of the new normal, the next version of our program we can start looking at.</p>
<p>With that, listeners, we're going to kind of talk about a couple of specific topics that I think we as SAP Concur and as Huron might be of interest to you. It's time to start having the dialogue with your cross functional team members to, to look at how it's going to impact your business. With that said, how about, I don't know Kathy, what would be your perspective right now of the state of the state in terms of business travel, employee suspend management? How are you seeing it right now?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think what we're seeing is definitely the desire for resurgence as well. Not only a slight uptick in the actual corporate travel, but also just this overall desire that people do want to get back out there to conduct their business. It's human nature for us to want to interact with people socially and in person.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>There definitely has been an impact to organizations, less than what we've seen in the past, where if you couldn't go to a location for a trip, where sometimes that might have been considered negative against you as a partner or an informality that you thought wasn't important enough. In the past, people saw that as not a positive, so you traveled more, right? This scenario with the pandemic, everyone went home. Everyone started working from home. The lack of person to person interactions was very acceptable. But 13, 14 months later, it's just our human nature to want to get back and start talking to people. We are seeing that from a corporate travel perspective, leisure we've definitely seen already, but from a corporate travel perspective, people do want to start traveling again. As well as people want to start being able to collaborate in person.</p>
<p>Now, what does that mean for organizations? That's where we have to start working with particular organizations and understanding their culture and what's happening within their common travel, city pairs, things of that nature. It's this mindset that it is definitely acceptable to not travel. Clients and partners are not holding you to travel, but there is definitely this wanting to travel again. I think that is a big change where people are like, "I want to travel now." Not like, "Oh God. I have to do a business travel trip," right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, I'm looking forward to the opportunity. I want to get out there again. I need the collaboration too. You're right. Collaboration is such a huge part of how, both in a sales capacity or even in a strategic design thinking session, internal team meetings. You see so much that comes out of those just one day, two day workshops. Or you see so much that comes out of that client facing interaction in a sales cycle, or in an account management discussion or something like that. That's huge, I agree. 14 months into this and I am definitely ready to get out there.</p>
<p>I also noticed too, it's clear companies are actually starting to bring people back to the office too. Not only do we have an environment where travelers are going to hit the road. But we also have people returning to the office to be back in the company of other humans, right? I agree with you on how you're seeing this right now for sure. What that lends itself to though in terms of, what are the expectations of employees now? What are your thoughts around the idea of incorporating employee sentiment? What are your customers doing to engage and bring in that sentiment piece as they design, and as they work through the next version of their programs? Is there any discussion around that in your world right now?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Because while there is a desire, there's still a fear associated to some of that travel or just concern I should say. I don't necessarily think there's fear anymore. There's more concern. There is definitely understanding how this new world is going to impact the employee. Ensuring that there is good and solid consistent communication to the employee base to have them understand, what are their travel requirements? What do they need? If they're doing international travel, what are the requirements from a vaccination perspective? There's definitely the desire piece, but then there's still definitely that, how do we now manage this world of travel?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Leading up to this pandemic, really we saw kind of a shift from corporate travel going from a very managed program to somewhat of a structured unmanaged program. Where people might book directly with an airline or hotel provider, but it was linking back to the Concur booking solutions. There was still that visibility for the travel managers, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We are seeing more managed programs becoming tighter again, right? We want to have a little bit more of that visibility. They are good with the TripLink connection, bringing in that visibility. But they're looking at this more from a duty of care perspective now too, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Even domestic companies that used to think, well, we don't really need to worry too much about duty of care. We want to make sure everyone pretty much is safe. We have good policies in place where they're traveling to locations. They have adequate spend in order to stay in nicer hotels and safe environments, but they're not going internationally. Things like a terrorist attack or things like volcano eruptions, all those types of things that might impact travelers and concerns, was a part of their world, but this was different. This affected every country, every organization. It didn't matter what industry you were in, and it didn't matter whether you were domestic or global.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo</strong>:</p>
<p>They're looking at, how do we really better manage these programs? Not solely from a compliant, how much money you're spending. But really, how are we ensuring that our employees are safe? How are we ensuring that they have all of the information they need when they're traveling, even domestically? How do we continue the communication and feedback from our travelers to ensure our programs are successful for them? The one thing that is challenging is that we normally saw disruptors in the world of travel to be kind of like waves, right? You'd have a disruptor that was usually a technology disruptor. You had a time period where you got used to that disruption. Things leveled out, you had another disruption. What we're seeing now in disruption is more of, there's a disruption up here at the top of a mountain. Straight down, there's not a lot of time to level out before another disruption hits. You don't have that timing of being able to manage those disruptions like you did in the past. Organizations are looking to get tighter so that they can manage those disruptions at the pace that they're actually coming at them right now.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>We hear about business continuity planning. Obviously that affects every function in the organization, but I think you and I have had a couple conversations in the past around this idea of contingency. Human capital is a huge piece of this. This is our workforce. This is our mobile workforce that is being supported through these disruptions. In terms of contingency planning, I think you guys are in that mix right now with some of your customers talking about, what does that look like? Because the disruption is coming so fast, we're going to have something probably come up again in the near future. Let's not kid ourselves. How do we plan for that? What are you recommending to customers right now?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think the conversation that we've had in the past is, how do you plan for today and for tomorrow at the same time, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>You have to have that contingency plan in place. We are working with our clients around, here's what you're doing today. Here's a successful project, program. Everything is great. Clap for yourself. But what's going to happen if this changes tomorrow? How do we adapt quickly? That's where we started developing contingency plans around outcomes. If there is a disruption, what is the desired outcome? How do we put a plan in place to get to the desired outcome? We kind of were working at both ends in order to come up with the plan that works best for the client. We have to understand that desired outcome is the goal. How do we get to that goal?</p>
<p>One of the areas that we are, not necessarily on the travel side but on the expense side, working with contingency planning, is actually putting together a set of audit rules, workflows, messaging. Things that typically need to change in an environment like that, that's already in place. So that when something does occur, they simply have to activate. The workflows actually are already active. It's already built in. But the actual audit rules that trigger the workflow then just gets turned on. Now everything changes from that perspective. We're looking at it both from the travel side as well as the expense compliance side.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, so you basically are looking at setting it up functionally to basically move with the contingency plan like that. All of that is documented. The teams know. The program managers, any cross functional stakeholders that care are going to be in the know of what that plan is. I mean, that's business continuity planning at its finest to have it ready for the switch to be flipped, right?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, that's great. One of the things too I think that goes into contingency planning, or just managing to the disruption, is this idea. I don't know about you, but I think I have seen it probably come to life within a couple, significant numbers of conversation lately, around this culture of preapproval. I don't think you and I, we go back a long time, I don't know if preapproval has always been this... not mandated, but it wasn't always part of the cultures of our customers' programs. It was almost met with resistance and almost bogging the process down because everybody was moving so fast. What are your thoughts about this idea of preapproval being part of the mix now, and it being more dominant in program expectations?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. We've seen a lot of shift in that space. Just to go back, we have known each other for a long time. I think it's been about a decade. We've been really, really successful for 14-year-olds.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I'll take it. I think I'm going to stay 29.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly, that's why I said we met at 14.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's what we did.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We have, we've seen absolutely a shift in this. This is one of the spaces that we've actually been innovating since about 2015 to be quite honest with you, is actually putting more value into the "repair request" process. Obviously there has been certain industries and maybe certain elements of travel that always require pre-trip authorizations. We're not talking about the green, yellow, red light philosophy within the booking tool, which has some inherent approval processes. We're actually looking at some of the more complex requirements. We've seen that for certain industries. If you're doing international travel, for example, or if you're looking to have group travel and you're going to be booking travel for a group. We've seen that in the past.</p>
<p>We're seeing a shift though that more organizations are looking at that from a pre-trip perspective to help them with their goals around duty of care, as well as who is traveling and so forth. Now, one of the areas that we have been doing more and more with request is not just the pre-trip. But we've been working in areas of, okay, we're requesting credit card usage. We've put together a card program to help us capture the spend and better manage it. But typically, requesting a credit card set outside of the Concur system.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's true. You're going straight to the card provider.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>You're going straight, right. There's usually an email request or a portal request.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Or a spreadsheet somewhere.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>A spreadsheet somewhere. It's a manual process. We've developed programs around whether it's, depending on the card program, what you need. We don't take any personal information in that process. But it is the request of the credit card going through a different workflow process. We've even developed it all the way through to the card issuance. Developing the reports that need to come out of Concur to then work with the issuing bank and the client to actually get the data in the right format. The cards have been issued, and it's all done within one spot for the end user as well as all the approvers.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>It's been done like that for, like I said, several years now. But we've even expanded it into continuing education, certifications. Industries that require continual credentialing. We've built those into Request. You and I just talked I think a few weeks ago by how we're starting to see operational means. Requesting to come into the office. Requests on PPE equipment. Request on collaboration time and getting authorization for that, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We've seen such a shift of not only new industries wanting these pre-trip authorizations for travel, but also wanting to use Concur Request for a lot of other areas. It just makes sense. You don't have to go buy another system now to manage the workflow approval for education or for scheduling office space and things like that. It's all being done within one system.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. What that does though is it also brings... I mean, when I was managing a program years ago, I think I was pretty siloed. I didn't have as many connections or I didn't know that there were other business process areas that could in fact be supported by the functional nature of this tool. It's not about just the request module of our solution. It's this idea that there are other use cases that can be served up, especially as we look at what the next version of these travel programs are or these spend programs are.</p>
<p>The same can go for a purchasing card. If the company has a dominant purchasing card program, pre-approval for that spend in advance is just as important from a budgetary control perspective, and FPNA gets involved in everything as it is to get pre-approval to go travel somewhere. From a finance perspective, it all matters. Also from a duty of care. I do like that you called that out because whereas before, I think people met this travel pre-approval with resistance because it was, "Hey, you don't need to know where I'm going." Or, "I don't want to tell you where I'm going." Or, "I don't need your approval because I do this all the time."</p>
<p>It's now about the safety of the employee. It goes back to the sentiment. I think employees want to know that their employers are watching out for them, especially now that they are going to be... I don't know if it's unchartered waters. It's like we're going out into a different environment than what we had before. Especially international travel. Don't get me wrong, I want to go. But I also want to know that I'm protected and that I'm taken care of if something was to happen to me, right?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>And I can get back home.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>And I can get back home. Yeah, let's not forget that part, yeah. That could change at any time. That goes into your contingency plan, right?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. Your duty of care program, organizations are looking at this differently, but you're exactly right, that the employees are looking at this differently. In the past, you're right. Employees were like, "It's big brother," right? It's oversight that's unnecessary. But I think that just became an understanding that oh, this is why my company does this. Is because in the event that something could happen, I need support when I'm traveling, right? Or I need information about where I'm traveling to. I need to understand if there is a risk associated to that. A lot of the duty of care partners have actually developed COVID related modules that are now being plugged into this world as well. I think there was just a lack of understanding from an employee perspective in the past because unless you had been outside, or somewhere in Boston when the Boston bomber happened. Unless you had been affected by an event and you understood what that meant or why your company was doing that. But let's face it, not all of us have been part of that.</p>
<p>There's a small population of the 350 million Americans that have actually probably experienced an event like that. There was a lack of understanding to why a company was doing those things. Now I think there is just a general understanding that there are things that can affect my travel. There are things that can affect my safety. I work for a great organization because they care enough about me to put these things in place so that they can help me throughout the process. I think the sentiment has changed more from the employee perspective even than from the actual corporations that have been trying to do a lot of these good things over the last several years.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I agree. The sentiment gathering is tough. There are ways to get the right information, to get the pulse of the employee base to understand. I would encourage, I guess you and I both would probably very much encourage anybody listening here today, to consider that as you build out or you adjust, as you're preparing to return to the next version of this business travel. And employee spend. We can't forget that it's not just a new travel environment. It's also a new decentralized spend environment too because we're all at home. Unless you're in the office and you're right there with the procurement guy or gal, it's not the same. I'd like to call that part out too. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. Let's get into some specific travel categories. I think you and I were crossing some wires. No, we were in line. We weren't actually crossing wires. We were in the same line of thought around what's next for travel suppliers, what's dominant, what's not.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>There were a lot of changes there.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Do we want to just go into the one that you and I both were already kind of locked and loaded on, which is the car rental world? Let's talk about that.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Let's talk about that. I think that's something that's really relevant, especially as organizations are looking also to do sustainability programs. Alternatives to air travel. Though this definitely does impact those organizations that are looking to do that, which most are. So yeah, let's go ahead. Open it up.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, so here's the thought. I was under the assumption, this is my hypothesis. My hypothesis was that personal car mileage would actually be more dominant than any other mode of transportation, at least in this next 12 month period. What I see, or what we are seeing in our client dataset or in the transactional aggregate of mileage is that our mileage distance per transaction is pretty constant. It's not changing very much. But what I did see is that our car rental volumes are double digit growths in the last two quarters. I think you have said, or you saw something around the pricing had changed. There's something that happened with car rentals, inventory shakeups or something to that effect.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>What do you know? What can we share with the listeners about this?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so there definitely has been a change in what we've seen around rental cars. Initially, I just thought to myself, oh my God. This is so crazy. Because I even tried to do a personal booking one time, and I think there's really two things I need to answer here for you. First of all, why are we not seeing more mileage on the personal car? I think it's also because I don't want anything to happen to my car right now because of COVID. My son had an accident back in October. One part that was back-ordered and could not be replaced because of COVID held up our entire car for three months.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Oh my goodness.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>From a personal perspective, do I want to put that wear and tear on my car or the potential of something going on with my car in the current environment that we have? I think there's some of that personal, I don't want to do that to my car right now because it's my car and I don't want to buy a new one, and I don't want to have issues, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I think that's why we're seeing then more on the car rentals. But we're also seeing more on the car rentals because maybe I'll drive to Arizona for five hours versus catching a plane, because I don't want to be exposed to the activities that happen at an airport and in an airplane and so forth, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I think that's why you're seeing the increase, the double digit increase that you're seeing on the car rental fee. But then you think, okay, more demand usually costs goes down. There's more car booking. There's more demand.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Cost goes up.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Cost goes up, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Which is normal. But what we're seeing is an incremental cost that is more than just a little bit from demand. I did a little investigation on that. What we've found is that during COVID, the travel industry just got so hit. They had a lot of sunk costs into their fleets. They actually liquidated a lot of the fleets to reduce their actual costs so that they can stay afloat, and pay their employees, and do other things that they needed to do. Now the bookings are increasing. They haven't necessarily built back up that fleet. There's kind of a wait and see. Is it a fluke that this booking is happening? Is something going to happen again? Your number of cars actually available for rental has actually gone down. Now you have a double whammy. You have an increase in volume over the last two quarters of rental, but you actually had a decrease of actual inventory to be rented.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Using Chicago as a point of reference, because it tends to be a more expensive airport to rent a car from. But their airport rental costs and fees and COVID surcharges and all that stuff adds almost $100 per booking.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Per booking.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Regardless of the duration of the actual car rental.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Duration aside, I think I saw in some of the data I was looking at, we've got about a $72, $100 delta between the average booking or the average cost of car rental from '19 to what is happening in the last two quarters. That's right in line with what you were saying about the $100. Well, then at that point though, they're renting the cars longer. At that point do you start now... I think back in the day, we would look at it and say, "Okay, well is it cheaper to rent a car and drive?" Now we're going to be asking, "Is it cheaper to fly than it is to drive?" That's a crazy change.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>It is. It is a change, and that's where it starts impacting the sustainability models and things like that. In the past, we used to have a metric that we would say, "Okay, we're revamping someone's travel policy." You have some road warriors that are really using a lot of mileage. When does it make more sense for them to not use their car for personal mileage reimbursement and also rent a car? We still look at the metrics around, what is that sweet spot for any organization? When we've done this, sometimes you'll find someone got reimbursed $40,000 in a year for mileage reimbursement. You have to think to yourself, "Well, I could give them a new car every year. Is it better to have a company car or is it better for them to rent a car?"</p>
<p>There's all different conversations that you can have around that. But this current situation is going to impact us in the short term. How do you have a contingency plan to manage that in the short term? And then how do you shift back to what your normal policy may be around car rental when the inventory of car rentals go up again? It's a complex conversation now where it used to be a very simple conversation.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. That actually brings up a good point. One of the things I think our customers are grappling with is, what do I need to change? What areas of my policy, what areas of my program, do I really need to look at? Do you have two or three major categories or major focus areas that you would advise the customers listening here what they should really start to look at as part of the contingency plan? Or what's kind of the normal adjustments you're seeing happen right now? Car rental obviously is one of them or that piece of the policy. What else, pre-approval? I don't know, what are the top three?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We can talk about preapproval. We can talk about car rental. Another area that's not directly related to travel, but it's so important right now, is actually managing the home office environment.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, good point.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>And all of the expenditures that are going to home office. We never used to pay people's cellphone bills. But now we're looking at this and we're just letting people submit their cellphone bills. We know that that could be astronomical, because a lot of times cellphone bills can have their family pack on there.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>How do you know that? Looking at managing the home office expenditures and policies and procedures is another area that we're working with organizations in really coming up with what works best for their culture and their workforce. Now, this is an expenditure that in the past, most organizations might have done for a percentage of their workforce.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>They had a small percentage that would work out of their homes, and that would be a constant road warrior, right? Well, now you have almost your entire workforce working from home. That spend might go through a central procurement process. It might go through expense reports. It might go on a corporate card. It might go on a personal card. There's just a lot of variables there that we are working with organizations to help manage that piece of it as well.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Well, then add to that the contingency plan where I think what we'll see is flex work environments. The work from the office if you want, the work from home if you want, the work from anywhere if you want. I work from anywhere and I love it. That's what I hope I can continue to do. Therefore, my spend behaviors and whatnot need to be considered as part of the policy going forward too.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I've worked from home for 25 years.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I've always been in a position where I've traveled quite a bit. It didn't make sense for me to go into either downtown Chicago or now, in California, into LA where offices are because of the travel time, the commute, and so forth. That work always was very easy for me. I know how to be a good steward of the organization because I've been doing it for so long. But there is a large group of people who have never done that. It's a shift in, oh my God, I need paper. Just simple things that they never-</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Or I need a printer. I didn't even have a printer at home.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Things like that. But what that has done though is it has driven more automation. The employees now are starting to drive for that automation. We need these processes. We don't want people driving around to drop off checks to be signed. The employees themselves now and this whole shift of where we're working from is automatically driving the need for automation.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>And any pocket of the business where it doesn't exist. Probably those listening here today could not say with 100% certainty that everything, every piece of their business process, has got an automation element to it. There's going to be improvement areas all over the board, absolutely. Then actually, that brings up a good point. Part of what we've been trying to work through and consult and understand too, just the same as Huron, right? We're together in this, is all the different pressure points of the customers right now and the environment. We've touched on a couple of them, but another one that I think is interesting is we talked about staffing changes that were experiencing. That goes to your automation, or at least that expectation that employees would drive it.</p>
<p>I would say that there has been, if not maybe a reduction in workforce, a reallocation of resources. Our programs slowed down, for lack of a better term. What are you seeing with your customers dealing with basically a resource shortage as they start to get back and going again? We don't have that practice. Those practitioners don't maybe sit those same chairs anymore. What are you seeing happen there?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I don't know that I see a lot of, in our particular client base, a lot of reduction of staff or reallocation of staff around their T&E programs. Because typically, they were already optimized or we got them to a point of optimization where they didn't see that big of an impact from that perspective. But there's the flip of that. Many organizations had mass furloughs. It didn't matter what position you were in and so forth. But if you look at while travel definitely slowed, it did not mean that expense reports slowed.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>That's true.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Because they made that shift to a home office. There was still that need and that requirement of supporting those efforts, but just in a different way. We, our own client base, we didn't see a huge loss of contacts for who we were working with. We actually saw the opposite. We actually saw the first few months, definitely a slow of we can't do anything. All our efforts have been switched to COVID and work from home efforts and so forth. But then in the last... how many months are we now into this? I would say the last eight months or so, it became more of, okay, we need to do more. We actually have to start getting ready for when things do go back to normal. It was a shift of using, again, the same resources of doing that contingency planning and getting ready for what's going to happen next. I don't know if we're unique with our client base from that perspective because of how we worked with them to begin with or we just got lucky. I'm not sure how that worked out, but we saw a shift in how we were working with them.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, so maybe it's safe to say though that maybe some industry remains status quo or there wasn't as much movement of people. But that if you did as a client listening today, if they did experience movement and they did experience resource shifting... because I think I've heard customers not say they lose half their staff, but they reallocated them to other parts of the business for the sake of continuity. It's probably a good time to start looking at if they're bringing them back or looking at ways to get more efficient automation, to your point. What other parts of the business process need to be paid attention to? Because you are going to have to do more with less. Maybe customers, if you're listening and you experienced some shift that way, it's time for you to start looking at, what's it going to look like? How are you going to support the volumes when it comes back up and the resources have shifted? I'm just going to call that out to the listeners.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I think definitely as you bring those folks back into your fold or the need to, is communication is going to be huge. While typically we're considered back office, we're really not at this point. We really have to have constant communication plans, constant training plans. Reviewing of the data that comes out of Concur and identifying behavioral items. And determining, is that really a behavioral item or is that something we really need to look at our policy about, and identify if we've had such a shift in this area and our policy needs to be tweaked, or we need to put a contingency plan in place? I think that the usage of... or the way that I would see people needing to be really focused on right now is constant communication. What communication they're going to look at. In the past, communication might be about compliance. Don't do this, don't do that. I think now the communication shift is more of, here is what we need to do to work together. Here is the change. Here's why we're doing this.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, a lot of the why. A lot of the business reasons for decisions need to be brought to the attention of the traveler too, because I remember. I don't know about you, but you'd get an audit flag or something would be blocked. You'd be like, "Why? I don't understand. I'm just trying to do my job." Yeah, communication there is going to be key. I agree.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. The why's are really important. You've got the communication. I also think that while we start to add more AI to our audit processes and things like that, we are going to take those people and start focusing more on the front end travel programs. Okay, so if we're continuing getting a flag that's not just me or you, but 100 people out of 120 people keep taking that same flag. We need to look at the business practice and look at the company. Is it that yes, is it really a true issue? Or have we identified a shift in our world?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>In their behavior.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>In their behavior, as a result of a change in car rental. Lots of people are getting flagged probably right now because their daily allowable car rental average is probably more than what the company is set at.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Oh yeah, I'm sure. That goes back to why the sentiment is so important. If you do see those flags, this is like if I could envision my next version too. If I could see the flags and I saw the trend operationally, I would want to know why it's happening. That's cool to also... it goes back to marrying that up, because then you can get the explanation of, why the 100 flags? Why are they deciding to do the car rental? Okay, is rail an option? I don't know. Different parts of the world, rail might be more conducive or maybe not. I don't know, but sentiment is super important there I think.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, absolutely. I think that's part of the effort of your employees, or of your bringing back those resources, is how do you get that information back? Survey your employees. Have some town hall meetings that say, "Now that we're back together and we looked at traveling..." Or bring together the top 10 travelers in the last two months and say, "How are we doing? What could we communicate better for those that are going to start traveling? What do you think we've missed?" This has definitely been a humbling experience for everyone. It's been a humbling experience for the traveler and it's been a humbling experience for the travel managers to just say, "What did we miss? How do we work together?" We don't to run in a silo and be this hierarchy where we're just telling you what to do. We really want to work together and make sure that you are happy.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We want to keep you happy because you're an asset to the organization. You're important to us.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. That goes into, which would be the last point I had left to the very end, which was the return on travel. Not the return of travel, but the return on travel. Employee engagement, employee experience. Positive, all of that, is definitely I would consider a part of that equation in terms of the return. The more productive they are on the road, the more efficient it is for them, the more they get done for the business and so on. We can all see that cycle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then also, when people do get out and about and they're going to make a decision to go, the business is going to look at this and say, "Is this a healthy return for us? Is this decision a go or no go?" It goes into the risk, the duty of care contingency plan. It goes into where they're going and all of that. And of course the cost of sale if it's a sales event or something like that. Is it worth traveling/ at the end of the day, is it worth it? I think a lot of our customers, correct me if I'm wrong or give me some more insight here Kathy, but I think return on travel, ROI or ROT, is going to actually be a thing. Whereas I think customers in the past have tried to correlate it to the success of a deal or overall business productivity. But now I think it's going to be even more important. What are your thoughts about that?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I can give you a little history on this. There was a time period, I think it was around 2008 or '10, where business travel came to a halt. It wasn't because of a pandemic. It wasn't because of a terrorist action. It wasn't because of weather. It was because the economy was not doing so hot.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Organizations were like, "Okay, T&E spend is our number two, number three dollar amount of our bottom line. We've got to control that." They ended up doing a really good job controlling them, but they did see a net result against their actual business, their actual revenue. Their happiness of employees. We've done this once before. I think you're going to have those travel managers and people who have said, "We've done this 'we can't travel.' We know how it's going to impact our business. We need to make sure that we get back to it in a successful way." You're absolutely right. I think they're not going to just look at it from a, did me traveling to that location get me that one account?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>They're not looking at it like that anymore. They're more looking, did we represent our brand correctly? Are we doing the right thing in the world? Are people looking at us as an organization that takes care of their employees? While yes, they traveled, were they taken care of? There's definitely a different sentiment. That's from the employees' side. But also from the people that are working external to our organizations, and then also from a corporate perspective. I think it's definitely going to be a factor.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>It's a good reminder for those when we experienced it in '08 or that economic downturn that we've done this once before. Maybe you look at the results of that time period, and this is a great opportunity to look at and shape a different outcome for what that return on travel benefit is to the organization. I agree.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>Right. I feel like we could probably talk for hours.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>We could. I have like 10 more topics.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I know.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I have 10 more topics for you, but we're going to probably leave it to the next Marchelle and Kathy session.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We can do a series.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, we will. Actually listeners, there might be another one for me and Kathy coming up soon, but go ahead. What were you going to say?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I was just going to say in general, this has been just such a humbling experience for everyone in the industry, in the travel and expense industry, consulting firms, our clients, different organizations, all the way down to our own children. There has just been such a massive impact that's come out of this experience, but it's also been a joining experience. We all understand it now. We all are in this together.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>We've gone through it together. There's empathy for each other and we all know that we're going to have hiccoughs and it's okay. We're just figuring it out, and we're bringing the best possible information to you through our research, through Concur's research, our research. Through our experience with our clients during this time period. But there is just such a unity that we've actually gone through this together.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I agree. Sometimes we lose sight of that. That's a great reminder, Kathy. We are in it together. Probably as much as we've all heard that and the term pivot, but guess what? We are. We're moving forward and it's a new phase. Okay, so with all of that, thank you so much for your time. Listeners, feel free to reach out if you have questions. I think all of our contact information will be published, or talk to your client executive or anyone on your account team. I'm happy to connect you with Kathy as well if you have questions for her. All right, I'm just going to ask you Kathy. Any closing remarks? Anything?</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>God, I wish I was a witty person. No, I just wish everyone the best through all of this. I think as we continue to work through disruptions, we're going to always come out I think better and stronger because of those disruptions. Just like we do in our own personal lives when we have things that we have to overcome. We always come out stronger and better, so I think that at the tail end of this, the corporations and companies that we all work for or with are going to come out stronger and better.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I agree, and we're all going to be more prepared. Time to prepare for the return of travel. This is great. Well, again, thank you Kathy. I'm sure we'll be talking again soon on the next version of the Kathy and Marchelle podcast.</p>
<p><strong>Kathy Nolfo:</strong></p>
<p>I like the sound of that. Thank you so much for having me.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<div>
<p>You're welcome. All right, thank you.</p>
</div>
<p>Listen to more episodes of the <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763" target="_blank">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense#inline_asset_form" target="_blank">contact us</a> for help building a resilient travel program today.</p>
<p>-------------------------------</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/katheryn%20nolfo%20square.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Katheryn Nolfo oversees the spend management practice at Huron. Her passion is to observe processes, listen to customer’s concerns, and then come up with a more efficient program for them. She brings 20+ years of experience in consulting, operations, and business systems improvements. She is a certified and award-winning SAP Concur Solutions Consultant and has consulted with over 500 clients to ensure an optimal solution is provided for them to achieve their goals.</p>
<p>Katheryn lives in Southern California with her husband and two sons, has served on the board for the San Clemente Rugby Club, and volunteers for various outreach programs in her local comunity.</p>
<p>Follow her on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/katheryn-nolfo-258bb47/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
New SAP Concur Solution Extension Enhances Event Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-solution-extension-enhances-event-management
2022-07-01T12:17:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The past months have had a profound impact on individuals and businesses alike Meetings and events are no exception as organizers first scrambled to pivot physical events to a digital...
<p>The past 18 months have had a profound impact on individuals and businesses alike. Meetings and events are no exception, as organizers first scrambled to pivot physical events to a digital environment, and now companies find themselves with a new set of needs as in-person meetings pick back up. Increasingly, organizations now demand integrated solutions to manage the risk, spend, compliance, and attendee experience of meetings and events.</p>
<p>The pressure to meet these needs is only increasing, with employees eager to get back on the road for events and meetings. In fact, when asked to rank their top concerns if business travel does not increase over the next 12 months, the inability to develop and maintain business connections was the top concern among global business travelers, according to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-to-business-travel">recent survey</a> of nearly 4,000 business travelers across 25 markets.</p>
<p>That’s why today, we are pleased to announce the availability of <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management"><strong>Concur Event Management by Groupize</strong></a>, centralizing all aspects of meeting and event planning and management in a single solution. The new solution extension, delivered through the SAP Concur partner ecosystem, combines more comprehensive spend governance related to event travel, better compliance with company policies, and a user-friendly experience for event and meeting organizers.</p>
<p>Concur Event Management simplifies the self-management of meetings, providing:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Controls and compliance.</strong> A highly configurable rules engine provides flexibility to set policies that fit a company’s unique needs while increasing compliance for sourcing meetings and events spending. Integration with Concur Travel makes it easier than ever for attendees to register and book travel in a seamless self-service registration experience.</li>
<li><strong>Duty of care.</strong> Increased visibility into travelers’ whereabouts so companies can act quickly if needed to ensure their employees and guests are healthy and safe.</li>
<li><strong>Spend governance.</strong> Reporting and analytics dashboards allow customers to track and review cross-event spend, logistics, reports, and attendee metrics. Concur Event Management gives customers visibility into the true cost of an event by accurately and holistically capturing event spend, resulting in more accurate budgeting and better supplier negotiations.</li>
<li><strong>Employee experience. </strong>Concur Event Management is designed to be self-service and easy to use, empowering occasional meeting organizers, as well as professional event planners, to increase efficiency by reducing unnecessary back and forth with third parties.</li>
</ul>
<p>SAP Concur remains committed to delivering industry-leading solutions that simplify processes, strengthen controls and compliance, and deliver exceptional business outcomes. With Concur Event Management, now available in the U.S., we’re proud to partner with Groupize to support the entire lifecycle of a meeting or event. From planning, event website creation, supplier sourcing, registration and travel booking to attendee management, this single solution for both professional and occasional planners, making complex and cumbersome processes more efficient.</p>
<p>For more information, please visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">concur.com</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Tech Tips That Will Help School Districts Forge Ahead in This Pandemic
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-tech-tips-will-help-school-districts-forge-ahead-pandemic
2022-07-01T16:54:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
pFederal pandemic relief money directed toward schools will be vital to ensure limited gaps in learning during the school...
<p>Federal pandemic relief money directed toward schools will be vital to ensure limited gaps in learning during the 2021-2022 school year. With a trio of COVID-19 relief bills allotting nearly $300 billion to schools nationwide, it now becomes critical for those schools to ensure that spending aptly prepares them to face any and all obstacles to keeping kids safe and in the classroom.</p>
<p>One fundamental element to help schools achieve this goal is technology. There exist a number of technological solutions, not just in classrooms but for back-office operations as well, that school districts must leverage to ensure their resiliency against future COVID-19 spikes, facilitate in-person learning for students, and safeguard against misappropriation and misuse of government funds. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Prioritizing resiliency over continuity </h2>
<p>School districts will inevitably face small breakouts of COVID-19 in their populations for the foreseeable future. Districts should double down on their investment in the resiliency of their contingency plans to ensure that children and back office staff can continue to go about their business even when flare ups of the virus occur.</p>
<p>Rather than merely devising backup plans for when chaos strikes, districts should go further to prioritize technology investments that promote business resiliency -- that is to say technology that allows districts to absorb and adapt in a fast-changing environment, fortifying their operational immune system. </p>
<p>Districts must be confident that their digital processes are stable enough to withstand another shock to the system. Investments in automating routine back office tasks for educators and officials will free up time for them to focus on higher priority decisions in times of crisis. Automating financial processes, too, can help districts better prepare for unforeseen stressors and do more with less. Financial process automation, for instance, gives officials a clearer picture of real-time cash-flow and resources at hand in the event of an emergency. </p>
<p>Taking steps now to invest in technology that make school districts more resilient to future shocks will pay off down the road. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Empowering educators with technology </h2>
<p>Even before the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of education, investments were being made in its digitization. According to <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-01-15-us-edtech-closes-decade-with-record-1-7-billion-raised-in-2019">EdSurge,</a> ed-tech startups raised a record $1.7 billion in investments in 2019, signaling the direction the industry is heading. </p>
<p>In 2020, resources further shifted away from traditional school expenses such as paper products and were reallocated to technology that facilitated remote learning such as video conferencing platforms like Zoom. With digital curriculum spending expected to increase by $2 billion in 2021, according to a report from The Learning Counsel, school districts should invest in technology that empowers educators. </p>
<p>Tools that streamline workforce management, including structuring more intelligent workflows for educators and administrators, will help free up labor time to reallocate to more meaningful tasks. Administrators should look to adopt tools that are user-friendly to encourage high usage levels, while also ensuring that they are safe in the cloud and comply with strict public sector security protocols. </p>
<p>By enabling educators with technology and teaching them how to get the most out of the latest tech solutions, school districts will benefit from a more powerful workforce in times of disruption. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Anti-fraud technology to ensure integrity of investments </h2>
<p>Given the large amount of government funding schools will be receiving for COVID-19 relief, issues of fraud may arise. Recently a state audit uncovered evidence of fraud and misappropriation of funds by current and former employees of Sweetwater Union High School in Chula Vista, California. The incident affected the district to the tune of $43 million, leading to budget cuts and protests from faculty. Looking ahead, similar incidents could occur with the incoming Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA) loans.</p>
<p>School districts must be prepared by leveraging technology that can track and record expenses, as well as the impact and ROI on these investments. Tech that will better report the use of funds will also be critical. School districts should consider what unique expenses may arise with the incoming funds, and, analyze if they have the needed transparency in place to know where their expenses are going.</p>
<p>There are a number of machine learning software platforms made specifically for this type of fraud detection. In fact, there is so much demand for these types of solutions that more than a quarter of all venture funding for AI in banking is for fraud applications. Schools can leverage those same software platforms to use in their accounting teams.</p>
<p>Fortunately for K-12 officials, there are some modern expense management platforms from top software firms that are designed specifically with schools in mind. One such solution is SAP Concur expense and invoice management tools. They give districts the ability to easily integrate expense and invoice data, as well accurately gauge their budgets in real time. And, through automated accounting processes, school districts can save time while boosting financial transparency. Organizations that don’t have these necessary safeguards in place to keep constant track of expenses are vulnerable to losing up to 5% of their total revenues to fraud.</p>
<p>During the 2021-2022 school year, prioritizing investments in technology will keep school districts resilient against future shocks, empower educators, and safeguard against misappropriation and misuse of government funds, putting them on a path to succeed during the next phase of the pandemic and beyond. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For over twenty years, Phoenix Business Consulting has been a trusted SAP solutions provider for Public Sector organizations including State agencies, Local governments, Educational institutions, and Special Districts. Combined with SAP Concur’s leading-edge travel and expense management capabilities, Phoenix brings an unparalleled service offering to help Public Sector agencies to dramatically simplify and streamline their travel and expense management processes. Find out more at <a href="https://phoenixteam.com/">https://phoenixteam.com/</a></p>
JL Diaz
Working Smarter, Not Harder: How Higher Education Institutions Can Maximize American Rescue Plan Act Funding
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/working-smarter-not-harder-how-higher-education-institutions-can-maximize-american
2022-07-01T17:05:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Higher education institutions have always had to be resourceful but the global pandemic increased this pressure on creativity in a whole new way Chinks in the armor of legacy systems...
<p>Higher education institutions have always had to be resourceful, but the global pandemic increased this pressure on creativity in a whole new way. Chinks in the armor of legacy systems patched together over the years really showed themselves when flexed to virtual and hybrid learning and working environments. A breath of fresh air, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, whisked in to support the badly needed upgrades to stabilize administrative functions and get higher education institutions in a resilient position, so that they can best support everyone connected to the higher education experience regardless of ongoing disruptions.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The American Rescue Plan Act and IT Modernization</h2>
<p>Four Things Higher Education Needs to Know</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/american-rescue-plan-act-and-it-modernization-four-things-higher-education-needs-know">Learn More</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>The funding clock is ticking…</h2>
<p>Funding from the 2020 CAREs Act and the 2021 ARP Act can be used to improve critical infrastructure that supports higher education stakeholders. However, funding for the CARES Act must be used by December 31, 2021, whereas the deadline for the ARP Act funds is December 31, 2024. Prioritizing student financial aid and campus safety is essential, but also getting aircover to improve the systems that back-office teams use to keep everything humming is fundamental to a successful higher education environment. Getting everyone on-board, building a strategy of how to best use and administer these funds takes time, so cross-collaborating and establishing priorities to address the greatest areas of need first is essential.</p>
<h2>Follow the “paper” trail</h2>
<p>Shifting to a mostly remote learning and working environment required a drastic shift from paper to digital documentation. Forever gone are the days of sorting through seas of paperwork or unending paper filing projects. A silver lining of this rapid digitization is the ability to share and save documentation as well as track trends and behaviors nearly real-time. When it comes time to submit proof of how higher education institutions leveraged funding, digitized documents will be readily available and easier to submit.</p>
<h2>Cloud up!</h2>
<p>Cloud-based systems are not only easier to manage, once implemented, but they make scalability and iterative improvements less cumbersome. For higher education institutions, IT modernization in the form of cloud migration, is a way to not only work more efficiently and securely, but in a way that maximizes the dollars that they receive to prioritize the evolving needs of all stakeholders involved in the higher education environment.</p>
<p>Review our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/american-rescue-plan-act-and-it-modernization-four-things-higher-education-needs-know">four tips</a> to best approach the American Rescue Plan Act funding for your higher education institution today!</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Consistency is King for a Globalized Travel Experience: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Award-Winning American Express Global Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/consistency-king-globalized-travel-experience-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-award
2022-07-01T17:23:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Clients of American Express Global Business travel were clamoring for a consistent online booking experience in all marketsnot just in the primary markets like France or London but in...
<p>Clients of American Express Global Business travel were clamoring for a consistent online booking experience in all markets-not just in the primary markets, like France or London, but in secondary markets, like Peru and Saudi Arabia. "When you have an inconsistent experience across your employee pool," Jeanne Dion, Director of Value Experience at SAP Concur solutions, shares, "the doubt around bookings, and payments, and use, and support of yourself as an employee within the company starts to grow. And it actually starts to color everything that you do when you are traveling." Control, savings, and support are all fundamental deliverables to create a satisfying online booking experience for business travelers. Scott Daube, Director of Online Strategy at American Express Global Business Travel, shares how they grew this offering.</p>
<p>This four-episode podcast series celebrates the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel"> American Express Global Business Travel</a> received one of two Partner Innovation Awards for 2020, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. Other past recipients include: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a>. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes">SAP Concur Conversations</a>, for best practices to implement at your own organization.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/consistency-is-king-for-a-globalized-travel/id1525744763?i=1000540640152">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jPUqFxPhtxSP98s8B0f9u">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/consistency-is-king-for-a-MrhFx-43gTk/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/consistency-is-king-for-a-globalized-travel-experience-an-sa">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE4MmIxYzgwYmUyMGYwMDE0MTgzZTE5?sa=X&ved=0CAcQuIEEahcKEwj41fPnro_0AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google </a>or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to join this special circle of winners?</strong></p>
<p>Nominations are now open for the SAP Concur Partner Awards, now part of the SAP Concur Innovation Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements from our partner ecosystem.</p>
<p>As an SAP Concur partner, <a href="https://sapinsights.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3dWRrfkTwvR34a?Link=web&mkt_tok=MDEzLUdBWC0zOTQAAAF_9jXftkReO_UE-0J9ioO-p4385p7WjwUoS-1jidOmi1kS_QZJozC2IZ0Tp74fEn__bwpT4DDeElqM4nNNBgvz&pid=null&cid=null">please submit a nomination to win awards</a> in either “Growth” or “Innovation” categories.</p>
<p><strong>Criteria: All partner types are eligible to submit.</strong></p>
<p>Growth Awards: Based on measurable growth in your SAP Concur partnership.</p>
<p>Innovation Awards: Based on innovation you brought to a specific customer engagement or to your overall SAP Concur relations.</p>
<p>Questions? Email: <a href="mailto:sapconcurpartners@sap.com">sapconcurpartners@sap.com</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion. I'm the Director of the Value Experience Consulting Group here at SAP Concur. And today, I'm talking to Scott Daube, who is the Director of Online Booking Strategy for American Express Global Business Travel. Scott, if you wouldn't mind going ahead and introducing yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you, Jeanne. Yeah, I'm actually, as you said, the Director of Online Booking Tool Strategy for American Express Global Business Travel. Believe it or not, I've been doing this role more or less on Thursday for 25 years.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Congratulations.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. And, in general, I make sure that everything that has to do with online booking works, I mean, in a nutshell. So, often people don't understand what I do, but I just am sort of the general manager, the glue that holds things together, and working with Concur, we've been offering online booking since 2004, for example.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent. So, I know that, with the past 18 months, travel has not actually been on the top of everybody's mind, but given what you do for work, it is really top of mind for you. So, when you think about what brought about this innovation, can you explain to me how this all came about? How this award came to?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>And remember, in 2019, it was a banner year, right? So, prior to the pandemic, travel was in boom times and we had global clients. We have over 4,500 global clients using Concur. And they'd really penetrated all of their major markets, their primary markets, their secondary markets. And what happened is, we had a number of large multinational customers who wanted to expand to all of their employees. So, not just in places like the US, Canada, Australia, EMEA, but in places like Peru, or Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, and literally in places where they had as few as 25 employees. They wanted to get the same service, support, and benefits that they got in all their major markets. And so, they came to us and they said, "We want you to truly globalize." So, we may have 30 markets or 40 markets. We have one client with over 60 markets that needed to be covered. And so, we undertook this project to bring a fully managed, fully supported product to these smaller countries.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>When you say this, that they'd already kind of saturated when we're talking about these tertiary markets, are we talking about them having the exact experience that a customer, that an employee would have, say, if they were in the United States?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>I would say, they're looking for consistency. So now that said, again, everybody's travel program is different. Some people have a global consistent travel program. Other people have regional travel programs, but they just, in a very basic level, they want someone in Saudi Arabia to be able to book online, the same way that their travelers and their employees in France, or their travelers and employees in Sweden book online. And they want to get the same savings that they get. They want to get the same compliance that they get. They want it, and that's all of the benefits that you get from booking online with Concur, they want to extend globally.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. So, this is really a play of global consistency, first and foremost, right? That the experience that the employee is getting is the same across the globe. And, that the company still has visibility into the spend and can provide the appropriate parameters and guidelines for purchase. Whether they're purchasing, as you mentioned in Peru, or whether they're purchasing in London, or they're purchasing in Chicago, Illinois, correct?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>The answer is yes, all of the above. In other words, anything that you get from booking online, whether it's instead of having to call a travel counselor, booking online, and having control of your own booking. The savings that you get from booking online, whether it's on air, car, or hotel, the savings from not having to call a travel counselor. The support and infrastructure from booking online, the ability to shop for yourself, the satisfaction. So, basically everything. They don't want their employees in these places to feel deprived. And what I've heard from some of them is, their employees were clamoring for this. So, they were saying, "Why can't I book online, like my colleagues in France are booking, or my colleagues in Australia are booking, just because I'm in Romania? Why can't I book online, too?"</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And I think the key here is, when you have an inconsistent experience across your employee pool, that doubt around bookings, and payments, and use, and support of yourself as an employee within the company starts to grow. And it actually starts to color everything that you do when you are traveling. So, I think this is an amazing opportunity for our global customers to be able to provide that standard of care, and standard of support across the globe, regardless of where you live. So, I'm really excited about this. Now, when we talk about how it works, so a customer is using the American Express Global Business Travel Team, and they also have Concur. So, talk me through how they engage for this platform and how did they start this process of supporting those internal customers on a global basis?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Well, again, remember, so we have a reseller version of Concur Travel, and so that's fully managed, fully supported, fully configured, online, offline. Every, in other words, we manage their entire travel program. So, for customers who choose that, generally they'll roll out, in again, from cost benefit perspective, their biggest markets. So, we'll often when, for example, when we win a large customer, we'll sit there, and we'll go through all the markets. And they'll be, they want to cover 20 markets or 30 markets. And so usually it's their largest markets first to get the benefit, the biggest bang for their buck, first. And then, we keep rolling out, rolling on, and rolling out.</p>
<p>And so, in all of our proprietary markets, for example, we have the same teams that configure the tool, the same teams that support the tool, the same teams that manage the tool. So, you're getting a highly professional, consistent, global support. And so now again, so imagine you're a client and you've done that. You've got 20 countries; you've got 30 countries. And then you say, "Gee, I've got 50 travelers, contractors in Malaysia. Can they use it, too?" Or "I've got a bunch of employees doing finance in the United Arab Emirates. I'd like them to get the same benefit," or "I'd like them to be consistent." And sometimes it's to quiet the noise. Like I said, they're actually complaining. Other times it's just efficient. So, I can have the same program, the same training, the same service and support that I have everywhere in all of these countries.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>This sounds like it's more of a platform that is already there to service and not, there is configuration that happens versus a customization. When I think about that, I recently had a podcast where somebody explained that Concur, they likened Concur to being a condo where you can get a different floor plan, depending on what part of the building you want to live in, or what floor you want to live in. It sounds very similar to what's happening here. You have a base platform and then the customers coming in and letting you know, as the provider, what enablement they need to build that platform out. Would that be a correct assumption of how it works?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Well, remember too, you first have to have the platform. So, you have to make sure that in that country and with all the mid-office systems and back-office systems that you're using, that you are booking, you're exchanging, you're refunding, you have PNR acquisition. You'd have pre-trip approval, if the client so wants it, that you have ...That all of these things work the same way they work, again, in the primary places. So now, usually they're not going to that level of customization in these other markets. They're just looking really for the basics. So, they just want these people to be able to book online, or exchange online, or refund and cancel online.</p>
<p>A lot of times they even haven't even gotten to the place where they're doing some of the fancier things they might be doing in other countries, whether that's certain approval mechanisms or whatever. But basically, it's just creating that consistent experience and that consistent platform. So, they can build a site in that country that meets whatever needs they have. So, they may, again, be trying to make it globally consistent, or they may have the travel manager in that region allow them to do things a little differently, depending on how they run the business.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So, when we talk about this, and we talk about this consistency, and the globalized approach to travel, how many customers are using this tool right now? Do we have any idea? And, how many different templates, for lack of a better term, are built out already to support this, this program?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Well, just so what I want to say about the award in particular, whereas there were probably 23 new countries in scope, where we were going into the country, we were creating a platform. We were doing all the testing. We're setting up the PNR formats, the profile templates, we're doing all the testing. So that then, any client who wanted to come to that country, we could build sites for them. So basically, the infrastructure is there. You can come in and build. And so, during the course of the project, we launched 16 new countries that were able then to support any customer. And we had, I think, I know that we had 130 sites that were built in the 16 countries. And I think it was 35 multinational customers who took advantage of that. And then of course, what happened is the pandemic came. So, it would have even been a bigger initiative, but then when the pandemic came, things kind of ground to a halt.</p>
<p>But even in that time, going into these 16 countries, we had 130 customer sites. So, there really was a need, and people started booking. And even today, people are booking. So, in some countries like Brazil, countries where there's pharmaceutical companies, medical companies, we've had some clients have booked all the way through the pandemic, while, whereas others really virtually shut down their travel program. So, we're just starting to get that back now. I'm starting to get requests from clients, like I have a client or a few clients now who are saying, "Well, what about, remember you were going to do Ethiopia? And that never got done because of the pandemic. Now, are you now going to do Ethiopia?" So now it's kind of coming back around again, now that travel's opening up.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, and I can see why this would be so important, especially in the tertiary markets. There's a lot of work. You mentioned pharmaceutical. I can also think manufacturing, where some of the smaller countries where the manufacturing and business really hasn't slowed that much, or the need for what they're doing is still really quite robust. And so, having to travel there to oversee or to travel to and from, to ensure that things are happening correctly, I mean, I can see where this would be growing exponentially, once things start to get back into the swing of what was 2019, and previous. But I can see where even now, those 16 countries, that's a significant amount of work that's been done. And to the point of, you had a list of originals, are you going back and reviewing that list? Or are you taking feedback into where the next one should be, to prioritize that remainder of the list?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think the latter. People are saying, "Okay, what's next?" And so, I think we have to reassess where we are and reassess resources, reassess needs, and then figure out what we want to do. But also, clients, they haven't all returned to travel. So, I think it's still in that evaluation period, if you will. I mean, I think, the key to everybody right now is just getting back, just starting the programs back up again versus expansion. I mean, not that people don't want to expand, but I think everyone's focused on the task at hand, which is getting up and running safely now again.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>When we think about all the customers that you have rolled out on this to date, are there any success measurements, or measurements of how these companies are doing, now that these sites are available to them? These countries are available to their employees to be able to book just like everybody else.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And again, because the pandemic hit, makes baseline comparisons difficult. So, in a normal world, we would have their booking volumes, et cetera. But so, we reached out to some CGMs just to get input. CGM, the client general managers of the clients who expanded. And basically, what they said is that the success metric is ridiculously simple, which is the clients are happy. So, and that's exactly what we found is clients were saying the feedback's been extremely positive. The users love being able to book online finally. They love the ease of use. There's no negative feedback. The procurement teams at these companies are glad to be getting the benefits of booking online. The savings, the finance teams are glad that they don't have to be doing something different for these employees. They can be doing the same thing, and paying the bills the same way, and ticketing the same way. So, when we reach out, I mean, it's a simple metric. But it's just that clients, whatever goal they had in going into these different countries, that they are able to achieve, and that they're happy. And that's what we're hearing.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's incredible. And, I don't mean to bring it down, but one question that I do have, because I've seen a lot of this in my life. When the implementation is rolled out, have you heard of any places where there was a general dissatisfaction, or maybe even a bit of dissent at having a global tool rolled out to them? Was it really the tool that was the issue or are there other things that are involved, that should be addressed during a change management as you roll these out for a customer?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And well, change management is very important, but there definitely are times when, especially in global travel programs where there may be some employees in a far-flung place that don't really want to be told what to do, or don't want to be told to do it a certain way. And so, they rebel, and they would like to do it their way. So, I've definitely seen that. With this particular project, I haven't heard that yet. I mean, we have customers using Concur in over a hundred countries. And so, there's in the distant past, there were sometimes issues with content. I mean, still today, in some smaller places, there's issues with rail content, air carriers are always changing their content.</p>
<p>Sometimes there are valid issues in a particular country of why the travelers might be dissatisfied, but in general, that's not the experience. But have I ever seen employees say, "I don't like that global travel manager telling me I have to do things a certain way? I used to do them a different way. And I really liked that way. I love my travel counselor, who I knew personally or who always helped me. And I don't want to do this." Sure. That happens. But in general, not really. I think everyone's with the program, and they enjoy booking online. They like the control that it gives them, and the freedom it gives them to do what they need to do.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And to that point, when I think about that a lot of times when, because change is hard, change is hard for all of us. When something like that happens, is there an ability to maybe fine tune the tools post-implementation, to account for maybe local cultural or whether it's site cultural within the organization requirements and requests that are happening? It's not just a, "Here it is. And you're never going to be able to change it," right? There are ways to fine tune it.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, well, we measure user satisfaction with every trip. Travelers receive a survey that measures their satisfaction for both online, offline, and various aspects of it. And so, if we see issues with that, then we'll often go in, and usually it's not the booking tool per se. It's how it was configured for that particular population. So, let's ... I'll give an example. So, let's say for example, the tool was, the travel manager wanted to achieve the greatest savings. So, they told users that they had to take the cheapest flight, even if it involved taking a connection. Let's just say. And what it turns out is travelers in that country, the city pairs that they travel didn't really fit very well with that idea. Meaning that there were a lot of direct, better direct flights than connecting flights, and connecting flights were putting them out of their way or inconveniencing them.</p>
<p>So then, what we'll do is if we see low scores, we'll work with the client to configure the travel policy in the tool better to say, "What is it that's creating this dissatisfaction?" And do a lot of research to uncover, is it the rules that we have in place? So, it's rarely the tool itself. It's more the rules that were put in place, and people chafing under those rules, or the rules not fitting that particular population.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I like that you brought that up about, it's most times the rule, not the tool. That idea of being able to meet a customer goal. You've got two customers in mind, right? You've got your traveler, who's the actual end user customer. And you've got your customer, who is who you're managing that travel for. And being able to pull all of that data together so that your ultimate customer, the one that you're managing the travel for, is able to respond to their own end users, and their own internal customers is really critical to a successful business relationship. I really applaud you guys for being able to bring that to a customer and work collaboratively that way with the customer base.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And really, again, this was all about globalization. So, we're already doing that for you in like, we may cover 95% of your transactions or 98% of your transactions for your population, your traveling population. But now, you want, and we want to bring it to the last 5%, the last 2%. And we can do that. It's pretty straightforward when you look at it that way, because it's the same team servicing it, whether it's again, in Peru, Romania, United Arab Emirates. The same people configuring the site, the same people maintaining the site. So, they know your program, they know you, they know how your other sites are configured. They know your travel policy, then how you're being handled offline. So again, it's just extending that benefit as widely as possible, to as global as possible.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And when you mention you do that, that final 5% or 2% of your population that's working in some of those tertiary markets, is there any limit or any minimum to the number of customers that you have in a country where you could roll this type of program out? Or if you have just one person, does it make sense to be able to do it? Do you have any guidance on that for our customers?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think we have some interesting conversations about that sometimes. So, because in other words, it does take time and effort to enable a site, to roll out a site, to configure a site. And so, we'll say to a customer, "Well, how many travelers do you have in that country?" And if someone says, "10," the conversation might be, "Do we really want to go through the effort for 10 travelers?" And they answer, it might be, "Yes." Or the answer might be, "Well, do you have another idea?" And it might be, "Well, they can be serviced out of a hub in the neighboring country without any additional work at all. What if we did that?" Or so there are other solutions.</p>
<p>And sometimes though, I've been in conversations where we're trying to prioritize building sites in Slovenia, and nothing wrong with Slovenia, I'm not knocking Slovenia. I'm just saying, we're like, "Really, how many travelers do they really have headquartered in Slovenia?" And the answer might be, 20, 25. And so, but if in other words, if the customer has a good business reason to do it, then we do it. But there is time, effort, you could call it cost of doing that. So, it's not magical. So, there is a cost benefit analysis, if you will.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I love that you're not providing just a one size fits all. "You must do this," or "You can't do this." That it's really consultative, and really working together to provide your customer and our customers with the best possible solution for their particular needs and challenge. So, and I know it can't always be easy to do that. There's a lot that goes into it. So, thank you for taking such good care of our shared customers. I truly appreciate that.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I think what we share in common, both Concur, and American Express Global Business Travel is the global nature of our products and services. So, we're the largest distributor of Concur Travel. We have more countries than anybody else, and you also distribute Concur Travel and Expense in over a hundred countries. And so, for us, it makes sense. It just makes sense that clients that have this multinational name, that have this global need, it's a good fit. So, it's a great partnership that way. It's a great way to look at the business together and a great benefit for our customers.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>When I think about our customers, is there a specific customer type that this type of program, or this type of innovation would work best for, or really, is it open to everybody?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, we have different segments of customers. So, if customers who, for example, in the middle market in the US, only operate within the US. We have customers who might be US-Canada. We have customers who do sort of simple international trips. We have customers ... We have one customer where literally 93% of their trips are complex international trips. So, I can't say that this fits one type better than another. What I would say is, again, it depends on their traveler population, because again, this is really just broadening the program, making it available to them. So, from sort of my job is making the platform available. How people then use it, that's the beauty of all the other teams that work on it, on whether it's the implementation teams, whether it's the client general managers. So, what they're looking to our team to provide, it's just that ability. Like, "Here you go, knock yourself out. With whatever need your client has, again, it's Malaysia, it's United Arab Emirates, it's Peru, it's Romania. Now you can do it."</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well. When I think about this award, I think about the innovation that it's taken to do this. And so, I'm going to ask you to put on your future vision hat and think about what's next. I know you mentioned expanding the program to additional countries. Is there a timeline or some additional features or functionality that you're looking to add into this platform?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think the challenge now is, travel is still dynamically evolving with things like new distribution capability, other sources of content, that I think there's a challenge, too, in keeping all of this up to date and keeping it all rolled out on a global basis. So, there are new data privacy regulations there, so it's not just, I mean, it's great that we're able to build the platform, and we're able to make it available, and it's great that clients are able to use it. I think what creates a big challenge for everybody is as the industry dynamically changes, it's keeping pace with all those changes in all of these places.</p>
<p>So, I know that's not exactly what you asked, but I think that creating a true global program and having truly global technology is still a big challenge. Just as I'm sure you're finding on the expense side too, not everyone, everywhere is the same with expense, with travel. And so, I, to answer your question, I think just making sure that as we roll out a lot of these new programs and a lot of these new benefits, whether it's NEC or whether it's new hotel content, or again, whether it's new data privacy, that we're able to do that on a global basis as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's not always easy. We say, "Oh, we're just going to do that." But that really is the crux of the issue, right? To make sure that we're able to service everybody, not just a select few.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>I'll give you an example. So sanctioned entities. The US changes its list of sanctioned entities on a regular basis. And we literally go into all of our customer sites and many of them, which we can do centrally, but some that are in sort of far-flung places, and we have to manually configure restrictions on bookings. So, whether it's Crimea, Iran, North Korea, but they change all the time. And just maintaining that, people don't really see underneath the covers, what hard work all these teams are doing. And so, I just want to give kudos to all the teams at Concur, and kudos to all the teams at American Express Global Business Travel that are doing this hard work that no one really sees. I don't want to say never appreciate. No one really sees, because it's kind of behind the scenes.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, that's the curse of making everything look easy.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly. Exactly.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And I know, that's exactly what happens.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>It's our job to make it look easy. That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's right. That's right. That's what you spend your whole day doing, making business travel look easy. So, is there anything else that I have forgotten to ask or anything that you wanted to share with our audience before we wrap up?</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Honestly, no.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>All talked out.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>No. Yeah. I mean, like I said, it was in a way it was a very straightforward project. It was to expand what we, all the good stuff we currently do for everybody, everywhere. Just to take it further. And so that's what we did. So, there's no, I don't want to say there's no trick or there's no extra something to that. It's just taking what we do and making it even bigger and better.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Well, not always easy, but you did it quite well. So, congratulations again for the award. We're very appreciative to be partners with you, and we're excited to see what comes out next from these countries, and any new features and functionality that you bring to us, we're truly thrilled to be part of it.</p>
<p><strong>Scott Daube:</strong></p>
<p>Well, thank you very much.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<div>
<p>Thank you. And thanks to you for listening. If you have any further questions or you're looking to get any more information about what the American Express Global Business Travel teams can do for you, or what you've heard about related to Concur, please go ahead and visit our websites. Thank you again for joining us. And we'll be talking to you soon.</p>
</div>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Scott%20Daube%20Square%203.png" /> </p>
<p>Scott Daube is Director, Online Booking Tool Strategy for American Express Global Business Travel. Scott started as a director with Amex GBT’s interactive division when it was formed back in 1996, and was part of the launch of Amex GBT’s first enterprise-level corporate online booking tool, AXI. Prior to American Express, Scott worked in advertising, publishing and media, where he was instrumental in the creation of digital travel destination areas that appeared on services such as America Online and Apple’s e-world. Scott holds a Master’s degree in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Organization and Management, and a combined Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634175398494-jeanne square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community.</p>
<p>Follow her on<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-dion-67062b8/"> LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
The Changing Face of Meeting Management in the Post-Pandemic World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/changing-face-meeting-management-post-pandemic-world
2022-07-02T05:22:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Conferences Trade shows Sales meetings For the past two years these muchanticipated staples of business fell victim to the COVID pandemic leaving a trail of empty badge holders and...
<p>Conferences. Trade shows. Sales meetings. For the past two years, these much-anticipated staples of business fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a trail of empty badge holders and cancelled blocks of hotel rooms in its wake.</p>
<p>Today, that narrative is starting to change. According to the <a href="https://www.amexglobalbusinesstravel.com/press-room/american-express-meetings-events-global-forecast-optimism-and-growth-in-2022/">American Express Meetings & Events Global Forecast</a>, a full 81% of business events in 2022 are expected to have an in-person element.</p>
<p>This is not to say that event planners can dust off their old agendas and pick things up where they left off. Like so many things in the post-pandemic world, the challenges and requirements of meeting management have fundamentally changed.</p>
<p>These include:</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>The emergence of the hybrid conference model</h3>
<p>Just as the pandemic made the hybrid work model the norm for many companies, it also changed how organizations approach their conferences and client events.</p>
<p>“Although companies are getting back into the swing of in-person activities, they also recognize the value of having virtual components that enable them to get their conference sessions in front of more people,” explained Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President, Value Experience Group, SAP Concur. “Planning for and managing those virtual components, in addition to the physical components, adds a new level of complexity.”</p>
<p>Planners have to find a way to connect the live and virtual audience, ensure the right technology is in place, and locate a venue that gives both in-person and online audiences the optimal experience, on top of myriad other considerations — including cost.</p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>Greater budgetary oversight</h3>
<p>Traditionally, conference and meeting expenses were managed across multiple systems. The meeting planner might have a budget for the venue, the sessions and the company-sponsored activities, but attendee travel, client entertainment, and other expenses were often allocated across multiple departments and cost centers. So, there was no viable way to understand the total cost of that event or how that money was being spent. </p>
<p>“Today, having visibility into the true cost of events is critical to measuring ROI, and ensuring costs stay within the allocated budgets,” Klippenstein said. “Instead of looking at pieces and parts, organizations need the visibility to effectively manage that entire category of spend.”</p>
<p>Budgetary oversight is particularly critical in a year like 2022, when there’s little or no recent in-person event spend data available.</p>
<p>“Event budgets and travel budgets are zero base now, since many companies reallocated those funds to other areas when in-person meetings and travel were cancelled,” Klippenstein said. “Now, those budgets have to be reset, and the thresholds they’re setting are kind of an unknown. So, the more oversight and visibility organizations have, the better chance they have of staying in control of their costs — even if the projected budget is a bit of a moving target right now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Increased focus on safety </h3>
<p>While safety of employees and event attendees has always been important, that focus has increased ten-fold since the pandemic.</p>
<p>“You have to get people to your event on the least number of connecting flights, and ensure that they have safe transport to the hotel that fits within preestablished guidelines, which, for some companies, means no sharing rides,” Klippenstein said. “Logistically, there are a lot more boxes you have to check than you did before the pandemic began.”</p>
<p>Organizations also must keep up with any state, county, or facility mandates, like requiring masks to attend indoor events, proof of vaccines or testing upon arrival. If there is an outbreak or other safety concern, they need to be able to quickly locate and possibly transport those attendees to another location.</p>
<p>“Governance is more important than ever before, no matter what size the event,” Klippenstein said. “You have to make sure people book within your travel tool, or in a way that gives you visibility into where they are and how to contact them at any time.”</p>
<p>Policy adherence now becomes mission critical, not only from a budgetary standpoint, but a safety standpoint as well. So, organization management needs a dashboard view of when and where meetings and events are happening, so they can react, when needed, to ensure both employees and guests are always safe.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>A greater demand to personalize the attendee experience</h3>
<p>In the past, personalizing the attendee experience might have meant ensuring vegetarian or gluten-free options were available. Today, that’s all been kicked up a notch, <a href="https://associationsnow.com/2021/08/color-coded-system-will-help-in-person-attendees-indicate-level-of-comfort-socializing/">with some companies</a> going so far as to color code name badges to indicate whether an individual is comfortable with hugs, elbow bumps or requires a six-foot interaction.</p>
<p>Managing those options, and making every attendee feel comfortable, requires more effort than the personalization requirements in years past. Without technology to track those preferences, it would be near impossible to manage, particularly for larger events.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Meeting the challenges with a more centralized approach to event management</h3>
<p>To meet these new challenges, organizations need a more comprehensive, centralized approach to make meeting management faster, easier, and more cost effective. This was the catalyst for the creation of Concur Event Management by Groupize.</p>
<p>This solution is an extension of Concur Travel and Concur Expense, which consolidates all the aspects of meeting planning and execution into a single solution that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Holistically captures all associated event spend in one place.</li>
<li>Leverages established travel and expense policies, rules, and approval workflows.</li>
<li>Provides branded event registration and travel booking.</li>
<li>Provides dashboards to easily track spending, employee locations, and metrics in near real time.</li>
<li>Offers in-depth reporting and cost analysis for budgeting and to inform future policy decisions.</li>
</ul>
<p>In short, Concur Event Management simplifies and streamlines the complex task of meeting planning in 2022 and beyond, while giving organizations the comprehensive tools they need to keep attendees safe, keep costs in line, and effectively measure ROI.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on Concur Event Management by Groupize or to see a demonstration, please contact your Client Success Manager or <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">visit us here</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Effortless Sustainability: Manage What You Can Measure, An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Thrust Carbon
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure-sap-concur-podcast-conversation
2022-07-02T05:39:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Learn about how you can measure the carbon impact of your travel and spending to easily set baseline sustainability goals for your organization Listen to the Cofounder and Head of...
<p>Learn about how you can measure the carbon impact of your travel and spending to easily set baseline sustainability goals for your organization. Listen to the Co-founder and Head of Product for <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/61c0fee47864e00015cfeb8e">Thrust Carbon</a> explain what a carbon emission is, how we measure it, and what an SAP Concur solutions user can do to reduce their carbon footprint and reach the global net zero goal by 2050 or sooner.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure/id1525744763?i=1000562784546">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0QKDuPrSGnlAmbhGBUcPm2">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/effortless-sustainability-manage-what-you-can-measure">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjI4NzU4M2IwNTE4NTQwMDE1MDEzOWZm?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjgn4HszO73AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Hello, my name is Jason Grunin. I'm a Principal Value Consultant here at SAP Concur. My team is part of the Value Experience Group, and our team is really tasked with helping customers maximize their investment within their employee-initiated spend program. So, I've been here at SAP Concur for about two years and prior to that, I spent almost 10 years in higher education and four years within the federal government space. Travel and expense has been a part of my life for probably the past 15 years and I'm really also passionate about sustainability. And today, I have with me Kit Brennan, the Co-founder and Head of Product at Thrust Carbon. Kit, you want to say hi and introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, thank you, Jason, for that warm introduction. Yes, so I'm one of the co-founders here at Thrust Carbon and we're a technology company with a vision of a world where our actions don't have to cost the earth and really, we're focused on, how do we make travel effortlessly green? We are big believers that if sustainability is straightforward, then the majority of the world will move towards more sustainable solutions, so it's really, how do we make it just so effortless that everyone can be sustainable and act sustainably? So it's great to be here within the business. I focus, as you mentioned, on the product and also very much on our methodology-side of things as well. So really excited to delve into the detail of everything from what is a carbon emission, to how we measure it, to what can a Concur user do to reduce their carbon footprint?</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>That's awesome. You know, that's really one of the things we're here to help answer and work with, prospects and customers alike, and those just trying to expand their knowledge on sustainability. We hope you find today's podcast helpful as we talk about what is sustainability, what is an emission? And then coming down to the methodology that is used to calculate emissions from business travel. I spent some time over the last year, working with our partners and internal stakeholders across the SAP Concur ecosystem, trying to figure out what is the message to our customers? Looking at travel managers, expense managers, sustainability leads. Also, what does employee sentiment look like, around this topic? And the generational change that has occurred, especially within new hires, about how sustainability and being responsibly sustainable, if you will, is important to the new world of employees that are entering the workforce today.</p>
<p>And one of the things that I came to the conclusion, after this last yearlong endeavor, is really coming down to, if you can't measure, you can't manage. And that goes back to an old saying, I think, that is really important and driving so much of what we are here to talk about today. You have to be able to have systems in place to measure and manage your travel and expense data in order to be able to put your thumb on how is my business performing? So that you can establish a baseline and then look at how can I improve year over year. And I know the pandemic has caused a great challenge, but also really helped organizations reduce footprint over the last two years. But a lot of that is reopening up and travel is resuming. And I think we're all excited to be back on the road and traveling and visiting customers and employee meetings offsite. So maybe to start off, Kit, what is an emission and how is it measured?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, well, that's a really great question. So an emission firstly is a release of a gas, which will warm the atmosphere above what would normally happen without the release of that gas, right? So global warming is obviously the term and we normally refer to these as carbon emissions. But one thing to make really clear to begin with, is actually carbon is not the only greenhouse gas. There's about seven main ones. I think that the other most popular one is methane. The classic example is obviously from cows farting, but one of the reasons we talk about them as carbon emissions is, we average out the effect of all of those emissions into the equivalent of if it was CO2. And so an emission is a release of any kind of gas in its CO2 equivalent, which will warm the atmosphere.</p>
<p>And ultimately, if we want to prevent a climate disaster, we have to try and reduce as many of those emissions as possible and ultimately get down the net emissions to zero. In terms of how it's measured that is the big question. And I think we'll spend a lot of today talking about it. There's different ways that you ultimately measure it, right? The ideal would be every time a gas comes out of a system, we know exactly how much has come out, but ultimately when you buy a plane ticket, you are not attaching a meter to the outside plane engine to measure what gases are coming out, right? So the way it's measured is, we use methodologies that convert the data that you do have available. For example, where are you traveling between, and convert that into what the most likely emissions are, and working off some really great research by a lot of very smart scientists to average out and say, okay, so the average say, kilometer traveled by a plane, must be this much CO2.</p>
<p>So that's the core of how it's measured. There's fortunately lots of different types of methodologies. If it's not a travel emission, if you've purchased an item, then there's methodologies based around spend, around weight. So if you purchased an electronic device per kilogram of electronics, there's a multiplier as well. So ultimately it's a data collection exercise, and then applying the right methodology to that particular data set. And it's difficult. There's a lot of data sets out there, but fortunately, there's also a lot of tooling available to make it much easier for people as well. So it's not as daunting as it first sounds. And we'll go into that later, how you can utilize tooling and what the best methodologies are, for a particular type of emission as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So when I first saw that CO2 little E at the end, I was always like, huh, I wonder what that meant. It's the equivalent, right? So for those of you wondering, it's the same principle, it's converting it into a standard unit to allow the comparison and what is the carbon dioxide equivalent of that release.</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Right. I think a good analogy there is with your base reporting currency, right? So the same thing you do with finances, you don't just ignore everything, not in your base reporting currency. If your base reporting currency is USD, you don't ignore all of your Yen transactions. You convert those into USD as well. Same thing with the equivalent.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Great analogy. So Kit, well, what is a Scope Three emission and why is it important?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>So I guess before we answer Scope Three, then let's talk about Scopes One and Two. So three scopes altogether, and Scope One and Two are normally easier to calculate, but those are Scope One, the emissions from things that you directly burn, right? So if you have a fuel and you burn it, you are directly releasing CO2. That's your Scope One emissions. Scope Two emissions, that's really basically electricity that you purchase. So you are purchasing the energy, someone else has burnt it, but it's pretty direct to you, but it's not you directly burning.</p>
<p>And so, Scope Three is everything else, right? It's the emissions across your entire value chain that aren't Scope One and Two. And they're also typically broken down as well, into these subcategories, but Scope Three are widely regarded as some of the hardest to measure, because it's so broad. And travel in particular is a huge part of most businesses' Scope Three emissions. It's the kind of purchased emissions that you are responsible for, if you buy an airplane ticket, if you stay in a hotel, those ultimately are emissions that can be attributable to you. And so it's those emissions from that value chain.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So that's really one of the opportunities that having a managed system in place like SAP Concur is, that I have tools in place across the globe to be able to measure all of my business travel and have a standard place to go pull that data from, right?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. Probably the most difficult part of measuring a business' carbon emissions is getting the data, right? Once you have it, I wouldn't say it's easy to calculate, but there's a lot of methodologies. So you go through the data set and you apply the right methodology to the right piece of data. But if you don't have that data consolidated in one place, your job's going to be much harder. And I totally agree having a unified T&E platform is going to make life so much more easy because it's all going to be in one place, you've got something to work off.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So that's a really great segue and I'm going to switch it up here for a minute. We talked about reporting requirements and maybe this is a great time to really just lay out a little bit of what are those reporting requirements, right? There's so many out there. There's DEFRA, which is now I think the DEBIS U.K. agency, there's GHG, there's the EPA. Which one should I be using and why does it matter?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, well, unfortunately, never an easy answer. You want to be using all of them, but let's break it down. So, first thing is these are normally all thought of, as methodologies for calculating CO2, but they're not all equal. So almost every business will say that they want to report according to the greenhouse gas protocol, the GHG protocol methodology, but actually we consider it a meta methodology, or just a framework for calculating carbon, because this is what tells you that you need to report according to Scope One, Scope Two, Scope Three, and which business units are relevant there, but it's not going to tell you exactly what multipliers to use. It doesn't say if you spend a night in a hotel it's equivalent to this much CO2. So to do that, you're going to rely on data from, as you mentioned, DEFRA now DEBIS, everyone still calls it the DEFRA methodology, EPA has similar numbers available.</p>
<p>And there's a number of other sources as well. And those will actually give you the multipliers, the factors that you'll use for reporting on that framework of the GHG protocol. In terms of which is the right one to use, well, honestly, it depends again, on your data set. This is why it's important to have it all in one place to have your data organized, because if you want to work out the carbon emissions of a train journey, then where is that train journey? If it's in the UK, then DEFRA has a really great multiplier that you use, where you multiply the number of kilometers by a number that DEFRA give you. And that will tell you how much CO2, but if it's a train journey in the United States, then you want to use the EPA's number to multiply by.</p>
<p>And then there's that you could say, there's also custom multipliers as well, particularly if you have a responsible supplier who can tell you what the CO2 looks like for a particular purchase or journey, whatever type of expense that is, they might be able to say, "Okay, for every dollar you spend with us, every kilometer you travel with us, this is what your carbon looks like." And so those would be custom, but actually, they're still some of the best data sources available, and you're going to apply those according to the greenhouse gas protocol, guidelines and rules, but still a custom multiplier on top.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. That's a really great point, right? And why it's so important to work with your suppliers and vendors across the travel space to help you as a customer, understand, if I have a contract say with a particular airline, of course, they're going to be able to deliver to you a lot more detailed information about the particular aircraft, the type that was flown, the fuel mix that was potentially used on a route. And that should also play into that additional data that you should be pulling to help give your organization a better glimpse into how is my spend impacted with a particular supplier. So looking into that, a lot of the customers I've spoken with and continue to have conversations with, have 2030, 2040, 2050 net zero, or emission neutral, or carbon neutral goals for operations by those particular years. What's the difference? What's carbon neutral versus net zero?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's a great question. And this is often the start of most businesses' journeys and in many cases handed down from the C-Suite to business leaders to work out where the C-Suite might have turned around and said, "Okay, everyone, we're going carbon neutral by the end of the decade, or we're going for net zero by 2030, 2040, 2050." And you as a travel manager, as expense manager, you've got to work out what that even means. So carbon neutral is where you have worked out what your emissions look like, and then you've purchased carbon offsets. And I'm sure we'll come to carbon offsets later, but you purchase carbon offsets. And these are where you are funding de-carbonization in another part of the world. So not directly within your supply chain typically, but it could be funding a renewable energy power plant in a low-income nation, for example.</p>
<p>And if you manage to purchase as many tons of carbon credits as your business have emitted, then that way you get to carbon neutral. Now that is not ideal, right? The ideal is for a business to not emit at all, but most companies can't do that overnight. And in fact, it's almost impossible for any company to do it overnight, because the ways that you could decarbonize and to reach net zero are quite difficult, but net zero is the end goal. And net zero are where you emit carbon, you can still emit carbon, but ultimately you are also capturing carbon through your supply chain, so that everything nets out to zero.</p>
<p>And so net zero is really difficult, but according to the last IPCC report, and if we don't want the world to heat up any more than it needs to, the whole world really needs to reach net zero as soon as possible in the next couple of years, certainly before 2050, which was the old goal. And many businesses now are setting net zero goals that are far ahead of 2050. So we're often seeing net zero by 2030, 2040, which is really ambitious and really difficult, but just about possible. So, yes, so carbon neutral is part of that pathway though, to getting to net zero and both are incredibly important.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So how do I really begin to consider my Scope Three emissions, right? How do I measure? And do I treat it like my financial statements and currency? Or how should I be looking at this?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. The analogy stands up actually really well with financial accounting, which is why we call it carbon accounting. It's really important to treat it as a balance sheet, to work out for every unit of your business, what their emissions look like. And if you are capturing carbon, what that capture looks like as well. And once you're able to do that, then you have a balance sheet then you can then apply things like carbon credits and carbon capture to start either getting to carbon neutral or net zero. But as a result, if we are treating it as a financial budget equivalent, then it just goes to show why every part of that balance sheet is important.</p>
<p>Some businesses want to ignore some emissions because maybe the data's hard to access, or maybe it's a small part of their overall emissions, but you wouldn't ignore part of your balance sheet, your financial balance sheet, especially as many of your easy wins could be in that smaller section. And so we think it's incredibly important to treat it as a balance sheet and to add up everything. And ultimately, if you want to comply with many of the regulatory requirements that are coming, if you want to comply with your shareholder and consumer demands, then really you need to make sure your sustainability balance sheet is complete.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>You brought up a really important subject. And one that has just been so prevalent in media and shareholder discussions and the news lately, and is obviously important to the generations that are coming into the workforce. And which is why we're seeing so many of these regulatory requirements. Organizations are responsible for complying with rules from the country in which they operate in, right? So we've got the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, issuing rules about carbon reporting and financial disclosures related to sustainable travel. We've got the UK Streamlined Energy Carbon Reporting requirement, or SECR, which is coming, or actually already here, the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, or SFDR. We've got the UN regulations, the Paris Agreement. What do all those mean and should I be running to my compliance department and asking if we're following those regulations?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. What do they all mean? So with reporting requirements, all of them that you mentioned are incredibly important. And as the gist is very clear, it differs for every country. But what we're seeing in most Western nations is a move to reporting requirements, starting with Scope One and Scope Two, and then moving onto Scope Three. And so you mentioned in the UK, the SECR requirements, Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting requirement. That started as Scope One and Scope Two, but it's moving towards requiring companies to also report in their Scope Three emissions. And it applies to the largest businesses out there. But without a doubt, those requirements are going to start trickling down until, in five or 10 years, just as a company has to publish annual accounts, they will, without a doubt, have to publish an annual sustainability report that complies with the internationally-recognized standards for carbon reporting.</p>
<p>The SEC's announcement again, very similar, focused more on Scope Three, there some businesses in the U.S. already do have to report on Scope One and Two. If you're one of those businesses, you probably already know, because the EPA is probably already talking to you, but regardless, it's really important that businesses realize that reporting requirements are coming. And especially if you're a multinational, there's a good chance it's coming in at least one of the nations that you operate in, if not multiple. Outside of the legal requirements, you've then got shareholder requirements. So more and more large shareholders, especially pension funds, are requiring that the companies that they invest in, also publish sustainability reports. They want to be a responsible shareholder and where companies aren't, we are seeing shareholder rebellions at some of the world's largest oil companies. Exxon Mobile and Chevron both had shareholder rebellions with an activist investor, even getting board seats at Exxon Mobile, for example.</p>
<p>So it's happening more and more often. And if businesses don't want to be on the back foot, if they don't want to have these things dictated on them, then they're going to need to be proactive. They're going to need to start proactively looking at their emissions, working out how they can reduce them and start publishing a sustainability report. It sounds like a lot of work and don't get me wrong. There is a fair amount of work, but fortunately we've come a long way in the last couple decades and there's a lot of tooling out there. There's a lot of companies out there that can help with this and so it's not a Wild West. There are straightforward established approaches, but the first and foremost thing you got to do is you got to have all your data in one place to make it possible so that you can start looking at this and start forming a plan.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So you mentioned shareholders, but I think also from an employee sentiment perspective, Kit, we are seeing the new generation of employees entering the workforce and sustainable travel, sustainable operations, sourcing, et cetera, are so important to that generation that they're willing to change jobs and go to a organization that puts those as a priority. And obviously we all know that one of the most expensive line items on our balance sheet is employee retention, right? And the training and the resources that we devote to maintaining a workforce. So the question becomes to travel and policy managers, are you willing to change a policy if it means that employees are going to go to a different organization? And so on that note, where should travel policy touch on sustainability? And I think it's important to say that it really should be everywhere, from the way your lowest logical airfare is configured to the way you allow freedom and flexibility to choose the type of aircraft and the route that an employee is going to take.</p>
<p>It shouldn't necessarily be the lowest cost anymore. Looking at time, are you allowing employees to book the most direct option to save them time and have potentially the lowest footprint or emission between that point-to-point trip? How does it play into lodging and thinking about, should you allow them to book a green hotel? And what is a green hotel? Is it a five-star luxury hotel that has full-service features where the footprint of operations from that hotel might be higher than a three-star, non-full-service for a one-night stay? Those are things that should be considered as you evaluate, what does your policy allow for? Obviously receipts, that's one that we all talk about. How can you use e-receipts and touch-less transactions and the carbon footprint that comes from all of the paper that's being captured and stored, and then re-manufactured into something else?</p>
<p>Can we remove the paper to begin with? Looking at the conversation for a lot of our customers in Europe, where there is a lot more heavy push for that plane-to-train mentality, encouraging folks to take a train where possible between, say London and Paris, or Amsterdam and Paris, and push the mentality of productivity and convenience and less stress. And we all know that flying is not exactly the least stressful option these days. All of that really plays into maintaining that traveler wellbeing and allowing you to measure those kind of sentiments from your employees, are critical, as you begin to reevaluate how sustainability plays into your T&E policy.</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>I couldn't agree more. The Great Resignation as people have been calling it over the last year or two, I think has shown everyone that people no longer care purely about the paycheck that they're receiving, right? There's so much more that comes into it, whether it's work-from-home policies, whether it's their travel policies, whether it's just the relationship they have with their managers. And when you consider that for Millennials and Gen Z, the climate disaster is the single most important to the generation, right? It comes up in survey again and again, most important issue for Gen Z, most important issue for Millennials. And then combine that with the fact that they're not purely motivated by money and yeah, they're going to choose where they work based on this. And ultimately exactly, as you say, it's more than just a T&E item at that point.</p>
<p>It frankly relates to every part of the business at that point, because if you want the best people, they're motivated by this stuff. In terms of what that means for the travel policy, then it's a tough one, right? Because I think a lot of businesses get excited by sustainability because they actually see an opportunity to save money. And in some cases that is true. Maybe it's having less business-class tickets, business-class means you have a higher proportion of the carbon emissions on a plane because you're responsible for a higher footprint on that plane. And so some businesses decide to change their travel policy to remove business class. But then we have to remember that all of this is holistic as well. If you take away employees' business-class use, they're not going to like that. At least many employees won't.</p>
<p>So in which case, how do you compensate for that? And maybe if people don't have access to business class, you can still buy them a lounge pass. Maybe you get them a nicer hotel, which as you say, is also possibly an eco-hotel, but fundamentally, aircraft emissions are far higher than hotel emissions. So it should still net out to lower emissions. And for some businesses, they're investing in things like sustainable aviation fuel so that they can continue to fly without sacrificing their existing travel policies. And that is a policy in and of itself, to do something like that. It all starts with better data. And I know this is something we keep coming back to, but ultimately the levers that a company can use to help reduce their emissions will be different for every company.</p>
<p>For some businesses it means if they're a European travel-heavy company, then there are going to be a lot of opportunities to move to high-speed rail and so that's a great option. If you are a business that's based in the U.S., not on the Northeast Corridor, then high-speed rail doesn't really exist, in which case, maybe it's an analysis of which departments are traveling, trying to cut down on internal meetings versus external meetings. So this is something we think about a lot, not just looking at the carbon data, but all the metadata associated with carbon, who is emitting, why are they emitting? What's the drip of this code? And so again, better data, better analysis means you start making intelligent decisions that make sense for your company. And then finally something that's unfortunately too often overlooked is the comms piece.</p>
<p>So, okay, you want to reduce your carbon. You should tell everyone in your company what you're doing, because otherwise they'll just see their travel policy change and assume it's for the wrong reasons. And so you have to be careful about this. It's not to say you don't do it, but you have to think about how you communicate this. And finally, one thing we're a huge fan of and support as well, is carbon budgets. So again, bringing back this analogy to financial accounting and budgeting, but instead of telling people how to travel, instead give them the data, give them a budget and tell them to work out how they're going to reduce their carbon, because people are pretty smart with this stuff that they know, if they're on a high-speed rail route.</p>
<p>And a manager will probably start telling their employees, "Okay, start moving to train, to reduce our emissions." For other business units, they will look at who is traveling and decide to prioritize who's traveling. So carbon budgets are a really great tool to put the control into people's hands. And if there's one thing we know, it's people like to be empowered, but you got to give them the right data and the right inputs to enable that to happen as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So being a part of SAP Concur, we've been in a really great position to partner with Thrust Carbon and offer an integration for our customers to be able to help them solve the challenges that we begin to discuss today. So a couple of days ago, I was talking to a customer who is struggling with leakage and their biggest challenge is how do they measure the emissions from their leakage? So here at SAP Concur, we're recently announced a partnership with Thrust Carbon. Kit, do you want to maybe take a minute and describe how a customer like this who has Concur Expense and Travel, but is suffering with leakage in their travel program, how they can use their expense data to solve and measure that gap?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So I think a great place to start is with how we actually work with SAP Concur. So as you said, we're an out-center partner, which we're really excited about and is just such a great way to help companies reduce their emissions. And effectively, whenever something happens inside of Concur, be that Concur travel or Concur expense, we automatically receive that data if the business is connected to us. We automatically receive that data. We calculate the carbon, we calculate all of that metadata we mentioned before. So what departments are they part of? What employee is it? And we use all of that to build really great carbon reporting. For concur travel it's much easier. We get all that information around what routing they're on and we're able to calculate someone's carbon really accurately from that, right down to the aircraft type used on a particular flight or for a particular hotel.</p>
<p>What the carbon emission would look like for hotels and that location, for that star rating. So lots of detail. Concur Expense is, obviously harder, right? But really important if you want to capture the leakage of a travel program, especially, and also non-travel expenses, right? So these could be your ride-sharing receipts, it could be your meal receipts. But in particular for any of them through Concur expense, in many cases, you're not going to know the details of the transaction, right? If it's someone's just expense to flight, you might just know the spend data, in which case the methodology you're going to want to apply then, and we do apply, is one based around spend. And so fortunately for us, we're looking at millions of flights all the time and with all of those, we have access to the spend data.</p>
<p>And so we're able to work backwards from this. And if someone spent say a thousand dollars, we are able to look at all of the other spends of a thousand dollars on our system and work out what is the most likely amount of carbon emitted. It's not a perfect methodology. It's not going to be as good as if we actually know what origin and destination have traveled between. But the reality of travel data, as anyone who works in this industry knows, is that often, it's not perfect. You don't have every detail, so you have to work with the unknowns. And so this is where a spend methodology is really great. And we apply that to almost every category. If it's air, hotel, we've got spend methodologies and also taking into account things like currencies and localization. So if someone submits a receipt for a taxi, then the distance that $10 in a taxi will get you differs for every country, right?</p>
<p>Taxis are much more expensive and much more affordable in different locations. And so we also take that into account, so that we can try and calculate what's the most likely distance for that spend in that location. And from that workout, what the most likely emission is, but yes, and once we have all of that, again, that's all coming into the finalized reporting. So you can report in the top level CO2 number, but then you can also start breaking down those emissions and understanding who is emitting, why are they emitting, what are the opportunities to reduce that carbon.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>That's great, Kit, because I think that's as a former travel manager myself, it's obviously one of the biggest concerns I had, is how do I capture all these varying data sources and then pull it all together and use AI and organizational benchmarks from other organizations to help me manage and measure, what did my CO2 emissions from business travel look like? So Kit, one of the things I hear from my suppliers is they're running routes on biodiesel or sustainable aviation fuel, green fuel. What is that? And should I pay attention to it?</p>
<p><strong>Kit Brennan:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So sustainable aviation fuel, SAF for short, is an incredibly exciting development for how aviation can start moving towards being more sustainable. And in short, what it is, it's aviation fuel that has been made artificially and there's quite a few different approaches for how you can make this. Some planes are using it running off old cooking oil. Other aircraft engines are using it running off synthetically made directly from, from plants grown for the purpose of being aviation fuel. One thing to nip in the bud straight away, is that the methodologies around sustainable aviation fuel take into account the underlying emissions of making that fuel in the first place. So no one is trying to pretend that you can eliminate all of the emissions of aviation by going to an artificial fuel.</p>
<p>There are some emissions from creating that fuel, but it's a really great step in the right direction. And it's a lot easier to decarbonize farming for example, than it is to decarbonize a fossil fuel. So once you have your sustainable aviation fuel, as every airline vendor is saying, is being pushed onto planes. It's still a very, very small amount of the market, less than not 0.1% of all aviation fuel is sustainable aviation fuel, but it is a market that is just growing exponentially right now. Most manufacturers will tell you that current sustainable aviation fuel volumes are sold out for at least three years. And so in many cases you are pre-purchasing it rather than actually purchasing it to go on your carbon accounting balance sheet for today. And then one of the great things about it though, is it represents an actual reduction in the carbon that you release from traveling.</p>
<p>So again, as part of going towards net zero, it's incredibly important because it's one of the few approaches that will enable you to keep flying while getting to zero emissions. There are other approaches out there, electric aircraft, for example, but that's still decades away and electric aircraft, frankly, due to the rules of physics, will never really be able to be used on medium or long haul routes, only over short haul. And so sustainable aviation feels a really important part of this picture. So what we advise our clients is, be aware of it and start thinking about a plan for using sustainable aviation fuel. You don't need to commit to millions of dollars today, but if you want to, in 20 years' time be reaching net zero, then you're probably going to want start investing in it in the next five to 15 years to enable you to reach net zero while still traveling and growing.</p>
<p>So if there's one thing I could leave you with, it's not that you need to commit to net zero today, or that you have to completely change your travel policy today. It's to start measuring, to start understanding, and from that, everything will be exponentially easier because you'll actually have the insights to draw on to know what your next steps even look like. So I can't recommend highly enough, get your data in one place, start looking at it. We make it really effortless to be green. So I'm going to say consider us, but there are other providers out there, working directly with SAP. There's some reporting within Concur around sustainability, and have a look at that as well. But ultimately start considering this. And as you move along that journey, we really hope you'll consider Thrust Carbon and ultimately, hopefully we can all save the world together, by doing our bit to reduce each and every company's footprint. And thank you so much, Jason, for this opportunity as well. It's been a really great conversation.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for joining us, Kit, and from the SAP Concur side if there's one thing I can share with you, it's used the momentum that the generation and the workforce is currently calling for, to petition and leverage this as a way to drive policy changes and travel and expense policy changes, that you're aligned with the corporate goal and mission that your shareholders and employees are both pushing for. Thank you to Kit for spending time with us today, to talk about Thrust Carbon and the power of data. And we wish you all a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you.</p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
SAP Concur's Business Travel, Expense and Invoice Predictions for 2018 and Beyond
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concurs-business-travel-expense-and-invoice-predictions-2018-and-beyond
2022-11-01T14:24:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The business travel expense and invoice landscape is experiencing a rapid evolution fueled by emerging technologies shifting employee expectations and globalization SAP Concur experts...
<p>The business travel, expense and invoice landscape is experiencing a rapid evolution, fueled by emerging technologies, shifting employee expectations, and globalization. SAP Concur experts have taken a close look at the trends that will shape business and impact employees most in the coming year. Below are our predictions for 2018 and beyond.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Conventional Expense Reports Won’t Exist in a Paperless World</strong></h2>
<p>As advanced technologies become further integrated into travel and spend management software, expense reporting will automatically happen in the background and save employees time to focus on business priorities. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and scanning recognition technologies will continue to eliminate manual expense reporting tasks, while paper receipts will become obsolete with the standardization of e-receipts and countries like France, Spain, China and Japan deregulating paper receipt documentation and validation. Machine learning and automation advancements will also make it easier to spot patterns across data, leading to a decline in expense fraud. In tandem, non-traditional payment <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-and-blockchain-are-accounting-tools-future-are-you-ready">technologies like Blockchain</a> and vCards will fundamentally change the way in which transactions and reimbursements are handled, becoming the new norm for managed travel programs. <strong>– Hendrik Vordenbaeumen, Vice President of Product Management, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>The Sophistication of Small Biz</strong></h2>
<p>Historically, enterprise tools have come with an enterprise cost, effectively pricing out many technologies for small businesses. Not anymore. The rise of the cloud has leveled the playing field by ushering in a world of web-based apps that are cost-effective for small businesses to deploy as they position themselves for rapid growth. In the coming year, small businesses will adopt cloud-based enterprise tools at a faster pace to enhance business functions. For example, we expect technology will help small businesses tackle traditional functions such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">corporate travel management</a>, as well as take advantage of emerging technologies like chatbots. We will also see small businesses prioritize enterprise tools that are built to scale, poising them for growth while growing alongside them. – <strong>Christal Bemont, SVP and GM of the Small, Midsized and Nationals Business Unit, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p><strong>Learn More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">SMBs Drive Growth And Innovation When They Embrace The Full Power of T&E Solutions</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Preferences, Predictive Analytics and Personalization Will Change Everything in Business Travel</strong></h2>
<p>Technology is surpassing business travelers where they are and forecasting their next move. Predictive analytics will transform the traveler experience by anticipating, recommending and booking optimal travel itineraries based on past experiences, calendars, user profiles and preferred loyalty programs. Advanced technologies will take personalized travel experiences even further with customized room temperature, amenities and entertainment preferences ready upon arrival. On top of that, virtual concierges will offer 24/7 assistance to book dinner reservations, reschedule meeting spaces and request rides. <strong>– John Dietz, Vice President, Concur Labs </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>It’s 10:00 pm and an Incident or Natural Disaster Has Occurred Somewhere in the World. Do You Know Where Your Traveling Employees Are? Could You Determine in the Next Hour Those Who Were Impacted, Safe or Might Need Additional Assistance?</strong></h2>
<p>In light of recent events and natural disasters, business traveler safety is a growing concern. When employees are traveling, the business is responsible for their well-being and safety, and yet GBTA found that nearly one in three travel managers do not know how long it would take their company to confirm the safety of every employee after an incident. This is a c-level responsibility and executives need to be assured their company can reach and account for their travelers during emergencies. In the year ahead, we expect duty-of-care to remain at the top of c-level priorities. Businesses will continue scrutinizing their data, systems, processes and procedures to determine how they can improve their ability to locate and communicate with their employees when the unfortunate occurs. <strong>– Mike Eberhard, President, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p><strong>Learn More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/top-ten-tips-your-duty-care-program-0">Top Ten Tips for Your Duty of Care Program</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Invisible Employee Spending Becomes Visible (and Manageable)</strong></h2>
<p>Employees are gaining more access to and will spend more of corporate funds across more spend categories using more payment methods than ever before. This trend is poised to heat up as even more GenZ workers hit the workforce and are paying more supplier invoices directly with company checks; booking and managing travel directly on their mobile devices; and using corporate, ghost, virtual or even personal cards for just about everything. This <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-five-ways-which-employees-are-decentralizing-spend">employee-initiated spend</a> has fast become the largest unmanaged spend category in almost every company’s financial program largely due to the fact that there’s minimal or no forethought or oversight from finance and procurement managers into this spending. It doesn’t have to be this way. The technologies available to automate and track this spending have caught up with technologies used to spend the money. The future is here. With a better understanding of where employee spend is really happening and the categories it comes from, finance and procurement managers can develop a strategy to better manage it proactively and ultimately save money. – <strong>Guy La Corte, GM of Americas Enterprise Business, SAP Concur</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
This Breaks All the Rules
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/breaks-all-rules
2022-11-13T16:32:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
After a year of stagnation confusion and questions companies might be tempted to burst back onto the scene with a growthatallcosts philosophy You have to do whatever it takes after all...
<p>After a year of stagnation, confusion, and questions, companies might be tempted to burst back onto the scene with a growth-at-all-costs philosophy. You have to do whatever it takes, after all, to make up for lost time, and if that crosses a few policy lines you’ve previously drawn in the sand, well, so be it.</p>
<p>Or not. Those lines were drawn for a reason, and most often, that reason is money. Your policies and protocols were designed to protect your organization from overspending, maverick spending, fraudulent spending, and any other kind of spending that costs your company too much.</p>
<p>Doing business across borders creates other lines in the sand, and the requirements, restrictions, and regulations imposed by local, state, federal, and foreign governments aren’t lines you want to cross. Unless, of course, your company can afford the fines or gleefully fund a public relations nightmare.</p>
<p>So, as always, you have to temper your growth by carefully managing your spend. And that means carefully making sure you’re following the rules.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Compliance isn’t a necessary evil, it’s just necessary</h2>
<p>Your commitment to growth in the current environment is both applauded and understandable. The whole world wants what you want: To pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start growing. To do so, you’re going to have to make a commitment to continuous improvement and take an honest look at how you’ve been doing things.</p>
<p>Are there ways you can move forward faster? Are there things you can do differently to realize better results? Do the processes and policies (i.e., compliance) you’ve always had fit with the way you do business now?</p>
<p>Regardless of your answers, it’s always a good idea to have the right tools in place, so:</p>
<ul>
<li>You can more easily manage spending and remove the barriers to growth.</li>
<li>Finance leaders can rest easy knowing the right systems are in place to protect budgets and keep compliance under control, so they can keep the business moving forward.</li>
<li>Program administrators can refine and improve policies and workflows to strengthen cost controls and compliance, while making the process easier for themselves and employees all across the company.</li>
</ul>
<p>What might those tools look like? You need the tools to enable you, for example,</p>
<ul>
<li>Push automatic reviews as close to the purchase as possible and reduce non-compliant spending before the money goes out the door.</li>
<li>Use intelligent technology to flag specific expense report spending that needs manager or auditor review.</li>
<li>Tap into in-depth reporting and analytics to review how you’re performing against policies, to identify trends or gaps, and to build improvement plans.</li>
<li>Use intelligent technology to improve VAT reclaim so you can efficiently meet requirements and bring money back to the business</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>A dozen ways to build a culture of compliance</h2>
<p>When compliant spending is easier than non-compliant spending, guess what happens: People follow the rules, and you don’t burn through budgets. And, just as importantly, it doesn’t feel like there are commands that have to be followed or restrictions to be policed. It’s just easier for everyone in the company to pick preferred vendors and stick to negotiated pricing. It’s easier for entire company to maintain compliance.</p>
<p>With the right solution at work, staying within spend policy becomes part of the corporate culture, compliance happens naturally – and because you know what you’ve got to spend, growth is easier to manage.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-tips-build-culture-compliance">This eBook provides you 12 tips to consider</a> when examining compliance management or looking for new solutions. Download the tip sheet to get more information into helpful tips you can put into practice to strengthen compliance across your spending.</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Tools Today’s Small Businesses Shouldn’t Overlook
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-tools-todays-small-businesses-shouldnt-overlook
2022-11-13T18:11:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Let’s explore three solutions from SAP Concur that will immediately increase your small business’s productivity.
<p>Finding tools that can help you and your employees run your business more efficiently and effectively and with greater satisfaction shouldn’t be a scavenger hunt. Sometimes, it just takes an experienced partner to identify them for you on the SAP Concur solution you already run on day-to-day.</p>
<p>In today’s digital world, high-performing businesses are constantly expanding their knowledge base to meet the needs of clients and employees alike against the backdrop of an ever-evolving digital landscape. And learning ways to become even more agile and scale for growth quickly and efficiently so you can continue to focus more time where it matters most becomes a critical organizational strategy.</p>
<p>Let’s explore three solutions from SAP Concur that will immediately increase your small business’s productivity by efficiently controlling your cash flow, ensuring compliance, reducing costs, mitigating fraud risk, and empowering your workforce with instant-access mobile apps.</p>
<h2>Audit Services</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-audit-service">Audit Services</a>, by bringing human auditors and AI together, businesses can feel more confident in their ability to identify misuse, waste, and noncompliant spend. By using Concur Audit, the depth, breadth, and granularity of your business’s spend data that’s captured also provides you with the ability to enforce or adapt your policies much more simply and fluidly and in real time.</p>
<h2>SAP Concur reporting solutions</h2>
<p>The level of spend data that’s captured when you use SAP Concur solutions is paramount to the power of the reporting functionality of the system itself. Because all your discretionary spend data is on the same platform, spend analytics are easy to access and simple to visualize.</p>
<p>Capturing important, actionable data and information with powerful imbedded analytical tools will help you to optimize your business and drive a higher level of performance across the organization. Leverage the right <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/all-products-page#data-insights">reporting tools</a> for your business and start your journey in to more transparent, insightful, and actionable reporting today!</p>
<h2>SAP Concur App Center connections</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions give you a single source of truth for your discretionary spend. But did you also know that it can also greatly enhance the experience of all your employees across the business?</p>
<p>Advanced technologies move supplier invoices and employee expenses quickly and easily through the system and spend reimbursements almost write themselves. Simply put, mobile app connectivity can save time and expense, which in turn makes your staff more productive by reducing and distributing workflows across all areas of your business, not just the finance team. And as an added benefit, you can leverage the powerful ecosystem of <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">App Center</a> partnerships to connect your workforce to the world’s most popular enterprise applications, travel brands and rewards programs too, giving your employees a greater sense of satisfaction in their lives and at work.</p>
<p><strong>Download the SAP Concur mobile app <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/concur-travel-and-expense/id335023774">on the App Store</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.concur.breeze&pid=direct&cid=direct">on Google Play</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Bumpers for Budget? Leverage Expense Category Summaries to Keep Spend on Track
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bumpers-budget-leverage-expense-category-summaries-keep-spend-track
2022-11-13T19:32:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While budget management is certainly complex and highly specific to each organization being proactive with budget management reduces operational interruption by keeping an...
<p>While budget management is certainly complex and highly specific to each organization, being proactive with budget management reduces operational interruption by keeping an organization’s cashflow adaptable to change. However, how do we actually do it?</p>
<p>SAP Concur data experts always recommend keeping your Expense Category Summary data handy to maintain bumpers for your budget and stay on track. Once you have your own data ready, it’s easier to compare yourself to peers in your industry using benchmarks and our <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment">spend management assessment tool</a>! That way, you’re ready to adjust spend within the current budget year as needed, while also building out a plan for the next budgeting season.</p>
<p>Although control of employee discretionary spend – items such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/updating-your-expense-policy-employees-working-home">home office expenses</a>, mileage, meals, or seminar registration – certainly has changed, with clear education on expense type categorization and an efficient approval process, spending can stay within existing budget allocations or be adjusted with minor interruption to business operations. Here are some recommendations on how to maintain a healthy budget to stay agile and resilient in the years to come.</p>
<h2>Setting goals for a healthy budget</h2>
<h3>1. Verify spending is aligned with your budget</h3>
<p>Comparing expense category spend to budget allocation may uncover challenges in spend management. When you compare a report of your expense types year over year, it’s fairly easy to identify the highest spend categories – that is, as long as your team is accurately reporting them! A recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-improve-travel-expense-invoice-management-solution-to-drive-better-ex">Forrester report</a> indicated that “60% of IT decision makers are unsatisfied with their T&E reporting and analytical capabilities. Similarly, the greatest challenge managers face with current T&E and invoice solutions is poor visibility of actual and projected spend against budgets.”</p>
<p>Educating employees and using audit rules on expense policy spend categories are fundamental to effectively managing spend against budget – both in the short and long term. When employees submit properly categorized expense reports the first time, managers can verify that the spend that they are approving aligns with their operating budget and that the correct categories are reported. This accuracy, in turn, will illuminate trends and cashflow status.</p>
<h3>2. Maximize the value of a single platform</h3>
<p>While allowing employees a certain level of autonomy is valuable, providing them with multiple options to report expenses can cloud your visibility, particularly when an emergency occurs and there is a temporary gap in the utilization of expense reporting. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resource-centre/whitepapers/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend">spend management poll</a> of 500 finance leaders from businesses of all sizes, “75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets. And even more agree that their expense, travel, and invoice systems need to be better connected for a single view of spend.” Maximizing the use of a single platform keeps both the process and the data as clean as possible.</p>
<h3>3. Ensure the alignment of spend and goals</h3>
<p>Once you understand the total year-over-year expense spend of your organization, you’ll be able to identify trends over time. This helps you build a budget and plan that everyone can stick to. According to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">2020 Global Business Traveler Report</a>, “97% of business travelers expect a “new normal” with changing norms and practices.” Equipping decision-makers on your team with accurate expense type data will empower them to make the right choices for your organization’s successful budget management and overall operational performance.</p>
<h2>Expense category benchmarks for budgeting: How do you compare?</h2>
<p>Once you have leveraged our best practices, we recommend that you regularly run a report of your Spend by Expense Category. You’ll be better able to reduce budget overages through this level of granularity.</p>
<p>Let’s see how you compare:</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1607389495123-spend by expense category.jpg" /></a></p>
<h2>Best practices to keep spend within budget</h2>
<p>After comparing your expense categories to those of other SAP Concur customers, here are some best practices to keep your organization’s spend aligned with your budget:</p>
<ol>
<li>Submit expenses in the time period in which they occurred</li>
<li>Observe real-time spend to budget access</li>
<li>Control spend before it occurs</li>
<li>Integrate travel program to expense tool, and reduce <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-bring-invisible-employee-spend-your-radar">“invisible” spend</a></li>
<li>Allocate <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-cards-and-p-cards-get-better-insight-employee-spend">P-Card spend</a> as soon as it occurs</li>
<li>Maximize corporate card use</li>
<li>Distribute Actual vs Budget Spend reports to department managers on a weekly cadence</li>
<li>Automate mileage expense submission</li>
</ol>
<h2>Assess your spend management with our handy tool</h2>
<p>Use our handy <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment">spend management assessment tool</a> to determine how your systems measure up against other businesses, and find out your own business’ maturity stage. You will also learn what you can do to take these processes to the next level. Download your results upon completion to better manage spend against budget today.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div> </div>
</div>
</div>
Kathryn Kamin
Six Ways to Ensure Your Invoice Process Works for You
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-ways-ensure-your-invoice-process-works-you
2022-11-13T20:04:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With new opportunities to review financial processes, shifting how you do things to look at what works – and what doesn’t
<p>With new opportunities to review financial processes, shifting how you do things to look at what works – and what doesn’t – is the secret to riding out a storm. By creating processes that increase efficiency, save time, and give you more visibility into spend, your organization can remain flexible and adapt to change.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-advocacy/gbta-statement-on-coronavirus-resources">GBTA survey</a> 96% of businesses describe the impact of COVID-19 as “significant” to their business. As budgets are being squeezed, wherever possible, cash flow needs to be preserved and businesses still need to be paid. Which makes this a good time to speed up and streamline invoice capture, approvals, and processes. Here are five things you can do to ensure your invoice processes continue to run smoothly during a time of disruption.</p>
<p><strong>1. Do Things Digitally</strong>: A digital invoice process eradicates the pain of trying to track down the right person to deal with an invoice, when popping over to their desk is no longer physically possible. Automatic prompts are sent digitally to the right people to review and approve invoices, so you don’t have to worry about chasing them around.</p>
<p><strong>2. Eradicate Duplication and Fraud</strong>: During times when controlling costs is critical, it’s important to stay ahead of any fraudulent invoices that might slip through the net. Fortunately, this isn’t a problem for an automated system which can scan for unusual or duplicate supplier or order details, noticing when an invoice isn’t matched to a Purchase Order. Ultimately, it improves accuracy and saves time by sifting out only those invoices that require manual review. </p>
<p><strong>3. Get On-The-Go Approval</strong>: A mobile app allows users to review invoice details and approve purchases from home, then send it on to the next person or alternatively assign it to an alternative approver in their absence. A process that can drag on for weeks, especially if people are working from home and are more difficult to contact, can be reduced to only a few hours.</p>
<p><strong>4. Automate Policy Adherence</strong>: At a time when people are being asked to work under extraordinary conditions, it’s important to ensure that the out of ordinary spend isn’t automatically processed. Automation allows you to introduce extra controls and configurations to ensure this doesn’t happen and improve adherence to policies. You can also build triggers and alerts into your system to reduce the risk of overspending and allow employees to check the status of their invoices.</p>
<p><strong>5. Keep It Personal</strong>: Even in these unsettling times, your suppliers still need to be paid. Or if they are not going to be paid on time or via the usual channels, you need to communicate that to them at the earliest opportunity.</p>
<p><strong>6. Spot Trends to Adapt</strong>: Managing supplier invoices is not an island within an enterprise’s spend management. When this data is integrated with employee expense claims and travel spend, a business gains greater visibility into which departments need more budget, where there are surplus funds to redistribute, where better deals could be struck with often-used suppliers, and if there are any areas of overspending.</p>
<h2>See the full picture with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Concur Invoice gives you the visibility your business needs to remain nimble, while speeding up payment times, so you can avoid late payment fees and manage spend proactively. Most importantly, it integrates with other SAP Concur solutions, such as Concur Travel and Concur Expense, into one single, connected process, creating even greater insight into company-wide spend.</p>
<p>And with SAP Concur solutions your business can reach even further, using our targeted partner apps that bring much needed automation and control to everything from VAT reclaim and mobile spending to industry specific tax and regulatory requirements.</p>
<p>Finally, a large, global network of support teams is on hand to ensure that your business comes through this time unscathed and stronger than ever.</p>
<p>To learn more about how to streamline your invoice and AP processes, checkout <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
A New Survey Reveals Hidden Threats to Certain High-Risk Business Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-reveals-hidden-threats-certain-high-risk-business-travelers
2022-11-14T13:03:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Among the findings a new survey from SAP Concur percent of LGBTQ business travelers say they have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip Its time for employers to...
<p>Among the findings a new survey from SAP Concur, 95 percent of LGBTQ business travelers say they have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip</p>
<p>It’s time for employers to acknowledge that employees face vastly different threats to their personal safety while traveling for work, depending on sexual orientation, gender and age. More needs to be done to support them as they travel the globe on behalf of their companies. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://news.sap.com/?p=165327">new research</a> commissioned by SAP Concur on the experiences of business travelers, personal safety is clearly the biggest stress-point. Overall, nearly 60 percent of travelers reported having changed their plans because they felt unsafe, and 52 percent cited traveler safety as the most valuable training their company should provide.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1582054014209-284612_traveller_female_r_green.png" /></div>
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<h2>Business Traveler Report 2019</h2>
<p>Learn about the challenges employees face while traveling.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/business-traveler-report-2019">Get Full Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>But what really stands out are the experiences of women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. A shocking 95 percent of LGBTQ+ travelers say they have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip. The most common reason they give is to protect their safety. Eighty-five percent have changed their travel arrangements as a result, compared to just 53 percent of their non-LGBTQ+ colleagues.</p>
<p>I’ve flown over 79,000 miles and visited 25 cities in seven countries, this year alone. Yet, even as a frequent traveler, I found the survey responses provided by female travelers upsetting, but unfortunately, not surprising. More than 77 percent say they have experienced some sort of harassment or mistreatment while traveling. Forty-two percent say they have been asked if they’re traveling with their husband. Nearly 40 percent say they have been ignored by service workers, and just under one-third have been catcalled on the job. Distressingly, younger business travelers appear to receive even worse treatment. Across the board, “Gen Z” women report higher instances of this kind of negative treatment. </p>
<p>I’ve had personal experiences in this area. In 2007, when I was on a business trip for an event in Orlando, I had just returned to my hotel’s lobby after a business dinner. Upon getting into an elevator, a colleague quickly shuffled in after another person, whom I assumed was another guest. That colleague exited the elevator with me, explaining, “You didn’t realize it, but I was walking almost a block behind you and noticed a troubled-looking man clearly following you. He pursued you right into the hotel and into the elevator, and so I ran here to walk you to your room.” I was grateful that a colleague was looking out for me.</p>
<p>As the leader of a team of hundreds of marketing professionals located across the globe, who come from all walks of life, my concern for their safety is one of the things that worries me most. But I have to admit, even with years of experience as a business traveler, and as the manager of large and diverse teams, I wasn’t fully aware of the scope of unequal experiences that LGBTQ+ people have on the road until I read our survey results. I count myself among those who need to do more to help them feel safe.</p>
<p>I am also concerned by gaps in the assistance employees receive from their organizations to make their time away from home, family, and friends easier. Sixty-seven percent of respondents to our survey believe their company lags when it comes to adopting the latest technologies to make business travel easier. In fact, an overwhelming majority of business travelers (94 percent) are willing to share personal information to improve their business travel experience – an impressive number in an age of legitimate data privacy concerns. Our survey also uncovered other concerns that business travelers have beyond personal safety, and I encourage you to read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/business-traveler-report-2019">full report</a>, but I want to focus here on personal safety.</p>
<p>The bottom line is employers need to do more. I encourage executives, people managers, and corporate travel managers to read our report and think about how they can better support their employees who are on the road. There are a variety of resources, products and services available that can help employers keep track of, and provide services to, employees while they travel:</p>
<ul>
<li>Audit travel policies to ensure that company guidance is effective, inclusive, and prepares all employees – regardless of sexual preference, age or identity – for any type of situation they might encounter while traveling on behalf of their organization. For example, workplaces should provide guidance on how their transgender employees can navigate <a href="https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/airport-security">airport security</a> and obtain a <a href="https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/passports">passport</a>. Last fall, I <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience">wrote</a> about, and SAP Concur produced an e-book on, how women can stay safer on the road. These tips need to be readily available in every corporate travel program.</li>
<li>Help employees understand, in advance, the safety of the location in which they might book a hotel. TripIt <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2019/09/neighborhood-safety-scores-and-international-travel-tools.html">Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> provide granular detail into the neighborhood safety details. The U.S. Department of State also provides <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/">automatic advisories</a> that can aid companies in alerting travelers of potential threats to international business trips.</li>
<li>Quickly establish two-way communication using travel risk management solutions that allow organizations to quickly outreach to deploy support and services in the event of an emergency. Uber’s <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uber.com%2Fnewsroom%2Femergencybutton%2F&data=02%7C01%7CEmalie.Parsons%40edelman.com%7Cd362f8e25f8f4c6fb1be08d743742d6b%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637052038578735650&sdata=ryAmPYVn8%2FFYkwAP6P3ciXX%2FK4Bj475z26HKsiUSvbk%3D&reserved=0">emergency button</a> connects business travelers with 911 and automatically populates the driver’s car make and model, license plate, and GPS location, as an example.</li>
<li>Train employees to proactively protect themselves while they plan and engage in business travel. I also encourage employers to check out guidance for assisting their LGBTQ+ travelers, such as that provided by the <a href="https://transequality.org/know-your-rights">National Center for Transgender Equality</a> and <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/international-lgbt-workplace-considerations">The Human Rights Campaign</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Whether your teams travel across the country or around the world, they work hard to represent your interests. The time is now to let your employees know – especially those who face discrimination while traveling – that you have their back. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel is in Demand, and So Are Travelers’ Demands
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-demand-and-so-are-travelers-demands
2022-12-06T09:30:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We all want things to go back to normal its just that none of us know what normal looks like anymore One thing is certain though When it comes to business travel normal isnt the way we...
<p>We all want things to go back to normal, it’s just that none of us know what normal looks like anymore. One thing is certain, though: When it comes to business travel, normal isn’t the way we used to do things. Because while your business travelers want to get back out there again, they aren’t going to simply do as you say and make an unconditional return to the road.</p>
<p>Why? Well, safety, for one thing. And flexibility for another. But we’ll talk about that in a minute.</p>
<p>First, let’s look at their desire to get back out there. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2021">recent Wakefield Research study</a> of businesses under 1,000 employees, 95% of corporate travelers are willing to travel again. Sixty-three percent are very willing. They want to get going again, because they want to make sure they’re getting the job done – 81% of them are concerned about their careers if travel doesn’t increase in the next 12 months.</p>
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<h5>Small-Medium Business Travel Report 2021</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2021">See our findings</a></div>
</div>
<p>Specifically, they’re worried about developing and maintaining business connections (40%), about signing new deals (35%), about building new relationships (33%) and, frankly, about making less money (38%).</p>
<p>They are eager, in other words, to be face to face with the people who make it all possible.</p>
<p>Seeing customers comes with conditions, however. As the study states: “Travelers want policy and procedural changes that give them the flexibility and control to travel in the most safe and sustainable manner.”</p>
<p>Think about it. If you were told you had to visit a customer in a country requiring a two-week quarantine upon your arrival, perhaps you’d schedule a virtual meeting. Or if you weren’t sure if the political tensions had eased in the area you were planning to tour, you might want to postpone.</p>
<p>Maybe you only want to travel domestically. Maybe you want to rent a car instead of taking the train. It’s all about personal comfort, and that’s about personal choice. These choices go as deep as your approach to booking, too, because travelers want to be able to book trips on their terms – to ensure they’re able to control when, where, and how they’re traveling.</p>
<p>And, as competition for talent tightens, companies like yours are listening intently to travelers’ preferences and needs, because they simply cannot afford to alienate employees.</p>
<p>But with the right tools in place – tools that give travelers the flexibility they desire – you not only get happier, more confident, more productive employees, you get the information you need to manage trips, manage budgets, and support your travelers like never before. Because all of their booking and itinerary data gets sent directly into your system.</p>
<p>Simply put, you’re giving travelers what they need to feel safe in their jobs, and you’re gaining critical data in the bargain.</p>
<p>Putting the right solution in place – a lean, efficient solution that offers sophisticated travel controls without complexity – can turn your travel program into a simple, connected, digital process. And that’s exactly what the new normal of business travel demands.</p>
<p>For additional details regarding traveler concerns and requests, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2021">read the full report</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
T&E Manager at Deloitte Consulting Shares Top Read for 2022
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/te-manager-deloitte-consulting-shares-top-read-2022
2022-12-06T13:47:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense TE industry is now available Oren Geshuri TE SAP Concur Practice Manager at Deloitte...
<p>Our 2022 top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense (T&E) industry is now available! Oren Geshuri, T&E SAP Concur Practice Manager at <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en.html?gb:2ps:3gl:4global_branded_search:GC1000040:6abt:20211004:gcp100053_homepage_au_4=">Deloitte Consulting LLP</a>, shares why he recommends <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conflicted-Productive-Disagreements-Better-Outcomes/dp/B083JPML5C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EEYE2SJOL9H&keywords=conflicted+how+productive+disagreements+lead+to+better+outcomes&qid=1643826134&sprefix=Conflicted+how+productiv%2Caps%2C647&sr=8-1">Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes</a> by Ian Leslie:</p>
<p><strong>Q: Why did you select this book as your recommendation for 2022?</strong></p>
<p>A: Modern corporations are organizations of people, and wherever there are people, there is inevitably conflict. In my experience, consulting work is equal parts problem-solving and mediation between parties who don’t understand each other’s language. In business, disagreement is often the signpost of opportunity for organizational or systemic transformation. We should learn to sculpt the clay of conflict into a form that suits our needs.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How do you think your colleagues in the T&E industry could benefit from the advice in this book?</strong> </p>
<p>A: In an era of quarantines and remote work, corporate travel spend has plummeted, and T&E programs are now firmly in the grip of financial executives (e.g. CFOs) who are resistant to opening the faucet again. Travel Managers are facing an uphill battle when trying to reeducate their organizations on the value of business travel and how it contributes to the company's bottom line. The ability to make conflict more productive has never been more relevant.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see the full list of books, podcasts, and videos our thought leaders recommended? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love"><strong>Download the list</strong></a></p>
Kyla Kent
Best-in-Class Businesses Stay Productive and Profitable with Digital Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/best-class-businesses-stay-productive-and-profitable-digital-spend-management
2022-12-30T15:05:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The road to success is never easy but has put businesses around the world to the test like never before COVID and its economic impacts weigh heavy as we look ahead to So when it...
<p>The road to success is never easy, but 2020 has put businesses around the world to the test like never before. COVID-19 and its economic impacts weigh heavy as we look ahead to 2021. So, when it comes to sound financial decision-making, companies need all the help they can get.</p>
<p>When facing a disruptive event – whether the current pandemic or future economic downturns – a company’s ability to optimize cash flow will play a critical role in its survival and success. If business is booming and cash flow is strong, finance teams need the insight to direct that money toward R&D, mergers and acquisitions, and paying down debt. On the other hand, if times are tough, every dollar must be spent wisely – including cutting costs, identifying savings, and finding new revenue streams – in order to stay afloat. And all companies must contend with COVID-specific challenges, such as buying personal protective equipment for onsite employees and software, hardware, and other supplies for the employees who can work remotely. Whatever the case, to make those critical determinations, cover costs, and stay flexible and resilient, companies need tight control over their spend and accurate and immediate insight into their spend data.</p>
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<h5>How to Gain Strategic Insights from Company Spend Data</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/gaining-strategic-insights-from-company-spend-data">Get the report</a></div>
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<p>To find out how successful companies are using expense and invoice management technology to store, access, and analyze company spend data, Aberdeen conducted a survey of 606 finance leaders at mostly midsize companies across 27 industries and six countries. The goal is to better understand how top-performing or “best-in-class” respondents are facing recent challenges, the business capabilities they have to address those challenges, and the technology that is making that response possible.</p>
<p>Of all respondents, 37% expect to still be in recovery mode as they plan for 2021, with 29% expecting to be in survival mode and 23% expecting revenue to increase.</p>
<p>When asked to rate their top financial management priorities, controlling costs was number one across the board, with improving data accuracy and tracking company spend coming in second. So, it is perhaps not surprising that best-in-class respondents reported having 74% of their company spend captured with digital expense and invoice management solutions (compared to 57% for other companies). They also reported being able to access the spend data they need right when they need it 80% of the time (compared to 61% for others). What is exceptional, is the difference in performance: Best-in-class respondents reported a more than 26.1% improvement in productivity and 24.3% improvement in profitability over the past two years – compared to -2.4% and -1.7% for other companies respectively.</p>
<p>It’s clear that having immediate access to accurate spend data gives finance leaders the insight they need to succeed over the long term. In addition to allowing companies to operate more efficiently by automating spend data capture and workflows and enabling remote access, digitalized expense and invoice management allow best-in-class companies to outperform others in leveraging company spend.</p>
<p>In fact, compared to all others, best-in-class companies are 31% more likely to use spend data to track and manage budgets. They are also more likely to using their spend data to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Manage cash flow</li>
<li>Audit for budget compliance</li>
<li>Enrich forecasting with historical spend data</li>
<li>Categorize spend data based on new trends</li>
<li>Redirect spending to top business priorities</li>
</ul>
<p>While providing better access to spend data on their own, expense and invoice management solutions work best when integrated with each other. In addition to this, best-in-class companies are more likely than others to have integrated expense and invoice management tools with budgeting, payroll, and ERP and financial systems. Not only does this integration help achieve a more-complete picture of spend across an organization, it better equips finance teams to uncover cost-saving opportunities and redistribute funds to more-strategic initiatives. </p>
<p>So, what does all this spend insight deliver in terms of business outcomes?</p>
<p>Here, the results could not be clearer. Across the board, best-in-class companies that have invested in capabilities and technologies that optimize cash flow and deliver real-time spend insight are more likely to report improvements in:</p>
<ul>
<li>Budget visibility</li>
<li>Workforce productivity</li>
<li>Customer satisfaction</li>
<li>Speed of decision-making</li>
<li>Data sharing and collaboration</li>
<li>Employee trust in data</li>
<li>Simplified analytics</li>
</ul>
<p>As we move into 2021, there are many things that remain uncertain. Businesses may need to continue tightening their belts or may experience a sudden upturn in demand. Whether you’ve started to digitally transform some of the ways you manage company spend or are starting from scratch, you should be fully optimizing cash flow, managing budgets, and ensuring spend compliance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/gaining-strategic-insights-from-company-spend-data">Read the full Aberdeen</a> report to find out more about how best-in-class companies are using digital spend management to stay flexible and resilient. Then visit us at <a href="http://www.concur.com">www.concur.com</a> to see how you can do the same. </p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
New Pulse Survey Explores the Current U.S. Business Travel Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-explores-current-us-business-travel-experience
2022-12-30T15:53:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Eightyeight percent of business travelers say that they are willing to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business This year weve explored the...
<p>Eighty-eight percent of business travelers say that they are willing to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business.</p>
<p>This year, we’ve explored the realities of business travel in 2022 from the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">finance manager</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-considers-business-travel-readiness-according-travel-managers">travel manager</a> perspectives. Building on those findings, a new pulse survey commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in April 2022 now looks at how the travel experience has changed, among other key topics, from the point of view of the U.S. business traveler.</p>
<p>The survey found that most business travelers (78%) are satisfied with the pace at which their company is returning to pre-pandemic travel habits (e.g., reduced or eliminated safety protocols). However, more than half of business travelers (55%) say that they are unhappy with their current amount of business travel, including 20% who would prefer to travel more than they are. Also, as our survey findings continue to suggest, flexibility remains a top priority.</p>
<p>“Employees expect greater flexibility in their workplace, wherever that may be—in the office, at home, or on the road,” said Ralph Colunga, SAP thought leader on travel and expense solutions. “Travelers overwhelmingly want to return to travel, but under their own terms and conditions. And with more control over how and when they travel, the vast majority of U.S. business travelers are also taking this opportunity to reduce their environmental impact.”</p>
<p>Below are key themes and findings from the SAP Concur pulse survey of 1,000 U.S. business travelers:</p>
<h2>The New Business Travel Experience</h2>
<p>Previous SAP Concur pulse surveys have found that <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">finance managers</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-considers-business-travel-readiness-according-travel-managers">travel managers</a> expect increases in business travel in 2022, although they both feel their companies aren’t quite prepared. As volume increases, travelers have noted changes to their business travel experience, both at their company and more broadly.</p>
<ul>
<li>When asked to rank their top three travel concerns, business travelers most commonly noted health and safety around COVID-19 (53%) and increasing costs associated with travel (48%).</li>
<li>Eighty-nine percent of business travelers have been forced to take unexpected steps recently because of difficulty booking transportation and lodging for business travel. Most-reported steps were canceling or rescheduling meetings (38%), spending additional unplanned days on a trip (37%), and incurring additional travel expenses (34%).</li>
<li>Most business travelers (80%) say that their company has altered the types of business travel requests it approves since before the pandemic. The most-reported changes include travelers now being expected to take longer trips to accomplish more at once (36%), fewer travel requests are approved in general (34%), and travel requests by senior leaders are generally approved while others’ requests are often denied (31%).</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Push for Flexibility</h2>
<p>The annual SAP Concur global business travel survey has underscored the importance of flexibility from the business traveler perspective during the past two years (<a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-highlights-covid-19-impact-and-outlook-business-travel">2020</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">2021</a>). According to pulse survey findings, business travelers now feel more empowered to make flexible travel requests—and their companies are likely to acquiesce.</p>
<ul>
<li>Eighty-three percent of business travelers feel more empowered to make travel-related demands of their company now, compared to before the pandemic. Even more high-frequency business travelers—those who travel at least twice a month—feel more empowered, at 91%.</li>
<li>Forty-three percent of business travelers, and 62% of high-frequency business travelers, say that they have made travel requests that they weren’t sure completely complied with their company’s travel policies in the past 12 months. When in doubt, asking likely means receiving: Only 19% of these business travelers, and only 17% of these high-frequency business travelers, had their requests denied.</li>
<li>Of note, it’s up in the air whether “bleisure” travel—taking personal time off while on a business trip—is a perk offered by some companies or a standard benefit: 54% of business travelers say it’s a perk, while 46% consider it table stakes.</li>
<li>Also, the world is the business traveler’s office. Places that business travelers have commonly worked while on a business trip include a café or coffee shop (70%), a lobby (64%), a waiting room (57%), a restroom (39%), and poolside (31%).</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Impact of Sustainability</h2>
<p>Sustainability is a top consideration for business travelers. According to survey findings, most are willing to act to reduce their impact—and they are more likely to do so when planning a business trip vs. personal travel.</p>
<ul>
<li>Eighty-eight percent of business travelers say that they are willing to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business, including:
<ul>
<li>taking fewer but longer business trips (40%)</li>
<li>staying in a less preferred but greener hotel (40%)</li>
<li>using public transportation (33%)</li>
<li>using a less preferred but greener mode of transportation (28%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Ninety-three percent of Gen Z and 89% of millennial business travelers say they are willing to take steps to reduce their environmental impact, versus 82% of Gen X and 84% of baby boomers.</li>
<li>Eighty-eight percent of business travelers would like to see sustainability information when booking business travel, including comparing sustainability measures for different accommodation options (47%) and transportation options (45%).</li>
<li>Business travelers are more likely to consider the environmental impact of their choices for business travel than personal travel (60% vs. 40%).</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Realities of Travel Discrimination</h2>
<p>Discrimination while traveling has always been an issue. For instance, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-reveals-hidden-threats-certain-high-risk-business-travelers">2019 SAP Concur global business travel survey</a> found that 95 percent of LGBTQ+ travelers said they have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip, and the most common reason provided was to protect their safety. Additionally, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-highlights-covid-19-impact-and-outlook-business-travel">2020 survey</a> found that business travelers expected a pandemic-related increase in discrimination of certain groups while traveling. Pulse survey findings suggest how things have—and haven’t—changed in 2022.</p>
<ul>
<li>Seventy-three percent of business travelers have seen—or known someone who has seen—discriminatory practices while traveling for business, including:
<ul>
<li>travelers avoiding sitting near certain people (35%)</li>
<li>people being ignored by service workers (33%)</li>
<li>derogatory language directed at people (28%)</li>
<li>unfair security screening (26%)</li>
<li>people presumed to be traveling illegally (23%)</li>
<li>denial of service completely (22%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>More non-white respondents (79%) and high-frequency business travelers (85%) than the average (73%) have seen, or known someone who has seen, discriminatory practices while traveling for business.</li>
<li>In addition, younger travelers are particularly attuned to discrimination. More than four in five Gen Z business travelers (82%) and nearly three in four millennial travelers (74%) say they or someone they know have witnessed discriminatory behavior on the road.</li>
<li>More than half (53%) of business travelers say that recent legislation in states like Texas and Florida—regarding teachers’ rights to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, and students’ ability to identify with their preferred gender in some school settings—has impacted their willingness or comfort to travel to those destinations.
<ul>
<li>Eleven percent would refuse to travel there if asked.</li>
<li>Fifteen percent would not feel safe traveling to those states.</li>
<li>Twenty-seven percent would travel there if requested, but they would feel uncomfortable.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>For additional findings, read the highlights from our U.S. surveys of <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">finance managers</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-considers-business-travel-readiness-according-travel-managers">travel managers</a> on the SAP Concur blog. Also, read “<a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reach-sustainability-goals-responsible-travel-spending">Reach Sustainability Goals with Responsible Travel Spending</a>” for more on sustainability from the perspectives of U.S. business travelers and travel managers.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur business traveler pulse survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com">Wakefield Research</a> among 1,000 U.S. business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business 3+ times in the past 24 months, and an oversample to reach 250 high-frequency travelers who travel at least twice a month, between April 1st and April 10th, using an email invitation and an online survey. The main sample data was weighted to help facilitate a tracking analysis.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Four Tips to Manage Fraud and Compliance within Life Sciences
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-tips-manage-fraud-and-compliance-within-life-sciences
2023-04-02T14:26:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the highly regulated and dynamic industry of life sciences compliance is top of mind But the pressure to stay in compliance to ensure you are following the current accounting and...
<p>In the highly regulated and dynamic industry of life sciences, compliance is top of mind. But the pressure to stay in compliance to ensure you are following the current accounting and financial regulations is difficult for any organization who is in the race to innovate. And while many organizations have auditing processes in place, a 2018 fraud and compliance survey among life science industry professionals found that many are still uncertain about their current procedures.</p>
<p>What can you do to better manage compliance and regain confidence when fraudulent behavior arises? Or prepare in case of a government audit? Here’s what you need to know:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Monitor and audit expense reports for compliance</h2>
<p>This one may seem like a no-brainer. But not every organization audits every expense report. But with almost <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">20% of travel and expense (T&E) expenses</a> falling outside of policy, monitoring and auditing expense reports should be made a top priority. Whether you use an internal team or external auditors, make sure your employees’ T&E expenses are within policy from the get-go to ensure compliance in the long run. Fraud and compliance violations can lead to more than just monetary loses in a highly regulated industry; essentially, your organization’s reputation could be on the line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Use automated controls to catch mistakes and fight fraud</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/">89% of fraud cases involving asset misappropriation</a>, an automated expense process goes a long way when it comes to fighting fraud, especially if you are diligent. Determine if your procedure can withstand fraudulent behaviors and/or costly mistakes by determining which actions your organization uses to manage its shield of defense. Does your organization:</p>
<ul>
<li>Establish clear travel and expense spend guidelines?</li>
<li>Require receipts for most, if not all, expenses?</li>
<li>Require approval of expense reports before reimbursement?</li>
<li>Have audit rules integrated into spend technology?</li>
<li>Use pre-spend authorization to drive adherence to policy?</li>
<li>Use reports to help spot problems?</li>
</ul>
<p>If you checked all of the items above, then you’re on your way to fighting fraud. Survey respondents found a combination of technology, policy, and managerial approvals is the most successful way to manage employee expenses and compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Use accumulated data to drive policy changes and adapt to changing regulations</h2>
<p>Failing to adhere to industry regulations can come with bigger fines and even larger reputational losses. When asking life sciences respondents if they felt their company could potentially<strong> be at risk for global regulations and compliance,</strong> <strong>57% answered “Yes” or “Not sure.”</strong></p>
<p>By automating the spend management process, your organization can set controls and analyze spend data to review things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Exceptions triggered by audit rules</li>
<li>Incorrect usage of expense types or account codes</li>
<li>Limit overages</li>
<li>Approval activities</li>
</ul>
<p>These insights allow our customers to make more informed, business-driven changes to their policies and programs in order to support their corporate goals.</p>
<p>Are you unsure that your organization’s solution for employee spend management has the ability to help safeguard you from violations? If so, it’s time to start acting as fines are devastating for those who aren’t compliant. For example, an organization can face Civil Monetary Penalties up to <a href="https://www.cms.gov/OpenPayments/Program-Participants/Applicable-Manufacturers-and-GPOs/Audits-and-Penalties.html">$1 million if it fails to report Open Payments</a> in a timely manner. With all eyes on regulations, you can’t afford to be unsure.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Move away from manual spend processes</h2>
<p>Automation and cloud technology are no longer out of reach, however, <strong>42% of respondents reported that they still spend about 76 hours or more per month auditing expense reports</strong>. That’s 76 more hours per month that could be used to focus on revenue-generating initiatives and strategic business goals.</p>
<p>With automation and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-challenges-you-didnt-know-ai-artificial-intelligence-could-help-with">artificial intelligence (AI)</a> on your side as part of an integrated employee spend management solution, your organization could:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduce expense report errors by up to 66%.</li>
<li>Shorten auditing time by as much as 90%.</li>
<li>Thoroughly audit 100% of expense reports.</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information on integrating controls to manage compliance and fight fraud, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">compliance and fraud solutions</a> page.</p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
Innovation Worth Celebrating
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/innovation-worth-celebrating
2023-08-29T13:34:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur we are passionate about providing our customers and partners powerful and innovative solutions which is why we are honored to share that for the seventh year in a row and...
<p>At SAP Concur, we are passionate about providing our customers and partners powerful and innovative solutions, which is why we are honored to share that for the seventh year in a row and ninth time in 11 years, SAP Concur has been named the ‘Most Admired Technology Company’ in the business travel industry by <a href="http://www.thebeat.travel/post/2018/10/05/The-Beat-Announces-2018-Readers-Choice-Winners.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thebeat">The Beat’s Readers’ Choice Awards</a>.</p>
<p>Awarded at The Beat Live conference in Atlanta, GA, the awards were based on a poll conducted this summer that asked readers to choose the brand of their choice in six supplier categories (Airline, Hotel, Car Rental, Travel Management Company, Travel Technology, Payment System) that they "most admire for its policies, management style and service for business clients.”</p>
<p>We strive to build a culture of innovation, collaboration, values and talent at SAP Concur and we’ve had an exciting year in partnership with our more than 43,000 customers and partners. Here’s a few of our favorite advances from the last year:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Doubling down on traveler safety with expanded Concur Locate capabilities: </strong>Expanding on existing Concur Locate technology, we <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-travelers-safe-expanded-concur-locate-uber-business-triplink-tripit-pro-features">announced several updates</a> to our traveler safety suite of solutions that reinforce SAP Concur’s status as the industry’s most comprehensive traveler safety solution provider. Some of these updates include: expanded employee location dataset including Uber for Business, building on current feeds such as Concur Travel and Expense, supplier e-receipts, and more; more visibility into out-of-channel bookings as TripLink continues to grow; and new messaging capabilities with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a> integration. In addition, TripIt Pro, part of our TripLink offering, now provides safety scores for neighborhoods around the world, along with important international information like embassy information, currency conversions, vaccinations, and more for 180 countries.</li>
<li><strong>Leading the charge as the only corporate travel solution with embedded Airbnb listings: </strong>The growth of Airbnb expenses within SAP Concur, along with regular conversations with customers and travel managers, led us to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/airbnb-bookings-rise-sap-concur-listings-available-concur-travel">introduction of Airbnb listings</a> directly within Concur Travel. As the only corporate travel solution with Airbnb listings embedded directly in the online booking tool, SAP Concur clients can now seamlessly search for and view Airbnb listings alongside hotels.</li>
<li><strong>Embracing innovation with Concur Travel and Expense bots: </strong>In response to an increased desire for digital assistants in the workplace, we partnered with Slack to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-travel-bot-on-slack">deliver</a> the first bots that allow users to search, book, share and expense business travel, right from Slack. It’s all about simplicity and ease of use with the Concur Travel and Expense bots on Slack. The result is a better user experience and more choices for travelers, improved visibility and control for travel managers, and simplified expense reporting.</li>
<li><strong>Helping budget owners effectively manage resources and make better business decisions:</strong> This year we <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-visibility-spend-control-with-new-budget-solution">launched Budget</a>, a new solution that makes budget data visible, near real-time, and actionable. Budget synthesizes data from SAP Concur solutions including Expense, Invoice, Purchase and Travel Request, creating a comprehensive dashboard for spend – before and after it occurs. This allows finance leaders, sales leaders and project managers to see spending events unfold, and helps employees make better decisions, ultimately leading to better overall financials and a stronger bottom line.</li>
</ul>
<p>As we more deeply integrate between SAP and SAP Concur, these innovations are part of our commitment to helping our customers save time, more effectively manage spend, and protect their employees – a mission we look forward to expanding on further in the coming year, and beyond. Thank you, as always, for your continued support.</p>
<p>Tim MacDonald leads the company’s T&E Cloud initiatives such as fostering an ecosystem of partners to create value for clients, their employees and the travel suppliers who support them as well as developing Concur's data science capability and product offering. Mr. MacDonald’s travel industry experience prior to Concur includes senior vice president & general manager of Expedia US, chairman and president of luxury travel provider Classic Vacations and vice president of product management at Hotwire.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Keeping Client Relationships Strong in a Virtual World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/keeping-client-relationships-strong-virtual-world
2023-09-08T08:32:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
No matter what industry youre in or what size business you may be building strong relationships with your clients is paramount to your success But now that COVID has grounded business...
<p>No matter what industry you’re in or what size business you may be, building strong relationships with your clients is paramount to your success.</p>
<p>And although business travel may have more or less returned to normal, many companies may be dealing with budget cuts, leading to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-companies-can-prepare-future-business-travel">reduced business travel </a>and face-to-face meetings. This means organizations have to find a way to keep client relationships strong in a hybrid work world, beyond just handshakes, office visits, or “let’s meet for lunch” options.</p>
<p>So, how can you adjust your approach and your interactions to embrace more screen time?</p>
<p>We talked to two of our own experts to find out.</p>
<h2>Amplify the virtual connection</h2>
<p>First, it’s important to recognize that virtual meetings are a part of the new way of doing business and can be a great way to engage in addition to – or in place of – in-person check-ins.</p>
<p>Offering that as an option to your clients can give you more opportunities to connect in a time-saving and lower-stakes way.</p>
<h2>Turn on the camera</h2>
<p>No matter how adamant you were about “audio only” conference calls in the past, now is the time to turn on the camera.</p>
<p>“You have the opportunity to connect with your client on a very personal level, to let them see a friendly face, your home office—your cat jumping in the background,” explained Elise Lapasin, strategic client success manager for SAP Concur.</p>
<h2>Be aware of body language and social clues</h2>
<p>Another good reason to use your camera is to be able to read the body language of the person you’re speaking with.</p>
<p>“I think we’ve all been on a call with someone who, after 20 minutes, starts checking emails on a second monitor or phone. At that point, you know you’ve lost them,” explained Alexandra Schwenke, strategic client success manager for SAP Concur. “Just realize that ... the best thing you can do for them is to wrap up the call.”</p>
<p>How personal you get and how fast you get down to business has to be totally client driven.</p>
<p>“If that client is having a difficult day, or looks tired or distracted, offer to reschedule the call,” Lapasin said. “You want to make a personal connection, but how personal you get depends on each individual client. So, you have to be aware of them and how they want to interact that day, not on your own agenda.”</p>
<p>And, if you have clients that see that your camera is on and never turn on theirs, they’ve sent a clear message that they want you to keep the call short and strictly focused on business.</p>
<h2>Recognize the opportunity to make a true human connection with your clients</h2>
<p>Meeting with someone virtually in a conference room or office setting is nothing new. But interacting with someone in his or her home environment provides a unique look into the whole person—not just their work personas.</p>
<p>In many ways, this experience could make your business relationships stronger.</p>
<p>It sounds so simple, but that’s the thing that all of us are going to remember. Those moments of human kindness as we all try to keep life and business going in a changing world.</p>
<p>Read more:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/updating-your-expense-policy-employees-working-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times-faq">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-companies-can-prepare-future-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
How to Give Your Team the Financial Visibility it Needs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-give-your-team-financial-visibility-it-needs
2018-05-17T09:19:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Not all surprises are good surprises For finance teams there is nothing more frustrating than discovering unaccounted for expenses missing receipts or even worse fines Then when trying...
<p data-id="67715300-94d4-41e7-aeea-3c286a1e45a4">Not all surprises are good surprises. For finance teams, there is nothing more frustrating than discovering unaccounted for expenses, missing receipts, or even worse, fines. Then, when trying to complete annual reports come year-end, unexpected costs can lead to unnecessary time spent reconciling these issues. Expense-related surprises can be avoided with improved visibility and solid <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management</a>.</p>
<p data-id="67715300-94d4-41e7-aeea-3c286a1e45a4"> </p>
<p data-id="304dda34-58e7-416c-a5dc-8273216b6e4b">Ready to improve your expense process? Use these <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/8-tips-best-practice-expense-process">eight best practices</a></p>
<p data-id="304dda34-58e7-416c-a5dc-8273216b6e4b"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e47c0626-dbb5-47b4-9106-898efcf60ff1">Take Charge of Employee Expenses</h2>
<p data-id="20c1f3fc-2069-4194-8a82-4240ed05e060">Pointing fingers and pushing blame never helps any situation. CFOs should take charge of the issues at hand, and view expense report errors as opportunities to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">reevaluate the expense process</a> and training. Open communication is key, so talk to employees about issues they are running into and ideas they have for improvement. Keep in mind the expense process goes beyond the filing employee, and includes the approving manager and the auditor.</p>
<p data-id="77f475a1-4fc7-4281-9289-29ee7af38657">Look for patterns and reccurring issues, and lead the way for improvements. Whether it is through email or a training session, ensure that any process updates are clearly communicated to all employees. This helps to ensure that all teams have a clear understanding of expectations surrounding expenses.</p>
<p data-id="2101a916-15d8-471f-982d-d30f3d657173"> </p>
<h2 data-id="ecd0abb8-17fb-429f-b51c-39a85dc15237">Stop Leaks and Reduce Fraud Risks</h2>
<p data-id="dac987ab-eae2-49f0-87b0-1a462e673fcd">Tightened-up expense management reduces the chances for unforeseen costs. Employees creating and submitting expense reports will know exactly what documentation is needed for approval and reimbursement. This makes for a more streamlined process saving time, and ultimately money.</p>
<p data-id="36863872-ec1d-4d87-b9cd-4cabff15623f">For managers who are approving expense reports, having a firm grasp on which expenses are compliant and which are not makes reviewing expense reports easier. This knowledge also helps to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-identify-expense-report-fraud">minimize the risk of fraud</a>. While many companies do not like to think their employees are taking advantage of them, it does happen on occasion. Holding all teams accountable makes a difference and reduces this risk.</p>
<p data-id="05eabd6b-77b8-4169-902e-eb07565d8e04"> </p>
<h2 data-id="d8c152f0-5c9d-4d8e-a4a0-fac695c7e036">Use Technology to Your Company’s Advantage</h2>
<p data-id="cbdbc7f4-8f34-4d07-a2c5-fdde6c211846">Technology, particularly automation, elevates expense management. Using automated expense software not only streamlines the process, but also increases visibility into employee expenses. Having much-needed data at your finance team’s fingertips allows them to better forecast and augment their reporting, reducing the chance of surprises and unaccounted for costs.</p>
<p data-id="3c1d6630-bcc8-40b6-8592-ae349c869004">Taking it a step further and including mobility into expense management makes capturing expenses that much easier for employees. With more business taking place on the road, it only makes sense to give employees access to expense reporting from their mobile phone. Something as simple as being able to capture images of receipts goes a long way in keeping documentation from getting lost. Not to mention, mobility allows your finance team more insight into real-time expense data.</p>
<p data-id="5246b8c4-fe16-4528-b392-9f70d40d7f6e"><strong>Now is the time to look into your expense management and fix issues before they get out of hand. Learn more about how to increase visibility into employee spend <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">here</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Every Travel Director Should Know About Travel and Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-every-travel-director-should-know-about-travel-and-employee-spend
2021-10-26T14:09:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Many external forces are once again shaking up the travel directors role at enterprisesized organizations The shared economy supplier direct bookings and increased responsibilities in...
<p>Many external forces are once again shaking up the travel director’s role at enterprise-sized organizations. The shared economy, supplier direct bookings and increased responsibilities in traveler satisfaction, as well as a heightened understanding of an employer’s duty of care are some examples of the disruptions. At the same time, showing the true expense impact of a travel program is critical to prove the value of efforts back to the business—especially to financial decision makers and department heads.</p>
<p>Yet, as travel directors try to reconcile true travel spend they are finding a real shift: Employees are spending more money across more spend categories, and using more payment methods than ever before—including, credit cards, ghost cards, checks, cash and P-cards. Additionally, all of these payment methods are likely managed by multiple systems that don’t connect or share data across the organization. It’s tough to find a single source of truth.</p>
<p>Travel directors need to ask their teams and other internal stakeholders: <strong>“How are we adjusting to this shift?” </strong>And, <strong>"What’s the cost of doing nothing?"</strong></p>
<p>When spend is happening across multiple systems sitting in silos, analysts are spending hours trying to aggregate it, instead of using their time to help identify trends or help make strategic decisions. Plus, travel directors are often getting information in an untimely manner preventing them from identifying any bad trends or habits until well after the fact. When travel and expense data isn’t integrated or tied together somehow, it’s hard for travel directors to tell “the ROI story” back to management.</p>
<p>A likely first step that many companies are taking to get a better handle on employee initiated spend is to integrate travel and expense data. According to a Global Business Travel Association Foundation report, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-close-risk-management-loopholes">less than half (47%) of travel managers</a> report their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">online booking tools</a> and expense tools are integrated.</p>
<p>Other organizations, who are fine with the status quo and fail to adjust, end up being less profitable. Oxford Economics Research surveyed 1,500 financial leaders globally and revealed that most <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">profitable companies are the ones most likely to use analytics</a>, and 82% of companies with profit margin growth above five percent find T&E spending analytics extremely or very useful.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taking a Proactive Role</h2>
<p>So, what should travel directors and others who play a part in the travel ecosystem do to better grasp true spend across their organization? Here are three questions every travel director should ask their teams and other internal stakeholders:</p>
<p><strong>1. Are we using new ways to capture all employee travel bookings outside of our traditional corporate travel process or tool?</strong></p>
<p>Despite strict travel policies and procedures, employees are booking travel outside of company guidelines whether for convenience, cost or business need, and getting reimbursed for it. There is a “leakage” issue that exists in every company. Also, fueling this missing data are travel suppliers putting millions of dollars into clever marketing and loyalty programs encouraging your employees to buy directly from their airline, hotel, taxi service or short-term lodging. There is new technology that can help companies uncover this “leakage” and reconcile it with spend to ensure finance teams are aware. However, according to the GBTA study mentioned above, “…only one in five travel managers (20%) report using technology to capture traveler data booked outside their travel program, despite two in five North American travelers (42%) saying booking directly on a supplier’s website is a preferred channel.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Are we giving the business visibility and controls it needs while giving the traveler freedom and flexibility? </strong></p>
<p>Automation and policy enforcement are still the main drivers for finance and procurement teams when evaluating travel expense management software, according to a Gartner report. However, Gartner analyst <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/market-guide-travel-expense-management-software">Chris Pang writes that</a>, “This shouldn’t mean the end-user experience should suffer.”</p>
<p>Employees today expect mobile, consumer-like experiences at work and while on the road. If a company is not delivering the tools and functionality they want, and thrusting a frustrating, inefficient process on them, organizations will have trouble capturing accurate travel and spend data. A Forrester research report found that, “Employees are embracing new digital capabilities in their personal lives to make purchases, and they now expect their employers to support those same capabilities as they relate to employee-generated spend.”</p>
<p>A win/win result can be attained by giving travelers flexibility and support to book and travel whenever, wherever, but with prompts and controls that make it easy to stay in policy making the right decisions at the right time. Having travel itinerary, credit card and other sources of data feed into an expense report also helps achieve a win/win result as travelers can be more productive and data can be verified coming from reliable sources.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. What other areas of the business can benefit by having employee spend data in one place? </strong></p>
<p>By capturing and aggregating employee spend and travel data in one place, companies can help mitigate enterprise risks such as duty of care, government regulations (FCPA) or tax penalties and occupational fraud. Gaining control and visibility into the finite details of where and how company dollars are being spent can empower companies to take a proactive approach to managing these risks. While all of this spend eventually makes its way into the ledger, the ability to proactively monitor, report and analyze this spend can get lost.</p>
<p>To learn more about how technology can improve productivity and accurate budgeting, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance" title="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance">visit us online</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>
Erin Giordano
What you need to know about duty of care for female travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-you-need-know-about-duty-care-female-travelers
2020-06-29T21:18:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you ask any leader to identify their most valuable asset the response youll likely get is our people In todays world the protection of business travelers and expatriates across the...
<p>If you ask any leader to identify their most valuable asset, the response you'll likely get is, “our people.” In today’s world, the protection of business travelers and expatriates across the globe has become a priority. With this backdrop, all employers have an obligation of duty of care. Duty of care is the moral, social and legal responsibility of an organization to do everything reasonable to safeguard the health and wellbeing of their people. That said, not all groups will face the same sets of challenges as they travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, has your company discussed the best ways to ensure the safety of its female travelers?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At this year’s <a href="http://convention.gbta.org/">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention</a> in Boston, <a href="https://www.hx-global.com/">HX Global</a> will be hosting an interactive panel on entitled, “Global Traveler Risk for Females: What’s So Different?” This panel will be moderated by Tim Crockett, HX Global Vice President of Security. Expert panelists include:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Erin L. Wilk: Global Travel Safety and Security Manager, Facebook</li>
<li>Cathy Sharpe: Director, Strategic Sourcing, Global Travel & Expense Management Services, Illinois Tool Works</li>
<li>Cindy Heston: Director of Travel and Events, Anthem Procurement Department</li>
<li>Jane Poulton: SVP, Client Management, HX Global</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>This session will cover steps female travelers can take to help ensure their own personal safety and what considerations should be made regarding organizational duty of care.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>To meet the obligation of duty of care, it’s critical to have a Travel Risk Management program that offers security, medical and travel advice and assistance. Together, with training and education, you can help ensure the safety of your team.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the case of an emergency, your company needs the right tools in order to locate your people wherever they might be and communicate with them in any situation. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-messaging">Concur Risk Messaging</a> provides the granular level of information necessary to help organizations maintain a complete view of their people and take action should the need arise. Concur Risk Messaging with the addition of Active Monitoring is powered by HX Global, a Concur partner. This tool and the leading-edge technology behind it takes duty of care to the next level.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With Concur Active Monitoring, when a critical incident occurs anywhere in the world, HX Global rapidly identifies your affected people, physical assets and/or supply chain. The HX Global 24/7 team of security experts quickly establishes two-way communication to ascertain safety and determine if assistance is needed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No matter where your people are, what threat may loom, or what manner they chose to book their travel, Concur and HX Global provide the resource to help ensure the safety of your people and keep you informed every step of the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If you are attending GBTA 2017, please join the conversation around women's travel safety on Wednesday, July 19, 11:30-12:30pm at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 254AB. You can also visit Concur Booth #1337 and HX Global Booth #1675.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Continually innovating for our customers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/continually-innovating-our-customers
2020-06-29T20:57:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At Concur our customers are the north star that fuels our innovation That is why we are proud to share that for the sixth year in a row and eighth time in ten years Concur has been...
<p>At Concur, our customers are the north star that fuels our innovation. That is why we are proud to share that for the sixth year in a row and eighth time in ten years, Concur has been named the ‘Most Admired Travel Technology Company’ in the business travel industry by The Beat’s Readers’ Choice Awards. We share this win with you–our customers.</p>
<p>Awarded yesterday at The Beat Live conference in Dallas, Texas, the awards were based on a poll conducted that asked readers of The Beat to choose the company in each of the six supplier segments (Airline, Hotel, Car Rental, Travel Management Company, Travel Technology Company, Payment System) they "most admire for its policies, management style and service for business clients."</p>
<p>Technology is advancing faster than ever, which makes our work more exciting than ever. We are using advanced technologies like predictive analytics and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/machine-learning-with-heart-how-sentiment-analysis-can-help-your">machine learning</a> to tackle industry challenges in new ways and deliver more value to our customers. A few of our favorite advancements from the last year include: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Using artificial intelligence (AI) and bots to enhance the traveler experience:</strong> Through our developments in AI, we are streamlining the T&E process and reaching employees where they already are. For example, in January, we announced the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/collaborative-design-sprint-leads-to-new-bot-for-slack-beta">Concur bot for Slack</a> to help employees tackle select travel and expense tasks directly within Slack. We are also innovating towards enabling Concur Travel users to shop and book by chatting with a bot on Skype, Slack and others. Additionally, customers can now submit expenses right from their Outlook inbox with the <a href="https://concurlabs.com/projects/office_365.html">Concur Expense for Outlook</a> add-in.</li>
<li><strong>Ensuring the safety of business travelers:</strong> Amid heightened global and geopolitical uncertainties, we launched <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/concur-empowers-businesses-to-protect-travelers-with-concur-locate-and-active-monitoring-300488771.html?tc=eml_cleartime">Concur Locate and Active Monitoring</a>, the first integrated travel risk management solution drawing from the industry’s most comprehensive data set. Based on travel and expense data, itineraries booked direct captured through TripLink and TripIt, supplier e-receipts and more, businesses can proactively locate and communicate with employees during times of crisis and uncertainty. Additionally, powered by our partners at HX Global, companies can also provide traveling employees 24/7 monitoring, communications and assistance.</li>
</ul>
<p>These advancements are helping our customers save time, more effectively manage spend and protect their employees. By listening to our base of 45 million customers, we are inspired to continue innovating, and are excited to see where they lead us next.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mike Koetting, EVP of Supplier and TMC Services, attended the awards ceremony and accepted the award on Concur’s behalf. </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1507135133469-unknown.jpeg" /></p>
<p>Tim MacDonald leads the company’s T&E Cloud initiatives such as fostering an ecosystem of partners to create value for clients, their employees and the travel suppliers who support them as well as developing Concur's data science capability and product offering. Mr. MacDonald’s travel industry experience prior to Concur includes senior vice president & general manager of Expedia US, chairman and president of luxury travel provider Classic Vacations and vice president of product management at Hotwire.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Moving from manual to mobile is the sound business decision you can make this year
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/moving-manual-mobile-sound-business-decision-you-can-make-year
2019-08-21T05:55:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Summer brings more than just sun and warm weather Often this is the time for midyear audits budget planning and business travel And if you dont have an automated spend management...
<p>Summer brings more than just sun and warm weather. Often, this is the time for mid-year audits, budget planning and business travel. And if you don’t have an automated spend management system, this tends to mean spending hours reviewing, auditing and reconciling stacks of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a> and invoices. These countless hours could be saved by moving to an automated, cloud-based solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Keep up with the competition with a shift away from manual reporting </strong></h2>
<p>Manual reporting usually equates to physical paperwork, conjuring images of overflowing inboxes on the corner of a desk. Advances in technology increase the speed of doing business, making piles of paperwork seem like a bad business practice.</p>
<p>Shying away from automation is not only putting you behind in your work, but also making it harder to keep up with your competition. How so? With automation, your team can spend less time managing expense reports and reconciling invoices, and more time on strategic business matters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more, <a href="http://www.proformative.com/events/make-move-manual-mobile-spend-management-modern-era" target="_blank">register for the free webinar</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>An automated solution can pay for itself in time savings alone</strong></h2>
<p>Automation may seem like a high-tech or big business tool, but that‘s no longer the case. It’s accessible to businesses of all sizes, and smart companies are making the change. Automation brings with it loads of benefits, from time and cost savings, to accuracy and advanced reporting capabilities.</p>
<p>SMBs can sometimes shy away from automation, assuming the start-up costs outweigh the benefits. A quick analysis of the amount of time spent examining and auditing expense submissions, vendor invoices and manually creating reports often shows that an automated system will pay for itself in time savings alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Mobile, cloud-based expense management systems keep everyone on track</strong></h2>
<p>If automation is good, mobile capabilities are better, and a combination of automation and mobile systems is best. The popularity of mobile devices is growing, and so is the comfort level with using them for business. According to SMB Group’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs">From Manual to Mobile: Speeding Business Success for SMBs</a>, “57% of SMBs indicate that 50% or more of their employees now use mobile devices for business purposes.” A quick scan around any coffee shop or airport confirms this stat.</p>
<p>The mobile office space increases productivity, meaning business can keep moving inside and outside the office. And with business travel on the rise, mobile apps and software are even more important.</p>
<p>Working with an automated, cloud-based system benefits more than just the employees outside the office. It means information can be accessed from anywhere, giving complete transparency and availability to all team members. For example, expense data can be tracked and reviewed in real time, whether or not the employee is in the office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Find the right automated expense system for your company </strong></h2>
<p>Moving to an automated and mobile process involves finding the right system that works for your company. The solution should not only fit in with your current processes, but improve your business systems. It should be intuitive and easy to integrate. Security is also a major concern, as data and sensitive information must be managed with care.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Learn more in a free Proformative webinar</strong></h2>
<p>The first step to making the move from manual to mobile is education. Take advantage of this free Proformative webinar sponsored by Concur: “<a href="https://www.proformative.com/events/make-move-manual-mobile-spend-management-modern-era" target="_blank">Make the Move from Manual to Mobile: Spend management for the Modern Era</a>” with Rich Adams, Director, Mobile Spend & ExpenseIt at Concur, on August 9, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. PST. Register today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Finding Empowerment as a Woman in Tech: Meet Arielle Allen
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finding-empowerment-woman-tech-meet-arielle-allen
2020-09-11T12:53:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Just so you know I know nothing about DevOps I confessed to Arielle Allen senior manager for service management spend Yeah I could tell she responded You spelled DevOps wrong in the...
<p data-id="71c70d0c-a41c-41d3-91a3-5a711992fa62">"Just so you know, I know nothing about DevOps," I confessed to Arielle Allen, senior manager for service management, spend. "Yeah, I could tell," she responded. "You spelled DevOps wrong in the email."</p>
<p data-id="d617a676-8d05-4b77-97bf-205b1b64fff8">Bear with me; I just graduated with a degree in communications and work in human resources. I don't know much about computer science and software engineering, let alone the technical aspects of the software technology company where I currently intern. For those also unfamiliar, "dev" and "ops" are entirely separate entities. "Dev "stands for software development, while "ops" is short for IT operations. DevOps is essentially combining the worlds of code and service engineering. What makes DevOps so powerful is that you can't have one without the other.</p>
<p data-id="0d20636f-9f01-4b81-8a24-94a3755da018">As a talent acquisition intern, one of my projects is to share our company culture and spotlight professionals. This gave me an opportunity to delve further into this area, so I sat down with Arielle to learn more about her career and DevOps. </p>
<p data-id="0d20636f-9f01-4b81-8a24-94a3755da018"> </p>
<h2 data-id="81ca4120-d895-42e3-81d5-4068c8b894b9">Meet Arielle</h2>
<p data-id="e77b1539-13ef-4461-915e-4a048acbd3c5">Between discovering her love of Rome and California's beaches, to learning that she's an ordained minister and has performed two weddings (what!), I quickly saw that Arielle's passion for tech is what grounds her. When she was young, she always loved playing around with computers and problem solving. At age 13, she fixed her friend's computer with help from her father on the telephone. From there, Arielle found it rewarding to help others and was hooked on solving computer problems.</p>
<p data-id="5cd5aeac-d73c-4aac-99b6-1c3d19e0c94a">Arielle's journey as a woman in technology started when she was a volunteer student representative for the technology board at her local school district. There, she met her future boss who offered her a tech internship for that same school district. She interned there for her remaining two years of high school, and, by the time she graduated, she had become the lead intern in charge of training new interns.</p>
<p data-id="7efae647-82cc-4a49-b713-3a14be4fbdf7">After high school, Arielle continued her education at Bellevue Community College, taking online and night courses so she could continue interning. During her second year of college, she accepted a role as a data center operator at a truck manufacturing company, working the graveyard shift and going to school during the day. She finished her associates degree in business at BCC, and did a direct online transfer to Washington State University to pursue her bachelors in managing information systems. She told me that it took her longer to finish her degrees than full-time students, due to the fact that she stayed in her career while working. She said she knew she needed to stay relevant in the tech space and could not afford to take time away for school.</p>
<p data-id="5c9a77e4-04d8-4c25-a82e-4fa690d90f35">That approach paid off for Arielle. She took a bet that virtualization was the future of infrastructure and involved herself in opportunities to train and learn virtualization skills. This experience sent her to a conference where she met her future coworkers. Halfway through her undergraduate studies, she transitioned to a Washington-based high-fashion retailer as a virtualization engineer. She worked for that retailer for five years, in which time she earned her degree, learned automation, founded the retailer's first technology internship program, and transitioned into leadership within the company. She left the retailer as the manager of their website to join SAP Concur as manager of spend, service management for North America. She has been at SAP Concur for a year and a half managing the service management, spend team.</p>
<p data-id="7a074df6-8abf-46ea-a76a-6943ca8064fb">Arielle's team is an "eye in the sky" as she describes it. It oversees the SAP Concur website from a holistic, end-user view. When something isn't working properly, her team responds. They're the early responders, before customers are even aware of glitches.</p>
<p data-id="fe9432ac-cadb-426f-ba6a-c006aa7fd164">When asking some of my more fun interview questions, I asked Arielle to describe herself in three words. She didn't wait a split second to blurt out "empowered." Strong leadership, hard work and her confident, empowered personality are what brought Arielle to where she is today.</p>
<p data-id="9eceefa6-7729-4090-a385-92abf2e5d229">Using Arielle's favorite word, "empowered," let's take a look at the ways in which the idea of empowerment shapes life, leadership, and even DevOps.</p>
<p data-id="9eceefa6-7729-4090-a385-92abf2e5d229"> </p>
<h2 data-id="dcebc868-bfe9-445c-b4e0-dc76450c2c5c">Empowerment in Life</h2>
<p data-id="264099f7-428e-4343-84fc-52bb39cfc8fa">Being the oldest child, Arielle always felt empowered. Her parents raised her to be independent, navigating the life she wanted to lead on her own terms.</p>
<p data-id="31b59781-cdc9-4cce-bb19-98e15e5ad766">In high school, one of Arielle's tasks was to write down what she wanted to be when she grew up. She wrote that it was going to be in tech working on computer engineering. As a 15-year-old, Arielle felt empowered by writing down her desire and having confidence to see it through in the long run.</p>
<p data-id="adeae261-a7d9-4428-8c55-16f7caa2e194">Although she always had this dream, there was one obstacle that could have tarnished it. But, Arielle took another route to see her dream come to fruition due to a roadblock that seemed inescapable.</p>
<p data-id="ed620f08-38b4-4261-9aea-876fc5c74732">"Going through college, I didn't have average math skills," she explained. Growing up, she always struggled with math due to her dyslexia. Because of that, Arielle tried to avoid math and ended up majoring in something that didn't require the advanced math classes. Although that was defeating at first, she didn't let math stop her from succeeding in the tech space. She received a degree in managing information systems, instead of the more common software engineering degree in her field.</p>
<p data-id="ed620f08-38b4-4261-9aea-876fc5c74732"> </p>
<h2 data-id="a059e85c-8f15-4d5c-9c91-6b4eb4478fce">Empowerment in Leadership</h2>
<p data-id="b3456ed4-4dfc-4036-b867-4840b16a7d97">As a manager of the service management, spend team, Arielle says that what drives her leadership style is her ability to be empowered. What empowerment does is allow the floodgates to open for her team members to be confident in their work and ideas. Empowerment allows room for failure, risk taking, and vulnerability.</p>
<p data-id="f70ffdbe-c4c0-4b12-a2a0-40fd58592a11">Arielle's team doesn't have to feel micromanaged because they know their manager allows for empowerment to take over. She explains: "If your leaders are empowered, they're giving their team space to be empowered. And what they do with [that space] is true empowerment."</p>
<p data-id="182884a4-8547-4482-9a38-f4ee592229e4">It took a lot for Arielle to become the empowered leader that she strived to become. It took mindfulness training, leadership classes, and learning from her own personal experiences. Arielle explained that her leadership stems from being the oldest in her family and it's something she always loved doing. "I enjoy [leading] because if others can learn from me and not [make] the same mistakes or, better, can have the same successes, I'm grateful," she says. Arielle loves providing value to other people and genuinely wants others to do better.</p>
<p data-id="6b017e24-a2c7-4d9a-9467-af629cef6d7b">When asked why leadership empowerment is so important to Arielle, she mentions Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote, "be the change you wish to see in the world." This is a constant reminder for Arielle to empower herself, while giving her team space to empower themselves too.</p>
<p data-id="6b017e24-a2c7-4d9a-9467-af629cef6d7b"> </p>
<h2 data-id="d4216482-f4ca-4e33-af89-74ee5e28bfd4">Empowerment in DevOps</h2>
<p data-id="ee2bb9f6-714f-44d9-97b1-ed14751df132">One exciting thing that Arielle's team plans to do in 2018 is combine goals more closely with those of other teams. Arielle explains the current problem and future solution simply: "How is a developer going to know everything that service management knows about operations? And how is anybody on service management going to know anything about development? The how is that we need to start speaking the same language to build empathy and understanding of each other's worlds. We can then partner together to tackle problems faster and effectively."</p>
<p data-id="3bffa30f-879b-41f5-876b-2b653e31f8dd">The goal of this journey is to bring speed in delivering features to customers. By educating developers about how to catch bugs, they can make fixes before the operations teams even have a chance to tell developers about the glitches. This will essentially shorten reaction time leading to issues being resolved quicker for the user.</p>
<p data-id="200ec2de-0092-4e3c-b9f2-9b0e2f684d08">"DevOps goes hand in hand with the empowerment culture," Arielle explains. While educating each other about how to fix glitches, developers and operations teams will be empowered to make changes quickly and efficiently.</p>
<p data-id="ae79b997-f73c-43f0-b671-2bc8077c7a30">To learn more about careers in DevOps at SAP Concur, click <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Risk Management: It's Time to Take the Next Step Towards Your TRM Plan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-management-its-time-take-next-step-towards-your-trm-plan
2019-01-18T11:24:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the first two parts of this series we explained why travel risk management TRM is so important for businesses and why coordinated data capture is key to your TRM plan Now how to tie...
<p data-id="cbcb4582-b593-48c7-b0f2-e76f197e8a3b">In the first two parts of this series, we explained why <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-respond-when-duty-calls">travel risk management (TRM)</a> is so important for businesses, and why coordinated data capture is key to your TRM plan. Now, how to tie it all together? Fulfillment of your duty-of-care obligations will ultimately require the successful integration of multiple components. Here are a few things you must do to make that happen.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/8998-0.jpg?itok=Dad-7pHD" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How to Respond When Duty Calls</h2>
<p>Learn best practices for responding to risk.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-respond-when-duty-calls">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="cbcb4582-b593-48c7-b0f2-e76f197e8a3b"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c9b65268-59ba-401f-ba3c-8f792d6e1e02">1. Know Who's on Lookout</h2>
<p data-id="c9b65268-59ba-401f-ba3c-8f792d6e1e02">Without the right data, you won't be able to locate and respond to your travelers promptly in a crisis - you may not even know that crisis is happening! What this looks like depends on your organization. If you work with a TMC, it will likely have risk-monitoring capabilities. If not, there is the option to assemble data, technology and resources in-house, or to utilize third-party resources to varying degrees. Larger, multi-national companies often work with such a full-service, third-party global risk management provider that can take care of pre-travel warnings, emergency communication, medical assistance and more.</p>
<p data-id="c9b65268-59ba-401f-ba3c-8f792d6e1e02"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2d76274d-18b5-4a10-94cb-d5df1b782c98">2. Identify Your Stakeholders</h2>
<p data-id="2d76274d-18b5-4a10-94cb-d5df1b782c98">Do you know who in your organization is responsible for what in the event of a crisis? At a small company, this could be a group comprised of travel decision makers and a CFO. Larger organizations need to plan for multiple stakeholders, combining departments like travel management, HR, legal and security. If headcount allows, the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) recommends having different teams be responsible for specific incidents, such as a natural disaster team or road accident team.</p>
<p data-id="2d76274d-18b5-4a10-94cb-d5df1b782c98"> </p>
<h2 data-id="da4602b0-5475-44cb-947d-e9dc520170c3">3. Practice, Practice, Practice</h2>
<p data-id="da4602b0-5475-44cb-947d-e9dc520170c3">Your TRM is not a "one-and-done" exercise. To be effective, you must not only have a master plan, but that plan needs to be periodically reviewed and updated to remain relevant to your businesses' needs and changing external conditions. That also means engaging in incident management exercises so that those stakeholders can practice their TRM procedures before an incident actually arises. Time is not on your side when something goes wrong, and having a coordinated team that's ready to react will save precious minutes when it counts.</p>
<p data-id="fe4706f0-a4d0-4dbb-adcf-23a088a8cdbc">Are you ready to take the next step towards managing your risk? To begin mapping out your plan, see the third installment of our travel risk management whitepaper series: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-respond-when-duty-calls">How to Respond When Duty Calls,</a> produced by the BTN Group. Then, see how <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> enables you to fulfill your duty-of-care responsibilities.</p>
<p data-id="1cae92a9-7f47-4c3a-8ebb-8c55e3748ba0"> </p>
<p data-id="1cae92a9-7f47-4c3a-8ebb-8c55e3748ba0"><strong>Part one: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">Four Reasons Why Travel Risk Management is a Business Imperative</a></strong></p>
<p data-id="1cae92a9-7f47-4c3a-8ebb-8c55e3748ba0"><strong>Part two: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-data-integration-is-key-to-your-travel-risk-management-plan">Why Data Integration is Key to Your Travel Risk Management plan</a></strong></p>
Rebecca Dolan
How SAP Concur Can Help You Better Manage Your Budgets
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-sap-concur-can-help-you-better-manage-your-budgets
2018-03-29T09:48:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With so many new ways for employees to spend company money budget owners need better visibility and control to understand how planned budgets are actually playing out Its not a simple...
<p>With so many new ways for employees to spend company money, budget owners need better visibility and control to understand how planned budgets are actually playing out. It’s not a simple task. Consider the many sources of spend that budget owners must track: travel booked with approved vendors and outside your system, expenses paid with credit cards and cash, invoices, and purchase requests. And data sources will only continue to grow as spend options expand.</p>
<p>Pulling all this historical and future spend data together from multiple sources can be labor intensive and error-prone. And if you miss some of the pieces of the spend puzzle, how can you make good spending decisions?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Some Strategies Create Unintended Consequences</strong></h2>
<p> </p>
<p>To cope, some organizations try to enforce better management – with spending freezes or use-it-or-lose-it spending policies. But these heavy-handed tactics can just cause more headaches. Perhaps historical and planned spend will come in under budget, but what if you don’t have the visibility into the numbers to know for sure? If a spending freeze is put into place, the organization could underspend and lose opportunities to invest in growth. Use-it-or-lose-it policies can cause end-of-quarter or end-of-fiscal-year panic, resulting in funds being spent in areas with a low return on investment.</p>
<p>Instead, to manage budgets accurately and efficiently, your organization needs a tool that provides broad visibility into spend through all channels, and automated budget alerts and controls triggered by that same system. By presetting limits in an easy-to-use system, budget owners are never caught off guard by over- or under-spend.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget</a>, a new product from SAP Concur, provides budget owners the ability to see spend from multiple sources on one screen – even before spend has happened – and the tools to manage budgets efficiently. Integration with other products and data sources like Expense, Invoice, and Purchase Request gives budget owners the insights and control they need to properly manage their budgets – and with a lot less effort. <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Find out more</a> about how Budget can help your budget owners gain the control they need.</p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Visibility Is for Life, Not Just Year End
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/visibility-life-not-just-year-end
2018-07-06T11:34:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre like many small businesses its hard to find time to step back and look at the numbers There simply arent enough hours in the day and its only at year end you look at the books...
<p>If you’re like many small businesses, it’s hard to find time to step back and look at the numbers. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day and it’s only at year end you look at the books in any detail.</p>
<p>But having year-round visibility into your numbers and knowing what’s going on in your business financially is essential if you want to have a stable, secure company that’s ready to grow.</p>
<p>Here are five areas many small businesses forget about, and why you need to remember them.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Neglecting cash flow</h2>
<p>The best measure of the health of your business is its profit margin, right? Well, it’s one of them. In many ways, profit is theoretical. It’s cash flow you need to worry about. Many small businesses struggle with a lack of cash, even when sales are increasing. Why? Because all-too-often, you don’t know about the cash that’s going out in the form of costs such as travel and expenses until it’s too late.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Not chasing late payments</h2>
<p>Late payments are a big problem. In fact, they’re such a big problem that the UK government introduced the <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/newsroom/article/the-nitty-gritty-of-duty-to-report" target="_blank">Duty to Report legislation</a> to tackle it.</p>
<p>But you don’t have to hope legislation will do the job for you. Look at when your suppliers pay you. How many of them breach your terms? Once you have this information you can take decisions about how to tackle it. You can review your payment terms. You can start to be more disciplined about chasing payment when the payment date passes. Whatever you decide to do, you can plan your cash more effectively because you know when the payment is really coming in.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Assuming the data is correct</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-spreadsheet-reporting-cost-calculator">If you use spreadsheets</a> for your financial data, it’s highly likely they contain mistakes. It’s easy to see how mistakes such as switching two numbers or getting the decimal point in the wrong place happen when you’re entering figures manually.</p>
<p>These errors can have big consequences: In 2017, Marks & Spencer initially reported <a href="https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/excel/ms-results-hit-by-spreadsheet-mishap" target="_blank">sales growth of 1.3%</a>. It then discovered an error in a spreadsheet. When that error was corrected, it discovered sales had actually fallen 0.4%.</p>
<p>By automating financial processes, not only do you remove time-consuming data entry, you also remove the mistakes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Not reviewing your prices</h2>
<p>When did you last review your prices? Supplier prices and raw material costs change all the time and you need to be sure they aren’t eating into your profit margins. Take time to review prices regularly and make sure you’re basing them on facts not gut feel or a general sense of what the market will stand.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Failing to be compliant</h2>
<p>Not having visibility into your numbers also leaves you open to falling foul of HMRC. A survey found that <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/cracking-code-expense-compliance" target="_blank">one in five employees</a> thinks it’s OK to exaggerate expense claims and nearly <a href="https://flexed.co.uk/90-of-company-car-drivers-fake-mileage-reports-costing-companies-millions/#.Ws3zC2aZPR1" target="_blank">90% of company car drivers</a> admit to submitting an inaccurate claim in the past. By automating expense and mileage submission, you save employees time and make it much harder for "mistakes" to happen.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Knowledge is power</h2>
<p>To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, when you fail to prepare you prepare to fail. Many small businesses manage without having this visibility into their numbers. But when you do have the visibility you can spot problems much further ahead and take steps to solve them. It puts you in a position of strength when it comes to the financial health of your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Ready to learn more about improving cash flow, gaining visibility into company spending, and minimizing risk? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/webinar-travel-expense-and-invoice-management-made-easy">Watch our on-demand webinar</a> Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management Made Easy.</strong></p>
Dafydd Llewellyn
3 Data-Driven Strategies for Better Fraud Detection
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-data-driven-strategies-better-fraud-detection
2020-09-13T04:21:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If your organization is like most your employees are spending more money across more spend categories and using more payment methods than ever before While this increase in...
<p>If your organization is like most, your employees are spending more money across more spend categories and using more payment methods than ever before. While this increase in employee flexibility is great for productivity, it often comes with a lack of visibility and an increase risk in fraud. </p>
<p>Organizations that are not equipped to capture all of this spend are leaving themselves vulnerable to compliance risks, not to mention schemes from both intentional and unintentional fraudsters. However, some organizations have embraced this change in employee spending by leveraging newly accessible data to get a better handle on spend and reduce their fraud risks.</p>
<p>In a recent Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) webinar, <a href="http://www.acfe.com/webinar.aspx?id=4295002563" target="_blank">New Ways to Prevent and Detect Fraud Risks Across Employee Spend Areas</a>, Ford Motor Company and CenterPoint Energy shared how their organizations integrate their employee spend data to help their teams prevent and detect fraudulent spend.</p>
<p>At the top of their to-do list for tackling fraud: putting a spotlight on the right data. </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Empower your expense data with your p-card program. </strong>Your organization may issue credit cards to your employees, but what story is this spend data telling you? Bill Verial of CenterPoint Energy combines p-card data with expense reports to analyze trends, search key words or Merchant Category Codes, and uncover any red flags. He recommends using SAP Concur to pull corporate card reports that dive deeper into company card spend versus personal card use, find duplicate expenses, and spotlight spend for specific employees. Leveraging actual data to drive your examinations makes searching for fraudsters feel less like a never-ending pursuit. </li>
<li><strong>Look at employee spend in all individual investigations.</strong> When it comes to fraud schemes, a wrongful act committed in one part of the business usually means additional fraud in another. Because of this, Kellie Lintner of Ford Motor Company suggests always conducting an expense report review for each and every investigation. In investigating an individual for time-card fraud, Kellie pulled two years’ worth of expense report line items to dive deeper into the individual’s spending patterns. As a result, she uncovered fraudulent cash items and false receipts resulting in $3,000 in fraudulent spend in just one area.</li>
<li><strong>Let your system do the work for you. </strong>Having all your spend data in one place makes it easier to catch fraud right away, providing fewer opportunities for patterns of fraud to develop down the road. Glenn Phillips of Ford uses SAP Concur’s Consultative Intelligence tool to analyze 100% of their expense transactions, flag items based on the company’s risk parameters, and pull these flagged items into a single dashboard. Immediately, a report is sent to department managers and investigative teams to address problematic spend. Proactively examining the spend data your employees give you puts less of a strain on resources, freeing them up to focus on uncovering more complex fraud schemes.</li>
</ol>
<p>While today’s shift in employee spending may mean some are left sifting through more data, it doesn’t have to make fraud detection more difficult. Organizations that pull together and analyze spend from channels both new and old are better equipped to reduce their fraud risks and prevent future schemes from occurring. Is yours one of them?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> How does your organization stack up against fraud? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/new-age-fraud-preventing-fraud-across-employee-spend-areas">Download our eBook</a> for more insights into how data can drive your fraud detection and prevention.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Technology Can Prevent Fraud and Save Businesses Money
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-technology-can-prevent-fraud-and-save-businesses-money
2020-08-18T11:46:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you have employees then you have occupational fraud according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners In their new global report they estimate a B loss per year based on ...
<p data-id="46b2b455-03cb-4450-9c63-30f23e1bc551">If you have employees, then you have occupational fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. In their new global report, they estimate a $7.1B loss per year, based on 2,690 cases analyzed. They estimate the average organization <a href="http://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/">loses five percent</a> of its annual revenue to internal fraud.</p>
<p data-id="809802e4-9a33-4def-b4ca-eafb7fdcdd79">The corporate spending matrix is growing in complexity and organizations are struggling to stay on top of it. Small and mid-size businesses have even less controls in place when it comes to catching fraud. SAP Concur found that these organizations experience higher rates of duplicate invoices compared to enterprises—an average of one duplicate in every 58 invoices versus one in 86 for enterprises. The majority of people don’t intend to commit fraud. But sometimes, they accidentally enter a dinner receipt twice on their expense report.</p>
<p data-id="cfc98f30-aa69-44fc-be12-5113e6414afc">The perpetrator of fraud might be surprising. The most trusted and tenured employees typically know where all the holes in the system are, although that does not immediately correlate to fraudulent inten¬tion. If these employees are not subjected to as many reviews due to their tenure, and they don’t have effective anti-fraud controls put into place, businesses might be naively putting themselves at risk. The vast majority of fraud perpetrators are first-timers.</p>
<p data-id="604dcfc4-6967-4adb-8285-49cde7d83c02">Not all fraud is detected or reported, and businesses only relying on detection strategies to catch fraud activity may have already lost the fight. If the money is gone, they’ll most likely not recover it; and even if they do get the money back, they’ll likely have spent a lot of time and money trying to do so. Fraud also creates numerous detrimental effects to an organization outside of monetary loss, including loss of reputation and legal ramifications.</p>
<p data-id="765b1725-c0ed-472a-bfda-2425b3f16920">The bottom line is that if you have employees, you have fraud risk. And if you are not leveraging the right technology to prevent and monitor fraud, you are losing money.</p>
<p data-id="765b1725-c0ed-472a-bfda-2425b3f16920"> </p>
<h2 data-id="5d20cadc-bc5f-4dae-a80b-984baed1f644">Using technology to combat fraud</h2>
<p data-id="2db203ec-76b7-4dad-abc5-1548e8924524">Successfully catching mistakes like double expensing, and more importantly, making it easier to avoid these mistakes, enables businesses to highlight the actual incidences of fraud within an organization. Instead of tracking down an employee who haphazardly charged twice for cab fare, they can focus on the real issues.</p>
<p data-id="e54dbf16-3511-429c-a8db-d43eadbe67da">Businesses need to be proactive to prevent fraud and encourage compliance amongst employees. The most successful fraud and compliance risk management strategies combine technology and policy, regardless of business size. Fraud is inevitable - yet with proper planning and prevention, companies can detect and manage it properly. “Red flags” can be found by companies who have a good understanding and controls in place to manage employee spend across an enterprise. <a href="http://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/">Studies have found that</a> organizations with anti-fraud safeguards detected fraud up to 50% more quickly.</p>
<p data-id="0ff88c04-3e92-45b7-86f1-4627c4096eca">For starters, automating travel, expense and invoice processes gives finance leaders greater visibility into spend. Technology, particularly automation, elevates expense management. Using automated expense software like <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> not only streamlines the process, but also increases visibility into employee expenses. Having much-needed data at a finance team’s fingertips allows them to better forecast and augment their reporting, reducing the chance of surprises and unaccounted for costs.</p>
<p data-id="b2c45d0a-a5ba-4847-85e7-1f74bd2fa61f">Taking it a step further and including mobile solutions into expense management makes capturing expenses that much easier for employees. With more business taking place on the road, it makes sense to give employees access to expense reporting from their smartphone. Something as simple as being able to capture images of receipts goes a long way in keeping documentation from getting lost. Not to mention, mobility allows the finance team more insight into real-time expense data.</p>
<p data-id="4f2489ce-3b5a-46dd-b0f5-f19547c1dd1b">Nevertheless, a comprehensive, easy-to-understand policy is as important as technology. Together, savvy small and mid-sized businesses that integrate technology into an overarching and strategic fraud reduction strategy will enjoy the benefits of increased compliance and substantial cost savings.</p>
Brian Veloso
See How NuVasive Empowers Employees to Save on Travel Costs with SAP Concur and App Center Partner Rocketrip
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/see-how-nuvasive-empowers-employees-save-travel-costs-sap-concur-and-app-center
2018-10-18T10:13:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The employees at NuVasive work hard across the globe to develop minimally invasive procedurallyintegrated spine solutions For more than ten years NuVasive has worked with SAP Concur...
<p>The 2,300 employees at NuVasive work hard across the globe to develop minimally invasive, procedurally-integrated spine solutions.</p>
<p>For more than ten years, NuVasive has worked with SAP Concur to improve visibility and ease-of use in their expense and travel programs. Last year, they integrated Concur Travel with Rocketrip’s travel-based employee engagement solution to reduce costs. An <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> partner, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce41">Rocketrip</a> is now helping NuVasive reduce spend through a rewards-based program that motivates employees to save on business travel.</p>
<p>Through the SAP Concur and Rocketrip integration, NuVasive has saved 18% on travel costs. “Instead of punishing people for things that they shouldn’t be doing, we’re rewarding people for going above and beyond and saving money for the company,” says Courtney Moran, Travel Manager for NuVasive. Watch the video and see how SAP Concur and Rocketrip are helping NuVasive build best-run travel and expense programs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The SAP Concur App Center provides access to more than 180 partner apps that enable companies to address issues they hadn’t been able to tackle before. Learn more about how Concur Travel and Expense – and the SAP Concur App Center – can help you experience success in travel and expense management.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel risk is a big deal – Here’s Why you Should Manage it with a Connected Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-big-deal-heres-why-you-should-manage-it-connected-solution
2018-10-29T18:08:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From common weather events to local governmental policies and regulations to potential conflict zones travel risk management is an extremely complicated task That means its important...
<p>From common weather events to local governmental policies and regulations to potential conflict zones, travel risk management is an extremely complicated task. That means it’s important to get ahead of the hazards before your employees have to go anywhere, rather than responding to incidents as they occur. But how many safety protocols are actually implemented and executed at companies with business travelers?</p>
<p>The GBTA Foundation recently conducted a study to learn more about exactly that. They spoke to 148 travel managers to find out the extent to which technology is used and integrated into their overall travel program. What they discovered is that there are gaps in many organizations’ abilities to manage their travelers’ safety and security while on business trips.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/gbta-how-to-close-risk-management-loopholes_0_0.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2><strong>Assess Your Risk</strong></h2>
<p>Are your employees properly protected when they travel? Take a few minutes to find out by using our Risk Assessment & Analysis tool.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Start the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, among the travel managers GBTA surveyed:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only <strong>one in five</strong> reported that they used technology to capture traveler data booked outside of their travel program.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>40%</strong> of North America-based travelers preferred to book directly with suppliers, instead of within the managed travel system.</li>
<li>Even when traveling to places they considered unsafe, only <strong>31%</strong> of employees said they would book through their company’s program, rather than directly with a supplier.</li>
</ul>
<p>Without a way to capture this information, these companies have limited abilities to locate their employees on trips and then assist them in the event of an emergency.</p>
<p>To fix these safety challenges, an integrated system can help capture all travel data and help companies locate travelers when necessary. Using reports that automated the data merging process, 68% said they could do so in less than two hours.</p>
<p>Fulfilling your duty of care to every employee is paramount, and companies with travel and expense systems that are automatically integrated with risk management are able to locate and contact employees more quickly. To learn more about these findings in the GBTA Foundation report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/webinar-travel-risk-and-value-integration-end-end-technology-solutions">watch this on-demand webinar</a> that discusses the advantages of having connected travel technology solutions in place that directly integrate with travel risk information.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Why T&E Matters: Risk And Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-te-matters-risk-and-compliance
2018-10-25T14:21:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre in financial services or any other regulated industry for that matter compliance comes with the territory The flow of new regulations is not slowing down and maintaining...
<p>If you’re in financial services (or any other regulated industry, for that matter), compliance comes with the territory. The flow of new regulations is not slowing down, and maintaining compliance can be a daily struggle.</p>
<p>Controlling costs and being compliant is, however, critical to the daily running of your organization. That means financial transparency, data integrity, and internal auditing.</p>
<p>It also means hours of crossing "T"s, dotting "I"s, and, according to Deloitte, facing “plenty of uncertainty around the impact of things like Open Banking and boosting cyber resilience.”</p>
<p>And, as you know, the downside for getting it wrong can be hefty fines and remedial actions demanded by regulators – hence the low tolerance for unethical behavior and actions causing reputational risk.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/report/field_pdf_image/11339-0.jpg?itok=EXKf2ITw" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Managing Risk and Compliance</h2>
<p>Learn effective strategies for financial firms managing travel and expense</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/effective-risk-and-compliance-strategies-financial-firms-managing-travel-and-expense">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Always more to watch out for</h2>
<p>And the regulatory landscape for managing expenses and spending is constantly shifting. You either need a team of people whose job it is to stay on top of the rules and restrictions, or you find a cloud-based solution that gives you full visibility into travel and expense (<a href="https://www.sap.com/products/financial-management/travel-expense-management.html" target="_blank">T&E</a>) budgets and spending and, as a result, financial control.</p>
<p>Things your solutions should do:</p>
<ul>
<li>Capture and connect all your travel and expense spend whether it’s booked through your booking tool, with your travel management company, directly with suppliers, or through virtually any other source.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Make compliance easier for everybody by giving employees simple, mobile tools that use automated controls to keep spending within policy.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Employ workflows that automatically adapt to changing policies, giving you real-time feedback and reports on out-of-policy spend without additional headcount.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Increase visibility into what spending is happening where, which makes it easier to reduce fraud.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Get a clear view of where employees are if there’s an emergency.</li>
</ul>
<h3> </h3>
<h2>Regulations of many shapes and sizes</h2>
<p>Staying compliant with your industry’s regulations is also an important factor. With complex approval and review processes, you need to be able to set spending thresholds that put you in control over who spends what where. And you need to establish policy protocols to ensure that information about attendees and attendee-type individuals that your organization has hosted is captured in compliance with requirements of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).</p>
<p>But it’s bigger than that. It’s about your people and, more specifically, your duty to protect them wherever business takes them. You need to be able to capture all of their itinerary data and triangulate it with global risk information and other specialized resources. This will enable you to locate, communicate with, and, if necessary, extricate every traveler in any emergency, no matter where or how they booked their trip.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cost savings through compliance</h2>
<p>The mere mention of VAT has most financial services providers rightly running for cover. It’s a tax you simply have to pay, but you also have the chance to reclaim some of it – which is a complete headache. And because it’s only a partial exemption, it can be viewed as small potatoes.</p>
<p>But VAT also a provides a perfect example of the importance of clearly seeing your spend: If your annual T&E spend is $5 million, and you can reclaim VAT on just 20% of that – that’s $200,000 you could put back in your budget.</p>
<p>This, of course, requires data. And data, of course, isn’t always easy to acquire. So how do you get it? By making it simple for employees to provide it.</p>
<p>Give them easy, mobile tools, and employees can simply snap a photo of a receipt and hit “send.” The expense gets read, automatically matched to the transaction, and uploaded to an expense report. With these types of tools, expense reports virtually write themselves, employees have more time focus on work, and you turn data into money.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>More control, less risk</h2>
<p>The more visibility you have into <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/financial-management/travel-expense-management.html" target="_blank">T&E</a>, the more control you have over everything. And when you have both, you have a lot less risk to worry about. You can manage every detail of your spend, automate your processes, protect your travelers, and get real-time data accuracy and insights – plus enterprise-class security solutions that protect against cyber attacks.</p>
<p>For more, reach out to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact" target="_blank">T&E experts</a> and check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-services-solution">solutions for financial services</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This originally appeared on the <a href="http://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2018/06/20/why-te-matters-risk-compliance-06177154" target="_blank">Digitalist </a>and is republished with permission.</p>
Andy Hirst
Your Risk of Risk Is on the Rise. See How Intelligence Can Keep It Under Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-risk-risk-rise-see-how-intelligence-can-keep-it-under-control
2019-02-04T15:06:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It used to be a lot harder to spend money With only a few options for booking travel or making business purchases employees tended to stay within corporate guidelines simply because...
<p>It used to be a lot harder to spend money. With only a few options for booking travel or making business purchases, employees tended to stay within corporate guidelines – simply because there were fewer alternatives around them.</p>
<p>These days, it’s a lot harder to control what’s being spent. Employees, contractors and anyone who needs to travel for work or buy something on behalf of the business has more options than ever – many of which are literally in the palm of their hand.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11252-0.jpg?itok=NrMrZVNf" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Enterprise Changing the Face of Business</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/intelligent-enterprise-changing-face-business">Download the white paper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In many organizations, the current system of cost containment can’t account for (or keep up with) how spending actually happens in today’s modern, mobile, continually evolving world. Nor can it contend with how employees want to buy and track their expenses.</p>
<p>And that can leave you and the rest of your leadership team chasing after travel, expenses, and invoices instead of controlling it all in the first place. There has to be a smarter way.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Well, what do you know? There is a smarter way: The Intelligent Enterprise.</h2>
<p>Every finance leader wants to keep spending under control, keep up with current technologies and, to be honest, keep the lights on. But doing so doesn’t require you to be “smarter” than your rivals. It requires your systems to use data better and be more intelligent.</p>
<p>Intelligent tools – such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and IoT – make this possible by giving you visibility, focus and agility in regard to spending.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Visibility</strong>: Connecting and collecting data that was previously siloed and using it to recognize unseen patterns.</li>
<li><strong>Focus</strong>: Seeing where spend is happening in time to do something about it.</li>
<li><strong>Agility</strong>: Responding faster to change and turning toward the best business outcomes.</li>
</ul>
<p>These emerging and amazing intelligent technologies put you in full control of spending. You’ll be able to track spending in key categories, spot higher-than-normal spending and capture out-of-policy behavior – freeing time to focus on other efforts, like steering the company.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You can’t control what you can’t see, and intelligent technologies give you the lens</h2>
<p>For a closer look at the capabilities of these technologies, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/intelligent-enterprise-changing-face-business">download The Intelligent Enterprise: Changing the Face of Business</a>, which outlines how to see and stay on top of spend.</p>
<p>In it, you will learn how putting intelligence to work can:</p>
<ol>
<li>Unify spending views.</li>
<li>Improve compliance.</li>
<li>Optimize the employee experience.</li>
<li>Provide flexible, scalable tools.</li>
<li>Protect employees while traveling. </li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
December VAT Deadline for U.S. Companies: Are You Ready?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/december-vat-deadline-us-companies-are-you-ready
2018-12-07T09:14:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Did your employees travel to the UK and incur business related expenses between July and June Under the th VAT Directive the deadline for NonEU countries reclaiming VAT from travel...
<p>Did your employees travel to the UK and incur business related expenses between July 1, 2017 and June 20, 2018? </p>
<p>Under the 13th VAT Directive, the deadline for Non-EU countries reclaiming VAT from travel to the UK is December, 31 2018. There is no scope for late returns, so if you miss the deadline you lose your refund! </p>
<p>Check out this infographic from SAP Concur App Center partner <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce03">Taxback International</a> to see if you are due a VAT refund from the UK. </p>
<p>To learn more about VAT recovery, take a look at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/aeg-worldwide">the success AEG Worldwide experienced</a> by reclaiming VAT with SAP Concur and Taxback International.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1544202100552-taxback-international-december-deadline-infographic.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="https://concur.com/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1544202100552-taxback-international-december-deadline-infographic.jpg" /> </a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Managing Fraud and Compliance: 4 Steps to Increase Your Financial Service Organization’s Confidence
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managing-fraud-and-compliance-4-steps-increase-your-financial-service-organizations
2018-12-13T12:35:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a financial services company you know that internal policy and regulatory compliance is an integral part of every aspect of your business Organizations like banks and insurance...
<p>As a financial services company, you know that internal policy and regulatory compliance is an integral part of every aspect of your business. Organizations like banks and insurance companies are tightly regulated and highly scrutinized under laws like FCPA, FINRA, and SOX, so their travel and expense (T&E) systems need to increase policy compliance, prevent fraud, and ensure regulatory requirements are met. Failure to do so is simply too costly, therefore forcing organizations to spend their budget differently to prioritize the reduction of fraud and other risks. And while many organizations have technology and auditing processes in place, a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-fraud-and-compliance-financial-services">fraud and compliance survey</a> among financial services professionals found that many are still uncertain about their current procedures.</p>
<p>What can you do to better manage compliance so that you can regain confidence when fraudulent behavior arises?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Auditing isn’t fun, but it’s necessary</h2>
<p>With almost <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">20% of T&E expenses falling outside of policy</a>, it’s no surprise that monitoring and auditing expense reports should be made a top priority. Whether you use an internal team or external auditors, having auditing systems pays off. Modern T&E factors such as more travel choices, increasing payment options, and the shift to employee-initiated spend are making it harder to detect fraud and enforce compliance. The <a href="https://www.acfe.com/rttn2016/about/executive-summary.aspx">Association of Fraud Examiners (ACFE)</a> found that companies with anti-fraud controls in place experienced 52% lower instances of fraud, while 58% of companies detected fraud much faster.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Stopping fraud starts with the right approach</h2>
<p>Catching fraud isn’t one-size-fits-all. A multi-facet approach is necessary to spot fraudulent activity. Determine if your procedure can withstand fraudulent behaviors by checking which actions your organization uses to manage your shield of defense:</p>
<ul>
<li>Require receipts for most, if not all, expenses</li>
<li>Require approval of expense reports before reimbursement</li>
<li>Have audit rules integrated into spend technology</li>
<li>Use reports to help spot problems</li>
</ul>
<p>If you checked all of the items above, then you’re on your way to fighting fraud with the right approach. Survey respondents found a combination of technology, policy, and managerial approvals is the most successful way to manage employee expenses and compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Compliance extends beyond employee expenses</h2>
<p>It’s always important for employees to follow the rules and comply with your organization’s internal expense policies, but not adhering to industry regulations can come with bigger fines and even larger reputational losses. Just this month, FINRA barred a former Merrill Lynch broker for falsifying receipts to qualify for $4,910 in reimbursement for childcare expenses.</p>
<p>When asking financial services respondents if they felt their company could be <strong>potentially at risk for global regulations and compliance,</strong> <strong>43% answered “Yes” or “Not sure.”</strong></p>
<p>Are you unsure that your organization’s solution for employee spend management has the ability to help safeguard you from violations in the event of a government audit? If so, it’s time to start acting as fines are detrimental for those who aren’t compliant. For example, a company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/foreign-corrupt-practices-act.shtml">violating FCPA standards</a> can face can run up to $100,000 in criminal fines per violation and up to 5 years in prison time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. It’s time to move away from your manual processes</h2>
<p>Automation and cloud technology are no longer out of reach, however, 41% of respondents reported that they still spend about 50 hours or more per month auditing expense reports. That’s 50 more hours per month that could be used for more strategic business initiatives.</p>
<p>With automation and artificial intelligence (AI) on your side as part of an integrated employee spend management solution, your organization could:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduce expense report errors by up to 66%</li>
<li>Shorten auditing time by as much as 90%</li>
<li>Thoroughly audit 100% of expense reports</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>For more information on managing compliance and fraud visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">compliance and fraud solutions</a> website. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
User Interface Enhancements Coming to Concur Invoice April 13
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/user-interface-enhancements-coming-concur-invoice-april-13
2020-10-30T15:50:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
After an extensive early adopter program with more than clients SAP Concur pushed a few user experience enhancements live in Concur Invoice on April April release Additionally to...
<p>After an extensive early adopter program with more than 40 clients, SAP Concur pushed a few user experience enhancements live in Concur Invoice on <strong>April 13, 2019 (April release)</strong>. Additionally, to date, more than 200 clients have flipped the new user interface (UI) on and have started to familiarize themselves with the new layout. If you are currently using Concur Invoice, you can toggle the enhancements on in your Invoice preferences, which we highly recommend doing. More on how to do this in a bit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s great that I now have the ability to monitor all my work from one centralized location.</p>
<p>- Early adopter, AP User</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The updated user interface is targeted at the accounts payable user who is constantly monitoring the health of the invoice lifecycle. With a new accounts payable landing page called Invoice Manager, to-do tasks are being brought to the forefront to improve visibility and ensure invoices are progressing through the workflow.</p>
<p>Before we dive into what some of the changes look like, it’s important to note that for those of you using Concur Expense and Concur Invoice, the changes we are discussing in this post only impact Concur Invoice customers. You can learn more about the NextGen Concur Expense UI <a href="http://assets.concur.com/concurtraining/cte/en-us/FAQ_NextGen_Expense_User_Interface.pdf">here</a>, and by watching the video below.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s different?</h2>
<ul>
<li>New Invoice Manager landing page with links to important daily tasks </li>
<li>Modernized Unassigned Invoices screen, which is accessible from the new landing page</li>
<li>Modernized My Invoices screen, previously My Requests screen</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>New invoice manager landing page</h2>
<p>In the new user interface, when the AP user navigates to the invoice tab, the new Invoice Manager page opens in place of the Manage Requests page. This new page contains links to important tasks the AP user needs to perform daily, such as assign and submit invoices. This important information can be seen in the cards that run horizontally across the screen.</p>
<p>The goal of the Active Invoices section is to raise awareness of invoices that are "aging" more than expected, and therefore may need attention. A new alert has been added to help users gain visibility into the age of an invoice. The administrator will see an Edit Company Dashboard button in the top right corner of the page where they can make modify thresholds. The My Tasks section is intended to provide AP users access points to their daily tasks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551893968355-image.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Modernized unassigned invoices screen</h2>
<p>We have made the unassigned invoices screen easier to navigate. The Unassigned Invoices screen will replace the All Unassigned Requests screen. Users will see an enhanced design of the search functionality and the actions menu now uses buttons for each action and images are more easily accessible in their own Image column.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551894008984-image.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Modernized my invoices screen</h2>
<p>The My Invoices screen will replace the My Request screen. This page is accessible from the Invoice Manager page. You will notice that we now display action items as blue buttons under the search bar and similar to the unassigned screen, images are more accessible under the image column.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551894134403-image.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>We are also changing the Payment Request terminology in the product to Invoice. For example, Request ID will now become Invoice ID, Payment Request will become Invoice, Request Name will become Invoice Name and Payment Request Type will become Policy. These changes will not impact any reports or custom labels.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to activate the updated user interface in Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Concur Invoice users who currently have access to the My Requests page can enable the updated user interface in their Invoice Preferences. It’s important to note that each user will need to login to the product and toggle it on. You can toggle it off at any time up until April 13, 2019 when these changes will be made live for all Concur Invoice users.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Click Profile > Profile Settings > Invoice Preferences. The Invoice Preferences page appears.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In the Next Generation Invoice User Experience section, select (enable) the Activate option.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>If you have questions, please contact your SAP Concur representative. For more about the NextGen Concur Expense UI, watch this video: </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
We're Joining the Intelligent Spend Management Conversation at SAP Ariba Live!
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/were-joining-intelligent-spend-management-conversation-sap-ariba-live
2019-04-01T09:48:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you are reading this its a safe bet you know how important it is to manage the employee spending generated by travel expenses and invoices But in speaking to customers at our recent...
<p>If you are reading this, it’s a safe bet you know how important it is to manage the employee spending generated by travel, expenses, and invoices. But in speaking to customers at our recent SAP Concur Fusion event, many of you told us procurement, supply chain, and external labor management are also a big part of your world. As SAP Ariba Live kicks off today, we’re excited to be joining our partners in spend management to talk about SAP’s approach to tackling these problems.</p>
<p>A common refrain we heard from customers was excitement about their organization’s growth, which is often coupled with frustration for the effort and time it took to show their contribution to that success. But, with growth had come complexity, and increased challenges to bringing together complete, timely spending data across categories. This limited their visibility and slowed their decision making when in fact they needed to gain broader insights into their spending and be more agile to address market dynamics.</p>
<p>Lack of visibility is also impactful at the project level, as shared by another customer. They talked about how excited people in his organization would get about their projects. They were passionate about their mission and would become totally engrossed in the events they were planning – so much so that they didn’t realize they had run out of budget until they had to come back and ask for more money (sound familiar?). </p>
<p>This created two challenge for the finance leader, first, how to find the funds to bring the current project over the line, but much more importantly, how can they control spending as it happens, so they head off the problem next time, and then be able to fund twice the number of projects.</p>
<p>At SAP Ariba Live, Concur and Ariba are talking about Intelligent Spend Management, SAP’s approach to helping our customers navigate these challenges. With best-of-breed solutions in travel, expense, and invoice management, as well as direct and indirect procurement, services, and contingent workforce solutions, SAP is uniquely able to capture all spending data, across all categories, and bring that data into one unified view of your spending.</p>
<p>If you are not at SAP Ariba live, you can still learn more about our vision for <a href="http://www.sap.com/intelligentspend" target="_blank">Intelligent Spend Management</a>. And stay tuned for more about what we’ve heard from you and your peers at these amazing events!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to learn more? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/intelligent-spend-management-tackling-the-complexities-of-modern-spend-management">Download the whitepaper</a> to start tackling the complexities of modern spend management.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Be Ready for Brexit, Whatever the Outcome
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/be-ready-brexit-whatever-outcome
2019-05-30T09:52:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The news is full of big companies discussing preparing for Brexit But what about the of businesses in the UK that are small and mediumsized What preparations should they be making...
<p data-id="37616dd2-923e-4d03-9604-fc56400eaabe">The news is full of big companies discussing preparing for Brexit. But what about the <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06152/SN06152.pdf" target="_blank">99% of businesses</a> in the UK that are small and medium-sized? What preparations should they be making?</p>
<p data-id="d11ee062-2078-44ec-8738-0a25b90a80b6">If you trade with any EU countries or travel to the EU on business, your travel, expense and invoice processes may need to change after Brexit, whether it happens on October 31, 2019, before, or after!</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/vat-pictogram.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Brexit and Your VAT Obligations</h2>
<p>Watch our on-demand webinar with Taxback International to learn more about Brexit's impact on VAT and your business.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.co.uk/event/webinar/your-vat-obligations-will-change-after-deadline" target="_blank">Watch the webinar</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="7f33c1fc-1bc1-4b58-871b-cb0fc48ed290">And while we don’t have specifics yet, it makes sense to be sure you have your house in order so you’re better equipped to deal with the changes more quickly when they do come. Are your processes robust? Do you capture all the data you need to? Do you make the most of what automation has to offer? At SAP Concur we are keeping a close eye on what’s happening so we’re able to respond and advise clients when changes do come into effect.</p>
<p data-id="928f9610-a40a-4a40-a18e-cb12ff4628b8">So, what things should you be looking at in particular? Here are some pointers that are likely to impact the way travel, expenses, and invoices are managed.</p>
<p data-id="928f9610-a40a-4a40-a18e-cb12ff4628b8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="079af2a5-0564-4dd6-b0e9-687e185a7522">Changes to business travel post-Brexit</h2>
<p data-id="4bf5fad1-6bf7-4d28-bdfc-810f326f1fc3">The first thing to consider is how frequently your employees travel to the EU on business and what percentage of these trips can be considered business-critical. This will help you assess the impact it’s likely to have.</p>
<p data-id="2c5f71f1-7e8a-49eb-b0fe-53d3cdd80b17">Update your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policies</a> and procedures around traveling to the EU. Who will be responsible for checking permissions and applying for any paperwork? You might assign this to someone in the company or you could consider working with a travel or immigration service provider. Also consider how technology could make the process easier and avoid any trips falling through the gaps.</p>
<p data-id="360f8cd7-9b4b-4102-8cf4-d27a5c7ad94d">To stay up-to-date on developments and announcements around traveling to the EU, keep an eye on sources such as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice" target="_blank">UK government foreign travel advice</a> and <a href="https://europa.eu/newsroom/press-releases/last-seven-days_en" target="_blank">European Commission press releases</a>.</p>
<p data-id="360f8cd7-9b4b-4102-8cf4-d27a5c7ad94d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="0537d6ad-9707-4bb6-ba92-5f506292d45e">Changes to expenses post-Brexit</h2>
<p data-id="6bdbb8d2-2b1a-4036-b471-bccf7d109156">The drop in the value of the pound means that travel overseas will become more expensive, so it’s more important than ever to keep an eye on costs.</p>
<p data-id="5906494f-d85e-4043-ba8a-e0a0c91910de">Think about how expenses on foreign trips are handled and look at the options.</p>
<p data-id="7e9fd5b9-485f-45b2-9b41-9d1a97dbc67d">Consider prepaid travel or currency cards, which you load with currency before you go and use in the same way as a debit card. You can sometimes lock in an exchange rate before you go, so you don’t need to worry about currency fluctuations. And the fact the cards are pre-loaded means you can keep tight control over costs.</p>
<p data-id="189aaa65-abbf-421d-b9a8-7681b51db4e5">If employees carry cash, exchange currency before they travel when rates are at their most favorable. Don’t wait until they’re at the airport or in their destination country where rates will be much less favorable.</p>
<p data-id="cce250b2-eaad-425d-ab6d-5d64bb5564f1">And if employees submit expenses when they return from travel, bear in mind the trip may have hurt their wallet more than before. Automated systems such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> make it easier for employees to submit returns and quicker for companies to process them.</p>
<p data-id="cce250b2-eaad-425d-ab6d-5d64bb5564f1"> </p>
<h2 data-id="d0bebdfa-8aed-43cc-bcc0-2777db421fd8">Changes to VAT processes post-Brexit</h2>
<p data-id="c85214fc-74b5-4628-bd64-96995ddbaa4c">If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, you will no longer be able to use the EU VAT refund electronic system to reclaim VAT from EU member states. Instead, you will need to deal with countries individually and use paper forms for each country.</p>
<p data-id="f9294be2-9e33-4b53-beee-79820130d997">If you don’t keep paper-based records at the moment, it is sensible to start keeping them on relevant purchases until we know what is going to happen. Also, consider how much more time reclaims are likely to take and assess workloads accordingly.</p>
<p data-id="400543e0-d24d-457e-b455-fbb7db977cbe"><strong>For more on this, see <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/meridian" target="_blank">Preparing for Brexit with SAP Concur and Meridian</a>. </strong>And, for more on automating VAT reclaim, read our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/innovating-vat-reclaim-through-automation-taxback-international">blog with Taxback International</a>. </p>
<p data-id="400543e0-d24d-457e-b455-fbb7db977cbe"> </p>
<h2 data-id="19291270-0ca3-42a6-b2d8-fc0e6c32a18c">Planning for the future</h2>
<p data-id="ce180be9-fe9c-4a3b-9e15-cfebce25cdc9">By auditing your processes and procedures now, you’ll be quicker off the mark when changes do need to be made. And remember, when you have automated systems such as Concur Expense and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> in place, a lot of the hard work will be done for you.</p>
<p data-id="35c82205-564f-42e1-a5da-33e85a8ca02b">For the latest updates and advice for businesses, visit <a href="https://www.gov.uk/business-uk-leaving-eu">www.gov.uk/business-uk-leaving-eu</a> or stay tuned for updates on the SAP Concur Newsroom. </p>
<p data-id="35c82205-564f-42e1-a5da-33e85a8ca02b"> </p>
<p data-id="e39298ba-0b80-423a-b30d-49d6a6aeba46">To learn more, watch our <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/event/webinar/your-vat-obligations-will-change-after-deadline" target="_blank">on-demand webinar</a> for everything you need to know about VAT and Brexit. </p>
Gant Travel Gains Insight into Invisible Bookings to Better Support Business Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/gant-travel-gains-insight-invisible-bookings-better-support-business-travelers
2019-09-23T13:51:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From booking a trip to filing an expense report Gant Travel a travel management company TMC has been committed to providing travelers with a simple endtoend travel experience for...
<p>From booking a trip to filing an expense report, Gant Travel — a travel management company (TMC) — has been committed to providing travelers with a simple end-to-end travel experience for over 80 years. Providing travelers with the ideal trip, coupled with their commitment to innovation; Gant continues to raise the customer service bar by leveraging technology.</p>
<p>“It’s not about going rogue or letting people do whatever they want,” explains Patrick Linnihan, President and CEO of Gant Travel Management. “It’s about knowing where people are, being able to support them when they need help, and also being able to capture spend.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Gant Travel Management Case Study</h2>
<p>Discover how Gant Travel Management switched to SAP Concur Solutions to better support their business travelers. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/gant-travel-management">Read it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>5 benefits to capturing invisible spend data </h2>
<p>Historically, Gant employees had to manage multiple travel and expense tools that were not integrated. Coupled with the fact that supplier-direct bookings are now commonplace for business travelers, this made it difficult to accurately capture and track invisible spend data for their customers.</p>
<p>By implementing SAP Concur solutions, Gant serves their customers with a complete travel and expense platform for a more streamlined process for travelers. Simplifying business travel within one travel ecosystem benefits Gant customers in the following ways:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Customization.</strong> TMCs strive to tailor travel programs to customers’ unique needs. With SAP Concur solutions including Concur® Travel and Concur® Expense, Gant can customize traveler preferences in a meaningful way. Linnihan explains, “To think that you’re going to nail a one-size-fits-all travel policy for every single traveler in a company is naïve.”</li>
<li><strong>Visibility.</strong> Gant uses Concur® TripLink to track open bookings and invisible spend to gain visibility into all travel data, including supplier-direct bookings, to make strategic decisions around travel programs, and in negotiating new partnerships and discounts.</li>
<li><strong>Duty of care.</strong> Linnihan says that TripLink does not enable travelers to go rogue. Instead, the tool gives Gant visibility into where all travelers are, no matter how and where they book travel, to support them and fulfill duty of care obligations.</li>
<li><strong>Ease of use.</strong> Gant aims to provide travelers with a seamless journey with tools that make the travel process effortless from beginning to end. Gant is able to provide travelers with an idea trip with a simplified, streamlined process all within one, integrated travel platform.</li>
<li><strong>Innovation.</strong> Gant continues to drive innovation in the travel space with unique programs and functionalities — including Airbnb for Work through Concur Travel, automation of travel transactions with Concur Compleat, and an enhanced virtual card program called Gant Strategic PayTM that leverages data from SAP Concur solutions that follow into Gant systems.</li>
</ol>
<p>Gant’s customers want travel data insights for tracking spend, to fulfill duty of care, and negotiate rates and business travelers want an effortless process with self-service tools that help them be compliant. With SAP Concur solutions, Gant can serve their customers and make their wants a reality.</p>
<p>Download the full <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/gant-travel-management">Gant Travel Management case study</a> to learn more about the benefits of partnering with SAP Concur.</p>
How Healthy Is Your Travel Program?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-healthy-your-travel-program
2019-10-21T11:12:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Corporate travel is so much more than getting your people from point A to point B It enables the personal connections with customers and between teams that help shape and grow your...
<p>Corporate travel is so much more than getting your people from point A to point B. It enables the personal connections with customers and between teams that help shape and grow your business. Being on the road can be taxing for employees, so making the experience as convenient, comfortable, and safe as possible is top of mind for travel managers. At the same time, finance leaders must keep a sharp eye on the bottom line – ensuring that every travel dollar is spent effectively and in accordance with company and regulatory policy.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Can your T&E system keep up with your travelers?</h2>
<p>Take our quick quiz to see where your tech stands and how you can improve.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">travel management processes</a> can impact everything from employee satisfaction to budgets, compliance, payroll, taxes, and traveler safety, it is critical that your company has a healthy travel program in place. This means ensuring you have full visibility into travel and expense management processes and data, as well as mechanisms for managing complex and changing internal policies and external regulatory requirements. It also means providing tools that travelers are sure to use to make their lives easier, so they can be more productive while on the go. And while your employees are traveling on your company’s behalf, it is critical that you stay on top of where they are at all times so you can ensure their safety in case of an emergency.</p>
<p>But, with so many factors to consider, it can be hard to know if you’re getting the most out of your current travel program.</p>
<p>Luckily, SAP Concur is here to help.</p>
<p>Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in/questions">online travel program assessment</a> to find out if you are equipped to protect your people, your business, and your bottom line when it comes to corporate travel.</p>
<p>The assessment begins by evaluating your ability to leverage your data related to travel programs and costs. For example, are you able to capture data from bookings made outside your corporate booking tool? And is all your travel spend data integrated with your expense management system?</p>
<p>Next, we will look at your travel processes, which are naturally complex – covering many steps and types of purchases. Do you have the integration you need to ensure visibility into the entire process and all your spending? And is this information accessible to finance and budget managers, so they can use it to effectively manage and direct spending to top priorities?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">Compliance</a> is also a critical component at the foundation of your travel program. Do you have systems in place that are capable of addressing complex and changing internal policies and external regulatory requirements – often across multiple regions and countries? And are you able to evaluate your travel and expense data to ensure that you are paying all required taxes – and reclaiming all refunds – again, on a global scale?</p>
<p>Finally, are your people happy with the travel experience your program delivers? This often depends on your ability to provide them with user-friendly, consumer-grade apps that make travel and expense management simple and hassle free. It’s also important that they not feel locked in to certain travel and hospitality brands just to stay compliant with corporate policy. And, although they may not recognize it on every trip, should they ever find themselves in a dangerous situation while traveling for work, your ability as a company to help them out and keep them safe will play a major role in how they view you as an employer.</p>
<p>If your travel program is on track, we’ll help you keep it there with information on what to look out for in the future. If your foundation is solid with room for work, we’ll provide tips on how to get more value out of your travel program. And, if you find out you have critical gaps that could be putting your company and your people at risk, we’ll get you the information you need to start running a tighter ship.</p>
<p><strong>Don’t delay. Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in/questions">online travel assessment</a> today to find out how you can build a truly robust and healthy travel management program.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
How Travel Managers Can Adapt to Global Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-managers-can-adapt-global-growth
2020-01-28T09:57:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For as long as Ive been in the travel industry corporate travel managers have been focused on a set of longestablished best practices designed to command and control the ways employees...
<p>For as long as I’ve been in the travel industry, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">corporate travel managers</a> have been focused on a set of long-established best practices designed to command and control the ways employees purchase travel, often putting employee needs and wants secondary. </p>
<p>In recent years, however, there’s been a revolution in the travel industry. Instead of command and control, travel managers are now focused on enlightenment and empowerment as they react to changing employee expectations, emerging technologies, and the rise of global mobility. Never before have employees demanded so much control over their own business travel.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Concur and GBTA Survey: The Evolution of Corporate Travel Content</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>As a result, travel managers must evolve to become enablers rather than blockers. To do so, today’s travel managers should prioritize these five initiatives:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Data and analytics</strong>: While travel spend is a significant line item for many enterprises, travel managers have traditionally struggled to identify and overcome invisible spend. With some <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">37% of hotel reservations and 15% of air bookings</a> made by employees outside of corporate channels, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-invisible-bookings-impact-travel-program">supplier-direct bookings</a> can not only increase costs but may also keep travel managers from optimizing their programs to meet employee needs. Before travel managers can improve the company’s program, they need to understand how, where, and why their employees are traveling. That can be challenging enough for any business, but for a global enterprise, the challenge is compounded by disparate systems. A single integrated travel management platform can help global enterprises create the single source of truth needed to drive action.</li>
<li><strong>Evaluating new technology</strong>: Many travel managers are dealing with tech fatigue: It feels like there’s always another app, platform, or service to deal with. And the tech fatigue is only beginning; once 5G becomes common in the next few years, bandwidth speeds will be 10 to 20 times faster than they are now, unleashing a new wave of innovation in terms of AI-powered apps, augmented reality, Internet of Things, and other technologies. It will be impossible for travel managers to keep up with the pace of innovation on their own. Instead, they’ll need to closely collaborate with their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/IT-leader">IT management teams</a> to implement a technology platform that can both incorporate the enterprise’s legacy systems and be flexible enough to add new service providers as they come online.</li>
<li><strong>Traveler safety</strong>: In a world of global mobility and connectivity, there’s an increasing moral and legal responsibility for corporations to help their employees travel safely in an unsafe world. While it’s just one part of a company’s overall <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/steps-achieving-effective-travel-risk-management-program">risk management strategy</a>, duty of care simply can’t be ignored. From natural disasters and disease outbreaks to terrorism and political unrest, it’s not a matter of if something is going to happen when your employees are traveling, but more a matter of where, when, and at what magnitude the incident will be. Travel managers must lead the charge when it comes to traveler safety to protect both employees from harm and the company from risk.</li>
<li><strong>Employee satisfaction</strong>: Compared to past generations, today’s employees aren’t afraid to switch jobs multiple times in their careers. Businesses must evaluate every aspect of the employee experience if they want to compete for and keep key talent. For employees who are road warriors, the travel program is going to have an outsized impact. A program that’s clunky to use or doesn’t provide localized help and options to make travel easier, wherever employees may be, is going to drive employees away. Travel managers must work to build programs that are “consumer-friendly” by making it easy to book travel, providing access to desired travel vendors and simplifying the expense process.</li>
<li><strong>Driving value</strong>: Travel managers have always been tasked with driving savings. However, today’s travel managers have the tools in place to not only cut costs but also to drive value. Too many times I’ve seen a travel manager save $200 on an airline ticket, only to force their travelers to waste $400 in billable time on a layover instead of flying non-stop. In addition, programs like VAT reclaim can help employees avoid paying unnecessary taxes on income earned while traveling for work. There are far more ways travel managers can drive ROI than just by negotiating supplier discounts.</li>
</ol>
<p>Too often, the only thing holding travel managers back from accomplishing these initiatives are themselves. Many travel managers still prescribe solutions instead of taking the time to understand employee needs globally. At the same time, they may lack support from senior management due to a poor understanding of the important role travel plays in a company's operations. </p>
<p>Instead, today’s travel managers need to prioritize being in alignment with both senior leadership and employees so that everyone agrees on the goals and expectations of the travel program. Put industry best practices aside for a moment, and, instead, work to build what’s best for your unique organization. Only then will you be able to standardize, simplify, automate, and scale your travel program in a way that will help it adapt to future growth, employee expectations, and new technology.<br />
</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management" target="_blank">Learn more</a> about how to transform your travel management program with the power of SAP Concur.</strong></p>
<div>
<div id="edn1">
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
Ralph Colunga
What’s Holding Your Business Back from Automating Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-holding-your-business-back-automating-travel-expense-and-invoice-management
2019-11-21T11:55:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Manual and spreadsheetdriven processes are costly and inefficient at any scale not just for big businesses In fact given the resource constraints of smalltomidsize businesses SMBs its...
<p>Manual and spreadsheet-driven processes are costly and inefficient at any scale, not just for big businesses. In fact, given the resource constraints of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), it’s likely that the inherent inefficiencies of manual processes have an even bigger impact on the efficiency and growth goals of smaller firms. Your SMB can’t just “throw more bodies” at a cumbersome task the way larger enterprises can because there may not <strong>be</strong> anyone else available to absorb more work – at least not without a serious impact on another business area.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Intelligent Automation for Travel, Expense, and Invoice for SMBs</h2>
<p>Learn how small and midsize businesses can boost efficiency and save resources with intelligent travel, expense, and invoice management automation. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/intelligent-automation-travel-expense-invoice">Download</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Take finance tasks that every growing business needs to deal with: travel, expense, and invoice management. Studies show that 26% use spreadsheets to manage their expenses.<a href="#_ftn1" title="">[1]</a> And 49% of small businesses continue to use <strong>handwritten records</strong> to track, manage, and analyze spend.<a href="#_ftn2" title="">[2]</a> It should come as no surprise, then, that:</p>
<ul>
<li>On average, accounting and finance staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices – more than five hours per accounting or finance employee per week<a href="#_ftn3" title="">[3]</a></li>
<li>50% of SMBs say that manual processes hinder visibility into cash flow, increasing the risk fraudulent or unqualified spending<a href="#_ftn4" title="">[4]</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>42% of SMBs report errors in reconciling invoices<a href="#_ftn5" title="">[5]</a></li>
<li>75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets<a href="#_ftn6" title="">[6]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In the era of cloud computing, where even the smallest business can affordably access targeted, world-class software geared for small and midsize businesses, why not automate travel, expense, and invoice management to improve process efficiency – and unlock greater spend visibility, focus, and control?</p>
<h2>What’s your answer?</h2>
<p>We often hear why SMBs haven’t automated, and the reasons typically fall into one of the following four categories:</p>
<p><strong>Category 1: “It’s just not a priority. We’re good with the status quo.” </strong><br />
These customers tend to put off investment in automation by saying things like, “Our people wear too many hats to focus on making a change.” “There’s already a backlog of IT projects.” “Our culture and leadership resist change.” Or, “We don't want to do too much too soon – before the business is ready.” But they probably don’t realize just how much the status quo is actually costing them, as noted above.</p>
<p><strong>Category 2:</strong> <strong>“I don’t believe we’ll actually realize monetary return on the investment.”</strong><br />
These customers tend to tell us, “Our manual processes are ‘free’ because we don’t pay for software.” And, “Our AP workload and travel volume aren’t big enough to deliver enough ROI to make it worth the investment.” But most likely, they haven’t looked at the data on ROI. For example, according to AMI-Partners, SMBs are achieving significant cost reductions with automated spending solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>US$30,000 – Average annual savings with automated travel and expense management solutions<a href="#_ftn7" title="">[7]</a></li>
<li>$20 – Average saved per expense report<a href="#_ftn8" title="">[8]</a></li>
<li>$34,000 – Average annual savings with automated invoicing solutions<a href="#_ftn9" title="">[9]</a></li>
<li>$11 – Average savings per invoice after implementing an invoicing solution<a href="#_ftn10" title="">[10]</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Category 3: “We’re already automated.”</strong><br />
These customers tell us that, “We’ve already implemented partial automation. It’s not ‘smart,’ but it’s enough for us.” Or they worry that, “Our people will struggle to fully adopt the features of a bigger, more powerful solution.” So, they get by with the status quo, when they could use automation to empower their people to do more with less. For example, accounting and finance teams see an average time savings of 15% after adopting travel and expense automation solutions, as well as time savings of 16%.<a href="#_ftn11" title="">[11]</a> These savings alone can potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.</p>
<p><strong>Category 4:</strong> <strong>“The change management required is just too much.”</strong><br />
These customers tell us that, “We’ll have to change too many internal processes at once.” Or, “It makes sense, but it will be too hard to communicate the process changes to our internal partners, even if they know it is the best option for the company.” In other cases, they are concerned that their people won’t like it, so they won’t adopt it. Or they fear that the new software won’t integrate with their ERP. But by choosing the right cloud solution, all of these concerns are mitigated. Look for solutions that can be deployed incrementally over time, are natively integrated with most ERP solutions (and with each other), and are easy to roll out and use. They should be complete with mobile apps that employees will love and intuitively be able to use, just like any other consumer software.</p>
<p>Do any of these statements ring true for your organization? It’s time to let go of the status quo and embrace the power of intelligent automation. For example, SAP Concur solutions automate and integrate travel and expense and vendor invoice processing from beginning to end, eliminating inefficient methods that take too much time, cost too much money, and keep you in the office – so you can keep things moving. With SAP Concur solutions, you’ll give everyone more time in their day, while preventing costly mistakes, fraud, and surprise expenses. You’ll get a clear, near-real-time view into what you’re spending, so you can proactively control it and improve planning, accruals, and cash flow. Our customers realize:</p>
<ul>
<li>$39,000 annual savings using the Concur Expense solution<a href="#_ftn12" title="">[12]</a></li>
<li>$39,000 annual savings using the Concur Invoice solution<a href="#_ftn13" title="">[13]</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Spend happens. Make it count. Learn more by downloading the latest paper from SAP Concur – “<strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/intelligent-automation-travel-expense-invoice" target="_blank">Letting Go of the Manual Process Status Quo: With Intelligent Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management Automation</a></strong>.”</p>
<div>
<hr />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a> “<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud" target="_blank">5 Great Reasons to Move Your Expenses to the Cloud</a>,” SAP SE, SAP SE, 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" title="">[2]</a> Joshua Sophy, “<a href="https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/04/manual-process.html" target="_blank">84 Percent of Small Businesses Rely on a Manual Process</a>,” Small Business Trends, April 4, 2017.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p><a href="#_ftnref3" title="">[3]</a> Christal Bemont, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/common-ap-practices-may-be-setting-smbs-up-for-financial-mistakes" target="_blank">Common AP Processes May Be Setting SMBs Up for Financial Mistakes</a>,” SAP Concur, April 5, 2017.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<p><a href="#_ftnref4" title="">[4]</a> “<a href="https://www.concur.fi/resources/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend" target="_blank">Connecting the Dots on Travel, Expense and Invoice Spend: How to Mitigate Risk with Centralised Spend Management</a>,” SAP Concur, 2018. </p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<p><a href="#_ftnref5" title="">[5]</a> Christal Bemont, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/common-ap-practices-may-be-setting-smbs-up-for-financial-mistakes" target="_blank">Common AP Processes May Be Setting SMBs Up for Financial Mistakes</a>,” SAP Concur, April 5, 2017.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<p><a href="#_ftnref6" title="">[6]</a> “<a href="https://www.concur.fi/resources/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend" target="_blank">Connecting the Dots on Travel, Expense and Invoice Spend: How to Mitigate Risk with Centralised Spend Management</a>,” SAP Concur, 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<p><a href="#_ftnref7" title="">[7]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<p><a href="#_ftnref8" title="">[8]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<p><a href="#_ftnref9" title="">[9]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<p><a href="#_ftnref10" title="">[10]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<p><a href="#_ftnref11" title="">[11]</a> “<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud" target="_blank">5 Great Reasons to Move Your Expenses to the Cloud</a>,” SAP SE, SAP Concur, 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<p><a href="#_ftnref12" title="">[12]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<p><a href="#_ftnref13" title="">[13]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, February 2018.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Manage Small Business Travel with SAP Concur Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manage-small-business-travel-sap-concur-solutions
2020-11-13T16:39:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With so many booking options available today tracking business travelers and their spend can be complicated and timeconsuming But it doesnt have to be Our integrated travel solutions...
<p>With so many booking options available today, tracking business travelers and their spend can be complicated and time-consuming.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t have to be. </p>
<p>Our integrated travel solutions provide a smooth, end-to-end travel and spend experience that saves time for your travelers, saves money for your company, and makes life easier for everyone. </p>
<p>No matter where your travelers book, our products, like the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a> and TripIt Pro, simplify today’s business trips. From booking a flight to making a hotel reservation, our apps enable your travelers to make travel decisions with tools they’ll enjoy using. They can track their loyalty programs for airlines, hotels, and rental cars, too. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Create your travel policy</h2>
<p>The hardest part of implementing a T&E policy is often knowing where to begin. Check out this handy guide.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Throughout their trip, we help them manage their entire itinerary every step of the way—including automated notifications for flight statuses and gate changes, and reminders to check-in and leave for the airport. </p>
<p>When they’re on the ground, travelers easily connect to our partner ecosystem of rideshare apps to get from point A to B, and so much more. </p>
<p>The best part? Because everything’s integrated behind-the-scenes, their trip receipts flow automatically into <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, enabling their expense reports to practically write themselves! </p>
<p>When it comes to business costs, we understand that travel and expense is at the top. With SAP Concur products, travel, expense and invoice are combined into a single unified solution, so your company can automate processes and capture employee spend in one place. That way, you can access integrated spend data, control costs, and deliver a better experience for your employees when they’re on the road. </p>
<p>Whether you need a lightly managed travel option (like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> or TripIt), or a fully managed travel program (such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/travel">Concur Travel</a> and a TMC), you’ll have the option to manage travel on your mobile device or on the web. SAP Concur solutions offer the best options for your business and your travelers.</p>
<p>To learn more, please <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The SAP Concur 2020 Innovation Awards: Celebrating How Customers Run Their Best
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-2020-innovation-awards-celebrating-how-customers-run-their-best
2021-07-16T10:19:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Celebrating our customers is the highlight of our annual customer event SAP Concur Fusion We showcase their achievements through the SAP Concur Innovation Awards which recognize...
<p>Celebrating our customers is the highlight of our annual customer event, <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a>. We showcase their achievements through the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award" target="_blank">SAP Concur Innovation Awards</a>, which recognize customers who embody digital innovation and purpose-driven business practices.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2020 SAP Concur Innovation Awards winners </h2>
<p>Aerospace pioneer Airbus is working toward a safer and better-connected world. It sees a future in which flying is powered by electricity and produces zero-emissions. <a href="https://www.airbus.com/us/en.html" target="_blank">Airbus Americas</a> turned to SAP Concur for a paperless T&E solution, with secure automation, that enforces legal and travel policy compliance. And they wanted a best-in-class user experience on mobile and desktop. They have saved $1 million in employee hours, over three years, and travel policy compliance shot up to 85 percent.</p>
<p>“Innovation in our market is key to leading the way,” explains Richard Masci, Head of Financial Systems at Airbus Americas. “SAP Concur is the cornerstone to enable innovation.” <strong>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/airbus-americas" target="_blank">Airbus Americas customer story video</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cisco.com/" target="_blank">Cisco Systems</a> is a worldwide leader in IT, networking, and cybersecurity solutions that enable transformational benefits for customers. They also treat their employees as customers because they recognize that their people are at the core of their innovations.</p>
<p>“Culture and employees are our competitive advantage.” shares Alexandra Lopez, Chief Procurement Officer at Cisco Systems. “We’re really encouraging diverse thought and perspectives throughout the innovation and delivery of our products.”</p>
<p>Cisco was able to deploy the Concur Travel and Expense solutions in over 88 countries in less than a year bringing significant transformation and operational improvement opportunities to life. Prior to implementation, Cisco suffered from poor user satisfaction and data quality, and it left a larger carbon footprint due to paper receipts. The ease of use of SAP Concur solutions has resulted in a significant increase in employee satisfaction with the tool among Cisco employees – Cisco reported an increase in employee satisfaction from 48 percent to 77 percent since going live in 2018. The organization also lacked visibility into supplier-direct bookings and saw inaccurate reporting of travel spending, which Concur TripLink helped solve. <strong>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/cisco-systems" target="_blank">Cisco Systems customer story video</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Amid global trends to diversify income from revenues, <a href="https://www.globe.com.ph/" target="_blank">Globe</a> sees itself as much more than a major provider of telecommunications services in the Philippines. “We are creators and enablers of the Filipino digital lifestyle,” shares Jessica Mari Zara, Manager at Globe. “We nurture businesses, empower individuals through quality products and services, and strengthen the country through strategic partnerships.”</p>
<p>Globe’s purpose-driven culture aims to help people and businesses flourish and prosper. It does this by maintaining its focus to create a “digital nation” and by proliferating its “Globe of Good” sustainability program throughout the country.</p>
<p>By utilizing SAP Concur solutions to solve its business challenges on travel and spend management, Globe can focus on the key pillars of its sustainability agenda: caring for people, the environment, and making a positive societal impact.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, Globe has visibility of the entire process of managing the organization’s expenses. This has greatly improved the experiences of its most important asset – its employees. Only four months after going live, Globe has achieved 100 percent adoption across the company.</p>
<p>Since SAP Concur solutions tie into partner platforms, it has opened opportunities for partnerships that further improve customer experiences. Also, by implementing SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass, Globe has an intelligent view of all spending across the organization. <strong>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/globe-telecom" target="_blank">Globe customer story video</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.paccar.com/" target="_blank">PACCAR</a> is a global leader in designing and manufacturing premium commercial vehicles – and in customer and financial services related to its principal business – delivered to more than 100 countries.</p>
<p>PACCAR employees frequently visit suppliers and manufacturing plants around the world. By deploying SAP Concur to enhance the employee T&E experience, the organization reduces costs, improves compliance, and mitigates risks so travelers can focus on moving the business forward. Prior to implementation, PACCAR had decentralized and inconsistent travel booking and expense reporting processes, which blocked visibility into spend data and frustrated employees. Today, with a single automated solution for travel bookings and expense management, PACCAR compares its T&E data with similar-size organizations to help inform its approach. They have identified $100K in potential annual savings, and reduced leakage of dollars. In addition, PACCAR created pop-up and inline messaging with SAP Concur tools that educate employees on travel policies, ensure compliance, and save money. “We have utilized the tool to promote our preferred suppliers and have been able to realize over $20,000 in savings with just one supplier,” explains Nari Narvani, Global Travel, Expense and Corporate Card manager at PACCAR. <strong>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/paccar" target="_blank">PACCAR customer story video</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>A global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology, <a href="https://www.vmware.com/" target="_blank">VMware</a> accelerates digital transformation for evolving IT environments. VMware helps organizations transform into digital businesses, deliver better experiences for both customers and employees, and unlock new possibilities that transform the world. In a world where products, operations and people impact the planet, VMware uses technology as a “force for good” through its sustainability, philanthropic, and diversity and inclusion programs. “Our mission is to deliver solutions to our business partners that transform, scale, or grow the business [through] process re-engineering and automation,” shares Reema Mukherjee, Director, Business Transformation and Automation. “SAP Concur helps us achieve our goals by allowing us to scale our organization and improve productivity as our employee population keeps growing. We are delivering quick, easy, and fully auditable T&E functionality to our employees.”</p>
<p>Prior to implementing SAP Concur solutions, VMware was using a competitor’s tool. The interface was challenging for end-users, and the entire process – from submission to payments – was cumbersome and error-prone. VMware finds SAP Concur solutions, on the other hand, intuitive and easy to use.</p>
<p>SAP Concur has had a huge impact on productivity, reducing the expense processing and payment workflow from up to 11 days to four or less. The company also had a 75 percent reduction in employee complaints, allowing its back office to redirect resources to more strategic initiatives. And like many global companies, VMware is constantly looking for additional efficiencies. They are using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to integrate with their SAP Concur solutions and reduce manual work even further. VMware also leverages both SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass solutions in the procure-to-pay space. “We are excited about the new Intelligent Spend Group, combining these cloud organizations and looking forward to the unified data platform,” says Mukherjee. “This visibility into spend, across the enterprise on a single platform, is very powerful.” <strong>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/vmware" target="_blank">VMware customer story video</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is incredibly satisfying to see how SAP Concur solutions have helped these great organizations – Airbus Americas, Cisco, Globe Telecom, PACCAR, and VMware – bring their purposes to life. We are incredibly grateful for the record number of customer submissions we received for the 2020 SAP Concur Innovation Awards, and we look forward to continuing to showcase our customers’ stories throughout 2020 and beyond.</p>
<p>Learn more about our annual customer event, <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/" target="_blank">SAP Concur Fusion</a>, and be sure to watch out for communications when we open up <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award" target="_blank">customer submissions</a> for the 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Awards.</p>
Christopher Juneau
Increase Efficiency and Comply with Government Regulations Through Automated Expense Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/increase-efficiency-and-comply-government-regulations-through-automated-expense
2020-08-18T16:28:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Anyone who works in Aerospace Defense and Government contracting ADG can tell you that in this business theres no room for inefficiency When your mission is to innovate quickly to...
<p>Anyone who works in Aerospace, Defense, and Government contracting (ADG) can tell you that, in this business, there’s no room for inefficiency. When your mission is to innovate quickly to serve government customers and safeguard the public, you simply can’t afford to have anything drag you down.</p>
<p>In a high-stakes and fast-paced industry like ADG, it’s also easy to lose sight of the smaller, day-to-day parts of your business. However, while back-office operations may seem far less important compared to your organization’s larger goals, inefficient and ineffective processes can take a toll on your people and your business overall.</p>
<p>Take for example expense management. Every business has costs and expense reporting built into its operations. Yet, no matter how cutting edge an organization may be, many still use manual, paper-based travel and expense processes that can frustrate employees, lead to costly mistakes and noncompliance, and expose their organization to a higher risk of fraud.</p>
<p>When government contracting is your business, expense management is even more challenging and important. In addition to the typical burdens of managing spend, you also must face the complexities of Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) audit requirements, government oversight, and miles of red tape that often come with the territory.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions provide a simple and mobile-friendly way to manage your travel and expense processes, as well as navigate the scrutiny unique to ADG organizations. By automating and integrating spend management, you can better control employee spend, give employees a quick and easy user experience, and create an efficient workflow that helps you hit every government auditing and compliance check.</p>
<p>You can also take advantage of our intelligence tools, reporting, and auditing experts who will help review expenses against internal policies, receipts, and external government requirements.</p>
<p>Having worked with Aerospace, Defense, and Government contractors of all sizes for more than 15 years, we understand the different challenges that defense contractors and government contracting organizations face. That’s why we have flexible offerings that allow our customers to create product packages that are specific to their business needs and support audit compliance.</p>
<p>Our base <strong>ADG </strong>solution set can help you meet government auditing requirements, while our enhanced <strong>ADG + Detect</strong> and <strong>ADG + Detect & Locate</strong> packages include tools that help you detect fraud, increase policy compliance, and support traveling employees in the event of an emergency.</p>
<p>To learn more about our solution sets, please <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/simplify-control-organizational-spend-for-aerospace-defense-government-contracting">download our brochure</a>.</p>
Roger Williams
5 Costs to Uncover to Get Business Under Control and Drive Up Savings
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-costs-uncover-get-business-under-control-and-drive-savings
2020-06-30T17:36:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As youre working to get business moving again what youve always done may not be whats best Even when it was business as usual were you completely confident in your ability to Maybe...
<p>As you’re working to get business moving again, what you’ve always done may not be what’s best. Even when it was “business as usual,” were you completely confident in your ability to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stay on top of travel and expense costs?</li>
<li>See every line item on every expense report?</li>
<li>Prevent mistakes, double-entries, mis-categorizations, or even fraud?</li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe controlling costs has always been a struggle. And yes, the struggle is currently more acute. But the good news is, control and compliance aren’t out of reach.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Don’t let disruption drive up costs</h2>
<p>Although core financial processes like travel and expense management won’t drive business forward, they certainly can hold you back. For instance, because employee-initiated spend is difficult to control and includes many fragmented channels, getting consolidated reports to departmental managers in a timely manner largely affects how an organization controls the impact of actual spend against budget. This is why it’s imperative to have a holistic grasp of your organization’s spend data – regardless of where it occurs – so you can use that data to maximize results.</p>
<p>While automating your travel and expense processes is a critical first step in increasing efficiency, it’s not the only thing you should be doing to gain control. Having complete visibility into spend is still essential for eliminating waste and gaining a competitive edge. When you integrate all employee spending, from p-cards to invoices, you can align your spending with strategic priorities to get control of it all. This allows your company to stay nimble in support of a strong financial statement and gain the ability to redirect dollars where your business needs them most.</p>
<p>Effective management of all spend that flows into your general ledger also requires a firm understanding of where, how, and who can spend your organization’s funds. Only then can you strategically align your spend policies to optimize resources, identify areas for value-added spend, and yield greater organizational gains.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>X marks the spend: The hunt to uncover hidden savings</h2>
<p>It’s time to start looking for ways to create leaner operations, while still getting control over costs. By utilizing SAP Concur solutions you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Capture and consolidate all travel, expense, and invoice spending data in one place, so you get the accurate, up-to-date information that you need.</li>
<li>Help budget managers accurately track what’s spent, what’s available, and what’s pending, so they can direct their resources to their top priorities-like managing your business.</li>
<li>Deliver real-time transparency to forecast costs, model the effect of budget changes, and understand the impact of incremental investments.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Not sure where to start? </strong><a href="http://view.ceros.com/g3-communications/concur-spend-map/p/1" target="_blank"><strong>Explore the interactive map</strong></a><strong> to uncover five costs you may be missing and unlock savings you can treasure.</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
Preventing and Detecting Fraud During Times of Economic Uncertainty
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-times-economic-uncertainty
2020-09-03T09:42:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As financial leaders know if you have employees you have fraud In fact according to the most recent global study on occupational fraud and abuse the typical organization loses of...
<p>As financial leaders know, if you have employees you have fraud. In fact, according to the most recent global study on occupational fraud and abuse, <strong>the typical organization loses 5% of annual revenue</strong> to white-collar crimes such as occupational fraud each year. From <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/" target="_blank">2018 to 2019</a>, that included:</p>
<ul>
<li>2,504 cases of fraud</li>
<li>125 countries</li>
<li>$1.5 million average loss per case</li>
<li>$3.6 billion total losses</li>
</ul>
<p>Those who have best-in-class travel and expense (T&E) programs know how to help their company combat and reduce overall fraud. But how much does fraud fluctuate when organizations, and the employees within it, are faced with economic uncertainty? Experts such as the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) admit it shoots up.</p>
<p>“Desperate people do desperate things,” said ACFE President James D. Ratley, CFE in a <a href="https://www.acfe.com/press-release.aspx?id=4294968559" target="_blank">recent press release</a>. “Loyal employees have bills to pay and families to feed. In a good economy, they would never think of committing fraud against their employers. But especially now, organizations must be vigilant during these turbulent times by ensuring proper fraud prevention procedures are in place.”</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/top-cfo-worries-controlling-costs-negative-impact-of-economic-downturn">whitepaper from Business Travel News (BTN)</a> also advises the same caution, concluding from within their study of 50 CFOs that organizations are more susceptible to fraud when faced with economic and disaster risks. So, what can your organization do to prepare? And where should you be looking to find areas susceptible to fraud? Here’s why fraud is in focus for the majority of financial executives.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Spend control has never mattered more</h2>
<p>While every organization must face the possibility of fraud and non-compliant spend, <a href="https://www.acfe.com/press-release.aspx?id=4294968559" target="_blank">a report from the ACFE</a> shows that fraud levels are expected to continue and rise. In fact, more than half (55.4%) of respondents stated that the level of fraud has already slightly or significantly increased in the previous 12 months compared to the level of fraud they investigated or observed in years prior. Why might this be?</p>
<p>Here’s how the ACFE’s latest findings on fraud breaks down:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly <strong>60%</strong> of in-house certified fraud examiners (CFE’s) reported that their companies <strong>had experienced layoffs</strong></li>
<li>Layoffs are affecting organizations’ <strong>internal control systems</strong></li>
<li>A lack of internal controls contributes to<strong> nearly one-third of fraud</strong></li>
<li>Among those who experienced layoffs, <strong>35%</strong> said their company <strong>had eliminated some controls</strong></li>
<li>The presence of anti-fraud controls is associated with<strong> lower fraud losses and quicker detection</strong></li>
<li><strong>Only 3.2%</strong> of those same respondents said their company <strong>had increased controls</strong></li>
<li><strong>48% of respondents</strong> indicated that <strong>embezzlement</strong> was on the rise</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn how to build an adaptable compliance program</h2>
<p>Savvy companies understand there is a commitment to having a well-versed compliance program, and that often includes viewing spend control as a continuously evolving process. By taking the proactive steps to implement automated, internal controls, businesses can supplement human oversight with detective technology to help identify the red flags of fraud. Only then can finance executives and audit teams begin finding the “needle” in the haystack to unravel broader schemes within the areas of travel and expense.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/4-steps-to-control-employee-spend-before-its-too-late">In part two of our fraud series</a>, learn how to build an adaptable compliance program,</strong><strong> including the four steps businesses should be taking to bring employee spend into focus.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
If You’re Ready to See Your Company’s Hidden Spend, You’re Ready for Managed Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-youre-ready-see-your-companys-hidden-spend-youre-ready-managed-travel
2020-08-24T11:46:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are you sitting downCompanies like yours small to midsize businesses trying to squeeze every ounce of savings out of their budgets waste millions of dollars each year on travel and...
<div>
<p>Are you sitting down?</p>
<p>Companies like yours – small to midsize businesses trying to squeeze every ounce of savings out of their budgets – waste millions of dollars each year on travel and expenses they can’t find a way to control.</p>
<p>They waste money on hidden spend (bookings they’re not able to see or control).</p>
<p>They waste time (which, as they say, is money) battling inconsistent ways to book trips, chasing down receipts, and manually entering charges on expense reports.</p>
<p>And they waste a lot of both dealing with errors and outright fraud on those reports.</p>
<p>But you know this already. You understand the value of having a connected, automated program that allows you to control spend without complexities; to simplify the travel experience so employees aren’t wasting time on paperwork; and to maybe – just maybe – make business travel both productive and enjoyable.</p>
<p>And no, you’re not asking too much. You just need to know what to look for when you’re looking at managed travel providers. Here’s a start:</p>
<p><strong>1. It’s all about integration</strong>: Look for technologies that allow you to integrate payments with expense reports, shortening the time and distance between when employees submit expenses and when they’re reimbursed.</p>
<p><strong>2. Welcome to the ecosystem:</strong> Look for solutions wrapped in an ecosystem. Travel and expense processes run best when they’re integrated with your ERP, accounts payable, HR, and CRM systems, so make sure your potential providers can make sure every part of the system works together.</p>
<p><strong>3. Security is more important than ever: </strong>If your solution provider doesn’t use the latest data security protocols and fraud-detection technologies, keep looking.</p>
<p><strong>4. Workflow automation is key</strong>: Choose a solution that imbeds intelligence within workflows for bookings, itineraries, and approvals. And make sure they have AI-driven processes to automate the repetitive tasks that bog your employees down.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When you sit down with prospective vendors, don’t let them off easy</h2>
<p>You want a program that lets employees book their trips their way – linking the brands they love to your system, so you can see what they’re spending and spot ways to save. You want a solution that shows you every booking detail and all itinerary data, so you know where travelers are and can help keep them safe. You want a provider who can give you control over all your travel and expense spend.</p>
<p>Again, you’re not asking too much. So when you’re talking to vendors be sure to ask the tough questions.</p>
<ol>
<li>Do you have experience with my type of product, service, and company size?</li>
<li>Can you show me a demo with my company’s “live” data, so I can see exactly how your solution will benefit me?</li>
<li>Can your system integrate with my company’s other systems?</li>
<li>How much training will my employees need to feel comfortable?</li>
<li>How frequent are product updates, and how do they happen?</li>
</ol>
<p>And this is just a start, because the last thing you want to do is put the wrong program in place. With the right automated travel and expense management solution up and running, companies like yours have saved an average of 122 hours a week and an average of $40,000 a year.</p>
</div>
<p>This is real money and real time. And you could probably use more of both.<strong> To find it (and the right travel and expense vendor), <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/choose-the-right-travel-expense-solution-for-your-small-midsize-business" target="_blank">take a look at this brief buyer’s guide</a>. </strong></p>
Neha Mehta
“Bring On the Innovation”: What Industry Leaders Say About the Resumption of Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bring-innovation-what-industry-leaders-say-about-resumption-travel
2021-03-01T15:32:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jim Lucier was formerly President of SAP Concur When I became president of SAP Concur in July the business travel sector was roaring generating well over a trillion dollars in annual...
<p>Jim Lucier was formerly President of SAP Concur</p>
<p>When I became president of SAP Concur in July 2019, the business travel sector was roaring, generating well over a trillion dollars in annual global economic activity. Just six months later, the coronavirus had thrown us all into a very different and difficult time during which the travel sector has been hit harder than most other industries. My leadership team and I quickly realized that we have a responsibility to do all we could to help our employees, customers, and partners – as well as the travel industry as a whole – navigate this new reality.</p>
<p>One of the many ways in which we have done that is by utilizing our convening power to provide opportunities for our fellow industry participants of all sizes to connect and learn from each other. We conceived of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> to facilitate the sharing of ideas to help bring back travel safely, responsibly, and sustainably at the appropriate time. And, as a part of one of the world’s leading technology companies, we are fortunate to have the resources to ensure that price was not a barrier to participation. We are thrilled that more than 2,000 people attended the event, which wrapped up last week and is now <a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Travel-Industry-Summit-Virtual-Post-Event.html">available on demand</a>.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1600701902886-ed.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Among the highlights for me were conversations about gaining travelers’ trust as they start to return to the road and take to the skies. “We took the opportunity to examine every aspect of the journey on Delta to make certain that customers feel that we're putting their health at the same level that we take their flight safety,” <a href="https://news.delta.com/bio-ed-bastian-chief-executive-officer">Ed Bastian</a>, chief executive officer of <a href="https://www.delta.com">Delta Air Lines</a>, told me in a virtual fireside chat. Those steps include electrostatically wiping down every single surface within each plane before each flight, keeping middle seats empty through at least the end of the year, requiring masks for both customers and employees, and HEPA filters that make the planes’ air cleaner than the air we typically breathe.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.marriott.com/marriott/aboutmarriott.mi">Marriott International</a> CEO <a href="https://news.marriott.com/leadership/arne-m-sorenson">Arne Sorenson</a> spoke about the collective need to earn the confidence of workers and travelers in order to get the economy moving. “We won't earn that confidence unless people feel like they can travel safely,” he explained. “Our view is that a traveler can control the level of interaction they have in a hotel quite a bit. They can simply get a key and go to their room if they want to be the most cautious. If they want to go sit at a restaurant, they're certainly permitted to do that, too, albeit at a greater distance than before.” Marriott has assembled a team of health experts to advise the company on new best practices and is using advanced technologies to shield the health of their guests like never before.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1600702013076-arne.jpg" /></p>
<p>SAP Concur President Jim Lucier (left) and Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Corporate travel managers, who play such an important role in business travel, also played a leadership role at our event, by providing both insights and inspiration. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-cuschieri-7821717/?originalSubdomain=uk">Mark Cuschieri</a>, executive director and global head of travel for <a href="https://www.ubs.com/us/en.html">UBS</a>, talked about the opportunity to reach a wider number of travelers within each travel manager’s organization, as there is now broad interest in how to travel safely. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorianstonie/">Dorian Stonie</a>, senior director of global travel for <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a>, pointed out that to engage that larger audience, online booking tools (OBTs) infused with more AI – and travel management companies – “are going to be more important than ever.”</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1600702112555-kim.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Many of the participating travel managers discussed using the COVID-19 pause to improve their programs, in order to be ready to offer a new level of service when travel resumes. "We've all been talking about, for such a long time, the end-to-end process from the time someone decides they want to take a trip until the time they've actually come back and have been reimbursed,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimkayehamer/">Kim Hamer</a>, <a href="https://www.visa.com/main.html">Visa</a>’s global sourcing director of travel, meetings and events (pictured above). She challenged participants “to think about what else we can do to improve that end-to-end experience. And bring on the technology. And bring on the innovation!”</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more!</p>
<p>My thanks go out to all of those who participated in the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. Your perspectives - from the small businesses that are so vital to our economy to the world’s biggest brands - contributed to the rich conversation and made for a unique event. Although we’re still dealing with the on-going challenges of COVID-19, we will get through this difficult time through collaboration, empathy and determination.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Travel-Industry-Summit-Virtual-Post-Event.html">On-demand summit videos</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-resources-aid-travel-during-covid-19?pid=social&cid=executive">SAP Concur Resources Aid Travel During COVID-19</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-we-believe-in-the-transformative-power-and-the-future-of-travel">Why we believe in the transformative power, and in the future, of travel</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Executives
How Higher Ed is Managing Invoices and Expenses in the New Normal
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-higher-ed-managing-invoices-and-expenses-new-normal
2020-11-23T16:49:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You remember those multiplechoice quizzes where A and C were both technically correct but one of them was more correct than the other This is like that but picking the best answer...
<p>You remember those multiple-choice quizzes, where A and C were both technically correct, but one of them was more correct than the other? This is like that, but picking the best answer could mean the difference between peaceful success and ongoing challenges for higher education finance departments struggling to see a way through the current work-from-home environment.</p>
<p>So it’s not simply a test for your higher ed institutions, it’s an honest assessment of the present and the future. But make no mistake: You are being tested. By unexpected expenses and new categories of spend. By an unprecedented volume of invoices and reimbursement requests. By traditional policies that don’t measure up to the unusual circumstances we now face. And by employees returning to an overwhelming volume of work.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>4 Ways Higher Ed AP Teams Can Manage More With Less</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-to-manage-spend-when-there-are-so-many-other-things-to-manage">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To pass these tests (notice we didn’t say “ace”), finance leaders will need:</p>
<ul>
<li>Best practices for decision-making in the current environment.</li>
<li>Instant data and insights.</li>
<li>Adaptable policies that simplify spending processes for faculty, staff, and vendors.</li>
<li>Smarter, better tools with which to forecast and plan for the future.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>If remote work was a pop quiz, transformation is your thesis</h2>
<p>Managing spending is difficult even in the best of times, but work-from-home obstacles, like preserving continuity of operations, timely payment of vendors, and overall financial discipline – not to mention the health and safety of employees – make it even harder.</p>
<p>Why is that, exactly? A <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/wakefield-higher-education-report">recent Wakefield Research survey</a> of 350 higher ed finance leaders sheds a little light on the subject:</p>
<ul>
<li>63% of finance and administrative departments lack a fully remote solution.</li>
<li>Only 16% of staff, on average, can continue to work remotely this fall without hurting department productivity.</li>
<li>49% are handling an increase in employee reimbursement requests.</li>
</ul>
<p>And every day on campuses across the country, AP teams are sending in shifts of people to do check runs or compile invoices, only to bring them home for manual processing. They’re driving invoices from house to house to get reviews and approvals. And in at least one case, a CFO was printing checks at home, so AP could pick them up, take them to the Post Office, buy stamps, and mail them.</p>
<p>This isn’t safe, it isn’t sensible, and it certainly isn’t how to deliver the sound financial controls colleges and universities need right now.</p>
<p>And there are far more issues out there. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/managing-spending-higher-educations-toughest-test-yet">Check out this infographic</a> to see the challenges higher education is facing now.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So what’s the answer – the best answer?</h2>
<p>Automation. Integration. Digitization. They’re fairly significant concepts, yet with the right tools, they’re relatively simple to put to work. And they simplify the process for AP while letting CFOs effectively control costs.</p>
<p>Better yet, they eliminate the need to drive from house to house to pick up checks and get approvals. They save you time while saving you money, and every payment, p-card charge, corporate card charge, cash payment, virtual payment – or any other type of payment – is automated and connected.</p>
<p>Every invoice and each expense report gets routed through simple, configurable, automatic workflows. And you get the critical data you need to see and manage what’s going out the door. Here's how automation ends traditional trouble spots:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Exception Handling:</strong> Drive down the data-entry errors of paper-based invoices; you’ll see fewer exceptions, and you’ll have the insight you need to deal with those that arise.</li>
<li><strong>New Spend Categories: </strong> When you suddenly have to buy something like PPE, you can quickly adapt to track the costs.</li>
<li><strong>Late Fees: </strong>Automated efficiency eliminates the roadblocks in your process that result in added fees.</li>
<li><strong>Audits:</strong> AI-driven auditing does the hard work for you, checking every expense report against your policies, so you can deliver more oversight in less time.</li>
<li><strong>Compliance:</strong> Real-time visibility allows you to take proactive control of how compliance polices are working and how grant, CARES, or rainy-day funding is being used.</li>
<li><strong>Forecasting: </strong>When you can see what’s spent, what’s pending, and what’s left in your budgets, you can accurately and instantly forecast (and reforecast) as funding sources shift. You’ll also know when budget shortfalls are coming, and you’ll have the insight to make the in-the-moment decisions – so spending goes where you need it most. </li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Back office efficiency is your assignment, and it’s due</h2>
<p>Investing in digital expense and invoice processes isn’t something you have to do, but as higher education institutions face a changing and challenging future, it is a critical way to get the adaptability to manage those changes – at lease from a financial perspective.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-to-manage-spend-when-there-are-so-many-other-things-to-manage">This quick eBook</a> is a smart place to start. It describes a much-needed solution that brings immediate value to your institution and equips you with both the efficiency and intelligence to manage your budgets for years to come.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Stay Resilient and Thrive with an Experienced Spend Management Partner
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/stay-resilient-and-thrive-experienced-spend-management-partner
2021-01-14T08:14:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
has been an exceptionally volatile year for business The COVID pandemic has shaken global economies in ways we have not seen for nearly a century Some businesses have prospered while...
<p>2020 has been an exceptionally volatile year for business.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken global economies in ways we have not seen for nearly a century. Some businesses have prospered while others struggle. Whatever your situation, keeping a close eye on costs and staying on top of cash flow have never been more important to long-term stability and success. In order to make quick decisions about how to mitigate challenges and maximize on opportunities, your finance and accounting teams need deep insight into every aspect of your company spend. And the only way to give it to them is by digitalizing the way you manage company spend.</p>
<p>Luckily, from travel to expense and vendor invoice management, SAP Concur solutions and services have got you covered.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>4 Reasons to Move Your Business Forward with SAP Concur Solutions</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/four-reasons-to-move-your-business-forward-with-sap-concur">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To pass these tests (notice we didn’t say “ace”), finance leaders will need:</p>
<ul>
<li>Best practices for decision-making in the current environment.</li>
<li>Instant data and insights.</li>
<li>Adaptable policies that simplify spending processes for faculty, staff, and vendors.</li>
<li>Smarter, better tools with which to forecast and plan for the future.</li>
</ul>
<p>If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that business success depends on being able to operate anytime, anywhere. With record numbers of employees working remotely, manual and error-prone paper-, e-mail, and spreadsheet-based processes no longer make the grade. With SAP Concur solutions, your company spend management processes are integrated, automated, and accessible on any device. No more saving paper receipts, typing in data from invoice documents, and following up with managers about approvals and reimbursements. Plus, with the ability to control user actions based on your internal policies, statutory regulations, and workflow requirements, you can quickly flag noncompliant spending, identify waste, and automatically guide users to make spending choices that are good for your business. </p>
<p>Even if you have partially automated the way your process and manage company spend, consolidating data that is still being gathered manually and integrating data from multiple systems is time consuming for finance teams and leaves blind spots in your overall spend visibility. Not only do SAP Concur solutions fully integrate with each other, they also integrate with more than 50 of the most-used ERP and accounting systems –empowering finance teams with the holistic spend insight and control they need to drive smart spend strategy. Not only can you run ad hoc analysis on spending data by category, vendor, team, or employee, you can use that information to plan, forecast, and reforecast as sales fluctuate and new opportunities arise. And, to keep things simple, more than 200 standardized reports are available to answer the most critical and common spending questions.</p>
<p>In addition to unifying and automating your spend management data and processes and providing detailed spend insight, SAP Concur solutions come with our deep commitment to customer success. Customers get 24/7 access to live support to resolve issues and our specialists are available to help ensure you are getting the most out of your SAP Concur investment. This includes providing industry-specific best practices and tips, advice for managing new regulatory requirements, integration support, and help with expanding solutions to accommodate global growth, mergers, and acquisitions. We are continually consulting with our more than 45,000 customers in 150+ countries to develop new features and product road maps. And, we welcome you to hear about it all and connect with our expert and customer community at the annual <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> event.</p>
<p>With 25 years of experience, SAP Concur solutions are a clear leader in the spend management technology market. In fact, a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">recent study by AMI Partners</a> shows significant time and cost savings with SAP Concur solutions when compared to similar offerings.</p>
<p>On average, when compared to our major competitors, SAP Concur solutions lead to:</p>
<ul>
<li>25% greater cost savings on travel and expense management (US$40,000 per year)</li>
<li>16% more time saved on travel and expense management (122 hours per week) </li>
<li>21% greater cost savings on invoice management ($42,000 per year)</li>
<li>35% more time saved on invoice management (148 hours per week)</li>
</ul>
<p>In a world where mandated lock-downs, new health regulations, supply-chain disruptions, and drastic spikes or drops in demand can suddenly impact your business, there has never been a better time to get control over your spend.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/four-reasons-to-move-your-business-forward-with-sap-concur">Read our latest paper</a> to learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can bring innovation, simplicity, and clarity to your travel, expense, and invoice management processes. Then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> to start preparing to conquer today’s business challenges and gain the financial insight you need to stay resilient and thrive – no matter what the future brings. </p>
<p> </p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How one Company Eliminated Manager Expense Approval
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-one-company-eliminated-manager-expense-approval
2021-02-12T10:04:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Smith Nephew a global medical devices company realized that eliminating manager approval of expenses would not be easy One of the biggest challenges of removing manager approval...
<p>Smith & Nephew, a global medical devices company, realized that eliminating manager approval of expenses would not be easy. “One of the biggest challenges of removing manager approval is…ensuring managers and people managers that expenses are being properly controlled and that we are keeping everything compliant,” says Jorge Monge, the travel and expense lead at Smith & Nephew.</p>
<p>Since moving to Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, Smith & Nephew has been able to not only completely remove the manager approval step, but also increase the accuracy of expense reporting. “Concur Detect has allowed us to radically change the business in a positive way. The fact that we have been able to, thanks to this advanced tool, remove manager approval for good has been quite a change,” shared Jorge. “That allowed us, not only internally but externally to position ourselves as a benchmark. That has really helped us drive the process in taking things to the next level.”</p>
<p>Smith & Nephew knew that successfully removing the need for a manager approval would require a top-down approach, ensuring they had buy-in from their key stakeholders, such as compliance, legal, and communications. Jorge states that they focused on emphasizing the benefits of efficiency and compliance, adding “In general terms, SAP Concur allows you to implement a more efficient, more accurate and more compliant system from normally what you expect to find in localized for specific markets.”</p>
<p>The move to AI technologies has improved Smith & Nephew’s internal processes, but also, according to Jorge, “has allowed us to be regarded not only as a tactical operation but mostly as a strategic business partner.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-0">Watch how Smith & Nephew increased spend accuracy here.</a> (Part 2)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-3-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew streamlined executive spend management decisions here.</a> (Part 3)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-1-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew struck a balance between employee experience and compliance here.</a> (Part 1)</p>
<p>Listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763" target="_blank" title="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank" title="https://www.amazon.com/sap-concur-conversations/dp/b08k59b79v/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank" title="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7h4gimkq5ftm1eb3znbyap">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/" target="_blank" title="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-fwtlxza-ixv/">Listen Notes</a>, <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank" title="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a">Acast</a>, or your favorite podcast player.</p>
Kiersten Conner
No One Loves a Good Audit
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/no-one-loves-good-audit
2021-04-07T09:16:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Even with all the change and challenges weve just gone through even with the absolute imperative that businesses must see manage and attempt to save every cent they can organizations...
<p>Even with all the change and challenges we’ve just gone through – even with the absolute imperative that businesses must see, manage, and attempt to save every cent they can – organizations are still loath to look at their audit processes. Sure, they’d like to review 100% of their expense reports to make sure they’re not riddled with mistakes or rife with fraud, but the very act of auditing is time-consuming and expensive.</p>
<p>Plus, audits might point out things you don’t want to think about. Like addressing your processes.</p>
<p>But what are the costs of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best? What do we risk as businesses if we ignore the real-world economics lesson of COVID-19 and let things slip back to pre-pandemic practices? What if we don’t check ourselves (or, at the very least, examine what our employees are spending)?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Ways Efficient Audits Can Help Fuel Growth for Digital Transformation</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-efficient-audits-can-help-fuel-growth-digital-transformation">Get the tip sheet</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, our first thought might be of the fines and fiascos we risk if we fall out of compliance. Or the costs we incur by not paying attention to human error or human greed, both of which show up on expense reports with relative frequency.</p>
<p>Some would argue, however, that the real costs of lapsing into status quo show up when we start to fall behind.</p>
<p>Businesses learned resiliency in 2020. It’s time now to learn reinvention. Rededication. Recommitment to re-evaluating how we get work done. We need to be willing to shed our systems of inefficient processes and commit to continuous improvement. Because if we don’t, we’re not going to be able to adapt to continuous change and challenge.</p>
<p>And there will be continuous change and challenge.</p>
<p>This again is reason enough to embed intelligent spending reviews throughout your processes. And it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of AP to stay on top of every audit – they have more important work to do, they don’t have the time to do anything extra, and they don’t want to ask their supervisor why she spent $3,200 on “office supplies” last week.</p>
<p>You, on the other hand, want to give them the help they need.</p>
<p>The solution is found in the combination of intelligent technology and expert review. (Remember, that’s just one part of the larger solution we’re talking about here: The Commitment to Continuous Improvement.) You still want people with eyes on the page – you just want to make sure they’re backed by artificial intelligence and machine learning tools which ensure that every critical charge from every expense report receives the right scrutiny.</p>
<p>It’s a two-part approach that can’t possibly be cost-effective, can it?</p>
<p>It can. According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-efficient-audits-can-help-fuel-growth-digital-transformation">this Audit tip sheet</a>, which offers five ways audits can help fuel growth – pointing out issues before they damage your bottom line or lead to non-compliance. There’s even a simple formula to help calculate what audits will cost your organization and what kind of ROI you’ll see when automating and outsourcing the process. </p>
<p>And while you might not love the idea of auditing everything, everyone loves making sure things are done right. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Are You Ready for Business Travel When it Picks Up?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-ready-business-travel-when-it-picks
2021-05-26T07:59:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its not a matter of if well return to business travel but when Returning to business travel is topofmind so its understandable that of business travelers feel worried and feel...
<p>It’s not a matter of <strong>if</strong> we’ll return to business travel, but <strong>when</strong>. Returning to business travel is top-of-mind, so it’s understandable that 39% of business travelers feel worried, and 32% feel excited, according to our 2020 <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Global Business Traveler Report</a>. </p>
<p>Many aspects of business travel have changed indefinitely. From ranging vaccination rates, to new entry regulations, and suppliers being able to meet demand, the real question is <strong>how</strong> will we return to travel and make it easy and safe for employees, while also balancing the uptick in spend?</p>
<p>For those in:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Finance business roles</strong>, it’s ensuring that updated policies and processes are in place to capture spend so they can forecast spend and keep the company financially healthy.</li>
<li><strong>Travel</strong>, it’s imperative to have a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">return-to-travel process</a> in place – not only to make it easier for travelers to get from point A to B, but also to maintain the traveler data effectively to help meet duty of care obligations.</li>
<li><strong>HR and IT</strong>, it’s important that employees can easily submit or approve travel and <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">work-from-home expenses</a> via mobile and easy to use tools.</li>
<li><strong>Procurement and managing suppliers</strong>, the availability and safety provisions will be top of mind while also negotiating costs.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to safely return to travel</h2>
<p>We’re here to help you prepare for when your organization starts returning to travel. With SAP Concur solutions, you can work with your travel team to create a more responsive, flexible program that improves compliance, reduces costs, and most importantly, ensures <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/health-safety-tools-from-trip-it-for-your-travel-kit">traveler safety</a>. Use our powerful apps, like TripIt Pro, to capture itinerary information, view <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/trip-it-pro-neighborhood-safety-scores">neighborhood safety scores</a>, and get up-to-date <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-in-trip-it">COVID-19 travel guidance</a>, so you can feel safe to hit the road again!</p>
<p>Watch the video below to see how easy it is to book travel while completing expense reports on the go, so that you can focus on the business objectives for your meeting rather than worrying about the travel safety of getting there.</p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
Kiersten Conner
Cardlay Plans Concur Expense Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cardlay-plans-concur-expense-integration
2021-06-30T12:21:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With businesses focused on a responsible return to business travel and the corporate payment landscape rapidly evolving finance teams are eager to modernize the travel and expense...
<p>With businesses focused on a responsible return to business travel and the corporate payment landscape rapidly evolving, finance teams are eager to modernize the travel and expense process by selecting integrated technology and payment solutions that provide a better end user experience and enhanced control over costs. SAP Concur has partnered with <a href="https://www.cardlay.com/" target="_blank">Cardlay</a>, a leading fintech company based in Denmark, which recently launched a payment cloud solution that integrates issuers, processors and technology providers to enable end-to-end virtual card creation and reconciliation.</p>
<p>Virtual payment and integrated solutions will drive the growth of commercial payments in the future, and the SAP Concur organization will be in the forefront of driving that payment innovation as a market leader. Our work with Cardlay will allow SAP Concur customers to leverage Cardlay’s technology to easily generate virtual cards for business expenses and integrate them with the SAP Concur platform. The combination will optimize spend control and further automates the expense reporting process.</p>
<p>Cardlay is a foundational partner supporting our agnostic “bring your own bank” strategy, which enables customers to select their preferred financial institution, while still getting the benefits of integrated virtual card management. This ensures customers can access the best corporate payment products the market has to offer, rather than being limited to a single, proprietary card program. Of equal importance, existing SAP Concur financial services partners will be able to increase adoption and shift card spend from an employee’s personal form of payment to a corporate virtual card program while integrating their corporate payment rails via Cardlay.</p>
<p>Additionally, with the Cardlay virtual card integration, companies using Concur Expense will:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gain pre-authorization and control of company spend before it happens</li>
<li>Leverage a mobile application that enables virtual cards for uncarded or infrequent travelers</li>
<li>Use virtual card spend controls and simplified approval workflows</li>
<li>Take advantage of automated integration and reconciliation of virtual card data in SAP Concur</li>
</ul>
<p>We are excited to work with Cardlay to bring the benefits of virtual cards to the travel and expense industry in a way that is accessible to multiple banking partners and customers worldwide. A phased launch is targeted for late 2021 in the UK market with global expansion expected in 2022.</p>
A.G. Lambert
What Does Sustainability Mean for Corporations? An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation Series with TCG (Part 1)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-sustainability-mean-corporations-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-series-tcg
2022-07-01T12:17:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we look for ways to increase corporate sustainability it can be difficult to know where to start Understanding key terms as well as what to measure empowers organizations to set...
<p>As we look for ways to increase <a href="https://www.concur.com/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">corporate sustainability</a>, it can be difficult to know where to start. Understanding key terms as well as what to measure empowers organizations to set science-based targets, and then to monitor and adjust.</p>
<p>We asked Ryan Hamilton, Senior Value Consultant for the Value Experience Group at the SAP Concur organization and Sally Crotty, Senior Consultant and Sustainability SME for our partner, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/tcg-consulting">TCG</a>, to share their expert perspective on what sustainability means for corporations. In the next episode, we’ll move into how to use this understanding to transform your organization’s sustainability measures and impact.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-does-sustainability-mean-for-corporations-sap/id1525744763?i=1000531525492">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5I8d62ySdUXUovvMI2DITU">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/what-does-sustainability-mean-for-corporations-an-sap-concur">Acast</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Hi, everyone. Welcome to the first in our two-part series on sustainability. My name is Ryan Hamilton. I'm a Senior Value Consultant with SAP Concur [solutions], and I'm joined by my colleague, Sally Crotty, with TCG Consulting. Sally, would you like to introduce yourself?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Thank you, Ryan. Hi, everybody. I'm Sally Crotty. I'm a Senior Consultant with TCG Consulting. I've been working in the business travel industry for over 30 years in a variety of senior roles, predominantly within travel management. However, I've also worked in the hotel industry, and I've also some experience with travel technology, online booking tools, and GDS systems. Earlier this year, I became the SME for sustainability for TCG Consulting, where we look at the impact on organizations from a number of sectors and the total cost of managing sustainability within a business.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Great. Thank you for the introduction, Sally. Like I mentioned, this is the first in a two-part series. Today, we're going to be talking about the high-level view of what sustainability is, what it means to corporations, and how we can view it from a plan moving forward as a business. So Sally, really excited to have you with us here to talk about the topic of sustainability today, which you have all sorts of expertise and that I'm excited to dive into. To start with, Sally, I would love... I guess if there's one thing that I think myself and a lot of folks are guilty of, it's thinking in too narrow of terms about sustainability. So to start with, why don't you talk about your perspective on the different types of sustainability?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yeah, sure. Okay. And thank you for inviting me to talk about this today. We have been talking about sustainability in business, in general, and within the travel industry for quite a long time now. However, sustainability, even though it's been on the agenda for many organizations, there's not been much of a focus, particularly in relation to business travel. So we're increasingly seeing sustainability goals included in company strategic imperatives today, in company values, and there's certainly more focus in this area since the start of the pandemic. So we're seeing much more activity, in relation to environmental, social, and governance goals, so your "ESG" goals. And sometimes, you may hear them refer to as "people, planet, and profit," and they seem to be keywords that we also hear on a regular basis. So it's not just an environmental focus on sustainability, but also, increased focus on social and economic sustainability.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>So we're probably going to spend most of the time today talking about environmental sustainability, but we'll touch back on economic and social sustainability throughout the conversation. So to frame that a little bit, can you talk about what "social sustainability" means to an organization?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>So social sustainability? Yeah, of course. So quite a keyword, a buzzword at the moment. So, social sustainability is sometimes referred to, like I say, as people or sometimes human sustainability. And it really is a critical part of a company's values or strategic imperatives, and it could relate to many different areas. So it's things like fair pay for employees, promoting a healthy work-life balance, promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Maybe flexible working hours, and flexible working locations, for example, health and safety. It may be that it's allowing employees to be involved in volunteering schemes, things of that nature. But also, social sustainability is developing employee skills, so training their employees for the future. And also, in some cases, training, it could be the local area attracting new employees, so it may be that they work with college leavers or the school leavers in order to train them up to help create a workforce for the future. It all depends on the organization and the size, the company, of course. So also, it's about supporting the companies in which we live and work, really.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>So really, what it sounds like is... The word sustainability, obviously, is a perfect fit. So people's sustainability is about not just utilizing the people resources that you have at hand, but ensuring a continuity in your community, in your workforce, in the environment you're in that people will continue to be available and continue to grow as the company grows over time. Is that a fair summary?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Absolutely, yes. And I think it is really important. I mean, maybe not in all cities or locations, but maybe in more rural locations where you find some organizations may be the key employer in that area, so then it would become very much very important, indeed.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>And then, when you start to talk about where people or social sustainability intersects with environmental sustainability, I can think of probably two examples. The first would be folks probably aren't wanting to work for a company that is at the very bottom end of the spectrum, in terms of environmental sustainability. So the less attention you pay to one, the more detrimental the effect on the other. The other example I can think of would be ensuring, over time, that people are continuing to drive improvement. You can't have people sustainability if all of a sudden the environment has gone to waste. And people have less energy to focus on work if they're, for example, trying to find something like water.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Certainly. And it's really becoming increasingly important to have these really strong sustainability goals, and not only to attract new talent to an organization for somebody that may be really interested in protecting their future and the generations of the future, then of course, this is really important. Also, in retaining employees as well. If you think the company have great values and are really protecting the future, then you want to stay with them. And actually, when we think about it, our people are such a valuable asset to any organization, if they feel valued, then they're going to enjoy working for that company as well. And I think you talked or touched on water, as well, just a moment ago, and I think you're absolutely right. It was interesting for me to hear that in touching on environmental sustainability, that the amount of water that we actually have for use on the planet, or on the earth today, only 1.2% of all the water on earth today is actually available for human use.</p>
<p>And so this is expected to reduce over the coming years. So as we hear more and more of this information based on the science, then we need to act now and really make a difference.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Absolutely. And I suppose that a third area of intersection that you and I will talk about a little bit, especially as it relates to travel and expense, meetings and payments, as well, is the other side of the coin, which is that if we focus too much on environmental sustainability at the cost of making day-to-day processes tedious, or making it hard to complete work, that also could have a detrimental effect on your people sustainability, right?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>You have to do this in a collaborative fashion. Okay. So we'll dive into some of those topics in a little bit more detail, but before we get there, I was hoping you could give us a quick overview of economic sustainability and what that means to an organization.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yeah, of course. So "economic sustainability," sometimes referred to as governance or profit, it's ensuring that the business can grow in a sustainable way and to maintain company profitability over time. So it's also understanding what the company emissions are today, what information is available to measure the reduction in emissions, and what's needed in order to achieve their sustainable goals as the business grows. So it could be things like they may be building a new factory or distribution center. And if that building could have a roof completely covered in solar panels, for example, which would empower that building without needing any other source of power, then of course, that's a sustainable future for that company and for that particular location. So it's things like that. It's enabling the company to grow, but in a sustainable way.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>I understand. So let's dive into the big topic at-hand here, which is environmental sustainability, and eventually, how that relates specifically to TMPE or travel, meetings, payments, and expenses. So to start with, Sally, what are we really talking about through a business lens? We've touched on things like water. We've touched on things like power generation. You've mentioned emissions a couple of times. Does it all boil down to emissions when you think about this through a business lens?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Well, if we focus on environmental sustainability, to simplify it, effectively means that we need to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment, which are generated by a business, therefore, becoming a more sustainable organization. So greenhouse gas emissions are categorized generally into three groups or scopes by the greenhouse gas protocol or sometimes :"GHG protocol." They provide the most widely-used international accounting and reporting standards today. Now, the different scopes that they have in place are... Let's look at Scope 1. They're direct emissions from owned or controlled sources for business, such as fuel combustion, company vehicles. And something I was really interested to learn about was fugitive emissions because it sounded quite interesting when I first heard about it and that fugitive emissions are things such as leaks from air conditioning or refrigeration units and things of that nature. And then, you've got Scope 2.</p>
<p>Scope 2 are indirect emissions. So they are generated by the purchase of energy, such as electricity to operate a business, or maybe the cost of heating or cooling a factory or an office, so that's indirect, Scope 2. And then, moving onto Scope 3, they also indirect, so anything really not included in Scope 2 already. And they will be emissions that occur within an organization's value chain. So they are things like purchased goods and services, waste generated from operating the company, operating their business, and things like employee commuting, that would also be considered Scope 3, and also business travel. So it's quite astounding to actually know that business travel can account for more than half of a non-manufacturing company's carbon footprint. Not only does it have a negative impact on the environment, but also, it can impact on the organization's reputation and bottom line if their emissions are so high from traveling for business.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>That seems like a pretty meaningful statistic. I think some people would underestimate how much business travel is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions for an organization. Just to, I guess, say that again, that's as much as half of a non-manufacturing organization's emissions can be attributed to the Scope 3 business travel?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Travel represents 5% of global emissions.<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking"> Corporate travel </a>makes up 30% of that. So 1.5% of global emissions is actually related to corporate travel. It doesn't seem a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, for that to be just attributed to corporate travel is actually quite a substantial amount. And, of course, it does vary by different companies and what their processes are. So if we look at maybe a professional services company, would likely travel far more than say a manufacturing organization who generally have most of their workers in fixed locations, I guess. And maybe only a handful of those travelers would actually travel on a regular basis. However, for professional services, particularly global organizations, they could be traveling very frequently. And so much so that they may be traveling in business class, they may be staying in really high-end hotels, maybe luxury properties that we also have to consider maybe higher in emissions maybe than actually a more budget-type accommodation. So it can vary a lot by organization and by policy, I guess, as well.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Okay. So a couple more questions just to establish some background before we really get into the practical aspects of managing this in T&E and how our two organizations can help. You mentioned the difference in emissions between, say a high-end hotel and maybe a budget or more ecologically-focused hotel. Are we really just measuring this in the unit measure of this greenhouse gas, call it tons or square feet or something like that? Is that how we measure sustainability, or rather, impact?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Sure. Well, if we think about how we measure sustainability, there are a number of ways we can look at it, but let's take company that's already maybe taking some action. They're already committed to working towards specific targets and guidelines, and there are organizations that will help with this. So one organization is the Carbon Disclosure Project, so CDP. And they help companies and cities disclose their environmental impact, and they report on the companies that are leading the way in reducing their emissions. So those companies that are protecting water supplies and protecting forests and reducing emissions where they can.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>So you also may have heard of science-based targets. That's really key as well, at the moment, and over a thousand companies around the world are already committed to science-based targets. And these targets provide companies with a clearly defined path of how to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals, which is aimed at reducing emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So there are many different ways of measuring these targets that are set. They can be achieved by reducing the Scope 1 and 2 emissions in company operations, and Scope 3 emissions in particular, where we're focusing today, which include travel.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Gotcha. So these science-based targets are essentially organizations agreeing to get a good handle on what they're actually emitting, and then quantifiably reduce or eliminate that, based on either a percentage or an objective amount. Okay. Go ahead.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Sorry. I was going to say, committing to those goals really, they, therefore, have to produce reports so they will understand where they are today, in terms of emissions. They will have some reporting in place, but if we say that over a thousand companies are working science-based targets, there are so many more out there that are not yet committed to those, and maybe don't know how to measure or how to start seeing an improvement. So there's a lot of work out there, I would say, to do in order to start measuring and achieving and reducing.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Great. Well, Sally, I really appreciate the conversation today. Like I mentioned, this is the first in our two-part series. Today, we talked about the high-level view of what sustainability is, what it means to corporations, and what a roadmap for improving sustainability might look like. In our second episode, Sally will join me again to talk about some practical applications and how to really dive into the details and start to make forward progress. Thank you all for joining us. And we hope you can join us the next episode.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-----------------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Sally_Crotty.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Based in the UK, Sally does work on a global basis with some clients however has particular focus on the EMEA region. Starting out in the Corporate Travel sector over 30 years ago, she has vast experience and held senior positions in Travel Management both operationally and from a sales and account management perspective, she has 5 years’ experience in the hotel industry and 2 years in GDS/Online Booking Tools.</p>
<p>Sally lives with her husband, 2 sons, 2 dogs and a cat in Cheshire, England, her passion for sustainability has increased over the last few years focusing on sustainable initiatives in travel and the total cost of ownership in managing sustainable travel and expense programs. In her personal life Sally has recently made the decision to move to driving a fully electric vehicle with the goal of reducing her own impact on the planet!</p>
<p>Follow Sally on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-crotty/?originalSubdomain=uk">LinkedIn</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Work from Anywhere Redefined: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Ernst & Young
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/work-anywhere-redefined-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-ernst-young
2022-07-01T16:54:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Whether youre dreaming of working from an exotic island moving somewhere with affordable housing or cant wait to get back to corporate office life theres a lot of diversity in terms of...
<p>Whether you’re dreaming of working from an exotic island, moving somewhere with affordable housing, or can’t wait to get back to corporate office life, “there's a lot of diversity in terms of what it means to be working outside of the office, and any of those choices involve complexity for the company,” shared Rachel D’Argenio, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/ey-ag">EY Americas</a>' Mobility Markets Leader. “EY surveyed 16,000 employees in 16 countries and found that: </p>
<ul>
<li>65% of employees said they felt that this hybrid mix will increase the company's productivity</li>
<li>65% said that it will support creativity</li>
<li>54% said that it will positively impact the ability to solve problems efficiently</li>
</ul>
<p>So, you're hearing employees say they believe that it's tremendously valuable to move to a hybrid model and that it will increase productivity, creativity, and problem-solving within the organization.” Listen to Rachel and Jason Grunin, Senior Value Consultant for SAP Concur, “discuss the challenges related to remote work and the critical nature of keeping the dialogue going between HR, finance, leadership, and the employees.” </p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast/id1525744763?i=1000535515838">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6LdTl1YYD7CruVkyMEO5Jo">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversat">Acast </a>or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Hello, I'm Jason Grunin, a Senior Value Consultant in the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur. I've been at SAP Concur for about a year and a half. And before that, I was responsible for efficiency, accounts payable, T&E, and other initiatives for a higher education institution. Here at SAP Concur, our group is tasked with how to share best practices and helping our customers maximize the return on investment of their solution with employee-initiated spend. Today I have with me Rachel D'Argenio, from our partner, Ernst & Young. Rachel, would you like to introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Rachel D’Argenio:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you, Jason. Hi, everyone. I am the Americas Mobility Markets Leader for EY. I've been with EY for 22 years as of the end of this month. And I've previously worked with two other of the then Big Six accounting firms and also worked in-house at Goldman Sachs. I've spent my entire career focused on the cross-border tax and mobility issues that companies face due to the movement of their employees. It's great to be here, Jason.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Rachel. During the podcast today, Rachel and I are going to discuss the challenges related to remote work and the critical nature of keeping the dialogue going between HR, finance, leadership, and the employees. So on the topic of remote work, Rachel what are some of the global issues that organizations have been facing and managing into returning to the office, as well as what are some of those employee expectations?</p>
<p><strong>Rachel D’Argenio:</strong></p>
<p>You know, Jason, that is truly the hot topic of the moment. And it's been fascinating to see the transformation that's underway. We are seeing now that the stakes are very high. Retention of employees, for example, is a real challenge for many organizations. And at the same time, there's tremendous opportunity for companies to redefine who they want to be right now. So as companies are thinking about this, they are thinking about new strategies. What are their approaches to hiring? What are their policies on where and how work will get done? And what is the technology or workplace changes that they need to make in order to support this new way of working?</p>
<p>I'd like to share some data with you. We completed, here at EY, we completed a survey in April of this year that surveyed over 16,000 employees in 16 countries. What it showed is that 67% of employees agree that productivity for a job can be accurately measured by their company, irrespective of where they work. Nine out of 10 employees want flexibility in where or when they work. On average, employees expect to work between two to three days remotely after the pandemic. Only 20% of them expect to work fully in the office post-pandemic. 54% of them are likely to quit if they aren't offered the flexibility they want, with Millennials two times as likely as Baby Boomers to quit, so that's a concerning statistic.</p>
<p>64% want better technology in the office, and 48% want home office hardware investments. Nearly two-thirds of employees want to continue business travel post- pandemic, which this is up from 49% from the survey we did last summer, so we see that more people, nearly two-thirds, want to continue business travel following the pandemic. And then finally, as employees continue to evaluate their total company offering and all the benefits that they receive, work location and stipends have the highest employee preference, and then their office desk policy has the lowest preference.</p>
<p>So what does this really mean for companies as they look to develop policies? As I'm talking to organizations right now, they're looking at do they have people come back to the office? Do they move to a remote policy where everyone is remote? Or are they moving to hybrid? And of course, most organizations have some combination of all three.</p>
<p>When you're looking at either remote or hybrid work, companies are then thinking about, well, do I allow work from home only, or do I allow work from anywhere and what does this really mean? With organizations that are saying I want to allow work from anywhere, it clearly is very attractive to employees who fantasize about working from either low-cost locations or really fabulous locations, like an island destination. On the other hand, other people are focused on working from home, but even that there's a lot of confusion. If I say work from home, does it mean that you literally have to be in your house? Could you be at a coffee shop? Could you be at a customer location?</p>
<p>So there's a lot of diversity in terms of what it means to be working outside of the office, and any of those choices involve complexity for the company, whether it be risk that the employee is creating because they're not sitting in their home and they're sitting in a place that creates potential new corporate presence for the company. It might mean the employees are on the move and there are implications for the company in terms of reporting and withholding obligations in more than one state or country. And it may mean that that employee is looking for reimbursement for expenses that they have, whether it's now coming to the office that they view not as commuting but as a business expense, whether it's commuting expenses but are coming from a new location where it's not really feasible to be commuting to the office.</p>
<p>And let me expand on that. This is a new trend that we're seeing where individuals want to move to a completely new location and companies are grappling with, well, what is allowable? How far is really too far from the office? If we move to a hybrid model and an employee is only in the office, for example, two days a week and five days a week they could be somewhere else, is it okay if those five days a week are spent two, three, four, five hours away from the office? What is allowable from a company perspective? And then, of course, if that employee does decide to move far away from the office, is the company going to consider reimbursing for costs to travel to the office?</p>
<p>And so this is where companies are getting into this really interesting debate about what do they allow their employees to do? And then what are the implications for them in terms of risk, in terms of expense reimbursement, in terms of even the compensation that's paid to that individual? Because, of course, now perhaps the individual has moved from say a New York City to a far less expensive location to live. Do we have opportunities to adjust the pay that that individual's receiving?</p>
<p>So it's a very complex discussion, and yet there's a lot of pressure behind it to make decisions because employees are demanding and everyone is looking forward to the end of this pandemic with great anticipation. And so they're interested to know, well, what happens when.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Rachel. You know, that really got me thinking about some of the ways that our customers have really adapted and managed those new normals, as you said. The reimbursement of travel expenses, managing new rates for our city pairs that you may not have had employees traveling on before. Do you now bring them back into the office every so often when they need to come for a customer or an in-person team meeting? You know, has budget increased for travel or has budget decreased? And have you factored that in into thinking about what are the expectations for those employees when they do come back? What's the appropriate way of getting from their new home location back to their previous core work location? Thinking about entertainment and customer meetings and business expenses that were happening on the road that may not have been part of the expense policy in the past but now need to be considered, such as paying for wifi in certain places or the new ways of people wanting to stay in non-hotel accommodations, and obviously the safety and security risks of all of those. Have those things been incorporated into your policy?</p>
<p>So maybe a little bit more. But Rachel, what does hybrid work really mean around that environment, and what are employers and employees around the globe saying?</p>
<p><strong>Rachel D’Argenio:</strong></p>
<p>That's an excellent question. Hybrid is taking on a lot of different definitions within each organization, but there's a general consensus that most organizations are thinking hybrid work will mean that employees will spend two to three days a week working from home, two to three days a week working from the office. And as companies are thinking about what this really means, they're thinking through do we require presence for certain days? Do we leave it open for flexibility? What will really promote the best working environment and get from employees that experience they're looking for when they come together in the office? The collaboration and the innovation that comes from people sitting side by side, as well as the coaching and the training and all of the talent development that we need to have have happen, that can happen in many cases much better when people are sitting together.</p>
<p>What's interesting as well is we're seeing this huge desire, and it's really, I'm going to describe it as both a sense of empowerment and entitlement on behalf of the employees to work remotely. From an employee perspective, data shows that they believe a mix of onsite and remote work will increase the company's productivity. Again, referring back to that survey we did, 65% of employees said they felt that this hybrid mix will increase the company's productivity. An additional 65% said that it will support creativity, and 54% said that it will positively impact the ability to solve problems efficiently. So you're hearing employees say they believe that it's tremendously valuable to move to a hybrid model and that it will increase productivity, creativity, and problem-solving within the organization.</p>
<p>Now, from an employer perspective, what I'm hearing is they want to be responsive to employees, at the same time, though, they're extremely concerned about controls and compliance. And then ultimately, it also comes down to cost. As we're evaluating what a new policy should look like, there's a very significant discussion about cost.</p>
<p>And the interesting thing is that it's a very complex discussion. It starts with HR saying, and the CHRO will say this is critically important in terms of attracting and retaining the talent that we want to have, and they will make a case for why they want to support this. But then what we very quickly see is that, for example, the CFO will come in and say, well, I need to understand how this models out. As I think about this new policy, I have potential considerations in terms of do I scale back my real estate because I have fewer people in the office every day and therefore an aggregate, I need less office space? Do I need to expend more money on my real estate because I need to redesign what it looks like? If we're bringing people together so that they can collaborate, do I need to have spaces that encourage collaboration, for example? Do I need to offer something within my office that entices people to come in?</p>
<p>And so we see companies thinking about, well, what would be the right benefits to offer? Is it meals? Is it snacks? Is it a gym? What is it that would bring people into the office and encourage them to come in? We also see that there's a whole discussion about what to offer employees to support them when they're not in the office. And this is where I believe I had mentioned that employees are expecting that they're going to get help with, and they'd like to get help in terms of monthly stipends to defray internet costs because they need to have strong broadband at home, mobile phone costs, hardware at home, things like a printer, perhaps they need to have a better desk, or a better office set up at home.</p>
<p>And as we look at this on a global scale, we see that in many countries companies are required to offer certain things if someone's primary work location's going to be at home. In some countries, it's required that they have an ergonomic chair, for example, or that the company actually defray some of their monthly costs like internet. So it's understanding what are all of the costs that go hand in hand with this policy that I would like to bring forward.</p>
<p>And then I would be remiss as a tax partner to not also say that we want to think about the tax efficiency of all of this. If we're providing monthly allowances, for example, for things like internet or we're paying for office supplies, is there a tax-efficient way that we can do this? And then that brings up a whole new host of issues. If I am going to be offering these costs and I'd like to see tax reimbursement, how do I then ensure that I have the mechanisms to collect all of the necessary documentation and receipts to support a tax-free position? And so then there's a whole technology discussion as well as resource discussion to make sure that the company has the necessary support on the backend to process what could be four times as many receipts coming in on a monthly basis from employees. And so, and I had mentioned earlier, of course, there's also thinking through the infrastructure that you have from a technology perspective to support remote working itself.</p>
<p>So there's a lot of potential areas of cost, and there's a lot of balancing that needs to happen as we think through what's the right model and what's the right policy. When I was working with one organization, it was a project that was spearheaded by both the CFO and the CHRO, we did modeling across all of the countries where they had employees looking at this total cost picture in terms of shutting down offices, making investments in technology, providing stipends, looking at tax efficiency. You can imagine it was quite a complex analysis.</p>
<p>And what was also interesting as we went through this analysis was understanding that in so many countries, the company didn't have the infrastructure needed to, number one process all of these receipts that were coming in. They actually, I should share, they were a Concur user, but they didn't use Concur everywhere around the globe. And so they were very concerned about the volume of receipts and so were making a decision to move to cash in many countries because they just didn't feel like they could handle that administration. So they were basically agreeing to pay more and increase company costs because they didn't have the backend support that they needed.</p>
<p>And then secondly, they were realizing that they didn't have the infrastructure to track where people are on a daily basis, to make sure that they were reporting and withholding in the right jurisdictions. Because again, it's so easy, whether you're in the U.S. and you're crossing state lines or, I sit here in Pennsylvania, to cross local lines. Or in places like Europe, it's so easy to cross country lines, even on a hybrid model. And so you have to have that infrastructure as well to make sure that you can comply with the reporting withholding requirements in all the places where your employees are physically located. And so this company that had wanted to move towards allowing more freedom for their employees they had to scale it back and move to a work-from-home-only model so that they could control their compliance risk as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Rachel. You know, you make several great points and a couple of them I think also should be factored into this employee sentiment perspective, right? Employees living in major metropolitan areas could have spent anywhere from 30 to an hour or two hours commuting into an office. And what is the culture represented in terms of that newfound time could be four hours a day that now employees are working from home and picking up additional projects and working more around-the-clock perspective but still remembering that finding that balance is key.</p>
<p>As a platform, SAP Concur is really scalable. And as Rachel, as you mentioned, whether you're operating in one or 50 countries, it's about setting the right backend infrastructure up to fit the needs of your organization and your business challenges. How are you managing that today? Do you have an integrated single platform across the globe allowing ease of access to all of the data and financial regulatory reporting requirements that you have at a country-by-country level? Do you have a single source of truth where there's an accountability system in place in order to deliver this data to regulatory and shareholder platforms?</p>
<p>You know, SAP Concur, as a customer, you really have the opportunity to take this data and deliver meaningful reports at your own fingertips, whether they are bursted dashboards or integrated reports that deliver to other systems to look at metrics and KPIs that are important for your organization. But some of the things that you can be considering as you define your remote work strategy, looking at card adoption, looking at the workflow and submission data of how long is it taking your managers to approve or employees to submit reports. Are you giving digital receipts and storing all of those electronically rather than in boxes of paper sitting across the globe? And when you have an auditor come in, how are you able to then provide digital access through a secure mechanism for the auditability of those reports?</p>
<p>Do you have reporting in place to look at employee mileage, and how has mileage policy and procedures shifted within your organizations as more employees are preferring to drive rather than fly? Do you have vendor and travel spend negotiated rates? Looking at procurement, tracking and duty of care, where is this employee today and are they traveling on behalf of the organization? And where is their new home location? Has that been updated throughout the organization's duty of care policy?</p>
<p>And a hot topic today is really around sustainability. Are you able to define and report on your Scope 3 emissions, which is what is generated by your employees during business travel? Obviously, we've mentioned some of these work-from-home supplies and internet and cell phone reimbursement. So how has that tracking changed? And having disparate and separate systems often make this data impossible to access. And we're encouraging organizations to use the data from these tools, from this integrated solution to build trends so that leaders can implement the right return-to-work policy or remote work policy.</p>
<p>And as Rachel briefly mentioned earlier, what's your organizations doing with costs previously budgeted towards facilities? You know, employers are setting up ways to pay for expenses that would have previously been provided at the office, such as office supplies, internet, cell phone reimbursement, technology. What are those requirements look like today?</p>
<p>As one of the new features that SAP Concur launched, we did an analysis that our customers have expensed over 1.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of Amazon purchases in the last year. And Rachel, what is the tax liability look like for that and how employees have shipped things to their homes and what is the impact on the audit and the tax requirements around those situations?</p>
<p><strong>Rachel D’Argenio:</strong></p>
<p>That's an excellent question. And I was smiling, Jason, as you were just going through all of the data and you talked about having enough support for an audit. It is incredibly important, sadly, to be thinking forward about audit readiness. And the reason I say that is we all know the size of the subsidies that have been granted by governments over the course of the pandemic. The focus on generating tax revenue as we look forward is going to be tremendous. And there is no doubt that with the prevalence of remote work and the hybrid situations that are being stood up, that tax authorities are going to be looking for noncompliance.</p>
<p>And so it is critically important to be thinking now about what data you need to have to support a potential future audit. It is so important to be ready. We are expecting there will be a lot of activity, for example, here in the U.S. on a state-to-state basis. And we're hearing the same from many countries overseas as well. They see this as an area where there won't be a heavy focus from a compliance perspective. Companies just are not ready to fully comply as they should. And the volume of expenses that have been coming through is significant.</p>
<p>So Jason, you had pointed out that 1.5 billion has been spent with Amazon over the past year. From a tax perspective, this yields some very interesting results here in the United States when individuals incur home office expenses. So as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the old home office expense deduction that was allowable for employees has been eliminated. What this means is that unless you are a business owner, you have a part of your home dedicated to that business and it is regularly used as your primary work location, you're not able to take a deduction for expenses that you incur while working from home. So what this means is that there is even more pressure on behalf of employees who incur home office expenses to seek reimbursement from their employer because that is the only way that they can defray the costs that they have incurred. They're no longer able to take that deduction.</p>
<p>So as a result, we expect to continue to see a regular flow of requests from individuals seeking reimbursement, whether it's under a full remote work model or a hybrid remote work model. This does represent a great opportunity, though, for companies to be thinking about how they can leverage their procurement function, to look at what is being spent and how it's being spent, where it's being spent. To think about do you want to have employees purchasing off of Amazon, whatever it is that they may want to buy, perhaps within company guidelines, but still buying whatever it is that they'd like to buy, or does the company want to negotiate with a particular purveyor of office supplies, negotiate good pricing, and then perhaps facilitate the processing of those expenses in a streamlined way?</p>
<p>There's a lot of opportunity for companies to think about what's being spent and how it's being spent, trying to get their arms around it because hybrid work is here to stay. And so it is going to be important to get your arms around all of these expenses and the processing of these expenses. And then, of course, making sure that there's no fraud as well, that employees aren't purchasing things that are for personal use and then trying to run them through as business expenses as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>You know, on that note, SAP believes that organizations of all sizes should be able to manage employee- initiated discretionary spend while reducing risk, saving money, and helping ensure compliance, all without sacrificing employee productivity and satisfaction. This belief guides the innovation at SAP Concur and how the solutions and integrations we've made available to customers through our partner ecosystem. Rachel and I thank you for attending today's podcast.</p>
<p><strong>Rachel D’Argenio:</strong></p>
<p>And Jason, I would just like to thank you so much for this opportunity. We at EY are very focused on remote work. And as I mentioned at the beginning, I think this is a tremendous opportunity for companies to really rethink who they want to be and how they want to attract and retain the best talent.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So on behalf of SAP Concur, thank you for attending today's podcast. I hope these questions help guide your organization in developing the right remote and return-to-work policy for your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Jason%20Grunin%20Square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jason Grunin is a Senior Value Delivery Consultant within the Global Value Enablement, Value Experience team with a focus on Public Sector. In this role, Jason assists customers by creating and delivering value-based engagements to help recognize opportunities for optimization and program growth. By mapping business outcomes to solutions, Jason helps organizations discover areas to improve management of employee initiated spend. Outside of the office, Jason, his wife Mary, their daughter Kathleen, and their dog, Jack (an English springer spaniel) are residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They enjoy cycling, skiing, and outdoor activities. In addition, they are avid travelers and try to spend time exploring new places!</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-grunin-4b322b48/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Consistent Travel Booking Experiences Are Just the Ticket: an SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with American Express Global Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/consistent-travel-booking-experiences-are-just-ticket-sap-concur-podcast-conversation
2022-07-01T17:23:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Regardless of where theyre traveling for business employees want a reliable online booking experience But undependable inconsistent experiences arent just a headache for travelers...
<p>Regardless of where they’re traveling for business, employees want a reliable online booking experience. But undependable, inconsistent experiences aren’t just a headache for travelers. When employees begin to mistrust their travel bookings and payments, that mistrust can spread to the organization they work for.</p>
<p>This was an issue American Express Global Business Travel had to address for its customers with offices in multiple countries. Fortunately, by incorporating control, savings, and support into its travel booking process, the organization has been able to create a more satisfying online booking experience for its business travelers. Scott Daube, Director of Online Strategy at American Express, shares how the organization grew this offering with our host Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Delivery Group at SAP Concur.</p>
<p>This four-episode podcast series celebrates the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel">American Express Global Business Travel</a> received one of two Partner Growth Awards for 2020, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. Other past recipients include: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a>. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes">SAP Concur Conversations</a>, for best practices to implement at your own organization.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/consistency-is-king-for-a-globalized-travel/id1525744763?i=1000540640152">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jPUqFxPhtxSP98s8B0f9u">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/consistency-is-king-for-a-MrhFx-43gTk/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/consistency-is-king-for-a-globalized-travel-experience-an-sa">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE4MmIxYzgwYmUyMGYwMDE0MTgzZTE5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwio5YDyt5v0AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/consistency-is-king-for-a-globalized-travel-experience-an-sap-concur">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Knowledge is power</h2>
<p>Dion says that travel services providers need to understand that they actually have two customers: the clients they’re managing that travel for and the travelers themselves. This means organizations need the right tools and capabilities to collect and analyze data so they can provide the best experiences for their customers.</p>
<p>Dion says, “Being able to pull all that data together so that your ultimate customer, the one you’re managing the travel for, is able to respond to their own end users and their own internal customers is really critical to a successful business relationship.”</p>
<h2>Speaking the same travel language</h2>
<p>It’s also important to understand that every organization’s travel program is unique: Some have a consistent global program, while others have regional programs, Daube notes. But regardless of what part of the globe their travelers are in, organizations are being asked to provide the same consistency so that every traveler has the best experience.</p>
<p>“They want someone in Saudi Arabia to be able to book online,” Daube says, “the same way their travelers and employees in France, or their travelers and employees in Sweden, book online. They don’t want their employees in these places to feel deprived…Basically, it’s just creating that consistent experience and that consistent platform.”</p>
<h2>Assess, reassess, then re-reassess</h2>
<p>American Express Global Business Travel has found that one of the keys to its success is its ability to collect feedback into what work should be done and then prioritize that work based on the feedback. Daube says this approach is especially important now because most organizations are focusing on getting their programs up and running again versus expanding them.</p>
<p>“Because the pandemic hit, [it] makes baseline comparisons difficult,” Daube says. “We have to reassess where we are and reassess resources, reassess needs, and then figure out what we want to do.” By doing so, organizations can focus on the task at hand: getting travel programs safely up and running again.</p>
<p>This assessment is especially crucial in determining user satisfaction as programs begin again, Daube says, because it helps organizations determine what problems exist and where. One key discover American Express Global Business Travel has made, he says, is that the dissatisfaction rarely comes from the booking tool itself. “It's more [about] the rules that were put in place,” Daube notes, “and people chafing under those rules, or the rules not fitting that particular population.” </p>
<p>Because American Express Global Business Travel has a global customer base, Daube adds, they rely on tools like Concur Travel to deliver the best programs and benefits to customers. “Creating a true global program and having truly global technology is a big challenge,” he says. “We’re making sure that as we roll out these new programs and new benefits…that we're able to do that on a global basis as well.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel">Find out more about how you can leverage the collaboration between SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel.</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Is Meaningless Work What You Hired People To Do?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/meaningless-work-what-you-hired-people-do
2022-07-02T05:26:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its just like your mom said when you were supposed to be cleaning your room Of course you dont like it Its work and work is hard She was right Work is hard It is a challenge And thats...
<p>It’s just like your mom said when you were supposed to be cleaning your room: “Of course you don’t like it. It’s work, and work is hard.” She was right. Work is hard. It is a challenge. And that’s precisely what makes it so rewarding.</p>
<p>Hard work does not, however, have to be frustrating.</p>
<p>The Great Resignation is a real thing; employees are leaving in droves and for all sorts of reasons. It may not all have to do with maddeningly unnecessary travel and expense processes and procedures, but you can bet your allowance they have a lot to do with it. Take those menial tasks off their desks, and employees not only can be more productive, they’ll be more engaged.</p>
<p>Productive, engaged, and (you guessed it) happy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>It isn’t your job to make people happy.</h2>
<p>Okay, that might contradict the previous sentence, but it’s true. Your job is, in part, to make sure your company is spending what it should, to buy what it needs, to get the job done. And I’m willing to bet my allowance that nowhere in your job description does it say anything about happiness.</p>
<p>But when you do these things – control spending, simplify processes, etc. – your people will find joy and meaning in their work. And the good news is, you already have SAP Concur tools in place to help make it happen.</p>
<p>With simple enhancements to your SAP Concur solutions, you can remove the steps that frustrate employees – creating an experience that not only increases engagement and employee happiness, it actually increases your control over costs. With expanded tools, you can make it easier to manage receipts and approvals. You can add safety, security, and sustainability to your travel program. You can eliminate manual tasks from finance and AP. You can, in a very real and actionable way, protect employees’ valuable time and your precious budgets.</p>
<p>See how with the tools in this eBook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/invest-your-employees-while-getting-more-out-your-te-investment">Meaningful, Not Monotonous – Invest in Your Employees While Getting More Out of Your T&E Investment</a></p>
<p>Here it is, in a nutshell:</p>
<p><strong>1. Reimagine the employee experience. </strong></p>
<p>This section tells you how to eliminate paper receipts, approve spend before it’s spent, and get good guidance on how to get the most out of your SAP Concur solutions. It’s a short list, but just imagine what the end of receipts and total control over spend could do for you.</p>
<p><strong>2. Prove that what matters to them matters to you. </strong></p>
<p>Here, you’ll hear and learn how to analyze what your traveling employees are saying about your travel and expense solution, so you’ll know what’s happening and why. You’ll also find tools to support employee safety and goals for sustainability. In short, you’ll help make things better for each traveler and anyone else who lives on the planet.</p>
<p><strong>3. Free your finance team to do more meaningful work. </strong></p>
<p>In this part of the <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/invest-your-employees-while-getting-more-out-your-te-investment">eBook</a>, you’ll see how expanding your solution can help remove the distractions of day-to-day minutia, so your finance team can focus on critically important spending strategies. It covers audit efficiency, invoice automation, VAT/GST complexities, and other ways to simplify spend management.</p>
<p>Again, it isn’t your job to make people happy. It isn’t even your responsibility to make their jobs easier. But you have the tools in place to take meaningless tasks off their desk, so they can work harder and be happier.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Taking Experience Data Seriously Amidst the Great Reset: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with EY
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-great-reset-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-ey
2022-07-02T05:40:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Resetting employee and manager expectations around the best ways to collect and leverage experience data is now a need to have rather than a nice to have Listen to a Principal Value...
<p>Resetting employee and manager expectations around the best ways to collect and leverage experience data is now a need to have rather than a nice to have. Listen to a Principal Value Experience Architect of SAP Concur and a People Advisory manager from EY on how SAP Concur solutions users can build an outstanding employee experience based upon regularly collected data, feedback, and actions.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/286CmPLf4FMG9G71cz4UMf">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/taking-experience-data-seriously-amidst-the-great-reset">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjI4ZjkyOTZjNmI4OGYwMDEzZWQyYWY3?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiApKSwvv33AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google </a>or your favorite place to listen to podcasts.</p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>So, thanks for joining the latest episode of SAP Concur Conversations podcast series. I'm Andrew Walker. I'm a principal architect on the Value Experience programs team. Joining me today is Crystal Schoenhals, a consultant for travel and expense at E&Y. We're here today to talk about employee sentiment and why it matters and the state of things. Crystal, if you want to go ahead and give yourself an introduction, that would be great.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, thank you. Happy to be here. Crystal Schoenhals. I have about almost 30 years’ experience in the industry, including supply chain logistics, but primarily in the T&E space. Happy to be aboard and give my thoughts on employee sentiment.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. So, I want to start ... When we connected on this and we prepped, a lot of it from my end was how do we get people to see the value of employee experience? We know everybody understands operational data. We've been drowning in it for the better part of three decades. And it's easy to get people to bite when we say, "Hey, you have Y performance across X time."</p>
<p>But when we start talking about quantifying this qualitative data from employees as to their experience with the process and why it matters, I'm curious as to what you see in your space with clients and organizations coming around to the idea of buying into the employee sentiment idea and leveraging it for change at their organizations.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. A lot of our clients that are starting to come to us in this space just don't know where to start. It's such a big topic on how to gather this data, how do you slice the data, how do you make it meaningful? And that's just it. And given the market is still changing post pandemic, well, I'd like to say post pandemic, but hopefully towards the end of the pandemic, what is important to the employee base? Do we survey, do we use a tool? How do we, again, make it actionable in terms of what the employees want and need? That's their very first question.</p>
<p>And so, we even take a step back in that coaching and say, "Well, this is more than just T&E questions now. Have you communicated with your HR department, have you communicated with your communications team?" It's now a all hands on deck approach from a company perspective and making sure you stay aligned with your, maybe you have new corporate initiatives, maybe you have corporate goals like sustainability that would impact T&E, et cetera, remote work policies.</p>
<p>And just really from a team perspective, ensuring that you have all departments on board, you're asking the questions that you think you need to ask the population, and then you can start worrying about slicing and dicing that data and making it actionable. It's just overwhelming at this point for the clients that we've spoken to and the sheer amount of change and I'll just say environmental changes and issues that are coming about. Again, it's just getting your head around, "How big is this?"</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think it's interesting. We had a session at Fusion about this just this year and I'm hearing what you're saying and thinking, when we go to them with the idea of employee sentiment or this experienced data, we're saying like, "Hey, you only have half of this sorted with operational data." So, when you say that it's overwhelming, it doesn't surprise me because it's like saying, "Hey, open your other eye." Right? And now you're taking in all of this. It's a lot to process. And so what I asked people there, and I'm curious as to your experience here, we've talked about people starting to come to the well to drink, starting to open up to this idea. And so we're saying, hey, is your company currently collecting this data?</p>
<p>And so you've pointed out, hey, go to HR, maybe a sustainability group. Look at for where this is happening. And obviously we're here to mostly talk about how it pertains to travel and expense. And so one of the things I was asking is, well, have you been involved in the process? And if you have, are you leveraging information to affect process or policy? And so looking at that next step, those people that have started to have that conversation and maybe got past the phase of being overwhelmed.</p>
<p>I'm curious, what are you seeing through the transition of those three phases? So are you collecting data? If you are, are you involved in the process? And then once you have that information, are they leveraging it to affect process and policy? So, I'd be curious to hear that middle state of experience at this point.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Well, unfortunately, some clients have started the process not by choice. So we've had the Great Resignation. We've had folks, now that travel is starting to open, be asked to travel and then push back. And so some clients haven't been given the choice to deal with it. They're being forced to deal with it.</p>
<p>So, that's a different tactic on, oh my gosh, how do we keep up? We're tired of losing people. Are you collecting data? The data they're more than likely collecting before they were forced to deal with this are more those operational indicators you're talking about. But unfortunately those are just lagging indicators of the program. They're nothing giving you foresight into what employees want or need. If you are, how are you making it meaningful?</p>
<p>They always start with, we're losing people. We don't know what the priority is. And even to the point where I know even within EY, we have found a disconnect between what employers think is important for the employee and employees saying what's important to them. And so there's this disconnect. And so how do you close that gap is where we try to help them focus.</p>
<p>So, we are collecting the data. You thought it was, not to go back to operational, but you thought it was X and now it's actually Y. How do you close that gap? And is it a project? Is it a simple communication? Is it a policy change? There's going to be all kinds of different answers to closing those gaps.</p>
<p>And what we've told them looking ahead, and it's going to be iterative. If you change your policy, don't think your policy's going to sustain for probably more than a year at this point. You're going to have to keep looking at it. Again, where does it cross over with the HR group in terms of a rewards total? A total compensation package. Is travel involved in that now with remote work? Do you start rewarding individuals for being, on the T&E side, more sustainably focused? There's so much to come out of this. But ultimately it is on that third phase of dealing with that iterative process. It's a project team. And maybe it's not even a project team, it's now a program team because now your program is not just a simple project, right?</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. It has to be operationalized. So, I want to touch on something that you mentioned there, because I remember when we were prepping, we both were saying the same thing about the exit interview being the worst point to collect data if you're trying to make a change. It's already way too late.</p>
<p>And so, we talk about the laggards and we're talking about people being drug into this, they're being forced to address employee sentiment whether they wanted to or not. And to me, you mentioned the great resignation, and I also, not to take too much of an optimistic perspective on it, but it almost feels like the great reset, where we have to reset our expectations. And I feel like the sentiment collection and basically leveraging it has to be operationalized that way.</p>
<p>And so, what I'm curious about is what are some good questions you've seen? Or what are some good results that you've seen from this? We've been pulled into it. We know we're forced to ask these questions and we have to go through this. What are some success stories or some successful questions or starting points that you've seen for clients that, hey, we're finally into it. We're going to be leveraging it. Now what are we asking? And what changes are we seeing?</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>It's not incredibly complicated. They're very basic questions. But I think the ones most people are asking is in the exit interview, what is the reason you're leaving? Obviously that's very basic. But if you were to, to your point, the exit interview's too late, pull it up. What are the reasons you would leave? And they get very specific. Don't necessarily lead the employee to what you want to hear, but obviously work flexibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Do you want remote work? Is travel still important to you and necessary to do your job? And then you ask sustainability. But it's really hard to nail down what are the five key questions because I think you'll get, from the employees, even if you ask, what are your priorities in your job or, from a T&E perspective, do you still think you need to travel?</p>
<p>I think it'll be organic. So again, it's not a one time survey, it's a constant. So, somebody might feel like travel is important to them in their day to day job and they go back to travel and they realize, actually I can actually do this with not 10 trips a year, but three trips a year. I realize now I'm actually a stronger worker from remote than I thought I was. I wanted to take a trip and now I didn't miss it as much as I thought I missed it. Potentially, right? And I could still do my job very effectively.</p>
<p>So, they go back on their next trip and you get more feedback. And they're going to adjust, sometime, their opinion. So, are the questions stagnant? No. Are the answers stagnant? No, it's just going to be this constant ask and answer communication. Not just this one time survey.</p>
<p>We really try to get our clients out of the, don't survey twice a year. That's highly ineffective. It's not going to help you. And hopefully you have something from an infrastructure perspective available to get that immediate feedback. After every trip, do you send a survey? Do you have a social media site that you're gathering? Whatever it is. Employees? And I'll say even within EY, the way we slice data too is you have Gen Zs, millennials, it's by age. And each one of those needs a different survey tactic potentially.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>So, actually, let's dive into this a little bit because when I've had conversations with people about this, a lot of times we talk about the burden. The survey fatigue or the burden of response. And an example that's interesting to me is if you look at industry expectations for broad survey feedback, it's like less than 10% response rate.</p>
<p>But we do an unfiltered survey internally where we're getting our feedback on the organization, on our leadership structure. And I think they do an outstanding job with the corporate communication strategy to push our engagement. And I want to say we hit 98% or greater response rate and that's because it's prioritized and it comes all the way down through your leadership structure of, "Hey, we have outstanding people. Let's get this done, let's get this done."</p>
<p>And so when, what you're talking about with this basically just in time surveying and this just in time feedback collection, I'm curious, how are we managing that burden of response at survey fatigue on the travelers or the employees? I'm just curious, maybe some guidelines that you could give or some experience that you could share about how we can have that conversation with an organization in a way that alleviates the concerns of exhausting their employees with that.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>I do feel ... There's definite fatigue, right? I mean, there's always surveys going around and I think the fatigue will not play a factor if you're actioning what they're giving you in terms of feedback. If all you're going to do is survey, gather, and report out, there's no sense. And that's where people feel the fatigue, is you're going to ask me and nothing's going to come about. There's no results. You didn't take any action on our information.</p>
<p>And I think if you show the employees that you are taking these steps and you tie back to a change in policy or a change in the rewards policy or a change in the T&E, I don't think people necessarily have that fatigue if they see you care enough to take action. So, that's something we promote, right?</p>
<p>Now, do you survey after every trip? I think that's extensive. Maybe you do that for a short period of time. Maybe you do that with your sales folks or road warriors. Again, the tactics have to be very specific to whether it's age, role, industry, gender, name it. It could be very different tactics, because they're all going to be, in my opinion, obviously Gen Z, Millennials – social media, just give them that outlet. They're going to talk through it, where maybe your Baby Boomers, Gen X, are a traditional type of survey or again, the mechanism is different.</p>
<p>But I think employees, and what we're hearing out of the employees, is you ask, that's great, you're showing me you care. But now I want to see the outcome. I want to see change. If you're not going to change, then I'm going to leave. And that's, back to the great resignation, that is the line they are drawing. If I don't see change, if I don't see what I like in terms of what I think are my priorities, I'm just going to walk away. So, companies have to come in with the mindset of, they are going to put action. They're going to make a plan. They're going to have a roadmap and show the employees that they not just enough to care to ask, but enough to care to do.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>No, I was just going to say, people are tired of hearing the feedback of, "We hear you." Right? It's not enough. We heard you and we made this change. I totally agree with that. I think that's great feedback for anybody that's thinking about going down this road. It's like anything. The commitment has to be there all the way through. If you were just collecting data to pile it up and report on it, you just as well save your money and your time because it's not going to have the effect that you want.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, to the point of the burden and fatigue, it will most likely decrease employee satisfaction because they will become disenfranchised with your lack of sincerity in the effort.</p>
<p>So, we've heard sustainability, great resignation a couple of times. And as I was becoming indoctrinated in experienced management, one of the key things that was pushed was the idea of the research goal. And that's what I view. When I hear sustainability, it's like, "Hey, how do we improve our footprint?" When we talk about the great resignation, if we were trying to solve that, our research goal would be to solve the retention problem. That's what we're getting to. So, we're trying to figure out why are employees leaving? With sustainability, we're trying to figure out how do we have a greener footprint? And I'm just wondering what other like common goals are you seeing behind these sentiment efforts, or these experiences?</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, sure. Thank you for that.</p>
<p>So, actually, the great resignation, why are employees leaving, really ties back to an overlying theme of what we're actually hearing from the industry is total compensation, flexibility is a huge word, work hours, time off, travel. The flexibility of travel. Flexibility is a huge word today and as it crosses over into HR. I have never seen, my background, large tech company, T&E and HR were cross pollinated, if you will. I've never seen it more pollinated now than ever before where the T&E policy has HR elements.</p>
<p>But HR is dealing with, to your point on the retention and then going a little bit off track here, but the retention piece, and everyone's saying, we want flexibility, we want flexibility, flexibility now. What does that mean in terms of travel? What does that mean in terms of work hours? What does that mean in terms of technology and in terms of what you offer employees from a technology standpoint.</p>
<p>So, that's a big buzzword that we've been hearing. But it bleeds into so many things. The other thing we're hearing is wellbeing. Which back to flexibility, if you give folks flexibility in terms of their benefits, what they want, their wellbeing and mental health will obviously be better taken care of. Total compensation, et cetera.</p>
<p>So, they all bleed together for me, right? Because some people believe sustainability is their priority when it comes to travel, where others believe, no, I want to take personal travel while I actually have a business trip and I want the flexibility to do that. So, there's a lot of things that, from a policy perspective, I would say people are trying to, again, get their head around, because it means so much.</p>
<p>But how do you deal with that in terms of a policy and how do you deal with that in terms of the how behind a trip? How are you going to give them this flexibility when you traditionally lock them into potentially a mandated environment of all those operational indicators, you lock them into all those things. Well, now you need to tear all that down and start over potentially. But I don't know if I answered that the way you intended, but yeah, there's no one real message. The general theme in my mind is flexibility for folks.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think that's that's interesting though, because when you say you're talking about all these different points of flexibility, it brought a few things to mind in terms of specifically that scheduling personal travel. It goes back to your original point, right, is that this is an iterative process that needs to be operationalized, basically now. I think further highlights the importance of starting sooner than later.</p>
<p>Don't be the company that's starting to truly integrate experience management five years from now. I don't think, in my opinion, you will just be able to catch up. It's not going to be, "Hey, we started this XM project five years from now." What I would consider a serious laggard in this space starts this up and is like, "Okay, we're in trouble. Now we got to catch up."</p>
<p>You're not going to catch up in a year because of all those little pieces that you said, right? You need all of these little different points in the process to capture at the moment. People don't want to go back and remember what they did two years ago, or try to accurately define how they felt two years ago about a process that was already five years old or a policy that was already five years out of date.</p>
<p>You need to be getting that now and building up that understanding. So, I think that is so interesting to hear and I hope that more organizations will do this. Because I remember six years ago putting a spreadsheet out on SharePoint, emailing a distribution list of people, asking them to go in and flag their responses so I could process it as we were going through some reengineering work at a former employer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And it worked, right, but it was such a pain and it was so backwards from what is really available and possible that I hope more organizations can get out of this concerned phase and just get into adoption and start moving forward. I think it's going to be better for everybody. Employees, employers, I think it's going to make the relationship a lot more harmonious.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>And I think that's a great point. There is absolutely no catching up. And if you don't think that the generations coming in aren't ... It's funny, when you apply for a job, you get told, "Oh, they're looking at your social media page. They're looking at your resume and your background and all that." But there's so many means now to get data on employees applying for a position.</p>
<p>Well, if you don't think that's not happening in reverse with the upcoming generation looking? And even my generation, to be honest, now there's so much data that says, "Well, what is this company? What is its message? What is its policy?" They're researching. Now there's so much competition in terms of they're really now not just comparing your base pay or your bonus. It's now all of it. And it's all available out to them.</p>
<p>And even social media sites where your company might be getting a bit of good news or bad news in social media. People are considering that. So, forget the resignation. Can you even hire at this point because people don't want to work for you before they even start?</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, reputation, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Reputation and the effect of the access to all the data around it and this sheer conversation that people have about a company and where they're headed. What are their goals? What are their key success factors or vision, mission? All of those wonderful things. People are really considering those. So, if you want to wait until folks leave and then you want to ask why, you won't be able to backfill those positions once they leave, because you haven't done anything to change. And so back to the original thought of, don't just survey to survey. You have to have your mindset of we're going to do something different, we need to do something different. Not just so we don't get people to leave, but so we can hire effectively.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. It's interesting that there was a stat I remember hearing years back, it's probably changed, but they had surveyed a group of people and basically 80% of people said that the current role they were in was at least partially because they knew somebody at the organization. And the interpretation there was that if you didn't know somebody, you weren't going to be able to get a job and I think that's probably how I viewed it at the time.</p>
<p>But it's interesting now as we talk about the sentiment stuff and as I've had definitely the mind shift towards seeing operational and experience data, is that I would like to go back and ask those people if it had just as much to do with the confidence that the reference gave them in coming to work there.</p>
<p>Like, "Hey, this is a great place to work." So, they were willing to take the job because they had confidence that the organization wasn't in disarray. And to your point, right, the onboarding, the reputation. And like I said, I'm sure that number has shifted now. Especially with the broader opportunity for remote work. But I really do feel like there was a big portion of it that probably had to do with getting at least a personal feel for the reputation and the experience they could expect from the company.</p>
<p>So, I think maybe we can use this as our last topic here. I wanted to ask, is there a situation where somebody is just knocking it out of the park? You've been involved with an organization that is at the leading edge of experience management and they've seen measurable improvement. How long have they been on that journey? What has that process looked like? Just curious if we have anything like that. Maybe dangle the carrot for everybody to chase there. "Hey, this is the goal."</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Well, obviously I can't name names. But there's definitely those that are setting the benchmark. Is the benchmark set? No. Because the world is still changing very quickly, very rapidly, et cetera. But there are definitely those ... And the strongest characteristic, I would say, of the folks that I think that are knocking it out of the park, are those that are committed to both resourcing, gathering the data, making the data actionable, and having project teams to do so. Reviewing their policy on a regular basis, adjusting their policy on a regular basis.</p>
<p>So, you can see the results of their work very quickly. It's not going to take two years to change the policy. They are committed. The leadership, to your point earlier, the leadership is bought in. It's necessary to keep the culture alive and getting the highest quality employees you can that are committed.</p>
<p>Everyone thinks that, again, the generations that are coming up are job hoppers, but those companies are saying, "We're not okay with that. We're going to put things in place so they don't want a job hop." And it's just that commitment from the very top down. It's articulated, it's in their mission, it's in their vision. They're investing in technology. It's just like any project, to be honest. As long as there's a leadership that's committed, messaged, and invested. Whether that's your resourcing, funds, change, et cetera, that's the benchmark, and that they're striving to be.</p>
<p>It's hard to commit to changing a policy or updating your policy on this accelerated pace and this iterative pace, but they're bought into the thought and they've seen the results of their work. And so that even makes the commitment even stronger. So, I think they had that in their culture to begin with to be quite honest, of those that I'm thinking in my mind. I haven't seen somebody make a 180 in this space.</p>
<p>They still want to hang on to those operational indicators to make the change and to drive the right behaviors. You can still focus on that. Obviously they're still necessary. But I think there's definitely got to be that culture shift if you don't have that in your mindset already. But those that are already ahead of that and had it in their culture are the ones that I see are making those changes and they're much more effective and they would be happy to tell you, how did the project go? And they can pinpoint, our retention went from this to that. Our hiring went from this to that. We are aligned with all departments cross-functionally and this is, what our vision is, our mission is, and it aligns with the corporate objectives. And then show you the results probably of their employees surveys and what's important to them.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>No, I think that's good and completely unsurprising. The organizations, winners keep winning. They have operationalized, they have executive stakeholder buy-in, and when they commit, they make it happen. And I think that's what it's going to take for organizations that are thinking about doing this. This isn't just, "Oh, send out a handful of surveys and that'll make you feel better about what you're doing."</p>
<p>Like this is meaningful, iterative change. Which I think, if we wrap up our key takeaways, that was what stood out to me the most from this. That iterative requirement. You have to stick with this, the twice a year isn't enough. Those data points are too far apart. The world changes too fast. And I'll be honest, that's something that personally I definitely struggled with early on getting indoctrinated into experience management, was the idea of survey fatigue. I will not reference any establishments. But there are more than enough places that said, "Oh, how was your visit today?" Or, "How was your flight?"</p>
<p>And I'm like, "Well, I could have used four more inches of leg room, but you're not going to do anything about that, right?" So, I think hearing that as an organization, that's where the opportunity is, is getting that frequency of feedback and finding ways to deploy that so that your employees know that you're not just hearing them, you're really taking action and making it happen. I think the other thing that maybe stood out to me as a takeaway was the importance of starting now.</p>
<p>You always hear, when's the best time to start? Right now. When's the next best time? Right now. And I think that's absolutely it. Anybody that's lagging on this, I think they're going to pay exponentially. I don't think it's going to be like some of the other adoption areas where you've been able to get by with Excel. You can patch things together and make things work and you're not exponentially behind.</p>
<p>I think on this experience management, I think if you're behind, you're way further behind than you know. And then I think just lastly what you said, that commitment to the program, to the buy-in from leadership and really putting the program in place and finding ways to make it integrated into the culture of the organization. I think those three takeaways really stood out to me. Was there anything that you would add to that?</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>No, I think that's all great. And I don't mean to end on a, in my thoughts, on a corny hashtag, but my kids, and I think I got it actually from one of their sports teams, it's "hashtag day one," or, "hashtag one day." You make the choice, right? Is it going to be today or is it going to be one day out in the future? I think day one has approached. We got to start now if you haven't already. And you probably have access to some data already, you just may not know it. And just again, go talk to your HR, go talk to other groups. Yeah, there's no better time to start than today.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Walker:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, yeah. I think that's great. That's a great place to end. So, again, this was the SAP Concur Conversations podcast series. I'm Andrew Walker and this was Crystal. Thanks for joining me.</p>
<p><strong>Crystal Schoenhals:</strong></p>
<p>My pleasure. Thank you.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
5 Easy Ways to Streamline Your Higher Ed Invoice Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-easy-ways-streamline-your-higher-ed-invoice-process
2022-11-01T14:26:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For decades higher education institutions have been utilizing an its good enough operating model But that model is no longer sustainable Todays educational institutions are...
<p>For decades, higher education institutions have been utilizing an “it’s good enough” operating model. But that model is no longer sustainable.</p>
<p>Today’s educational institutions are experiencing several unique challenges. First, changing public perception has left students and parents alike questioning the necessity of traditional college degrees. Enrollment is declining, regulatory pressures are increasing, and for many public institutions, state funding is being cut.</p>
<p>The challenges aren’t limited to these external impacts. Institutions are still operating with outdated, paper-based systems and siloed departments, restricting their ability to adapt to the changing environment and maintain a student-first strategy. Budgets are shrinking and, as a result, resources are becoming more strained. The bottom line: it’s time to change the “good enough” approach.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where Do You Start?</h2>
<p>Fortunately, adopting a new model isn’t as complicated as it may seem, especially when you begin by taking a look at your invoices. If your institution is like half of respondents in a recent <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1595310/DB9D7A3B5D4F4C9F5C889C0E47AF1AE7">SAP Concur webinar for higher ed</a>, your invoice process is paper-based and manual, and data is still hand-keyed, making it difficult to see and accurately control your spend. Even so, it may seem like your invoice process is a difficult first task to tackle. However, it’s actually easier than you may think.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Work with the systems you are already using: </strong>Adopt a solution that integrates your invoice process with Banner and your ERP systems, and automatically match POs to invoices to validate purchases. To take further control of all your school-wide spend, pair your invoice process with your expense data so you have all the information you need in one place. </li>
<li><strong>Empower users with their own devices: </strong>Your faculty and staff are already using their mobile devices daily, why not adopt a mobile-friendly invoice process that uses tools your institution already has? Mobile devices could allow for approvals to be made on-the-go, so invoices won’t be in limbo while the approver is in meetings across campus.</li>
<li><strong>Consolidate the data you already have: </strong>Whether across departments or across systems, your spend data is already out there. But if your invoicing is paper-based, or even just partially automated, it is difficult to see all that spend in one place, let alone capture what is being initiated directly from your staff. By connecting your invoice spend to the rest of your user-initiated spending, you’ll get a more complete picture of your finances, so you can make strategic decisions for your institution, like negotiating better vendor rates and finding areas where you can cut costs. </li>
<li><strong>Bring out the best in existing staff: </strong>You already have valuable staff in your departments -- leverage them for analyzing and identifying inefficiencies, not chasing down information and approvals. </li>
<li><strong>Repurpose your budget: </strong>Research from Ardent Partners showed organizations can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ap-automation-fact-or-fiction">reduce their invoice processing costs</a> by up to <strong>70% </strong>through automation. By capitalizing on those cost savings, leveraging early payment discounts, and negotiating better vendor rates, AP begins to look more strategic, and not just a back-office function. Cost savings here means money back to student-first initiatives and more smiles for your decision makers. </li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>A Better Way for Managing University Spend</h2>
<p>Higher education has many new challenges to tackle. And likely, your institution’s current operating model isn’t cutting it.</p>
<p>Understanding the current status of your finances is important, but making adjustments today is necessary to ensure the financial success of your institution tomorrow. Establishing the areas in which your invoice process can easily improve is the first step to ensuring a successful spend management model. And, when you can showcase the value your departments gained from small changes, you can help shift your culture in ways that lead to lasting improvements in spend and beyond. </p>
<p>With a partner like SAP Concur, educational institutions don’t have to do it alone. SAP Concur can help institutions automate and simplify the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">accounts payable process</a>, eliminating manual invoice routing, approvals, and payments as well as the costly errors that go along with them. Plus, you can get full visibility into your users’ AP spending – so you can control it before it’s spent. What’s holding you back from making lasting changes in invoicing? After all, your faculty, staff and students deserve better than “good enough.”</p>
<p><strong>Learn more about how SAP Concur helps <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-expenses-software">higher education institutions</a> streamline spend management. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Does a Small Business Need an Employee Expense Policy?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/does-small-business-need-employee-expense-policy
2022-11-13T16:36:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Spoiler alert: Yes.
<p>As an entrepreneur or business owner, you’re constantly navigating the shifting landscape to build a successful business. Managing your expenses always plays a big factor in the health of your cash flow, but these days it’s especially important to get clear on employee spend as your business evolves.</p>
<p>If you’ve been building your expense management process informally over time, it’s likely time to put a formal expense reimbursement policy in place.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Expense policy guide for entrepreneurs</h5>
<p>Build your small business expense policy using our free template.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/expense-policy-entrepreneurs">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p>Even companies with fewer than 20 employees benefit significantly from having an employee expense policy, according to a review of SAP Concur customers. Companies that went a step further and moved from a manual expense management process to an automated, cloud-based solution saw a 42% increase in process efficiency by reducing error, risk, and cost.</p>
<p>But first, let’s cover the expense policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s an expense policy? </h2>
<p>An expense policy clearly tells employees the rules, responsibilities, and expectations when incurring expenses. It should be comprehensive, outlining all main expense types, yet concise so your employees can understand it at a glance.</p>
<p>It’s also a living document. Plan to review and update it regularly so it stays relevant as your business evolves.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What does an expense policy help you do?</h2>
<p>An effective expense policy helps you communicate:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who must follow the policy</li>
<li>Which expense categories are permitted</li>
<li>How expense reports are submitted, reviewed, and approved</li>
<li>The reimbursement process and timing</li>
<li>The expense approval dispute process</li>
<li>How to stay compliant, and what happens if an employee doesn’t comply</li>
<li>The company policy on bribery, fraud, and corruption</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Setting up an expense policy: the basics</h2>
<p>An effective expense policy is worth the work that goes into creating it, helping control costs and fostering accountability. So how do you start? Take a look at the SAP Concur guide: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/expense-policy-entrepreneurs">An expense policy for your business</a>.</p>
<h3>Establish context for the policy</h3>
<p>Help employees understand the purpose of the policy by including:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>A statement of purpose: </strong>Why the policy exists plus basic guidelines.</li>
<li><strong>Expectations and compliance: </strong>How the company will help employees claim expenses, what employees must do to get reimbursed, and how non-compliance will be handled.</li>
<li><strong>Address fraud, bribery, and corruption</strong>: What’s the company’s stance on these issues?</li>
<li><strong>Address areas of ambiguity</strong>: Clarify who authorizes expenses and who pays.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Consider expense types that are relevant to your business</h3>
<p>Outline which expenses are allowable and non-allowable. Some common expense types include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Home office/remote work</li>
<li>Travel</li>
<li>Communications and connectivity</li>
<li>Transportation</li>
</ul>
<p>Some common non-allowable expenses might include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Personal non-work-related items</li>
<li>Parking fines</li>
<li>Health club membership fees</li>
<li>Personal credit card fees</li>
<li>Damage to or theft of personal property while traveling for business</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Beyond the policy: Automated solutions for spend management</h2>
<p>Taking the first big step in staying on top of cash flow and setting up an employee expense policy is crucial. But you can take the guesswork out of employee expenses by moving from a manual, paper, in-house expense management process to an automated, cloud-based solution.</p>
<p>With Concur Expense, you can automate expense submissions and approvals, and employees can easily submit expense reports using a highly-rated mobile app. An easy-to-use dashboard gives you a unified view of your employee expenses so you can track key data and have a clear look at what’s being spent and where. Establishing an automated system can help you stay compliant and reduce risk, while meeting the needs of your growing business.</p>
<h2><br />
Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>Discover how to track expenses quickly and easily with our interactive experience. <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try it now</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
C-Suite Executives Share Insights to Help Companies Prepare for the Future
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/c-suite-executives-share-insights-help-companies-prepare-future
2022-11-13T18:13:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Growth is back on the agenda for global executives.
<p>Growth is back on the agenda for global executives. Randy Fodero, vice president of enterprise sales at the SAP Concur organization, recently asked a panel of C-Suite leaders for their insights on future business growth, managing risk, and the importance of cloud technology as the world begins to return to business travel. The panelists included:</p>
<ul>
<li>Kathy Hinton, former VP of supply chain management and facilities at <a href="https://www.marathonpetroleum.com/">Andeavor</a></li>
<li>Tom McKee Jr., former CPO and CIO at <a href="https://www.kennametal.com/us/en/home.html">Kennametal</a></li>
<li>Don Whittington, retired VP and CIO at <a href="https://www.floridacrystals.com/">Florida Crystals Corporation</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=3133095&sessionid=1&key=625677D8C2668BA6AD41D6F10D0B233D&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register">Listen to the webinar</a> for the full insights.</p>
<h2>The return of business travel</h2>
<p>It’s not a matter of <strong>if</strong> we’ll return to travel, but <strong>when.</strong> More than half of the respondents in a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/eiu-robust-processes-help-us-organizations-growing-out-pandemic">Economist research report</a> expect to rely on business travel as much or more than they did pre-pandemic.</p>
<p>Tom McKee Jr. shared that when business travel returns, it will be different. “The way we look at it, the way we approve it, the way we forecast it, and the way we manage the costs,” said McKee <a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=3133095&sessionid=1&key=625677D8C2668BA6AD41D6F10D0B233D&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=registerhttps://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=3133095&sessionid=1&key=625677D8C2668BA6AD41D6F10D0B233D&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register">during the panel discussion</a>. “Companies need to prepare now as many were unprepared for all the work-from-home expenses.”</p>
<p>All panelists agreed that business travel is essential to a company’s success. “The maturity of the relationship matters. The less mature the more face-to-face contact is probably needed to grow sales, negotiate with suppliers or others,” McKee added.</p>
<p>Adding in a pre-trip approval process was one recommendation discussed. “Pre-trip approval has really come full circle,” said Kathy Hinton. “We tried this many years ago and employees disliked it. However, post-COVID times, this could work.”</p>
<h2>Managing risk and compliance</h2>
<p>Maverick spend is on the rise, which means that employee spend is taking place outside of traditional channels and agreed upon contracts. In fact, almost <strong>three-quarters</strong> of U.S. respondents from the Economist research report say they have experienced an increase in “maverick spending” by employees, largely due to an increase of employees working from home.</p>
<p>It’s likely that many organizations will maintain a hybrid structure, where employees can work in the office and from home. Kathy Hinton shared, “it’s very important to be able to have holistic spend data, not only to see what your current spend is…but to be able to forecast what you’re going to do in the future,” to control rogue spending.</p>
<p>In addition to rogue spend, there’s also a focus on policy compliant spend and preventing fraud. Automating card spend directly into an expense report or corporate card enables a company to capture detail that may be needed to verify compliant spend. For example, Hinton explained how a $20 wiper blade expense led to uncovering a significant fraud scheme from an individual.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1623368502455-travel_budget_chart.png" /></p>
<h2>Technology adoption</h2>
<p>With all the changes that have taken place in the last year, many organizations have relied upon digital infrastructures to enable continuity of day-to-day business activities. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/putting-ai-work-new-ways">artificial antelligence (AI)</a> and machine learning (ML), companies are able to shift from a transaction mindset to data-analytics. </p>
<p>At Florida Crystals, Don Whittington focused upon eliminating extra work, rather than merely automating it. With AI, “we were able to take and look at trends and patterns and turn it into insights.”</p>
<p>AI and ML also allow processes, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/are-you-reclaiming-overpaid-taxes-revamp-your-approach-vat-and-bring-money-back-business">reclaiming VAT (value-added tax)</a>, easier. Randy asked, “if we had $10,000 in a tax return sitting out there waiting for us, all we had to do was fill out the paperwork, would we do it?” Of course, so why should VAT be any different? Let the technology do the work and your organization will reap the benefits.</p>
<h2>Invest in your organization first</h2>
<p>Establishing and increasing business momentum takes a continuous commitment to improvement. With SAP Concur solutions, you can re-examine how you manage spending and ensure that your policies and processes in place fit with how you’re doing business today—removing any barriers that slow you down and hold your budget or margins back from their potential. <strong>For more ideas and insights, <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=3133095&sessionid=1&key=625677D8C2668BA6AD41D6F10D0B233D&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register">listen to this webinar</a>.</strong></p>
Kiersten Conner
Risky Business: Avoiding Rogue Spend with Our Top High-Risk Expense Types and Best Practices
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/risky-business-avoiding-rogue-spend-our-top-high-risk-expense-types-and-best-practices
2022-11-13T19:33:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our employees are our most valuable assets however managing their spend across a growing number of spend categories and payment methods often leaves room for error and noncompliance...
<p>Our employees are our most valuable assets, however, managing their spend across a growing number of spend categories and payment methods often leaves room for error and non-compliance. These are serious (and time-consuming) issues that can create mistrust, misuse, and an overall waste of your organization’s time. Not to fear: with crystal-clear expense policies and relevant expense type categories, you can reduce most of the ambiguity and non-compliance – saving you time and money while reducing your organization’s risk.</p>
<p>Checks and balances, in the form of clear expense policies, make it easier for employees to comply, and simple for you to mitigate, detect, and prevent losses from accidental errors or fraudulent activities. Whether internal guidelines or external regulatory requirements, the way an organization defines and enforces policies determines its risk for fraud and non-compliance. Sound policies are only part of the equation; efficient and consistent enforcement through best-in-class technology helps to close loopholes that could leave you exposed. Using our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">interactive expense policy builder</a>, you can create a policy to prevent non-compliance before it happens. Read on for our best practices to whip your organization’s spend compliance into shape.</p>
<h2>Sleuthing for non-compliance: Our top high-risk expense types</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">IDC Report</a> indicated that “30% of executives are concerned with compliance to spend management policies in order to make strategic business decisions.” But where do you start? Identifying top high-risk expense types in your organization is a great first step. Here’s a list of the top 14 out of 29 expense types found with spend in high-risk categories across SAP Concur customer data. These are categorized as high risk because they have the greatest room for fraud or non-compliant spend. We recommend running your top expense types and then using this list to prioritize your auditing process for non-compliant or fraudulent spend:</p>
<ol>
<li>Airfare</li>
<li>Airline Booking Fees</li>
<li>Car Rentals</li>
<li>Entertainment</li>
<li>Gas and Fuel for Mileage</li>
<li>Ground Transportation
<ul>
<li>Company or Personal Car (Fixed Expense)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Lodging
<ul>
<li>Room Rate</li>
<li>Lodging Tax</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Meal: Daily Allowance</li>
<li>Meetings, Tradeshows/Conventions</li>
<li>Mileage Reimbursement: Company or Personal Car</li>
<li>Office-Related
<ul>
<li>Computer</li>
<li>Facility</li>
<li>Janitorial</li>
<li>Office Supplies</li>
<li>Rent</li>
<li>Shipping</li>
<li>Utilities</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Rail (Train)</li>
<li>Telecom/Internet</li>
<li>Training</li>
</ol>
<p>While these high-risk spend categories are important to watch, of equal importance is everything categorized as “other.” Constant evaluation and update of your expense policies to accommodate for new categories of spending will help make your employee initiated spend program efficient and accurate.</p>
<h2>Best practices to reduce non-compliant spend</h2>
<p>After evaluating your high-risk expense types, here are some best practices to keep your organization’s spend aligned to policies and regulations:</p>
<ol>
<li>Establish clear and appropriate expense policies</li>
<li>Provide continuous and comprehensive training and support for all current users and new hires, by updating training materials when new policy guidelines or product features are introduced</li>
<li>Offer employees booking, expense reporting and authorization tools with functionality to prevent or identify non-compliant behaviors (e.g., lack of documentation, limit spending, unauthorized use of expense types)</li>
<li>Encourage mobile receipt capture and mileage tracking with smart phones</li>
<li>Conduct regular audits to check for policy adherence</li>
<li>Use what you learn about your own data to drive policy changes and configuration updates</li>
</ol>
<h2>What you can’t see can cost you: Minimizing fraud, maximizing compliance</h2>
<p>Keeping a pulse on your organization’s Highest Expense Spend categories is an excellent barometer for the health of your overall spend management program. What more could you be doing to guide your employees towards responsibly stewarding your organization’s dollars while protecting your organization from potential risks? Leverage our handy <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to keep yours relevant in these ever-changing times. </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Travel Risk Management: Why Data Integration Is Key to Your TRM Plan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-management-why-data-integration-key-your-trm-plan
2022-11-14T11:29:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the first part of our travel risk management TRM series we explored why having a TRM program is a critical part of running your business The next step towards implementing a...
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">the first part of our travel risk management (TRM) series</a>, we explored why having a TRM program is a critical part of running your business. The next step towards implementing a successful TRM program is to ensure the effective acquisition and management of data. But, data collection alone can’t support a TRM program. To be successful, it needs to combine all traveler data in one place.</p>
<p>Nearly one-third of those surveyed by BTN said that TMCs are their primary external TRM partners, and they are often relied upon to aggregate the relevant internal and external data from travelers. At a minimum, TMCs should be able to supply you with information on travel booked, but should ideally go deeper and gather information on who is traveling where, when and how, as well as risk alerts and news on pending and current incidents (think airline strikes, airport closures and weather warnings). Additionally, a comprehensive TRM program will also track HR information including employees’ personal details (emergency contact, personal mobile number, etc.).</p>
<p>But, when a booking is made outside of the TMC, that travel data is typically unavailable. And, as bookings are increasingly made directly with suppliers, this creates a big black hole of data in your TRM program.</p>
<p>So, what’s the best way to coordinate these multiple data sources?</p>
<p>It’s important to think about the entire ecosystem of travel risk management. First, multiple stakeholders should be identified, as making TRM the sole responsibility of the travel department is an uneven burden. Secondly, businesses should have a system that centrally aggregates all internal and external data in order to precisely pinpoint traveler locations. Finally, compliance management is key to ensuring quality data from travelers.</p>
<p>See how <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> enables you to fulfill your duty-of-care responsibilities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Part one: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">Four Reasons Why Travel Risk Management is a Business Imperative</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part three: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/time-to-take-next-step-towards-travel-risk-management">It's Time to Take the Next Step Towards Your Travel Risk Management Plan</a></strong></p>
Rebecca Dolan
Shifting Mileage Programs to Accommodate the Work-From-Anywhere Lifestyle
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/shifting-mileage-programs-accommodate-work-anywhere-lifestyle
2022-11-14T13:05:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Many employees are leaning into the workfromanywhere lifestyle and organizations are shifting to accommodate these new and evolving expectations Designing a winning mileage program...
<p>Many employees are leaning into the work-from-anywhere lifestyle and organizations are shifting to accommodate these new and evolving expectations. Designing a winning mileage program that is fair, comprehensive, and relevant to the times is no simple feat. Since mileage is a top area of spend for many organizations, how they handle the policies, tracking, reimbursement, and feedback can be instrumental for budget planning, as well as validating employees who travel long or short distances for work.</p>
<p>Enjoy this candid and practical <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a">SAP Concur Conversation</a> on optimizing mileage spend amidst and beyond the pandemic between Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur solutions, and Ken Robinson, Market Research Manager for <a href="https://www.motus.com/">Motus</a>.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5I9renR3B1ISIFuYRHFcT2">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/winners-and-losers-shifting-gAzsmRZCkFw/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/winners-and-losers-shifting-gAzsmRZCkFw/">Acast </a>or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<h3>Transcript:</h3>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Well hello, Ken Robinson. How are you today?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>I'm doing fantastic, Marchelle. How about yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I'm good, I'm good. And hello to the listeners today. We have Ken Robinson from our Motus partner with us today, and I'll give him room to introduce himself, but first I'd like to introduce myself. I am Marchelle Klippenstein. I'm the vice president of our Value Experience Group at SAP Concur [solutions] and I have the pleasure of speaking with Ken on the topic of mileage. It seems like a no-brainer in a lot of ways, but we know that it's a pressing concern or there's a lot of questions around what's next when it comes to employee mobility. So, Ken, you want to introduce yourself to the audience?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I'm Ken Robinson, the Manager of Market research for Motus. That basically means that I spend a lot of time researching trends and different cost influencers that affect all types of mobility expense.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>And Motus is a huge partner for us in terms of employee expense management, so we're just ... Again, thank you for being with me here today. We'll kick things off. First of all, you mentioned just before we started recording that you're from Milwaukee and that the sun is shining for you today, which is great. We're on the precipice of summer, which is awesome, and of course employees are going to get out and start moving around. We've got a world that's opening up, right? So, we'll just first kind of launch into what's your perspective of the mobile workforce and what is the personal car mileage or the vehicle transportation environment looking like right now?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Well, so overall mileage levels have gradually been increasing and I would expect that especially over the next say one to one and a half quarters we're going to see an additional surge in terms of the number of miles that people are driving both for business purposes and for personal purposes. One of the things that is really the perspective inside and really outside of Motus is that we have to really think about the rise of the work anywhere lifestyle. So if you think about obviously we're all familiar with working from home and decentralized approach to work, but the way that we do business has changed in a way that I don't think is ever going to revert back to the way that things were say a little more than a year ago, because it's unlikely that people are headed back to the office.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>And that's what different experts inside of commercial real estate would tell you also is that it's not that we're going to get rid of the office, okay, but it's that now that we have found ways to work effectively in a remote environment ... In my mind it's a split of maybe I'm going to spend some time in the office, but I'm probably also going to be spending time remotely, and that might mean working at the home office, but it might also mean that I'm going to be working out of the car, going to see customers, right? I think that we're going to see more of that work without boundaries approach, to the way that people operate.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>And so it sure seems likely that business mileage is going to increase not just over the suppressed levels that we've seen over the past 12 months, but I think that going forward that business mileage almost ... It has to increase and especially in the short term when air travel for business purposes might take a little longer to recover. It also seems like the car is a real natural opportunity to get out and make those business trips, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right, which is going to introduce ... Again, it goes back to the mobile workforce people are going to want to. I mean, let's be honest. People are going to want to get out of their homes. Us having this dialogue over a podcast, it's probably much more fun to be sitting across from each other in a room with a microphone and having it there, right? People are going to want to do that. Our customers should be seeing employees raising their hands most likely to say, "Hey, you know what? I want to get out. I feel safe. I want to go see a customer. I want to go do this. I need to do business on behalf of this organization. I want to make things happen. I want to generate revenue. I want to be part of the solution." And I think our customers are going to have to be ready for that return. But here's the thing though. I saw the other day, I think for '21, right, IRS changed some mileage reimbursement rates and companies are having to pivot quickly to different mobile options. Maybe some are going more personal car than they're going fleet or whatever.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>So I think the IRS reduced the rate, right? It dropped a penny or something for the US market. I think it was 56 cents a mile or something. It changed, I know that, but the thing is why? Why would the IRS say, "Okay, sorry, you're coming out of a pandemic, and this would be our primary mode of transportation for you? We know that air carriers are not going to be your primary choice, potentially." Why would the IRS or what is the situation behind the mileage reimbursement rates and what do our customers need to consider with that?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>It's a very deep ranging topic, Marchelle. What I will say is that ... So the rate went down and it's because the IRS mileage standard, it's really based on the prior year versus what you see happening. And so you think about all the different driving costs. For example, one that we're all super familiar with is gas prices, right? And gas prices, are they ever the same between stops at a fuel station? Probably not. And so what I would say is that it can be a little bit of a headache depending on how accurate a company wants to be when you stick to that standardized one size fits all rate because, again, it's based on last year. So last year gas prices were very depressed. Just like almost everything else in the economy, things were way out of whack with fuel prices. And so now employees, when they receive that per mile reimbursement it's not really reflecting their actual cost. It's reflecting the prior year's costs.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Okay, okay, so let's dive into that a little bit more. I'm sure everyone's thinking, well, yeah, I'm not getting reimbursed enough to cover the cost of my car or my insurance. So how would anybody on the finance side of a business respond back to an employee that says, "You're not even covering the cost of my car. Give me a car or give me an allowance or ... What's the balance there or how should our customers jointly respond to their employee base on that?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I think that it's a fair question for employees to raise and in what I think is an important, maybe introspective moment for employers is to think about the way that they're doing things. And if you think about the landscape, I think that more than a few departments inside of every business have been taking time and are taking time to think about how they might want to do things better going forward. And so it's a good time to look at different options for vehicle programs too, because that IRS one size fits all mileage standard is not the only option. And so for example, companies could pay a vehicle allowance, a fixed stipend essentially to cover that driving expense. And the problem is when we're talking about accuracy, that's really not helping either, is it?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>No.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>For example, the gas price that I pay is going to be very different than the one that you pay just because of our geography, not to mention the point in time, right? When is the business being done? And so that's one of the things that's really interesting about the fixed and variable rate approach or FAVR as we call it. And it's because that method uses a more contemporary or I guess more current view on all the different cost factors. So especially with gas prices, that FAVR reimbursement is going to be extremely accurate in terms of what people are paid for that fuel portion of their driving costs.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>It's not just going to be accurate in terms of where prices are in the market right now, it's also going to be accurate in terms of where you're located. And so that's one of the reasons that FAVR is an attractive option because it's super accurate, and it's a very fair approach, and it's actually ... Strangely enough, inside of the IRS tax regulations there's information on what it takes to pay a tax-free mileage reimbursement and FAVR is outlined there is the method that's really optimal, even though a cents per mile approach could be applied and people can just log mileage.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right. You bring up a good point. I think I've seen a couple of states that have been or a couple of companies that have been targeted in their state legislation that actually almost ... Doesn't it guide companies to say, "Hey, you need to look at FAVR as a dominant reimbursement method," or because of the imbalance? You're mentioning the price of fuel is going to be more expensive in some of the coastal states, or the cost of insurance, or doesn't it matter the size or the type of car the employee has? If we're dependent on the employees to drive their own vehicles to do business on behalf of us, don't we need to consider that as a ... To your point, it's a non-taxable reimbursement for them using their own asset. Isn't there regulation that goes along with this to your point with the IRS tax code?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Yes. There is really a slew of rules and regulations that need to be navigated and that's one of the things that Motus has done a great job of simplifying through technology is to create a compliance solution, and I would say is one of the reasons that we're partners, right, is that our combined solution is the best of both worlds. The other upside of FAVR is that it's not just fair and accurate. I guess accuracy also leads the way towards I would say really effective cost control, because you don't want to overpay or underpay and that's, I guess, one of the weaknesses of using that one size fits all approach of say 56 cents a mile is that if you and I both drive say 6,000 business miles a year and we're in our areas, say we have sales territories and we're driving our two territories. At the end of the day we're going to get about the same amount of reimbursement paid to us.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>But if my costs, for example, for insurance, and taxes, and registration, and fuel and maintenance, everything that goes into the cost of driving, not to mention the car itself, that stuff is all scaled at a lower cost of living where I am and a higher cost of living where you are. We're creating sort of winners and losers, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Because if we're being paid the same amount there's a good chance that I'm being paid more with that flat rate than I actually need to cover my business mileage and you might be getting paid less. It's not a great approach, and so if there's a way that's not too painful that can help even the scale out so that we're each paid effectively it's probably the best answer for everyone. That's the thing is that it's a cost of doing business and sometimes people will view these things as a perk.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>That's true, they do. They think, "Oh okay, well I'm going to drive here and there and I'll get paid more than it costs me to drive there," but really they're not thinking about it in the larger, like the bucket of money that goes into mobilizing the workforce. So that actually brings me back. You mentioned it earlier, you talked about governing spend and it being probably a significant dollar amount for a lot of our customers, right? So I'm just curious off the top of your head, do you have an idea of the average or the norm as a percentage of total expense activity that mileage really does ... Is it 5%? Is it 10% of someone's program or is it kind of all over the board?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>I think it varies because of the nature of people's businesses, right? So if you have more of a hard goods type of business and you have a lot of merchandisers, for example, that can be a very large cohort of people that are driving for business that can kind of shift the scales. I would say that ... Actually, a study that [SAP] Concur [Solutions] did a couple of years ago, cites business mileage as a top 10 expense category for a large number of industries. If you're in the top 10, it probably deserves some scrutiny. Wouldn't you agree?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I agree, yes. So in the Value Experience Group, when we are working with customers we do see mileage hit the top of the list nine times out of 10, right? And often I think the customers we're talking to do not have ... They could talk to us all day about how they curb airfare expenses, and their tactics with that, and their suppliers, and then hotel and they negotiate everything. But never have, well, not never have I ever but most of the time I've not heard a program manager come to us and say, "This is how I need to curb or manage this category, which is mileage."</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>And I think that given this, like you'd mentioned, the trajectory of where we're at, you're right, this is a really great time for our programs or our customers to look at this piece of their program and say, "What's best?" So question for you on that front. I mean, are you seeing customers drive or move towards fleet vehicles or getting out of the business of personal car and maybe moving towards fleet? What's the temperament or the sentiment in the market on that?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>We see a lot of companies looking at getting out of the company car business or fleet car program and a big part of that is that, well, it kind of relates back to COVID in that especially during that initial couple months where all public activity was really flat those businesses were paying for the cars, and so we've got this idle asset that's sitting there. So they might be saving on some of the consumable costs like their fuel, but at the same time that asset owned by the company is sitting there. It's not helping them do anything.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>And then because the vehicles oftentimes weren't even being driven for several months now they incur additional maintenance costs. And so there are two ways to look at the aspect of a fleet vehicle versus a personal vehicle for business and with a fleet vehicle the company is always going to pay more because even with the mechanisms that are in place to offset aspects of personal use there's always some personal use that seems to get through.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I was going to ask about that.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Whereas a personal vehicle, the philosophy there is that people are being reimbursed for the amount of that asset that's being used up for a specific business activity. And then depending on how granular you want to approach that, that kind of guides companies approaches. But then there are other things to think about that happened in terms of say employee satisfaction, because if I'm getting a company car I probably don't have a huge variance in terms of choices of what type of vehicle I'm getting. And that type of vehicle might be perfect for my company to have me take clients out to lunch, for example, but when it comes to my whole life, right? And so that's another thing that I was thinking about the other day actually is that the lines between work and life are blurry.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>So blurry, it's so blurry. I've got a teenager, I know.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and so now, for example, it's probably 10 times more blurry or it's something like that. And so for example, if you don't have a vehicle that's going to work with your lifestyle, right? You don't want to be out driving around in your company car doing your business, and then maybe you need to pick the kids up to go to soccer practice and where do you put all the gear? And so if it's a sedan you might be running out of room really quickly and you might need that SUV or whatever it takes to manage your life along with your business. And so that's where this aspect of personal choice comes in and I think that that's another ... It's another upside that people get, right? They have the freedom to choose that vehicle that's going to best mesh with their lifestyle and then still be barely reimbursed for their business expense portion of that as they deal with the business portion of their life.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Well, and that's what you said earlier in the beginning of even our time together. You said it, the rise of work from anywhere, right? And so that applies to the type of vehicle that people need to drive. Like I said, I have a teenager, but he's almost 17 so I don't have to drive him anymore. But I look back 10 years, I would've had the soccer gear. I would've had carpooling responsibilities. I would've had all that, right? And now if I was locked into a fleet program with a car that didn't serve that lifestyle I would've had to drive home, get my other car, go back to the elementary school, pick up, whatever. That would've been just a pain. I think our customers look at their employees and they think, "Okay, how do we ... because employee experience is huge. I mean, down to tracking mileage. We know that there's a specific way in which that all has to be documented, and we know technology enables that, but at the same time what if that means such a relief to the employee, right? They don't have to be the ones to have to track that. The technology serves up all of the appropriate reimbursement and manages it for them. That's the part that we also need to make sure we're balancing, to your point. The financial aspect is important. There's a lot of dollars.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Like you said, it's probably the top 10 expense category in most people's programs, but at the same time you've got this balance of employees that need them to be doing the job. You need them to be driving without being on their mobile device trying to enter in their miles. Think about the safety risks that go with things like that, right? I don't know, is that a conversation you've had with some customers around safety risk? If the technology just enables the tracking, do we have a safety win on that front?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. So there was a productivity issue too that creeps in here, Marchelle. We've looked at some of this in terms of trying to quantify what the value of having a set it and forget it approach to mileage versus having someone really try and rationalize their mileage as they fill out their expense report and then type a number in. The value there and particularly when you're talking about the documentation or substantiation requirements that are outlined in the IRS tax code, I would say ... I can make it really short actually. It's about 21 hours a year that are saved per employee if-</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>21 hours?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Right. So someone that I would say is a frequent business driver, right, so someone that probably drives at least 5,000 business miles a year. That's going to equate to at least 21 hours of manual log time, either in a spreadsheet, or in your notebook or in some kind of clunky app where you're doing a half measure and it's a huge productivity gain.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>But then also I can't help but think, does that actually bring another company, another outcome to the table, which would be almost like ... I mean, if an employee gets lost, or something happens to the employee driving or there's the GPS component, but also so we would know where the employee was, but then also what about any sort of insurance or further financial loss to an organization? Any scenarios to consider there that Motus as a technology could help prevent or support to companies' mobility policy around?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, we take driver's safety very seriously, and I've done different work, and I'm up to speed on some of the latest studies just about the impact. So vehicle accidents, so one of the things that really I guess the business leaders don't think about necessarily is that anytime whether an accident happens during work hours or not during work hours that's going to affect productivity across their teams, right? Even if there's no injury involved, if someone has to go to traffic court and take time off of work then productivity is being affected there. And so that time can add up pretty significantly, and obviously just good, safe driving is important too, right? Nobody wants anybody else to get hurt. And there's those two elements of it and, like I said, it's highly preventable. And sometimes what I've found is that it's a high priority, but it's not always a high enough priority to take action, right, and make driver safety a real front and center priority for people that are driving for business.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Even, gosh, yesterday I was reading about the challenge that faces businesses between how engaged do you want your employees to be while they're on the road? Some companies are taking a stance where they want employees to be able to participate in at least conference calls, and other types of sort of like half attention business activity. They think that's super important and so they won't implement a policy that's phone off while you're driving. Well, I guess some companies have ... They'll require a car mode on the phone or things like that.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>But then when it gets back just to that infotainment system in the car it's something that people are thinking about but they haven't totally resolved yet, because people can be looking at their navigation or adjusting the environmental controls of the car and it's all those different things. But the other challenge is that people don't all have the same risky driving profile of behaviors. The Motus perspective is that the best approach is an individualized approach, to assess each person's strengths and weaknesses and then help them improve on their weaknesses. And so that's kind of our approach to making drivers safer.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>No, I like that. I mean, I think most wouldn't necessarily correlate mileage reimbursement to driver safety, but I think through the technology and through just really looking at it holistically, it's more than just a mileage reimbursement program. It is actually a mobile workforce system, right, or support for them and mileage tracking or that reimbursement element is just a piece of it. I think our customers need to know that it's a chunky piece of their program that they have to make sure that they're looking at, like the next version of this given us coming out of this pandemic, getting airfare ... I live in Washington, like we were talking about earlier, and if I could drive to Oregon to meet a customer I'm going to do that probably than get on a plane. I'm going to drive at least minimum or max would be maybe three and a half hour drive. I'm fine with that. I'd rather do that than take an airplane because me going to the airport, plus getting on the plane, plus departing or arriving and dealing with all of my luggage, that's still three and a half plus hours there. So I'm going to weigh those benefits. I'm going to choose to drive probably.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>So, our customers have to think of like, what's next? Which, it's the opportune time. I don't know, I think I've had this discussion with a couple of my team members and thinking about what's the market pressure? Everybody's in this readdressed stage right now and I think mileage is just one piece of that that needs to be re-looked at, right?</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, totally agree. Well and especially because I think it's important that people think about that assessment now, because otherwise there's this risk that the spend is going to grow underneath that top level visibility because people aren't looking for it. If you're going to allow people to expense the whole bill and it's something that's a mixed-use asset then you're overpaying at the end of the day as a financial team. So the problem is that this is short-term thinking, right? To generalize, of course, people were thinking that they were going to lock down for five weeks and then get back out. And so they put all these short-term measures in place that I'm very confident persist.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>And so that's the thing is that it especially gets washed out when you think about how T&E is ... If somebody's looking at T&E on a balance sheet or business travel, those expenses are hiding under that plunge in business travel expenses from last year. And so now as we start layering it back in costs are going to go up because until someone does something about some sort of approach to resolve that expensing of the whole bill.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>It's new behavior. It's new expectations that the employees now have that the reimbursement factor is going to just always be there. I mean, overall it's just policy reset or program design for specific outcome, specific budgetary control. Our customers are going to have to come back into that old. They can't just now expect that, okay, well, we're going to grant home office everything. It's going to change. And so I agree with you on that front.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I think that the mileage topic is a huge piece of that and I really appreciate your perspective on this, Ken. You're clearly an expert and I know our customers obviously look at this and are trying to figure all these pieces out, and the partnership with Motus is extremely valuable, I know that. Well Ken, thank you again for your time and hopefully the listeners got a sense of the well-roundedness of this topic. I think it's a top expense line item. There's a lot of money involved and there's lot of employee experience to consider. The world is opening back up and Concur and Motus are here to support our customers. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Ken Robinson:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you, Marchelle.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>You're welcome.</p>
<p>Learn more about how to optimize mileage spend for your organization through the <a href="http://concur.com/concur-favr">SAP Concur FAVR by Motus</a> partnership by contacting your account representative today!</p>
<p>-------------------</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634002163019-ken robinson square.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ken Robinson is market research manager at Motus, the anywhere workforce champion that simplifies the reimbursement and management by providing vehicle, device, work and living costs solutions. He is responsible for identifying, interpreting, and reporting on the trends that affect the Anywhere Workforce and has written over 50 reports on these topics. Ken lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife Norma and their spirited cat, Midnight.</p>
<p>Follow Ken on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenrobinson/">LinkedIn</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Everything You Need to Know About Accounts Payable
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/everything-you-need-know-about-accounts-payable
2022-12-06T10:09:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If cash flow is the lifeblood of your business, your accounts payable process is its beating heart.
<ul>
<li><a href="#what-does-accounts-payable-mean"><strong>What does accounts payable mean?</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="#what-is-accounts-payable-process"><strong>What is an accounts payable process?</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="#what-are-top-challenges-for-accounts-payable-teams"><strong>What are some top challenges for accounts payable teams?</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="#what-is-accounts-payable-automation"><strong>What is accounts payable automation? </strong></a></li>
<li><a href="#benefits-of-accounts-payable-automation"><strong>What are the benefits of accounts payable automation?</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="#tips-to-implement-accounts-payable-automation"><strong>8 tips to implement accounts payable automation software</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="what-does-accounts-payable-mean"></a>What does accounts payable mean?</h2>
<p>Accounts payable (AP), according to <a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/accounts_payable">Oxford Languages Dictionary</a>, means money owed by a business to its creditors. AP is among the most complicated business processes for any company, and yet, it seldom gets its due in terms of attention or investment in process transformation.</p>
<h2 id="anchor2"><a name="what-is-accounts-payable-process"></a>What is an accounts payable process?</h2>
<p>If cash flow is the lifeblood of your business, your accounts payable process is its beating heart. A typical AP process can be broken down into four steps after the procurement is made:</p>
<ol>
<li>Invoice delivered to AP</li>
<li>Invoice review</li>
<li>Invoice approval</li>
<li>Payment issued to suppliers or vendors</li>
</ol>
<p>However, do keep in mind that the complexity and length of each company’s AP process will be different from organization to organization.</p>
<h2 id="anchor3"><a name="what-are-top-challenges-for-accounts-payable-teams"></a>What are some top challenges for accounts payable teams?</h2>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/True%20Cost%20Manual%20Processes.png" /></p>
<p>Traditional methods are cumbersome and inefficient. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">survey of</a> 420 businesses across five countries found that finance decision-makers rated various pain points related to manual invoice management. Problems commonly encountered by AP professionals include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Too many manual processes.</strong> In a manual environment, paper, faxes, and e-mails, are the basic building blocks. Most respondents (69%) were put off by the general inefficiency and laborious nature of manual solutions. This was at the top of the list of challenges for nearly every industry tracked.</li>
<li><strong>Incomplete documentation. </strong>Many organizations (56%) reported missing paperwork as a key challenge. Moving away from manual processes can eliminate the issue of missing documentation and the need for paper-based filing.</li>
<li><strong>Difficulty tracking spending trends and behaviors.</strong> Being able to track spending is an important part of corporate accounting. Small companies can also miss cash flow issues if spending is not tracked easily.</li>
</ul>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Build a Case for AP Automation</h5>
<p>Our guide will help you lay the groundwork to plan, write, and present a business case that you can sell into your business leaders.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2 id="anchor4"><a name="what-is-accounts-payable-automation"></a>What is accounts payable automation?</h2>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Img2_costs%20AP%20automation_logofree.png" /></p>
<p>Automation is a different way to approach AP. <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-invoice-automation">AP automation</a> means using software to digitize the vendor invoicing process and create faster, leaner, more cost-effective AP workflows. These days, if you want to encourage business growth, it is inevitable to make a choice about your AP processes. Just ask yourself a simple question: Do you want you and your team to work harder or smarter?</p>
<p>Automating AP process provides businesses a single system to capture and route invoices digitally from approval to payment, regardless of format. It also increases visibility into spend and helps control costs accurately.</p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">How to build a case for AP automation</a></strong></p>
<h2 id="anchor5"><a name="benefits-of-accounts-payable-automation"></a>What are the benefits of accounts payable automation?</h2>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Img3_automation_logofree.png" /></p>
<p>Before listing out the benefits you’ll get with an automated AP process, let’s do some simple math first.</p>
<p>Automation delivers an average reduction in invoice processing costs of 29.2%, according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">research</a> from the Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM). For a business that processes 10,000 invoices per month at an average cost of $10 per invoice, an average 29% reduction in invoice processing costs equals to savings of around $300,000 per year. However, AIIM found that nearly one-third of the businesses surveyed reduced their invoice processing cost by 50% or more because of AP automation, which would save them $600,000 a year.</p>
<p>Now, here are some top benefits automation can provide, regardless of your business size and industry:</p>
<ul>
<li>Control costs and reduce unnecessary spending</li>
<li>Reduce errors and duplications that come from manual data entry</li>
<li>Uncover data that helps you make informed decisions</li>
<li>Increase policy compliance and strengthen vendor relationships</li>
<li>Boost employee morale and give staff more time or strategic tasks</li>
<li>Attract and retain top AP talent</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="anchor6"><a name="tips-to-implement-accounts-payable-automation"></a>8 tips to implement accounts payable automation</h2>
<p>To support business growth, especially for SMBs, you will need a more scalable way of working with larger ecosystems of partners and suppliers. Intelligent process automation in AP changes everything. Here are some helpful tips we’ve compiled from other companies that have already completed the journey:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Investigate your processes.</strong> As you begin your shift to automation, take time to evaluate your current processes and start instituting meaning changes. Some simple ways to start with are asking your AP employees what obstacles they face and how you can help them overcome their issues. </li>
<li><strong>Continue making improvements.</strong> Since your business needs are changing constantly, your AP processes should evolve with them. Create a change management document at the onset of your automation solution implementation so new hires can quickly learn your processes.</li>
<li><strong>Capitalize on improved reporting. </strong>Make sure to take advantage of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-5-reports-concur-invoice">reporting capabilities</a> automation provides. With improved data insight, your company will be better equipped to proactively course-correct any inefficiencies or bottlenecks.</li>
<li><strong>Discuss your integration options. </strong>Before deploying your automated invoice solution, give some thought to the current state of your systems and your future needs. Think about things such as what resources you have internally, how you’re integrated with other systems, and how frequently you need AP data flowing back and forth.</li>
<li><strong>Create an AP policy. </strong>Having a policy in place helps educate employees on buying policies and procedures, provides a framework for implementation configuration, and identifies where user education or policy reinforcement may be needed. We have a handy <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">invoice policy template</a> to get you started.</li>
<li><strong>Align with others. </strong>A software implementation is likely to impact multiple groups inside and outside your company. It is important to make sure all interested parties are on the same page.</li>
<li><strong>Take the next step. </strong>Today’s most successful organizations are going beyond mere AP automation. They are looking to achieve AP optimization.</li>
<li><strong>Kick-start your transformation. </strong>The sooner you implement automated AP software, the better you can start benefiting from a comprehensive spend management platform that empowers you to save more time and money.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you're ready to make some changes, check out our guide <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">How to Make the Business Case for AP Automation</a></em>, or <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> today.</p>
Isabel Wang
Manage Your Business and Personal Trips in TripIt. Here’s How
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manage-your-business-and-personal-trips-tripit-heres-how
2022-12-06T13:49:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Have complimentary access to TripIt Pro because your company uses Concur Travel and Expense While automatically sharing your TripIt itineraries with SAP Concur saves you time we hear...
<p>Have complimentary access to TripIt Pro because your company uses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel and Expense</a>? While automatically sharing your TripIt itineraries with SAP Concur saves you time, we hear you—not all of your itineraries belong there. </p>
<p>That’s why we’ve added an email setting to give you control. You can use this email setting to make sure that your business trips <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002171644-SAP-Concur-Personal-trips?us=tripitmail&um=email&un=Test%20-%2020210216_PersonalTripsV2_EntPro_US">sync with SAP Concur</a> to help get your expense reports started—and that your personal trips stay, well, personal.</p>
<h2 id="h-how-does-it-work">How does it work?</h2>
<p>You can customize your plan-sharing preference for every email address you have connected to TripIt. When sharing with SAP Concur is turned on, all plans added to TripIt from that email address will be shared automatically. If you prefer plans not to be shared with SAP Concur, you can turn automatic sharing off within your email settings. </p>
<p>For example, for <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/sap-concur-survey-what-matters-global-business-travelers.html">business travel</a>, you can set your preference for plans associated with your work email address to automatically share with SAP Concur. Conversely, for personal travel, you can turn off automatic sharing with SAP Concur for plans associated with your personal email address, and those plans will not be automatically shared. </p>
<p>You can also edit individual trips to choose whether they are shared with SAP Concur, regardless of your email setting.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/TripIt%20email%20settings.jpg" /></p>
<h2>How do I change my settings?</h2>
<p>In the app, tap on the Account tab, then scroll down to Email Addresses. Select the email you want to change the setting for, and you’ll see the toggle, Share Plans with SAP Concur. Then, simply slide the toggle to meet your plan-sharing preference. </p>
<p>Sharing with SAP Concur is the default setting for any email addresses you have connected to TripIt. You can change your plan-sharing preference within email settings at any time. </p>
<p><strong>Pro tip:</strong> While you’re adjusting settings, consider turning on Inbox Sync to automatically add plans from your email inbox to TripIt.</p>
<p><strong>Not sure if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</strong></p>
Amanda Wowk
Do Your Company’s Mileage Reimbursement Program a FAVR
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-your-companys-mileage-reimbursement-program-favr
2022-12-30T15:07:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Businesses that rely on mobile workforces have choices when it comes to paying for or reimbursing employees for workrelated driving costs Traditionally companies have turned to one of...
<p>Businesses that rely on mobile workforces have choices when it comes to paying for or reimbursing employees for work-related driving costs. Traditionally, companies have turned to one of three models: cents-per-mile reimbursements, standard car allowances, and fleet vehicles. </p>
<p>In the first two installments of this three-part series on creating an effective, equitable vehicle program, we took a look at the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-returns-now-time-redefine-your-vehicle-program">challenges companies typically face</a> as they consider options for high-mileage drivers. Then we laid out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/looking-under-hood-traditional-vehicle-programs">risks and potential exposures</a> inherent in each of the traditional approaches. Here, we’re exploring what an increasing number of companies are recognizing as a better alternative: fixed and variable rate (FAVR) reimbursement. </p>
<p>The FAVR model is commonly built on six components – three fixed and three variable – all of which are incorporated into reimbursement calculations customized for each employee driver. Fixed costs include license and registration fees; taxes and depreciation; and insurance premiums. Variable costs include maintenance; fuel and oil; and tire wear. FAVR is designed for workers who drive their personal vehicles for job-related purposes at least 5,000 miles each year.</p>
<p>Compared to the three traditional models, FAVR is:</p>
<ul>
<li>More equitable than cents-per-mile reimbursements because it avoids over- and under-payments, which can diminish employee satisfaction. Because FAVR reimbursements are based on actual rather than estimated out-of-pocket vehicle usage costs, employers do not overpay and employees get their fair share. There are no tax liabilities for either party, since FAVR reimbursements comply with IRS standards and do not qualify as additional income.</li>
<li>Less of a tax burden than car allowances because it eliminates the possibility of employers and employees overpaying FICA taxes for imprecise allowance payments. Calculating reimbursement rates per the FAVR model is the only IRS-recommended methodology.</li>
<li>More cost-effective and less risky than fleets because it saves companies the significant financial and administrative burden of managing fleet vehicles while lowering round-the-clock liability. FAVR also lends to employee satisfaction, as it allows people who drive for work to drive their own preferred vehicles. </li>
</ul>
<p>Naturally, automation is key. That’s why we’re so excited to partner with Motus to offer SAP Concur FAVR by Motus as part of our suite of solutions. It captures, maps, and reports on actual work-related vehicle usage in real time. It’s also scalable and cloud-based, adjusting for fluctuations based on location, vehicle type, and other factors. Best of all, it integrates fully with the Concur Expense application, which allows companies to fold it seamlessly into existing administrative and reimbursement systems. </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Partner Day Growth and Innovation Awards: Celebrating Partner Excellence
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-partner-day-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner-excellence
2022-12-30T16:00:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Celebrating our partners is one of the highlights for SAP Concur This year we showcased their achievements through the SAP Concur Partner Growth and Innovation Awards which recognize...
<p>Celebrating our partners is one of the highlights for SAP Concur. This year, we showcased their achievements through the SAP Concur Partner Growth and Innovation Awards, which recognize four partners who leverage digital innovation to help customers run at their best. In addition, we recognized thirteen partners with our Distinguished Partner Awards.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Partner Ecosystem is vast and growing. From App Center partners, to Travel Management Companies (TMCs), to Service partners, our partner network expands the value of SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<h2>2019 SAP Concur Partner Growth and Innovation Awards Winners </h2>
<p><strong>CWT delights Concur Travel customers with tailored lodging choices</strong></p>
<p>As one of the world's leading digital travel management companies, <a href="https://www.mycwt.com/">CWT</a> helps organizations of all sizes deliver travel programs that engage employees and empowers them to be more productive while eliminating complexity. CWT leveraged its RoomIt division to build a solution that integrates with Concur Travel to expand user lodging choices for their joint customers. This hotel content is now available to all CWT users, within the Concur Travel display. The solution improves the user experience, broadens user choice, and delivers a tailored, personalized experience for travelers.</p>
<p><strong>Delta Air Lines delivers a seamless experience for over 500,000 travelers</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.delta.com/">Delta Air Lines</a>, a leader in domestic and international travel, launched its <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> solution in January 2019. Delta and SAP Concur developed a solution that recognizes corporate travelers by their company name and makes it easier for them to choose between business and leisure travel. Together, we created a seamless environment in which, regardless of how travelers book, they receive their Delta corporate discount. Their data is also sent to Concur Travel and their receipts flow into Concur Expense.</p>
<p><strong>Deloitte Consulting helps global enterprises solve complex challenges</strong></p>
<p>Service Partners help our customers implement and integrate SAP Concur solutions with the rest of their IT infrastructures, whether that be an ERP or finance platform, or an HRMS system. Service partners also provide additional consulting, best practices for change management, and analytics expertise that brings Intelligent Spend Management to life. <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/services/consulting-deloitte.html">Deloitte Consulting</a> has been a longtime SAP Concur Implementation partner. Every day, Deloitte helps customers tackle complex, multinational and game-changing digital transformation initiatives.</p>
<p><strong>WIPFLi enables customers to quickly and easily automate ERP integrations</strong></p>
<p>One of the App Center products that Concur Expense and/or Concur Invoice customers will often launch first is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) connector. A connector helps administrators automate cloud-to-cloud data exchanges with their finance systems, helping them save time and money through automation. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwja25q2mJPoAhWWrJ4KHU8oBWEQFjAAegQIBxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wipfli.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw3Ahw1RAZmGZx9ydxM2gP4q">WIPFLi CPAs and Consultants</a> is a premiere App Center partner that delivers world-class technology, consulting and other services. WIPFLi adds an average of 200+ new SAP Concur customers to its roster annually. We consistently hear from customers about the world-class customer service they provide. For example, in 2019, their Great Plains connector, and timely support, gave a Concur Invoice client the confidence she needed to move forward. </p>
<h2>Announcing our 13 Distinguished Partner Awards</h2>
<p>In addition to our Growth and Innovation Awards, we celebrate the following partners for their ongoing excellence and industry leadership.</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Acquis Consulting</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Service Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>ADTRAV Travel Management </strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished TMC Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>AvidXchange</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Pay Provider Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>BCD Travel</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished TMC Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>COMDATA</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Pay Provider Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Direct Travel</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished TMC Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>EY</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Service Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Lyft for Business</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished App Center Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>MedPro Systems</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished App Center Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>NeoSystems</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Service Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Ryvit</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished App Center Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Taxback International</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished App Center Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>TCG Consulting</strong></td>
<td><strong>Distinguished Service Partner Award</strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
<tr>
</tr>
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</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>It is incredibly satisfying to see how these great partners deliver value to customers every day, and how they continue to grow their businesses and drive innovation. We look forward to continuing to showcase our partners’ stories throughout 2020.</p>
Pete Elmgren
Blockchain and the Future of the Travel Industry
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/blockchain-and-future-travel-industry
2023-04-02T14:28:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The most important thing is to be aware of the different technologies that are out there and how they are changing the work of travel managers and all employees.
<p>Dr. Mark van Rijmenam is the founder of <a href="https://datafloq.com/">Datafloq</a> and a globally recognized speaker on big data, blockchain, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">artificial intelligence</a>, as well as a strategist and author of three management books. He spoke with us about how blockchain is poised to change the travel industry.</p>
<h2>For readers who may be familiar with blockchain only from news about Bitcoin, how would you explain what blockchain is?</h2>
<p>Blockchain is a database. But it is a database where data is only read and write. So instead of a regular database where you have read, write, and edit, once data is on a blockchain, it can no longer be edited. This means data on a blockchain is immutable and, therefore, verifiable and traceable. You can go back and see what happened in the past and see how a piece of data or product has moved over time. This offers you a single source of the truth where all the parties that are involved with the blockchain have access to the same information at the same time.</p>
<p>There are also different types of blockchains. You have a permissioned or private blockchain that requires approval to join – for example, five or 10 or 20 banks may share one blockchain, and they don't want other institutions participating in that blockchain.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we have permissionless or public blockchains, which means that you don't need to ask approval to join. You can just join, download software, download the blockchain, and get started. The best example of that is the Bitcoin blockchain where everyone can join a network and start mining transactions and contributing to the network.</p>
<p>Most important is that blockchain is a single source of truth where everyone has access to the same data. The data is <strong>immutable</strong>, <strong>verifiable</strong>, and<strong> traceable</strong>.</p>
<h2>Where is blockchain having the biggest impact on the travel industry?</h2>
<p>Blockchain is especially relevant when there are two things present. One is when a transaction is taking place. The second is when there's a trust factor in play, and that occurs primarily when you’re dealing with parties whom you do not know.</p>
<p>Where blockchain is having the biggest impact in the travel industry is where consumers connect with suppliers, like hotels and airlines. Because blockchain removes the need for an intermediary – in this case, an online travel agency or global distribution system – then suddenly, a consumer can purchase directly from an airline or hotel without the need of the complex system that we have currently in place.</p>
<h2>If we remove the intermediaries in these transactions, how will that affect corporate travel managers?</h2>
<p>Blockchain doesn’t remove the need for travel managers within an organization to offer services on behalf of the employee. The major difference is that a travel manager can book travel without a centralized global distribution system. There's still a system there, but it’s a fully automated, decentralized marketplace and there's no middleman taking a commission, which can be 15, 20, or even 25%.</p>
<p>So, blockchain will make the process more cost-efficient for sure, and if it's developed correctly in the future with smart contracts, it will also be easier to work with. For example, smart contracts could be used for travel insurance with an "If this, then that" statement. As an example, if there is a flight delay, the organization automatically gets a reduction in fees for travel. Currently, that process is very often difficult and annoying.</p>
<h2>Where are we with blockchain in the travel industry today and where is it headed?</h2>
<p>Blockchain in the travel industry is still in the early days, as it is in most industries. Although there are a lot of companies experimenting with it, there are very few industry-wide applications currently in use. In a recent blog post of mine, <a href="https://vanrijmenam.nl/how-blockchain-changes-travel-industry/">5 Ways How Blockchain Will Change the Travel Industry,</a> I talk about where I see the biggest changes coming.</p>
<ul>
<li>The first is the decentralized booking marketplaces, which we’ve already addressed here.</li>
<li>Second is loyalty schemes. These can benefit by expanding the transparency, security, and interchangeability of rewards.</li>
<li>The third area mentioned is identity services. In this case, passports and other documentation could be verified without releasing the traveler’s private information.</li>
<li>Fourth, I talk about baggage tracking. Blockchain would allow all the different parties that handle luggage to centralize their information so everyone can see that same information at the same time.</li>
<li>Finally, I talk about travel insurance, which we’ve already talked about a bit here as well.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can also find many examples of companies experimenting with blockchain in their travel management programs in that blog.</p>
<p>In another blog post, <a href="https://datafloq.com/read/seven-use-cases-enterprise-blockchain-solutions/5585">Seven Use Cases of Enterprise Blockchain Solutions,</a> one of the solutions I discuss is how blockchain can be used with airline companies to share one database for airport departure and arrival information. Today, all these players use their own databases.</p>
<p>If you can decentralize that using a private blockchain, then the departure airport and the arrival airport all have the same information at any moment in time. There you can see the benefits of having a single source of the truth using a decentralized platform.</p>
<h2>What are the biggest hurdles to implementing blockchain solutions?</h2>
<p>Blockchain is a difficult technology – the ecosystem is not yet completed. There's still a lot of development that needs to be done and needs to be researched. So that's one problem.</p>
<p>The second problem is related to that: The technology just isn't ready yet. That takes time, and the skills and the talent are still scarce. There's not enough talent to do the research and to build what is necessary to make to make this change.</p>
<p>And then finally, I think it's a cultural change, because it will require people to work in a different way. In the end, it's behavioral change that always takes the longest.</p>
<h2>Do you have any final tips for travel managers who are interested in learning more about blockchain?</h2>
<p>The most important thing is to be aware of the different technologies that are out there and how they are changing the work of travel managers and all employees. I like to say that we live in exponential times, because change is happening faster and faster than ever before. And being aware of those changes, being aware of these technologies, and understanding how these technologies affect your business is the first step in preparing a business for tomorrow.</p>
Guest Author
Keep Your Travel and Expense Management Flexible and Resilient for the Long Haul
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/keep-your-travel-and-expense-management-flexible-and-resilient-long-haul
2023-08-29T13:40:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are living in unprecedented times Many of us are working from home travel is suspended and everyones top priority is the health and safety of colleagues and customers Finance...
<p>We are living in unprecedented times. Many of us are working from home, travel is suspended, and everyone’s top priority is the health and safety of colleagues and customers. Finance leaders and travel managers are surely wondering what the next months will bring and trying to prepare for budget impacts and how travel will be affected going forward.</p>
<p>One thing we know for sure is that paper-, e-mail, and spreadsheet-based travel and expense (T&E) management processes have always been inefficient, time-consuming, and error prone. And now, with offices closed around the globe, they are simply unworkable. As we assess where things stand and what the future holds, it’s always a good a time to consider automating your travel and expense management processes to save time, lower costs, and realize efficiencies. </p>
<p>You have a lot of choices when looking for a T&E management solution – and you need something that will make life and work easier for travelers and travel managers alike. To make the selection process easier, IDC recently conducted a study of the worldwide market options for software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud-enabled T&E management solutions. The report also provides a step-by-step guide on how best to choose a software vendor that is right for you. </p>
<p>The first thing you need to ask is, “What does my company need?” What are the issues with your current T&E processes and are they technology related? Who at your company should be involved in the vendor selection process and subsequent system deployment? And what will a successful system allow you to do when it is up and running?</p>
<p>When looking at vendors, you should be sure to find one that has experience with your type of company and who understands your business processes, IT landscape, and industry and regulatory requirements. You also want to be sure that vendor can support your users across all geographies.</p>
<p>For small and midsize businesses in particular, the cloud-based SaaS model is ideal in that it can be deployed at a reasonable cost without additional hardware. Cloud applications are also easier and faster to implement, and are automatically upgraded without intervention from your IT team.</p>
<p>When choosing a T&E solution, you need a platform that offers:</p>
<ul>
<li>Intelligent workflow automation that lets you and your employees manage routine tasks without user intervention</li>
<li>Mobile capabilities that allow your people to record expenses and file expense reports from anywhere on any device</li>
<li>User-friendly, consumer-grade interface that is intuitive and requires minimal user training</li>
<li>Integration of payments with expense reporting to simplify report creation, increase accuracy, and speed time to reimbursement</li>
<li>Ability to build specific internal and regulatory compliance into every transaction</li>
<li>Data security to fend of data breaches that could result in serious financial losses for your business</li>
<li>Integration with your ERP, accounts payable, HR, and CRM systems as well as with a wide network of partner systems</li>
<li>Strong data management capabilities that allow you to coordinate information from dozens of systems and partner entities</li>
</ul>
<p>When it comes to software capabilities combined with overall solution strategy, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">IDC MarketScape named SAP Concur as a leader</a> in SMB global travel and expense management.* Apart from fulfilling all the key solution capabilities listed above, SAP Concur solutions bring your business the added value of decades of development and experience in the T&E arena, strong innovation investment, and a solid global brand that you can count on.</p>
<p>As we all adjust to this moment of volatility and rapid change, you can be confident that SAP Concur solutions will be here to help your business stay adaptable, responsive, and resilient – today, tomorrow, and beyond. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">Read the IDC MarketScape excerpt </a>to learn more about travel and expense best practices and recommendations. Then visit us at <a href="http://www.concur.com/">www.concur.com</a> to get started today.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Survey Reveals Remote Work Poses Productivity Challenges for State and Local Governments
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/survey-reveals-remote-work-poses-productivity-challenges-state-and-local-governments
2023-09-08T15:49:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As COVID cases continue to rise across the United States all signs point to state and local government finance and administrative departments functioning offsite for the foreseeable...
<p>As COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the United States, all signs point to state and local government finance and administrative departments functioning offsite for the foreseeable future. However, there is no playbook or precedent for what is happening to government departments.</p>
<p>New <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/examining-and-optimizing-remote-work-for-state-and-local-governments">research</a> commissioned by the SAP Concur organization uncovers the key challenges and opportunities for state and local government organizations as they determine how to operate effectively in this prolonged remote and hybrid work environment.</p>
<p>We surveyed 500 finance and administration decision-makers working in state and local government across the United States. The results highlight the current challenges that hinder their teams’ ability to stay productive in this new normal and the technology solutions that would best support their departments’ financial operations in the future.</p>
<p>“State and local government finance and administrative teams are under extreme duress,” said David Ballard, senior vice president, U.S. Public Sector, SAP Concur. “They have accepted an unprecedented amount of back-office responsibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This is amplifying their need for cloud-based and mobile-friendly technology to ensure they can maintain operations and meet existing and emerging reporting mandates.”</p>
<p>Some of the key highlights from this research include:</p>
<p><strong>Many back-end operations cannot be managed remotely</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only 11% of respondents say they have a fully automated platform that allows employees to track travel and expenses. </li>
<li>In fact, nearly 2 in 5 (39%) say they have not yet made any investments in expense and travel-related technology at all, leaving these offices in danger of decreased productivity and efficiency moving forward. </li>
<li>Twenty-eight percent of staff, on average, can continue to work from home without decreasing productivity when states fully open back up. </li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Finance and administrative teams have increased workloads due to the pandemic: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>More than two-thirds of state and local government decision-makers (67%) are managing three or more additional work tasks due to the impacts of COVID-19.</li>
<li>In fact, more than half (55%) of state and local governments have the added responsibility of redirecting funds for essential services, such as public health and safety. </li>
<li>In addition to increased workloads, respondents note that the combined impact of an unprecedented public health and economic crisis made it challenging to keep up with staffing needs. Half of local government decision-makers (50%) and a third of state decision-makers (33%) say their organization experienced staffing challenges during the transition.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Reporting policies may need an overhaul to sustain workforce productivity: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly half of all state and local government decision-makers say complying with required state and federal reporting policies (48%) and adapting outdated organizational policies to remote work (46%) were major challenges of transitioning their department to remote work environments. </li>
<li>Baby Boomers (61%) indicate that complying with these reporting requirements is a greater challenge for them than their Millennial counterparts (41%).*</li>
<li>A lack of flexible reporting policies has taken a toll on workforce productivity and continues to present delays and problems for citizens that state and local governments serve. In fact, 63% of state and local government decision-makers say employee productivity within their department has either decreased or remained the same due to remote work. </li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The impacts of COVID-19 have accelerated adoption of cloud-based technology solutions: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>An investment in technology may relieve the extreme duress that state and local government finance teams face. A wide majority (70%) acknowledge that adopting mobile practices or adapting outdated policies would give finance and administrative departments a better handle on financial operations in the future if all or a portion of their staff worked remotely. </li>
<li>To change how state and local governments manage their budgets, 75% of respondents report COVID-19 has accelerated their department’s decision to invest in cloud-based solutions. </li>
<li>Because expense and invoice management is a critical back-end office operation, more than half (51%) of state and local governments took steps even before COVID-19 to invest in this type of tracking technology platform. </li>
</ul>
<p>“The impacts of COVID-19 have resulted in many public sector employees taking on new responsibilities,” said Adelaide O’Brien, research director, IDC Government Insights. “As government workers continue to work remotely, department leaders will need to identify the manual processes that are slowing down back-office operations, and invest in modern, cost-effective technology. This investment will help employees manage their increased workload now—and create efficiencies longer term coming out the pandemic.” </p>
<p>State and local government decision-makers can use <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> to strengthen cost control and always track government spend, wherever they are. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>###</p>
<p>*This generational sub-audience represents a small sample size and findings are directional. </p>
<p>This survey was conducted among 500 US state and local government decision-makers, which includes elected officials and senior civil servants who have financial decision-making authority, between July 20 and August 7, 2020, using an email invitation and an online survey.</p>
<p><strong>About Wakefield Research:</strong></p>
<p>Wakefield Research supports the world’s most prominent brands and agencies, including 50 of the Fortune 100, in 90 countries. It is a leading provider of quantitative, qualitative, and hybrid market research and market intelligence.</p>
<p>To learn more, visit: <a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com">www.wakefieldresearch.com</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel, expense, and machine learning
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-expense-and-machine-learning
2020-09-11T12:37:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning could be as profound and maybe even bigger than the shift to mobile and cloud Frank Chen Andreessen Horowitz Google has moved from a search...
<p> "Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning could be as profound and maybe even bigger than the shift to mobile and cloud" – Frank Chen (Andreessen Horowitz)</p>
<p> "Google has moved from a search first to a mobile first to an AI first company" – Google CEO Sundar Pichai</p>
<p> “Humans [will] increasingly work side by side with robots, software agents and other machines.” – J.P. Gownder, Analyst | Forrester Research</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, it looks like artificial intelligence and machine learning could be the next big wave in computing; and could make a significant impact in our everyday lives.</p>
<p>Artificial intelligence represents computers simulating human intelligence (learning, problem solving) and machine learning describes a subset of AI focused on statistical algorithms that learn from data to make improved predictions. (Deep Learning is a further evolution of machine learning using layers of artificial neurons with large amounts of data.)</p>
<p>With its potential impact, many companies are talking about Machine Learning. For SAP, the entire portfolio of intelligent applications and services is called <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/leonardo.html">Leonardo Machine Learning</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Here at Concur, machine learning will certainly be increasingly important in the future - however part of the future has already arrived. </strong></p>
<p>You can see SAP Leonardo in action at Concur as there are already services that have begun to utilize machine learning and other related data science algorithms to help simplify travel and expense for our customers. These services may point to areas where this growing field will continue to impact travel and expense in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Taming the Wily Receipt – One Step towards Effortless Expenses</strong></h2>
<p>Everyone loves getting a receipt and then having to attach it to an expense report without misplacing it first. At Concur we let you take a picture of a receipt and digitally store it for you so you don’t lose it. We also use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to extract the text from a receipt image and use machine learning to identify important fields such as total amount, date, currency, expense type etc. Using these fields, we then create an expense entry for you, which can be added to an expense report.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1507756169909-receipt-capture.png" /></p>
<p>Similarly in <a href="https://concurlabs.com/projects/office_365.html">Concur Expense for Outlook</a> (a beta from ConcurLabs) Concur data science algorithms make it easier to submit an expense from directly inside of Outlook by helping pre-populate the expense entry with information it grabs from an electronic receipt that you have received via email .</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Hotel Recommendations - Your ML Buddy Suggesting a Place to Stay</strong></h2>
<p>One important capability in the travel and expense world is providing recommendations. Travel applications can provide recommendations during the travel booking process based on your activities and the activities of others. For example, hotel recommendation in Concur mobile use data that helps you see that “Your co-workers have stayed here" Whether this statistical data analysis is strictly considered machine learning, one could imagine recommendations in the travel and expense world evolving as machine learning techniques evolve.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1507756210569-hotel-recommendations.jpg" /></p>
<h2><strong>BOTs / Conversational Interfaces – A Virtual Travel Assistant </strong></h2>
<p>A Chatbot or Bot is a program that creates a conversational interface by using machine learning for natural language processing. A Bot tries to understand and respond to a conversational request made by an end user via text or speech.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hello" target="_blank">Hello Hipmunk</a> is a virtual travel assistant which both provides travel recommendations and enables travel booking. One of the most popular travel chatbots in the US, it brings its conversational interface to applications such as email, calendar, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Slack.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3053624/with-hello-hipmunk-hipmunk-does-travel-planning-inside-your-email-and-calendar" target="_blank">Fast Company</a> described it as: “A dash of artificial intelligence [that] lets you search for flights and hotels without actually searching for flights and hotels.” </p>
<p>Similarly, Concur Lab’s “<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/collaborative-design-sprint-leads-to-new-bot-for-slack-beta">Concur for Slack</a>” helps simplify travel and expense by bringing our services to where our users spend their work day. While in Slack, users can see their travel itinerary, upload receipts for expensing, create a quick expense, and view a summary of expense reports.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/concur-bot.gif" /></p>
<p>And, the “<a href="https://concurlabs.com/projects/amazon_echo.html">Concur for Alexa</a>” prototype has similar capabilities using Amazon Alex’s voice interface.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Sentiment Analysis & Machine Learning Uncovering Customer Needs</strong></h2>
<p>Another recent project from Concur Labs showed how sentiment analysis can aggregate and assess ratings and reviews <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/machine-learning-with-heart-how-sentiment-analysis-can-help-your">in an effort to improve end user satisfaction</a>. Sentiment analysis uses natural language processing (another branch of AI) to convert written opinions about a product into a numerical sentiment rating. This makes automated analysis possible including using machine learning to identify trends over time.</p>
<p>This is just the beginning of how machine learning will impact the world of travel and expense, so stay tuned ….. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The cost of doing nothing: Mitigating FCPA risks (Part 3)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cost-doing-nothing-mitigating-fcpa-risks-part-3
2019-08-21T03:14:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act FCPA expert Mike Koehler who runs the awardwinning FCPA Professor website witnessed the largest number of corporate enforcement actions and...
<p>According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-fcpa-enforcement-actions-are-you-mitigating-this-risk">Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)</a> expert Mike Koehler, who runs the award-winning FCPA Professor website, “2016 witnessed the largest number of corporate enforcement actions and the largest aggregate corporate settlement amounts in the FCPA’s nearly 40 year history.</p>
<p>“There were 27 corporate enforcement actions resulting in approximately $2.3 billion in settlement amounts,” says Professor Koehler. “In the words of Trump administration officials, the Department of Justice remains committed to enforcing the FCPA."</p>
<p>Companies are doing their best to follow best practices and developing and enforcing compliance programs to minimize the risk of FCPA violations.</p>
<p>However, companies with more experience and insight have learned that while mining travel and expense data is valuable, even more so is ensuring compliance teams leading the charge in companies are proactively meeting with those who oversee both travel and expense reimbursement within the organization to uncover better ways to mitigate this risk.</p>
<p>Savvy companies are modernizing their policies and procedures as as team. Also, they are using solutions that they can cleverly configure to manage employee and manager behavior, easily aggregate data from multiple sources - such as credit cards, hotels, taxis, short-term housing suppliers, and pull reports quickly to help identify suspicious spending, individuals or behavior.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about best practices for minimizing FCPA risks:</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1435144/A11E0DB9FC186C8736ACF279F3F95980" target="_blank">Download this executive summary</a> that highlights key points from an educational webinar held on Wednesday, July 12, led by Professor Koehler.</strong> This session explored recent FCPA enforcement actions based on corporate hospitality and compliance take-away points from those actions. Also, former practitioner and now Sr. Functional Consultant at Concur, Lacey Hughes, shared some real practices companies are taking today to mitigate this risk within their T&E programs. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Previously: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-cost-of-doing-nothing-tax-troubles-for-guestimators-part-2">The cost of doing nothing: Tax troubles for guestimators (Part 2)</a></h3>
Erin Giordano
The perks of paperless invoice processing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/perks-paperless-invoice-processing
2018-12-21T02:59:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre like most small and midsize business AP teams we work with you handle around invoices per month and at least half of those invoices are coming in as paper invoices...
<p id="node_4">If you’re like most small and midsize business AP teams we work with, you handle around 600 invoices per month and at least half of those invoices are coming in as paper invoices. Your AP process probably sounds something like this: An invoice comes into your company, but potentially not always to you. And then, according to most organizations, the invoice is passed to as many as 15 different people before it is even approved for payment. Once approved, you cut a check, put it in an envelope and mail it off. Throughout this process you’re likely having to match it to POs, resolve exceptions, and get a phone call or two asking on the status of payment. </p>
<p id="node_5"> </p>
<p id="node_6">Multiply this process for every invoice and you’ve handled a lot of paper and, as one of our clients told us, suffered serious paper cuts in the process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The good news is there is a better way. <a href="https://www.concur.com.au/resources/idc-white-paper-business-value-concur-invoice">According to a recent</a><a href="http://www.concur.com.au/resources/idc-white-paper-business-value-concur-invoice"> IDC White Paper, sponsored by Concur, “The Business Value of Concur Invoice,”</a> and accounts payable teams that deployed <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> reduced time spent on tasks and manual processes related to invoice management by 34% and accelerated their average time to pay vendors by 51%. These benefits are equivalent to $511 for every 1,000 invoices processed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Additional benefits of paperless AP automation include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Greater visibility into spend and cash flow</li>
<li>Reduced time to pay vendors through an improved approval process</li>
<li>Qualified for early payment discounts</li>
<li>Reduce data entry and reallocate resources into more value-add projects</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-national-small-business-week">Schmetzer’s Sporthaus</a>, a soccer retail store, struggled with lost invoices, endless paper trails and late payment charges. After implementing Concur Invoice, the business streamlined its entire AP process and accounting system, added significant efficiencies, pays vendors early and most importantly, is able to focus more on its soccer-loving customers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-national-small-business-week">Watch the video to learn more</a> about Schmetzer’s Sporthaus’ story and consider what automating your AP system can do for your organization.</strong> After all, the price of not automating your AP is greater than just the cost of bandaids.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Take these necessary actions to prevent T&E fraud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-these-necessary-actions-prevent-te-fraud
2017-10-26T14:51:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners the money lost by businesses to fraudsters amounts to more than trillion each year Thats a big number And while many CFOs...
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/fraud-attack/2016/fraud-costs-security-hackers/" target="_blank">Association of Certified Fraud Examiners</a>, "the money lost by businesses to fraudsters amounts to more than $3.5 trillion each year.” </p>
<p>That’s a big number. And while many CFOs and business leaders would like to think it won’t happen at their company, the truth is, if there is any kind of employee reimbursement program, there is the chance of fraud. But don’t sit back and wait, instead be proactive and stop fraud before it happens. How? The best way to fend off fraud starts with getting a handle on your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">expense management program</a>. (And a few expert tips to help you along the way).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Reel in all the apps</strong></h2>
<p>There is an app for just about anything, from transportation to hotel to banking and everything in between. While apps do make life convenient for the end user, they can also create challenges for finance teams trying to capture employee expenses. The use of all these apps also leads to increased errors and opens up the opportunity for dishonest claims.</p>
<p>Take control of app usage by explicitly stating which apps employees can and cannot use. Ensure that any approved apps allow for easy tracking and transparency and update your expense policy with instructions on acceptable use and reimbursement process.</p>
<p><strong>Expert tip:</strong> Concur allows you to link approved apps with your expense management system.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Implement a corporate card program</strong></h2>
<p>Many companies shy away from a corporate card program, thinking it will be hard to manage and open up the opportunity for careless spending and, well, fraud. But, a corporate card program does the exact opposite. By mandating a corporate card program, you can more easily integrate your T&E data, validate costs and provide tighter controls over approved expenses and claims.</p>
<p>How does a corporate card program help with fraud? When an employee knows their company will be reviewing their credit card statement, it makes it that much harder to hide or create fraudulent claims.</p>
<p><strong>Expert tip:</strong> Concur links corporate cards to user profiles making it easier to track employee expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Go beyond automation to integration</strong></h2>
<p>Automating your expense management system is a great first step into reducing error and fraud in your company. By going a step further, and integrating your travel and expense data, you will gain the visibility you and your team need to have a better grasp over employee spend.</p>
<p>Not only will your team enjoy the benefits of real-time data at their fingertips, you will be able to set tighter controls over expenses. Any expenses that are imported into your expense management system ensures that employees can’t modify or falsify expenses.</p>
<p>Automation and integration also benefit business travelers. Filing expense reports is much faster, and the process is easier, reducing error and increasing time to reimbursement. Mobility plays a huge factor in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">business travel</a>, and an integrated expense management system can incorporate the use of mobile phones for capturing expenses on the road. This lessens the chance of lost receipts.</p>
<p><strong>Expert tip:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> allows travelers to photograph and submit their receipts right from their mobile phones.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Take a closer look and audit</strong></h2>
<p>A review and audit of your expense management system is in order to ensure you are properly incorporating updates to technology and process. In addition, advertising that you will be following-up on and auditing expense reports keeps your employees honest.</p>
<p>Take this opportunity to get a grasp on expense management and reduce fraud in your company. Start 2018 off on the right foot.</p>
<p><strong>Expert tip:</strong> Get the expense management information you need. Register now for <a href="http://aef.argyleforum.com/TheCFOPlaybookonExpenseManagementHowCFOsTakeControlofTE" target="_blank"><strong>The CFO Playbook on Expense Management: How CFOs Take Control of T&E</strong></a>, on Friday, November 10 at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Winning with AP automation and the Virtuous Vendor Cycle
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/winning-ap-automation-and-virtuous-vendor-cycle
2019-02-27T08:19:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There are many benefits to automating your AP process including saving employee time adding efficiencies to the invoice process and gaining better insight into company spend But...
<p>There are many benefits to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">automating your AP process</a> including saving employee time, adding efficiencies to the invoice process and gaining better insight into company spend. But another positive aspect is vendor satisfaction. That’s right – automating your invoice payment process is a big plus for your vendors and sets the stage for what is a virtuous vendor cycle. This cycle starts when, thanks to automated AP, your vendors know they can rely on you to get paid on time. This keeps them happy and more eager to do business with you. Some may even offer additional benefits as part of their service to your organization, creating a cycle where everyone is happy and everyone wins. Here’s how it works:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Put an end to the “When am I getting paid?” phone call</strong></h2>
<p>Invoice automation not only saves you from manually routing and tracking down invoices but also puts an end to phone calls from vendors asking about payment status. With AP automation, vendors have access to a portal to be able to quickly and easily check status and payment date on their own. Vendors appreciate the transparency and time savings and you no longer get the pit in your stomach when your phone rings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Save money and help your bottom line</strong></h2>
<p>Consistently paying on-time or even early means you avoid late-payment penalties and interest charges. Some companies value getting paid early so much that they’ll even reward customers for early payment and/or offer discounts on future purchases. We don’t need to explain why paying less for anything is a smart idea for your P&L.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Be a star customer – and get treated that way </strong></h2>
<p>Vendors like doing business for companies that pay them on time (or early) and are hassle-free to deal with. They have an interest in keeping your business for the long term, so when you need something faster than usual or have a special request, they’ll bend over backwards to make it happen. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Bask in the light of the halo </strong></h2>
<p>Word travels far and wide if you’re late paying or you have unpaid invoices. Unhappy vendors share their displeasure with others. Luckily, the inverse is equally important to maintaining a “halo effect” where your positive reputation attracts repeat and even new business because organizations know your solid reputation will benefit them as well.</p>
<p>To learn more about how Concur’s vendor portal can keep your invoices in order and your vendors happy, contact your client sales executive.</p>
<p><strong>Automating your accounts payable can benefit your organization and your vendor relationships, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management#/capture">Concur.com</a> for additional resources.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Wondering How Much Money You’re Spending on Client Expenses but Not Recouping?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wondering-how-much-money-youre-spending-client-expenses-not-recouping
2018-03-06T12:25:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Invoicing clients for expenses incurred on behalf of their projects is critical to the profitability of professional services organizations Failure to recoup costs due to missed...
<p data-id="170744b0-25b7-4a4b-813c-114a4751a8e9">Invoicing clients for expenses incurred on behalf of their projects is critical to the profitability of professional services organizations. Failure to recoup costs due to missed expenses and allocation errors directly affects the bottom line and prevents accurate profit modeling and forecasting.</p>
<p data-id="93ce54cf-1343-468c-9606-68a5f0882a41">According to Cher Pearsall, CEO of SAP Concur App Center partner <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxJTbgu4RxWExNli4Nyd38tGKQ/pivotprime-by-pivot-payables" target="_blank">Pivot Payables</a>, manual methods of project billing account for 35% to 50% of disputed transactions between organizations and their clients. In addition, a significant percentage of billable expenses are also omitted during the manual process. While it’s clear that clarity in accounts payables (AP) and accounts receivables (AR) is important – what’s often difficult to gauge is the direct impact that inaccurate billing could have on revenues.</p>
<p data-id="4527fd7f-9094-41e2-97ca-2d0692f47655">Pivot Payables’ <a href="https://www.pivotpayables.com/bli_calculator/" target="_blank">Bottom Line Improvement Calculator</a> can help.</p>
<p data-id="d2dd43b3-7324-4321-8717-8e90da39e11d">Available online, the calculator utilizes data such as the number of client bills prepared each month, the number of hours spent preparing one bill, the average hourly wage for the person doing the billing, and the average monthly amount of expenses billed back across all projects and clients. The results can be eye-opening, including operational cost savings, potential average missed expenses, and total annual bottom line improvements.</p>
<p data-id="67c7d378-0e4b-493d-aa00-875a155c2499">SAP Concur clients can take this insight one step further with PivotPrime, Pivot Payables’ project expense management solution that integrates with Concur Expense and Concur Invoice to automate project expense billing. The integration is prebuilt for SAP Concur, so deployment takes only minutes and existing workflows aren’t interrupted. PivotPrime automatically identifies AP data in SAP Concur and organizes it into a billing statement, producing all billable expenses along with associated receipts and invoice images to present to clients. Cardno, an SAP Concur client in professional infrastructure and environmental services, switched from manual billing to PivotPrime and saved more than 500 hours per month in its client billing process.</p>
<p data-id="5fc754bb-33ab-4c83-9d90-aee302415d4e">“While most expense management and invoice automation systems collect data across multiple clients and projects, they are fundamentally AP systems, whereas client billing is an AR function,” says Pearsall, who was recently interviewed in CFO Tech Outlook magazine after Pivot Payables was named a Top 10 Business Expense Management Solution Provider.</p>
<p data-id="371f8bf6-deb1-4097-a2d7-4393e8b1778d">To experience the impact of Pivot Payables’ Bottom Line Improvement Calculator, visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxJTbgu4RxWExNli4Nyd38tGKQ/pivotprime-by-pivot-payables" target="_blank">PivotPrime Expense</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5a6627c304a4711200aff4a8">PivotPrime Invoice</a> App Center Listings. If you’re headed to <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion 2018</a> in Seattle from March 13 to 16, stop by the Expo at booth 209 to meet the Pivot Payables team.</p>
<p data-id="371f8bf6-deb1-4097-a2d7-4393e8b1778d"> </p>
<p data-id="371f8bf6-deb1-4097-a2d7-4393e8b1778d">Launched in 2013, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> makes it easy for travelers to find and connect to apps that integrate with SAP Concur and provide additional value for individuals and businesses. With more than 160 pre-built integrations and popular connections, the SAP Concur App Center extends the value of SAP Concur by helping customers implement SAP Concur rapidly, gain insight into spend and simplify expense reporting.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Keep Your Small Business Competitive with the Right Financial Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/keep-your-small-business-competitive-right-financial-solutions
2020-09-11T13:18:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its not easy running a small business in todays everchanging marketplace As more and more manual financial tasks go the way of automation the availability of cloudbased expense...
<p>It’s not easy running a small business in today’s ever-changing marketplace. As more and more manual financial tasks go the way of automation, the availability of cloud-based <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management solutions</a> is becoming overwhelming. It’s hard to know which, if any, you should implement, but the answer can often be found in your current situation. Start by answering these questions to figure out where you can benefit the most from automated, cloud-based software.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Do You Need to Address Employee Fraud?</strong></h2>
<p>It’s not an easy one to admit, but <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-identify-expense-report-fraud">employee fraud does happen</a>. Regardless of how small the amount, these false expenditures add up over time, impacting the bottom line. If you are experiencing issues with fraud, you can mitigate the risks by moving to an automated expense management system that captures and processes expenses automatically. This makes auditing expense reports more efficient and spotting discrepancies easier.</p>
<p><strong>Insider tip:</strong> Look for a solution that is not only cloud-based but mobile-enabled. This will allow your employees to submit expenses on the road. Not only will your employees be happy to not have to deal with a stack of receipts at the end of a trip, but you will also have near real-time access to spending data.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Are You Reactively or Proactively Managing Spend?</strong></h2>
<p>If the thought of month-end and year-end reporting makes you queasy, then it is definitely time for a change. Expenses are more often than not the largest category in a business financial plan, and having control over spending means not playing catch-up at the end of each month. Moving to an automated process gives you everything you need at your fingertips, and eliminates scrambling to get the information you need.</p>
<p><strong>Insider tip:</strong> Successful implementation of automated software only works when there is a current process in place. Automation can’t fix what is already broken. Before integrating any new software, take time to review all your processes to ensure they are accurate and up-to-date for your business needs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Do You Have the Visibility You Need Into Cash Flow and Expenses?</strong></h2>
<p>Having no visibility into your cash flow and expenses is like walking around blindfolded – it’s just not smart. You should be able to pull the financial data you need for strategic planning and analysis at a moment’s notice. If you are finding that getting the insights you need means hours, if not days, of gathering and analyzing data, then moving to an automated solution will give you the access you need to maintain competitiveness.</p>
<p><strong>Insider tip:</strong> Choose software that lets you set up personalized dashboards. This way, you can get the data you need at a glance. Again, look for a cloud-based solution that allows you to access the information you need from anywhere, at anytime.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Learn From Your Peers</strong></h2>
<p>While reading product brochures and talking with sales representatives is helpful when looking for new spend management solutions, hearing from other businesses like yours has more impact. <strong>Attend our <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1604049&sessionid=1&key=09C058FA71C3D971823D634345BBCDF9&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">Tales from small business – 3 solutions for keeping control and managing spend</a> webinar</strong> to hear success stories from other small businesses, and learn how they both navigated and implemented cloud-bases solutions to help their company thrive.</p>
<p>(And yes, there’s free coffee involved – <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1604049&sessionid=1&key=09C058FA71C3D971823D634345BBCDF9&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">register today</a> to find out more!)</p>
SAP Concur Team
Report: Automating AP Management Offers Greater Visibility and Cost Savings
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/report-automating-ap-management-offers-greater-visibility-and-cost-savings
2018-06-07T12:23:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Small businesses can have a big impact But small and midsize businesses often have fewer resources to work with so they lack the robust systems that would normally offer visibility...
<p>Small businesses can have a big impact. But small and midsize businesses often have fewer resources to work with, so they lack the robust systems that would normally offer visibility into the large number of invoices that come in and go out each month.</p>
<p>That’s where a cloud-based <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-accounts-payable-management-invoice-policy-template">accounts payable management</a> system comes in. Switching to an automated workflow provides new efficiencies to multiple stakeholders – in addition to the critical visibility into cash flow that every small business needs.</p>
<p>According to a recent study of several businesses by IDC, companies of all sizes that deployed <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/invoice">Concur Invoice</a> saw a wide variety of benefits, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Greater visibility into business performance, which drove smarter decision making</li>
<li>505% return on investment over five years</li>
<li>Five-month payback period</li>
<li>99% of employees using a cloud-based system complied with company procurement policy</li>
<li>Productivity increased an average of 11% due to mobile enablement</li>
</ul>
<p>And many more that are available in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">the full report</a>.</p>
<p>According to IDC, for the businesses surveyed, automating their invoice process not only helped them gain efficiency and productivity, but it also provided big-picture data visibility and increased employee satisfaction for more effective operations and a better bottom line. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the report today</a> then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">visit this page</a> and see how an integrated solution helps modern finance leaders gain increased employee compliance, productivity, and visibility.</p>
SAP Concur Team
It's Time to Connect Your Travel and Expense Data
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-connect-your-travel-and-expense-data
2018-07-06T11:38:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While business travel is booming its not without its challenges A few years ago to book business travel employees called a corporate agency and everything ran through an approved...
<p data-id="13392ed6-bda3-4f0e-89e4-e71bc9b26ab4">While <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">business travel</a> is booming, it’s not without its challenges. A few years ago, to book business travel, employees called a corporate agency and everything ran through an approved system. Today, employees get an offer from their favorite hotel, so they book it. They find a better seat on a different airline (without negotiated rates), so they book it.</p>
<p data-id="b11b0b0d-e873-4790-bb24-8cbc354a3cad">Employees are inundated with offers from dozens of travel sites and suppliers, and they forget (or neglect) to book it through your corporate booking tool. Without this data, you don’t know where they are, where they’re going, how they’re getting there, or what they’re spending.</p>
<p data-id="e322e48d-c3a2-4590-908d-07e9491f5495">If you want to tackle the problem, look at your current setup and ask yourself these three things:</p>
<ol>
<li data-id="e78ae8e9-ee08-4b49-922d-918f0ee19770"><strong>Does your travel solution connect to your existing systems?</strong> By combining your travel program with your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense program</a>, you’ll get a more accurate view. When you’re connected, and you capture every itinerary, you can also make better spending decisions.</li>
<li data-id="f55030a7-324a-438b-9e32-7d5d2fd8dada"><strong>Does it connect to supplier data?</strong> When you’re connected to airlines, hotels, and other suppliers - and you can capture bookings made outside your booking tool - you can view and manage every type of spending wherever and whenever it’s booked.</li>
<li data-id="8a227b26-b9cf-4553-b012-4a17aca0683e"><strong>Can you connect to third-party applications?</strong> By allowing your program to integrate with apps that manage mobile charges, tackle taxes and offer regulatory guidance, you can improve compliance and find new ways to save. Plus, you can give employees trackable access to the apps they already use.</li>
</ol>
<p data-id="6fe6bdfa-65f9-4c54-bb9c-d4a9cd3945b3">With a unified travel and expense solution, you can get the data you need to make informed decisions, negotiate effectively with suppliers, and manage company policies. Plus, you’ll always know where all your employees are to manage duty of care more effectively.</p>
<p data-id="6fe6bdfa-65f9-4c54-bb9c-d4a9cd3945b3"> </p>
<p data-id="484a42f0-b8f3-4dce-ad5b-507af8ca2557"><strong>Is your travel and expense solution disconnected? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/your-travel-expense-solution-disconnected">Use our guide to find out.</a></strong></p>
Highlighting Our Star Interns in the iXp Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/highlighting-our-star-interns-ixp-program
2020-09-11T11:43:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This summer I joined the SAP iXp Program as their teams intern In my role curating content for the iXp social channels its integral to reach out to interns regularly about their...
<p>This summer I joined the SAP iXp Program as their team’s intern. In my role curating content for the iXp social channels, it’s integral to reach out to interns regularly about their projects and experience at SAP. I created the Instagram campaign called #SaturdaySpotlight, which is focused on the personal and professional growth of three interns throughout the summer. Setting the spotlight on these star interns, let's dive into their stories and read about their passions and goals: </p>
<h2><br />
Meet Ava Nia </h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1534442393685-ava-nia-copy.jpg" /><br />
<strong>Ava Nia, Marketing Intern, SAP Concur<br />
Vienna, Virginia </strong></p>
<p>Ava is a dedicated polyglot. She speaks four languages, teaches her native French, and is learning her fifth language, Italian. Her linguistic knowledge has helped her gain a better cultural understanding of the markets she is in direct contact with every day. She says she’ll be actively looking for full-time opportunities at SAP Concur once she completes her marketing degree at George Mason University in May 2019.</p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: How has your language knowledge helped you in your internship?</strong><br />
<strong>A: </strong>One of the exciting part of my internship has been that I have been able to learn new marketing strategies that further my understanding of the markets I’m targeting in my projects. Coupled with the cultural background I already have, I believe I have been able to target new audiences effectively. In a broader sense, knowing the language helped me understand the different locations better and it gives me a better insight on the customers I work with in those countries. This is very important in an international company like SAP Concur.</p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: You have various projects during this internship as well as your personal interests – studying languages, design and fashion, to name a few. How do you manage all of it?</strong><br />
<strong>A: </strong> I have a saying, “do it with passion or don’t do it.” Managing my projects and coordinating with my team was difficult at the beginning, but I love what I do, and I am determined to be successful in my work. I am highly passionate about the work and for me it is just about taking advantage of those opportunities.</p>
<p><strong>You can see her #SaturdaySpotlight post <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlgFTIAAQeq/?taken-by=sapixp" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><br />
Meet Julia Donovan </h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1534442897043-julia-donovan-1-copy.jpg" /><br />
<strong>Julia Donovan, Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity & Inclusion Intern <br />
SAP Concur, Bellevue </strong></p>
<p>Having grown up in Oakland, California, Julia was always surrounded by diversity, and this is where her passion for people formed. She strives to help others rise up to their challenges, a philosophy that guides her to help people on their own journeys and meeting them where they are. Let’s see how Julia has grown to do this within her summer internship:</p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: What is your vision for your growth during these 10 weeks? </strong><br />
<strong>A:</strong> I see myself developing my confidence. My team knows I can create quality work, but I must believe that in myself, too and work hard to meet my goals. Another area where I see growth is in my networking skills. I want to be able to meet with anyone and everyone, even when I am uncomfortable reaching out. However, here at SAP Concur I am able to connect with people who also want to connect with me. </p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: What is your biggest takeaway from this internship?</strong><br />
<strong>A:</strong> I have come to realize how important it is to care to your employees. This way, they can build on their passions and are motivated to be more productive. Not only have I been able to curate and foster the employee experience within my role, I have also lived it as well. I see myself feeling more accountable for the work that I do because this sense of ownership in my work that has been cultivated here within SAP Concur. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This internship has also been a good reminder to never pass up an opportunity to network and grow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>You can see her #SaturdaySpotlight post <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk79VNIg585/?taken-by=sapixp" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<h2><br />
Meet Hunter Heidenreich</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1534442909768-hunter-heidenreich-copy.jpg" /><br />
<strong>Hunter Heidenreich <br />
Data Science Intern, SAP Conversational AI, Palo Alt</strong>o</p>
<p>As an East Coast native, Hunter was eager to explore the opportunities in the Bay Area. So far, he faced his fear of the ocean and went surfing, plus has taken up photography. Currently, he is pursuing a computer science degree at Drexel University in Philadelphia. In his role at SAP ICN, he explored machine learning and built on his data science skills, which were mostly self-taught. </p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: How did you become interested in machine learning?</strong><br />
A: In high school, I read an article about self-driving vehicles and the dilemma of how the technology is impacting the decision-making that the vehicle takes. This fueled my interest in creating technology that could save lives and change the world. </p>
<p><br />
“It is thrilling to see what makes technology intelligent, but it is also frustrating when it doesn’t work.”</p>
<p><br />
<strong>Q: How were you able to use your prior knowledge in machine learning and what have you learned in your role?</strong><br />
<strong>A:</strong> I built my projects from the ground up, I read the fundamentals and did the research from the ground up which added to my practical education. These were conversations that had real impact on our products and with our business goals, and they helped me be more professionally confident because I was forced to apply, to explain concepts and it helped me fill in the gaps of my knowledge. Likewise, because I am talking to tech and non-tech teams everyday who may not necessarily have the same background but do have the experience, it forces me to express my learning in a way that makes sense to everyone but does not shortchange them based on what they know. </p>
<p><strong>You can <a href="http://hunterheidenreich.com/blog/" target="_blank">visit Hunter’s blog</a> to learn more about his project and see his #SaturdaySpotlight post <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlOn1tPgyeL/?taken-by=sapixp" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong><br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
Business on the Go: Making Mobile Expenses and Invoices a Reality
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-go-making-mobile-expenses-and-invoices-reality
2018-10-23T08:23:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Have you ever arrived at a meeting minutes early and wanted to use that valuable time to do some muchneeded admin You could be paying supplier invoices submitting or approving...
<p data-id="c49231fb-b8f3-4d8c-9cee-ca0d10b03ceb">Have you ever arrived at a meeting 15 minutes early and wanted to use that valuable time to do some much-needed admin? You could be paying supplier invoices, submitting or approving expenses, booking or signing off travel bookings -- all the little admin tasks that are essential for the productive, smooth running of your business but eat away at your time.</p>
<p data-id="f4448381-e198-4a74-adbd-33f552c20b3b">These days, such tasks (and more) are possible to manage on-the-go through the cloud. In the past, we were all tied to our offices where our PCs and paperwork lived. Now, with your phone, tablet, or laptop you can run your business from anywhere.</p>
<p data-id="a1d54049-921d-4409-9854-381874807f6d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="0a4c7521-bcca-4447-8e25-5da2da147423">Making your life easier</h2>
<p data-id="efdcd8bb-ee20-4803-a947-3b754980c7ba">Having your systems and data in the cloud helps you make your day-to-day life much more productive. It means you can use the spare gaps of time here and there to check those important admin tasks off your list.</p>
<p data-id="da0d3932-b41f-47a1-b0ae-8038394c98eb">Let’s take some of the tools SAP Concur provides as examples of how your working life could be made easier through mobile capabilities.</p>
<p data-id="1cedfffa-3ca3-48ff-b4bc-e9b43a19cbe0">SAP Concur offers a smartphone app that lets employees submit expenses, and managers review and approve those expenses, from anywhere. It’s something that helps speed up the whole process because you don’t have to be sitting at your desk with the paperwork in front of you. It means you get to see spend much earlier than before and employees are reimbursed more quickly – a win-win situation for everyone involved.</p>
<p data-id="3910c46a-05d5-492c-b5c7-76b7bd69eedb">The app lets employees take photos of receipts on mobile phones and automatically create an itemized expense claim, complete with a digital image of the receipt. It’s the end of paper-based claims, so no more piles of receipts. Not only that, it minimizes mistakes, provides you with a real-time view into your expense spend and gives you control over cost and compliance issues.</p>
<p data-id="b845592a-5514-46b2-b6a5-25b1806fcf8e">Another handy mobile app is <a href="https://www.tripit.com/">TripIt Pro</a>. It organizes all your travel details, wherever they’re booked, into a single digital itinerary, so no more bulky folders of reservations when you travel. You can share these with people back in the office so everyone’s up to speed and knows where traveling employees are. You also get real-time alerts on flight delays and cancellations so no more last-minute panics either.</p>
<p data-id="6e6ef219-28cf-4181-9e8a-a163ee870a42"> </p>
<h2 data-id="9122f5ba-8a2d-4572-a638-7a1b1115191a">Creating a virtual office</h2>
<p data-id="46408882-a294-440b-a619-9e7521f3ada6">Helping business owners and their employees to be more productive on-the-go is just the start of what the cloud has to offer. The tools that are available today don’t just transform travel, expense, and invoice. In fact, you can store your entire business and its data in the cloud. It’s something that opens up a world of possibilities and is transforming traditional ways of working for many businesses.</p>
<p data-id="4d791d39-71ce-4300-90f2-9e1dc3f5d5fe">For example, when everything is stored virtually, you are able to offer a more flexible way of working to your team because they don’t need to be in the office to complete the work. This means working from home either occasionally or regularly becomes a viable option.</p>
<p data-id="f1c75d27-3318-4eec-80bd-7d1830efcf60">You can take things even further, too. Many companies choose to have their entire team working remotely all the time without any need for expensive office space at all. Online project management tools make it easy to work collaboratively and transparently while apps such as Skype or Slack make staying in touch easy.</p>
<p data-id="92921e4a-a5e6-4cfb-9494-673277b4ca4b"> </p>
<h2 data-id="7d5c0047-4cb1-4080-8950-367731081443">What possibilities can you see in the cloud?</h2>
<p data-id="05323524-2dc9-4121-ac43-78d0a8963e89">Allowing you to make the best use of your time while you’re on the go is just the start of what the cloud has to offer. But whatever level you choose to embrace it at, its effects on your business will be transformative.</p>
<p data-id="54a3e37e-d883-4252-8166-08c770050ba1"><strong>To learn more about the benefits of SAP Concur's cloud-based solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic">download our infographic</a>. </strong></p>
Do You Have the Visibility You Need Into Your Company’s Finances?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-you-have-visibility-you-need-your-companys-finances
2020-09-11T13:21:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Keeping track of business finances is an important part of your organizations success Always having the complete picture and a pulse on money coming and going allows you to...
<p>Keeping track of business finances is an important part of your organization’s success. Always having the complete picture and a pulse on money coming and going allows you to make better decisions quickly and with confidence. However, without the right reporting tools, or comprehensive financial reporting, there can be holes into spend visibility, especially in the area of employee spend and accounts payable. Do you have the insights and complete visibility you need to make accurate financial decisions?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Download the report</a> to get better mileage out of your expense, travel, and invoice solution</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The importance of strong, accessible reporting</h2>
<p>Reporting should never include any guesswork. When pulling financial data, you should be confident in knowing you are looking at the most up-to-date and accurate information available. How can a business owner make a sound decision if they are looking at a financial forecast that has only half the necessary information or is filled with “best guesses” based on incomplete data entry or old financials. Projecting cash flow or monthly vendor invoice spend needs to be solid, not filled with holes and numbers from a few months ago.</p>
<p>As Erwan Philippe, author of <a href="http://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2017/03/06/financial-reporting-guide-for-small-businesses-04931363" target="_blank">Financial Reporting Guide For Small Businesses</a> so eloquently states: “Having an accurate picture of your company’s financial health also empowers you to objectively strategize, forecast, and plan your finances.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Business spend visibility does not come easy</h2>
<p>Spreadsheets and manual processes only go so far in keeping track of employee travel and expense spend, as well as managing your accounts payable. Not only are these methods slow, but they are prone to error, leaving many financial teams frustrated with the process and the inability to pull up-to-date information in a timely manner.</p>
<p>This issue is fairly prevalent amongst businesses. According to a 2017 a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">global survey of 378 global Finance and IT leaders</a> by Forrester “only 38% of companies are very satisfied with their T&E reporting and analytical capabilities. The rest are not. Without better tools to manage expenses, managers struggle to keep a handle on costs and forecast budgets.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Making the move to automated solutions</h2>
<p>How can this critical financial transaction reporting issue be solved? Implementing automated, cloud-based solutions is a good place to start. Moving your processes away from spreadsheets and into the cloud makes the data easier to access from anywhere. Automation also removes the need for countless hours of data entry that is prone to errors and employee burnout. Reporting goes from taking weeks to taking minutes.</p>
<p>Upgrading to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">automated expense solution</a> is part of many organizations’ growth strategies in the next two years, according to the same <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">2017 Forrester report</a>, with 38% of IT and finance decision makers citing increasing automation as a top T&E priority, and 43% seeing automation as a significant step to improve invoice management.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Initiate the change to better financial visibility</h2>
<p>Incorporating automated systems into your travel, expense, and accounts payable processes needs to be done with care and in a way that allows you to make the most out of these solutions. Learn how other companies are automating and simplifying expense, travel, and invoice management through digital technology and the unified strategy between finance and IT departments in our free eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Getting better mileage out of your travel, expense, and invoice solutions</a>. Making this shift today takes you one step closer to better financial visibility, improved decision making and more control over your business spend management.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Top 6 Business Challenges You Didn’t Know AI Could Help With
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-6-business-challenges-you-didnt-know-ai-could-help
2021-04-23T17:13:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its no question employees crave to solve a variety of new and complex business problems And yet here we are stuck managing the monotonous routine tasks that come with our jobs This is...
<p>It’s no question – employees crave to solve a variety of new and complex business problems. And yet, here we are, stuck managing the monotonous, routine tasks that come with our jobs. This is even more prevalent today in the age of big data and the rapid advancement of technology. But AI is here to make a difference. So, instead of fearing automation, many employees should look forward to jobs that challenge and interest them, providing opportunities to add more value instead of performing mundane, repetitive tasks.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Running better with artificial intelligence</h2>
<p>Even in 2021, artificial intelligence (AI) is still a hot topic that industries are buzzing about. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s already helping us in ways like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Analyzing complex tasks</li>
<li>Looking at data in real-time</li>
<li>Increasing efficiency and accuracy</li>
<li>Discovering patterns and human behaviors</li>
<li>Adapting through algorithms</li>
</ul>
<p>These powerful capabilities of AI enable us to think about solving business challenges differently. AI is helping tackle business areas like financial management, employee performance, regulation and compliance, and customer service. And with SAP Concur solutions, we are striving to transform business expense management.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>4 Simple Ways AI Can Help Your Business Evolve</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-four-simple-ways-ai-can-help-your-business-evolve">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transforming business expense management with AI</h2>
<p>Mastering expense management is essential to running a business efficiently. Stretching your cash flow and making the most out of your budget matters – especially during times of economic uncertainty – and with AI to help, it’s a whole lot easier. Here is the six components AI’s helping solve in the back-office:</p>
<p><strong>1. Increase expense report reliability </strong></p>
<p>No one dreams of spending their workdays manually entering data for receipts, processing invoices, researching expenses, or auditing transactions. It’s for this reason that AI and machine learning (ML) hold such promise for improving job satisfaction, reducing errors, and costs for corporations. And when you find out that only <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Payment-Expense/Five-Kinds-of-Expense-Fraud-and-How-AI-Can-Help" target="_blank">20% of expenses</a> go through proper auditing – you can see just where AI can help. Auditing employee expenses is vital to remaining in control of costs and mitigating risks, that’s why AI gets put to work to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Automatically verify and review expense reports</li>
<li>Flag out-of-policy expense reports and errors before submission</li>
<li>Significantly reduce auditing time (90%)</li>
<li>Spot patterns and behaviors of malicious intent</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Reduce the risk of fraud</strong></p>
<p>Mitigating fraud is also another major problem when it comes to managing business expense. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (AFCE) <a href="https://acfepublic.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2020-Report-to-the-Nations.pdf" target="_blank">reports the average loss of fraud</a> each year equals 5% of an organization’s revenue with an average loss per case amounting to $1.5M.</p>
<p>Organizations need a solution that limits fraud by closely analyzing employee receipts for fraudulent behavior and expense violations. With the help of AI, you can automatically spot these <a href="http://www.businesstravelnews.com/Research/Artificial-Intelligence/AIs-Ability-to-Transform-Expense-Management" target="_blank">top five expense violations</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Disallowed and personal spend</li>
<li>Unverifiable receipts</li>
<li>Personal credit card usage</li>
<li>Disallowed merchants</li>
<li>Travel add-ons</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>AI is going to catch on as people realize AI apps are able to review and make those decisions around inappropriate, misuse, or fraudulent expenses far better than what those managers can do. ~ AppZen CEO, Anant Kale</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Gain control of regulatory compliance</strong></p>
<p>Regularly analyzing expense reports provides organizations a higher level of transparency and visibility into what, where, and how its employees are spending. And it’s important to catch reporting errors before the reimbursement phase or you could risk facing government fines.</p>
<p>An AI-powered solution can analyze external resources like the internet and social media to quickly verify compliance laws within government regulations and company policies.</p>
<p><strong>4. Policy changes? No problem.</strong></p>
<p>Companies also need the ability to stay updated with evolving company policies. An <a href="http://www.businesstravelnews.com/Research/Artificial-Intelligence/AIs-Ability-to-Transform-Expense-Management" target="_blank">article from BTN</a> reports, “A quarter of travelers commit offenses but aren’t considered high risk; their violations may be honest mistakes or owe to unfamiliarity with their companies’ travel policies.” The article goes on to explain that, “Data amassed from AI reviews of expense reports could reveal that certain violations actually constitute rational behavior; the company could then consider updating those parts of its travel policy, such as allowing ride-hailing suppliers like Uber and Lyft.”</p>
<p>No matter the case, AI can help recognize mistakes and enable your organization the chance to review workflows and processes later for possible updates.</p>
<p><strong>5. Boost your employee experience</strong></p>
<p>Manually reviewing expense reports isn’t only slow but is also prone to human error and exhaustion. Put blatantly – essentially, the work is boring, and employees would rather not do it. AI can assist by automating redundant tasks, boosting employee productivity and satisfaction.</p>
<p>“AI is going to catch on as people realize AI apps are able to review and make those decisions around inappropriate, misuse or fraudulent expenses far better than what those managers can do,” says AppZen CEO, Anant Kale.</p>
<p>Plus, with AI around to help, employees can stay focused on the tasks and conversations that matter, rather than entering numbers into the system.</p>
<p><strong>6. Recover tax and reclaim more cash</strong></p>
<p>As audit exposure and digital demands increase, businesses are expected to comply with global tax regulations, or lose their share of the pie. But reclaiming salue added tax (VAT) and other forms of tax – goods and services tax (GST), indirect tax, and harmonized sales tax (HST) – is complex and difficult to manage. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/concur-tax-assurance-by-vatbox">42% of employee spend</a> submitted for VAT/GST reimbursement does not meet reclaim requirements due to incorrect data and missing information. It’s for this reason the global market potential for <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Tax/dttl-tax-european-vat-refund-guide.pdf" target="_blank">VAT reclaim is almost $75 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Fortunately, AI technology is designed with sophisticated algorithms and the latest comprehensive tax knowledge to capture, analyze, and enrich the data within expense transactions. By digitizing the compliance process, organizations can worry less about gathering all the right details and instead focus on maximizing recovery.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reduce company spend with SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions helps simplify the business expense management process so you can shift from looking back at what was spent to controlling what is being spent. By integrating travel, expense, and invoice management into a single, connected process, you’ll close the data and workflow gaps that let costs and compliance slip out of control. And with intelligent technology like AI, you can bring speed, consistency, and clarity to spending all while improving compliance for the business.</p>
<p>For more information on AI-powered solutions, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a> to automatically analyze expense reports and speed up the audit process, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Concur TaxAssurance by VATBox</a> to maximize VAT and tax recovery.</p>
Kyla Kent
Delta, SAP Concur Collaborate to Bring Greater Transparency to Corporate Customers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/delta-sap-concur-collaborate-bring-greater-transparency-corporate-customers
2020-09-21T18:38:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today at the Global Business Travel Association GBTA Convention SAP Concur welcomed Delta Air Lines to our Concur TripLink network SAP Concur customers utilizing the TripLink solution...
<p>Today at the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention 2018, SAP Concur welcomed <a href="https://www.delta.com/">Delta Air Lines</a> to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> network. SAP Concur customers utilizing the TripLink solution will soon realize the benefits of their managed travel program, even if their travelers make reservations with Delta outside of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>. TripLink automatically captures those bookings, enabling immediate visibility into traveler spend, application of policy, and robust duty of care. Additionally, SAP Concur continues to invest in Concur Travel in collaboration with suppliers like Delta and our TMC partners to ensure the best, more transparent corporate travel shopping and booking experience for our mutual customers.</p>
<p>“Customers expect their retail experiences with Delta to extend across all distribution channels, including visibility into multiple product choices and attributes,” said Jeff Lobl, managing director – distribution strategy. “The combination of Delta joining TripLink and SAP Concur’s investment in enhancing its online booking tool means this collaboration will advance our efforts to bring the transparency and choice on Delta’s direct channels to every customers’ channel of choice."</p>
<p>Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries, even if travelers need to book their travel outside of SAP Concur. TripLink connects travelers, itineraries, and receipts across multiple channels, allowing companies to apply policy and ensure traveler safety by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency.</p>
<p>TripLink is the first solution of its kind to extend the benefits of a managed travel program to direct supplier bookings. This allows businesses to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Improve end user compliance with company travel policy</li>
<li>Fulfill duty of care requirements and ensure traveler safety</li>
<li>Maximize the use of negotiated corporate discounts</li>
<li>Gain visibility into spend, even when booked directly with suppliers</li>
<li>Have a consolidated view of all travel program data</li>
<li>Increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with TripIt Pro for all travelers</li>
</ul>
<p>To date, more than 6.9 million travelers have access to Concur Triplink, and the global TripLink network includes 28 partners representing airlines, hotels, ground transportation providers, and more. For more information about TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Steps to Increasing Your Healthcare Organization’s Confidence When Managing Fraud and Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-steps-increasing-your-healthcare-organizations-confidence-when-managing-fraud-and
2018-12-13T12:27:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For healthcare organizations building trust with patients is an essential part of providing the best care It allows organizations to develop deep and meaningful relationships with...
<p>For healthcare organizations, building trust with patients is an essential part of providing the best care. It allows organizations to develop deep and meaningful relationships with patients over their lifetime and it plays an important part in developing and maintaining a positive brand reputation. Unfortunately, employee fraud can have a big impact on an organization’s brand reputation and undermine the trust of your patients, which can take years, if not decades to rebuild. And while many organizations have processes in place for auditing employee spend, a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/healthcare-infographic-fraud-compliance-survey-findings">fraud and compliance survey</a> among healthcare industry professionals found a lack of confidence in current procedures.</p>
<p>What can you do to better manage compliance so that you can regain confidence when fraudulent behavior arises?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Prioritize employee policy compliance</h2>
<p>With almost <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">20% of travel and expense (T&E) expenses falling outside of policy</a>, it’s no surprise that monitoring and auditing expense reports should be made a top priority. Whether you use an internal team or external auditors, making sure T&E expenses are within policy is important part of ensuring employee compliance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Mileage expense</a>, for example, is one of those T&E expenses highly susceptible to fraud and non-compliant spend primarily due to its lack of regulation and large size. In the U.S. alone, <a href="http://www.pharmexec.com/sap-concur-data-shows-mileage-impact-healthcare-industry" target="_blank">healthcare workers drive 1,700 miles each year</a> on average—the highest among all industries—and claim 20% more mileage expenses as compared to other industries. It is also found that <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/healthcare-here-there-everywhere-staff-auto-mileage-adds-up">travelers, on average, over-estimate their mileage by 15%,</a> only adding more unnecessary costs for your organization. But fraud and other types of non-compliant spend can lead to more than just monetary loses. Essentially, your organization’s reputation is on the line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Procedure: Your first-line of defense</h2>
<p>Having an expense process in place goes a long way when it comes to fighting fraud. Determine if your procedure can withstand fraudulent behaviors by checking which actions your organization uses to manage your shield of defense:</p>
<ul>
<li>Require receipts for most, if not all, expenses</li>
<li>Require approval of expense reports before reimbursement</li>
<li>Have audit rules integrated into spend technology</li>
<li>Use reports to help spot problems</li>
</ul>
<p>If you checked all of the items above, then you’re on the way to a strong first-line of defense. Survey respondents found a combination of technology, policy, and managerial approvals is the most successful approach to fight fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Compliance goes beyond expense policy</h2>
<p>It’s always important for employees to follow the rules and comply with your organization’s internal expense policies, but not adhering to industry regulations can come with bigger fines and even larger reputational losses. When asking healthcare industry respondents if they felt their company could be <strong>potentially at risk for global regulations and compliance,</strong> <strong>58% answered “Yes” or “Not sure.”</strong></p>
<p>Are you unsure that your organization’s solution for employee spend management has the ability to help safeguard you from violations? If so, it’s time to start asking some questions as fines are costly for those who aren’t compliant. <a href="https://www.cms.gov/OpenPayments/Program-Participants/Applicable-Manufacturers-and-GPOs/Audits-and-Penalties.html">Stark law penalties</a>, for example, can run up to $100,000 for each arrangement considered to be an avoidance scheme. With regulations constantly changing, you can’t afford to be unsure.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. It’s time to move away from your manual process</h2>
<p>Automation and cloud technology are no longer out of reach, however, 33% of respondents reported that they still spend about 76 hours or more per month auditing expense reports. That’s 76 more hours per month that could go into building patient programs and services.</p>
<p>With automation and artificial intelligence (AI) on your side as part of an integrated employee spend management solution, your organization could:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduce expense report errors by up to 66%</li>
<li>Shorten auditing time by as much as 90%</li>
<li>Thoroughly audit 100% of expense reports</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more information on managing compliance and fraud visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">Compliance and Fraud Solutions</a> page. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
Is Corporate Travel Ready for Artificial Intelligence?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-travel-ready-artificial-intelligence
2018-11-14T09:33:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Artificial intelligence AI is becoming more prevalent in our daily lives often without our noticing For example webmapping apps have evolved to do more than simply give us directions...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-power-of-machine-learning-to-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Artificial intelligence</a> (AI) is becoming more prevalent in our daily lives, often without our noticing. For example, web-mapping apps have evolved to do more than simply give us directions. They now collect and analyze data on current traffic, road types, and other variables to predict the fastest route to our destinations for a selected time and day.</p>
<p>These types of innovations are coming to business travel. Already we’ve seen booking tools that use traveler preferences to find travel options that work best for a traveler and are in-policy. Soon, we may see tools that can automatically search for and suggest booking options when a potential trip is simply mentioned in email. Or intelligent services that consider cost increases, real-time weather conditions, or co-worker’s shifting schedules to re-shape an itinerary if needed and automatically book travel.</p>
<p>These types of tools would make business travel smoother, but there are a few obstacles to jump over before they can become fixtures in our travel processes.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/report/field_pdf_image/10977-0.jpg?itok=FxO8b34W" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Future of Corporate Travel</h2>
<p>With the rapid pace of technology, what will business travel look like in 2030?</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/corporate-travel-2030">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>First, in order to gather the data sets needed on which to base predictions, travelers must be willing to offer up personal information such as travel preferences, loyalty programs, passports, and credit card information. Fortunately, according to IATA’s 2017 Global Passenger Survey, 85% of passengers are willing to provide more personal data in exchange for a more customized travel experience.</p>
<p>Next, predicting disruptions that can influence travel and rerouting travelers requires visibility into so many different areas that no one organization could handle it alone. A diverse collection of entities including travel suppliers, weather forecasters, technology providers, and professional service firms must partner to connect over a common platform. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> is a continually-growing ecosystem that many of these organizations already connect over in order to make business travel smoother.</p>
<p>As more organizations do so, questions will arise over who owns the business travel data that flows through the network. These questions could be answered by encryption and emerging technologies like blockchain, which lets us store data in a transparent and immutable way and lets the traveler retain ownership of their personal information.</p>
<p>Read the report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/corporate-travel-2030">Corporate Travel 2030</a>, and learn more about how AI and other exciting innovations will help you lead your travel and expense programs into a new, intelligent age.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Ensure Your New Spend Management Solution is Welcomed with Excitement
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ensure-your-new-spend-management-solution-welcomed-excitement
2019-03-19T08:10:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Whats the usual reaction in your business to the announcement about a new system being rolled out Excitement about the difference it will make to your efficiency and productivity Or a...
<p>What’s the usual reaction in your business to the announcement about a new system being rolled out? Excitement about the difference it will make to your efficiency and productivity? Or a sigh as everyone thinks, “oh great, another system to navigate.”?</p>
<p>If you’re thinking about implementing SAP Concur solutions in your business but are concerned that the reaction may be more despair than delight, read on. We’ll look at the three pillars of a successful rollout and how you could see immediate value in the investment you’ve made and achieve ROI more quickly.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>Discover how to track expenses quickly and easily with our interactive experience. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Pillar 1: Strategy and planning</h2>
<p>As the saying goes, it’s all in the planning. Planning ahead reduces complications and setbacks during rollout, helps you coordinate actions so everything moves effectively and efficiently, and identifies key areas of responsibility so you can make sure nothing gets missed.</p>
<p>Our clients have found it helpful to use the reasons behind the decision to purchase SAP Concur to define success. They have created small pilot groups so they didn’t overwhelm the rollout team and identified small groups of users to provide relevant feedback. They have been mindful of the company calendar so they respected end users’ workloads and have made sure the implementation team at their end has been involved as early as possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pillar 2: Training</h2>
<p>One of the compliments we often receive about our solutions is how intuitive they are to use. Even so, we always recommend taking time to train end users. Proper training brings people up to speed more quickly so you can start to see greater efficiencies more quickly too. Plus, untrained users can make mistakes that cost time and money to sort out. It’s about educating new users on your company policies as much as it is about using a new system.</p>
<p>Above all, great training equals greater user satisfaction which equals higher user adoption and better ROI. We have a training approach guide we give to clients rolling out SAP Concur. We also have a wealth of training resources you can turn to.</p>
<p>When we asked SAP Concur clients for their tips around training, here’s some of the advice they gave:</p>
<ul>
<li>Break up training based on needs so you don’t over-complicate things</li>
<li>Create tipsheets and FAQs for people to refer to</li>
<li>Appoint user champions on each team</li>
<li>Educate your employees on your T&E policy so there are no surprises</li>
<li>Take time to ensure your training team is completely comfortable with the system before they start to train others</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pillar 3: Communication and measuring success</h2>
<p>No one wants to feel they have had a new system implemented and then been left to fend for themselves. The solution is to keep a constant dialogue going so your end-users stay engaged with the product and the process. It removes ambiguity so everyone is clear about what’s happening. Crucially, it also means you’re able to adapt because you’re getting consistent user feedback.</p>
<p>To help you, we have a communication plan you can follow, as well as a training and rollout survey you can use to improve the effectiveness of your training, discover any gaps, and improve onboarding for future users.</p>
<p>We also communicate with customers regularly, providing system tips and tricks so users can get the most out of their tool. We also encourage clients to make use of their internal communications systems to make sure users feel kept in the loop. You should consider segmenting your updates so that only those updates relevant to certain users are shared and you aren’t overcommunicating with irrelevant information.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The tools for success</h2>
<p>Taking time to plan each of these three pillars means you have put in place the tools to bring success:</p>
<ul>
<li>A plan of action designed to achieve a successful rollout</li>
<li>The education needed to ensure end user adoption</li>
<li>The ability to inform users of critical information and measure the level of success</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Once your SAP Concur instance is in place, be sure to join the discussion in the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a> to learn more tips and best practices from fellow users. </strong></p>
You Need a Risk Management Plan. Here's How to Create One
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-need-risk-management-plan-heres-how-create-one
2019-09-17T02:41:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the last two blogs weve been looking at compliance and risk issues in growing businesses and how to manage it In this last blog Ill show you a threestep process for creating a risk...
<p data-id="061d7f6e-e821-4eae-be05-ae6f318d7f5e">In the last two blogs we’ve been looking at compliance and risk issues in growing businesses and how to manage it. In this last blog I’ll show you a three-step process for creating a risk management plan in your business.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Travel Risk Assessment</h2>
<p>Take our brief quiz to find out how well your company is predicting risk and protecting its employees.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">See your results</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Step 1: Identify the Potential Risks</strong></p>
<p>The first step is to<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/newsroom/article/have-you-got-all-the-risks-in-your-business-covered"> identify all the risks your business faces</a>. Some types of risks are common to all businesses. All businesses have <a href="http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/index.htm">health and safety risks</a>, for example. But the health and safety risks your business faces will be different to those that any other business faces.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Other risks may come in the form of fraudulent invoices being sent to your business, or not having a digital audit trail and therefore having missing information when HMRC audit your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As well as these common risks, think about the specific risks your business faces. If one person holds all the knowledge about a particular process, how would you cope if they left? If all your records are paper-based, what would you do in the event of a fire?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Think externally too. What would happen if one of your key suppliers went out of business? How would you cope if you lost a key customer?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Involve the whole team in this exercise. They will have a different perspective to you and may be able to see risks that you don’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Step 2: Conduct a Risk Analysis</strong></p>
<p>Once you have identified all the risks in your business, the next step is to look at the impact each one would have. Once you’ve assessed each risk, you can prioritise it. This will help you see which risks need attention most urgently.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Factors you might consider include:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>How frequently are we exposed to this risk?</li>
<li>How serious would it be if it were to happen?</li>
<li>Why does this happen and what can we do about it?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s the last point – the reason for the risk – that you take forward to the next step.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Step 3: Identify the Fix</strong></p>
<p>Once you know why something does or could happen, you’re in a position to fix it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For each risk, you can assess the best course of action by considering factors such as:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>How can we fix this?</li>
<li>Who would be responsible for fixing it?</li>
<li>How much would it cost?</li>
<li>How likely is the risk to occur?</li>
<li>What would successful management of the risk look like?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Once you have this information, you can decide the best course of action. There are four routes you can consider.</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>You can transfer the risk elsewhere; for example, you might take out insurance against an event or identify an alternative supplier you could turn to if your usual one failed.</li>
<li>You can accept the risk if it’s too expensive to resolve or is highly unlikely to occur.</li>
<li>You can avoid the activity that causes the risk by changing the way you do something.</li>
<li>You can take steps to reduce the risk; for example, you could implement a new process or train staff to handle something differently.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Let’s take a paper-based expense process as an example. If you think it might not stand up to HMRC scrutiny, would <a>moving to a digital solution</a> be a good idea? In this instance, the solution would add more benefits than simple management of the initial risk, so successful management could prevent risks arising.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Why Your Business Needs a Risk Management Plan</strong></p>
<p>When you have a risk management plan, you have a clear perspective on what could impact the operations of your business. If it’s possible to eliminate a risk, you can do so. If it’s a risk that can’t be eliminated, you can at least have a plan in place to manage it efficiently and effectively.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In other words, you’ve put your business in a much stronger position. Read how you can manage risk and compliance in your business in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-manage-employee-spend-risk-and-compliance-in-your-business" target="_blank">first blog of this series</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Taps Jim Lucier, Chief Revenue Officer for North America and Chief Services Officer, to Lead Business Through Next Stage of Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-taps-jim-lucier-chief-revenue-officer-north-america-and-chief-services
2020-09-21T20:30:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
BELLEVUE Wash April SAP Concur the worlds leading provider of integrated travel expense and invoice management solutions today announced the appointment of Jim Lucier as president...
<p><strong>BELLEVUE, Wash., April 29, 2019 </strong>– SAP Concur, the world’s leading provider of integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, today announced the appointment of Jim Lucier as president.</p>
<p>A long-time veteran of SAP Concur, Jim Lucier will take on the top leadership post and continue to lead experiences for business travelers, travel managers and finance leaders around the world. Jim Lucier, SAP Concur’s former Chief Revenue Officer for North America and Chief Services Officer, will fully transition to the position on July 1, 2019, driving SAP Concur’s continued growth of travel, expense and invoice solutions for customers worldwide.</p>
<p>After 17 years with the company, Mike Eberhard made the decision to retire earlier this year. Eberhard has served as president of SAP Concur since October 2016, following SAP’s acquisition of the company. During his tenure, Eberhard played a pivotal role in helping lead the organization through some of its most significant growth – globally and alongside SAP. Over the next three months, Eberhard will transition his role over to Jim Lucier. After July 1, 2019, Eberhard will support SAP Concur as an advisor.</p>
<p>"SAP Concur will continue to drive its aggressive strategy to help companies of all sizes better manage spend," said Mike Eberhard, SAP Concur president. “I can’t think of anyone better equipped than Jim to lead SAP Concur in its next phase of innovation and expansion.”</p>
<p>Another SAP Concur veteran and former GM and SVP, Global SMB, Christal Bemont, has been promoted to lead global sales for the company. She will serve as chief revenue officer, reporting into Mike Eberhard until the leadership transition in July. </p>
<p>Barry Padgett, former president of SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass has taken on a larger role as president of SAP Intelligent Spend Group, comprised of SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur. In this role, Barry will drive SAP’s work to provide customers the ability to manage three primary categories of supplier spending, centralizing all of this spending across all of these sources and all of these suppliers in one place. SAP, with its Ariba (procurement), Concur (travel, expense and invoice), and Fieldglass (workforce management) solutions, is the only vendor that can bring this level of visibility and control to organizations around the world.</p>
<p>“Having worked closely with Mike, Jim and Christal at SAP Concur, the wealth of knowledge, experience and passion they have for serving our customers are unmatched and are hallmarks of their leadership,” said Barry Padgett, president SAP Intelligent Spend Group. “I want to personally thank Mike for all he’s done to set SAP Concur up for continued global success.”</p>
<p>Lucier joined SAP Concur in 2008 and has held a series of executive roles, including GM for the Federal Government Business unit, Chief Services Officer, overseeing the Services, Support and Customer Experience teams, and most recently expanded his responsibilities with the appointment to Chief Revenue Officer, North America.</p>
<p>“Customers are under increasing pressures to optimize company spend across all sources and categories as they respond to the demands of a fast-moving digital and global economy,” Lucier said. “I’m thrilled about the opportunity to continue to work alongside, Barry, Christal and Mike as we address these pressing customer challenges and continue to grow our business.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About SAP Concur </strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur is the world’s leading provider of integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. With SAP Concur, a top-rated app guides employees through every trip, charges are effortlessly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to audit 100% of transactions, businesses can see exactly what they’re spending without worrying about blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur eliminates yesterday’s tedious tasks, makes today’s work easier, and helps businesses run at their best every day. Learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">concur.com</a> or the SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom">blog</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Automating Expenses Can Continue to Fuel Innovation within Academic Medical Centers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automating-expenses-can-continue-fuel-innovation-within-academic-medical-centers
2019-08-01T11:44:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you want to stay competitive and train the future leaders of healthcare you need to lead the industry in innovation At least thats what university medical hospitals are aiming for...
<p>If you want to stay competitive and train the future leaders of healthcare, you need to lead the industry in innovation. At least that’s what university medical hospitals are aiming for with top medical students from around the world and some of the best healthcare physicians to be their teachers. And you can bet the race is always on to find the next best treatment or care – all with the end goal in mind to improve lives.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Increase Compliance & Reduce Risk in Healthcare</h2>
<p>See how fully automated, integrated solutions help institutions be more efficient in managing spend.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">Read the survey</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="172bda78-1467-48ff-b863-d6011a53f1ce"> </p>
<p data-id="172bda78-1467-48ff-b863-d6011a53f1ce">Nevertheless, just like any other organization or business, academic medical centers have budgets. Whether it’s spent on research and development (R&D) to find cures or buying the latest high-tech medical equipment, such as computer-assisted surgical systems, you can probably guess that the latest innovative treatments and procedures can be quite expensive. That’s why budgets have to be carefully decided and records of money spent properly allocated. While finance departments in healthcare facilities across the nation are working hard to do just this, they also have to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment. So how do you achieve cost-savings in an industry that demands continuous investment for innovation? It starts with properly tracking spend.</p>
<p data-id="ae36c4c2-9fc0-4337-8ac1-a8226c561a0c">For years, the funds to transform healthcare organizations back offices have been set aside, only to later be redistributed to pay for innovative medical activities forcing finance departments to create and use manual solutions. But that doesn’t cut it. Although we see the pride you take in your school, and the exceptional healthcare work you do, it’s time to take pride in your spend management system and how you handle expenses.</p>
<p data-id="b135d413-d719-4ef5-bed6-accb4cb98e57">Whether your organization is tracking expenses by hand or using a spreadsheet to manage expenses, you are probably thinking that it’s good enough, and that updating these back-office systems can wait. But innovation can’t wait. Not when it comes to handling your money. As with most innovation activities, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymyler/2015/09/24/healthcare-innovation-show-me-the-grant-money/#5d7e22cc77be" target="_blank">money is the key to making things happen</a>. This is perhaps truer in the healthcare space than most other sectors.</p>
<p data-id="5b0d5eed-c825-491c-823d-b132fa34c5d0">In this article you’ll discover why automating your expense process is critical to all things healthcare, from providing leading patient-care solutions, to adopting innovative technology, and even towards your organization’s business model.</p>
<p data-id="5b0d5eed-c825-491c-823d-b132fa34c5d0"> </p>
<h2 data-id="32c82dc5-3dbc-4815-85a8-1b656307ee2a">Why automation is key for academic medical centers</h2>
<p data-id="656c1601-ac16-4cb1-88a2-0087224292af">An article from <a href="https://hbr.org/2006/05/why-innovation-in-health-care-is-so-hard" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review</a> claims that innovations in the delivery of healthcare can result in more convenient, more effective, and less expensive treatments for today’s time-constricted and increasingly empowered healthcare consumers. If automation can fix your back-office problems and make processing expenses more convenient, more effective, and less expensive, then it could be a start in how your healthcare organization innovates to provide more patient-driven care and student-centric learning. Here’s why:</p>
<p data-id="656c1601-ac16-4cb1-88a2-0087224292af"> </p>
<ol data-id="8688acdf-9a24-45f5-8ecd-f2f36e9d618b">
<li>Automation frees up time spent on administrative tasks for more time devoted to treating patients. Doctors are currently spending <a href="https://healthcareweekly.com/5-ways-technology-can-reduce-healthcare-costs/">less than a third (27%)</a> of their time treating patients; the majority of their time is spent on various administrative tasks such as charting medical history or reporting traveling expenses. Automating common administrative duties eases the burden borne by clinical administrative staff and physicians alike, reducing burnout and allowing the focus to shift from paperwork to patients.</li>
<li>Automation simplifies reporting expenses and receiving reimbursements for rotational medical students. For third-year medical students, rotational medical programs can cause students to travel around the nation incurring expenses, such as living and mileage, on behalf of the academic medical organization. Submitting these expenses for reimbursement is often a lengthy and manual process requiring saving receipts, printing out invoices, and waiting weeks for expenses to be refunded back into their bank accounts. This process, when repeated every six weeks for hundreds of medical students, can become quite a nuisance for both the student and the organization to keep up with. By automating your expenses, your organization can eliminate the hassle of paperwork and direct students to utilize a more modern platform of tracking expenses instantly online. Reimbursement can then be resolved in a matter of days, rather than weeks.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="d74738c4-b3fc-4c44-ab3c-f623087ac822">If your organization is still managing it’s disparate spend channels manually, then you are being held back. In order to innovate, change simply can’t wait for you to itemize your receipts or manually piece together expense information. And shifting pricing models definitely can’t wait for you to reconcile last month’s expenses. You see, delivering innovative, patient-centric care and student-centric learning can’t wait for you to keep up. And as was previously stated, money is the key to making things happen. So why is your organization waiting around to slowly enter and approve expenses?</p>
<p data-id="d74738c4-b3fc-4c44-ab3c-f623087ac822"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c64d0be2-08fb-4a3b-92fa-772372b4300f">Alleviating the pains of manual expenses with technology</h2>
<p data-id="228f3d04-1229-48fe-9e66-2cc59fac3491">You already know that <a href="https://hbr.org/2006/05/why-innovation-in-health-care-is-so-hard" target="_blank">using technology to develop new products and treatments</a> improves patient care and offers better treatment and care that is less costly, disruptive, and painful. But did you know that adopting new technology to handle your expenses can also reduce costs, disruptions, and make the entire expense process be less painful? As <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/effortlessly-monitor-continuing-medical-education-spend">continuing medical education (CME)</a> is important for every healthcare organization, most organizations regularly need to manage and control its impacts on travel and expense (T&E) budgets. Unfortunately, this is increasingly difficult as the way businesses buy continues to change, the number of vendors organizations work with is growing, and the role physicians and medical students play in those purchases is evolving. In fact, your physicians and other staff members are spending more money across more spend categories using more payment methods than ever before. Because of this, healthcare executives must do what they can to alleviate the administrative burden placed on their finance teams. How? By integrating innovative automation technology designed to free up human capital with time-saving T&E spend tracking. With the right strategy, healthcare leaders can be sure every dollar possible is used to further focus on strategic initiatives.</p>
<p data-id="7cc1e4be-ffcc-4a6d-a8e7-358e79dc316d">Ensuring your expenses are accurately captured and tracked with automation can also help your organization when it comes to managing grant spending. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymyler/2015/09/24/healthcare-innovation-show-me-the-grant-money/#5d7e22cc77be" target="_blank">Forbes</a> reports that researchers often try to use existing organizational accounting software to track grant deployments, but soon find it is better to use an accounting system specifically designed for grant management – one that interfaces with the organization’s accounting program. As you can already see, a manual expense process won’t cut tracking grant spend.</p>
<p data-id="7cc1e4be-ffcc-4a6d-a8e7-358e79dc316d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="f6a49dbb-cb98-4a04-b139-780c68081bb6">Connecting healthcare organizations around the world with expense data integration</h2>
<p data-id="87100eab-aeb2-4c6c-b887-c7d46436d31e">Innovative business models, particularly those that integrate healthcare activities, can increase efficiency, improve care, and save time. But your manual expense process is preventing that from happening, forgetting expense information in one location is already difficult enough. The good news is that automating your expense process can quickly solve these problems. With receipt capture technology and artificial intelligence ready to help 24/7, traveling physicians and medical students can report T&E items to your central database in one click. You can even <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">automatically track mileage</a> and record personal car mileage distances in the same location. No more cross-referencing databases or mis-entering expenses. An automated expense management system can do that for you, while ensuring physicians and medical students spend within your organization’s policy and alerting your financial department with red flags if anything is amiss.</p>
<p data-id="87100eab-aeb2-4c6c-b887-c7d46436d31e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="12e2fd31-03db-43e0-9aa1-94bd9935656b">The benefits of automating your expense process with SAP Concur</h2>
<p data-id="a397df8c-bc82-4762-8f82-073bd3221b6e">Automation is the missing link for what your university healthcare organization needs to continue to innovate. On top of being able to stay ahead of innovative practices, you’ll also end up saving your finance department a whole lot of time, which translates to saving more money. With SAP Concur as your expense automation provider, your organization can enjoy:</p>
<ul data-id="759d026b-a18a-431e-a11c-fb5b66c299bf">
<li>Paper-less expense tracking</li>
<li>The ability to track CME and grant spending with ease</li>
<li>Increased visibility and control over T&E</li>
<li>Increased user adoption and compliance with user-friendly tools</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/compliance-and-fraud-what-you-cant-see-can-cost-you">Reduced risk of errors and fraudulent spend</a></li>
</ul>
<p data-id="b9102c99-2fc2-441f-bd35-6229be07ff0e">But don’t just take it from us. Here’s how SAP Concur helps simplify T&E for Wake Forest Baptist Health, an academic medical center in North Carolina:</p>
<p data-id="fd630ebf-d7d1-4f3e-b307-14d253d43aea">"At Wake Forest Baptist Health we are focused on combining the delivery of superb patient-centered care with a proven record of outstanding achievement and pioneering efforts in education and research. SAP Concur does a great job automating our T&E processes at a scalable level while accommodating the regulatory and cultural complexities within a preeminent academic medical center setting."</p>
<p data-id="4f107c39-1ce9-409e-9009-797dae5409f9">– Joe Dolan, Associate Vice President and Controller at Wake Forest Baptist Health</p>
<p data-id="f3174092-7337-4f3d-93d8-390ee68aa1a0">Learn more about using SAP Concur solutions for your university healthcare organization today by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare" target="_blank">visiting us online</a>, so your organization can have pride in your school, work, and now your expense system. </p>
Kyla Kent
Creating Inclusion in the Workplace for People with Disabilities
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/creating-inclusion-workplace-people-disabilities
2019-10-04T10:26:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
People with disabilities face distinct challenges when entering the workforce According to the UN in developing countries to of working age people with disabilities are unemployed...
<p data-id="3c9fb820-3694-4895-bbc1-c8e29526fb92">People with disabilities face distinct challenges when entering the workforce. According to <a href="https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/toolaction/employmentfs.pdf" target="_blank">the UN</a>, in developing countries, 80% to 90% of working age people with disabilities are unemployed. In industrialized countries, the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is at least twice that of those who have no disability and in some countries are projected to be as high as 50% to 70%.</p>
<p data-id="52a94904-2394-4c7f-8987-e518610b5712">This large untapped workforce creates opportunities for organizations – accessing new talent pools and employing individuals that bring unique points of view to their teams. Like many diversity and inclusion topics, real change requires deliberate contributions to an inclusive workplace culture. <a href="https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-89/accenture-disability-inclusion-research-report.pdf" target="_blank">Accenture</a> found that corporations with high disability inclusion are twice as likely to have higher total shareholder returns compared to their peers. Furthermore, companies that have improved their inclusion of people with disabilities, over time, are four times more likely to have total shareholder returns that outperform their peers.</p>
<p data-id="52a94904-2394-4c7f-8987-e518610b5712"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e55fb0e1-99a3-4ec4-bd75-a8157fee5208">Setting a foundation</h2>
<p data-id="7f57b62d-790f-496d-befa-0e629b3da4f3">70% of disabilities are nonvisible. You may think that you don’t have someone on your team or in your workplace that has a disability, but chances are you do. With many disabilities being nonvisible, it is important not to make assumptions. Rather, create an inclusive workplace where everyone can connect and contribute.</p>
<p data-id="764e3fde-e7c1-426c-a33d-9670d0eb5a83">Learn the lingo. Words matter and it’s important to have a basic understanding when communicating with or about people with disabilities. Most individuals prefer person first language, meaning that they identify as a person first and having a disability second. For example, instead of saying “deaf person” you could say “someone with hearing loss” or “someone who is deaf”. Each of us are is different and has individual preferences, so if you aren’t sure, ask the individual.</p>
<p data-id="baca9f40-0983-48d8-a23b-1c42f0778884">Meet and greet. When you’re introduced to someone with a disability, shake their hand (or greet them however you would with anyone else). If the individual is blind, verbally identify yourself and others around you. If the individual is accompanied by an interpreter or caregiver, speak to the person with the disability directly.</p>
<p data-id="fd6ec454-0d59-48d3-8846-6702c9bdd165">Ask First. You may see an opportunity to help someone with a disability – opening a door, guiding someone down a hallway, or changing the lighting in a room. Instead of assuming the individual needs assistance, ask them if you can help and wait for the offer to be accepted. They know their abilities best. Also ask before touching a device or animal that may be used for assistance. A guide dog could be in work mode and your interaction could interfere with the dog’s ability to safely guide the individual.</p>
<p data-id="63dc78ac-76fe-4e8a-8ac6-1f6be2d4bfa4">We’re all just living our lives. Everyone is different and has their own personality and needs. If you’ve met one person with a disability, that is exactly what you have done, met ONE person with a disability. Don’t assume the next person with a disability you meet has the same preferences. Ask questions when you don’t know and learn from each individual you interact with.</p>
<p data-id="14fa3af9-9163-4c58-b64c-5c6d7a1c7b0d">Someone isn’t inspirational because they have a disability. A person is inspirational if they’ve accomplished something great, with or without a disability. Although your intent could be complementary, calling someone “inspirational” may be taken as belittling. If no one praised you for travelling to a business meeting, why gush over this for someone else?</p>
<p data-id="14fa3af9-9163-4c58-b64c-5c6d7a1c7b0d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="7c17698f-668b-477f-9f2b-23ce017b1d49">Your impact in creating an inclusive culture </h2>
<p data-id="25fe0aae-824a-43f2-8186-c2db84dbf09d">Provide accessible content. Use built-in accessibility checkers to ensure those who are low vision or blind can consume the content. If you are providing hard copies of materials, ensure you have an electronic version you can share. Add captioning and audio description to videos.</p>
<p data-id="ac65d2d0-3fc1-4377-b1d8-daf7fc4976b2">Reevaluate team events. If your team moral events haven’t changed in a decade, it may be worth taking a closer look. We’ve all heard about “bro culture” and avoiding team bonding events that are centered around drinking, but have you also considered the accessibility of your events? For example, is the space physically accessible for someone with a mobility disability? Does the activity include an environment with bright lights and loud noises that someone with autism could be sensitive to?</p>
<p data-id="bee7062f-2a79-4d10-961c-cd150743d156">Implement inclusive meeting practices. Preset an agenda and share resources in advance. Not only does this drive efficiency and collaboration, but it also creates inclusion. Individuals will have more time to process information and come prepared to contribute. You can also consider alternative ways for someone to provide their input – verbally, adding a comment to the document, via IM, or after the meeting in a one-on-one conversation.</p>
<p data-id="a8afa9de-e19b-421d-a0c0-3b690e36c9db">Remove barriers in the hiring process. If you’re a Recruiter or Hiring Manager, evaluate the accessibility of your application process. If you’re tapped to interview a candidate, consider the goals of your questions. What are you trying to evaluate? Is there another way to ask the same question that may be more inclusive? For example, a common interview technique is to ask a candidate to explain a particular concept to the interviewer as if they were a child. The intent is likely to evaluate the candidate’s knowledge of the concept - can they break down the concept into easy-to-understand pieces? However, instead of showcasing the candidate’s subject matter expertise, it may unknowingly be screening out talent because it is evaluating their communication skills rather than their subject matter expertise.</p>
<p data-id="cfb05cd1-e325-495b-9977-2dbf84c4f20b">Uncover your own potential biases. We all have biases, including some we don’t even realize we have. Take <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html" target="_blank">Harvard’s Disability Implicit Association Test</a> and block 15 minutes on your calendar to reflect on the results.</p>
<p data-id="75833928-175c-4f01-94bc-4f80414f48a2"> </p>
<p data-id="1ef3a926-17d1-4fa1-8638-3d39f42d994e">Evaluate your organization’s disability equity. <a href="https://disabilityin.org/what-we-do/disability-equality-index/" target="_blank">Disability:IN</a> provides a compressive benchmarking tool for disability inclusion. </p>
Devan Vaughn
AI-Powered Assistants are Taking Business Travel by Storm
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-powered-assistants-are-taking-business-travel-storm
2019-10-21T10:21:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its not a secret business travel hasnt been easy First there are all the logistics heading to the airport on time and finding the right gate booking the best hotel at the right price...
<p>It’s not a secret: business travel hasn’t been easy. First, there are all the logistics: heading to the airport on time and finding the right gate; booking the best hotel at the right price; getting to your destinations with ground transportation. Then, during the trip, there are expenses that aren’t so easy to parse. Is this dinner within policy? Can I get the steak? Is a bottle of champagne OK? Finally, you have to submit your expense report after the trip is over – but did you save your receipts?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Forbes: How AI is Rebooting Business Travel</h2>
<p>Learn how AI assistants are helping business travelers plan trips and off-loading financial decision makers' busywork.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sapconcur/2019/09/04/road-warrior-renaissance-how-ai-is-rebooting-business-travel/">Read the Article</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Imagine if there was another way, where AI-enabled apps handled all of the above and more, like a personal assistant in your pocket. Well, that imagined distant future is sooner than you might think.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Right now, SAP Concur solutions are using AI to make key parts of the travel and expensing experience easy, simple, and safe – and we’re continually inventing new ways to make the experience even better. In <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sapconcur/2019/09/04/road-warrior-renaissance-how-ai-is-rebooting-business-travel/#33b163c34258" target="_blank">this Forbes article</a>, you’ll follow the story of Judy, a fictional VP of procurement at a medium-sized company, as she travels to meet with a client. Not only will you see what innovations SAP Concur has already introduced, but you'll also get a glimpse into the future of how automated assistants make every part of the process efficient and effortless for Judy, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Developing an itinerary for her trip automatically, including recommending hotels she’ll like in preferred neighborhoods</li>
<li>Compliance built into the app, with the option to ask her automated assistant about company policies</li>
<li>AI-assisted auditing that can review 100% of Judy’s expenses for issues and speed up her reimbursement</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>And these are only the beginning. As these innovations continue to advance and become integrated into more SAP Concur solutions, they’ll make corporate travel better for both employees and businesses. To learn more, <a>read the full article in Forbes </a>today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Automate Invoice Processing and Watch Your Bottom Line and Business Grow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automate-invoice-processing-and-watch-your-bottom-line-and-business-grow
2019-08-06T08:46:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Cloud technologies are bringing worldclass software solutions to small and midsize companies around the world and they are paving the way for greater efficiency visibility and...
<p>Cloud technologies are bringing world-class software solutions to small and midsize companies around the world – and they are paving the way for greater efficiency, visibility, and scalability. Take <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-ap-automation">AP automation</a>, for example. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">According to AMI Partners</a>, amongst firms that have automated invoice processing, 82% are already using cloud solutions.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Concur Invoice Self-Guided Demo</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Try it now</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p>There’s no denying that automating invoice processing can deliver huge ROI. A typical small to midsize business processes 450 invoices a month with a duplication rate of 1.29%, and labor costs typically make up <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/uncovering-hidden-costs-business-opportunities-in-invoice">62% of total accounts payable (AP) costs</a>. Automation can largely eliminate these labor costs. For example, with the right solution:</p>
<ul>
<li>Invoice line items are matched with data in purchase orders using intelligent automation – addressing a huge pain point for AP departments. They not only save time, but also reduce the risk of human errors that require even more effort to fix after the fact.</li>
<li>Rather than worrying about whether or not the right people have approved an invoice, you know they have because policies are built-in – and documents are routed – electronically.</li>
<li>You are able to better keep track of invoices – which solves a common problem. The software tracks when invoices have been received as they come in, saving people the time and effort needed to track them down.</li>
<li>You can reduce duplicate invoices – and reduce reliance on the laborious process of correcting these errors because everyone can see, in one place, when invoices have been paid.</li>
<li>When suppliers call regarding payment status, answers are just a click away, saving finance time and improving supplier relationships.</li>
<li>You can proactively manage payments to take advantage of supplier discounts by paying early – and capture savings that go right to your bottom line.</li>
</ul>
<p>As noted by AMI Partners, companies implementing such invoice management solutions see significant time and cost savings that go right to the bottom line. Among the companies they surveyed, the average accounting and finance teams realized a 16% time savings, which equals 40 hours saved per week for a typical team of five, and nearly $34,000 cost savings annually.</p>
<p>Want to learn more? Take a moment to see the Concur Invoice solution in action by <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">walking through the self-guided demo</a>. You’ll see what happens when an employee purchases office furniture and the vendor invoice needs to be captured, processed, and paid.</p>
<p>How does it compare to your invoice handling process?</p>
<p class="text-sm"><br />
</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How Much Can a Small-to-Midsize Businesses Really Benefit from Invoice Management Automation?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-much-can-small-midsize-businesses-really-benefit-invoice-management-automation
2019-11-14T09:51:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How many suppliers does your accounts payable AP department pay Have you checked recently how many checks your AP department has written in the past year Have you ever totaled up how...
<p>How many suppliers does your accounts payable (AP) department pay? Have you checked recently how many checks your AP department has written in the past year? Have you ever totaled up how much time and effort goes into this lower-value process each year – or estimated the cost of this effort to your small business?</p>
<p>The numbers might surprise you – if you’re a small to midsize business (SMB) still using a manual (or partially manual) AP process.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">According to AMI-Partners</a>, the typical SMB works with 190 suppliers and vendors. If you write those vendors just one check a month, that’s 2,280 checks annually. No wonder <a href="http://smallbiztrends.com/2017/04/manual-process.html" target="_blank">42% of SMBs surveyed</a> say they’ve experienced errors reconciling invoice. And on average, accounting and finance staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573667068697-283590-tax-calculation-dollar-r-green.png" /></div>
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<h2>Concur Invoice ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Answer the following questions to calculate how much time and money you could save each year by automating your accounts payable. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
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<h2> </h2>
<h2>Drivers of change</h2>
<p>As your business grows, expect to work with larger ecosystems of partners and suppliers that will increase AP workloads – and costs – exponentially. Are you prepared to hire more people to support this non-core process?</p>
<p>Unless you automate, you might not have a choice. And the benefits of automation address other drivers of change as well. For example, to compete, SMBs are being compelled to align their invoice process with the larger goals of reducing expenses, increasing efficiency, improving productivity, and even digitally transforming parts of the business. This will require eliminating manual processes, which are inherently cumbersome, inefficient, and laborious.</p>
<p>Manual AP processes also make it difficult to monitor spending trends and behaviors and detect potential mistakes or fraud – which ultimately leads to cash flow problems. For SMBs, cash flow is everything. Visibility into cash flow is essential to operationalizing a payment strategy in which bills are paid on time, payment rebates are used to free up more working capital, and you improve your company’s purchasing power.</p>
<h2>Real benefits through AP efficiency and transparency</h2>
<p>Savvy SMBs are tackling these AP challenges by deploying cloud software applications that automate invoice management. AMI-Partners also found that SMBs are achieving significant cost reductions with automated spending solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>US$34,000 – Average annual savings with automated invoicing solutions</li>
<li>$11 – Average savings per invoice after implementing an invoicing solution</li>
</ul>
<h2>Explore the benefits for your business – with Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>With the Concur Invoice solution, you can eliminate manual, inefficient AP processes taking too much time, costing too much money, and keeping you in the dark about how much you’re spending and where it’s going. We provide a clear path to fully centralized, near-real-time employee spend data, giving you the unparalleled visibility, agility, and control needed to manage and grow your business with more intelligence. You can even predict and proactively manage spending, redirecting it to align with your strategic priorities.</p>
<p>Our customers typically <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">realize $39,000 in annual savings</a> using Concur Invoice. But every business is different – so to help you quantify the potential benefits of Concur Invoice for your finance department, we’ve created an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator" target="_blank">ROI tool for Concur Invoice</a>. In just a few minutes, you’ll have a sense of the ROI you can expect. Calculate your ROI today!</p>
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<div id="ftn4">
<p> </p>
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Jennifer Rodriguez
Why 2020 Will Be the Year of the “Purpose-Driven Workplace”
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-2020-will-be-year-purpose-driven-workplace
2021-03-01T15:33:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur Chances are youve heard it before The consumer preferences of millennials are killing the market for...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>Chances are you’ve heard it before: The consumer preferences of millennials are killing the market for everything from fabric softener to American cheese. They’re entitled, lazy, and more concerned with their Instagram personas and pictures of avocado toast than hard work. Yet, as the leader of a predominantly millennial team, at a company with a huge number of employees under the age of 35, I can tell you that they are neither entitled nor lazy.</p>
<p>In fact, millennials, <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inc.com%2Fpeter-economy%2Fthe-millennial-workplace-of-future-is-almost-here-these-3-things-are-about-to-change-big-time.html&data=02%7C01%7CAudra.Proctor%40edelman.com%7C21edcb7ea62246a8440f08d771ddb24b%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637103069311901775&sdata=QGIz9EEwL2GCKxRMGGbUS5t%2FLT1jBZVkf7MyXjH0%2FnE%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">projected</a> to comprise half of the nation’s workforce in 2020, are driving a massive shift in how employers approach values and purpose in the workplace. Fair compensation is important to them, but it's not their only priority. A study from <a href="https://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2016-millennial-employee-engagement-study" target="_blank">Cone Communications</a> revealed 64% of millennials won’t accept a job from a company that doesn’t have strong <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">corporate social responsibility</a> (CSR) values, while 75% are willing to take a pay cut to work for a values-driven company. The point is not to cut their pay – after all, this group is known to have serious student loan debt – but to recognize the value they put on factors beyond profit.</p>
<p>In a recent blog, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/20-predictions-for-2020-from-sap-concur" target="_blank">20 Predictions for 2020 from SAP Concur</a>, I said that 2020 will be the year of the “purpose-driven workplace” as more employers recognize the urgency to connect their teams to a purpose beyond profit. To better understand this trend, I sat down with two SAP Concur employees to get their takes: Jess Russell, a fellow Gen X-er, and Shivani Patel, a proud millennial.</p>
<p>At the age of six, Jess Russell was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a life-threatening bone marrow cancer. It was 1978, and Seattle’s <a href="https://www.fredhutch.org/en.html" target="_blank">Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center</a> was one of the only hospitals performing the procedure Jess needed. Four years later, thanks to a perfect match in his younger sister, Jess received a bone marrow transplant, along with other revolutionary treatments, chemotherapy, and multiple rounds of radiation. Today, this SAP Concur software design engineer helps fix software bugs, among other duties. He loves that Fred Hutch is an SAP Concur customer. “Knowing that the solutions I work on play a part in helping companies and organizations like Fred Hutch make the world a better place, fills me with a sense of purpose and pride,” he explained. For Jess, understanding how his job makes an impact helps him be an engaged and productive employee.</p>
<p>When SAP Concur data scientist Shivani Patel and her husband were buying a home, their agent said that if they chose a house in their preferred neighborhood, any kids they might have in the future would need to attend a private school. “For me, moving to that neighborhood meant becoming a member of the community,” explained Shivani. “That means pitching in to improve things for everyone in my neighborhood in any small way that I can.” Cue Shivani’s passion for teaching after-school STEM programs to children in her local school district. “The opportunity to integrate my volunteer work into my day job through the SAP Concur Volunteer Ambassador program means I get more done overall. I highly value being a part of a company that encourages community engagement.”</p>
<p>Building purpose-driven workplaces is simply the right thing to do, as businesses should contribute as much as they can to the communities in which they operate. But there are other benefits, too. As labor markets grow tighter in North America and elsewhere, our purpose-driven culture helps us attract and retain top talent. We see higher engagement and productivity, which leads to better financial performance for our business. For example, we encourage employees to spend one paid day per quarter volunteering. We make an effort to provide transformational volunteer opportunities, such as skills-based volunteerism like teaching kids to code, that utilizes business skills. We offer opportunities for hands-on volunteerism, such as packing lunches or filling backpacks with school supplies. This generates a deeper connection and sense of purpose for employees while creating value for schools and nonprofit organizations. We also showcase how the work each of us does improves lives and makes the world a better place. We’re proud that more than 750 of our customers are nonprofits doing incredible work around the world and that other customers are creating jobs, growing economies and inventing things that make peoples’ lives better. It’s important to us as a business that we highlight to our employees how the work each of us does is improving lives and making the world a better place, because even though we aren’t curing cancer, some of our customers are.</p>
<p>Connecting with your ‘why’ – albeit different for each of us – is integral to living a fulfilled and happy life. Given we spend the majority of our adult lives working, it is reasonable to believe we see more value in our work than a paycheck. I’d like to express my gratitude to the millennial generation for inspiring us all to reconsider our purpose beyond profit in 2020 and beyond.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Three Ways Automation Can Improve the Efficiency of Employee Spending for K-12 Schools
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-ways-automation-can-improve-efficiency-employee-spending-k-12-schools
2020-03-18T09:05:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Doing more with less seems to be the mantra of most K schools today According to a New York Times article a survey conducted by the Federal Department of Education stated that ...
<p>Doing more with less seems to be the mantra of most K-12 schools today. According to a 2018 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/teachers-school-supplies.html" target="_blank">New York Times article</a>, a survey conducted by the Federal Department of Education stated that 94 percent of public school teachers reported spending an average of $479 of their own money on classroom supplies – with seven percent spending more than $1000. </p>
<p>The confusion department managers have over policy and what’s being spent due to lack of visibility can be an expensive problem. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/how-k-12-schools-can-maximize-budget-efficiency-and-transparency" target="_blank">According to The Journal K-12</a>, an audit of Denver Public Schools found $92 million worth of Visa transactions over a two-and-a-half-year timeframe. During that period, $2 million worth of purchases “appeared to contradict school policy but were approved by the finance department anyway.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How K-12 Schools Can Maximize Budget Efficiency and Transparency</h2>
<p>Discover solutions that can help K-12 schools maximize budgets and get more time back into their day to continue educating students.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/how-k-12-schools-can-maximize-budget-efficiency-and-transparency">Read Brochure</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This brings up a unique challenge for K-12 schools. With large amounts of non-visible spend (such as school supplies), resources stretched thin, and budget cuts, finance departments at school districts and charter schools are looking for places to save and ways to gain control of faculty and staff expenses. Manual paper processes only exacerbate the issue, making visibility into what’s really being spent next to impossible. But cutting more funding for school programs doesn’t have to be the answer. Automating the travel, expense, and invoice process can make it easier for faculty and staff to spend budget more wisely and bring efficiencies to your schools. Here are the top three ways automation can help:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Frees faculty and staff time by reducing time-consuming, manual tasks and errors </strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Doing more with less often means having short-staffed teams handle big volume tasks, such as manually reviewing expense reports, keying in invoices, and correcting data errors. Outdated infrastructure can add to the frustration of staff assigned to this work and lead to annoying, sometimes costly, mistakes.</p>
<p>Automation can speed up the efficiency and productivity of both expense and invoice reporting by streamlining expenses into a single system. This not only drastically reduces the time it takes staff to process requests, but also eliminates the need for manual data entry using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to scan receipts and invoices. An automated system can also look for errors to reduce the risk of costly mistakes that could end up in a compliance violation, overpayment, or missed opportunity for early payment discounts. Saving within these areas could help reallocate budget for school programs.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Makes it easy for faculty and staff make the right choices and get reimbursed faster </strong></li>
</ol>
<p>When tools and processes are burdensome and hard to follow, it can lead to even more uncertainty from finance about where money is really being spent. For example, some forms of unfavorable behavior from employees who just want to get reimbursed include missing receipts, duplicate or unsubmitted expenses, and mistakes due to incorrect information inputted from manual entry. All of these unfavorable behaviors combined make it incredibly hard for finance to gain visibility, keep budgets aligned, and combat fraud.</p>
<p>Implementing an automated travel, expense, and invoice solution allows your faculty and staff to use their mobile phones to submit expense reports, track mileage, book travel, and submit and approve invoices on the go – without the hassle of paper – making it easy for them to follow the process. Plus, you’ll have more compliance with your policies and visibility into what’s being spent, allowing departments to properly budget and safeguard against fraud.</p>
<p>Not only that, but faculty and staff will love how fast they get reimbursed. By implementing a fully electronic process, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/rochester-city-school-district-automates-travel-expense-and-invoice-management" target="_blank">Rochester City School District</a> was able to take reimbursement time from 60-90 days down to just 11 days.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Increases visibility into spend allowing for more effective budgeting </strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Employee expenses are, on average, between 6-12% of the annual budget, and spend categories are becoming ever-expansive – covering areas like supplies, training, travel, meetings, and mileage. But tracking down all this spend when it’s not always visible can lead to faulty budget forecasts – something that most school districts can’t afford. Especially when taking into consideration the budget requirements of the new ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) and the fact that dollars are already scarce for student programs. </p>
<p>Automation can help bring more visibility into employee spending by consolidating all the data collected from expense, travel, and invoice within a single platform. With all of the data at your fingertips, it’s easy for finance to account for every transaction, breaking out funds in different ways to see the complete picture of spend and making sure money is being allocated where it’s most needed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information about how SAP Concur Solutions can help your school district, please <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/public-sector-k-12" target="_blank">visit us on the web</a> or read more in our brochure, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/how-k-12-schools-can-maximize-budget-efficiency-and-transparency" target="_blank">How K-12 Schools can Maximize Budget Efficiency and Transparency</a>.</p>
Kendra Walters
How Concur TripLink Works
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-triplink-works
2021-07-21T09:37:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Julie is a corporate travel manager Her companys employees travel the world to meet with customers Along with Concur Travel Expense Concur TripLink gives Julie complete visibility...
<p>Julie is a corporate travel manager.</p>
<p data-id="00aa697e-c995-46fe-a602-0190a51c0c2f">Her company’s employees travel the world to meet with customers.</p>
<p data-id="71c0dac0-3ee4-4640-a415-d104ea66580e">Along with Concur Travel & Expense, Concur TripLink gives Julie complete visibility to keep travelers safe and productive, make sure their travel stays within policy, and achieve maximum value for her company.</p>
<p data-id="0690da2c-d27a-4e9b-8254-c15add069d39">Julie negotiates discounts with preferred suppliers. She also sets policies to ensure traveler safety and cost savings. She can monitor travel bookings against her policy and take action before travel occurs.</p>
<p data-id="aea5d8cd-6e0b-49c8-9739-828bf87a5fe3">One challenge is that travelers sometimes book outside of her program. They may have to book directly for a conference rate. Or, they believe they can see more options and find better deals directly on supplier sites. Whether or not that’s accurate, Julie needs visibility into those bookings.</p>
<p data-id="cbae9c2c-cfe9-47b6-865c-f0a9ac3acc34">With Concur TripLink, Julie makes sure all travel occurs within her managed travel program. The service gives her full visibility across booking channels. It also brings outside bookings into the managed travel program. </p>
<p data-id="6576cc5c-f0b7-4469-9cad-5d469c5e1c24">Julie’s travelers can connect their profile in Concur Travel & Expense to travel suppliers. They also get a free subscription to TripIt Pro, the top-rated consumer travel app. When they book rooms on supplier sites, they see their company’s negotiated rate. Then, booking information automatically syncs with Concur Travel & Expense.</p>
<p data-id="35173587-5e0a-4a1e-9f67-a4476f4b7aaa">Travelers that haven’t yet synced their account in Concur Travel & Expense with suppliers can simply e-mail their plans to plans@tripit.com or plans@concur.com. The plans then appear in Concur Travel & Expense, TripIt Pro, and the SAP Concur mobile app. If a traveler’s booking is out of policy, the traveler and the traveler’s manager receive an alert. The traveler can then adjust the booking to stay within policy.</p>
<p data-id="29da7fd7-7b02-4a42-a14c-e7508f0f4fe5">When travelers return from trips, their bookings are automatically itemized, and an e-receipt is added to their expense report.</p>
<p data-id="fd8373f0-a75b-4919-96ff-56baff90b9e7">Julie’s travel management company has access to Concur TripLink bookings in Concur Travel & Expense. Julie can make sure direct bookings are included in discussions with suppliers. She can use the data to show that she met volume goals, which helps with supplier negotiations. Finally, Julie always knows where travelers are going and whether they’re within policy. How’s that for visibility, compliance, and happy travelers?</p>
<p data-id="531794b1-5623-4883-9fb9-d6727dd04a9f">Now that Julie has Concur TripLink to keep track of travelers and their bookings, she’s no longer under a microscope. She’s in the spotlight. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Our Commitment to the Travel Industry
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-commitment-travel-industry
2020-07-08T10:28:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Due to the COVID pandemic far fewer airplanes are lifting to the sky to connect us with friends and business contacts around the world The impacts for the business travel...
<p>Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, far fewer airplanes are lifting to the sky to connect us with friends and business contacts around the world. The impacts for the business travel sector are clear: jobs have been cut, budgets have tightened, nerves are frayed, and each of us worries about colleagues impacted by the pandemic and its economic fallout. For those of us at SAP Concur, it is times like these that we redouble our focus on the core principles around which we operate: community, trust, and transparency. </p>
<p>The business travel community is incredibly important to us. At SAP Concur, our ability to serve customers at the level we think they deserve is closely tied to the success of the Travel Management Companies with whom we work so closely, and to the hundreds of partner organizations that help us provide an ecosystem of services invaluable to organizations everywhere. The trust we have worked hard to maintain with our customers and partners is why we have been able to thrive throughout the years. It allowed us to catapult from a small startup, to multi-billion-dollar acquisition, to an important player within one of the world’s largest technology firms, SAP. And, of course, it is impossible to establish trust without transparency into why we make key decisions. It is these principles of community, trust, and transparency that compel us to respond to current events. </p>
<p>First, we have terminated our relationship with the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) on the national and the international levels. We have been deeply troubled by recent allegations about misogyny in its workplace, incendiary comments toward an elected official by its chief executive officer, and reports of a hostile work environment. While we believe in due process and will not pre-judge the outcome of this ongoing situation, we are resigning our corporate membership and executive committee seats. We will not be involved with GBTA until we are convinced the underlying issues have been fully addressed. </p>
<p>We know the power of community and remain committed to the collective power of bringing the travel industry together. That’s why our second move this week is to announce an inaugural <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit" target="_blank">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>, a virtual event, on September 17, 2020. There will be no charge to attendees because we understand the economic pressures our friends in the industry face right now and we do not want cost to be a barrier for participation. There is much to discuss as an industry, including how and when to restart business travel safely, to bring back its economic and other benefits as soon as appropriate. We will convene a wide swath of the industry, along with stakeholders in government and public health, for constructive conversations. </p>
<p>Business travel has always expanded and contracted along with economies, and we believe there are better times for all of us just around the corner. By recommitting ourselves to community, trust, and transparency, we will get through this together. Those of us at SAP Concur are determined to be a positive and collaborative contributor in that effort, and we look forward to connecting with our colleagues in the industry in meaningful ways in the months to come. </p>
Christopher Juneau
4 Steps to Control Employee Spend Before It’s Too Late
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-steps-control-employee-spend-its-too-late
2020-09-03T09:43:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Welcome back In the first part of our blog series we discussed In part two of our series we dive into how businesses should bring employee spend into focus to help protect against...
<p>Welcome back! In the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-times-of-economic-uncertainty" target="_blank">first part of our blog series</a>, we discussed:</p>
<ul>
<li>The heightened reality fraudulent risks during times of economic downturns.</li>
<li>Why spend control has never mattered more.</li>
<li>The importance of an adaptable compliance program.</li>
</ul>
<p>In part two of our series, we dive into how businesses should bring employee spend into focus to help protect against fraud. Since white-collar crimes can be sneaky – often using multiple means to steal and pull off their attacks – detecting fraud can be notably difficult.</p>
<p>But there are ways to help deter fraudulent schemes. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), for example, reports in its <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/" target="_blank">Global 2020 Study on Occupational Fraud</a> that companies with internal policy controls are associated with lower losses to fraud and quicker detection. With that in mind, here are some areas to consider and questions to ask when you re-visit your company’s T&E policy:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Take policy into consideration:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>How often do you update your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">travel and expense policy</a>?</li>
<li>Does it include what is and isn’t an acceptable expense?</li>
<li>Does it include how out-of-policy spend or non-compliant expenses are handled?</li>
<li>Do you typically have employees working from home on a regular basis?</li>
<li>What’s your company’s risk appetite for detecting fraud within employee expenses, travel booked, or invoices? </li>
<li>Are you capturing all of the data needed to assess your compliance and fraud risk?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Establish the right process to prevent and detect fraud:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Does your credit card data auto-populate into expense reports?</li>
<li>Do you require e-receipts beyond a certain spend limit or threshold?</li>
<li>Do you have audit rules set up to automatically verify the appropriate checks and balances?</li>
<li>Do you have approval flowcharts to make accountability a group effort?</li>
<li>Do you have standardized reason codes to identify why an expense might not be submitted?</li>
<li>Do you have an external audit program that’s unbiased to help oversee and control spend?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Use reporting to monitor and analyze your data </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Identify what teams are responsible: Is it finance, travel, HR, legal, audit, compliance, risk?</li>
<li>Use data to identify trends: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">Car mileage</a> versus car rentals, excessive spend in specific expense types, airport parking versus Lyft, Uber, or taxi drop-off</li>
<li>Do periodic reviews and checks of: Duplicate company meals, expense items, hotel stays, meal attendees, expenses near receipt limits, submitted ticket charges with unsubmitted refunds, merchant validation</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>4. Compare control and compliance benchmarks with SAP Concur solutions</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Receipt attachment</li>
<li>Frequent use of high-risk expense types</li>
<li>Higher percentage of cash expenses</li>
<li>Travel expenses on cash</li>
<li>Mileage transactions on card</li>
<li>Excessive personal mileage</li>
<li>Route data attachment</li>
<li>Reports approved receipts not viewed</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>How Are Other Businesses Handling Fraud?</h2>
<p>During a recent SAP Concur webinar, participants answered the following questions on how they felt they were handling fraud at their own organization. Here are the results (click to zoom):</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595883243200-fraud webinar survey results (png).png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595883243200-fraud webinar survey results (png).png" /> </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more information on preventing and detecting fraud, visit our </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud" target="_blank"><strong>Fraud and Compliance</strong></a><strong> solutions webpage, or </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact" target="_blank"><strong>contact us today</strong></a><strong> to speak with an SAP Concur representative.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Blending the Rules: Making T&E Policies Work for Businesses and Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/blending-rules-making-te-policies-work-businesses-and-travelers
2020-08-26T10:13:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel puts your butt in the seat so to speak It enables your company to sit across the table from key clients it helps you build relationships and foster partnerships with...
<p>Business travel puts your butt in the seat, so to speak. It enables your company to sit across the table from key clients; it helps you build relationships and foster partnerships with prospective customers; it is, in fact, the simplest, surest way to build your company.</p>
<p>It works well for you, in other words.</p>
<p>At the same time, working on the road requires more from your employees than just doing their job. There’s no relaxing with the family after work; there’s no dropping the kids off at school when there’s a plane to catch; there’s not as much life left in the work/life balance. And it requires extra work – tracking expense and travel details, while staying on top of your policies.</p>
<p>So you have to find a way to make it work for your people – while keeping costs in check.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This requires policies. Yay, policies. Everyone loves policies.</h2>
<p>Who doesn’t love a good corporate policy? Well, to be honest, a good corporate policy is really quite great because it’s something everyone can understand and get behind. Good corporate policies are clear and fair and easy to follow. They make sure the business gets what it needs and that employees don’t get hassled.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, good policies are often hard to come by.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there’s help. We created a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/create-clear-enforceable-policies-that-improve-cash-flow" target="_blank">brief guide to creating simple, enforceable travel policies</a> that not only support employees on the road, they help you control travel expenses while improving cash flow.</p>
<p>See? Good policies actually exist.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The only thing hard and fast about rules is that they’re hard to create, and you can’t do it fast.</h2>
<p>When it comes to travel and expense (T&E) policies, it can be difficult to get past the informal, not-always-enforced practices you may already have in place. They work…for the most part, and getting rules and regulations in place that actually work all the time will take some extra effort.</p>
<p>But as the SAP Concur guide points out, there are several tips that make the process – and the policies – far easier. The following few are a good place to start.</p>
<p><strong>1. Keep it simple: </strong>Ambiguous booking rules lead to booking mistakes and hidden spend. Make sure your policies are as clear and easy to follow as possible.</p>
<p><strong>2. Talk to your road warriors: </strong>Who knows best about what it’s like to travel for your company? Ask them what would make it easier, then fix what’s feasible.</p>
<p><strong>3. Make it easy for employees to find and follow the rules: </strong>Not only should the policies be clear, your communication should be unmistakable. Tell travelers why policies have changed, how they work, and how that benefits them.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/create-clear-enforceable-policies-that-improve-cash-flow" target="_blank">See All 8 Tips</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Really, this couldn’t be easier.</h2>
<p>The whole goal here is to rid your T&E program of complexities while managing your costs – because when it’s simpler to comply with corporate policy, more people do it. And you’ll not only capture and control more of your spending, you’ll have more focused, more engaged employees on the road. You’ll also be able to see where they are when they’re out and about, so you can ensure their safety and do your duty of care.</p>
<p>Safer, happier, more productive travelers, plus control over costs. That’s good policy.</p>
Neha Mehta
How COVID-19 Will Affect Business Travel In the Near Future
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-covid-19-will-affect-business-travel-near-future
2020-12-08T08:32:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It goes without saying that the impact of the COVID pandemic has been absolutely devastating globally affecting all aspects of our lives There can be no doubt that one of those areas...
<p>It goes without saying that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been absolutely devastating globally, affecting all aspects of our lives.</p>
<p>There can be no doubt that one of those areas is our mental wellbeing, due in large part to prolonged harboring in place, working from home, practicing social distancing, inconsistencies of when to wear a mask or mask to wear, and more. According to a June 2020 study by <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/europe/well-being-in-europe-addressing-the-high-cost-of-covid-19-on-life-satisfaction" target="_blank">McKinsey & Company, this pandemic has sent the average life satisfaction rating to a 40-year low in Europe.</a></p>
<p>The economic ripple effects are just now beginning to fully unfold and make their presence known. As usual, small businesses—beauty shops, nail salons, fitness centers, dry cleaners, restaurants, and the like—have been dealt the hardest blow. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/85-of-independent-restaurants-could-permanently-close-in-2020-report-2020-6" target="_blank">A June 2020 Business Insider article</a> reported that the pandemic could force the permanent closure of as many as 85% of independent restaurants by the end of the year, according to the Independent Restaurant Coalition.</p>
<p>Obviously, the crisis duration plays a key role in the total potential impact as it has already highlighted the financial fragility of many businesses.</p>
<p>In the travel industry thus far in 2020, the supplier impacts are staggering in terms of lost business, lost revenues, furloughs, and layoffs. </p>
<p>Many businesses that were on transaction-based pricing models in the travel industry were also devastated by the rapid shutdown of travel beginning in late March. These businesses, such as travel management companies, must now revaluate not just their pricing models, but also their TMC and buyer relationship as a whole. As an example, some TMCs are looking at charging every caller a “contact fee,” while some are looking at the elimination of the transaction fee model and moving to a straight management fee. This presents a dilemma, as travel buyers have often been of a different mindset favoring the transaction fee “pay -as-you-use” model. <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Research/SME-Report/2020/Fee-Factor-Agency-Pricing-for-SMEs-After-Covid-19" target="_blank">JTB business travel</a> said in a September 3 article that it is taking a different approach to its service offering, and wants to move to an initiative called “experience zero “which is a fixed-fee pricing model based on overall company travel volume, and the scope of services a client wants and pays for. Fair to state some of this would have been unheard of pre-COVID-19</p>
<p>Another paradox we must also consider is the high-cost impact of shutting down and restarting the economies across countries, states, and localities. These actions have no doubt taken their toll on businesses across the globe.</p>
<p>In its simplest form, one must keep in mind that an economy only functions when there are people who are able to act as producers and consumers…and no, I don’t believe we are geared to simply buy everything online. We are, after all, social by nature, and while we can and have adapted rather quickly to changes, we want to return to some sense of social normalcy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is the COVID-19 surcharge, and what does all of this mean for us in business in the near future?</h2>
<p>From my perspective, it is going to mean that <strong>travel will end up costing the consumer and businesses more money</strong>. My rationale for this statement is simple:</p>
<ul>
<li>In all probability, there is going to be more travel supplier consolidation, which will result in less supply available in the end.</li>
<li>In addition, someone will have to pay for all of this new health and safety, be it with new processes, new cleaning protocols, new detection equipment, new disinfectants, new plastic dividers, or new masks.</li>
</ul>
<p>The reality is: Suppliers cannot be expected to cover all of these new costs and thrive, much less survive. They will have to be passed onto the end consumer.</p>
<p>While I do think there will be some bargain deals in the near term, these will be short-lived as it will ultimately become a sellers’ market for the near future.</p>
<p>What is crystal clear will be the need for expense transparency going forward. With the continued impact of COVID-19, there are health and safety expenses that typically do not have defined categories within expense systems, and as a result will be placed into ‘”other” or “miscellaneous”’ categories. Just think about the shift from air flight cost to mileage expensing for local or regional travel that may take place. Both of these areas can be fraught with opportunity for fraud, hence alignment with your expense and audit teams will be paramount.</p>
<p>Another cost containment consideration: Departments’ travel budgets may be drastically reduced going into 2021 as businesses strapped for cash focus on travel restraint, and the use of technology for sales and servicing remotely. Taking a phased approach for travel concentrating only on business-essential or revenue-generating travel may be a consideration.</p>
<p>As we return to travel in 2021, only then will we realize our need for the acceptance of new travel financial allowance realities, and the high cost of this lowly disease.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Ralph Colunga
Transforming AP Processes in Higher Ed to Match the Times and Control Costs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transforming-ap-processes-higher-ed-match-times-and-control-costs
2020-11-18T08:29:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Good cash flow is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of running any organization Its also one of the most challenging With hundreds sometimes even thousands of...
<p>Good cash flow is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of running any organization. It’s also one of the most challenging. With hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of transactions occurring in a single day, keeping track of where money is spent, when it has been paid, and encumbrances you need to account for at all times is no small task.</p>
<p>In higher education, where many sources of funding are regulated, this is true even in the best of times. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, the importance of tracking every dollar is higher than ever. With enrollments down, student refunds, campus closures, and other struggles, AP teams are under pressure to scrutinize every dollar spent, redefine processes, and evolve to meet the times.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
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<h2>IDC White Paper</h2>
<p>SAP Concur Facilitates Automated Management of Financial Operations</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Teams that rely on outdated technology or manual invoice processes have an even steeper hill to climb. Along with increased processing and approval times, limited visibility on spending, and mistakes that plague manual invoice processes, COVID-19 has made invoice management even more difficult than it already was.</p>
<p>As most employees work from home, paper invoices have been rolling in and stacking up for months or getting lost in the shuffle. These, of course, need to be processed and come flooding in when employees return to offices, and in some cases, with fewer staff to handle the increased workload.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Digital transformation is the key</h2>
<p>With budgets tight, and no clear sense when this pandemic will end, it’s critical that higher education institutions invest where it matters most. And that means identifying affordable technology that’s easy to deploy, easy to use, and provides an immediate return on investment. </p>
<p>Concur Invoice uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to capture and analyze spend data, automate AP processes, track costs, and keep invoice backlog to a minimum. Organizations can have staff up and running in just a few weeks, and through this cloud-based software AP teams can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Centralize payment processing in a work-from-home environment</li>
<li>Eliminate manual data entry </li>
<li>Reimburse students efficiently and reliably</li>
<li> Pay suppliers on time to keep relationships strong and receive early payment discounts</li>
<li>Forecast budgets accurately </li>
</ul>
<p>Before the pandemic, automating and digitizing AP processes was a step that many finance leaders had taken (or were at least considering) to improve back-office systems and drive business value. While today it may seem that waiting until life is “back to normal” is the most fiscally responsible decision, putting off implementing a solution will only put institutions further behind in their stabilization and recovery efforts.</p>
<p>IDC interviewed eight organizations that currently use Concur Invoice and found that they’re experiencing significant value, including average annual benefits of $662,700 per organization ($3,258 per 1,000 invoices) and a three-year return on investment of a whopping 634%.</p>
<p>To read the full report and see how modernizing invoice management can help your organization, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">download it free here.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Build a Stronger, More Resilient Business Through Digital Finance Transformation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/build-stronger-more-resilient-business-through-digital-finance-transformation
2021-01-11T18:44:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Businesses around the globe have been rocked by the COVID pandemic From shutdowns to supply shortages to drastic spikes in demand uncertainty is the only certainty All of this turmoil...
<p>Businesses around the globe have been rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>From shutdowns to supply shortages to drastic spikes in demand, uncertainty is the only certainty.</p>
<p>All of this turmoil has put finance teams at the helm – whether steering businesses through choppy waters or toward a bright horizon. Yet, despite the havoc, finance teams have a unique opportunity to redefine business strategy, operations, and technology in a way that will keep businesses resilient and flexible – whatever the future may bring.</p>
<p>With that in mind, SAP consulted with Andrea Yandreski, partner at Bain & Company to offer guidance to finance leaders on how to confidently navigate these disruptive times. The result is a <strong>six-strategy approach to building business resilience</strong> that is grounded in digital transformation.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
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<h2>6 Strategies for Finance Resiliency</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/6-strategies-for-finance-resiliency-via-digital-transformation">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The first step in preparing for uncertainty is <strong>scenario planning</strong>. While a wait-and-see approach might be tempting, it can leave you stuck with few options in an emergency. Finance should collaborate with leaders across the business to determine which scenarios could most greatly impact the business and come up with plans for dealing with each one. This way, no matter what happens, your company will be ready to act.</p>
<p>Once you have your contingency plans in place, it’s time to focus on <strong>strengthening your working capital</strong>. This means concentrating on balance sheets and cash flow management. For example, are your accounts receivable invoices being settled quickly? Are you making the most of payment terms and discounts? Are you unnecessarily tying up cash in excess inventory? Other ways to free up cash could be debt renegotiation or adjusting timelines for capital investment projects.</p>
<p>The next step is putting your cash where you need it most by <strong>improving visibility into company spend</strong>. The only way to enforce compliance and make sure spending is in line with business priorities is to have real-time insight into all your spend data. But this can be tricky when things like employee expense and vendor invoice data are managed manually and stored in siloed systems. Automating expense and invoice management makes capturing data from receipts and invoices simpler and also streamlines approvals and compliance checks. Plus, you can integrate with back-end ERP to give finance teams the real-time data and analytics they need to identify wasteful spending and guide better spending choices.</p>
<p>Enabling spend visibility leads us to the next strategy on our list – <strong>looking for cost savings opportunities</strong>. With these same spend analytics, finance leaders can clearly see spend areas that are not delivering strong returns and can better evaluate that spending in terms of whatever risks your company is facing.</p>
<p>The fifth strategy for increasing business resiliency is to <strong>eliminate low-value work</strong>, starting with processes that rely on institutional or individual knowledge or require manual work-arounds. By working with business leaders to reimagine those processes and eliminate or automate non-value-adding tasks, you will improve employee satisfaction and increase productivity – ultimately boosting revenue.</p>
<p>Finally, it’s important for finance teams to understand what is temporary and what is here to stay, then <strong>plan for new ways of working in the long term</strong>. Take, for example, the work-from-home paradigm. Many companies are realizing that remote work and virtual collaboration is a good fit – allowing people to be productive while also saving on business travel. The key will be for companies to have the flexibility to accommodate both scenarios for a hybrid model going forward.</p>
<p>Now that you know the strategies for building a resilient company, how do you put them in place?</p>
<p>The answer is through digital transformation of finance.</p>
<p>By automating processes and making it possible to work from anywhere, you keep your people and your business flexible and productive – come what may. Carefully planned digitalization also enables the process and data integration needed to give finance the visibility to control costs, optimize cash flow, identify savings opportunities, and plan for the future.</p>
<p>Finance leaders can spearhead the kind of transformational change required to make digitalization initiatives successful by aligning senior team members around identifying and enacting the most pressing digitalization priorities. They can facilitate change by helping determine the appropriate technology to accommodate needs and budgets and set appropriate timelines for rollout.</p>
<p>In these times of rapid change and uncertainty, standing still and hoping for a return to “normal” is simply not an option. The time to act is now. Finance leaders who position their businesses to most effectively weather the storm will not only minimize harm, but come out stronger.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/6-strategies-for-finance-resiliency-via-digital-transformation">Read our complete whitepaper</a> on how to keep your business resilient. Then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> for guidance on your digital finance transformation.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Enabling Executive Spend Management Decisions Amidst the Pandemic and Beyond: Smith & Nephew’s Success Story
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/enabling-executive-spend-management-decisions-amidst-pandemic-and-beyond-smith-nephews
2021-02-11T15:58:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The fact that we have greater control over spend and visibilityhas allowed us to really position ourselves as business partnersnot only creating information but also actually enabling...
<p>“The fact that we have greater control over spend and visibility…has allowed us to really position ourselves as business partners-not only creating information but also actually enabling decision-making to our senior executives,” shared Jorge Monge, travel and expense lead for Smith & Nephew, a global medical devices company.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic hit, Smith & Nephew was an early adopter of innovative spend management tools for its travel and expense programs. Making spend management easy to understand and analyze was a leadership priority that Jorge Monge was charged with overseeing. While managing spend across more than 44 countries, the company built a spend management infrastructure that allows it to thrive amidst the global health crisis.</p>
<p>“2020 has been quite a year, as we all know…We have been able to use analytics…not only to track but also to forecast a way that expenditure is going to look in the coming years. We also produce COVID-specific analytics to our executive community, so that they know how travel and expenses are behaving and how it is actually evolving across the pandemic,” shares Monge.</p>
<p>In addition to weathering the pandemic storm, the thoughtful and streamlined way that Smith & Nephew is now managing global spend is empowering executives to shift their spend management program from tactical and compliance-oriented, to one that’s strategy-focused. Monge shares that this spend visibility is “producing a real set of analytics that not only allows us to really make business decisions, but also as a global process owner, consider how our spend is behaving and then take that into account to make further business decisions in terms of the road map that we intend to follow strategically for travel and expenses for Smith & Nephew.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-3-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew streamlined executive spend management decisions here.</a> (Part 3)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-1-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew struck a balance between employee experience and compliance here.</a> (Part 1)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-0">Watch how Smith & Nephew increased spend accuracy here.</a> (Part 2)</p>
<p>Listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763" target="_blank" title="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank" title="https://www.amazon.com/sap-concur-conversations/dp/b08k59b79v/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank" title="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7h4gimkq5ftm1eb3znbyap">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/" target="_blank" title="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-fwtlxza-ixv/">Listen Notes</a>, <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank" title="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a">Acast</a>, or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Top Travel and Expense Trends of 2021: NielsenIQ's VP Shares His Insights
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-travel-and-expense-trends-2021-nielseniqs-vp-shares-his-insights
2021-07-29T08:01:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
K G Subramanyam who goes by KGS is the Global Vice President of Enterprise Platforms at NielsenIQ He has more than years of technology experience managing finance travel and expense...
<p>K. G. Subramanyam, who goes by KGS, is the Global Vice President of Enterprise Platforms at NielsenIQ. He has more than 20 years of technology experience managing finance, travel and expense (T&E) platforms, and corporate card programs across 105 countries. He is currently leading digital transformation initiatives on S/4 Platform, with expertise in innovating and leveraging platforms using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning (ML), and other process automation software. </p>
<p>In a recent webinar, KGS and other thought leaders discussed the four key T&E trends that will drive positive change in 2021, as well as best practices to help improve your program. Here are some thoughts he shared with us:</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Travel and Expense Trends 2021</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/webinar-travel-and-expense-trends-in-2021">Watch the webinar</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Trend 1: “Safe travels” is taking on a new meaning</h2>
<p>The return to travel is top of mind right now. With more people getting vaccinated and restrictions lifting in certain parts of the country, the return to business travel has already begun.</p>
<p>“Responsible travel, with a focus on employee well-being, will be the hallmark this year,” shares KGS. “Applying lessons learned from the last year of the pandemic will completely re-shape an organization’s travel and expense policies. The travel environment is going through significant changes, so global travelers need to continuously adapt.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-travelers-need-to-know-about-digital-health-passports">Vaccine passports</a>, health checks, and invasive screenings will also become more common. KGS goes on to explain that, “Employers like us are already shaping up strategies with input from local countries that is more data driven by trends, mandates, and communications. Duty of care obligations will gain traction. SAP Concur data will help locate employees through their ecosystem and collate information from WHO, CDC, etc.”</p>
<p>Travel will also remain flexible for employees maintaining <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-normal-considerations-remote-workers-ppe-tax-implications">remote work arrangements</a>. However, KGS explains, “Employees considered ‘business critical travelers’ will see relevant measures put in place to ease the burden of travel as there is greater sense of health and safety trumping travel necessity. Vaccines will take time to spread globally and will differ country to country based on vaccination progress, infection rate, new strains and local government response. But as more people are vaccinated, it will provide an ability for some level of business travel to come back.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Trend 2: Sustainability is about more than just recycling</h2>
<p>The past few years has shown a huge uptick in concern over sustainability, with the driving force being the influx of younger generations joining the workforce.</p>
<p>“This new generation of employees are researching organizations’ actionable goals, achievements, and track records before they ever commit to join. The topic of sustainability is moving mainstream with traction picking up in North America, but still not quite on par with the European Union. The global pandemic has brought it into sharp focus as well,” states KGS. “Because of this, technology will see more traction into a holistic environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy of enterprises. Technology can and will play a big role in the digital transformation of making ‘environmental impact’ data more transparent to its end-users.”</p>
<p>KGS goes on to share exactly how SAP Concur solutions helps support their goal to be more sustainable in 2021: “Our SAP Concur data currently feeds into our ESG framework and reporting to educate our employees on their carbon footprint. This data gives them options to reduce or eliminate their CO2 emissions, such as ride sharing, identifying properties that are LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] certified, promoting sustainable living and supply chain, and reducing paper by going digital.”</p>
<p>Enterprises are moving forward beyond carbon offsets to more practical and impactful strategies. KGS believes that, in the end, it all comes down to technology-enabled, data-driven ways to achieve long-term ESG goals.</p>
<p><strong>See also: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">The Corporate Travel Sustainability Index</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trend 3: The shift toward cloud-based solutions</h2>
<p>T&E platforms are no longer a back-office function, given the volume of spend that has increased over the years.</p>
<p>“A common theme emerging among organizations is to use real-time data to drive decision-making,” said KGS. This allows companies to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Improve budget management and liquidity</li>
<li>Increase compliance</li>
<li>Eliminate errors</li>
<li>Maximize profitability</li>
</ul>
<p>“Spend management is high on the CFO agenda. With the availability and adoption of cloud-based tools, it has become much easier to access data. Technological advances, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/rethinking-travel-and-ai-with-trust-as-a-critical-component">like artificial intelligence</a> (AI), machine learning (ML) and robotic process automation (RPA) will play a key role in providing data-driven analytics and reporting for strategic decision-making,” KGS states. It is clear that intelligent automation will become standard across all industries.</p>
<p>Enterprises are investing millions of dollars into digital transformation initiatives, by adopting cloud-based solutions, using AI, ML, and RPA technologies, reducing tech complexity, manual labor, and optimizing people-oriented processes. “At NielsenIQ, we have been able to go completely digital in North America, which impacts most of our T&E users. This allows us the ability to conduct audits of our expense reports globally via cloud-based ecosystems,” KGS states.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trend 4: Maintaining compliancy with ever-changing tax laws</h2>
<p>State and local governments are changing and updating tax laws faster than most companies can keep up with. According to <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/tax/solutions/tax-operating-model-transformation-services.html?id=us:2ps:3gl:ott:awa:tax:020322:ott:ad2:kwd-304009503833:global%20tax%20management&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjPaCBhDkARIsAISZN7T3QfqhPtZrECa6IR9Lu9wz3iC4P97pz0LAPkyC0JPQNkd9U9ngpBcaAvtBEALw_wcB" target="_blank">Deloitte</a>, the digitalization of taxes and advances toward real-time reporting have contributed to stricter requirements among global tax authorities. That means it’s imperative to have technology that’s ready to adapt and comply.</p>
<p>“VAT tax obligations are a primary focus for CFOs. Software solutions are focusing on the end-to-end automation perspective to make it <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-tips-for-improving-vat-compliance">easier to claim VAT</a>,” KGS states. “The use of AI, ML, and RPA technologies will further enhance solutions to ease the burden on large, global organizations that had a manual, cumbersome process to claim VAT, while avoiding the risk of not passing financial audits.”</p>
<p>Essentially: “Think local and act global”. KGS goes on to add, “That is the theme to remember to consistently recover as much VAT as possible with global visibility into recovery. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-connectors">Integrating T&E systems tightly with ERPs</a> driven by tax engines, combined with intelligent automation, will lead the way to reduce complexity in this space.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Getting prepared for 2021: How SAP Concur solutions can help</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can help you manage the T&E process to create a more flexible program and uncover cost savings. Before and during booking, you can pre-approve costs, then consistently apply policies and preferred pricing whether employees use your booking tool or book direct. During trips, our top-rated app manages every part of travelers’ itineraries and gets rid of paper receipts, while you get visibility into plans to support duty of care. After each trip, charges get automatically populated and categorized, reducing errors, simplifying allocation, and giving you insight to evaluate and refine polices and create the versatile program the business needs.</p>
<p>For additional insights into these four trends, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/webinar-travel-and-expense-trends-in-2021">listen to our webinar</a> as experts from PACCAR and Ernst & Young LLP share what they’re doing to get ready for 2021.</p>
SAP Concur Team
We Know Tech Can Help Us Re-Open Schools. It’s Time for the U.S. to Use It.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/we-know-tech-can-help-us-re-open-schools-its-time-us-use-it
2021-06-09T11:00:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
President Biden has been forced to pause his ambitious plans for a swift reopening of schools in the United States As both the federal and local governments try to navigate this...
<p>President Biden has been forced to pause his ambitious plans for a swift reopening of schools in the United States. As both the federal and local governments try to navigate this complicated balancing act, there are key tech solutions being left off the table that can help U.S. school districts reopen.</p>
<p>States have been largely left on their own to plan individual responses, but schools need a universal plan that utilizes all available technology to get them back to some sense of normal. And time is of the essence as children are falling behind. Americans are increasingly worried that kids in K-12 schools face academic setbacks, with 61% saying this should be a top concern for schools not currently open to in-person classes.</p>
<p>When it comes to more controversial tech like contact tracing, parents and teachers in the U.S. will need to put politics aside to make sure an entire generation of children doesn’t get left behind.</p>
<p>Here are a few technological solutions that the U.S. can adopt in order get schools on the track to reopening:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tech that supports hybrid settings gives schools flexibility</h2>
<p>We need to rely on technology that has shown to be successful thus far in keeping schools connected while operating in both remote and in-person settings. Even though the U.S. is on an encouraging track when it comes to getting its population vaccinated, the rise of COVID-19 variants throughout the world means we’re still a long way from getting back to normal. That may be why 10% of school district leaders said in a survey last fall that they had already adopted or would soon adopt a hybrid learning model.</p>
<p>While some schools have adopted systems that rotate between cohorts of students at home and at school, districts should consider keeping non-teacher personnel like finance departments and other administrators working from home. Software like SAP Concur solutions can optimize back-office accounting tasks and allow schools with dwindling resources to operate more efficiently. School districts can use SAP Concur solutions to quickly process high volumes of staff paperwork via its machine learning tools. In one school district, the SaaS was able to reduce the average expense processing time from up to three months to just 11 days thanks to its automation.</p>
<p>Hybrid models of learning also mean that schools need to get devices into the hands of all students. In states like West Virginia,up to 5% of students were unable to connect to their virtual classrooms from home due to lack of personal resources.</p>
<p>Though it has been downright impossible for some schools because of budget shortcomings and resource limitations, districts are still finding creative solutions. In order to give to less-privileged students, Denver Public Schools initated a buy-back program where they bought back devices from any children who purchased a computer from the school but already had one at home they could use. That allowed virtual attendance to rise to 90%.</p>
<p>On top of devices, many children need reliable Internet, which can be provided through hotspots. For its part, The state of Texas has bought more than 1 million hotspots – as well as 3.5 million computers – for students in recent months. Officials in the state estimate that about 800,000 families with students cannot afford broadband Internet at home.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Smart tools can enforce mitigation efforts</h2>
<p>Schools will have to adapt smart tools that can help make sure mitigation protocols like wearing masks and social distancing remain in place. Tech that can constantly reinforce these crucial practices to children each day is a must-have for school districts.</p>
<p>One way to grab young kids’ attention while teaching them about safe habits is through gamification, the process of adding games or game-like elements to processes. Ever since lockdowns began, there has been a rise of schools using learning tools that take elements of games to promote mitigation strategies.</p>
<p>In Taiwan, for example, a robot that children in an elementary school built out of Legos sprays sanitizer into their hands throughout the day. This not only encourages the kids to make solutions for real-world problems, but it further encourages children to take steps to stay safe during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Making sure students with a fever or other symptoms don’t come to school is also now more important than ever. Thermal cameras can give initial scans to tell if any of them may have a higher temperature than normal when children walk into the building. Though the technology is more widespread in Asian countries like China, the U.S. has been adopting it recently in some physical workplaces where many people move in and out each day. Thermal camera technology has the capacity to read the body temperature of up to 30 people per minute, scaling the temperature checking process and making it less intrusive than individual digital thermometer reading.</p>
<p>Schools throughout the U.S. have also been experimenting more and more with technology that cleans circulated air.</p>
<p>High schools in Florida are using a system of ultraviolet-light air purifiers that have been shown to kill viruses, including the novel coronavirus. Though it’s not a silver bullet, the school districts say they are finding that it has helped their efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.</p>
<p>When combined into a single strategy, these little tech solutions add up to make schools much safer for children to return to.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Contact tracing apps make a difference</h2>
<p>Apps that can allow school administrators to track COVID-19 infections are vital to safely allowing children to be back in school full-time. We know from cases across that world – and even some in the U.S. – that these devices are effective and keep people out of harm’s way.</p>
<p>Contact tracing apps in the United Kingdom, for example, have been shown to drastically reduce transmission and keep children safe. From October to December of last year, the English government estimated that nearly 225,000 transmissions were prevented because of its tracing app developed by the country’s National Health Services.</p>
<p>When used in schools, these apps are able to digitally log a child’s daily health through temperature checks and self-assessments. If a K-12 student comes down sick with COVID-19, the app can immediately alert school administrators to other classmates the student was in contact with. That’s why researchers say testing and contact tracing strategies are essential for school reopenings, according to a pair of recent studies published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.</p>
<p>The University of Arizona developed its own app for its college students called Covid Watch that alerts users if they've been near someone who has tested positive. Most importantly, for those parents and staff who protest the use of contact tracing in schools, the app keeps information completely anonymous as it only notes other users’ Bluetooth signals. If an app user tests positive and shares with the app, other users who have shown to be around that person will get a private message saying they may have been exposed to coronavirus. University officials have said the app reduced the spread of COVID-19 by 12%.</p>
<p>This is all done without collecting or tracking any biographical information about the user. The app was developed using a contact tracing platform from both Apple and Google, which addresses privacy concerns by not allowing health authorities access to users’ personal information.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the U.S. there may be no one-size-fits-all approach in place to getting kids back into schools. But an increased use of tech solutions can promote sanitary practices and give administrators the ability to be flexible. It’s on school officials and parents to embrace modern tech in order to get kids back into classrooms while also keeping communities safe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="text-sm">For over twenty years, Phoenix Business Consulting has been a trusted SAP solutions provider for Public Sector organizations including State agencies, Local governments, Educational institutions and Special Districts. Combined with SAP Concur’s leading-edge travel and expense management capabilities, Phoenix brings an unparalleled service offering to help Public Sector agencies to dramatically simplify and streamline their travel and expense management processes. Find out more at <a href="https://phoenixteam.com/" target="_blank" title="https://phoenixteam.com/">https://phoenixteam.com/</a></p>
JL Diaz
Get Your Hybrid Workplace Working for Your Business and Your People
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/get-your-hybrid-workplace-working-your-business-and-your-people
2022-01-04T10:47:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Welcome to the new world of work While many organizations may still be unsure about the hybrid work model employees overwhelmingly prefer having the flexibility to work from anywhere...
<p>Welcome to the new world of work.</p>
<p>While many organizations may still be unsure about the hybrid work model, employees overwhelmingly prefer having the flexibility to work from anywhere. But getting there takes careful planning and some initial technology investment.</p>
<p>So, what can finance and IT leaders do to ease the transition?</p>
<p>The first step is to digitalize. Without the right IT systems in place, your people will be forever chained to their desks at the office. Take spend management, for example. Filling out spreadsheets, e-mailing expense reports, and shuffling through paper invoices takes time. You also run the risk of errors, rework, and even fraud – as well as time wasted by auditing and accounts payable, for whom mistakes and follow-ups start to feel like the rule rather than the exception.</p>
<p>With smart, cloud-based spend management technology, nearly every piece of input – from receipts to vendor invoices, reports, and approvals – can be captured, routed, and stored digitally, saving time for everyone and consolidating spend data in a single place. Add advanced analytics to the mix, and you now have the insight to spot trends, identify waste, and strike more advantageous vendor contracts. By working together to choose the right technology, finance and IT can not only have everyone working smarter and more efficiently from anywhere, they can also give executive leadership the visibility they need to craft spend strategy that is aligned with business goals.</p>
<p>In addition to giving your people the right applications to work from anywhere, finance and IT have to make sure that everyone knows what is expected of them and has the tools they need to perform. This means reviewing and adjusting office policies to account for the new remote work model and making sure employees know how to effectively work from anywhere – including from home. Case in point – meetings. A poor connection, the wrong software, or unfamiliarity with the mute button can throw off your whole agenda. So, it’s up to leaders to budget for the training and equipment everyone needs to keep meetings on track.</p>
<p>If all this is starting to sound expensive, don’t worry. The new hybrid work model offers significant cost savings as well. Instead of continuing to rent empty office space, finance and IT leaders should consider ways to consolidate, so that enough shared space is available for those in the office when they need it, but not sitting unused when they don’t.</p>
<p>Ultimately, your hybrid workplace needs to support business agility, so that you can continually meet changing customer, market, and employee needs. Digitalizing in one area but not another will hamper your ability to run unified operations from anywhere. This is where integration comes into play. Take our spend management example – having smart technology is great, but if it doesn’t also integrate with your ERP and finance systems, your finance teams are still stuck manually consolidating data in order to include expenses, vendor costs, and travel in overall forecasts and budgets.</p>
<p>The last question finance and IT leaders should ask themselves is, “What does hybrid work mean for me?” You may have employees in remote locations and others in the office every day. As a leader, it’s important to stay connected with everyone – ensuring that team members feel included and get equal time and opportunity to connect, whether it’s over video chat or face to face.</p>
<p>For more tips on how to make your hybrid workplace work for everyone, check out this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/little-things-can-keep-your-hybrid-workplace-humming">tip sheet</a>.</p>
<p>Then <a href="http://www.concur.com">find out how</a> SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
You Have an ERP System. Do You Really Need AP Automation?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-have-erp-system-do-you-really-need-ap-automation
2022-07-01T12:18:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You might be using an ERP to manage your various financial processes today but is it giving you everything you want or needparticularly when it comes to managing vendor invoices...
<p>You might be using an ERP to manage your various financial processes today, but is it giving you everything you want or need—particularly when it comes to managing vendor invoices? Chances are you might still be doing more manual effort than you need to be.</p>
<p>The ERP stands out for its workflow options and managing back-end operations. But for the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/accounts-payable">accounts payable</a> process as a whole, there are gaps in most ERP systems—due to manual inputting and lag time—that leave room for errors and complications.</p>
<p>But an AP automation platform can enhance an ERP system, offering near real-time reporting and improved accuracy, while freeing your finance team from manual tasks and giving them more time to focus on initiatives that bring greater value to your organization.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Invoice Demo</h2>
<p>See first-hand how to make your invoice processing paperless with Concur Invoice</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So how are these two systems different, and how can they complement each other? Let’s take a look.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How AP automation can optimize an ERP</h2>
<p>Your ERP offers robust reporting, which is a great start. But AP automation takes it to the next level by giving you early visibility into spend before it hits the ERP system, proactively giving teams a clear picture of cash flow as invoices roll in.</p>
<p>As you know, reporting with an ERP is dependent on when an invoice is received and entered, which can add up to a data lag time of days, weeks, or even months. That’s because invoices don't come in at a steady pace throughout the month, so it can take a long time to input them in bulk, especially if multiples come in at once.<br />
<br />
Maybe your process accommodates reporting gaps. But if you need to see accruals in the moment—to drive sustainable growth or to cut costs—you can't do either with absolute confidence if you don't know how much money you have going out for payments and what outstanding bills you have at any moment.</p>
<p>In many ways, AP automation picks up where an ERP leaves off, giving coverage that’s critical for a more transparent financial process, including:</p>
<h3>1. Near real-time reporting</h3>
<p>With an AP automation solution like Concur Invoice, the initial step in the AP process is to immediately digitize each invoice as it comes in using character recognition (OCR), followed by human validation, via SAP Concur, to ensure accuracy before processing. Once the invoice goes through the capture process, visibility and reporting are available regardless of whether the invoice matches appropriately to the purchase order.</p>
<p>Without Concur Invoice, a company wouldn’t be able to access the data until the invoice has visually matched against the purchase order in the ERP. Depending on the volume of invoices and the number of line items on them, you could be in for a longer wait for an updated report—which can leave you guessing on your organization’s current cash flow status. <br />
<br />
Here’s how Minneapolis-based company <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/code42-software">CODE42 Software</a> created automated workflows via Concur Invoice, integrating into their ERP system, for better analytics.<br />
<br />
“Having Expense and Invoice in the same platform from the AP perspective really provides us the one-stop-shop that we can process everything, compile everything in one single source, and get it into our ERP, providing us the ability to analyze as we go,” said Kevin Wright, accounts payable manager, CODE42 Software.</p>
<h3>2. Automated payments</h3>
<p>Automated payments typically aren’t available with an ERP—but they are with Concur Invoice. Often, ERPs will streamline checks or ACHs but rarely do both. ERPs also won’t streamline virtual card payments.</p>
<p>And when you need to approve invoices on the go, you most likely won’t find that with an ERP, as most don’t have a mobile app. Whereas the SAP Concur mobile app enables invoice approval anywhere.</p>
<p>For greater cost savings, optimizing payments through automation can also ensure you pay bills on time —or even early, so you can get access to early payment rebates.</p>
<h3>3. Greater accuracy </h3>
<p>When it comes to data entry, ERPs typically don’t come with OCR. With an ERP-only system, that means invoices get manually inputted. And when an invoice doesn’t match up to the PO, the reconciliation process is also manual.</p>
<p>That requires either scanning and batching documents, or printing them and distributing them to various members of the organization. This ultimately leaves little or no visibility into who has which documents, or for how long they’ve had them.</p>
<p>The alternative is to hand-key the data into the ERP, then flag discrepancies. But some ERPs don't flag discrepancies, leaving the finance team to locate them and correct them before hand-keying. Manual reconciliation like this can be difficult without multiple monitors. And human error is common.</p>
<p>Whether hand-keying or PO flipping, which is not free from the potential for error, you're not as efficient as you could be. Using Concur Invoice with OCR and first-party human validation up front ensures all relevant invoice data is captured into both the Concur platform and the ERP, eliminating time-consuming manual steps and reducing the potential for errors.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Giving your finance team the space to shine</h2>
<p>All these benefits can help optimize cash flow. But adding full AP automation to an ERP system can also help you tap into even greater benefits for your employees and the organization.<br />
<br />
“The automated workflows, and keeping everything going through one system, was just a lifesaver for us. For time savings, I would say [we saw] at least a 40-50% time savings,” said Wright of CODE42 Software.</p>
<p>Automating tedious manual tasks improves timing and accuracy, but it also helps finance team members move away from those time-consuming clerical tasks and focus on higher value-generating work—like spend analysis or negotiating better terms with vendors.</p>
<p>The benefits of this shift in focus are twofold. Your team can put their skills and knowledge to good use, bringing them greater job satisfaction. They can also provide meaningful guidance based on data insights to help the business make better, more strategic decisions to optimize cash flow and save more money over time.</p>
<p>And if your company plans on growing, setting up AP automation consolidates data entry and reconciliation tasks, potentially alleviating the need to hire more people to keep up with increased AP invoice volumes. That, too, can ultimately result in more cost savings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Weighing the benefits AP automation brings to your ERP</h2>
<p>Adding AP automation to an ERP gives complete and timely visibility into your organization’s spend. And as companies lean into economic recovery and look for ways to grow, closing the reporting gap on cash flow status is more crucial now than ever.<br />
<br />
How much of an impact could Concur Invoice make on your organization? Estimate your annual return on investment using the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">Concur Invoice ROI Calculator</a>. And, see the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Concur Invoice demo</a> to get a closer look at how it works.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Wrangling Processes in the IT Wild West: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Penn State University
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wrangling-processes-it-wild-west-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-penn-state-university
2022-07-01T16:55:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to information technology there are specialists that focus on operations software development and logistics and then others that focus on business but few that can do...
<p>When it comes to information technology, there are specialists that focus on operations, software, development, and logistics and then others that focus on business – but few that can do both. We spoke with one of these unicorn IT and business subject matter experts at Penn State University. “Historically, it's sort of been the wild, wild west in terms of process…And so, one of the things that my group in central IT is interested in is sort of building out better ways to do things that we can identify here in our own shop to kind of get our own house right. But then also provide those examples, and resources of how we're doing process improvement out to other units, and groups within Penn State,” shared Bennett Ulmer, Operations Analyst and Manager of Analysis and Audit for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state">Penn State University</a>. Listen to this podcast interview, hosted by Phil Bunnell, Solutions Consultant for SAP Concur Solutions, for insights to inform your own business and IT process. </p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wrangling-process-in-an-it-wild-west-an-sap/id1525744763?i=1000535436890">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/1JTLszkvLiwoagWXHb4VRd">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/wrangling-process-in-an-it-93mKikefOvt/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/wrangling-process-in-an-it-wild-west-an-sap-concur-podcast-c">Acast </a>or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>All right. Well, welcome Bennett from Penn State, we're going to be talking to Bennett Ulmer today from Penn State University. I mean, just to start off, my name is Phil Bunnell. I'm a Solutions Consultant here at SAP Concur, and I speak with a lot of our customers on a daily basis, and see some of the things they're doing, and how they're benefiting their organizations. And we have the pleasure of speaking with Bennett today from Penn State University. Bennett, do you want to give a quick introduction here?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, sure. I am the Operations Analyst and Manager of Analysis and Audit for Penn State Information Technology. We cover a lot of the enterprise technology infrastructure, and applications that serve the entirety of students statewide, and employees kind of here at University Park and across the Commonwealth at our Commonwealth campuses. So, I'm kind of glad to be here and glad to talk to you folks.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. Yeah, we're definitely glad to have you. And for those that don't know Penn State University, it's one of the largest universities in the country. But with that, the alumni we get there, work at some of the most recognized companies in the world, and there's celebrities and others. And when we take a look at the history of Penn State, and looking at it from your perspective, Bennett, within IT, and then looking at it from my perspective with SAP Concur, we have a long history that really dates back to 2006, which is, Penn State became one of our first, very large, higher ed institutions that we had as a client. And over the years, we've expanded that relationship, brought new technology and reducing a lot of the manual efforts that were there years ago.</p>
<p>And then more recently, Penn State, you guys implemented a new instance of Concur. We did a lot, years ago, and expanded that process and made everything easy for users in the back office. But you grew tremendously. Then you were looking at a new ERP system and then partnered with our parent company SAP for the S4 HANA ERP, and really found a way to rebuild and make this process easy for everybody, and found even different, interesting ways to utilize different solutions at Concur. And from there we've seen... We got this from others within the university, but we've seen this as well, where the Penn State University is really on the cutting-edge when it comes to innovation, and really have that longer-term user focus, as well as making sure these things are easy to use. So I guess if you could, Bennett, maybe at a high level, expand a little bit on that innovation when it comes to different processes within the university and that focus on the end-user satisfaction as well, and things that you've seen at the university.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>One thing I'd say is that I think it's important to know as we talk through this conversation, that Information Technology at Penn State, finance at Penn State all of these, kinds of administrative functions are distributed across the university. We have central offices that sort of, do coordination. Then there are units within all of the academic colleges and all of the administrative units here at University Park. And then additionally at all of the Commonwealth campuses, which are locations that we have across Pennsylvania. The reason that I think that's important to note at the very beginning of this is that, historically, it's sort of been the wild, wild west in terms of process. IT shops, financial shops, everybody sort of did... We have policies that we have to follow, but how we meet those expectations has always sort of been kind of every man for himself, historically.</p>
<p>And so, one of the things that my group in central IT is interested in is sort of building out better ways to do things that we can identify here in our own shop to kind of get our own house right. But then also provide those examples, and resources of how we're doing process improvement out to other units, and groups within Penn State. And so that's sort of my focus, that's one of the things that I think is really critical for us to sort of drag this lumbering institution into a modern world is sort of taking a holistic look at how can we make financial transactions easier? How can we make processing these things better within our own shop at Penn State IT, but bearing in mind the implication that that can have across the university engine.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>And I think some of that ties back, Bennett, to some previous conversations that we've had. And I think I got this quote, right, but one of the things you said is that you do Information Technology great for the university, but there's maybe some hesitation on the business side of information technology. And I think that's kind of what you're saying is...</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>...the way that we normally put it, is that we are really good at doing the things of IT, but we were really bad at doing the business of IT. And so we just sort of floundered for a long time in old paper processes, and saying, "Well, we'll just sort of do this however we want", and me and my team have been working towards making improvements in that space. And so I don't want to kind of jump into details too quickly, but that's really what brought my team to the SAP Concur team at Penn State. The product and the relationship with SAP is managed, that's actually outside of Penn State IT. It's in that distributed model. It sits in the Corporate Controller's office and Corporate Controller's organization at Penn State.</p>
<p>So it's not something that we in central IT own and manage, but it's a different group that we had to build a relationship with and come and say "As you're building these new pieces and this new functionality within SAP Concur, we think that there are ways that you can help us and that we can build additional functionality, and processes into the tool that will streamline things here for us, and for others."</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>I think that's a good thing to hone in on for a second there, is thinking about as technologies change and grow, and everybody's moving to cloud software, mobile apps, different ways of doing things. And you have something like a Concur that's managed in the finance controllership area, where there is IT involvement, but maybe there needs to be more IT involvement sometimes to make sure that we can get everything flowing and all the data we need. How do you manage that within your organization? I'd love to say coming from Concur, that Concur made that glue in and connected everybody together. But when you're out there managing multiple departments, whether that's finance or directly with some of your faculty and staff in different departments to know what systems are out there, what processes are out there that you can help optimize or get involved in. I mean, how do you kind of build those relationships across the university?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>It's not easy. Because of the kind of size and breadth of the university, you really have to seek it out. And relationships is really the right word, I think. We had to, in this instance specifically, we had to reach out to the director of the team that was managing the SAP Concur product and relationship with SAP and plead our case. We had to kind of introduce, we knew each other generally, but these weren't folks that we worked with on a day-to-day basis. So we really had to negotiate a way to prove that it was going to be the right thing, not only for Penn State IT, but that it was something that couldn't bring value to the larger university.</p>
<p>And so I'm sort of relentless in that kind of problem solving space where we brought it to the team and we said, "Hey, we know that you guys are really busy in the middle of this implementation of the new version of SAP Concur, but this is something that we really think can benefit, not just us, but, but a lot of folks. And can you please squeeze time into your project plan that you haven't already planned for. And let's see if we can build this out." That team was great to work with.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. We spend a lot of time, I'll say, Concur, talking to travel managers, accounts payable managers, more the finance accounting teams, and maybe we'll bring in IT at the end, when we're working on different opportunities and enhancements, what have you. And hopefully from the beginning of this podcast, we still have some of those people listening and they didn't turn off because we're having this IT conversation, right? But I guess from that perspective and more on the finance side, I mean, we see things over the last 18 months, we all know what's been going on, but we see budgets being very tight, things being scrutinized, and wanting a level of visibility when I'm sure whether that's from a finance perspective or IT, have you seen things from that perspective? And we can say this around Concur or any system where you've seen those screws being tightened, if you will, around budgets to where we can help users help give that more visibility.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. and I think that's why my group is really interesting in this is that we, because we are Penn State IT finance, we sort of sit at that intersection, between things. At a higher ed, you're always asked to do more with less. I mean, budgets are always tight and you always sort of have to figure these things out. But what I've seen in the last couple of years is really an interest in not going out, and just building things for the sake of building them, building my own little thing that I have to hire developers and hire all of these analysts and people to run and maintain, but a slow, and gradual turn towards enterprise solutions that are free for kind of the end user, right? If the university is already paying for this thing can we find a way to join into that, or to team up with this group that already has this thing instead of going out and buying and paying for, or building something ourselves.</p>
<p>And so as our budgets have become increasingly more stressed, and tight over the last 18 years, or it feels like 18 years, but it really has been only 18 months. Yeah, absolutely. We have had more and more people start to come to us and say like, "What are you guys working on? How have you made this work, and is it something that we can do?" The pre-approval request process that we worked with the SAP Concur team to build in which for your listeners, it is not a travel expense, but any kind of other expenses that our staff need to incur. We have built into the system to collect that preapproval. Yes, I know that I have a budget. I know that I have the funds for it, but we require, in IT, an extra layer of, am I authorized to go and spend these funds?</p>
<p>And so a lot of university units don't require that additional pre-approval step or haven't in the past and are really starting to get to that point, given budget constraints. So, this week, actually, I was asked to come and present our solution and our tool in SAP Concur to the financial officers for all of the administrative units at Penn State. And so we just had a really great conversation two days ago about this very thing. And looking at the kind of flexibility of the form and looking at how we can just collect all of the required information, assign approvers, send it through whatever the units individual approval policy might look like and collect all of that data in one place. And folks were really excited about it. It was fun to see that it means that this thing that this idea that we have, and this thing that we built really is starting to catch some seeds.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>No, that's great to hear. And I, and I like how you kind of, and I don't know if it was purposeful or not, but set that up is to say we want to make sure that, that people aren't just going out and looking at these different systems just to solve something that's right in front of them, but how can this help everybody where it sounds like you've almost taken that pre-approval that Concur Request piece and taken that, and expanded, and grown on it because there's other uses across the organization. So, and I think from that perspective, the end user aspect as well, this is something, it might be a couple of different steps within the system, but it's something they already know. So, from that perspective, I know you've had some additional meetings, but from where it has been rolled out, have you seen some just general efficiencies from that perspective, just on the user side of not having to roll out these large trainings around it?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Generally, it's sort of been a nothing burger. We rolled this out and we walked folks through it and we did some video. We did some Zoom trainings, we put together some documentation and recorded a couple of things. And really, I haven't heard much about it over the last six months or so. We went live at the beginning of the year. And we worked with our teams and did some training over the first couple of months. But because the, especially, the administrative support community within Penn State IT, we're already familiar with the look and feel of Concur having done travel, and expense management in the same system in the past, didn't really have a great learning curve that they had to overcome in order to start doing this pre-approval process in the same tool.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>And one of the things I have found really interesting is, I know there was an effort to also start looking at automating the P-Card process or the requisition of I need to get a credit card for the university and bringing that into some of these processes. I don't know if you can talk to that a little bit.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>That's really not my space. That lives wholly within the Corporate Controller's space. I can speak to it just from the fact that I walked through it once when I had to request a new P-Card for my own purposes. And it, too, has that same look and feel. And so, for me, it was pretty simple, but in terms of the kind of process changes, and efficiencies that they've gained, adding that piece and that I don't have any connection to that.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Gotcha. No problem. I guess, from that piece when we look at whether it's really any aspects of Concur, really, any system, but there's always other systems that need to be spoken to. We need to send data from here to there. We need to make sure the right people are getting the visibility they need. And just curious how you've managed that, again, whether it's Concur or other systems, but just looking to ensure that the systems that we are putting in place either contain all the data that we need and can get it out to the people, or if not, how do we get that information to all the appropriate systems and people?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>We've done a little bit of reporting out of it just by kind of creating some queries directly in the user interface, and pulling that data out. And we've been able to look at some trends data. To be perfectly honest, I haven't done a ton with the SAP Concur data. We really use it as a fallback for justification, for expense, but not really looking at kind of trends in that data. The actual expense management happens in SAP4 HANA. And so my team works a lot with, with that SAP data to do analysis, and build out some dashboards and build out some reporting things. But that piece doesn't... We don't do a lot with the Concur data.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And understand that, but I think that that still shows a good point there, like where you have your broader ERP system, where you're getting a lot of that data. And when we look at different solutions, systems, processes, where maybe you don't necessarily need to pull all that data out, or that data is specific to that financial controllership group, but you still have all the data you need in your ERP system. And that data is really flowing seamlessly and I think that's a big piece of understanding the integrations as we look at all these different systems and where that data is flowing to.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I'd say having that integration between the request and the expense report is really helpful. We know that it, it a lot easier and a lot more streamlined for our staff to create those expense reports, which then flow downstream into the financial ERP system. And so the I don't have hard numbers on it, but anecdotally, I know that we have fewer bumps in the road and, "Oops, I keyed the wrong thing in here. And we assigned that to the wrong budget," when we're processing these transactions because that data flows directly through.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And I think that's important to point out when we think about tying even the two processes together of requesting to go somewhere. And then when I do go somewhere, I'm going to incur expenses and I need to do my expense report. To tie all that together, from that user experience is one of, "I have all the stuff that it was pre-approved, let me just turn that into my expense report and check a couple of boxes to say I'm compliant, make sure I got my receipts in there and I'm good to go." But then, on the back-end of that from the finance back office team to see is there variances in what they were approved for, and what... And ultimately got paid. And to your point, we don't have fat-fingered numbers and we have the right data attached and we know what's happening.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, exactly. I think in a normal year, we would've had a lot more expense. We would have a lot more travel, and we would have had a lot more data to look at. And we just haven't been there since we went live with this. So, I think if you were to ask me these same questions in a year and a half, I would have a lot broader answers for you, because we've just... Where we've been in the pandemic and having locked everything down, both expense and travel wise, we just haven't been doing it.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>And I'm curious when you say that, too, because I've talked to a lot of our other clients specially in the higher ed space as well of and it sounds like you have taken that opportunity of that downtime. Not that you haven't had a plenty of other responsibilities, but to look in how can we optimize some of these processes? How can we get notifications out there? How can we get trainings, and whatever the case may be?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, sorry. I mean, we really have... It doesn't all land in the SAP space, by any means. There are a lot of ways in purchasing and procurement that we're really looking to make improvements. And I got to be honest, had we not had some of that downtime and had to make some of the organizational changes that we did during it? I don't know that we would be looking at it this closely, but yeah, this is really giving us an opportunity to look at the kind of entire life cycle of how we spend money at Penn State, and how we do it responsibly for the university and how we do an efficiently.</p>
<p>We've got a lot of ideas, and hopes that, that I think are going to be coming in the next couple of years, that we can build out this a scalable and a repeatable purchasing process for IT hardware, desktop, and device stuff, generally, that happens in a whole bunch of systems all over the place, across the university. IT asset management is also happening kind of in spreadsheets in some places, which makes my head explode. But we've got a lot of stuff that we're really hoping to streamline over the next couple of years, and this time has really given us some time to think about that.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And that's great. I appreciate that. And as I'm thinking through all this, you've taken the time to optimize the processes within Concur within SAP. And it's great to hear that that's not where we're stopping, right? And I'm not going to sit here, plug for business, more business for SAP, but just thinking about that, holistically, I like you talking about some of the other processes that we're going to continue to make this...To optimize as much as we possibly can here. And I think if there's anything to take from this it's, yes, we've done some great things in Concur and it's great to hear that's going to be a big portion of our audience here, but just thinking about that across the entire organization of just constantly having that mindset of how can we make things better through the different technologies that we have?</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>I think doing what we did in SAP Concur, gave us a win and gave us a little kind of credit under our belt to say, like, "This is how we're looking at things more broadly." And this is how we, as our team here in our central IT unit are starting to think about things in a way that can benefit the whole university, and if you want to come along with us, we think you'll have a good time.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. I like that.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>The one thing I did want to go back to, and sort of mentioned a little bit more about integrations. I think I sort of touched on this, but I feel like I maybe skimmed over it. One of the things that we're really driving at is doing things in their native system instead of duplicating and replicating things all over the place. Financial approvals I think is the big thing that, that my team is working on through kind of our, in a lot of these kind of changes that we're hoping to make. So, we don't use SAP for our IT service management platform. That's all done in a separate tool. We want to stop asking people to go to Service Now to make approvals for IT computer transactions and SAP, to go to financial approvals for things that go through a separate request system, and SAP Concur to go to this place, to do pre-approvals for this thing. And so, what we're really hoping to do is kind of come up with a strategy that we can kind of leverage the backend data to make requests in the original, in the appropriate space.</p>
<p>So, if IT is running this software for desktop and device request management, that's great. We know that SAP is the sort of system of record of financial approvers and who manages, and who's authorized to approve expense on different budgets. And so, we want to build those integrations out in a way that will allow us to just push that... Run out to SAP, grab those approvers, push the approval into that system, and then once that approval is collected, then we can do our fulfillment management over here in the other one. And so it's sort of this like spaghetti monster that we're trying to untangle right now. But I think that kind of speaks to the complexity of what we're really hoping to get here.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>So, we've got all of these different systems that do kind of similar things that, sure, one has this functionality, and one has that. We're really trying to identify what... This financial ERP system is where we are managing our finances and it's where we're managing these things. So let's stop trying to do that in other systems, in shadowy kind of ways. And let's leverage the kind of data integration and technologies that we can in order to make that happen.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>I love everything you just said, Bennett. I mean, I think if I go back, and maybe it's just trying to make myself sound smart, but what I wanted to introduce Penn State is everything we've gone through. It's been that focus on innovation, but still that end user experience as well. And what I'm seeing there. And if I could almost sum this up, we've had a great relationship, Penn State, SAP Concur, and we've done a lot of things together and have that great history, but a lot of it has been, how do we make things easier? How do we make things better? And how do we keep that innovation going?</p>
<p>And I think we've done a lot of that within SAP Concur with SAP S4 HANA as well, but you're still, they're looking at how can we continue to optimize these processes? How do we keep that innovation going? And how do we keep this simple for our end users? If I could sum up those three things are huge. And that's what I think what we all need to be thinking about constantly. And technology is advancing every day, and that would almost be my final thought here is just to say, keep that innovation going, keep the end users in mind, keep simple, and where it makes logical sense to not have multiple steps to do things.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>We just want it to be easy for folks. We don't want you to have to jump through six different systems to get one thing done. That's really kind of the driving factor. The fortunate thing for me is that, I mean, there are just systems upon, systems upon integrated systems everywhere at Penn State. And so it's untangling, all of that provides me with a lot of job security I hope.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>For sure. And I mentioned before, we spent a lot of time talking to travel managers and finance folks. I mean, this has been a great conversation to really see a little bit of the other side of it. I mean, we do get IT involvement, but to really see it through your lens of, of those webs, you need to untangle, and the processes that you need to take into consideration as we look to innovate and optimize. So I can't thank you enough for everything you shared, if there's any final thoughts you want to share, happy to hear that still.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer:</strong></p>
<p>The only thing I'd say is, if you've got people that have stuck around this long towards the end, it's that final thought of making sure that you're including IT in as early as possible, because I've seen so many integrations and so many implementations that have happened around our institution reach these critical points where assumptions were made. And people spent a whole bunch of money getting to a point where then technology has to be kind of re-imagined and reconfigured, and lots of time lost. I'm a huge advocate for having your kind of operations and business analysts involved early, both on the business side and on the IT side, basically, because that's what I do. And just kind of making sure that you've got all the people at the table as early as possible in those processes. And that's where I find that we have the most success is when we're really working well together.</p>
<p><strong>Phil Bunnell:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. That's great to hear great advice. And again, I mean, we can't thank you enough for the time. I think this has been just great information, a great conversation. It's a partnership that's lasted a long time and we want to see it last a long time into the future. And this is how it's done is by considering these innovations working together. And for those that are listening, work together with your IT teams and it's the recipe for success to work together with your IT teams, your partners, whoever needs to be involved with us. So, again, can't thank you enough Bennett for all the time.</p>
<p><strong>Bennett Ulmer: </strong></p>
<p>Yeah, thanks for having me</p>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/Bennett_Ulmer.png" /> </p>
<p>Since joining the University in 2014, Bennett has earned a reputation as a driving force in change efforts across the organization. He is known as a fixer and solution expert skilled in asking the right questions to clearly identify areas for organizational improvement. </p>
<p>Prior to his role at Penn State, Bennett worked on organizational, process, and systems improvement efforts in the business systems outsourcing, corporate food services, and airline industries. His work portfolio has included crisis management planning, benefits systems implementation and administration, organizational restructuring, and other major changes and enhancements to business processes and systems.</p>
<p>Bennett lives in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania with his husband and daughter, their dog Frankie, and a bunch of chickens.</p>
<p>Follow Bennett on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennettulmer/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Phil_Bunnell.png" /></p>
<p>Phil joined the SAP Concur team in 2018 and has assisted many SAP Concur customers to expand and optimize their Travel and Spend Management programs. He has a passion to consult with organizations to ensure they have proper controls, compliance, and governance all while providing a great employee experience.</p>
<p>Previously, Phil managed a great T&E program with a large global manufacturer including being the global business owner of Concur Travel and Expense and the corporate credit card programs. He has also held positions in varying aspects of accounting and finance.</p>
<p>Phil lives in New Jersey with his wife, two young children and their 14-year-old dog Maggie. Phil is an avid hockey fan which likely come from his roots of growing up in Minnesota which he still considers his second home.</p>
<p>Follow Phil on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-bunnell-103a1122/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
What Else Happened During the Pandemic?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-else-happened-during-pandemic
2022-07-01T17:14:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Significant travel and expense TE management market developments that snuck up on everyone while we were otherwise occupied File this one under the its no ones fault category When the...
<h2>Significant travel and expense (T&E) management market developments that snuck up on everyone while we were otherwise occupied.</h2>
<p>File this one under the “it’s no one’s fault” category.</p>
<p>When the pandemic struck, we were all taken by surprise. Then, when we all got sent home one night – and told to stay there indefinitely – every business everywhere had to figure out how to work from someplace that wasn’t the office.</p>
<p>So yes, we had our noses to the grindstone there for a while.</p>
<p>But now, as we begin to look up again (and actually venture back into the building), we can take a moment to look around at the other developments that occurred while we were on the couch. It’s important to note, however, that if it had been a regular old year in the history of the world, these “developments” would have made four-inch headlines across the travel and expense category. They were a big deal and still are.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>As IDC sees it</h2>
<p>In its worldwide travel and expense management software market shares 2020 report1 IDC lists, among volumes of other significant data, eight market-changing developments that are worthy of note. We’ll highlight them here and urge you to dive deeper into the impact they could have on your specific business.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Things are uncertain outside the pandemic. </strong>This may not surprise anyone, but things are shaky all over. Regulations are changing, trade tensions are escalating, and storms are brewing. Literally. Another record-setting hurricane season set back ports, infrastructure, and supply chains all over the world. Combined, it’s a financial mine field for any business, and according to the report, a modern financial solution is “essential to weathering the storm of uncertainty.”</li>
<li><strong>The carbon argument got louder.</strong> The global shutdown had a bright spot: The world got cleaner. With fewer travelers on the road, rails, and in the sky, emissions went down. Going forward, business is going to have to meet employee, shareholder, and community expectations for sustainable travel.</li>
<li><strong>There’s more to pay for than travel. </strong>Before Covid-19, most employee expenses were travel related. During Covid-19, that shifted toward expenses like home-office equipment and software subscriptions. To complicate matters further, employees at every level are having to buy these supplies out of pocket (sans corporate card). It’s a tidal wave of new spend, and it isn’t always clear how to pick up the tab.</li>
<li><strong>You’re on mute.</strong> Another non-surprise here, but we all started meeting virtually. The fallout for finance departments will be finding ways to gauge whether actual travel is actually worth it – or if a particular meeting can take place online. Naturally, more attention will be given to travel justifications and pre-trip approvals.</li>
<li><strong>APIs are saving the day for CRM, HCM, and ERP systems. </strong>Here’s some more good news. Because data can be shared more easily and in more ways, travel booking systems can be more flexible and more efficient. So you’ll be able to do more with less.</li>
<li><strong>Airlines are getting personal.</strong> The adoption of new distribution capability (NDC) makes it possible for airlines to offer different perks – and potentially different rates – for specific companies and/or certain people in those companies. This means your booking tools will have to level up to keep up.</li>
<li><strong>Digital payments simplify spend control. </strong>Paper-based payments are going away, and their digital replacements give you real-time visibility and additional control over what goes out the door.</li>
<li><strong>Connected data speeds decision making. </strong>When your finance team has to exit out of one system and log into another to see, use, or move data around, it wastes time. Connecting those internal and external systems makes it easier to make decisions when time is of the essence.</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s a lot to take in, and there’s a lot more where that came from. To find out where to start, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact SAP Concur</a>–the 2020 market share leader in T&E management with over 50% of the world’s market share–to see how our solutions can help you take advantage of a shifting marketplace by changing how you manage T&E.</p>
<p>1. IDC presentation, Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2020: Travel Down But New Opportunities Emerge, doc #US47980421, July 2021 </p>
SAP Concur Team
Paper Pushing Meets Financial Pattern Recognition: an SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Oversight
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/paper-pushing-meets-financial-pattern-recognition-sap-concur-podcast-conversation
2022-07-01T17:24:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Finance has always been at the forefront of the digital revolution No really Finance teams are some of the first ones that began using a graphical user interface and servers to manage...
<p>Finance has always been at the forefront of the digital revolution. No, really. Finance teams are some of the first ones that began using a graphical user interface and servers to manage business expenses. Now, they’re leaning into technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create context for spending and to identify financial patterns.</p>
<p>What’s next for finance? It depends on the steps finance teams decide to take now. Mike Eberhard, Board Member of <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/6009d8f92d2d5b0015e88b63">Oversight</a>, and Chris Juneau, Chief Marketing and Product Officer of Oversight, spoke with Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Delivery Group at SAP Concur, about how technology is helping finance and accounting shape their future.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an/id1525744763?i=1000538313718">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kezYe7Gek8yAm9ImzJnIP">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/finance-is-central-to-the-v-0sJhWTR8i/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an-sap-concur-p">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE2NTQ2YTc5ZjJjNjUwMDEzYjMwZTNk?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiIsYm7jYr0AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an-sap-concur-podcast">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Taking a seat at the adult’s table</h2>
<p>Although finance professionals have always been a critical part of organizations, they’ve often been viewed solely as tactical employees who make phone calls and push paper to ensure that the organization’s finances are in order.</p>
<p>This viewpoint is quickly changing with the use of software as a service (SaaS). Dion says that with SaaS, these same professionals can prove two major things to their organizations:</p>
<ol>
<li>They have a deep enough understanding of technology that helps them implement it quickly and support it with a much lighter IT lift.</li>
<li>They can use technology to create new, valuable solutions inside finance.</li>
</ol>
<p>Dion says that SaaS has helped organizations see their finance teams as more strategic partners and innovators. According to Dion, SaaS is also helping finance get more control over how things are implemented, configured, and automated. She notes, “[It’s] really incredibly empowering for me as a finance leader.”</p>
<h2>The patterns are coming!</h2>
<p>Juneau says that because SaaS and AI can work well together, finance teams are finding new ways to focus on what’s important within their own processes – whether it’s business continuity, time savings in closing books, or compliance.</p>
<p>“Human beings aren’t ideally suited for pattern matching across vast amounts of data,” Juneau says. “AI could be liberating to finance professionals.”</p>
<p>Identifying patterns early could also help organizations protect themselves from fraudulent behavior, Dion points out. Without technology like AI, she says it can take up to 14 months to identify this type of behavior. That’s not ideal in times of economic uncertainty, where this type of behavior can skyrocket.</p>
<p>“Having something that could be automated and really check those patterns,” Dion says, “is really powerful for an organization.”</p>
<h2>Fix the back to fix the front</h2>
<p>Back-office processes can sometimes be the Achille’s heel that slows down or prevents organizations from completing a full digital transformation. With all this technology at hand, Eberhard says there’s an immediate opportunity for finance teams to evaluate their back-office processes and make changes, perhaps in expenses or payables.</p>
<p>“That’s a perfect spot to automate because I think that’s been ignored for 20 years,” he says.</p>
<p>This intersection of process efficiency and scalability has become even more prominent during a pandemic with a decentralized workforce, Eberhard notes. And that can help in a digital transformation.</p>
<p>“[It enables] those professionals to do their job more effectively,” he says, “and to focus on the bigger strategic issues in their organization versus focusing on the health of their financial processes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Find out how you can leverage the collaboration between SAP Concur and Oversight. Learn more about the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/6009d8f92d2d5b0015e88b63">Concur Detect by Oversight app</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
The Risks of Finance Hacks with Hybrid Working
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/risks-finance-hacks-hybrid-working
2022-07-02T05:27:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How we work has changed and is likely to continue shifting The rapid increase in workfromhome and hybrid employees has further accelerated the speed at which todays businesses need to...
<p>How we work has changed and is likely to continue shifting. The rapid increase in work-from-home and hybrid employees has further accelerated the speed at which today’s businesses need to embrace digitalization. In fact:</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">47% of finance and IT leaders agree</a> </strong><br />
the move to remote work highlighted<br />
inefficient business processes</p>
<p>If your team is still using manual process workarounds or ‘finance hacks’, doing so will only increase risks and decrease spending control. The solution? Empowering your business with connected expense, travel, and invoice management solutions.</p>
<p>With a fully automated spend management system, workflows, approvals, and audits no longer require everyone to be in the same location. When these automated solutions are integrated with your existing ERP and financial business ecosystem, the efficiencies can drive even more benefits — even as spending habits and processes change.</p>
<p>Our SAP Concur users have reported:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% less time filling out an expense report</li>
<li>32% more employees following company T&E policies</li>
<li>43% reduction in lost receipts</li>
<li>68% less staff time on processing invoices</li>
</ul>
<p>Curious what your business could gain? Read IDC’s 2022 report on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">The Business Value of SAP Concur solutions</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Bringing it all together</h2>
<p>Digital transformation has become a vital source of competitive advantage throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be so. When accelerating your digital transformation, begin by considering:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are there any unnecessary steps that can be removed?</li>
<li>Are there bottlenecks that can be eliminated?</li>
<li>Are there new expense categories or suppliers you have now that you didn’t have before?</li>
<li>Are there new policies to be added to fit those new categories and suppliers?</li>
</ul>
<p>For more tips and insights on connecting your spend processes and data, read <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/its-time-to-fully-digitize-your-spend">Why It’s Time to Fully Digitize Your Spend Management</a> and download our guide on <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/ebook_4_ways_boost_hybrid_work_ap_smb_rc.pdf">4 Ways to Boost Productivity in a Hybrid Work World</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get around your workarounds. Let’s automate that</h2>
<p>Our solution experts and global solution partners can help you uncover even more digitalization opportunities for your business. Getting started is easier than you may think.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/lets-automate-that">We’ll show you how</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Finance, Are You Checking Your Expense and Travel Blind Spots?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finance-are-you-checking-your-expense-and-travel-blind-spots
2022-11-01T14:30:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We learn about blind spots when we first start driving But its easy to forget to check them and it isnt just driving where blind spots pop up A recent survey of finance leaders in the...
<p>We learn about blind spots when we first start driving. But, it’s easy to forget to check them., and it isn’t just driving where blind spots pop up. A recent survey of finance leaders in the UK revealed that 81% have blind spots when it comes to their company’s travel, expense, and invoice spend. Considering that a typical company spends more than 10% of its annual budget on T&E alone, not having complete visibility has serious implications.</p>
<p>So, where might your blind spots be hiding?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You only see spend when it’s too late</h2>
<p>When employees submit travel and expense claims retrospectively, you can’t predict company cash flow on a month-to-month basis and accrue accordingly. Without a way to track planned travel and bookings, you’re reliant on T&E data after the fact. Can you get ahead of the curve by effectively capturing travel bookings wherever they have been booked?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Your employees don’t always use your travel booking system</h2>
<p>When you’ve got a corporate travel booking system, you get early visibility into the big T&E expenses. But what if your employees find it quicker, easier and more favourable to book using Trivago or Booking.com than using your own travel system? Around <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible">half of employees prefer to book independently</a>, even when the company has an online booking tool (OBT). With a younger workforce joining every day, can you enable employees to book in the way they prefer AND see this data upfront?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You don’t know what you’re spending with your regular suppliers</h2>
<p>When you have good visibility into your travel spend, you can see at a glance what you’re spending with each supplier. It arms you with the facts you need to negotiate discounts and preferential rates to help you drive down costs. You may be spending a sizeable amount with supplier X, but because it’s booked through OBTs, search engines, and other travel aggregators, travel management companies (TMCs), and even submitted as an invoice expense – can you see just how much you’re spending with them?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Not knowing the costs is just the start</h2>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible">two thirds of finance leaders</a> say they aren’t confident their employees comply with travel and expense policies. Whether it’s honest mistakes, a bit of ‘creative claiming’ hidden under mileage or an out-of-date T&E policy that’s impossible to stick to, having a process in place to review claims against a fair policy can help you get clarity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What happens in an emergency?</h2>
<p>Then there’s concern for employee safety. When you’ve got blind spots on travel and expense costs, you’ve also got blind spots when it comes to where your employees are when they’re travelling – a problem that’s reflected in the fact <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible">77% of UK finance leaders</a> said they weren’t confident their business could quickly and accurately locate business travellers in the event of an emergency. Duty of care is becoming increasingly important in the volatile world we live in and it’s just as important to small businesses as it is to corporates.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>If those are the blind spots, where’s the solution?</h2>
<p>The first step is to capture all employee travel information upfront. Tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> make this easy by capturing data from flights, hotels, rail, car hire and more, no matter where they were booked. It gathers it into a single itinerary for travellers saving them time, and into one place for finance, giving visibility into spend and easy access to traveller information.</p>
<p>The second is to connect and automate the travel and expense process. Tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> mean that employees can take photos of receipts and upload them straight to expense claims using an app on their phone. It means they don’t have to keep track of receipts or drag their feet when completing expense claims on their return. It also means you get visibility into what they’re spending much more quickly.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take the first steps to managing all spending</h2>
<p>Whether you track them or not, travel and expense have an impact on your bottom line. But by tracking them you know what that impact will be rather than having a nasty surprise at the end of the month. To look in more detail at where travel and expense costs can hide, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible">this guide is a great place to start</a><a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible">.</a></p>
<p> </p>
Lara Edwards
Is Transforming Business Travel a Big Deal for Smaller Companies?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transforming-business-travel-big-deal-smaller-companies
2022-11-13T16:39:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sure you might not have thousands of salespeople and account execs jetting off around the world every day but its not like your travel budget consists of a fanny pack and two bus...
<p>Sure, you might not have thousands of salespeople and account execs jetting off around the world every day, but it’s not like your travel budget consists of a fanny pack and two bus tokens. You’re spending plenty on airlines, trains, car rentals, lodging, and incidentals, and if you’re not on top of what’s going out the door, who’s going out the door, and how you’re going to keep everyone safe and productive, you’re putting your travelers and your company at risk.</p>
<p>So yes, it’s a fairly big deal.</p>
<p>Travel is a harbinger of business momentum (think of those salespeople out there drumming up business, and the account execs out there keeping it), and if there’s faith in your travel plan, that breeds confidence in your business strategy.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="//assets.concur.com/newsroom/281090-airplane.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Employees are ready to travel again. Is your company ready?</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/employees-are-ready-travel-again-your-company-ready">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Transforming how you travel, therefore – or at least making sure things are up to date – becomes a critical component of competing in a post-pandemic economy. Because the way you manage expenses, the way you manage trips, the way you manage travelers and duty of care is under tighter scrutiny than ever.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What did you expect?</h2>
<p>Other than the fact that no one’s really gone anywhere in over a year, what’s really changed in corporate travel? To start, the fact that no one’s really gone anywhere in over a year means there’s tremendous pent-up demand. According to a recent traveler survey outlined in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/employees-are-ready-travel-again-your-company-ready">this eBook</a>, 95% of travelers in companies under 1,000 employees are willing to travel again, and 63% are very willing.</p>
<p>Yes, travel is in various states of reprisal around the world, but you still need to get ready to go – and ready for travelers new demands. Because even though they’re eager to reaffirm their relationships with far-flung customers, their attitudes have changed, and they have a few caveats. Safety, naturally, is one of their top concerns, and they want the freedom to be able to plan their trips in the way that feels safest for them.</p>
<p>That might mean taking a car, rather than taking public transportation. Or it could mean accepting a firm “no” when someone doesn’t feel good about going to a specific city, country, or region.</p>
<p>But what it really means is flexibility, and that might be the biggest change of all. According to the eBook, you’ll want to make sure your traveling employees have the ability to adjust their travel if need be, and they’ll want the ability to book directly with suppliers. Over two-thirds of them, in fact, want their company to loosen restrictions to allow for better, flexibility-oriented policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’re not just protecting travelers, they also want you to protect the planet.</h2>
<p>If flexibility and safety are two legs of the same stool, sustainability is now the third. In yet another change to business travel, you can’t just fly around the world anymore or grab a quick train to Helsinki, you have to address your emissions impact. And your travelers are going to want tools and technologies that help them track, and ultimately reduce, their carbon footprint. Sixty percent of business travelers, in fact, expect to make changes that improve travel sustainability, and they’re going to expect your organization to follow suit.</p>
<p>It’s a whole new world of travel, and it’s going to require a whole new travel plan. That is a transformation, and yes, that’s a big deal, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming or impossible – even for companies your size.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/employees-are-ready-travel-again-your-company-ready">Read the eBook</a> to see how it’s done.</p>
Neha Mehta
Defining “Work from Anywhere”: It’s Complicated! An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with EY
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/defining-work-anywhere-its-complicated-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-ey
2022-11-13T18:31:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Before the pandemic few employees realistically thought the concept of work from anywhere would ever truly be viable Now after working in hybrid environments since early many people...
<p>Before the pandemic, few employees realistically thought the concept of “work from anywhere” would ever truly be viable. Now, after working in hybrid environments since early 2020, many people want their organizations to move toward a new model of working – and that’s leading organizations to ask unexpected existential and logistical questions about what they want to be and how they’re going to get there.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast/id1525744763?i=1000535515838">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6LdTl1YYD7CruVkyMEO5Jo">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/work-from-anywhere-redefined-U1jkyoFXDrc/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversat">Acast | Google </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversation">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Counting on employee loyalty? Don’t.</h2>
<p>D’Argenio says that employee expectations around work have significantly shifted since the pandemic began. After surveying 16,000 employees in 16 countries, <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_us/real-estate-hospitality-construction/work-reimagined-employee-survey-2021-the-real-estate-implication">EY research</a> found that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nine out of 10 employees want flexibility in where or when they work</li>
<li>Employees expect to work two or three days remotely</li>
<li>More than half (54%) are likely to quit if they aren’t offered the flexibility they want, with Millennials almost twice as likely to quite as Baby Boomers</li>
</ul>
<p>The <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation">Great Resignation</a> is in full swing as employees demand more from their employers, and they’re less hesitant to leave if employers don’t deliver. This means stakes are high as companies try to adapt, D’Argenio says.</p>
<p>“There's tremendous opportunity for companies to redefine who they want to be right now,” D’Argenio notes. “So as companies are thinking about this, they’re thinking about new strategies.”</p>
<p>What does “hybrid” mean? Well, it depends…</p>
<p>The numerous ways that organizations can define what a “hybrid” environment looks like is making things more confusing for companies as they try to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">develop policies to address</a> all the ramifications of working remotely.</p>
<p>“As companies are thinking about what [remote work] really means,” says D’Argenio, “they’re thinking…Do we require presence for certain days? Do we leave it open for flexibility? What will really promote the best working environment and get from employees that experience they're looking for when they come together in the office?”</p>
<p>In addition to considering how their policies will affect how their employees work, they also need to think about how hybrid work influences their overall business practices. For instance, if employees live in other states or even other countries, that could have implications for your reporting and withholding obligations in those regions. Or if you decide to offer reimbursements for business expenses, such as Internet access or office supplies, to employees who no longer commute to the office, you’ll need to consider tax-efficient ways to do it.</p>
<p>For many organizations, putting their policies and processes under a microscope could be a good thing.</p>
<p>“This does represent a great opportunity…for companies to be thinking about how they can leverage their procurement function,” D’Argenio suggests, “to look at what is being spent, how it's being spent, and where it's being spent.”</p>
<h2>No more shots in the dark</h2>
<p>Whether your company operates in one country or 50, you need the right back-end infrastructure to keep your business moving. Hybrid work environments are redefining what this infrastructure could look like, and organizations need to reevaluate their priorities: They can’t afford to guess which resources or levels of support for those resources are needed. Potential areas to review could include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Facility budgets</li>
<li>Reporting workflows</li>
<li>Digital receipts</li>
<li>Negotiated vendor rates</li>
<li>Digital access for audits</li>
<li>Emissions reports</li>
</ul>
<p>D’Argenio says data from areas like these can be critical in ensuring your infrastructure can effectively support a hybrid environment.</p>
<p>“We're encouraging organizations to use the data from these tools, from this integrated solution,” she notes, “to build trends so that leaders can implement the right return-to-work policy or remote work policy.”</p>
<p>To get help developing the right remote and return-to-work policy for your business, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us today</a>. </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Examining Sustainable Travel During Your Travel Downtime
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/examining-sustainable-travel-during-your-travel-downtime
2022-11-13T19:35:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There has to be a better way to get there.
<p>How often do 98% of organizations agree on something, especially when that something involves spending more money? Rarely. Yet according to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">EMEA-focused study</a>, that’s precisely the percentage of companies who stated they are prepared to commit additional funds to sustainable travel – over and above their current travel management budget.</p>
<p>Okay. That’s good. Everyone wants to travel more sustainably. But the question is how, and few companies have the answer.</p>
<p>The same SAP Concur study<a> </a>showed that one-third of corporate travel decision makers are passionate about having a positive impact on sustainability, but they admit it’s difficult to put their aspirations into practice. In addition, 28% of these decision makers say they’re aware of the issues involved but are fundamentally unsure of how to effect change.</p>
<p>In light of these difficult questions, I’ll ask a few more. </p>
<h2>How are consumers driving the trend?</h2>
<p>An unexpected and positive offshoot of the pandemic has been a <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020">decline in emissions</a>, which are projected to be 8% lower in Q1 2020 than they were in Q1 2019. That was one bit of good news in a bad year, and consumers want more. As we begin to move around the world again, travelers are increasingly demanding that any recovery in travel be built around sustainably, from more effective seating layouts to low-carbon aviation fuel.</p>
<p>In the coming year, expect leisure travelers to spend more time at their destinations, utilize paperless boarding passes and itineraries, dine at restaurants that offer locally sourced food, and stay in eco-friendly hotels that provide amenities like refillable toiletries and water conservation. They’re also going to be looking for tools that let them easily track and offset the emissions generated by their travel.</p>
<h2>Is it just a trend?</h2>
<p>To be blunt: No. Sustainability will be table stakes as we take to the skies again, and health and safety won’t be the only perks of responsible travel that will lure people back. Recent environmental research is compelling companies to make the most of this momentary pause in travel by adding environmentally sustainable practices to their corporate travel programs.</p>
<p>Microsoft, for example, is purchasing credits for <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21527695/microsoft-greenhouse-gas-emissions-pollution-business-travel-aviation">cleaner-burning, sustainable aviation fuel</a> (made of used cooking oil and other plant-based oils), so when employees fly, they’re helping reduce emissions as much as 75%.</p>
<p>Efforts like these will no doubt encourage and inspire a majority of travelers – <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-ideas-will-emerge-challenging-times-our-predictions-2021">69% of whom rank sustainability as important</a><a> </a>– to feel more comfortable about returning to travel.</p>
<h2>Can we do more?</h2>
<p>Of course we can, and here’s where to start. Keep the conversation going on the <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Thought-Leadership/A-few-questions-for-travel-managers-as-we-look-to-2021/ba-p/13643">SAP Concur Community</a> to get tools, tactics, and other insightful information to improve the way.</p>
Neha Mehta
Providing the travel support your employees need, when they need it
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/providing-travel-support-your-employees-need-when-they-need-it
2022-11-14T11:36:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its good that you know where all your employees are when on business trips Its good that you can identify and even predict the risks they face But what good does any of it do if you...
<p>It’s good that you know where all your employees are when on business trips. It’s good that you can identify and even predict the risks they face. But what good does any of it do if you can’t reach them?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s like watching an event unfold on the news, knowing that if you can’t talk to the people involved, there’s nothing you can do to get them out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Do you have the communication infrastructure to contact every traveler—or just a bunch of old cellphone numbers? </strong></h2>
<p>As you consider the likelihood of having to extract an employee from a third-world country experiencing a political coup (or from an airport where all the pilots have gone on strike), ask yourself this:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Can you deliver automatic, pre-trip information to make sure your travelers are as prepared as possible?</li>
<li>Can you reach employees using multiple channels (email, phone, etc.)?</li>
<li>Do you have two-way communication with travelers, so you can confirm their safety and share information?</li>
<li>Do you have the travel program, staff and expertise to actually assist employees in need?</li>
<li>Can you track all that communication, keeping tabs on who you’ve reached and who still needs attention?</li>
<li>Can you do it all quickly? If an emergency situation arises, can you reach and ensure your employees’ safety in 60 minutes or less?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>This level of communication might seem like overkill, but consider how difficult it can be to reach a friend or family member on any given day, let alone an employee caught in crisis halfway around the world. Even contacting traveling employees in the United States when they visit different states can be difficult if the company's travel policy is not up to scratch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>70% of businesses are improving communication to reduce travel risk. What have you got in the works? </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Companies have a lot on their plates this year, but according to a 2017 Business Travel Show survey, a lot of them plan to beef up their ability to communicate with business travelers. Perhaps that’s because 43% of them say their greatest challenge in mitigating travel risk is effective communication.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If your communication infrastructure isn’t up to the task, you’re not keeping up with your duty of care.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Say what you will, it’s time to act. </strong></p>
<p>Duty of care isn’t merely a part of your workday, it’s a critical part of your employees’ lives and livelihoods. It is essential that you have the infrastructure and travel policy to maintain it—so you can respond as quickly as an emergency occurs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Put an infrastructure in place that will:</p>
<ol>
<li>Capture complete, accurate and real-time traveler itineraries.</li>
<li>Combine that information with third-party risk-assessment data.</li>
<li>Support it all with the ability to monitor and communicate with every traveler.</li>
<li>Monitors employee safety when those typically responsible for duty of care are not available.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/using-data-to-track-down-your-travelers">Using data to track down your travelers</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/managing-traveler-risk-in-a-world-of-uncertainty">Managing traveler risk in a world of uncertainty</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What's Your Spend Management Costing You?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-your-spend-management-costing-you
2022-11-14T13:11:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youve hit your spending limit Using manual paperbased and outdated systems to track expenses is costing your organization money and your own employees sanity With employees spending...
<p>You’ve hit your spending limit. Using manual, paper-based, and outdated systems to track expenses is costing your organization money and your own employees' sanity. With employees spending more money across more channels than ever before, the difficulty of keeping track of spend as an organization is sky rocketing. Answer this question to see where your own organization currently stands:</p>
<p>Of the list below, what do you want to be true for your company?</p>
<ol>
<li>Streamlined systems</li>
<li>Maximized productivity</li>
<li>Accurate spend data</li>
<li>Enabled and eatisfied employees</li>
<li>Efficient spending</li>
<li>All of the above</li>
</ol>
<p>We’re going to take a wild guess and say you picked "all of the above." The way you decide to set up your expense process affects every facet of your business, meaning manual expense reports are taking a bigger toll on your company than you might think.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281540_DollarSign_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Quickly see how much your company can save with automation.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Calculate now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>What does the average expense report cost for your organization? Let’s do the math. The number of hours spent on expense reports multiplied by the average hourly salary of your staff, divided by the number of expense reports you process per year, will give you your organization’s customized number. It looks like this: <strong>(Hours spent annually on expense reports) x (Average hourly rate of your processing staff) ÷ (Number of expense reports per year) = Cost per expense report</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now that you know how much your expense report is costing you, let’s dive into automation can help.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stay streamlined</h2>
<p>You can happily say goodbye to inefficient, manual processing and say hello to an automated and connected travel, expense, and vendor invoice solution. With automation on your side, your organization can confidently operate with reliable and streamlined expense data. Removing unnecessary steps, such as printing out documents and manually filling out information, will not only benefit today’s processes but multiply in value as your organization grows and changes. Still not convinced? Then ask yourself these four questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Is your accounts payable system scalable for growth?</li>
<li>Could your expense process be simplified with a streamlined solution?</li>
<li>Are your employees and stakeholders getting frustrated with your process?</li>
<li>Do you have the necessary technology support needed to keep your invoice system running seamlessly?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maximize productivity</h2>
<p>As employee spending becomes more complex, the manual reporting process gets even more painful, making your reports a recipe for wasted hours, days, and dollars. This translates into finance and AP personnel spending a significant amount of their time with manual tasks, while financial decision makers spend a lot more of their time trying to analyze and interpret data. <strong>Hours spent x Employee hourly wage = Cost of manual process</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1561042632233-costofmanualprocesses-whitebg.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>With the help of automated, integrated solutions, you can move many manual, frustrating, and mundane tasks off your employees' plates and free up more time for yourself and others to focus on strategic tasks that promote growth. Attaining efficiencies in AP workflows can result in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">37% less time spent</a> on AP data entry – just imagine what you could do with all that free time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Report accurately</h2>
<p>Companies that use a mixture of paper and spreadsheets to process expenses and/or vendor invoices are especially prone to human error. Paper receipts can get lost, and it’s not hard to imagine the manual mistakes that can crop up when copying data into a form. It's no surprise, then, that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/are-status-quo-processes-holding-your-business-back">81% of finance leaders</a> admit to blind spots when it comes to their company’s travel, expense, and invoice spend.</p>
<p>By catching duplicate entries, and automatically flagging expenses outside of policy, the back and forth from your employee to your accounting team is virtually eliminated. All communication can be handled within the system, and completely documented for auditing purposes. And, with automation, you could see a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">33% reduction</a> in invoicing errors. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Improve employee satisfaction</h2>
<p>The fact is, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/better-employee-experience-better-business-results">a better employee experience is good for business</a>. Don't just take our word for it. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-employee-experience-and-its-impact-on-business">The data show that </a>when organizations create exceptional experiences for employees they see exceptional results, including <strong>17% higher productivity, 21% higher proftability, and 24% lower turnover</strong>.</p>
<p>But, there's more to improving the employee experience than adding gluten-free snacks to the breakroom. You must show you value employees across every touchpoint throughout their employment. This means providing technology that frees people from menial tasks so they can do the work that gives them the most satisfaction, while contributing to the organization’s bottom line. So, tools that automate travel, expense, and AP processes are critical to delivering a good employee experience. </p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/64_percent_.png" />
<p>of organizations say employee experience is one of the most important factors considered when purchasing technology</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/better-employee-experience-better-business-results">Read more</a></p>
</div>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-improve-travel-expense-invoice-management-solution-to-drive-better-ex">Forrester survey</a> of 476 finance, IT, and HR decision-makers shows that focusing on the tools employees use on a regular basis is critical to enabling good experiences. For nearly 70% of respondents, this means focusing initiatives on T&E and AP automation tools. While something like your travel and spend management processes might feel like a small thing, a manual, paper-based process can easily get in the way of employee happiness and engagement. </p>
<p>What's in it for them? Using these tools to reduce your employees' time spent manually managing expenses, plus eliminating the need to keep up with paper receipts, lightens the load and boosts morale. Automating workflows and implementing best practices for accounting staff will significantly improve accuracy, cycle time, and employee satisfaction. That's not to mention faster reimbursement times for employees, which shows you value their time and relieves them from shuldering out-of-pocket expenses for too long.</p>
<p>With these tools and processes, you also create an experience that engages and retains top talent, keeps them productive, and helps them focus on taking care of your customers. Everybody wins!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maintain compliance and efficiently </h2>
<p>Several hidden costs can fall through the cracks when using manual processes, including labor costs and fraud. Labor costs are causing many organizations to spend nearly twice as much on invoicing processes than they would with more efficient and streamlined solutions. In other words, businesses are unknowingly throwing away a lot of money.</p>
<p>Paper is also extremely vulnerable to fraud, whether it be intentional or not. And, that's a cost no one wants to deal with. The typical organization loses 5% of annual revenue to fraud each year, with the median losses from asset misappropriation tallying $154,000. What's more, 37% of business travelers have had at least one exception on their T&E reports, and $2,448 is the average reimbursement amount requested by employees that submit fraudulent claims. Yikes!</p>
<p>By utilizing AI to detect signs of fraud and built-in policy compliance, you can focus on preventing fraud rather than recovering from it. By putting a microscope on this area of spend you can prevent fraudsters who may be active in more than one area of the business. Automation mitigates potential fraud by restricting the ability to approve invoices and initiate payments to authorized individuals. Near real-time visibility into all processes prevents unauthorized individuals from accessing sensitive data.</p>
<p><strong>TL;DR: Automated processes can help you better keep track of your organization’s money.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What's Next: Build your case for automated expense or AP management</h2>
<p>Luckily, it’s easy to make the move from manual to automated, one-off to streamlined, and at risk to at ease. But, now it's time to convince your leadership team to invest. Take a look at these helpful guides and find out how:</p>
<h3><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-secure-buy-in-for-smarter-expense-reporting">Expense automation guide</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">AP automation guide</a></h3>
<p> </p>
<h2> </h2>
Jillian Graff
What Every CFO Should Know About Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-every-cfo-should-know-about-employee-spend
2022-12-06T11:10:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Spending is ramping up and its inevitable that business travel will increase In fact during an intense period of change many companies had their expense category Other grow by from ...
<p>Spending is ramping up and it’s inevitable that business travel will increase. In fact, during an intense period of change, many companies had their expense category ‘Other’ grow by 58% from 2019 to 2020 (source: SAP Customer Data). Do you know what’s in your ‘Other’ category? </p>
<p>As new categories of spending emerge, so does the need to adjust those categories and evolve the policies around spending. Employees are spending more money across more spend categories, using more payment methods than ever before — even in the wake of the pandemic. Are you ready? Contactless cards, ghost cards, cryptocurrency, checks, cash, and P-cards are all reasonable in a virtual economy. Yet, most of these payment methods likely don’t connect or share data across your organization. Employees are buying desks, office chairs, computer monitors, and expensing everything from their children’s daycare to wifi and door delivery services. </p>
<p>So, what should CFOs and other senior finance leaders do to get full data visibility to meet financial goals? Here are three questions every CFO should ask their teams:<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Does our travel and expense solution easily connect to other financial systems either through native integration or pre-built connectors to provide up-to-date financial data?</strong><br />
A first step in getting better insight and control over employee spend is to review your current travel and expense system set up. Does it connect or integrate directly with your ERP? Or does it require several steps and teams to bring the data together? Get a “quick win” by revisiting your travel and expense processes and technology, ensuring your data is centralized, processes are streamlined, and financial information is secure in the cloud. Many travel and expense management (TEM) vendors are highly experienced with integrations for most ERP or financial management solutions. There are also financial connectors that can integrate your travel, expense, and invoice data with your ERP, CRM, HR, and accounting systems. Integrating this data is helpful for getting a complete, accurate, and timely financial picture while maintaining the ability to easily improve policy or pivot compliance controls to meet regulations.<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Are we making it easy for employees and their managers to comply?</strong><br />
Many organizations are adopting permanent remote or hybrid work schedules for their employees. In fact, according to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">EIU research report,</a> “Eight in ten executives expect their company to increase reliance on remote work to meet business goals.” Additionally, business travel is making its return, so it’s important to ensure booking travel and submitting expenses is easy and accessible from anywhere (mobile) – especially in places where tracking spend becomes tricky, such as value-added tax (VAT) reclaim. The easier it is for employees to capture, track, and report spend, the more likely they are to follow processes and comply with policies. This leads to less turnover, less mistakes, and less resources and time needed to correct mistakes – all positively impacting on the bottom line. </p>
<p><strong>3. Are we keeping track of “rogue” spend?</strong><br />
Rogue spend is spend that falls outside your organization’s traditional preferred suppliers’ or managed payment channels – and there has been an increase in this category since the start of the pandemic. For example, in a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">EIU research report</a>, almost 75% of US respondents reported that they experienced an increase in rogue spending by employees. Investing in a cloud-based connected spend approach can help you keep track of rogue spend in various ways – whether it’s gaining visibility through integrating card feeds, encouraging mobile receipt capture, or flagging reoccurring, noncompliant spend as a signal that it’s time to update policies or provide employee training.</p>
<h2><br />
Increase Visibility in Employee Spend with SAP Concur Solutions</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions integrate spending from virtually any source into a single, digital process to help eliminate inefficiencies that slow down business and pile on costs. Pre-purchase approvals improve cost control and safety, while AI and Machine Learning can review all expenses, speed up processing, and take on everything from VAT reclaim to tax and payroll issues. </p>
<p>Ready for more? See the <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance">key spend trends and risks</a> you can’t afford to ignore.</p>
Erin Giordano
Concur Is Now SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-now-sap-concur
2022-12-06T14:19:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we begin I am pleased to announce that Concur is now SAP Concur Concur has had an incredibly successful three years as part of the SAP family Together we have shared experiences...
<p>As we begin 2018, I am pleased to announce that Concur is now SAP Concur.</p>
<p>Concur has had an incredibly successful three years as part of the SAP family. Together, we have shared experiences and best practices to combine our strengths and provide the most powerful solutions to businesses of all sizes so they can run at their best. Now we are taking the exciting next step of unifying our brand with SAP to become SAP Concur. The SAP Concur brand reflects who we are—and who we’ve been. Now we get to share it with all of you!</p>
<p>Together, we will drive innovation to provide a truly connected customer-centric experience. SAP Concur will continue to simplify expense, travel and invoice management for greater visibility and control.</p>
<p>Together, SAP and SAP Concur will continue to:</p>
<h2><strong>Deliver Greater Scale</strong></h2>
<p>A deep investment in R&D means customers will always have the latest and best solutions. They’ll have a network of app providers, partners, and communities to help them go beyond automation and get greater visibility into spend. And whether they’re a small or global business, they’ll have a partner who evolves with them, scaling across all markets.</p>
<h2><strong>Provide Powerful Solutions That Connect With End Users</strong></h2>
<p>Businesses can run at their best with innovative tools that connect employees with brands and apps they love. By making it easier for end users to book travel, submit expenses, and approve invoices, businesses get complete spending data—giving them the visibility they need to drive better decisions.</p>
<h2><strong>Offer a Truly Connected Experience</strong></h2>
<p>Businesses can manage all of their spend—across expense, travel and invoice—in the cloud. And with a growing list of innovative services and native integration with SAP, they can easily enhance and continue to expand their solutions.</p>
<p>As SAP Concur, we remain passionately focused on providing our customers and partners with simple and powerful solutions. We are so proud to now visibly show our relationship with SAP through our new brand, SAP Concur.</p>
<p>We look forward to sharing success with you in 2018 and beyond.</p>
SAP Concur Team
New Pulse Survey Considers Business Travel Readiness, According to Travel Managers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-survey-considers-business-travel-readiness-according-travel-managers
2022-12-30T15:09:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Nearly four in five travel managers say that their departments FY budget and resources are insufficient to meet anticipated travel demand this year As US travel volume continues to...
<p>Nearly four in five travel managers say that their department’s FY22 budget and resources are insufficient to meet anticipated travel demand this year.</p>
<p>As U.S. travel volume continues to take steps toward something akin to an “old normal,” a new pulse survey commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in March 2022 suggests that business travel trends are in lockstep. According to the research, 88% of surveyed travel managers—those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses—say that it is very or extremely likely that their industry will see an increase in business travel before the end of 2022. This rings especially true among travel managers at larger companies, younger companies, and companies that have firm travel policies in place for business travelers to follow.</p>
<p>“While perhaps surprising at first glance, there are logical explanations for these findings,” said Ralph Colunga, SAP thought leader on travel and expense technology solutions. “Larger companies typically have a greater dispersed customer base and more global relationships, thus relying on business travel to make and maintain business connections. Younger, developing companies also rely on business travel to help fuel their continued growth. Meanwhile, companies with mature, firm travel policies are likely reassured by that structure, knowing that they have the proper systems and processes in place to help mitigate risk for employees as they resume responsible business travel.”</p>
<p>Although many travel managers expressed confidence that the travel industry is prepared to handle an increase, the data suggests that they are less convinced about their own company’s readiness.</p>
<p>Key findings from the SAP Concur pulse survey of 100 U.S. travel managers include:</p>
<p><strong>Business travel is on the rise, especially at larger and younger, developing organizations as well as those with mature, firm travel policies—a trend that is likely to continue.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Seventy-seven percent of travel managers say that their organization had more employees traveling for business in March 2022 compared to February 2021, and half (52%) say that their organization has “a lot more.”
<ul>
<li>Travel managers were more likely to say that their organization had a lot more employees traveling for business this March if their company has:
<ul>
<li>1,000+ employees (61%*).</li>
<li>been in business for less than 25 years (68%*).</li>
<li>firm travel policies (69%*).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All surveyed travel managers (100%) say that it is at least a little bit likely that their industry will see an increase in business travel before the end of 2022. Eighty-eight percent of those travel managers say that an increase is very or extremely likely.
<ul>
<li>Travel managers were more likely to say that a 2022 increase in business travel is very or extremely likely in their industry if their company has:
<ul>
<li>1,000+ employees (91%*).</li>
<li>been in business for less than 25 years (96%*).</li>
<li>firm travel policies (97%*).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Most travel managers (96%) think that their company’s travel spending will increase in the next 12 months—predicting an increase of 34% on average.
<ul>
<li>Forty percent of travel managers at companies that have been in business for less than 25 years think that their company’s travel spending will increase by 50% or more in the next 12 months, compared to only 7% of those at companies that have been in business for 25+ years*.
<ul>
<li>The average spending increase expected by travel managers at younger companies is 41%, compared to an average spending increase of 20% expected by those at older companies*.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Most travel managers feel that the travel industry is ready for an increase in business travel. However, they—like </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions"><strong>finance managers</strong></a><strong>—do have some doubts about their company’s readiness, regardless of preparations.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly three quarters of travel managers (73%) say that the travel industry, in general, is very or completely prepared to handle an increase in business travel in 2022.
<ul>
<li>Sixty-two percent of travel managers say that hotels and lodging are capable of meeting demand for an increase in business travel this year, and 60% say the same about airlines. At 53%, travel management companies—travel agencies that help organizations manage their business travel—are viewed as the least likely to be ready from the travel manager’s perspective.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Almost all travel managers (98%) say that their organization has taken steps in the past 12 months to prepare for a potential increase in business travel in 2022, including:
<ul>
<li>investing in new travel tools and technology (77%).</li>
<li>implementing new or modified travel policies (70%).</li>
<li>providing additional travel-related training to employees (60%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Yet, 79% of travel managers say that their department’s FY22 budget and resources are insufficient to meet anticipated travel demand—and 51% “strongly agree” with that sentiment.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>While travel managers continue to face challenges associated with the pandemic—including growing responsibilities, staffing shortages, and varying support from industry partners—they also feel more empowered.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Growing responsibilities</strong>
<ul>
<li>Almost all travel managers (99%) say that their role has become more challenging since the start of the pandemic. Top reasons include:
<ul>
<li>additional paperwork requirements (58%).</li>
<li>new or added HR-related tasks (56%).</li>
<li>new or added involvement in internal communications (56%).</li>
<li>added policy-related responsibilities (55%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Staffing shortages</strong>
<ul>
<li>Half of travel managers (50%) say that taking on additional work caused by staffing shortages has made their role more challenging.</li>
<li>On average, travel managers whose role has changed since the start of the pandemic estimate that they are spending 11 hours each week on new tasks outside their responsibilities that should be taken care of by someone else*.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Varying support from industry partners</strong>
<ul>
<li>Nearly all travel managers (99%) agree that they are more likely to do more business with travel partners who have remained flexible in the face of the uncertainty of the past year.</li>
<li>This is likely influenced by their experiences in working with industry partners during the pandemic to help accommodate travelers’ expectations for increased flexibility and control, which have been mixed:
<ul>
<li>Thirty-five percent of travel managers say that industry partners have been true partners, proposing options and solutions to help.</li>
<li>Thirty-one percent say that industry partners have accommodated requests when they can but haven’t gone out of their way to assist.</li>
<li>Thirty-four percent say that industry partners have been inflexible in their policies, leaving it to travel managers to find solutions.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>However, 97% of travel managers say that they feel more empowered now than before the pandemic in their ability to make demands of their travel providers, including 66% who say they feel “much more empowered.”</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>“These past few years have been challenging for everyone, and travel managers are no exception,” said Ralph. “Travel managers had to rely on intuition and adaptability to anticipate and manage a variety of travel scenarios and, most importantly, employees’ safety and well-being. Our findings suggest that travel managers are coming out of this difficult situation with confidence and the knowledge that they can rely on true partners for help when needed.”</p>
<p>Additional SAP Concur research is coming down the pike. Stay tuned for a look at business traveler perspectives in an upcoming post, and read pulse survey findings that explore the financial side of the return to responsible business travel <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">here</a>.</p>
<p>*Small base size; directional findings only.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Travel Manager Survey was conducted by <a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> among 100 U.S. travel managers, between March 1st and March 10th, 2022, using an email invitation and an online survey.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/updating-your-expense-policy-employees-working-home
2022-12-30T16:06:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Updated February Working from home has recently become the new normal leaving office buildings empty and employees at all levels seeking out new ways to connect collaborate and get...
<p>Updated February 2021</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maintaining-employee-experience-even-when-working-home">Working from home</a> has recently become the new normal, leaving office buildings empty and employees, at all levels, seeking out new ways to connect, collaborate and get their jobs done. Now, individuals who normally come into an office and use the resources there to conduct business may be using their own laptops, Internet, and carving out office space in their apartments and homes.</p>
<p>That’s a massive change, by anybody’s standards.</p>
<p>Since most organizations had to pivot so quickly to respond to state and local government work-from-home mandates, very few had a chance to think through how the change would impact their current expense policy. Will employees be reimbursed for broadband, Internet expense, or hotspots? What about office furniture, software updates, or the coffee and bottled water they used to get for free?</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>How to Create a Remote Employee Expense Policy</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p>Although the answers will be different for every company, one thing is certain: creating and publishing a “Business Continuity/Work from Home” expense policy will reduce confusion for employees, their managers, and your finance staff during a time when everything is challenging enough already.</p>
<p>Here are some expense types, considerations, and tips to get you started:</p>
<h2>New or expanded at-home spend categories</h2>
<p><strong>1. Internet, cellular plans, and utilities:</strong> Chances are, many of your employees have some sort of connectivity at home—be that broadband, cable or fiber optics, as well as a specific cellular plan with their carrier of choice. The plans and speeds they chose were based on availability, costs and family needs, not an eight-hour, work-from-home scenario.</p>
<ul>
<li>Will your organization reimburse a portion of the existing monthly plan?</li>
<li>If that employee requires more bandwidth or a transition from a limited to an unlimited data plan, will you pay for that upgrade?</li>
<li>If a plan change requires a semi-annual/annual commitment, will you continue to pay for the upgrade for the duration, even after those employees return to work?</li>
<li>If the employee lives in a more remote area, or somewhere where Internet is spotty, unreliable or unavailable, will you supply or reimburse a cellular hot spot?</li>
<li>An employee who is working from home will also use more electricity, gas, and water. Will your company pay a stipend or a percentage of this expense, as well?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Computer technology, peripherals and accessories:</strong> Working remotely requires the right mix of hardware and accessories—from laptops and printers to cameras, speakers, and headsets—in addition to those basic office supplies that, at the office, are a desk drawer away.</p>
<ul>
<li>Will you be supplying an “office in a box” or will employees be supplementing what they have with new purchases?</li>
<li>What is the pre-approval process?</li>
<li>Are you providing a spend allowance, or providing a standardized list of allowable purchases, brands and suppliers?</li>
<li>What happens to the new purchases if, and when, employees return to their offices?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Office furniture: </strong>Some of your employees will already have a designated home office, while others will have to work from a bedroom, a barstool, or dining room table—a work environment that is not conducive to conducting business for weeks on end.</p>
<ul>
<li>Will you supply or reimburse the purchase of a desk, an office chair, a monitor stand or lamp?</li>
<li>Will you provide a spend allowance or enable employees to order one kind of chair or one type of desk from a specific supplier?</li>
<li>How will you accommodate different space accommodations (someone working from an efficiency apartment in Brooklyn versus someone working from a designated office in a four-bedroom home in Atlanta?)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>4. Client and prospect gifts and entertainment:</strong> One of the biggest challenges for your salespeople and account managers is continually building relationships with customers and prospects at a time where face-to-face meetings are out of the question. So, they may want to get creative—have a virtual lunch meeting with an out-of-town customer, and have their favorite lunch delivered; send a pizza or toys to the customers’ kids, or dog biscuits for the pet they hear barking in the background.</p>
<p>Account managers may want to send all of their customers “quarantine survival kits,” or other small tokens to lift their customers’ spirits, add some levity and keep your company’s name top of mind.</p>
<p>It’s important to identify policy guidelines around these gift items, cost thresholds, regulatory issues, and any required pre-approvals upfront, so your employees stay connected to their customers, but also stay compliant during this unusual time.</p>
<h2>Tips for implementing your work-from-home policy</h2>
<p>Although, due to the rapid changes that go along with the pandemic, you may need to get an interim policy out quickly, do what you can to get buy-in from managers, approvers and the people who will have to communicate and enforce the policy before distribution.</p>
<ul>
<li>Form an ad hoc team of stakeholders and let them review and offer input into your policy.</li>
<li>Find out if they’ve gotten questions on other types of expenses from their work-from-home employees that you may not have thought of and include policies on these.</li>
<li>Communicate the new or updated policy clearly and regularly to managers and employees, so everyone is on board with the changes.</li>
<li>Make it as easy as possible for employees to create and submit the expense reimbursement requests. Giving employees the opportunity to take pictures of the receipts and complete the request on their laptops or mobile devices will speed the process for them, simplify things for your approvers and make it easier for you to track these unexpected expenditures.</li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, make sure you take a look at how this additional policy impacts any existing policies you have for staff who were remote workers long before COVID-19 remote worker situations began. Identify who these individuals are, and if you need to make any alterations to your existing policy going forward.</p>
<p>We live in unprecedented times. Take this as an opportunity to step back review the policies you have and adjust to position for what could be a very changed future. Today, you set the groundwork for the new world to come.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more about creating a viable expense policy with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-the-pain-out-of-expenses-11-tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policy template</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong>For more information on SAP Concur, and our automated, mobile travel, expense and invoice management solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/">visit Concur.com</a>.</strong></p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times-faq">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-companies-doing-prepare-return-travel">What are Companies Doing to Prepare for the Return to Travel?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-tripit">COVID-19 Travel Guidance in TripIt</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-things-youll-need-get-ppp-forgiveness">The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-small-business">Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
5 Things Your AP Team Didn’t Sign Up For
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-things-your-ap-team-didnt-sign
2023-04-02T14:33:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If Undercover Boss taught us anything its that business leaders arent always aware of the daytoday frustrations that distract their employees Accounting and finance teams are no...
<p>If Undercover Boss taught us anything it’s that business leaders aren’t always aware of the day-to-day frustrations that distract their employees.</p>
<p>Accounting and finance teams are no exception, as they often experience a steady onslaught of micro-hassles that keep them from doing what they were trained to: helping your company save money and grow. </p>
<p>Your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">accounts payable processes</a>, however, keep forcing them to do things they never signed up for, which impacts you as the financial leader. Here are the top five things AP isn’t telling you. </p>
<h2>1. “I didn’t sign up for tedium.”</h2>
<p>If your finance team is working with a manual invoicing process driven by endless back-and-forth e-mails or paper – like those used in most small and midsize businesses – they spend all day opening invoices and coding them into a system. It’s not strategic, value-added, proactive, or fun for them. And it’s certainly not cost-efficient for you.</p>
<h2>2. “I didn’t sign up to be overwhelmed.”</h2>
<p>Most small and midsize business have two to four accounts payable professionals who process hundreds, if not thousands, of paper-based invoices per month. If that’s your business, your team is likely bogged down by snail mail, fax, and e-mail invoicing.</p>
<h2>3. “I didn’t sign up to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.” </h2>
<p>The AP team knows the system is broken, but they don’t have the authority to fix it. They don’t have control over processes or the power to enforce policies. And to rub salt in the wound, they’re often made the scapegoat for invoice-related problems. You, however, have the power to change that. You can make sure that, instead of getting fingers pointed their way, the AP teams gets the thumbs up it deserves. </p>
<h2>4. “I didn’t sign up to be ignored.”</h2>
<p>AP professionals feel like they’re always being communicated at, not communicated with. And the pace of work, the clunky processes, and the company’s desire to grow always knocks them back on their heels, forcing them to be reactive instead of proactive. Remind them you’re all in this together and that they can help you assess the current situation to determine a solution.</p>
<h2>5. “I didn’t sign up to work weekends.”</h2>
<p>But they’re pros. So they sit around the campfire approving invoices on family camping trips. But no one should have to. Your AP processes shouldn’t make your team feel like a clean-up crew.</p>
<h2>Your path out of the madness</h2>
<p>The situation stinks. There’s no sugarcoating it. </p>
<p>But it’s not just your business. Manual invoicing is creating widespread industry problems, like difficulty tracking spending, incomplete documentation, late reporting, duplicate data, lack of visibility into cash flow, slow approval times, and lots more. </p>
<p>There is a way out, however: automation. </p>
<p>Invoice automation significantly cuts invoice-processing time – time your team can use to instead analyze spending trends and find cost-saving opportunities. Automation also directly affects the bottom line, saving companies tens of thousands of dollars each year. And automation gives AP teams better visibility into company cash flow, allowing them to be more strategic about financial management. </p>
<p>So tell your AP team you have their back and that you’re working on a solution that will let them be strategic partners to the finance leaders. </p>
<p>It’s what they signed up for.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Balancing Compliance and User Satisfaction with an Employee-Driven Travel and Expense Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/balancing-compliance-and-user-satisfaction-employee-driven-travel-and-expense-policy
2023-08-23T10:12:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How can we improve policy compliance keep travelers safe and give our users the best possible experience at the same time If youre a travel or finance manager youve probably asked...
<p>How can we improve policy compliance, keep travelers safe, and give our users the best possible experience at the same time? If you’re a travel or finance manager, you’ve probably asked yourself that question more than once. You’ve studied your T&E data, and pinpointed where the issues are, but no matter how many communications you send out or policy mandates you publish, you’re still not making an impact on cost control or elevating your employees’ experience.</p>
<p>The missing link? Input from the people who have to follow that policy in your organization – your employees.</p>
<p>“In the past, policies were created based on meeting a financial outcome objective, without baking in the true sentiment of the employee and what they were experiencing when they were mobile on behalf of the business,” said Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President, Value Experience Group, SAP Concur. “Now, we’ve established a tool that captures employee sentiment data so that information can be used to refine the policy in a way that balances employee needs with the financial needs of the company.”</p>
<p>Combining operational data with employee sentiment data enables travel managers and finance leaders to take a more comprehensive approach to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">T&E policy development</a>, and gives them an efficient, accurate way to: </p>
<h3>Understand the reasons behind employee behaviors</h3>
<p>For example, you may that know your corporate card adoption rate is low. To make a positive impact, you need to know the “why” behind that behavior. Are employees not using the card because:</p>
<ul>
<li>They don’t have a card?</li>
<li>They don’t know how to get a card?</li>
<li>The card isn’t accepted at their preferred vendors?</li>
<li>Their personal card offers a better rewards/points program?</li>
<li>They don’t know where their card is?</li>
<li>They only thought they were supposed to use the card for dinners with clients?</li>
</ul>
<p>If employees are misclassifying expenses, is it because:</p>
<ul>
<li>They were in a hurry?</li>
<li>They don’t understand the process?</li>
<li>They don’t think it matters how they classify them?</li>
<li>Someone else did their expense report for them?</li>
<li>You don’t have an expense category that fits their purchase?</li>
</ul>
<p>If they’re booking outside of the online booking tool is it because:</p>
<ul>
<li>They don’t travel much, and forgot there was a booking tool?</li>
<li>They think they could get flights cheaper online?</li>
<li>It takes too much time?</li>
<li>They don’t remember how to use the booking tool?</li>
<li>They need a more streamlined way to book and manage travel?</li>
</ul>
<p>Knowing the “why” is key to compliance.</p>
<p>“You can actually target the population of people who fall below the expected threshold or don’t follow a prescribed process and find out why, instead of making assumptions based on antidotal information,” Klippenstein said.</p>
<p>Knowing where the issues are and why they’re happening gives organizations the opportunity to refine their T&E policies to affect real, measurable change, while improving the employee experience.</p>
<h3>Discover issues in your existing policy that deter compliance</h3>
<p>Combining employee sentiment with operational data could unveil a disconnect between policy guidelines and doing business in the real world.</p>
<p>For example, your policy may limit tips to a specific amount. But, if your marketing team is getting help with heavy cartons containing trade show booths, or your sales team travels with bulky equipment for demos, your limits may be far below what’s appropriate in these situations.</p>
<p>Average meal costs in certain parts of the country, or the world, may be significantly higher than your approved per diem. Escalating rental car or ground transportation rates post-COVID may have rendered what used to be a reasonable allowance obsolete.</p>
<p>Armed with this insight, you can make adjustments, either upping the limits, or creating a new expense categories for tips involving trunks or luggage over a certain size or weight, or meals in specific cities or regions — and adjust your budget accordingly.</p>
<h3>Get a clearer picture of your supplier partners’ performance</h3>
<p>Perhaps you’ve negotiated an excellent rate with a car rental provider that you’ve partnered with for years. But, now, their inventory is depleted, so, travelers in certain parts of the country can’t get a vehicle unless they go to another, higher-priced provider. Or, maybe your preferred hotel has gotten lax with accommodations, or is undergoing renovations, making it unacceptable for business meetings. Or your airline of choice is consistently overbooking, and bumping your travelers making connecting flights.</p>
<p>All of a sudden, those low rates aren’t so valuable anymore.</p>
<p>While you have the big picture of supplier costs, your users can give you real insight into their performance in different parts of the country.</p>
<p>“You can also use employee feedback to gauge whether or not your hotel partners and other suppliers have practices that are in line with your company’s sustainability practices. Do they leave the lights on? Do they wash towels every day or offer an every-other-day option?” Klippenstein said. “Employee feedback can provide an aggregate perspective for the travel manager and procurement agent to determine if they want to continue to contract with that supplier going forward.”</p>
<h3>Let your employees know that they are valued</h3>
<p>By incorporating employee sentiment data into your T&E policy creation, you ensure your employees have a voice, and ownership, in the process. This approach lets employees know that you’re listening and responding to their needs, which can improve compliance as well as retention rates.</p>
<p>According to Achievers Workforce Institute’s <a href="https://www.achievers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Achievers-Workforce-Institute-2021-Engagement-and-Retention-Report.pdf">Engagement and Retention Report,</a> 64% of workers say they intend to resign from their jobs, citing the “lack of being heard” as their reason.</p>
<p>Ask for feedback, but make sure you communicate the action you took, or the policy or supplier changes you made, because of that feedback.</p>
<p>“Sentiment is the reason people make decisions, that’s core to us as humans,” Klippenstein said. “Companies that collect that sentiment data will benefit by acting on that data, and letting employees know that they’re bringing their feedback into program design.”</p>
<h3>Reduce costs while improving the employee experience</h3>
<p>It’s important to note that harmonizing employee sentiment data with operational intelligence data does more than benefit your employees. It has a measurable impact on cost savings and compliance.</p>
<p>By incorporating employee feedback into your program, you not only act in the best interest of your employees, but reach your business goals more quickly — reducing unnecessary spend, increasing compliance and setting up a framework for ongoing improvement and success.</p>
<p>Everybody wins.</p>
<p>We can help you integrate employee sentiment data into your spend management strategies to drive compliance, reduce costs and improve your employee experience with Concur Experience Optimizer. To find out more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/employee-engagement">visit us here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Eliminate Paper and Automate Invoice Payments for Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/eliminate-paper-and-automate-invoice-payments-aerospace-defense-and-government
2023-08-29T12:17:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more And automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work stabilize operations and provide visibility...
<p>Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more. And, automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work, stabilize operations, and provide visibility into your spend during times of uncertainty.</p>
<p>Imagine a touchless process -- implemented and deployed quickly -- that forecasts your spending and adapts your policies to your organization using SAP Leonardo machine learning, less human validation, and a secure cloud that keeps your information protected while providing ease of retrieval so you can update audit thresholds with a simple touch of a button.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>8 Questions to Ask About Your AP System for Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting </h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/8-questions-to-ask-about-your-ap-system-for-aerospace-defense-and-government-contracting">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This enables aerospace, defense, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-contractor-solutions">government contracting organizations</a> to have complete visibility into spend and the ability to shift your focus to redirecting budget where it is most needed.</p>
<p>Now your team can capture vendor invoices remotely, and process and distribute your summaries with ease, whether you're in the office or on the go.</p>
<p>Managers can use the Concur Mobile app to review and approve invoices, while your AP team gets near real-time visibility to avoid surprises. Leave the audit trail to us: We've got you covered with the right documentation for any audits that may come your way.</p>
<p>Our simple-to-use, advanced technology connects you to the reports you need, anytime and anywhere. With one click, edit thresholds and choose payment vendor options. We create a backup of your manual processes providing employees instant access to our secure cloud.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> is here to help your business strengthen cost control and cut out the paperwork so you can stay in sync on spend across the board.</p>
<p>Ready to stabilize your operation and budgets with Concur Invoice? <a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions#inline_asset_form">Contact us</a> today to get started.</p>
Roger Williams
Looking Under the Hood at Traditional Vehicle Programs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/looking-under-hood-traditional-vehicle-programs
2023-08-30T13:27:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In our first article of this threepart series on creating an effective equitable vehicle program we explored the challenges that companies face in determining the right program for...
<p>In our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/now-is-the-time-to-redefine-your-vehicle-mileage-program">first article</a> of this three-part series on creating an effective, equitable vehicle program, we explored the challenges that companies face in determining the right program for high-mileage drivers. As per-driver mileage rises, so does the risk profile for companies employing mobile workforces. Consider these exposures, particularly acute for employers of drivers logging more than 5,000 reimbursable miles annually:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Vicarious liability:</strong> Companies can be held responsible for incidents involving their employees and fleet vehicles, even during non-working hours.</li>
<li><strong>Tax laws:</strong> Mileage reimbursements that exceed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Standard Mileage Rate are taxable as income, with both employer and employee responsible for applicable FICA taxes.</li>
<li><strong>Mileage fraud and miscalculations:</strong> Manual mileage and vehicle expense recording processes make it far easier to make mistakes, whether they are accidental or intentional.</li>
<li><strong>Volatile fuel prices:</strong> Fuel prices rise and fall according to global market influences. Additionally, regional price differences vary greatly across the U.S. These fluctuations can complicate cash flow and future spend management if not carefully handled.</li>
<li><strong>Employee dissatisfaction:</strong> Inequitable, inaccurate, or inadequate reimbursement can lead to employee frustration and even litigation.</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s no surprise that numerous companies have lost lawsuits related to vehicle program reimbursement related class actions. While the three most common programmatic approaches – flat car allowance, cents-per-mile reimbursement, and fleet vehicles – feature both advantages and shortcomings, the one commonality is that each can expose companies to significant risk. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Flat car allowance</h2>
<p>With flat car allowance, the company pays a predictable flat amount per month per employee. That amount, however, is the same each month regardless of actual work-related mileage driven. Employees who incur higher actual costs might object to being given the same allowance as others whose costs are lower, elevating risk of dissatisfaction and/or litigation. Allowances are also considered taxable income by the IRS and are subject to FICA and income taxes (both federal and state), which means the employee will not receive the full allowance amount and the company experiences tax waste.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cents-per-mile</h2>
<p>Considered a simpler way to reimburse drivers, cents-per-mile reimbursements are actually inequitable, as they tend to be less than the actual costs incurred by low-mileage drivers and more than actual costs incurred by high-mileage drivers. The potential for fraud exists if employees opt to drive more than needed to receive higher reimbursements or less than needed to avoid wear-and-tear that the reimbursements will not be enough to cover. Regional variances in costs such as fuel, insurance, and maintenance, also lead to inaccurate reimbursements. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fleet vehicles</h2>
<p>While fleet vehicles are generally viewed as an employee benefit, the company that administers them assumes 24-hour risk and is liable for the vehicle even when it is being used for non-work purposes. The risk is significant, as company-owned fleet vehicles are associated with accident rates as high as three times the national average for U.S. drivers. In addition, the company must still absorb lease, maintenance, and administrative costs even for idle vehicles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is, however, another way. In our final article, we’ll explore how a fixed and variable rate (FAVR) approach ensures that reimbursements are accurate and fairly calculated for the benefit of both employer and employee.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more, see the Infographic: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/all-roads-lead-to-favr">All Roads Lead to FAVR</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
There’s No Spend to Waste: Why It’s Time to Fully Digitize Your Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/theres-no-spend-waste-why-its-time-fully-digitize-your-spend-management
2023-09-08T15:53:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your future business resilience and agility relies on your actions today. Take the first step toward digitizing your expense, travel, and invoice management.
<p>In May 2021, Oxford Economics and the SAP Concur organization <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/oxford-economics-report-preview-leadership-new-era">surveyed more than 500 senior business leaders</a> spanning seven countries about their economic recovery strategies. Respondents revealed that: <strong>increasing agility</strong> is their top functional goal, yet <strong>difficulties implementing changes to company culture</strong> and <strong>digitizing manual operations</strong> remain top challenges</p>
<p>Now, more than ever, finance and IT leaders are in an ideal position to lead their companies toward greater business agility and resilience.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>It’s time to fully digitize how you control costs</h5>
<p>Accelerate your recovery with SAP Concur solutions</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/digitize">Learn how</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Top benefits of digitization in the new world of work</h2>
<p>You might already know that automating spend management could help your business reduce costs and free up employee time for more revenue-producing activities. Perhaps you’ve even automated some key finance functions. But fully digitizing your financial processes can lead to a significant return on investment.</p>
<p>For businesses in the global survey that have already digitized their expense, invoice, and cash flow management:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% cite increased agility and resiliency from digitizing AP</li>
<li>42% cite increased productivity from digitizing expenses</li>
<li>35% cite increased functional collaboration by digitizing cash flow management</li>
</ul>
<p>How does that level of digitization equate to actual cost savings? Research conducted by AMI-Partners found that, on average, small to midsize companies saved:</p>
<ul>
<li>$30K annually after implementing an automated expense solution</li>
<li>$34K annually after implanting an automated invoice solution</li>
</ul>
<p>For Concur Expense and Concur Invoice customers, the savings were even greater at <strong>$39K annually with each solution.</strong></p>
<p>The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates the typical organization <strong>loses 5% of its revenue to fraud every year</strong>, which means you’ll have plenty of reasons to build a business case for fully automating your finance processes.</p>
<h2>Ready to create your digitization plan? Here’s how</h2>
<p>There are four key recommendations highlighted in the Oxford Economics report following the May 2021 global survey. Consider how you might apply these recommendations to your recovery plans:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Think long term with your agility strategy. </strong>Digitization is not just a quick fix, and leaders should resist going back to old ways of working. Instead, consider using the pre-recovery period as an opportunity to redefine strategy and reorganize financial processes to achieve long-term success.</li>
<li><strong>Build on lessons learned.</strong> For businesses to remain flexible and agile, leaders need to freshly evaluate the effectiveness of their current spend management processes, and then consider how adopting newer spend management methods and solutions can boost their ability to navigate future uncertainties.</li>
<li><strong>Improve finance and IT collaboration.</strong> As the two functions assume a more strategic role, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/infographic-importance-finance-and-it-working-together">finance and IT functions must work effectively together</a> to meet their organizational and functional goals. They can do this by communicating their organizational and functional goals clearly, and by working together to ensure technology is in place to meet those goals. Better collaboration will drive better financial management, create efficiencies, increase productivity, and ultimately help grow the company.</li>
<li><strong>Use technology to keep up with the pace of change.</strong> The business world has quickly adapted to recent events—cloud, mobile, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">AI technologies</a> are increasingly the foundation of a solid technology infrastructure. Manual or semi-automated processes limit the ability to capture and connect the financial data needed for accelerating strategic business decisions.</li>
</ol>
<p>You can learn more about how Finance and IT leaders are guiding post-pandemic strategy by downloading the Oxford Economics full report: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Leadership In a New Era</a>.</p>
<h2>There’s no spend to waste. It’s time for SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>Your future business resilience and agility relies on your actions today. Take the first step toward digitizing your expense, travel, and invoice management. <a href="https://www.concur.com/digitize">We’ll show you how</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What are State Tax Implications for Traveling Employees?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-state-tax-implications-traveling-employees
2024-01-29T12:25:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There was a time when interstate business travel was much easier than it is now Today states have figured out that increasing and enforcing tax implications from tax revenues to...
<p>Imagine a time when all work happened onsite at a business location within easy driving distance of your home – a simple time, to be sure. Today’s work reality is much more complex with workers in-office, remote, and everywhere in between. With more <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2023-global-business-travel-outlook">business travelers getting on the road again</a>, some employees spend more time traveling than in any one office. </p>
<p>And while you might think that managing travel-related taxes within the U.S. would be relatively straightforward, it turns out state-to-state tax codes are far from united. This creates issues for travelers and businesses alike. </p>
<p>To comply with complicated state tax regulations, organizations need to enhance their processes and increase their understanding of where travelers are, how long they’ll be gone, and the type of work they’re doing. Not just in the U.S., but globally. </p>
<p>However, when a company’s process for understanding its travel footprint is inefficient, it can cause inconveniences for business travelers, complexity for travel and finance managers, or bigger business implications like fines. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>How to Reduce Risk and Manage Tax Compliance in a Work-from-Anywhere World</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-reduce-risk-and-manage-tax-compliance-work-anywhere-world">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Are employers required to withhold out-of-state taxes?</h2>
<p>Whether an employer needs to withhold out-of-state taxes depends on various factors. But if you have business travelers, it’s crucial to know where your company stands. </p>
<p>The rules vary for withholding income tax on employees who temporarily travel outside of their resident state for work. This requires payroll managers to navigate different filing rules for all states, territories, and hundreds of municipalities. </p>
<p>For example, more than half of states that have a personal income tax require employers to withhold tax from a nonresident employee’s wages beginning with the first day that employee travels to their state for business. Other states have a threshold that must be reached before income tax is withheld for nonresident employees. </p>
<p>If your business travelers are wondering, “If I travel for work, where do I pay taxes?” The answer may not be simple. In some cases, employees could also be legally required to file an income tax return in every state they travel to for work — even if just for one day. </p>
<p>Get the guide: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/enhance-your-compliance-and-spend-management-sap-concur-solutions">Enhance your compliance and spend management with SAP Concur solutions</a> </p>
<h2>How Do State Taxes Work for Business Travelers? </h2>
<p>If your employees travel out of state – or out of the country – it’s imperative to stay on top of tax compliance for your travelers. </p>
<p>Remember that tax regulations are subject to change and it’s important to verify the latest rules for the locations where your employees travel for business. </p>
<h3>States That Impose Income Tax on Business Travelers </h3>
<p>The following states impose income tax on the first day nonresidents work in their state, so make sure you’re addressing tax compliance for any employee that travels to these places. </p>
<ol>
<li>Alabama </li>
<li>Arkansas </li>
<li>Colorado </li>
<li>Delaware </li>
<li>Indiana </li>
<li>Iowa </li>
<li>Kansas </li>
<li>Kentucky </li>
<li>Maryland </li>
<li>Massachusetts </li>
<li>Michigan </li>
<li>Mississippi </li>
<li>Missouri </li>
<li>Montana </li>
<li>Nebraska </li>
<li>New Jersey </li>
<li>New York </li>
<li>North Carolina </li>
<li>Ohio </li>
<li>Pennsylvania </li>
<li>Rhode Island </li>
<li>Vermont </li>
<li>Virginia </li>
</ol>
<p>And these states impose income tax on nonresidents after a state-specific threshold is reached. The threshold varies by state. </p>
<ol>
<li>Arizona </li>
<li>California </li>
<li>Connecticut </li>
<li>Georgia </li>
<li>Hawaii </li>
<li>Idaho </li>
<li>Illinois </li>
<li>Louisiana </li>
<li>Maine </li>
<li>Minnesota </li>
<li>New Mexico </li>
<li>North Dakota </li>
<li>Oklahoma </li>
<li>Oregon </li>
<li>South Carolina </li>
<li>Utah </li>
<li>West Virginia </li>
<li>Wisconsin </li>
</ol>
<h3>States That Don’t Impose Income Tax on Business Travelers </h3>
<p>The following states do not impose state income tax on business travelers. But again, it’s always important to stay up to date on tax rules, as they’re subject to change. </p>
<ol>
<li>Alaska </li>
<li>Florida </li>
<li>Nevada </li>
<li>New Hampshire </li>
<li>South Dakota </li>
<li>Tennessee </li>
<li>Texas </li>
<li>Washington </li>
<li>Wyoming </li>
</ol>
<p>See: How <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hybrid-work-raises-your-tax-risk-and-complexity">Hybrid Work Raises Your Tax Risk and Complexity</a> </p>
<h2>How Do You Stay Compliant with Business Travel-Related State Taxes? </h2>
<p>So, how can you ensure that your company complies with state- or country-specific tax requirements for traveling employees? You can start by adopting a fully integrated technology solution into your company’s travel booking workflow. </p>
<p>Because it comes down to payroll teams to know — and navigate — state tax implications for traveling employees, consider choosing a solution that gives your team a comprehensive view of travel and spending, plus the ability to manage interstate payroll taxes. </p>
<p>Look for a solution that enables your teams to handle multi-state and cross-border payroll tax compliance. Even better if it can automatically track tax and payroll requirements as the employee travels to different locations. </p>
<p>For example, an organization using Concur Travel can also connect with an SAP Concur integration that makes it easier for businesses to <a href="https://www.concur.com/multi-state-payroll">comply with complex tax regulations</a>. </p>
<p>To learn more about how you can help your company better navigate tax complexities, download our whitepaper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/finance-leaders-guide-tax-compliance">A Finance Leader’s Guide to Tax Compliance</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Start your 2018 expense management resolutions early with these tips
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/start-your-2018-expense-management-resolutions-early-these-tips
2017-12-07T13:43:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The end of the year is quickly approaching and its easy to get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be wrapped up From reviewing and approving expense reports to analyzing financial...
<p>The end of the year is quickly approaching and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be wrapped up. From reviewing (and approving) expense reports to analyzing financial statements, the to-do list feels neverending. Fortunately, by taking the proper steps now to ease your expense management woes, you can lay the foundation for implementing the proper tools in the new year. Here is some inspiration to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Need an expense policy? Create one with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/expense-policy-template">this template</a> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Starting now is the right time</strong></h2>
<p>With 2018 a little under a month away, it’s easy to think it is too late to start making changes and push them off to the new year. That’s not necessarily the case. Taking the time <strong>now</strong> to thoroughly review your expense management process gives you insights into opportunities for improvement and ways to ease the pressure now.</p>
<p>Categorize changes and updates into long-term and short-term goals. Get the momentum going by focusing on a few immediate wins, changes that can be done quickly and will ease the year-end crunch. Then after you’ve wrapped up the year-end, turn your focus towards those process changes that will take a little longer to implement.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Be the boss of your to-do list</strong></h2>
<p>There are only so many hours in the day, so why not make the best of it? Tune out that little voice that keeps telling you there is just too much to-do. Combat stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed by taking charge of your task list. Use the tools you have to your disposal to get more done.</p>
<p>Set aside time where you silence notifications and alerts, giving yourself the space to focus. Use calendaring and reminders to keep deadlines from slipping away. Above all, don’t forget to reward yourself for a job well done.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Kiss manual processes goodbye</strong></h2>
<p>Don’t let manual processes bog you down. But before you jump on the automation train, make sure to choose the tools that make the most sense with your processes. The process review you did earlier will play a big part in selecting the right automation tools. Keep in mind that automation should improve current processes.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> elevates the expense reporting and management process, giving financial teams the insights they need into employee claims and streamlining the reimbursement process. Concur takes it a step further by not just automating but also going mobile. Employees can submit expenses while on the road, saving time (and money) and giving finance teams the real-time data they need.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Did you know?</strong> Employees can complete expense reports 60% faster with online tools.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Start with a little self-care: Education</strong></h2>
<p>Before you jump in feet first, start with a little “you” time. Educate yourself on industry best practices, tips and tricks to improving your expense management processes. Join us on December 14 at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern for a <a href="https://go.concur.com/q417bedrebroadcastwebinardec13_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bedre_blog_20171205" target="_blank">free educational webinar</a> on how to chase the end-of-the-year finance blues away (and get a free coffee in the process). Small business analyst and co-founder of the Small Business Group, Laurie McCabe will share tips for SMBs to get through the busy season and ready for the new year. <a href="https://go.concur.com/q417bedrebroadcastwebinardec13_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bedre_blog_20171205" target="_blank">Register today!</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
We’re shedding light on traveler safety, but do we like what we see?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/were-shedding-light-traveler-safety-do-we-what-we-see
2017-11-29T10:37:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you ask business travelers if their employers care about their safety theyll mostly likely tell you that yes their employers do care about their safety But caring about it isnt...
<p>When you ask business travelers if their employers care about their safety, they’ll mostly likely tell you that, yes, their employers <strong>do</strong> care about their safety.</p>
<p>But caring about it isn’t enough. The problem, among other issues and insights uncovered in GBTA Foundation’s most recent research report, is that there aren’t always programs in place to actually <strong>ensure</strong> that safety.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Access the full report <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-safe-are-your-business-travellers">How traveler booking behaviour impacts safety</a> to learn more</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>It all starts with visibility</strong></h2>
<p>An organization needs to know where its people are if it’s going to fullfill its duty of care. But, as the survey points out, more than half of all business travelers in Germany, France and the UK have booked travel outside their corporate booking tool. And, fewer than two in five say their employers have systems in place to capture travel plans. This keeps employers in the dark in regard to traveler whereabouts, itineraries and, on a budgetary level, their total travel spend.</p>
<p>And if you don’t know where they are in an emergency, you can’t reach them, let alone protect them.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What’s the risk? </strong></h2>
<p>The GBTA Foundation survey also looks closely at the type of risk services available to travelers—such as emergency assistance hotlines, traveler training, travel advisories and the ability to establish/maintain two-way communication. The numbers tell an equally unsettling story here.</p>
<p>A full third of respondents say their employers do not provide an assistance hotline, which is one of the most basic safety services available. An additional third believe they could have used more specific travel safety training, especially in regard to gender, sexual orientation and religion, as these topics impact safety differently in various parts of the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>When it comes to keeping employees safe, we’ve all got work to do. </strong></h2>
<p>Virtually every risk management function a company performs depends, at least in part, on booking data. This Global Business Travel Association Foundation research report examines that data—or lack thereof—in relation to minimizing risk for employee travellers.</p>
<p><strong>Find out what this means to your business. Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-safe-are-your-business-travellers">full research report</a> now.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to waste time…efficiently
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-waste-timeefficiently
2020-09-21T13:16:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the centuriesold saying goes time is money and nobody wants to waste money The way businesses allocate their time is vital to their innovation and growth and there are only so many...
<p>As the centuries-old saying goes, time is money – and nobody wants to waste money. The way businesses allocate their time is vital to their innovation and growth, and there are only so many hours in a work day. Putting those hours towards something that will jumpstart your company could make or break your small business.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-meetings-costing-your-business-too-much-money">previous post</a> by Concur, unproductive meetings were blamed for wasting more than $37 billion per year in the U.S. alone. On the same note, almost 20% of total time spent online in the U.S. is strictly on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, according to a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-statistics-2013-12" target="_blank">Business Insider</a> study. With unnecessary distractions wasting so much time in the workplace, it’s a good idea to use the time that’s left to its fullest extent. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>“Waste time” learning new techniques</strong></h2>
<p>That’s where digital technology comes in. Ben Rossi, in an article in <a href="http://www.information-age.com/smes-embrace-digital-tech-grow-faster-those-dont-research-123460952/" target="_blank">Information Age</a>, explains that small and midsized businesses who research, understand and implement digital technology experience more and faster growth than companies that fail to take the same steps. This digital transformation is so important that he considers it “essential to the company’s survival in the next three to five years.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-travel-expense-management-digital-era">How to take travel and expense management into the digital era</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The time it takes to ditch traditional practices and adopt digital technology is worth the effort – “between 53% and 60% of SMEs (small and midsized businesses) surveyed said new technology solutions have allowed them to begin or continue revising their workflow […] to streamline operations and improve productivity,” according to Rossi. Increasingly, that’s what an organization has to do to stay alive. A study by <a href="https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-smart-spending" target="_blank">Accenture</a> suggests that companies must now “leverage social, analytic and collaboration tools to effectively engage employees across all parts of the organization,” saving valuable time while still progressing towards their overall targets. Digital technology can update outdated systems that have become less effective, relieving the pain of employees who feel that “<a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/3-reasons-updating-expense-management-systems-benefits-everyone">47% of outdated systems are too time-consuming</a>". And remember, “time is money!”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Invest time now, reap results later</strong></h2>
<p>There is a smart way to use your precious resources on both sides of the time and money equation. Researching technology tools will pay off on your investment with efficiency, compliance and visibility. Concur offers an all-encompassing travel, expense, and invoice management solution that eases spend management – wasting no time at all in those eight hour work days. As David S. Rose from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2016/10/17/7-lessons-small-businesses-can-learn-from-tech-startups/?ss=financing#370d0e5d79d1" target="_blank">Forbes</a> points out, investing a small amount of money and time into your business at its start can “pay large dividends later.” New <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management</a> tools, like those offered by Concur, exist to simplify processes that at once seemed overwhelming to a business with a small employee base and an even smaller amount of time to waste. Investment in digital technology is an innovative way of leveraging a small business’s time, as opposed to sitting through meetings or scrolling through social media feeds. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Waste time efficiently</strong></h2>
<p>Reflect on how you want to “waste time” efficiently and consider <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">Concur for Small and Medium Businesses</a> to automate travel and entertainment (T&E) expense reporting and vendor invoices to make your business operate better. And that’s not a waste of time at all.</p>
<p><strong>Want to waste less time? Take Concur for a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">test drive</a> with our free trial and discover the best ways to apply your time.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
TEDxSeattleWomen: Bridges in the Evergreen State
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/tedxseattlewomen-bridges-evergreen-state
2017-12-19T08:34:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
by Jenn McColly and John Dietz At Concur we know that when our people are at their best our business is at its best That is why we are committed to fostering an environment of...
<p>by Jenn McColly and John Dietz</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At Concur we know that when our people are at their best, our business is at its best. That is why we are committed to fostering an environment of belonging, collaboration, authenticity and caring where our diverse and inclusive teams enable our passionate innovation, growth and customer satisfaction.</p>
<p>That’s why earlier this month we were honored to host TEDxSeattleWomen, a gathering of local TEDxSeattle members, Concur employees and community partners. Attendees heard from inspiring local speakers with diverse backgrounds including Sarah Bird, CEO of Moz; Tanmeet Sethi, an integrative physician-teacher; Carol Sanford, a globally known thought leader and author; and Choklate, an international singer/songwriter. Valerie Conn led us through the event reminding us all that “everyone has an idea worth spreading.” We were also fortunate to watch curated sessions from the 2017 <a href="https://tedwomen2017.ted.com/program" target="_blank">TEDWomen</a> conference in New Orleans. It was inspiring to listen to the amazing ideas each speaker brought to life. Bringing people together from our company, community partners and the TEDxSeattle community made for an event unlike any other. Check out our <a href="https://blog.concurlabs.com/tedxseattlewomen-turning-what-ifs-into-inspiration-d658ebfbd7d9" target="_blank">Concur Labs blog</a> for a rundown of the event.</p>
<p>We are incredibly proud that Concur, and our parent company SAP, are leading supporters of diversity, inclusion and belonging. Today, 37% of leadership positions <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/building-a-community-of-women-leaders-at-concur">at Concur are held by women</a> and we are being intentional in our efforts towards increasing that number even more. Our high representation of women in leadership helped SAP achieve their goal to hit 25% women in leadership earlier this year. Now we have our sights set on supporting SAP’s updated goal to hit 30% women in leadership by 2022.</p>
<p>At Concur and Concur Labs we recognize there is incredible power in having diverse teams and an inclusive workplace. Events like TEDxSeattleWomen bring the community together to drive continuous dialogue on important topics. Something we at Concur will continue to be intentional about.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Speed Up Your T&E Approval Process by Eliminating Ambiguity
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/speed-your-te-approval-process-eliminating-ambiguity
2018-07-18T09:25:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Figuring out what is and what is not considered a travel expense should be easy right Unfortunately thats not always the case Try telling this to the employee standing in the airport...
<p>Figuring out what is and what is not considered a travel expense should be easy, right? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Try telling this to the employee standing in the airport newsstand debating whether the bag of snacks in their hand is a valid business expense. Or to the employee unsure if Uber, Lyft or a cab is the approved mode of transportation to the hotel. Clarifying any gray travel and expense areas goes a long way towards taking control of your expense management by decreasing errors, saving time and reducing fraud.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why is ambiguity an issue?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">Business travel</a> is stressful enough without any confusion around what is and isn’t considered an approved expense. When the rules are left open for interpretation, this often leads to incompliant expenses, incorrectly filed expense reports and wasted time and effort.</p>
<p>This is even more important now as the proliferation of various travel apps are entering the market. With no rules around which apps are company approved and which aren’t, employees are left to decide. This creates a mash-up of different vendors and ways the finance team has to now keep track of employee expenses, decreasing insight into the overall picture of employee spend.</p>
<p>Above and beyond the time and compliance issues, ambiguity and confusion leads to unhappy employees who have to deal with all the steps of the expense report lifecycle. Filing employees must explain the validity of their expenses. The approving manager and the finance team member doing the audit and review also have to go back and forth with the filing employee to get ambiguous expenses figured out. All this time adds up. At the end of the day, you end up with tired, frustrated employees and delayed reimbursements.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is it an error…or fraud?</h2>
<p>Leaving the door open for interpretation increases opportunities for <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-identify-expense-report-fraud">expense report fraud</a>. Nobody likes to ever think their employees are taking advantage of them, but it does happen. Fortunately, with a clear T&E policy, errors and fraud are easier to spot and cut off at the pass.</p>
<p>Speaking of errors, with everything spelled out, your team will now be able to spot patterns with expenses (or even a certain employee). These patterns open up training opportunities, to help all employees get on the same page when it comes to expenses and employee spend. And if you haven’t already moved to an automated (and mobile) expense management system, now’s your chance. Moving your spend management to an automated process is easier than you think, and will keep you on the path of error reduction and cost savings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Clarity leads to better communication (and speed)</h2>
<p>Money is a personal and sensitive topic, especially if an employee is paying out of pocket up front and will be reimbursed later. Ensuring that all the guidelines are clear and concise, and leave no opening for interpretation, makes all the difference. It also opens the door for better communication amongst your team.</p>
<p>Not to mention, a better understanding of expenses makes creating, reviewing and approving expenses that much faster.</p>
<p>So, this leads to the question of what to do next? Your first T&E action item should be to get a great expense policy into action at your company. Need some help to get started? We’ve got you covered. Use our <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to build a personalized policy for your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Use a Corporate Credit Card Program to Fight Fraud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-corporate-credit-card-program-fight-fraud
2020-08-13T13:59:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Most small business owners feel like they know their employees fairly well Being involved in daytoday operations means working closely with most of your staff building both a rapport...
<p>Most small business owners feel like they know their employees fairly well. Being involved in day-to-day operations means working closely with most of your staff, building both a rapport and trust. So when you first learn of fraud happening within your company, it's no surprise the news comes as a shock.</p>
<p>You are not alone. In fact, for a typical organization <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook" target="_blank">five percent of annual revenue</a> is lost to fraud each year. That’s five percent more funds that could have been reinvested back into the business. This begs the question: What can a business owner do to fight fraud?</p>
<p>Employee expenses (especially travel) are not only a large spend category in a company budget, but also an opportunity for fraudulent claims. Instituting a corporate credit card program is a straightforward way to tighten up controls, while getting access to purchasing data and reducing expense reporting errors.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Gain more control of employee spend</h2>
<p>A corporate credit card program gives you more authority over employee expense management. You can set restrictions when it comes to credit and transactions limits, as well as set merchant and location controls. This helps regulate employee spend, and reinforces your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policy</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, corporate credit cards take the burden off of employees having to use their own money for business expenses. This makes traveling for business or entertaining clients a little easier, knowing they do not have to wait for an expense report to be approved and processed before they can see those funds again. It is a win-win for everyone involved.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Catch fraud before it happens and reduce the potential for errors</h2>
<p>When employees charge to their corporate card, it goes directly to the company, giving you access to this data. You can better monitor spending, and be able to flag expenses that look suspicious. So, you're able to stop bad spending before an expense report is even sent for approval.</p>
<p>Not only can you spot items bought outside of policy, such as those that are for personal use, you can also catch items that employees may then try to reclaim through your usual expenses reclaim process again. Spotting errors on expense reports is that much easier, especially if what is being claimed and what is on the credit card statement don’t match up.</p>
<p>Being able to charge expenses directly to the company also reduces expense report mistakes, such as accidentally entering incorrect numbers or the same purchase twice. By shaping your expense and travel policy around corporate credit cards, it makes the business expense process easier for your travelers, and ultimately for you.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Augment with automated, cloud-based expense solutions</h2>
<p>Your expense and travel program can be even better with the addition of automated, cloud-based software solutions. Not only will an automated system make your process more streamlined, but you can integrate it with your corporate credit card program, giving you the visibility you need into employee spend and providing the reporting data needed to make sound business decisions. And, it makes the experience easier for employees. <a href="https://www.capterra.com/p/380/Concur-Expense/reviews/">According to one SAP Concur user</a>: "<strong>I love SAP Concur's ability to link up with my corporate credit card so that everything flows into Concur making the expense process such an easy process.</strong>"</p>
<p>Solutions such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> are not only automated, but also mobile. Employees can submit expenses <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">directly from their phone</a> while on the road, making expense reporting even more efficient (and accurate).</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2> </h2>
SAP Concur Team
Six Ways to Cash in on Your Business Expense Data
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-ways-cash-your-business-expense-data
2018-07-06T11:36:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business expenses arent normally seen as a place to save money In fact its quite the opposite But if you look closely at the data you might be surprised by the moneysaving...
<p data-id="c07d70ac-87ff-4ad4-8500-49c5cab4a12c">Business expenses aren't normally seen as a place to save money. In fact, it's quite the opposite. But if you look closely at the data, you might be surprised by the money-saving opportunities you find. </p>
<p data-id="539e3816-06ed-4b60-bfe5-014fbae9e249">Examine almost any collection of data and you'll find patterns, trends, and probably a few anomalies – whether you're sifting through weather records, visitor hits on your company website, or last season's football stats. It's the same when it comes to your business expenses where careful analysis can highlight opportunities for significant savings.</p>
<p data-id="1fe233ee-fc6d-453c-b5ab-1ca10713e54d">Using tools that provide visibility into meaningful, actionable data is essential. Assuming you're already streamlining the way you capture and access data, what exactly can you achieve with it? Here are six ways you can save money by tapping into your <a href="https://www.concur.com/">company expenses</a> data.</p>
<p data-id="1fe233ee-fc6d-453c-b5ab-1ca10713e54d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e3be2db7-001e-4a3d-a205-4971632a264d">1. You Can Avoid Emergency Borrowing</h2>
<p data-id="48febc72-263e-4f77-892f-2b9938481b50">Your spend data will inevitably reveal peaks and troughs that may relate to times of the year, particular events, and different types of business activity. Being able to plan ahead for these will save you money, such as the early booking of hotels for trade shows. Plus, smart budgeting for costly periods ahead of time will also protect your cash flow so you're not suddenly caught off balance and forced into short-term borrowing from expensive sources. Having an automated expense, travel, and invoice system will give you insight into your spending data while you still have time to make necessary budget adjustments.</p>
<p data-id="48febc72-263e-4f77-892f-2b9938481b50"> </p>
<h2 data-id="75cac5aa-d638-4537-a967-556c7ba9b368">2. You Can Negotiate Better Rates with Commonly Used Suppliers</h2>
<p data-id="2eb30548-94a1-41b4-a671-d225f83f2b80">Your expense data is likely to reveal you use a wide range of vendors and suppliers. Could you be getting a better deal with those you use most often? With the right data you could identify the best value in each spend category and then negotiate for a preferential rate, based on a realistic total you've spent each year. Being able to combine spend data across invoices, expenses and credit cards can give you the full picture into what’s being spent per supplier, no matter how the cash leaves your company.</p>
<p data-id="2eb30548-94a1-41b4-a671-d225f83f2b80"> </p>
<h2 data-id="954714a8-fe9a-4e3b-a2ec-8547942e69b2">3. You Can Prevent Rogue Spending</h2>
<p data-id="7a748579-9239-4ade-9adb-08baafad3a6a">Maintaining compliance is important to controlling employee spend, and digging into expense data will help identify non-compliant individuals. Does some of the spending lack proper authorization? Are employees submitting duplicate expenses? Are there some bizarre purchases creeping in? Whether <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">fraudulent spending</a> is purposeful or accidental, you'll know who is responsible for wasteful spending and be able to educate policy breakers on the rules. </p>
<p data-id="7a748579-9239-4ade-9adb-08baafad3a6a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="704b2975-47b4-4039-beee-361fae76a008">4. You Can Prepare Audits with Ease and Reclaim VAT Effectively</h2>
<p data-id="b4235bae-0285-4dc2-85c0-587d3a8ca010">If your expense data is accurate and accessible in one place, then there's nothing to fear when tax season comes around. Everything will stand up to scrutiny. What's more, you'll be able to spot every opportunity to reclaim VAT, with total confidence in your numbers.</p>
<p data-id="b4235bae-0285-4dc2-85c0-587d3a8ca010"> </p>
<h2 data-id="22111a03-9036-41fc-9baf-55447f8ec63d">5. You Can Make Cost-Effective Strategic Decisions</h2>
<p data-id="f5e19dc8-eda2-48af-b585-c81687449d90">When you analyze expenses data across months or years, big figures can jump out that might suggest an opportunity for strategic savings. Perhaps spending in some areas has risen so much that an extra part-time employee, an additional vehicle, or new equipment could prove more cost-effective. The ability to see data clearly will inform and guide some of the biggest decisions.</p>
<p data-id="f5e19dc8-eda2-48af-b585-c81687449d90"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e50f3803-d1f4-4a61-b06c-50a912c4c88a">6. You Can Sit Back and Enjoy Efficiency Savings</h2>
<p data-id="e5da5c6d-f030-4a3e-966b-71b40498533e">Once clear and accurate business expenses data begins to flow through your system, everything becomes easier to process, manage, and check. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">finance team will certainly benefit</a>, as there are fewer knotty claims to unpick or mystery expenses to investigate. Employees will benefit thanks to easy-to-use mobile solutions that reduce the time needed to file an expense report. And, cloud-based tools enable efficiency and lessen the burden on the internal IT support team.</p>
<p data-id="e5da5c6d-f030-4a3e-966b-71b40498533e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="0add2ddc-719a-488c-a79b-ed3ff3f89b68">Get Correct Data from the Start</h2>
<p data-id="7486c7c9-81c5-40d0-a52d-01988778f3fd">You can only see these benefits with the correct tools to generate accurate data. If you're currently relying on paper records and spreadsheets to manage business expenses, there will be obstacles in your way. But they can be overcome, quickly and easily with the right approach.</p>
<p data-id="7486c7c9-81c5-40d0-a52d-01988778f3fd"> </p>
<p data-id="29e165d2-b22e-4a8e-8503-3712adfca10f"><strong>Looking for more ways to save? Download our guide: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide">Six Ways to Save on Travel and Expense</a>.</strong></p>
Boy Scouts of America Transform Expense Management with Concur Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/boy-scouts-america-transform-expense-management-concur-expense
2018-04-30T09:14:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With todays increasingly mobile workforce keeping track of business expenses can pose a challenge For a company like the Boy Scouts of America whose employees spend a majority of their...
<p>With today’s increasingly mobile workforce, keeping track of business expenses can pose a challenge. For a company like the Boy Scouts of America, whose employees spend a majority of their time outside and not behind a desk, expense management on-the-go is a requirement.</p>
<p>CEO and Scout Executive Scott Seibert knew the Boy Scouts of America needed to update their financial systems. With the organization’s increasingly mobile workforce, they wanted to manage travel and other expenses with easy-to-use tools on their smartphones. With these requirements, Boy Scouts of America turned to SAP Concur for help.</p>
<p>Through the implementation of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, Boy Scouts of America now has an expense solution that streamlines the submission, review, and processing of employee expense reports. This automated solution also integrates with enterprise resource management systems and credit card programs, giving their finance teams more visibility into employee spend.</p>
<p>Whether they are backpacking in the woods or sitting behind a desk, employees can easily submit expenses online through their mobile phone—reducing paperwork and errors, and increasing overall efficiency. Capturing and submitting expenses as they happen saves time and reduces error, increasing the speed of processing and reimbursement, and ultimately employee satisfaction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The more we can manage in the cloud, and via mobile, the better. If we can do this, we’ll be more productive, better able to serve the millennial generation, and we’ll stick around another 108 years. -- Scott Seibert, Boy Scouts of America Executive/CEO, Blackhawk Area Council</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Takeaway Tip: </strong>Whether your workforce is on the go or in the office, streamlining expense management keeps your finances out of the woods.</p>
<p>It’s National Small Business Week and SAP Concur is honoring our small business heroes. At SAP Concur, we create spend management solutions for all businesses, regardless of size or industry. Register today for our <a href="https://go.concur.com/nsbw2018c.html?pid=email&cid=emoln_mdrsig_20180405" target="_blank">Tips & Triumphs from SMB All-Stars webinar</a>, and learn from other small businesses as they discuss successes and how to avoid potential pitfalls.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Come to Our SAP Concur Sessions at SAPPHIRE NOW
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/come-our-sap-concur-sessions-sapphire-now
2018-05-17T08:56:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There are only more days until SAPPHIRE NOW and we hope youre as excited as we are SAPPHIRE NOW is SAPs largest customer event and the most innovative cloud and business technology...
<p>There are only 19 more days until <strong>SAPPHIRE NOW</strong>, and we hope you’re as excited as we are! SAPPHIRE NOW is SAP’s largest customer event, and the most innovative cloud and business technology conference you can find.</p>
<p>On June 5, more than 20,000 attendees will converge on Orlando, Florida for three days of learning, sharing and networking with peers, innovative CIOs and CFOs and other industry leaders. We have a full agenda of sessions planned that highlight how the latest technology trends are affecting—and improving—spend management.</p>
<p><strong>You’ll find Theater presentations</strong> focusing on:</p>
<ul>
<li>Success stories from IBM, Shell and EY</li>
<li>Syncing with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud to accelerate system performance</li>
<li>Improving your bottom line with end-to-end spend management</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Demo sessions</strong> covering topics like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Integration and analysis of T&E data with information from across your company</li>
<li>New tools for tracking and controlling mileage reimbursement</li>
<li>Using machine learning for detecting fraud and enhancing your bottom line</li>
<li>Tapping into your spending data to improve employee safety</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Interactive sessions </strong>will include topics such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to balance policies, compliance and the user experience in the public sector</li>
<li>Using machine learning to empower employees to do their best work and improve efficiency</li>
<li>Developing a digital transformation culture</li>
<li>Engaging end users to improve policy compliance</li>
</ul>
<p>To find specific information on what’s happening when, click <a href="https://d.dam.sap.com/a/vdYPCVB">here</a> for SAP Concur’s full session schedule, and also make sure to <a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=169&locale=en_US">visit the SAPPHIRE NOW website</a>. If you haven’t registered yet? Don’t worry, <a href="https://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/registrationinfo?url_id=ctabutton-eventsite-headernav-regnow-sanow18">there’s still time</a>.</p>
<p>We’re looking forward to seeing you in a few short weeks.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Personalized Concur Open is Now Available
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/personalized-concur-open-now-available
2020-09-11T12:44:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You asked we listened and were proud to introduce this new feature that youve been requesting Effective September SAP Concur is releasing the ability for you to view a...
<p>You asked, we listened, and we’re proud to introduce this new feature that you’ve been requesting! </p>
<p>Effective September 11, 2018, SAP Concur is releasing the ability for you to view a Personalized Concur Open service status dashboard. This means that you will be able to view the status of your own account’s services and receive updates (if subscribed) that matter to you. </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1535743957442-personalized-concur-open.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>A new service status history feature is being added for you to view past incidents that impacted you over the last 2 years. As part of the history, a new “Detailed Root Cause Analysis” PDF download will also be provided in many cases. (Note: the RCA will only be provided on a go-forward basis, not retroactively.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1535744266731-concur-open-status.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Personalized Concur Open will continue to only show P1 incidents (known and widespread outages and incidents). If an outage or issue is not a declared P1, it will still not display on the Personalized view. </p>
<p>We are not creating another login to view Personalized Concur Open. Instead, you will be able to log in using the same credentials and/or email that you use to log into concursolutions.com. If you are an SSO customer, you will need to request a “one-time link” in order to log in. Once you are logged in, you will remain logged in for 30 days. </p>
<p>Our innovations to Concur Open are part of our commitment to greater transparency and relevancy of our communications. We’ve heard from many of you asking for this feature, so thank you for your feedback! </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Benefits of an Effective Expense Reimbursement Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/benefits-effective-expense-reimbursement-policy
2019-04-22T11:30:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A growing business has many moving parts When everyone on the team has more than one job to do and only a select few team members have access to corporate credit cards it can be...
<p data-id="935e3946-b116-4b00-aba5-4d570ae757b4">A growing business has many moving parts. When everyone on the team has more than one job to do and only a select few team members have access to corporate credit cards, it can be tempting to forego standardizing an expense policy. No matter your size, an expense and employee reimbursement policy set early will pay off over the long haul by giving you more insight into company spend. Here are four more reasons why expense policies are so important to your business.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Expense Reimbursement Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="935e3946-b116-4b00-aba5-4d570ae757b4"> </p>
<h2 data-id="23c0e044-7b50-41b7-b764-41a20be9d69e">1. Defining corporate culture:</h2>
<p data-id="1b000539-25a7-4583-a31a-e2269946968c">Many may not think of business expense reimbursement policies as culture building. But, informing employees on how they can spend not only reduces confusion, it can communicate empowerment.</p>
<p data-id="1b000539-25a7-4583-a31a-e2269946968c"> </p>
<h2 data-id="01593dc2-6866-47f7-9d5f-11fa59218b96">2. Maintaining trust:</h2>
<p data-id="b2b80258-142f-4da3-b964-314e7f280144">As your company grows, and revenues increase, employees may not know what their spending limits are when booking travel. It only takes one booking at a 5-star hotel to break a company’s trust in an employee. Notifying employees up front on what they can and cannot spend with a stated business travel policy and procedure helps them stay in policy and maintain company trust.</p>
<p data-id="1b73c07a-e4c1-484f-86fb-0098757fbc13">Setting an expense policy also helps build employee trust in the company as well. Setting a clear travel reimbursement policy for employees who use their own finances to book travel lets them know you will reimburse them quickly.</p>
<p data-id="1b73c07a-e4c1-484f-86fb-0098757fbc13"> </p>
<h2 data-id="4d377859-7f1d-4991-8784-021860646cb4">3. Increasing efficiency:</h2>
<p data-id="99a22bca-1cd3-4e4a-8aab-54c7541f8e5d">A stated travel and entertainment policy makes the path to responsible spending clear for your employees, making their travel booking, purchasing, and approving processes more efficient. An established travel claim policy makes onboarding go more smoothly for new employees and managers. Employees can submit their expense reports more efficently and your team can avoid the back and forth caused by errors.</p>
<p data-id="99a22bca-1cd3-4e4a-8aab-54c7541f8e5d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="457f40af-8b4c-4d63-817b-3148fb7569cb">4. Getting more from accounting:</h2>
<p data-id="3d92f2bf-def8-4bc4-8936-dfa28822d7a5">This may be the most obvious reason for implementing an expense policy. Establishing an expense policy helps with better budgeting, forecasting, and managing of company spend. Plus, setting an expense policy that limits purchasing to select suppliers increases transactions with those suppliers and can give you the ability to negotiate wholesale deals.</p>
<p data-id="3d92f2bf-def8-4bc4-8936-dfa28822d7a5"> </p>
<p data-id="11311b5b-9eaf-486d-8c30-f99212c72fff">Creating an expense policy has many other benefits to help your business run at its best and creating one doesn’t have to take up all of your time. <strong>Use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to generate a custom expense policy template in minutes.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Use These Tips to Make it Easier to Organize Receipts
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-these-tips-make-it-easier-organize-receipts
2018-07-05T04:57:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Receipts have a bad reputation for many good reasons Almost every move business travelers make generates new ones whether theyre for airfare bookings lodging ground transit or even...
<p data-id="10bfb8ed-bf7c-4531-a881-9e58ce7a7c5b">Receipts have a bad reputation for many good reasons. Almost every move business travelers make generates new ones, whether they’re for airfare bookings, lodging, ground transit, or even snacks on the plane. This can lead to an ever-expanding pile of paper to categorize, collate, and fret over. Receipts are easy to lose, prompting employee headaches when the expense report comes due. Managerial angst ensues if the submitted expense report does not square with the evidence provided.</p>
<p data-id="2de9352d-d530-4f17-8a18-868c179e827a">But with a few receipt roundup tips, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are some quick ways you can reduce the frustration associated with paper receipts:</p>
<p data-id="2de9352d-d530-4f17-8a18-868c179e827a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="98dd82f9-99be-46fa-9734-dc466f376efe">Decrease fraud potential (and paper) with eReceipts</h2>
<p data-id="a273fa01-dc96-43ca-8d6d-99c8a898dc2a">Travel and expense (T&E) spending can be a big chunk of a typical company budget (about 10-12% on average), and it’s a magnet for fraud and compliance risk. Each year, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">businesses lose 5% of revenue to fraud and a staggering 83% of fraud cases involve asset misappropriation</a>, which includes padded T&E claims. But with Concur Travel, eReceipts go straight from the source – app center partners, airlines, hotel and car companies – into employee expense reports. That way the traveler doesn’t have to lift a finger and the risk of expense report fraud by employees is minimized.</p>
<p data-id="a273fa01-dc96-43ca-8d6d-99c8a898dc2a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="3aa6b253-6674-4a18-a557-b7eefb875749">Reduce receipts by requiring corporate card purchases</h2>
<p data-id="0fad7f21-082b-4a6d-bad2-d95e29520f29">Another great way to reduce receipt volume and increase visibility is to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/use-a-corporate-credit-card-program-to-fight-fraud">mandate corporate card use</a> for all T&E related purchases. The benefit here is two-fold: Managers can set receipt threshold limits on card purchases, and managers can see the spending in near real time, allowing for much better budget awareness.</p>
<p data-id="0fad7f21-082b-4a6d-bad2-d95e29520f29"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c2e961b3-a158-4510-ad7f-bd00d67ece8c">Digitize physical receipts with the SAP Concur mobile app</h2>
<p data-id="3365ba57-2296-42bd-af37-5a0d186f0b7d">Despite our best efforts, some receipts still exist only on paper. Thankfully, with the SAP Concur mobile app, ExpenseIt users can simply snap a cell phone photo of a one-off paper receipt for automatic upload into an expense report. ExpenseIt’s optical character recognition (OCR) technology does the rest, negating human error in the process.</p>
<p data-id="4c3c41ba-eb26-470e-b116-12f6a964183f"><strong>To learn more about these ways to make receipts less of a hassle for you and your travelers, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/tipsheet-four-top-tips-easily-roundup-receipts">check out our infographic today</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Use Technology to Keep Your Travelers Safe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-technology-keep-your-travelers-safe
2020-10-30T15:47:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
More and more employees are traveling on behalf of their companies and growing numbers of business travelers means a growing responsibility to traveler safety Fortunately a growth in...
<p>More and more employees are traveling on behalf of their companies, and growing numbers of business travelers means a growing responsibility to traveler safety. Fortunately, a growth in innovation has spurred on the creation of tools companies can use to improve traveler safety within their travel program. Here are three areas in which technology can help you keep your travelers safe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Locating employees</strong>: Ensuring traveler safety starts with knowing where your travelers are. This can often be difficult since some employees prefer to book directly with suppliers, which keeps their travel plans – and their location – hidden. Capturing and bringing these bookings back into your travel program shines a light on travelers’ locations so they can quickly be accounted for in the event of an emergency, and you can fulfill your duty of care. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Communication</strong>: Communicating with travelers while on their trip is vital to keeping them safe. Providing travelers with apps that automatically notify them of gate changes and can guide them through airports helps them manage unexpected changes in plans. And in the event of an emergency, travel managers can leverage solutions that let them immediately begin two-way communications with travelers and get them to safety.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Informing Travelers</strong>: Help travelers avoid unsafe areas with a solution that offers safety scores and heat maps on categories such as physical harm, women’s safety, health and medical, political freedoms, and theft for neighborhoods around the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur is dedicated to helping you keep your travelers safe. Watch our video to discover how SAP Concur continues to innovate to help you deliver a best-run travel program. </p>
<p><strong>Then, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management"><strong>vis</strong>it our site</a> to learn even more about meeting the needs of both your travelers and your business with SAP Concur. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Future Finance Leader: What You Need to Know
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/future-finance-leader-what-you-need-know
2019-03-19T08:14:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From machine learning to data visualization and more what does the future look like for a rising CFO Liverpool Jane the CFO of a fastgrowing SMB biopharma company is commuting to her...
<p data-id="97ee913e-2374-42dc-b04f-002cc04fb598">From machine learning to data visualization and more – what does the future look like for a rising CFO?</p>
<p data-id="4c547ca3-7692-4849-973d-d4531818e72b">Liverpool, 2025. Jane, the CFO of a fast-growing SMB bio-pharma company, is commuting to her office in her self-driving car. She’s updated on the latest financials via an alert on her wearable mobile device and makes a voice-activated query, for instant “visualisation” of her company’s trading and balance sheet positions.</p>
<p data-id="4c547ca3-7692-4849-973d-d4531818e72b"> </p>
<p data-id="4c547ca3-7692-4849-973d-d4531818e72b"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/five-trends-cfos-watch">Download the whitepaper</a> to see 5 trends that should be on any CFO’s radar</strong></p>
<p data-id="4c547ca3-7692-4849-973d-d4531818e72b"> </p>
<p data-id="b69e4e63-51db-4ebd-9d4b-188a1be0b7d7">Some of the technologies in this scenario, mentioned in a <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ie/Documents/Finance%20Transformation/Deloitte_The_Future_of_Finance.pdf">report by Deloitte</a>, may sound a bit too sci-fi − particularly for those businesses that sill rely on spreadsheets for many tasks.</p>
<p data-id="3469a9ee-d822-456c-9df9-bd4b26d0958d">However, the role of CFOs and finance departments has changed a lot in the last 20 – even 10 – years. Finance leaders and their colleagues in the finance department are much more than transactional guardians of a company’s finances. They’re spending more time on company strategy and analyzing data to predict risks and opportunities, using technologies such as cloud computing, big data, analytics and, most recently, machine learning/artificial intelligence.</p>
<p data-id="7d610952-d62a-4946-868d-51a8bd46d92a">As the roles of finance leader and finance staff become broader and more demanding, which skills do they need to advance their career and keep them motivated? What training should they get?</p>
<p data-id="7d610952-d62a-4946-868d-51a8bd46d92a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="61306f57-628f-4e4c-9c81-c4c77d58a4d4">Skill 1: Tech skills</h2>
<p data-id="b1623de9-3ab9-4b16-9fde-44aab926ee63">IT skills will become as important on a financial director's resume as their ability to understand a balance sheet and manage cashflow. Technologies like <a href="http://usblogs.pwc.com/emerging-technology/a-primer-on-blockchain-infographic/">blockchain</a>, (a decentralized, digital ledger that keeps a permanent record of a transaction), artificial intelligence (which mimics human thinking), robotics (automating business tasks), and analytics (the ability to analyze large amounts of data in near real time) are expected to have a big effect on business, including finance departments.</p>
<p data-id="6291fe54-d707-43b4-9f63-5bb4541af075"> </p>
<h2 data-id="07b52954-e70e-4b90-bb53-41b9eef3ed31">Skill 2: Ability to multi-task</h2>
<p data-id="00367547-2285-4359-b135-b8092c33240c">The finance leader's role will be more varied, probably the most varied of any boardroom role. The global financial crisis of 2008 emphasized the importance of a finance director's role, particularly as an early warning for serious financial problems.</p>
<p data-id="fd6b0640-6164-45fa-ae8b-3bb38c7b3ba3">In the next 10 to 20 years, finance leaders will be responsible for, or closely involved in, digitizing their business and encouraging innovation (“chief automation officers” and “chief innovation officers” will become more common). They’ll spend less time explaining the past − for example, summarizing the financial performance of a company in annual results – and more time on business projection.</p>
<p data-id="833e2a7a-1db1-4c95-b0de-4d33bbc381d6">“Balancing these roles makes a CFO’s job more complex than ever: no longer focused on processing lagging data and instead leveraging leading analytics to make decisions that make an impact,” says Deloitte in its report.</p>
<p data-id="4b6cd83f-3ef4-4ee5-a853-fdc81ada3873"> </p>
<h2 data-id="d6369de6-bc77-4acf-9fcf-6afb02faf4b5">Skill 3: Strategic adviser skills</h2>
<p data-id="f115135e-132e-40a3-b26a-f59f9ab92e7e">Cashflow and other routine tasks in finance departments, will increasingly be automated. This will allow CFOs to spend more time on more interesting tasks, such as working with other business heads and departments on strategy. And by analyzing financial data, including expenses, purchases and invoices, in near real time, finance leaders and finance staff will help departments stay within budgets and increase efficiency.</p>
<p data-id="269d8f8d-224e-4634-af50-1073f728aace">“Currently cashflow is a major reporting and management issue but this will become less so as technology can predict and report this better,” says <a href="https://www.mrkassociates.co.uk/2016/03/meet-the-team-roland-seddon/">Roland Seddon</a>, director, at recruiter MRK Associates, a recruitment company that specializes in finance, data analytics, and office support jobs. “CFOs will [therefore] be spending their time on strategic business partnering and allowing the business to make more real-time decisions.”</p>
<p data-id="269d8f8d-224e-4634-af50-1073f728aace"> </p>
<h2 data-id="52724817-0d31-4e99-87d7-7cb625962595">Skill 4: “Soft skills” for tough times</h2>
<p data-id="b7dd2105-7939-40e6-8142-e321359c0121">Technology will, perhaps ironically, make non-technical skills even more valuable. Financial leaders will increasingly act as corporate translators and communicators: finding connections between data and explaining the financial and commercial implications for the rest of the business.</p>
<p data-id="9aa538ca-5b83-4521-88f9-79858a041a7c">This will require impeccable “soft” skills – inter-personal skills such as the ability to communicate well with other people and to work in a team.</p>
<p data-id="f8a367c2-0eb4-40c1-a925-178fc3c828ec">How can leaders get these skills and experience? Large companies will typically have large budgets for training. CFOs at small and midsize companies may have less time and money for training but they can keep their tech skills up to date by attending conferences and networking events. They can also use social media, such as LinkedIn, to swap tips and contacts, and develop their career. Video is an increasingly important and quick way to get up to speed, as <a href="https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/practice/skills/video-is-the-future-but-are-accountants-ready">this article in AccountingWeb</a> explores.</p>
<p data-id="1d0b866c-8d62-4e45-b3ab-1ed9e22b8f49"> </p>
<p data-id="64b349d9-5dbf-4570-86a1-4c86085d7cc3">The CFO’s role is now going through its biggest change in two or three decades. Technology is starting to automate many of the CFO's traditional tasks.</p>
<p data-id="ba0b9e3b-4d99-4411-8053-a226532c6637">Financial knowledge and accounting skills will still be important, but the long-term trend is for financial leaders is to have a broader role. They’ll focus more on shaping company strategy and predicting risks and opportunities, and less on explaining how their company has performed in the past year.</p>
<p data-id="5ac9339f-ce16-4ded-b06f-e961208154d4">It’s often assumed that a CFO's ultimate career aim is to become chief executive. But in the not-so-distant future, revolutionary technology and a more varied job, may mean that they have the most rewarding and challenging job in the boardroom.</p>
<p data-id="6e0e772b-8a25-40f4-8bd4-58a0aed13910">To learn more, download the whitepaper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/five-trends-cfos-watch">5 Trends for CFOs to Watch</a>. </p>
Let’s Celebrate Small Business Saturday Every Day of the Year
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lets-celebrate-small-business-saturday-every-day-year
2021-03-01T16:42:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur Every November on the Saturday after Black Friday we celebrate Small Business Saturday a day to shop at locally owned...
<p>Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Every November on the Saturday after Black Friday, we celebrate <a href="https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/" target="_blank">Small Business Saturday</a> – a day to shop at locally owned small businesses and celebrate their community contributions. As a special thank you, some retail stores offer promotions and events on this holiday to increase awareness and engage shoppers.</p>
<p>However, you don’t have to be a retailer to celebrate Small Business Saturday. All small and midsize business (SMB) owners – whether they run an accounting firm, construction company, or restaurant – should be proud of what they contribute to their local economies and society overall.</p>
<p>Here are some major contributions of SMBs that deserve attention:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They create jobs</h2>
<p>Small businesses are the driving force of U.S. job creation. Between 1993 and 2011, they <a href="https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FAQ_Sept_2012.pdf" target="_blank">accounted for</a> 64% of new U.S. jobs created, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They innovate</h2>
<p>While large public companies hold the greatest overall share of patents, small companies with patents tend to have more, relative to their size. An <a href="https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/FAQ_Sept_2012.pdf" target="_blank">analysis of high-patenting firms</a> (those with 15 or more patents in a four-year period) found that small firms had 16 times more patents per employee, compared to their larger counterparts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They boost their local economies</h2>
<p>Locally owned businesses give a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-you-know-your-small-business-local-multiplier-jennifer-kready-mpa" target="_blank">greater financial boost</a> to their communities than national chains. Studies have found that a larger share of the money spent at locally owned businesses stays in the community. Here’s an example: If you use a small, independently owned auto repair shop to fix your car, that mechanic is more likely to spend more of your $1,000 bill in your local economy than a chain would. Moreover, that money will recirculate – generating more wealth locally over the long term.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They are diverse</h2>
<p>Small businesses increasingly reflect the diversity of our country. The share of U.S. businesses owned by Latinos grew from about 5.6% in 1996 to 14% in 2015, according to the <a href="https://www.kauffman.org/microsites/kauffman-index/profiles/entrepreneurial-demographics/national?Demographic=Race&Report=MainStreet" target="_blank">Kauffman Foundation</a>. African-American and Asian business ownership also experienced an increase in that same period. Women-owned businesses have also become a larger proportion of overall U.S. businesses, growing 114% between 1997 and 2007, compared to a national growth rate of 44% for all businesses, according to a <a href="http://about.americanexpress.com/news/docs/2017-State-of-Women-Owned-Businesses-Report.pdf" target="_blank">report by American Express OPEN</a>. Women-owned businesses and businesses owned equally by women and men now account for about 47% of all U.S. businesses.</p>
<p>It’s clear SMBs are truly the backbone of the U.S. economy. I have the pleasure of speaking with these business owners regularly, and I’m always impressed by their perseverance, optimism, and ingenuity. Let’s celebrate their contributions on Small Business Saturday – as well as every other day of the year.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">Click here</a> to learn about SAP Concur solutions for small and midsize businesses. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Executives
Why Intern Stories Should Matter to You
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-intern-stories-should-matter-you
2020-09-11T11:48:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In recent years the word storytelling has become a corporate buzzword in every type of industry Through stories individuals both stand out from the crowd and connect with our...
<p>In recent years, the word “storytelling” has become a corporate buzzword in every type of industry. Through stories, individuals both stand out from the crowd and connect with our communities. It makes perfect sense why companies prioritize their ability to tell compelling stories … but you likely already knew that.</p>
<p>Here’s what you may not know: Storytelling isn’t just about crafting the perfect narrative to connect with an audience; it’s much more complex. We have to constantly lean in and listen carefully to better understand what our audiences want and how we can best speak to them.</p>
<p>In my role as the brand manager for SAP’s Internship Experience Project, my goal is just that: To lean in and understand the needs of our candidates so we can better attract the next-generation of talent. I’ve interviewed dozens of interns across the globe to learn about their journeys in and outside of SAP.</p>
<p>No matter their country, background, or cultural upbringing, the reasons they choose SAP have an underlying theme. No, it’s not because of the perks or the benefits, or even to have the name on their resume (though to be frank, all of that helps). They chose SAP because of a certain personal connection they feel with our mission to help improve people’s lives. They want experience working on things that directly feed into this mission.</p>
<p>So, why should SAP’s intern stories matter to you? It is our responsibility to improve people’s lives not just right now, or tomorrow, but for decades to come. Our interns are the next-generation of consumers, thought leaders, and innovative visionaries. Their stories, experiences, and perspectives help us better understand what makes our business work well. With their stories, we can begin to learn where we can better improve how we run.</p>
<p>Without further ado, let’s meet three of our most recent interns and hear why they joined SAP and how each of their journeys feed into SAP’s mission to improve people’s lives. </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1541784609156-maggie-mendoza.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Meet Maggie Mendoza:</h2>
<p>The first thing you should know about Maggie is her love for community and building relationships. Maggie is a first-generation college student who graduated from Washington State University with bachelor’s in marketing in May 2018.</p>
<p>“Ever since I was young I knew education was important,” she says. “I didn’t exactly know what path I wanted to take, I think that part is difficult to go through when you’re the first person in your family that has to go through the process.” </p>
<p>Maggie first learned about SAP Concur through an SAP employee who spoke at her sorority her sophomore year. She says she instantly felt compelled to learn more about the company. The following summer, she applied to more than 10 different internship opportunities within SAP, and eventually landed an offer. Maggie returned for a second internship on a different team the summer after graduating.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/1zHVCEkSvvk?t=25" target="_blank">Watch Maggie’s story</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1541784646735-sam-schumacher.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Meet Sam Schumacher:</h2>
<p>Sam’s passion for storytelling across different multimedia platforms shines with his creative agency. He joined SAP Fieldglass as a media content developer intern to build a contextual online learning course for employees. Prior to SAP, Sam worked in journalism and interned at The Washington Post.</p>
<p>He’s a continuous learner at heart.</p>
<p>“I tacked on a human-centered design certificate because I wanted to be more involved in tech,” he says. “Now I live in the intersection of those two fields, of journalism and UX.”</p>
<p>His eye for visual content is showcased not only in his day-to-day projects, but also in our iXp program video where he filmed his own interview and b-roll.</p>
<p>Sam is currently studying journalism at Northwestern University and is excited to merge his knowledge from his projects this summer.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/1zHVCEkSvvk?t=38" target="_blank">Learn more about Sam’s story</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1541784680685-abisola-olawale.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Meet Abisola Olawale:</h2>
<p>Abi’s family moved from Nigeria to Chicago when she was eight years old.</p>
<p>“We moved because of the economic opportunities here … because Nigeria is a third-world country,” she says. “My parents thought that we would do better academically.”</p>
<p>Abi fell in love with robotics via the high school program <a href="https://www.firstinspires.org/" target="_blank">FIRST</a> and knew she wanted to pursue a computer science degree. After graduating high school, she joined Stanford University because of its perfect mix of strong technology and humanities programs, and good weather. </p>
<p>In her first year at Stanford, Abi felt like everything was falling apart. The class workload was a big learning curve, she was falling behind on her projects, and started questioning whether she should be in this space.</p>
<p>The summer after her freshman year, Abi joined SAP Concur as a spend management intern. She says that after coming to SAP, she’s rekindled her love for robotics.</p>
<p>“I think after coming to SAP and seeing the difference between industry and what computer science is like in school, it’s helped me realize that I do want to be in this space, I just have to get through the uphill battle of learning and struggling with it for a while.”</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/1zHVCEkSvvk?t=9" target="_blank">Learn more about Abi’s journey</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to get involved in our mission to build the next-generation of SAP? Visit sap.com/careers/ixp to learn more, or reach out to <a href="mailto:ixp@sap.com">ixp@sap.com</a>.</p>
<p>Follow iXp on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sapixp/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/SAPiXp" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to hear more intern stories. #MyiXpStory</p>
SAP Concur Team
Empowering SAP Concur Employees' Community Impact
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empowering-sap-concur-employees-community-impact
2021-03-01T15:34:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur Our annual global distribution kickoff event Ignite was all about impact and everyday heroes this...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>Our annual global distribution kick-off event, Ignite, was all about "impact and everyday heroes" this year. Teams were able to reflect on 2018 and get fired up for an even bigger and better 2019. During this event our SAP Concur corporate social responsibility team hosted an event meant to empower SAP Concur employees on deciding our impact with one of our established community partners.</p>
<p>We teamed up with our global community impact partner CARE. More specifically, with CARE’s Teachers Resource Labs (TRL) program that works to bring STEM education to youth in rural areas of India. SAP Concur employees had an opportunity to vote for their favorite of three ideas in need of funding with the TRL program. These ideas included purchasing computers for 1. tech labs, 2. funding STEM career-focused field trips for students and 3. training TRL teachers on STEM topics. Receiving more than 50% of the votes, SAP Concur will be making a $10,000 donation to option three: training teachers on STEM topics. This provides a learning opportunity for future generations, creating a ripple effect and inspiring thousands of students to stay involved in the STEM field continuing to create more opportunities for youth around the world.</p>
<p>During Ignite we also saw different SAP Concur teams making their own impact.</p>
<ul>
<li>The global enablement team made 400 craft kits, 75 cards and 22 tie fleece blankets for Seattle Children’s Hospital, bringing support to children battling serious illness.</li>
<li>Our Enterprise Americas group joined together to build 143 prosthetic hands for the Helping Hands project that delivers prosthetics to children and adults in need to more than 74 countries.</li>
<li>The SMN group purchased 100 chef knife sets for the FareStart program in Seattle. This program helps empower adults, training them in culinary skills to find employment within the food industry. Students receive these knife sets upon graduation, a symbolic and important donation for FareStart’s future graduates.</li>
</ul>
<p>It was truly inspiring to see the impact made at Ignite 2019, and we look forward to continuing our impact and outreach efforts in support of our purpose driven company.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Concur TripLink and HRS Integration Now Available; Travel Programs Can Access Unique HRS Corporate Hotel Rates
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-triplink-and-hrs-integration-now-available-travel-programs-can-access-unique
2020-09-21T18:51:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries even if travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel It connects trips travelers and itineraries across...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink </a>helps companies capture travel itineraries, even if travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel. It connects trips, travelers and itineraries across multiple channels, allowing companies to apply policy and ensure traveler safety by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency.</p>
<p>Today, we’re excited to announce that <strong>Concur TripLink customers can now connect their SAP Concur account with HRS’ corporate booking portal and mobile apps</strong> at an enterprise level using company-level linkage on the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5c09e1b4dba771bb00adc90f">HRS App Center Listing</a>. HRS is a leading global provider of corporate hospitality services, from sourcing and meeting services to the provision of unique, discounted rates at tens of thousands of business-grade hotels in top city centers worldwide. TripLink users will benefit from HRS exclusive rates via this access.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is introducing company-level linkage of HRS corporate accounts with SAP Concur via TripLink, allowing all bookings made on HRS mobile apps or the HRS Corporate Booking Portal to sync directly to Concur Travel, the Concur mobile app, and TripIt Pro. Bookings automatically appear in a traveler’s SAP Concur account without a need to email anything, providing immediate visibility into traveler spend and monitoring for policy rules, if applicable.</p>
<p>“As per HRS’ transparent approach to corporate hotel program management, we are committed to providing our unique hotel shopping options in whatever channel travelers and admins choose to book in,” said Jason Long, vice president of global solutions for HRS. “TripLink’s increasing traction with corporate programs dovetails with HRS’ growing client roster; these companies are driving more value for their travel programs by utilizing creative tools and services.”</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/travel-buyers-looking-to-bring-innovation-to-booking-process" target="_blank">GBTA Foundation</a> research found that travel managers continue to struggle to capture bookings made outside of corporate channels. TripLink is the first solution of its kind to extend the benefits of a managed travel program to direct supplier bookings. This allows businesses to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increase end user compliance with company travel policy</li>
<li>Fulfill duty of care requirements and ensure traveler safety</li>
<li>Maximize the use of negotiated corporate discounts</li>
<li>Gain visibility into spend, even when booked directly with suppliers</li>
<li>Have a consolidated view of all travel program data</li>
<li>Increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with TripIt Pro for all travelers</li>
</ul>
<p>To date, more than 8.5 million travelers have access to Concur Triplink, and the global TripLink network includes 28 partners representing airlines, hotels, ground transportation providers, and more. For more information about TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP is Returning to the Lesbians Who Tech Summit, Ready to Welcome a Queer Future
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-returning-lesbians-who-tech-summit-ready-welcome-queer-future
2020-09-11T11:48:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Exactly one year ago I was heading to a conference I had primarily learned about via Twitter The accounts bio read We are a global community of LGBTQ women trans and nonbinary...
<p>Exactly one year ago I was heading to a conference I had primarily learned about via Twitter. The account’s bio read: "We are a global community of 50,000 LGBTQ women, trans and non-binary folks, queer women of color, and our allies in tech."</p>
<p>Founded by Leanne Pittsford in 2012, the <a href="https://lesbianswhotech.org/sanfrancisco2019/">Lesbians Who Tech Summit</a> is the largest gathering of LGBTQ professionals in the world. Past keynotes include Edie Windsor, Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg, Angelica Ross, Kara Swisher and many more. At this tech conference, they don’t just talk the talk, they live it, too. </p>
<p>Approximately 80% of the speakers are queer women, 50% women of color, 25% black and latinx, and 15% transgender and gender non-conforming. This year’s summit agenda is no exception. This year’s keynotes include Stacy Abrams, Rumman Chowdhury, Rosanna Durruthy and London breed, to name a few. </p>
<p>Also speaking is our very own SAP Concur VP of Software Development, Michelle Grover, who’ll be talking Saturday, March 2. at 3 P.M. in the Main Stage Castro Theater. Her session is titled “From Green Books to Neighborhood Safety Scores: Innovative Ways to Find Safe Spaces."</p>
<h2><br />
The future is queer</h2>
<p>I’ll never forget the first time I looked up at the Castro Theater’s marquee that read: “The future is queer, inclusive + badass.” Walking around the Castro neighborhood, rainbow flags line the streets as they hang from light posts, and rainbow colors are painted across wide pedestrian crosswalks. There’s so much rich history in this vibrant melting pot of cultures, immigrants, artists, and gay rights advocates including renowned Castro native Harvey Milk. </p>
<p>But something stands out during this particular week when the Lesbians Who Tech Summit is in town. The streets are crowded with mostly women, all here to celebrate inclusivity, growth, perseverance, and equality in the tech industry and beyond. Their energy is electric. </p>
<p>But perhaps my favorite part of the LWT Summit is meeting students at our career fair booth. At SAP, we seek candidates who are culture adds – individuals whose diverse backgrounds and identities help us have a grander and more colorful way of thinking, creating, innovating, and leading. They are our future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Meet Bharat Sri Vardhan</h2>
<p>As he was entering the career fair pavilion during the 2018 LWT Summit’s last day, Bharat Sri Vardhan spotted the SAP booth. Bharat could have been doing anything on this particular Saturday while visiting San Francisco for job prospects from Indiana, where he was completing a master’s degree in Data Science at Indiana University Bloomington. Yet, he found himself shuffled between dozens of students waiting in line to speak with company recruiters as the sky above turned from a cool rainy breeze to small patches of open sunlight. </p>
<p>“The booth was a busy place,” he recalls. “My first thought was, ‘will I ever get to speak with anybody here?” Eventually, Bharat made it through the line and that’s where I met him and listened to him as he unfolded his background information to me, a complete stranger. </p>
<p>At our SAP recruiting booth, my team and I spend hours talking to students and interested candidates about our company culture and career opportunities. For recruiters with specific job recs to fill, they have a pretty good sense of who they’ll want to connect with post the career fair. </p>
<p>It’s an exhausting day, and we don’t always have the right answers. But we continue to do what we love most: Share our personal stories and love for what brings us to our own work desks every morning – a large portion of that is working for a company that embraces our differences and celebrates diversity. </p>
<p>Bharat shared that he was born and raised in India, and worked in IT a few years before moving to the states for his master’s program. “SAP is a global company, which is one of the reasons I was drawn to SAP,” he says. </p>
<p>Bharat joined our SAP Internship Experience Project summer 2018 cohort as a data science intern on SAP Concur’s travel products, Hipmunk and TripIt out of San Francisco. “My summer project was equal parts interesting and fun,” he says. “I worked on a machine learning project and in the process I learned a lot.”</p>
<p>He adds: “After meeting all of the other interns, it was clear to me that I was working at one of the most diverse and fun places in the city and country,” </p>
<p>Bharat recommends that students attending the career fair come prepared with an elevator pitch. Hey, it got him the job!</p>
<p>One year later, Bharat currently works full-time as a data scientist for the same team he interned for. “My favorite [thing about] being part of SAP is the people. [When] working with people who are supportive and helpful, work is more fun than work,” Bharat says. </p>
<p>If you'll be at the Lesbians Who Tech Summit, <strong>come say hello at the Edith Windsor Pavilion Thursday, for our tech crawl demos, and Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2 for our career booth. </strong>Interested in a job at SAP? Join our <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers.html">talent community</a>.</p>
<p><br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
It’s Hard to be Transparent When Government Organizations are Stumbling Through Blind Spots
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-hard-be-transparent-when-government-organizations-are-stumbling-through-blind
2019-06-26T20:39:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its a catch Government organizations face intense pressure to be accountable but all too often lack the technology and resources to facilitate such transparency Hardearned reputations...
<p data-id="f8a9404d-b88e-4971-bb88-ae87d794c512">It’s a catch 22: Government organizations face intense pressure to be accountable, but all too often lack the technology and resources to facilitate such transparency. Hard-earned reputations and credibility can be damaged when cumbersome manual processes and outdated technology lead to errors.</p>
<p data-id="68721cbf-b333-4a6e-a802-0748fd7721f3">Spending is now often decentralized and employees are given more spending power, increasing the risk of manual mistakes, errors and fraud. A<strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">recent survey by Kelton Global</a> of 162 financial decision makers working in state, city and local government</strong> found that 1-in-3 respondents spot frequent errors in expense reports and invoice processing. According to 3-in-10, the problem has worsened over the last 12 months, heightening the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse in their organization.</p>
<p data-id="b21ff7de-9825-49ee-b1e1-1d718601db1d">“Seventy-three percent of decision makers admit regularly maintaining compliance within their organization is a struggle.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Here are three highlights that may be interesting to you too if you’re considering implementing SAP Concur (or any cloud-based technology at that!).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 data-id="285120f4-6af1-4267-a70d-bd402db74772">Why is compliance so difficult? </h2>
<p data-id="6acdad60-1f13-401f-b80f-9614510df4ba">Even though 90% of financial decision makers in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local government</a> believe their organization makes good faith efforts to remain compliant, these efforts can invariably be hindered by antiquated systems and manual processes.</p>
<p data-id="2ba04254-626e-4d14-b7cd-9be269152e64">And it’s not just a question of errors. Organizations using legacy technology are less productive. It can take a whopping five additional hours to process each expense report and two extra hours for invoices, for example. That’s thousands of hours of unnecessary admin that could instead be used to further the organization’s mission and gain public trust.</p>
<p data-id="2ba04254-626e-4d14-b7cd-9be269152e64"> </p>
<h2 data-id="562fadae-64e6-48e6-b17d-22ff2f9bf434">So what’s the solution? </h2>
<p data-id="f3d28a3a-e16c-498d-8813-0367d23ff042">You can’t expect to reach a gold standard of compliance and efficiency if you’re using an abacus in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Switching to automated and integrated financial systems for expense, travel, and invoice processes has immediate benefits, with 95% of decision makers in government organizations noting a positive impact. One-in-three credit fully automated expense report and invoice processing systems for a decline in fraud, waste, and abuse in their workplace, and average time savings of more than 3,000 hours per month.</p>
<p data-id="f3d28a3a-e16c-498d-8813-0367d23ff042"> </p>
<h2 data-id="8e6440a0-fc52-4a8c-9616-9af93ad536a9">Eliminate blind spots in the budget </h2>
<p data-id="6a69c57d-fc7a-4ad9-a959-8e84856a0338">With SAP Concur solutions you can simplify back-end processes and remove waste along the way. By automating and integrating expense, travel, and invoice processes, you can eliminate costly mistakes, audit expenses efficiently with AI and put payment controls in place to improve compliance. And with a single source of centralized data, you get the visibility and tools to proactively reduce fraud and misuse of funds, manage tax and regulatory requirements, and ensure every dollar is directed to the right programs and services. Fully automated financial solutions result in a 38% reduction in fraud, waste and abuse, and a 40% increase in efficiency in managing the budget. Your organization can use those hours previously wasted shuffling paper to further your mission.</p>
<p data-id="6a69c57d-fc7a-4ad9-a959-8e84856a0338">In a nutshell, when you can see clearly, it’s a lot easier to be transparent, protect your organization’s reputation, and ensure that every public dollar is put to good use. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">Read our eBook</a> to learn more about how automating spend management helps states, cities, and counties</strong> increase compliance and reduce risk, reduce fraud and misuse of funds, manage tax and regulatory requirements, and ensure every dollar is directed to the right programs and services.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Digitize Receipts with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/digitize-receipts-sap-concur
2019-10-01T10:06:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Saving paper receipts can be inconvenient and time consuming for administrators processors and users especially those with hectic travel schedules Not to mention most organizations...
<p>Saving paper receipts can be inconvenient and time consuming for administrators, processors, and users -- especially those with hectic travel schedules. Not to mention, most organizations favor a paperless option when selecting the right travel and expense solution for their employees.</p>
<p>However, simply snapping a photo of the receipt with your smartphone, may not be enough. </p>
<p>Strict legal and tax requirements may apply to the digital images once they are created. Many countries, like France, have enacted laws to ensure the integrity and authenticity of receipt images, while others, like Spain, require official certification by specific governmental authorities. </p>
<p>This process is known as receipt digitalization. By automating this process, SAP Concur makes it easy to capture receipt images, ensuring they conform to local requirements and governmental regulations.</p>
<p>For administrators and processors, implementation saves time and money with just a few clicks, and for users, the process is simple and seamless. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">Take a picture of the paper receipt with ExpenseIt</a> in the SAP Concur mobile app and back-end processes ensure the image is digitized and properly managed according to local legal standards. Once the process is complete, a blue “certified” icon will appear over the picture.</p>
<p>As the receipt capture has created the expense, it is automatically added to the expense report workstream like any other expense, maintaining the seamless experience customers have come to expect using the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>To see Concur Expense in action, take a look at our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a> today. <br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Business Leaders Drive Growth Through Intelligent Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-business-leaders-drive-growth-through-intelligent-spend-management
2020-03-05T08:52:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When small and midsize companies are not expanding internationally growth for many firms comes through organic revenue increases adding new locations and headcount and mergers and...
<p data-id="72655579-b323-405f-83b6-7c61f725872e">When small and midsize companies are not expanding internationally, growth for many firms comes through organic revenue increases, adding new locations and headcount, and mergers and acquisitions. These complex endeavors require close internal collaboration, with CEOs and business owners looking to their finance and IT leaders to take greater responsibility for how their company grows and scales. This trio of company leaders must work synergistically to achieve growth. No one – and no department – is an island anymore.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_Brainstorm1_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Partners in Intelligent Growth</h2>
<p>How finance and technology leaders can take the lead in growing their business</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/finance-technology-leaders-take-lead-business-growth">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="f8abf6ec-b5da-4a92-894d-65f43fae513a"> </p>
<p data-id="f8abf6ec-b5da-4a92-894d-65f43fae513a">In many cases, finance will need to take an even bigger role to help the business hits its growth targets. In a recent <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/fuelling-business-growth-how-uk-finance-leaders-can-drive-strategy-and-avoid-risk" target="_blank">Vanson Bourne study</a> sponsored by SAP, 96% of finance leaders felt their team will become more important in driving growth strategy. Organizations need finance leaders to bring real-time, data-enabled decision support and guidance, coaching fellow leaders and the organization overall through planning and managing growth.</p>
<p data-id="f8abf6ec-b5da-4a92-894d-65f43fae513a"> </p>
<p data-id="c8b28804-4262-4e59-807b-ae1dc4eab442">But to do this effectively, finance leaders must look to their IT leaders who can break down data silos, facilitate collaboration, and improve access to finance and other data, even as the business grows. They also play a lead role in addressing inefficient, manual processes and systems that can prevent the business from keeping up with increased demand. Across the board, company leaders are recognizing the need for finance and IT to work closer together in providing both data and analytics. IT has the technical know-how to bring data together, while finance has the insight to make sense of it all. The result of this collaborative effort is a business that can operate more intelligently and effectively, facilitate work processes for employees, reduce risk, and drive better data-based decision-making.</p>
<p data-id="c8b28804-4262-4e59-807b-ae1dc4eab442"> </p>
<p data-id="dbb1cdac-248c-4803-9581-97a28f7539bc">Nowhere is this more apparent than when IT and finance join forces to optimize discretionary spend management – specifically, travel, expense, and invoices – by deploying an integrated spend management solution that intelligently automates manual tasks. The right solution can free up finance staff to focus on growth-related initiatives and centrally manage and control discretionary spending so there’s always cash flow for growth priorities.</p>
<p data-id="dbb1cdac-248c-4803-9581-97a28f7539bc"> </p>
<p data-id="f401d7c9-56f2-4458-adbf-a3cdb020227b">An <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">AMI-Partners study</a> notes that 64% of businesses consider the reduction of operating expenses a strategically important goal, with more than half of firms citing technology as the key to reducing costs. That means both finance and IT will share responsibility for managing costs and driving innovation. Taking on these challenges requires total control of spending as well as a broader, comprehensive way to orchestrate spending and policy across categories.</p>
<p data-id="f401d7c9-56f2-4458-adbf-a3cdb020227b"> </p>
<p data-id="4560d9fb-2c62-428f-b40c-5810e6e9ac71">To learn more, download the latest paper from SAP Concur solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/finance-technology-leaders-take-lead-business-growth" target="_blank">Partners in Intelligent Growth: How your finance and technology leaders can take the lead in growing your business.</a></p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Lyft Integrates with SAP Concur to Offer an Improved Business Travel Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lyft-integrates-sap-concur-offer-improved-business-travel-experience
2019-09-24T15:39:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With rideshare more prevalent than ever its no surprise that percent of corporate travel policies allow employees to use rideshare services In fact the GBTA Business Traveler...
<p>With rideshare more prevalent than ever, it’s no surprise that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=83120" target="_blank">50 percent of corporate travel policies allow employees to use rideshare services</a>. In fact, <a href="https://business.americanexpress.com/us/~/media/files/gcp/us2/content-hub_business-trends-and-insights/business-traveler/amex_gbta_business_traveler_sentiment_index_global_report_january_2017_in_partnership_with_american_express.pdf" target="_blank">the 2017 GBTA Business Traveler Sentiment Index</a> shows that ridership increased by 21 percent over the previous year. And according to <a href="https://www.lyftimpact.com/stats/national" target="_blank">Lyft’s 2019 Economic Impact Report</a>, ridesharing plays a significant role in daily life – from 29% of riders using Lyft to access healthcare services to 43% taking Lyft to the airport.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>SAP Concur and GBTA Survey: The Evolution of Corporate Travel Content</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Now a new integration between Lyft and SAP Concur will make expensing those rides even easier.</p>
<p>Available in the SAP Concur App Center, Lyft Business integrates with Concur Expense to help travel managers reduce ground transportation costs while improving traveler satisfaction. The enterprise solution automates the expense reporting process, and enables riders to earn rewards with Lyft’s airline and hospitality partners. Lyft Business also promotes compliance as travel managers can upload their expense codes in advance so travelers can easily select relevant codes before taking a ride.</p>
<p>“We’re excited to be able to integrate our SAP Concur solution with Lyft Business,” says Raphael Testud, Divisional Procurement Director at Boral North America, an architectural solution company. “It provides us with greater visibility into our business rides company-wide, and our employees benefit from easier expensing and earning rewards as they travel.”</p>
<p>Working with early access clients such as Boral, Lyft has already enabled the Lyft Business and SAP Concur integration to over 20,000 end-users throughout the U.S. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The benefits of using Lyft Business</h2>
<p>Currently only available in the U.S., the Lyft Business and SAP Concur integration includes these key features:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automated employee roster sync: </strong>Daily automated syncing between Lyft Business and your SAP Concur account enables employees to be automatically added to your ground transportation program when they join your organization and offboarded if they leave.</li>
<li><strong>Increased visibility</strong>: Ensure duty of care while creating a consistent experience for all employees. In addition, you get insights through Lyft Business partners to help you understand traveler trends.</li>
<li><strong>Decrease employee travel spend: </strong>Shifting spend to Lyft Business rides can result in 30% percent savings company-wide.</li>
<li><strong>Rewards for employees: </strong>Travelers earn $5 in personal ride credit every time they take 5 business rides. They can also earn miles and points with top airline and hotel partners on every ride.</li>
<li><strong>Participate in Lyft’s carbon neutrality: </strong>By purchasing over 2M metric tons of carbon offsets, Lyft has effectively eliminated the amount of carbon that it would take 2.4 million acres of trees to remove.</li>
</ul>
<p>Ready to upgrade your travel program? <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5a7cbd2fe641c7120085eeca" target="_blank">Enable the Lyft Business integration</a> inside the SAP Concur App Center.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Month of Service 2019: A Time to Give Back
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/month-service-2019-time-give-back
2019-11-12T17:45:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Every October SAP employees celebrate Month of Service by uniting globally to help the world run better and improve peoples lives Month of Service is a time for employees to step away...
<p>Every October, SAP employees celebrate Month of Service by uniting globally to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. Month of Service is a time for employees to step away from their desks, roll up their sleeves, and get involved in volunteering within our local communities. SAP Concur joined in the celebrations of this year’s monumental 15th anniversary of SAP’s Month of Service, with employees participating in over 50 different volunteering opportunities hosted globally for SAP Concur. Let’s walk through a couple of volunteering stories SAP employees participated in that illustrate lasting impacts of change, through Month of Service and beyond.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Thinking global, acting local</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573578994477-rise-against-hunger.jpg" /></p>
<p><a href="https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/" target="_blank">Rise Against Hunger</a> is one of our largest hands-on volunteering opportunities, located at SAP Concur HQ in Bellevue, Washington. This year, we kept the tradition alive and celebrated our 4th annual Rise Against Hunger event, with more than 175 volunteers working together to package 40,000 meal bags for those experiencing hunger around the world. Volunteers gathered in groups around packaging stations and created assembly lines to measure the right amount of rice, soy, and vegetables for each pack. The nonprofit Rise Against Hunger then sends out these packages to the countries that have the greatest need, with West Coast packages largely sent to Southeast Asia. Many employees participate in Rise Against Hunger every year with their team, as it is a great opportunity for team building and giving back together.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573579219825-crawley-open-house.jpg" /></p>
<p>Providing food for communities in need isn’t just an opportunity for Bellevue employees. In the UK, our Crawley office employees worked at <a href="https://www.crawleyopenhouse.co.uk/" target="_blank">Crawley Open House</a>, an organization that supports those experiencing homelessness. Serving as a hostel, Crawley Open House provides food parcels for people experiencing food insecurity and meals at their day center. Employees helped sort food donations that were piling in, just in time for the organization’s new warehouse opening and the holiday season. Continuing their lasting impact, employees are having a food drive in the Crawley office, and plan to bring back all their collected items back in December to volunteer again. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Giving back with talents and skills</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573579419739-prague-beamentor.png" /></p>
<p>In addition to hands-on volunteering, SAP employees give back through skills-based volunteering. Skills based volunteering is so important, as it tackles systemic change to make a lasting impact. Out of the Prague office, employees offered their mentoring skills to students with the organization <a href="https://jaczech.org/" target="_blank">Junior Achievement Czech Republic</a>, an international nonprofit that encourages early exposure of young people to business techniques through curriculum and after school programs. SAP Concur volunteers took time to provide business expertise and know-how through the BEAMentor Conference to 12 different classrooms of students looking to get involved in the business world. Our employees will be continuing to mentor the students on a bi-weekly basis until April 2020.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573579286651-local-sosa.jpg" /></p>
<p>Local Social Sabbatical is another example of skills-based volunteering that was hosted in Bellevue, Washington for our second year in a row. Twelve SAP Concur employees volunteered two weeks out of their day jobs to contribute their unique business acumen at nonprofits in the Greater Seattle Area.Nonprofits that collaborated with our SAP and SAP Concur employees include <a href="https://pikeplacemarketfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Pike Place Market Foundation</a>, <a href="https://imaginewa.org/" target="_blank">Imagine Institute</a>, <a href="http://www.girlsincpnw.org/" target="_blank">Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest</a>, and <a href="https://www.summersearch.org/" target="_blank">Summer Search</a>. Together, the teams scoped out business problems and assistance the nonprofits needed for projected success, and the cross-functional teams hit the ground running with creating solutions that will have long-term impact. Local Social Sabbatical focuses on skills-based volunteering that create ripple effects beyond Month of Service, and we’re grateful to our employees for representing us well outside the office walls and into our local communities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Our year-round impact</h2>
<p>Year-round volunteering could not be done without our incredible Volunteer Ambassadors, leaders within the company who guide their colleagues to volunteering in the community. Volunteer Ambassador Monika Jaburkova from the Prague office talked about the impact of Month of Service saying, “I think it’s important for employees to be able to engage in different activities besides their daily tasks. It helps to increase the sense of purpose in what we are doing and is a great opportunity to get to know your colleagues outside of work while doing something good for others.”</p>
<p>Wrapping up this tremendous Month of Service 2019, SAP Concur couldn’t have done it without our passionate employees giving of their time and talents to make it a success. However, volunteering in our communities extends outside the realm of SAP Concur and Month of Service. With the holidays approaching quickly and the need in organizations year-round for volunteers, how will you get involved today to make that impact for tomorrow?</p>
Julia Donovan
Get a Single View of Spend by Working with Procurement, Supply Chain, and IT
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/get-single-view-spend-working-procurement-supply-chain-and-it
2020-09-21T20:34:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sure you work in finance and because youre in charge of spending you also find yourself in charge of traveler safety And employee productivity And brand reputation in Hong Kong This...
<p>Sure, you work in finance, and because you’re in charge of spending, you also find yourself in charge of traveler safety. And employee productivity. And brand reputation in Hong Kong. This may not be the financial management path you started out on, but since spending is so diverse and so deeply embedded in every function of your organization, you have to wear a variety of hats just to get handle on what’s going out the door.</p>
<p>Or, as a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/three-things-four-departments-can-do-to-get-one-view-of-spend" target="_blank">recent SAP Concur e-Book</a> points out, you don’t have to stay stuck in your silo — you can connect with the departments in which the spend is happening.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Intelligent Spend Management e-Book</h2>
<p>Download the book to learn best practices on collaboration and control of all spend. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/three-things-four-departments-can-do-to-get-one-view-of-spend">Get e-Book</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Every spending source. Every spending category. All at once. </strong></p>
<p>Whether it’s direct or indirect spending, services, external workforce, or travel and expense, your organization’s spending is spread out over a variety of unique categories and countless suppliers — yet it’s all connected.</p>
<p>And when you connect spending across and within these categories, you can get a single, unified view of it all.</p>
<p>To do so, you have to break down the traditional barriers between finance and procurement, between supply chain and IT, between the teams responsible for different pieces of the spending puzzle. To do that, you need something called Intelligent Spend Management.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s so intelligent about it?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/three-things-four-departments-can-do-to-get-one-view-of-spend" target="_blank">The e-Book outlines Intelligent Spend Management</a> in detail, highlighting how it brings your company together as it brings your spend together. And with this clear view of spending, you can direct funds toward top priorities, you can stay ahead of regulatory and tax requirements wherever your business operates, and you simply get a tighter hold on spend.</p>
<p>All while helping IT, procurement, and supply chain meet their objectives, as well. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Three ways to get there</h2>
<p>It’s all about collaboration between teams and control of each category, and the e-Book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/three-things-four-departments-can-do-to-get-one-view-of-spend" target="_blank">3 Things 4 Departments Can Do to Get 1 View of Spend</a> gives you a roadmap of what it takes to make it happen. Here’s the bird’s-eye view:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Create an engaging user experience:</strong> It’s simple: make purchasing experiences simple and desirable for employees. Let them book trips on the apps they love, for example, or give them one place to go to buy everything they need for work — and you’ll capture every bit of the data you need to see and manage the spend.</p>
<p><strong>2. Establish a direct, electronic connection with a network of suppliers:</strong> The stronger your relationship with suppliers, the better you can see and control spending. You need to be able to closely collaborate with suppliers and share data within each category in a way that fits each category.</p>
<p><strong>3. Connect to innovative third-party solutions:</strong> Every business and industry has its own set of unique needs. Connect to specialty, third-party solutions to help keep you on top of industry-specific regulations, that help you manage tax requirements all over the world, and that can address the nuances of specific spend categories.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It might feel like finance has to hold the reins on everything spend-related, but there are four departments on this team, not one. Work together, and you get one view of spend.</p>
<p><strong>Get more detail. Get more control. </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/three-things-four-departments-can-do-to-get-one-view-of-spend" target="_blank"><strong>Check out the e-Book now</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
The Financial Perspective Podcast: Hear Stories of Innovation and Common Challenges Faced by SAP Concur Clients
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/financial-perspective-podcast-hear-stories-innovation-and-common-challenges-faced-sap
2021-02-11T15:55:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Have you ever wondered what leaders in the accounting and operations industries are doing in their roles to make their companies hugely successful Working as SAP Concur solutions...
<p>Have you ever wondered what leaders in the accounting and operations industries are doing in their roles to make their companies hugely successful?</p>
<p>Working as SAP Concur solutions consultants – Jen Linden, Susan Isaacson, and Erin McDermott have the unique opportunity to speak to these influencers on a daily basis discussing the challenges, successes, and tips they’ve learned in the industry. Rather than keep this wisdom a secret, the trio decided to take these lessons learned to the web and thus, The Financial Perspective was born.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1584629261263-282054_microphone2_r_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Financial Perspective Podcast</h2>
<p>Listen to the first episode to get to know the team as they discuss challenges, suceesses, and tips they've learned in the industry. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.thefinancialperspectivepodcast.com/episodes/episode-0-get-to-know-the-crew">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Whether you work in accounting, operations, or run a travel and expense (T&E) management program, please join the crew as they welcome their impressive guests to share stories, have a laugh, and discuss the tips and strategies needed to succeed in this new age of technology.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thefinancialperspectivepodcast.com/episodes/episode-0-get-to-know-the-crew" target="_blank">Listen to the first episode</a> of The Financial Perspective to get to know the team and don’t forget to subscribe for access to new episodes releasing monthly.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The “New Normal” of Business Travel: What to Expect and How to Get Ready
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-normal-business-travel-what-expect-and-how-get-ready
2020-06-27T12:08:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For the past few months most companies have focused their energy on how to adapt to a remote work environment and still keep the business moving forward But what happens when...
<p>For the past few months, most companies have focused their energy on how to adapt to a remote work environment and still keep the business moving forward.</p>
<p>But, what happens when shelter-in-place restrictions are eased and people head back to the office which, for road warriors, means taking to the sky? How will business travel change? How will airlines adjust? And how can travel managers prepare for what’s to come?</p>
<p>Although no one has a crystal ball, or all of the answers, here’s what our experts are predicting:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Higher prices and fewer options</h2>
<p>“In the short term, you’re going to see leaner staffing from airlines and hotels as they try to conserve cash and identify exactly when their travelers are coming back. They’ve already cut capacity—parking planes and accelerating the retirement of aircraft,” explained Charlie Sultan, SVP of Global Content and Supplier Strategy for SAP Concur. “So, even when travel opens up, you’ll see a lot of the non-stop flights going away, which means business travelers will spend more time at the airport, waiting for connecting flights—particularly if they’re going to smaller markets.”</p>
<p>To adhere to social distancing guidelines, these flights will likely have fewer passengers, leaving the middle seat open. This not only means that seat availability will be limited, but is likely to increase the price of airfare.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1587752001439-checklist.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Things to Think About Now to Stabilize T&E Programs</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/5-things-to-think-about-now-to-stabilize-your-travel-and-expense-programs">Get the checklist</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Decreased international travel</h2>
<p>Even when domestic air travel begins to rise, Sultan expects international travel for business to become more of a rarity.</p>
<p>Not only is it expensive, but now companies must consider the medical capacities of the country, the incidence of COVID-19, as well as the fact that the traveler could be quarantined after returning home. Organizations must weigh whether the trip is worth the risk of potentially sidelining a key employee for 14 days.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increased car travel and car rentals</h2>
<p>While air travel decreases, at least for the short term, car travel and car rentals are likely to increase.</p>
<p>“If the destination is drivable, I think people will start doing that, both because flight capacity is down and they don’t want to be in crowded environments,” Sultan said. </p>
<p>Sultan also expects a large swath of business travelers who were using ridesharing services before the pandemic will go back to renting a car. </p>
<p>“If I rent my own car, I have control over its cleanliness, and I also know that I’m the only one who’s been in that car for those 24 or 48 hours, as opposed to getting into a lot of different vehicles through the course of a trip,” he said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increased focus on duty of care</h2>
<p>For every travel manager and every company, the pandemic has underscored the need for traveler visibility and Duty of Care.</p>
<p>“As things open up, I believe companies will be hyper-focused on the safety of their travelers, and making sure they have a means of knowing exactly where their employees are, whether they booked through an agency, a tool or decided to book on their own,” Sultan said.</p>
<p>Organizations will seek out a solution to give them this world view of traveler location, and a way to communicate with them, if they don’t have a mechanism in place already. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What should travel managers be doing right now?</h2>
<p>While we’re in this “wait and see” period, travel managers should take steps to prepare for the inevitable changes ahead.</p>
<p><strong>1 Secure Travel Refunds</strong>: If you haven’t done so already, start looking at any tickets or travel that’s booked for the two or three months ahead. Find out which trips are now cancelled, so you can secure refunds or credits. Put a tracking mechanism in place for those trips that are still under consideration, in case the trip or the flight is cancelled.</p>
<p><strong>2. Review your Existing Travel Policies</strong>: Look at what you have in place to identify if you need any alterations regarding overall travel approvals, international approvals, and any booking that occurs outside of the system. Determine if there needs to be a policy addendum for an interim period, restricting travel to certain locations or adding extra steps or layers of approval to ensure that the travel is necessary, as well as the risk level of the location.</p>
<p>Check out our free <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">Travel Policy Template</a> for helpful tips on creating or updating your plan.</p>
<p><strong>3. Update Travel Profiles: </strong>Make sure you have complete travel profiles and current contact information for all of your travelers, and a plan for contacting them in case they travel to a location that has a sudden outbreak, or other unsafe condition.</p>
<p><strong>4. Revisit Your Supplier Agreements</strong>: Review the volume-based discounts you have negotiated with your air travel partners and hotels and identify what needs to be renegotiated. If an airline eliminates frequently traveled routes, or a hotel near your headquarters has shut down, find out how they plan to accommodate for that.</p>
<p>If those primary vendors have permanently eliminated those routes or locations, then it’s time to start looking for alternate suppliers and begin those negotiations.</p>
<p><strong>5. Streamline Your Processes</strong>: “As companies slash budgets, it becomes more important than ever to assess your operational efficiency, and seek out ways to take as many steps out of the travel process as possible,” Sultan said. “How can you automate manual processes or more efficiently audit expenses and compliance? How can you increase staff productivity and get more visibility into spend?”</p>
<p>In times where budgets and staff are lean, finding a way to streamline your operation is more critical than ever.</p>
<p>Assess your entire end-to-end process to look for areas for improvement. Then, start looking at solutions that can streamline those trouble spots. Assess the ROI and, if possible, start making incremental changes before travel volume picks up again.</p>
<p>Although no one knows exactly what will happen next, by using this time to reassess your policies, procedures, agreements, and most importantly, your plan for keeping your travelers safe, your organization will be ready for whatever the new normal of travel looks like in a post-COVID-19 world.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on SAP Concur, and our automated, mobile travel, expense and invoice management solutions, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur.com</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Read more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/links-to-covid-19-business-assistance-programs-in-every-state">Links to COVID-19 Business Assistance Programs in Every State</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-companies-can-prepare-for-the-future-of-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/keeping-employees-connected-motivated-supported-work-from-home">Keeping Employees Connected, Motivated and Supported In a Work-From-Home World</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Eliminate Paper and Simplify the Invoice Payment Process for Higher Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/eliminate-paper-and-simplify-invoice-payment-process-higher-education
2020-06-24T19:33:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more for colleges and universities And automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work stabilize...
<p>Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more for colleges and universities. And, automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work, stabilize operations, and provide visibility into your spend during times of uncertainty.</p>
<p>Imagine a touchless process — implemented and deployed quickly — that forecasts your spending and adapts your policies to your institution using SAP Leonardo machine learning, plus human validation, and a secure cloud that keeps your information protected while providing ease of retrieval so you can update audit thresholds with a simple touch of a button.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>AP Automation Buyer's Guide</h2>
<p>What to know about selecting the right invoice payment tool for your organization.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-a-public-sector-buyers-guide">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This enables <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">higher education institutions</a> to have complete visibility into spend and the ability to shift your focus to redirecting budget where it is most needed. Now your team can capture vendor invoices remotely, and process and distribute your summaries with ease, whether you're in the office or on the go. Managers can use the Concur Mobile app to review and approve invoices, while your AP team gets near real-time visibility to avoid surprises.</p>
<p>Leave the audit trail to us: We've got you covered with the right documentation for any audits that may come your way.</p>
<p>Our simple-to-use, advanced technology connects you to the reports you need, anytime and anywhere. With one click, edit thresholds and choose payment vendor options. We create a backup of your manual processes providing staff and faculty instant access to our secure cloud.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-invoice-solution">Concur Invoice</a> is here to help your institution strengthen cost controls and cut out the paperwork so you can stay in sync on spend across the board.</p>
<p><strong>Ready to stabilize your operation and budgets with Concur Invoice? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us</a> today to get started.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Happens Next With Travel? And What Happens After That?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-happens-next-travel-and-what-happens-after
2020-08-07T10:26:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
They always said that change is constant and no matter who they are they sure werent kidding Its almost too constant these days companies are adjusting or trying to adjust to changing...
<p>They always said that change is constant and, no matter who “they” are, they sure weren’t kidding. It’s almost too constant these days; companies are adjusting (or trying to adjust) to changing requirements and regulations, then changing again when new rules get written. And when it comes to business travel, it seems that literally everything is up in the air – except, of course, for travelers.</p>
<p>So how do you prepare for the day you send people <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travel-new-normal-what-to-expect-how-to-get-ready">back out on the road again</a> – how do you even anticipate the changes they’ll face?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Global Travel Manager Report 2020</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2020">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Wakefield Research has a few ideas outlined in its <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2020">latest whitepaper</a>, based on a survey of 800 traveler managers across eight markets. And while some changes, like wearing facemasks, are relatively simple, others require significant adjustment to how you, as a travel manager, will get things done. Here’s the long and short of it:</p>
<p><strong>Near-term changes travel managers can expect: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Mandatory personal health screenings.</li>
<li>Mandatory travel-safety trainings.</li>
<li>Pre-trip approval for business travel.</li>
<li>Options to avoid travel, such as teleconferencing.</li>
<li>Restricting travel to at-risk regions.</li>
<li>Limiting travel to business-essential only.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Long-term changes on the horizon: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Greater ability to rebook or change plans quickly.</li>
<li>Tighter monitoring of individual itineraries.</li>
<li>Real-time updates on potential travel risks.</li>
<li>New duty of care policies.</li>
<li>Easier access to PPE, like gloves or masks.</li>
</ul>
<p>The short story here is that travel managers and the companies they work for need to have systems in place to adapt to these it-changed-yesterday-it’s-going-to-change-again-tomorrow demands. How travel managers operated before isn’t going to do it anymore. The status quo is literally out the door, as Wakefield points out clearly: 96% of companies weren’t fully prepared to manage travel in the wake of COVID. </p>
<p>What doesn’t change is your commitment to doing your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-duty-of-care">duty of care</a>. You might just need different tools – and they’re out there. Solutions available today will allow your company and your travelers to adjust to both long- and short-term travel changes. They’ll give you the flexibility to meet both the safety concerns of your employees and the financial concerns of your employer. They’ll show you how to connect, communicate with, and if necessary, extract travelers from an emergency – and at the same time show your finance team every digit of travel spend.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2020">Wakefield highlights such solutions</a> at the end of its report, giving you a way to handle the ins and outs of daily travel management and to be resilient in the face of whatever crisis comes next.</p>
Neha Mehta
You’re Ready for Recovery, But How Are You Going to Get There?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/youre-ready-recovery-how-are-you-going-get-there
2020-09-16T08:59:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We all want things to get back to normal Or the new normal Or anywhere that allows us to focus on business again and forget that life isnt always about chaos But to find this road to...
<p>We all want things to get back to normal. Or the “new normal.” Or anywhere that allows us to focus on business again and forget that life isn’t always about chaos.</p>
<p>But to find this road to recovery, you need to know where you are. That requires having an accurate picture of things like spending and budgets and invoices and all those other indicators of how your coffers are doing. Maybe you’ve got a good idea of these financial fundamentals already; maybe it could be better.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src=" http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Global Executives Look to Digital Transformation to Support COVID-19 Recovery</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/global-executives-look-to-digital-transformation-to-support-covid-19-recovery">See the study</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Either way, if the data you’re relying on isn’t instant or accurate – in other words, digital – it isn’t going to help you much. And that begs the question:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How agile is your information?</h2>
<p>When asked in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/global-executives-look-to-digital-transformation-to-support-covid-19-recovery" target="_blank">recent study</a>, 93% of global finance, IT, operations, and other key strategy leaders agreed: Maintaining organizational agility is the only way to navigate uncertainty.</p>
<p>You have to be able to roll with the punches, so to speak. And if you don’t have near real-time information about your spend showing you where you stand when those punches come, well, you’re not going to be standing for long.</p>
<p>So where do you start? How do you begin to capture the data that gives you a solid foundation and flexible footing? What do you need to close the information gaps that increase your costs and reduce compliance?</p>
<p>90% of those same global executives say that a scalable, automated T&E management solution is key to controlling policy and protocol across the business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ones, zeros, and other numbers.</h2>
<p>Travel and expense management isn’t merely about moving people from here to there to drum up business, it’s about efficiently moving data from here to there to manage business, so you can effectively drum up more. It’s about the numbers, because when you have an accurate picture of your spending – the expense transactions, the invoices, the travel bookings – you also have an accurate picture of your budget.</p>
<p>And no matter how brilliant your finance team may be, they can’t make smart decisions (let alone quick decisions) if they don’t know how much money the company has or will have in the next month.</p>
<p>Again, these numbers need to be accessible and, if possible, immediate. And again, that means going digital.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’ve probably already begun your digital transformation. But you’re not done yet.</h2>
<p>The road to recovery, whether in a post-pandemic world or any world, requires automated, accurate, and instant access to information. The executives in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/global-executives-look-to-digital-transformation-to-support-covid-19-recovery" target="_blank">this study</a> agree on that point, but the troubling statistic is that less than half of them feel “very prepared” to improve data analytics or increase automation.</p>
<p>So if you’re not completely digital yet, you’re not alone.</p>
<p>Travel, expense, and invoice management solutions are, however, a relatively simple way to gain control of a complex process. Using intelligent tech and analytics to automate (or further automate) what you’re currently doing, they bring more accuracy and control to your spending and, therefore, more savings to your bottom line.</p>
<p>And that can bring considerably more calm to the recovery process.</p>
<div> </div>
SAP Concur Team
Bringing National Disability Employment Awareness Month Home
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bringing-national-disability-employment-awareness-month-home
2020-10-12T17:19:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Along with fall foliage October brings us Diversity Awareness Month and National Disability Employment Awareness Month NDEAM in the United States If youre a history buff Disability...
<p>Along with fall foliage, October brings us Diversity Awareness Month and National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) in the United States. If you’re a history buff, Disability Employment Awareness Month started in 1945 when the United States Congress declared the first week in October of each year as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. The word “physically” was removed in 1962 to acknowledge the contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities, including those who are neurodiverse. In 1988, Congress changed the week-long celebration to a month, and renamed it <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/disability-awareness.php" target="_blank">National Disability Employment Awareness Month</a>. At SAP we recognize this special time to celebrate differences and all abilities for employees globally. By encouraging employees to practice allyship and engage with the many opportunities to learn more about NDEAM, we create a culture of support and accountability.</p>
<p>Even if you do not identify with a specific community, anyone can show up and practice allyship, learn something new, and empower one another in our uniqueness that make us who we are at SAP. For me, practicing allyship means using my voice and privilege to stand with and up for those who are within an underrepresented community within our society. I may not identify with that community, but I can help build a more just world for all of us in the liberation of inequitable systems that hold communities back. </p>
<p>One community that is extra close to my heart is the Autism community. My younger brother George is on the Autism spectrum and I have grown up learning how his brain works differently. Witnessing his everyday challenges, but also the immense joy and funny quirks he brings to life, has empowered me to celebrate neurodiversity and encourage others to show up to be exactly who they are. Supporting George throughout his schooling, work, and social interactions has made me into a better person. George teaches me the meaning of empathy, patience, and he continues to break down my own unconscious biases to this day. George is always authentically himself, a trait I greatly admire and have had the joy of watching his self-discovery journey throughout the years. Most recently, George loves filling me in about the best rollercoaster parks, a detailed analysis of upcoming Sci-fi films, and his reflections on his own social successes and challenges in college amidst COVID-19. </p>
<p>Being an ally for George and those within the Autism community may come more naturally to me, but you don’t have to have a personal experience to lean into allyship. Every day you have an opportunity to advocate for others. </p>
<p>At SAP we have multiple opportunities for employees to get involved in supporting National Disability Employment Awareness Month.</p>
<p><strong>1. Autism Inclusion Network: </strong>We are excited to welcome a new employee network group, the Autism Inclusion Network! The AIN consists of SAP autistic employees, family members, and allies bound together by the shared values that pave the way for a future of inclusion-affirming workplaces for those across the autism spectrum. Join us in welcoming them to our employee network group family.</p>
<p><strong>2. National Business and Disability Council Disability Inclusion Summit</strong>: SAP North America Diversity and Inclusion is a proud partner of the NBDC. This October it's hosting the Virtual Disability Inclusion Summit, which features speakers with topics that explore the dynamics of race and disability, the benefits of disability mentoring, and actions that strengthen disability inclusion to name a few! Join NBDC on October 21 from 11a.m. - 2 p.m. EST. <a href="https://www.viscardicenter.org/nbdc_ndeam_2020/" target="_blank">Register here!</a></p>
<p><strong>3. SAP Autism at Work: Accelerating Workforce Inclusion Webcast Series Presented by SAP Purpose Network Live: </strong>In this five-part series hosted by SAP throughout October, explore how autism inclusion can enhance an organization’s culture, create connections with a deep, diverse yet underutilized talent pool, and encourage pre-conceived perceptions to be challenged. <a href="https://www.sap.com/idea-place/autisminclusionpledge/webcast-series.html" target="_blank">View the series overview and register today</a>. </p>
<p><strong>4. SAP Autism Inclusion Pledge</strong>: Have you taken the pledge yet? The <a href="https://www.sap.com/idea-place/autisminclusionpledge.html" target="_blank">SAP Inclusion Autism Pledge</a> initiative aims to re-shape thinking about employment possibilities for individuals on the autism spectrum. When participants make the pledge, they can dive into SAP’s Autism at Work (currently in its sixth year with more than 180 colleagues worldwide, spanning 14 countries) best practices resource library to accelerate their autism inclusion program. </p>
<p>I was born being an advocate for George – but everyone has the opportunity to support the neurodiverse community. This National Disability Employment Awareness Month, I challenge you to step outside your comfort zone and learn something new about the neurodiverse community, participate in an event celebrating abilities, or explore what it means to practice allyship with a community that you don’t identify with. When we lean into the uncomfortableness, we usually learn something new and gain a deeper perspective. Who will YOU advocate for this month? </p>
Julia Donovan
Manual AP Processes: The Perfect Recipe for Higher Ed Disaster
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manual-ap-processes-perfect-recipe-higher-ed-disaster
2020-11-23T18:22:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its almost like you dont have enough to worry about during the pandemic like declining funding and empty campuses arent enough to keep you awake at night No lets keep you up all night...
<p>It’s almost like you don’t have enough to worry about during the pandemic – like declining funding and empty campuses aren’t enough to keep you awake at night. No, let’s keep you up all night by shining a light on your invoice, expense report, and payments process, too, calling out the problems that manual systems are causing and how they just might bring your institution crumbling to the ground.</p>
<p>Okay, it’s not that bad. But it is serious. Non-automated processes tax your teams with unnecessary work, bog you down in errors and inconsistencies, and expose you to risks you simply can’t afford right now. Because right now, higher education is dealing with enough:</p>
<ul>
<li>44% of finance and administrative leaders struggle with the volume of invoices and reimbursement requests.</li>
<li>42% are challenged by managing new categories of spend and trying to adapt organizational policies to fit remote-work dynamics.</li>
<li>41% aren’t sure how to manage unexpected expenses.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’re facing these challenges armed only with spreadsheets, and you’re trying to handle invoices and expense reports “the way you always have,” you’re fighting a losing battle. Even if you have a semi-automated process, you’re still exposing your institution, yourself, and your team to unnecessary risks.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Invoice Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>See first-hand how to make your invoice processing paperless with Concur Invoice</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fraud: Under the radar and in the headlines</h2>
<p>Fiscal accountability and responsibility are more critical than they’ve ever been, especially when you’re spending CARES Act and other emergency funding. Without an automated, integrated, intelligent process to make sure policies are followed, spending is controlled, and 100% of invoices and expense reports are audited, it’s difficult to identify fraud, let alone prevent it. And the last thing you want is a major fraud event – or the media coverage that goes with it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How much are mistakes costing you?</h2>
<p>The same weaknesses that allow for fraud also expose manual or semi-automated processes to human error. Even without malicious intent, people are going to make mistakes: Double payments, inaccurate data, and incorrect pricing not only wreak havoc on your finance teams, they can steadily chip away at your budget. Plus, without a fully automated system for managing invoices and expenses, you’re missing out on insights into what’s spent and what’s pending. So you’re left with guesswork when it comes to accruing budgets or adapting them as funding and priorities change.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Lost or just lost in process, you don’t know</h2>
<p>If an invoice gets lost or stuck in a stack of paperwork, how do you know where it is in the approval process? How do you know where the bottleneck might be, or who’s desk it’s buried on? You don’t, and these delays slow the process down while ramping up costs. In a work-from-home environment, or when you have multiple campuses in multiple cities, invoices don’t just get stuck on someone’s desk – they could be lost in someone’s house, or in a different city and state altogether. Without an automated process, there’s no way for you to identify or escalate late approvals to keep things moving. So you end up paying late fees, which start to feel quite a bit like a fine for outdated processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This doesn’t feel so good</h2>
<p>In the era of social distancing and quarantines, any process that requires you to be in the office or physically hand someone a piece of paper is a process that poses a health and safety risk. So when CFOs cut checks in their homes and have someone come pick them up, they’re both at risk. And when AP has to come in to the office to gather paperwork or post checks, your entire organization is in jeopardy. Automated processes keep things moving, no matter where you’re working.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When vendors aren’t happy, no one’s happy.</h2>
<p>You wouldn’t get far without your vendors, and if you’re not paying them on time because your processes are outdated or outright stagnant, you’re not going to get anywhere. If they have to keep calling to ask about payment, they’re going to get frustrated, and you’re going to lose a valuable partner. But look on the bright side, you’ll gain a reputation for not paying your bills.</p>
<p>These risks are real, they have the potential to be devastating to your institution, and they are entirely avoidable. Fully automated invoice and expense processing is an investment you can put to work almost immediately. Which gives you time to worry about the other problems on your plate.</p>
<p>To learn more about the benefits of vendor invoice automation, read the IDC whitepaper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">SAP Concur Facilitates Automated Management of Financial Operations.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Cash vs. Credit Card Spend: Does it Really Impact Corporate Savings?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cash-vs-credit-card-spend-does-it-really-impact-corporate-savings
2021-01-05T09:49:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to buckling down on budget there are many ways to find extra savings But with each reduction comes an intangible cost that might be detrimental to your competitive...
<p>When it comes to buckling down on budget, there are many ways to find extra savings:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consolidate meetings and events</li>
<li>Reduce spending on departments</li>
<li>Hold down pay increases</li>
<li>Reduce excessive service levels, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>But with each reduction comes an intangible cost that might be detrimental to your competitive advantage–whether it’s customer satisfaction, employee morale, offering a competitive wage, or limiting the available resources to bring innovation into the market.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there’s a less controversial way to drum up extra savings and it involves gaining better control over "invisible" spend. An article from the <a href="https://hbr.org/2010/05/when-youve-got-to-cut-costs-now" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review</a> reports that organizations can almost always find 15% to 20% of spending that hasn’t been managed closely. So, for this post in particular, we’re going to dive deeper into why non-compliant cash spend can create more headaches and cost your organization more money in the long run.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Why your company should limit the use of cash</h2>
<p><strong>1. Paying with card is just cheaper</strong></p>
<p>There’s a financial benefit to paying with cards rather than cash. This is because there’s more than processing fees to take into consideration, such as labor and incidental costs. Plus, when employees manually enter expenses, errors can be introduced and non-compliant spend can slip through.</p>
<p><strong>2. Tracking high volumes of cash is difficult</strong></p>
<p>When your employees use cash to pay for corporate expenses, it’s hard to see what’s going out the door. And when you can’t see what’s being spent, then you can’t stop it–meaning there’s a higher risk of non-compliant spend. Here’s why cash can cause so many problems when compared to corporate cards:</p>
<ul>
<li>It’s unaccountable and easily abused</li>
<li>It has less documentation and data</li>
<li>Tracking high volumes is difficult for finance and AP teams</li>
<li>Validating manually mapped expenses is more time extensive</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Fraudulent spend lurks around the corner</strong></p>
<p>Asset misappropriation is one of the most common fraud schemes. For cash on hand, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found in its <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/" target="_blank">latest 2020 report</a>, that the average loss to fraud in a year is $26,000 and lasts an average of 15 months to uncover; the typical velocity (median loss per month) averages $1,700.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Corporate cards increase opportunities for savings</h2>
<p>By <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/maximizing-corporate-card-rebates-our-80-20-rule">leveraging the 80/20 rule</a>, you can encourage more employees to use corporate cards, so your organization can have better controls and visibility around one of the top financial line items–travel and expense. This also makes it easier to flow accurate, reconcilable data into your SAP Concur solution, helping you validate and control spend.</p>
<p>Companies who do just this save in many areas, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>More timely visibility into spend</strong>: Card transactions flow daily, while cash receipts can take weeks or even months to show up in an expense report.</li>
<li><strong>Higher quality of spend data</strong>: Having a card feed provides validated spend because the use of digital data automatically gathers, sends, and verifies where expenses are coming from through the use of bank and receipt information.</li>
<li><strong>Increased corporate rebates</strong>: The more you can put on your corporate cards, the more you can use economies of scale to increase your corporate rebate savings, including qualifying for a second rebate which rewards you for the speed at which you pay it off.</li>
<li><strong>Better opportunity to manage fraud</strong>: With more digital tools to automatically run audits–like with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a>–you can check more travel, expense, and invoice reports for signs of fraud.</li>
<li><strong>Increased employee satisfaction</strong>: Employees do not have to pay initially with their own cash and transaction amounts that are less than the corporate card spending threshold might not have to require receipts.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Best practices to change employee spending behavior</h2>
<p>To help you get started in this transition, we’ve put together some best practices to help you change employee spending behavior:</p>
<ol>
<li>Set and adhere company standards to ensure that all team members who should have a corporate card have one.</li>
<li>Gain an understanding of reasons why corporate card is not being used. Address these reasons based on corporate expectations.</li>
<li>Educate employees to encourage use of corporate cards and/or make it more difficult to use cash/personal cards.</li>
<li>Consider mandating corporate card use for booking air, car, and hotel spend.</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How SAP Concur solutions can help you save more</h2>
<p>With a few simple adjustments to your corporate card policies, you can get cash spending under control while also giving your employees the kinds of tools they want to use. Tools that reward them with less busywork and more perks. Tools that keep them safe on the road and focused on their jobs. Tools that, from the beginning, show you what they’re spending, so you can keep more cash inside your organization.</p>
<p>Here are some recommendations on how to leverage SAP Concur solutions to simplify the cash to card process, so you can start saving:</p>
<ol>
<li>Partner with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/service-administration">Service Administration</a> to optimize configuration</li>
<li>Change receipt requirement to a higher amount for card transactions</li>
<li>Collaborate with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/analytics">reporting services</a> to save time customizing reports</li>
<li>Invest in audit service/process to ensure policy compliance </li>
</ol>
<p>For more information on reducing non-compliant cash spend, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/small-adjustments-big-changes">download our eBook Small Adjustments, Big Changes</a> for five ways to reduce cash spend within your organization.</p>
Kyla Kent
Kickstarting Digital Transformation for State, Local, and Educational (SLED) Agencies
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/kickstarting-digital-transformation-state-local-and-educational-sled-agencies
2021-02-17T12:13:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Forwardthinking leaders are constantly looking for smart solutions that drive results and better position their businesses to readily adapt to change With remote workforces as the new...
<p>Forward-thinking leaders are constantly looking for smart solutions that drive results and better position their businesses to readily adapt to change. With remote workforces as the new norm, it’s more important than ever to leverage the power of digital transformation to streamline operations, eliminate manual processes, and make smart business decisions based on complete and accurate data.</p>
<p>The stakes have never been higher in for those in State, Local, and Education (SLED). For many of these organizations, operating in remote environments with digital processes was once a distant goal. However, for those not already on the path, a pivot is now in place. Organizations of all sizes now see an urgency in creating and implementing digital transformation strategies to ensure readiness and help their businesses more easily adapt to unpredictable change.</p>
<p>And, while it may appear daunting to move away from manual, established processes, taking the first step towards companywide digital transformation can be simplified with the right implementation partner. AspireHR can help SLED organizations easily kickstart this digital transformation in preparation for a smarter, data-driven future with SAP® Concur®.</p>
<p>AspireHR, an SAP Gold Partner and one of the first Human Experience Management (HXM) specialty firms to receive the SAP Intelligent Enterprise Certification, is proud to be one of the only HR-focused SAP partners to bring SAP Concur’s automated and integrated processes to state, local, and educational organizations in North America.</p>
<p>For SLED organizations, automated, cloud-based SAP® Concur® solutions can enhance productivity and help employees, whether remote or onsite, to stay focused on the jobs they were hired to do. With SAP® Concur®, organizations can make smart spend decisions based on complete and accurate expense data, plus benefit from:</p>
<ul>
<li>Faster approvals and reimbursements</li>
<li>Streamlined and simplified workflows</li>
<li>Easy enforcement of spending policies</li>
<li>Eliminating manual processes and lost receipts</li>
<li>Enhancing productivity and improving the employee experience</li>
</ul>
<p class="text-sm"> </p>
<p class="text-sm">AspireHR is a trusted partner of choice to those in regulated industries and an effective advisor for all businesses looking to digitally transform. To learn how SAP® Concur® solutions can smoothly integrate into HR systems, or to explore the benefits of SAP Concur solutions for travel, expense, and invoice, reach out to the AspireHR’s Team at: <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=mJVCLScj_EboOoNBPxTW7chRwkxUNg5oy8cGLByfnBZ0wl3nEXoFwOcEpn34JRMT-LVMwNlHkRIWlOm_ReeK74dVmY4B5y01ywjBW6vavhE=" target="_blank">contactus@aspirehr.com</a>.</p>
Beverly Ibarrola
6 Questions Federal Contractors Need To Consider About Their AP System
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-questions-federal-contractors-need-consider-about-their-ap-system
2021-04-05T11:06:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This minute video features a conversation between Kyle Lieblein senior solutions consultant for SAP Concur and Don Carnevale director of corporate marketing at NeoSystems LLC Kyle and...
<p>This 12-minute video features a conversation between Kyle Lieblein, senior solutions consultant for SAP Concur, and Don Carnevale, director of corporate marketing at NeoSystems LLC. Kyle and Don offer their views on the importance of efficient accounts payable processes and tools, and share specific questions federal contractors should be asking about their AP system.<br />
</p>
Don Carnevale
Sustainable Travel Isn’t Going Away
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sustainable-travel-isnt-going-away
2021-06-04T09:59:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you graduated from high school you were determined to change the world Well the world is finally giving you a chance You see saving the planet isnt simply a slogan anymore Its...
<p>When you graduated from high school, you were determined to change the world. Well, the world is finally giving you a chance.</p>
<p>You see, saving the planet isn’t simply a slogan anymore. It’s about actually saving the planet, and it isn’t something you can say you support, then just sort of ignore. Sustainability is a practice, not merely a philosophy; it’s here to stay, and it’s something every business needs to build into its practices in order to, well, be around for a while.</p>
<p>When it comes to corporate travel, sustainability is finally taking off. Airlines are increasingly using sustainable aviation fuel. Travelers are clustering meetings, so they don’t have to make as many return trips. Businesses are crafting policies that make sustainable choices the easiest choices to make. (Like taking the train from Berlin to Bonn instead of flying.) And as you rebuild your travel program, it’s time to build in sustainability and finally make good on your high-school pledge.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281255-recycle-symbol.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>What’s Good for the Earth is Better for Business</h2>
<p>Tips for a more sustainable travel program</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-sustainability-your-travel-program">Get started now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’re in the spotlight</h2>
<p>Travel has been essentially grounded for about 18 months (give or take what seems like years), and it’s given companies ample time to rethink their programs. Now, as business takes to the road, rails, and skies again, the C-suite has you in its sights. They want you to re-establish corporate travel, because it’s critical to regaining confidence and rebuilding momentum across the business.</p>
<p>So, all eyes are on you to get travelers back out there, to keep them safe, to make your program more efficient, to make expenses easier to track and manage, and to ensure that your company isn’t sticking its carbon footprint in its mouth.</p>
<p>All while changing how everything gets done.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How do you get there?</h2>
<p>According to our eBook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-sustainability-your-travel-program">Five Ways to Build Sustainability into Your Travel Program</a>, you want to start with your suppliers. If they’re embracing earth-friendly practices, it’s easier for you to enforce the same. Because when travelers' choices are weighted with eco-conscious airlines, hotels, etc., picking them becomes the default position.</p>
<p>The right suppliers make it easier to make the right choice, in other words.</p>
<p>It’s also important to guide your travelers throughout the booking experience. Sustainable travel isn’t something they’re going to learn overnight, but you can continue to reinforce earth- and often money-saving behaviors in several simple ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Show travelers when taking the train is better than taking the plane.</li>
<li>Make it easy to see which rental car has the top emissions ratings.</li>
<li>Highlight which hotels go farther with their eco-practices than planting a few trees here and there.</li>
</ul>
<p>Be sure to track your overall progress and results, then show travelers how their choices make a real difference to both your company and the planet.</p>
<p>In the end, it comes down to the fact that getting from Point A to Point B isn’t what it used to be. As companies, we’re going to have to sharpen our focus even further on traveler safety and confidence, and we’re going to have to do so more efficiently than ever – while providing travelers an elevated level of convenience.</p>
<p>It’s not going to be easy, but it won’t be impossible. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-sustainability-your-travel-program">Read the eBook</a> to find out how businesses are reconstructing travel programs to not only get business moving again, but to keep it going and push it forward faster – and how they wring sustainability out of every dollar, yen, and euro spent on travel.</p>
<p>No, sustainable travel isn’t going away. So let’s get going.</p>
Neha Mehta
Transforming Corporate Sustainability Programs Right Now. An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation Series with TCG (Part 2)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right-now-sap-concur-podcast
2022-07-01T12:18:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From building the right reporting to creating awareness to guiding behavior and making direct contributions theres a lot that organizations can do right now to increase their...
<p>From building the right reporting, to creating awareness, to guiding behavior, and making direct contributions, there’s a lot that organizations can do right now to <a href="https://www.concur.com/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">increase their sustainability</a>.</p>
<p>We asked Ryan Hamilton, Senior Value Consultant for the Value Experience Group at the SAP Concur organization and Sally Crotty, Senior Consultant and Sustainability SME for our partner, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/tcg-consulting">TCG</a>, to share their expert perspective on how to transform corporate sustainability programs in a two-part podcast series. In the previous episode, they provided insights on key terms on how to build a roadmap to sustainability for organizations.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right/id1525744763?i=1000531530344">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5IgT9s2Middu0SXTaA16Y4">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right-now-an-">Acast</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Hello everyone. Welcome to the second in our two-part series on sustainability in travel and entertainment expenses. Once again, I'm Ryan Hamilton, Senior Value Consultant with the SAP Concur [solutions] Value Consulting team. I'm joined again by my colleague, Sally Crotty with TCG consulting. Sally.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Oh, it's great to be back to talk to you again today Ryan. Excited to join another podcast with you. Hi everybody. I'm Sally Crotty and I'm a Senior Consultant with TCG consulting. I've been in the industry for over 30 years in a number of roles, predominantly in travel management. I am the subject matter expert for sustainability within TCG consulting. I'm really excited to talk to you again today.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Thanks, Sally. Like I mentioned, this is the second of our two-part series. Today we're going to talk about some real practical applications for sustainability in T&E. We're going to talk about starting to act on a framework and what it means to corporations here and now to make progress. Is it fair to say that through TCG's methodology and just in general, realistically, we need to think about this in terms greater than just what is every possible methodology for reducing my organization's emissions? TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) to me speaks to the fact that there is an intersection between economic sustainability and ecological or environmental sustainability, which is that there are some costs. Can you talk about how TCG thinks about environmental sustainability as one piece of cost of ownership?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yeah. Absolutely. We can look at it in a way that many organizations have a desire to "go green" and some are prepared to pay to achieve this. And some maybe not, or maybe some don't quite understand where they sit today in order to understand what emissions they can try and reduce, or they may not understand that part of their processes that they're involved in today may actually be creating more work for them and therefore not making them as sustainable as they could be. Just earlier this year, TCG announced sustainability as our 18th metric for TCO TMPE (TCO Approach for Travel, Meetings, Payment, and Expense Programs). We have 18 components within the TCO TMP methodology and we introduced sustainability as this 18th component. From cost of ownership perspective, we're not only looking at what can be done to reduce emissions for travel. We're taking a holistic view and looking at the total costs of managing sustainability.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>It could be the additional cost of reporting for sustainability. The manpower needed to manage this. The actual travel booking process and expense process. The whole workflow, the end-to-end process for the traveler from the moment they maybe need to gain pre-trip approval to actually book their travel to them then making the booking, to ensuring that the policy is in place, that they're aware of the emissions that they may be associated with the flight that they've chosen, to the payment process and through to the traveler completing their expense report when they return from a trip.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Essentially it's a balancing act or an optimization problem where organizations are figuring out the best mix of staying economically sustainable while maximizing their environmental sustainability. Is that a fair summary?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yes. Yeah. I would say is. If we look at it from a Concur perspective, from the booking process and using Concur Request to gain the pre-trip approval, to booking in within Concur Travel, to completing the expense and ultimately accessing the reporting that comes from that as well. Then, if we take a mature customer that has a fully-implemented travel and expense policy globally, it would be relatively straightforward to measure reduction in CO2 emissions for them. However, a company that maybe have different methodologies in place or different processes in different locations, or maybe have come together from a couple of organizations who've maybe merged, that can be much more difficult for them. We look at the best processes for them in order to manage that effectively.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>You've mentioned a couple of times that in order to improve your emissions, it sounds like one of the big hurdles is establishing a realistic understanding of what your current emissions are. I think we'll spend a lot of time talking about how [SAP] Concur [solutions] can help with that. But for someone who's listening from maybe one of the less-implemented organizations or an organization that hasn't started to tackle this yet, can we walk through a typical, I guess, travel experience for a business traveler and talk about some of the decisions that are being made along the way and how those are affected or how those are affecting sustainability. For example, I know you've mentioned to me before that the question really starts with, should I travel or not? You mentioned Concur Request a couple of times. How are companies thinking about that?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Well, companies today, I think since the pandemic came about and suddenly everybody was having to adapt to a new way of working, people working from home and suddenly businesses that didn't have a work from home culture were suddenly making changes in order to continue operating and having to set up employees to work from home. We saw a huge reduction in business travel, of course, because many people couldn't travel at all. We also saw a huge reduction in commuting. Scope three emissions were drastically reduced overnight. Even though we are keen to start traveling again for leisure purposes or to visit family and friends, for business travel, we're finding that policies are changing a little bit and there's also a clear duty of care that's needed for the employee as well as they start to travel again.</p>
<p>But also, we need to really consider that as we start to travel again, that we should do that in a more sustainable way. We are finding that companies are assessing their needs to travel and what this looks like in the future. For example, some companies are saying that they're allowing business-critical travel only, for example. Or, they are ensuring that they travel on business only when necessary. Or it could be that if it's client-related travel, then it that's fine. But if it's an internal meeting, then that may be handled in a virtual environment now. We are finding, and of course, again, I'd like to caveat this, that it does vary very much by the organization and what their organization's needs are.</p>
<p>But I think if we can bring back travel, that's great for the industry and we want to see that happening, but we just want to maybe think about sustainability in more detail and really focusing on the options available. Whether or not we might take a rail journey instead of a short-haul flight, for example. Particularly possible within the UK or Europe so that's a viable option-will reduce the emissions created by the company, but also fulfill sustainability needs as well as reducing emissions. It's all part of a sustainability policy. Sorry about that.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>No worries. You hit on a lot of important things here that I want to make sure we unpack. As the pandemic happened, we got to experience essentially as a side-effect or almost on accident, the idea that simply traveling less is hugely impactful to emissions. As we come out of this, a lot of the organizations, it sounds like, are re-evaluating what they allow travel for. Which is both an economic gain, as travel is expensive, but also a great sustainability gain. Look, I think to be fair, a lot of organizations that are a little bit more nervous about some of the sustainability imperatives are probably saying that travel less or do less is a little bit scary, right? If you talk to the average sales person, the idea that they're going to be allowed to travel less is great on its face, but I think would scare a lot of folks who feel like their travel is an important part of completing their job and being good at what they do. Travel less is one option that you're seeing in the fields.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yes. Definitely in some cases, but where there is still a need to travel, so let's say it's revenue-generating or sales-related, that would be, I'm sure in most organizations, that could continue. It's more in reducing maybe the internal meetings that could be handled virtually instead of needing to be face-to-face.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And then you touched on a second thing, which I think might be overlooked by folks who have spent less time on this, which is, you mentioned the example of with travel in Europe or the UK sometimes rail might make more sense. If you account for airport time, security, flights, the inevitable delays, because everything's overbooked, trains are not only a more convenient option in some cases, but also much more sustainable. Airplanes taking off and landing emit a huge amount of greenhouse gases. I think that's a theme that we should explore when we're talking about methods of reducing emissions in T&E, which is not travel less, but option to travel better. I'm wondering if you have any other examples. You mentioned hotels earlier in our conversation, but what are organizations looking at when it comes to traveling better?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Okay. Well definitely lots of things out there and lots of different ideas that we're seeing, but let's take a few examples. Let's take company A and company B. Company A, professional services company. They've always traveled in business class, internationally, very regular travel, lots of frequent travelers. They would, let's say, travel to their destination and stay in a really lovely luxury hotel with two to three restaurants and extensive leisure facilities. And then let's consider a company B who maybe have a similar-sized organization in terms of turnover, revenue, but they are maybe manufacturing organization, handful of travelers who travel frequently. And their policy only allows coach-class travel domestically and internationally. Actually their policy states that they must take the lowest logical fare option, even if that means that they take have to take connecting flights to reach their destination rather than a direct service.</p>
<p>Immediately we start to make these comparisons. We can take company A who are traveling in business class, now that's more expensive to travel in business class. There is more of an environmental impact because they are taking up more room on the airplane for example, than it would be traveling economy as a comparison. However, if we take company B, even though they're traveling in economy, if they're having to take two flights to reach their destination, then they equally could be emitting as much CO2 as company A. There are many different factors to consider. Even when taking a connecting flight, it may be that those two connecting flights are actually more sustainable. They may be newer aircraft. They might have lower emissions. Whereas, the company A direct flight potentially could be a very old aircraft.</p>
<p>It has far higher emissions. There are lots of different things to consider in terms of load factors on the aircraft, the number of business-class passengers, the amount of freight they may be taking as well. There are lots of considerations which would have an impact, but to start off from a very simple calculation, if you can consider that your CO2 emissions may be similar traveling from A to B, then that's a good starting point to just be aware of those emissions for those particular flights.</p>
<p>Really if we evaluate the scenarios, have a look, direct flights can sometimes be more expensive yet they maybe have less of an impact on the environment depending on the load factors, the class of travel, the aircraft type, the airline even. Different airlines are becoming more sustainable than others. Some use sustainable airline fuel to operate, whereas others have not got to that stage yet. These are more and more things that we're hearing about in the industry. Clearly the airlines want to make their travel more sustainable. I know that for example, United Airlines have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. Now, that sounds quite far away from that, but it that's a real achievement to become actually carbon neutral for a global airline. Some interesting things happening.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Absolutely. I think now that you mention it, the airline I usually travel with has committed to donating a small portion or I suppose spending a small portion of any full fare ticket on some carbon offsets, which is something that I want to talk about in a moment. But I think you also touched on another point that I want to reiterate. It sounds like the more you look at this, the more infinitely detailed it can get. How much weight am I taking on the plane? How many connections do I have? Is a business-class ticket that's going to be sold anyway emissions that are attributable to me or emissions attributable to the airline?</p>
<p>I think that degree of complexity can start to scare people off. But is it fair Sally, to say that there are diminishing returns to the level of fineness on your optimization matrix? So in other words, if step one is establish our emissions, and step two is start to reduce them, is it fair to say that even just biting off okay, why don't we minimize connections and take trains if it's time neutral. Is it fair to say that those big easy steps will get you a lot further than, or at least most of the way there compared to if you're considering all 800 factors?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>I think those first steps are really important. I think any company, if they're not doing anything today, they really have to start somewhere. I think just having a basic measurement in place today, understanding how many miles they travel and how they're calculating their emissions would be just a really good place to start. However, I'd like to look at the bigger picture attached to this as well, where I mentioned TMPE earlier. Travel, meetings, payments, and expense. That total Cost of Ownership-related to that because when you think about it, we can do all of these different things and travel on different aircraft or take direct flights versus connecting flights, but also we can improve other things that can make the company more sustainable.</p>
<p>For example, implementing a global card program, a new payment method, providing contactless payments, improving expense processes to speed up the whole booking process and the expense process for the traveler can also reduce emissions because let's take a traditional company that is still working in a very manual way with invoicing and expenses. Then if you can implement a [SAP} Concur solution or a [SAP] Concur-type solution into that business, then suddenly they can start becoming more sustainable in terms of paper reduction, receiving invoices electronically for example, ensuring that payments, everything is made electronically and even automating processes that before would have needed people to do. If we automate those processes, then we can make the business more sustainable for the long-term as well.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Absolutely. I think that brings me to the next topic that I really wanted to discuss which is, where our two organizations really fit into this. When I think of [SAP] Concur [solutions], I think of [SAP] Concur [solutions] and sustainability as really we're the tool that allows you to actually move the needle on this. We've mentioned a couple of times, step one is understanding where you're at. You can't make an improvement if you don't know what you're improving. I think having a unified platform like [SAP] Concur [solutions] is key in that, right? Not only because [SAP] Concur [solutions] has purpose-built environmental impact reporting, which it does, but also that unified single source. If folks are going to five different sites and maybe a travel agent to book travel, it's much harder organizationally to gather all of that information and get a unified sense of exactly what is being emitted.</p>
<p>And then you talk about things like a credit card feed or direct receipt integration with travel vendors where we're getting much richer data on travel, which is key. The first area I see [SAP] Concur [solutions] contributing is in reporting. The second would be in creating awareness. Individual employees are not going to solve a problem that they don't know exists. If you're not being confronted with the idea that you've bought the most emitting flights or that your expenses are in the top one percentile, you're probably not even thinking about the emissions as you travel. Awareness goes hand-in-hand with reporting, but rather than being at the organizational level, it's at the individual, employee level. And the third area I can see Concur contributing is actually starting to guide behavior. This is where there's a lot of overlap with the expertise that you and TCG bring to the table, which is how do we create policy, both for travel and expenses that helps us meet our goals and what should those goals be? Which is your field of expertise.</p>
<p>Lastly, really quickly, you did mention on some things that are I think often overlooked as well, which is that an automated program like [SAP] Concur [solutions] is actually going to contribute directly to sustainability goals by cutting paper out of the process in a lot of places. Contactless credit cards, eliminating invoices and receipts, sharing data automatically. That is directly reducing to sustainability goals as well. I can think of four broad areas where [SAP] Concur [solutions] plays an important role. Like I said, reporting, awareness, behavioral changes and actual direct contributions. I guess my question in long-winded fashion would be, if you can really summarize down what TCG is bringing to the table on top of that. My understanding is it's really the expertise to utilize all of those four opportunities that I just described.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we have expertise within each different area. Within travel, with also meetings, within our payments expense and invoicing as well. With our expertise within TCG, we're able to work with our customers to implement the best program for them and optimize their performance really or put in place what they really need to, as I mentioned before, become more sustainable for the future. I'd like to just touch on a few different points that you mentioned. First of all, reporting is really, really key. Especially where you said there could be different agencies around the globe. I think I touched on that earlier also, but I think it's really important to have that one central source of information if you can. And let's face it, we could have travel management company in place, but on occasion, it may be that some bookings are made outside of the TMC, or you could have more than one TMC in place and therefore our expense data and the [SAP] Concur [solutions] data that we have would give us a full picture of everything that we're doing.</p>
<p>Whether or not it's the meetings that we've been paying for on by an invoice, for example, or whether it's understanding not just the travel emissions related to business travel, but also the commuting emissions attributed to commuting or company mileage. That's where I think [SAP] Concur [solutions] can provide that fully end-to-end process for a customer. I think that's really a key part of it, but also you're absolutely right. As we've mentioned earlier, we're looking at the purpose of travel now. Policies are being changed or modified in order to provide the employee with duty of care, but also not just that, still to focus in on the emissions, to focus in on cost. I know that within [SAP] Concur [solutions], those settings can be put in place to ensure that travelers are using the most sustainable airlines, that they may be working to the preferred airlines within the travel policy, for example.</p>
<p>They understand their emissions as they're booking. They obtain the approval before they travel. There are all these things enabled within the booking tool, but also they can have pop-up messaging to remind them of different policies that might be in-place or maybe the best airline that they should be choosing in order to be more sustainable. I think there are many different things that can be done today, and we're maybe not quite at the stage of being able to display emissions by class of travel just yet. We can't account for maybe an equipment change so you've maybe booked a flight on a particular airline, and on the day you travel, they've changed the aircraft. We can't account for that, but it will give you a really clear picture of somewhere to start from and to base your measurements on, and then to therefore put some targets in place in order to reduce emissions. We're looking at reducing, we want to replace. We don't want to generate more emissions. We want to just reduce them where we can. We're not saying don't travel, we're saying travel, but just travel more sustainably where you can.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Absolutely. It's a bit of a spend governance in maintaining that balance between cost and sustainability. It's a bit of a controls and compliance question. If an organization has committed to meeting certain targets, they need to have controls in place that create those guide-rails that get us to the target we've committed to. [SAP] Concur [solutions] brings the reporting. TCG brings the understanding of what to do with that reporting and how to achieve goals. And then you just circle back to [SAP] Concur [solutions], which actually allows us to implement the policy and plan that TCG has helped come up with. I want to finish us off here with just a few quick grab-bag questions. We've already answered where a company should start if they haven't started, which is just understand where you're at. What would you say from your perspective or experience in working with organizations, what are some of the challenges that an organization faces when they first start to look at sustainability?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Well, some of the main challenges really are in relation to of course, as we mentioned before, the reporting. Multiple data sources, different expense information, expense data. That's one of the challenges. That some trips and hotels are sometimes booked outside of the agency and therefore you can't get a true picture unless you look that expense status. There are some of the challenges. And then, of course, online booking tool functionality as well. It can provide emission values at the point of sale, but of course there are some challenges around the class of travel and things like that today.</p>
<p>There are some of the main challenges. I also think today many companies look at carbon off-setting and have been focusing in that area. That's better than doing nothing at all. Absolutely. But we should really focus on "reduce, remove, replace." Look at making those reductions in the emissions that we have today and trying to remove those as well, as much as possible. And also consider who that company might be off-setting with. It may be that they can reduce emissions, but also they may still need to off-set some emissions because the can't reduce enough from just some of the policy changes that they put in place.</p>
<p>It's about ensuring that the company that you may off-set with are going to actually fulfill their obligations because it's very difficult to maybe check if that tree has been planted for that organization. What I would say to any company is start small. If you're not doing anything today, start small and scale up, really find out within your organization, who is already looking at this, if anybody. If you're a travel manager, have you got a sustainability team or a sustainability manager that you need to align with? Try and understand what is in place today, because there will be, depending on your organization, there'll be emissions and in other areas. I would also recommend that really focusing on who the other internal stakeholders within the organization, who they are and who would be beneficial to engage with or align with in order to put some more sustainable processes in place, it might be a human resources team.</p>
<p>It could be that finance needs to be aware of different sustainability goals as well. And also, maybe your supply chain, that's a really key part. Ensuring that you're working with sustainable suppliers. Those suppliers that have similar goals or who are keen to meet their own sustainability targets. There's a lot to do. We've already spoken for quite some time around this and we could go on, I guess, but if it's even doing something small, such as, I don't know, promoting the rental of hybrid cars, for example, that would be something that you could do.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Sorry to cut you off. It's worth probably reiterating that in a lot of these cases, especially for first steps, there's not a lot of cost benefit analysis to be done. For example, taking that rail, instead of that short haul flight is not only more sustainable, it's quicker, it's often cheaper, a better use of employee time. There's really no trade-off other than changing your mindset. Sally, I want to ask one last question here which is, what would you say to a skeptic? To frame this a little bit more, you have someone who believes sustainability is important and something we should address as a society, but is maybe leaning toward the idea that in the context of operating their business, they have an obligation to focus on value for their customers, for their shareholders, for their employees. What would you say to someone who is skeptical about addressing this in a business sense?</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Yeah. I think the answer is in the science. It speaks for itself. There are different ways of traveling more sustainably, as you've mentioned. There are processes that can be implemented that are far more sustainable. It may be that this particular person can still travel on a regular basis because they need to see that the customer, but maybe they could just do things maybe a bit smarter. Rather than going to visit the one customer when traveling internationally, let's say they're traveling over to Europe, why don't they travel to take a short-haul flight and go and see another customer within Europe at the same time. And then they're reducing their overall long- haul emissions, if you like. Or they may be able to take travel within Europe by rail to go and see another customer.</p>
<p>I think there are many different ways that they can look at it, but make the trip more worthwhile. Go and see more than one customer or supplier or whatever it may be. Just trying to get more out of that. And then for those one day trips or anything like that, then I'm sure they could be changed to a virtual meeting in some cases if it's only a short trip. But if it can't then just try and focus on more sustainable methods of travel. Whether or not it's rail or using an electric vehicle, for example, electric cars, or a hybrid vehicle. Just think about different ways of how you can reduce that impact.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like if we really boil it down, the idea is that the question, "What do I have to give up in order to be more sustainable?" is an outdated question. It should be, "What can I do a little bit differently so that I can be more sustainable without giving anything up?"</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Yeah. I would completely agree with that. We don't have to stop traveling. I've been in the industry, like I said, over 30 years. I don't want to see people not travel. It's more about, let's just do it in a smarter way.</p>
<p>Ryan Hamilton:</p>
<p>Thanks again for joining us, everyone. Today was the second of our two-part series on sustainability. We talked about what it's like to start to act on a framework for improving our footprint in sustainability in businesses. To learn more about what sustainability is from a high level, what it means to corporations and what a long-term roadmap might look like, please listen to our other episode released prior to this one. Well, Sally Crotty, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it and your expertise. We'll include contact information in the notes in case anyone has any follow-up questions or is interested in chatting with you, but I appreciate your time today.</p>
<p>Sally Crotty:</p>
<p>Thank you. Thanks very much, Ryan. It's been great talking to you today.</p>
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<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Sally_Crotty.png" /></p>
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<p>Based in the UK, Sally does work on a global basis with some clients however has particular focus on the EMEA region. Starting out in the Corporate Travel sector over 30 years ago, she has vast experience and held senior positions in Travel Management both operationally and from a sales and account management perspective, she has 5 years’ experience in the hotel industry and 2 years in GDS/Online Booking Tools.</p>
<p>Sally lives with her husband, 2 sons, 2 dogs and a cat in Cheshire, England, her passion for sustainability has increased over the last few years focusing on sustainable initiatives in travel and the total cost of ownership in managing sustainable travel and expense programs. In her personal life Sally has recently made the decision to move to driving a fully electric vehicle with the goal of reducing her own impact on the planet!</p>
<p>Follow Sally on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-crotty/?originalSubdomain=uk">LinkedIn</a>. </p>
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Kathryn Kamin
How AP Automation Can Help SMBs Gain Better Control Over Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-ap-automation-can-help-smbs-gain-better-control-over-spend
2022-07-01T16:57:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The challenges of and beyond revealed organizational inefficiencies in small to midsized businesses SMBs A recent Oxford Economics report found of businesses with or fewer...
<p>The challenges of 2020 and beyond revealed organizational inefficiencies in small to midsized businesses (SMBs). A <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/ar_leadership_in_a_new_era_us_thinkpiece_smb_rc.pdf">recent Oxford Economics report</a> found 82% of businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees said they identified new gaps in their cash flow management tools and finance processes as a result of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Now, many SMBs are focused on accelerating their recovery and growth, even in uncertain economic terrain. While most companies have adopted some technology to improve their financial processes, many aren’t sure which solutions will stick. But they see the need to adopt meaningful change is fast approaching.</p>
<p>Of the organizations surveyed for the Oxford Economics report, 53% said the pace of digital transformation within their organization is speeding up. For those company leaders, revenue growth is a top focus in the upcoming years (39%), following by cost savings and margins improvement (34%), and increasing efficiency and productivity (31%).<br />
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But it takes having a clear, accurate, and up-to-date picture of your finances to accomplish those goals. In most cases, this is where a manual, paper-based AP process can leave your business in the dark, especially as your business grows and becomes more complex. But here’s how fully automating your AP processes can help. </p>
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<h2>Benefits of AP automation </h2>
<p>The Oxford Economics report found that although 63% of businesses surveyed have made at least minimal progress toward digitizing their invoice management (just 4% had fully automated processes), of <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/ar_leadership_in_a_new_era_us_thinkpiece_smb_rc.pdf">the respondents who digitized their invoice management</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>43% saw increased organizational agility & resiliency </li>
<li>29% saw increased functional collaboration </li>
<li>28% saw increased process efficiency </li>
<li>25% saw increased visibility into company spending </li>
<li>25% saw reduced costs </li>
</ul>
<p>What can your business gain by fully automating its AP processes? Try <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">this calculator to see how much you're spending on your AP management</a>. And see how agile your business is now by <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-business-agility-assessment">taking this three-minute assessment</a>.<br />
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<h2>How AP automation can support recovery and growth</h2>
<p>By adopting full AP automation, using a solution <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">like Concur Invoice</a>, you can get an up-to-date view of your spend at all times, so you can be sure you’re getting the most out of your budget.<br />
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With the right solution, you can easily and accurately capture and process invoice data so you—and your employees—don’t have to waste time manually entering it. You also reduce costly human error that's common with manual data entry.<br />
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And when you integrate with payment providers, you create a simple, secure, and streamlined way to pay your vendors.<br />
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And from a bigger-picture standpoint, AP automation can give your finance employees the gift of more time to do their best work on business-critical functions like getting a handle on compliance and risks and optimizing cash flow and profitability.<br />
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<strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-expense-and-ap-automation-really-means-for-your-job">What Expense and AP Automation Really Means for Your Job</a></p>
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<h2>How can Concur Invoice help SMBs accelerate recovery? </h2>
<p>Concur Invoice automates your invoice management, giving you clearer visibility into spending, creating a more efficient workflow, reducing errors and fraud, and capturing all the data you need—in near-real-time—to make smarter business decisions.</p>
<p>Watch the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/theres-no-spend-waste-concur-invoice">latest video on how Concur Invoice helps a business</a> when there’s no spend to waste.</p>
<p>To see how Concur Invoice helps you seamlessly capture, process, and pay invoices, <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">try this self-guided demo</a>.</p>
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SAP Concur Team
CDC Expert: Free Resources to Empower Your Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cdc-expert-free-resources-empower-your-travelers
2022-07-01T17:17:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to traveling amid the COVID pandemic there are plenty of free resources available from the CDC that companies can use now to help regain traveler confidence During a...
<p>When it comes to traveling amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there are plenty of free resources available from the CDC that companies can use now to help regain traveler confidence. </p>
<p>During a recent session at Concur Fusion, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/back-to-work-back-to-travel-with-the-cdc"><strong>Back to Work, Back to Travel: A Q&A with the CDC</strong></a><strong>, </strong>a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shared insights into vaccinated vs. unvaccinated travel, testing, digital passports, and other topics. There was plenty of information to take in, but a common theme emerged: You should do your homework before you travel, especially overseas, to stay safe and avoid surprises.</p>
<p>“Education is the key here,” said <strong>Dr. Kristina Angelo</strong>, an infectious diseases physician with expertise in travelers’ health. She was joined on the Q&A session by <strong>Ralph Colunga,</strong> a senior member of the SAP Concur team serving as Thought Leader - Travel and Expense Technology Solutions.</p>
<p>Moderated by <strong>Erin Giordano</strong>, SAP Concur Senior Marketing Manager, Team Lead, Enterprise, the session and many others from the event can be watched <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/back-to-work-back-to-travel-with-the-cdc">on demand.</a></p>
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<h2>Where to find information</h2>
<p>The CDC’s <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/">Traveler’s Health site</a> is the agency’s central collection point for helpful information for those going overseas or just traveling domestically. It includes the latest testing requirements for those visiting or returning to the US and provides COVID-19 risk levels and recommendations for international and domestic destinations. There’s also a disease directory and a copy of the CDC Yellowbook, “the bible of travel medicine,” among other resources.</p>
<p>“Our Travel Health Notices are our main way to communicate disease risks at a given destination,” Angelo said, for COVID-19 as well as for polio, dengue fever and many other illnesses travelers could pick up. “This allows us to make sure that before any traveler goes anywhere, they know what the risks are at that destination, and they know what to do to protect themselves.”</p>
<p>Other government agencies are excellent resources as well, she said.</p>
<p>“The most important thing people should do before traveling to a given destination is to check the US Department of State website or the US Embassy Department of Consular Affairs website,” Angelo advised, “because the destination entry requirements for a specific country change all the time. … So, before you embark on any trip, anywhere, check with those resources to see what those testing requirements are.”</p>
<p>The pandemic has, of course, honed employers’ focus on duty of care for travelers and other employees. SAP Concur solutions and extended options have evolved in response to those needs, supplying information and guidance on testing and vaccine requirements at destinations, along with resources such as helping locate health care and pharmacies if needed.</p>
<p>In addition to allowing travelers to gather itineraries and documents in one location, “SAP Concur via our TripItâ application provides a Traveler Resource Center (insert link), which links to the most current information at sites like the CDC and World Health Organization,” Colunga said. “But what’s even more extraordinary is that travelers get this advice in their hands at the right time, pre and upon arrival to their destination. Many travel tracking solutions that offer pre-travel alerts send this information upon booking the trip which may be weeks before the actual trip.”</p>
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<h2>Vaccines and testing</h2>
<p>Becoming knowledgeable about what to expect is valuable, but Angelo said there is no better safety shield than getting vaccinated.</p>
<p>“The most important thing that an employer can do at this juncture with COVID-19 is to encourage vaccination among their employees,” she said. “This is important for all vaccines.”</p>
<p>Knowing that not everyone will get the shot, the CDC breaks some of its guidance into vaccinated vs. unvaccinated categories. For example, the CDC recommends travelers who have been vaccinated get tested three to five days after returning to the US because of the possibility of a breakthrough infection. For the unvaccinated, the CDC recommends that they be tested one to three days before going anywhere and that they also get tested after coming home because, Angelo said, “You have a higher likelihood of possibly carrying the virus and transmitting it to others during travel.”</p>
<p>For both groups, one testing requirement is universal for those returning to the US: “If you are in an international destination and want to come back to the United States, it is an absolute requirement, whether you are vaccinated or not, to have a (negative) test three days before, or 72 hours, before getting on the airplane.”</p>
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<h2>Digital passports and the new approach to travel</h2>
<p>The CDC currently is not involved in choosing or creating digital passports for vaccines and other health information. Instead, it is looking to business, nonprofits, and other government entities to take the lead and develop the electronic documentation.</p>
<p>The European Union and New York State – in tandem with IBM – were mentioned as examples by Giordano. The issue employers are watching closely.</p>
<p>“We believe this is going to be a fluid topic for some time, but we need to land on a viable solution as soon as possible, really just to help with responsible return to travel,” Colunga said.</p>
<p>Overall, as business organizations work to adapt to a changing travel environment, they should look to employees for guidance on needs and comfort levels.</p>
<p>“Travel managers will need to embrace traveler empowerment and focus on education of that community. Arising from the pandemic is a new set of behaviors for respecting others’ space and safety in social situations,” Colunga said. “New rules of travel etiquette are no doubt going to be emerging.”</p>
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<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>The CDC’s <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/">Traveler’s Health site</a> collects Travel Health Notices and country-specific information on risk level and requirements, along with a host of other details and recommendations.</p>
<p>The CDC’s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/index.html">COVID-19 site</a> provides details on the virus and information on domestic and international travel, including a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/travel-planner/index.html">travel planner</a> for those visiting US destinations.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center/">TripIt Traveler Resource Center</a> provides links to the CDC, US State Department, and other helpful sites. It also provides destination-specific safety guidance and health information.</p>
Neha Mehta
Flexibility on the Fly – American Airlines Introduces Friction-Less Business Travel: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/flexibility-fly-american-airlines-introduces-friction-less-business-travel-sap-concur
2022-07-01T17:24:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The need for organizations to shift corporate online interactions to a consumerlike digital experience exploded amidst the global pandemic American Airlines prioritized frictionless...
<p>The need for organizations to shift corporate online interactions to a consumer-like digital experience exploded amidst the global pandemic. American Airlines prioritized friction-less business travel in what was (hopefully) the most complicated time to book travel of our generation’s history. Anshuman Singh, Director of Digital Product Management and Experience at American Airlines shares how they offered their business travel customers a smoother and safer online booking experience amidst the global pandemic with Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur</p>
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<p>This four-episode podcast series celebrates the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. : <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a> received one of two Partner Innovation Awards for 2020, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. Other past recipients include <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel">American Express Global Business Travel</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a>. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes">SAP Concur Conversations</a>, for best practices to implement at your own organization.</p>
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<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/flexibility-on-the-fly-american-airlines-introduces/id1525744763?i=1000541992798">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4CpkhUePLSynzUAdBCM9lc">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/flexibility-on-the-fly-american-airlines-introduces-friction">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE5MjhkOTIyZTM0YjMwMDE0NjA3YjI1?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwj49NfPuZv0AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google </a>or your favorite place to listen to podcasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion, I'm the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers in order to optimize their solutions and work on challenges to business outcomes that they may be looking to improve upon. Today, I'm going to be speaking with Anshuman Singh from American Airlines, he's the director of the Digital Customer Experience. Anshuman, would you mind going ahead and introducing yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, morning Jeanne, and thank you for having me here today. My name is Anshuman Singh, and, like you mentioned, I am the Director of Digital Product Management and Experience at American Airlines. My role entails as I break it down into two parts. So, one of the areas that myself and my team serve are what we refer to as the booking journey for customers who come to AA.com. So, from the time customers search for an itinerary to the time they actually purchase one. And that journey within is what me and my team help serve from a retailing and a digital customer experience perspective. The second part that we help serve for the organization is our ancillary products. So, we deal with ancillary product management. Think about things like big seats, bags, other ancillaries that customers purchase ala carte post-purchasing their ticket. So, we work on creating a value proposition with other commercial and technology partners across the organization and rolling that benefit out to customers.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's a lot. So the reason that we're talking to you today is because American Airlines was a winner of one of our partner innovation awards. During the pandemic, you and your team actually were able to integrate the app with our TripLink for both iOS and Android users. It's part of that whole idea of moving to frictionless travel, which I know is super important to you. And I was wondering, as we talk about this from a business challenge, I think it hits on every single one of the business outcomes that we at concur bucket. And we look at it from a compliance perspective, from a spend visibility perspective, from an employee experience perspective most definitely, and also from expansion and optimization. And when I think about that frictionless travel, can you explain to me what frictionless travel means to you and your colleagues at American Airlines?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. That's a great question, right. I mean, frictionless travel, as you think about it might mean different things for different customers, right. And that's the true sense of trying to determine what friction this travel means for all our customer base. So, at its truest sense what we want to be doing is making ourselves available and pervasive to all our customers who want to interact with us and meet for their different needs. Now, if you think about it, when it comes from a corporate travel perspective, we've gotten feedback from our partners that when we consider managed travel, there are customers or there are their employees who potentially are coming directly to our websites, but at that point in time, not necessarily getting what's considered to be managed travel rates and so on and so forth, hence creating that friction in sense of negotiated rates and expensing and so on and so forth. If you think about it from that ground, what we were trying to solve for specifically was trying to bridge that gap.</p>
<p>If you think of it from a customer journey or a customer experience standpoint, you'd initially think of any customer coming to AA.com as more of a B2C interaction or direct business to customer interaction. What we try to do here, if we specifically talk about TripLink is bridge that journey where it's actually, if you consider a B2B transaction, but with an element of personalization and actually trying to think of it from an individual customer perspective within the confined guardrails as you talked about, customer experience and making sure that we're able to provide what's the customer is looking for and actually in ensuring that there are no downstream impact when it comes from an expensing impact. So it's going back to what you initially started with, its different needs for different customers and it's about trying to solve those needs for each of those individual customers segment that we typically try to focus on when we consider that friction-less customer experience.</p>
<p>And while I touched on specifically only the booking journey of it, we try to maintain the integrity of that frictionless experience via the web, via the app, to coming back, retrieving your reservation and finally working in collaboration with partners at the airport as well, and trying to make sure that even by the time customers onboard their plane and beyond they're experiencing that element of the journey.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And frictionless travel is huge because flying is really so personal, even though you're doing it for an organization, and you have rules of responsibilities around what you're doing. At the end of the day, it's a highly personal experience. So, allowing for a business traveler to be able to control some of it is actually really beneficial to not only the traveler, but to the company, correct?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I mean, as we think about it again, it's about establishing that connect, right. It's about establishing that relationship. It's about going for greater cost efficiencies. So, I mean, at the end of the day, if we can drive an optimal outcome, be it from a customer perspective, be it from an economics perspective and the sense of familiarity that we breed. If we create that personalized experience which we have greater control on when a customer direct asset, that calls for a lot, right. And it's not just about the booking experience, it's about the post purchase experience. It's about the tech experiences our online assets and we're able to present relevant offers again in the confines of what's cloud and what's not, and tailor that journey specific to that customer across any customer segment that we specifically focused on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So, when you were doing all of this work and there was this significant amount of work to go into it, were there any surprises in developing this while the world was changing from a pandemic perspective or even just from a technology perspective?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I mean the world of product management, I mean, I've been in this field, if I may, for about seven plus years now and every day brings a new challenge and that's what makes it very, very exciting, right. But at the same time, if there is one code principle that we always abide by which is trying to create or rather trying to keep the customer at its core. Now specifically if we think about this specific instance, you were talking about a pandemic world, the world around has had drastically changed in the last couple of years. It's all about getting scratchy and about getting resource with the limited number of resources you have at your disposal or time that you have at your disposal.</p>
<p>So, the team, as they approached this problem, we try to really break it down, going back to when this whole process began, was what is it that we can try to do to serve customer need at the lowest level, what's our minimum viable product, right. What can I do to actually get something in front of the customer which improves their experience from what it is today? And it's not about like trying to solve that problem in one day, it's about an experience. It's about a journey that happens over a period of time, right. You don't achieve success overnight. So, the team, well, they thought about it. It was a big problem. It was a huge problem. We tried to break it down in chunks, right.</p>
<p>It started with allowing customers the ability to be able to book through AA.com on web and then subsequently at that point in time, if you think about it we've not completely eliminated that frictionless experience that we're talking about because the customer could not come back and actually change their reservation, not ideal at all, but again, it was trying to figure out how we can break it down into palatable chunks. And I think that was one of the most important, I won't say challenges, but considerations for us as the world around as have been evolving to say, how do we actually break this problem down into digestible pieces?</p>
<p>We did booking initially, we followed by allowing customers the ability to actually come in later and change, and as you think about the world around us is effectively very, very quickly moving towards an app-first approach, right? But the next step there for us was to make sure that we're allowing customers with the same seamless experience, the same benefits when it comes to the app, and we have seen a lot of adoption comes through from app as well. So, trying to break it down into those sequential steps and making sure that we're not trying to conquer the universe in one is I think something that the team focused on right off the bat of the onset, which allowed us to achieve the level of success that we were able to as we thought of achieving this customer benefit across the customer journey over a period of time.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. It's fascinating that you mentioned that from a technology perspective, going from phone call to online, to just having that at the end of my hand on a phone where I don't actually make calls, but I use an app to perform the tasks. That's a very short window of time that we went through that as a human race, right? It didn't take very many years to go. It was pretty quick. And when I think about that, I also think about that idea of people do things very spur-of-the-moment. Now, when they have an app in their hand, is there a big market around some of that day-of travel changes and booking, et cetera?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head when you talk about just having the flexibility to have a device that you can just pull out of your pocket and make decisions on the go. It adds to the element of spontaneity. I would say to a lot of that decision making and if you think about the customer journey, right, holistically from the time that you book to the time that you travel, your mindset potentially may shift in terms of how you're feeling that particular day, right. You might have thought a different way when you were actually booking your trip to why the time you actually get to the airport or about to get to the airport or check in 24 hours prior, you might have just had a very, very long day or your meeting may have ended soon. So, at that point in time, customers do want that flexibility again keeping the customer need at the core of all of this and value propositions. I find that there's definitely a huge market for their travel changes.</p>
<p>Now that can come in many different form and shapes, like I said. You just want a bit of extra leg room to actually stretch your legs out because it's been a tiring day. Or you want to actually go ahead and upgrade yourself. You can actually go ahead and do that. Or for that matter, if you're meeting ended sooner, or it's probably going to end later, you can go find some flexible options again, literally the benefit of a phone, having in your hand on trying to change to a earlier or a later flight. So, we find that a lot of our customers with the fact that they have this flexibility avail them on the day of their travel and the very effective they're to a point the journey that we have covered, you actually have all these pop up on your phone in your app that makes it a lot more reachable if you may.</p>
<p>And while we obviously cater that audience, we also make sure that at different elements of the customer journey, be it when you at the airport as well, interacting with our kiosk, or even with our agents you still have that flexibility available to you. So that's definitely one element that we continue to focus on and find a huge demand for as we consider the retail aspect, or the ancillary aspect of what customers like to engage with American on post-ticket purchase.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And when I think about that and you're talking about the meetings ended early, I need some extra leg room. It's been a really long, a really long day I could use a little bit of extra, having that interaction or that integration with the TripLink application to allow for corporate policies to be applied as well. When you're looking at those things, I think is probably very critical to most of our travel managers and is an amazing feature. It's probably one of the reasons why you're one of our top airlines with those types of bookings, because having that integrated there directly in the app makes a world of difference for that business traveler. Their experience is elevated to an additional level that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. And again, I know I sound like a broken record, but that's just me and I go back to making sure that we are keeping the customer needs at core or we're like, and when I use the customer, right, I mean that we obviously have to ensure that we're working within to me, that is part of the seamless customer experience that you defined. It is not part of the corporate policy if it's not within the duty of care elements, or if it's not within ensuring that a customer could actually go do that. Ultimately that's not the experience or the friction that we want to go create. Right. You want to make sure that from an end-to-end perspective, the journey is seeing this with the customer coming from say, either at an expensing standpoint or anything else that comes through with it. So, we've got to make sure that that experience for that customer, be it an offer or anything else that we provide to them is personalized in a way. So that for us is key and that's something that we keep to our core or any customer interaction that we're trying to focus on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You're in many ways, a lot like us, where we have multiple customers in that one customer transaction, we have the organization as a whole, we have the travel management customer, we have our own internal organizations. And then we have that end user who has that phone right at the end of their hand. And so, keeping them all in mind and at top of mind is sometimes difficult, but it is the core principle of how we run our businesses and how we service our customers. So, thank you for keeping them at the top of mind. We are very appreciative of that.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. And then, I mean, just building on that thought, right. I mean, if you think about it, just consider our day-to-day daily interactions, again, focused on the app, or like how we use our phone. So frequently you use it for convenience, right? At that point in time, if I'm a customer or any end consumer, right? I want the information presented to me in the simplest form in the most consumable form. I don't want to be figuring out what I can or cannot do to the nth degree of detail, right? So, you want with the simplicity of the information-so what I'm trying to tie in here is that whatever our app offers is trying to make sure that we're working within the guidelines of what the contract ensures specifically, or your universe might be wider, but it comes back to the point of saying that if we present the right information and you don't really have to go looking around for it. It just makes your interaction with the app or what you are trying to do at that point in time so much easier.</p>
<p>I don't want to think about, can I buy this seat or not? Can I do this or not? Or can I go ahead, change my flight or not? If that sense of smartness is already built in and you know what you have at your disposal, then the only decision that you need to make is whether you want to actually go ahead with it or not, you don't have to actually spend time thinking about other things. And I think that level of simplicity, ease of use drives greater adoption.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. And that greater adoption is really critical for spend visibility and even control and compliance within our customer base. As budgets get tighter, as employees are looking to travel a little bit more now, and they may be coming from other places because they're no longer part of a headquarters' organization, but they may be in multiple areas around the country as part of that hybrid work organization. These types of things start to become even more critical than they were before. In thinking...</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh</strong>:</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And thinking about that and how our world is working today, I'm just curious, what do you see as the future of that business and corporate managed travel specifically flying? What does that mean to American Airlines and where are you looking to take that?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. So, I mean, as we were chatting earlier in the conversation, right, the last year, year and a half has been rather challenging for all of us as a society. And the world around us has shifted a lot. It's been a paradigm shift. So, as we think about it again, it was always core to us, but now more than ever is keeping in mind customer needs, customer ease, right. What can we do to actually make customers comfortable with air travel, right? And that's something that if you consider the airline industry, everyone's been trying to think about and trying to innovate on, try to create that sense of comfort. Is it about the flexibility that you introduce when it comes to travel plans because the world around us is not as defined as it was, right? You need greater flexibility. How do you adapt to scenarios like that? So, you need to pivot in your way of thinking on how you may have thought about your business historically to how you think about it today.</p>
<p>Right. I mean, so that's an area of business that we continue to focus on to see how can we actually make life easier for our customers in terms of our offerings and give them that greater flexibility they need-given that uncertainty that exists around us. Now that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is how can I actually convey that information to you in a simple manner so that you can digest it and are able to understand what you can and cannot do when we talk about the retail experience, right? And how can I actually allow you to easily transact with American Airlines at any point in time? Now, if you think about COVID, we had a speed of cancellations unimaginable. Right. I mean, on the scale that we never thought of before. People were sitting with their cancelled tickets for a long, long, long time.</p>
<p>And if you think about how the world operates around us, and generally speaking, all of these unused tickets, we're trying to figure out what to do with them in the future, how can I actually, as I get a little bit more comfortable post-vaccination or things around us are getting a little bit better, how do I get back into travel? We are trying to make sure that it’s easy for these customers to actually come interact with us and use these unused tickets as we call them and actually use it as a form of payment for future travel through digital assets; be it our website or our app. Again, being considerate to each different customer segment and their needs and the guardians around them, but we're providing that sense of flexibility and ease of use.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the only option that customers had before was to pick up the phone and get on a long, arduous call with a frontline representative, a call center employee who would actually guide them through the process. It's not beneficial to the customer when they have the long wait times. It's actually burdens on frontline as well when we have very, very long agent handling times. Right? So, we're trying to make sure how can we create that ease of use for transacting with us? Now a third element of that is again, when you think about just comfort of traveling, when you are on a plane and it's been all through the media, how we feel customers make feel safe when they're actually traveling with us, focused around hygiene, focused around the air quality, just trying to make sure that people feel a sense of comfort, then you know that you have a customer sitting probably a seat or seat and a half away from you , right?</p>
<p>And there's been a lot of focus on that from our friends in operations. And then even before that, when you get to the airport, there's been so much innovation as we think of touchless kiosk experiences where we are trying to help customers in a COVID-inflicted world say yes, we have reservations on not necessarily wanting to touch a device. So how can I actually make that interaction easier for you being cognizant of the surroundings around? That goes a long way in building that sense of confidence and that sense of trust as we try to welcome our customers back as we come onto the other side of what's happened to us in the past couple of years.</p>
<p>And I think it's about taking a lot of these series of sequential steps, thinking about our business differently, innovating. And when I talk about innovation, I'm not necessarily just talking about innovation and technology, but I'm talking about innovation in our ways of thinking, being more scratchy and more resourceful, keeping the customer at core and trying to deliver value propositions to them that make them feel safe and valued when they try to return back to travel post this pandemic era.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, as somebody who has traveled during this pandemic era I can say, I have felt very safe, and I have actually traveled on American Airlines and felt incredibly safe. The touchless experiences that you're talking about, the ability to feel safe in the air from a hygiene or cleanliness perspective has really been a comfort to me as I fly. And I'm somebody who has flown internationally a lot. And I am used to having to prove from a health perspective that I have certain credentials. Are you working on anything related to that credentialing of the end user? So, they don't have to be carrying pieces of paper or test results or anything else? Is there anything that's coming down the pipe in your apps for that as well?</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. And that again is a highly important, relevant and a fantastic question, right? That is again, what the pandemic has done, the ideas were there, the core processes were there, people wanted to go do a lot of this stuff, but it expedited, I would say the maturity curve or the adoption curve. And this specific instance that you're talking about is an example of that. And so, I mean, it's again thinking about what the customer wants. They don't want to be standing a lot of time in a long queue when you talk of international travel and with so many restrictions that have come through, passport verification, are you vaccinated or not? You need to manually go through each and one of your documents before you board a plane. So how can we make that experience more seamless and comforting for the customer where they still have the ability to go to the airport and sit down in the lounge and enjoy a drink before they go and board or just like walk around and feel normal and not have to go through this long, arduous process?</p>
<p>And to that effect, there's been a lot of focus at American to bring that sense of peace in. We've been working with partners where we allow for this exact functionality to come through where you could actually sign up with us. And then you can verify yourself in terms of providing documentation, that you've been tested, you meet certain guidelines depending upon where you're traveling. And what that allows you to do is check in online. You don't necessarily need to go see an agent. Once you go through that process, you're digitally checked in. There's no requirement for document verification. And then you're on your way to board the plane.</p>
<p>So that level of technology innovation, process innovation we've been continuously focused on in the last year, year and half and thinking to build on it as we look towards the future, look at these kinds of things. The world around us, like I said, has shifted. It might become the new baselines of the things that we have to consider, and we keep trying to work towards that. In similar way, things that I was talking about that got expedited, or just trying to bring ease of use is biometrics or thinking about the fact that how could customers actually just scan their image in a way, or just stand in front of something that looks like an iPad, which just takes a picture and says, okay, Jeanne, you are good to board or OK, Jeanne, you don't need to take out your passport. You don't need to take out your ticket. Anything else? Like when you actually go to the Admiral's Club, someone just takes a snapshot of your picture, boom, everything is there.</p>
<p>So, I mean, those are the kind of things that we are continuing to focus on from the traveler's perspective as well, especially when customers are at the airport to provide that sense of seamlessness and comfort to their travel. So that focus continues to be there. And we continue to build on it, be it from ease of checking perspective with COVID restrictions. And actually, not just that, we're trying to provide information to a customer so that they're ready for their day of travel much, much before. You could actually come to our website and get to know about specific restrictions that each country has to offer, or what do you need to be prepared for. Like go back to my earlier theme, ease of communication or presenting information to customers in a digestible format. If you already know what all you need to be prepared for, or what are the restrictions that you need to be cautious about, you'll come much more prepared. Those are the broad themes that we continue to focus on as this world around us evolves and we try to cater to specific customer needs.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I can see now why you are the Director of the Digital Customer Experience because everything that you just described, including those biometrics, I would like to raise my hand and live in that Jetson-style world where all I have to do is show up and show my face. And that's it. So, thank you for that.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>I appreciate the word of confidence, but trust me it's not like, I mean, especially when we talk the world the airports, it's a common theme, right? Be it the digital customer experience, or be it the experience at the airport, it takes a village, right? It's my partners across the organization who've been pushing for, along with us, as you think of ourselves as the customer-centric organization, changes that bring that ease, right. I mean, especially for certain aspects of that, it's actually a lot of my partners, commercial colleagues across the airports and the operations team were to be thanked for trying to bring this sense of innovation in their processes and technology to bring about that ease of use for customers. We all try to do our bit so like I said, it takes a village and then ultimately, it's about piecing that experience together right from the time you start thinking about your travel, to the actual purchase, to boarding the plane, and we all try to come together and try to make sure that we can make it as easy as possible.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>It's fascinating to me to see this small part of a larger cog and understand how much innovation is driving the change and how much our change of what our customers expect are driving the innovation. It's almost a Venn diagram of who's influencing whom in this. And I am always amazed as I open up apps and new things happen that they're listening to me without my having to say anything. The idea that you are actually anticipating this is really phenomenal. And it allows me and as a traveler to not have to think too hard in order to do the right thing. And in order to have a pleasurable experience, I just am there and you're serving to me and I'm serving to you. And it's really a wonderful experience. So, thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I mean, it's just, I think at the end of it, like what it boils down to is again a theme that you probably would've heard me mention all through our conversation today. Ease of use, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>I mean, I want my traveler, and that's where you started. Right? The first thing that we started talking about was that frictionless customer experience, right. It just goes back to that central theme and just understanding what frictionless means. There's obviously data, right? There's a baseline for friction-less; but it means different things to different people and trying to understand that and trying to make sure that we are catering to each individual or like each customer segment's minds. And obviously that's a journey too. It's not going to happen overnight. And you start chipping away at it piece by piece. And there's so many different touch points. There are so many different journey elements. There are different customer segmentations, there are different needs, but as long as you can actually keep that focus, like I said, you get there.</p>
<p>And just what's happened in the last couple of years has actually, fueled need to think about it faster. It's required for us to think about our business in different ways that we necessarily didn't have to think through pre- pandemic era. And I think all of it, I always continue to look for silver linings in anything and everything that happens on a day-to-day basis or in general around us. I think if there is one, remotely one silver lining, I think as an industry, as an organization, it helped us expedite and fuel a lot of that innovation for the benefit of the customer, for their ease, which might have been otherwise probably a bit of a slow roll had this not happened. So, I'm glad that we're on the path that we are on today to make life easier for customers across their journey.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's incredible and I know we've touched on a lot of things today, but is there anything that we haven't touched on that you wanted to make sure that our listeners hear or understand about your organization? The tools that you're building, the technology you're using the future thinking ideas that you have. Is there anything we haven't touched on? I'm thinking there probably isn't, but...</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>I think we touched, I mean, we scratched the surface on most things, obviously a lot of these go multiple levels deeper, right? But I think it's primarily more about like actually evaluating each one of these themes that we talked about and taking them across the finish line. I think that's one message or one theme that I try to keep true to every day. It's not just about ideating or it's not just about your truest MVP, it's about taking it one step beyond, right? Or multiple steps beyond. So, I think that's one thing or one message that I reiterate with our teams here. It's about getting that continuous feedback loop from the customer. We all ideate. We all think what's right for the customer, but it's so much better to hear from the customer what's right and what's not, right?</p>
<p>So, as we think of technology innovation, as we think of tooling, as we think of processes, it's about, again, a thing that I mentioned before being scratchy being resourceful, put something out there, try to get their feedback and see whether it works or not, right? And if it doesn't work, pivot and then try to come up with the next best thing. And data is a very, very powerful mechanism, customer feedback is a very, very powerful mechanism. Customer sentiment is so huge trying to capture those things as we think of each of these teams or technologies. If you think of technology-technology is an enabler at the end of the day, right? I mean, what we're trying to serve is a customer need. If a customer is going to be happy, your employees are going to be happy. The company is going to be profitable in the long run, right?</p>
<p>If we keep that at our focus and we continue to iterate on it in a recurring manner and not give up at the first point of failure, that's what's most important, right? And like serving that customer need is what's going to us across that finish line. And knowing that we're going to hit road bumps along the way in our process or in our quest for innovation is absolutely fine. Taking failure in our stride is what we need to do. And we need to build and learn on those failures. So, I think if there's one theme, that's one that I would like to focus on.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I would like you to come back and talk to us again about some of those failures and learning experiences and successes that you've had in the future. This has been a really amazing conversation, and I've learned a significant amount from you. And I'm definitely looking forward to the next time that I get to fly and get to be delighted by the service that I get out of my app. I'll be going in December. So, I'll just, ahead of time, if you get anything new coming up, hit me up so that I'm ready for it, when I get there.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it was a pleasure. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I definitely enjoyed our conversation and I'm hopeful, next time around we do this, we're going to be doing this in person.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yes. That would be wonderful. That would be terrific. But for everybody who's listening. Thank you for spending the time with us today. If you're interested in learning more about the American Airline app, please visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">AmericanAirlines.com</a>. And if you're interested in listening or learning anything more about what's happening at the SAP Concur organization, please hit us up at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">sap.com</a>. Thank you again for listening and thank you Anshuman for all your time and your interesting insights. Really appreciate it.</p>
<p><strong>Anshuman Singh:</strong></p>
<div>
<p>Thank you so very much.</p>
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<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Anshuman%20Singh%20Square%202.png" /> </p>
<p>Anshuman has over 8 years of experience in Product Strategy and Execution conceptualizing and driving large scale initiatives for the enterprise. Driven by a passion to serve needs of all customer segments, his focus is to use data and establish a continuous customer feedback loop to drive new features and enhancements.</p>
<p>To unwind, he loves to travel to any beach destination he can get to!</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshuman-singh-5a352b11/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634175398494-jeanne square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community.</p>
<p>Follow her on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-dion-67062b8/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Four Ways to Simplify Invoice Management for the Hybrid Work World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-ways-simplify-invoice-management-hybrid-work-world
2022-07-02T05:29:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are living in the midst of a work revolution What was once a gradual shift toward hybrid work hit seismic proportions over the past two years Working faster and smarter are no...
<p>We are living in the midst of a work revolution.</p>
<p>What was once a gradual shift toward hybrid work hit seismic proportions over the past two years. Working faster and smarter are no longer just business priorities – they are essential to work-life balance and employee satisfaction. As we have seen, entire economies and operating requirements can turn on a dime.</p>
<p>The question is, are you ready to turn with them?</p>
<p>As an employer, you must be able to keep pace with the changing work needs of your people and your company. Nowhere is this more critical than in finance and accounts payable (AP). Without consistent, disciplined spend management processes and complete and unified spend data, you lack the visibility and control you need to make the most of every dollar.</p>
<p>Here are four ways that the Concur Invoice solution can get you where you need be.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>4 Ways to Boost AP Productivity in a Hybrid Work World</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-boost-ap-productivity-hybrid-work-world">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Automate, automate, automate</h2>
<p>There’s nothing that slows your AP team down and creates errors and rework more than outdated, manual paper-, e-mail-, and spreadsheet-based vendor invoicing. When you automate and connect your invoicing with expense report and p-card processes, things like workflows, approvals, and audits can be done from anywhere. Plus, the act of automating is a great opportunity to evaluate your current invoice management processes to identify redundancies and bottlenecks. You may even find new spend categories that make more sense for your business or see that some of your suppliers are really stepping up whereas others may no longer be making the grade.</p>
<p>With Concur Invoice, you have the tools you need to streamline spend management across your company, increase spend visibility, and allow your employees to work smarter, not harder – no matter where life needs them to be.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Integrate across all systems</h2>
<p>A comprehensive spend management solution is great. But if it isn’t fully integrated with your back-end ERP, finance, and accounting systems, you’re still manually pulling data from one place and entering it in another. Connected systems mean accurate up-to-date data, greater visibility, and one source of truth. Not only does this save time and reduce errors, it gives your finance teams the information they need to make critical, in-the-moment decisions about cash and capital.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions offer multiple ways to connect and integrate your data. From built-in connectors to scheduled and on-demand import and export tools and custom-built API-based Web connections, you can find the right connection method to meet your business and IT needs – whether your people are at the office, on the road, or working from home.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Close the process gaps</h2>
<p>Nothing throws a wrench in an AP professional’s day like finding an invoicing error or missing piece of information. They have to stop everything and sift back through previous steps – contacting vendors or buyers to get the information they need. Add global time zones and remote work schedules to the mix, and you could be looking at days of delay.</p>
<p>Your goal should be to find an invoice management solution that flags errors and missing information before they get to AP. In other words, there should never be a piece of critical information that doesn’t make it into a report or a PO that comes through without the correct approval.</p>
<p>With Concur Invoice, your invoice management processes and data are connected and your vendor invoicing rules are applied automatically – reducing the number of exceptions you need to manage in the first place.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t forget about payments</h2>
<p>Why automate every aspect of your invoice management except that critical last step? There is no need for AP teams to waste time cutting checks or manually verifying electronic payments.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions offer multiple ways to incorporate integrated, controlled, and automated payment processes through banking and financial service partners. And because it all runs in the cloud, you can roll it out quickly without rehauling your ERP or finance system.</p>
<p>Whether you’re already using the Concur Expense solution or are taking the first step in transforming your spend management, it’s time to make life easier for your AP team across every step of the invoice management process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-boost-ap-productivity-hybrid-work-world">Find out more</a> about how Concur Invoice can give you the efficiency and insight you need to make smarter spending decisions. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">here</a> to get started.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Dynamic Spend Management: Adapting to New Workforce Needs in Higher Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dynamic-spend-management-adapting-new-workforce-needs-higher-education
2022-11-13T16:39:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What does a hybrid workforce look like in higher education With the fall start and for some institutions a return to campus fast approaching many colleges and universities will be...
<p>What does a hybrid workforce look like in higher education? With the fall start, and for some institutions, a return to campus, fast approaching, many colleges and universities will be operating with a hybrid workforce for the first time, requiring updated staffing and operational procedures.</p>
<p>Yet many employees, now experienced with remote work, are hesitant about this new post-pandemic hybrid model. While international data from <a href="https://futureforum.com/2021/01/28/hybrid-rules-the-emerging-playbook-for-flexible-work/">Future Forum’s Remote Employee Experience Index</a> suggests that 83% of employees across all industries no longer want to work in-person five days a week, 20% of employees indicated they wanted to work remotely full-time.</p>
<p>There are no simple answers for these complex considerations going forward: What does the future of the workforce in higher education look like? What must we take into consideration? How are institutions going to adjust? To prepare for this new chapter and to provide flexible work options to employees, institutions will need to rethink staffing for online and in-person instruction, policies related to on-campus parking, new and updated technology tools among other needs, all while managing expectations across the campus enterprise—both online and in-person. Due to these needs, colleges and universities will be best served if they work to both educate and connect all areas of campus, using the tools they have at their disposal to do so.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Easing into flexibility to ensure efficiency</h2>
<p>While all campus operations are not likely to become 100% remote, the amount of time that employees will spend in-person on campus is lower than it was pre-pandemic. Therefore, accommodating off-site work and helping the workforce be effective and efficient in this new capacity, is critical. <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/at-some-colleges-remote-work-could-be-here-to-stay?bc_nonce=axeg9y4wqtqwi6cbvgfvu&cid=reg_wall_signup&cid2=gen_login_refresh">Institutions like UCLA, Boston University, and Duke</a> already have tasks forces in place to create smooth transitions. Ensuring a smooth transition means making both off-site, and on-site, work safe and seamless. Following the federal guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for indoor spaces is a quick way to alleviate the expected stress of returning to the campus environment. Investing in CDC-compliant seating arrangements, updated scheduling and employee collaboration models, increased cleaning plans, and improved operational policies are, at minimum, required as university and college stakeholders continue to navigate the pandemic impact. It is also critical to evaluate the daily needs of faculty and staff. Which teams should be on-site at the same time? Does it make more sense to have people in the office on days they have meetings with one another? If so, which teams take precedent? </p>
<p>While institutions are addressing over-arching or governing policy and procedures for a safe return to the office, department leaders are left to implement those policies. These department heads need to evaluate and address a multitude of dynamics to make a hybrid model work within their department. For example, what resources will an employee need to be successful when working outside or inside of the office? Are some employees in need of specific training or nurturing from more senior staff members? If they are, what are the best ways to facilitate that learning in a safe, hybrid model? Beyond safety, these leaders need to ensure that their staff is supported and continuing to grow as professionals, despite the location in which they are working.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Re-writing policies to accommodate the new normal</h2>
<p>With safety top of mind for leadership, institutions will need to update certain policies and procedures. Universities are revising their travel policies, deciding whether to require vaccines and masks for returning staff, providing guidelines for how staff should report future illnesses and making resources available on-site for employees to turn to should they need help.</p>
<p>In other areas, like IT, institutions are looking into providing a strengthened infrastructure. With that comes a need for updated guidelines regarding equipment reimbursement, telecommunication processes, stipends for augmented “typical” home services, such as the internet or mobile communications, while also ensuring to not create a tax burden for the employee.</p>
<p>Given the number of policies surrounding spend management, the considerations in a hybrid workforce regarding finances are especially complex. Will the university be outfitting employees’ home offices with the appropriate equipment or reimbursing them for internet connection? What changes are needed in the travel and expense policies to adjust for hybrid models and is the expense system updated to reflect these changes? If employees will be working remotely, how does that impact the invoicing process for vendors or suppliers? Can we take this time to push vendors to submit invoices via email or accept ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments and virtual card payments? These are just a few of the many scenarios higher education leaders face in crafting remote and hybrid work policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Adopting automation wherever possible</h2>
<p>During the throes of the pandemic, technology allowed university employees to shift to a remote model while still working across departments seamlessly. The University of Alabama (UA) is a perfect example of this, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/university-alabama">having gone live with automated audit solutions in January 2021</a> as part of an ongoing effort to fully eliminate paper-based processes. The once “stare and compare” method of auditing that UA operated through paper and campus mail is now a thing of the past, allowing for simpler, virtual processes for all users. </p>
<p>These tools can be helpful when implementing a hybrid model in bridging those who will be on and off-site, and even allow for more efficiency as well. Penn State University, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state">which processes more than 240,000 expense reports a year</a>, saw no backlog in its processes during and in more recent weeks of the pandemic. Jan Barnoff, director of financial information systems for the university stated, “with all receipts electronically generated for expense report submission and approvals, we no longer have to bring those into the central office and have them scanned.” Similarly, in July 2020 while the university was virtual, they went live with a massive new instance/P-card request automation project with no pilot, no grace period, and remarkably, no hiccups due to the simplicity of the solutions they used—a great example of how automation can increase efficiency. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Embracing new opportunities </h2>
<p>Going forward, colleges and universities can take this opportunity to update and ensure all corners of the intuition are consistent and leverage universities’ solutions with one another. By evaluating policies, technologies, and other in-person work considerations, higher education leaders can set the institution up for success in years to come and be agile in adapting to whatever "new normal" is next.</p>
<p>Huron is a global consultancy that collaborates with clients to drive strategic growth, ignite innovation and navigate constant change. Through a combination of strategy, expertise and creativity, we help clients accelerate operational, digital and cultural transformation, enabling the change they need to own their future. By embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo, we create sustainable results for the organizations we serve. As a <a href="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/expertise/digital-technology-analytics/concur">Certified SAP Concur Advisor</a>, Huron has extensive experience in implementing travel, expense and invoice management solutions while understanding the unique challenges of assessing, building, and optimizing best-in-class programs. Learn more at <a href="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/">www.huronconsultinggroup.com</a>.</p>
Katheryn Nolfo
AP Work is Still Work. It Just Doesn’t Have to be So Frustrating
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ap-work-still-work-it-just-doesnt-have-be-so-frustrating
2022-11-13T18:41:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Well okay sure Sometimes its still going to be frustrating Infuriating even But when it comes to daytoday monotony and minutetominute minutia of thumbing through all that AP paperwork...
<p>Well, okay, sure. Sometimes it’s still going to be frustrating. Infuriating, even. But when it comes to day-to-day monotony and minute-to-minute minutia of thumbing through all that AP paperwork, there’s a way to make things easier. You can simplify (or eliminate altogether) the manual processes and procedures your back-office team is forced to fight through, and you can open their to-do lists to the types of projects they want to do. The big-picture things you hired them to do, in fact. The things that keep them productive, engaged, and happy. And now, more than at any other time in history, keeping them happy is key.</p>
<p>The Great Resignation, as you well know, is rolling right along, carrying as much as 38% of the workforce with it. That’s the number of people, according to a <a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-great-resignation-of-2021-are-30-of-workers-really-going-to-quit/">TechRepublic survey</a>, who are planning to leave their current job in the next few months.</p>
<p>That means you have work to do.</p>
<h2>Rework the work experience</h2>
<p>Ask anyone in finance or AP, and they’ll tell you it’s the little things that get in the way of doing their job: Tracking the receipts, scouring the expense reports, digging through the paperwork, plus the time and mistakes that always seem to accompany those pesky procedures. But you can get rid of the manual tasks that are slowing things down and increasing the risk of errors. Digitize your expense reports and accounts payable process, and you reduce processing time, increase efficiency, and improve accuracy. You help them stay on top of spending without having to stay on top of everyone who’s doing the spending. </p>
<p>And this is just one example. Take a peek at everything AP is dealing with – from not wanting to be the “bad guy” to troubles with spotting non-compliant spend – then find the answers in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/improve-back-office-productivity-and-employee-experience-sap-concur-solutions">solution overview</a>. Answers that will help finance do what matters most.</p>
<h2>Free your finance team to focus on meaningful work</h2>
<p>Again, when you take menial expense-reporting tasks and unnecessary approval processes out of their way, your finance and AP teams can keep an eye on your broader spend strategy and bigger spend picture.</p>
<p>By enhancing your current solutions or investing in new T&E tools, you can tap into intelligent technology and apply pre- and post-spending controls to see how spending can be improved. You can add intelligence to the audit process and pull many of those auditing pains off your auditors’ desks. And you can even get back what’s rightfully yours (money you may be missing out on now) by reclaiming every bit of eligible value-added and general-use tax you’ve paid.</p>
<p>In short, finance and AP can do their jobs and keep your business on budget.</p>
<h2>What’s good for them is good for you</h2>
<p>Protecting your budgets. Controlling your costs. Supporting your back office teams. It’s not just good for the people who work there, it’s essential for your company.</p>
<p>So take a moment to look at these <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/improve-back-office-productivity-and-employee-experience-sap-concur-solutions">AP concerns</a>. You’ll see exactly to say and which solutions will make their work more efficient and engaging – while eliminating their frustrations.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Build an Authentic Corporate Culture, and Why You Should
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-authentic-corporate-culture-and-why-you-should
2022-11-13T19:37:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As leaders embracing our authentic selves can help us manage change improve employee retention develop stronger business relationships and drive profit both personally and...
<p>As leaders, embracing our authentic selves can help us manage change, improve employee retention, develop stronger business relationships, and drive profit both personally and professionally. But organizationally, how can we best develop an authentic culture that supports and empowers employees, too? We talked to Anna Crowe, author of <strong>Get Real: The Power of Genuine Leadership, a Transparent Culture, and an Authentic You</strong>, to find out.<br />
<br />
Anna’s book was nominated as a Top Book recommendation for 2021 by Corey Ringh, Consulting Travel Manager, Netsmart.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1613697210684-screen shot 2021-02-18 at 5.13.22 pm.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>"Get Real" plus more top books and podcasts industry leaders love</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">Get the list</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Q: Why are so many organizations realizing the value of authenticity at work?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Employees today are driven by different values than in previous decades. Organizations competing for top talent realize the importance of creating a trusting environment where employees can bring their best selves and authentic strengths to the table – one where they can be valued and heard.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How can organizations begin to create a more authentic workplace? </strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Authenticity starts from the top. To generate authenticity from employees, leaders have to create a culture of transparency and trust. This starts with a self-assessment exploring three core questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Am I being authentic?</li>
<li>What does authenticity look like to me?</li>
<li>How can that translate to our corporate culture?</li>
</ul>
<p>Leaders then need to understand how they can channel and exemplify authenticity and allow others to follow suit. It’s also important to understand the values of your organization, stay true to those values, and ensure everyone is aligned around them. </p>
<p>Authenticity is the most critical piece in creating trust. We don’t have to be best friends or hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” to be authentic, but we do have to be consistent, communicate effectively, and be open to vulnerability.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Why is vulnerability so important to authentic leadership?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Vulnerability can be perceived negatively, but it’s a really positive thing. Being vulnerable doesn't mean you have to wear your heart on your sleeve; it’s just a way to show someone that underneath titles and roles, you're human. It helps shed some of those layers and allow people to level the playing field in terms of understanding one another.</p>
<p><strong>Q: What mistakes do organizations make in attempting to become more authentic?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> The biggest mistake is not getting full buy-in. If some people commit to authenticity and others don’t, it creates confusion, inconsistencies, and distrust. Especially with today's generation: if employees see it’s not working the way it's supposed to, they’ll eventually leave.</p>
<p>If employees are aligned with the organization’s core values, you’ll have a much easier time explaining the value of authenticity, getting buy-in, and having it trickle down. If some employees aren’t on board, they may no longer be a good fit with the organization.</p>
<p>“We all have our superpowers that we should embrace. Authenticity is about tapping into who you are, how you want to lead and manage your culture, and owning it.”</p>
<p><strong>Q: In addition to employee satisfaction, how can authenticity help improve operations, productivity, and profitability? </strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> When we're able to share feedback with one another without fear of being reprimanded, we become a different organization. Suppose you need to require additional approvals to help save on costs and better enforce policies. In a transparent culture, you can say, "Martha, the workflow you spearheaded for travel and expense approvals worked really well for a long time, but it’s not working anymore. Let’s have an open conversation about it to ensure everyone is on board with making changes to improve efficiency.”</p>
<p>In a transparent culture where you can have authentic conversations, that's an easy discussion. Everyone is coming from a place of wanting to improve operations and grow the business. In a non-transparent environment where you don’t have trust, people won’t speak up – maybe because Martha is their boss, they don’t want to hurt her feelings, or they don’t want to be seen as gunning for her job.</p>
<p>Transparent culture also encourages creativity and risk-taking. It creates a safe space to ask questions, find new solutions, learn, and grow. People can think bigger and innovate without the fear of making mistakes, which can do wonders for an organization.</p>
<p>Without genuine conversations and understanding each other on a human level, it’s hard to work together in the best possible way. When you have authentic conversations, you can accomplish so much more.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that productivity goes hand in hand with a sense of meaning and purpose, which will only come if we are being authentic. When people are empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work and to freely tap into their strengths, they become more invested in their work and in the organization’s success. They can achieve a lot more and their productivity increases. Nurturing and growing the talent in your organization will lead to loyalty, employee retention, and with it, better profitability. </p>
<p><strong>Q: What’s the best way to encourage open communication in the workplace?</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Humans communicate in different ways. Some are emotional communicators; some are cognitive communicators; some speak from the heart; others don’t care about chit-chat and just want to get to work. This can cause a communication breakdown when really, we’re all trying to reach a common goal.</p>
<p>When we have an authentic understanding of how each person perceives information, we can communicate better. For instance, I can be pretty direct and don’t always have a lot of time for chit-chat. But if a highly emotional communicator comes into my office, I will take a moment to ask how things are going before we jump into the work issue. It’s a genuine action that comes from a place of understanding the individual, what’s important to them, and how we can best connect on a human level.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How should organizations ensure their authenticity efforts continue to evolve? </strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Authenticity is an ongoing process. We’re continually learning, growing, and finding our leadership style. As with any type of big initiative, you need milestones. Perform regular self-assessments, leadership assessments, and culture assessments to ask, “What's working? What's not working? Do we need to refine what's happening?” Consistently reevaluate your teams, values, and communication methods; then hold yourself and others accountable.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Can authenticity help organizations be more flexible and responsive in the face of challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic? </strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> 2020 spotlighted the real value in authenticity and why it matters. Suddenly, everyone was working at home – but we all had very different situations and points of view. Some employees had 10 people in the house and no childcare. Others were home alone and went for months at a time without seeing another human being.</p>
<p>We can't assume everyone is going through a crisis in the same way. The one-size-fits-all model [of management] doesn’t work anymore. You have to be able to have open conversations: "What's going on for you? How can I better support you? What do we need to do? And how does it best align with our business goals?" Without listening actively, and hearing and understanding, you can lose good people and miss out on opportunities.</p>
<h3><strong>Want More Recommendations to Get Inspired in 2021?</strong></h3>
<p>For more books and podcasts on leadership or managing colossal changes – whether in your personal life or business – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">download our brochure</a> filled with recommendations from top spend management thought leaders across the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size">About Anna Crowe</p>
<p class="small-size">Anna Crowe is founder and CEO of Crowe PR, a recognized public relations and marketing expert, best-selling <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PMBHMFX/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Nr4YCbV2KC3DR">author</a> and speaker. Anna has spent nearly 20 years working for iconic brands in New York, Los Angeles and San Diego, pivoting from a Big 4 CPA track, to scaling and leading a national public relations and marketing agency. </p>
<p class="small-size">In addition to running her business and empowering people to unlock their true potential through authenticity, Anna spearheads the local chapter of a female focused Changemaker Chats organization, sits on the board of the San Diego Chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization and is an active members of philanthropy-based PEERS Network. Anna's focus on developing extraordinary leaders and growing her clients' businesses has led to several notable recognitions, including PR Team of the Year, PRNEWS Top Women in PR, Women Who Mean Business, CEO of the Year and more. </p>
<p class="small-size">Anna's book ‘Get Real: The Power of Genuine Leadership, a Transparent Culture and an Authentic You’ earned Amazon Best-seller status in 2019 and continues to sell globally. A former Moscovite and long-time New Yorker, Anna lives in San Diego with her husband and two young children. She is happiest when she positively impacts another human being, grows as an individual and a leader, travels the world with her family, and catches a coastal sunset with a glass of Pinot Noir.</p>
<p class="small-size">Follow Crowe PR: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/crowepr/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/crowepr">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/crowepr">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/crowepr/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p class="small-size">Follow Anna: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/annacrowe25/">LinkedIn</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/acrowepr/">Instagram</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
T&E Moves Toward Spend Optimization
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/te-moves-toward-spend-optimization
2022-11-14T11:39:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Kevin Permenter Senior Research Analyst Enterprise Applications IDC Burdened with tightening margins and increasing competition financial services firms must pay close attention to...
<p>By Kevin Permenter, Senior Research Analyst, Enterprise Applications, IDC</p>
<p>Burdened with tightening margins and increasing competition, financial services firms must pay close attention to business travel. In the past, these firms have focused their attention on controlling costs and maintaining compliance. These remain important aspects for travel departments in financial services firms. However, a growing area of focus in recent years has been optimizing travel spend. Not simply monitoring the costs and reconciling expenses from business travel, financial services firms are now looking to better understand the benefits and resulting outcomes from business travel. Was the West Coast trip for our sales team worth it? Did we send the right team? How did the trip impact sales/bookings? These questions while straight forward require a new level of capabilities from travel software applications, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Advanced analytics:</strong> Analytics can play an important role in travel and expense applications by turning expense report data into actionable information. With advanced analytics, businesses can identify spending patterns and adjust T&E policies accordingly. Pairing data from other departments can unlock even more valuable from analytics. For example, running a cross-section analysis on T&E costs against prospect scores in the CRM system can predict the most valuable travel locations for a member of the sales team.</li>
<li><strong>Better reporting:</strong> Many end users still struggle with reporting. Timely reporting and accurate analysis are essential to maintain business visibility and an agile business. However, too many organizations are stuck with limited functionality and little flexibility related to reporting and analysis. Bringing in more business and artificial intelligence capabilities allows financial professionals to save valuable time and to dive deeper into the data to reveal value-added insights.</li>
<li><strong>Application program interfaces (APIs):</strong> T&E applications must interact with many different external applications such as CRM, ERP, HCM, external booking tools, credit cards, and travel-specific apps to manage company expenses. APIs allow T&E applications to connect directly with those systems, so information and expenses flow seamlessly between end users and external services. The real impact here is that travel information can now be more easily paired with financial data, sales data, and HCM data to drive higher-level insights.</li>
<li><strong>Better data visualization:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-and-why-the-role-of-travel-manager-is-changing">Travel managers</a> often must sift through a tremendous amount of data to find key insights. Visualization tools help financial managers analyze data more efficiently. They are an essential tool for travel managers to quickly see the "story" behind the data. Unfortunately, the volume and the number of sources of relevant business data continue to grow so does the demand from financial software end users for better data visualization tools.</li>
</ul>
<p>Going forward, financial services firms will need to have tools to understand the outcome of business travel to optimize future business travel. In short, a focus on insights will allow these firms to make smarter decisions on budgeting and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">business travel planning</a>. The potential here is not simply to reduce cost and maintain compliance but to drive additional bookings revenue by making sure the right people are going to the right places at the right time. As insights become more essential to the travel management, we expect the role and required skill set to continue to evolve from more than a "bean counter," to an analyst/advisor. The travel managers will be asked to find trends and insights that will impact key performance indicators for the entire business.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Back on the Road – So Much Has Changed, So Much Is the Same
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/back-road-so-much-has-changed-so-much-same
2022-12-06T11:11:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Lets face it we all knew we wouldnt be staying home forever Whether new COVID variants emerge and keep many of us grounded the friendly skies are opening up hotels are cleaning more...
<p>Let’s face it, we all knew we wouldn’t be staying home forever. Whether new COVID variants emerge and keep many of us grounded, the friendly skies are opening up, hotels are cleaning more than ever (thank goodness), and travel has or will start again. What that means for your health is one thing, what that means from a government contracts compliance standpoint is still unchanged, though. FAR 31.205-46 has and will continue to cover this key audit area. Any system worth its weight in government contract expense management will allow you to follow your procedures. Those that rise above will give you the ability to make compliance easy.</p>
<p>Before getting into how to support such a thing, let’s discuss the topic of unallowable costs. In particular, FAR 31.205-46 deals with travel costs and specifically states that costs are allowable only if the contractor maintains specific documentation to support claimed travel costs. This is where many contractors fall down in their compliance. In DCAA, there was a saying while I was putting in my time "if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen.” Today, the expectation is for much of that documentation to be electronic.</p>
<p>Many systems will capture documentation and it is important to ensure the requirements for documentation are met, too. Similar to the long-standing Internal Revenue Code rules covering the same area, for claimed costs to be allowable, contractors must, at a minimum, capture the following information:</p>
<ol>
<li>Date of the expense</li>
<li>Location of the expenses</li>
<li>Purpose of the travel</li>
<li>Name of the traveler along with title and relationship to the contractor</li>
</ol>
<p>How and where this information is kept is not dictated by the regulation outside of requiring the information to be captured. However, corroborating the information becomes key. A key factor in determining whether documentation supports the cost is whether there is an independent record of the transaction taking place like a cancelled check, credit card receipts, or hotel bills. It is important to note that these two things don’t necessarily stand on their own for audit purposes.</p>
<h2>How can SAP Concur help with maintaining the sufficient documentation required for travel costs?</h2>
<p>Concur Travel and Concur Expense allows your employees to capture required travel and expense information easily and accurately. Employees can scan their receipts and enter expenses onto expense reports in real time with critical aides such as optical character recognition (OCR). OCR scans the receipts to capture critical data points such as transaction date, amount, business name and location. SAP Concur can even validate business names against known aliases that may conceal costs that should be unallowable. There are no more lost receipts or forgotten expenses. Through TripLink, SAP Concur even integrates with major expense providers such as airlines, hotels, and rental car/transportation companies to allow expenses to be captured with minimal effort from the traveler and immediately available for addition to expense reports. In fact, SAP Concur can be configured by the employee to recognize expenses during a trip and automatically have an expense reporting waiting for submission by the employee with all associated receipts.</p>
<p>For companies that must comply with GSA travel requirements, Concur Travel & Expense will maintain current rates and apply the ceilings and rules to ensure that costs in excess of allowable rates are properly recorded to prevent them from accidentally being billed to the government or other clients.</p>
<p>To ensure compliance, SAP Concur can perform audits on the expense reports to make sure that FAR requirements, as well as company specific policies, are being met and followed. This takes a great deal of risk off the companies and reduces their exposure to negative audit findings.</p>
<p>As your employees begin to venture out and travel once again, why not take the opportunity to improve their experience while simultaneously reducing the company’s risks of non-compliance?</p>
<p> </p>
Brad Mitchell
Accounts Payable Thought Leader at Geisinger Shares Top Read for 2022
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/accounts-payable-thought-leader-geisinger-shares-top-read-2022
2022-12-06T14:20:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense TE industry is now available Ashely Lehman Concur Administrator in Accounts Payable...
<p>Our 2022 top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense (T&E) industry is now available! Ashely Lehman, Concur Administrator in Accounts Payable, Geisinger, shares why she recommended The Anticipatory Organization – Turn Disruption and Change into Opportunity and Advantage by Daniel Burrus:</p>
<p><strong>Q:</strong><strong> Why did you recommend this book as a top read? </strong></p>
<p>A: I am finding this book to be extremely fitting, especially during this time. I personally loved reading about the hard and soft trends of the current economic environment as it was spot on for the way organizations need to push ahead during difficult times. The book specifically identified where we need to focus, as well as the certainties that we see in the future of healthcare. For example, identifying popular health needs in the future – such as Baby Boomers who need hip or kneed replacements – and starting to think about whether we have the proper facilities and available staff to support this hard trend. Overall, the book does a great job of understanding how to really identify the need to recognize and understand the future of your business. </p>
<p><strong>Q: How do you think your colleagues in the T&E industry could benefit from the advice in this book? </strong></p>
<p>A: As a Concur Administrator, I really associated this to our hard and soft stops for audit rules. The hard stops are the black and white rules in place that we need to identify, and the soft stops are those that we need to leave some room for change or adjustments. I think it’s also beneficial to approach your travel policies with the hard and soft trend vision. For example, identify what you can build into your travel and expense platform to make the system work for you. I also found the positive approach to “disruption” reassuring. We’ve all been through this pandemic and experienced travel disruption, and although we had a pause in the norm, it really gave us an opportunity to transform our travel programs and look at our processes and policies with fresh eyes. </p>
<p><strong>Want to see the full list of books, podcasts, and videos our thought leaders recommended? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love"><strong>Download the list</strong></a></p>
Kyla Kent
The Great Resignation and Its Impact on Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/great-resignation-and-its-impact-spend-management
2022-12-30T15:11:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When the COVID pandemic began no one could have predicted how much it would change how we live how we work and how businesses are run While virtual meetings and hybrid work...
<p>When the COVID-19 pandemic began, no one could have predicted how much it would change how we live, how we work, and how businesses are run. While virtual meetings and hybrid work environments have become the norm, the impact of the pandemic has extended well beyond office locale. It has ushered in the era of The Great Resignation, with record numbers of U.S. workers quitting their jobs <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm">in 2021</a>. Whether they left to take advantage of other opportunities, to hit the reset button on their career, or to figure out their personal “next chapter,” this much is clear: today, employee expectations extend far beyond collecting a paycheck.</p>
<p>To retain critical talent, organizations have to find a way to amplify the employee voice and understand their needs across the operation — including the area of travel and expense management, a very employee-driven, emotional business process.</p>
<p>“In this new post-pandemic environment, companies simply cannot design an employee mobility strategy in the same way or have the same legacy T&E expectations anymore. It has to be about more than spend control,” explained Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President, Value Experience Group, SAP Concur. “There has to be a greater emphasis on serving the employee base and their experience; to mobilize your field in a way that gets them the most productivity, while still taking care of the financial needs of the business. There has to be a balance. “</p>
<p>So, how can organizations move from where they are to a more employee-centric model to drive retention, while still operating profitably?</p>
<p><strong>1. Broaden your scope of employee engagement.</strong></p>
<p>If you’re like most organizations, your human resources department may periodically send out employee satisfaction surveys that ask if employees feel valued, are motivated by their managers, or if they have the tools they need to do their jobs. While all of those are good questions, employee engagement has to extend beyond the walls of HR.</p>
<p>Organizations have to find a way to make employee engagement part of their spend management strategies — asking about travel policies, supplier performance, card programs, and reimbursement processes, then blending that feedback with their operational data to ensure they’re serving the needs of the business as well as the needs of the people who keep it running.</p>
<p><strong>2. Monitor employee sentiment data as readily as you monitor KPIs.</strong></p>
<p>You and your department heads probably have dashboards that monitor spend data and budgets on a weekly, if not daily, basis. That same kind of visibility, with the capability to drill down into material thresholds, is critical to fully utilizing your sentiment data to identify where action is needed, and to measure how a change in policy, process or additional training impacts the outcome.</p>
<p>“For example, if you survey your employees on whether or not they are aware of your T&E policy, you can actually correlate the number of employees who answered ‘no’ with the portion of spend that is tied back to that population,” Klippenstein said. “If it’s a high percentage, then you’d be justified spending money on retraining them, and use the dashboard to estimate, and then monitor the results in terms of reduced non-compliant spend.” </p>
<p><strong>3. Recognize that Travel and Expense is an emotional business process — and treat it accordingly to aid retention.</strong></p>
<p>Your Travel and Expense policy impacts employee productivity, safety, and well-being. It’s an emotional business process that has to incorporate employee needs. It can no longer be approached in the same tactical way as buying supplies or contracting with a telecom provider. Your policy has to align with the individual needs of your users, and give them a degree of choice and control.</p>
<p>“The last thing you want is a T&E program that’s the final straw that breaks the camel’s back and causes an employee to leave,” Klippenstein said. “ Yes, the business still has to run, and decisions have to be made at top levels. But, when it’s an emotional process, like T&E, and it’s at every level of the company, it matters what your employees think.”</p>
<p>Incorporating their input into your policy makes all the difference. </p>
<p><strong>4. Let your employees know that you’re making a change. </strong></p>
<p>“It’s an opportune time to go to your employee base and say, “Hey, we know it’s different now. We know that there are opportunities. We know that there are expectations for a different work-life balance, and there are expectations that we figure out a way to get back in the saddle and grow as a company’,” Klippenstein said. “Let them know that part of serving them as an employee, and retaining them as valued members of the organization, is to really understand how they feel.”</p>
<p>Talk about how you’ll be collecting sentiment data. More importantly, let them know how you’ll be using this information, and how that will benefit them.</p>
<p>“I think it’s important to communicate that you’re actually baking their feedback into program design and configuration changes; that you’re going to put a plan in place to make improvements based on your findings and their input,” Klippenstein said.</p>
<p><strong>5. Embrace the fact that things will never be the same. </strong></p>
<p>From how we interact with other people to the way business engage with their employees, one thing is certain: things will never be the same.</p>
<p><strong>“</strong>The way expense management has traditionally been served is very finance centric, very policy driven, and I would challenge organization leaders to flip that on their head, and bring other stakeholders into the design of a business process that has such a human element to it,” Klippenstein said. “It became so clear with COVID that protecting your people and their health and safety is, and should be, the top priority, and you can’t forget that.”</p>
<p>That’s the New Normal for 2022 and beyond. It’s the age of the employee. Companies that pivot toward the people who make their organization run are the ones that will succeed in the years to come. </p>
<p>For more information on how to integrate employee sentiment data into your spend management strategies, check out <a href="http://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">Concur Experience Optimizer</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Expense Automation and Mobile AI: Time to Embrace a New Norm
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-automation-and-mobile-ai-time-embrace-new-norm
2023-08-29T12:21:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I recently visited the head of sales at a retail company and had just shown him the machine learning receipt capture technology on the SAP Concur mobile app What he said surprised me...
<p>I recently visited the head of sales at a retail company and had just shown him the machine learning receipt capture technology on the SAP Concur mobile app. What he said surprised me. He was struggling to see the benefit their team would gain as they would still need to take pictures of receipts at the end of their trip and put together the claim the same way they typically did in a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>That’s when I realised that their existing process was so engrained that he couldn’t see the fundamental shift in process and behavior that the mobile AI technology would afford them. Once we explained that the expense claim would build itself as they travelled, you could see from his reaction that the possibilities of what this meant hit home – no more compiling expenses at the end of a trip, no more retaining paper receipts, and most importantly every traveler would save hours of time per month. To quote a real-life example of this, one of our clients (<a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/pohwer">PoHwer</a>) saw a reduction in compiling claims from 3-4 hours per month to just 30 minutes for their claimants.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When post-trip claims are the norm</h2>
<p>In a way it’s not a surprise that the head of sales had jumped to that conclusion. With a manual, paper-based process, mobile technology hardly comes into the picture. Compiling expenses and receipts at the end of the trip rather than on-the-go is the norm. <strong>It would take a significant shift in mindset to convince finance that expenses can be gathered and claimed on-the-go, </strong>rather than at the end.</p>
<p>What is surprising is that from a UK perspective, we are a mobile nation. Smartphone usage is near universal, growing from 52% in 2012 to 87% in 2018 according to a Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey in 2018.</p>
<p>While automating your expense process creates a welcome shift to a mobile-first approach, we still see businesses stubbornly try and replicate their existing ways of working, forgetting that <strong>the shift to automation affords the opportunity to take a fresh look at the process as whole and question the "norm."</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When trust doesn’t cut the mustard</h2>
<p>A good example of this is when we look at compliance to company travel and expense (T&E) policies. I can’t count the number of times I have heard “we operate on a trust basis” when I’ve asked whether they have a policy they’d like to apply. I’m not for one minute saying that employee trust is a bad thing, but when a recent study found that one in five employees thinks it’s okay to exaggerate expense claims, does it make sense to operate without spend guidelines for employees?</p>
<p>SAP Concur provides the ability to set-up both soft and hard stops for expenses that trigger policy infringements, but that doesn’t mean that expense automation has to mean a step away from trusting employees. It can be a force for positive change, giving businesses better visibility and control into employee spend and educating employees as to what’s deemed acceptable.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When claims aren’t scrutinized</h2>
<p>With a manual, paper process it’s often necessary to have stringent approval workflows in place. Some of the workflows companies have in place are unbelievably complex. But if you consider why this is the case, it’s usually because the approval stage is seen as the safety-net to compensate for the shortfalls in the process as a whole. High-value expenses, visibility into expenses relating to client or project work, out-of-policy spend: These are often the points that approvers are expected to be checking and catching.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that research suggests <strong>fewer than 1%</strong><strong> of employee expense claims are ever rejected by an expense approver. </strong>When shifting to a more automated approach it should be questioned whether so many of these checks need to occur. What if the technology built in the controls around policy and spend limits prior to submission? And what if you could create reports which highlight spend that has been allocated to relevant project or clients?</p>
<p>By shifting to this mindset, businesses we engage with often see the opportunity to simplify traditionally complex workflows without losing any of the visibility and control they need.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>An open mind and willingness to change</h2>
<p>These are just a few points for consideration around how expense automation can help redefine a new process. In my experience the most successful expense automation projects occur with businesses that go in with an open mind and a willingness to accept that their historical way of doing things isn’t necessarily the best way. Interestingly, <strong>95% of CFOs consider cloud-based applications as critically or very important to successful financial performance</strong>. Expense automation provides the chance to adopt a new and improved way of working. The mentality of ‘this is how it’s always been done’ when reviewing the process will often restrict success and return on investment from the project.</p>
<p>If you are reviewing your current process, my advice would be to listen to how other businesses have successfully automated their processes and embrace the adoption of a new norm. <strong>Take a look at all of our customer success stories <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/index">here</a>, and watch the video below </strong>to hear how SAP Concur solutions helped The George Washington University move from a paper-based to an automated expense process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Abby Heller
Make Intelligent Technology the Future of Your Travel and Expense Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-intelligent-technology-future-your-travel-and-expense-management
2023-09-07T09:00:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Personal connections are critical especially in the digital age Whether youre brainstorming the next big move or meeting facetoface with customers business travel is high on the...
<p>Personal connections are critical – especially in the digital age. Whether you’re brainstorming the next big move or meeting face-to-face with customers, business travel is high on the agenda. This means <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">T&E management</a> is top of mind for travel managers and finance leaders alike.</p>
<p>The challenge? Make travel and expense management simple and convenient for employees, while keeping costs down and ensuring compliance with internal policies and statutory regulations.</p>
<p>The solution? Intelligent technology.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1564004598807-image.JPG" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Time Traveler's Expense Report</h2>
<p>Companies can’t manage travel and expense by heaping more rules on employees, they need to shift to a model of management through transparency.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/the-time-travelers-expense-report">Read the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>With so many more ways to book travel and so many more options for finding the best fare, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">role of the travel manager is changing</a>. Gone are the days of personally assisting individual travelers with each booking. Now, the focus must be on helping employees make their own travel arrangements without burdening them with complicated expense reporting requirements.</p>
<p>Finance leaders also have serious skin in the business travel game. Beyond keeping a sharp eye on the bottom line, they must stay on top of fluid markets and rapidly changing business conditions. This means pulling together ad hoc reports, comparing data sources, and running what-if scenarios in real time to model the future impact of business decisions. Compliance with complex local and international regulations is also a critical finance task. Organizations must stay on top of constantly changing requirements while also making sure <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/innovating-vat-reclaim-through-automation-taxback-international">never to overpay on taxes</a> – all across multiple tax jurisdictions.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/case-duty-care">Traveler safety </a>is another key concern. Employee care is not just a moral obligation, but it is often a legal obligation as well. With global weather and geopolitical risks on the rise, travel booking and expense data is one of the first places an organization can look to identify an employee’s location and get them the information and help they need in an emergency.</p>
<p>While a digital assistant that employees can access from a smartphone and who can take care of everything from booking to expense management, compliance, and data gathering and analysis is still in the future – that future is closer than you may think.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions offer a central travel and expense management platform that allows bookings and expense reporting through any channel, gathers all that data, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-connectors">connects it with underlying ERP systems</a> to enable comprehensive financial reporting and analytics.</p>
<p>Desktop tools and mobile apps allow users of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> solutions to work where and when they want. If they need to book direct, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> Web service captures data from connected suppliers. Additionally, by bringing itineraries into a connected platform, booking data flows automatically into expense reports – saving time for travelers and sending spend data to finance leaders and travel managers so they can make more-informed business decisions. Plus, on-the-road tools such as the TripIt Pro mobile app assist travelers by telling them when to leave for the airport, notifying them of gate changes, and explaining how to navigate new locations and local customs.</p>
<p>It’s truly a win-win.</p>
<p>Employees get simple, user-friendly access to the travel brands they want, as well as fast and convenient expense management and travel support; while travel managers and finance leaders can apply policies, negotiate rates, increase compliance, mitigate safety risks, analyze strategy, and make the most of travel budgets.</p>
<p>The result? Both employees and employers sleep better at night knowing they have a solution that covers everyone.</p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can benefit your business, read the latest article on the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/digital-transformation-impacting-travel-managers">future of travel and expense management</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
What is Expense Management Automation, and Why Should You Go Paperless?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-management-automation-and-why-should-you-go-paperless
2023-09-12T10:07:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When organizations manage expenses manually it can take a toll on everything from productivity to employee happiness to the bottom line By upgrading to software that automates expense...
<p>When organizations manage expenses manually, it can take a toll on everything from productivity to employee happiness to the bottom line. By upgrading to software that automates <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management</a>, businesses of all types and sizes can streamline operations, cut costs, and reduce tasks that waste time and cause frustration. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281540_DollarSign_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Discover how much you could save with an automated expense management solution.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Calculate now</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Why should you automate expense management?</h2>
<p>Businesses use all sorts of tools and technology to operate as efficiently as possible. Yet, for various reasons, companies often overlook expense management or put it on the backburner. For instance, some businesses: </p>
<ul>
<li>Don’t believe they’re big enough to automate expense management. </li>
<li>Have legacy technologies or processes that “work just fine” and therefore aren’t upgraded. </li>
<li>Feel more comfortable with known quantities like spreadsheets and paper expense reports. </li>
</ul>
<p>Whatever the reason may be, every business should understand this fact: </p>
<p>Manual expense management can hinder your organization. </p>
<p>Old-school processes may get the job done, but they’re clunky, time consuming, error prone, and don’t provide the visibility into spend you need to do your job effectively. And when your expense process is slow and cumbersome, it can really add up. </p>
<h2>Who benefits from automated expense management?</h2>
<p>Manual expense management is frustrating for managers and employees alike. However, not all priorities within a company are the same, and different teams have different goals and desires. Here’s a sample of who can benefit from automating expenses and how. </p>
<p>How can finance teams benefit from automation? </p>
<p>What they want: To simplify processes and save money. </p>
<p>When a business uses manual processes to manage expenses, valuable data about how much is being spent, by whom, and where, is often overlooked or exists as “hidden costs.” But <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">finance leaders and their teams can use automation</a> to see where every penny goes. This helps bills and reimbursements get paid on time, eliminate errors and fraud, and drive business decisions based on complete and accurate spend data — not to mention give a clear view into overall cash flow. </p>
<p><strong>How can IT managers benefit from automation? </strong></p>
<p><strong>What they want: To extend IT’s influence and reduce the burden on tech support. </strong></p>
<p>Legacy technology and poor alignment between IT and finance teams is a root cause for poor spend management. When IT and finance work together to automate expense, travel, and invoice management, it can lead to greater employee satisfaction and compliance. </p>
<p>Additionally, it’s important to include <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/IT-leader">IT leaders in planning and shaping the future of their organization</a>. When automated, cloud-based tools are implemented, which can lessen the burden on the internal IT support teams and allow them to support employees in other ways. </p>
<p><strong>How can employees on all teams benefit from automation? </strong></p>
<p><strong>What they want: The latest tech tools and as little frustration as possible. </strong></p>
<p>In the Age of Digital Everything, employees expect the technology they use in their personal lives to carry over into their work. By providing employees with cloud-based tools that take away the pain and tedium of expense reports, you can give them what they demand, keep them happy, help them stay productive, and let them focus on the jobs they were hired to do (rather than wasting time on expense reports). </p>
<p><strong>How can CEOs and business leaders benefit from automation? </strong></p>
<p><strong>What they want: To run the best business possible and maximize profit. </strong></p>
<p>This one is easy. And it comes down to three big points: </p>
<ul>
<li>Business leaders want what’s best for their people. </li>
<li>Business leaders want to keep costs low and profits high. </li>
<li>Automated expense management can take care of these simultaneously. </li>
</ul>
<p>Makes sense, right? </p>
<h2>What capabilities should automated expense management have? </h2>
<p>While automating expense management is good for any company, not all expense management systems are created equal. And once you have a good system in place, it’s important to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">establish an expense policy and process</a> to make it work well. </p>
<p>Here are a few considerations to help you choose a solid expense management solution and create policies to support it. </p>
<p>Good automation software should: </p>
<ul>
<li>Streamline expense management with e-receipts </li>
<li>Automatically populate expense reports using electronic receipts from airlines, hotels, restaurants, and ground transportation services </li>
<li>Integrate with your existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system </li>
<li>Reconcile expenses with card integration </li>
<li>Track your expense data securely </li>
<li>Manage business expenses easily with mobile apps </li>
</ul>
<p>Good expense policies and processes should: </p>
<ul>
<li>Make it simple to follow and easy to comply with </li>
<li>Encourage managers to push back on inappropriate or non-compliant expense submissions </li>
<li>Collect the right amount of expense information </li>
<li>Make it easy to submit and approve expenses from anywhere </li>
<li>Pay people back quickly and keep everyone happy </li>
<li>Analyze data routinely and find opportunities for more cost savings </li>
</ul>
<h2>Next steps for improving expense management </h2>
<p>You now know that automated expense management can have a positive impact on every part of your business. Not just in dollars and cents, but productivity, compliance, fraud prevention, employee satisfaction, and more. </p>
<p>If you want to learn more, get our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-build-best-class-travel-and-expense-program">guide to building a best-in-class travel and expense program</a>, use our calculator to see <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">what an average expense report costs</a> your organization, or check out our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur Expense demo</a> to see for yourself how automated expense management works. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to get a better handle on your small business spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-get-better-handle-your-small-business-spend
2020-09-13T04:27:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For small businesses to see success they first must see into their cash flow Having visibility into spend management can help companies avoid common errors and create a clearer vision...
<p data-id="427ff771-e9d2-462d-8b36-9e2f791eabc0">For small businesses to see success they first must see into their cash flow. Having visibility into spend management can help companies avoid common errors and create a clearer vision for future growth. In an article for <a href="http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/Running-a-Firm/helping-small-businesses-manage-cash-flow" target="_blank">The Progressive Accountant</a>, Christal Bemont, SVP & GM of the Small, Midsized and Nationals business unit, explores how to get a better grasp of your AP management. “Closely managing spend in real-time can be crucial to a company's survival,” she says.</p>
<p data-id="b0cae587-bccf-4404-8ba9-3046c86d5bc8">Here are two of Christal’s tips for getting a better handle on cash flow:</p>
<ol>
<li data-id="c13d039e-8155-4df1-aa30-23a104bd689c"><strong>Track everything:</strong> Effective <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">spend management</a> starts with tracking where money is coming from, and where it is going. Concur data shows that small businesses receive an average of six duplicate invoices totaling more than $12,000 each month. But, having an up-to-date view of where money is going can prevent these oversights and possible duplicate payments.</li>
<li data-id="f986862e-a282-4d1a-b053-c56751fb0ba3"><strong>Automate AP processes:</strong> There are many benefits to streamlining your invoice and expense processes with automation. You’ll need less time to manage and produce invoices, meaning an increase in productivity and staff efficiencies. Automation will also lead to cost reductions associated with invoice processing.</li>
</ol>
<p data-id="382a8fec-361b-4663-8810-5e1c2dabf74b">For more ways to improve your AP management processes, <a href="http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/Running-a-Firm/helping-small-businesses-manage-cash-flow" target="_blank">read the full article</a> on The Progressive Accountant.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Intentional Inclusion: Supporting our LGBTQA colleagues and the community
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/intentional-inclusion-supporting-our-lgbtqa-colleagues-and-community
2020-09-11T13:12:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When our people are at their best our business is at its best That is what we firmly believe to be true here at Concur In order for our people to show up as their best selves they need...
<p>When our people are at their best, our business is at its best. That is what we firmly believe to be true here at Concur. In order for our people to show up as their best selves, they need to show up as their whole selves. This is a topic I discuss often with our LGBT colleagues. Take the process of coming out as an example. People think of coming out as this one time event or decision – when in reality it happens almost every day. I can’t imagine what that would be like for someone who is LGBT and working at a company that hasn’t explicitly stated “we support you, we care about you and we need you.” At Concur, I hope that all of our employees know those three things. We support you. We care about you. We need you.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>During Pride month it’s important to celebrate how far along we have come for LGBT rights but it’s equally as important to recognize how far we still have to go. Most countries and states do not provide legal protections for LGBT employees. In some areas of the world it is considered illegal to be gay. People can be legally fired or refused service for being themselves. Employers have a role to play in the fight for equality, it’s good for our community and it’s good for business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1498074837911-pride-at-sap-pnw-launch.jpg" /></p>
<p>Pride at SAP PNW launch event</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For companies, LGBT inclusion increases customer satisfaction, drives employee engagement and inspires innovation. In fact, LGBT inclusion is linked to an average individual productivity increase of 24%1. LGBT-inclusive companies are up to 72% better at attracting allies as employees2 and LGBT people who are not out are 17% more likely to leave than non-LGBT3. The business case for LGBT inclusion is clear – more importantly, creating a space where LGBT colleagues can show up as their best and whole selves is paramount.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>More and more companies are focusing on LGBT inclusion and taking a stand on equality both internally and externally. I’m incredibly proud that Concur and our parent company, SAP, are visible supporters of LGBT equality and have been recognized for it globally. SAP North America achieved a perfect score in the <a href="http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index?_ga=1.94744853.827981182.1480945397">Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index for 2017</a> for the 4th time and in 2016 SAP America signed the HRC “<a href="http://www.hrc.org/resources/equality-is-our-business">Equality is our Business Pledge</a>” opposing anti-LGBT legislation in states across the country. Our LGBT employee network, Pride@SAP, has more than 8,000 members worldwide. In Germany, SAP was a founding member of <a href="http://www.proutemployer.com/?lang=en">PROUTATWORK</a> and last year in Australia SAP joined the Australian Marriage Equality initiative.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1498159084350-pride-at-sap-pnw-launch-group.jpg" /></p>
<p>Pride at SAP PNW launch event</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This month, Concur is sponsoring the regional Out and Equal Summit in Seattle, giving employees from local organizations an opportunity to learn, network and find ways to make our work environments even more inclusive. We’ve joined the <a href="http://www.washingtonwontdiscriminate.org/">Washington Won’t Discriminate</a> coalition to help ensure our home state continues to be a place where laws protect the LGBT community from discrimination and ensure fair and equal treatment for everyone. Additionally we sponsored the <a href="https://seattle17.techinclusion.co/">Tech Inclusion Conference and Career Fair</a> in Seattle where companies, individuals and non-profits came together to talk about how we can build a diverse and inclusive tech ecosystem.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1498074796482-img-20170616-122925.jpg" /></p>
<p>Concur group at the Out and Equal Summit</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our employees here at Concur play a vital role in creating an inclusive work environment. They are incredibly active in our communities and consistently advocate for LGBT equality and inclusion. This month we are launching a Pacific Northwest chapter of our PRIDE@SAP employee network group (ENG). Two of our employees, who are part of the team launching the chapter, have also been asked to sit on a panel with Jennifer Brown, from Jennifer Brown Consulting, to discuss LGBT inclusion in the workplace. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is great power that comes with being true to who you are. At Concur, we strive to ensure everyone has the support they need to show up as their whole self - because as I said before, when our people are at their best, our business is at its best.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sources:</p>
<ol>
<li>LGBT 2030: Show Me The Business Case (out Now Global, 2015)</li>
<li>LGBT 2030: Show Me The Business Case (Out Now Global, 2015)</li>
<li>Out in the World: Securing LGBT Rights in the Global Marketplace (Center for Talent Innovation, 2016)</li>
</ol>
SAP Concur Team
How to get the most out of your money, part 1: Efficiency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-get-most-out-your-money-part-1-efficiency
2017-08-04T11:20:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Theres more to spending than simply handing over money And if youre simply handing over money wed like to get in line If on the other hand youve got a keen eye on the budget of your...
<p>There’s more to spending than simply handing over money. (And if you’re simply handing over money, we’d like to get in line.) If, on the other hand, you’ve got a keen eye on the budget of your small to mid-size business, you clearly understand the importance of getting a dollar’s worth of work out of every dollar spent.</p>
<p>In this blog series, we’ll examine the three lynchpins of spend optimization:</p>
<ul>
<li>Efficiency—You have to spend it anyhow, spend it right.</li>
<li>Compliance—Spending within the rules.</li>
<li>Visibility—You can’t control spending you can’t see. </li>
</ul>
<p>We’ll also connect you to resources that show you how you’re doing, how your peers may be doing things differently, and what to look for in a spend-optimization solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more features behind effective spend optimization, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/quick-peek-features-behind-effective-spend-optimization-small-and-mid-size">download the full e-book</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>How much does it cost to spend a dollar? </strong></h2>
<p>Every single nickel your company spends is critical, and as business grows and spending happens faster and faster, it gets harder and harder to keep track of it all, let alone manage your buying power.</p>
<p>Sure, you’ve got processes and protocols in place, but odds are, the paperwork behind said regulation is bogging your team down to the point of distraction. So not only are you not getting every dime out of every dollar, your people aren’t as effective as they should be.</p>
<p>That’s simply too high a price to pay.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Controlling spending isn’t as impossible as it sounds. </strong></h2>
<p>With the right system and support in place, you can eliminate the need for things like paper receipts and lengthy invoice approval processes. You can give your accounting team one system, instead of random ledgers and spreadsheets. You can set up automatic audits, so everything is as it should be. And when you do all those things, you can trim reimbursement times to pay people faster.</p>
<p>In the meantime, ask yourself a few questions to see if you could find greater efficiency in the office:</p>
<ol>
<li>Are your people walking invoices around the office looking for approvals?</li>
<li>Are you and your accountants cobbling together spending reports built from a stack of spreadsheets?</li>
<li>Do you spend your Saturday mornings auditing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense reports</a>?</li>
<li>Are people waiting to get paid because reimbursement takes too long?</li>
</ol>
<p>If you answered “yes,” to any of the above, you probably need a new way of doing things. <strong>Here’s what to look for when looking for a spend management solution: </strong><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/quick-peek-features-behind-effective-spend-optimization-small-and-mid-size">Check out the Top Features E-Book</a>. </strong>And, learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>See more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-2-compliance">How to get the most out of your money, part 2: Compliance</a></strong></h3>
<h3><strong>See more: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-budget-part-3-visibility">How to get the most out of your budget, part 3: Visibility</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
Reflecting on 2017
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reflecting-2017
2017-12-28T15:24:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we inch closer to the final days of it seems fitting to reflect on what a year its been It feels like just yesterday I became the president of Concur although it has been just over...
<p>As we inch closer to the final days of 2017, it seems fitting to reflect on what a year it’s been. It feels like just yesterday I became the president of Concur, although it has been just over a year. The past 12 months have been unpredictable and unsteady at times, yet mostly full of exciting change for Concur and the broader industry.</p>
<p>Throughout the year, I was fortunate to experience this change firsthand as I traveled the world to visit with customers, partners and employees. As I reflect on 2017, I am reminded why I am proud to represent Concur and feel optimistic about the future of our industry. Here is just a sampling of reflections that capture some of the reasons why:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The rising importance of duty of care:</strong> Nearly every customer I met with this year mentioned duty of care as a priority. In this environment of increasing unpredictability, more and more, companies are acknowledging their legal and moral obligation to ensure the security and safety of their traveling employees anytime, anywhere. Enabling businesses to care for all of their employees in this way is one of the best purposes we have as a company.</li>
<li><strong>The acceleration of digital transformation in our industry:</strong> Our customers are no strangers to driving digital transformation. It’s been exciting to see this accelerated in countries like <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/concur-unveils-e-fapiao-solution-powered-by-wechat-in-china">China with e-Fapiao</a> (digitization of tax receipts) and Japan with e-Bunsho (digitization of receipts). This extends to Spain and France where governments are digitally transforming to ensure proper tax collection. It’s exciting to see our partnerships with governments around the world driving such big shifts in the digitization of financial information.</li>
<li><strong>The end-user is THE key stakeholder:</strong> Companies of all sizes all over the world are thinking beyond traditional value propositions when they are making technology purchasing decisions. It’s now about providing optimal digital experiences for employees, ultimately resulting in high employee satisfaction, engagement and retention. We are living in a world focused on the end-user, which means we must deliver easy-to-use solutions that mirror consumer-grade experiences. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Global solutions need to be truly local:</strong> Through my travels I’ve seen the massive leaps that have been taken to develop truly global, local solutions. This is about creating interconnected solutions that meet employees where, how and when they want to work while traveling. You do this by connecting with the apps and services your travelers love. And, you connect with those that are specific to a given country or region, so you can deliver a truly “local experience” for that traveling employee. It’s about helping your travelers be productive and efficient with their time, regardless of where their business travel may take them across the globe.</li>
<li><strong>Businesses are more accepting of spend occurring outside of preferred channels:</strong> We are seeing more customers accept that travel spending is occurring outside of preferred channels. Customers are embracing that this spend can still be managed and captured via other reliable means in solutions such as TripLink and the pending New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard. What was once a provocative concept, is now an accepted best practice, transforming managed corporate travel programs. </li>
</ul>
<p>These examples illustrate just some of the important industry shifts occurring that leave me reflective and eagerly anticipating what 2018 will hold.</p>
How to combat fraud and noncompliance in your Life Science organization
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-combat-fraud-and-noncompliance-your-life-science-organization
2020-09-13T04:20:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Fraud has been a hot topic lately and for good reason According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Global Fraud Study the median loss for occupational fraud is while of...
<p>Fraud has been a hot topic lately, and for good reason. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ <a href="http://www.acfe.com/rttn2016.aspx rel=" nofollow="">2016 Global Fraud Study</a>, the median loss for occupational fraud is $150,000, while 23.2% of occupational fraud cases cause losses of $1 million or more.</p>
<p>While business leaders may think it won’t happen to them, the same study found that the typical organization loses five percent of its annual revenue to fraud. When you consider the likelihood of fraud, along with increasing scrutiny from government regulations, pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device organizations <strong>especially</strong> face harmful threats from all sides.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Vulnerability in Life Sciences</h2>
<p>The costs of occupational fraud and noncompliance can impact organizations of any size and in any industry. But the nature of the Life Sciences industry makes it especially vulnerable to attack. Consider these factors: </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Increasingly complex regulatory environment:</strong> From the Sunshine Act to Transparency Reporting, organizations have a myriad of regulations they must comply with or face serious legal ramifications. Additionally, most organizations are incorporating new technology to improve patient outcomes, but regulations for these new technologies are not clearly defined. As such, organizations can be left guessing on what is in compliance and what is not.</li>
<li><strong>Ineffective global view:</strong> Great access to international markets has driven globalization into the industry. But with global operations comes the need for greater integration across the company and understanding of global compliance. Employee spend information in disparate systems makes it difficult to get a clear global view of all company spend, plus makes it easier for fraudsters to cover up their schemes. An effective global view allows organizations to detect spend patterns and red flags so they can see spending clearly and manage and prevent fraud and noncompliance proactively.</li>
<li><strong>Overlooked valuable data:</strong> Life Sciences organizations traditionally utilize historical data for reporting purposes. But few have embraced data to spot issues, identify trends and prioritize auditing resources. Capturing and connecting all data allows companies to proactively prevent, manage and detect occupational fraud, ensure regulatory compliance and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/beyond-regulation-what-you-should-be-doing-your-data">obtain additional actionable insights to make smarter business decisions</a>.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1511804019756-screen-shot-2017-11-27-at-9-33-04-am.png" /></p>
<p><strong>Figure 1: Increase in global regulations</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Protecting your organization with a digital trench</h2>
<p>As a member of a Life Sciences organization, you may be quick to assume that instances from travel and expense (T&E) fraud may be few and far between. The truth is, asset misappropriation is by far the most common form of occupational fraud, occurring in more than 83% of cases. Examples of asset misappropriation include employees embezzling company assets and padding T&E claims. If you have multiple instances of fraud within a year, these instances can absolutely add up to more than just a few dollars. Often, discovering a red flag of fraud in T&E can be the thread that unravels an entire fraud scheme impacting your organization.</p>
<p>Embracing an effective T&E policy and the right spend management technology can help your organization build a digital trench to protect your bottom line—both from internal fraud and external regulatory violations.</p>
<p>In order to help to ensure your T&E program provides the protection your organization needs, your organization should take steps to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mandate a corporate card program to auto-import expenses into your <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management system</a>.</li>
<li>Adopt systems that allow employees to submit expenses for preapproval.</li>
<li>Use a third-party audit service to maintain credibility.</li>
<li>Require proper data entry for expense reports: set audit rules, require receipt type (paper, electronic, automated) and itemized receipt requirements type.</li>
<li>Share data and package it for key stakeholders within your organization to highlight problem areas.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Lasting change in spend and beyond</h2>
<p>Correctly managing compliance, fighting fraud and meeting your regulatory obligations takes a lot of work—and time. And likely, more time and energy than your company can manage alone.</p>
<p>Understanding what makes your Life Science organization vulnerable to attack is the first step. It’s even more important that you pinpoint problem areas early and establish an efficient end-to-end spend management process to keep you in control and your company protected. By taking these steps now, you can help shift your culture in ways that lead to lasting improvements in spend and beyond. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about how Concur helps <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/life-sciences">with Pharma, Biotech and Medical Device organizations</a> build their own digital trench.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Three Tips for Combatting Expense Report Fraud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-tips-combatting-expense-report-fraud
2020-09-11T13:18:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Discovering fraud within your own company can be pretty heartbreaking Its that sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize the employee or employees you trust are essentially...
<p>Discovering fraud within your own company can be pretty heartbreaking. It’s that sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize the employee (or employees) you trust are essentially stealing from you. With more employees traveling for business, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a> are particularly vulnerable to fake claims. Fortunately, there are ways to combat fraud before it even happens.</p>
<p>Use these three tips to keep your team on the straight and narrow.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Tip 1: Know the Common Fraud Schemes</strong></h2>
<p>Before you can fend off fraud, you must first know and understand <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-identify-expense-report-fraud">where these claims are taking place</a>. Taking a thorough audit of your expense reports is a good place to start. Use the three "W"s of auditing as your guide -- when, what, and why [you should audit] -- to create a solid audit process. While reviewing the data, you can take note of patterns (both expenses and people), and decipher the mistakes from the fake claims.</p>
<p>A few common fraud schemes to look for include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Profitable per-diems: </strong>This occurs when travelers are paid a set allowance per day. Instead of using all the funds for travel expenses, the traveler only uses a small portion and pockets the rest.</li>
<li><strong>Mileage padding: </strong>This is especially common if you’re still relying on manual logs instead of GPS trackers, and opens the door for travelers to pad their mileage by a little (or by a lot).</li>
<li><strong>Double dipping: </strong>This occurs when an expense is claimed twice. But don’t confuse this for an honest mistake, which also can happen. Instead look for clues to it being a fake claim, such as the same expense being claimed by two employees who are traveling together. </li>
</ul>
<p>These are just a few examples, so make sure you review all <a href="https://www.concur.com/">company expenses</a>, including airline bookings (like those that are unused or booked at the last minute) and others that could be potential fake claims (those often come in the form of cash purchases).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Tip 2: Institute a Corporate Credit Card Program</strong></h2>
<p>Many businesses, especially small businesses, shy away from <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/use-a-corporate-credit-card-program-to-fight-fraud">corporate credit card programs</a>, thinking they are more work than they are worth or are just for the bigger companies. To the contrary, these programs make expense management easier and aid directly in combatting fraud.</p>
<p>With a corporate credit card, expenses are charged directly to the company. This increases your ability to monitor expenses and spot questionable purchases at a faster rate. Credit card programs also keep fraud at bay, since employees know you have direct access to all spending.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Tip 3: Use Technology Solutions to Your Advantage</strong></h2>
<p>If you haven’t moved to an<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report"> automated expense reporting system</a>, then now, more than ever, is the time to make the upgrade. When choosing a solution, ensure that it is both cloud-based and mobile. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> allows for travelers to submit expenses on the road and for you to access expense reports in real-time.</p>
<p>For auditing, using a third-party application, such as Concur Detect, not only makes it easier, but it takes the onus off of you. By integrating with Concur Expense for near real-time data capture, Concur Detect uses AppZen’s powerful artificial intelligence to instantly analyze receipts, credit card transactions, and travel bookings to identify fraud, policy compliance issues, and errors. You can extract relevant audit data with the patented ReceiptIQ™ technology from AppZen, giving you the information needed to make those hard decisions. Concur Detect integrates into the SAP Concur workflow, enabling automatic processing of low risk expenses and review, and even rejection of high-risk expenses. </p>
<p>Dealing with fraud is never pleasant, but with the proper tools in place, you will be able to put a stop to it before it even happens. Learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur.com</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Secret is Out: Automated Expense and Travel Management is the Right Move
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/secret-out-automated-expense-and-travel-management-right-move
2020-09-11T12:30:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Do you ever wonder what the secret is behind happy employees and an even happier corporate budget The answer lies in an automated travel and expense management system With the right...
<p>Do you ever wonder what the secret is behind happy employees and an even happier corporate budget? The answer lies in an automated travel and <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management system</a>. With the right solution, you can ensure efficiency, money-savings, and success within your business. Ready to learn more? Read on to find out how making the switch to automation can help your company.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Lower Costs That Have Historically Been Difficult to Control</strong></h2>
<p>In the past, travel and expense costs have been <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/expense-insight-infographic">the second most difficult cost to control in corporate spaces.</a> Outdated budgeting systems and misplaced documents make it hard to consolidate and report on all of your employee’s travel costs, losing your company both money and time. With a cloud based system, employees are able to track spending on the go and maintain their reports all in one place. The ability to submit spending as it occurs will help ensure that travel and expense costs will no longer be losing you money year-by-year.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Gain Key Visibility Into Spending</strong></h2>
<p>With immediate tracking and consolidated reporting on all your business travelers, you will no longer be kept in the dark regarding where money is being spent. Greater visibility into spending will allow you to better understand your budget and allocate the money you are saving elsewhere. There are no secrets or hidden costs that can sneak up on you when your travel and expense reporting is done in real time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Leverage Your Knowledge to Save Money</strong></h2>
<p>Because companies don’t always know where their money is being spent, they are unaware that they may be using the same suppliers or traveling to the same places often. Companies also run into travelers spending out-of-policy, leading to confusion and unneeded costs. By having access to this data, you can utilize that intelligence to strike deals with suppliers and save significant money per traveler, while also making sure all spending is following the corporate travel policy. It’s no secret that everyone wants to save both time and money wherever they can.</p>
<p>Need more reasons to jump on this cloud based wave of corporate travel management? Attend <a href="http://pages.marketing.accountingtoday.com/20180322_act_citrix_concur_ws_lp.html?source=site" target="_blank">our Secrets of the Top 100 Firms webinar</a> on March 22 to see how the top leaders in the game are utilizing the best new practice to run their businesses resourcefully.</p>
SAP Concur Team
See How IBM’s IT Team and SAP Concur Empower Travelers Globally
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/see-how-ibms-it-team-and-sap-concur-empower-travelers-globally
2019-04-18T08:21:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
IBM focuses on solving clients business problems through innovative solutions a mission that takes its employees around the globe The IBM CIO organization strives to ensure each...
<p>IBM focuses on solving clients' business problems through innovative solutions, a mission that takes its employees around the globe. The IBM CIO organization strives to ensure each business trip is successful by implementing leading-edge IT solutions that make the travel and expense experience as simple as possible.</p>
<p>IBM worked with SAP Concur to ensure a smooth implementation of a connected travel and expense solution in over 100 countries. Now, IBM’s travelers can now book reservations and expense travel in one solution, and even on-the-go when using the SAP Concur mobile app. Their successful implementation, and the usability of SAP Concur solutions, resulted in excellent user adoption – mitigating the strain that often comes with the introduction of new technologies.</p>
<p>Watch the video and see how SAP Concur helps the IBM CIO Organization run at their best. For more, see IBM's SAP Concur <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjG_xNBuz0" target="_blank">Innovation Award story</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Are You Ready for the New Meal and Entertainment Tax Rules?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-ready-new-meal-and-entertainment-tax-rules
2020-09-11T13:19:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The new American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has brought some pretty big changes to business meals and entertainment deductions If you are feeling confused by what can and cannot be...
<p>The new <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1/text" target="_blank">American Tax Cuts and Jobs Act </a>has brought some pretty big changes to business meals and entertainment deductions. If you are feeling confused by what can and cannot be deducted and at what percentage, you’re not alone. Let’s start by taking a basic look at <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ready-2018-changes-taxes-business-entertainment-expenses">some of the new rules and how they may impact your business</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Entertaining clients? No deductions here</h2>
<p>The phrase “wine and dine” now has a whole new meaning. Prior to the new tax laws, taking a client to a concert, for example, used to be 50% tax deductible, but is no longer. For some of you, this may not impact your way of doing business, but for others, especially those of you who have relied on that tax deduction, you may need to rethink how you go about entertaining clients (if you decide to at all).</p>
<p>As with any new rule, there is often confusion around terms and definitions. So what exactly defines entertainment? According to Treas. Reg. Section 1.274-2(b)(1), entertainment is:</p>
<p>“An activity of a type generally considered to constitute entertainment, amusement, or recreation, such as entertaining at night clubs, cocktail lounges, theaters, country clubs, golf and athletic clubs, sporting events, and on hunting, fishing, vacation, and similar trips.”</p>
<p>So no more sports games or concerts, and those of you who like to do business on the golf course may want to reconsider your approach.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Business lunch to discuss a new product? Partial deductions available</h2>
<p>On the flip side, business meals are still eligible for a 50% deduction. So for those road warriors who find it easier to discuss a contract or new product over lunch, those costs still generate some tax benefit. As it goes with all deductions, ensure very clear records are kept for each meal. According to <a href="https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/when-is-an-entertainment-expense-deductible" target="_blank">Meredith Kowal</a>, senior manager of R&D tax credit services at Aprio “documentation is increasingly important this year, as it will provide more opportunity to deduct items now considered ‘gray area’ due to the vague rules.”</p>
<p>This is where having an automated employee expense solution is key. Not only will this save your employees time, but it will help with the collection and organization of documentation in one, easy-to-access electronic location. Software with mobile capabilities, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, allows employees to capture expenses by taking pictures of receipts on their mobile phones and uploading them into the system. Not only does this expidite the expense process but decreases the chance of losing those very important records.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Confusion around compliance?<strong> </strong></h2>
<p>With any new rule or regulation there is often confusion, which causes issues with compliance. Here are a few tips to set your employees up for success:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make sure all your employees understand these new regulations – hold a meeting with those who are most impacted and explain the new rules, and add additional information to your expense policies and procedures.</li>
<li>Ensure your finance team has a plan in place for how to deal with these expenses, including how to document and store all paperwork and receipts.</li>
<li>Schedule a mid-year check-in to get feedback on how the new processes are working and clear-up any lingering questions or misunderstandings.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn more about the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act</h2>
<p>The few points above are merely a glimpse into the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. There is more to how this impacts business meals and entertainment deductions. Education is key when it comes to any changes in business taxes.</p>
<p>Watch our on-demand webinar, <a href="https://go.concur.com/Events_NA_SMN_All_Webinar_0618_METax_01RegistrationPage.html" target="_blank">The New Rules for Meals & Entertainment Deductions</a>, for even more on this topic. Hear from Ernst & Young's U.S. Meals & Entertainment Practice Leader, Angela Spencer-James, as she discusses the changes in deductibility, what this means for your business, and how to mitigate any risks involved.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Unisys Delivers on Company Objectives by Better Supporting Employees with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/unisys-delivers-company-objectives-better-supporting-employees-sap-concur
2019-08-21T03:09:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For the past years Unisys has grown to build highperformance securitycentric solutions for business and governments across the globe So when Unisys needed innovative flexible and...
<p>For the past 145 years, Unisys has grown to build high-performance, security-centric solutions for business and governments across the globe. So, when Unisys needed innovative, flexible, and scalable solutions for travel, expense, and reporting it was not shocking that they turned to SAP Concur. After Concur Travel helped Unisys reduce booking fees by more than 40%, Unisys looked for more areas in which to adopt SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>In 2009, Unisys implemented Concur Expense. Angela Arnz, Senior Global Travel Leader for Unisys says, “The innovation and functional advancements [of SAP Concur solutions] are what fuel our creativity within our travel and expense processes.”</p>
<p>By combining the powerful automation, customization, and reporting capabilities in SAP Concur solutions with their own ingenuity, the global travel team at Unisys can implement custom solutions that save the company time and money. One such solution automatically approves expense reports when certain conditions are met, and back-office review is not required. As a result, over 45% of expense reports can be auto-approved – saving time for managers and approvers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/unisys">Read the case study</a> to see other ways Unisys is using SAP Concur solutions to build best-run travel, expense, and reporting programs.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Three Steps to Increasing Business Cash Flow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-steps-increasing-business-cash-flow
2020-09-11T13:20:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Businesses cant rely on just profits to survive An organizations cash flow can determine if it will thrive or fail and according to a study by US Bank of business failures are due to...
<p>Businesses can’t rely on just profits to survive. An organization’s cash flow can determine if it will thrive or fail, and according to a study by U.S. Bank, <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/187366" target="_blank">82% of business failures are due to poor cash management</a>. Fortunately, you can prevent your business from falling short by maintaining awareness of your current financial state, diversifying your revenue streams, and strategically managing client and vendor payments. Here are three steps to get you started on the road to being cash flow positive.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 1: Perform a thorough evaluation of your current financial state</h2>
<p>Cash flow is often overlooked, especially when a business is experiencing high profits and rapid growth. However, whether it’s bills not being paid on time, waiting on delayed client payments, or surprise costs due to expansion, not having the cash on-hand needed to cover expenses can lead to serious financial problems. And worse yet, these could have been completely avoided through a proper evaluation of your current finances. According to <a href="https://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/how-to-improve-cash-flow.html" target="_blank">Paul LaRock, a principal at consultancy Treasury Strategies in Chicago</a>, “too many companies get blindsided by unfavorable movements in cash flow that are predictable if they really sat down and thought through it.”</p>
<p>To avoid these unfortunate (and embarrassing) instances, sit down with your finance team and do a thorough evaluation of your finances, and your AR and AP processes. Make sure you not only look at where you stand currently, but at 30-, 60-, and 90-day projections. By looking out in the future, you can see pending bottlenecks or issues that can be addressed now, and save you from heartache and potentially tough and unfavorable decisions in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 2: Diversify your revenue stream</h2>
<p>Simply put, having more than one revenue stream can save your business when times get tough. It’s like that old saying “never put all your eggs in one basket.” For small to midsize businesses, the thought of diversifying products or service offerings can seem overwhelming or unmanageable, especially when time is tight and staff is already stretched.</p>
<p>However, it is often this diversification that strengthens customer loyalty, giving them more reason to come back. Not to mention, if you were to miss out on a large deal or lose your biggest client, this additional income will keep you afloat while you work to replace what was lost.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean you should jump into the next possible thing that comes your way. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2017/04/23/a-diversity-of-ways-to-diversify-your-business/3/#38d303c8667f" target="_blank">Lawrence Jones, CEO of managed hosting provider UKFast</a>, gives this sound advice: “There are three circles to consider when looking into a new business venture: Is it commercially viable? Am I good at it? Am I passionate about it?” </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 3: Proactively manage client and vendor payments</h2>
<p>This step circles back to Step 1. After you have thoroughly evaluated your current finances, look for opportunities of improvement in your AR and AP processes. Whether it’s finding ways to shorten time for receiving payments from clients, or negotiating discounts with your most used vendors, proactively managing invoices and spend can go a long way to not only saving money, but ensuring the cash is there when it’s needed.</p>
<p>Upgrading to an automated AP system plays a big part in managing cash flow. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> offers an automated, cloud-based solution that is mobile enabled, making invoice management accessible from anywhere. Important approvals or decisions don’t have to wait until managers are back in the office, maintaining the flow of business. In addition, the automated system makes data more accessible, giving the financial visibility needed to make those necessary business decisions and maintain a positive cash flow.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take charge of your cash flow today</h2>
<p>Understanding and improving your cash flow is one thing that should never be put on the back-burner or the bottom of a to-do list. Pro-active management can save your business from future financial troubles.</p>
<p>These three steps are just a start. There are many more opportunities and possibilities for maintaining positive cash flow. Learn more by attending our June 21st webinar, hosted by Entrepreneur: <a href="https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2288854846498673666">5 Strategic Ways to Improve Cash Flow</a>. Space is limited, so register today and get the tools for cash flow success.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Tax Alert: VAT Refund Application Due by September 30, 2018
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/tax-alert-vat-refund-application-due-september-30-2018
2018-08-16T09:33:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With international business travel and crossborder transactions becoming more and more common many businesses pay VAT in countries where they are not established or VAT registered...
<p data-id="b873ce9c-a543-4bd0-b2e7-68be1a8f056f">With international business travel and cross-border transactions becoming more and more common, many businesses pay VAT in countries where they are not established or VAT registered. Typical expenses that incur foreign VAT are travel expenses, conference fees, business entertainment, supplier goods, marketing services, and a host of other expense that take place when doing business on foreign soil. The VAT paid on these expenses can often be reclaimed.</p>
<p data-id="c32d51be-1a7f-4430-8b8e-a0bf61745c04">If you are an EU-based business that has paid value added tax (VAT) in Europe during 2017, or a non-EU business based in specific countries, you may be eligible to recover the VAT. The deadline for submitting a claim to the relevant EU countries for a refund is September 30, 2018, so the time to act has arrived.</p>
<h2 data-id="83279351-043b-4e48-b3bc-a66446ec1b9f"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="83279351-043b-4e48-b3bc-a66446ec1b9f">Is my business eligible?</h2>
<p data-id="5583e371-537b-4f63-8c62-d78424088015">The EU 8th VAT Directive allows businesses established within the EU to recover VAT incurred in one of the 28 EU countries if they meet the VAT reclaim deadline of September 30th 2018.</p>
<p data-id="b696145a-41b7-4983-a832-f1336aa1cd20">The EU 13th VAT Directive makes the same provisions for businesses registered in a non-EU country. Businesses registered in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain are eligible for VAT reclaim if they meet the VAT reclaim deadline of September 30, AND:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="dfaed0d4-4d6d-4854-ba88-80a3c1807105">The business is not VAT registered or eligible to be VAT registered in the EU</li>
<li data-id="f23a5d2c-5dfb-4438-bf51-8a050c9b93f7">The business has no other entity in the EU</li>
<li data-id="c97b5bdd-12e2-4331-a963-8fc020070b2e">The business does not manufacture any supplies in the EU</li>
<li data-id="1ad5d360-9da8-42e7-894d-3a59f423b506">The expenses are incurred for an activity subject to VAT, where that VAT is considered eligible for refund under EU VAT legislation.</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="12907aeb-8df1-423a-93b1-2ecd337bbd7b">Note these eligibility requirements can be complex, depending on the claimant’s activities and types of expenses incurred.</p>
<p data-id="6ac645b7-6333-431d-ba1a-5f5e5357d1f8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6ac645b7-6333-431d-ba1a-5f5e5357d1f8">What expenses are generally eligible for VAT reclaim?</h2>
<p data-id="6a2d85df-358d-4632-a814-f0fefe49af06">VAT paid on certain business-related expenses is eligible for a refund. However, note that the rules and regulations of the specific expenses that are eligible for reclaim can vary widely from country to country. For example, some allow reclaim for fuel and accommodations, while other countries do not. In addition, some countries follow the reciprocity principle, which requires the business’ country of residence to allow reciprocal reclaim practices. Personal expenses are never eligible.</p>
<p data-id="6a2d85df-358d-4632-a814-f0fefe49af06"> </p>
<h2 data-id="fefbc2ec-d288-43a3-b67b-b3c9038c62b0">Why would a business need help with VAT recovery?</h2>
<p data-id="d7531f08-f4cc-4254-926d-d1c69d6eb08d">Many companies find the VAT refund process complex and tedious. Manual expense management processes are fraught with errors. Tax authorities vary in their application of tax rates, exemptions, reverse charge mechanisms, languages, reporting requirements and deadlines. For example, Spain and Italy have specific digital reporting requirements. A company’s in-house finance department may not possess a clear enough understanding of the detailed and widely-varying regulations and requirements in each country.</p>
<p data-id="a234cae3-38ca-472d-a2cb-a295d6c5abf4">Furthermore, companies that do make the effort to recover their VAT are often unsuccessful. Claims are often addressed using semi-automated/manual and error-prone processes that are both time-consuming and costly. Unfortunately, if specific criteria or deadlines are not met, the refund is forfeited.</p>
<p data-id="a234cae3-38ca-472d-a2cb-a295d6c5abf4"> </p>
<h2 data-id="d23b05d7-4fd5-4795-a31e-c5d8f06ac821">What should I do before the September 30 deadline?</h2>
<p data-id="0bdd5571-f6ed-489a-8dde-bd56d8908c1d"><strong>1. Complete the EU 8th or 13th VAT Directive claim forms.</strong> Note that you must file a separate claim for each country where you paid VAT. Forms can be accessed and downloaded from each tax authority’s website, and then filed together with the original paper invoices. Also, note that some forms must be completed in the local language.</p>
<p data-id="d48093e4-6ae2-4edd-978f-312b73a0ee02"><strong>2. Note deadline exceptions.</strong> While the deadline for annual claims is generally September 30, there are exceptions. For example, in the UK and Cyprus, the annual deadline for submission of VAT refund claims for non-EU businesses is December 31.</p>
<p data-id="7351b3b0-bafc-499c-b76e-e97eafd0f713"><strong>3. Solicit help. </strong>To ensure your business meets eligibility requirements, properly fills out all forms, and meets all relevant deadlines, oftentimes assistance is required. Take advantage of advanced, automated expense management systems like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">SAP Concur</a> to streamline business travel expense processing and business expense tracking. Utilize VAT recovery systems that seamlessly access standard data and scanned invoices from your ERP, TES, and other internal systems to maximize your refund.</p>
<p data-id="aff70e88-bffb-4e83-9408-09354e45120e"><strong>4. Plan ahead.</strong> The way your organization treats project deadlines can speak volumes about your level of commitment to the work. Keep your VAT deadlines on track and on time with <a href="https://vatbox.com/vat-deadlines-5-ways-to-ensure-your-employees-never-misses-them/" target="_blank">these tips</a>.</p>
<p data-id="92675a6f-ce6b-420d-8db1-c19bd42fb36c">VATBox has successfully streamlined the VAT recovery process, providing businesses and financial institutions with unrivaled visibility, compliance and data integrity. Leveraging the cloud and utilizing full automation, VATBox exhibits complete control of a company’s VAT spend, while making the recovery process more productive and yielding higher returns. VATBox easily adds-on to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and leverages the existing data, processing it effortlessly to gain dramatically higher VAT refunds. To learn more about how VATBox’s AI-driven solution integrated with SAP Concur technology can help your company thrive in today’s complex financial times, visit their listing in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce3c">SAP Concur App Center</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is Your AP Process Fully Automated? Consider These 4 Telling Scenarios
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-ap-process-fully-automated-consider-these-4-telling-scenarios
2021-02-22T17:53:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What seems like automation often isnt Accounts payable leaders may feel like their vendor invoice solution is automated but in reality its frequently full of faxes scanned images and...
<p>What seems like automation often isn’t.</p>
<p>Accounts payable leaders may feel like their vendor invoice solution is automated, but in reality, it’s frequently full of faxes, scanned images, and other gunk that clogs the process.</p>
<p>To help you get a sense of what full invoice automation looks like, we’ve described four common invoicing scenarios below. If any sound familiar, we have a suggestion at the end of this post for what to do about it.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Is Your AP Process Putting Your Business at Risk?</h2>
<p>Take this five-minute, 15-question assessment and find out.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Scenario 1: Stash of Band-Aids (aka “capture-and-print chaos”)</h2>
<p>Invoices arrive at an organization in one of two ways: centrally or de-centrally.</p>
<p>With centralized capture, a company receives all invoices at a single location. Decentralized capture is characteristic of companies with multiple locations, like property management and professional services firms or banks. Once invoices are received at branch locations, they’re typically scanned and e-mailed to company headquarters for processing.</p>
<p><strong>The problem:</strong> Of the two methods, centralized capture is ideal as it allows you to see all outstanding liabilities in one location, thus providing cash-flow visibility. However, the moment you introduce paper (or hit FWD on that e-mail) is the moment your process becomes manual or semi-automated.</p>
<p>It’s also the moment that paper cuts become a real problem.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scenario 2: AP shoes are made for walking (aka “semi-automated workflow woes”)</h2>
<p>Even more important than capture is the next step: what happens once an invoice arrives.</p>
<p>In most organizations, it takes a lot of effort to get an invoice approved. Someone from the AP team might have to print it out and deliver it to an approver. Invoices get lost, bottlenecks arise, and it’s hard to track documents through the process.</p>
<p><strong>The problem:</strong> Introducing manual steps into the approval workflow makes it impossible to get an accurate view of liabilities. It also adds inefficiencies, like requiring someone to code information into a general ledger and another person to field calls from vendors.</p>
<p>In this scenario, even if your business is using digital files or processes during some of the steps, the AP staff still has to manually connect the dots between the steps – and that means a lot of miles walking the office (so to speak).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scenario 3: The “it’s all good” fallacy (aka “ERP derp”)</h2>
<p>Often, a business will use the AP module of its ERP to process and pay invoices. You may be thinking your system is working great, but you may not know that it doesn’t allow for growth. ERP add-on solutions usually aren’t designed to scale.</p>
<p>ERP workflows can also fall short of invoice automation. For example, limitations in the ERP can mean your AP staff still needs to field calls from vendors (as opposed to information being available through a vendor portal, for example). And some ERP solutions tend to lack mobile apps, meaning invoices can’t be approved from a smartphone. These shortcomings create delays, lower visibility into liabilities, and hinder staff productivity.</p>
<p><strong>The problem:</strong> Though AP leaders may think they’re in the clear, ERPs only offer semi-automation processes. Though the specifics will vary across ERP solutions, financial software typically provides only pieces of AP automation – not all the components. And the parts that are available are typically not as powerful as those from specialized solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scenario 4: Don’t bank on discounts (aka “ACHes and pains”)</h2>
<p>When it’s time to pay an invoice, a company typically cuts a paper check or has a bank facilitate an Automated Clearing House (ACH) payment.</p>
<p>Cutting paper checks, of course, introduces paper and cost into the process. But even if your business has a bank facilitating ACH payments, it may be missing out on the payment optimization possibilities of full invoice automation.</p>
<p><strong>The problem:</strong> Payment optimization is about paying bills in a timely manner, which allows a business to streamline cash flow and free up additional working capital (e.g., through early payment rebates).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Full Automation: It’s a glorious feeling</h2>
<p>In short, true <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">accounts payable automation</a> is purely paperless. All invoices are received electronically – and all communication around invoice approvals or matching issues happens – in a single system or set of integrated systems (we don’t just mean e-mail).</p>
<p>You may be using digital tools. But if you’re manually having to connect the pieces, you’re not quite there – yet.</p>
<p>There’s a lot more to automation. If you’d like to find out more, take a look our brief whitepaper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/whitepaper-your-ap-department-truly-automated">Is Your AP Department Truly Automated?</a></p>
<p>The paper dives deep into ERPs, managed-invoice models, fraud reduction, payment processing, and the importance of a metrics-based culture.</p>
<p>More than anything, though, the paper looks at how the AP department is changing – for the better.</p>
<p>There role of the AP professional is – thankfully – transitioning from data-entry clerk to strategic partner. AP staff increasingly find themselves helping shape their company’s cash-management strategy.</p>
<p>In other words, they finally get to do the work they’re great at.</p>
Ashley Hayman
What’s Blocking the Shift to Automated AP Invoice Processes in the Financial Services, Insurance, and Real Estate Industries?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-blocking-shift-automated-ap-invoice-processes-financial-services-insurance-and
2020-08-16T11:41:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Accounts payable problems can seem like they dont amount to a hill of beans especially as company leadership grapples with industry challenges In banking and financial services those...
<p>Accounts payable problems can seem like they don’t amount to a hill of beans, especially as company leadership grapples with industry challenges.</p>
<p>In banking and financial services, those hurdles center on regulation, flattening assets management growth, legacy technology systems, and competition.</p>
<p>In insurance, disruption continues to reshape the marketplace. Meanwhile, companies face the twin pressures of increasing profitability and meeting high customer expectations.</p>
<p>And in real estate, residential and commercial firms must navigate terrain that’s being constantly reshaped by changing demographics, the rise of smart cities, and technology advancements, like robotics.</p>
<p>Why bother with accounts payable problems when you’ve got dragons to slay?</p>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">AP invoice automation</a> can help you defeat them.</p>
<p>When you look deeper into those challenges, some common themes emerge:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Compliance.</strong> Every business has to deal with some amount of regulation.</li>
<li><strong>Disruption.</strong> Technology has completely upended the way FIRE industries operate.</li>
<li><strong>Mobility.</strong> More and more business happens outside the office. Employees now expect to be able to work just as easily on the road as they do at their desks.</li>
<li><strong>Fraud.</strong> Most is minor – the dinner that’s not quite a business dinner, an unapproved upgrade to first class, or a claim for a cab ride that never happened.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Businesses that can meet these challenges will be better equipped to adapt their business models, streamline operations, and innovate.</p>
<p>It turns out that automating your AP vendor invoice processes helps. A lot. Because if compliance becomes second nature, if your technology scales easily, if you become more efficient, then you free up capital for investment and you free your people to stop doing tedious manual tasks and start innovating.</p>
<p>So why isn’t automation a no-brainer? Several factors conspire against adoption, but chief among them is the simple fact that it always takes time for conventional wisdom to catch up to reality.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>General fear of change.</strong> People can be reluctant to transition to new ways of thinking and working when they’ve developed expertise around existing processes. And it can be hard to build a business case for a system change, especially if the business is succeeding. Plus, morale increases when employees are freed from burdensome manual tasks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Presumed lack of IT expertise.</strong> You don’t need to hire IT staff or develop technology capabilities. Providers will deliver the IT support you need. Additionally, moving to cloud-based invoice automation can actually save IT teams time post-implementation. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Fear of job loss.</strong> This is often the elephant in the room. But what really tends to happen after automation is that AP staff become more important than before because they’re freed to do strategic work, making them a more valuable asset to the company. In fact, automation helps accounting/finance employees reduce invoice processing time by 16%, according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">AMI-Partners research</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Security.</strong> Because of online threats, business leaders may feel that manual invoicing is a more secure option than digitization. However, with a framework of audited processes and controls that protect your information from unauthorized access automation is the more secure option.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ultimately, the risks around invoice automation are more perceived than real. <strong>To find out more about the benefits of changing your invoicing system, download the study: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">How Finance Leaders Save Money and Drive Growth with Automated Invoicing</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Business Travel Programs Can Help Attract and Retain Top Talent
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-business-travel-programs-can-help-attract-and-retain-top-talent
2019-06-17T13:51:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel is a key component of many jobs Road warriors are often revenue producers top performers and also the most likely to suffer from fatigue or burnout As forwardthinking...
<p data-id="609b5c93-8677-4875-86a1-46a10de93e93">Business travel is a key component of many jobs. Road warriors are often revenue producers, top performers, and also the most likely to suffer from fatigue or burnout. As forward-thinking companies continue to optimize the employee experience (EX), the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">corporate travel</a> process has come under the microscope.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Travel Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="9e2b9abc-294d-42b2-9734-3fba3fa1f496">A strong economy, global and mobile workforce, and talent war waging in several industries has made the company travel program a renewed topic of interest during the recruiting process. Leading companies use this to their advantage. For companies who do nothing, however, there is a growing consensus backed by data that indicates higher costs of training, recruiting, and lower morale. Here are a few quick pointers on how your travel program can help versus hinder employee satisfaction:</p>
<p data-id="9e2b9abc-294d-42b2-9734-3fba3fa1f496"> </p>
<h2 data-id="b82f1c72-6211-4256-b248-5df1e27b509e">1. Remove ambiguous language from your travel policy</h2>
<p data-id="c709422e-c902-48eb-8963-150ad08bb3b8">The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy</a> should be clear, simple and free of "legalese.” This policy is often one of the first documents read by a new or potential employee and like any initial touchpoint, it must make a good impression!</p>
<p data-id="fd73b004-b925-4c9e-9365-b75355958917">Be mindful of exceptions. All policies have exceptions, but each one does not need to be listed. A simple blanket statement towards the beginning that states exceptions are subject to management approval is sufficient. This can significantly shorten your policy.</p>
<p data-id="fd73b004-b925-4c9e-9365-b75355958917"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6a917822-874b-4ab5-8c90-2129692fcbd6">2. Address the sharing economy and bleisure</h2>
<p data-id="a52e2686-58a5-4c4e-b515-d1bebc1c1d24">In addition to these being among the hottest topics in today’s corporate travel world, they frequently occur on every trip. Despite their prevalence, companies often lack an official stance and neglect these items, which creates confusion for the traveler. If addressed properly, they can both mitigate risk (proactively addressing them can help manage their associated risks) and provide a significant employee benefit.</p>
<p data-id="173faee0-e71a-49f0-8462-386a51994c8d">For a primer on how to address <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">bleisure</a>, I recommend <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bleisure-travel-dilemma-who-liable-greeley-koch/" target="_blank">this article</a> by ACTE Executive Director Greeley Koch.</p>
<p data-id="cf0f116a-9af4-478d-b930-f2f1f07b16b4">Regarding the sharing economy, I recently heard a story about a travel manager who instituted a "no ride share" policy - you can imagine the result!</p>
<p data-id="cf0f116a-9af4-478d-b930-f2f1f07b16b4"> </p>
<h2 data-id="87a54122-0d5b-4271-99fa-33f515266b53">3. Solicit feedback and re-think communication methods</h2>
<p data-id="adfb63e4-1161-4afe-aada-a38c9a255f44">A lack of customer feedback will stifle innovation, and travelers are your customers. Feedback should not just pertain to TMC service, but the entire travel and expense journey. Surveys, forums, peer communities, and easy Q&As all encourage proactive feedback. Talk to your IT department about the tools you can leverage to gain valuable traveler insight.</p>
<p data-id="fdd3d2d6-0614-4fc8-a546-0672c59c81b4">The methods of communication have changed. Gone are the days of lengthy training manuals and even phone calls. Employees consume content differently and expect more to be “on demand” and in bite-size chunks. Travel departments need to react accordingly.</p>
<p data-id="fdd3d2d6-0614-4fc8-a546-0672c59c81b4"> </p>
<h2 data-id="3f668dbc-6d57-4c42-b491-4e397de308ff">4. Invest in the employee</h2>
<p data-id="507e803a-6b62-4b73-abb2-96126e6f67c1">While not every trip requires 5-star accommodations, they do require wifi and mobile devices. A Tripkicks advisor recently referred to wifi as a <strong>basic human right</strong>. While meant jokingly, it's not too far from the truth. Companies should be strategic about where to invest, and focus their dollars on items that are most meaningful to their travelers.</p>
<p data-id="dab5abc0-28b1-4198-8b1f-47eb082cdc27">In recent years, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">duty of care</a> has forced its way into the travel policy - and that is a good thing for both companies and travelers. Accessing emergency information should be easy for both parties, providing peace of mind, and helping avoid unfortunate situations resulting from the traveler "not knowing.”</p>
<p data-id="9b589899-e0c2-49b5-9fee-5c60e92a6d31"> </p>
<p>A modern <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">corporate travel</a> program does not necessarily require the addition of more upscale or swanky travel options, or a removal of rules; it simply requires a renewed focus on the employee experience. The good news is there are new programs and solutions that can supplement your existing program to do just that. Tripkicks, for instance, is an <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> partner that integrates with both <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel </a>and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> to empower and reward business travelers for making cost-conscious travel decisions, while at the same time enabling companies to realize significant cost savings. Learn more about Tripkicks <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5b577c461304e04e009b35d6">here</a>. </p>
Jeff Berk
Business Travel Trends: GBTA Research Studies Booking Behavior, Duty of Care, and the Role of Technology
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travel-trends-gbta-research-studies-booking-behavior-duty-care-and-role
2018-12-06T07:38:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For the past three years the Global Business Travel Association GBTA has partnered with SAP Concur to explore business traveler booking behavior Our latest European study revealed some...
<p>For the past three years, the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has partnered with SAP Concur to explore business traveler booking behavior. Our latest European study revealed some interesting findings.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/10931-0.jpg?itok=eeGIlxdW" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2><strong>Corporate Travel is Evolving</strong></h2>
<p>Many programs have an impact beyond travel. Understand the challenges facing travel managers.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges-infographic">Get the Infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>While use of online booking tools is expected to increase, there is room for improvement when it comes to booking options, duty of care strategies and the adoption of technology. Here are some of the key takeaways:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Booking behavior</h2>
<ul>
<li>More than two-thirds of business travelers said they had used an online travel agency (OTA) or booked directly with suppliers for airfares and hotel reservations. </li>
<li>Use of corporate online booking tools is on the up. Nearly half (47%) of business travelers say they expect to use their online booking tool more often next year.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Duty of care</h2>
<ul>
<li>Less than half (47%) say their organization has a system in place that captures their travel plans when they book directly with a supplier. Some 45% of business travelers say the only way for their organization to know where they traveled is through their expense claim.</li>
<li>Business travelers expect their organization to be proactive in duty of care. 82% think it’s important for their organization to have visibility of their travel plans.</li>
<li>Nearly three-quarters (73%) of business travelers expect their company to proactively contact them within two hours of an emergency or security event.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>The role of technology</h2>
<ul>
<li>While ease of use is important to business travelers, other desired features of a corporate booking tool include support during emergencies (76%), being destination-specific (74%), and providing travel safety alerts (72%).</li>
<li>While most business travelers believe their organization is technologically advanced, there is room for improvement. 28% believe their company’s technology to be average, and one in ten believe their organizations to be “somewhat” or “not at all advanced."</li>
<li>Business travelers are willing for booking tools to collect and use personal data appropriately. For example, almost a third would allow company tools to use their data if it would improve their safety.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>But it doesn’t end there. The research revealed many other employee expectations, areas of concern and some pleasing surprises about the state of business travel. Want to know more? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges"><strong>Download the full GBTA report.</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Maximize Visibility of Low Level and Travel Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-maximize-visibility-low-level-and-travel-spend
2019-02-04T18:54:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Spend on travel and expense is often one of the largest for organizations typically falling second behind payroll according to Jupiter Research Lowlevel spend also referred to as tail...
<p>Spend on travel and expense is often one of the largest for organizations, typically falling second behind payroll according to Jupiter Research.</p>
<p>Low-level spend, also referred to as <a href="https://www.infosysbpm.com/offerings/functions/sourcing-procurement-outsourcing/white-papers/Documents/long-short-managing-tail-spend.pdf" target="_blank">tail spend</a>, generally refers to the bottom 20% of a company’s spend, not actively managed, covering spend categories such as maintenance, operations, print services, home office expenses, packaging, facilities management, supplies, to name a few. Tail-spend usually involves a large number of suppliers.</p>
<p>What is common about low-level spend and travel spend is that both are mostly controlled by the employees. Employees decide what to buy, when to buy, who to buy from, how much to pay (of course, subject to company guidelines). At SAP Concur we refer to this as <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-cfos-can-manage-out-of-control-employee-spend">employee initiated spend</a>.</p>
<p>Tail spend is not always actively managed but has an impact on corporate financial performance. While companies like Infosys, Accenture, Claritum, and APICS look more closely at streamlining the number of vendors, at SAP Concur we look for ways to make that spend more visible, enabling the finance department to accurately record and forecast committed spend, as well as benefit from cost savings and compliance resulting from the increased spend visibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pivot focus to spend channels</h2>
<p>In a 2013 paper in <a href="https://www.capgemini.com/consulting/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2017/08/ccna_procurement_practice_-_operational_strategy.pdf" target="_blank">Operational Strategy in Procurement</a>, Capgemini Consulting stated “Spend channel optimization focuses on understanding the most efficient means (cost to serve) by which to procure goods and services – catalogue, PO, p-card, T&E and others.”</p>
<p>In this article, we define spend channels as the various ways in which a company’s suppliers and service providers are paid.</p>
<p>When you focus on employee initiated spend and use digital technologies to track across all spend channels – corporate liability cards, purchasing cards, purchase orders, invoices, and receipt for cash payments -- you have a complete map of committed spend. Starting with the automated, digitized capture of receipts, you can extract key information such as date of invoice or charge, vendor, amount, location or address, category of item purchased, and other details. If paid by corporate card or P-card, this information can be cross referenced to the monthly statements from financial institutions. This creates a supplier map to help your procurement and AP departments analyze the amounts spent by vendor and category and the timeliness of order, delivery, and payment which, in turn, allows you to negotiate better supplier terms based on volume, timing, and payment schedules.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/capturing-and-controlling-invisible-spend">Download the report</a> to learn more about capturing and controlling invisible spend</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition to providing insight into the potential cost savings in a conventional way, you can use this information to drive cost savings and control by compliance. If the proper spend channels are not used by employees or corporate policies for specific spend categories are not followed, corrective actions can be used to drive policy adherence and eliminate wasteful or fraudulent spending at the source.</p>
<p>There’s much more we can do by focusing on the spend channels employees use to pay for tail spend and travel spend. Below we list a couple of examples:</p>
<p><strong>1. Spend visibility before expense reports are submitted or invoices are approved for payment: </strong>When employees pay for products or services using corporate cards or P-cards, the amounts charged can be reported for forecast and budget accrual purposes within a few days of incurring the expense. Since the financial institutions provide corporate cards or P-cards statements on a more frequent basis than employee expense reports are submitted or invoices processed - a more complete view of already incurred costs is now available.</p>
<p><strong>2. Reduce the effort employees must put into submittal of expense reports and invoice data entry:</strong> As most employees and travelers will tell you, transcribing information from multiple receipts into expense reports is what takes the most effort in the creation and submittal of the reports. Travelers would rather be doing more productive things than documenting where they spent the company’s money. And employees that receive paper or PDF invoices from suppliers would rather spend less time transcribing and categorizing items from the invoice, as required by the company’s data-entry and compliance process. Thankfully, there are tools and services available today that help companies to electronically capture these documents, and through machine learning and processing-rules categorize the data that otherwise would have to be completely done by the employee. By adopting technologies that assist the employee in the entry and categorization of travel and low level spend, employees need only validate that the electronic capture and artificial-intelligence–assigned categories are correct. This speeds-up the process of expense report submittal and invoice processing, thus providing the finance department earlier visibility into employee initiated spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Gain visibility to manage employee spending</h2>
<p>Low-level spend (also referred to as tail spend), and travel spend are generally initiated by employees. Whereas travel spend is closely watched by finance as it is the one of the largest contributor to a company’s expense, tail spend consists of 20% of a company’s total spend – but spread out across 80% of a company’s suppliers. In both travel spend and tail spend, the value of each transaction is low compared to spend transactions such as salaries or volume purchases. Companies’ procurement and finance departments often pay little attention to low-level spend transactions, to the numerous vendors issuing invoices or receipts associated with those transactions, and to the form of payment used.</p>
<p>By implementing corporate policies that require all employee-initiated payments be done with corporate cards, P-cards, virtual cards, or other payment instruments where the company automatically receives daily or weekly statements, companies can gain advanced visibility on cash flow requirements, as well as savings through negotiated volume pricing and payment terms. Employee satisfaction increases as the burden of handling paper receipts is minimized. And the company tax department is pleased because expense substantiation is automated, minimizing the need to chase individual employees who have not attached receipts to their expense reports.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for more articles on how firms are benefiting from managing employee initiated spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: </h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-cfos-can-manage-out-of-control-employee-spend">How CFOs Can Manage Out of Control Employee Spend</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-gain-visibility-and-control-of-employee-spend">How to Gain Visibility and Control of Employee Spend</a></h3>
<p> </p>
Serge Kogan
Learn About the Innovations Changing Business for the Better
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/learn-about-innovations-changing-business-better
2021-02-11T15:55:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Many businesses arent sure yet if the latest technology revolutions such as artificial intelligence and process automation present meaningful opportunities for growth But if theres...
<p>Many businesses aren’t sure yet if the latest technology revolutions – such as artificial intelligence and process automation – present meaningful opportunities for growth. But if there’s one universal truth about technology, it’s this: today’s innovations are tomorrow’s requirements. Technology advances more rapidly every day, and it’s imperative for businesses to keep pace to stay competitive.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Listen to all five episodes to learn how to scale, reduce fraud, keep employees safe, and more.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To help you understand what challenges and opportunities technology presents, we’ve partnered with The Wall Street Journal to create <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business">The Intelligent Business</a>, a podcast series with a wealth of insights about how businesses can use emerging technologies to automate more of their processes and control company spending.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the series, each episode tackles a specific issue that companies might encounter on their path to becoming a best-run business. Below, we’ve compiled an overview of each of the themes and trends you’ll discover in the podcast:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>A Shifting Landscape: Business Travel Insights</strong><br />
AI is playing a huge part in simplifying spend management and automating more of the process for both managers and employees.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>Traveler Safety: Challenges and Solutions</strong><br />
More sources of data allow you to serve travelers better when they’re on the road – and keep them safer – lowering your risk and increasing employee satisfaction.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>A Robot Completed My Expense Report</strong><br />
Creating expense reports manually is time consuming for employees and could even result in unintentional T&E fraud. AI-driven technology is making receipt capture, reporting, and approvals nearly effortless.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>Seeing the Unseen: A Solution for Travel and Expense Compliance</strong><br />
People make mistakes and sometimes misuse company funds, but AI is allowing companies to catch more exceptions and reduce their compliance risks.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>The End Game: Using Spend Data to Drive Growth</strong><br />
Greater visibility into your company spending means more insights derived from data. That allows you to make more informed business decisions about budgets, boost revenue, and increase employee satisfaction.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about all of the innovations that are helping businesses bring more intelligence to their spending, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">listen to the entire five-part series here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Helping Organizations Achieve Their Purpose at SAP Concur Fusion 2019
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/helping-organizations-achieve-their-purpose-sap-concur-fusion-2019
2020-08-18T11:42:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Last week we had the opportunity to meet with some of our customers to celebrate their successes and discuss the challenges they face at our annual event SAP Concur Fusion More than ...
<p>Last week, we had the opportunity to meet with some of our customers to celebrate their successes, and discuss the challenges they face, at our annual event, <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/" target="_blank">SAP Concur Fusion</a>. More than 3,200 customers, partners and SAP Concur employees joined us in San Diego for four days of networking, learning sessions and micro-forums. Among the community of attendees, we had travel and finance leaders from a global cross-section of businesses that make our global economy run, nonprofits that lift up those in need, and members of the public sector who provide services we all depend on. Each of these organizations has a unique purpose, and our passion, along with a global ecosystem of partners, is to help them bring it to life. Together, we shared best practices, saw fresh innovations, made new connections, and learned from each other. </p>
<p>For me, one of the many highlights of Fusion is the opportunity to recognize a select group of best-run organizations pushing the boundaries of travel, expense and invoice solutions to deliver a meaningful impact on their employees, their business, and their communities.</p>
<p>One of the winners this year is <a href="https://www.alteryx.com/" target="_blank">Alteryx</a>, which helps companies turn their data into actionable insights that improve business results. Alteryx has eliminated manual processes and applied analytics to travel and expenses, to get time back to focus on what matters most.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1553192204517-background-copy.png" />
<p>We also recognized, <a href="https://corporate.discovery.com/" target="_blank">Discovery</a>, whose mission is to inspire, inform and entertain. Discovery uses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink" target="_blank">TripLink</a> to connect travel and expense into one solution. They also integrate <a href="https://www.uber.com/" target="_blank">Uber</a> and <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/" target="_blank">Airbnb</a> to allow employees to book directly with suppliers while staying in policy, and gain full visibility into spending.</p>
<p>Another Innovation Award winner, <a href="https://www.gwu.edu/" target="_blank">George Washington University</a>, aspires to change the world through the students it educates and the research it conducts. They have moved from a paper-based system to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> to provide improved controls and traceability. As a parent, remarks from Donna Ginter, GWU’s Executive Director of Procurement and Travel Services (pictured below with SAP Concur's Jim Lucier), really hit home for me. She talked about the worries we have about the safety of our kids when they leave for college, both when they are living on campus and going on international trips as part of their education. George Washington University uses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate" target="_blank">Concur Locate</a> to protect their students’ safety.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1553192307786-jm-6-2862.png" />
<p>I also want to congratulate <a href="https://www.necam.com/" target="_blank">NEC</a> and <a href="https://www.redsapsolutions.com/" target="_blank">RED</a>, two other market leaders who received Innovation Awards. Please take a moment to learn how NEC and RED are using technology to streamline their travel, expense and invoices processes, and about the other Innovation Award winners, in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-celebrates-2019-innovation-award-winners" target="_blank">blog</a> by Kim Albrecht, our Chief Marketing Officer.</p>
<p>For me, Fusion is also an opportunity to pause and reflect on where we’ve been, and more important, where we’re going. The last several years have been a time of incredible growth for us. In fact, we’ve grown more over the last 48 months than we did in the previous 21 years. We’re going to accelerate that expansion by empowering our customers to focus more on their most valuable and strategic work, so they can become what we call “best-run organizations.”</p>
<p>As Kim Albrecht said at Fusion, best-run organizations drive more automation and integration into travel, expense and invoice processes. As a result, they move beyond tedious tasks and work smarter. Their employees get more done while the overall organization maintains better control of spending.</p>
<p>To help our customers get there in 2019 and beyond, we have doubled-down on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate some of the tasks that take them away from serving customers and growing their operations. From being able to read your handwriting on receipts, to allowing you to use AI to audit 100 percent of expense reports, we’ve already made a lot of progress. We’re even more excited about the future, and what we’ll do to build on that success.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1553192418524-sekou.jpg" />
<p>These conversations about AI and machine learning are critically important, as they continue to change the way business is conducted around the world. But as our closing speaker, <a href="http://sekouandrews.com/" target="_blank">Poetic Voice</a> CEO and Founder <a href="http://sekouandrews.com/about-sekou/" target="_blank">Sekou Andrews</a> (pictured right) said, “We are more than our screens and text and data.” That’s why our partners and customers joined us at Fusion in packing 2,000 backpacks of school supplies for kids who attend <a href="https://www.sdyouth.org/" target="_blank">Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego</a>. It was a great reminder that sometimes technology isn’t the most important element in achieving an organization’s purpose – it’s a human connection. That was a great message to take with us, as we returned home to our friends and families, and considered how we build on the learnings from SAP Concur Fusion for the remainder of the year and beyond. </p>
What is Automation Without Integration? Connect SAP Concur to Your Finance Systems
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-automation-without-integration-connect-sap-concur-your-finance-systems
2021-03-01T14:33:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Kirk Hayes is Director of EMEA Platform and Product Partnerships for SAP Concur Weve spoken at length about the undeniable benefits that automating your expenses travel and invoices...
<p>Kirk Hayes is Director of EMEA Platform and Product Partnerships for SAP Concur</p>
<p>We’ve spoken at length about the undeniable benefits that automating your expenses, travel, and invoices can bring. Automation <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic" target="_blank">saves time and money</a> for finance, employees and the business alike. According to research, automating with SAP Concur solutions saves the typical small-to-medium-sized business $39,000 annually. But what happens in your back office once you have automated those previously manual processes? How easy is it to transfer that data into your finance system and is there more work to do there?</p>
<p>If you want to maximize efficiency, make the most of your time and see more benefit, you need to think about how your automated systems fits together and with the rest of the systems in your business.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/default/Infographics.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Better Manage SMB Spend</h2>
<p>A study of financial decision-makers at small and midsize businesses makes a strong case for automating expense, travel, and invoicing.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic">Read the results</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Let’s take an example. Say you have a relatively automated expense process up and running in your business. It may be efficient and offer better visibility and insight than ever before. But can it “talk” to your supplier invoice solution so you get a full picture into spend? And can it integrate with your finance system so that the data feeds through without having to be rekeyed?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Automation can only take your business so far. If you want to <strong>complete the automation process</strong> and harness everything it has to offer, then <strong>integration of your systems</strong> is the final, but very important piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>SAP Concur and systems integration</h2>
<p>There are several ways you can connect your systems to your back office finance function. You can do it on demand, over FTP or via web services. But the quickest, easiest and safest way is to use one of the <strong>built-in connectors</strong> SAP Concur has to offer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Every connector has been developed with in house R&D or in partnership with innovative technology providers, and has been designed to add even more value to your business. If you’re considering automating your spend processes with a new provider, make sure to establish exactly what work will be required to get your data to sync with your ERP.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we have connectors that support a range of finance systems, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Access Dimensions</li>
<li>Brightpearl</li>
<li>Ebizframe ERP</li>
<li>Evo-ERP</li>
<li>Exact Globe</li>
<li>Microsoft Dynamics</li>
<li>MomentumPro</li>
<li>Netsuite</li>
<li>Sage</li>
<li>SAP</li>
<li>SYSPRO</li>
<li>Unit4 Business World On!</li>
<li>Xero</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>And together with our partnerships with innovative developers such as <a href="https://www.codelessplatforms.com/" target="_blank">Codeless Platforms</a> and <a href="http://www.excluserv.com/" target="_blank">ExcluServ</a>, we’re building new connections all the time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With an SAP Concur connector, expenses, invoices, purchase orders and their associated cost center lists are automatically transferred from your SAP Concur system into your ERP system every 24 hours, giving you <strong>near real-time synchronization.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are also none of the headaches traditionally associated with getting two systems to talk to each other as the hard development work has been done up front. <strong>Deployment is also quick and easy</strong>, and in some cases takes only a few days. Support is available for every one of them too, so if you have a technical question, help is always at hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And while every connector is pre-built, they can also be <strong>customized</strong> to give you exactly what your business needs. For example, you can choose which data you want to be synchronized between systems.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<p>The Benefits of Connecting Your Systems with an SAP Concur Connector</p>
<p>Once your SAP Concur connector is up and running, you have removed another element of manual data entry and the associated risks of human error from your finance process. The result is you reduce operational costs and improve your efficiency thanks to the time you are saving.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In other words, when you integrate SAP Concur and your ERP system with an SAP Concur connector, you <strong>take automation to the next level</strong> and maximize the value it has to offer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you would like to discuss systems integration with an SAP Concur expert, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/contact" target="_blank">get in touch</a> with us here</p>
SAP Concur Team
Get Smart About Managing Company Spend and Watch Your Business Grow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/get-smart-about-managing-company-spend-and-watch-your-business-grow
2019-07-30T08:34:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Why Have a CostConscious Business Growth StrategyEightyfive percent of SMBs agree their businesses could focus more on efficiency and cost control Prioritizing cash flow and spending...
<div class="article--summary-widget">
<h2><span>Why Have a Cost-Conscious Business Growth Strategy?</span></h2>
<p>Eighty-five percent of SMBs agree their businesses could focus more on efficiency and cost control. Prioritizing cash flow and spending in expansion decision-making may lead to better outcomes: greater agility, more visibility into spending, fewer cost overruns, more effective collaboration, and a focus on strategy rather than day-to-day tasks.</p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>During periods of business growth, time and money get stretched, especially for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). In addition to having to spend <strong>more money</strong> on everything from travel to expenses, marketing, operational costs, and discretionary spend also increase. But in most cases, your finance team has to spend <strong>more time</strong> – another limited resource – tracking, forecasting, budgeting, and controlling spending so that it’s fully directed toward top growth initiatives.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And this is not without consequence. Without scalable, intelligent, and automated processes in place to manage growing spend, these efforts can distract and consume finance leaders and their teams, as well as hinder growth plans due to their sheer ineffectiveness. The result is uncontrolled spending that can quickly spiral out of control and derail business expansion.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Growing pains</h2>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-smb-growth-oxford-economics-worldwide-report" target="_blank">recent study conducted by Oxford Economics</a>, many SMBs aren’t prepared to handle the increased workloads associated with growth – and they feel the pain in a multitude of ways, particularly in the finance area. The study, which involved a survey of 500 decision makers at expanding companies, highlighted a group of the SMBs (150 of those surveyed) that it refers to as “cost-conscious.” The cost-conscious SMBs focused on spending and cash-management during growth and were more likely to stay within budget and less likely to experience challenges associated with expansion. The divergence in time spent during expansion, and the benefits they saw after the expansion, is stark: </p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Cost-conscious SMB respondents are more likely than other respondents to spend more time on cash flow and spending management (74% vs 45%); expense report processing (67% vs 55%); growth strategy alignment (70% vs 38%); financial planning and analysis (FP&A) (71% vs 55%); IT collaboration (70% vs 38%); and payroll (57% vs 41%).</li>
<li>After an expansion, cost-conscious SMBs report far fewer challenges within their organization than other SMBs, such as administrative issues, including invoice reconciliation (10% vs 59%); onboarding and training for new employees (11% vs 48%); digital and cybersecurity management (11% vs 45%); and compliance with laws and regulations (12% vs 48%).</li>
<li>Cost-conscious SMBs report close collaboration between functions – only 19% say that they feel their organization is siloed, compared to 62% of other respondents.</li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Keys to Successful Business Growth</h2>
<p>Learn why visibility into spending and paying careful attention to cash flow are pillars of successful growth.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>These numbers reflect the fact that while cost-conscious SMBs invest time into focusing on financial processes, there are many benefits to be found in such focus after expansion. But for most SMBs, being cost-conscious means relying on manual, cumbersome spend management processes involving spreadsheets, paper documents, and e-mails. These processes are costly and inefficient and cannot scale with the business as it grows or provide transparency across company spend. Nor can they free finance staff from time-consuming tasks such as data collection, aggregation, and reporting so they can focus on more strategic efforts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s the solution?</h2>
<p>What’s needed are integrated, scalable solutions that collect and connect scattered expense, travel, and invoice data; automate manual work and processes; and enable a more intelligent and responsive way to manage spend. This allows every SMB to be both cost-conscious and efficient.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, with SAP Concur solutions, you get the visibility, focus, and agility you need to spend strategically and achieve your goals. They bring the same level of efficiency and automation to travel and invoices as you may have already achieved with expense reports, if you’re already using the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> solution. Over time, as your expense report, travel, and invoice volumes grow, SAP Concur solutions can scale to automatically review and audit expense reports, centralize and analyze company spending data, and automate invoice handling. This decreases your risk of fraud while keeping you and your team focused on growing your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-to-grow-your-business-by-intelligently-controlling-spending" target="_blank">Download the new paper.</a></p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Customer Success Story: How Electrolux increases VAT recovery with Concur Expense and Taxback International
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/customer-success-story-how-electrolux-increases-vat-recovery-concur-expense-and
2019-09-24T15:24:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Electrolux shapes living for the better by reinventing taste care and wellbeing experiences making life more enjoyable and sustainable for millions of people As a leading global...
<p>Electrolux shapes living for the better by reinventing taste, care, and wellbeing experiences, making life more enjoyable and sustainable for millions of people. As a leading global appliance company, it places the consumer at the heart of everything they do. Through its brands, including Electrolux, AEG, and Frigidaire, Electrolux sells more than 60 million household and professional products in more than 150 markets every year.</p>
<p>With employees in 42 countries supporting more than 150 global markets, international travel is a way of life at Electrolux. To support traveling employees, the company uses SAP Concur for both travel and expense.</p>
<p> “We are using Concur Expense in 42 countries,” says Dan Cole, Electrolux’s global travel director. “With roughly 9,000 business travelers, it is truly a global program.”</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, Electrolux travelers and managers can manage the entire <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">T&E process</a>, from booking and managing itineraries to capturing receipts and submitting and approving expense reports – all from the SAP Concur mobile app. Not only does the solution make travel simpler and more convenient, it also helps Electrolux save big on travel costs by enabling better spending behaviors, ensuring accurate reporting, and mitigating fraud.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/283591_Tax_Calculation_Euro_R_green.png" />
<p>Innovate VAT Reclaim Through Automation</p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/innovating-vat-reclaim-through-automation-taxback-international">Learn more</a></p>
</div>
<p>At SAP Concur Fusion 2014, Cole learned that the savings opportunities with Concur Expense were far greater than he realized. That is where he found out about <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBRcD%24pT6A5oT8AcbpQZDOzUZB/taxback-international">Taxback International</a>, an SAP Concur App Center partner.</p>
<p>With more than 160 countries applying a value-added tax (VAT) to products and services, the costs from a business travel perspective really add up. It is possible to reclaim much of those costs, but the process is complicated. As a leading VAT recovery provider, Taxback International uses advanced technology to simplify <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">VAT refunds</a> on business travel.</p>
<p>“Taxback International offered us a free analysis of our Concur Expense data for a number of countries and was able to identify that we were only reclaiming around 8% of the VAT we were paying worldwide,” explains Cole, “which was around €30,000.”</p>
<p>Cole and his team at Electrolux were convinced – and the savings gained from Taxback International were immediate. “In the first year alone, we were able to triple our <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">VAT reclaim</a> to nearly €100,000,” he says.</p>
<p>When he activated the app to connect Taxback International with Concur Expense, the process improved even further. Electrolux could now take advantage of automated data and image collection captures for every transaction; instant reclaim validation; near real-time analytics into VAT potential, recovery, and submissions; and expert multilingual support around the globe.</p>
<p>“Taxback International with Concur Expense makes VAT reclaim an absolutely seamless process,” says Cole. “We can share all of our data with experts from across the world to maximize reclaims and minimize risk. We’re approaching €400,000 per year in reclaims. We couldn't have done it without them.”</p>
<p>Going forward, Electrolux is looking at expanding the use of Taxback International with Concur Expense to its Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations. It is also exploring analytics to report on traveler behaviors and help ensure employees are submitting VAT-compliant receipts.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/electrolux" target="_blank">Watch the video</a></strong> to hear the full story on how Electrolux is saving big with Concur Expense and Taxback International. Then head over to the SAP Concur App Center to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBRcD$pT6A5oT8AcbpQZDOzUZB/taxback-international" target="_blank">download the app</a> for yourself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Heading to the GBTA Convention in Chicago?</strong> Visit Taxback International at booth 4132.</p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can simplify T&E management for your business, visit <a href="http://www.concur.com" target="_blank">concur.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Global Clients Can Leverage Preferred Care Experts in the Age of Disruptive Outsourcing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-global-clients-can-leverage-preferred-care-experts-age-disruptive-outsourcing
2019-08-13T10:30:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The digital economy requires global companies to respond faster collaborate more and overall be more efficient But as your business expands into new international markets your...
<p>The digital economy requires global companies to respond faster, collaborate more, and overall be more efficient. But as your business expands into new, international markets, your financial and IT systems may have become increasingly complex and decentralized, making it hard to have the visibility and control you need to manage your SAP Concur solution.</p>
<p>To solve the problem, you have two choices:</p>
<ol>
<li>Hire and train an internal team to specialize within your SAP Concur solutions</li>
<li>Outsource the work to a team of experts</li>
</ol>
<p>Every few years, Deloitte runs its <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/operations/articles/gx-global-outsourcing-survey.html">Global Outsourcing Survey</a> gathering feedback from more than 500 executives from leading organizations on outsourcing. In the past, it has found that organizations typically use outsourcing to improve back-office operations through cost reduction and performance improvement. But its most recent survey in 2018 found a change in how organizations are leveraging this market:</p>
<p>“Today, disruptive outsourcing solutions are enabling competitive advantage by accelerating changes within those organizations that have the audacity and skill to leap over the technology chasm; for them, outsourcing can pioneer a northwest passage to top line growth, as well as to a more agile, effective back office. The focus has shifted from traditional work transfer to upfront transformation and automation. Organizations are recognizing that disruptive solutions can revolutionize the way they do business, and that ‘buying’ capabilities in the marketplace is generally faster and more scalable than developing capabilities internally.”</p>
<p>But as with many initiatives, organizations are finding that delivering competitive advantage through disruptive outsourcing solutions is anything but simple; effort and expertise are needed to address security and cyber risks, changing regulations, organizational resistance, skill gaps, and to help flatten fragmented processes. In this blog we’ll discuss why outsourcing expert guidance to ensure operational excellence might be best when it comes to gaining the full power of your SAP Concur solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The enhanced support you need to maximize your SAP Concur solution</h2>
<p>If you want to get the most of your SAP Concur solution, then our Preferred Care service is the right mix of customer support, engagement, collaboration, and personalization that your organization needs to help scale and grow. Preferred Care helps complex and globally active clients like yourself streamline and improve productivity and profitability with personalized product experts. Through ongoing optimization consultations and business-specific monitoring and support, our Preferred Care experts will ensure that you maximize the full power of SAP Concur— such as improving compliance, reducing fraud, increasing visibility of spend, and uncovering cost savings throughout your entire organization.</p>
<p>With Preferred Care, your organization will have access to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Authorized Support Contact (ASC) training</li>
<li>Specially tailored release support</li>
<li>Product roadmap reviews</li>
<li>Interactive site workshop</li>
<li>Proactive job monitoring</li>
<li>Service request log to track issues, requests, and projects</li>
<li>Enhanced SLAs for support</li>
<li>Preferred Care VIP support hotline</li>
<li>Designated Preferred Care manager</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>The value of a preferred care manager</h2>
<p>Using our Preferred Care service also gives you a dedicated Preferred Care Manager. This is an expert for our systems and operations, who understand the nuances of your business, your unique culture, and your customization and use of SAP Concur. The Preferred Care Manager is always on hand with advice on strategic planning and best practices to assist you in achieving the optimum operation for your organization. It’s through this level of diligence and personalization that sets the stage for a successful release and realization of your business targets, so you can stay on track to achieve your goals.</p>
<p>A Preferred Care Manager can help you achieve your goals by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Proactively monitoring all scheduled jobs and interfaces</li>
<li>Creating a concrete, feasible plan with defined cycles, audits, challenges, adjustments, and adherence to identify goals in scorecards</li>
<li>Reviewing open cases with you and conduct regular "checkpoint" interviews to measure progress and ensure your goals are met</li>
<li>Creating local and global compliance rules</li>
<li>Conducting annual, Interactive Site Workshops</li>
<li>Scheduling expert sessions</li>
<li>Providing configuration assistance</li>
<li>Collaborating with your Travel Management Company (TMC)</li>
</ul>
<p>Today’s market conditions require global companies to be more flexible than ever to make strategically important decisions based on accurate data. That's exactly where SAP Concur helps your business succeed. By working better with your Preferred Care Manager, focusing on business goals and results, prioritizing support, and accessing and taking into account the SAP Concur roadmap, you can make full use of your investment in SAP Concur. For more information on whether our Preferred Care service is right for your business, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/preferred-care">Preferred Care</a> website.</p>
Kyla Kent
It's That Time to Assess Your T&E Program (Yes, Your Program)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-assess-your-te-program-yes-your-program
2020-08-18T12:19:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As you close out Q is the time to review how your company manages employee spending Auditing employee expenses is a daily responsibility for many finance managers and leaders more on...
<p>As you close out 2019, Q4 is the time to review how your company manages employee spending.</p>
<p>Auditing employee expenses is a daily responsibility for many finance managers and leaders (more on that below). But, just as critical to your business is reviewing your actual travel and expense program – think your workflows and systems – that process and manage those expense reports.</p>
<p>If you haven’t done so in a while, or can’t remember the last time this was assessed, now’s the time.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1574122662714-283602-tax-payment-dollar-r-orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>8 Questions to Help Assess Your T&E Program</h2>
<p>Ask these questions to asses if your processes are operating at max efficiency, or if change might be needed. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/8-questions-to-help-assess-your-te-program-cheat-sheet">Get it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Why? Think about the past year:</p>
<ul>
<li>Employees continue to spend more and more money, across more spend categories</li>
<li>They've used more payment methods than ever before</li>
<li>That spend data was likely disparately tracked and "managed" by various systems and methods in your company</li>
<li>Overall, processes and policies were "good" because your company hasn't had any fire drills and trusts your employees to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-identify-expense-report-fraud">spend and file expense reports honestly</a>, right? Right …?</li>
</ul>
<p>Part of closing out 2019 is preparing for 2020, which of course means new goals, initiatives, budgets, industry trends, pressures, and the like. That's a lot of newness for you and your staff (which is also new or growing) to plan for, adapt to, and execute against. And as you probably know, your staff's <strong>travel and entertainment expenses account for about 10% of your company’s entire budget</strong> as a result of that execution. It’s nothing to shy away from when your employee spending continues to increase and evolve. Not to mention, attempting to drive changes mid-year is often a lot more challenging when you consider budget approvals or reporting consistency.</p>
<p>In other words, a lot is about to change, and that change directly affects your company spending. It might be time to ask yourself and your team if your T&E process is running as efficiently as it should or could be.</p>
<p>So, what's there to consider over the next couple months to ensure your company spending and reporting processes are at maximum efficiency -- or at the very least, improved?</p>
<p>Based on conversations we have every day with companies, we compiled a cheat sheet for you. It’s comprised of topics to explore and assess including audits, fraud, compliance, tweaks to make, and even an expense policy template to apply to your business. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/8-questions-to-help-assess-your-te-program-cheat-sheet" target="_blank">Download the cheat sheet today.</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Seeing Your Way Through Corporate Growth with a Clear View of Spending
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/seeing-your-way-through-corporate-growth-clear-view-spending
2020-01-28T11:06:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre expanding youre adding costs additional headcount new facilities upgraded systems foreign tax codes you may be unfamiliar with and any number of unexpected expenses But...
<p>If you’re expanding, you’re adding costs — additional headcount, new facilities, upgraded systems, foreign tax codes you may be unfamiliar with, and any number of unexpected expenses. But knowing where you stand financially — focusing on spend visibility and cost control as you plan for growth — makes it easier to realize the revenue growth that comes with expansion.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Oxford Economics: Managing an Expansion</h2>
<p>Read about challenges and how successful enterprises are meeting them, SAP Concur and Oxford Economics.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth">Download Paper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Eight out of 10 businesses agree. According to a survey by Oxford Economics* — 81% of leaders say they would benefit from concentrating more on efficiency and cost control.</p>
<p>In the study, Oxford also points out that having a clear view into costs across an organization can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Boost performance by limiting waste and redundancy before they happen.</li>
<li>Free up executives and employees to focus on strategy and other critical issues.</li>
<li>Improve flexibility, speed, and the ability to funnel resources where they’re needed most.</li>
</ul>
<p>Having this level of cost awareness can greatly impact the success of any expansion. The question is how you get there. The answer lies in these four recommendations:</p>
<p><strong>1. Emphasize cash flow early. </strong></p>
<p>The more you factor spending into your expansion, the fewer challenges you’ll face. Businesses that can see what’s going out the door have an easier time growing, and the most successful of those companies have a keen eye on everything from invoices to T&E spend.</p>
<p><strong>2. Facilitate internal collaboration. </strong></p>
<p>Silos don’t lead to success. Companies whose finance and IT teams work together to create consistent processes are able to move faster — and those that bring together all their travel, expense, and invoice data are better able to forecast spend and create accurate long-term plans.</p>
<p><strong>3. Focus on cost visibility and efficiency. </strong></p>
<p>When spending data is easy to find and use – when you have a single, global, real-time view of your data — you can make smarter, faster decisions about where and how to expand your organization. You can also drive greater efficiencies, spot trends in the company, and unlock useful new insights about where you stand.</p>
<p><strong>4. Consider automating spend management. </strong></p>
<p>Freeing employees from finance tasks allows them to focus on more valuable work, and it helps you handle an expanded workforce without adding to your team. The right solution will also help you manage the tax and regulatory requirements of the countries into which you’re expanding, while steering you around some of the risks associated with high-growth opportunities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Seeing where you are is crucial to seeing where you can go.</strong></p>
<p>You have to know what you’re spending to know where, when, how, and if you can expand.</p>
<p>To learn more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth" target="_blank">download the Oxford Economics article: Managing an Expansion: Keys to Successful Business Growth.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Mundane Matters: How Onerous, Everyday Tasks Hurt Employee Productivity and Business Performance – and What You Can Do About It
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/mundane-matters-how-onerous-everyday-tasks-hurt-employee-productivity-and-business
2020-03-20T15:40:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are your finance processes creating stress and frustration for your employees and wasting their time when it should be directed toward serving customers and growing your business...
<p>Are your finance processes creating stress and frustration for your employees – and wasting their time when it should be directed toward serving customers and growing your business? Think about the processes just about every employee needs to engage in – such as travel booking, expense reporting, and reimbursement and ask yourself – and your colleagues:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are expense reports often turned in late because employees must take the time to manually gather, tally, and staple receipts to a form?</li>
<li>Do people often lose paper receipts and complain about being unable to get fully reimbursed for business and travel-related expenses?</li>
<li>Are AP employees bogged down by manually entering and reconciling invoices?</li>
<li>Are employees frustrated by how long it takes to get reimbursed for expenses they have already submitted? Is this creating financial stress for them as they “float” your business costs?</li>
<li>Are your finance employees frustrated when they must pull the data they need from multiple systems?</li>
<li>Is it difficult for finance staff to know if spending data is accurate and up to date?</li>
<li>Are clunky, frustrating interfaces slowing people down and making it harder to get people to comply with policies?</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’ve answered yes to even one of these questions, your employees are likely feeling the pain of poorly designed processes that involve double-entering data, having to print and fill out forms, or being unable to access important information or do work while working remotely. These types of inefficiencies can cause frustration across your organization, especially when employees feel they are being pulled away from more impactful work or need to work nights and weekends to get it done instead of recharging with friends and family.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1584638220810-285033_person_and_building_r_green.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>6 Steps for Finance Leaders to Improve Employee Experience and the Bottom Line</h2>
<p>Reimagine travel, expense, and invoice management processes, and the technology you use to power them. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/6-steps-for-finance-leaders-to-improve-employee-experience-and-the-bottom-line">Download Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition, agility and innovation – which are essential to success – are difficult to come by when employees are spending valuable time on inefficient, manual tasks that could be made easier, such as manually filling out expense reports, tracking mileage, chasing down approvals, conducting audits for noncompliant spend, reconciling vendor invoices, and receiving documentation.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Here's the good news for small midsize businesses </h2>
<p>Thankfully, we live in an age in which intelligent automation can increase efficiencies in all aspects of work, including the finance function. With the right tools – such as travel, expense, and invoice management from SAP Concur solutions – you can apply intelligent automation to these processes. This can eliminate wasted time, increase efficiency, optimize performance, and provide mobile access for employees – all while giving finance a more complete view of spend. Imagine being able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Eliminate “busyness” and deliver greater job satisfaction, improved productivity, and a better employee experience to AP and finance teams, too, allowing them to focus on the more rewarding and business-critical aspects of their jobs.</li>
<li>Provide your finance team with faster, more accurate data, giving them more control over cashflow, visibility into spending, agility to respond faster to change, and intelligent insights that can drive bottom-line improvements.</li>
<li>Ease the burden of travel, expense, and invoice management tasks, which helps your organization retain talent by letting them focus on the value-added tasks that matter.</li>
</ul>
<p>According to Gallup, impacts like these improve employee satisfaction and engagement, which can tangibly improve your business. They found that companies with high levels of employee engagement report<a href="#_ftn1" title="">[1]</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>17% higher productivity</li>
<li>21% higher profitability</li>
<li>24% lower turnover</li>
</ul>
<h2>Ready to Get Started?</h2>
<p>It’s time to re-imagine travel, expense, and invoice management processes and the technology you use to power them. To jump-start this process, download our checklist that provides <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/6-steps-for-finance-leaders-to-improve-employee-experience-and-the-bottom-line" target="_blank">6 Steps for Finance Leaders to Improve Employee Experience and Your Bottom Line</a>. </strong></p>
<div>
<hr />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a> “State of the Global Workplace." Gallup, 2017.</p>
</div>
</div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How Automating AP Can Help Government Manage Invoices From Anywhere
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automating-ap-can-help-government-manage-invoices-anywhere
2020-09-21T15:56:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youd think that ensuring healthy cash flow would be enough for government finance teams to worry about But the truth is cash flow is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AP...
<p>You’d think that ensuring healthy cash flow would be enough for government finance teams to worry about. But the truth is, cash flow is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AP responsibilities. Because today, finance professionals must also support agency growth and planning, contribute to employee satisfaction, and more.</p>
<p>With both time and staff often in short supply, inefficiency can’t exist on any level of a government agency’s operations. Yet, even with growing demands on finance departments, and an increasing number of suppliers, many agencies continue to use outdated, manual processes for vendor invoices, approvals, and payments.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Extending AP Automation to State & Local Governments</h2>
<p>Improve visibility into and control of cashflow. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/extending-automation-to-accounts-payable-in-state-local-governments">Get the e-Book</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The reasons for this can vary. For some, spreadsheets, paper invoices, and e-mail are status quo solutions that are “good enough” and don’t need an upgrade. Other times, agencies struggle to justify using taxpayer dollars to invest in a modern invoice management system.</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, the combination of more responsibility and no room for inefficiency or error means that agencies simply can’t afford not to invest in modern, mobile-friendly AP software. By getting away from manual, paper-based systems, your agency can automatically capture, validate, and approve every invoice either in the office or remotely, shorten processing times, and avoid late fees from vendors.</p>
<p>Additionally, when you connect a modern AP system with automated travel and expense management, you can centralize and gain visibility into all agency spend, detect and prevent fraud, and plan budgets based on accurate spend data.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Making the case for automation</h2>
<p>There’s no question that the road to implementing modern AP management is difficult. And finding the right solution for your agency is just the start. Once you do, you’ll then need to clear many hurdles and have countless conversations to get a new AP solution approved.</p>
<p>To help state and local government leaders determine whether or not to upgrade their AP management system, SAP Concur and GovLoop came up with a handful of key questions that every leader should ask:</p>
<ol>
<li>Will a new spend management solution drive policy compliance that is better tomorrow than it is today?</li>
<li>Will a modern solution allow all spend data to flow into a single, integrated system?</li>
<li>Will a better AP management experience eliminate manual data entry, increase productivity, and improve employee satisfaction?</li>
<li>Does my current process empower my agency to spend directly with preferred vendors?</li>
<li>Will a new solution provide deeper data insights and help us plan more strategically?</li>
</ol>
<p>If you answered "yes" to all five of these questions (you did), your agency may be due for an upgrade to its spend management system. With this, leaders can connect a number of puzzle pieces that prevent unnecessary costs, improve and increase employee satisfaction, and give teams more time to focus on serving constituents.</p>
<p>To see how SAP Concur solutions can help your agency automate and integrate its entire invoice, expense and travel management system, check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">public sector page</a>, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/extending-automation-to-accounts-payable-in-state-local-governments">download our e-Book</a> to learn more about bringing AP automation to your government agency.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Employees are Happy. Finance is Happy. Is it Something in the Water?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employees-are-happy-finance-happy-it-something-water
2020-09-14T11:11:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you talk about tightening up the budget and reining in costs the conversation doesnt usually end with smiling employees For the most part trimming spend doesnt improve anything...
<div>
<p>When you talk about tightening up the budget and reining in costs, the conversation doesn’t usually end with smiling employees. For the most part, trimming spend doesn’t improve anything for your workforce – let alone job satisfaction.</p>
<p>But in the case of travel and expense spending, cutting costs actually eliminates headaches and hassles, improving the employee experience and driving up productivity. Let’s say that again: You see savings, employees are happier, and productivity soars. Seriously?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build a More Resilient Enterprise</h2>
<p>7 steps to help you use intelligent technology to adapt to change.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-steps-to-build-a-more-resilient-and-adaptable-enterprise">Get the checklist</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>It's true. Companies who deliver exceptional employee experiences typically see <strong>17% higher productivity, 21% higher profitability, and 24% lower turnover</strong> according to the 2017 Gallup study, State of the Global Workforce.</p>
<p>When your company can control the quality of these experiences – and the costs that go with them – you’ll be able to make smarter, quicker decisions based on more accurate, timely data. It’s all outlined in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-steps-to-build-a-more-resilient-and-adaptable-enterprise">7-step checklist</a>, and it’s not as complex as you might think.</p>
<h2><br />
It’s not magic. It’s not even tricky.</h2>
<p>Here’s how a better T&E solution works, in three easy steps.</p>
<ol>
<li>You give employees a simple app to manage mileage, business travel, and all of their expense details.</li>
<li>They snap photos of receipts and toss the paper.</li>
<li>Charges are automatically uploaded to their expense reports, so they don’t have to fill anything in.</li>
</ol>
<p>It cuts menial, manual tasks out of an employee’s day. That makes them happy. But what does it mean for the folks in finance?</p>
<ol>
<li>Every itinerary detail is captured and policies are followed automatically.</li>
<li>All your travel and expense spend is automatically (and accurately) categorized and itemized, so there’s no waiting until month’s end to find out what’s left.</li>
<li>You get to set spend controls before the money goes out the door.</li>
<li>You know where your employees are – based on booking details and corporate card data – so you can keep them safe wherever they’re working.</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Choice and control is not an either/or.</h2>
<p>It seems counterintuitive, but giving employees more options about how and where to book their trips actually gives you more of their booking details and, ultimately, more control over what they’re spending. Add in a little AI, machine-learning, and other technical wizardry, and you’ll not only stay on top of policy, you’ll stay ahead of regulatory requirements. Without any of the hassle.</p>
<p>But only if you have the right systems in place.</p>
<p>If instead, you’re relying on legacy software and hands-on oversight to police booking behaviors and spending decisions, hidden spend is almost a guarantee. The only question is how much. Sticking with the status quo is also a pretty good way to keep employees bogged down with busywork.</p>
<p>And sure, you want your people to be doing the work that matters, but how much does their overall enjoyment of it really matter? Well, according to a 2019 Gartner employee survey, employees who are satisfied with their experience are:</p>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>60% more likely to report a high intent to stay at their current organization.</li>
<li>52% more likely to report high discretionary effort.</li>
<li>69% more likely to be a high performer.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>Unfortunately, only 13% of employees indicate they are currently fully satisfied with their experience at work.</p>
<p>Keeping them satisfied, in other words, isn’t really an option. It’s a requirement. And if you want to know how you measure up, take a look at this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-steps-to-build-a-more-resilient-and-adaptable-enterprise">quick checklist</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A great user experience, wherever the user happens to be. </h2>
<p>“Out of the office” used to mean “not at work” or, in many cases “they don't want to take your call.” Now, it means working from home, where the employee experience is just as important.</p>
<p>Again, the technologies that make it possible to control spend and improve experiences when someone is out on the road are the same technologies that control spend and improve experiences when everyone is out of the office. It works to keep people safe and happy wherever they’re working – and it reduces administrative burdens while increasing control over costs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’re happy. And you know it.</h2>
<p>This isn’t about a positive work experience thanks to less work – it’s about making it easier to get more done. It’s about automating manual processes and eliminating error-prone data entry. It’s about intuitive apps that let people manage expenses and travel the way they want to.</p>
<p>When you give employees that kind of simplicity, they’ll have more time for more valuable work, and they’ll feel better about the work they’re doing.</p>
<p>It’s an easier, more enjoyable process that gives you more control. So employees are happily following policy, and you’re seeing all your spend. And when you’re seeing more, you’re saving more.</p>
<p>Who wouldn’t be happy about that?</p>
<p><strong>Find 7 ways to create a more resilient company by controlling costs, improving experiences, and uncovering savings: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-steps-to-build-a-more-resilient-and-adaptable-enterprise">read the checklist.</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Where Does Travel Go from Here?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/where-does-travel-go-here
2020-08-18T12:21:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Talking about travel in is like talking about well anything else in none of it makes much sense anymore But what we can discuss with absolute certainty are the ways to improve...
<p>Talking about travel in 2020 is like talking about, well, anything else in 2020 – none of it makes much sense anymore. But what we can discuss with absolute certainty are the ways to improve travel management that make it easier to hit the road again and truly know where we’re going.</p>
<p>Getting there comes down to one thing: getting together. And in this instance, we don’t mean traveling around the world to see your customers, we mean traveling across the hall to talk to your finance and travel manager counterparts. These two teams have to work together to ensure the safety of your travelers, increase visibility into spending, and improve the overall experience for all those who pack up their roller bags and actually experience it.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Smarter, Simpler, Safer: Booking Business Trips in Today's Travel Environment</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/booking-business-trips-in-todays-travel-environment-smarter-simpler-safer">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Safety first</h2>
<p>If you work in finance, you know the risks. Literally. You know the risk of blowing past the budget. You know the risk of falling out of compliance. You know the risk of missing some obscure regional regulation. And all those risks add up to costs.</p>
<p>If you’re on the travel management side, you know the risks of sending employees out into a volatile world.</p>
<p>So yes, you both understand what’s at stake. What’s interesting, though, is that finance and travel hold the answers to each other’s problems. When you come together and you have the right tools in your hands, you can see what’s being spent, so you’ll eliminate the risk of going over budget. You can capture every booking, so you’ll know you’re in compliance.</p>
<p>And most importantly, you’ll know where your people are, so you can not only stay on top of regulations and requirements – you can do your duty of care, supporting the safety of your travelers wherever they’re working. If you want to know more about protecting your people, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/booking-business-trips-in-todays-travel-environment-smarter-simpler-safer">check out the details in this quick travel eBook</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Seeing is believing</h2>
<p>When you reach out to each other, you’ll see more than a way to help yourselves – you’ll be serving the entire organization. Take controlling spend, for example. With a few simple tools implemented into travel programs, both finance and travel managers can see every reservation, every itinerary, and every charge made by every traveler.</p>
<p>They can see it all, so they can control it all.</p>
<p>These travel and expense tools also get rid of the errors and delays that come with paper receipts and manual expense reports. So instead of waiting until next month to find out what was spent last month, finance can see actual, accurate numbers as they happen.</p>
<p>By capturing all this information, travel managers can see if policies are being followed and easily train travelers to stay on track. They’ll have the spend data to strengthen negotiations and, alongside finance, they’ll have the intelligence to make smarter decisions faster.</p>
<p>Your entire organization will be more informed and more flexible, and that’s a win for everyone.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A better experience</h2>
<p>Speaking of everyone, collaboration between travel managers and finance leaders improves the overall employee experience for employees out on the road. Apps and automation simplify the process – letting travelers book with brands they love, get the updates and upgrades they want, and eliminate the busywork of expense reports and receipt management.</p>
<p>This means more than easier travel, it means more time to do the work they’ve set out to do. And that improves employee engagement, not only productivity. </p>
<p>When travel managers help make the travel process effortless in these ways, adoption goes up. And when adoption goes up, finance gets to see more of the data they need. And everyone’s happy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Go together</h2>
<p>Combining the efforts of finance and travel eliminates much of the effort of travel management itself. It’s good for the number crunchers, it’s good for travel managers, and it’s good for every single person in the company. So look up a few <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/booking-business-trips-in-todays-travel-environment-smarter-simpler-safer">deeper details in this eBook</a> and get going.</p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
These Five Case Studies Highlight Business Successes During Stay-at-Home Orders
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/these-five-case-studies-highlight-business-successes-during-stay-home-orders
2020-08-27T19:35:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance business stories and interactive quizzes produced...
<p>This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark. The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance, business stories and interactive quizzes produced by the SAP Concur organization and Telegraph Spark can be found on this <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/spark/building-resilience/" target="_blank">Building Business Resilience</a> hub.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By cleverly harnessing technology, these five UK-based companies were able to successfully create new business models during the COVID-19 pandemic:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://ultra-x.co/">Ultra X</a></h2>
<p>“Before lockdown, we organized ultra-marathons – typically over five days in beautiful parts of the world, running 26 miles or more each day. We held events in Jordan, Mexico and Portugal, and were due to have one in Sri Lanka in March. When lockdown came, we realized that people’s [exercise regimes] were changing – but we still wanted to do more to interact with our online community. </p>
<p>“As well as producing more online videos and blog posts, we’ve started doing virtual races. Admittedly I was a bit dubious at first because I wondered why people would run with no one around them, but they’ve done really well. We started with a free 14.1km race – a third of a marathon – which we called an “odd race for an odd time”. </p>
<p>“Since then we’ve organized several more, for £5 per race, with half the entry fee going to NHS Charities Together. Hundreds of people have entered from 45 different countries and we’re hoping to get more than a thousand for our next race. I think virtual racing is here to stay. It’s a great way to build a community.”</p>
<p>- Sam Heward, Co-founder, Ultra X</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. <a href="https://www.paymentsense.com/uk/biteback/">Paymentsense</a></h2>
<p>“We’ve always been very strong when it comes to traditional card machines used in retail and restaurants, so when lockdown came we knew this was going to be a big problem for our customers as well as for us. </p>
<p>“We spent a week creating a new e-commerce service called Biteback. This has allowed businesses – many of which don’t have a dedicated transactional website – to trade online. Customers can upload their menus or products to a customizable webpage sitting on our website, which can also process payments. </p>
<p>“We also provide them with environmental packaging for food delivery, leaflet printing for marketing and a digital toolkit to help with social media promotion. Primarily it’s restaurants which are now offering a takeaway service, but we also have garden centers, pubs, butchers and bakers on board.”</p>
<p>- Guy Moreve, Chief marketing Officer, Paymentsense</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.poptop.uk.com/">PopTop</a></h2>
<p>“PopTop is a platform where you can book everything you need for an event such as a wedding or birthday, including the venue, catering and entertainment. We have more than 13,000 suppliers – they are our biggest assets. But when we realized they couldn’t offer their services for live events, we thought about whether there was a market for celebrating online. </p>
<p>“We soon realized that a straightforward approach of streaming music and magicians doesn’t really work, because it’s not interactive enough. But what’s done really well is singing telegrams, where Elvis lookalikes and rappers make a surprise entrance on Zoom video calls to celebrate someone’s birthday. Afternoon tea packages with home-made sandwiches, scones and cakes from former MasterChef contestant Matei Baran have also proved very successful. </p>
<p>“What I think is that many companies, even after current restrictions end, will continue to work remotely. Online events will also become increasingly important for team bonding.”</p>
<p>- Eugene Shestopal, Chief executive, PopTop</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://www.edinburghboozedelivery.com/">Edinburgh Booze Delivery</a></h2>
<p>“Pre-lockdown I was running three cocktail bars in Edinburgh and selling alcoholic ice-creams. After lockdown started, I began doing my own game show called ‘Spin the Bottle’ on YouTube – but then I began thinking about how we can innovate within our industry for the long term. </p>
<p>“That’s when I came up with Edinburgh Booze Delivery, bringing together all the local bars, breweries and distilleries. I wanted to create a one-stop shop for customers to order drinks for online delivery, but also give a bigger platform and community for bars. Because I didn’t have the money, I built the website myself in two weeks and now we have a number of venues on board. </p>
<p>“Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be at least a year before we get back to where we were before the virus. Even when lockdown is eased, people won’t have the money to go out again or will continue drinking at home – they might not feel safe going out. And when bars do reopen it won’t be at full capacity, which means we will have to look at reducing staff levels unless we re-employ people for our delivery service.”</p>
<p>- Iain McPherson, Managing director, Edinburgh Booze Delivery</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://chargedup.green/">ChargedUp</a> and <a href="https://www.cleanedup.green/">CleanedUp</a></h2>
<p>“We launched ChargedUp three years ago, providing pubs and bars with power banks that people can borrow. We’ve been called the ‘Boris bikes of phone charging’. But when venues started closing in March our revenue dropped by 98pc – just as we were about to roll out 150 new UK-manufactured charging units. </p>
<p>“What we decided to do was convert these charging stations to hand-sanitizer stations, which we quickly sold to a number of locations including DHL, food box companies and a major care home chain. We’ve now produced more than 1,500 units and have distribution deals with several companies to supply hand sanitizer. Next we’re looking to provide train operators and have a deal in place with a pub chain too. </p>
<p>“Personally, I think this market is here to stay. I don’t see the world going back to how it was in February. People are so much more conscious of stopping viruses by being more hygienic when they’re out and about.”</p>
<p>Despite the disruption brought about by lockdown, strategic use of technology and an ability to innovate with speed helped these five businesses to stay connected with their customers, and find new ways of working. With the right framework in place, technology and good business sense can offer the agility and adaptability needed to survive in a changing marketplace.</p>
<p>- Hugo Tilmouth, Chief executive, ChargedUp, CleanedUp</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Businesses are Preparing for the Return to Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-businesses-are-preparing-return-travel
2020-10-15T14:34:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Is corporate travel going to be a thing again Of course it is Are your business travelers fired up about getting back on the road Sure they are In fact according to a recent Wakefield...
<p>Is corporate travel going to be a thing again? Of course it is. Are your business travelers fired up about getting back on the road? Sure they are. In fact, according to a <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">recent Wakefield Research report</a>, 32% said they are excited about the return to travel, and a whopping 92% said they expect negative business consequences if they <strong>can’t</strong> travel. </p>
<p>So yes, they want to get back out there. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Global Business Traveler Report 2020</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The big question, however, is: Are they ready? Because the answer often comes down to whether or not you, as an organization, are ready to send them back to the airports, back to the train stations, back to states and countries that have different protocols and protections for visitors. </p>
<p>So how do you get ready? How do you get your travelers where they need to go safely and efficiently when the rules seem to change every day? </p>
<p>We have an answer for that, too. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>7 steps for travelling in the new normal:</h2>
<p><strong>Step 1: Plan ahead for continuous change. </strong></p>
<p>The return to travel is going to take a while. It’s also going to take adaptability. And agility. And, yes, lots of patience. You’ll need to build a plan that involves every stakeholder – from HR and finance to travelers and TMCs – and you may need to phase that plan in as borders reopen. Just remember to give yourself time. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 2: Stay informed to stay agile. </strong></p>
<p>Everything is literally up in the air, so create a <a>resource center</a> where employees can easily find the latest travel requirements – like airline restrictions and updated safety measures. Also make sure they update their <a>travel profiles</a>, so you can find them quickly in an emergency. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 3: Set up pre-trip approvals. </strong></p>
<p>You have to stay on top of safety, and you have to stay on top of spend. Implement a <a>pre-trip approval process </a>with a simple travel app, and you’ll see why employees are traveling, what it’s going to cost, and how to manage T&E budgets before the money gets spent. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 4: Help travelers make smarter, safer choices. </strong></p>
<p>Guide travelers to your TMC to check for unused tickets or credits. Make sure they book only flexible flights and refundable hotels. Encourage them to use only preferred vendors. And again, you can give them simple travel apps to take care of all this travel booking. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 5: Build safety into pre-trip planning. </strong></p>
<p>Your travelers are worried about their safety, so make sure you provide them with a clear company policy about masks, hand sanitizer, other PPE, and whether or not those costs can be expensed. Then work with your TMC to provide pre-trip safety reports and other tools to help ease travelers’ concerns about where they’re headed and how they’ll get there. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 6: Help employees stay safe while traveling. </strong></p>
<p>Give your team the tools and information they need to be prepared on the road. This includes everything from what to do if they get sick, to keeping travel as touchless as possible (contactless payments, automated expense solutions, etc.), to mobile tools that update them on flight changes and safety scores. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 7: Proactively manage the post-travel experience.</strong></p>
<p>Your duty of care doesn’t end when the trip is over. Neither does the need to stay on top of travel and expenses. Consider policies like a 14-day stay-at-home mandate after every trip and a solution to automate expense reports, so employees don’t need to collect and retain receipts. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/seven-steps-to-a-successful-return-to-travel">Read more.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This is where business travel is headed. </h2>
<p>Employees want and need to feel safe in their jobs, and since that safety has become a moving target, you need to move with it. And that means change. </p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Wakefield report</a> points out, 96% of business travelers think safety measures need to be in place before they travel again – and 18% say they’ll look for another job if adjustments aren’t made. </p>
<p>These are significant statistics, but they’re not pointing your organization away from travel, they’re pointing to the need to do it safely.</p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
The Importance of Managing State and Local Government Invoices and Expenses During COVID
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/importance-managing-state-and-local-government-invoices-and-expenses-during-covid
2020-11-19T16:46:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youre following all the rules Youre social distancing youre requiring masks on in all your offices youre keeping staff and visitors as separate and safe as possible Its what COVID...
<p>You’re following all the rules. You’re social distancing; you’re requiring masks on in all your offices; you’re keeping staff and visitors as separate and safe as possible. It’s what COVID demands, and you’re doing it.</p>
<p>You’re also dealing with the economic fallout of the shutdown, which isn’t any easier. Sixty-eight percent of state and local government decision makers, in fact, say unexpected expenses and new categories of spend are major job-related challenges as they transition to remote work.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Turn Remote Work into More Productive Work for AP</h2>
<p>A look at what's working for state and local governments</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-ways-to-turn-remote-work-into-more-productive-work-for-ap">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>There is help, however, with CARES Act funding and other support designed to keep your institution running and serving your constituents. But this help comes with conditions, making compliance absolutely critical.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expense types aren’t what they used to be</h2>
<p>Masks, of course, are obvious. Unexpected, but obvious. You need to provide personal protective gear to staff when they come into the office – as well as an endless supply for visitors – and that’s a cost for which you have to account. What you might not have thought about (and certainly weren’t prepared for) was the costs of working from home.</p>
<p>Remote employees are buying postage and paperclips and paying internet providers, and the bills are landing on your desk. They have OSHA requirements to meet at their desks and their home workspaces, and you’re getting those bills, too.</p>
<p>If you don’t put policies in place to manage these expenses – if you don’t create unique expense categories with specific rules – you end up stuck in some sort of Wild West Spending Spree that damages your internal policies and defies regulatory requirements.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reporting requirements aren’t either</h2>
<p>Federal regulations and requirements, along with your own internal reporting standards have only tightened in light of the pandemic. And the responsibility to track how and where and when you spend any of these funds is all on you. The audits for which could take years.</p>
<p>Seeing and controlling your invoices and expenses under this scrutiny is more challenging and more crucial than ever.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation might just be the most intelligent answer</h2>
<p>When your expense and invoice processes are entirely automated, you can see all the details on all your spending. You can put policies in place that allow you to see where your spend is going before it’s spent, and you have a data trail to back up every decision.</p>
<p>Detailed dashboards and reports bring you real-time visibility, so you can take proactive control of your compliance policies – and you’ll know what’s working, what’s not, and where fixes need to happen.</p>
<p>In the end, you not only know how funding is being used and how effective your policies are, you know how to adapt as requirements change. And if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that change can be more severe than we thought.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What are Companies Doing to Prepare for the Return to Travel?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-companies-doing-prepare-return-travel
2021-01-21T15:23:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In everything has been up in the air except for travellers But after months of can we cant we with COVID global business travellers may see the light at the end of the runway...
<p>In 2020, everything has been up in the air except for travellers. But after months of “can we, can’t we” with COVID-19, global business travellers may see the light at the end of the runway. Especially in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, where several countries have made strides in halting the pandemic’s spread. Asia is now positioned to ease the world back into business travel this winter and spring, with vaccines hopefully closing the deal this summer (fingers firmly crossed).</p>
<p>Of course, “normal” won’t return with the flip of a switch. Confidence in corporate travel will come back gradually. If your company wants to be at the front of the queue, it’s smart to prepare now. That means understanding employees’ concerns, staying on top of fast-changing information, and building traveller safety into processes at every step.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Roadmap for Returning to Travel</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/a-roadmap-for-returning-to-travel">Get the tipsheet</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Watching the map</h2>
<p>While APAC is faring relatively well, COVID-related travel restrictions still vary widely from country to country. The return to travel will look different depending on where you’re doing business.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/capa---centre-for-aviation_capalive-activity-6742425322890907648-nrCA" target="_blank">Centre for Aviation</a>, in terms of domestic travel, China is ahead of the rest of the world, up 7% year-on-year when it comes to seats booked; but it’s a mixed bag elsewhere, with Japan down 18% and Thailand down 6%. Crossing borders tells an entirely different story: China is down 98% for international seats year-on-year as of the end of November, and most of East Asia is down 81-93%. In the go-to business hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong, international travel is less than 2% of pre-pandemic levels.</p>
<p>A loosening of travel barriers between Singapore and Hong Kong was widely touted to begin in late November, but a flare up of cases in Hong Kong led the world’s first full travel bubble to burst. But the speed with which the flights were booked demonstrates that pent-up demand to travel runs deep.</p>
<p>Further south, Australia’s travel restrictions both in and outside the country are largely still in place. There is a limited travel corridor with New Zealand that keeps commerce flowing between the neighbours, although this involves strict quarantine. Hopes were raised for a resumption of a full travel bubble, but this has been delayed due to fears of sporadic outbreaks.</p>
<p>With border restrictions changing on short notice – say, right before or even during a business trip – it’s important to identify a reliable source of information at the travel-manager level (for setting Travel Policy) and at the user level (for making informed travel choices). Not surprisingly, this will be a best-practice standard when travel returns.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The shift towards Duty of Care and employee safety in a Corporate Travel program is dramatic. Although it may seem to be a while off, now is the time to restructure your travel management program in preparation for people moving in 2021. - Carl Jones</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Proceed with caution</h2>
<p>Re-emerging travel is welcome news for business in the APAC region. Would-be travellers, however, may not be dusting off their luggage just yet. After all, their decisions around COVID-19 affect not only them, but their families and colleagues as well.</p>
<p>Studies have shown flying to be safe and hygienic – for instance, the <a href="https://www.iata.org/en/youandiata/travelers/health/" target="_blank">International Air Transport Association has provided extensive information</a> on the various ways planes resist transmission of viruses – but we know perceptions will take time to catch up. Another concern is the risk of serious illness and hospitalisation while overseas. Today, limited numbers of insurance companies cover COVID-related hospital fees, which is bound to give travellers and HR decision-makers pause. A quick check on the travel insurance exclusions on the major insurance underwriters will reveal COVID to be classed as a “known event,” and after March 2020, excluded from policy coverage. And with border restrictions and rules in different countries shifting week by week, getting stuck away from home remains a worry to many.</p>
<p>As your company gets moving again, how do you reassure travellers that you have their backs?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Safely on your way</h2>
<p>Preparing employees to travel in APAC (and soon enough, around the world) is all about <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/deloitte-new-app-sap-concur-collaboration-ease-travel-remote-work-compliance">communication</a>. It starts with training before the trip; and when on a trip, it includes things like neighborhood safety scores, flight delays, and direct contact with employees should events require it. Because even though duty of care is less of a legal requirement in APAC, it is certainly a moral obligation.</p>
<p>You’ll also want to show your teams how suppliers are prioritizing their safety. Hotels, airlines, rental car companies, and other partners are eager to share their safe and hygienic practices. Initiatives like “<a href="https://www.sgclean.gov.sg/" target="_blank">SG Clean</a>” in Singapore set clear standards for companies that interact with travellers, whether it’s how hotel rooms are sanitized or rules for social distancing when in line. Sharing those commitments can boost traveller confidence.</p>
<p>Employees’ travel experience is only as safe as your company’s policies. So tell travellers where you stand. It’s up to travel managers to clearly communicate the rules, ensure travellers are covered in the event of illness, and choose suppliers who do everything in their power to protect them. Those moves can go a long way toward easing travellers’ concerns as they get back on the road.</p>
<p>Having a single, consistent approach to travel booking – using the same technology to approve or book a trip, using a single TMC, and making sure travellers are aware of the apps you have – means you’re doing everything you can to protect employees. Those who book outside the process because they think they can find something cheaper are only opting out of your safety net.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Help travellers say "yes”</h2>
<p>In this sensitive area, good travel systems can strengthen your story. With a solid travel management solution in place, you’re prepared to mitigate risks, reduce guesswork, and make your commitment to safety clear. Here are three ways to reassure travellers throughout the process.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Before they go</strong>: The best online booking tools allow you to enhance pre-trip approval processes with deeper information. List in detail how your partners and suppliers align with the latest safety rules.</li>
<li><strong>In the air</strong>: Does your solution allow messaging with employees as they travel? If so, keep the information flowing, from alerts about their destination country to itinerary changes to new rules they may return to back home.</li>
<li><strong>Go/no-go guidance</strong>: As teams weigh their options, your travel solution can clarify what qualifies as “essential” or “non-essential” travel and highlight alternatives so employees know they have choices.</li>
</ul>
<p>In business, as in public health, consistency is key. That’s why systems like SAP Concur solutions are designed to unify the whole process. So travellers can view policies, request and book travel, manage bookings, and get guidance and assistance even as their situation changes – and do it all in one place.</p>
<p>In our next article, we will dive deeper into COVID-safe travel policies and steps your organisation can take to keep travellers, and the company, healthy.</p>
<p>Is the uncertainty over? No. But we’re getting there.</p>
Carl Jones
Why You Should Extend Traveler Safety to Protect Your Rideshare Users
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-you-should-extend-traveler-safety-protect-your-rideshare-users
2021-02-23T09:34:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The employee experience isnt just about ensuring your workforce has the right tools to stay productive its also about ensuring they have the right training and tools to travel safely...
<p>The employee experience isn’t just about ensuring your workforce has the right tools to stay productive; it’s also about ensuring they have the right training and tools to travel safely. This is especially important for groups who are newer to business travel, such as Generation Z, as well as those who are at a greater risk:<a> </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">women</a> and individuals of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/a-new-survey-reveals-hidden-threats-to-certain-high-risk-business">LGBQT community</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Global survey shows that traveler safety is a major issue</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/infographic-business-traveler-report-2019">recent global survey</a> highlights the challenges business travelers face include:</p>
<ul>
<li>77% of female travelers experienced some sort of harassment or mistreatment while traveling</li>
<li>85% of LGBTQ+ travelers have changed travel arrangements out of concern for their safety</li>
<li>54% of travelers say their safety is not a top priority in their company’s formal travel policy</li>
<li>67% of travelers say their company lacks the technologies that make traveler easier</li>
</ul>
<p>Supporting your organization’s duty-of-care obligations doesn’t have to be a hassle; you can prioritize the safety of your employees and still offer a highly satisfying travel experience.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The benefits of having a travel safety plan</h2>
<p>There’s nothing more important than the safety of your team. Having a travel safety plan not only offers traveling employees’ peace of mind, but also ensures your organization is prepared in case an emergency arises. Here’s are some of the benefits your organization can expect from implementing a traveler safety plan:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fulfills your duty of care obligations and responsibilities</li>
<li>Offers a safe, seamless experience for traveling employees</li>
<li>Your travelers will be happier and more productive</li>
<li>Organizations can get more visibility into where travelers are located</li>
<li>Travelers can share trips and location status to feel safer when using rideshare</li>
</ul>
<p>Using these best practices to update your employee safety plan, and comparing industry benchmarks with those across the globe, you can ensure your organization is covering all of its trip planning and safety essentials, while getting the best price for your budget.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>General guidelines for safe corporate travel</h2>
<p>As you roll out and update your risk management plan, take these general guidelines into consideration to help reduce risks, orchestrate traveler safety, and simplicity for your organization:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consolidate corporate card data with travel itinerary details, so all the information you need is in one, convenient place</li>
<li>See where your employees are located, at all times when traveling for business, so when disruptions occur, you’ll know who’s impacted</li>
<li>Give employees safety details down to the neighborhood’s statistics, so they can make the best choices about where to stay</li>
<li>Encourage employees to share their trip status when using rideshare, for increased visibility and as a part of their personal safety plan</li>
</ul>
<p>And when travelers find themselves in an emergency, give them access to everything they need – from real-time flight alerts to additional flight options to informing their inner circle by opting into trip sharing.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Best practices for improving safety and cost for ground transportation</h2>
<p>Traveling by taxi isn’t as prevalent as it once used to be, and that’s because it’s often the more expensive option. Because of their affordable rates and easy-to-use apps, rideshare services, such as Uber and Lyft, are here to stay. But with these services comes unfamiliar risks, such as whether or not it’s safe to share a ride or how to identify unsound driver behavior.</p>
<p>That’s why organization’s need to be aware of the increased necessity to update travel safety and risk management plans to ensure your employees are covered. Take some of these best practices for ground transportation into consideration when reviewing your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>Implement Uber and Lyft for Business and other ground transportation partners</li>
<li>Move 5% of taxi transportation per quarter to rideshare services</li>
<li>Include and align stakeholders to plan – security, finance, and travel managers</li>
<li>Learn rideshare safety features and provide information to employees</li>
<li>Know your policy on alternate transportation, for example, scooters or bicycles</li>
</ul>
<p>Then, review our general benchmarks for median ground transportation costs below to see where your company compares, and how you can improve .</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Promote ground transportation safety for your employees</h2>
<p>The day-to-day of managing travel and expenses can keep employees from being their best. Updating your travel policies and employee safety plans to encourage the use of GPS tracking and reporting can eliminate the headaches of manual mileage reporting, help improve employee safety, and help travelers swiftly get from point A to B.</p>
<p>Curious to see where your current process stands? Use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in">Travel & Expense Check-In</a> tool to assess the current gaps in your travel management plan.</p>
Kyla Kent
Concur Travel Connecting to United Airlines NDC Content
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-travel-connecting-united-airlines-ndc-content
2021-04-09T09:44:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur weve remained focused on ensuring our customers can access all relevant business travel content regardless of the source of that content Since all our customers have had...
<p>At SAP Concur, we’ve remained focused on ensuring our customers can access all relevant business travel content, regardless of the source of that content. <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/lufthansa-british-airways-ndc-content-available-concur-travel" target="_blank">Since 2019</a>, all our customers have had access to NDC content from British Airways and the Lufthansa Group through our Select Access (Travelfusion), making Concur Travel the first corporate online booking tool (OBT) to provide customers with access to NDC. Over the past year, we have continued to make progress to deliver relevant NDC content to our customers.</p>
<p>We’re pleased to announce that <strong>SAP Concur will make available connections to United Airlines NDC content</strong> for all our customers next week through Select Access. United’s NDC APIs will display United’s bundles of ancillary services, which customers can configure easily in Concur Travel, and are uniquely available through the NDC channel. United has been a North American pioneer in multi-channel distribution and was the first airline to connect to Concur TripLink.</p>
<p>In the future, Concur Travel plans to obtain NDC content via the GDSs when SAP Concur believes that a robust, scalable, and commercially transparent solution is available.</p>
<p>We encourage customers interested in connecting to airlines directly through NDC to meet with their preferred airlines to understand the actual and immediate benefits of getting NDC content this year. Customers should also meet with their TMC to discuss how the TMC can support their needs and what additional costs they may incur to support this new channel. </p>
<p>For a more in-depth analysis of NDC, check out this <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concur-travel-connecting-united-airlines-ndc-content-charlie-sultan/?published=t&trackingId=4RIXuKRGWaxa9GQtDQReig%3D%3D" target="_blank">article</a> from Charlie Sultan, SVP, Global Content, Market and Supplier Strategy, SAP Concur.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Verify Applies Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Simplify Expense Auditing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/verify-applies-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-simplify-expense-auditing
2021-06-03T08:17:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pandemic has brought about significant changes in employee spend and expense behavior As workers transitioned from the office to working from home uncertainty about what was an...
<p>The pandemic has brought about significant changes in employee spend and expense behavior. As workers transitioned from the office to working from home, uncertainty about what was an allowable expense led to accidental policy violations for many companies.</p>
<p>In fact, we see in SAP Concur data that the proportion of expenses categorized as “Other” increased by 58% from 2019 to 2020. The pandemic has undoubtedly heightened the business need around enhanced audit capability.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur organization has a rich history of developing technologies that address the needs of the biggest companies in the world, all the way down to very small businesses. <strong>Verify</strong>, a new SAP Concur offering, discovers potential spend issues for customers of all sizes. Planned to launch in the third quarter of 2021, Verify can evaluate 100% of a company’s expense reports and identifies anomalies, allowing company auditors to focus only on potential problems, increasing efficiency and allowing them to take steps to correct out-of-policy behaviors.</p>
<p>Learn more about this new solution <a href="https://news.sap.com/2021/06/sapphire-now-verify-sap-concur/">in the SAP News Center.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Logoplaste Customer Story: A Fast Track to the Cloud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/logoplaste-customer-story-fast-track-cloud
2022-07-01T12:20:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Open your fridge or bathroom cabinet in Europe or North America and chances are one of the bottles inside was designed and made by Logoplaste The plastic packaging company supplies the...
<p>Open your fridge or bathroom cabinet in Europe or North America and chances are one of the bottles inside was designed and made by Logoplaste.</p>
<p>The plastic packaging company supplies the dairy, personal care, home care and food sectors, with clients including Heineken, Arla, Proctor & Gamble, L’Oréal, Danone and Nestlé. The family-owned company was founded in Portugal in 1976 and has over two thousand employees across 18 countries, delivering 600 million Euros in sales.</p>
<p>With three main delivery centres in Europe, North America, and Brazil, the company wanted to improve its spend governance and employee experience.</p>
<p>“One of our aims was to have everyone in Logoplaste submitting expenses and booking travel within the same policies, without any exceptions,” says Ana Jaques, global travel and solutions manager at Logoplaste, during a recent panel discussion webinar <a href="https://go.concur.com/webinar_Accenture-logoplaste_21q2.html">Learn How Logoplaste Accelerated Their Move to the Cloud with SAP Concur Solutions and Accenture.</a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Why SAP Concur and Accenture?</h2>
<p>Logoplaste needed an easy and intuitive solution to replace manual processes and increase productivity; one that could streamline the workflow and offer cash control and policy compliance. “It was a very decentralised process without a clear, approval flow” explains Jaques.</p>
<p>Following research into multiple software providers, SAP Concur solutions were the only cloud solutions that could meet all their criteria. Accenture, a leading SAP Concur partner with a global presence, offered the much-needed knowledge about different countries and legal requirements in the travel and expense arena. Accenture Portugal SAP Concur Centre of Excellence, which already has 16 live SAP Concur projects, handled the Logoplaste implementation.</p>
<p>“Accenture showed its value right at the beginning with their knowledge of the solutions and their proactive approach” says Jaques. “But there are also the challenges that come up during projects and they were always able to find a solution for us in a fast way” she adds.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The Solution</h2>
<p>Logoplaste took advantage of all the native integrations available in SAP Concur solutions, in particular SAP S4/HANA but also SAP Success Factors, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Cloud Platform, to make sure the solution fit Logoplaste’s unique requirements. Customisations included the addition of a digital archive folder for digital receipts. OANDA was used to handle exchange rates and the solution was integrated with the Travel Management Company (TMC) to help ensure all booking data was shared.</p>
<p>Initially, Accenture was briefed to focus on the Expense module, but this later grew to include the Travel module, including travel booking and expense reporting. “Underlying all these processes, we use Cognos which is a pre-offered reporting tool used to capture data from all these processes,” says José Moreira, SAP Concur Project Manager at Accenture. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Global and Local Roll Outs</h2>
<p>The solution was rolled out in two waves to 18 countries – a pilot roll out to Portugal, USA, Canada, Brazil, UK and Luxembourg in November 2020, followed by Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Ukraine and Vietnam in February 2021.</p>
<p>In phase one, a global template approach allowed for an accelerated roll out and had the clear benefit of process simplification for employees and administrators.</p>
<p>The template included: global travel and expense management policy rules; standardised expense management processes (including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/accounts-payable">accounts payable</a>); standardised expense types (e.g., hotel, airplane, car rental, taxi and public transport); standardised expense capture forms; consistent data capture in a single solution and standardised approval workflows.</p>
<p>“The global template is an asset we’ve developed over the course of the years that we've been working with implementations in different countries. It makes it easier to engage with the different projects” says Moreira. “We built a strong backbone first, then once in place it allows for a faster implementation and ensures global compliance.”</p>
<p>“For example, Mexico is a particularly complex country in terms of legal requirements, so we had to take advantage of these kinds of assets to streamline our implementation and to meet our time limits.”</p>
<p>In the second phase, the implementation moved onto the localisation and factors such as tax rules, personal car mileage allowance, travel allowances, and other legal or statutory requirements like reporting were considered.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Solid Results in a Short Time</h2>
<p>In a very short time since implementation, there’s been a “huge impact” on Logoplaste’s expense reporting, according to Jaques, with already over 1000 users and more than 1000 expense reports.</p>
<p>“As you know, we have a travel ban in place, so I think for a company with 2000 employees it’s a big achievement” she says.</p>
<p>Further results show that the time between expense preparation and payment is now less than 11 days on average and 11 of the 18 countries are using an exclusively digitized process, which means zero paper.</p>
<p>Travel process times have also sped up, as travel invoices are now all submitted through the expense report. Other features of the solution include a cash advance functionality and expense error monitoring. “Because it’s automated it’s much easier to check for errors than using paper receipts and Excel spreadsheets” says Ana.</p>
<p>Users are also loving the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a>, which allows them to photograph their receipts and, using OCR technology, submit an expense report whilst still on the road.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Customer Approval</h2>
<p>With a reported user rating of 4.3 on a scale between 0 and 5 already, it’s safe to say the move to the cloud has been a huge success.</p>
<p>“Accenture and SAP Concur have shown that we can deliver complex projects in a complex world situation” says Gregory Cotti, director, cloud channel sales, SI EMEA at the SAP Concur organization.</p>
<p>Jaques agrees: “Of course it’s hard to make these changes in this type of project, but with Accenture and SAP Concur solutions, we did it.”</p>
<p>You can listen to the full Learn How Logoplaste Accelerated Their Move to the Cloud with SAP Concur Solutions and Accenture webinar <a href="https://go.concur.com/webinar_Accenture-logoplaste_21q2.html">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Ways to Increase the Impact of Your IT team With Native SAP Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-increase-impact-your-it-team-native-sap-integration-0
2022-07-01T16:58:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Becoming a bestrun business requires strategic thinking and bold steps into a largely interconnected digital future Because these steps often require the adoption and development of...
<p>Becoming a best-run business requires strategic thinking and bold steps into a largely interconnected digital future. Because these steps often require the adoption and development of new technologies, IT organizations have a very big role to play. With integrated tools from both SAP and SAP Concur solutions, IT teams can simultaneously streamline the management of multiple systems in addition to improving the way that the entire business handles its data.</p>
<p>Here are three key ways that native solutions integration can give IT a much bigger impact on the larger organization:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Synchronizing your systems makes them easier to use</h2>
<p>Typically, when multiple systems are in use at once, complexity and difficulty can be a byproduct of the experience. But the single-system user experience between SAP software and SAP Concur solutions means that you can enable the applications to communicate and exchange data in both directions. The near real-time integration of both systems allows them to remain in sync, reduce errors, and automate cumbersome processes. This simplifies the jobs of your users and frees them up to focus on higher value tasks.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/10335-0.jpg?itok=xZvtouQU" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2><strong>Quickly integrate SAP Concur solutions with SAP S/4HANA and the SAP ERP application. </strong></h2>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-sap-and-concur-integration-benefits">Get the Infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. IT can help the business be more strategic by providing systems that offer additional insights</h2>
<p>The data that your business collects is its lifeblood. For companies of any size, the amount of data they have can sometimes be overwhelming if they aren’t able to derive valuable insights from them.</p>
<p>That’s why, with the analytics capabilities in SAP Concur solutions, all relevant data is located in one tool. Plus, you can now retrieve details from SAP ERP and S/4HANA about the status of your expense reports. Monitoring capabilities allow you to see message exchanges between the two solutions from both the technical and business perspectives also while simplifying audits.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Increase the value of your investment by lowering costs</h2>
<p>One of the best ways that an IT organization can have a noticeable impact on the rest of the business is by improving its bottom line. By implementing integration of SAP software with SAP Concur solutions more quickly, more easily, and at lower cost, you can reduce the resources it takes to manage your IT system.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Can Investing in Employee Experience Actually Save You Money?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/can-investing-employee-experience-actually-save-you-money
2022-07-01T17:17:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The work landscape has seen more than its share of challenges in but one issue has emerged that could have a big impact in the longer term The Great Resignation If youre not familiar...
<p>The work landscape has seen more than its share of challenges in 2020-2021, but one issue has emerged that could have a big impact in the longer term: The Great Resignation.</p>
<p>If you’re not familiar with this trend, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data</a> shows upwards of 3 million people have been quitting their jobs every month since April 2021, with the highest quit rates among mid-career employees and in the health care and tech industries, <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation">according to Harvard Business Review</a>.</p>
<p>It might not be something you want to think about. After all, if you’re paying employees for their work, shouldn’t they be happy enough? While compensation is obviously important, <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/rc-import-1588708943059-Ebook_Improving%2520the%2520EX%2520to%2520improve%2520engagement%2520and%2520productivity_ENT_HR.pdf">studies show that employee experience</a> is crucial not only to attracting talent, but to holding on to current talent. So, it’s something to consider, especially in a competitive hiring market.</p>
<p>What else can a good employee experience do for your company? It can boost productivity.</p>
<p>A 2019 Gartner employee survey showed that employees who are happy with their experience at work are 69% more likely to be high performers. And in a shifting economy, when you have no spend to waste, productive employees are particularly valuable.</p>
<p>Here’s how HR professionals can work with their companies to make the case for—and support—improved employee experience.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Plan for remote and hybrid work arrangements</h2>
<p>A survey by <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work">The Work Trend Index</a> found that while 70% of employees want to continue working remotely, 65% do want to spend more time in person with their co-workers. Meanwhile, 66% of decision-makers are planning to support hybrid work with the view that it’ll become the norm, post-pandemic.</p>
<p>That means businesses need to support a seamless way for workers and teams to collaborate, no matter where they’re working. Manual paper processes are tricky enough to support consistently in-office, but nearly impossible to maintain in a remote or hybrid environment. And without full visibility into spending, it can be difficult to pinpoint where cash flow stands in critical moments.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Make it easier to be productive</h2>
<p>Employee experience is shown to be a key driver of business success. A happy employee, as the survey data above shows, is generally a productive employee. Empowering workers and actively supporting <a href="https://www.benefitspro.com/2021/04/07/retaining-employees-post-pandemic-focus-on-the-employee-experience/">their sense of self-determination</a> for their career path and everyday work sets a strong foundation for employee happiness.</p>
<p>Which brings us to one of the main touchpoints of employee experience: managing your data in a way that provides easy access and visibility—at all times. Manual paper processes are famously tedious, especially when it comes to spend management. They are also time-consuming and can throw a major wrench into productivity.</p>
<p>But when you fully automate your finance processes, you let employees devote less time to lower-satisfaction jobs, like manually creating expense reports and entering data, and give them more time to pursue fulfilling work, like data analysis and collaborating on strategies that help the business thrive. (See <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-expense-and-ap-automation-really-means-for-your-job">what automation means for your job</a>.)</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How automating spend management can help</h2>
<p>New York-based nonprofit Simons Foundation automated its spend management, creating a more efficient, collaborative paperless process—one that’s also conducive to a hybrid work environment.</p>
<p>“We were impressed at how much the solution delivered to the Foundation in terms of the value proposition and overall functionality. Every tool we’ve implemented, from travel bookings to mobile expense submissions to invoice, has saved us time, saved our users time, and has enabled us to effectively scale,” said Nick Sanghvi, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/simons-foundation">accounts payable manager for Simons Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Giving <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/hr-leader">employees an experience they love</a> is critical to keeping them on board, happy and, ultimately, productive. SAP Concur solutions offer ways to digitize your processes, integrate all of your spend data so you can manage your finances from anywhere and keep your teams connected with a seamless, efficient way to do their jobs.</p>
<p><strong>Check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/hr-leader">solutions for HR leaders</a> for more.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Out with Paper, In with Automation: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with neylux
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/out-paper-automation-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-neylux
2022-07-01T17:24:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For decades paper reigned as a key component to workflow processes including the approval system surrounding travel and expense management But as the world grows increasingly digital...
<p>For decades, paper reigned as a key component to workflow processes, including the approval system surrounding travel and expense management. But as the world grows increasingly digital, organizations are finding new delights in the power of automation to streamline processes and transform the approval workflow system.</p>
<p>Filled with the potential to create a triple win—reduce costs, save time, and boost employee wellbeing—automation is also key for organizations that are thinking strategically, setting up plans, and keeping compliance in mind when turning the switch to automate. </p>
<p>This was the topic of discussion between Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, and Siegfried Krause, co-founder of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a>. Krause’s company specializes in business travel and expense management and is also a certified SAP and SAP Gold Partner. Here’s what he and Dion discussed regarding how automation is revitalizing and improving workflow processes.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-an-sap-concur-podcast/id1525744763?i=1000538571595">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TclVoyA8NMbStTUrITUpy">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/bye-bye-paper-hello-qJ94j3owBeU/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-an-sap-concur-podcast-convers">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiQ752DhsnzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-with">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Workflow nerds rejoice!</h2>
<p>Many organizations are eager to leave stacks of paper and tedious approval workflows behind. So when a customer came to neylux and requested a reset to essentially set up their business travel and expense management system in an automated and innovative way, neylux obliged.</p>
<p>“We built a solution,” Krause says. “It’s really straightforward. Everybody gets the information, what they need, but not by doing a formal approvals step.”</p>
<p>Instead, he explains, the system features passive approval that starts with employees entering key data. Once audit tasks are fulfilled at the end of the process, the manager gets a summary page and a PDF via email. If something seems amiss, the manager can address the issue with their staff at that point.</p>
<p>“We’re not directly stopping the process, but the manager comes at the end of the workflow,” Krause says. This automated setup allows processes to continue without the downtime involved with waiting for a manager’s signature too early in the process.</p>
<p>This automated process can also streamline the speed of reimbursement, Krause notes. While a manager can review and monitor the information, he explains, “We’re not stopping the process of financial posting [or] paying out to the employee, which was really important.”</p>
<p>Through automation, neylux helped a client organization decrease reimbursement timing from as long as three weeks to just one week. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>I comply, you comply, we all comply</h2>
<p>Automation done well involves much more than merely switching to a new toolset for expenses and reimbursement, Krause notes. When working with organizations that want to automate their workflows, he says, “We start [by] looking to the policy, to the goals they’d like to achieve, and then discuss a way we can achieve that.” </p>
<p>To successfully transition to a more automated system, best practices include accounting for regulations, establishing trust in the process and in employees, and recognizing the audience involved. “It’s a tiny process,” Krause says, “but it’s so important because everybody in the organization comes in a certain way to it.”</p>
<p>In addition, after implementing a change, it may be possible to combine systems and see more opportunities to use the tools, Krause notes. Looking a bit further ahead, he believes there will be even greater benefits coming from other advances like AI and machine learning.</p>
<p>“It’s just beginning,” says Krause. “With that kind of technology, we can really hit the next step in this process and get even faster.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">Find out more about how you can leverage the partnership between SAP Concur and neylux to improve your business travel and expense management systems.</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Extinction Alert: County Financial Operations without Digitization
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/extinction-alert-county-financial-operations-without-digitization
2022-07-02T05:30:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
County finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens While recent government funding sources have provided muchneeded relief they...
<p>County finance managers and elected officials do their best to oversee programs that serve their citizens. While recent government funding sources have provided much-needed relief, they also have generated increased reporting as to how and when those dollars were used. Without digitized financial operations, county finance teams and programs are on the brink of burnout and obsolescence. That’s where “tools like AI drive increased productivity as well as enable rapid compliance with continuing emerging regulatory issues and so forth in a time when finance departments are not growing in size,” shared Chris Juneau of <a href="https://www.oversight.com/resources">Oversight</a>, in a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an-sap-concur-podcast">podcast</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Robots vs dinosaurs: Who’s better at fraud and error detection?</h2>
<p>Even the strongest manual auditing programs can’t catch fraud or accidental reporting errors at the same consistency and granularity that tools supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can. <a href="https://www.acfe.com/uploadedFiles/ACFE_Website/Content/resources/2022%20Anti-Fraud%20Technology%20Benchmarking%20Report.pdf">The 2022 ACFE Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report</a> shared that “the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in anti-fraud programs is expected to more than double over the next two years.” Once leaders have clarity around patterns of fraud or errors, they can guide county finance teams to a secure and productive financial environment. This doesn’t mean anyone will be handing authority over financial operations or its analysis over to robots and then running budgets on autopilot! </p>
<p>County leaders can best support their teams with machine learning assistance by identifying key risk areas to monitor for potential fraud. Potential data sources to look for fraud analytics are:</p>
<ul>
<li>exception reporting</li>
<li>policy violations</li>
<li>predictive analytics</li>
<li>geographic data mining</li>
<li>transaction analysis</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">sentiment analysis</a></li>
</ul>
<p>An <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-digitizing-spend-management-supports-government-mission">ACFE report</a> indicated that 21% of state government agencies reported a median of $91,000 in fraud losses in 2020 an 32% of local government entities reported a media of $75,000 in fraud losses.</p>
<p>Once counties can identify patterns of errors or fraud, they can focus their efforts to correct these areas, rather than constantly fighting to stay on top of monitoring every single area of spending.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Constant evolution: Risk and compliance</h2>
<p>Regularly assessing your county’s level of operational resilience in preparation for the next disruption has become fundamental. To stay agile, county leaders can mitigate financial risk with tools that provide real-time analysis and optimized workflows in a way that protects financial information from being hacked or misused. Hybrid and remote work environments are also becoming the norm, causing county operations to move away from on-premise platforms to managing spend in the cloud.</p>
<p>Without digitization, mobile applications, and cloud technologies in place to support hundreds of remote workers, it’s impossible to maintain “business as usual” for constituencies and taxpayers. Now is the time to digitize your county’s financial operations – before you go extinct!</p>
<p><a href="https://sap-my.sharepoint.com/personal/kathryn_kamin_sap_com/Documents/Content%20Reviews/SLG%20page-https:/www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">Learn more</a> about transforming your county’s financial operations with SAP Concur solutions today.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Resources to Leverage</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/4-keys-optimizing-county-spend">4 Keys to Optimizing County Spend</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/four-tips-help-county-leaders-maximize-budget">Four Tips to Help County Leaders Maximize Budget</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/7-ways-digitizing-spend-management-benefits-state-and-local-governments-and-their-constituents">7 Ways Digitizing Spend Management Benefits State and Local Governments and Their Constituents</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-digitizing-spend-management-supports-government-mission">How Digitizing Spend Management Supports the Government Mission</a></li>
</ul>
<p>To learn more about how to digitize your county’s financial operations, visit SAP Concur partner page at the <a href="https://www.naco.org/sponsor/sap-concur-0">National Association of Counties</a>.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
SAP Concur Launches New Development Center in Shanghai
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-launches-new-development-center-shanghai
2022-11-13T16:04:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Shanghai China April SAP Concur the worlds leading provider of expense travel and invoice management solutions today announced an SAP Concur China Development Center in Shanghai...
<p><strong>Shanghai, China </strong><strong>— April 17, 2019 </strong>– SAP Concur, the world’s leading provider of expense, travel, and invoice management solutions, today announced an SAP Concur China Development Center in Shanghai, China. In line with SAP Concur’s strategy to strengthen its commitment to China and provide local enterprises with a connected, customer-centric experience, the new China Development Center will develop and deliver end-to-end spend management solutions optimized for China's market requirements.</p>
<p>“China is a growth market and a leader in mobile innovation with tremendous opportunities for SAP Concur. The investment in the China Development Center is aligned with our focus and commitment to continuously drive innovation and deliver completely connected spend management solutions tailored to local market requirements. We look forward to expanding our product and service offerings to better serve Chinese companies operating both locally and abroad, and help their businesses run at their best,” said Deepak Seth, Vice President of Mobile Product Management and Strategy, SAP Concur. </p>
<p>The China Development Center builds upon <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/concur-to-expand-business-in-china">SAP Concur’s existing commitment to the Chinese marketplace</a>. It will strengthen SAP Concur solution capabilities in mobile, Fapiao, central billing, and payments which will enhance customer experience in China. Learnings from mobile innovations in China will also benefit customers worldwide. The China Development Center is integrated with SAP Concur’s global development capabilities to deliver a seamless experience to all customers in China and globally.</p>
<p>In addition, SAP Concur is working with both global and local partners to further expand its ecosystem and provide Chinese companies a simple way to connect and engage globally while having unmatched insights and visibility into their spending. SAP Concur has enhanced its integration with Ctrip Corporate Travel, China’s leading online travel agency, to improve the end-to-end travel user experience. The optimized solution will further simplify the travel booking and expense reporting process by streamlining pre-trip approval, booking, and expense management.</p>
<p>“More and more companies in China are looking for ways to gain better visibility on their corporate spend and bring data from different sources into one view. SAP Concur is committed to helping companies implement intelligent spend management by integrating intelligent technologies, such as machine learning and advanced analytics, coupled with a broad ecosystem and network, to give customers access to a clear, unified view of their business spending with actionable insights. Following the establishment of the China Development Center, we are better positioned to collaborate with our partners to deliver intelligent spend management solutions to support companies in China operated locally and globally,” said Jeff Lam, General Manager, Greater China, SAP Concur.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Best Practices from Bright Minds:
How to Leverage the Power of the SAP Concur Customer Community
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/best-practices-bright-minds-how-leverage-power-sap-concur-customer-community
2022-11-13T16:40:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We all know two heads can be better than one But what about Whether you want to take your travel expense and invoice TEI management knowledge to the next level introduce new best...
<p>We all know two heads can be better than one. But what about 45,000? </p>
<p>Whether you want to take your travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) management knowledge to the next level, introduce new best practices into your organization, or just get a question answered, there’s no reason you need to do it alone. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bright-ideas-all-one-place">SAP Concur customer community</a> can help you connect with your peers to find success. We have many ways you can connect with thousands of other users to exchange tips and tricks, forge connections, and help one another solve problems. Here’s how: </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get direct answers from those who know</h2>
<p>When you come upon a problem – such as how to tackle a particular administrative issue – it makes sense to take your question to those who have been there before and solved the problem, rather than searching online and weeding through answers that may not apply to your role or industry. Start your search by logging in to the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a>, our peer-to-peer digital channel.</p>
<ul>
<li>Have a general question? Pose it to our 20,000+ users in open forums.</li>
<li>Dealing with an industry-specific problem? Join a group to find more pertinent advice.</li>
<li>Stuck on an administrative challenge? Our user admin group can help.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Engage in deeper conversations</h2>
<p>Sometimes, the challenges you face in your job go beyond a simple question, such as when a new industry regulation is implemented – or a worldwide pandemic leaves you holding thousands of dollars in airline tickets that can’t be used for the foreseeable future. In cases such as these, having the ability to network, share, and converse more deeply can be priceless. </p>
<p>To get this opportunity, pop into one of our breakout rooms during a virtual roundtable event or take part in an in-person user group. We provide several events to meet you where you are – they may be small-scale or national, virtual or in-person, and sometimes connected to larger conferences like SAP Concur Fusion. By joining a user group, you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bring your questions, ideas, and solutions to one of our many community experiences.</li>
<li>Tackle some of your biggest challenges in an intimate environment.</li>
<li>Learn from and interact with leaders in your industry.</li>
<li>Hear success stories (and volunteer to share your own) during our customer spotlights.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Keep a pulse on your industry</h2>
<p>The issues that arise in the TE&I function can vary wildly across industries – and those issues are always changing as regulations shift, travel options and vendors evolve, and your own organization changes. </p>
<p>One way we like to help our vast userbase keep pace is by working with select leaders within certain industries who advise on how best to serve their communities. How can you benefit from SAP Concur Leadership Councils?</p>
<ul>
<li>These leaders are the ear on the ground for the SAP Concur organization, helping us – and you – stay aware of trends, potential problems, and solutions to these problems. </li>
<li>The insights they provide help inform content that we share with all users, as well as topics and agendas for events like user groups, roundtables, and SAP Concur Fusion sessions.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take a deep dive with SAP Concur Fusion and SAP Concur Fusion Exchanges</h2>
<p>One of the best parts of work is when you get to take time away to get better at your job by attending a conference. It feels good to connect with peers at different organizations to discuss common problems and goals. It feels even better to bring back new ideas that will make TE&I more effective and efficient. </p>
<p>For this purpose, we offer <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a>, a three-day deep dive into all things TE&I, plus Fusion Exchanges, one-day events that occur throughout the year. Attend an SAP Concur Fusion event to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Learn best practices from peers and experts.</li>
<li>Discover tips and tricks that improve how your organization manages TE&I.</li>
<li>Connect with peers in breakout sessions to benefit from your collective experience and brainpower. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Join us</h2>
<p>At the SAP Concur organization, we love seeing our customers succeed together. By becoming a part of our SAP Concur customer community, you can leverage the collective knowledge of thousands of likeminded peers to manage your spend better than ever – and help your fellow customers do the same.</p>
<p>Learn more about the <a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Customer-Community.html">SAP Concur customer community</a> today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Next Big Thing: Self-Served, Centralized Meeting Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/next-big-thing-self-served-centralized-meeting-management
2022-11-13T18:55:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Anyone whos ever been tasked with coordinating a group meeting knows how challenging it can be You have to find the right venues set up dinners and events keep track of attendee...
<p>Anyone who’s ever been tasked with coordinating a group meeting knows how challenging it can be. You have to find the right venues, set up dinners and events, keep track of attendee dietary restrictions and shirt sizes, on top of making sure that everyone involved knows where they have to be, when they have to be there, and how they’re going to get there.</p>
<p>All of a sudden, coordinating a seemingly simple departmental meeting is taking up a big chunk of time. </p>
<p>But, coping with logistical complexity is just one part of the challenge. Although meeting costs make up, on average, <a href="https://www.ustravel.org/system/files/media_root/document/Research_Fact-Sheet_US-Travel-and-Tourism-Overview.pdf#:~:text=Leisure%20travelers%20%28domestic%20and%20international%29%20spent%20a%20total,travelers%20spent%20%24139%20billion%2C%20up%202.6%25%20from%202018">41% of most organizations’ T&E budgets</a>, those expenditures are typically spread out among different systems, cost centers, and spreadsheets. So, there’s no real visibility into total meeting costs, much less enough spend data to measure meeting ROI.</p>
<p>Was the meeting over budget? Were the costs in compliance? Did we negotiate the best possible rates? For most organizations, the answer is, “We don’t know.”</p>
<h2>A smarter approach to meeting management</h2>
<p>Susan Isaacson, Principal Solutions Consultant for SAP Concur, recently sat down with Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien, CEO and COO of Groupize on the <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations">SAP Concur Conversations podcast</a>, to discuss the logistical, budgetary and compliance challenges of traditional meeting management — and how Concur Event Management by Groupize can help solve them all.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-blueprint-for-a-better-event-democratizing/id1525744763?i=1000548136992">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4BFgV13T1xVqI9z1chCqpk">Spotify </a>|<a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/a-blueprint-for-a-better--EP0Lz3FelV/"> Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/a-blueprint-for-a-better-event-democratizing-meeting-plannin">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjFlNTliN2RkMWRjNGUwMDEzMjU1NjIz?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiw0r6XkOL1AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/blueprint-better-event-democratizing-meeting-planning-sap-concur-podcast">read the transcript.</a></p>
<p>“Concur Event Management democratizes individual meeting planning and management, and gives companies the opportunity to seamlessly bundle this spend management into their core solution,” de Gaspe Beaubien, CEO and COO of Groupize, explained. </p>
<p>Anyone at the company who is coordinating a meeting can log into the solution and be guided through the planning process, step by step.</p>
<p>“Just as Concur Travel has rules, Concur Event Management has rules that add controls and ensure compliance,” de Gaspe Beaubien explained. “Users log in, and the solution walks them through the entire logistical process, from setting a date and a venue-on, with customizable rules that identify what that user can do on their own, and when additional approvals are needed.”</p>
<p>In many ways, Concur Event Management brings the same self-service ease to meeting planning that Concur Travel brings to travel booking, with the safety net of automated rules and oversight to mitigate risk. </p>
<p>“You can login to the solution, select the date and city where you want to have the meeting, the number of attendees, and the number of nights you’ll need hotel rooms. Then, enter the must-haves for the meeting venue—catered breakfasts and lunches, A/V equipment, whatever requirements you need,” de Gaspe Beaubien said. “What Concur Event Management does is allow you to shop all venues at your specific location that fit your meeting criteria at one time, instead of going from hotel site to hotel site to make your choice.”</p>
<p>You simply select which venues you want to get bids from, and the solution sends these requests directly to those hotels. When responses comes in, it takes that information and uses it to populate a spreadsheet for review and selection.</p>
<p>In short, Concur Event Management does all of the legwork for you and helps you plan the meeting from start to finish. </p>
<h2>The COVID connection</h2>
<p>The solution can also help organizers and meeting planners cope with the realities of in-person meetings in a world of “not-quite-done-with-COVID.”</p>
<p>“You can add safety protocols to your hotel vetting process,” de Gaspe Beaubien said. “You can also use the tool’s registration function to enable your attendees upload a vaccination card, along with their other information, like emergency contact and dietary preferences.”</p>
<p>This capability helps you improve the attendee experience by eliminating long vaccine card check-in lines and also helps keep attendees safe by minimizing exposure. It also gives you an auditable record of attendee vaccination status, as well as reports that can be used for contact tracing, in case this is needed after the meeting’s over. </p>
<p>If circumstances change, and you need to pivot, the solution makes this easier, too.</p>
<p>“Concur Event Management allows a person, or an entire event, to be shifted to virtual with the click of a button,” de Gaspe Beaubien said. “That’s a unique feature in this tool. You don’t have to start over, like you do with other meeting planning tools.”</p>
<h2>A true picture of meeting costs</h2>
<p>In addition to simplifying logistics, having an all-in-one meeting management solution is critical to monitoring and controlling costs.</p>
<p>“The tool enables attendees to automate expenses associated with travel, and enables organizations to track costs from initial budget, to negotiated budget, to final budget, for a true picture of costs,” de Gaspe Beaubien said. “It also allows you to report on individual meetings as well as look at your entire meeting program, so you have the visibility you need to improve cost control.”</p>
<p>Dashboards make it easy to track cross-event spend, logistics reports and attendee metrics, so companies can really assess the ROI of their various meetings. That enables leaders to create a game plan for the future, assess the value of in-person meetings versus virtual gatherings, and make more informed decisions going forward.</p>
<p>In today’s world, companies can no longer manage meetings and meeting costs via spreadsheet. Concur Event Management provides the compliance, oversight and controls organizations need to keep their people safe, reduce costs and improve the experience for everyone involved.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on Concur Event Management by Groupize, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management"><strong>click here.</strong></a></p>
<p>To listen to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations">click here</a>. </p>
<div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
Kathryn Kamin
Setting Post-Pandemic County Budgets and Sticking to Them
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/setting-post-pandemic-county-budgets-and-sticking-them
2022-11-13T19:39:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Stewarding a county budget has always meant working under pressure with complete transparency But now when most of your coworkers and partners are working remotely cost control...
<p>Stewarding a county budget has always meant working under pressure with complete transparency. But now, when most of your coworkers and partners are working remotely, cost control pressures and the demand for new ways to demonstrate spend transparency are greater than ever.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/memo-to-the-cfo-a-new-approach-to-2021-budgeting-starts-now">McKinsey & Company</a>, many finance leaders are turning to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/when-strategy-meets-spending-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-zero-based-budgeting">zero-based budgeting,</a> where anticipated expenses have to be justified and approved for each new budget period, in order to navigate through the great unknown of 2021. Even those who are sticking with the more traditional approach are producing budgets that match resources with strategy – knowing those strategies will most likely shift in the months to come.</p>
<p>“Organizations are <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hitting-budget-and-staying-there">putting new frameworks in place</a> to prevent what they just went through from ever happening again,” shared Marchelle Klippenstein, vice president of customer improvement for SAP Concur. “Not that anyone can prevent a pandemic. But they can prevent the angst, emotional challenge, and tactical issues they faced in what will be their new environment.” The result is a more proactive, comprehensive approach to budget compliance. Instead of focusing in on one area or process, organizations are using data to understand how they operate today, and how to gain the visibility and control to ensure expenditures are not only valid, but directly support your county’s objectives.</p>
<h2>All about the (expense) details</h2>
<p>It’s impossible to manage what you can’t define or see – something organizations discovered all too quickly when the pandemic began. “Budgets are often maintained at departmental levels and have so many things rolled up in them, including travel and expense, that it becomes impossible to understand where the overages are coming from,” <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hitting-budget-and-staying-there">explained Jameson Hughes</a>, client sales executive for SAP Concur. “For effective oversight, budgets have to be delineated down to the appropriate level.” When building your county’s budget categories, are you providing line-item details so that invoices and expenses can be properly reported and tracked? If not, it’s likely that costs are getting classified into the “other” or “miscellaneous” categories. Not only does this lack of budget detail categorization create more work for Accounts Payable teams to verify these expenses, but it also leaves room for error and fraud. If most of your expense details fall into the other/miscellaneous category, you’re not alone. We benchmarked our own clients’ spend by expense category from Q1 2019 through Q4 2019. At the time, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hitting-budget-and-staying-there">more than 28%</a> of those expenditures fell into the “other” category, and office-related expenses made up only a small percentage of the overall budget. While this delineation made sense pre-pandemic, in 2021 and beyond, counties should consider dissecting the “other” category further, adding expense categories that are reflective of what’s happening with their spend today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1616622510287-spend expense category.jpg" /></a></p>
<h2>Policy updates for the win</h2>
<p>Even after a vaccine has eradicated the threat and life returns to some semblance of “normal,” it’s clear that the post-pandemic county work environment won’t look the same as it did before COVID-19 took its toll. According to a recent <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/24/how-much-is-covid-19-hurting-state-and-local-revenues/">Brookings report</a>, “consumer spending during the pandemic was unusual. Much of the decline affected services, such as hairdressing, which are less likely to be taxed than goods. There were large increases in purchases of food at the grocery store, which is typically not subject to the sales tax, and large declines in spending at restaurants and hotels, which are often taxed more heavily than other things. In aggregate, sales taxes look to decline $49 billion this year, $45 billion next year, and $46 billion in 2022, in part reflecting lower price levels and in part because of changes in demand.” While it’s crucial to set a policy around home office and personal technology spend, particularly if these weren’t detailed before, it’s also important to look at your historic spend data and identify areas where a small policy change could make a big difference. “[Organizations] are restructuring everything—their offices, their employee requirements and the tools available to their staff,” Klippenstein said. “At the same time, everyone is trying to figure out what the new version of employee mobility will look like. <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hitting-budget-and-staying-there">Everything is changing</a>.” Ongoing evaluation as to how to adjust your financial policies will help you stay within your budgets as well as adjust for unplanned expenses. Change is inevitable and adjusting invoice and expense policies will help counties steward resources in agile, accommodating, and transparent ways.</p>
<h2>Data-informed decision-making</h2>
<p>You’ve got your county’s data—now it’s important to encourage everyone to use it to forecast and approve spend before it happens. In today’s climate, AP and finance cannot be the only overseer of spend and budget. Stakeholders and department heads must take an active part in that process, in a way that goes well beyond approving invoices and reimbursement requests. A siloed approach, with multiple systems operating in a vacuum, or reconciling spend against budget after the fact, just can’t deliver the sound financial governance counties need to navigate the years ahead. As organizations regroup, reposition, and adapt to a changed landscape, effective budget management is more critical than ever. Solving one issue here or adding another piece of software there simply can’t deliver the insight and agility that counties need. Organizations that take a holistic approach to cost control and budget management, and fully utilize their data to drive the desired outcomes are the ones that will be well positioned to succeed – no matter what surprises the future holds.</p>
<p>Since the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations are taking the conservative approach to manage their budget: spending less, trimming more, and allocating the available dollars far differently than they did in years past. There’s also an amplified focus on fiscal governance; every dollar spent must produce an outcome. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/hitting-budget-and-staying-there">Download our whitepaper</a> to explore how to use the power of your county’s spend data to improve budget compliance or spend against budget for a more holistic approach to budget management.</p>
<p>To learn more about how to optimize county financial operations, visit the SAP Concur partner page at the <a href="https://www.naco.org/sponsor/sap-concur-0">National Association of Counties</a>.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Why is Business Travel Safety Different for Women?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-business-travel-safety-different-women
2022-11-14T11:50:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It may come as no surprise that of female business travelers believe they face greater risk than their male counterparts This is according to a online survey conducted by AIG Travel...
<p>It may come as no surprise that 71% of female business travelers believe they face greater risk than their male counterparts. This is according to a 2018 online survey conducted by AIG Travel Inc. and Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) of women who traveled on four or more business trips within the past year. Of the women surveyed, 83% experienced a safety related event within that year, and 80% said those events impacted their work productivity. This makes sense, right? If we feel unsafe or threatened—the human response is to protect ourselves, making it difficult to give 100% focus to the business objective at hand.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1536693991962-kim-blog-1.jpg" /></p>
<p>It’s not just the insurance industry trying to understand the degree of risk to female business travelers (and all travelers for that matter), its companies of every size that are required to protect their traveling employees with something called duty of care policy. Duty of care policy responsibilities span multiple departments, including human resources, corporate travel, security, and legal. A lot of companies have policies in place yet may not have updated them to reflect their growing population of female travelers in today’s uncertain global environment. </p>
<p>In my own experience as a female business traveler, I can guarantee that if you sat down any group of female business associates, it’s likely every single one could tell a story or two about a safety incident that’s happened to them while traveling on business—whether to a convention in the next city or a business trip half way around the world. Safety incidents can include food and health risks, information security risks, natural disasters or even terrorist events. But the stories I hear most often are about sexual harassment and assault, theft, and cultural travel issues. </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1536694002698-kim-blog-2.jpg" /></p>
<p>And yet, fewer than 50% of women report personal safety incidents to their organizations, according to the AIG Travel, Inc. and GBTA survey. Brittany Lewis, security operations analyst at AIG Travel, said in a panel discussion at the August 2018 GBTA convention that she believes this may have to do with women not wanting to be perceived as weak or vulnerable within their organizations. Or, that by reporting an incident, it might limit their opportunities for more business travel which could impact their career or promotional track. </p>
<p>It’s complicated from all sides. And companies today face more pressure than ever to ensure the safety of all their travelers. A recent GBTA Foundation survey, sponsored by SAP Concur, found 43% of travel managers say that in the event of an emergency, they can locate all their employees in the affected area within two hours or less. In fact, 34% of travel managers say they do not know how long it would take to locate their affected employees in a crisis situation. There’s a gap here and for female business travelers, we need to learn how to avoid putting ourselves into unsafe situations as well as how to best respond if an incident does occur. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11296-0.jpg?itok=--BqyRNH" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Safety Checklist for Female Business Travelers</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>As part of this four-part blog series on business travel safety for women, my goal is to arm you with trusted, resource-rich information to help you become a more street smart, tech savvy, and informed business traveler. Even if your company has duty of care policies in place and you receive company training on travel safety, I’ve learned from personal experience that it’s always worth it to self-educate.</p>
<p>For those of you who share a passion for life-long learning and reading like I do, join me on this journey as we explore the following topics.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-to-safeguard-female-travelers"><strong>How are Companies Addressing Business Travel Safety for Women? </strong></a>This “state of the industry” blog will signal the most common duty of care gaps and how you can take charge of your own safety in the interim.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience">How Can Women Create Their Own Safe Business Travel Experience?</a> </strong>These are safety tips you don’t often hear but are worth their weight in gold—from a security industry veteran and former FBI special agent, and she’s traveled the world! </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-your-mobile-phone-helps-keep-you-safe-when-traveling">Women: Are You Traveling Alone for Business? Keep Your Mobile Charged</a> </strong>Yes, mobile technology is your travel safety best friend, especially when traveling alone in a location you’ve never been to before<strong>. </strong>Learn how technology can help keep you safe—whether stateside or overseas. </p>
<div> </div>
SAP Concur
The Expense Reporting Road to Recovery: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with TCG Consulting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-reporting-road-recovery-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-tcg-consulting
2022-12-06T11:13:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pause placed on business travel during the pandemic along with the shift in the way employees work has created vast opportunities for organizations to revamp their expensing...
<p>The pause placed on business travel during the pandemic, along with the shift in the way employees work, has created vast opportunities for organizations to revamp their expensing systems. Deciding how and where to allocate and categorize expenses so they align with an organization’s overall strategy has become central to decision-making. While no one has a crystal ball to see what tomorrow will bring, lessons learned from past disruptions can be used to establish systems that meet current employee expectations and reduce risk in the days ahead.</p>
<p>Jason Grunin, Senior Value Consultant in the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, spoke about preparing for financial recovery and being equipped for the future with Edward Curtis, Associate Director at TCG Consulting, and Jim Coufal, Senior Principal and Advisor for TCG Consulting.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/futureproofing-for-financial-disruption-3-things-to/id1525744763?i=1000546890783">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/16D2Ket9LkoFq2s77Jm4il">Spotify</a> |<a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/futureproofing-for-financial-wQmq8ODF4K0/"> Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/futureproofing-for-financial-disruption-3-things-to-do-right">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjFkNDVmZjNkZDdmMWYwMDEzNDg3YTlm?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiwpPiO1531AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/futureproofing-financial-disruption-3-things-do-right-now-sap-concur-podcast">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>A murky mashup: Miscellaneous expenses</h2>
<p>Aligning expense types with the way employees travel and spend can be tricky, and there’s not always a perfect solution. “If a traveler can’t find the expense, they’ll book it into the miscellaneous,” Coufal says. If there isn’t a miscellaneous category, however, the expense could get misclassified. The key to better classification? Coufal suggests having enough expense types that make sense for an organization’s needs, while striving for simplicity.</p>
<p>“The challenge is to really find that balance.”</p>
<p>When gift cards are used, Starbucks cards might turn into meals, or Best Buy cards could be applied to office equipment. Reviewing past purchases can help you spot trends and establish criteria for future purchases. </p>
<p>Another area that can get muddy: the mashup of business and personal travel. Airfare during peak holiday seasons, for instance, might be worth reviewing. “Is that really business, or is there potentially some personal travel mixed in?” Coufal asks. Besides airline tickets, evaluate accommodations over the weekends, rental cars on holidays, and personal mileage data.</p>
<p>Review policies and audit data to update a spend management solution.</p>
<h2>Proactive vs reactive Expense reporting</h2>
<p>During the pandemic, mailing in receipts and expense reports became increasingly burdensome. As Curtis says, “Not having a centralized system or automation caused major issues for companies as everyone shifted to remote environments.”</p>
<p>A system that lets all levels of personnel tap in from anywhere, regardless of the device they use, can be a game changer. “Business will continue to run as usual,” Curtis explains, “and it’ll allow your company to be more proactive rather than reactive.”</p>
<p>“Manual processes aren’t sustainable in the future work environment.”</p>
<h2>Next time, we’ll be ready</h2>
<p>Prior to Covid, events like 9/11 or a volcano erupting over the North Atlantic brought travel to a temporary standstill. In a similar sense, while the pandemic may pass, other disruptions will eventually be at the horizon. </p>
<p>When considering control, compliance, and the employee experience going forward, Coufal says, “There isn’t a wrong or right answer. It’s what works for your organization.” Accounting for culture, the employees you’re servicing, and the industry in which you operate will all help shape policies that work for your organization.</p>
<p>The ultimate recipe for success? “A balance between expense types [and] policy,” says Coufal, “which really helps you drive toward a strong employee experience as well as being able to maintain those controls and compliance.”</p>
<p>Find out more about how you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/tcg-consulting">leverage the partnership between SAP Concur and TCG Consulting</a> to help your organization set the right path for travel and the future of work.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
2022 SAP Concur Innovation Award Winners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-innovation-award-winners
2022-12-06T14:20:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today in Orlando at SAP Concur Fusion we recognized our SAP Concur Innovation Award winners These SAP Concur customers exemplify innovation and use our solutions to help them...
<p>Today in Orlando at <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a>, we recognized our 2022 SAP Concur Innovation Award winners. These SAP Concur customers exemplify innovation and use our solutions to help them focus on the pivotal moments that make their business run best. We are happy to share the stories of our six 2022 Innovation Award winners who demonstrate a passion and commitment to innovation. </p>
<h2>Infineon </h2>
<p>As part of its digital transformation process, in 2016 Infineon started to digitize its travel management process with the goal of improving user experience while reducing operating expenses. </p>
<p>But after implementing SAP Concur solutions, and as travel compliance rules have become more complex, Infineon recognized its compliance processes required employees to re-enter most of their travel data. This was not only a poor employee experience, but also had potential for errors. </p>
<p>To solve this, Infineon set out to integrate a risk assessment check into the concur workflow. The company custom-designed a risk assessment engine and using SAP Business Technology Platform as an extension suite, results of the risk assessment are given to the travel requestor and approver in real time in Concur Request so any critical issues can be addressed before travel. </p>
<h2>IDP Education </h2>
<p>IDP Education specializes in combining human expertise with their leading digital platform to help students pursue overseas education and get accepted into their ideal study abroad program. As much as IDP focuses on innovation and technology, its sharp focus on digitalization did not extend to IDP’s purchase to pay processes, which were being handled manually and used different systems in different countries. </p>
<p>Now, with the integrated solutions of SAP Ariba and SAP Concur, coupled with Concur Invoice Capture, approximately 70% of IDP invoices are processed by a simple email to capture service including an audit trail to view invoice and expense trends. What used to take two or three weeks for an invoice to be processed, has now been reduced to a mere three or four days. </p>
<p>With the invoice process fully automated, the team spends less time on manual activities greatly increasing efficiency. </p>
<h2>NTT DATA Philippines </h2>
<p>NTT DATA Philippines is an SAP Concur partner providing subscriptions, implementation and consulting services, and this year’s Partner Innovation Award winner. </p>
<p>When one of the largest bottling companies in Asia approached NTT DATA with their SAP Concur implementation project on what seemed like an unrealistic timeline, the NTT DATA team took the challenge head on. Starting in November 2020, NTT DATA quickly mobilized a project team to support the customer’s complex workflow design requirements, gathered details for the design workbook and quickly created a standard design workflow. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the NTT DATA team helped its customer roll-out SAP Concur solutions to more than 2000 users in just 3 months cutting the finance team’s processing time on expense reimbursements from 5 days to 2 days. The team has approximately saved 1 FTE headcount cost by moving from manual expense to Concur Expense. </p>
<h2>Ocean Network Express</h2>
<p>Ocean Network Express is a joint effort of three leading Japanese shipping companies with operations in 106 countries. When selecting a T&E solution, Ocean Network Express’ main concern was to provide an excellent employee experience and make the process seamless for travelers. It was also looking to standardize its travel and expense policies and processes globally. </p>
<p>Ocean Network Express undertook a site review working with Concur Select Care and was able to consolidate its existing 74 active policies down to 8. </p>
<p>In addition, Ocean Network Express has started to roll out more solutions such as Concur Budget and Concur Travel along with TripLink, and pilots have started in selected countries. It is also planning to roll out eBunsho and Japan Public Transport which allows the company to comply with the latest regulations while also providing convenience for its Japanese employees. </p>
<h2>Dover Corporation</h2>
<p>Dover Corporation was running seven different instances of SAP Concur in North America and Europe which limited the company’s ability to monitor and control spend, implement automated processes, and create a unified employee experience. To solve this, Dover’s T&E team successfully consolidated down to a single instance of SAP Concur across 26 countries impacting 135 Business Units and over 12,000 employees worldwide. </p>
<p>The impact was immediate. With a consistent configuration across all 26 countries, the company could extract reports to get a clear view of employee spend, T&E analysts roles shifted away from heavy data entry and now spend that time focused on using Concur Detect to audit expense reports and enforce the company’s T&E policy. </p>
<p>In addition, Dover reduced travel bookings that are happening within 14 days of travel; Removed all spend within the miscellaneous expense type and increased card adoption to 95% for travel spend </p>
<h2>The Walt Disney Company </h2>
<p>Following its initial roll-out of SAP Concur solutions, The Walt Disney Company was able to reduce travel operating costs, reduce out of channel bookings and negotiate better rates with travel partners. With travel then down due to the pandemic, Disney’s T&E team was looking to build on these efforts. The team worked with SAP Concur Select Care to analyze its existing processes, ultimately resulting in reduced Travel Rule classes, a new Hotel Rate cap process and a streamlined approval process. </p>
<p>In a challenging year, it is gratifying to see SAP Concur solutions help our customers adapt and transform their business and we are proud to have these great organizations as our 2022 innovation Award winners. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Strong Is Your Spend Control? Assess Your Business Agility to Find Out
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-strong-your-spend-control-assess-your-business-agility-find-out
2022-12-30T15:12:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the new world of hybrid work being apart means being more connected than ever As business leaders we must stay agile in order to adapt to everchanging market landscapes and support...
<p>In the new world of hybrid work, being apart means being more connected than ever. As business leaders, we must stay agile in order to adapt to ever-changing market landscapes and support our people while maintaining business control. Digitalization and integration are prerequisites to making that possible – especially when it comes to how you manage company spend.</p>
<p>Whether your focus is on building resilience or reinventing your business to support growth, consistent, disciplined spend management processes and universally enforceable policies are a must. Even one small gap in spend visibility can open you up to unnecessary risk and costs – leaving your finance team to figure out where that money went and negatively impacting your bottom line.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, a business unit of SAP, we’re dedicated to helping companies like yours achieve the agility, efficiency, and visibility you need to weather hard times and scale with you to meet your greatest potential. Over the past year, we’ve been working closely with business leaders from around the world – learning how they are using integrated, intelligent spend management to stay on top and prepare for the future.</p>
<p>Now, with our online <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-business-agility-assessment">Business Agility Assessment</a>, you can evaluate your own spend management capabilities to see if you have the agility and control you need to succeed whatever the future may bring.</p>
<p>The assessment begins by looking at your expense management processes. For example, are your people still hassling with paper receipts and spreadsheets? Or is your whole process automated – from receipt and card transaction capture to expense categorization and data mapping?</p>
<p>Next, we’ll ask about how you manage vendor and supplier invoices. Again, is your process mostly manual, with time-consuming error-checking and review? Or do you have intelligent invoice management tools that allow digital processing and automatic flagging of questionable or erroneous charges?</p>
<p>In addition to process digitalization, we’ll want to evaluate convenience and ease of use. Do your spend management tools require a lot of user training? Do employees need to have their computer open to perform workflow steps like submitting reports and completing approvals? Do auditors need to follow up with emails when information is missing or late? Or are all these steps simple, intuitive, and accessible anytime, anywhere using a mobile app? </p>
<p>While comprehensive digital spend management is a good start, we’ll also ask about connections and integration across your organization. Are your travel, expense, and invoice management systems completely separate? Are they integrated with each other, but not with your back-end systems for ERP, CRM, and HR? Or do you have all your data in one place, giving finance teams deep, near real-time insight into spending across categories, business units, regions, teams, and even individuals?</p>
<p>Your answers about integration will then lead us to examine your level of spend control. Do you struggle with out-of-policy spending? Are you wasting money on incorrect invoices and late fees or missing out on discounts? Or can you quickly and easily audit expense reports and invoices for errors and noncompliant spend while also timing vendor payments in a way that minimizes costs and optimizes cash flow?</p>
<p>Finally, we’ll ask about the makeup of your spend management landscape and your technology providers. Do you have multiple systems from different companies or one partner that offers a total spend management solution as well as global 24x7 service and support?</p>
<p>Once your assessment is complete, the results will offer insight into how your processes for managing company spend are impacting your business agility and control. You will also gain access to our spend management toolkit, which offers a collection of best-practice initiatives, continuity plan templates, and information on hundreds of partner apps that can help you extend the value of your spend management solutions. </p>
<p>In just three minutes, you can take the first step toward building a spend management program that will help you improve your visibility and insight, make life easier for your employees, improve operating margins, and increase profitability.</p>
<p>So, what are you waiting for?</p>
<p>Take the <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-business-agility-assessment">Business Agility Assessment</a> now. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to find out what SAP Concur solutions can do for you.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Getting Your T&E Process Ready for a Merger and Acquisition
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/getting-your-TE-process-ready-for-a-merger-and-acquisition
2023-05-15T09:25:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Resources to help you thrive in new and trying times Being part of a merger or acquisition MA and still doing your regular job can feel overwhelming Whether youre a firsttimer or an MA...
<h2><strong>Resources to help you thrive in new and changing times</strong></h2>
<p>Being part of a merger or acquisition (M&A) while still doing your “regular” job can feel overwhelming. Whether you’re a first-timer or an M&A veteran, thoughtful policy and procedure implementation across your organization can set you up for success—and save a lot of frustration in the process.</p>
<p>Is it hard work? Yes. But it’s also a rare career opportunity—and something worth embracing. And as the finance role expands in the era of digital transformation, an M&A can be a great way to evolve your leadership and technology skills.</p>
<p>Check out our <a href="/blog/article/latest-resources-for-accelerating-your-finance-career">Latest Resources for Accelerating Your Finance Career</a> and <a href="/finance-career">Finance Career page</a> to see how your peers are leveraging digital transformation to help their companies—and careers—thrive.</p>
<h2><strong>Get Your M&A Documentation Lined Up Ahead of Time</strong></h2>
<p>One of the best ways to manage the emotional aspect of M&A is through well-documented processes, system setup, and policies. Take the time now to create a step-by-step manual on everything around travel and expenses, from how to book a flight to how to file an expense report.</p>
<p>Get your organization M&A-ready by tightening up:</p>
<ul>
<li>Written travel and expense policies and related standards</li>
<li>Written back-office and desktop audit procedures</li>
<li>Written how-to’s on all travel and expense end-user procedures</li>
<li>Written configurations and workflows</li>
</ul>
<p>This documentation will not only be valuable for system and process consolidation but will also make it easier to create employee training when a merger or acquisition occurs. The key is remembering that this isn’t a “set-and-forget-it” process. You must also assign ownership and put a strategy in place for updates, along with a semi-annual or annual review to keep up with any changes.</p>
<h2><strong>M&A Due Diligence Checklist: Consolidating Travel and Expense Platforms</strong></h2>
<p>When going through a merger or acquisition, the pain is in the details. It’s essential to have all the right players, requirements, and integration points in place when combining or moving travel and expense policies or configurations between companies.</p>
<p>Before you dive in, our experts recommend that you develop a comprehensive checklist and discovery templates to ensure you capture all the required information in a consistent format. Use this handy <a href="/resource-center/ebooks/checklist-due-diligence-mergers-and-acquisitions">M&A Due Diligence Checklist</a> as a guide to ensure that no detail is left unexplored.</p>
<p>Asking the right questions can get all of your parties on the same page, so you can collaborate seamlessly. Start with questions like:</p>
<ol>
<li>Do both companies use SAP Concur solutions? If yes, what products and services do each have and how are they configured?</li>
<li>What are the system dependencies?</li>
<li>What is the travel policy? If using Concur Travel, which travel management companies (TMC) are involved?</li>
<li>What are the existing card programs?</li>
<li>What are the contractual obligations?</li>
<li>Does the company operate in different countries or an industry subject to additional regulatory requirements?</li>
</ol>
<p>You must also understand current transaction volumes, processes, audit standards, business cycles—and the similarities and differences between the two companies. All of these details are necessary to build out the new, thriving operation.</p>
<h2><strong>Laying the Groundwork for a Successful Merger and Acquisition</strong></h2>
<p>An M&A can be a great opportunity—and a challenge—to elevate your career and your company. Expert guidance can help you stay on track.</p>
<p><a href="/resource-center/ebooks/mergers-and-acquisitions-practical-guide"><strong>Download our M&A guide</strong></a><strong> </strong>for practical advice, best practices, and steps you can take right now to make sure you’re ready for the day your M&A is announced.</p>
<p>Want to learn more about what it means to be a modern finance leader? See our on-demand webcast, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/event/webinar/finance-jobs-0223"><strong>How Finance Jobs Have Expanded in the New World of Work</strong></a><strong>,</strong> to get future-ready.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Fraud Risk on the Rise: Why Government and Higher Ed Finances Are Vulnerable to Errors
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fraud-risk-rise-why-government-and-higher-ed-finances-are-vulnerable-errors
2023-08-29T12:31:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You might assume that when it comes to making sound choices to keep their organizations running smoothly and on budget financial decision makers are making those choices based on clear...
<p>You might assume that when it comes to making sound choices to keep their organizations running smoothly and on budget, financial decision makers are making those choices based on clear data and their confidence in that data. As it turns out, that might not always be an accurate assumption.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_SecurityIncidentServers_R_blue2.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Increase Compliance and Reduce Risk</h2>
<p>Learn how automated solutions make organizations more efficient in managing budgets, remaining compliant, and protecting themselves from errors.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">Higher education</a><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">State and local agencies</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>A recent survey conducted by SAP Concur and Kelton Global found that 59% of financial decision makers working in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">state, city, and local government</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">higher education</a> believe the financial tools and systems used at their organizations are error-prone, and 68% report having to make decisions without full visibility into the necessary information. Not only that, but many of these leaders admit that fraud, waste, and abuse are challenges their organizations currently face – and that their vulnerability to these types of risks is on the rise:</p>
<ul>
<li>Two-thirds of respondents admit that fraud, waste and abuse are challenges their organization currently faces.</li>
<li>More than one in four say their vulnerability to risk of fraud and abuse increased in the past year.</li>
<li>About one-third say the number of inaccurate expense reports and invoices that have been submitted has increased over the past year.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Inaccurate decision-making – unintentional or not – leads to risk</h2>
<p>The truth is, it’s happened to the best of us. We can all likely recall a time when we’ve made a decision without having the necessary background information by which to make it, and that decision may not have produced the most favorable results. Why? Because in order to make sound business decisions and avoid unfortunate errors, we need access to all the optimal information so we’re not operating blindly.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1564508487832-1-4th-chart-1.png" /></p>
<p>The reputational damage of ill-informed decision-making can be catastrophic for a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/local-government-solutions">public sector</a> organization – potentially leading to decreased funding as well as decreased trust. A recent <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/">study</a> by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) identified the top fraud expenses for business and government organizations incur, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>5 percent of a typical organization’s annual revenues are lost due to fraud </li>
<li>89 percent of fraud cases involve asset misappropriation, including padding travel and expense claims</li>
<li>$114,000 is the annual median loss from asset misappropriation</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite these threats, many state, city, and local government and higher education decision makers are faced with these challenges every day. About one-quarter of survey respondents say their organization has unintentionally reported incorrect budget data due to inaccuracies in expense reports or invoices – and, 26% say their organization unintentionally allocated resources where it shouldn’t have due to thinking it had more available budget than it actually did.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For higher education organizations, these types of errors can have direct and negative effects on its students, like when the University of Texas at Tyler <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/04/30/university-gives-away-more-scholarships-it-budgeted-and-revokes-them">recently found its calculations off</a> for full-ride four-year fellowships. More were granted than were actually in the plan, and the University responded by revoking between 50 and 60 such scholarships, long after students had accepted at UT Tyler and other colleges’ deadlines had expired. Many admissions leaders viewed these actions as unethical, and students took to social media to share their unfortunate stories.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The reputational risks endured by UT Tyler are just one example of why accuracy, visibility and compliance are of utmost importance for any organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1564508204574-26-percent-chart.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fighting fraud and achieving compliance with a balance of AI and employee engagement</h2>
<p>For those working in the public sector, not complying with government rules and regulations is not an option. The good news is there are many small ways in which these organizations can start chipping away at this issue – including better employee training, stricter regulation of internal processes, and <a href="https://fcw.com/articles/2019/05/28/powner-comment-fitara-cios.aspx">closer collaboration with CIOs</a>. In fact, government and higher education organizations are implementing a variety of initiatives to remain current.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to the survey, around two-thirds (69%) have tasked their employees to learn about this information or regularly conduct audits (65%) to gather the most current regulatory information. More than half also look beyond the walls of their organization – specifically to peers in the public sector – to find best practices for abiding by regulatory compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the same time, putting technologies in place that can simultaneously automate tedious and error-prone processes like auditing expense and invoice data, but learn and become more efficient over time, is the most effective long-term strategy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I’ve touted the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-would-you-do-3000-hours-extra-time-each-month">benefits of automation</a> before but take it from those on the front lines: The majority (55%) of survey respondents who have fully automated tools for expense, invoice, or travel management at various stages of implementation say their organization is better at managing fraud, waste, and abuse within their organizations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1564508255700-39-percent-chart.png" /></p>
<p>Further still, those who have completely automated the invoice process are about twice as likely (39% vs. 21%) as those who have not to say there have been fewer errors in these reports. <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/sites/default/case-study-mirco/pima_community_college_case_study_0318.pdf">Pima Community College</a> in Tucson, Arizona is a great example of a higher education institution that’s reaped the benefits of automation. Its process for handling travel, expense, and invoices used to be highly manual, with paper-based requests and reimbursements being the norm. You can imagine the potential margin of error with this approach. By bringing in new technology and automating audit rules, Pima reduced errors and compliance violations and in-turn increased policy adherence.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>More about the survey</h2>
<p>Kelton Global’s study gathered responses from 313 financial decision makers working in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">state, city, and local government</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">higher education</a> to learn more about how these organizations are reducing risk, maintaining compliance and maximizing efficiency – what’s working well, what others might learn from what some organizations are doing, and where applying new systems and processes could solve for time and accuracy issues.</p>
<p> </p>
David Ballard
Managing Travel Shouldn’t Feel Like a Moon Shot
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managing-travel-shouldnt-feel-moon-shot
2023-09-07T09:33:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin may have been the worlds only business traveler who enjoyed filling out an expense report His report filed years ago today goes into a surprising level of detail...
<p>Astronaut Buzz Aldrin may have been the world’s only business traveler who enjoyed filling out an expense report. His <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/626812956148248577?s=20">report</a>, filed 50 years ago today, goes into a surprising level of detail considering the relatively small amount he expensed for personal costs for his trip to Edwards Air Force Base, and for travel in the vicinity of the Cape Kennedy, where the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html">Apollo 11 mission</a> was launched. Aldrin only requested $33.31, or about $232 in today’s dollars. But for a man with a quirky sense of humor, it was an opportunity to cap off a trip unique in human history with an equally unique expense report.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/third-w350/1564800601389-buzzaldrin.jpg" /></p>
<p> A portion of Buzz Aldrin’s 1969 expense report</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Among the highlights of Buzz Aldrin’s expense report was his list of destinations, including the moon via “Gov. Spacecraft.” We don’t need the expense report to tell us his next stop, but he listed it nevertheless as “Pacific Ocean” before itemizing the USN Hornet as his mode of transportation to Hawaii. The report acknowledges that “government meals and quarters [were] furnished” during the trip. And as any frequent business traveler is familiar, any international trip requires a customs form. Aldrin and his colleagues figured galactic travel counted, filling one out to <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/627895978796916736?s=20">claim</a> “moon rock and moon dust samples.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1564800612726-9460194568-b-8f-0110e-97-o.jpg" />Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, during the lunar landing mission. Image credit: NASA</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Imagine if Buzz Aldrin had the power of Concur Travel and Concur Expense. An electronic folio receipt for a trip to the moon could include a daily moon tourism tax, or extra daily charges for communications connectivity with Houston, in addition to the nightly rate of the astronauts’ zero-g accommodations. We would have automatically itemized those charges for Mr. Aldrin and brought them directly in to his expense report. If ever there was an employee with something better to do than fill out an expense report, it’s an astronaut returning from the moon!</p>
<p>With the filing and processing of Buzz Aldrin’s travel documents complete, the brief moment in world history in which someone smiled while dealing with an expense report ended and business travelers resumed being increasingly put out by the process. While the moon landing was the one of the most exciting travel developments of the 1960s, another less flashy trend was in full swing. It was the decade in which aviation became the preferred mode of transportation for corporate America. Along with the rise in long-distance business travel came the ubiquity of the dreaded expense report, and the associated time-suck of typed-out transactions covered by stapled or taped receipts. The messes of paper were then inter-office mailed, and later faxed, to the unlucky individuals tasked with review and processing. </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1564800709485-customs.jpg" /></p>
<p>Customs</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The epic levels of displeasure and costs related to expense reports are the reason <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about-concur">SAP Concur</a> came to exist in 1993. Later, recognizing the ubiquity of travel-related purchases on expense reports, they recognized even more time and resources would be saved by joining travel and expense in the cloud. The goal from the beginning was to help organizations invest more in their missions instead of paperwork. Today, because of the innovations SAP Concur brought to the market, people around the world expect these processes to take less effort with each passing year.</p>
<p>The 50th anniversary of Buzz Aldrin’s entertaining expense report comes at the perfect time. This week, travel managers, travel management companies, travel suppliers and others gather in Chicago for the <a href="https://convention.gbta.org/About/About-GBTA-Convention">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention</a> to share best practices and learn new techniques for streamlining their work. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">flash poll of travel buyers</a> we published in partnership with GBTA, the demands they face continue to grow. Amid those challenges, SAP Concur and our partners work to ensure that the user experiences of travel managers or business travelers remain front and center. We made several announcements this week with that in mind. First, we announced that more than 400 additional hotel properties have recently joined our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> network through expanded integrations with major hotel groups Accor, Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott. TripLink allows companies to capture hotel bookings made outside of Concur Travel, to gain immediate visibility into travel spend and ensure application of policy, while offering greater flexibility to business travelers. It also allows travelers to automatically receive corporate discounts at participating hotels.</p>
<p>Technology has advanced tremendously in the fifty years since the moon landing and the phone in your hand has millions of times the total processing power of all of NASA’s computers in 1969. SAP Concur harnesses that power to make the travel and expense process easier. For example, during a business trip, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">Concur mobile</a> app allows you to snap a photo of your receipt. Artificial intelligence and machine learning read your handwritten totals on that receipt with incredible accuracy, and the receipt is automatically sent to your expense report in the cloud, for review and filing with just a few clicks. SAP Concur uses smartphone technology to improve the traveler experience in other ways, which brings me to our final announcement. <a href="https://www.tripit.com/">TripIt</a>, which gives you one place for travel details and notifies you – like <a href="https://gph.is/2PQ9j4C">this</a> – when there are late-breaking changes to your trips.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w475/1564800569060-houston-we-have-5acf-5f.jpg" /></p>
<p><a href="https://www.tripit.com/alerts">TripIt Pro</a> sends real-time alerts for delays, cancellations, and other problems with your flight (current version only supports travel within earth's atmosphere).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TripIt also provides data on the safety of specific neighborhoods to which you plan to travel, which can change depending the time of day. This week we announced that TripIt users will soon be able to view neighborhood safety scores by day or night. This will help illustrate how time of day impacts the safety of each neighborhood and help travelers make smarter decisions while on the road.</p>
<p>Most business travelers won’t go quite as far as those who, fifty years ago, traveled to the moon and back. And most won’t have as much fun as Buzz Aldrin on travel-related paperwork. Yet SAP Concur will continue to innovate so those travelers and their colleagues can spend less administering travel and more on their missions. Learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur.com</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Traveling to Europe? Consider Booking Hotel Rooms Last-Minute
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/traveling-europe-consider-booking-hotel-rooms-last-minute
2023-09-08T15:58:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The bestlaid plans Is there even such a thing when it comes to business travel Lastminute travel is not only unavoidable but inevitable It is often out of your control meetings...
<p>The best-laid plans: Is there even such a thing when it comes to business travel? Last-minute travel is not only unavoidable but inevitable. It is often out of your control – meetings change, flights are delayed or canceled, clients need you. According to a SAP Concur report released last year, these eleventh-hour bookings can cost you more for flights, but last-minute hotel bookings buck this trend. Looking at booking windows of 0 days, 0–3 days, 4–7 days, 8–14 days, 15–30 days, and 30+ days, SAP Concur’s 2017 hotel data for EMEA shows that the lowest median rates can be found 0–3 days out, but most rooms are booked 15 or more days out. Quite simply, travelers are losing money by booking earlier than when prices are at their lowest.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Booking Trends in EMEA</h2>
<p>Figure 1 is a simple summary of the percentage of room nights booked, by days prior to the stay, for EMEA in 2017. The largest share of bookings is made between 15–30 days before the stay. However, further data shows that the best rates are to be found when booking between 0–7 days before an intended trip, so there is a balance between inventory and price to be struck when booking.</p>
<p> </p>
<div><strong>Can Booking Early Save You Money?</strong></div>
<p> </p>
<p>Figure 2 charts the pattern of room rates per quarter, relative to the median price in 2017. While booking 4–7 days before the intended stay may save money as prices dip below the average, if you book within Q1, the room rates are already below the median price and will only fall. The significant difference between Q1 and Q2–Q4 is likely explained by the higher rate of travel towards the end of the year, as we found in our previous research around <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/mid-november-expected-to-be-the-busiest-time-of-year-business-travel">busiest travel days</a>. The savvy traveller could save money by travelling in Q1.</p>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Last Minute Bookings for Quick Trips</h2>
<p>From figures 1 and 2, we can see that people booking last-minute rooms are getting a good rate for doing so. Providing further context, the above (figure 3) details the average length of stay for each booking window. Those that are booking last-minute, between 0–3 days before a trip, stay on average only one to two nights, suggesting that these types of stays could be trip extensions. With the savings on offer, this data could prove the basis for full, slightly longer trips to be booked closer to the time rather than merely extensions – useful information for trips where room availability is expected to be high. </p>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Booking Habits in the U.K., Germany, and France</h2>
<p>Below, we can see the breakdown of room rates for the U.K., France, and Germany by booking window. While the prices across all three countries gradually drop to around the median rate leading up to 8–14 days before booking, interestingly, rates in Germany hold slightly higher than the median until 4–7 days.</p>
<p>All three countries then experience a significant drop between 0–3 days. However, prices in Germany are only 13% below the median whereas the U.K. sees a larger drop to -26%. Germany certainly holds truer when it comes to price fluctuation, but travelers and travel managers would do well to book later there in comparison to France and the UK.</p>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<h2>City Breakdown</h2>
<p>We can delve into this data on a more granular level by looking at the type of hotels that are being booked from 30+ to zero days before a stay, splitting between high-end, medium, and low-tier establishments in London (figure 5), Frankfurt (figure 6), and Paris (figure 7). We define high-, medium-, and low-tier hotels within each city by dividing the average daily rate into three equal tiers.</p>
<p>While prices in high-end Paris hotels see a consistent drop in prices with a slight peak at zero days before a stay, the average rate is between 50% and 90% above the median – far higher than the percentage above the median in both Frankfurt and London and worth avoiding if possible.</p>
<p>By comparison, the rates in Frankfurt suggest that travelers who are booking late will opt for a mid-tier hotel, therefore driving up demand and bringing the average price up to within nine percent below that of the price of a high-tier when booked at zero days. With the duty of care balance in mind, it could fare travel managers well to bump those on the move into high-tier hotels.</p>
<p>For those looking at London, lower-end hotels are noticeably cheaper than the average price in either of the other two cities and hold a remarkable consistency in comparison too – making this a worthy option for travelers with the experience to find a good establishment in that bracket.</p>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<div> </div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scoring the Best Prices at the Last Minute</h2>
<p>Despite travelers’ best intentions, they don’t always have control over how far out they book a room. Therefore, here are some things to keep in mind to get the best room rates:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Book within the cancellation period:</strong> A hotel’s cancellation typically falls between 24 to 48 hours in advance making more inventory available for lower rates.</li>
<li><strong>Sign up for hotel loyalty programs: </strong>Regardless of when you book, loyalty programs often offer upgrades not available to others.</li>
<li><strong>Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach.</strong> As the data shows, last-minute hotel trends vary from city to city, so use this data accordingly. Plan ahead for times of the year such as November, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/mid-november-expected-to-be-the-busiest-time-of-year-business-travel">when last-minute travel is more likely</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Chris Baker
The Value of Automating Your AP Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/value-automating-your-ap-process
2020-09-18T10:54:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When was the last time you calculated just how much your company spends on vendor invoice processing If you were to take into consideration time spent on invoice reconciliation and...
<p data-id="0ecbd29f-1a57-4716-b57c-fbd30cd7cdf6">When was the last time you calculated just how much your company spends on vendor invoice processing? If you were to take into consideration time spent on invoice reconciliation and management, along with any late fees or interest charged to delayed payments, the total is probably enough to make you a little squeamish. Especially since many of those costs are avoidable with automation.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Is Your AP Process Putting Your Business at Risk?</h2>
<p>Take this five-minute, 15-question assessment and find out.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<h2 data-id="13773a98-7c0b-4480-88a6-c70228dc0555"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="13773a98-7c0b-4480-88a6-c70228dc0555">Finding the right AP solution</h2>
<p>But not all solutions are created equal. When looking for the right system, you have to look beyond automation to improve the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">accounts payable process</a> and scale for growth. Your AP solution must not simply help you shuffle “paper” faster, but actually improve your underlying processes for best-practice results.</p>
<p>And best-practice also means mobility. Your employees must be able to access vendor invoices, data, and reporting anywhere at anytime. With the ability to review and approve invoices on-demand and on-the-go, the flow of business is not interrupted and productivity is maximized. In addition, automation of the invoice lifecycle increases the speed with which vendors are paid, eliminating late fees and bothersome payment calls.</p>
<p data-id="e13b2d24-06bf-4d61-944f-4468798d557f"> </p>
<h2 data-id="5c67820f-bc72-418e-9d83-12227b756abe">The proof is in the research</h2>
<p>We were curious about how small and midsize businesses are working through AP challenges, so <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">we commissioned AMI-Partners to find out</a>.</p>
<p>In conversations with 420 companies across five countries, AMI discovered that automating invoicing gives you a precise picture of how money is flowing through your organization. Automation is a simple way to become more efficient, lower expenses, and lift employee satisfaction. Some key benefits of an automated invoice process include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Savings of more than $34,000 annually, or $1,100 for every 100 invoices processed</li>
<li>A 16% reduction in time spent on invoice management</li>
<li>54% of companies report automation results in improved analytics</li>
<li>46% of companies found that increased employee satisfaction was a key benefit of automated invoicing</li>
</ul>
<p>This is just the tip of the iceberg of the value businesses will receive from automated invoicing software like Concur Invoice. Businesses are enjoying benefits like better data visibility, improved compliance, scalability, and time and cost savings to name a few. Automation also saves headaches come audit time, as one AP manager at a large technology solution provider pointed out:</p>
<p>“When preparing for an audit, you have the peace of mind and comfort level that you’ll find the documents that you need and not have to worry that there is a handful that are not filed or misfiled.”</p>
<p>The time to implement an automated invoicing solution is now. In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, firms that don’t take steps to update their invoicing processes will miss out on opportunities for growth and will struggle to compete.</p>
<p><strong>Visit our website to learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/invoice">Concur Invoice</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment/">take our quiz</a> to see if your accounts payable process is putting your business at risk.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
From one CFO to another: The top 5 things I learned from the IDC whitepaper
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/one-cfo-another-top-5-things-i-learned-idc-whitepaper
2020-09-11T12:44:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Im a big believer in automation As CFO of Concur and throughout my career Ive seen the rise and fall of companies that dont keep up with the pace of modern business If your company...
<p>I’m a big believer in automation. As CFO of Concur and throughout my career, I’ve seen the rise and fall of companies that don’t keep up with the pace of modern business. If your company isn’t moving towards automation, you’re falling behind. Manual processes are becoming obsolete as industries move to cloud-based models.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And nowadays, companies can’t simply “automate” existing processes and call it a day. True automation means finding solutions that improve your processes, to increase efficiency and ROI. With the help of the correct application, employees are set free to do more strategic tasks, improving business and market competitiveness. This is particularly true for the finance department, where tracking and processing every dollar counts and ultimately affects the bottom line.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Every day at Concur, I see first-hand the value automation is bringing my company. Manual methods slow down the pace of business and hinder innovation. At Concur, we believe there is a better way to manage finance and accounts payable that doesn’t just automate your existing process, but changes the way the work gets done.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>But don’t take my word for it.</strong> In an independent whitepaper published by IDC, <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">The Business Value of Concur Invoice</a></strong>, Concur Invoice was thoroughly researched and analyzed on its effectiveness for finance departments. This 14-page document walks through detailed descriptions and findings from in-depth interviews with eight organizations that use <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> to manage and process vendor invoices. And while the overarching theme is that Concur Invoice has improved business and saved money, there are five points I think as a CFO you will find most valuable:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Mobility:</strong> In this increasingly mobile world, business happens anytime, any place. With Concur Invoice, individuals involved in any stage of the invoice management cycle can work outside of the office, having the ability to submit, review, approve, and process invoices on mobile devices. Eliminating the need for a paper process allows employees to work with invoicing on-demand and increasing productivity and not interrupting the flow of business.</li>
<li><strong>Time Savings:</strong> With Concur Invoice, the automation of the invoice life-cycle, intuitive interface, and decreased percentage of error, allows for substantial time savings for the finance department. The IDC study found on average, employees can be expected to spend 34% less time on tasks related to the invoice management cycle, including invoice-related data entry, managing vendor payments, performing audits, and invoice processing.</li>
<li><strong>Speed and Compliance:</strong> With automation, invoices can be paid faster (decreasing late fees and interest), human error is minimized, and compliance with company policy increases. The surveyed businesses found that by using Concur Invoice:</li>
</ol>
<ul class="indented-list">
<li>Vendors received payments 51% faster.</li>
<li>Delayed payments were reduced by 67%.</li>
<li>Employees following procurement policies increased by 32%.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li><strong>Competitive ROI:</strong> IDC’s Five-Year ROI Analysis (Table 7) chart shows the initial investment in Concur Invoice is far outweighed by the benefits. Not only is the payback period 5 months, but, over a five-year time period, they can expect an ROI of 505%.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1497997991630-screen-shot-2017-06-20-at-3-30-58-pm.png" /></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Business Productivity:</strong> The proof of staff efficiencies and cost savings can be seen in the numbers alone. The Average Annual Benefits per 1,000 Invoices (Figure 1), shows how the surveyed organizations benefited from the use of Concur Invoice. Over the period of 1 year, business benefits were $751,682 per organization, or $14,953 for every 1,000 invoices processed. In particular, improvements were found in productivity, invoice related cost reductions, finance and IT team efficiencies.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w475/1497998261593-screen-shot-2017-06-20-at-3-37-26-pm.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The business landscape is continuing to change at an increasing rate, and a company relying on manual business processes is going to find it harder to keep up. Delaying the move to automation not only costs you time and money, but also increases the risk of missing business opportunities. Now is the time to give your company a competitive edge. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">Read the IDC Whitepaper in entirety here</a></strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently"><strong>.</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Prevent year-end financial reporting meltdowns
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prevent-year-end-financial-reporting-meltdowns
2017-10-05T11:36:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the end of the year approaches tension around the office tends to rise Teams are hustling to wrap up yearend reporting so they can actually enjoy the holidays Finance departments...
<p>As the end of the year approaches, tension around the office tends to rise. Teams are hustling to wrap up year-end reporting, so they can actually enjoy the holidays. Finance departments can end up scrambling to account for employee expenses. Give your finance team the data they need by streamlining your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management</a>, creating a best practice process and using automation to increase visibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Start with a best practice expense process</strong></h2>
<p>Think your expense process is up to par? You might want to think twice if you are having a hard time accounting for your employees expenses. Rifling through a stack of receipts, or having to go back to the submitting employee for more information, not only delays your finance team, but it also exposes your company to risks. Not to mention, undocumented expenses can result in fines, legal fees and revenue leakage.</p>
<p>How to best solve this issue? Review your entire expense process from beginning to end, taking time to smooth out bottlenecks and clarifying any areas of ambiguity.</p>
<p>Ensure that every player involved understands their responsibility, whether they are submitting, approving or doing the actual reimbursement. CFOs will want to ensure the expense management process goes smoothly and rules are being followed, to not only reduce errors but also the risk of fraud. Whether you decide to set goals by department or create some internal gamification, create a culture of accountability, and get all your teams to work together towards a common objective. Taking this step now, before the end-of-year storm starts, is a great proactive step.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Make the move to an automated system, get much needed visibility </strong></h2>
<p>Still using a manual expense process? There is no better time than the present to make the move to an automated system. Anymore, the cost of implementing new expense technology makes up for itself in the time and money saved.</p>
<p>With an automated system comes the visibility your team needs to track expenses and properly forecast. Your finance team can get access to real-time expenses and data needed to make strategic financial decisions.</p>
<p>With so many work and communication processes going mobile to accommodate more employees conducting business outside the office, your expense system should adapt. Using a mobile reporting system allows your travelers to submit their expenses on the road. For example, allowing for employees to photograph and submit receipts before they get back to the office decreases the chances of lost receipts and incompliant claims, and increases reimbursement time, closing the expense cycle at an accelerated speed. This also gives your finance team the ability to capture expense data anytime, from anywhere.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>It all starts with education</strong></h2>
<p>Before you can begin to update your expense process, you must first educate yourself. It goes beyond having a firm grasp on best practices, to knowing how to implement them and lead your team through the change. Making the move to automation can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be, when the proper technology is put into place.</p>
<p><strong>Now is your opportunity to learn more at the Concur sponsored webinar, <a href="http://aef.argyleforum.com/TheCFOPlaybookonStrategyHowCFOTaketheLeadonStreamliningExpenseManagement">The CFO Playbook on Strategy: How CFOs Take the Lead on Streamlining Expense Management</a>, on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00 p.m. Eastern.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
From spreadsheets to the cloud: A global leader’s digital transformation of T&E
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spreadsheets-cloud-global-leaders-digital-transformation-te
2019-08-21T08:10:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Helping builders build better Bentley is a technology company that serves engineering architecture and construction firms around the globeoffering solutions and software that help...
<h2><strong>Helping builders build better.</strong></h2>
<p>Bentley is a technology company that serves engineering, architecture and construction firms around the globe—offering solutions and software that help accelerate project delivery and improve asset performance.</p>
<p>And with more than 3,000 employees spanning 50 countries—many of whom are consultants who spend most of their time in the air or on the road—managing T&E is a huge undertaking. In fact, T&E is one of its largest controllable annual expenses—second only to salary and benefits.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>The old way: Spreadsheets, emails and inefficiency.</strong></h2>
<p>Like many businesses, the process of “automating” T&E at Bentley began with spreadsheets and email. An Outlook template was used to request travel—once the request was approved, it would go a TMC for booking. And another form—in Excel—was used to capture and detail expenses and then get routed to managers for approvals.</p>
<p>And of course, this process came with its challenges—inaccurate data entry, inefficient paper shuffling and a lack of visibility into spending details to name a few. Bentley knew there was a better way, so in 2010, they turned to long-time technology partner: SAP.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>An on-premise solution from SAP.</strong></h2>
<p>Already an SAP ERP and CRM customer, the Bentley team found what it needed with SAP Travel and Expense Management—an on-premise solution that delivered big improvements to the entire process.</p>
<p>They were able to integrate and automate travel requests and expense reporting and make the entire process more self-service for travelers and managers. They were able to automatically calculate exchange rates and create workflows that matched how their business worked as well as the steps they need to take to bill their clients relevant T&E charges. And they were able to process, post and pay expenses all in SAP—from start to finish—improving efficiency, visibility and control.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Now that it’s better, let’s make it even better. </strong></h2>
<p>These were all great improvements, but there was more work to be done. After a few years , Bentley did some self-evaluation and found gaps still existed. And after surveying the team, Bentley discovered their users had some ideas of their own.</p>
<ul>
<li>Travelers wanted slick, simple apps and a single system for everything from booking to reimbursement.</li>
<li>The AP staff wanted to cut down posting and processing time that could consume as much as a week each month.</li>
<li>The business wanted to pull its regions and countries onto a single policy.</li>
<li>And everybody wanted the entire process to be more mobile.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>A move to cloud with Concur.</strong></h2>
<p>So in 2013, Bentley started looking for other solutions, and found Concur. Concur filled the gaps Bentley had identified, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>A cloud-based solution with automated, frequent updates and upgrades.</li>
<li>Multi-level approval workflows that could handle unique logic for requests and invoices.</li>
<li>E-receipts from airlines, hotels and car providers that go directly into Concur and auto-populate <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a> with itemized charges.</li>
<li>Automatic currency exchange rate and mileage allowance calculation.</li>
<li>Automatic calculation of special taxes like VAT in the U.K. and Fringe Benefit Tax in Australia.</li>
<li>Replacing cumbersome scanned receipts, with simple photos snapped with a smartphone through Concur’s app and automatically populating those charges and attaching those receipts in expense reports.</li>
<li>An audit service that double checks 100% of expense reports against policy.</li>
<li>Interactive dashboards, reports and alerts that deliver real-time analysis of spending.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>SAP + Concur: Better together. </strong></h2>
<p>On top of all these benefits, came integration with Bentley’s SAP systems. HR information from SAP SuccessFactors and cost objects from SAP ERP are pulled directly and automatically into Concur to automatically create and update employee profiles. Those profiles get sent automatically to Bentley’s TMC and GDS partners, so the information is always accurate and up-to-date.</p>
<p>New travelers don’t have to fill out forms before they travel. Their information is just there. When organizational structures change, the information is updated, so manager/approver relationships are updated.</p>
<p>And of course, the information flows the other way as well. So expense and spending details are updated in SAP ERP, and the business has an always-on, accurate view of budget status and planned expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Now it’s better than ever before. </strong></h2>
<p>The Bentely team is seeing the results its looking for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Their AP staff spends less time processing reports and more time managing spending.</li>
<li>Their TMC spends less time talking to travelers and updating information.</li>
<li>They’ve improved cash flow for billable expenses.</li>
<li>Their finance team has the details it needs to do in-depth analysis.</li>
</ul>
<p>And perhaps most importantly, they’re on a platform that will allow them to adapt and change their policies as well as their changing business. And it’s all a part of one SAP solution that will grow with them—wherever they take their business. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more, <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1429046/2DB42D470C395AFB9AC6B1B5D2C72A38" target="_blank">listen to this webinar</a> where Bentley shares more details of moving from an OnPremise solution to the cloud.</strong></p>
Erin Giordano
From Our Interns' Desks
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-interns-desks
2017-07-20T16:22:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each year the Concur Bellevue headquarters opens its doors to more than interns who are part of SAPs global Internship Experience Project known as SAP iXp Throughout the week...
<p>Each year, the Concur Bellevue headquarters opens its doors to more than 100 interns who are part of SAP’s global <a href="http://sap.com/careers/ixp">Internship Experience Project</a>, known as SAP iXp. Throughout the 10-week internship program, interns drive campaigns that hit the bottom line and help develop some of our latest technologies and products. We like to think of our interns as “disrupterns,” challenging us to innovate and better serve the next-generation of consumers.</p>
<p>SAP iXp kicks off the program with its annual North America Summit, a two-day conference joining more than 250 interns in roles within SAP Product and Innovation, Hipmunk, TripIt, SAP Ariba and Concur. Throughout the summer, they continue to partake in extracurricular learning opportunities and build connections within the business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more on internships, visit the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">SAP</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur</a> careers pages.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>In their third week on the job, we asked a few of Concur Bellevue HQ’s interns to share lessons learned thus far. Here’s are their reflections: </p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1500645270377-charliewatters.jpg" /><strong> </strong></p>
<p> <strong>Charlie Watters</strong></p>
<p><strong> Market Development Intern, Concur</strong></p>
<p><strong> University of Washington, Senior</strong></p>
<p><strong> Communication Major</strong></p>
<p><strong> Fun Fact:</strong> I lived in Singapore for the first four years of my life.<strong> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Starting Off Right</strong></h2>
<p>I had no idea what to expect heading into the first day of my SAP iXp internship. This was my first time in a corporate workplace, and my long-anticipated entrance to “The Real World.” With more than 100 interns starting on the same day, the lobby of the Concur Bellevue headquarters was buzzing with energy and nervous anticipation. We couldn’t wait to see what our first day had in store for us.</p>
<p>The day went by in a flash. We met other interns, learned more about Concur, tried (and failed) to understand the SAP login process, and were introduced to our teams. Before I knew it, I was back on the bus home with my first day behind me. I was relieved but overwhelmed. I realized it was going to take a lot of work to feel fully comfortable in my new position, and a lot of determination to make every second of this internship meaningful. Although I felt confident in my ability to succeed, the summer ahead of me was daunting. </p>
<p>Two days later, my perspective was refreshed at the North America SAP iXp Summit, a two-day conference held in Seattle. The Summit kicked-off with breakfast, a warm welcome from the iXp team and an introduction to leadership within SAP. Throughout the day we listened to panels and presentations, had group brainstorm sessions and worked in teams to build guitars for the Boys and Girls Club.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Lessons Learned </strong></h2>
<p>Leading up to Summit, I had been expecting two days full of tedious “leadership” activities and presentations. However, it took a different approach. We weren’t just learning about how to be leaders, we were engaging with and practicing leadership in practical ways. After going through workshops on emotional intelligence, design thinking, networking and nonlinear career stories, I walked away feeling like I had been prepared to make the most of my time at Concur.</p>
<p><br />
Since the Summit, I’ve reflected back on the advice and tips we received. It’s surprising how much of it I’ve internalized and use on a daily basis. From intentionally making connections and looking for creative ways to make an impact, to the smaller things like asking for help when I need it, I’m constantly putting the concepts I learned into practice.</p>
<p>I’m constantly pushing myself to go the extra mile on projects and have attempted to implement my Summit takeaways in every aspect of my internship. This set the tone for my summer, and made my experience better than anything I could have anticipated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1500645410360-amandaschmitz-1.jpg" /><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> Amanda Schmitz</strong></p>
<p><strong> Field Marketing Intern, Concur</strong></p>
<p><strong> University of Washington, Senior</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong>Fun Fact: I’ve been to 39 states and lived in 6.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Finding myself at Concur</strong></h2>
<p>Almost two years ago, I stumbled upon a company that focused on travel, expense and invoice. Entering my sophomore year of college, I hadn’t even taken a lower-division accounting class, so the terms “Accounts Payable,” “machine learning” and “automation” were all a foreign language to me. However, through a little bit of research and networking, I came to the firm conclusion that I wanted to intern at Concur.</p>
<p>A year-long internship and 47 school credits later, I again stood in the Bellevue office returning for a second summer. While I may have been questioning why I was up earlier than 10 AM, I was excited to be back, though apprehensive about how I would grow and push myself in my second internship at Concur.</p>
<p>I had been here for a year, and my growth and understanding of the business world had developed immensely, but could I really continue on that same trajectory?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1500645674451-bloggroup-1.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Three weeks later, I can, without a doubt, confirm that my growth at Concur has not stagnated. It’s beautiful to see the developments at Concur, too. A year ago, the SAP acquisition was still relatively fresh and uncertain. However, from my first day attending the North America SAP iXp Summit, I could see how the relationship between the businesses has truly begun to bloom.</p>
<p>Suddenly, I realized the work I’ve been a part of at Concur is serving a much greater purpose. From hearing executives speak on leadership, to building guitars for the Boys and Girls Club (Team Twenty-Thrive for the win), to learning about the applications of design thinking and meeting fellow iXp interns from across North America, it hit me: My personal growth at Concur and SAP was far from plateauing.</p>
<p>Two weeks later, I’m drowning in meetings, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. I’m unquestionably overwhelmed, but undoubtedly learning. From working with cross-functional teams and companies, to teaching myself Tableau and Salesforce (thanks, YouTube), my work feels small at the moment, but I am reminded that I am contributing to a bigger picture, and I am making an impact, even if it isn’t immediately apparent.</p>
<p>The opportunities here are boundless. There’s always a new skill to learn, a new market to research, a new problem to solve and a new person to meet. Two years after beginning my Concur adventure, I’ve moved on from learning what the term “Accounts Payable” means to being well-versed in business buzz words – and I can’t wait to see where this summer takes me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/third-w350/1500645700398-bingo-blog-concur.jpg" /></p>
<p>A bingo game that my table-mates and I played during the iXp Summit: I’ve clearly expanded my vocabulary.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1500645450227-anguselder.jpg" /><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> Angus Elder</strong></p>
<p><strong> University of Washington, Senior</strong></p>
<p><strong> Product Management and Strategy Intern, Concur</strong></p>
<p><strong> Fun facts:</strong> I love running, jogging and trail running.</p>
<p> Cheese and podcast enthusiast… (can you tell I am a millennial?)</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>On SAP iXp North America Summit:</strong></h2>
<p>What comes to your mind when you think of the words “conference” and “summit”? If you’re like me, you’ll probably think of icebreakers, PowerPoint decks, networking and hotel food. These thoughts were all racing through my mind as I headed to the SAP iXp North America Summit on June 14. While I did eat, network, and viewed plenty of PowerPoint presentations, the iXp Summit blew me away. Mostly, it got me excited for what I know is going to be an impactful summer.</p>
<p>Two things stood out to me about the Summit: The momentum is building at SAP, and this energy is primarily fueled by an environment that is people-centric.</p>
<p>The SAP iXp program has developed exponentially fast. Entering my second summer at Concur, I have watched leaders step up and set the tone for the program, and managers become active supporters of early talent. Most importantly, I have seen the iXp interns act as change agents for this massive organization.</p>
<p>While iXp is increasing in size like most tech programs, its focus on quality and the individual has truly allowed it to develop into something unique. The growth in the iXp program is congruent with SAP’s transformation into an agile, innovative tech company. Walking away from the Summit, a new set of ideas were racing through my head, and none had to do with icebreakers or PowerPoint.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1500645715348-blog-group-2.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Tips from my journey </strong></h2>
<p>My journey with Concur and SAP iXp started last year over a coffee chat with one of my mentors. She had been an intern at Concur a few summers ago, and while she talked about how Concur and SAP revolutionize business expense management, she shockingly didn’t get my attention until she started talking about the people. It’s this compassionate culture that made my first internship here a success and brought me back for round two.</p>
<p>I started off in Client Management which is the endpoint in the sales pipeline. From there, I sidestepped into strategy and then took another step into understanding the actual product this year as a Product Management and Strategy Intern. This experience has sculpted my leadership style, my field of study and most importantly my professional identity. Oddly, a lot of my realizations as an intern seem to be nuggets of common sense.</p>
<p>In high school, I became a fiercely competitive student and athlete, this followed me to college as well as to my internship last year. This mentality does not fly at innovative and diverse workplaces like SAP and Concur. Yes, as an intern we all want the recognition and a full-time offer. However, being competitive in the workplace narrows the scope and limits your impact. Thus, it actually slows down development. This year I have made it a point to mentor, connect with and help as many people as possible. In doing so, I have already received more gratification in my first three weeks than I did all last summer. My simple piece of advice: Collaborate, don’t compete.</p>
<p>My next nugget is a personal imperative that I am currently dealing with: Ambiguity. This is something I thought I could handle. I mean, I made it this far in my career -- I watched a TEDTalk or two, I should be fine, right? Ambiguity will always be in my life and what makes me so unnerved by it is:</p>
<ol>
<li>Making decisions without the facts.</li>
<li>Knowing that some of your decisions will be wrong.</li>
<li>Trusting yourself and your abilities.</li>
</ol>
<p>Once I recognized the root cause of why I struggle with ambiguity, I began to deal with my response to it. My advice is to break apart any problem you face into areas you can work on, and then go from there. </p>
<p>I’m excited to continue to challenge myself on a new team, learn about the end-to-end strategy of the business and meet great people. From happy hours to not-so-happy late-night hours, working on technical problems and my experience at Concur and SAP has been one full of development, humor and support.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the <a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank">iXp Twitter</a> page.</strong> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Find the Story in Your Expense, Travel, and Invoice Data
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/find-story-your-expense-travel-and-invoice-data
2018-07-06T11:37:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Employee expenses planned travel supplier invoices there are a lot of areas of spend for a business to track and manage If youre in finance it can be tricky to tie all these areas...
<p>Employee expenses, planned travel, supplier invoices - there are a lot of areas of spend for a business to track and manage. If you're in finance, it can be tricky to tie all these areas together so you can get the full picture into your outgoing spend. And without connecting these areas of spend, it becomes nearly impossible to effectively manage your cash flow, compliance and, of course, the bottomline. </p>
<p>Do you have crystal clear visibility into these areas and how they impact each other? Does your data show what's happening inside your business so you can make decisions based on fact? If not, you could be making important business decisions in the dark.</p>
<p>Take a look at this brief video to see why it's important to connect your expense, travel and invoice processes so you can find the story in your data and if you'd like to find out more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">visit Concur.com</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Five Very Good Reasons to Automate Your Accounts Payable Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/five-very-good-reasons-automate-your-accounts-payable-management
2018-08-27T09:24:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Among the most important processes a company deals with on a daytoday basis managing invoices is very close to the top of the list Given how critical invoice management is to fiscal...
<p>Among the most important processes a company deals with on a day-to-day basis, managing invoices is very close to the top of the list. Given how critical<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management"> invoice management</a> is to fiscal health, why are so many businesses trusting this process to manual methods like spreadsheets or a paper-based system?</p>
<p>A recent study from International Data Corporation (IDC) researched the costs and benefits of switching to a cloud-based, business-ready solution for the accounts payable process – and the results were clear. Below are the five best reasons, taken from the study, to automate accounts payable management:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Cloud-Based AP Solutions Are Redefining How Businesses Are Engaging with Stakeholders</h2>
<p>A more efficient and thoughtful accounts payable process isn’t only good for managing invoices. It also changes the entire dynamic of how a business runs. According to the report, the average time to pay vendors accelerated by 51% and the number of late payments to vendors was cut by 67%.</p>
<p>Far from simply improving vendor relationships, a cloud-based system also enhanced the experience for employees and managers who were responsible for submitting and approving invoices. As one of the study’s participants stated, “It gives the approvers better visibility because they can see what’s coming through as they get order notifications and reminders.”</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/thumbnail-idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions.png" /></div>
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<h2>The Business Value of Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Learn how SAP Concur customers are seeing a 505% ROI over five years and improving invoice management processes.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the Whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Manual AP Processes Are Slow, Inefficient, Fragmented, and Prone to Human Error</h2>
<p>Going paperless isn’t just a benefit that reduces waste on our planet – it can also increase efficiency and lower costs. Through ease of use, and lowering the risk of error, an automated solution enabled substantial time savings for staff responsible for supporting the invoice management cycle.</p>
<p>For example, one of the businesses that IDC surveyed for the report had a 10% general ledger coding error rate, which required workers to then create journal entries after the transaction to correct the errors. After automating their AP process, the error rate was reduced by 90% because the business isn’t relying on humans to remember all of the codes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Invoice Management Software Provides a More Accurate Picture of a Company’s Finances</h2>
<p>You can’t manage your finances if you can’t see them. Legacy solutions like spreadsheets or pen-and-paper reporting don’t allow for workers at different offices to get clear visibility into spending. With a cloud-based solution, one of the survey’s organizations reported that it “enables thousands of accountants across the globe to analyze their monthly spend and enables greater accuracy in our accruals.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Automate Accounts Payable Management Systems To Improve User Productivity</h2>
<p>By allowing users to submit, review, approve, and process invoices on mobile devices, cloud-based AP management afforded line-of-business employees an increase of productivity of up to 11%.</p>
<p>And overall business productivity wasn’t the only area of improvement; IT staff specifically also saw huge benefits. IDC projects that IT staff productivity gains are equivalent to $23,359 per organization – or $465 for every 1,000 invoices processed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Automated Invoice Solutions Are Proven to Be Cost Effective</h2>
<p>Business costs come in many forms, and some of them can be harder to spot than others. For instance, lack of compliance and late payments can cause unnecessary penalties and interest fees. Because an automated system increased efficiency and sped up payment times, delayed payments for the study’s respondents were reduced by 67%, saving on fees. On average, the organizations also saw a 32% increase in the percentage of employees following their procurement policies, which cut compliance penalties as well.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to IDC, for the businesses surveyed, automating their invoice process not only helped them gain efficiency and productivity, but it also provided big-picture data visibility and increased employee satisfaction for more effective operations and a better bottom line. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the report today</a> to get the full story then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">visit this page</a> to learn how connecting expense, travel, and invoice data in one place makes it easier to see company spend and make smart decisions.</p>
Rob Gubas
3 Ways Emerging Technology Can Benefit Your Finance Leadership
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-emerging-technology-can-benefit-your-finance-leadership
2018-06-06T12:17:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Small and midsize businesses have a lot of advantages over much larger companies For example small businesses are able to be nimble and make quick decisions and strategic pivots They...
<p data-id="13c87d20-4b40-4565-a6ae-108d5c559825">Small and midsize businesses have a lot of advantages over much larger companies. For example, small businesses are able to be nimble and make quick decisions and strategic pivots. They are often able to be more innovative and seize new opportunities quickly without having to deal with a large bureaucracy.</p>
<p data-id="4288cde9-289b-47b4-b148-d101942844f6">Though, of course, small businesses aren’t without their disadvantages. Leadership at smaller companies can become swamped with tasks that big companies typically outsource or automate. Also, frequently, small business leaders are skeptical about the benefits and importance of new technologies. According to a report from Oxford Economics, 74% of small and midsize businesses said emerging technology is increasing the finance function’s complexity, in contrast to 58% of larger companies.</p>
<p data-id="4288cde9-289b-47b4-b148-d101942844f6"> </p>
<p data-id="4288cde9-289b-47b4-b148-d101942844f6"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-small-and-mid-size-companies-can-boost-performance-through-finance">Get the report</a> to learn more about leveraging your size to boost performance</strong></p>
<p data-id="4288cde9-289b-47b4-b148-d101942844f6"> </p>
<p data-id="ddcc8c92-abc4-4e68-b1ef-39e7249beabc">However, the added capabilities that new technology offers can pay off by allowing your finance function more visibility, control, and efficiency. Below we’ve collected a few reasons new technology can help increase the effectiveness of your company’s finance executives:</p>
<p data-id="ddcc8c92-abc4-4e68-b1ef-39e7249beabc"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2042efd4-7645-4cb7-bf1c-0d86413be8da">1. New technology helps you scale</h2>
<p data-id="bcedfd61-e54d-4bd5-a732-0a26231c0d1c">As businesses grow, the amount of data they have to deal with grows, too. The more expenses your employees submit and the more invoices finance deals with, the greater the strain on legacy systems. However, according to the report, only 56% of companies with €1 billion or</p>
<p data-id="597b9ee1-6f4a-4954-ada8-448b840f6c6e">less in revenue say their finance function is automating for efficiency. The cloud, big data, ERP platforms, and analytics helps to automate cumbersome processes and centralize critical information, giving time back to finance leaders for more strategic partnerships.</p>
<p data-id="597b9ee1-6f4a-4954-ada8-448b840f6c6e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="98681c75-ae21-45b7-88a2-cd70830d10ff">2. Switching from your legacy systems presents a growth opportunity</h2>
<p data-id="297e3fca-eb56-40d6-a911-67bf160d402a">With 82% of small businesses saying that their CFO is increasingly involved in strategic decisions outside of finance, prioritizing finance executive’s time is a challenge. This is another area where technology can help. Automation and efficiency can free up leaders to focus on more value-added tasks and drive strategic growth.</p>
<p data-id="297e3fca-eb56-40d6-a911-67bf160d402a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="b42711ff-1bf6-4bf4-9f84-d4538ba13bee">3. With greater collaboration comes greater visibility</h2>
<p data-id="0ea0c30a-ca88-4bce-81ec-7c1b307d185f">Emerging technologies give teams access to more data than they’ve ever had before. As a result, half of companies surveyed say they are providing technology to promote collaboration between finance and other business units. Oxford Economics says that this “will allow finance executives to add more value in areas where they may traditionally not have influence or decision-making ability and help maintain the level of collaboration even as their company grows.”</p>
<p data-id="0ea0c30a-ca88-4bce-81ec-7c1b307d185f"> </p>
<p data-id="d5d9ba0a-f23e-44b6-aa77-235438e345c0">Taking advantage of modern technology, tools, and techniques can allow your finance teams to have a greater impact on the business. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-small-and-mid-size-companies-can-boost-performance-through-finance">Read the full Oxford Economics report</a> to learn why the best run businesses embrace the latest and greatest technology.</strong></p>
<p data-id="e584cb94-5afa-489c-8a0b-734af1b962d3"> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Backpocket Brewing mitigates risk through use of Concur Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/backpocket-brewing-mitigates-risk-through-use-concur-expense
2018-05-04T09:26:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Craft brewers are facing some pretty stiff competition these days As more breweries enter the space owners are faced with making tough strategic business decisions To determine their...
<p>Craft brewers are facing some pretty stiff competition these days. As more breweries enter the space, owners are faced with making tough, strategic business decisions. To determine their next move, <a href="https://www.backpocketbrewing.com/" target="_blank">Backpocket Brewing</a> first needed increased visibility into business finances, including employee expenses and travel costs.</p>
<p>Backpocket Brewing is a family owned business, with a 60-plus staff spread out over three locations in Iowa, including the company’s headquarters in Coralville, just a mile from the University of Iowa campus. General Manager Aaron Vargas knew the brewery needed to take some necessary risks on what to brew and how to promote their company to stay competitive. Making these decisions required financial visibility, including the ability to measuring resources invested in different markets, and the ability to analyzing ROI. Backpocket Brewing and Aaron Vargas turned to SAP Concur for help.</p>
<p>By implementing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, Backpocket Brewing now has the financial data needed to make risk assessments and ultimately move forward with strategic initiatives. Concur Expense streamlines employee expense and travel management, not only making it easier for employees to submit expenses through the mobile app, but also increasing the processing time for faster reimbursements. This automated solution makes pulling financial data easy, and allows Aaron Vargas to set-up dashboard views with the most up-to-date information at his fingertips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The craft beer industry is highly competitive. You can’t afford to get married to a style of beer or business. You’ve got to take chances. The story of us in five years will be that we’re a good family business, conservative, but growing because we’re not afraid to take a good risk. -- Aaron Vargas, General Manager</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Takeaway Tip: </strong>Integrating an automated expense management solution allows you to brew up just the right amount of business risk.</p>
<p>It’s National Small Business Week and SAP Concur is honoring our small business heroes. At SAP Concur, we create spend management solutions for all businesses, regardless of size or industry. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/national-small-business-week-sap-concur-customer-stories">Read more</a> about how SAP Concur has helped Backpocket Brewing and other small businesses overcome obstacles to build a better future.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Healthcare Organizations Integrate P-cards for Hands-off Processing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-healthcare-organizations-integrate-p-cards-hands-processing
2018-12-13T12:33:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The integration of organizational purchasing cards pcards has freed organizations in all industries from the pains of filling out paperbased purchasing orders Long gone are the days of...
<p>The integration of organizational purchasing cards (p-cards) has freed organizations in all industries from the pains of filling out paper-based purchasing orders. Long gone are the days of expensive, fixed processing costs and limited transactional control. Now, physicians and staff can enjoy more self-initiated spend while healthcare organizations redeem attractive rebates.</p>
<p>But as the number of p-card transactions continues to grow, healthcare organizations are looking for more efficient ways to increase the control and visibility into this category of spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Does manually managing p-card programs give you a headache?</h2>
<p>If your organization’s p-card process is outdated, you’re likely familiar with this scene: Running around the office to collect and gather hundreds of receipts, but, of course, one staff member can’t find their receipt and another staff member’s receipt is illegible from getting wet in the rain. Now your reporting data has holes and you have to spend even more time trying to decipher splotchy ink. And yet, you still have more receipts to gather, expense data to enter, and statements to approve. Weren’t p-cards supposed to make things easier? Couldn’t your time be better spent?</p>
<p>Manually managing p-cards is slowing down the AP process, causing you to miss out on the valuable rebates that were supposed to make your program more financially advantageous.</p>
<p>Not only are you potentially missing out on saving money, but a lack of control over p-card programs can also result in financial and risk-related problems, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>unnecessary waste</li>
<li>out-of-policy spending</li>
<li>fraudulent activity</li>
</ul>
<p>All which are more headaches to deal with in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Simplifying the p-card process with SAP Concur</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/p-card-reconciliation">Company Bill Statements</a> from SAP Concur simplifies and centralizes the p-card process, allowing you to gain more visibility and control over your p-card program. With an automated solution, the process from purchase to general ledger can be finished in a matter of days, rather than waiting weeks, so you can be sure to cash in on those valuable rebates.</p>
<p>It’s easy with Company Bill Statements, just:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Quickly capture</strong>: Assign charges to each cardholders’ statement.</li>
<li><strong>Automatically assign</strong>: Automatically give transactions the appropriate expense type.</li>
<li><strong>Validate and submit</strong>: Allow staff to validate their own transactions and submit reports after the statement period ends.</li>
<li><strong>Approve and pay</strong>: Check each statement as it still goes through your regular approval workflow before being extract for payment.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want a more comprehensive and robust view of all employee spend data? Integrate Company Bill Statements with <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur Travel and Expense</a>. Or check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/payment-solutions">Payment Solutions</a> for the ease and automation of corporate card payments. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
You’re Not Too Small to be a Victim of Cyber Fraud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/youre-not-too-small-be-victim-cyber-fraud
2019-03-19T08:16:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Were all aware that cybercrime exists and its a big problem Its so big in fact that the UK Office for National Statistics reports that cybercrime and fraud account for almost half of...
<p>We’re all aware that cybercrime exists and it’s a big problem. It’s so big, in fact, that the UK Office for National Statistics reports that cybercrime and fraud account for almost half of all national incidents of crimes. Here in England and Wales, more than <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018" target="_blank">half of all fraud offenses are thought to be cyber-related</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these numbers, it’s easy to bury your head in the sand and imagine you’re not at risk. Don’t be fooled. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017 carried out by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport revealed that <a href="https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/news-action-fraud-launches-24-7-helpline-to-combat-cyber-attacks-dec17" target="_blank">46% of businesses experienced a cyber breach or attack between 2016 and 2017</a>. Think about that for a moment. That’s nearly one in two businesses.</p>
<p>As someone involved in the finances of your organization, and whose daily work involves handling data invaluable to cyber fraudsters, it’s especially important to make sure you’ve done everything you can to protect your business against attacks.</p>
<p>So, what can you do?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Be aware of the risks</h2>
<p>The first step is to face up to the risks and monitor how the landscape is changing.</p>
<p>Here are some of the concerns experts are currently highlighting:</p>
<ul>
<li>Improvements to the process of opening a new bank account to make it easier and quicker may result in greater vulnerabilities while glitches are ironed out.</li>
<li>The Open Banking initiative has been designed to boost innovation in banking and make it easier for us to carry out financial transaction but it’s likely to increase the risk of data leaks too unless proper securities are in place.</li>
<li>Chatboxes used by financial institutions to make life easier for customers are being seen by cyber criminals as particularly open to attack.</li>
<li>Devices such as printers that harness the power of the Internet of Things are interesting targets, especially if those devices don’t have the proper protections and are used to store personal or payment data.</li>
</ul>
<p>But while the fraudsters get more and more sophisticated, that doesn’t mean you only need to watch out for the cutting edge.</p>
<p>Invoice phishing is still a frequent occurrence. Some reports estimate every SMB loses £1,658 to invoice fraud each year. (Take a look at some types of invoice fraud <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/newsroom/article/sneaky-tricks-of-the-invoice-fraudster-to-look-out-for" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>
<p>You don’t just face external threats either. You could be vulnerable from staff inside your organization, and offences such as expense fraud are depressingly common. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Put steps in place to control risk</h2>
<p>The modern world may present a wealth of opportunities for cyber criminals, but there are some sensible precautions you can take to mitigate against the risks they pose.</p>
<p>The UK National Cyber Security Centre has put together a <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/smallbusiness" target="_blank">guide for small businesses</a> that will help you improve cyber security in your organization – and get back up and running quickly if you are a victim.</p>
<p>When it comes to spotting incidences of fraud, harness what technology has to offer. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> automates the expense process, making it easier to enforce your spending policies and giving you transparency and visibility. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management" target="_blank">Concur Invoice</a> helps you protect against invoice fraud. To see how these solutions work for companies like yours, take a look at this <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/devon-air-ambulance" target="_blank">case study that explains how Devon Air Ambulance</a> is protecting against fraud with automated checks in place. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The takeaways</h2>
<p>When it comes to cybercrime and fraud, perhaps the most important thing to remember is that no business is too small to be a victim. And if no business is too small to be a victim, no business is too small to take steps to protect itself.</p>
<p><strong>To combat fraud that originates inside your company, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/fending-fraud-0">read our tipsheet</a> to learn best practices for fending off employee fraud. </strong></p>
3 Ways Mobile Applications Can Streamline Enrollment for Charter Schools
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-mobile-applications-can-streamline-enrollment-charter-schools
2020-09-13T04:26:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Throughout the past decade enrollment in charter schools has nearly tripled and continues to grow In and there were million students enrolled in charter schools in the United States...
<p>Throughout the past decade, enrollment in charter schools has nearly tripled and continues to grow. In 2006 and 2007, there were 1.2 million students enrolled in charter schools in the United States. Although the number of charter schools increased since then to more than 6,900 schools in 2016, there was still a very high demand for enrollment. More than 3.1 million students were enrolled in 2017, as stated in the <a href="http://www.publiccharters.org/sites/default/files/migrated/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/EER_Report_V5.pdf" target="_blank">National Alliance for Public Charter Schools 2016-17 report</a>.</p>
<p>This continued annual growth in both charter schools and its student body demonstrates continued parental demand for high-quality educational options for their children, and a positive evidence of a strong and growing industry.</p>
<p>However, along with increased enrollment comes increased costs, greater infrastructure needs, and a need for better spend management plans for school budgets. Due to limited budgets and resources, charter schools have some difficulties when searching for ways to cut costs while keeping pace with growing enrollment numbers.</p>
<p>The rise of technology makes it possible for organizations to focus on their mission, empower their employees, and grow through the use of automated, artificially intelligent tools. An automated invoice process allows Charter Schools to meet those goals with intuitive online tools and mobile applications, which track every penny in one, simple AP system accessible anytime and anywhere.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ensure the best cash flow to stay on top of your financials</h2>
<p>With the rising demand in enrollment, Charter Schools must improve on payments, reimbursements, invoices, fund raisings, and authorizations. By automating payables and reimbursement, Charter Schools can empower their staff and suppliers to better predict and manage cash flow. With a cloud-based, mobile invoice solution, they can turn paperwork into predictable cash flow by automating their invoice process, and track cash flow down to the penny by connecting invoice data in a single system. They can also get rid of manual entries that may generate errors and slow down accounts payable, which can lead to fees and penalties are a thing of the past.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take control over your spend</h2>
<p>Offering an automated, mobile invoice solution provides numerous benefits to the staff such as getting forward-looking and real-time insights into spend from invoices, travel and other expenses. Taking control and having visibility over spending opens doors for transactional savings and insights by applying actuals to their budget goals. Having access to greater visibility into spending makes it easier to track and control when payments are made.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expand enrollments, not your staff</h2>
<p>To leverage their business operations, charter schools need to ensure the elimination of wasteful spending, maximize their resources, and identify an efficient plan to meet their fiscal responsibilities. These tasks can either be accomplished by acquiring more staff or using an automated technological solution. A mobile invoice solution puts power in the hands of spenders and approvers with a simple, automated app that scales as enrollments increase, allowing schools to focus on their mission of educating young minds, redirecting money to education programs, and much needed time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Concur Invoice provides an easy, intuitive way to streamline the AP process for Charter Schools. To find out more about the benefits of an automated invoice solution, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/benefits-invoice-solution-public-sector">view our infographic</a></strong>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Prepare for Responding to a Duty of Care Incident
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-prepare-responding-duty-care-incident
2018-10-07T19:52:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In our fourpart travel risk management series weve discussed potential gaps in duty of care programs tips for filling those gaps and the role data plays in implementing a successful...
<p>In our four-part travel risk management series, we’ve discussed potential <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">gaps in duty of care programs</a>, tips for <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/nine-tips-for-filling-the-gaps-in-your-duty-of-care">filling those gaps</a>, and the role data plays in implementing a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/data-is-key-to-protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-your-people">successful risk management (TRM) program</a>. In our final installment, we turn our attention to guidance on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-respond-when-duty-calls">how to respond when duty calls</a>. In order to fulfill duty of care obligations when an employee or traveler finds themselves in harm’s way, a comprehensive plan on who and how to respond to emergencies needs to be in place.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Executing an Emergency Response Plan</h2>
<p>To be positioned to effectively respond to a duty of care incident, a master plan should be established. This should not be a plan you set and forget, but rather one that is continually tested and reviewed. Your response plan should include the following components:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Monitoring Around the Clock.</strong> If your organization is working with a travel management company (TMC), they most likely shoulder most or all of the monitoring for risk-related events. However, for organizations that do not use a TMC, you will need to coordinate a monitoring system with internal resources, or partner with a vendor that provides <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">a set of tools and services</a> that can monitor, alert and assist employees and travelers in need.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Establishing Response Roles.</strong> To successfully respond to an incident, your organization needs to define who will be doing the responding. You should coordinate a team of stakeholders with roles and responsibilities defined well in advance because, “When something goes wrong, time is not on your side,” as expressed in a report by travel management firm Reed & Mackay. The BTN Group advises that internal stakeholders be cross-departmental, and the GBTA recommends additionally that a leader and team be defined for specific types of incidents. External stakeholders should also be included (TMC, TRM provider, travel suppliers), and the traveler themselves should be a key stakeholder by training them how to respond in specific situations.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reliable Communications.</strong> Organizations need to be prepared with a multi-channel communications plan in the event technology systems are impacted or strained at the onset of an incident. If mobile communications go out, some organizations are now relying on text, social media and apps as a back-up means of communication. For a comprehensive communication strategy, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">organizations need a tool</a> that pulls together location data from travel itineraries, supplier and expense data, and a functionality that allows for proactive communications with impacted travelers and assistance providers.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Integration of Tools.</strong> As fulfilling duty of care obligations continues to gain priority for organizations, the tools they use for risk management needs to evolve and become more integrated with aggregating data from various channels, with traveler tracking tools, and with two-way communication tools for a seamless experience for responding to impacted travelers and employees.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Practice, Review and Repeat.</strong> A plan is only effective if it can be executed efficiently. Once a plan is in place with roles and responsibilities defined, and the necessary tools for responding to impacted travelers – organizations should establish clear guidelines and processes for employees to follow, and roll out practice drills for different emergency scenarios with all stakeholders. Additionally, after a plan that has been executed during a real response scenario, organizations should conduct a review analysis following the incident to make recommendations on continually improving protocols for future emergencies.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Your people are your organization’s most valuable asset, and with a comprehensive response plan combined with robust risk management tools and partners, you’ll be able to effectively locate, respond to and assist any employee or traveler who might find themselves in harm’s way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Download the full BTN report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-respond-when-duty-calls">How to Respond When Duty Calls</a>. Then, learn more about how to fulfill your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care with SAP Concur solutions</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: </h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">Be Aware of Your Duty of Care and the Increase in Traveler Concerns</a></h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/nine-tips-for-filling-the-gaps-in-your-duty-of-care">Nine Tips for Filling the Gaps in Your Duty of Care</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/data-is-key-to-protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-your-people">Data is Key to Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People</a></h3>
<p> </p>
Rethink How Your Organization Handles CME Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rethink-how-your-organization-handles-cme-spend
2021-03-01T13:00:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly working to enhance physician alignment and attract new talent in order to improve patient care quality grow market share and increase...
<p>Hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly working to enhance physician alignment and attract new talent in order to improve patient care quality, grow market share and increase revenue. As a result, continuing medical education (CME) is taking on a greater importance to attract talent and further quality measures, but it comes at the same time that organizations have to budget for changes called for under the healthcare reform.</p>
<p>And with competing priorities, it is essential to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to CME. By rethinking how your organization handles its CME spend, you can help your healthcare providers (HCP) get the most value out of their education so that they can keep treating their patients with the best care.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The importance of CME to physicians and organizations</h2>
<p>The movement from volume to value has made it imperative for physicians to perform at a higher level, overall raising the importance of CME in the healthcare industry. With knowledge expanding faster than our ability to assimilate and apply it effectively, the pressures on physicians aren’t keeping up with the pace of knowledge development. In addition to these pressures, ensuring the usage of the allocated allowance often takes the backburner and physicians may go over or not fully leverage their CME allowance. </p>
<p>Healthcare organizations can establish differences between themselves and other healthcare organization hiring practices by offering key benefits, such as life insurance, disability, paid time off and retirement, as well as physician-specific benefits, such as CME expenses, licensing, and medical malpractice. Most organizations provide an allowance for CME activities, but tracking the usage of this allowance has been nearly difficult until now. Most of the time an organization will provide employees with a certain CME budget to last the entire year. The process of tracking this spend, however, is in dire need of help.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tracking CME spend</h2>
<p>As you probably know, healthcare organizations provide an HCP with a CME allowance for a certain period. This budget covers all the necessary courses, conferences, and travel and is often manually entered into a spreadsheet to be checked at a later date. Every step of the budgeting process runs through this spreadsheet, which can be both time consuming and error prone.</p>
<p>How are your current CME expense processes managed? If it’s like most healthcare organizations, it’s not well. Here are three key problems impacting your CME expense management:</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>1. It’s incredibly manual.</h3>
<p>To keep track of the CME budget, if they do at all, HCPs will typically start by checking the aforementioned spreadsheet to see what they have available. From here, they can use this budget when and where they see fit. However, keeping track of every item to be expensed often means keeping stacks of receipts and paper purchase records to enter later.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2016, 59% of employed physicians and 54% of self-employed physicians spent at least 10 hours a week doing paperwork. - <a href="https://www.ethosce.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Ethos-eBook-103117.pdf" target="_blank">EthosCE</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Since each HCP must manually calculate and enter information each time they access their CME budget, not only is this time wasted but it also increases the risk of human error.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>2. There is limited visibility.</h3>
<p>If spend is happening inappropriately, you need to see it so you can try to prevent it. At any given time, you should be able to see what is going on within an HCP’s CME budget to ensure there aren’t any surprises, such as being over-budget due to a miscalculation, misunderstanding, or potential fraud. Without the ability to see where an HCP is tracking their allowable spend, this problem may go unnoticed. On the other hand, if your HCP is under-budget, they are leaving valuable money on the table. If you have full visibility into CME spend, you can reallocate funds to more patient-centric initiatives. </p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>3. Problems are difficult to control.</h3>
<p>Even with complete visibility into when, why, and what spend is happening, if you can’t control your budget, you still have a challenge. Effective CME spend tracking requires access and control to go into a budget directly and remove or add funds, while also having the ability to approve and deny expenses before they occur. The bottom line is that you need to be able to implement changes to a CME budget as you see fit, when you see fit.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take charge of CME spend with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Is your current CME spend tracking process up to par? Is it a straightforward process that affords you full visibility and control into all aspects of an HCP’s budget? If not, take charge of CME spend and gain control over your valuable time and resources</p>
<p><strong>To learn about how SAP Concur can help take the pains out of CME tracking, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/effortlessly-monitor-continuing-medical-education-spend">download our brochure</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Unexpected Advice About Implementing SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/unexpected-advice-about-implementing-sap-concur
2020-08-18T12:26:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We recently hosted a webinar with three finance professionals running SAP Concur in small businesses in the US The panelists shared their stories to help fellow small businesses learn...
<p>We recently hosted a webinar with three finance professionals running SAP Concur in small businesses in the U.S. The panelists shared their stories to help fellow small businesses learn from their successes and avoid their pitfalls, with some interesting lessons learned.</p>
<p>One of the themes was around implementation. What should people know about the process of implementing SAP Concur before they start? And how has it helped their business since? The replies were interesting – and probably not what you’d expect -- because the main focus was on people rather than the system itself.</p>
<p>Concur Invoice streamlines the entire capture-to-pay process, drastically reduces processing times, and gives organizations the control they need to make proactive business decisions.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>Discover how to track expenses quickly and easily with our interactive experience. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Here are three highlights that may be interesting to you too if you’re considering implementing SAP Concur (or any cloud-based technology at that!).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The system needs to come after the people</h2>
<p>One contributor had used <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> in a previous role at a much larger company and seen how much value it added. He knew it would work just as well in a small business setting and was keen to implement it in his new role.</p>
<p>But before he did, he wanted to evaluate his team dynamics first. He considered their strengths and weaknesses and the roles that suited them best. He looked at what was best for the company and the people involved and moved them accordingly.</p>
<p>It was only when he had got the right people in the right places that he looked to implement SAP Concur. Because implementing a new system becomes a lot easier when you’re working with people who love what they’re doing.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Happy people mean a better business</h2>
<p>The theme of a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/automating-ap-expense-processes-secret-controlling-stress">happy workforce</a> extended beyond making the implementation of SAP Concur easier. Another contributor highlighted how implementing <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> had saved his business millions in office space because employees were able to work remotely. But more important than that was the evidence in the employee satisfaction surveys that showed employees were happier and more engaged with the business because they didn’t have lengthy commutes any longer. Suppliers were happier too because they were being paid faster.</p>
<p>Another highlight was the accountability that SAP Concur solutions bring, which gives everyone a greater sense of involvement. Before, keeping on top of expenses was the responsibility of one person. They had very little visibility until an expense claim landed on their desk, sometimes weeks or even months after it had been spent. Now, expenses enter the system immediately and each person is accountable.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>SAP Concur is an investment, not an expense</h2>
<p>Another contributor stressed it was important to remember that SAP Concur is infinitely customisable. It means you can have a system that is tailored to exactly the way your business runs.</p>
<p>At the same time, he highlighted the opportunity to revisit the way your processes work and not replicate inefficient paper processes in a digital environment. He recommended taking the advice of the implementation consultant you work with and looking at ways you can improve and streamline the way things work.</p>
<p>Overall, his advice to anyone considering SAP Concur was to think of it as an investment not an expense. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Our own research shows</a> what a difference it makes to productivity and the time and money saved – 500 hours a year per finance employee plus an average of $30,000 per year after implementing an expense and travel solution, and $34,000 per year with an invoice solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation is a facilitator</h2>
<p>What I find most interesting about these answers is the way they show how automation is a facilitator. If you embrace it, it will not only transform your processes ,but it will transform your people too. It means automation is so much more than the sum of its parts.</p>
<p>If you’d like to get the full discussion and hear what else fellow small business owners had to say about SAP Concur, you can watch the webinar on demand (no longer available). </p>
10 Trends That Will Shape Business Travel and Spend Management in 2019, and Beyond
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/10-trends-will-shape-business-travel-and-spend-management-2019-and-beyond
2020-08-18T12:16:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With years of travel expense and invoice software innovation under our belts weve had a front row seat to decades of industry trends and technology advancements Looking ahead the pace...
<p>With 25 years of travel, expense and invoice software innovation under our belts, we’ve had a front row seat to decades of industry trends and technology advancements. Looking ahead, the pace of innovation will only continue to accelerate, fueled by smarter technology, evolving employee expectations, and an increasingly global economy.</p>
<p>As 2018 draws to a close, here’s what you can expect in the coming year, and beyond:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. The risks female travelers face will rise to the top of the corporate agenda</h2>
<p>Women make up more than 40% of all business travelers and that number is growing. Travel professionals agree that <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">female business travelers face unique risks</a> while traveling compared to their male counterparts, but what are they going to do about it? A recent GBTA report found that only 18% of corporate travel safety policies specifically address female safety needs. Because safety threats impact the well-being and productivity of female travelers, companies will need to place more serious emphasis on ensuring their corporate travel policies address priority female concerns such as sexual harassment, assault, and theft. At the same time, women will take the initiative to demand companies take care of them and this will become a key consideration for talent retention. – <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/kim-albrecht">Kim Albrecht</a>, CMO, SAP Concur </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Data privacy will fundamentally change product engineering</h2>
<p>In 2018, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-you-need-to-know-about-gdpr">GDPR fundamentally changed</a> how global technology companies work with user data. In 2019 and beyond, GDPR is now table stakes. Product engineers and developers are looking at how they can deliver both ultimate protection and ultimate personalization. Approaching privacy as a sliding scale vs. a simple model of opt-in or opt-out, opens the door to more possibilities for transparent data collection and machine learning. Concepts such as data washing and a privacy dial can allow users and/or their companies to increase or decrease the type of information gathered by filtering different levels of personally identifiable information. <strong>– <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/john-dietz">John Dietz</a>, VP, Concur Labs </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Shifting immigration and tax policies create new pressures on multi-national companies</h2>
<p>In 2019, there will be a growing focus on business travelers as a source of tax revenue, which has created new challenges for companies that send employees to conduct business across state and/or international borders. National and local governments continue to adopt complex worker-visa and cross-border tax rules in response to global trends on the movement of people and products across borders. An employee who spends a certain number of days in a calendar year in another country or state can trigger large liabilities on both the individual and the company, and potentially prevent business from being conducted.</p>
<p>For example, in Singapore, tax and immigration authorities are collaborating to check if a business traveler may have triggered a tax requirement during their stay, sometimes leading to temporary detainment at the border. In addition, U.S. states such as New York and California are increasingly performing audits, to identify business travelers who have crossed thresholds that make them liable for income taxes. Companies can also face huge financial liabilities – sometimes in the tens of millions – for violating visa rules, and there are reputational risks when those penalties bubble up in the news. This year, there will be a bigger need than ever before for companies to navigate these complexities and make sure they, and their employees, remain compliant. – <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/mike-eberhard">Mike Eberhard</a>, President, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. SMBs will gain a competitive advantage by crowdsourcing data insights, thought leadership</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/concur-business-travel-expense-invoice-predictions-2018">True to my prediction</a>, we saw technology help level the industry playing field in 2018 for SMBs, enabling them to be more powerful than ever before. In 2019, SMBs will continue to advance thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Due to their size and flexibility, SMBs will use this game-changing technology to gain a competitive edge over larger companies. They’ll grow by tapping into their professional networks to learn from thought leaders as well as crowdsource data insights that once wasn’t available. SMBs also will become increasingly diverse and we’ll see a rise in <a href="https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/Womens-Business-Ownership-in-the-US.pdf">women</a>, minority and millennial ownership. <strong>– <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/christal-bemont">Christal Bemont</a>, SVP and GM of Global SMB, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Business travel booking is still a time-consuming process</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.phocuswire.com/Time-out-business-travellers-still-spend-hours-on-travel-and-expenses">According to prior research</a>, almost 50% of business travelers take between 30 minutes and one hour out of the working day when completing expenses, while 18% spend between one and two hours. We believe that, in the next year, technology —such as bots and machine learning (ML)—will tremendously improve employee productivity. And that’s not just for travelers, but everyone involved in the process (e.g. travelers, managers, travelers arrangers, travel agents, travel managers). Some examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Anticipatory searches based on calendar information</li>
<li>Pre-request approval based historical information</li>
<li>Automatic classification of business vs leisure expense for trips involving both components (bleisure trips now constitute <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">10% of all business trips</a>) – <strong>Nancy Hang, Vice President, Consumer Travel Products, SAP Concur</strong> </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>6. Consumerization of business travel leads to massive shifts in OBTs</h2>
<p>Over the last 40 years, corporate travel has largely become synonymous with TMC administered booking programs (aka your company’s travel agent) reliant on one of a few GDS’. But as travel tools, options, and technologies continue to rapidly evolve for leisure travelers, employees increasingly expect business travel tools to follow suit. In the next year, Online Booking Tools will embrace new content sources to drive adoption, such as Lufthansa NDC Offers, Airbnb, and HRS Hotel Portal. They must also fundamentally evolve their platforms to allow travel managers to capture all bookings, regardless of where they occur, to manage compliance and ensure their travelers are safe. <strong>– <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/doug-anderson">Doug Anderson</a>, SVP Travel Product </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>7. Machine learning goes mainstream</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Digital%20Disruption/Harnessing%20automation%20for%20a%20future%20that%20works/MGI-A-future-that-works_In-brief.ashx" target="_blank">report</a> by McKinsey found that while few occupations are fully automatable, 60% of all occupations have at least 30% automatable activities. However, the gains delivered by increased processing power and greater access to machine learning (ML) tools by developers will extend well beyond the automation to include unique data driven insights, greater compliance and improved user experiences. In spend management, ML models that read handwritten tips and totals on receipts will replace legacy technologies like optical character recognition giving companies the ability to analyze and audit spend at unprecedented scale and speed. With the ability to identify patterns and anomalies across millions of data records in near real-time, companies gain the insight and agility they need when improving business processes, reducing costs or deterring fraud. – <strong>Tim MacDonald, CPO, SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>8. Hotel content battles heat up</h2>
<p>NDC airline content will continue to grab headlines, but even more attention and competitive effort will be devoted to hotel content. Historically the source of most managed travel program leakage, travel managers, OBTs and TMCs have long struggled to consolidate compelling hotel content that will keep travelers booking in the traditional channel. In 2019 the TMC’s efforts will start to gain traction, as the likes of CWT’s RoomIt and BCD’s TripSource battle third-party content aggregators like HRS and Booking.com. As long as TMC’s efforts are transparent and unbiased, everyone (except hotel suppliers) wins. Travel managers should see lower leakage, TMCs benefit from improved supplier revenues and OBT’s generate more bookings. Hotel suppliers, unfortunately, are likely to see their distribution costs increase. – <strong>Mike Koetting, EVP of Supplier and TMC Services, SAP Concur </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>9. Closer collaboration between CIOs and CFOs at state and local organizations will unlock funding</h2>
<p>Across the U.S., state and local governments have made clear strides to modernize their IT systems to overcome common challenges, drive greater efficiencies and cost savings, and meet the demands of the 21st century. In fact, the annual GovTech Navigator report shows a steady increase in IT spending among state and local governments, reaching $103 billion in 2018. Despite this commitment to investment in IT, many state and local governments still operate critical workflows using manual processes – many of which are outdated, costly and error-prone, not to mention less secure. The risks associated with these legacy systems are too big to ignore. With taxpayer dollars—and data—at stake, CIOs from states, cities, and counties will need to work cohesively with their CFO counterparts when looking to maximize their IT budgets over the next year. Focusing on making larger investments to support their automated technology projects—from cloud adoption to the deployment of AI and machine learning solutions will be critical. The collaboration fostered between CIOs and CFOs in the coming year will enable state and local governments to strike a balance between their IT budgets and their IT priorities, helping drive greater outcomes for the citizens in their communities. – <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/author/david-ballard">David Ballard</a>, Sr. VP Public Sector, SAP Concur </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>10. Higher education institutions can’t afford to overlook technology as a retention tool</h2>
<p>University leaders are facing increased financial pressure as enrollment growth slows, and traditional classrooms are evolving into remote locations extending beyond central university campuses. As institutions work to make the most of their limited resources in the service of teaching and learning, technology can tip them over the competitive edge. Deploying more progressive technology solutions will not only streamline campus and finance operations to create cost savings, but will also solve emerging priorities, such as ensuring the safety of students and staff on and off conventional campuses in the event of an emergency. Taking proactive measures to invest in technology that clearly demonstrate their campus values can help attract the next generations of prospective students. - <strong>David Ballard, Sr. VP Public Sector, SAP Concur </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Corporate Travel Can Meet Both Business and Traveler Needs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-corporate-travel-can-meet-both-business-and-traveler-needs
2019-03-04T07:32:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the last ten to fifteen years the pace of technological change has intensified exponentially and it shows no signs of stopping From smartphones to the app economy new booking...
<p>In the last ten to fifteen years, the pace of technological change has intensified exponentially, and it shows no signs of stopping. From smartphones to the app economy, new booking methods to expanding data collection, these advances have made traveling for business simultaneously more efficient and more complex.</p>
<p>But the main questions we want to address here are the following: Do organizations have the resources in place to keep their business travelers safe, even if they book through non-corporate channels? And what exactly is technology’s role in ensuring the safety of employees on business trips?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/report/field_pdf_image/11573-0.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Technology is Changing Traveler Behavior</h2>
<p>Learn what that means for managed travel programs and duty of care.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-technology-impacts-traveler-behavior-and-safety">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>The travel booking channel relationship to safety</h2>
<p>In an ideal world, travelers should be able to book however they want, right? It’s convenient, it’s easy, oftentimes it’s a traveler’s preferred method due to hotel or airline loyalty, or because they have a wider variety of options. However, it’s not that simple.</p>
<p>For instance, while it seems to save money for the traveler, booking cheaper rates through non-corporate channels can be costlier in the long run. Travel buyers are unable to capture data to leverage the volume that isn’t tracked and travelers themselves are unable to receive negotiated rates when booking direct.</p>
<p>Furthermore, when travel managers aren’t able to capture a full itinerary, it becomes even harder to serve an employee when an emergency comes up. That could include locating them at a moment’s notice, finding the best alternative flight for them if needed, or getting appropriately timed emergency alerts to them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-technology-impacts-traveler-behavior-and-safety">In a recent study</a>, the research firm GBTA found that as many as 80% of travel buyers don’t use technology to capture outside bookings. Nearly half of business travelers said that the only way for their organization to know where they traveled is through their expense reporting, which may not be updated immediately.</p>
<p>And finally, GBTA discovered that 38% of companies expected their travelers to manually forward their itinerary to someone in the organization. “Travel managers need a better way to capture complete, accurate information of all travelers on business trips in order to fulfill duty of care responsibilities,” GBTA says in the report.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Technology’s role in traveler safety</h2>
<p>What technological innovations would motivate travelers to book through corporate channels? The responses to this question might hold some clues. One-third of business travelers say efficiency is the number one priority in using their company’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">travel booking</a> tool, and many of them also said they want to have personalized booking experiences. But if travelers regularly book with outside suppliers, companies will need technology to offer personalized results that are in-policy, but also must provide ways to capture all traveler data.</p>
<p>Interestingly, though, despite the safety concerns around booking outside of corporate channels, travelers still have a high desire for safety features. Rounding out the top five most important elements of a company app are available support during emergencies (76%), destination specific safety alerts (74%), and travel safety alerts (72%).</p>
<p>Because travelers value these safety services so highly, <strong>adopting travel technology with these additional features could draw travelers back to using the company’s travel tools.</strong> This would offer them not only personalization options but would also give the company enough data to keep them safe – no matter what happens on their trip.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-technology-impacts-traveler-behavior-and-safety">Read the full report</a> to learn more about technology’s role in keeping your travelers safe on the road and how SAP Concur solutions can help.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Pack the Bus: SAP Concur Fusion Participants Impact the Lives of Thousands of Youth in the Greater San Diego Area
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/pack-bus-sap-concur-fusion-participants-impact-lives-thousands-youth-greater-san-diego
2019-03-26T16:18:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur our corporate social responsibility CSR mission is to provide quality education and digital inclusion for all youth We believe one of the best ways to bring this mission...
<p>At SAP Concur, our corporate social responsibility (CSR) mission is to provide quality education and digital inclusion for all youth. We believe one of the best ways to bring this mission to life is through hands-on experiences and volunteering opportunities. From internal company meetings to external customer events, we meet our employees and customers where they are with hosted CSR opportunities that offer the chance to exemplify our SAP vision of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1553617882695-bgc-csr.png" /></p>
<p>Earlier this month, approximately 1,000 SAP Concur employees and more than 2,300 customers and partners traveled to San Diego, California for SAP Concur Fusion, our annual customer conference. For the conference’s CSR activity, we partnered with The Boys and Girls Club (BGC) of San Diego on its Pack the Bus initiative. The BGC of Greater San Diego has an annual school supply donation drive with a goal of filling 1,000 backpacks to provide students with the educational materials they need for the school year. In partnership with employee and customer volunteers, the SAP Concur CSR team exceeded that goal by packing 2,000 backpacks, allowing BGC of Greater San Diego to concentrate their efforts and resources where they matter most, the students.</p>
<p>Many participants returned to the packing stations multiple times each day and a few volunteers packed more than 100 backpacks on their own. This passion for service exemplifies who we are at SAP Concur and what we do to uplift, give back, and positively impact our communities. In speaking with one customer at Fusion who had been through the packing line multiple times, he expressed to me that the opportunities to give back to local communities is why he remains a loyal customer of SAP Concur. A few customers remembered our prior packing event at Fusion 2018, and were so glad to see that an opportunity to make an impact was provided again this year.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1553618303377-bgc-csr-1.png" /></p>
<p>The BCG of Greater San Diego’s mission is to inspire and enable youth to achieve academic success, build good character and responsible citizenship, and make healthy lifestyle choices. The clear alignment of our missions around quality education and academic success made BCG of Greater San Diego the perfect organization for us to partner with during Fusion 2019. By providing underserved students with these supplies, we empower them to feel confident in the classroom and ready to learn, preparing them for their journey to academic success and beyond.</p>
<p>SAP Concur will continue to provide employees and customers with transformative volunteering experiences, connecting them with a deeper sense of purpose. We look forward to all the possibilities of making an impact next year at Fusion 2020 in Orlando, Florida! </p>
<p>The Boys and Girls Club of Greater San Diego has been serving the San Diego area for more than 75 years, with 65% of its youth identified as low income. In some locations, as many as 98% of the kids are low income. For more information, <a href="https://www.sdyouth.org/" target="_blank">visit BGC's website</a>.</p>
Julia Donovan
Interning at SAP: Your Top Questions Answered
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/interning-sap-your-top-questions-answered
2020-09-11T11:48:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You asked we answered We recently held a webinar for students interested in our US summer internship program in which we distilled our insider knowledge and had an open ask me anything...
<p>You asked, we answered.</p>
<p>We recently held a webinar for students interested in our U.S summer internship program in which we distilled our insider knowledge and had an open “ask me anything” session with alumni and a hiring manager. If you missed it, you’re in luck. You can <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=lobby20.jsp&eventid=1931645&sessionid=1&key=018435599B853F3E07D616FD30723455&eventuserid=228788553" target="_blank">watch the full webinar here</a> or read on for answers to some of the most common questions we received. Answers are aggregated from various SAP Internship Experience Project recruiters and program alumni who currently work full-time at SAP.</p>
<p>(In full transparency we received almost 500 questions during our webinar. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. If you still have a burning question, feel free to <a href="https://twitter.com/SAPiXp">tweet</a> or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sapixp/" target="_blank">Instagram message</a> us.)</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: As most of the students are filtered out based on resume, can we have a short note on how an ideal resume should look for an intern application at SAP? </h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Ideal resumes should at minimum list our your education and work experience. In addition, your resume should have correct grammar and spelling, and have formatting that is easy to read.</p>
<p>Metrics are always important. Don’t just tell us what you did, also show us the impact with numerical data. Make it personal if you can, include volunteer opportunities, passions, skillsets, etc. Make it pop with a fun experience you have had such as going abroad, a class you took, or whatever makes you unique.</p>
<p>We look for passion first, pedigree second! With that being said, putting any and all extracurricular activities, hackathons, ect. is a great way to make your resume stand out. In addition, don’t forget to add any tools or technologies that you may use in your studies as well. This helps the recruiter to have a better understanding of your knowledge and skillsets!</p>
<p>Instructions of effective resume writing and examples can be found across the inter-web, but some big points to cover on your resume include the “Law of PESWA.”</p>
<p><strong>P</strong>: Personal info</p>
<p><strong>E</strong>: Education info</p>
<p><strong>S</strong>: Skills (hard and soft, technology, languages, etc)</p>
<p><strong>W</strong>: Working/professional sxperience (also professional/education projects)</p>
<p><strong>A</strong>: Awards, accolades, achievements</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: Is housing provided for interns / Does SAP provide discounted housing?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> No, SAP does not provide housing for their Interns.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: How long does the entire application process generally take? </h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> We hire interns up until May 2019. You application can be processed at any point until then.</p>
<p>There are multiple factors that need to be taken into consideration: Number of applicants, scheduling, availability of the candidate and the interviewer(s).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: What is more important for SAP internships: past educational experience, previous work experience, or projects that have been worked? </h2>
<p><strong>A: </strong>Trick questions! These are all important! Not one holds a weight over the other, it just depends on how much you accomplished in any of the above, and what you learned and was able to take away from your work. They are all important, and when highlighted on your resume, each one can make it easier to secure a role. If you don’t have previous work experience, definitely highlight the awesome projects you’ve done.</p>
<p>Remember, it’s more important to consider the skills you’ve learned and how you’ve applied them in those settings. What did you accomplish using said skills in the workplace or in educational projects? Were there additional tools you learned in this journey?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: Aside from having a good working ethic and passion, what do you expect from your intern candidates in terms of skillset, knowledge of the industry, or experience level?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> We are open to all levels of experience. As long as you are willing to come in a learn and grow in your role, that is all we are expecting of you. Previous internships help, but are not necessary to secure a role with us!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: Could you describe SAP’s company culture?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Work life balance is key, mentorship is core, and personal development will always be provided.</p>
<p>The culture can be described as both hardworking, and a family. Each and every day we work together, regardless of backgrounds, roles, departments, or levels of experience to create the best products and experiences to both internal and external customers. We also celebrate each other’s achievements, push each other to be better, and interact with each other both during and outside of work hours.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: What are some of the day-to-day responsibilities of an intern? What are some of the projects you worked on as an intern?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> No two days are the same! A brand team intern shared that they, for instance, worked on social media campaigns and blog writing. They curated sponsored posts for LinkedIn ads, and boosted candidate engagement through social media. </p>
<p>Another intern shared that they investigated, researched, and provided solutions to various customer needs, collaborating with colleagues, and learning new products/solutions. Some projects included creation of a chatbot for low-level/high-volume help desk issues, a “scrub” of our knowledge center solution database to ensure all articles were accurate and up-to-date, as well as various small roles assisting colleagues with presentatio research and investigation</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: What are some ways past interns have incorporated their outside passions into their time at SAP?</h2>
<p><strong>A: </strong>We have employee network groups for employees to get involved in. We also offer fun opportunities at some of the offices like lunchtime running clubs and yoga classes! </p>
<p>One intern shared that their passion has always been technology, and while working as an intern they were able to increase their technology skills, incorporate new skills, plus learn about future and upcoming technologies and how they impact various businesses and industries.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: How would you define success in the role as an intern?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> To define success as an intern (regardless of position), as long as you are learning and improving you are succeeding. Regardless of your position of background, if you end your internship with more knowledge and improved skills then you started with, that’s success.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: What problems, if any, did you have to overcome applying to be an intern or while being an intern at SAP?</h2>
<p><strong>A: </strong>There are so many different intern roles out there! Make sure you know what you’re passionate about and what sounds interesting to you. Apply to the roles that spark excitement for you! It can be easy to become overwhelmed by the various roles and apply for many without fully considering your passion for those roles.</p>
<p>If anything, the internship process can increase your time management, communication, and collaboration skills as you learn to handle the commute, new software/job, and how to ask questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: Do you have any tips for preparing for technical interviews?</h2>
<p><strong>A:</strong> Come with all you have and give all you can and you will see the outcome as positive and productive.</p>
<p>Be confident -- even if you don’t know an answer. Confidence is key for interviews and life. If you have a question or situation that you are unfamiliar with, do the best you can and be confident in that. Also, follow up a question or situation that you feel didn’t go well, by showing/explaining that you are willing to learn more/how to do the function in a better way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Want to Grow a Business? Lay a Solid Foundation with Intelligent, Global-Ready Systems and Processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/want-grow-business-lay-solid-foundation-intelligent-global-ready-systems-and-processes
2019-05-28T07:56:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a finance leader you play a critical role in helping the CEO overcome barriers to growth and expand the business You can help drive business growth by Growing a businessJoin our...
<p data-id="e43cf51c-8dad-4b14-b201-c3be0d79bcee">As a finance leader, you play a critical role in helping the CEO overcome barriers to growth and expand the business. You can help drive business growth by:</p>
<p data-id="e43cf51c-8dad-4b14-b201-c3be0d79bcee"> </p>
<ul data-id="265e5025-88d2-40da-abef-6253ba83c1e0">
<li>Providing real-time visibility and insight-driven decision support</li>
<li>Coaching department heads on budgets and where to invest to achieve growth goals</li>
<li>Proactively managing and forecasting cash flows and spending</li>
<li>Freeing finance staff to pivot to the most pressing business issues hindering growth</li>
<li>Empowering your finance team to efficiently handle more work as spending grows</li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/concur-enterprise-cover-image.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Growing a business?</h2>
<p>Join our webinar with Oxford Economics to explore survey data and insights to help you scale.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://go.concur.com/NB_OxfordEconomics_2019-06_RegistrationPage.html?pid=oxford&cid=oxfordeconwebinar_2019-06">Register Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="fdc64d49-b4d5-4d56-a072-e6c38a9b1e91">But to do this, you need intelligent, global-ready systems and processes that are built to support business growth, automate manual work, and equip your finance team to be a trusted source of real-time insight.</p>
<p data-id="fdc64d49-b4d5-4d56-a072-e6c38a9b1e91"> </p>
<p data-id="8a2fa37d-8845-4b19-ae8b-f8a639fe9870">The problem is, most finance departments still do a great deal of work manually. In fact, companies still spend 60% to 70% of their time manually gathering consistent information analysis and insight before business decisions can be made. These inefficiencies distract finance professionals from focusing on growing the business – and in some cases, actually hinder it.</p>
<p data-id="8a2fa37d-8845-4b19-ae8b-f8a639fe9870"> </p>
<p data-id="a98c326d-3f69-485b-9985-9a9b87e8ee08">Consider, for example, how uncontrolled, poorly directed spend and fraud can prevent efficient, profitable growth. Your business needs cash flow to fuel growth initiatives, but without the right visibility and controls over discretionary employee spending – for example, travel, expenses, and invoiced purchases – these costs can quickly spiral out of control and leave little to direct toward what’s most important.</p>
<p data-id="a98c326d-3f69-485b-9985-9a9b87e8ee08"> </p>
<p data-id="c2d50ddf-4d44-4822-addb-efbd1743b2d9">IT leaders <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/finance-technology-leaders-take-lead-business-growth" target="_blank">can support your move to intelligent finance</a> by implementing next-generation digital solutions<a> </a>that exploit intelligent technologies and automation. By working with IT to implement an intelligent solution that integrates, manages, and automates travel, expense, and invoice management, CFOs can digitally transform spend management and support business growth. Finance benefits from having a single, near-real-time view into expenses globally, by team, and more, as well as the power to predict and proactively manage spending. This ensures that every bit of budget is directed exactly where it will have the biggest impact. Employees across the business benefit from simplified day-to-day tasks – for example, through the use of engaging, mobile apps for booking travel and filing expense reports. And finance staff benefit from built-in, intelligent automation that frees them to focus on higher-value, growth-enabling initiatives.</p>
<p data-id="c2d50ddf-4d44-4822-addb-efbd1743b2d9"> </p>
<p data-id="3a572fd6-09fe-4144-9f54-64d2d5acf226">Want to learn more about how you can take the leap to intelligent finance solutions that transform spend management? Read our latest white paper: <a>“</a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/scaling-travel-expense-and-invoice-management-for-growth" target="_blank">Scaling Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management for Growth: How CFO-CIO Collaboration Can Bring Intelligence to Spend Management.</a>"</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Customer Success Story: How NEC Reduces Time Spent on T&E Management by 40%
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/customer-success-story-how-nec-reduces-time-spent-te-management-40
2019-10-17T09:52:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As one of Japans largest IT and network solution and service providers and the fourthlargest PC manufacturer in the world NEC Corporation knows firsthand the importance of simple...
<p>As one of Japan’s largest IT and network solution and service providers and the fourth-largest PC manufacturer in the world, NEC Corporation knows first-hand the importance of simple internal processes coupled with efficient, effective business operations. To help it achieve this mission internally and stay competitive in the global market, NEC created NEC Management Partner.</p>
<p>Serving business customers in more than 50 countries around the world, NEC employees take a combined total of roughly 1 million business trips each year. So, when NEC Management Partner figured out this was adding up to more than 70,000 hours of travel and expense administration annually, it set out to find a better way.</p>
<p>The answer was SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>By allowing employees to take pictures of receipts and submit them through a mobile app, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">travel and expense management</a> is easier for travelers, managers, and auditors alike. In fact, since deploying SAP Concur solutions, NEC has reduced the amount of admin time for travel by roughly 40% – adding up to annual savings of ¥200 million (US$1.8 million) per year.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are also allowing NEC to better pack travel spend. Previously, employees made travel arrangements offline. Now, thanks to integration with most travel management companies, corporate credit card providers, and global distribution systems, travelers can book flights, cars, hotels, and trains right from the app. And, once the trip is booked, they can manage details such as flight delays, cancellations, date changes, and baggage claim locations. Not only does this mean greater convenience for travelers, it provides NEC with a central source of spend data that can be used to track and analyze purchases, improve spending behaviors, and reduce travel expense cost overall.</p>
<p>Another key benefit of SAP Concur solutions for NEC is the e-Bunsho timestamp feature, which allows Japanese administrators to configure receipt time-stamping for groups of users. The validation process for monitoring received, pending, requested, and ineligible timestamps allows NEC administrators to maintain best-practice legal compliance without going through each individual receipt.</p>
<p>Cost and time savings aside, NEC is concerned with more than just the bottom line. Keeping business travelers safe is also a top priority. With powerful employee risk management and safety communication functionality, SAP Concur solutions are able to help on that front, too. In fact, when a major earthquake hit Taiwan, NEC was able to use these features to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">confirm every employee’s whereabouts</a> and safety in a matter of hours – a process that normally would have taken two to three days.</p>
<p>By easing travel, saving time, cutting costs, and improving safety, NEC is able to deliver on its promise of "Better Products, Better Services."</p>
<p>Watch the video above to hear the full story of how NEC is innovating travel and expense management for itself and its customers.</p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can simplify travel and expense management for your business, see all of our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/index">case studies</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
SAP Concur Continues our Commitment to Travel with TripLink and TripIt Innovations
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-continues-our-commitment-travel-triplink-and-tripit-innovations
2021-01-04T10:36:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At the GBTA Conference this year were excited to share new updates to TripLink and TripIt as we focus on delivering optimal experiences for travelers and travel managers Today were...
<p>At the GBTA Conference this year, we’re excited to share new updates to TripLink and TripIt as we focus on delivering optimal experiences for travelers and travel managers.</p>
<p><strong>Today, we’re happy to announce that more than 400 hotel properties around the world have joined our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> network</strong> through expanded integrations with major hotel groups Accor, Hyatt, IHG and Marriott. Our 8.9 million TripLink eligible users and more than 13,000 companies will be able to capture hotel bookings made outside of Concur Travel to gain immediate visibility into travel spend and ensure application of policy, while also offering greater flexibility to business travelers.</p>
<p>Capturing supplier-direct booking remains a priority for travel managers. In a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">recent poll conducted with GBTA Foundation</a>, we found 71 percent of travel buyers will own technology that captures direct bookings within the next year. TripLink, the first industry solution to extend managed travel programs to outside bookings, continues to grow with more than 28 major partners worldwide representing airlines, hotels, ground transportation and rail providers.</p>
<p>With this expansion, the <strong>following hotel brands are now part of TripLink: Fairmont Hotels & Resorts; Raffles Hotels & Resorts; Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts; Thompson Hotels; Alila Hotels & Resorts; Joie de Vivre Hospitality; Kimpton Hotels; The Ritz-Carlton.</strong></p>
<p>Because TripLink connects trips, travelers and itineraries across multiple channels, it also allows companies to ensure traveler safety by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency.</p>
<p>One of the most popular elements of the TripLink offering is access to TripIt Pro, which improves traveler satisfaction and brings itineraries back into SAP Concur. As we continue to invest in the traveler experience, safety remains a priority across our innovations. Last year, we announced <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2018/12/neighborhood-safety-scores-and-international-travel-tools.html">TripIt Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> powered by GeoSure™, which gives travelers real-time safety ratings of more than 40,000 neighborhoods worldwide so they can make more informed choices on the road. We’ve received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from travelers, who find comfort in the information we provide and feel more prepared when exploring a new place.</p>
<p>With this, <strong>we’re excited to announce that new functionality for neighborhood safety scores will be available next month to help make safer decisions when traveling. Because neighborhoods can drastically change between day and night, travelers will soon have a new AM/PM view. </strong>This will help illustrate how time of day impacts the safety of each neighborhood.</p>
<p>Additionally, our LGBTQ safety score category helps users learn the likelihood of discrimination or harm an LGBTQ person may face in certain neighborhoods, directly within TripIt.</p>
<p>Over the last few months TripIt has also released <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2019/06/tripit-announces-new-smart-speaker-commands.html">integrations</a> with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant smart speakers, which make travel details available via voice commands, and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2019/05/travel-apps-for-apple-watch-tripit.html">expanded features</a> on the TripIt app for Apple Watch including complications for watch faces and a redesigned itinerary view to show more trip items.</p>
<p>We’re excited to continue to innovate and expand our partner network, working toward delivering the perfect trip for our travelers and optimal control and visibility for travel managers.</p>
<p>For more information about TripLink, visit <a href="http://www.Concur.com/TripLink">www.Concur.com/TripLink</a> and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web">https://www.tripit.com/web</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SMB Leaders: Do You Really Know How Much Manually Managing Company Spend Costs Your Business?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/smb-leaders-do-you-really-know-how-much-manually-managing-company-spend-costs-your
2019-10-18T08:47:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Managing company spend is a hot topic today especially among small and midsize businesses SMBs because cash flow is key to driving profitable growth But are you optimizing how you...
<p>Managing company spend is a hot topic today – especially among small and midsize businesses (SMBs) – because cash flow is key to driving profitable growth. But are you optimizing how you manage it?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1556667468289-nsbw_ebook_automating_recipe_growth_cover.PNG" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Value of Automated Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">Read the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In the age of Big Data, digital transformation, and automation, this requires intelligent automation to provide companywide visibility across travel, expenses, and vendor (or supplier) spend. SMBs that fail to modernize their processes place themselves at high risk on many fronts – most notably, through wasted time and spiraling indirect costs that can derail growth strategies and drain working capital. Put simply, wasted time equals wasted money, and what SMB can afford that?</p>
<p>According to a new survey conducted by AMI-Partners, leaders of small and midsize organizations agree. They cited their top challenges related to time as:</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1571333238479-ami-partners-1.png" /></p>
<p>These challenges share a common thread: they result in lost time and financial opportunities due to inefficient travel, expense, and vendor invoice management processes. Traditional methods such as spreadsheets or pen and paper for tracking and managing expenses and vendor invoices are inherently slow, cumbersome, and costly. This becomes more evident as companies begin to grow beyond 50 employees. Manual travel, expense, and vendor invoice management impedes growth and scale because it requires that time spent by finance and accounting teams increase proportionately to the overall growth of the firm. More time means higher costs.</p>
<p>But perhaps you’re asking yourself – how much is all of this REALLY costing my business? Is it so much that it’s worth spending the money on an automated travel, expense, and vendor invoice management solution?</p>
<p>The AMI-Partners’ study looked more closely at the true costs of manual processes through the lens of the challenges firms face prior to automating their travel, expense, and invoice management. And they found that the costs can be categorized into three key areas:</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1571333149746-amo-partners-2.jpg" /></p>
<p>More evidence of the cost of manual processes is the hard savings realized after companies deploy T&E automation solutions – especially by users of SAP Concur. According to AMI-Partners, SMBs using T&E solutions save over US$31,000 per year after implementation. Firms using Concur Expense reported greater average savings of $40,000 per year. Companies implementing vendor invoice management solutions saw similar cost savings. The average annual dollar savings was nearly $34,000. Firms using Concur Invoice indicated that they are saving over $42,000 annually.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: There are inherent challenges related to implementing a new automation solution, including the onboarding and training of employees. And it takes time to learn a new system. But these challenges should not discourage you from implementing automated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions or taking a further step of integrating across various processes. The benefits of automation significantly outweigh any cost of implementation, and there is a considerable return on investment once you adopt automated T&E and vendor invoice solutions.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more, read the new paper from AMI-Partners: T<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">he Value of Automated Travel, Expense and Invoice Management: A Before-and-After Look at the Small-to-Midsize Business Cost of Manually Managing Company Spend and the ROI of Automating These Processes</a>.</strong></p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Ask the Experts: Is My Fraud Prevention and Detection Best-In-Class?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ask-experts-my-fraud-prevention-and-detection-best-class
2020-09-13T04:22:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
PwCs Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey finds that of organizations globally have been a victim of fraud an increase from the surveys previous Its no surprise then that with...
<p>PwC’s 2018 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey finds that 49% of organizations globally have been a victim of fraud, an increase from the survey’s previous 36%. It’s no surprise then, that with instances of fraud rising, your organization may be at risk.</p>
<p>Savvy companies are looking closer at their travel and expense (T&E) spend areas as a way to prevent or find fraud schemes. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/acfe-webinar-tips-for-identifying-travel-entertainment-expense-fraud">In a recent ACFE webinar</a>, attendees asked T&E experts for their perspective on fraud tips, tricks, and how to build a best-in-class T&E program. Here are some of the questions from fraud examiners with answers from our experts:</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Cost of Doing Nothing eBook</h2>
<p>Discover the dangers and costs of sticking with the status quo. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough">Download</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Building a fraud-proof expense policy</h2>
<p><strong>How do you handle compliance with expense policies, globally?</strong></p>
<p>Some companies have an overall global policy, but then allow for country or regional exceptions, while others set up multiple policies within SAP Concur. SAP Concur has global service centers to assist with specific location regulations and languages. We focus on your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">T&E policy</a> requirements and provide guidance on our internal best practices for that specific location.</p>
<p><strong>Where do gifts to customers and vendors fall in your compliance program? Are gifts included in the entertainment side of T&E?</strong></p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we see many “gifts” fall into the T&E area. We encourage clients to include an audit rule that enables the expense submitter to add in if the “gift” is for clients, internal employees, or government officials. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/fcpa-compliance">Foreign Corruptions Practices Act (FCPA)</a> in the U.S. and other similar laws in other countries are pushing companies to call out “gifts” to government officials to ensure compliance and show that they have financial controls in place.</p>
<p><strong>How do you deal with different rules for employees and senior management?</strong></p>
<p>It is very common for a company to have multiple policies – it could be based on employee versus senior management, employee location, or department. Flexibility to have specialized configurations is one of the great things about SAP Concur.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Making expense reports a breeze</h2>
<p><strong>What are the features you use on the front-end of expense reporting; what does your company do before any expense is even submitted by an employee?</strong></p>
<p>Recommend using expense type limits and audit rules to help guide the employee prior to them submitting the report. Our clients find “tool tips” that enable employees to “hover over text” extremely helpful to help guide them along the way.</p>
<p><strong>What if employees aren’t looking at policy notifications based on audit rules within their reports? </strong></p>
<p>If the employees aren’t looking at the “pop ups,” you should consider looking at how your audit rules are set up. Warnings would still allow the report to be submitted and hard stops would prevent the report from being submitted. If you want to change behavior, you may have to have a hard stop unless they add a comment, then it would be a warning but would still allow the report to be submitted.</p>
<p><strong>What’s the value of automatically feeding corporate card expenses to an expense report, versus manually inputting the charge?</strong></p>
<p>It’s awesome when you can make it easy for employees to submit their expenses by having the credit card feed into their expense report. It’s also advantageous for the company, as it reduces errors and captures actual spend, thus reducing fraud. At times there is still a need for itemized receipts and other detail. For example, hotel stays require detail regardless if there is a credit card transaction and credit card receipt and so do business meals with attendees.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Auditing expenses easily</h2>
<p><strong>How do you best educate the senior management who question expense processors with an intimidating tone?</strong></p>
<p>To avoid having internal departments manage any expenses from senior-level managers, we have seen companies use external auditors to view executive-level expense reports. The third party also manages any inquiries around this group’s expenses and explains when expenses fall out of policy. Companies often prefer this independent review, as it enables the internal team to focus on other areas. Also, this shows board members, stockholders, and other external stakeholders that the company has systems in place to manage compliance and fraud at senior levels.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_SecurityIncidentServers_R_blue2.png" />
<p>What's the cost of unseen fraud?</p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/compliance-and-fraud-what-you-cant-see-can-cost-you">Read the blog</a></p>
</div>
<p><strong>What are the recommended penalties for employees who are committing travel fraud?</strong></p>
<p>We’ve heard clients come up with various ways to penalize and educate employees who commit travel fraud. Some have a “three strikes you’re out” policy, while others leave it to the direct report’s manager to come up with the consequences. At times, human resources will intervene especially when it’s a high-dollar expense. Companies have also found that if an employee is committing fraud in travel and expense areas, then other areas such as time reporting should be looked at as well to uncover if there’s any other fraudulent activity.</p>
<p><strong>Our company has moved away from manager approval due to low review rates and uses artificial intelligence (AI) for detection instead. What are your thoughts on employee experience and friction compared to fraud prevention and detection? How do you walk that fine line?</strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur has partnered with AppZen on the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a> service – an AI driven solution – to allow clients using their own internal teams for fraud and anomaly checks to be more efficient. These internal teams are sometimes also used to do the compliance checks, so Detect allows them to remove the tedious “receipt validation” step and only focus on those identified as a potential invalid transaction. Agree that many supervisors do not check employee expenses. We actually have a report that’s popular with clients that shows who is opening/viewing expense reports prior to approval. If you set up proper controls upfront using audit rules that make sense for your industry and company, then employees should be limited in being able to submit out of policy expenses.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Building a fraud detection and prevention program that’s best-in-class</h2>
<p>Ensuring your organization is effectively prepared to prevent and detect fraud within your T&E program is no easy task. But thinking your policies and technologies are “good enough” because you haven’t had a major issue yet, or fully trust your employees is creating a gateway for fraudsters. Remember, instances of organizational fraud are rising, after all.</p>
<p>To respond to these modern challenges, you need a modern solution. One that automates the T&E process from start to finish, integrates all of your spend channels, and ensures you’re proactively reporting on spend trends.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about the steps you can take to improve your fraud prevention and detection game, check out our ACFE webinar </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/building-best-in-class-fraud-detection"><strong>executive briefing</strong></a><strong>. Additionally, discover the dangers of sticking with the status quo by </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough" target="_blank"><strong>reading about the cost of doing nothing</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Management: What’s Keeping Finance Leaders Up at Night?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-management-whats-keeping-finance-leaders-night
2020-09-18T10:47:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Taking care of employees can be a challenge on a good day But when theyre on the road running into everything from the annoyance of cancelled flights to the violence of political...
<p>Taking care of employees can be a challenge on a good day. But when they’re on the road, running into everything from the annoyance of cancelled flights to the violence of political unrest, connecting with and protecting them is crucial.</p>
<p>Any travel can place employees at risk – especially <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/research-reveals-top-concerns-among-business-travelers" target="_blank">women and LGBTQ+ individuals</a> – but when disruptions make international news, awareness of business travel’s significance as a function, a category of business spend, and a legal and moral responsibility are on full display. Other recent shifts in everything from tax laws to employee experience expectations have also put the spotlight on corporate travel. For example, major new taxation policies have been rolled out that will necessitate the embedding of compliance into core business processes, including those supporting travel management. At the same time, traveler safety and well-being has been tied closely to employee satisfaction and retention; increasingly, workers want to know that the companies sending them out, potentially into harm’s way, care about them and are well prepared to help them stay safe through timely information sharing, safety resources, location monitoring and communications, and more.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1581012026143-284612_traveller_female_r_green.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Report: Executives in Travel Management Grapple with Concerns</h2>
<p>Discover what concerns executive-level stakeholders have about their internal company programs.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/executive-stakeholders-in-managed-travel-grapple-with-multiple-concerns">Get Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/executive-stakeholders-in-managed-travel-grapple-with-multiple-concerns" target="_blank">a 2019 online survey</a> of 50 chief financial officers (CFOs) conducted by BTN Group Content Solutions and sponsored by the SAP Concur organization, finance leaders have many concerns about their corporate travel management programs. The study found that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Traveler safety and well-being was cited as the top concern by the biggest percentage of respondents (44%), including 54% of CEOs and COOs surveyed.</li>
<li>Traveler satisfaction is also a top concern for CEOs and COOs (39%), HR leaders (33%) procurement executives (26%), and finance leaders (24%).</li>
<li>Controlling costs to align with budgets was identified as a top concern by finance executives (44%), HR leaders (49%), and procurement executives (50%).</li>
<li>Just over one-third (34%) of finance executives cited travel policy compliance as a high-priority concern.</li>
</ul>
<p>Overshadowing these concerns are broader threats that could impede international travel, such as an economic downturn, terrorism, over-regulation, exchange rate volatility, cyber threats, and even geopolitical uncertainty and climate change.</p>
<h2>What’s the best way to address these concerns? </h2>
<p>These are big travel management issues with huge potential impacts on your business. The question is, as a finance leader, how can you address them systematically and effectively? SAP Concur experts recommend a two-pronged approach.</p>
<p>First, work closely with your travel manager.<br />
No one is better able to partner with you to address these concerns than your company’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-travel-managers-are-business-superheroes" target="_blank">travel manager</a>. They don't simply choose booking tools and enforce policies; today, they open the door to a whole new world of opportunities for your organization and play an increasingly strategic role as navigators and evaluators of changing technologies and complexities of the travel industry. They understand that the travel they manage impacts multiple business processes and priorities across the company – from regulatory practices and compliance to budgets, payroll and expense reimbursement, tax, traveler safety, and VAT reclaim. And they are increasingly prioritizing the end-to-end traveler experience to ensure employee satisfaction, safety, and well-being. So, you can engage with them on many levels to address the concerns that keep you – and fellow executive leaders – up at night about travel management.</p>
<h2>Second, invest in state-of-the-art travel management solutions.</h2>
<p>Forward-thinking CFOs and travel managers are seeking intelligent travel management solutions that are business ready, meaning they provide greater business performance, visibility, and user-friendly experiences today – and drive innovation for tomorrow. These solutions can help companies address key travel trends, such as employee expectations for simple, mobile-first user travel booking experiences, freedom to user their preferred online channels and suppliers, and high-quality duty of care anywhere, anytime. In addition, intelligent travel management solutions can transform how you gain visibility into travel spend, enable employees to track and file expenses, and support compliance with corporate, legal, and tax requirements. For example, SAP Concur solutions for travel and expense management empower stakeholders to monitor travel spend in real time, effectively control costs, and provide exceptional duty of care for every employee around the world.</p>
<p>To learn more about what your peers are concerned on the travel front, read the paper, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/executive-stakeholders-in-managed-travel-grapple-with-multiple-concerns" target="_blank">Executive Stakeholders in Managed Travel Grapple with Multiple Concerns and Potential Threats to Unfettered Business Travel</a>. In addition, explore how SAP Concur solutions for travel and expense can help.</p>
Neha Mehta
Our Continuing Customer Commitment
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/our-continuing-customer-commitment
2021-03-01T15:32:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jim Lucier was formerly President of SAP Concur Dear SAP Concur Customers At this time of global upheaval and disruption in our lives businesses and communities I want to share with...
<p>Jim Lucier was formerly President of SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear SAP Concur Customers,</p>
<p>At this time of global upheaval and disruption in our lives, businesses and communities, I want to share with you how we are approaching this unprecedented situation. <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/03/statement-customers-covid-19-concerns/" target="_blank">SAP</a> and SAP Concur, like you, are most concerned about the safety and well-being of our employees, customers and partners and their loved ones. At the same time, we maintain our steadfast commitment to you to be your partner in addressing your travel and expense needs with our products, services and expertise. I want to personally update you on the actions we have taken to ensure that you can continue to rely upon SAP Concur during this challenging time. We have taken a series of steps to make certain that we meet our obligation to keep our people safe and to carry on the level of excellence that you expect from us.</p>
<p>As part of our standard business continuity process, we developed plans for disruptive situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic that are designed to protect the health and safety of our employees and to minimize the impact on our customers. In this case, those plans include:</p>
<p><strong>Service accessibility.</strong> Our products and services continue to be available uninterrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p><strong>Customer Support.</strong> The vast majority of our employees are now working remotely however they remain connected to their colleagues, customers and partners. We have been rapidly enabling our entire Global Services and Support teams to work from home in order to maintain the service levels you depend upon. All of our support channels are fully operational within normal SLAs. While we did temporarily suspend the incoming English phone line support channel, service was restored this morning, Thursday, March 19th.</p>
<p><strong>Enhanced safety procedures at our offices.</strong> For business-critical roles that require a presence in the office, we have put in place restrictions to limit the number of individuals in a given location and heightened personal and site hygiene protocols.</p>
<p><strong>Restriction on non-essential travel.</strong> In accordance with SAP guidelines, all employee travel that is not business-critical has been suspended through the end of April. Our sales and new business teams continue to meet with prospects, customers and partners via telephone and online.</p>
<p><strong>Cancellation or postponement of in-person internal and external events.</strong> We held a <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/virtual-summit">virtual SAP Concur Fusion</a> earlier this month and had strong attendance and received very positive feedback from attendees. We will examine this format for future events if necessary.</p>
<p>SAP Concur remains committed to you in these difficult and uncertain times. We are dedicated to continuing to support your businesses with the goal of emerging from this situation with a stronger bond as your trusted partner. Crises tend to bring out the best in people and I firmly believe that collectively we will rise to the test of COVID-19. The events of the past few weeks and months emphasize to me the importance of honesty, trust and compassion in all relationships, business and personal. Our promise is to continue to bring those qualities to our interactions with you. You can expect to hear more from us as the situation evolves.</p>
<p>We value your business and welcome your feedback. If you have any questions, please contact your account representative or customer support.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Jim Lucier</p>
<p>President, SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Executives
Redirect Healthcare Spend to Where It Matters Most by Automating Accounts Payable
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/redirect-healthcare-spend-where-it-matters-most-automating-accounts-payable
2020-05-28T07:41:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For healthcare organizations managing employee spend can be seen as a nicetohave rather than a necessity since the primary mission is to provide the best patient care But as the...
<p>For healthcare organizations, managing employee spend can be seen as a nice-to-have, rather than a necessity, since the primary mission is to provide the best patient care. But as the healthcare industry faces new, never-seen before challenges – such as increasing costs devoted to personal protection equipment (PPE) and fluctuating levels of patient and workforce demands – medical organizations are facing the reality that tracking spend data is important. They must be efficient and effective with costs to redirect funds to where it matters most.</p>
<p>As these pressures continue to rise, the task of improving back-office processes within AP departments can seem minor and often be deprioritized because it’s so far removed from patient care. But if you take a step back and look at it on the clinical side, big data is helping digitally unlock life-saving details about how to respond with care. And with access to so much patient health data, it begs the question: shouldn’t healthcare organizations have the same ability when it comes to their spend data to optimize cash-flow and meet demand?</p>
<p><strong>There’s a lot of spend to manage!</strong> </p>
<p>While it may seem like a low priority, organizations that do focus on improving back-office processes and visibility within their AP departments are actually impacting the bottom line significantly, giving both doctors and staff more time back to focus on what matters most – providing exceptional patient care. </p>
<p>Hospital and medical facility expenses aren’t all that’s increasing. The way spend is managed is across various channels is too, in areas such as: </p>
<ul>
<li>Direct PO</li>
<li>Indirect PO</li>
<li>Indirect non-PO</li>
<li>P-card</li>
<li>Expense reports</li>
</ul>
<p>And we’re seeing a lot of growth in these categories that has never been seen before.</p>
<p>When managing invoice spend, medical facilities are encountering a variety of pain points that hinder their efficiency. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ardent-partners-report-transforming-accounts-payable-21st-century">Ardent Partners</a> discovered the following specific pain points related to AP processes for hospitals, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Resolving matching errors and managing exceptions</li>
<li>Manual data-entry</li>
<li>Routing invoices for approval</li>
<li>Lack of visibility across invoice-to-pay process</li>
<li>Lost or missing invoices</li>
<li>Inability to accurately forecast liabilities</li>
</ul>
<p>Does any of this sound familiar? These are some of the most pressing challenges for healthcare AP teams to solve. More importantly, many of these challenges are manifesting themselves into a slow process that’s costing hospital and medical organizations precious time and money.</p>
<p>As the spend landscape continues to become more complex, different forms of invoice spend become more difficult to centralize. So, how do healthcare organizations and their back-offices manage it all to keep up? It starts with automation.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation is key to efficiency</h2>
<p>The key to effectively managing invoice spend is <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">automating your AP processes</a>. Especially since paper-based and semi-automated invoice processing and disbursements often create hidden costs that eat away at budgets, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Processing errors</li>
<li>Poor cash flow visibility</li>
<li>Poor spend management</li>
<li>Too many exceptions</li>
<li>Onerous regulatory compliance</li>
<li>Risk of fraud</li>
<li>Fragmented systems</li>
</ul>
<p>In one study from <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">the Aberdeen Group</a>, automating invoice processing dramatically reduced the average cost from $21.20 to $4.00, as well as processing time from 14.3 days to 3.7 days. Although automation can dramatically improve time and costs associated with spend, there’s more to the AP process success.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>But, automation alone isn’t the answer</h2>
<p>In a survey conducted by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ardent-partners-report-transforming-accounts-payable-21st-century">Ardent Partners</a>, AP teams were asked what the most important factors were in driving AP and the functions it can deliver on for its organization. The results are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reducing processing costs: 41%</li>
<li>Increase invoice/payment data visibility: 40%</li>
<li>Improve reporting and analytics: 28%</li>
<li>Cultivate better collaboration with suppliers: 26%</li>
<li>Cultivate better collaboration with procurement: 24%</li>
</ul>
<p>While reducing process costs is top priority, the remaining factors center around gaining visibility, including deeper data and more advanced insights on invoice. With access to this data, organizations can collaborate much better internally and externally to drive efficiency. In addition, visibility into invoice data gives organizations better control and negotiating abilities. While automation provides efficiency in AP processes, visibility into invoice data is the next step towards healthcare invoice management success.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The solution for healthcare AP departments</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions offer a single, connected platform that automates your invoices and integrates them with travel and expense (T&E) payments for an all-encompassing solution when it comes to managing your healthcare spend. Through capturing paper and electronic invoices, you can get insight in to all your AP spending and simplify the entire process—from purchase requests to processing and payment.</p>
<p><strong>Learn how healthcare organizations can reduce the average cost of processing an invoice by more than 80% by visiting our </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management"><strong>Concur Invoice page</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
5 Unique Challenges of Managing Healthcare Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-unique-challenges-managing-healthcare-spend
2020-07-06T13:16:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Healthcare organizations are continually looking for ways to reduce cost ensure compliance and serve more patients while still maintaining the highest quality of care The challenge is...
<p>Healthcare organizations are continually looking for ways to reduce cost, ensure compliance, and serve more patients, while still maintaining the highest quality of care.</p>
<p>The challenge is though that travel and expense (T&E) management in healthcare is far different than any other industry, with most organizations relying on generic expense management software — or manual processes — to get the job done. Therefore, it can be nearly impossible to gain the visibility, control, and comprehensive data insight required to drive positive change.</p>
<p>The best way to illustrate this point is to contrast <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">T&E in healthcare</a> to T&E in a Fortune 1000 company. Here are the top five differences that are easy to see:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Air travel patterns</h2>
<p>In healthcare, clinicians and staff primarily travel to attend multiple-day conferences, symposiums, and educational seminars. So, they travel by air much less frequently, but for longer lengths of time.</p>
<p>“They don’t have one or two meals on the expense report, but 20. They don’t rent a car for one day, but one week. And, they’re probably booking outside of the T&E system because that’s the only way to get the conference discount,” explained Christian Hon, senior director of sales for the SAP Concur healthcare division.</p>
<p>In fact, according to an SAP Concur healthcare customer survey, <strong>an average of 45% of hotels booked currently fall into the direct-bookings category</strong>. This is primarily because <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/solving-the-challenges-of-cme-spend-management">continuing medical education</a> (CME) typically makes up the majority of travel spend with many of the conferences requiring physicians to book directly through event websites. This lack of visibility not only makes expense management challenging, but also makes duty of care near impossible. If disruption occurs, healthcare leaders have no way to quickly identify which of their physicians, clinicians, and staff are impacted.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281610_Stethoscope_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Unique Spend Challenges for Healthcare</h2>
<p>And how to overcome them...</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-unique-spend-challenges-for-healthcare">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Higher mileage expenses</h2>
<p>Car travel and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">mileage reimbursement</a> requirements are significantly different between healthcare organizations and other large companies as well. And it comes as no surprise because the bulk of healthcare organizations’ travel is done by car – clinicians going from facility to facility or to patients’ residences to administer home healthcare or hospice services within their specific regions. All of this movement adds up.</p>
<p>“The amount spent on mileage varies from provider-to-provider, but it’s very rare to have a healthcare organization where personal mileage is not one of the top three expenses,” Hon said.</p>
<p>On average, healthcare providers spend at least twice as much on mileage than any other industry. With the <strong>demand for mobile healthcare expected to increase from $103 billion in 2018 to $173 billion by 2026 as the population ages</strong>, those mileage costs will continue to escalate. Yet, most healthcare organizations continue to rely on their staff to manually track and submit mileage reimbursement requests, which impedes accuracy, increases costs, and adds complexity to the expense process.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. A unique, non-mandate culture</h2>
<p>While large corporations might put tight controls on traveling sales teams and mid-level managers, the healthcare industry is far more lax with clinicians. Many physicians are also removed from accountability because they leave the task of completing expense reports to their administrative assistants and other support personnel, making spend management controls even more difficult to enforce. As a result, most healthcare organizations have a non-mandate culture. However, there is a risk to not having an enforceable policy and healthcare-focused T&E solution in place.</p>
<p>“Every organization in the world struggles with change management. The bad actors continue their bad acting until it finally hits a breaking point where regulatory agencies step in and force that change. We’ve already seen that happen in the pharmaceutical industry, with the Sunshine Act and Stark Law,” Hon said.</p>
<p>By gaining visibility into their expenses, healthcare organizations can begin to identify areas of questionable spend and begin the self-regulating process – before being forced into compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Amplified fiduciary responsibility</h2>
<p>Perhaps more than any other industry, healthcare providers, as well as payors, face a great deal of scrutiny around fiduciary responsibility. In the same healthcare survey, nearly half our customers claimed their organization doesn’t monitor if their physicians receive any type of compensation for attending CME conferences. Without total and immediate visibility into spend, it’s nearly impossible to mitigate fraudulent or even corruptive activity such as bribery. It’s also more difficult to prevent cost overruns due to basic human error – particularly in organizations in which a large portion of T&E spend comes from an annual stipend.</p>
<p>CME spend is also another common area of unnecessary financial bleeding with 64% of our healthcare customers stating their physicians always exceed amounted budgets for expenses each year. The problem is, some not-so-scrupulous vendors have turned that CME into boondoggles – golf trips, wine country trips, cruises – even heli-skiing for CME credits.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Not-for-profit or religious affiliations</h2>
<p>Unlike companies in most other industries, many healthcare providers are not-for-profit organizations or have religious affiliations, both of which create a number of different rules around T&E management. For example, some healthcare organizations have hard rules against reimbursing any alcohol purchases. Others may have restrictions around how they spend their grant money or the endowments they receive. All of that has a trickle-down effect, right down to something as granular as a line-item on an expense report.</p>
<p>“Those unique requirements make managing expense more difficult already, but to add to the complexity, in most cases, there will always exceptions to the rules,” Hon said. “For example, expensing alcohol may be prohibited unless a staff member is recruiting a surgeon at a dinner meeting.”</p>
<p>Healthcare organizations that accept endowments or use volunteers are also expected to guard against excessive or unnecessary spend or risk a donor exodus.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Want to learn more?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/five-unique-spend-challenges-for-healthcare" target="_blank"><strong>Download the healthcare whitepaper</strong></a><strong> to uncover more insights about each of the five challenges, including some best practices that can help your organization reduce costs and gain control.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
New Global Survey Highlights COVID-19 Impact and Outlook on Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-highlights-covid-19-impact-and-outlook-business-travel
2020-09-08T08:56:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Research reveals that of global business travelers expect to feel positively about their next business trip after the COVID outbreak New research commissioned by the SAP Concur...
<p>Research reveals that 59% of global business travelers expect to feel positively about their next business trip after the COVID-19 outbreak.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">New research commissioned by the SAP Concur organization</a> in May – June 2020 provides important insights that are shaping a new normal for business travel. The data suggests travel will continue to play an irreplaceable role in meeting critical business demands. However, travelers’ health and safety, and a new era of trip preparation and policies, will be front and center as travel resumes.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src=" http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Global Business Traveler Report 2020</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Notable highlights of the responding 4,850 business travelers in 23 global markets and 800 travel managers in eight global markets include:</p>
<p><strong>Business travelers expect to feel a mix of emotions about their next trip:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Fifty-nine percent of business travelers expect to feel positively about their next business trip.</li>
<li>The most common emotions that business travelers expect to feel during their next business trip include worry (39%), excitement (32%), anxiety (30%), and relief (24%).</li>
<li>More U.S. business travelers expect to feel excited than the global average (41% compared to 32%).</li>
<li>Forty-five percent of business travelers identified the trip itself to be the most stressful stage of business travel, a 50% increase from last year.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595976913952-artboard 2.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>Business travelers expect an increase in discrimination of certain groups while traveling:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Globally, groups expected to face increased discrimination include those who visibly display cold/flu-like symptoms (59%), those from countries with greater than average infection rates (49%), and travelers of Asian descent (32%).</li>
<li>In the U.S., 94% of business travelers expect increased discrimination against certain groups, including those who visibly display cold/flu-like symptoms (59%), those from countries with greater than average infection rates (53%), and travelers of Asian descent (40%).</li>
<li>The older the business traveler, the less likely they are to expect increased discrimination against certain groups (95% of Gen Z compared to 84% of Boomers).</li>
<li>Those who self-identify with groups that more often face discrimination in society are more likely to expect increased discrimination against certain groups, including LGBTQ+ (95% compared to 90% of non-LGBTQ+) and those with special needs and underlying health conditions* (95% versus 89% of those without).</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595976976816-artboard 4.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>Companies must overprepare to meet emerging traveler expectations and address less predictable travel conditions in the future: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Among surveyed travel managers, 96% reported that their company was not fully prepared to manage evolving travel demands during the outbreak.</li>
<li>Biggest pain points include handling the volume of canceled reservations (44%); processing the volume of refunds, receipts, and unused tickets (43%); and determining if it is safe to travel in the absence of government guidelines (40%).</li>
<li>SMB travel managers (41%) are more likely to say their company is unprepared to provide safety guidelines to travelers than those from larger businesses (33%).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>COVID-19 has changed the health and safety conversation, putting it front and center for all travelers:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ensuring personal health and safety while traveling is most important to business travelers, with 65% placing it in their top three considerations.</li>
<li>Top concerns about returning to business travel also include infecting their families (55%) and getting sick themselves (53%).</li>
<li>In 2019, women and LGBTQ+ travelers reported increased concerns about personal safety while on the road. The new normal in 2020 has narrowed the gap, bringing personal health and safety to the forefront for men, women, and LGBTQ+ travelers (36%, 41%, and 30%, respectively).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Business travelers hold themselves, then their employers, most accountable for ensuring their health and safety while traveling:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Globally, 36% will hold themselves most accountable to protect their health and safety when they can travel, 18% will hold their employer most accountable, and 13% will hold their government most accountable.</li>
<li>U.S. business travelers are most likely to hold themselves accountable to protect their health and safety when traveling (37%), followed by their employer (17%), their travel agency/travel management company (14%), transportation providers (13%), and their government (10%).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>New traveler behaviors and company policies to protect employees’ health and safety will be required at every stage of the business trip: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-six percent of respondents identified at least one measure they consider to be critical for their company to implement when travel resumes, including mandatory personal health screenings for traveling employees (39%), limiting business travel to only the most business-critical trips (39%), and easier access to personal protective equipment like gloves or facemasks (33%).</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595977018401-artboard 1.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>If companies do not adapt, most employees intend to act:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Globally, 65% of business travelers intend to take some degree of action if their employer does not implement new measures as they return to business travel, such as asking to limit or reduce travel in their current position (45%), searching for a new position within their company that does not require travel (10%), or searching for a position at a different company (8%).</li>
<li>Globally, nearly one in five (18%) plan to look for a new role, inside or outside the company, that does not require travel if measures aren’t implemented.</li>
<li>In the U.S., nearly one in four (23%) plan to look for a new role, inside or outside the company, that does not require travel if measures aren’t implemented.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1595977062870-artboard 3.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>While remote work has become more normalized, employees feel travel still plays an important role in the success of today’s enterprise:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-two percent of business travelers expect their company to experience negative outcomes due to travel restrictions around COVID-19, including a reduced number of deals or contracts signed that require in-person interactions (52%) and declines in new business wins that require in-person sales meetings (46%).</li>
<li>The younger the business traveler, the more likely they are to expect negative outcomes to their company associated with recent travel restrictions (96% of Gen Z versus 86% of Boomers).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Emerging expectations around personal and community health and safety will mean a new era of decisions, processes, and innovations across the travel industry. These survey findings underscore that the industry must come together to collectively adapt, stabilize, and reimagine the world of travel.</p>
<p><strong>For more information, please download the full white paper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>“The scope of the COVID-19 travel disruption has magnified common travel and expense challenges in a way that is unprecedented. Traditional challenges, like ensuring necessary oversight of employees’ business travel plans, rapidly became complex for employers amid ongoing restrictions that remain unpredictable,” said Mike Koetting, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur. “Businesses need to be proactive about supporting and safeguarding employees as they prepare to travel again for work, whether putting pre-trip approvals and guidance in place or ensuring visibility into itineraries and spend information, wherever employees book travel.”</p>
<p>TripIt from Concur recently launched a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center">Traveler Resource Center</a>, making it easy for travelers to find the latest global travel advisories, guidelines, and restrictions, alongside other helpful resources so they have the information they need before they get back on the road. </p>
<p>As we continue to explore what’s next, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> – a one-day event on September 17, 2020, that is open to the business travel industry community with no registration fee – will encourage cross-industry, government, and business community dialogue around a new era of travel, timely content and resources, and community engagement to address the current and future needs of business travel. <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit-registration">Registration</a> is open, and we encourage interested parties to participate in these important, industry-shaping conversations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*For the purposes of this survey, “special needs” referred to those who have chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, emotional, or autoimmune conditions that require special health and related services.</p>
<p>The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com), a leading independent provider of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research, among 4,850 business travelers defined as those who travel for business three or more times annually from the following markets: US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia, New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore, Malaysia), Greater China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Additionally, Wakefield Research surveyed 800 travel managers from the following markets: US, Brazil, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, SEA region (Singapore, Malaysia), and Hong Kong. Both surveys took place May – June 2020.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Your Guide to Wellbeing for Remote Workers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-guide-wellbeing-remote-workers
2020-08-27T19:37:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance business stories and interactive quizzes produced...
<p>This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark. The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance, business stories and interactive quizzes produced by the SAP Concur organization and Telegraph Spark can be found on this <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/spark/building-resilience/" target="_blank">Building Business Resilience</a> hub.</p>
<p>Whether you are working flat out or find you have more time on your hands, we are all learning to cope with new ways of working right now. Not only does that mean navigating new technology and processes, but we have the added pressure of the uncertainty that COVID-19 has created.</p>
<p>Natalie Gwilt is UK senior director of customer success for SMB at SAP Concur UK, which helps small and medium-sized businesses with their expense, travel, and vendor invoice challenges. Natalie has had a lot of conversations with customers in recent weeks about how SMEs have navigated these trying times.</p>
<p>“We know how tough it is for many businesses right now, especially with some staff furloughed, which is putting added pressure on finance teams,” she says. “Month-end, quarter-end, cash-flow projections and more are needed by the business now more than ever.”</p>
<p>Dr Nick Taylor, chief executive and co-founder of <a href="https://home.unmind.com/" target="_blank">Unmind</a>, a workplace mental-health platform, adds: “While the initial shock of the lockdown announcement and the anxieties experienced in the direct aftermath of the outbreak have hopefully dissipated somewhat, the continuous stream of news can keep our stress levels at an unhelpful height.</p>
<p>“Working from home, especially under quarantine or self-isolation for extended periods, poses challenges to our mental well-being. We may experience loneliness through disconnection, stress amid the uncertainty, or difficulties navigating new family dynamics. The key to solving these issues is clear communication.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236927/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx" target="_blank">A meta-analysis by Gallup</a> found that companies with highly engaged workforces are 21% more profitable than those with poor engagement. This is especially significant considering businesses have so many employees working from home at the moment.</p>
<p>To help people stay productive while working from home, Natalie Gwilt’s team has been offering their customers leadership and mindset training programs, focusing on mindfulness and managing stress. “Often the more stressed or busy you are in your job, the harder it is to apply yourself to concentrate on something other than work,” says client success director Natalie Gwilt. “But the benefits of doing so are immeasurable.” </p>
<p>Richard Izard, managing director of Global Leadership Associates, agrees. “When humans are under pressure, it’s more important than ever that our basic needs are met,” he says. “Connection and being heard are two of the most meaningful, but they’re often in danger of being overlooked in our current virtual ecosystems. If you want happy and productive employees, they need a sense of purpose and satisfaction that comes from having those needs met in their professional environment.”</p>
<p>If that sounds daunting, it needn’t be. Here are our experts’ six steps to maintaining productivity in a pandemic.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>1. Explain your expectations</h3>
<p>As Richard of Global Leadership Associates notes, it’s important that employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them at work. This is especially important for people who are balancing homeschooling or caring for someone else with their workload. “It can be reassuring to know that one project completed in two hours could be as valued as working eight hours today,” he says. Dr Heather Bolton, head of psychology at Unmind, agrees and adds: “I always stress that we are currently operating under strange times – and therefore perfection is not what we are striving for, but rather cooperation.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>2. Be flexible on working hours</h3>
<p>Employers need to understand the hours their employees are putting in, including more one-on-one and team meetings, and be more flexible. “Our mental health is directly related to the level of control that we believe we have over our circumstances,” says business psychologist Lucinda Carney, chief executive of <a href="https://actus.co.uk/" target="_blank">Actus</a>, a performance management software firm. “It can feel like this has been significantly depleted since lockdown. Supporting staff to set their own routine that works around their personal situation, which may well not be nine to five, empowers people to be productive on their own terms.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>3. Build new connections between team members</h3>
<p>“As we’re all working remotely, we’re missing out on those chance workplace interactions that can inspire innovation,” says Ed Beccle, co-founder of workplace mentoring platform <a href="https://grasp.hr/" target="_blank">Grasp.hr</a>. “Instead of allowing people to become disconnected, you could use this time to set up mentoring relationships across your firm. This can be based on work-related skill shares or social interests. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is building those lines of connections between employees across departments.”</p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>4. Use the opportunity to study team dynamics</h3>
<p>Our unprecedented reliance on technology during this pandemic can be a really useful way to gather data about your business, says Ed. “I often think of organizations as being like a ball of string. The knots represent the relationships between people. The more knots, the stronger the ball and in business terms this equates to resilience in the face of a challenge such as this pandemic.” Grasp.hr looks at meeting invites sent out by employees to see which are the most collaborative, although this approach isn’t favored by all companies.</p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>5. Ask about their pet…</h3>
<p>When you are regularly meeting on conference calls, it can be easy to miss the nuance of how each team member is feeling. “Instead, try setting up regular face-to-face check-ins to create some form of social interaction,” says Nick. Once a week check-ins with each member of your team should be enough, according to Richard. But don’t make it all about work – make sure you engage on a personal level as well. “Checking in emotionally is vital. Whether that is asking about their pet or how they feel about their colleagues being put on furlough, the point is asking about what matters to them.”</p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>6. …and their furniture</h3>
<p>It’s a mistake for leaders to overlook the practicalities of working at home, says Lucinda. “People are working on sofas, dressing tables and ironing boards,” she says. “This just isn’t sustainable, and you can end up with long-term back and neck problems. We need to get managers and HR to take an interest in the home work environment and encourage people to have a proper desk set-up.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition, employers should ensure their staff still have access to the correct tools and technologies so they can be productive. A global survey conducted by the SAP Concur organization and Forrester showed that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-us-spotlight-driving-better-ex-with-the-help-of-travel-expense-and-invoice-management">more than 60% of respondents</a> named travel and expense (T&E) management software, accounts payable (AP), and automation tools as the most important tools that enhance their employee experience.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
A Finance Leader’s Guide to Supporting Software Deployment in a Remote-Work World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finance-leaders-guide-supporting-software-deployment-remote-work-world
2020-10-18T22:38:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Like it or not the remote workforce is here to stay The trend that began prepandemic has escalated at warp speed with analysts predicting that to of personnel will be working for...
<p>Like it or not, the remote workforce is here to stay. The trend that began pre-pandemic has escalated at warp speed, with <a href="https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/telecommuting-statistics" target="_blank">analysts predicting</a> that 25 to 30% of personnel will be working for home, at least multiple days a week, by the end of 2021. </p>
<p>While this mass office exodus has fundamentally changed day-to-day business, it has also significantly increased adoption challenges when new software is deployed. If organizations don’t create a new strategy for rollout, employee training, and put a more effective feedback mechanism in place for continual optimization, the software won’t get used as intended, and that investment will be wasted.</p>
<p>The answer? Finance leaders have to play a greater role than before during the development of these deployment and change management strategies, as well as actively guiding their execution—or they won’t realize the return on their investment.</p>
<p>Even if it means stepping outside of their comfort zone, finance leaders have to be and stay actively involved in these four areas of software deployment: stakeholder engagement, rollout strategy, change management, and software/process optimization. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stakeholder engagement: It takes a (remote) village</h2>
<p>Although finance leaders were traditionally involved in software selection, much of the deployment was compartmentalized: marketing communicated the change, the trainers held training sessions, and IT made sure everything worked. And although there were planning meetings, many critical conversations happened organically—passing in the hall or popping into a colleague’s office to give a head’s up. </p>
<p>With a remote workforce, it is more important than ever for finance leaders to engage more stakeholders (and the right stakeholders) as part of the planning process. </p>
<ul>
<li>Identify the specific areas the software impacts. Is it one or two departments, or a corporate-wide rollout? </li>
<li>Meet with the appropriate department heads to determine the optimum rollout timing, based on their area’s activities and deadlines. In a remote environment, schedules are much less transparent. You don’t want to plan your rollout, only to discover that sales and marketing are prepping for a virtual client conference, or another area is having a hardware upgrade at the same time. </li>
</ul>
<p>Use this information to develop your schedule, including a hard-and-fast cutoff date when the grace period ends, and all users have to start using the new software and processes. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Rollout strategy: More is better</h2>
<p>No matter how much time you’ve allotted for successful software deployments in the past—add more. Deployment in a remote environment requires more planning, more communication, and different considerations.</p>
<ul>
<li>Determine whether a staggered rollout timeline or a blanket rollout makes more sense for your organization. Of course, this decision depends on your required timeframes, the number of employees transitioning to the new software, and the capability of your current infrastructure. If timeframes allow, consider piloting the program with a strategic mix of users first—both to work out the kinks before rollout, and develop some in-field experts who can help their peers during the broader rollout. </li>
<li>Identify what kind—or combination—of training will be most effective for your new users in their new environments. While online, self-guided instruction may have been a viable option in the past, employees now have a number of different things competing for their attention at home. Would a more structured approach make more sense? Can you do “live” training for different groups, allowing for interaction, screen shares and user questions? Or do time zones, budget constraints, or basic logistics require you to record one group training and share this with users company-wide? </li>
<li>Will the training be mandatory, or is it a better cultural fit to incent users to complete the program, or gamify participation with an individual or departmental competition? </li>
</ul>
<p>It’s important to note that although a remote workforce does require a more robust rollout strategy, reviewing historical data, and identifying any roadblocks that occurred in the past are essential to refining your go-forward strategy. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Change management: Driving adoption by getting personal</h2>
<p>Although driving adoption has always benefitted from top-down support, finance leaders’ stake in the game is more significant than ever in the work-from-home model. Rethinking your approach will maximize adoption—and that all-important ROI.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Communications</h3>
<p>Communicate the coming change early and often, and work with department heads to reinforce the message. Make sure your users not only know what’s coming, but have a clear understanding of:</p>
<ul>
<li>When they’ll be trained</li>
<li>Where to get support</li>
<li>Who can answer questions</li>
<li>When they have to be fully transitioned to the new software</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s also important to assume you’ll need to repeat a lot of information, including links to training, password resets and portals. Consider making use of an intranet or developing a separate internal website just for communications around this initiative—as well as a means of driving users to these vehicles. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Support strategy</h3>
<p>Support strategy is a make or break for adoption. Because people can’t stand up and ask questions over a cubicle or access a trainer roving the office the week of go-live, you have to consider a more robust support model. </p>
<p>It starts with knowing who your audience is, its size and your users’ skill levels. Then, based on these factors, identify what combination of support functions is the best fit:</p>
<ul>
<li>Message boards and user forms, where power users help those with questions.</li>
<li>An online resource with chat support.</li>
<li>Multiple central, regional or local Point-of-Contacts within each department.</li>
<li>A human-staffed 12-hour or 24-hour phone hotline, until the number of calls falls below a certain threshold.</li>
<li>Or, any combination of the above.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h3>Peer advocacy</h3>
<p>In a traditional software rollout, organizations rely on peer chatter to help drive adoption—one or a group of users “talking up” the new technology, its ease of use, or how a specific feature saved them time or aided them in some way.</p>
<p>Identifying how to replicate this breakroom chatter in a virtual environment can be challenging, but, even if it occurs on an employee communication system, or as success stories in employee news briefs, you’ll gain traction. And don’t forget to ask your advocates and power users what they recommend to spread the word. Chances are, they’ll come up with an effective approach you hadn’t considered before. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ongoing optimization</h2>
<p>Finally, you have to find a feedback mechanism for process optimization that works with the home-office crowd. Surveys can work, but you may have to be creative to gain response, like entering respondents in a drawing or having department heads distribute (and collect) these online forms during virtual meetings. </p>
<p>In a remote environment, it is particularly critical to analyze your usage data, and identify where your low utilization is. If you have engaged those department heads early on in the planning process, you can seek out their help in finding and addressing that root cause. </p>
<p>Also consider having a virtual meeting with those low-use groups to discuss why they’re having issues, or offer up additional training or individual help, if required.</p>
<p>No question, COVID-19 has changed “business as usual” for us all, ushering in a new, virtual era for companies in every industry, everywhere around the globe. By adjusting to these new norms, and getting more involved in software deployments, finance leaders can ensure their software investments continue to pay dividends for the company, their users and the industry they serve.</p>
<div>
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<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Transforming State and Local Government AP Processes to Match the Times and Control Costs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/transforming-state-and-local-government-ap-processes-match-times-and-control-costs
2020-11-18T09:16:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Good cash flow is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of running any organization Its also one of the most challenging With hundreds sometimes even thousands of...
<p>Good cash flow is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of running any organization. It’s also one of the most challenging. With hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of transactions occurring in a single day, keeping track of where money is spent, when it has been paid, and encumbrances you need to account for at all times is no small task.</p>
<p>For state and local government organizations that face regulations on many sources of funding, this is true even in the best of times. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, the importance of tracking every dollar is higher than ever. With a decline in sales and property tax revenues, AP teams — already struggling to work from home — are under pressure to scrutinize every dollar spent, redefine processes, and evolve to meet the times.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC White Paper</h2>
<p>SAP Concur Facilitates Automated Management of Financial Operations</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Teams that rely on outdated technology or manual invoice processes have an even steeper hill to climb. Between increased processing and approval times, limited visibility on spending, and greater susceptibility to mistakes, COVID-19 has made invoice management even more difficult than it already was.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as most employees work from home, paper invoices have been rolling in and stacking up for months. These, of course, will need to be processed when employees return to offices. In some cases, with fewer staff to handle the increased workload.</p>
<p>Digital Transformation is the Key</p>
<p>With budgets tight, and no clear sense when this pandemic will end, it’s critical that state and local government agencies invest where it matters most. And that means identifying affordable technology that’s easy to deploy, easy to use, and provides an immediate return on investment. </p>
<p>Concur Invoice uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to capture and analyze spend data, automate AP processes, track costs, and keep invoice backlog to a minimum. Organizations can have staff up and running in just a few weeks, and through this cloud-based software AP teams can: </p>
<ul>
<li>Centralize payment processing in a work-from-home environment</li>
<li>Eliminate manual data entry </li>
<li>Pay suppliers on time to keep relationships strong</li>
<li>Take advantage of early payment discounts</li>
<li>Forecast budgets accurately </li>
</ul>
<p>Before the pandemic, automating and digitizing AP processes was a step that many finance leaders had taken (or were at least considering) to improve back-office systems and drive business value. While today it may seem that waiting until life is “back to normal” is the most fiscally responsible decision, putting off implementing a solution will only put agencies further behind in their stabilization and recovery efforts.</p>
<p>IDC interviewed eight organizations that currently use Concur Invoice and found that they’re experiencing significant value, including average annual benefits of $662,700 per organization ($3,258 per 1,000 invoices) and a three-year return on investment of a whopping 634%.</p>
<p>To read the full report and see how modernizing invoice management can help your organization, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">download it free here.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Best-In-Class Companies Stay on Top with Digital Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/best-class-companies-stay-top-digital-spend-management
2021-03-09T10:15:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This past year has taught us that businesses with fewer than employees must be prepared for anything Whether you are surviving or thriving having tight control over budgets and cash...
<p>This past year has taught us that businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees must be prepared for anything. Whether you are surviving or thriving, having tight control over budgets and cash flow is critical to managing change. Many companies are looking to ramp up digital capabilities in order to become more agile. And those that already have find themselves one step ahead.</p>
<p>When it comes to keeping an eye on spending, digital expense and vendor invoice management are key tools in any company’s financial management landscape. To find out how they are helping – and which companies are using them to their greatest advantage – SAP sponsored two global Aberdeen research surveys of more than 600 businesses with less than 1,000 employees. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/aberdeen-report-taking-control-of-spending">first report</a> focuses on how digital spend management helps drive efficiency and performance. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/gaining-strategic-insights-from-company-spend-data">second report</a> looks at how companies are benefitting from strategic insights gained from spend data. In both reports, Aberdeen has classified respondents according to several key performance metrics and deemed those in the top 20% as “best in class.” It then compared how these top performers are leveraging digital expense and vendor invoice management technology to stay ahead of their peers.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How Top Performers Manage Company Spend with Digital Transformation</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/top-performers-manage-spend-digital-transformation">Get the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Across the board, survey respondents report manual, paper-based processes as roadblocks to better cash management.</p>
<p>For expense management, they lead to inconvenience and frustration for employees, who must worry about saving receipts and digging through credit card records in order to fill out reports. Finance teams must then spend time correcting errors and chasing down approvals from managers. This all leads to long reimbursement times, high expense processing costs, and decreased productivity.</p>
<p>For vendor invoice management, the biggest issues reported were limited remote capabilities for capturing, processing, approving, and paying invoices. Manual errors lead to inaccuracies, duplicate payments, and delays. A lack of visibility into consigned or vendor-managed inventory is also a problem, which can lead to stockouts and missed sales or cash tied up in excess safety stock. Finally, accounts payable teams often find it difficult to effectively manage peaks and valley in invoice volume.</p>
<p>Whether your company has already begun to invest in digital spend management or you’re starting from scratch, there is a lot to be learned from how best-in-class performers are managing their company spend. The vast majority (74%) are using an expense management solution to automatically capture receipts and manage expense reporting workflows.</p>
<p>Mobile capabilities are also a key spend management feature for top performers. This means that, at the start of the pandemic, employees from these companies were more likely to have the mobile receipt capture, invoice submission, and report and invoice approvals they needed to continue doing their jobs from the safety of home.</p>
<p>But beyond the efficiency gains offered by digital spend management technology, best-in-class companies are 87% more likely to be using the analytics capabilities these tools offer to deepen their spend insight. In fact, top performers are 50% more likely to be using spend data for auditing and to help ensure budget compliance. They are also 31% more likely to be using that data to track and manage budgets and 15% more likely to be using it to manage cash flow.</p>
<p>Finally, no matter where you are in your journey, integration will be a key factor in the success of your digital spend management transformation. Top performers are 25% more likely to have integrated expense and vendor invoice management solutions with each other and to have integrated both with back-end ERP or finance systems – giving finance teams and business users the spend data they need, where and when they need it.</p>
<p>So, what does this all mean in terms of business outcomes?</p>
<p>Best-in-class companies are able to get things done faster, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively than their peers. For example, they spend nearly five fewer days on average getting expense reports approved and save US$11.71 on average per expense report. They are also 57% more likely to report having confidence it their spend data, 56% more likely to report having visibility into budgets, and 63% more likely to be able to make fast decisions.</p>
<p>Over the past two years, all of this has added up to a significant edge over the competition. When compared to other companies, best-in-class respondents report:</p>
<ul>
<li>26% improvement in productivity (compared to -1.7%)</li>
<li>24% improvement in profitability (compared to -2.4%)</li>
<li>17% faster cash-to-cash cycle (compared to 2.1%)</li>
</ul>
<p>No matter your outlook for 2021, digitally transforming how you manage company spend can give you the flexibility, efficiency, control, and insight you need to get ahead. To find out how, read the reports from Aberdeen. Or check out the highlights <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/top-performers-manage-spend-digital-transformation">in this infographic</a>.</p>
<p>Then visit <a href="http://www.concur.com">www.concur.com</a> to find out how you can take control of your company spend today.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
CIO Leader of Travel and Mobility at IBM Shares Top Book Inspiration for 2021
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cio-leader-travel-and-mobility-ibm-shares-top-book-inspiration-2021
2021-02-25T12:53:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense TE industry is now available Jim Kile CIO Leader of Travel and Mobility from IBM shares why...
<p>Our 2021 top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense (T&E) industry is now available! Jim Kile, CIO Leader of <a href="https://www.ibm.com/us-en?p1=Search&p4=43700050478421002&p5=e&cm_mmc=Search_Google-_-1S_1S-_-WW_US-_-ibm_e&cm_mmca7=71700000060943610&cm_mmca8=aud-309367918490:kwd-11656201&cm_mmca9=EAIaIQobChMI1KaMuar-7gIVEz2tBh0aJAxlEAAYASAAEgLhQ_D_BwE&cm_mmca10=432694855112&cm_mmca11=e&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1KaMuar-7gIVEz2tBh0aJAxlEAAYASAAEgLhQ_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds" target="_blank">Travel and Mobility from IBM</a>, shares why he recommended <a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules-Differently/dp/1531865208" target="_blank">First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently</a> by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman:</p>
<p><strong>Q: Why did you select this book as your recommendation for 2021? </strong></p>
<p>A: First, Break All the Rules is unique in that it uses a data-driven approach to challenge conventional (at the time) management wisdom. In part, it drew me in because their conclusions, if taken, could have a tremendous impact on an employee's satisfaction with their work and overall engagement. It is difficult for me to understand why someone that does their job exceptionally well, is happy, and seemingly self-fulfilled can be forced (from outside or within) to take a job supervising their former peers to show career progression. Such a change essentially removes the person from that source of happiness and engagement, assuming they did not desire to become a supervisor in the first place. While moving up the corporate ladder is right for some, it’s not suitable for everyone. As managers, we have to keep that in mind and temper the desire for titles and positions that create a career progression facade while reducing engagement and happiness.</p>
<p><strong>Q: How can the advice from the book help others in the business environment and T&E industry? </strong></p>
<p>A: Travel and spend managers are no different from people managers – they are trying to get the best out of their people to make an employee's trip or expense report submission a "friction-free" experience. Many things can go wrong on a business trip, and, if we are honest, few enjoy submitting expense reports. The overall philosophy of ensuring that our teams feel engaged and responsible for providing an excellent experience for employees (travel, expense, technology, etc.) will pay dividends to all involved. Understanding what motivates your team and how to break the Golden Rule appropriately helps you – and them – accomplish that goal.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see the next 12, as well as the top podcasts recommended? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love" target="_blank">Get the full list</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
AI: It’s Not as Intimidating as It Seems
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-its-not-intimidating-it-seems
2021-04-16T08:40:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Most people interact with some form of artificial intelligence AI almost daily AI bots are setting our reminders suggesting our newest favorite products and even making our...
<p>Most people interact with some form of artificial intelligence (AI) almost daily. AI bots are setting our reminders, suggesting our newest favorite products, and even making our appointments. But the benefits of AI extend beyond our personal lives and have the potential to enhance how we do our jobs – as well as the overall success of our businesses.</p>
<p>From the shop floor all the way up to the executive suite, AI can reduce manual effort and errors and eliminate tedious, repetitive tasks that burden busy employees. Improved employee retention, workforce engagement, and productivity often follow the implementation of an AI instance. But, realistically, are these benefits all that attainable, especially for small-to-midsize businesses?</p>
<p>Many AI experts say yes. In a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sapconcur/2021/03/25/the-rethink-4-simple-ways-ai-can-help-your-business-evolve/?sh=217a47a57ac3" target="_blank">recent Forbes article</a>, SAP Concur experts explore four accessible ways that AI can help any business evolve. More organizations of every size, from the smallest of startups to the largest of enterprises, are deploying AI, and they’re implementing this technology even on tight budgets and with limited resources during a time of unprecedented disruption.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take advantage of low barriers to AI entry</h2>
<p>While many business leaders are excited about the potential of AI, some leaders’ less-than-perfect experiences with AI may give them reason for pause. Perhaps you’ve been frustrated by an AI chatbot, deployed by your Internet service provider or favorite retailer, that couldn’t answer your question or solve your problem. Given that experience, you may think that maintaining a successful AI instance needs more time and attention than your business could possibly give.</p>
<p>The truth is, today’s AI solutions can scale to meet the needs of any business, and the barrier to entry for deploying an AI instance is lower than ever before. Many software vendors offer AI solutions and services tailored to fit your needs, taking into consideration both the size of your business and your industry. Robotic process automation, or RPA, and low-code and no-code development also empower in-house IT organizations to develop and deploy their own bots.</p>
<p>This example also highlights a common misconception about AI in the workplace. Not all bots are customer facing. In fact, some of the most effective and productivity boosting bots never even get to see a customer. Think about the power of forecasting software fueled by AI. These bots can enhance cash flow prediction and identify key financial trends that can help you make the most of your resources.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Overcome the challenges of the day – today</h2>
<p>It’s an understatement to say that 2020 was a difficult year for businesses. Those businesses that performed the best in 2020 took the year in stride. Rather than buckling under the weight of greater expectations and fewer resources, successful businesses took the chance to provide more for a strained and increasingly burnt-out workforce by automating some of employees’ most-dreaded tasks.</p>
<p>Consider the tedium of approving and auditing expenses and invoices. Even filling out finance documents and uploading paper-based information to a digital finance system is a drag, especially when employees have more-pressing work to worry about. Additional stressors, such as the unexpected shift to working from home amid a global pandemic, can also distract employees performing tedious and highly repetitive work. Greater distraction means a greater chance of human error.</p>
<p>So, if you can’t remove the stressors, eliminate the work. AI-powered document analysis solutions can automate these tasks and empower employees to focus on more value-added work and avoid tedium. Rather than taking away employees’ jobs, automation enhances employees’ roles and capabilities and can contribute to greater workplace satisfaction and employee retention.</p>
<p>Interested in learning more about the promise of AI for businesses of all sizes? Read the new Forbes article, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sapconcur/2021/03/25/the-rethink-4-simple-ways-ai-can-help-your-business-evolve/?sh=217a47a57ac3" target="_blank">The Rethink: 4 Simple Ways AI Can Help Your Business Evolve</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
2021 World Environment Day Encourages Businesses to Make Sustainable Choices
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2021-world-environment-day-encourages-businesses-make-sustainable-choices
2021-06-04T14:58:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As some restrictions begin to ease and we learn to live in a very different world learnings from are in abundance At the beginning of last year it seemed set to be the year of...
<p>As some restrictions begin to ease and we learn to live in a very different world, learnings from 2020 are in abundance. At the beginning of last year, it seemed set to be the year of environmental chaos; with wildfires ravaging through millions of hectares of forests across the globe and California’s Death Valley experiencing the hottest temperature ever recorded, it became hard to ignore the need for worldwide change in attitudes towards how we treat our environment.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/" target="_blank">World Environment Day</a> is using its theme this year to help the planet not only rebuild from Covid-19, but also rebuild the ecosystems that have become desolate in recent years.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>World Environment Day: What’s the aim and why is it important?</h2>
<p>Since 1974, June 5 has been marked by the UN as World Environment Day and this year it will be hosted in Pakistan. Celebrated around the world the aim is to inspire governments, businesses and citizens alike to address concerning environmental issues. This year’s theme is Ecosystem Restoration and it ties in with the start of the <a href="https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/" target="_blank">UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration</a> which aims to prevent more damage to ecosystems as well as halting and reversing what’s already been done.</p>
<p>Its objective it to inspire positive change and encourage us all to think about how we consume and what we can do to live more sustainably. For businesses, it explores how they can develop greener models, whether that be through consumption, resourcing or travel, and challenges governments to invest in the repair of the environment. </p>
<p>The Government has already started restoring ecosystems within Pakistan by launching a new initiative called the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/pakistan-green-recovery/" target="_blank">Ecosystem Restoration fund</a>. It will create green jobs, help with biodiversity protection and fight climate change. On top of this, Pakistan reached their goal of planting a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/pakistan-s-billion-tree-tsunami-is-astonishing/" target="_blank">billion trees</a> months earlier than planned, which means they can turn their attention to restoring mangroves and planting even more trees in urban settings.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Time to do our part: How can businesses make sustainable choices?</h2>
<p>We all share the responsibility of ensuring our planet thrives and one area businesses should look at is how they can make their Corporate travel policy more sustainable. However, our recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index" target="_blank">Corporate Travel Sustainability Index research</a> showed that 59% of European travel decision makers still don’t know how to put a sustainable travel policy in practise.</p>
<p>Businesses have been under intense scrutiny in past years to be 100% transparent around travel activity and how this might affect the environment. No doubt the world will see an acceleration in consumers wanting more sustainable travel options after seeing the benefits achieved this past year due to low pollution activity and corporate travellers are no different.</p>
<p>Here are some steps to start with:</p>
<ul>
<li>Offset carbon emissions when corporate travel is being booked. Usually this is done by paying an extra charge on top of your booking.</li>
<li>Policy changes can be effective in driving new practices. 97% of business travellers are prepared to invest in extra journey time in pursuit of more sustainable options.</li>
<li>Consider alternative modes of travel such as getting a train instead of taking a plane which is not only more cost effective but better for the environment.</li>
<li>Give your travellers more sustainable options at the time of booking, to help them make informed decisions.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How sustainable is your business when It comes to travel?</h2>
<p>2020 allowed us to re-connect with our environment in many ways but perhaps your business could do more? The challenge is you can’t change what you can’t measure so we’ve created a benchmarking tool to help you assess how your organisation compares relative to your industry and region.</p>
<p><strong>Use our <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">sustainable corporate travel tool</a> to find out just how sustainable your business’ corporate travel policy is</strong>, as well as to get some tips to help you go the extra mile.</p>
SAP Concur Team
This Earth Day, Make a Pledge Towards Business Sustainability
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/earth-day-make-pledge-towards-business-sustainability
2022-07-01T11:42:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Employees are ready to make positive green changes in both their personal and professional lives and therefore businesses must be prepared to make pledges that are not only sustainable...
<p>Employees are ready to make positive green changes in both their personal and professional lives and therefore businesses must be prepared to make pledges that are not only sustainable, but regenerative too. And what better time to start than on Earth Day?</p>
<p>Earth Day is celebrated annually on April 22, and is dedicated to raising awareness about the various environmental challenges that face our planet today. According to the Earth Day <a href="https://www.earthday.org/">website</a>, “For Earth Day 2022, we need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly) and implement (equitably). It’s going to take all of us. All in.”</p>
<p>Climate impact is listed as one of the 17 UN Sustainability and Development Goals and climate change has been identified as the number one long term risk to businesses, according to the <a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2022.pdf">World Economic Forum</a>. This Earth Day, it’s time to take action.</p>
<p>Reaching greener goals and being sustainable is now critical for businesses that want to evolve and flourish long term. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resource-centre/reports/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">59% of corporate travel decision makers</a> feel passionately about greener corporate travel programmes, but still find it difficult or are unsure how to put it into practice.</p>
<p>Adoption of sustainable policies brings commercial benefits, which is why bringing about these moments of change should be a top priority for leaders. Studies from around the world have identified that those companies focused on environmental and social governance credentials have broader finance options available to them.</p>
<p>To help organisations manage sustainability pledges, we ran a webinar, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/event/webinar/sustainable-business-challenge?">The Sustainable Business Challenge</a>. Our host Ami Taylor, Product Strategy at SAP Concur & Co-Founder of Level UK, discussed what a greener future looks like and how businesses can transform to become more sustainable. Joined by Marta Muñoz Méndez-Villamil, Senior Research Director and Lead Technology & Sustainability Practice, IDC EMEA, we explored how technology can help your business achieve these sustainability initiatives.</p>
<p>We’ve summarised a few key points from the webinar below.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Committing to Successful Business Sustainability Strategies</h2>
<p><br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-climate-change-risk-assessment-2022">The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment</a> of 2022 has reported that “quite soon, climate change will be costing the UK economy £26 billion per year.” It’s already costing that in other countries. We must accept where we are in order to try and fix it.</p>
<p>Organisations tend to want to know “How can we grow?” but it’s important to keep sustainability in mind when strategising the answer. When asking yourself “What am I giving back to the planet by going through this phase of growth?”, perhaps an alternative could be “How can we grow while becoming a regenerative business?”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Businesses Need to Act Before It’s Too Late</h2>
<p><br />
<strong>High sustainability organisations outperform others in the long run both on profitability and accounting performance</strong>. Risks are managed more effectively because businesses are out in the real world attracting top talent who are engaged, which means they can innovate and make their business run better.</p>
<p>The desire for moments of change is coming from the top and the board who have been given a command to evolve the organisation and the ethos. Similarly, “it’s a bottom-up approach from the employees who are valuing that change and they really want to see that change take place”, Marta explained during the webinar.</p>
<p>It was announced at COP26 that businesses of a certain size must now publish plans for how they’re going to become net zero. Soon, businesses will become legally liable for emissions as well reducing or offsetting them and it makes commercial sense to get ahead of this. There are many different actions business can take to become more sustainable with SAP Concur solutions, from holistically implementing green policies to showing employees the impact of business travel.</p>
<p>SAP is actively working to become <a href="https://news.sap.com/2021/03/sap-carbon-neutrality-goal-2023/">carbon neutral by 2023</a>. Will your business make a similar pledge?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To find out more about why businesses need to act now on their green goals, listen to our webinar, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/event/webinar/sustainable-business-challenge?">The Sustainable Business Challenge.</a></strong></p>
Lara Edwards
Logoplaste Customer Story: Nine Tips to Accelerate Your Move to a Cloud-Based T&E System
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/logoplaste-customer-story-nine-tips-accelerate-your-move-cloud-based-te-system
2022-07-01T12:20:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When Logoplaste implemented a new SAP Concur travel and expense TE solution across countries with the help of Accenture it achieved a user rating of out of within just a few weeks...
<p>When Logoplaste <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/logoplaste-fast-track-to-the-cloud">implemented a new SAP Concur travel and expense (T&E) solution</a> across 18 countries with the help of Accenture, it achieved a user rating of 4.3 out of 5 within just a few weeks of the move to the cloud.</p>
<p>In our recent webinar <a href="http://go.concur.com/webinar_Accenture-logoplaste_21q2.html">Learn How Logoplaste accelerated Their Move to the Cloud with SAP Concur Solutions and Accenture</a>, the global plastic packaging materials company shared nine lessons that they learned during this hugely successful implementation.</p>
<p>Take a note of these tips from Logoplaste to help plan and execute your own SAP Concur cloud journey:</p>
<h2>1. Get credit card companies onboard ASAP</h2>
<p>Even though credit card feeds can be setup relatively fast, don’t forget to factor in the time to complete the administrative tasks involved.</p>
<p>Ana Jaques, global travel and solutions manager at Logoplaste, recommends engaging credit card companies on day one. “Credit card companies are always a pain point in an implementation like this because they all have different processes and are very, very bureaucratic” she says. “It’s important to start engaging them as soon as possible to avoid any surprises.”</p>
<h2>2. Review/update your travel policies</h2>
<p>When you move to digital, Accenture recommends that a global template approach based on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">your company’s T&E policy</a> be established before the project starts.</p>
<p>Where possible, global harmonisation should be enforced for all countries and deviations to the global template should only be allowed to meet local business and statutory requirements. Low volume countries should have simple solutions.</p>
<h2>3. Outsource tax and VAT requirements</h2>
<p>Even though SAP Concur solutions have a built-in TAX/VAT Engine, the tax requirements of certain countries can be quite complex. International VAT should be managed outside of SAP Concur tools with a specialist company. We have an ecosystem of partners who can support with this.</p>
<p>“Some countries, such as Mexico for example, have some complex tax requirements, especially from the integration perspective” says Sérgio Brito, SAP Concur Portugal CoEx (center of expertise) lead at Accenture.</p>
<h2>4. Take reporting seriously</h2>
<p>To be able to make the most of a global T&E solution reporting needs to be taken seriously from the beginning. With visibility into what’s being spent where and when in your business you’ll be able to make more informed business decisions faster.</p>
<p>“You want to run reports and slice and dice the data, and not make it not too complex, so you can make educated decisions to manage your processes” says Brito.</p>
<h2>5. Consider integration and technology requirements</h2>
<p>If your T&E solution doesn’t integrate with an existing platform, it can compromise the success of your move to the cloud. Better to find this out sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>“Concur mainly runs on a web browser and mobile apps, so check that your company has all the required versions at the required levels so that Concur can run smoothly” advises Brito. “If you have SAP as an ERP or an HR system, you can also leverage the native integration as we did at Logoplaste, but you need to check you are on the right versions.”</p>
<h2>6. Engage people from all departments</h2>
<p>T&E processes need to work with many other business functions including IT, human resources, credit scoring, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/accounts-payable">accounts payable</a>, travel management companies, and procurement. Engage employees from the start and include representatives from all teams to ensure high end user adoption.</p>
<p>“This kind of project will affect everyone from the shop floor to the CEO – all of them have expenses to be reimbursed or travel bookings to submit,” says Jaques. “You have to manage it over the entire company and departments such as accounting, procurement, HR and IT.</p>
<h2>7. Prioritise master data</h2>
<p>Master data quality is key for the success of a project and is critical to ensure a smooth transition into run mode. The recently implemented data privacy regulation in Europe may challenge your implementation from a data privacy perspective.</p>
<p>“You can have the best tool in the world but if the data is not correct, it can generate stress to the employees, and impact user satisfaction” says Brito.</p>
<h2>8. Simplify processes to tackle change resistance</h2>
<p>You need to be ready for resistance and try to minimise it. A good change management plan is key to keeping everybody informed and making sure your implementation runs smoothly.</p>
<p>“When you have a new process there is always some resistance to change,” says Brito. “Concur is an easy-to-use solution, so it's not complex, but take the opportunity to harmonise and simplify the processes so that once you arrive, the user community will quickly see the benefits of using Concur.”</p>
<h2>9. Look to the future</h2>
<p>Finally, João Carvalho, Head of SAP Concur, Southern Europe and Francophone Africa, advises looking beyond immediate pain points to anticipate future challenges and build a roadmap for the future.</p>
<p>“We want to accelerate expense processes and deliver a good experience to our employees – that's totally valid – but it’s also important to think about the broader picture” he says. “It’s not expense only, it’s not finance only, it’s not a small department in one company. At the end of the day, this type of project touches the entire pyramid of the company, so think about where you want go next.”</p>
<p><a href="https://go.concur.com/webinar_Accenture-logoplaste_21q2.html">Listen</a> to the webinar to hear the full story about Logoplaste’s accelerated move to the cloud with SAP Concur solutions and Accenture.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Four Steps to Create a More Sustainable Travel Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-steps-create-more-sustainable-travel-program
2022-07-01T16:58:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel is a significant producer of economic activity It generated trillion revenues in according to the World Bank trillion according to McKinsey and trillion according...
<p>Business travel is a significant producer of economic activity. It generated <a href="https://www.deplacementspros.com/dossiers/que-se-passerait-il-si-les-voyages-daffaires-sarretaient-1-3-recherche-16-milliard-us-desesperement">$1.65 trillion revenues in 2019</a> according to the World Bank (<a href="https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-State-of-Corporate-Travel-and-Expense-2021_The-Path-to-Recovery-.pdf?utm_campaign=TripActions%25202020&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9pncPFJY27dbvkg8Qzom_kVSgozihTn2GW62eJC6tsHM1GEuMF9VCZbhHwDpoA4RFTcRUJaCipHSw1BcPlJ-_zk0grHw&_hsmi=101646775&utm_content=101646775&utm_source=hs_automation&hsCtaTracking=13139fa3-b6fd-4054-aa86-4b7b87259f11%257C72bbf76a-a720-4997-837b-536cf160b160">$1.4 trillion according to McKinsey</a>, and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-COVID-pandemic-could-cut-business-travel-by-36permanently-11606830490">$1.1 trillion according to Bank of America</a>); that’s <a href="https://www.deplacementspros.com/dossiers/que-se-passerait-il-si-les-voyages-daffaires-sarretaient-1-3-recherche-16-milliard-us-desesperement">2%</a> of the world GDP (<a href="https://www.deplacementspros.com/dossiers/que-se-passerait-il-si-les-voyages-daffaires-sarretaient-1-3-recherche-16-milliard-us-desesperement">$87.752 billion</a>). It creates jobs and contributes needed tax revenue for governments around the world. Americans alone make more than <a href="https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/america_on_the_go/us_business_travel/entire">405 million</a> long-distance business trips in a typical year, which is why the return to travel is essential for economic recovery. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, the travel industry has been responsible for around <a href="https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284416660">five percent</a> of global carbon emissions in previous years. Though the decline of travel in 2020 has reduced carbon emissions momentarily, companies must plan to contain their environmental footprint long term. </p>
<p>Since many travel programs are still slowed because of COVID-19, now is the ideal time to pause and adjust travel policies to better align with corporate sustainability commitments. The following four steps can help organizations determine what needs to change, take action, and ensure impact through a more sustainable travel program.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="//assets.concur.com/newsroom/281090-airplane.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2><strong>How sustainable is your business when it comes to travel?</strong></h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Step one: Analyze</h2>
<p>As a first step, companies should analyze what they are currently doing to travel more sustainably. This assessment will help determine goals for further progress and pinpoint changes needed to meet them. </p>
<p>Companies should also identify any existing processes and policies that could become bottlenecks or barriers. Anticipating change management is also key. Are there limiting mindsets or behaviors that might hinder executives or employees from making desired changes a reality?</p>
<p>"It's worth looking into the travel policy to see how flexible it is and if there are answers or statements given regarding how much shall be traveled, who decides who needs to travel, and any restrictions or guidelines, like if business or economy class shall be used," said Antje Vogel, former Sustainability Manager at BCD Travel, during an SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step two: Strategize</h2>
<p>Next, companies should develop specific, tactical recommendations to reduce their greenhouse gases and empower employees to travel more sustainably. It may be beneficial to work with consultants specializing in sustainability efforts or enlist the help of travel vendors, such as booking tool providers or travel management companies (TMCs).</p>
<p>One consideration may be adopting a climate or carbon budget supported by technology and data analysis. Many travel and expense platforms offer analytical tools to review how much carbon is released by the organization in a typical quarter and help set lower targets. Individual travelers can understand the environmental impact of their flights before and after booking by using add-ons for business travel platforms, free online calculators, and <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010464080-Carbon-Footprint">TripIt's Carbon Footprint feature</a>.</p>
<p>"The annual climate budget is, in theory, the maximum allowable budget you can spend per person and per year if we want to limit global warming to a maximum 1.5 to 2 degrees until 2050," said Vogel. "The international community and scientists put all the figures together, and they broke it down to a maximum allowable budget of 2,300 kg CO2 emissions." </p>
<p>Another solution is to evangelize sustainable booking and travel decisions: Employees should be advised to select the most sustainable route when booking travel. According to Julien Etchanchu, Sustainability Practice Lead at Advito, a new generation aircraft is 20-25 percent more efficient, on average. When feasible, traveling by train is generally less expensive and may be more sustainable than by plane. Switching from air to train when traveling from Beijing to Shanghai can save around 300 kg CO2 per round trip, for instance, and provide cost savings to the bottom line. Resources are available to make this easier for travelers, including booking tool add-ons that highlight more sustainable choices and offer impactful ways to offset their footprint.</p>
<p>Also, consider encouraging travelers to prioritize text or email receipts. According to the nonprofit Green America, up to 10 million trees and 21 billion gallons of water are used every year to create receipts in the U.S. alone. Those receipts generate 686 million pounds of waste and 12 billion pounds of CO2, equivalent to the carbon released by one million cars on the road. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step three: Engage</h2>
<p>Regular communication across the organization provides a more comprehensive, transparent view of where things stand and what might get in the way of change. Communicate on an ongoing basis about why sustainability is important to the organization, what employees can do to travel more sustainably, and how their individual contributions really do matter. </p>
<p>In addition, offer training to help inform employees about policy changes and the actions they can take, on an individual level, to make a difference. In August, TripIt from Concur conducted a survey of its customers that revealed 65 percent find understanding how to travel sustainably challenging. An effective training session may outline the organization's sustainability goals in detail, explain what employees can do and the tools available to help achieve them, and ultimately permit travelers to make booking decisions based on sustainability over other factors.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step four: Measure</h2>
<p>Just as teams are held accountable for sales, revenue, recruiting, or other performance metrics - hold the organization accountable to its sustainability goals by measuring and reporting on progress. Track the company's overall carbon budget spend and how the average traveler sticks to their allocations. Highlight measurable ways that the company and its employees have offset their impact through meaningful investments. Build these conversations into performance management discussions, quarterly business reviews, and more.</p>
<p>Lastly, be sure to adjust policies and procedures based on the company's results to ensure continued progress and greater impact over time. Companies mustn't become complacent or allow these corporate social responsibilities to take a backseat to other organizational priorities. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>COVID-19 has been an impetus for companies to re-evaluate and re-shape their travel policies to better align with existing and emerging needs, including protecting the planet's health for generations to come. This temporary pause in business travel is a key inflection point to establish and reinforce more extensive corporate sustainability commitments. Now is the time to act.</p>
<p>Need help with your travel policy? Watch <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-travel-management-companies-your-true-partners-travel">this video</a> to learn how TMCs can help you. </p>
<p>Learn More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel">https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Bye-Bye Paper, Hello Automation: an SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Innovation Award-Winning Partner neylux
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-innovation-award
2022-07-01T17:17:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We dont like the paper processes which we have we even hate approval workflow So please set up the system in an innovative way was the challenge a customer shared with the neylux team...
<p>“We don't like the paper processes, which we have, we even hate approval workflow. So, please, set up the system in an innovative way,” was the challenge a customer shared with the neylux team. Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, and Siegfried Krause, Co-Founder of neylux, share how they solved it not just for one customer but for numerous organizations to shift from hating the approval workflow to loving the insights and experience. After listening to how neylux approaches this touchy topic, it’s likely you’ll find ways to transform your own process.</p>
<p>This four-episode podcast series celebrates the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a> received one of two Partner Innovation Awards for 2020, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. Other past recipients include: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>, and<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel"> American Express Global Business Travel</a>. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes">SAP Concur Conversations</a>, for best practices to implement at your own organization.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-an-sap-concur-podcast/id1525744763?i=1000538571595">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TclVoyA8NMbStTUrITUpy">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/bye-bye-paper-hello-qJ94j3owBeU/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/bye-bye-paper-hello-automation-an-sap-concur-podcast-convers">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiQ752DhsnzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBQ">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p><strong>Want to join this special circle of winners?</strong></p>
<p>Nominations are now open for the SAP Concur Partner Awards, now part of the SAP Concur Innovation Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements from our partner ecosystem.</p>
<p>As an SAP Concur partner, <a href="https://sapinsights.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3dWRrfkTwvR34a?Link=web&mkt_tok=MDEzLUdBWC0zOTQAAAF_9jXftkReO_UE-0J9ioO-p4385p7WjwUoS-1jidOmi1kS_QZJozC2IZ0Tp74fEn__bwpT4DDeElqM4nNNBgvz&pid=null&cid=null">please submit a nomination to win awards</a> in either “Growth” or “Innovation” categories.</p>
<p><strong>Criteria: All partner types are eligible to submit.</strong></p>
<p>Growth Awards: Based on measurable growth in your SAP Concur partnership.</p>
<p>Innovation Awards: Based on innovation you brought to a specific customer engagement or to your overall SAP Concur relations.</p>
<p>Questions? Email: <a href="mailto:sapconcurpartners@sap.com">sapconcurpartners@sap.com</a></p>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion. I'm the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team here at SAP Concur and today I have with me Siegfried Krause from neylux. Siegfried is going to be speaking with us today because neylux is one of our innovation leaders. They were able to actually create a new innovation within Concur using our customer web services to build a true integration, to fulfill a customer's automation needs related to their workflow. So Siegfried, would you mind introducing yourself and neylux itself?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Thank you, Jeanne. My name is Siegfried Krause and I'm the co-founder from neylux. So we found this together with a really good colleague for myself and back to 2016. So our company is not that old, but have an experience in the field of travel and expense management solution almost 20 years. So we put that small company into place because we love what we're doing. And we are focused on travel and expense management solutions from SAP and SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. So what I want to talk to today was an optimization play that you had with a customer, a mutual customer of ours that brought in kind of a less manual approach and a more automated approach for increased efficiency because automation is really kind of a critical connection these days for organizations removing that manual, to be able to focus more on analytical and strategic, but still keeping compliance in mind. So I wouldn't mind if, would you mind telling us a little bit about what this project was and how you, what the problem was for the customer and how you solved for it?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, yes. Sure. So we stepped into this customer in the very beginning they already said, listen, guys, we really like to be innovative here. We don't like the paper processes, which we have, we even hate approval workflow. So please kind of setting up the system in an innovative way. And, and for sure, Concur Solutions, this is just built for such an innovative flow. At the end, we discussed a lot about the workflow because at the end, yes, the manager would like to know, would like to see what happens, what going on with the spend management here and what the users will have here. But at the end, we build up a solution, which I think it's, it's really good, straightforward. Everybody gets the information, what they need, but not doing this formal approvals step, going to the system, click on a button after checking some items.</p>
<p>So this is somehow we found out the way of the Concur Solution and also with some special developments because our company has also an own development department, which is focused and expert in these kinds of stuff. And yeah, the Concur is at the end, not only a best practice tool, but it is also flexible to bring some add-ons, bring some customer's own ideas into the place. And here we had this challenge to say, okay, we have an approval workflow and they would like to get rid of it. But at the end also that the manager has the control and overview of all costs. So we set it up, like to have a passive approval. So what is that? Passive approval is such a thing that the employee enters all data. Then we are using also the Concur Audit in place here in Europe, in Germany to fulfill all the audit tasks and the manager at the end, get a summary page and PDF in an email.</p>
<p>And he sees all the items, all the information they need, but without even hitting the system or doing active approval flows or what else, and everybody is happy there. And for sure, if there's something strange or something, which the manager would like to understand a little bit better, then comes the human being in place. So talk to each other and find out what it's all about. So customers absolutely happy with it. We are really proud that we even got here a prize or an innovation award from Concur for that, because it was, sounds a little bit easy stuff, but at the end, it was a huge implementation and development behind the scene. So all involved parties, they don't need to struggle anymore about that. And behind the scenes, that solution once automatically through the system and also to the inbox of the manager.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I have so many questions, but first I want to say this really makes my heart sing in a very nerdy workflow way. I love the idea that you worked with your customer and our customer to think more digitally about how the workflow is working and move from that. Well, we've always done it this way. This is always the way it's worked on paper, to thinking about it in a real digital platform. And I know for a lot of customers who have been using SAP Concur Travel and Expense through the years, the initial movement was from paper to an electronic system. And there's been so many new features that have been added in the last five to seven years to make changes to how workflows happen to allow for that re-imagination.</p>
<p>One of the pieces you talked about was the use of the Concur audit type tools. And so that means that compliance was still important to this customer. So can you talk a little bit about how they came to that idea that the information was really the critical point for them rather than the compliance point, that they had a tool that could do the compliance?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>This company is really innovative and would like to, to go step ahead to even make the process as easy as possible for the involved parties for the employee, which for sure he is on his way on this business trip, doing a lot of important stuff for the company and has this tiny administration of a process to bring the data in. But for sure it must be also compliant. It must be compliant to the travel policy and also to the official regulations here. So that is kind of a part or a piece, which was really important to not just say, oh, yeah okay we are a fancy company and we don't need an approval. No, this was not the idea. The idea was just to streamline, to get rid of old thinking of old, take your pencil out and signature some documents, and then it goes to the next desk and the same things happens again and again.</p>
<p>So here was really to say, who needs to know when he needs to know, and what is the kind of setup to, to know this information. So we worked also with the Cognos tool inside in the solutions defined really the pieces and say, okay, that is the important information for the manager. And that is a little bit what, what we put at the end. If he needs that to go to the last step of the information, you can find it in the report, but not something what he really goes through and has a lot of work to do with it. So compliance is there or Concur Audit is doing a great job and looking to the tiniest things of tax regulations, VAT reclaiming, and all that stuff, which we all know best, which nobody would like to do. But at the end, we have the good team established there from Concur to do that.</p>
<p>And the manager is free of looking through the information, but not stopping the process. So at the end, it was also a question of speed of reimbursement, speed of financial posting speeds, or that, that was also a big topic, which we discussed because what happens, the manager has time. It's a whole day to wait for the approval. No, not really. So he can look in the meeting after meeting, or even on another day, but we are not stopping the process of financial posting and also to pay out to the employee, which was really important.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>That's really significant because you mentioned two things there that really strike me. Here in the US, we talk about where the manager sits in an approval workflow. And a lot of times our customers are saying to us, well, they're making sure that the spend was appropriate. And we have a saying here in the US the toothpaste is already out of the tube at that point, the spend has happened. So how can you stop something from happening that already happened unless you have a time machine. So it really turns managers rather into confirming that the spend is appropriate against budget, more into compliance officers, which is really not their role.</p>
<p>And the second piece of it that talk about, you know, those multiple touches on the reports can make expense reporting very expensive in terms of the employee themselves and how much time they're spending on that. So I think this innovation is at the beginning and the forefront of our customers rethinking how they do this. And is there any improvement data that you've had from your customer that they've been able to measure from the baseline prior to putting this type of workflow in place?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That is really a culture of trust. And also to put the policy, which also is a process in here that was some part of the project, or to find the real set up of a policy so that the employee can travel on a certain quality, but also not struggling then when he comes back and the amount is too high and the manager has to decline something, as you said, that is really interesting. So yeah, the spend was done. So right now, just a question. So the question is more on how we can concentrate, might be in future, with some of the employees to say, listen, I have checked your last expense statement, and please make sure that the next time that it's a little bit more in control, but coming back to the question out to measure, yeah, we did sme measures.</p>
<p>Also the customer measured the time of entry until reimbursement. And there was a significant shorten from two to three weeks to one week for the whole overall process in channel. And this helps also, even if somebody says, okay, it might be then. So you get the money later, but at the end, it's also a question of how you like to treat your employees, how you serve, not only your customers and speed also to serve your own people, to have the reimbursement process done in a really short way.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. So down to one week from two to three weeks, that's significant. I mean, that affects everything from financial reporting and being able to put out numbers in an appropriate way, right down to, as your point, to paying out an employee who's, in some cases, especially if they're using their own cards or they're paying cash in certain areas, are basically floating the company alone while this process is happening. So that's really significant and touches on so many different aspects of a business. I love that.</p>
<p>We've talked about your customer specifically, but I'd love to, now that this idea is starting to foment in some of our other customer's minds, I'd love to pick your brain on how a customer can get ready to make this kind of move to a more automated workflow. What are the things that you would recommend they do to prepare for something like that? Would it start with the policy?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. So the question is normally that the company/organization, so more from the back office organization says, yeah, we are unhappy with this paper-based receipt, we unhappy with that, but we have a lot of things we would like to see and regulations and so on. So they are coming most likely from that part to say, okay, the digitalist, the key and Concur will be paying me to, to a certain level. And then they start too fast the project with configuration and say what expense types and so on and said, stop, stop, stop. So, yeah, we are here to help you to configure the system, but please have in mind what you like to achieve at the end, you like to have 200 expense types, or you like to have the system which serves you and customer, what is your end customer? Your end customer is your employee.</p>
<p>So if you put all these regulations just in a new tool, then you will not fulfill your goal. And for sure not the goal of the employee to, to fill that proper data. And so we starting going back a little bit of step looking to the policy, looking to the goals they would like to achieve, and then discuss a certain way of where we can achieve that, how we can achieve that, and then coming to the system set up. And then everybody is also minded to know for what he is right now, requesting of the data in the Concur set up.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>It's interesting. You mentioned something earlier about trusting a process and trusting your employees, that idea of trust being inherent to that healthy corporate culture and having those really clear policies. How would you recommend for some of our customers who are trying to present to their senior management? What the key conditions are going to be in order to make this a success and get them to buy into it? Is it, is trust really the biggest part of it, or is there something more?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Trust is really important, especially today where we all kind of struggling to find the right people for our jobs we have here. So that is one part, but also it's important. And to change something, what is a really strong administration costs. So that means here we have a process. It's a tiny process, but it's so important because everybody in the organization come in the certain way to it, this process, no, you'd go some, a business trip or some bought some flowers for an event or whatever. So everybody is somehow involved. So that is the audience. The audience in the company is really huge. And also that is important to find out. So, first of all, to say, okay, we would like to streamline, you would like to reduce administration costs. But on the other hand, you have the employees, the persons, which will use that kind of functionality.</p>
<p>And there, you also need to give a little bit of trust to it that they do the right things. And at the end, if this has not happened with some of the people I say, I really believe most of the people just doing and using the tool correctly, but for sure, you have always a little bit of misleading information and stuff in the system. So here you get also with the Concur tool, the tools to find out and to follow up. But at the end, the question is, does it need to be like the employee enters data and every second comes in, pop up? Oh yeah, that's the red flag. Oh, you have to enter here another thing. Or if you have entered this, you have also enter that. So the question is also how much you just pull over to the employee in the process or to say, okay, yeah, we trust our people and they enter the data they have spent. And then we also have a good reporting on it to see if that is misleading or if that is correct for our organization.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>It's interesting. You mentioned that what you just talked about is something that I like to bring up with our customers a lot. And that's what I call "flag fatigue," where every time they type something in another flag pops up and basically yells at them to remind them to do something. And after a while employees stop paying attention to that. So the data that's coming into your point may actually not be good data because they've started to become fatigued or tired at seeing this. And they're like, yeah, yeah, I know I did everything I was supposed to do. I don't know what more you want me to do. And then it, they just move forward.</p>
<p>But you mentioned something about the data part of it. And you did mention that the customer that you were working with actually went through and, and was using some of that Cognos data to help make their system and move their system forward and provide them with data. What would you recommend for customers who are looking at moving to a more automated system? What kind of data points should they be looking for, or what kind of data strategy should they be putting together before they get to this point?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>That is a really good a question here for what should be into the Cognos tool, into the reporting. So at the end, we have a lot of standard reports, which we can look through and also a lot of information, but we would like, or what we always do with our customers is first of all, setting up the process and then thinking also what is important to achieve and a kind of compliance and part of spending and different figures of the process to ensure in the process and this, we bring up in the reporting, that's done, that's for sure. But we have also already made some really nice, best practice reporting from Neylux, which then can achieve a lot of information to that.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Best practice reporting, I love that. A lot of customers ask for that so I think it's wonderful that you've been able to, to identify that. I would like to ask a question. I know earlier I talked about going back in time in a time machine, I'd love for you to be able to think about going forward in a time machine. And are there any trends that you're seeing within our customer base or observations you can make about things that you've been seeing over the last 12 to 18 months that you think would be important for customers to take under consideration as they look into an automation journey?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yes. For sure. Especially here in Europe, one of the biggest thing is really get digital. So nobody, we started back. So my career starts a lot of back, but even with the old SAP software, there were a lot of things inside, which is still paper-based. So that is really, nobody from the customers expect to still need papers. Sometimes it's coming up because somebody else organization comes with a legal point to it, but we are well prepared. And we know the country setups where you still need paper. Most of the countries, you don't need any paper that is for sure. Something, which I really see, yeah, that is not a question anymore. That is a really a hard fact to go to Concur, to change what they have on the setup and really paperless and digital, that is one part. The other part is to get rid of really extreme workflow ideas of having tools three step approvals to involve the higher management departments and so on.</p>
<p>That is also really nice to see that they really understand that that is not a process, which you control later after the spend might be. You have to think about more to, to give advice to your employees, how to spend and what to spend. So that is also really nice to see. And yeah, one big trend is in a year, we are really prepared for it is to combine all the different systems set up. So I would say the SAP backend system or another financial system, HR master data and so on. So this is absolutely nice and amazing to see that the customers really focus on integration and also check and try really, to get most out of the setup. And also from the architectural point of view.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Those are great tips and thoughts of trends. Have you seen customers moving more towards an automated kind of compliance situation? I know you mentioned earlier that the customer you worked with for this award had the Concur Audit tools. Are you seeing more customers dependent on the AI or machine learning type tools to give a more complete picture of compliance and remove those managers out of that flow?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>That is something really interesting. And we are really looking forward to that point of view to really say, okay, if that happens and that happens, from out of the learning, we know that it's correct, and nobody has to look with human eyes on that document. That is really what I'm looking forward to it and I really would like to achieve, it's just starting. I think there's a lot of possibilities technically-wise to build that up, but this is just starting, a lot of customers as to maybe even the 100% check on the documents. So that is something in the move. There are some customers which already say, no, no, no, we are not checking all of this stuff that makes no man time. So we save a lot of time and the quality is not really going down a significant, so that is something which everybody, or most of the customers looking forward, the AI staff, it's just at the beginning, I think here, we also, together with you guys from Concur, we are looking more to that point of view that the customers understand, okay, with that kind of technology, we can really hit the next step in this process and getting even faster.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that observation. I guess my final question would be around measurement for customers. So everybody's very concerned about, you know, key performance indicators and measuring success of making these kind of automation changes. So from a baseline perspective into the improvement perspective, are there specific areas you would recommend for customers to start collecting baseline on prior to making these changes so that once the changes have been made, they can truly identify and record where their success is happening and what the improvement is for their team?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, there's this kind of a complex setup and also question which we are trying to focus in these projects, but honestly at the moment, that is still a way to go. So most of the customers are looking more to establish the digital process, to streamline, to get best practice into place. And the measurement comes later when they get more familiar with the possibilities of the tools. And therefore we also try to get in touch with them to say, okay, look, that makes the change complete. Or here we have still parts of improvement in your process.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You mentioned best practice again, is there specific best practice that you advise customers on that we haven't touched on yet?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yes. One of our... In the workflow area, because that is somehow where we also put our innovation here in into the field is, yeah, the manager comes at the end in kind of workflow. So if you have to check something, if you look on Concur Audit or your own processes, staff put it first so that the manager gets the final picture. The manager should not, as in the former parts, often choose the second there's just said, okay, the manager approves. And then the process just do the bookkeeping.</p>
<p>Now that is something which we would like to avoid. So we have a policy, we have rules we know what is out and so on the process of a check first, everything that is technically-wise correct VAT is correct. Document is attached correctly, every single suite and so on. So, and then manager just look to it. So here as our innovation award say, so you can look to it via some information, not directly stopping the process, but for sure we have also customers which would like to have the classical approvals that was a tick box and button pushing. And, but the manager should do that at the end when everything is clear. And that is one of the hugest advices we have here in the process flow.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I, 100% endorse that recommendation. I believe that that is probably the most efficient way to run a workflow. And I love having you talk about it because I think we sometimes forget that our customers are using a previous way of looking at things. And now with all the data in place, they can move that manager to the end because there's so many different tools and features that can do some of the work that was happening before. And then the manager can be that last part of the step rather than him having to be the first step over and over and over again. So I really, really liked that. Is there anything else that I might have forgotten to ask about, or that you wanted to talk about that I have not brought up yet?</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>No, that was really interesting speech, was really nice to discuss some of the features, what we did with this particular customer, but also I like to have the possibility to talk a little bit by the range on, on what is possible, what brings up the technology here and the Concur tools. And we still, we are enjoying so much implementing that with different kinds of customers around the world. So yeah. Thank you very much. That is really nice.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And I loved hearing about this new take on automation about how moving that workflow into a more automated state and how it actually does touch on so many different parts of an organization, whether it's how the employee is entering the information, how the information is being reviewed, how the information is being taken in, and then how the information is then being transferred or translated into those financial reports. That's a huge change in how we were looking at things, moving from a paper-based to a digital is critical, especially at this time for organizations to really become more efficient and effective, allowing their employees to really take a look at things more strategically and analytically, rather than spending a lot of time on these manual processes that may or may not add value to the system. So thank you again, Siegfried, really appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to seeing the next innovation that you bring to us. And hopefully next year, we'll get to talk to you again.</p>
<p><strong>Siegfried Krause:</strong></p>
<p>Yes, we are working on that, thank you very much.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. Thanks. This is Jeanne Dion, and again please feel free to take a look at concur.com or take a listen to any of the types of features or functionality that we spoke about. Please feel free to take a look and visit the neylux site so that you can see what they have to offer as well as a partner. And we thank you for your time today. Have a great day.</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634253271174-jeanne square.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community.</p>
<p>Follow her on<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-dion-67062b8/"> LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634253847250-siegfried square.png" /> </p>
<p>Siegfried Krause is the CoFounder and CEO from SAP Concur Implementation Partner neylux.</p>
<p>During his career in SAP he worked in different positions in the field of business travel management. Between 2009 and 2016 he was active as a freelance for implementing SAP Travel Management solutions.</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/siegfried-krause-26703b14/?originalSubdomain=de">LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
No One Knows the Future, But Here Are Five Really Good Guesses.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/no-one-knows-future-here-are-five-really-good-guesses
2022-07-01T17:25:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Staying on top of spending by staying on top of change Our first prediction is that you werent planning to read this whole blog But well change that with one simple statement The...
<h2>Staying on top of spending by staying on top of change. </h2>
<p>Our first prediction is that you weren’t planning to read this whole blog. But we’ll change that with one simple statement: </p>
<p>The how, where, and why of corporate spending have changed dramatically, and if you don’t change how you manage that spending, you’ll end up paying for it. </p>
<p>So, how do you stay ahead of the changes in employee spending brought on by a new, work-from-anywhere culture? How do you move out of the survival mode of the last 18 months and into a growth mindset? How do you finally, finally get control over spending when you’re inundated with new expenses, new payment types, shifting employee expectations, demands for sustainability, and the desire for scalability? </p>
<p>According to our recent discussions with Accenture, you rethink your travel and expense management system to find ways to move faster, to continuously improve results, and to fit what’s next. </p>
<h3>1. Risk is going to get worse. Compliance is going to get better. </h3>
<p>The more things change, the more things like risk and fraud go through the roof. Between 2019 and 2020, for example, (a time, if you remember, of somewhat profound change) <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">spend violations increased a whopping 292%</a>. As a finance leader, you need the strategies and systems to immediately adapt to change and, ultimately, keep risks at bay. Part of the solution to slowing non-compliant spend is, obviously, to make compliance easier. Intelligent tools like AI and machine learning can help guide employees to better choices, and with human and AI auditing processes, you can catch more out-of-policy spend. </p>
<h3>2. Spend governance will be a lot sexier than it sounds. </h3>
<p>To keep up with evolving spending trends, you need to capture and analyze all of your spend data. To do that, deploy intelligent automation tools to watch over everything from transactions to tax credits – then use those real-time insights to improve control over travel and expense spending, to improve process efficiency, and to improve your ability to forecast. </p>
<h3>3. Travel will no longer be a guessing game. </h3>
<p>Before the pandemic, companies hardly had a clue where their employees were or when they were coming back. Today, that simply isn’t an option. The right travel and expense solution will capture itineraries regardless of how they were booked. They’ll also give you the ability to preapprove bookings before the money is spent, while giving travelers pre-trip advice regarding everything from neighborhood safety scores to Covid-19 restrictions to sustainable transportation. So they can travel safely, and you can safely balance your budget. </p>
<h3>4. Liking your job will actually be a thing. </h3>
<p>It’s all about the employee experience – not about making their work easier, but about taking meaningless, mindless work off their plates and yours, so everyone can do what they were hired to do. The time-wasting tasks we’re talking about? Chasing down receipts, writing up expense reports, jumping from system to system to complete a simple chore – that sort of thing. Automating those processes also eliminates errors, so you get more accurate expense information, and employees get to do the kind of work that helps them feel productive and engaged. </p>
<h3>5. You can confidently talk about growth again. </h3>
<p>Your peers are getting ready to grow – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">84%</a> of them have at least one growth-related goal for the next year, and three-quarters are more optimistic about their growth than that of the global economy. Why is their glass half full? They have real-time data that shows whether or not their policies and procedures fit current spending patterns, and where they don’t, they have intelligent tools to make the necessary changes. So instead of trying to do things the way they’ve always been done, they’re adapting, they’re automating, they’re accurately predicting, and they’re auditing everything. It’s how they’re getting ahead, and it’s the only way to grow. </p>
<p>Now, if you made it to the end of this blog, congratulations on proving our first prediction wrong. If you want to see why we’re not wrong about the others, check out the whitepaper. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Innovating Through Data: The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent It
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/innovating-through-data-best-way-predict-future-invent-it-0
2022-07-02T05:30:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Organizations that dont prioritize innovation tend to get left behind But how do organizations determine when where or how to innovate While assessing employee sentiment is a great...
<p>Organizations that don’t prioritize innovation tend to get left behind. But how do organizations determine when, where, or how to innovate? While assessing employee sentiment is a great first choice, another route often lies in analyzing the data.</p>
<p>“Which type of data?” you may be wondering. In the digital economy, there’s so much data being collected that the list could go on and on. In fact, these large data sets are <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/data-driven-innovation.htm">becoming a core asset</a> in the economy, fostering new industries, processes, and products – creating significant competitive advantages.</p>
<p>In this blog, we’ll be exploring why getting more familiar with your organization’s financial data is critical when driving the success of your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Doing more with less</h2>
<p>No matter the organization, understanding where to reduce costs and direct spending can be quite valuable. But getting to that financial view is the hard part. Every day, businesses receive numerous amounts of fluctuating financial data, and it’s becoming harder to decipher let alone determine where exactly to innovate.</p>
<p>For example, a growing pressure for enterprises to solve is creating more sustainable business practices. Is it as simple as reducing business travel to achieve lower levels carbon emissions? No. An innovative solution would achieve both the desired business outcome and maximize profit. Here are some questions that take both into consideration:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are we working with sustainable suppliers and vendors?</li>
<li>How did business travel effect revenue?</li>
<li>Is there a closer, more sustainable meeting location?</li>
<li>How does remote work impact sustainability and profit goals?</li>
</ul>
<p>While these questions seem straight forward, they require a deeper level of thinking. This is where the power of analytics come in. “Analytics are really great at finding these linkages or hidden patterns we may not easily observe by mining through a ton of data,” said <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/data-analytics-innovation/">Professor Lynn Wu</a> in a podcast with Wharton. Although if you have to pull together spending data across multiple systems, this may be harder to achieve in real-time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Forecasting accurate, financial trends</h2>
<p>Comparing data that isn’t standard or unified is extremely complex when the goal is to tie it back to higher-level objectives. That’s why it’s important to ensure all your financial data is together, in one place, before looking for more widespread financial trends. When the data comes from decentralized systems, they often roll up to the general ledger (GL) in an aggregated format before being posted as journal entries. This typically leaves the GL with a high-level view of a few large T&E categories—like airfare, hotels, meals, and mileage – depriving finance teams the context and detail needed to identify innovations. Automated spend management systems centralize the travel, expense, and invoice data, allowing finance teams to leverage reporting tools and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the transactional data in detail; manipulate it accordingly and identify larger trends, such as process and cash flow inefficiencies, budget overages, and even fraud. Having the right information, at the right time, helps you drive better business decisions, so the bottom line isn’t sacrificed later.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why data and reporting is critical to business success</h2>
<p>Our customers tell us that data is the blood of their organizations – it helps them analyze, control, and make decisions critical to success. Without it, our customers are unable to see where they have been, where they are, and where they are going.</p>
<p>A strong reporting program not only includes analyzing prior and current performance, but also marrying employee spend data with corporate goals as it pertains directly to finances. Take these measurements as an example: reporting spend by category is necessary for the profit and loss statements or balance sheets; while non-financial, quantitative measurements – payment cycle times, carbon footprints, and employee sentiment – are necessary to keep the business running efficiently. You can then use industry benchmarks to compare against competitors and year-over-year (YoY) indicators to weigh your business’ success:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Industry benchmarks</strong>: Compare your process workflows and expense levels to industry averages; high spend categories, airfare vendors, ground transportation mileage, hotel, and meal spend.</li>
<li><strong>Leading indicators</strong>: Typically non-financial, tell us how a business is performing and gives us insight into future performance; travel trends, payment to contract terms, pre-approved purchases.</li>
<li><strong>Lagging indicators</strong>: Typically financial; a look at the past performance or what has been spent. Used to identify trending, as well as including YoY measurements of spending or revenues to identify organizational trends.</li>
</ul>
<p>Consistently being able to provide this level of data and reporting helps managers and executives measure success so they can discover more areas to innovate.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Innovate spend management with SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>If you can’t see your business’ total spend in time to make quick, effective decisions, it’s time to upgrade. It’s not simply enough to have access to your data, you must take it a step further to harness the true power. Unfortunately, the process of gathering and maintaining data is often manual, outdated, and fraught with potential inconsistencies and errors – not to mention the lengthy amount of time spent.</p>
<p>Thankfully there’s a better way, and that’s where we come in. SAP Concur solutions allow you to collaborate with experts and tailor actionable data, so your organization can gain visibility into its KPIs and drive business forward.</p>
<p><strong>Start building a reputable reporting strategy today, visit our </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis"><strong>Consultative Intelligence solutions</strong></a><strong> website</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
Robots Aren't Going to Steal Everyone's Job But They Will Do the Parts No One Likes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/robots-arent-going-steal-everyones-job-they-will-do-parts-no-one-likes
2022-11-13T16:08:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A look at where innovative businesses are headed.
<p>The future isn’t as frightening as people might imagine. Automation isn’t going to take over, and digital assistants aren’t going to run the world. But the technological horizon is getting closer, faster, and that means all parts of your business can get simpler — including travel and expense.</p>
<p>What sort of impact can intelligent technology have on core business processes like travel and expense management? What kind of changes can you and your team look forward to? Here’s what’s right around the corner.</p>
<p><strong>Trips that book themselves: </strong>Travel management is becoming a seamless, low-effort experience that uses traveler and business data to create entire trips that adhere to travel policy. And soon, virtual assistants will be able to book it all.</p>
<p><strong>Expense reports that write themselves: </strong>You can already snap a photo of a receipt and have it auto-upload into an expense report, but as machine learning advances, it will be able to evaluate, track, submit, and manage every digit of expense data.</p>
<p><strong>Data that analyzes itself: </strong>When humans enter and audit data in your system, they make mistakes; sometimes, they commit fraud; and the process itself robs employees and the company of time. When machine learning manages data, it watches for trends and improves compliance, forecasting, and budgeting instantly and automatically.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What kinds of trends can you expect to continue?</h2>
<p><strong>The personalization of travel: </strong><a href="https://news.mycwt.com/pressreleases/carlson-wagonlit-travel-research-european-travelers-least-worried-about-safety-and-security-2273250">80% of business travelers rely on their phone to conduct business, and they’re using it to gain control of the travel experience. 88% of them, in fact, believe technology makes travel easier to navigate.</a> When you equip your travelers with top technology and tools to make their own choices, it becomes easier for them to be compliant and for you to attract top talent.</p>
<p><strong>Increased focus on traveler safety: </strong><a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-11/travel-risk-perceptions-2017.pdf">Knowing where your team is located is only half the battle. It falls on you to keep them safe in a world where 63% of business travel managers feel that travelers’ risk has increased and 52% fear it’s going to rise more in the next year.</a> To provide this level of security, you have to know how to reach and, if necessary, retrieve them.</p>
<p><strong>Global data consolidation: </strong><a href="https://www.sap.com/documents/2017/05/b45624bc-ba7c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.html">88% of CFOs point to T&E costs as a way to optimize working capital.</a> But getting those costs under control requires centralizing travel and expense data across all your divisions. Accomplish this and you’ll not only help the company save time and money, you’ll reveal spend details you’ve never seen, helping improve processes and policies company-wide. </p>
<p><strong>A shift to mobile-first markets. </strong><a href="https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Which-global-internet-markets-are-the-most-mobile-first">By 2020, there will be more than a million mobile payment users.</a> They’re becoming the new normal and are transforming the way financial transactions are handled. Look for systems that embrace mobility to stay a step ahead.</p>
<p><strong>Machine learning and the shift to higher-value work. </strong><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works">49% of today’s jobs will be affected by automation.</a> When you integrate more intelligent technology into travel and expense management, and the tracking and reporting of spend begins to happen automatically, you’ll give your team more time to focus on more valuable tasks.</p>
<p>The tools and technology it takes to personalize travel, to make it safer – to do all of these things – are already out there. They’re at work in companies like yours around the world, and you can take advantage of them. Today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Like Finding a Needle in a Tech Stack
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finding-needle-tech-stack
2022-11-13T16:42:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What to look for when looking for a travel and expense management solution.
<p>It isn’t about the money (okay, it’s about the money), but in this case it’s about more than the money. Any tool can keep track of expenses and help you keep spending in line, but if it isn’t easy (and dare we say enjoyable) to use, no one is going to use it. And we all know that the people doing the spending don’t want or need more hassles in their day. Employees have enough work to do; travelers do too, plus they get to wait in line most of the time.</p>
<p>The tools you give them, therefore, should get the job done in a couple of clicks – and they should do more than any other process you’ve put them through. Everything from auto-filling expense reports and incorporating AI, to syncing seamlessly with your ERP and ensuring safe, sustainable travel.</p>
<p>That’s a big job for a little app, and if you want to find the right one, take a look at the tips from this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">2022 buyer’s guide.</a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Start with the experience</h2>
<p>In the days before COVID-19, we all wanted employees to be happy and comfortable. We still do, of course, but now it’s more of a demand. And if they don’t get easier, better, safer ways to work, they’ll work elsewhere.</p>
<p>That means the solution you choose should take as many menial, manual tasks off their plate as possible. It should remove any barriers between them and their ability to be productive. It should eliminate the hours spent chasing down receipts and keying in expenses, thus freeing their time to focus on moving your business forward.</p>
<p>The right solution also makes it easier to reduce your environmental footprint – by directing travelers to more sustainable transportation, for example, or encouraging them to travel only when absolutely necessary. It should give them tips on COVID-19 restrictions before they head out the door, and keep them (and you) on top of changing itineraries and emerging travel risks.</p>
<p>And because teams can now work anywhere, your travel and expense solution must work everywhere. On any device. No matter how remote the location.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make sure it can keep up with you</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">The Buyer’s Guide</a> describes the right solution as one that provides real-time visibility into employee travel and spending patterns. It’s no longer good enough to know what happened last month, you have to see what’s happening now, so you can always be ready for what’s next.</p>
<p>The right solution has to help you stay ahead of new payment types and meet the needs of new users as expenses and expectations change. It should evolve with employee demands as work and workplaces continue change. And, just as importantly, it needs to meet the demands of your business, from handling new payment processes and policies, to ensuring the security of global transactions while protecting you from fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ask, and ye shall get some answers</h2>
<p>You want to know you have the right systems in place to protect your budgets, protect your employees, and protect your business. You want to keep compliance under control and strengthen cost controls at the same time. You want to know you’re getting value for your money. And if you want to know where to find such a solution, just ask.</p>
<p>The Buyer’s Guide offers <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">ten top questions to ask your vendors</a>. It’s a great place to start your search – or at least figure out what you’re looking for.</p>
SAP Concur Team
New SAP Concur Partnership Signals More Value to Business Travelers and Travel Managers Through Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-partnership-signals-more-value-business-travelers-and-travel-managers
2022-11-13T18:57:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Amtrak has signed on to build a future Concur TripLink integration for U.S. rail travel.
<p>We are excited to announce Amtrak will join the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> ecosystem of suppliers, providing corporate customers with the ability to have better visibility and travel management into Amtrak bookings, regardless of whether they occur in the Concur Travel booking tool or directly via the Amtrak website or mobile app. Concur® TripLink customers will have the added benefit in the future of connecting their Amtrak Guest Rewards account to their SAP Concur profile to earn points towards reward travel, upgrades and more. </p>
<p>When Concur TripLink launched in 2013, the solution was designed to help travel managers gain a more complete view and better control over their managed travel programs. What started out with a small number of visionary and innovative companies using the solution with a growing set of suppliers has now evolved into an ecosystem used by over 14,000 companies and over 11 million business travelers. Concur TripLink brings bookings made outside of traditional channels into a managed travel program through the SAP Concur global network of connected suppliers and through <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a>.</p>
<p>Amtrak covers a generous territory serving over 21,000 route miles in 46 states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces where they operate over 300 trains each day to more than 500 destinations. For business travelers seeking an energy efficient mode of transportation, rail service provides an ideal option to lessen one’s carbon footprint.</p>
<p>As corporate customers lean into their sustainability initiatives and seek ways to optimize their travel and expense programs, rail service providers offer another content channel for business travelers to choose from. Amtrak continues to innovate their services while remaining committed to increasing energy efficiency and offsetting carbon emissions, which is key to corporate travel sustainability initiatives. They have several programs underway and goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - learn more in their <strong>2020 Amtrak Sustainability Report</strong> <a href="https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/environmental1/Amtrak-Sustainability-Report-FY20.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink is designed to help ensure that companies can apply their policy to direct supplier spend, provide access to negotiated rates, and to incremental supplier content outside the GDS and aggregate travel data to inform managed travel programs.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink gives travelers that need to book directly with their preferred air, hotel, car, and rail providers and the ability to incorporate these bookings into their business spend and optimizes efficiencies when it comes to expense reports with automatic itinerary and e-receipts flowing into Concur® Travel and Concur® Expense.</p>
<p>Amtrak joins a network of recognized brands in the travel industry including American Airlines, Avis, Booking.com, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Hertz, HRS, Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Lufthansa, Marriott International, Sixt, Southwest Airlines, Trainline Europe and United Airlines.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Prepare for Takeoff: 2 New Enhancements for Air Travel in TripIt
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-takeoff-2-new-enhancements-air-travel-tripit
2022-11-13T19:41:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to feeling confident about air travel knowing what to expect from your experience plays a critical role With guidance from various agencies constantly evolving travelers...
<p>When it comes to feeling confident about air travel, knowing what to expect from your experience plays a critical role. With guidance from various agencies constantly evolving, travelers making 2021 plans will face new scenarios—both before takeoff and once in the air.</p>
<p>“Vaccination progress and the prospect of traveling again is undoubtedly exciting, but when it comes to planning and actually taking a trip, a lot has changed in the traveler experience—and not knowing what to expect or where to turn for up-to-date information can impact travelers’ confidence in returning to the skies,” says Jen Moyse, Senior Director of Product at TripIt from Concur.</p>
<p>Airlines have new procedures in place to help reduce infection spread, such as mask requirements and reduced capacity on flights. Likewise, airports have new offerings—including on-site COVID-19 testing locations and PPE vending machines—to help travelers feel more comfortable taking a flight.</p>
<p>However, keeping track of which airline is blocking middle seats and the amenities available at any given airport is a lot to stay on top of. Today, we’re announcing that two TripIt features—<a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-guidance-travel-plans.html">COVID-19 travel guidance</a> and <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001160044-Interactive-Airport-Maps">Interactive Airport Maps</a>—now offer additional guidance. You can learn more about these enhancements below.</p>
<h2>Airline-specific COVID-19 travel guidance</h2>
<p>When you’re ready to return to the skies, we’ve added airline-specific COVID-19 travel guidance in the TripIt app. This includes information on your flight’s enhanced cleaning procedures, middle seat policy, <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/what-travelers-need-to-know-about-digital-health-passports.html">health documentation requirements</a>, food and beverage service, and more. You can check out this feature by tapping the guidebook button from the trip itinerary screen. This information comes from our partner Riskline.</p>
<p>For the airlines you’re flying, TripIt will show you COVID-19 related guidance including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Relevant information regarding masks, health documentation, and temperature scans</li>
<li>Your airline’s blocked middle seat policy</li>
<li>Availability of food and beverage service</li>
<li>Information around enhanced cleaning measures and HEPA filters</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-guidance-travel-plans.html">Now Arriving: COVID-19 Travel Guidance in TripIt</a></p>
<h2>Who has access to airline-specific COVID-19 travel guidance? </h2>
<p>This information is available to all TripIt users in the TripIt Android and iOS mobile apps. Be sure your app is updated to the latest version. Airline-specific COVID-19 travel guidance is currently available for 77 airlines, and we plan to add more in the future.</p>
<h2>What else does the COVID-19 travel guidance feature offer?</h2>
<p>We know travelers are concerned about staying up to date on travel restrictions and guidelines. To help keep you informed, TripIt offers destination-specific <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-guidance-travel-plans.html">COVID-19 travel guidance</a> as well for the places you’re planning to visit. You can find COVID-19 travel guidance when you view a trip itinerary in TripIt. You will notice a guidebook button on your trip summary screen (above the edit button). Tap the guidebook to see additional information to help you prepare for your travels.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a> user, you can search the feature to find this information for destinations you’re planning to visit without needing them to be part of a TripIt itinerary. This includes current infection rates, quarantine rules upon arrival, testing requirements, and other information you need to know before visiting the area. You can find the feature in the Pro tab of the app.</p>
<p><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-health-and-safety-features-tripit-app.html">Travel Has Changed Over the Past Year: Here’s How TripIt Has Kept Up</a></p>
<h2>COVID-19 testing (and more) in Interactive Airport Maps</h2>
<p>Interactive Airport Maps in TripIt Pro give you everything you need to quickly and easily navigate your way around the airport, with step-by-step directions, walking times, search options, and more.</p>
<p>Now the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/our-new-interactive-airport-maps-take-the-hassle-out-of-getting-to-your-gate.html">Interactive Airport Maps</a> feature offers information about on-site amenities related to health and safety as well. For available airports, TripIt Pro users can search interactive maps for the locations of COVID-19 testing sites, stores that sell face coverings, hand sanitizer stations, and personal protective equipment (PPE) vending machines—all right in the app.</p>
<p><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/COVID_airline-US.gif" /></p>
<p>“We know that travel can be a stressful experience—never mind during a pandemic,” says Moyse. “TripIt is focused on adding features and enhancements that can help relieve some of that stress by making it easier to find the information you need before and while on your trip.”</p>
<h2>How does it work?</h2>
<p>Within the flight details screen under Airports, you’ll see airport maps for your departure, layover, and arrival airports. Select an airport map that is labeled Pro to see an interactive map of the airport. There you can search for these health- and safety-related amenities. For example, you can enter “COVID-19” for testing sites, “hand sanitizer” for stations, “mask” for shops selling face coverings, and “PPE” for PPE vending machines.</p>
<p>Interactive airport maps are available to TripIt Pro users for more than 105 global airports.</p>
<p>So, the next time you’re preparing to travel, you can consult the TripIt app to find need-to-know information—like whether your airline requires you to provide health documentation or if you can get a COVID-19 test upon arrival at your destination airport. From planning to landing, we hope to make navigating your trips as seamless as possible.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Pandemic Year Two and How Companies Have Adapted
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/pandemic-year-two-and-how-companies-have-adapted
2022-12-06T11:15:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
On the second anniversary of the pandemic theres a lot to reflect onfrom the lives and businesses upended by the pandemic to the relief efforts to aid the many in need There were...
<p>On the second anniversary of the pandemic, there’s a lot to reflect on—from the lives and businesses upended by the pandemic to the relief efforts to aid the many in need. There were incredible challenges, but also stories of adapting and overcoming.</p>
<p>From our vantage point, we observed large-scale transformation as companies made rapid adjustments for remote work and other business disruptions. At SAP Concur, our mission is to reinvent travel, expense, and invoice management with tools that simplify everyday processes and create better experiences. We want to help companies solve problems and make the pivotal moments count, whether big or small.</p>
<p>As we reflect on the past two years, our customers’ stories and the challenges they overcame during the pandemic remain front and center.</p>
<h2>Corporate travel trials during a global pandemic <strong> </strong></h2>
<p>At the start of the pandemic, companies were scrambling to track down traveling employees and ensure their safe return home.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/serco">Serco</a>, one of the world's largest providers of public services to governments, had to act quickly on the day the British government announced its first lockdown. The team used reports in Concur Travel to quickly locate employees and help facilitate return trips before business travelers were stranded.</p>
<p>“SAP enabled us to respond to the welfare and safety of our employees,” according to Joanne Cartwright, Manager Services Director at Serco. “When the pandemic hit, our first mission was to bring home our employees quickly and safely—and the SAP Concur platform really facilitated that.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state">Penn State University</a>, with more than 35,000 employees, is another institution that had to quickly track down faculty and staff for their protection. “Although we don’t mandate the use of Concur Travel, since the pandemic, a lot of departments are now doing that on their own,” said Lisa Steinbugl, E-Procurement, Travel and Purchasing Card Manager at Penn State. “They clearly saw the value of what the tool offers in terms of duty of care.”</p>
<p>Business travel was put on hold for many companies after the outbreak. Luckily, those that captured bookings through an online booking tool were able to reconcile future trips.</p>
<p>“We were able to take unused airfare booked through Concur Travel and move it to a new UATP (Universal Air Travel Plan) card to use when we start booking travel again,” said Steinbugl. “We couldn’t do that for travel booked outside of the tool.”</p>
<p>If shutting down corporate travel programs was difficult, those that restarted them during the pandemic faced even greater challenges. New and deeper levels of planning were required to ensure travelers’ safe return to travel.</p>
<p>Peace of mind was a key theme for companies that restarted travel programs. Serco used Concur Travel to directly manage approvals for business-critical trips. Integrations with duty of care partners ensured Serco could better protect employees in a range of scenarios when traveling—which is what employees expect from employers. An SAP Concur study found that 89 percent of business travelers want their company to protect their health and safety while traveling.</p>
<h2>Going remote in a moment’s notice with automated employee spend management</h2>
<p>The pandemic prompted the great remote work migration. Within a short timeframe, the office became synonymous with home—and home was lacking the infrastructure to support work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/caf-america">CAF America</a>, a global grantmaking organization, used Concur Expense to help employees transition to a home office. Each employee was allocated $1,500 to purchase home office equipment, furniture, and tools. In less than two weeks, CAF America received reimbursement requests from 80 percent of the staff, totaling more than $42,000. Even with the unusually high number of simultaneous submissions, employees had their reimbursements paid with their next paycheck, as usual.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/tech-interactive">The Tech Interactive</a>, a hands-on science center in the heart of Silicon Valley, is another non-profit that needed to adapt rapidly. It had to modify its manual expense reporting and cumbersome invoice process, in addition to creating virtual exhibits. By adopting cloud-based SAP Concur solutions, The Tech Interactive's back office moved to an electronic invoice process while employees gained the ability to file expense reports on the go.</p>
<p>“We've realized not everything has to happen on site,” said Brandon Lewke, Controller at The Tech Interactive. “Some things should, but some things can happen offsite, especially when you're in a nonprofit. But with SAP Concur solutions, the stuff that can happen remotely can be done from anywhere.”</p>
<h2>Embracing change</h2>
<p>Companies and employees have been at the forefront of innovation, adapting to unprecedented changes and setting the stage for the future of travel and spend management. We find inspiration in SAP Concur customers that prove that.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Automating AP and Expense Processes: The Secret to Controlling Stress
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automating-ap-and-expense-processes-secret-controlling-stress
2022-12-06T14:41:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Running a business is an investment you need to spend money to make money But when it comes to managing your spend theres no room for error if youre going to accurately forecast...
<p>Running a business is an investment – you need to spend money to make money. But when it comes to managing your spend, there’s no room for error if you’re going to accurately forecast, budget, and invest. That means every expense report needs to be submitted on time and every vendor invoice receipt must be accounted for.</p>
<p>But this is easier said than done. Many small-business owners and employees have a lot on their plates, which can lead to process inefficiencies creeping in.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Automating Financial Process: A Recipe for Wellness and Growth</h5>
<p>Learn how improved efficiency can promote personal well-being and boost business results.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">Read the e-Book</a></div>
</div>
<p>These inefficiencies not only hurt your business operations, but they can affect your and your employees’ personal lives, too. And the problem is more widespread than you may think.</p>
<p>To put it in perspective: <a href="https://economia.icaew.com/news/september-2017/accountants-work-too-much-study-says">nearly half of all accountants put in more than 13 extra days per year.</a> That’s 13 fewer days they have to spend enjoying their lives outside of work.</p>
<p>Maximizing company profitability shouldn’t come at the cost of you and your employees’ precious personal time. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to.</p>
<h2>Automation can simplify your life</h2>
<p>As the corporate accountant for Stevens Engineering & Constructors, Mary Ann Andrews struggled to get away from her desk as she worked to manage and approve expense reports. And considering that the company employs over 250 people, that’s no surprise.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, expense reports were frequently submitted late, costing the company potential profits.</p>
<p>“We used to have issues with expense reports not being filed until after projects were complete, so costs couldn’t be recovered,” said Andrews.</p>
<p>After switching to an automated expense solution, it’s now easier than ever for the staff at Stevens to submit and track expenses in a timely fashion. Which means there are fewer sunk costs for the company – and Mary Ann has more time away from her desk.</p>
<h2>AP and expense software is more than just a cost management tool</h2>
<p>The primary benefit of automation is the real-time visibility into spend it can provide. A clear picture of all your business’s expenses allows you to better control operating costs and make more informed, data-driven decisions in the future.</p>
<p>You’ll have the insight needed to identify new business opportunities and take calculated risks. Plus, a better understanding of purchasing patterns makes it easier to negotiate and strengthen your relationships with vendors – which can save you a lot of money.</p>
<p>Additionally, the improved visibility you gain will improve communication across the organization and give employees a sense of ownership of their work, which can increase motivation and satisfaction.</p>
<p>And what about all the time your employees will save? Is keeping work and personal life in proportion really that big of a deal?</p>
<p>As it turns out, it is.</p>
<h2>Balance is the key to happiness – and business success</h2>
<p>Studies show that workers who find balance between their jobs and personal lives <a href="http://rh-us.mediaroom.com/2018-08-06-Nashville-Workers-Give-Themselves-Poor-Marks-For-Work-Life-Balance-Chicago-Ranks-Highest-According-To-Robert-Half-Survey">are twice as happy, more productive, and show greater loyalty</a> to their employers.</p>
<p>In fact, employees who have a good work–life balance are <a href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/workers-unhappy-with-managers-4x-more-likely-to-job-hunt/542515/">10% more likely to stay at their companies</a> than those who don’t. And every little bit counts as a business leader – especially when you consider that the cost of losing an employee can be up to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-much-does-employee-turnover-really-cost_b_587fbaf9e4b0474ad4874fb7">twice the employee’s annual salary.</a></p>
<p>In other words, the benefits of expense automation are twofold. Not only does the data and insight it provides help boost your bottom line, but the time it saves you and your employees <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-employee-well-being-key-sustainable-business-growth">is the key to improved well-being</a>.</p>
<p>That’s a win-win.</p>
<p>For more information about the benefits of automation, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">check out this e-book</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Planning to Visit Europe in 2023? You Might Need an ETIAS Travel Authorization
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/planning-visit-europe-2023-you-might-need-etias-travel-authorization
2022-12-30T15:15:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Recent data from TripIt showed that nearly onethird of Americans headed to Europe for Memorial Day weekendand thats just the start of the summer travel season Indeed as the pandemic...
<p>Recent data from TripIt showed that nearly <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-data-memorial-day-weekend-2022.html">one-third of Americans</a> headed to Europe for Memorial Day weekend—and that’s just the start of the summer travel season. Indeed, as the pandemic wanes, more and more people are returning to Europe for personal and business trips alike.</p>
<p>But soon there will be a new requirement for those planning trips to Europe. Starting next year, many non-European citizens, including Americans, will need to apply for and receive approval for a visa waiver—i.e., an ETIAS travel authorization—in order to visit.</p>
<p>Haven’t heard of an ETIAS travel authorization, or feel unsure about the process for applying for one? Not to worry! You can find all the need-to-know details, below.</p>
<h2>What is ETIAS?</h2>
<p>The European Travel Information and Authorization System, or ETIAS, is a visa waiver program created by the European Union (EU). The program was created with the goal of protecting the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/schengen-borders-and-visa/schengen-visa_en">Schengen Area</a>—i.e., the 26 European countries that have adopted a common visa policy and eliminated the need for passport or border control among them—from visitors arriving from outside the region. By requiring visitors to register, the EU will be able to better identify any possible threats or risks associated with travelers coming into the area.</p>
<p>By the start of 2023, all visitors—i.e., tourists and business travelers—who do not need a visa to enter Europe will need to apply for an ETIAS travel authorization. An exact effective date has not yet been announced.</p>
<h2>What is an ETIAS travel authorization?</h2>
<p>The ETIAS travel authorization is a visa waiver, similar to the <a href="https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/">U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)</a> visa waiver. All eligible visitors (i.e., <a href="https://www.etiasvisa.com/etias-news/countries-do-not-need-visa-to-europe">those who do not need a visa</a>) will be expected to present an approved ETIAS when traveling to any of the Schengen Area countries.</p>
<p>Approved ETIAS visa waivers will be valid for three years, and will allow people to enter the Schengen Area for periods of up to 90 days within any 180-day period.</p>
<h2>How do I apply for an ETIAS travel authorization?</h2>
<p>To apply for an ETIAS travel authorization, you must have a valid passport, internet access, and the financial means to pay for the fee.</p>
<p>The cost of an ETIAS has not yet been announced (but you can check back here when it is). Travelers will be required to pay for the cost of ETIAS when they complete their online application form.</p>
<p>In addition to a fee, travelers will be required to provide their personal information, and answer questions about the country they intend to enter and public health risks, disclose any criminal history, as well as provide information as to whether they’ve previously been refused entry or been ordered to leave a member state.</p>
<p>Applications should take approximately 10 minutes to complete, and most applicants will receive their authorization in a matter of minutes.</p>
<h2>What countries will I need an ETIAS travel authorization to enter?</h2>
<p>You will need an ETIAS to visit any member country of Europe’s Schengen Area.</p>
<p>Currently, that includes Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as the microstates of San Marino, Vatican City, and Monaco.</p>
<p>At the time of publication, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Cyprus are in the process of joining the Schengen Area. Once they’re approved, travelers will be required to have an ETIAS travel authorization to visit those countries, as well.</p>
<p>This story originally appeared on the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/">TripIt blog</a>. </p>
<p>Does your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Here's how</a> you can find out and activate it.</p>
Amanda Wowk
4 Ways to Tap Into the SAP Concur Customer Community to Elevate Your Career
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-ways-tap-sap-concur-customer-community-elevate-your-career
2023-07-07T09:24:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With more than 4550,000 customers, the SAP Concur Community is the perfect place for you to gain expertise from your fellow administrators and users, share your own insights, and elevate your career a
<p>During the daily work grind, it can sometimes be difficult to find opportunities that let your expertise shine through. What’s needed is a space outside of your workplace, and within a larger peer community, where you can drive success and inspiration from interacting with others who do what you do.</p>
<p>No matter the stage in your career, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bright-ideas-all-one-place">SAP Concur Community </a>can help. With access to the largest user network of travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) professionals, you can accelerate your growth, engage in continual learning, and unlock innovative ideas to help your career blossom.</p>
<p>Are you an expert in a field or industry looking for a platform to share your knowledge and develop your personal brand? We’ve got you. Our community programs provide multiple avenues to showcase your expertise.</p>
<p>Are you an admin looking to gain new skills and maximize your TE&I solutions to build up your career? You’re covered, too. In the SAP Concur Community, you can connect with leaders and experts who can help you expand your knowledge.</p>
<p>Let’s look at four ways you can elevate your career with the SAP Concur Community:</p>
<p><strong>1. Become part of our digital community: </strong><a href="https://community.concur.com/">The SAP Concur Community</a> is the perfect place to start. Our community has more than 80,000 members asking questions, providing answers, and discussing topics that affect how you manage expenses in your organization. For people newer to their roles and SAP Concur solutions, you can ask questions, glean knowledge from prior discussions, and interact with leaders in the community.</p>
<p>As an expert, you can make your mark by answering the community’s toughest questions in the online forums. Do you see a trend arising that will affect your peers? Start a conversation. You can also use direct messaging to help a peer through a problem or become a mentor.</p>
<p><strong>2. Network in our user groups:</strong> If you’d like to engage even more, our user groups provide networking opportunities in small group settings, both virtually and in person. You can participate as a user group panelist, speak at an event, or meet and engage with one another in small group roundtables. When you’re face-to-face (even on a video call), you can more deeply connect with industry and role peers on issues and common</p>
<p>challenges. These experiences are open to TE&I professionals of all levels, so you may find a mentor through them – or meet someone who needs a mentor like you.</p>
<p><strong>3. Learn from industry key opinion leaders:</strong> Leadership councils are made up of a select group of customers who help advise and inform the SAP Concur organization on how to best serve their communities. They meet periodically to discuss key issues facing their industries, and then we share their advice, tips, and knowledge with the greater community of SAP Concur customers through content and events.</p>
<p>How can you benefit? Leadership councils provide one-to-many mentorship, allowing you to gain insights from experts that you can take back to your organization to better run your TE&I functions. You can participate in networking opportunities with these leaders and get advice to help advance your career.</p>
<p><strong>4. Attend events to expand your network and knowledge: </strong>SAP Concur Fusion is our annual customer conference that provides educational and networking opportunities, no matter your expertise level. Throughout the conference, you can build your network by attending events designed to help you meet your peers. You can explore sessions that support your professional development, stay on top of SAP Concur solution updates, and learn ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how you manage TE&I at your organization. And if you’d like this opportunity more than just once a year, you can also participate in SAP Concur Fusion Exchanges, our global series of one-day virtual conferences.</p>
<p>For those who have introduced innovative ways to use data, streamline workflows, support travelers, and more, you can apply to speak. It’s a great way to make your mark and build your personal brand. Watch our <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> page for calls for speakers. </p>
<h2>Grow with us</h2>
<p>People need people to grow. We inspire one another, help each other solve problems, and provide the support that helps each of us do our best. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s a quote from one of our Leadership Council members:</p>
<p>“The community has grown [through] our relationships with one another, especially from video calls and a lot of personal exchange of information. We've been able to really grow as a more cohesive group, not only on the advisory boards or the leadership boards, but with one another any time we have an opportunity to connect via a conference call.”</p>
<p>In an ever-evolving world, it can be challenging to stay on top of how we manage spend. But you can set yourself apart by keeping your knowledge fresh, offering innovative ideas, and becoming an expert on the tools your organization uses.</p>
<p>With more than 50,000 customers, the SAP Concur Community is the perfect place for you to gain this expertise from your fellow administrators and users, share your own insights and elevate your career and personal brand.</p>
<p>Learn more about the <a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Customer-Community.html">SAP Concur Community today.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Ways Technology Can Modernize Employee Spend for State and Local Government
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-technology-can-modernize-employee-spend-state-and-local-government
2023-08-24T14:43:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Constantly reshaping the global economy technology has changed the way we run business We can now deliver more services communicate to customers through a variety of devices and even...
<p>Constantly reshaping the global economy, technology has changed the way we run business. We can now deliver more services, communicate to customers through a variety of devices, and even increase internal efficiencies – such as, developing higher levels of employee engagement which can further increase productivity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite these clear benefits, the adoption of new technology within the state and local government has been somewhat slow. Preliminary excuses include anywhere from limited public resources to an abundance of regulatory restrictions, but a <a href="https://gcn.com/articles/2018/01/30/spend-management-cloud.aspx">GCN survey</a> found that 47-percent of state and local government employees say it’s actually due to a lack of leadership prioritization. In fact, 80-percent of respondents in the same survey stated their agency was not open to adopting a cloud-based solution. </p>
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<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p>But state and local agencies won’t be able to put it off for long. As old processes are becoming increasingly frustrating for employees to deal with, the pressures to adopt modernized technologies – like cloud applications, data analytics, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) – in government are on the rise. Critical to tackle and impossible to ignore, CFOs begin to search for viable solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Employee-initiated expense challenges solved with technology</h2>
<p>The second largest employee expenditure next to payroll, employee-initiated spend is one of the largest transactional aspects of government spending. But a recent survey from <a href="https://gcn.com/articles/2018/01/30/spend-management-cloud.aspx">GCN</a> discovered that only 16-percent of public sector employees reported having access to cloud web-based systems for submitting expenses. So how are they tracking spend instead? The same survey reported that 40-percent of public sector employees are still using pen and paper, making expenses difficult to track, prone to errors, and vulnerable to risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fortunately, technology can help relieve these common pain points. “Automating internal processes and turning to cloud-based solutions is an easy and effective way to improve transparency and redirect efforts to citizen-facing programs,” Matt Gibbons, Senior Director of government and contractor sales at SAP Concur states, “which is critical for state and local governments that face tighter budgets.” Better control and reduced spending are just a few of the many areas that technology can help when it comes to automating expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How technology can revolutionize your employee spend management process</h2>
<p>Gibbons believes that automation is a key component to building the transparency, efficiency, and employee satisfaction that survey respondents said they crave. By simplifying and reducing the manual steps, agencies can focus more of their time on fulfilling strategic initiatives rather than approving expenses. But just how does expense software achieve this? Automate the process, collect the data, and start putting useful insights to work and your organization will see the difference. Follow these steps to revolutionize your government organization’s employee spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Control employee spend, reduce costs</h2>
<p>Employees are spending more money, across more spend categories, using more payment methods than ever before. That’s more vendors and suppliers to keep tabs on and more payment methods to approve and record. Just imagine how complex this gets, especially when paper and receipts start to build-up and you can’t locate where you put that one expense report… So how is it possible to keep up with the multitude of growing data within the spend industry?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Here’s the solution:</strong> Technology that helps manage employee-initiated spend can eliminate paper and make it easy for employees to enter, track, manage, and audit expenses with just a few clicks. With a mobile application, you can easily manage expenses anytime, anywhere, saving you time and improving employee satisfaction. Take photos of receipts on-the-go and automatically generate expenses to give employees time back in their day so they can get back to doing what they do best.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stop chasing paper receipts. Streamline expense, travel, and invoice technology to better manage employee spend:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Automate expenses from receipt to reimbursement</li>
<li>Proactively manage spend with AP automation</li>
<li>Turn employee spend data into actionable insights</li>
<li>Reduce costs and identify waste</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Increase productivity, achieve scalability</h2>
<p>Tracking employee spend data by hand is slow and tedious. <a href="https://gcn.com/articles/2018/01/30/spend-management-cloud.aspx">GCN</a> found that more than 80-percent of public-sector respondents said it takes two weeks or more for expenses to be approved. In today’s modern workforce, two weeks is quite a long time. Technology is changing the expectations for how work gets done, and it’s not just the digital natives. Now all generations are accustomed to and expect, simple and easy-to-use experiences at work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Here’s the solution:</strong> Whether you’re on the road or at the office, automated and mobile technologies can help improve employee satisfaction and increase your productivity. Automated budget, expense, and audit technologies can quickly process employee spend data and notify you of any suspicious transactions – all while staying on top of budget to avoid overspend. At the same time, traveling employees can actively update new expenses through mobile devices and receive faster reimbursements. Phew, finally. Mobile itineraries can also help employees stay updated, on-time, and safe when plans go awry. Consider some of these tips when it comes to increasing productivity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Transform your productivity with technology in these 3 business areas:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Budget forecasting and strategy</strong></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Capture and consolidate data for holistic view of employee spending</li>
<li>Control and adjust budget to change business needs</li>
<li>Improve accuracy and timeliness of spend</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li><strong>Tracking employee expenses</strong></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Automatically categorize and map expense based on receipt images</li>
<li>Streamline expense management</li>
<li>Enforce policy compliance</li>
<li>Reimburse employees faster and improve user experience</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li><strong>Policy and expense auditing</strong></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Instantly certify each expense against your own policy</li>
<li>Identify non-compliant expenses prior to reimbursement</li>
<li>Ensure all employees are compliant using independent auditors</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Reduce FW&A, improve financial security</h2>
<p>Agencies who track spend manually are even more prone to fraud, waste, and abuse (FW&A). Unlike technology, humans can make errors and carry biased opinions about which expenses break policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Intentional or unintentional, employee fraud is more common than you think. In 2018, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)</a> found that 18.7-percent of employee fraud occurs in government entities, costing state and local agencies $180,000 each time it occurs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But employee fraud isn’t always malicious. Sometimes it’s due to the complexity of government travel policies, which are often difficult to understand even for the most experienced travelers. Evidence of such waste was reported in 2018 by the <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Dec/27/2002075982/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2019-039.PDF">DoD’s Inspector General</a>, citing $263 million in total losses due to improper payments issued in 2017 alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Here’s the solution:</strong> Utilizing machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), audit technology can help detect fraud and compliance issues in near real-time. By analyzing 100-percent of expense reports, AI can help organizations increase the speed and volume of expense reports audited, reduce expense report errors by 60-percent, and capture 10X the amount of fraud and errors by detecting the patterns and anomalies humans can’t see. It can even spot accidents versus malicious intent so you can isolate repeat offenders from the majority of users who sometimes make accidental claims.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Help identify risks and opportunities for savings by using a preventative and detective approach to reduce FW&A:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Execute consistent policy enforcement across the agency</li>
<li>Pay only valid reimbursement claims</li>
<li>Focus on resolving fraud, not identifying it</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Simplify your employee spend challenges with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Maximize your transparency, efficiency, and control with a cloud-based solution that modernizes the expense, travel, and invoice processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur empowers <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">government agencies</a> like your own to automate expense workflow so you can maximize control and manage the entire expense process with simplicity – from spend request to reconciliation. With the help of our solutions, your organization will be able to improve expense reporting accuracy, reduce reimbursement cycle time, and free personnel to focus on your organization’s mission.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our solution can be configured to enforce agency and regulatory policies and create reports that support compliance, helping to reduce or eliminate FW&A. And with our open platform, your organization can easily integrate existing ERP, HR, and accounting systems to consolidate expense data into a fully connected, single solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more information on how to simplify the way you track employee expenses, visit our </strong><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local government solutions</a></strong><strong> website. </strong></p>
Kyla Kent
Get Around Your Workarounds. Let’s Automate That.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/get-around-your-workarounds-lets-automate
2023-08-29T12:40:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youve likely seen quite a few finance hacks over the years manual spend management workarounds that employees use to bridge disconnected business systems As you can imagine we have as...
<p>You’ve likely seen quite a few ‘finance hacks’ over the years – manual spend management workarounds that employees use to bridge disconnected business systems. As you can imagine, we have as well, and the shift to remote and hybrid working seems to be increasing the number and creativity of the hacks.</p>
<p>Some of the more recent workarounds we’ve heard about include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Couriering invoices to remote employees for approval</li>
<li>Using random audits to detect expense reporting errors and fraud</li>
<li>Saving employee self-booked travel plans in calendar invites</li>
</ul>
<p>On the surface, finance hacks may seem like an effective way to keep spend data flowing. More often, however, they drive increased operational costs, risks, and complexity, plus decreased spending visibility, control, and employee productivity.</p>
<p>If this sounds all too familiar, it’s time to take a closer look at fully automating your spend management processes.</p>
<h2>The time for finance efficiency? Yesterday.</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">recent survey</a> of finance and IT leaders:</p>
<h3><strong>Only 39% of U.S. companies </strong><br />
say they have the right systems in place<br />
to adapt quickly to changing business needs</h3>
<p>If there’s ever been a time for efficiency in finance, it was yesterday, and automation is the key. Fully automated spend management can enable your businesses to minimize and even eliminate costly finance hacks.</p>
<p>The benefits of doing so are clear:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% of businesses with digitized invoice management saw increased agility and resiliency</li>
<li>42% with digitized expense management reported increased productivity</li>
<li>Digitization of cash flow management facilitated increased functional collaboration for 35%.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Read the full research report by Oxford Economics</a> for additional automation trends, benchmarks, and insights.</p>
<h2>Identify your next step with these four resources</h2>
<p>Whether your company is looking to expand on its current spend management capabilities or needs to kickstart its digital transformation, take some time today to check out these four resources:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough">The Cost of Doing Nothing</a> – Learn about three industry trends you can’t afford to ignore and why your spend management status quo may no longer be good enough.</li>
<li>Crawl, Walk, Run into AP Automation – This ebook is a guide for evaluating where your own AP process stands against automation.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/getting-started-sap-concur-solutions">Getting Started with SAP Concur solutions</a> – Watch this video to learn about the three steps to automating your expenses and invoices.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">Concur Expense Free Trial</a> – Experience all the features our expense management solution has to offer first-hand using your company data.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Get around your workarounds. Let’s automate that.</h2>
<p>If your business is still relying on "finance hacks," it’s time to digitalize your spend management with SAP Concur solutions. It’s easier than you may think.</p>
<p> <a href="https://www.concur.com/lets-automate-that">We’ll show you how</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
NDC in the Corporate Space and Concur Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ndc-corporate-space-and-concur-travel
2023-09-07T09:39:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Corporate travel content distribution is evolving at an accelerating pace The industry hasnt seen this pace of change since online travel booking started to take off in the late...
<p>Corporate travel content distribution is evolving at an accelerating pace. The industry hasn’t seen this pace of change since online travel booking started to take off in the late nineties. Air, hotel, and car distribution are all changing, but in this blog post I’d like to address the significant changes in air distribution, particularly the adoption of IATA’s <a href="http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/airline-distribution/ndc/Pages/default.aspx">New Distribution Capability (NDC)</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Executive summary:</h2>
<ul>
<li>SAP Concur wants to ensure that our customers can access all the relevant travel content, regardless of booking channel.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> customers rely on their TMC (travel management company), and most prefer to wait for NDC to be available via the GDS (Global Distribution System).</li>
<li>For customers who want NDC content prior to it being fully available in the GDS, SAP Concur has been piloting with early adopter TMCs and customers to leverage our existing Select Access infrastructure to deliver content from Lufthansa Group and British Airways. These pilots are close to completion and pilots with American Airlines and United Airlines are in the queue.</li>
<li>Business Travel Direct, a UK-based TMC, is now providing multiple corporate clients with access to British Airways' NDC through Concur Travel. Travel & Transport Stateman, another UK-based TMC partner, also has been testing BA NDC successfully.</li>
<li>The Concur Travel Select Access feature has allowed travel managers to enable content for more than 100 airlines and hotels for the past 15 years by updating their configuration settings in Concur Travel and leveraging our TravelFusion integration.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>SAP Concur’s position on NDC (New Distribution Capability)</h2>
<p>SAP Concur has always led the industry in offering relevant business travel content to our customers, regardless of the source of that content. Recently, some large airlines have been positioning NDC as their preferred connection source and have been adding GDS surcharges, removing some fares from the GDS, or making additional content only available via NDC. Customers have been telling us that they want to avoid any surcharges and/or access the additional content offered by Lufthansa, British Airways, American Airlines, and United Airlines. As a result, we have been working on ensuring that customers can obtain that content and view the bookings through both the Concur Travel online booking tool or directly on the airlines’ websites via our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> solution.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating">
<p>Learn more about travel program challenges and priorities</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">Get the report</a></p>
</div>
<p>Concur Travel customers rely on TMCs to service their programs, including booking support, keeping track of unused tickets, providing management reports, and a variety of other functions. The TMCs have told us that their ideal solution is one where they can handle these NDC bookings in the same way that they handle their other travel bookings – namely via the GDS. </p>
<p>We are in constant communication with the GDS to understand their progress on making NDC content widely available at scale and ensure that the needs of corporate customers can be met. Given the complexities involved, it is becoming apparent that the GDS will not have the robust solution, with all the features needed by our customers, in the near future.</p>
<p>For customers that want NDC content sooner, or don’t require the process to be identical to the existing TMC/GDS process, SAP Concur has been piloting shopping and booking of NDC content with several early adopter TMCs and corporate customers that have requested the NDC content of the Lufthansa Group, British Airways, and American Airlines. SAP Concur has leveraged our existing Select Access infrastructure, and our long-standing relationship with TravelFusion, to enable this content. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How can I get NDC content NOW?</h2>
<p>Promises that NDC content will eventually be fully integrated in the TMC/GDS infrastructure is of little comfort to clients wanting the benefits of NDC content today. Our customers have told us that they want an interim, even if not on par with their existing GDS practices. The SAP Concur Select Access feature, which leverages TravelFusion’s technology, allows travel managers to enable content that isn’t available in the GDS. The Select Access feature will now also allow clients to enable participating airlines’ NDC content in Concur Travel. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is select access content?</h2>
<p>Throughout the years, as SAP Concur has been asked by our customers for additional content that isn’t available in their GDS, we’ve obtained it via alternative channels. For example, in 2008, Concur Travel was the first booking tool to make the complete inventory of Southwest Airlines available in a corporate booking tool. </p>
<p>For the past 15 years, SAP Concur has partnered with TravelFusion, which has been an innovator in obtaining travel content and aggregating non-GDS content for 130+ airlines and hotels, such as easyjet, Flybe, Interjet, and Eurowings. TravelFusion has also been an early innovator in obtaining and normalizing NDC content. </p>
<p>Now, our Select Access feature allows clients to enable an airline’s NDC content within Concur Travel. As with Southwest or easyjet, enabling this feature moves <strong>all </strong>content shopping/booking for that airline out of the GDS. The fares and schedules for the Select Access-enabled airlines are offered to the traveler alongside the fares and schedules of other airlines sourced from the GDS.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does select access work?</h2>
<p>A travel manager simply needs to go into the configuration settings and choose which content they’d like to enable via Select Access. Enabling this feature moves ALL content shopping/booking for that particular airline out of the GDS. Some have criticized this approach, arguing that only the NDC content which is not available in the GDS should be booked outside of the GDS. SAP Concur believes that presenting the flights/fares from two content sources (like TravelFusion NDC content <strong>and</strong> traditional GDS content) for a single carrier creates a confusing service experience for the traveler, which may cause them to accept needlessly high fares. We believe that simplifying the traveler experience by keeping all of a supplier’s content in a single channel is the quickest and best possible approach for our corporate customers and therefore is the primary objective. Enabling non-GDS content in SAP Concur in this manner isn’t new and has been in use by thousands of customers for more than 10 years. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>If I’m interested in NDC, what questions should I ask of my TMC or my preferred suppliers?</h2>
<div>
<p>SAP Concur advises customers who are interested in accessing NDC content from one of the airlines that Concur Travel supports to discuss the topic with your preferred suppliers and your TMC. Customers need to understand the impact that NDC bookings will have on the TMC’s ability to process bookings, and support travelers, as well as any economic implications. Some TMCs may charge additional fees for supporting non-GDS bookings. There may be additional GDS fees as well depending on which TMC and/or GDS is involved and there will also be a Select Access fee for accessing the NDC content. <br />
</p>
<h2>How else can I get NDC content and still receive the benefits of managed travel?</h2>
<p>For customers who want another option to access NDC content, SAP Concur reminds them that all the content and benefits of NDC are generally available through airline websites. Further, since the NDC content that SAP Concur will offer, in the near future, is from TripLink partner airlines, instructing travelers to book on those airline websites, can be an easy and inexpensive way to get the benefit of lower cost NDC content, without complicating TMC service arrangements or increasing complexity. TripLink ensures that customers who need to book on the airline websites can obtain their corporate negotiated rates when doing so, and travel policy is applied to those bookings as soon as they made on the supplier sites. They can then have that data available for duty of care, reporting and procurement.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<h2>Other common questions:</h2>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Why do the TMCs prefer the GDS?</strong></p>
<p>Over forty years of development, GDS have built a vast amount of agent functionality into their systems. Thus, TMCs have built most of their infrastructure and processes to be reliant on GDS PNRs (passenger name records). The most seamless and cost-effective way for most TMCs to integrate these NDC bookings into their business processes is for them to obtain the NDC content via the GDS. The TMCs continued preference for the GDS as the source of travel content reflects the operating efficiency provided by the features, functionality, and content of the GDS along with TMCs’ reliance on GDS segment fee revenue.</p>
<p>In the past year, the enthusiasm with which airlines have promoted NDC has resulted in commitments from the GDS to support NDC content. The glow of the upbeat GDS announcements and promises of pilots, has overshadowed the magnitude and timeline of the development work required by other industry facilitators, including booking tools, TMCs and other technology providers. Integrating NDC processes and protocols into the GDS/TMC infrastructure will require each GDS to introduce new NDC shopping and booking APIs. Although this plumbing work will be largely invisible to most customer/travelers, it is extremely complex and will require a significant investment of time, teams, and resources by each party (including SAP Concur).</p>
<p>The GDS are working on building, iterating, updating, and documenting their processes, and developer kits. For the most part, participating industry facilitators, who are downline users of the GDS NDC offering can't even begin their work until the developer kits are fully available. The bottom line is that making modifications to the GDS, the TMC infrastructure and OBTs <strong>will take hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and many months/years of efforts.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If Select Access has been around with many airlines and hotels, what exactly is being piloted with NDC?</strong></p>
<p>Since the advent of managed business travel, most air bookings have been made via a TMC’s GDS connection. The quality control, ticketing, and reporting functions, profiles, file finishing, payment, compliance checks, and billing functions that TMCs perform for commercial customers are all based on GDS functionality. </p>
<p>As low-cost carriers (LCCs) entered the market, they usually did not participate in the GDS and required booking on their website or connecting directly to their inventory systems through APIs. TMCs built side processes to deal with these bookings. These side processes created inefficiencies, but TMC adapted to satisfy their customers, especially since LCCs historically were simpler to support than legacy network carriers. Most LCCs typically don’t have codeshare flights, multiple cabins, or corporate discounts, and tickets are typically non-refundable and non-changeable, and they are ticketed by the airline without BSP/ARC settlement.</p>
<p>NDC is like the LCC model in that customers need to connect directly to carrier inventories through APIs. However, the traditional "full-service carriers" also want to offer all the services, bells and whistles that have traditionally been available exclusively through the GDS. As a result, the NDC API connections required are much more complex than historical LCC APIs.</p>
<p>TMCs and online booking tools that want to connect to this new content and use all the features that it offers, have a much more complicated task. In addition to shopping, booking and payment, TMCs and SAP Concur need to support options like corporate discounts; multiple and mixed classes of service; multi-segment, code-share itineraries changes; refunds; cancellations; hold – while still maintaining their efficiencies. To add to the complexity, each airline’s NDC API connections, functionality and processes can all be different.</p>
<p>The current pilots are ensuring that the correct content is available for shopping and booking, and that all the critical functionality which is needed by the airlines, travelers, travel managers and TMCs, is visible and working as designed in Concur Travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If NDC is a standard, why is SAP Concur only enabling certain airlines now?</strong></p>
<p>Once NDC content and functionality is fully available via the GDS, SAP Concur will be making the NDC content of all relevant and necessary airlines available via the GDS in the booking tool. In the interim period, for our corporate customers who do not want to wait for the full GDS functionality, we will be doing a special integration for selected airlines.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that IATA has helped to create common definitions of what fields and functions must be available and in what order for their NDC schemas, each carrier has much discretion on how their processes work and which fields actually get populated (such as forms of payment, CVV code requirements, multi-segments, codeshare flights, sum of locals pricing, who does the ticketing and using what technology, etc.) In short, each airline’s NDC API connections, functionality and processes are all different. Having standards certainly makes many attributes more common, but there are enough differences from airline to airline, that iterative testing is still needed to ensure that everything works as expected.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is currently piloting the NDC connections of American Airlines, British Airways, and the Lufthansa Group (LH, Austrian, Brussels, and Swiss). Once we validate that the necessary elements of the process are suitable for corporate travel needs, we will begin testing and enabling the NDC connections of United Airlines. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>How can I get started with NDC content now?</strong></p>
<p>As of June 1, SAP Concur is supporting six pilot programs with TMCs testing our NDC offering for all three announced carriers. Customers that have conferred with their TMCs and want to request access, should make sure their TMC has relevant credentials from the airlines. If the travel manager or TMC has access to Concur Travel Solutions, they can file a ticket requesting access and share the credentials with us. </p>
<p>Business Travel Direct, a UK-based TMC, is now providing multiple corporate clients with access to British Airways NDC through Concur Travel. Travel & Transport Stateman, another UK-based TMC partner, also has been testing BA NDC successfully.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Are there other implications to travel management and online booking tools once NDC has widespread adoption?</strong></p>
<p>NDC will greatly expand the airlines’ ability to add, bundle and price new services in creative new ways designed to attract customers. NDC will also allow the airlines to create personalization (potentially by company, level in the company, traveler savviness, airline status, etc.). All these new options will require significant new traveler facing development in Concur Travel to normalize shopping across disparate content offers and display the product offerings.</p>
<p>Additional work will be needed to give travel managers the ability to offer much more granular policy guidance. First, travel managers will have to ensure that their policies provide guidance to help travelers shop/purchase and then the TMCs and OBT will have to evolve to support these more granular policies throughout the shopping, booking, approval, and expense workflows.</p>
<p>The concept of lowest logical fare will certainly evolve over time since it will be harder to discern which products to compare. For example, we may need to figure out how to compare a $300 economy fare that is non refundable, but includes priority boarding, extra leg room and a free meal with a $350 fare that includes expedited security, a normal seat, but is changeable within seven days.</p>
<p>Like NDC content itself, these challenges will take time to identify and solve. SAP Concur is actively examining them and committed to creating solutions that prioritize the needs of our corporate customers and their travelers. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>What issues are you seeing from the current discussions and pilots?</strong></p>
<p>As we’ve progressed with these NDC pilot customers and airlines, we’ve identified a few common threads:</p>
<ol>
<li>Some TMCs would prefer that we not source the entirety of an airlines fare, schedule and product content from the airline NDC pipes, as we have historically done with the LCCs. Those TMC would generally prefer for SAP Concur Travel to source some of the airline fares from the GDS and other fares from our NDC connections. Presumably this will allow them to maintain their current processes and current GDS inducements for some portion of that airlines’ bookings while still allowing them to pull in any incremental content that isn’t in the GDS. </li>
<li>Passive Segments: Most TMCs want to add them to a PNR to be able to utilize their existing processes after the booking is made, and SAP Concur has learned that not all the data needed by some TMCs is passed through to the TMC. However, some TMCs have created processes to add the needed data to the passive segments, and others are working to support NDC bookings without passive segments. It’s also important to understand that some airlines do not want or, in some cases, will not allow passive segments to be created.</li>
<li>BSP (billing and settlement plan): Some TMCs, mostly outside the U.S., manage billing for corporate customers by paying airlines directly for tickets in cash using their applicable bank settlement plan. This service reduces fees charged by credit cards. Concur’s Select Access to NDC does not support BSP Settlement, since most of our corporate customers use a credit card that includes important accounting and expense management benefits.</li>
<li>Book and hold are a much more common requirement outside the U.S., where many companies require travelers to have the actual cost of airplane tickets approved before they can be purchased. Concur Travel supports customer '"pre-trip approval" policies with book and hold functionality in the GDS environment and we will be adding this to the Select Access environment.</li>
<li>Exchanges are another feature that Concur Travel supports in the GDS environment but not for NDC. Very few customers enable this feature in the GDS today.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Once the GDS have NDC Content available, will it just show up in Concur?</strong></p>
<p>Once NDC content is available in the GDS, it will not just appear one day through existing integrations. The GDS are spending a tremendous amount of time and effort to be thoughtful of what needs to be built to accommodate the plethora of carriers that will have NDC content via their new Order Management System and aggregate them with airlines that will still be filing fares via the legacy ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Corporation) methods, while still ensuring that existing TMC processes can work with both. This will require the creation of new connections, new formats and new processes on the back end. Once these new connections, commands and APIs are ready, SAP Concur can start identifying how to integrate them and how those new formats will impact all of the downline systems, including the TMCs systems.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Why is introducing NDC content so time-consuming?</strong></p>
<p>Since TMC systems and process are not easily able to manage anything but an active or passive GDS segment, these alternate sources pose a challenge. The need for the TMC systems to have NDC bookings look identical to GDS bookings is time consuming. In practice, this means adding "hold" functionality to a TravelFusion reservation, enabling settlement through BSP, having TMCs manage bookings without passive segments or understanding the need for creating passive segments that are unique to each TMC (frequently unique to each client.) In addition, many TMCs are being cautious about enabling these connections due to added process costs and the potential loss of GDS inducements.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p><strong>How does SAP Concur prioritize content?</strong></p>
</div>
<p>We’re continuously speaking to our customers to understand their needs. As enough customers and their TMCs communicate their desires for a particular airlines NDC content, we’ll evaluate the availability and feasibility of making that content available prior to be it being ready in the GDS. Thus far, we’ve had many discussions with customers and TMCs who want us to enable Lufthansa, American, British Airways, and United Airlines.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Turn Your Vision of the Intelligent Enterprise into Reality
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/turn-your-vision-intelligent-enterprise-reality
2023-09-08T16:05:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Companies around the world are aware of the transformative potential of artificial intelligence AI and machine learning ML on organizational processes However when it comes to actually...
<p>Companies around the world are aware of the transformative potential of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/what-cfos-need-know-about-artificial-intelligence-ap-management">artificial intelligence</a> (AI) and machine learning (ML) on organizational processes. However, when it comes to actually deploying these technologies to transform the business, most companies are still in the early vision and planning stages. The good news is that you can use these technologies right now to transform your travel and expense processes, dramatically improving employee experiences as well as spending insight and control.</p>
<p>That’s a key takeaway in our webcast, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/webinar-how-ai-and-machine-learning-reimagine-travel-and-expense-processes">Time Travel: How AI and Machine Learning Are Reimagining Travel and Expense Processes.</a> The webcast is a lively, detailed discussion with business process and technology experts about the role of AI and ML in travel and expense innovation.</p>
<p>Read on for some additional takeaways from the webcast.</p>
<h2>Understand today’s travel and expense priorities</h2>
<p>As regions and countries around the world increase regulations and enforcement actions, effectively managing your travel and expense compliance obligations for your company and your employees is more important than ever. The risks are even greater for your traveling employees as more countries around the world are imposing stricter immigration and taxation rules, such as having to file a foreign tax return for a single business trip.</p>
<p>Whether you are sending your best experts overseas to troubleshoot a critical project or sending your C-level executive abroad to close a critical, time-sensitive deal, getting the right people in place at the right time is a crucial mission for travel and expense managers. Managers need to identify all traveling employees as early as possible to better anticipate any potential travel hiccups that can delay the trip or require more travel spend. Managers also need to quickly analyze travel and employee data from a variety of sources to locate and assist the traveling employees in an emergency.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Balance compliance, safety, and productivity needs</h2>
<p>This is where spending solutions that take advantage of AI and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/machine-learning-in-concur-mobile">ML technologies</a> are making a difference across leading companies. These solutions connect to virtually any other system inside or outside the organization to capture and analyze all relevant travel and expense data, so you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gain transparency into the past, present, and future movements of traveling employees</li>
<li>Get insight into hidden risks, issues, and implications arising from business travel</li>
<li>Devise procedures based on past performance to better mitigate future risk</li>
<li>Identify and prevent noncompliant travel and expense practices before they occur</li>
<li>Increase employee adoption of compliant practices to eliminate noncompliant behavior</li>
</ul>
<p>The Webcast discussion went into greater detail about how AI- and ML-enabled solutions are helping companies achieve the objectives above.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make travel and expense easy for employees</h2>
<p>What does easy travel and expense really mean for your employees? It means travel and expense tasks that are highly intuitive and can be completed with a minimal number of clicks and keystrokes. It means employees no longer need to enter travel and expense information more than once, are not forced into using a single source for travel booking, and don’t get locked into travel plans that can’t be changed last minute.</p>
<p>From a manager’s perspective, the approval experience should be similarly intuitive and convenient. However, it’s important that managers are not rushing or “rubber stamping” noncompliant spending. It also means managers only have to handle exceptional cases, because your travel, expense, and invoice solutions are intelligent enough to review, verify, and approve the vast majority of cases.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Recognize that making it easy is not always easy</h2>
<p>It takes a combination of intelligent technologies and intelligent integration to bring the intelligent enterprise to life. You need to securely share data with third-party systems, and use artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to pull together and analyze data from different sources to make travel and expense transactions easy and compliant.</p>
<p>You also have to grow your integrated business network. It needs to be large enough to make sure that wherever your traveling employees go and spend, your systems are capturing that spending data. That way, you never lose spend visibility and your employees won’t have to change their preferred choices for travel spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Create the intelligent enterprise with proven solutions</h2>
<p>Webcast participants noted that AI- and ML-enabled solutions for intelligent travel, expense, and invoice management are available right now from SAP. Whether it’s automating expense entry or anticipating tax liability, SAP Concur solutions can deliver:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Integrated travel, expense, and invoice management tools</strong> – providing a complete and timely view of employee spend and spotting noncompliant spending before it negatively impacts the company.</li>
<li><strong>Dynamic, connected network of 180 applications, partners, and suppliers</strong> – sharing spending data in real time to simplify experiences for employees and deliver actionable insights for the organization.</li>
<li><strong>Improved compliance and employee safety</strong> – leveraging data and AI algorithms to locate and support traveling employees if they are in at-risk situations.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Think beyond the expense report</h2>
<p>Webcast participants urge companies to improve travel and expense processes in a more strategic and holistic way. Instead of just addressing travel and expense-related risks and spend performance, think about how you can minimize risk and maximize spend across the rest of the organization.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/webinar-how-ai-and-machine-learning-reimagine-travel-and-expense-processes">Watch</a> the webcast to learn more about how your company can get there. You can also download our e-book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ebook-how-can-finance-leaders-deliver-intelligence-across-business">How Can Finance Leaders Deliver Intelligence Across the Business</a>? to learn the five steps you can take right now to bring new levels of business acumen across your organization.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Who’s Ready to Increase Workforce Productivity?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whos-ready-increase-workforce-productivity
2023-11-03T14:20:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Maximizing peoples ability to do their best work by reducing menial tasks through automation has helped organizations survive the pandemic and create cultures of top talent that are...
<p>Maximizing people’s ability to do their best work by reducing menial tasks through automation has helped organizations survive the pandemic and create cultures of top talent that are mostly thriving despite crisis. Regardless of industry, organizations are now evolving to the new era of optimization. Many of our customers have observed an uptick in workforce productivity by encouraging corporate card usage and then leveraging automation tools to submit, review, approve and pay expenses. These customers are keeping a pulse on how well they are staying on track towards this goal of increasing workforce productivity by reviewing their expense workflow reporting. If they notice that the balance is off, they solicit employee feedback and adjust their policies and expense categories to get workforce productivity humming at optimal levels.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How is everyone else performing?</h2>
<p>Want a quick way to measure how well you’re doing to make the most of your employee’s time? A review of your expense workflow data will provide insights into whether you’re running at optimal efficiency. If employees are taking longer than 22 days to submit an expense, and managers are taking longer than two days to approve and your accounts payable team is taking longer than three days to pay, then you’ll likely benefit from some adjustments to your policies and timelines. Compare your current workflow to our industry benchmark breakdown to see how you’re doing:</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Expense-Workflows.jpg" /></a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Who will be honest about whether it’s working?</h2>
<p>When in doubt, ask. Employees are likely to share feedback if asked (positive and negative!). Find out what they’re putting in that miscellaneous category and look for trends. What may have been a one-off purchase before might be more common. Then, develop a spend category and let your team know about the adjustment. It could possibly be that they are inaccurately reporting expenses because they don’t know where to code them and are frustrated with searching for it The key is to approach the program strategically with clear objectives and value drivers in mind. It’s one, seemingly small change that can make a big impact—and bring long-term benefits.</p>
<h2>Where do I start?</h2>
<p>First and foremost, keep it simple. If the card comes with a lengthy policy detailing what employees can or can’t buy, or requires preapproval prior to every swipe, it can send a mixed message to the employee—and make back-end approvals and reconciliations more complicated and time-consuming. In other words, adding more steps to use the card may negate the program’s value, and do nothing to strengthen employee satisfaction. That said, it is important to strike a balance between rigid card limit restrictions and free reign. The best solution is to give employees guidelines that empower them to use the card within company policy, without making these guidelines so cumbersome and restrictive that you deter adoption. The need for those office supplies, airline tickets, and hotel rooms still exist, whether a card program is in place or not. Here are some of our best practices for jumpstarting your workforce productivity:</p>
<ol>
<li>Implement card feeds to automate expense report line item creation</li>
<li>Review expense workflow report</li>
<li>Solicit feedback</li>
<li>Adjust policies based upon reporting and feedback</li>
<li>Educate team on card usage and policy updates</li>
</ol>
<h2>Learn more</h2>
<p>As organizations look for more ways to improve efficiency, decrease unnecessary spend, and gain better control of cash flow and expense management, many are discovering that well-orchestrated card programs are impactful and relatively easy to put in place. By encouraging corporate card usage and fine-tuning your policies and timelines based upon feedback, you can allow your team to focus on the organization’s goals rather than menial tasks. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-pro-tip-benefits-corporate-credit-cards">Watch this video</a> for some SAP Concur pro tips on corporate cards or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs-through-ap">tune into this podcast</a> on the automation revolution.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
How Concur Expense Works
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-expense-works
2024-01-29T20:25:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Manage spend from anywhere, at any time, with Concur Expense.
<p>Manage spend from anywhere, at any time, with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions connect all your expense, travel, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/concur-invoice-product-demo">vendor invoice spend</a> in one system, providing a single way to manage spend from end-to-end, gain greater visibility into transactions, improve compliance, and simplify the process for everyone.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>ExpenseIt Pro and partner apps</h2>
<p>When business travelers are on the road, SAP Concur solutions make expense reporting easy with <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a>, part of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a>. With this innovative feature, travelers simply use their smartphone camera to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-capture-receipts-your-mobile-phone">capture and upload</a> an image of a receipt.</p>
<p>Concur Expense ensures all of the details—including the amount, date of the transaction, vendor, expense type and location—are accurately captured and matched to the expense entry.</p>
<p>Employees can further extend the value of their SAP Concur solution and simplify expense reporting by connecting to our ecosystem of <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">partner apps</a>. Accurate expenses from partners are automatically created in Concur Expense, complete with e-receipts.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Take a deeper dive into SAP Concur</h5>
<p>Our free Concur Travel & Expense demo is an in-depth look at two of our core offerings, exploring how to book travel, submit expense reports, and more. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/depth-travel-and-expense-demo">Watch the demo</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Concur Expense</h2>
<p>When you need to capture spend at the source and gain visibility down to each detailed transaction, look no further than Concur Expense. By integrating travel and expense in a single solution, Concur Travel & Expense, employees can go from trip to expense report with one click.</p>
<p>Plus, our smart matching technology practically writes the report for the employee, combining credit card, booked travel, and e-receipts all while using built-in audit rules that instantly highlight any exceptions and give finance leaders a unified view of travel and expense spend.</p>
<p>Taking advantage of hotel e-receipts means employees don’t have to stop at the front desk for a copy, and their expenses will be automatically itemized. The system also notifies employees of incomplete entries to ensure thorough, accurate, and complete expense reporting every time.</p>
<p>The intuitive interface makes it simple to manually add expenses and the solution even provides a mileage calculator for estimating <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">mileage reimbursement</a>. Once an expense report is submitted, Concur Expense allows employees to visually track the status as it moves through the approval workflow.</p>
<p>Employees can also use the SAP Concur mobile app to view expenses, add them to a report, and submit that report, wherever they are, whenever they want. Managers can then take advantage of the app to expedite expense review and approval on the go.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reporting</h2>
<p>Track the metrics that matter with easy-to-use dashboards that deliver a clear look at what’s being spent and where and offer a holistic and simple way to track travel KPIs.</p>
<p>With a unified view of your SAP Concur data, you can empower key stakeholders with the information they need to understand and impact the bottom line. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/analytics">Analytics</a> you and your stakeholders can see data in near real time to drive actionable insights and manage spend proactively with alerts and reports delivered directly to inboxes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Financial connectors</h2>
<p>As an added benefit, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-connectors">SAP Concur financial connectors</a> work <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-automation-without-integration-connect-sap-concur-your-finance-systems">with your ERP</a>, CRM, human resources, and accounting systems to give you a unified view of all your data. Whether using an SAP Concur-built integration like ADP, NetSuite, QuickBooks, or Salesforce, or leveraging our partners to connect to other systems, SAP Concur solutions give your team a timely, accurate, and complete financial picture. We also offer a direct native <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/sap-integration">integration with SAP solutions</a>.</p>
<p>Harness the power of our travel and expense products in a single solution that helps your employees be more productive. You’ll get transparency and visibility into employee spend, the ability to enforce policy, and the agility to make intelligent spend management decisions.</p>
<p>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Check out our five-minute <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>You may also like:</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-travel-works">How Concur Travel Works</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-invoice-works">How Concur Invoice Works</a></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Are matching expense reports cause for team celebration?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-matching-expense-reports-cause-team-celebration
2017-07-11T07:52:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It is never a good sign when a correct were talking receiptmatching and compliant expense report causes your entire finance team to stop and stare This alone is a sign you probably...
<p>It is never a good sign when a 100% correct (we're talking receipt-matching and compliant) <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense report</a> causes your entire finance team to stop and stare. This alone is a sign you probably need to review your current expense process, and maybe do a few upgrades, especially if you are still using a manual process. With software becoming more affordable and cloud technology easily within reach, there’s really no excuse not to be automated.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Manual processes draw a crowd</strong></h2>
<p>Manual processes affect more than just the finance team. Sure, the finance team has to do the bulk of the work – reconciling and processing the expense reports, and submitting reimbursement. But what about the other players? The employee who has to create the expense report has to dig up receipts, manually enter expenses into a spreadsheet and do some kind of an art project to staple, glue or photocopy all those receipts . And don’t forget the approving manager, who also has to go through that mess before signing-off on it.</p>
<p>By the time the expense report is finally put to rest, it has racked up way more costs (in time alone) than what’s just listed on the statement. And any smart finance person knows, extra costs are never good for any budget, forecast or bottom line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Enter automation, stage left</strong></h2>
<p>Advancements in technology make automation not just within reach for organizations of all sizes, but make it business imperative. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">Small companies and small teams</a> have even less time to spare with the hassles of manual processes and the trials of paper pushing.</p>
<p>How can automation help your business? For starters, it reduces all that time squandered away on expense report creation, review and approval. An automated process also improves accuracy, reducing the time spent by both finance and expense report submitters trying to figure why the columns don’t add up. Finance saves time and aggravation and the employee can skip to the part where she gets reimbursed. Win-win.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/effective_spending_management_boosts_performance_oxford_economics_2017.pdf">How effective spend management boosts your performance</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Mobility is the star of the show</strong></h2>
<p>Now, imagine taking those expense reports on the road. That’s right, a great mobile app means employees can create and update their expense report while they are still traveling. Not only does this alleviate carrying around piles of receipts that could potentially get lost, it decreases errors and misallocated costs.</p>
<p>The good news is the technology is already available. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, employees simply take a picture of a receipt from their phone and the application takes it from there. And by utilizing cloud technology, members of the finance team (and approving managers) have access to the data in real time and can also review and approve on the go.</p>
<p>Between the decrease in error and overall time spent on reports, and increase in transparency, Concur Expense is a win-win for everyone involved.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Get a standing ovation from your employees</strong></h2>
<p>Seize the opportunity and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business"><strong>make the move from a manual to an automated, mobile and cloud ready expense system</strong></a>. And when you do, don’t be surprised if you get more than a golf clap from your team. Oh, the applause, the applause…!</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Proactive approaches to mitigate Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) risk in a global business landscape
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/proactive-approaches-mitigate-foreign-corrupt-practice-act-fcpa-risk-global-business
2020-09-11T11:43:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The term bribery often conjures up thoughts of large sums of money being used to sway powerful officials one way or another But when it comes to the rules and regulations set forth by...
<p>The term “bribery” often conjures up thoughts of large sums of money being used to sway powerful officials one way or another. But, when it comes to the rules and regulations set forth by the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), the terms “bribery” and “government officials” apply to a wide spectrum of actions and personnel. So, how can organizations ensure they are not unintentionally breaking any rules and putting their business at risk of an FCPA-related audit?</p>
<p>In today’s fast-paced business world, having a global presence is essential to stay competitive, but that leaves you exposed to more regulatory risks and fraud opportunities. Below, we’ll review the processes, procedures and tools you should have in place to <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.concur.com%2Fnewsroom%2Fadmin%2Farticle%2Fpreview%2F596fe33e395b708f1541485c&eventid=1435144&sessionid=1&key=A11E0DB9FC186C8736ACF279F3F95980&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">help mitigate these risks and ensure you are compliant with FCPA guidelines</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Understanding the ambiguity</h2>
<p>Anti-bribery provisions state that an organization cannot give “anything of value” to a foreign official to obtain or retain business in their market. While this seems straightforward, enforcement actions are often based on allegations around leisure activities such as travel, meals, gifts and entertainment, all of which are typically legal and socially acceptable. However, what might appear to be innocent exchanges are viewed as bribery to the FCPA.</p>
<p>And if that is not vague enough, the definition of a “government official” goes beyond someone who works directly for the government, and includes employees of government departments or agencies, State Owned Enterprises (SOES), healthcare providers and even third-party consultants helping with the planning of a hospitality event.</p>
<p>So how can your organization navigate this ambiguity – especially as you grow and expand globally and domestically – and implement the right checks and balances to mitigate risk related to the FCPA?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5 steps for FCPA compliance</h2>
<p><strong>1. Understand your business network.</strong> The first step in protecting against the inadvertent bribery of a government official is ensuring the employees engaging in cross-border business dealings have a firm understanding of all points of contact they will be directly or indirectly working with. In turn, leaders need to take a step back and consider how the organization works with various points of contact during the business process so they can more easily identify situations that may put them at risk of an FCPA violation.</p>
<p><strong>2. Implement the appropriate controls.</strong> The knowledge and expertise of your organization’s finance and compliance teams is imperative to successfully mitigating FCPA risk. Configuring expense systems with the appropriate workflows, attendee and expense types, conditional and custom fields, and requiring manager approval before “anything of value” is purchased are key to catching potential FCPA violations before they occur. Having these types of checks and balances in place also creates an audit trail with documentation that proves your organization is doing your due diligence to prevent instances of bribery.</p>
<p><strong>3. Maintain clear and correct records. </strong>The FCPA also has provisions around financial books, record keeping and internal controls that puts even more pressure on your financial teams.</p>
<p>When it comes to your financial books and records, you must maintain reasonable detail that accurately and fairly reflects transactions surrounding foreign officials. Anything that is falsely represented or misleading can lead to an enforcement action. In addition, internal controls must be in place, meaning you must be able to provide reasonable assurance that the transactions are properly authorized, recorded and accounted for.</p>
<p><strong>4. Implement a comprehensive audit process.</strong> While these provisions are broad, creating an internal system that includes effective oversight and reporting capabilities will help maintain FCPA compliance. Build an audit process that has rules to account for regulatory violations. Consider these approaches:</p>
<ul>
<li>Audit receipt types and itemizations</li>
<li>Audit cash expenses</li>
<li>Conduct random checks</li>
<li>Identify location and type of expense and where</li>
<li>Verify employment and look for patterns of behavior</li>
<li>Use a third-party auditor to maintain credibility and help your finance teams scale</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>5. Education around clear policies. </strong>While preventative measures and audits are essential, don’t underestimate the importance of proactive education. Ensure your finance team is properly trained and has a firm understanding of what constitutes both bribery and foreign officials. In addition, build clear, easy-to-understand organization-wide policies around what is and is not permitted when it comes to working with foreign officials to ensure everyone is on the same page and maintains compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Knowledge is key</h2>
<p>Maintaining FCPA compliance boils down to having the proper knowledge surrounding what the FCPA considers bribery to a foreign official, and building the appropriate policies to combat that. Ensuring you have the right knowledge, systems and tools in place gives your finance team, and organization, what they need to be successful in reducing FCPA risk. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about FCPA compliance, please watch the webinar: </strong><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1435144/A11E0DB9FC186C8736ACF279F3F95980" target="_blank"><strong>Strategies for Minimizing FCPA Risks Associated with Corporate Hospitality</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
AP Recognition Week: How automating processes helps your AP team all year long
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ap-recognition-week-how-automating-processes-helps-your-ap-team-all-year-long
2021-03-01T16:43:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur Were celebrating AP Recognition Week sponsored by the The Institute of Financial Operations by acknowledging all of...
<p>Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We’re celebrating <a href="http://www.financialops.org/web/membership/recognition-week1" target="_blank">AP Recognition Week</a> (sponsored by the The Institute of Financial Operations) by acknowledging all of the hard work Accounts Payable does within an organization. AP is often the last line of defense for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to manage their cash flow. While some AP teams are still dealing with paper invoices, a convoluted workflow and a storage system that is not accessible or disaster proof, many SMBs are automating their processes and easing the workload of their AP staff.</p>
<p>In fact, if you’re like most SMBs we work with, your AP team handles around 600 invoices per month and at least half of those invoices are coming in as paper. That means a lot of manual data entry, routing approvals in person or via email, struggling to find the status and matching invoices to POs—all while trying to make payments on time. In addition to the cost of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-much-money-is-your-business-throwing-away-in-duplicate-invoice">duplicate payments</a> or late fees from vendors, what about the wasted time of your valuable AP staff?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about solving top AP challenges, join our special <a href="https://go.concur.com/oct-apappreciationweek_prospectregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jrodr_oct_apappreciation_blog_post_1_20170929" target="_blank">AP Recognition Week webinar</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>A modern, cloud-based AP tool can help you manage finances more seamlessly with little to no paper. A solution like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> automates the entire process, from invoice receipt and processing to payment management and settlement, saving both you and your AP team time and money.</p>
<p>Aside from the direct cost and time savings, automating your invoice processes also offers:</p>
<p><strong>Faster audit process</strong> – When years of invoices are stuck in filing cabinets, audits can sideline your whole team trying to find one piece of paper. With an automated system, everything you need can be pulled in minutes.</p>
<p><strong>Better managed cash flow</strong> – Not only can you pay invoices quicker, but you can decide when you want to pay. Capture early payment discounts or hold on to your cash—you can make calculated choices about where your money is going with oversight into total spend.</p>
<p><strong>Increased visibility</strong> – When your invoices automatically enter your system, you will have instant visibility into your finances with no lag time for scanning, printing and approving.</p>
<p>Imagine that—you get complete visibility into spend and cash flow and your AP team works more efficiently. Show them how much you appreciate the hard work they do by making their job even easier with an automated AP process—eliminating paper, improving efficiency and eliminating bottlenecks—making each and every day more rewarding.</p>
<p>Please join us this Thursday, October 12 at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET for our <a href="https://go.concur.com/oct-apappreciationweek_prospectregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jrodr_oct_apappreciation_blog_post_1_20170929" target="_blank">AP Recognition Week webinar.</a> By registering, you’ll learn how to solve the top challenges faced by AP and hear from a Concur client. Interested in learning more but can't make it on the 12th? Register and you'll be sent a recording of the webinar, even if you can't make it.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Protecting travelers in an unpredictable world
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/protecting-travelers-unpredictable-world
2017-07-14T23:15:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Anytime people are on the road they may be at risk And according to a recent Global Business Travel Association Foundation Survey GBTA survey of business travelers agree Nowadays any...
<p>Anytime people are on the road, they may be at risk. And according to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-close-risk-management-loopholes"><strong>Global Business Travel Association Foundation Survey (GBTA)</strong></a> survey, 57% of business travelers agree:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Nowadays, any destination could be high risk.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The complexities of modern business travel have made it more difficult than ever for you to keep your travelers safe in a crisis—whether it’s something as simple as travel delays or as serious as terror threats.</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Do you know where every traveler is, no matter where they’ve booked their trips?</li>
<li>Do you have a handle on all the risks that may affect your travelers—no matter where they are in the world?</li>
<li>Do you have the mechanism to identify travelers at risk, effectively reach and support them, and help them get out of harm’s way?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>If the answer is “no” to any of these questions,<br />
there may gaps to fill in your risk management program. </p>
<p>Because without complete and accurate data and effective protocols,<br />
how can you be expected to find people, reach people<br />
and help them when they’re in need?</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-close-risk-management-loopholes"><strong>Download the Research: How to Close Risk Management Loopholes. </strong></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>So what do you do? You start with a quick review of your program, and this new research from GBTA will help walk you through key areas like:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Employee Awareness and Education</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Do your people know what they’re supposed to do in a travel-related emergency and/or what resources are available? 58% said they’d call their supervisor, and that may not be the best answer.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Evaluating Your Own Infrastructure</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Do you have the resources to support travelers in a crisis? 60% of travel managers rely on <strong>travelers</strong> to reach out when they need help. Do you really want to leave it in their hands?</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reviewing and Closing Gaps in Your Data</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Pulling all your travel data together is the only way to effectively meet your duty of care. 31% of travel managers say they’re unable to support travelers who book outside their system. Can you capture all your travelers’ itineraries—no matter where they book?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Give your team safer, better travel by closing the loopholes in your travel program. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-close-risk-management-loopholes">Download this paper to get started.</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How you can be the next Concur Innovation Award winner
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-you-can-be-next-concur-innovation-award-winner
2019-08-21T06:25:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At Concur we have a passion for driving breakthrough innovations that benefit your employees and keep your business out in front In that spirit we want to celebrate when clients use...
<p>At Concur, we have a passion for driving breakthrough innovations that benefit your employees and keep your business out in front. In that spirit, we want to celebrate when clients use our products to push the boundaries of Travel and Expense. Our Innovation Awards honor five such companies each year.</p>
<p>If you have used Concur to improve the ways in which your company operates, we want to hear about it! Beginning August 1 through September 15, 2017, we welcome you to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominate your company</a> for its achievements and innovations. Let us know exactly how Concur helps make life easier for you, your travelers, or your internal finance and/or travel teams.</p>
<p>What exactly do we mean? Submissions will be based on the value and impact your company has witnessed by using Concur. Ask yourself this:</p>
<ul>
<li>What value have you achieved from Concur’s solution in terms of cost savings, time efficiencies, etc.? </li>
<li>How is the innovation different from that of your industry peers?</li>
<li>What is the impact the innovation has had on your company, its culture and employees?</li>
<li>Has this story been an inspiration for the broader T&E community and industry?</li>
</ul>
<p>All it takes to be considered is to complete a six-question questionnaire, which will illustrate the business case around how Concur helps your organization be best-in-class.</p>
<p>What’s in it for you? Winners will be recognized for their achievements at Fusion 2018 in Seattle. The winning company will also star in its own custom video story. Plus, you can leverage your Innovation Award to demonstrate to thousands of peers and business executives how your organization has improved processes, created best practices, capitalized on ROI and more, all by using Concur.</p>
<p>If you’ve had success using Concur and want to apply, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">visit our award application page</a>. Your accomplishments might be the next big story in T&E thought leadership.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Take Charge of Employee Spend With an Effective Expense Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-charge-employee-spend-effective-expense-policy
2020-01-24T10:22:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are employee expenses causing confusion and chaos in your small business Is your finance team or bookkeeper spending way too much time reviewing and reconciling expense reports If you...
<p>Are employee expenses causing confusion (and chaos) in your small business? Is your finance team or bookkeeper spending way too much time reviewing and reconciling expense reports?</p>
<p>If you answered yes to either of these questions, then it is more than likely time you need to consider creating an expense policy, or at least do some serious updating on the one you have. By doing so, you can make the entire expense process (reporting, reviewing, and approving) clear and easy for your employees. And when has anyone ever complained about clear expectations?</p>
<p>When it comes to creating a brand new policy or even updating the one you have, it can be hard to know where to start—especially for SMBs that are growing quickly. Here are a few tips and tools to get you started creating an effective expense policy.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Key items to consider in your expense policy</h2>
<p>A good expense policy aligns with corporate goals, and makes expense report submissions easy and efficient. Keep in mind:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The policy should be clear and to-the-point:</strong> Ensure your policy is straightforward. Cover the basics and don’t include any legal or corporate jargon. All points should be stated clearly. The easier your policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow (and enforce).</li>
<li><strong>The policy should be easy to find:</strong> If your policy is buried in an intranet or at the bottom of a notebook, it isn’t going to be used. Making your policy visible keeps it top of mind. And if you make updates, ensure employees are aware of this change, either by sending out an email or printing and handing out the updated sections. If the change is large, it is probably worth having a meeting to discuss it with your team.</li>
<li><strong>The policy should emphasize the benefits:</strong> No one likes being told what to do. But, by explaining the reasoning behind the policy, and how it benefits all employees, does help with acceptance and compliance. Not only having a policy to follow, but holding everyone accountable (no exemptions, regardless of status), keeps it fair all around. </li>
</ol>
<p>Keep in mind, these three points are only the tip of the iceberg. There is more to making a strong expense policy, such as addressing ambiguity and use of corporate cards, not to mention rules around booking travel and personal expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Must have: Automated and mobile-ready tools</h2>
<p>Using technology to supplement your expense policy makes it that much easier for your employees to follow. With technology solutions such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">Concur Expense</a>, your expense process gets an upgrade in both automation and mobility. Employees simply take a picture of their receipt, submit for approval, and the system takes it from there. No lost receipts, no lost expense data. This industry-leading <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-expense-management-automation">automated expense management</a> solution helps you not only process expenses easier and faster, but stay in-policy while doing so.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where does your expense policy stand?</h2>
<p>Are your employees set up for success? Taking the time to review and update your expense policy now will save you time and headaches in the future.</p>
<p>Ready to learn more? Watch our on-demand <a href="https://go.concur.com/ExpensePolicyWebinar_0418_Register.html" target="_blank">Crafting a customized travel and expense policy</a> webinar to get the information and support you need when updating your expense policy. </p>
SAP Concur Team
You’re Never Too Small to Automate Expense and Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/youre-never-too-small-automate-expense-and-travel
2018-07-06T11:31:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our research has revealed that some of the biggest challenges SMBs say they face are improving employee productivity improving cash flow and increasing visibility There are two good...
<p>Our research has revealed that some of the biggest challenges SMBs say they face are improving employee productivity, improving cash flow, and increasing visibility. There are two good reasons to tackle these issues when it comes to travel and expense:</p>
<ul>
<li>Travelling for business can generate an extraordinary amount of time-consuming paperwork for the employee and the finance team to tackle, hampering productivity.</li>
<li>Taken together, travel and expense is the second largest controllable area of business spend, so there are big savings to be made.</li>
</ul>
<p>The good news is that automation can help you cover off both issues. The bad news is that more than 70% of small businesses say lack of IT expertise means they put off implementing IT solutions. If you’re one of them, read on to find out why that may not be a concern after all. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Improving Employee Productivity While They’re on the Move</h2>
<p>Traditionally, there are three stages to business travel. The first is the booking process, the second is the trip itself, and the third is the expense claim afterwards. Each stage takes time and generates paperwork. But, the power of the smartphone that everyone carries these days plus tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> can put an end to much of the paperwork. Automation will save time and improve productivity for employees and the finance team. Plus, cloud-based, mobile tools improve the employee experience, thus increasing compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Freeing Up Cash Flow and Improving Visibility</h2>
<p>That traditional business travel model also means the finance team doesn’t have the budget information it needs until after the fact. To put it another way, when you’re dealing with an overhead as big as travel and expense, lack of near real-time visibility into spend creates a real barrier to being able to free up cash and improve visibility.</p>
<p>When you know where cash is going ahead of time and you can see what’s coming up, you can do three things:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduce the amount of time the finance team spends inputting data, making them more productive</li>
<li>Track and analyze expense trends and pinpoint opportunities for cost reduction to free up cash</li>
<li>See what costs are in the future so you can forecast with greater accuracy and offer more insight to the business</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Embracing Automation and Tackling Your Fears Head On</h2>
<p>As mentioned earlier, lack of IT expertise in-house is a huge factor holding businesses back from moving towards automation. There’s also concern about whether a business is simply too small to benefit from technology.</p>
<p>But you’re never too small for automation – and don’t just take our word for it. One customer of ours is DRC Capital, a business of 16 people. Office Manager Maria Santos Roman reported that in her first conversation with us: “I was quickly reassured that we would not be the smallest company [SAP] Concur worked with.”</p>
<p>The rewards for implementation of automation around travel and expense are tangible:</p>
<ul>
<li>Faster processing and reimbursement times</li>
<li>Time savings</li>
<li>Greater employee satisfaction</li>
<li>Cost savings through improved expense tracking</li>
<li>Better visibility and analytics capabilities</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Is it time you gave automation greater consideration? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Download the whitepaper </a>to learn more about how IT fits within the expense and travel management picture. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
Experience Three Days of Big Insights at SAPPHIRE NOW
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/experience-three-days-big-insights-sapphire-now
2018-05-24T09:50:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAPPHIRE NOW is a great place to find ideas that challenge conventional wisdomto learn from fellow industry leaders about innovative ways to tackle the challenges of modern business...
<p>SAPPHIRE NOW is a great place to find ideas that challenge conventional wisdom—to learn from fellow industry leaders about innovative ways to tackle the challenges of modern business. </p>
<p>And this year is no different, with SAP Concur sessions diving deep into topics like machine learning, AI-driven fraud detection and new ways to transform travel and expense management.</p>
<p>You’ll have a chance to hear directly from leaders like Shell and IBM, to learn the steps they took to transform how they manage their travel and expense management.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>IBM: </strong><a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=169&sid=62326_480587&locale=en_US" target="_blank">Deliver the Modern Face of Finance to Your Employees Through Great Tools</a></p>
<p>June 5, 12-12:20 – BA62326</p>
<p>Improve compliance, save money and become a hero to your employees. Just give them innovative T&E apps that make their lives easier. This session will show you how SAP Concur solutions use SAP Leonardo Machine Learning to deliver exceptional user experiences.<br />
Jim Lucier, Chief Services Officer and Chief Revenue Officer of North America, SAP Concur<br />
Chris Hood, Director, Global Travel and Expense, IBM<br />
<a href="https://dam.sap.com/mac/spa/public.html?h=%7Cvideo%7Casset%7Cpreview%7CZzPR29M#/video/asset/preview/ZzPR29M?_k=3ylymz" target="_blank">Watch a sneak preview now.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://dam.sap.com/mac/spa/public.html?h=%7Cvideo%7Casset%7Cpreview%7CZzPR29M#/video/asset/preview/ZzPR29M?_k=u9atlj" target="_blank"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1527179091545-session-date-2.jpg" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Shell:</strong><a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=169&sid=62394_480587&locale=en_US" target="_blank"> Improving Overall System Efficiency Through Integration</a></p>
<p>June 5, 2:30-2:50 – BA62394</p>
<p>Reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), improve compliance and increase business agility by consolidating multiple global expense management systems into one integrated system. In this session, you’ll hear how the multinational oil and gas company, Royal Dutch Shell plc, deployed the SAP Concur Expense solution to do just that, achieving quick time to value in serving its 90,000-strong user base.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>EY: </strong><a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=169&sid=62894_480587&locale=en_US" target="_blank">Using T&E Data to Reduce Cross-Border Tax and Immigration Risk</a></p>
<p>June 6, 12:30-12:50 – BA62894</p>
<p>Protect your travelers and your company from U.S. state-to-state tax, international payroll tax withholding, corporate tax, immigration issues, and more. In this session, you’ll see how multinational professional services firm EY and SAP Concur solutions help you use the data you already have to lower you risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>At SAP Concur, we’re improving spend management in the cloud, but we definitely have our feet on the ground at SAPPHIRE NOW. Here’s what we’ll be talking about.</h2>
<ul>
<li>How AI and machine learning are driving more intelligence into the process, and how that’s driving value to the company.</li>
<li>The latest tips, changes and best practices to manage compliance and fraud detection.</li>
<li>Increasing visibility into employee spend and seeing how the sharing economy and other drivers are changing the landscape.</li>
<li>Exploring new levels of end-to-end efficiency by integrating your travel, expense and invoice processes with SAP ERP systems and S/4 HANA solutions.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Be sure to:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Catch <strong>SAP Concur’s </strong><strong>full session</strong> schedule<strong> <a href="https://d.dam.sap.com/a/vdYPCVB" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong> </li>
<li>Add SAP Concur’s sessions to your <strong><a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=169&sf=1631&locale=en_US" target="_blank">Agenda Builder.</a></strong></li>
<li>Stop by the <strong>SAP Concur booth</strong> (#BA360, 362 & 363) to visit with a Solutions Consultant and experience a demo.</li>
<li>Connect with one of our reference customers in the <strong>Customer Connect Center</strong> (CCC) to hear about their experiences with us.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<p>If you haven’t registered yet? Make it a priority, <a href="https://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/registrationinfo?url_id=ctabutton-eventsite-headernav-regnow-sanow18" target="_blank">today</a>. We’re looking forward to connecting with you in a few short weeks.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Are Forward-Thinking CFOs Using Modern AP Automation to Drive Efficiencies and Cost Savings?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-are-forward-thinking-cfos-using-modern-ap-automation-drive-efficiencies-and-cost
2018-05-17T11:28:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From the expectations of investors and CEOs to the challenge of managing diverse workforces who submit invoices expenses and purchase requests through inefficient and disparate systems...
<p>From the expectations of investors and CEOs to the challenge of managing diverse workforces who submit invoices, expenses, and purchase requests through inefficient and disparate systems, CFOs in growing companies face more challenges than ever before. Automating accounts payable (AP) <strong>can</strong> help CFOs meet those challenges head on by bringing efficiencies to their company’s invoice management system and giving greater visibility to drive better financial business decisions.</p>
<p>In February 2017, A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC)</a> on behalf of SAP Concur found that companies that automated their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">accounts payable process</a> with a cloud-based solution were able to offer greater visibility into accurate accruals and spending to their CFOs. At the same time, they also realized efficiencies in various teams throughout their organization.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/thumbnail-idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Business Value of Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Learn how SAP Concur customers are seeing a 505% ROI in the first year and improving invoice management processes.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the Whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>The best AP automation solutions for CFOs provide visibility that helps drive smarter financial decision-making, reclaim time, and are business-ready.</h2>
<p>Modern automated invoice solutions are business-ready and scalable, while modern solution providers focus on developing intuitive mobile and desktop interfaces that engage employees “where they are” ­­– at the level of spend under management – to offer easier invoice submission and encourage adoption. As a result, these solutions provide better visibility and insight into non-PO spend and give business leaders the ability to act more quickly through deeper reporting on a wider set of data.</p>
<p>With this new visibility and insight into non-PO spend, CFOs can drive smarter decision-making and reclaim time. In fact, in a five-year period, participants spent 68% less time processing invoices with a cloud-based invoice automation system compared with traditional invoice management processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Your company could increase compliance and find other savings by automating accounts payable.</h2>
<p>The organizations surveyed have reduced the risk of fraudulent invoice approvals and have seen a 32% increase in the percentage of employees who can now see and follow their procurement policies. By automating their invoice process, companies have been able to drive greater compliance with the terms of payment provided by vendors, and in doing so have realized significant savings by avoiding penalties and interest fees on late payments. Vendors are receiving payments 51% faster, and the number of delayed payments has been reduced by 67%.</p>
<p>On top of these savings, companies have reduced the IT staff time required to administer their invoice management technology and have seen an increase in overall user productivity.</p>
<p>The IDC survey analyzed the costs and benefits associated with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> based on in-depth interviews with eight organizations that use Concur Invoice to manage and process invoices. On top of the benefits listed here, in a five-year period those surveyed organizations are projected to achieve benefits worth a discounted average of $2.75 million or $54,647 per 1,000 invoices, and streamline their invoice management systems to achieve substantial business value.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the report today</a></strong> to see how automating invoice processes leads to increased efficiencies, savings, and greater visibility that drives smarter decision-making. Then, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">this page</a> and see how an integrated solution helps modern finance leaders gain increased employee compliance, productivity, and visibility.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Accurately Capture Mileage Driven for Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-accurately-capture-mileage-driven-work
2023-07-25T09:24:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Considering mileage is one of the largest categories of employee spend US businesses spent more than billion on mileage reimbursement in you would think it would be easier to...
<p>Considering mileage is one of the largest categories of employee spend -- U.S. businesses spent more than <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/road-tripping-road-warriors-racking-up-miles-across-the-globe">$1.95 billion on mileage reimbursement in 2017</a> -- you would think it would be easier to capture.</p>
<p>On the face of it, its not always clear what the problem is. What can be so hard? Just make a note of your car’s odometer before and after each journey, or simply use the mileage shown by your navigation app of choice?</p>
<p>But life isn’t always so black and white. Employees can sometimes forget to note their mileage or stray from the original route, and then its all too easy to guess the mileage driven when it comes to submitting the expense claim. It’s also a known issue that, relying on the complexity of submitting mileage claims, some employees pad out their claims. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-282684_Car_R.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Effectively Manage Mileage Expenses</h2>
<p>Mileage is one of the largest employee spend categories. Use these best practices to keep it from adding up.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur offers an option to self-capture mileage with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a>, our business mileage tracker app. It provides an easy way for employees to claim mileage expenses without the ambiguity. It also gives the finance team peace of mind around compliance.</p>
<p>It’s part of the Concur mobile app, which is where users access their expenses, travel, and invoice tracking. In the bottom right hand corner of the home screen there’s a mileage icon and Concur Drive is accessed from here. Let's see how it works: </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to capture mileage with Concur Drive</h2>
<p>Employees can choose to track their mileage in one of two ways.</p>
<p>The first is the automatic way. They tell the app the set times when they regularly travel for business. Then, whenever they travel within those timeframes, their mobile phone’s GPS tracking and mobile sensors measure the distance traveled in the background and without the employee needing to be in the app.</p>
<p>The second way for employees to track mileage is manually. Using the app, they simply select when they want to start and stop tracking their trip. As before, their mobile phone’s GPS tracking and mobile sensors measure the distance traveled.</p>
<p>Whichever way they choose to track their mileage, employees don’t have to worry about draining their mobile’s battery. Concur Mobile is optimized to use less battery while the app is running in the background than other location tracking apps that keep the GPS turned on.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1539791008946-concur-drive-screen.jpg" /></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The quick and easy way to compile a mileage expense claim</h2>
<p>Whether the mileage is captured automatically or manually, each journey is automatically added to a draft expense claim. The employee reviews the draft claim and selects the trips that need to be reimbursed. The Concur Drive integrates with Google Maps, so it is easy for employees to remind themselves of individual journeys and remember what they were for. Eligible trips are submitted as “personal car mileage” on the expense claim and your company’s reimbursement rate is automatically applied.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Peace of mind around mileage compliance</h2>
<p>The integration with Google Maps also makes compliance much easier. You can see the exact route driven and exact mileage for each trip, plus you have a transparent audit trail at your fingertips. It means the opportunities for discrepancies are greatly reduced and you can be confident you’re not at risk of fines or of overpaying or underpaying employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>VAT reclaim on mileage claims is made simple</h2>
<p>The level of detail that’s automatically provided by Concur Drive means you can also confidently and easily reclaim the right amount of VAT on mileage, creating an additional source of revenue for very little cost.</p>
<p><strong>Ready to learn more? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/concur-drive-brochure">Download the Concur Drive brochure</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Why T&E Matters: Relieving Cost Pressures
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-te-matters-relieving-cost-pressures
2018-10-30T16:09:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The typical financial services organization spends an atypical amount of its budget on travel and expenses TE There are simply more people in financial services spending more time in...
<p>The typical financial services organization spends an atypical amount of its budget on travel and expenses (T&E). There are simply more people in financial services spending more time in the air than there are in other industries. And when those numbers are amplified in this way, a few hundred dollars missed here or lost there add up very quickly.</p>
<p>Everyone wants to drive out these inefficiencies and excess costs, but in financial services, it’s absolutely critical. To get a better idea of how, we have to get a better look at what is happening to T&E.</p>
<p>The bad:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rising corporate travel costs are driving expenses up.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Inefficient travel booking and expense processes decrease productivity and disappoint users.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>With little control over cash flow, it’s difficult to support strategic projects.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Internal and external noncompliance challenges are on the rise.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>With 2,351 global product taxability changes in one year alone (per Thomson Reuters, 2016 Q3), it’s hard to keep up.</li>
</ul>
<p>And the good:</p>
<ul>
<li>Cloud-based solutions connect all your data in near-real time.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Intelligent applications powered by machine learning help you make the best real-time decisions for your business.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Native integration with core enterprise software means that data and processes move smoothly from one system to another.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Mobile technologies reduce complexities and enhance the employee experience with intuitive user interfaces.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Modern cloud architectural patterns provide greater security, reliability, and scale.</li>
</ul>
<p>Does the good outweigh the bad? That all depends on whether you’re putting the right tools to work.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/11335-0.jpg?itok=FWibFjeg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Are You Auditing Travel and Expenses Effectively?</h2>
<p>Learn the keys to detecting and preventing out-of-policy spend.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/are-you-auditing-travel-and-expenses-effectively">Get the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Visibility into and control over spending</h2>
<p>The best solutions automatically pull spending data directly from suppliers, credit card providers, and other sources, so you get a clear picture of what’s going out the door. And that means you get control.</p>
<p>Better visibility also allows you to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Negotiate better rates with accurate insight into what was spent where and when.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Effectively control costs and analyze potential fraud with dashboards and alerts that deliver full visibility into spending.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Cut manual T&E steps with tools that automatically add and categorize charges, so expense reports essentially write themselves.</li>
</ul>
<p>How much of a difference can the right tools make? Here’s a look at results from SAP data.</p>
<ul>
<li>A 30% increase in overall policy compliance can lead to a 5%-10% reduction in airline, hotel, and rental car costs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>An average of 30%-60% FTE savings in accounts payable, an increase of 20%-50% in end-user and manager productivity hours, and up to 80% lower audit costs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Stronger supplier negotiations and early payment discounts can cut costs another 1%-5%.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fraud and error detection can reduce annual mileage spend by 20% and meals/entertainment by 5%-10%.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>VAT recovery can go up 5%-10%, while telecom and meeting spend can go down 10%.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>When you don’t simply run the numbers, but see the numbers, you’re better able to take control of your spending.</p>
<p>For more, reach out to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact" target="_blank">T&E experts</a> and check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-services-solution">solutions for financial services</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This originally appeared on the <a href="https://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2018/08/01/why-te-matters-relieving-cost-pressures-06180579" target="_blank">Digitalist </a>and is republished with permission.</p>
Andy Hirst
3 Major Benefits to Using a Mobile App for Mileage Reporting in Higher Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-major-benefits-using-mobile-app-mileage-reporting-higher-education
2020-09-13T04:26:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Just as rapidly changing technology has facilitated employees to meet their business needs it has created ways to empower recruiters advancement officers and staff within a higher...
<p>Just as rapidly changing technology has facilitated employees to meet their business needs, it has created ways to empower recruiters, advancement officers, and staff within a higher education institution.</p>
<p>Institutions depend on student enrollment and retention. By 2023, enrollment is projected to increase by 20% for college students older than 25 and only 12% for traditional students, according to the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/Indicator_CHA/coe_cha_2014_05.pdf">National Center for Education Statistics</a>. As campuses continue to innovate their recruiting strategies, admission recruiters, athletic recruiters, and even advancement officers and alumni relations staff will likely be driving their personal cars to recruit students and meet with potential donors over wider and wider territories.</p>
<p>You don’t hire these staff to report mileage – you hire them to recruit and fundraise. But these important individuals need to track and report their mileage, which often results in inaccurate reporting. By having to manually track mileage or making an estimated guess, you get inaccurate mileage data, fraud can happen, and inaccurate expense amounts can be entered. Inaccurate and fraudulent mileage expenses are one of the top ways organizations lose millions per year.</p>
<p>With the rise of technology, it is possible today to gain clear visibility into your mileage expenses and ensure accurate reporting with the convenience and efficiencies of mobile apps. Your organization needs a solution or tool that can track mileage with accurate GPS capabilities, all at the touch of a mobile app. Here are the three benefits gained by moving away from manual tracking to leveraging an automated mobile application:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Save money with accurate distance tracking</h2>
<p>When mileage is self-reported, inaccuracy and unnecessary spend increases. Accurate distance tracking means you pay only for actual distance driven. This can reduce fraud and reporting errors. A GPS-powered mobile application can also segment out routes from any part of the trip that should not be reported. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Save time with automated tracking</h2>
<p>Automated tracking is also available with a GPS-powered mobile application. Users can set their work hours in the app, and during these hours, automated tracking uses smart sensors to begin and end distance tracking when the vehicle starts and stops to create a distance log. Staff save time by not having to record every “from here to there” segment they drive carrying out their duties.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1534364538801-concur-drive-screens.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Drive policy compliance</h2>
<p>A GPS-powered mobile application can capture information to help customers with their compliance for mileage reimbursement. It can also allow a real-time view into employee spend in every single expense category.</p>
<p>Higher education is looking to save money, time and easily stay in compliance in every way they can, and Concur Drive delivers the solution that has the benefits of solving those business challenges. Learn more about Concur Drive and how it can simplify work for your admissions, athletics and advancement staff today on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-mileage">our website</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Risky Business: What's the Cost of Doing Nothing?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/risky-business-whats-cost-doing-nothing
2019-03-19T08:13:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to investing in technology its natural to ask whats the benefit One way to answer this is to look at what might happen if you dont invest In other words whats the cost...
<p data-id="17abffc7-97ed-4891-b4a2-ac6daa8c2eba">When it comes to investing in technology, it’s natural to ask: what’s the benefit? One way to answer this is to look at what might happen if you don’t invest. In other words – what’s the cost of doing nothing?</p>
<p data-id="508e2270-7e74-4db9-b897-491187ccdd2a">Our new eBook <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/why-sap-concur-and-cost-doing-nothing">Why SAP Concur? And the Cost of Doing Nothing</a> will show you why now is the time to automate, connect, and take control of your expense, travel, and invoice spending. Still not sure? Here's some business risks that can be mitigated with support from SAP Concur:</p>
<p data-id="2ab89599-6d8c-4dbc-9eac-011355a046f9"> </p>
<h2 data-id="047cc737-cec4-4684-91e5-7c9c087f24ef">Limited visibility and uncontrollable costs</h2>
<p data-id="1c8fc2b2-9bfe-4ac9-921b-a4172c748364">Did you know that 75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel and invoice budgets? Are you confident that you have full visibility over all the expenses being submitted, trips being planned, and invoices being processed by your employees?</p>
<p data-id="0afd7fa1-0921-42ba-8d0b-a7fdd5847c57">Manual processes – and siloed expense, travel, and invoice data – can cost your organization in many ways. It could be wasted time and lost productivity, eligible VAT that goes unclaimed, or spiralling costs caused by a lack of visibility.</p>
<p data-id="13bab2a2-ae18-4a6a-9e43-16810748ebb3"> </p>
<h2 data-id="47dae004-891f-4b26-81c5-96ddb9e7321f">How SAP Concur can help</h2>
<p data-id="d83b6883-fa72-49a0-992c-5abf47af8998">By fully automating expense, travel, and invoice systems with cloud-based, mobile-optimized tools, you can reduce employee frustration, encourage adoption and increase compliance, with minimal fuss and upheaval. Likewise, better tools to track spending can help people make responsible choices and give managers complete visibility into any excessive, fraudulent, or unnecessary costs. All of this translates into savings for your business.</p>
<p data-id="79fe199d-49e8-4cea-b22c-ec837f8f11d4"> </p>
<h2 data-id="3afb147d-c88a-4105-b5a8-fee623c4cf14">Falling foul of compliance or regulatory requirements</h2>
<p data-id="b4234273-9344-4d1b-a18d-ac7444055854">According to Vanson Bourne research in the UK, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/newsroom/article/travel-expenses-and-invoices-%E2%80%93-why-bother-connecting-the-dots-new">nearly half of all expenses and invoices aren’t checked for inaccuracies</a> and fraud. Is your organization fully compliant with rapidly changing legal and regulatory measures? And are you confident you have everything in place to effectively manage the risks of fraud and financial crime?</p>
<p data-id="f8dea827-c7ba-48eb-bc84-2b0d3327c411">With regulations in a constant state of flux, especially in Europe, keeping up to date and playing by the rules is a key challenge for every organization. The risks of financial crime and data breaches place extra importance on financial transparency, data integrity, and internal auditing. Not being up to standard in these areas means risking weighty fines and intense scrutiny.</p>
<p data-id="fc66f53a-1a85-4c11-889e-e61f942895fa"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2d314ded-e542-4349-a0a4-e2ec6a0d788d">How SAP Concur can help</h2>
<p data-id="c530d70a-d18b-4b58-ac49-99b323c1d732">A connected approach to spend management can help your company stay compliant across multiple areas. It can help you weed out invoice costs being passed off as expenses, ensure you’re correctly reclaiming VAT, and give you robust spend data and reporting that can stand up to even the most intense scrutiny.</p>
<p data-id="e210e6a6-088b-45ec-b733-354f1a306966">These are just some of the ways SAP Concur can help you mitigate the risks of manual and disconnected expense, travel, and invoice processes. If you’re wondering about the rest, download our eBook to discover the cost of doing nothing.</p>
<p data-id="d65893d4-e071-45af-85db-7ebf84559617"> </p>
<p data-id="3486c12c-8d41-4733-bf74-7edd108e8c78"><a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/why-sap-concur-and-cost-doing-nothing"><strong>Read the eBook</strong></a><strong> Why SAP Concur? And the Cost of Doing Nothing</strong></p>
<p data-id="f5238bb8-9306-4ac4-8201-36b2e0f28dfc"> </p>
Leading Companies Turn to SAP for Network and Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/leading-companies-turn-sap-network-and-spend-management
2020-09-21T20:27:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
PALO ALTO Calif SAP SE NYSE SAP today announced that companies worldwide are embracing its powerful endtoend network and total spend management cloudbased solutions These solutions...
<p><strong>PALO ALTO, Calif. — </strong><a href="http://www.sap.com/" target="_blank">SAP SE</a> (NYSE: SAP) today announced that companies worldwide are embracing its powerful end-to-end network and total spend management, cloud-based solutions.</p>
<p>These solutions support business leaders who understand that collaboration and the ability to share data across organizational boundaries is nonnegotiable. In the <a href="https://www.sap.com/investors/en.html#pdf-asset=865dec61-237d-0010-87a3-c30de2ffd8ff&page=1" target="_blank">third quarter</a> of 2018, SAP’s cloud revenue surged 41 percent (non-IFRS, at constant currencies) and new cloud bookings grew 37 percent (at constant currencies) year-over-year.</p>
<h2><strong>Data Delivers Intelligence to Move Businesses Forward</strong></h2>
<p>Enabling real-time decision-making and having an intense focus on profitability and long-term growth are prerequisites for successful global business leaders. With this in mind, companies worldwide are adopting cloud solutions from SAP for end-to-end network and spend management to extract valuable information to accelerate the journey to becoming intelligent enterprises. For example, in the third quarter of 2018:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>KIO Networks</strong>, an IT consulting and service company with more than 15 years in the Mexican market, moved to the cloud portfolio from SAP to become an intelligent enterprise. The company, with 38 data centers in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe, adopted <a href="http://www.ariba.com/?CRM-XR18-PRG-07ZZ_BNA1" target="_blank">SAP Ariba</a>, <a href="http://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> and <a href="http://www.fieldglass.com/" target="_blank">SAP Fieldglass</a> solutions to increase efficiency in travel budget management, streamline its procurement processes, improve relationships with vendors and automate the administration of external workers. All of this was done with the main objective of quoting projects faster for a speedier rate of contribution to KIO’s customers.</li>
<li><strong>Delivery Hero SE</strong>, based in Germany, is a fast-growing leader in online and mobile food ordering. Currently operating in 40+ countries with more than one million orders per day, it chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Ariba and SAP Concur solutions to help scale growth. “We manage 28 brands around the world to drive rapid growth,” said Johannes Langguth, senior director, Finance Systems at Delivery Hero. “We chose SAP’s cloud solutions over others because they give us the ability to assess our total spend across the entire business and access to the right data, at the right time allowing real-time decisions. The relationship with SAP is critical to our ongoing success.”</li>
<li><strong>iLoLay</strong>, an Argentinean dairy company that exports to more than 30 countries, is becoming an intelligent enterprise with the support of SAP solutions. The company, which processes over 500 million liters of milk a year, chose SAP S/4HANA, SAP Ariba and SAP SuccessFactors solutions, among others, to boost its digital transformation road map, retain and foster employees, improve procurement processes and support its growth plan.</li>
<li><strong>Grupo Energía Bogotá</strong> (GEB), the Latin American multinational leader in the electric power and natural gas sector, continues to shape its digital transformation process with the addition of cloud solutions from SAP. The company, with operations in Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Brazil, adopted SAP Ariba solutions to optimize the outsourcing process, have better visibility of contract management and have full control of strategic purchases. With SAP Concur solutions, GEB will be able to have the control, management and visibility of all travel expenses of the companies within the group and within its subsidiaries. Likewise, the 120-year-old company will be able to expand its capacity through SAP Cloud Platform to continue implementing its corporate strategic plan on a single data and cloud commercial platform.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Business decisions that used to be made over the course of a year or more now need to be made in months or weeks,” said Robert Enslin, president of the Cloud Business Group and member of the Executive Board, SAP SE. “Staying ahead means having the systems and networks in place, inside and outside your company, to give you total visibility and control — and that’s what SAP delivers.”</p>
<h2><strong>Powerful Networks to Expand the Value of Data</strong></h2>
<p>With SAP Ariba, SAP Concur and SAP Fieldglass solutions, SAP delivers the most powerful networks across sourcing and supplier management, travel and expense, and workforce management.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ariba.com/about/ariba-network?CRM-XR18-PRG-07ZZ_BNA1">Ariba Network</a> is the largest business-to-business network in the world with over 3.6 million connected companies in over 190 countries. On the network, more than US$2.28 trillion in commerce is conducted annually — more than three times that of eBay, Amazon and Alibaba combined.</li>
<li>More than 258 million transactions were processed in SAP Concur solutions over the past four quarters, and the solutions integrate with over 180 partners to help clients manage tax regulations, compliance issues and more. Concur Travel is the only corporate travel solution with Airbnb listings embedded directly in the online booking tool. In addition, more than 7.5 million travelers have access to Concur TripLink.</li>
<li>SAP Fieldglass solutions, comprising a cloud-based vendor management system, have been deployed in more than 180 countries, offer more integrations than any other supplier in the space and supported over 6.2 million external workers in the third quarter of 2018.</li>
</ul>
<p>This post originally appeared on the <a href="https://news.sap.com/2018/11/leading-companies-sap-network-spend-management/" target="_blank">SAP News Center</a>. Follow SAP on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/sapnews/">@sapnews</a><a href="https://twitter.com/sapnews/" target="_blank">.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About SAP</strong></p>
<p>As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 413,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.sap.com/" target="_blank">www.sap.com</a>.</p>
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To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit <a href="http://www.sap.com/photos" target="_blank">www.sap.com/photos</a>. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit <a href="http://www.sap-tv.com/" target="_blank">www.sap-tv.com</a>. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.</p>
<p><strong>For customers interested in learning more about SAP products: </strong><br />
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<p>Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.<br />
© 2018 SAP SE. All rights reserved.<br />
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see <a href="https://www.sap.com/copyright" target="_blank">https://www.sap.com/copyright</a> for additional trademark information and notices.<br />
Please consider our <a href="https://www.sap.com/corporate/en/legal/privacy.html" target="_blank">privacy policy</a>. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact <a href="mailto:press@sap.com">press@sap.com</a> and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Employees in Tokyo Have a Hands-On Wheelchair Experience to Survey Accessibility
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-employees-tokyo-have-hands-wheelchair-experience-survey-accessibility
2018-10-29T08:04:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a part of our corporate social responsibility CSR activities our team in Japan recently participated in Mirairo Incs Bremen Survey Team which is an event for utilizing Bmaps a...
<p>As a part of our corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, our team in Japan recently participated in Mirairo Inc.'s "Bremen Survey Team," which is an event for utilizing <a href="https://bmaps.world/en/" target="_blank">Bmaps</a>, a map-based accessibility info app. While experiencing movement from a wheelchair perspective, the participants posted accessibility info to Bmaps. In this latest exercise, we made an accessibility survey of the Ginza area that surrounds our Tokyo office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Answering the question: "What are information barriers?"</h2>
<p>The event began by teaching fundamental knowledge on disabilities. People with disabilities are not the only ones affected by barriers; they also affect the elderly, persons pushing strollers, and even foreign visitors. A discussion of how and when such persons are inconvenienced promoted a clearer understanding of the issues they face.</p>
<p>Through this, participants learned the importance of changing people's awareness. It also highlighted the importance of rethinking facilities. But above all, everyone learned how important it is to communicate accessibility information to those who need it most, despite the lack of an established method to do so at present. In other words, they learned about the "information barrier" that exists today.</p>
<p>Bmaps offers the means to eliminate this information barrier. Bmaps is a map-based accessibility info app that allows everyone to cooperate in gathering accessibility information―not just for hotels and restaurants, but for all places everywhere. The app was developed by Mirairo Inc. with support by the Japan Foundation, and is being jointly operated with CANPAN Center, a nonprofit organization<a>. </a>It allows people to share info in 17 categories important to a variety of users when going out. This includes ratings and photos of stores and facilities, whether or not there are surface level variations, plus information on elevators, spaciousness, lighting, and more. For example, people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing communicate with sign language, so room lighting is an important factor for them. Participants were made to recognize the point of the survey while learning such key aspects.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1540824883668-jp-csr-2-1-copy.jpg" /></p>
<div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Using a wheelchair in the city streets, participants quickly discovered the pitfalls around Ginza</h2>
<p>Participants were organized into five groups to survey the Ginza area. One wheelchair was lent to each group and during the survey they took turns between being the wheelchair driver or supporter.</p>
<p>For most everyone, it was their first time using a wheelchair, and they were shocked at how it changed their impression of places they used easily every day. This was illustrated by comments such as "even slight slopes and height differences were frightening," and "boxes left in passageways blocked me from getting through." Even their approach to providing assistance changed after maneuvering in a wheelchair. Participants learned to play close attention in order to feel safe in a wheelchair.</p>
<p>One of the things they learned from this exercise was that some parts of Ginza still have barriers. Countless tourists come to visit Ginza, and although it has the image of a highly refined metropolitan area, another of its characteristics is that once you stray from the main streets, it is filled with pockets of historical streetscapes. But because the buildings are so old, they are filled with barriers that are easy to overlook such as a lack of elevators, and even establishments on ground level have stepped surfaces of seven inches or more.</p>
<p>Once everyone returned to the office, they shared their impressions of accessibility through group work. This resulted in sharing the realization that things built for the convenience and conditions of "most" people are prone to having barriers.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1540824906260-jp-csr-3.jpg" /></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What we learned from the survey</h2>
<p>Although we discovered many things we hadn't noticed before, most notably, we became aware of the importance of experiencing things ourselves. Sometimes things we do with good intentions end up causing difficulties for others. You become keenly aware of that once you're looking down a steep slope yourself. Experiencing wheelchairs firsthand made problems that we overlooked before quite obvious, and personally going through this process was a valuable learning experience for all.</p>
<p><a href="https://concurlabs.com/">Concur Labs</a>, where Concur's innovations are born, has been working on the development of "ARC," a service that allows even persons with visual impairments to calculate expenses from receipts. Through technology and a flexible mindset, we are focused on providing services that recognize the diversity of users.</p>
<p>Recently, we have even received inquiries on whether actual wheelchair users can participate in the seminar. We hope to make effective use of this recent experience to ensure as many people as possible can participate in the seminar with confidence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about SAP Concur's CSR efforts <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">visit this page</a>. </strong></p>
</div>
Chika Ando
Control Spending With Less: How to Add Oversight Without Adding Overhead
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/control-spending-less-how-add-oversight-without-adding-overhead
2018-12-18T10:36:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you had an army of people to watch over your army of employees you could probably keep up with their spending But you dont and it might just be a little cost prohibitive if you did...
<p>If you had an army of people to watch over your army of employees, you could probably keep up with their spending. But you don’t, and it might just be a little cost prohibitive if you did.</p>
<p>So how do you stay on top of what’s going out the door? And we mean literally going out the door, since as much as 10% of your budget is T&E. Your employees have more power over spending decisions than ever before. And while that makes things easier for them, it makes your job that much more difficult.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Use our tool to quickly discover how much money your company could save with automated expense management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Do the Math</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The risk is real</h2>
<p>When spending slips through corporate fingers, your risk of losing control goes up—you simply don’t know who’s spending what (or where or how) until the money’s already gone. This makes the risk of fraud harder to keep in check. Same goes for the risk of falling out of step with regulatory and/or internal compliance. And if you truly aren’t on top of T&E, the very safety of your travelers is also at risk.</p>
<p>With this much at stake, that army-of-people idea starts to sound pretty good.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do you solve the problem with people, process or something simpler?</h2>
<p>It comes down to this: You either need more bodies in place to review every reservation, transaction and receipt; or you need a system that provides oversight and makes compliance just another part of doing business.</p>
<p>The choice is clear.</p>
<ul>
<li>SAP Concur gives your employees simple, mobile tools that help write expense reports for your them—so you get accurate information on time (even early). This prevents data entry errors and delays that affect budget accruals and raise red flags in compliance reviews.</li>
<li>SAP Concur automatically applies spending controls and targeted audit rules to every transaction, increasing policy compliance and decreasing fraud.</li>
<li>Concur Audit uses objective experts to audit expense reports for you, based on both your internal policies and regulatory requirements. So you literally add oversight without adding overhead.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take a look at the numbers.</h2>
<p>Not only does SAP Concur show you the numbers behind the spending, giving you control over the spending, a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-sap-concur-empowers-organizations-digitally-transform-their-travel">IDC infographic</a> gives you proof of performance.</p>
<p>After implementing SAP Concur solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>62% more employees followed company T&E policies</li>
<li>There was a 67% reduction in the number of lost receipts</li>
<li>Auditing staff was 28% more efficient</li>
<li>Businesses saw an average of $672,000 in travel savings per year</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-sap-concur-empowers-organizations-digitally-transform-their-travel">Download the full IDC infographic</a> and see how much you could save.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Need a Travel and Expense Policy? Create One in Three Minutes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/need-travel-and-expense-policy-create-one-three-minutes
2020-04-07T08:47:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We hear from many small businesses that they need greater visibility into and control over what their staff is expensing but dont know where to start The answer is simple a travel...
<p>We hear from many small businesses that they need greater visibility into and control over what their staff is expensing, but don’t know where to start. The answer is simple -- a travel and expense (<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-does-t-e-mean">T&E</a>) policy. This policy governs what can can and can not be reimbursed, and at what rates. Many businesses start off with informal rules passed on like a game of telephone, believing (or hoping) that employees will make sensible decisions. But that puts pressure on your staff who are left to second guess right from wrong. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>A $50 bottle of prosecco?</h2>
<p>That’s simple sales entertaining, right? What may seem acceptable to one business, could be senseless spending to another and it’s hard to tell where to draw the line. Then there’s the dilemma of different rules for different employee roles. Some departments may get away with excessive expenses while others feel the pressure to control their costs? Is it fair?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What will a T&E policy control?</h2>
<p>For any business looking to introduce fair rules and processes around what employees can reclaim, a T&E policy is your first port of call. Here are some details around what a good T&E policy will include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The rate of reimbursement for <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-accurately-capture-mileage-driven-for-work">business mileage</a> travelled by car</li>
<li>The maximum amount you can reclaim for air travel and what cabin employees may book</li>
<li>How much you can reclaim for meals while on business</li>
<li>The maximum price of a hotel stay depending on the city you’re in</li>
<li>If there are preferred methods of booking business travel such as a corporate booking tool (you may have negotiated rates)</li>
</ul>
<p>Every business will have different requirements and unique situations that call for different costs that are incurred. For that reason, you’ll be best placed to stipulate what the parameters are. The problem is that many companies don’t have a framework in place giving guidance to their employees. Where do you start?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Create an expense policy in a few clicks</h2>
<p>That’s why we built this simple expense policy tool for you. All you have to do is input your rules in a few categories to create a customized policy for your business. There are just six questions and it will take about three minutes to complete. What you’ll get is a fully customizable expense policy template that you can edit and make your own.</p>
<p>And if you already have a policy, you can use it to ensure you are up-to-date with some of the latest rules and you have all the boxes checked.</p>
<p><strong>Try our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> today! </strong></p>
The Impact of Online Booking Tool Configurations on Global Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/impact-online-booking-tool-configurations-global-travel
2020-08-15T19:46:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Whether youre planning to go global or if your company already has a globalized corporate travel program it is crucial to understand the role of your online booking platform The...
<p>Whether you’re planning to “go global” or if your company already has a globalized corporate travel program, it is crucial to understand the role of your online booking platform. The technical configuration of the tool, along with strategic agency and content access, will impact your ability to manage travelers across the globe.</p>
<p>What are the best practices for OBT configurations on a global scale? How can implementation ensure that your travel and expense program is managed efficiently?</p>
<p>World Travel, Inc. Vice President of Enterprise Technology, Julie Deppe, sat down with us to shed some light on this topic. After reading her insights below, if you want to learn even more, check out her <a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=202&locale=en_US">session</a> at next week’s SAP Concur Fusion 2019.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Technical configuration</h2>
<p>When using SAP Concur Travel as your OBT of choice, it’s important to remember that no matter how much international travel your program has, you will always have <strong>one </strong>Concur site.</p>
<p>However, there can be multiple configurations of the site (including subsites) based on your travel program needs. Multiple configurations have different use cases in Concur Travel but will always be used in a multi-agency service set-up.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Multi-agency configuration</h2>
<p>If you have chosen to utilize a global partner network to support your travel program (learn more about the benefits <a href="http://www.worldtravelinc.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-globalizing-your-corporate-travel-program" target="_blank">here</a>), agency access to different configurations of the site is another consideration.</p>
<p>A global reseller of Concur would be able to access all configurations of the Concur site, essentially having a global view of all travel.</p>
<p>If other TMCs are contracted to provide local expertise, country-specific GDS and direct-connect content, and ticketing in the local currency, these could be set up as fulfillment agencies. In this case, a fulfilment agency would only have a divisional view of the Concur site, seeing only the travel booked through them.</p>
<p>World Travel, Inc. is a global reseller of Concur, and we often work with our international partners as fulfillment agencies to provide localized service while maintaining data security, risk management, consolidated reporting, and maximized site configurations. This allows the World Travel, Inc. Global Account Manager, as well as the client’s Global Travel Manager, to be able to view all users and report on all company travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn more!</h2>
<p>Want to learn more about optimizing a global travel program with SAP Concur solutions?</p>
<p>Julie Deppe, along with World Travel, Inc. Executive Vice President of Business Development, Michael Farrell, will be sharing additional insights at next week’s SAP Concur Fusion 2019.</p>
<p>Their session, <a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=202&locale=en_US">Going Global with World Travel, Inc. and SAP Concur Travel and Expense Solutions</a>, will dive deeper into best practices for a global travel program, including HR data feeds, multi-agency configurations, reseller vs. fulfilment agencies, expense integration, global data consolidation, global implementation, and more!</p>
<p><a href="https://sessioncatalog.sapevents.com/go/agendabuilder.sessions/?l=202&locale=en_US">Sign up for the Going Global session here.</a></p>
<p>Also, be sure to meet with the World Travel, Inc. team at booth 300 in the expo hall! World Travel, Inc. is a preferred and certified Concur partner, and we’re more than happy to talk through online booking tool optimization or answer any questions you have. See you in San Diego!</p>
Tiffany Zerby
Hosting Our First Seattle Girls Geek Dinner Event
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hosting-our-first-seattle-girls-geek-dinner-event
2020-09-11T12:38:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The idea of SAP Concur hosting a Seattle Girl Geek Dinner started as a casual hallway conversation between a software engineer Gauravi Kulkarniand a product manager myself about tech...
<p>The idea of SAP Concur hosting a Seattle Girl Geek Dinner started as a casual hallway conversation between a software engineer (Gauravi Kulkarni)and a product manager (myself) about tech events for women. This conversation, led us to ask ourselves a simple question: “Why hasn’t SAP Concur hosted a Seattle Girl Geek Dinner yet? We can host it!”</p>
<p>Armed with this idea and our determination to make this happen, we started our planning and hosted the first Seattle Girl Geek Dinner at SAP Concur last week.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>About the Seattle Girl Geek Community</h2>
<p>The mission of this community is “to create a community where women at any stage of their technical careers can network, share best practices, and empower other women to pursue or continue their professions in tech”. The SGGC has a Facebook group of ~3K female members who are part of the local tech industry. These Dinners have gained quite a lot of popularity and many tech companies have been hosting them: Zulilly was the last to host (Dinner #70). Other companies who have hosted include: Microsoft, Amazon, Snap Inc, and Nordstrom.</p>
<p>In order to sponsor or host an event, a company has to follow <a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/seattle-girl-geek-dinners/sponsoring-a-sggd-event-101/10155867187009864/" target="_blank">these guidelines</a>.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551927642196-geek-dinner-1.jpg" /></p>
<h2>SAP Concur hosted dinner #71</h2>
<p>Planning an event of this nature takes effort and team work to turn it into a reality. We had the support of many SAP Concur employees and/or teams to make this happen:</p>
<ul>
<li>R&D provided the funding for the food</li>
<li>Product provided funding for miscellaneous items </li>
<li>Brand Marketing provided the swag</li>
<li>10 SAP Concur volunteers were in charge of badging the dinner attendees</li>
<li>24 SAP Concur female and male tech leaders were in charge of facilitating the 12 different topics discussed during the dinner</li>
</ul>
<p>The <a href="https://splashthat.com/sites/view/seattlegirlgeekdinner71.splashthat.com?fbclid=IwAR3Lwl1NXQDbBOkUa5JQ-Mhs68FJgCfzPBBozfHHmvHj2qSpN4w6nXM2gyM">invite</a> received 130 RSVPs within less than a day, and the attendees were a mixture of entry-, mid- and senior-level tech ladies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What we learned after hosting this event</h2>
<p>We chose to have a different format for the SAP Concur hosted dinner, so we had 12 different topics that were discussed among the attendees. The topics ranged from career development, networking, work life balance and leadership skills among others. The attendees and SAP Concur facilitators had one hour to discuss each topic and afterwards 3 main key takeaways were shared with the whole group.</p>
<p>This type of setup promoted engagement and conversation between all of the attendees and our SAP Concur leaders. This is really what made this dinner quite unique!</p>
<p>The feedback from the attendees included phrases of this nature: “inspirational," “engaging," “glad to see female executives," “learned so much from this conversation,” and “thank you so much for hosting."</p>
<p>This type of response is really what we wanted to accomplish. Women are not the majority within the tech industry, so many of us feel it is our duty to encourage and share our knowledge with other women in the field.</p>
<p>We are glad to be part of SAP Concur where these types of activities are welcomed and supported!</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551927708614-geek-dinner-2.jpg" /></p>
<h2>Special thanks to our sponsor and volunteers</h2>
<p>Facilitators:</p>
<ul>
<li>Michelle Grover & Noah Addy</li>
<li>Saroj Motwani & Melissa St. Michaels</li>
<li>Kathleen Marzahl & Kelsey Steven</li>
<li>Keith Moffatt & Chelsea Behrens</li>
<li>Joe Dunnick & Claudia Myers</li>
<li>Ekta Aggarwal & Sally Yan</li>
<li>Ria Delamere & Joanne Phillips</li>
<li>Shivani Patel & Kate Tronvig</li>
<li>Carol Russell & Kunal Kishore</li>
<li>Nirala Tuladhar & Howard Dierking</li>
<li>Amy Van Hollebeke & Ashlyn Leahy</li>
<li>Yovka Pencheva & Jessi Alva</li>
</ul>
<p>List of Internal Volunteers</p>
<ul>
<li>Gauravi Dudhbhate</li>
<li>Jenna Badanowski</li>
<li>Truc Ly Le</li>
<li>Sara Stiltner</li>
<li>Suchitra Sundararaman</li>
<li>Mobina Imtiaz</li>
<li>Tracy Grover</li>
<li>Natalia Ramirez</li>
<li>Hannah Van Seeters</li>
</ul>
<p>Major Sponsors:</p>
<ul>
<li>Michelle Grover & Saju Pillai (R&D)</li>
<li>Cherri Fowler (Brand Marketing)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Summer Search and SAP Concur Supporting Students in Achieving Their Dreams
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/summer-search-and-sap-concur-supporting-students-achieving-their-dreams
2021-03-01T15:33:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur At SAP Concur we support accessibility to quality education for youth in underserved communities As such...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we support accessibility to quality education for youth in underserved communities. As such, we partner with organizations working to remove barriers and inequities that exist preventing youth from reaching their full potential. Our National Community Impact Partner, <a href="https://www.summersearch.org/WhoWeAre" target="_blank">Summer Search</a>, does just that by helping students realize their potential and achieve academic success, empowering them to bring their experience back to their families and community, inspiring future generations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yesterday Summer Search hosted their Seattle Leadership Luncheon and SAP Concur was proud to be the Summit Sponsor for the second year in a row, with a donation of $50,000. This sponsorship helps enable Summer Search Seattle to expand their reach, providing even more opportunities to students in the South King County area.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558722471319-summer-search-wish-list-2.JPG" />
<p>Summer Search is not only one of our community impact partners, but I personally connect with Summer Search. Having grown up in South Seattle, a community in which Summer Search is directly impacting, I witnessed the inequities that exist. And, like most Summer Searchers, I am a first-generation college graduate. Now, as a parent of two middle school aged boys, I recognize the abundance of opportunities afforded to them and am aware that opportunity is not equitable within their peer group across the United States. Summer Search is empowering youth around the U.S.They are inspiring and transforming people’s lives.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We had over 50 employees in attendance, and several SAP Concur employees attended a pre-luncheon networking session providing Summer Searchers an opportunity to practice greeting luncheon guests and equipping them with skills to learn the art of networking. During this session, I had the opportunity to hear from a few students, sharing what Summer Search means to them. They shared that Summer Search has helped build their confidence and helped them “see their potential.” Students spoke about how Summer Search has provided a supportive community where they are surrounded by others facing adversity. During the luncheon, we heard from students, alumni and parents. By sharing their stories, we learned more about the profound impact Summer Search is having on students and their families, and we were able to celebrate their successes. Summer Search is helping students find their truth through experiences and mentorship.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558722531651-summer-search-wish-list-5.JPG" />
<p>I was truly inspired by the love and gratitude expressed throughout the luncheon. In that spirit, I want to express my gratitude and thank SAP Concur and SAP Intelligent Spend Group President <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeeberhard/" target="_blank">Mike Eberhard</a>, and every single one of our employees for showing up with open hearts to support this incredible organization. Those employees included <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/judecapili/" target="_blank">Jude Capili</a>, a graduate of Seattle’s Ingraham High School and Western Washington University. Jude is a previous SAP Concur intern and today serves as one of SAP Concur’s finest Security and Privacy Analysts. Jude remarked last week to Mike Eberhard that he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Summer Search, not just talking about being at SAP Concur but where he is in life overall. As Mike told the audience yesterday, “Jude is a great role model for our future Summer Search interns and we plan to grow the number of Summer Searchers within our internship program in the years to come.”</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558724029933-48178418-94b-4-4c-3b-8605-b-97fb-1666413.jpeg" />
<p>Though I am grateful to all of you, I am most grateful to the students, alumni, and parents for sharing their story. They are what yesterday’s luncheon was all about. As the students were told during the pre-luncheon networking session, they were the most important people in the room. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>At SAP we believe in helping the world run better and improving people’s lives. Our partnership and dedicated work with organizations like Summer Search is evidence of this belief. I encourage you to learn more about <a href="https://www.summersearch.org/">Summer Search</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
TCG Consulting Transforms the Industry, Digital Brand and Partnership with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/tcg-consulting-transforms-industry-digital-brand-and-partnership-sap-concur
2019-10-15T13:27:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Christy Harner Chief Marketing Officer of TCG Consulting TCG Consulting is excited to announce its expanded partnership with SAP Concur in and beyond In addition to offering...
<p>By: Christy Harner, Chief Marketing Officer of TCG Consulting</p>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p><a href="http://tracker.tcgconsulting.net/l/785553/2019-10-04/2ch2" target="_blank">TCG Consulting</a> is excited to announce its expanded partnership with SAP Concur in 2019 and beyond. In addition to offering workshops and webinars for SAP Concur customers who are looking to optimize their travel, meetings, payment and expense programs (TMPE), members of our leadership and engagement delivery teams have received the Certified Implementation Partner (CIP) accreditation and will also be completing the Certified Consulting Partner (CCP) accreditation before the end of 2019.</p>
<p>TCG’s Certified Implementation Partner (CIP) accredited team works with SAP Concur to design, implement and optimize end-to-end programs. This support spans across legacy <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, with an emphasis on front-end <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> integration, and often incorporates a client’s adoption of additional Concur products and services to help enable a broader spend under management program strategy. </p>
<p>An increasing number of organizations have reached, or are displaying characteristics of, T&E program maturity, and are now faced with the navigational challenge of where to go next to generate new and incremental program savings, service and revenue opportunities. The solution is the adoption of TCG’s industry leading, proprietary and patented Total Cost of Ownership for Travel, Meetings, Payment and Expense (TCO-TMPE®) approach to program strategy and management. This will ensure alignment with broader company strategic imperatives (SIs) and requires the operational enablement of key program suppliers and enablers such as SAP Concur and expands beyond traditional expense only.</p>
<p>Graham Ruskin, Managing Director, Advisory Services headed up this initiative for the TCG Consulting team. Graham states, “The development and patent approval of TCO adoption into travel (TCO-TMPE®) was an important milestone for TCG. We believe there are distinct parallels with SAP’s Intelligent Spend Management (ISM), more comprehensive approach to company spend categories.” He also added that “both TCO-TMPE® and ISM are intended to engage new company functions and more broad/senior stakeholders, and we look forward to continuing to pursue opportunities of mutual value.”</p>
<p>TCG Consulting is the global leader for strategic advisory and management services, driving organizational transformation, integration and optimization of global Travel, Meetings, Payment and Expense (TMPE). As part of our 25th Anniversary Celebration this year, and in honor of the transformation of our services to focus on Spend Under Management, Program Maturity and the Total Cost of Ownership for T&E, we have transformed our brand and digital platform. Visit our website at <a href="http://tracker.tcgconsulting.net/l/785553/2019-10-04/2ch2" target="_blank"><strong>www.tcgconsulting.net</strong></a>.</p>
TCG Consulting
Innovating Through Data: The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent It
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/innovating-through-data-best-way-predict-future-invent-it
2019-09-12T10:13:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Historically those who dont prioritize innovation within their business tend to get left behind In fact a failure to innovate in the business world can leave you staggering behind...
<p>Historically, those who don’t prioritize innovation within their business tend to get left behind. In fact, a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/biancamillercole/2019/01/10/innovate-or-die-how-a-lack-of-innovation-can-cause-business-failure/#2d2a79612fcb">failure to innovate</a> in the business world can leave you staggering behind competitors who are excelling because they decided to update their business model. But how do organizations determine when, or where, to innovate? The answer most often times lies within the data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Which type of data?” you may be wondering. There’s internal, external, operational, analytical, structured, unstructured – the list could go on and on. Aside from examining external data, such as your competition, customers, or the overall market, a part of knowing how to innovate can also come from within your own organization. This type of data, called internal data, is information generated from within the business covering areas such as operations, maintenance, personnel, and finance. In this blog, we’ll be exploring why getting to know your organization’s internal financial data more accurately and completely, across all spend channels, is important when determining the success of your business. Plus, we’ve seen how our customers use it to reveal areas to simplify processes, reduce waste, and ultimately increase savings – a good place to start when determining where to innovate.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Doing more with less – innovating through financial data</h2>
<p>The current economy has united organizations both large and small in their requirement to do more with less. Hence, getting more information out of <a href="https://www.klipfolio.com/resources/articles/kpi-dashboard-operational-metrics-top-10-guidelines">financial data</a> is a common coping strategy. Understanding where to cut costs and redirect spending can be quite valuable for organizations trying to stay agile and fuel innovation. But businesses are receiving more and more financial data from a growing number of spending sources, and it’s becoming harder to decipher, let alone determine where exactly financial innovation should start.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, a growing area of focus in recent years has been to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/travel-expense-moves-toward-spend-optimization">optimize business travel</a>. Most organizations think innovating through financial data is simply monitoring business trip costs and reconciling expenses. But it isn’t enough to just have access to this data. As Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured gets managed.” It’s being able to better understand the benefits and results from business travel that can get your organization thinking in the right direction. Instead of just reviewing the data, ask yourself this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Was the West Coast trip for our sales team worth it?</li>
<li>Did we send the right team?</li>
<li>How did the trip impact our business?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>While these questions seem straight forward, they require a deeper level of capabilities to sort through the information. Especially if your employees have to pull together spending data that is dispersed amongst multiple systems, is structured and unstructured, or maybe historical versus real-time. In other words, comparing data that isn’t standard or unified is extremely complex when the goal is to tie it back to higher-level objectives. Fortunately, we can accomplish this level of data comparison through tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/travel-expense-moves-toward-spend-optimization">advanced analytics</a>, ultimately identifying unique spending patterns and adjusting T&E policies accordingly. Pairing that data from other cross-functional departments can unlock even more valuable insights. To illustrate this point, we can refer back to our previous example on how to optimize business travel. By running a cross-section analysis on T&E costs against prospect scores, we can predict the most valuable travel locations for members on the sales team.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The value of collecting & connecting employee spend data</h2>
<p>While spotting spending patterns and controlling costs is already complex and time consuming, it becomes even harder to efficiently recognize trends if your financial data is spread across multiple systems. Just think back to a time when the lack of a single source of truth in reporting put you and other decision makers into panic when it came time to make strategic decisions for your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The problem here is that employee-initiated spend— the spend that is instigated and controlled by your employees in support of their role or job function— often holds an entire spectrum of siloed spend data. When the transactional details of employee-initiated spend come from decentralized systems, they often roll up to the general ledger (GL) in an aggregated format before being posted as journal entries. This typically leaves the GL with a high-level view of a few large T&E categories—like airfare, hotels, meals and mileage—and the finance team lacks the rich transactional detail that’s necessary for identifying the cause of a budget overage, or other worrisome trends like expense fraud. Even in situations where all the functionality is delivered by a single vendor, the level of data integration can vary. Reconciling the data coming from those systems with the general ledger is often a manual process involving extensive exports and imports and quite possibly many hours of IT resources.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The inability to report accurately on employee-initiated spend can also result in a spending cut that affects the bottom line. Take this study from the <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/07/where-financial-reporting-still-falls-short">Journal of Accounting and Economics</a> into consideration: when faced with a scenario where their company would miss earnings, the study revealed that managers tend to manipulate results not by how they report performance, but by how they time their operating decisions. For example, executives would cut discretionary spending (R&D, headcount, training, maintenance) 80 percent of the time; they would delay the start of a new project 55 percent of the time, even if it involved a sacrifice in value; and they would offer incentives to their customers to increase buying in that quarter nearly 40 percent of the time. That’s why having the right tools in place to automatically collect and connect all employee-initiated spend in one place is important. It ensures each level within the organization has the right information, at the right time, and in the right place to drive better business decisions so you don’t have to sacrifice the bottom line later.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why data & reporting is critical to business success</h2>
<p>Our customers tell us that data is the blood of their organizations – it helps them analyze, control, and make decisions critical to the success of their organization. Without it, organizations are unable to see where they have been, where they are, and where they are going. For example, financial measurements, such as spend by category, are necessary to contribute to profit and loss statements or balance sheets. Non-financial, or quantitative measurements are necessary to keep the business running efficiently and measure attributes such as cycle times (the time to approve and time to pay) or carbon footprints.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This type of reporting can be broken down even further within these categories:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Leading indicators</strong>: (Typically non-financial) these indicators tell us how a business is performing now and gives us insight into future performance. Things like travel trends, payment to contract terms, pre-approved purchases can tell a story to both the outside world and the managers inside an organization.</li>
<li><strong>Lagging indicators</strong>: (Typically financial) these indicators look at the performance of the past- what has been spent. It can be used to identify trending, as well as including year-over-year measurements of spending or revenues to identify organizational trends.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>An organization’s ability to maintain financial control and grow clearly depends on the strength of their reporting program. Consistently being able to provide key performance measurements helps managers and C-suite executives make educated, informed business decisions. A strong reporting program not only includes analyzing the data to base decisions on prior and current performance, but also marrying employee-initiated spend data with corporate goals as it pertains directly to finances. The challenge here is being able to provide clear data to help your organization change its behaviors that could negatively affect corporate goals and initiatives. When you can’t control what you don’t know, you end up with “crisis decision making,” which only provides a temporary and sometimes misguided decision – similar to what happened in the study mentioned previously.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When it comes down to it, understanding where to innovate lies within the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are unique to your organization. For instance, if one of your key objectives is to reduce expenses, then you could compare your actual overhead with your forecasted budget. Understanding where you deviate can help you create more effective budgets in the future, as well as more strategic initiatives that allow the reduction and better management of your costs. KPIs that match your organization’s goals should then be used and reviewed regularly to ensure spend is under control and any potential savings are being realized. After you target your KPIs, then you can start building a reputable reporting strategy around that data so you can measure success and discover areas to innovate.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How SAP Concur Can Help</h2>
<p>Organizations are at risk if they can’t see their spend in a way that allows them to make quick, effective decisions. It’s not simply enough to have access to your data, you must take it further to harness its true power. Once all employee-initiated spend is housed in one system, the next step is to define your goals and build your reporting strategy. Unfortunately, the process of gathering and maintaining data is often manual, outdated, and fraught with potential inconsistencies and possible errors – not to mention the lengthy amount of time spent that could be used for other tasks to grow your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thankfully there’s a better way to provide all levels of data to each stakeholder when they need it, without creating extra work for anyone to manage this process. That’s where SAP Concur can help. We allow you to collaborate with experts and tailor actionable data so your stakeholders can gain visibility into their KPIs and drive business forward. This frees up your internal resources’ time – time that would otherwise be painstakingly spent on becoming a data model expert. <strong>Learn more about how to maximize your spend data with unique insights through expert help by visiting our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">Consultative Intelligence solutions</a> website</strong>.</p>
Kyla Kent
How Budget by SAP Concur Works
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-budget-sap-concur-works
2019-10-28T12:54:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Budget by SAP Concur brings together travel expense invoice and budget data into a single solution providing clear visibility into spend that allows you to make better timelier...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget by SAP Concur</a> brings together travel, expense, invoice, and budget data into a single solution – providing clear visibility into spend that allows you to make better, timelier decisions. Let’s take a closer look.</p>
<p>Intuitive dashboards put information at your fingertips, enabling you to see all of the budgets you own and share, with visual insights that are easy to understand and act upon. Once the budget is configured within your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-system-integration">ERP system</a>, you can import it into SAP Concur with just a few clicks. Pulling together historical and future spend data from multiple sources can be a labor-intensive and error-prone process. With this easy-to-use solution, you can see spend from all angles on one screen, even before spend has occurred. </p>
<p>When a travel request comes through, you’ll know immediately which budgets will be impacted. You can also drill down to review spend per line item, to see the impact on your total budget in order to make an informed decision. Take control under any situation with the ability to view and approve spend in near real-time, right from your mobile device. Export data with the click of a button to provide finance and the board the visibility they need to anticipate risk, and take action before it’s too late. You can’t make good spending decisions if you don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. </p>
<p>Budget by SAP Concur pulls all your spend data into one tool so you can facilitate better decision making throughout the organization. </p>
<p><strong>To learn more, please take a look at our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/budget-brochure">brochure</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> today. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Find the Right Solution to Automate Accounts Payable for Your Small-to-Midsize Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-find-right-solution-automate-accounts-payable-your-small-midsize-business
2019-11-26T09:13:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How many suppliers does your accounts payable AP department pay Have you checked recently how many checks your AP department has written in the past year Have you ever totaled up how...
<p>How many suppliers does your accounts payable (AP) department pay? Have you checked recently how many checks your AP department has written in the past year? Have you ever totaled up how much time and effort goes into this lower-value process each year – or estimated the cost of this effort to your business?</p>
<p>The numbers might surprise you – if you’re a small to midsize business (SMB) still using a manual (or partially manual) AP process.</p>
<p>According to AMI-Partners, the typical SMB works with 190 suppliers and vendors.<a href="#_ftn1" title="">[1]</a> If you write those vendors just one check a month, that’s 2,280 checks annually. No wonder 42% of SMBs surveyed say they’ve experienced errors reconciling invoices.<a href="#_ftn2" title="">[2]</a> And on average, accounting or finance staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices – more than five hours per accounting or finance employee per week.<a href="#_ftn3" title="">[3]</a></p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1574285173803-281379-coins-r-blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Accounts Payable Automation: A Buyer’s Guide</h2>
<p>Get expert advice about how to build a successful business case for investing in expense automation. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">Get it Now</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Drivers of change</h2>
<p>As your business grows, expect to work with larger ecosystems of partners and suppliers that will increase AP workloads – and costs – exponentially. Are you prepared to hire more people to support this noncore process?</p>
<p>Unless you automate, you might not have a choice. And the benefits of automation address other drivers of change as well. For example, to compete, SMBs are being compelled to align their invoice process with the larger goals of reducing expenses, increasing efficiency, improving productivity, and even digitally transforming parts of the business. This will require eliminating manual processes, which are inherently cumbersome, inefficient, and laborious.</p>
<p>Manual AP processes also make it difficult to monitor spending trends and behaviors and detect potential mistakes or fraud – which ultimately leads to cash flow problems. For SMBs, cash flow is everything. Visibility into cash flow is essential to operationalizing a payment strategy in which bills are paid on time, payment rebates are used to free up more working capital, and you improve your company’s purchasing power.</p>
<h2>Choosing the right automated solution</h2>
<p>The challenge, of course, is figuring out what cloud solution to use. (And the cloud is perfect for SMBs because software is delivered over the Internet as a service, so it’s easy to deploy, affordable with pay-for-what-you-use pricing, and requires no on-site IT management.) While functional needs will vary in some areas, there are core AP automation capabilities that every business needs – specifically, the ability to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automate AP</strong> processes to ensure financial visibility, avoid risk, drive operational efficiencies, and increase data accuracy and timeliness</li>
<li><strong>Get visibility </strong>into employee-initiated spending (so you can “see around the corner”), track processes and spend, and identify revenue and saving opportunities</li>
<li><strong>Consolidate spend</strong> from invoices to make forward-looking, real-time strategic decisions</li>
<li><strong>Expand when you’re ready </strong>to connect the dots across all employee spending – for example, by making it easy to add integrated solutions for travel, budgeting, and more so you can proactively manage all employee spending</li>
</ul>
<p>To achieve this, you’ll want to look for specific capabilities in your solution. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>To maximize returns, your goal should be <strong>complete automation that takes your AP process totally paperless</strong>. This requires a solution that gives you flexible ways to automatically capture and bring all invoices into the system electronically and support all approvals-related communications in the tool, not e-mail.</li>
<li>Look for a solution that helps you <strong>capture and pay money owed to suppliers</strong> – not an accounts receivable solution that issues invoices to collect money owed, as that’s a separate finance process. The software should automate the entire invoice management process from purchase request to payment and provide full visibility and control at every step.</li>
<li>Choose a solution that includes <strong>standard, predefined reports and built-in tools for keeping track of key metrics</strong>. Ready-to-use, instant reporting capabilities deliver rapid ROI (in terms of time and effort saved), as well as a real-time, accurate view of payables; this enables finance to establish and track key metrics, continuously improve AP performance, and make more-informed payment decisions to optimize company cash flow.</li>
<li>Most AP automation solutions support mobile devices – but not all deliver their own mobile AP applications. Make sure your solution <strong>offers mobile apps for iOS and Android</strong>. By giving people mobile access to your AP automation solution, even remote workers, field staff, and frequent travelers can stay connected and engaged in the AP process.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are just a few high-priority capabilities you’ll want to look for as you evaluate your software options. To learn more – and get expert advice about how to build a successful business case for investing in expense automation – download “<strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">Accounts Payable Automation: A Buyer’s Guide</a></strong>” from SAP Concur.</p>
<div>
<hr />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, 2018.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" title="">[2]</a> Joshua Sophy, “<a href="https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/04/manual-process.html">84 Percent of Small Businesses Rely on a Manual Process,”</a> Small Business Trends, April 4, 2017.</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p><a href="#_ftnref3" title="">[3]</a> Joseph Bertran, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>,” AMI-Partners study sponsored by SAP, 2018.</p>
</div>
</div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How Travel Managers Harness Bionic Business Intelligence
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-managers-harness-bionic-business-intelligence
2020-02-03T13:11:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In our previous two blogs we learned that travel managers are super heroes and can embrace change with the power of agility Now we will turn our attention to how they can use the power...
<p>In our previous two blogs, we learned that <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-travel-managers-are-business-superheroes">travel managers are super heroes</a> and can <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/episode-2-travel-managers-embrace-change-with-agility">embrace change with the power of agility</a>. Now, we will turn our attention to how they can use the power of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence" target="_blank">business intelligence</a> to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are moments in time that become seared into one’s memory. Times when something magical, transforming, enlightening, or even tragic took place, and you knew you just witnessed something that may never happen again.</p>
<p>Throughout the past 60 years I have had the benefit of absorbing many life shaping moments into my cranium. Most times, though, I didn’t fully understand how what I just witnessed would shape the future until later.</p>
<p> I can say now is that Plato had it right: “Necessity is the mother of all invention.”</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1573854698076-286158-superhero-flowing-cape-male-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Travel Heroes</h2>
<p>The time has come to celebrate travel managers for what they are – heroes. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.saptravelheroes.com/">Learn more</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Technology picks up speed</h2>
<p>For me, one such moment happened in the late 1970s, when I was working at the Hilton Hotel in San Antonio, Texas and we took ownership of our first Fax (facsimile) machine.</p>
<p>While this may seem trivial now, back then it was pretty amazing!</p>
<p>This modern wonder of science would spit out information at the blinding speed about of a page every three minutes, and messages would magically appear upon rolled up paper that would leave your hands blue from the ink.</p>
<p>Not quite as fast as Wonder Woman’s invisible plane or The Flash’s super speed, but it was simply marvelous!</p>
<p>No sense boring you with going down technology memory lane to get us where we are today.</p>
<p>As mentioned in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/episode-2-travel-managers-embrace-change-with-agility" target="_blank">part two</a> of this blog series, technology has already ushered in the age of combing the capabilities of both humans and machines to develop more productive operations, reduce human inadequacies, and create bionic companies.</p>
<p>Our future will witness accelerated scales of innovation that could only have been imagined until recently.</p>
<p>Companies across industries are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create a competitive advantage and improve customer and employee relationships. In addition, suppliers of companies are clamoring to be fully integrated within one another while attempting to sell the power of one single solution set made up of many. Thus, I feel in 2020 we are entering into a new era of ecosystem dependency and those companies with platform solutions or ecosystems are pivotal and at a distinct competitive advantage going forward.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, and in partnership with our TMC partners to better aid travel managers, we have been building our platform services for years in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense" target="_blank">expense and travel management systems</a>. To us and our platform partners it only stood to reason that business processes would have to become more automated, augmented, and synchronized. </p>
<p>One such partner in our ecosystem, which is also the U.S. TMC partner for SAP Concur, is Travel Incorporated. Travel Inc. has been actively servicing SAP Concur since 2012 and is engaged with us in the development, testing, and implementation of solutions in our Compleat platform to better serve its travel managers’ customer community, as well as that of SAP Concur.</p>
<p>Some of the solutions we have been jointly working on include, but are not limited to: Concur Seat Finder, Automated Schedule Change Processing, Group Travel Partners (GTP) Auto Ticketing, Government-Post Ticketing Remarks, Air Rate Check and Traveler Self Service (TSS).</p>
<p>Travel Inc. has also been instrumental in helping us track our TripLink bookings and reporting of such.</p>
<p>We asked Travel Inc. CIO Linwood Hayes to provide some insight to how Travel Inc. is approaching the changing dynamics across the travel industry.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>As we enter 2020, how is Travel Inc. preparing for all the technology changes and disruption challenges we will face in the travel industry?</strong></p>
<p>The turn of a new decade falls in line with the Travel Incorporated (TI) mission: “To be the easiest company to do business with in our industry.” Our focus is on aligning the correct technology concepts and tools, whether in place or to be developed, that properly service all of our customers, whether they be the road warrior, C-suite executive traveler, or travel coordinator. </p>
<p>A few examples of these concepts are technology integrations to provide real-time traveler tracking, the design and engineering of ongoing push technology, and proactive traveler services. These concepts utilize predictive business intelligence in order to embed our travelers’ habits and preferences. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>One of the business-critical elements in servicing your travel managers’ programs using CTE is directly tied to our T&E data. How have SAP Concur solutions enhanced what reporting you are able to provide to travel managers?</strong></p>
<p>Travel Incorporated will continue to provide real-time travel data for business intelligence purposes. Working with SAP Concur tools, we have been able to integrate TripLink transactions into our global Trip Insights reporting, as well as analytics and duty of care offerings. The global travel managers have accurate insight into domestic, global, and TripLink transactions either separated or integrated for business intelligence or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/up-in-the-air-whose-duty-is-duty-of-care" target="_blank">duty of care</a>.</p>
<p>In 2019, we also engineered a data quality control process providing filters in order to deliver raw data to our travel managers, that seamlessly accepts our data as often as needed into unique internal business intelligence platforms. This method of data delivery gives the travel manager the ability to incorporate credit card, T&E, and G/L detail into their invested BI platforms. This method of data delivery brings a customer the ability to use the data however they choose in conjunction with cost savings and ease of use to the business. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Can you elaborate on how you use the Compleat platform to aid travel managers?</strong></p>
<p>The Compleat platform is more than just a quality mid-office tool. We have utilized Compleat as another means to build custom services for business travelers. Our HotelRate Check product is a great example of listening to our customers’ hotel cost recovery needs by building a custom solution to automatically search for cost savings while maintaining travelers’ preference and property bookings. This is just one example as to how we can utilize Compleat to flex to meet any customer requirements. </p>
<p>Compleat is also bringing increased productivity and automation that eliminates all manual ticketing and schedule changes. We're currently working with SAP Concur to incorporate the Compleat module, Traveler Self-Serve (TSS), to push travelers’ booking attributes back to them to avoid any inconveniencing while booking a reservation online. This is all while lowering the security risk for keeping traveler sensitive information up-to-date. When a traveler books a reservation online with Concur Travel or by directly engaging with a TI Travel Consultant, we are avoiding unnecessary delays because a booking data element is out-of-date or missing. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>How does Travel Inc. deal with the topic of having enough transparency across all travel booking channels to clearly get to the right data points/metrics your customers need?</strong></p>
<p>In today’s marketplace, API libraries are available for most booking channels. The SAP Concur API library is a great example of accessing data points from their booking channel to supply the data necessary for our travel managers to better control their expenditures. Whenever we build a new relationship with a partner or supplier, the API discussion is always part of the conversation.</p>
<p>We provide an in-house tool for our consultants which delivers CRM services to their desktop from TI’s proprietary eProfile application. This leads back to the discussion of understanding and having access to our travelers’ preferences to apply proactive services. As we’ve discussed, it’s amazing the amount of data we have access to in order to apply bionic business intelligence in every facet of the services we offer. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>It would seem prudent that travel managers align with their senior leadership as to what is considered important in measuring their T&E program success. How do you convey this message to travel managers as an important first step?</strong></p>
<p>Great question Ralph! We begin these discussions during the sales process and make it a point to develop relationships with senior leadership. We advise the customer on how to apply both integration and automation concepts to assist in simplifying the measurement of the T&E program’s success. Lastly, Travel Incorporated has developed an integrated scorecard solution that gives senior leadership the ability to easily check the elements of the scorecard daily. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We want to thank Travel Incorporated for sharing its insights with us, and the broader travel community. Without question, business intelligence is critical to any travel and expense programs success,</p>
<p>When it comes to T&E data, it is critical that you are aligned on where to obtain your data. What will be your single source of T&E spend truth? In my view, it is and remains that <strong>expense data that is in sync with your G/L data</strong>. While the devil is always in the details, the location of those details is always in Concur Expense!</p>
<p>And if you are using CTE and our suite of service offerings, then you have all this T&E information within our closed loop system of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/intelligent-spend-management-for-travel-and-expense" target="_blank">Intelligent Spend Management</a>. Thus, you are now ready to start creating your own Business Intelligence and we want to help you realize the potential of the Intelligent Enterprise. We can help you seamlessly connect your financial, human resources, and reporting systems, as well as connect previously siloed solutions while helping to lower your IT cost. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now that is Bionic Business Intelligence!</p>
<p>Make sure you align with your SAP Concur representative to see a demo of what <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Business Intelligence</a> can bring to your T&E program!</p>
<p> </p>
Ralph Colunga
Why It’s Time to Build T&E Management into Your Company’s Financial and Digital Transformation Strategy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-its-time-build-te-management-your-companys-financial-and-digital-transformation
2020-03-20T15:45:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In its report The Mobile Economy the GSMA states that in G will shift from hype to reality but primarily for businesses not consumers In fact the GMSA expects G will be the first...
<p>In its 2020 report <a href="https://www.gsma.com/mobileeconomy/" target="_blank">The Mobile Economy</a>, the GSMA states that in 2020, 5G will shift from hype to reality, but primarily for businesses – not consumers. In fact, the GMSA expects 5G will be the “first generation in the history of mobile to have a bigger impact on enterprise than consumers."</p>
<p>And no doubt, companies will be more likely to pay for 5G – especially if it helps them execute on strategic digital transformation initiatives. At SAP Concur, we’re on the front lines, helping companies continue their shift to the cloud across all areas of their business. From our perspective, as the adoption of 5G technology goes mainstream, it will lead to further streamlining of back-office workflows and processes – including those used for travel and expense (T&E) management.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Travel and Expense Trends That Will Impact Your Business in 2020</h2>
<p>Learn more about what to expect and what you can do as a travel manager to reduce operational costs and boost employee productivity and job satisfaction,. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-expense-trends-impact-your-business-in-2020">Get Whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Increasingly, T&E transformation is being viewed as an opportunity to reduce operational costs and boost employee productivity and job satisfaction. For example, business leaders see opportunities to cut costs by implementing new technologies that better enforce travel policies, proactively educate travelers about booking trips with preferred suppliers, give department managers a specific T&E budget that they need to manage, and provide a pre-trip system to approve or deny travel.</p>
<p>At the same time, companies understand that T&E management processes touch a vast percentage of their workforce – and the degree to which travel is intensely personal for their employees. Why? Because it takes them away from their homes, puts them at potential risk, and often requires paying for expenses using personal credit cards. At the same time, their overall experience is affected by their unique preferences for everything from airlines and seat selections to hotel and rental car choices and restaurants. So, making travel management processes more employee centered, convenient, and mobile – and accelerating time to reimbursement – can go a long way toward improving the overall employee experience, job satisfaction, and even retention.</p>
<p>Regardless of the employee-centered drivers for T&E transformation, IT executives will be more likely to endorse T&E transformation projects because they are “quick wins” for the cloud, as well as opportunities to give the business valuable, real-time analytics to drive better travel spend decisions. For example, by analyzing departmental and enterprise spend data in real time, executives and managers can plan better and align travel spend more closely with business goals. At the same time, spend data and analytics can be used drive smarter, faster decisions that improve business outcomes. 5G will make all of this even faster – in real time – for employees booking travel or filing an expense report using their mobile device.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So what does all of this mean for travel managers?</h2>
<p>It’s time for you, as a travel manager, to provide essential leadership needed to build T&E management into your company’s financial digital transformation projects – and do it regardless of whether your business is adopting 5G now or in the future. Travel managers can help make this happen by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Including expense management in your conversations about financial transformation projects – especially finance management and IT leaders</li>
<li>Positioning T&E digital transformation as a quick cloud win with broad business impact</li>
<li>Partnering with finance leaders to ensure the longevity of the T&E manager role and boost its prominence within your company</li>
<li>Embracing digital disruption as an opportunity to bring even more value your T&E manager role</li>
<li>Working with finance to align travel expense data the general ledger data, which is used to formalize profit and loss statements. (Expense data can be used to highlight “invisible spend” and spend that is not within your corporate card program, as well as facilitate audits.)</li>
<li>Helping other lines of business see the alignment of travel management responsibilities and expense management priorities – for example, to improve end-to-end procure-to-pay processes, reduce fraud, and detect and manage questionable spend</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, you can help by working with finance and IT to find a solution provider with a forward-looking vision, best practices, a partner ecosystem, and state-of-the-art cloud technologies to help you leap ahead to digitally transformed T&E management. The right solutions will enable you to capture reliable, consistent T&E data and use it to optimize spend and travel programs, keep employees safe, and reduce the stress and hassle of travel planning, booking, and expense reporting.</p>
<h2>Learn more</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, the pace of innovation in the travel and employee spend space will continue to accelerate. To learn more about what to expect and what you can do as a travel manager to reduce operational costs and boost employee productivity and job satisfaction, read the new paper, “<strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/travel-expense-trends-impact-your-business-in-2020" target="_blank">Travel and Expense Trends Impacting Your 2020 Bottom Line: Insights from an SAP® Concur® Solutions 2020 Travel and Expense Trends Webinar</a></strong><strong>.</strong>"</p>
Neha Mehta
Becoming an LGBTQ+ Ally During Pride Month and Beyond
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/becoming-lgbtq-ally-during-pride-month-and-beyond
2020-06-01T12:56:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Pride Month is an important and celebratory month for the SAP Concur organization where I serve as chief marketing officer In a previous role when I was approached by the SAP Concur...
<p>Pride Month is an important and celebratory month for the <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> organization, where I serve as chief marketing officer. In a previous role, when I was approached by the SAP Concur Pride Committee to serve as its executive sponsor, I jumped at the chance to drive greater awareness and acceptance. A primary motivation was an experience I had many years ago while living in Europe. I had become friends with a new hire in Germany, and one day when we were chatting on our way to visit customers, I asked what his partner did for work. I was surprised when he was hesitant to answer. “He’s an architect,” was his eventual response.</p>
<p>I was glad to learn more, but curious as to why he seemed concerned about a question I had asked others many times. When I inquired, he paused before answering, “Well, I was unsure how you would react.” I concluded that my friend had experienced enough intolerance to be worried to talk about his personal life, and it shocked me to the core when I realized we still lived in a world far less tolerant than I previously thought. It made me want to work a lot harder to be an ally for LGBTQ+ employees throughout what was then just Concur.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1590951642774-pride 3.jpg" />
<p>SAP Concur employees Miranda Simpson-Sawyer and Jane Rose at the 2019 Seattle LGBT Career Fair</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I believe that people who know they are accepted for who they are will be happier and free to be more creative. That’s why, for a technology organization that must continuously innovate, a focus on diversity and inclusion is not only the right thing to do, it also has a positive impact on the company. Serving as an executive sponsor for the SAP Concur Pride Committee is an incredibly rewarding experience, both for me personally, and from a business perspective. It gives me the opportunity to discuss the committee’s work and impact with our executive team, which is highly engaged on issues around diversity and inclusion. The events the committee recommends for sponsorship are worthwhile in themselves. For example, in the Seattle region, we partner with <a href="https://youthcare.org/" target="_blank">YouthCare</a> to assist homeless youth, a third of whom are part of the LGBTQ+ community. We support scholarship students from the LGBTQ+ community providing direct access to our internship opportunities. And in partnership with SAP Concur employee affinity groups that support employees of color, we sponsor recruiting events and drive attendance. These are valuable opportunities to recruit the talent and perspectives we need to be a successful line of business within <a href="https://www.sap.com/corporate/en/company/diversity.html" target="_blank">SAP</a>.</p>
<p>As far as the world has come since that conversation long ago with my friend in Germany, there is still much work to be done. Recently, I had another discouraging realization when SAP Concur released a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/research-reveals-top-concerns-among-business-travelers">survey</a> of business travelers last year, which found the vast majority (95%) of LGBTQ+ travelers conceal their orientation while traveling, with most indicating they do it to protect their safety. We need to do much more to create a world in which people are free to be who they are, no matter where they travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1590951454949-prde 2.jpg" />
<p>Marching with SAP Concur employees in the 2019 Seattle pride parade</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are among the reasons I encourage more people to get involved. If you are passionate about the Pride movement or have wondered how to show support for LGBTQ+ colleagues and friends, now is a great time to jump in. I have found my participation with Pride@SAP one of the most rewarding experiences of my career at SAP, and you are likely to have a similar experience. The best compliment I was ever given was when someone said, “Thank you for being an ally.” Please join the movement – become an ally – and let’s make Pride Month 2020 the best one ever.</p>
Christopher Juneau
SAP Grew Its T&E Software Global Market Share to More Than 54% in 2019, According to Market Intelligence Firm IDC
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-grew-its-te-software-global-market-share-more-54-2019-according-market
2020-06-30T11:12:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Demand for travel and expense management TE software grew significantly in according to market intelligence firm IDC with the popularity of services from SAP Concur again boosting...
<p>Demand for travel and expense management (T&E) software grew significantly in 2019, according to market intelligence firm IDC, with the popularity of services from SAP Concur again boosting SAP’s position as the market leader.</p>
<p>"SAP Concur showed strong growth in 2019, driven by product enhancements and regional advances,” according to IDC’s report. Key milestones for the business in 2019 include Concur Invoice user experience enhancements, an SAP Concur China Development Center in Shanghai, China, and the launch of the U.S. Public Sector Resell program.</p>
<p>IDC’s new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares report</a> reviewed the competitive market for T&E software in 2019. SAP Concur had 54.1% market share in 2019 – and the total market grew from $2.0 billion in 2018 to $2.3 billion in 2019. SAP Concur Chief Marketing Officer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cajseattle/" target="_blank">Chris Juneau</a> sees the market share report as validation of the organization’s approach to serving customers in a fast-changing world.</p>
<p>“If gaining visibility and control into travel, expense, and other categories of spending was important in 2019 – and it was – it’s even more critical this year, when the world’s employers face unique challenges,” Juneau said. “Organizations are increasingly looking for solutions that provide seamless experiences for their teams. Ours has embraced the opportunity to deliver those experiences, while staying steps ahead of trends in analytics, automation, accounts payable invoice processing, digital payments, and more.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2019</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>IDC also reported that public cloud adoption in T&E dominated in 2019, with 83.9% of the market, and on-premises/other software rounding out the other 16.1%. The report noted cloud solution adoption in T&E is ahead of other enterprise application categories as businesses prioritize the benefits it makes possible, including improved availability, scalability and real-time information. </p>
<p>“Enterprises need to leverage advanced technologies to augment their capabilities for streamlining approvals, combating fraud, and maintaining compliance,” according to Kevin M. Permenter, IDC’s research manager for Enterprise Applications. “Many of these technologies have taken large leaps forward in terms of usability and accuracy over the past 12 months. However, the market has a desire for more innovation from enterprise travel and expense software vendors.” </p>
<p>In addition to detailing competitive global market share, the IDC report outlines seven key qualities of a modern T&E solution, including the three detailed below: </p>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="6">
<p>Enhances Analytics Capabilities: Businesses are interested in analytics as part of their travel applications. Business intelligence and analytics improve visibility into employees' travel and spending patterns, in addition to employee travel management. With this added visibility, organizations can build more detailed and accurate spending budgets and forecasts. </p>
</li>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="6">
<p>Prioritizes the User Experience: As the T&E processes are done in a relatively uniform way, vendors will likely find limited opportunity for differentiation related to the actual functionality of the software packages. The real battleground will be related to the user experience the vendor's software can provide. In fact, data from IDC's most recent SaaSPath Survey of over 2,000 survey respondents reveals that ‘ease of use’ is the most important vendor selection criteria among T&E software users. </p>
</li>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="6">
<p>Creates Intelligent Workflows: Organizations are using embedded intelligence, RPA, computer vision, and natural language processing to automate travel and expense tasks and guide decision making. Intelligent workflows save time, increase operational efficiency and, more importantly, add a layer of big data analysis that human beings simply cannot duplicate. Intelligent workflows for travel booking, itinerary management, approvals, and receipt processing differentiate applications in the market. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Learn more about what qualities to look for in a modern T&E solution and other key trends in the market by downloading the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2019: Analytics Drives a New Travel Paradigm</a> report excerpt. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Simplicity, Safety, Spending. The Three Reasons to Look at A Travel and Expense Management Solution.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplicity-safety-spending-three-reasons-look-travel-and-expense-management-solution
2020-08-19T14:21:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Not everything is as easy as But if youre considering taking a look at travel and expense management systems these three are the real benefits that really matter And when you wipe...
<p>Not everything is as easy as 1, 2, 3. But if you’re considering taking a look at travel and expense management systems, these three are the real benefits that really matter. And when you wipe away all the marketing and promises, the business impact becomes pretty clear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> <strong>Let’s start with the easy one: Simplicity.</strong> Anything you do to make it easier for your employees to do their jobs is good for business. When it clears administrative hassles off your desk, too…well, it’s a bonus.</p>
<p>Putting an app-based travel and expense management solution in place does both. Imagine if your employees could book and manage their trips with a few simple taps on their phone, and all the itinerary and credit card data could get pulled together for one easy look.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src=" http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC MarketScape</h2>
<p>Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Corporate Travel Booking Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-corporate-travel-booking-applications-2019-vendor-assessment">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>A simple <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">snapshot of their receipts</a> is all it takes to complete an expense report, so instead of sifting through paperwork – or avoiding it altogether – travelers get you accurate spend information instantly. In fact, what if the solution did it for them, automatically. You’d no longer have to wait for outdated, erroneous information; you’d just get the right data right away.</p>
<p>According to this recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-corporate-travel-booking-applications-2019-vendor-assessment" target="_blank">IDC MarketScape report</a>, that type of simple future isn’t as hard to find as you’d think. And when it’s easier for employees to plan for, complete, and wrap up a business trip, it’s easier for them to do their work and enjoy their work. Yes. Productivity goes up, and so does engagement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2.</strong> <strong>Your team’s safety has always been most important, yet it’s somehow even more important today. </strong>And when you send your people out into an ever-changing and increasingly complex world, you need to know they’re going to be okay. The only way to be certain of this is to know where they are, regardless of how they got there.</p>
<p>T&E solutions, as outlined in the IDC Marketscape, allow you to collect every itinerary detail from every traveler – no matter where the trip was booked. And if that data gets combined with transaction information that’s captured as travelers use their cards, now you have all the details to pinpoint every employee’s location.</p>
<p>So if there’s an emergency, you know who’s affected. More importantly, you can reach them and, if necessary, bring them home.</p>
<p>This is how <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care</a> gets done. And it’s not that hard to do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3.</strong> <strong>Not everything is about money – even in business.</strong> But money does matter, and cash and capital matter even more today. And simplifying T&E processes offers a tangible financial boost in addition to the enhanced experience and improved safety advantages we just outlined.</p>
<p>Simply put: When you can see all your spending, you can control all your spending. And when you see every booking – no matter where or how bookings happen – you’ll see what’s actually being spent. This makes it easier to spot and capitalize on savings. You can track spending against your budget and, because there’s a bright light shining on what used to be hidden spend, you can bring a stronger position to the bargaining table with your suppliers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want more? This kind of visibility (and the control that rides along with it) helps keep you on top of policy compliance, regulatory requirements, and even things like VAT reclaim. Add it all up, and you’ll not just see what’s spent, you’ll see what’s pending and what’s planned, so you can make sure your money is going precisely where you want it.</p>
<p><br />
Yes. You should be looking at a travel and expense solution, but what should you be looking for?</p>
<p>The answers to this are fairly simple, too. And many are highlighted in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-corporate-travel-booking-applications-2019-vendor-assessment" target="_blank">IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Enterprise Travel and Expense Management Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment</a>. In short, you want your travel and expense management solution to be built with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, and you want it to improve the user experience by being simple, mobile, adaptable, and able to integrate with the systems you’re already using.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Find that, and you’ll see all your spending.</p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
Ground Transportation: Rideshares are Safer and Less Expensive Than Taxis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ground-transportation-rideshares-are-safer-and-less-expensive-taxis
2020-09-01T17:52:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely would you Of course you would Our quick fix increasing rideshare over other ground transportation...
<p>If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely, would you? Of course, you would. Our quick fix: increasing rideshare over other ground transportation options. Travel by car is still one of the primary modes of business travel. Knowing who, when, and how your company’s dollars are being spent is a fundamental part of what we call spend governance. One of the simple ways SAP Concur customers have found to achieve their organization’s goals around spend governance is by making small configuration adjustments to their rideshare expense and insurance policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where to start: policies, spend, and communication</h2>
<p>To get started, ask questions like:</p>
<ol>
<li>How much are we spending on ground transportation today?</li>
<li>What does our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy</a> say about rideshare?</li>
<li>Does our insurance policy include rideshare?</li>
</ol>
<p>Once you’ve addressed these questions, take a look at how rideshare expenses are configured in Concur Expense . Make sure that the App Center is enabled and that your SAP Concur solution reminder notifications are being sent to your team so that they are encouraged to use rideshare over other forms of ground transportation, like taxis. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Industry benchmarks: How do you compare to your colleagues?</h2>
<p>While digging into the data, look at the year-over-year rideshare spend percentages. This metric will help you gauge whether your organization is matching up to others in your industry, or if some adjustments are needed. Best practice percentages range between 41-77% depending on the industry. Look at these numbers to see how you compare to your industry colleagues:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1598893058648-rideshares.png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1598893058648-rideshares.png" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Formula: Calculate your potential savings</h2>
<p>And now for the fun part: calculating your potential savings!</p>
<p>(TAXI MEDIAN RATE – RIDESHARE MEDIAN RATE) X (25% OF TOTAL TAXI TRANSACTIONS) = POTENTIAL SAVINGS AMOUNT</p>
<p>How did you measure up?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When it comes to employee safety, ridesharing is safer</h2>
<p>When employees use rideshare apps, their itineraries and locations are tracked and sharable. This establishes a way to fulfil your organization's duty of care responsibility to keep them out of harm’s way. In addition, employees can have the peace of mind that they can safely share their location with a friend, colleague or local authority for connection or support.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Community connection: SAP Concur Community</h2>
<p>Taking a small amount of time on minor adjustments to encourage rideshare expense and location tracking over other ground transportation options can help you increase both savings and safety at your organization. If reducing wasteful spend is one of your spend governance goals, then increasing rideshare use is a great place to start. Connect with the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a> to see how organizations like yours are getting the most out of their SAP Concur solution.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Risks: How Travel and Expense Play a Critical Role in Mitigation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/foreign-corrupt-practices-act-fcpa-risks-how-travel-and-expense-play-critical-role
2020-10-22T17:29:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Even though COVID continued to disrupt the global economy this summer there was no disruption to the Department of Justices evolving compliance expectations of business organizations...
<p>“Even though COVID-19 continued to disrupt the global economy this summer, there was no disruption to the Department of Justice’s evolving compliance expectations of business organizations,” said Professor Mike Koehler, a leading FCPA expert and web administrator of the <a href="https://fcpaprofessor.com/" target="_blank">FCPA Professor</a> site. </p>
<p>The following article explains enforcement actions taken in August 2020. Details include <strong>how two employees were creatively reimbursed $775,000 for meals and entertainment in fewer than six months to help fund a bribery scheme</strong>. The company agreed to pay the government $123 million. </p>
<p>In recent months, the DOJ:</p>
<ol>
<li>Released revisions to its “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/page/file/937501/download" target="_blank">Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs</a>” including expectations of data sources access to allow for timely and effective monitoring of transactions </li>
<li>Announced (along with the SEC) an FCPA enforcement action concerning the abuse of employee reimbursements to fund a bribery scheme </li>
</ol>
<p>Compliance professionals should be aware of both developments and how they may impact their business organizations and the unique compliance risks they encounter. This re-emphasizes the importance of a deep level of understanding on how expense systems can help companies with timely and effective mitigation monitoring. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Expert Insights: Strategies for Minimizing Bribery & FCPA Risks</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/strategies-for-minimizing-bribery-fcpa-risks">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Revisions to the Department of Justice’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (ECCP) policy </h2>
<p>The DOJ’s “Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs” (ECCP) is a policy document that prosecutors consider – when a legal violation has been established – to determine the appropriate: </p>
<ul>
<li>Form of resolution or prosecution </li>
<li>Monetary penalty </li>
<li>Compliance obligations contained in any corporate criminal resolution </li>
</ul>
<p>Even though the DOJ has stated that it “does not use any rigid formula to assess the effectiveness of corporate compliance programs,” the ECCP is focused on three fundamental questions: </p>
<ol>
<li>Is the corporation’s compliance program well-designed? </li>
<li>Is the program being applied earnestly and in good faith? Is the program adequately resourced and empowered to function effectively? </li>
<li>Does the corporation’s compliance program work in practice? </li>
</ol>
<p>Compliance professionals should be knowledgeable about the ECCP’s contents, given that in the June revisions, the DOJ made clear that it will evaluate compliance programs, “both at the time of the offense and at the time of the charging decision and resolution.” Organized in the form of questions, the revised ECCP adds the following to the general issue of whether a compliance program is adequately resourced and empowered to function effectively: </p>
<p>Data Resources and Access – Do compliance and control personnel have sufficient direct or indirect access to: </p>
<ol>
<li>Relevant sources of data to allow for timely and effective monitoring and/or testing of policies, controls, and transactions? </li>
<li>A data source that companies are increasingly incorporating into compliance is employee expense systems to allow for timely and effective monitoring. </li>
</ol>
<p>SAP Concur product portfolio and account teams have been uniquely empowered to help you respond to these updated guidelines. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Abuse of employee reimbursements </h2>
<p>In recent years, several FCPA enforcement actions have involved the abuse of employee reimbursements to “fund” bribery schemes. The most recent example announced in August 2020 by the DOJ and SEC concerned a health and personal care products company operating in China and involved a bribery scheme to obtain a direct selling license from Chinese government agencies. The enforcement action principally involved two Chinese nationals, the managing director of the Chinese division and the head of the external affairs department of the company responsible for interfacing with Chinese governmental agencies. The abuse of employee reimbursements by these individuals was in a league of its own and represents employee reimbursements gone wild. The culpable employees entertained thousands of Chinese officials and discussed using fake meal invoices and fake gift invoices to conceal their conduct from the company to avoid internal audit oversight. </p>
<p>According to the government, “during a six-month period, one of the individuals received approximately $775,000 in reimbursements for purportedly entertaining 4,312 officials at 239 meals (more than one meal per day) that involved alcohol and karaoke.” </p>
<p>In an internal e-mail cited by the government, a culpable employee acknowledged that the evening was “so expensive, my hands were shaky.” </p>
<p>To circumvent the company existing controls regarding meals and entertainment, the employees: </p>
<ul>
<li>Made up the names of officials who did not actually attend the meals (to keep within the company’s per person limits) </li>
<li>Split reimbursement requests into several separate applications to evade detection.</li>
<li>Another reimbursement scheme involved the individuals obtaining reimbursement for more than 100 pounds of purported fruit and vegetable purchases “without any documentation indicating that any produce was actually shipped.” </li>
</ul>
<p>To resolve its legal liability caused by the abuse of employee reimbursements,<strong> the company agreed to pay the government $123 million, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/herbalife-agrees-pay-123-million-resolve-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-case" target="_blank">cited by the DOJ</a>. </strong>Benefits of a revised ECCP are reflected in corporate resolutions and future compliance expectations. As a condition of settlement, the company agreed that it “will ensure that compliance and control personnel have sufficient direct and indirect access to relevant sources of data to allow for timely and effective monitoring and/or testing of transactions” moving forward. In addition, the company agreed to report to the SEC on the status of its remediation and implementation of compliance measures including “the testing of relevant controls including the collection and analysis of compliance data” for a three-year period, <a href="https://fcpaprofessor.com/herbalife-resolves-123-million-enforcement-action-becoming-latest-company-resolve-matter-connection-obtaining-direct-selling-permit-china/" target="_blank">shares the FCPA Professor</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fraudsters: Exploiting the weakest link </h2>
<p>This August 2020 enforcement action is an example of how fraudsters were able to fund a bribe using a company’s expense system. They found the weakest link within the organization. </p>
<p>“Fraudsters use multiple means to steal and pull off their schemes, and many fraudsters attack the company from multiple angles,” says Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, director of research for the ACFE. “Fraudsters may need cash…so they might steal multiple gift cards or create a fake invoice with payment going to their bank account. There’s your red flag—uncovering an employee theft or fraudulent payment might unravel a larger scheme that puts the company at risk for a corruption scandal.” </p>
<p>Savvy companies who pull together various departments of an organization who plan, manage and oversee employee spend, can often find the weakest links that enable fraud in the first place. Legal, compliance, and security need to have a seat at the table. If employees are stealing from the expense reimbursement area, then they are most likely stealing from other parts of the organization.</p>
<p>To learn more, we encourage you to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/strategies-for-minimizing-bribery-fcpa-risks">download this white paper</a> that features advice from Professor Koehler and SAP Concur client Discover Financials. The SAP Concur product portfolio and account teams have been uniquely empowered to help you respond to these updated guidelines and help mitigate risk. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us</a> for advice today.</p>
<p> </p>
Erin Giordano
Manual AP Processes: A Shining Example of Inefficiency for State and Local Government
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manual-ap-processes-shining-example-inefficiency-state-and-local-government
2020-11-23T18:24:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its almost like you dont have enough to worry about during the pandemic like declining funding and workfromhome frustrations arent enough to keep you awake at night No lets keep you...
<p>It’s almost like you don’t have enough to worry about during the pandemic – like declining funding and work-from-home frustrations aren’t enough to keep you awake at night. No, let’s keep you up all night by shining a light on your invoice, expense report, and payments process, too, calling out the problems that manual systems are causing and how they just might bring your entire organization crumbling to the ground.</p>
<p>Okay, it’s not that bad. But it is serious. Non-automated processes tax your teams with unnecessary work, bog you down in errors and inconsistencies, and expose you to risks you simply can’t afford right now. Because right now, state and local governments are dealing with enough:</p>
<ul>
<li>68% of decision makers say unexpected expenses and new categories of spend are major challenges to working remotely.</li>
<li>67% are taking on three or more additional responsibilities as a result of COVID, with documenting COVID costs as the most common new task.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’re facing these challenges armed only with spreadsheets, and you’re trying to handle invoices and expense reports “the way you always have,” you’re fighting a losing battle. Even if you have a semi-automated process, you’re still exposing your organization, yourself, and your team to unnecessary risks.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Invoice Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>See first-hand how to make your invoice processing paperless with Concur Invoice</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Fraud: Under the radar and in the headlines</h2>
<p>Fiscal accountability and responsibility are more critical than they’ve ever been, especially when you’re spending emergency funding. Without an automated, integrated, intelligent process to make sure policies are followed, spending is controlled, and 100% of invoices and expense reports are audited, it’s difficult to identify fraud, let alone prevent it. And the last thing you want is a major fraud event – or the media coverage that goes with it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How much are mistakes costing you?</h2>
<p>The same weaknesses that allow for fraud also expose manual or semi-automated processes to human error. Even without malicious intent, people are going to make mistakes: Double payments, inaccurate data, and incorrect pricing not only wreak havoc on your finance teams, they can steadily chip away at your budget. Plus, without a fully automated system for managing invoices and expenses, you’re missing out on insights into what’s spent and what’s pending. So you’re left with guesswork when it comes to accruing budgets or adapting them as funding and priorities change.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>No one likes a late payment</h2>
<p>If an invoice gets lost or stuck in a stack of paperwork, how do you know where it is in the approval process? How do you know where the bottleneck might be, or who’s desk it’s buried on? You don’t, and these delays slow the process down while ramping up costs. In a work-from-home environment, invoices don’t just get stuck on someone’s desk – they could be lost in someone’s house. Without an automated process, there’s no way for you to identify or escalate late approvals to keep things moving. So you end up paying late fees, which start to feel quite a bit like a fine for outdated processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This doesn’t feel so good</h2>
<p>In the era of social distancing and quarantines, any process that requires you to be in the office or physically hand someone a piece of paper is a process that poses a health and safety risk. So when CFOs cut checks in their homes and have someone come pick them up, they’re both at risk. And when AP has to come in to the office to gather paperwork or post checks, your entire organization is in jeopardy. Automated processes keep things moving, no matter where you’re working.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When vendors aren’t happy, no one’s happy</h2>
<p>You wouldn’t get far without your vendors, and if you’re not paying them on time because your processes are outdated or outright stagnant, you’re not going to get anywhere. If they have to keep calling to ask about payment, they’re going to get frustrated, and you’re going to lose a valuable partner. But look on the bright side, you’ll gain a reputation for not paying your bills.</p>
<p>These risks are real, they have the potential to be devastating to your organization, and they are entirely avoidable. Fully automated invoice and expense processing is an investment you can put to work almost immediately. Which gives you time to worry about the other problems on your plate.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Optimizing the Remote Workforce of State and Local Government Agencies with Lumen Technologies
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/optimizing-remote-workforce-state-and-local-government-agencies-lumen-technologies
2021-01-21T12:13:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The fiscal responsibilities of state and local government agencies and how they manage taxpayer dollars have never been more topofmind to the constituents they serve Budgets are...
<p>The fiscal responsibilities of state and local government agencies and how they manage taxpayer dollars have never been more top-of-mind to the constituents they serve. Budgets are tighter than ever before, forcing government workers to manage critical new responsibilities with fewer resources in environments that often have large gaps in existing technologies and processes. </p>
<p>In the past, government employees have been quick to adapt to the changing demands and budget cuts. But at this critical juncture, in this remote work environment, it’s a whole new beast. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/examining-and-optimizing-remote-work-for-state-and-local-governments">Wakefield Study</a> reported that <strong>88%</strong> of agency respondents felt that many back-end operations they once performed in office cannot be managed remotely. The need to optimize the remote workforce and modernize operations is more important than ever and quite possibly, the only way state and local employees can be freed to focus on taking care of their constituents.</p>
<p>At the forefront of this effort is Resell Partner, Lumen Technologies. They are breaking down the problems agencies face and providing answers to the challenging questions so many are looking to answer:</p>
<ol>
<li>How do you gain visibility into unplanned spend and new spend categories?</li>
<li>How do you maintain compliance with current invoice and expense policies?</li>
<li>How do you keep employees productive and safe while simultaneously supporting remote work?</li>
</ol>
<p>Through its SAP Concur partnership, Lumen Technologies offers spend management solutions - Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice<a> </a>- that automate and connect the entire spend process. In doing so, they provide adaptability and visibility into how government organizations manage invoices and expenses. With the technological simplicity SAP Concur solutions offer and Lumen Technologies’ experience in public sector markets, the goal is to make government employees’ and constituents’ lives easier through the use of modern technologies. </p>
<p>Lumen Technologies provides an enterprise technology platform that enables organizations to capitalize on emerging applications that power the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). This revolution is redefining how we live and work, creating an unprecedented need for an advanced application delivery architecture that is designed specifically to handle the complex and data-intensive workloads of next-gen technologies and systems.</p>
<p>We encourage you to learn more about what Lumen Technologies means for public sector <a href="https://blog.lumen.com/what-lumen-means-for-the-public-sector/" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>
Christine Philbin
Reactive, Random, or 100% Manual: Which Auditing Type Are You?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reactive-random-or-100-manual-which-auditing-type-are-you
2021-03-05T10:50:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Auditing is a powerful and fundamental operation for every organization But how much money and time should be spent on it and how do you measure accuracy Once you have audit results...
<p>Auditing is a powerful and fundamental operation for every organization. But how much money and time should be spent on it, and how do you measure accuracy? Once you have audit results, which operations do you adjust first to have the greatest impact? Having the proper tools, processes, and procedures in place to successfully audit expenses enables you to get the most of out your time and dollars spent on auditing. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Time on task: How much does a manual audit actually cost?</h2>
<p>YES, you can calculate the estimated cost to perform all tasks related to manual expense report auditing; so logically, improving efficiency lowers cost. The benefit of this calculation is to quickly determine if this is how you want to invest your most valuable resources time (your employees) or if it makes sense to automate or outsource some of the work – allowing your employees to focus on other areas of your organization. A recent IDC report found that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/key-results-snapshot-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">Concur Invoice customers saw benefits</a> like: 46% more efficient invoice handling staff, 75% less time to process an invoice, and 45% more efficient AP teams.</p>
<p>Here’s our handy formula:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1614901808573-time-to-audit-formula[83] copy.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Non-compliant spend happens in every business and audits are essential for catching that spend. Having the proper tools, processes, and procedures in place to successfully audit expenses will optimize auditing efficiency and accuracy. Typically, organizations are using audit methods that fall into one of the three categories:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reactive:</strong> Audits are initiated only when fraud is suspected</li>
<li><strong>Random:</strong> Manual audits are conducted on a random sample of expense reports</li>
<li><strong>100% Manual:</strong> Manual audits are conducted on all expense reports. While effective at finding fraud, this method is the most difficult, expensive, and time consuming.</li>
</ol>
<p>Exploring options as to whether it is more cost-effective to outsource auditing, implement automation, or better support in-house auditing teams are all things to consider.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Auditing best practices to leverage</h2>
<p>Evaluating your expense categories to determine which areas, teams, or categories require more or less of your auditing attention will help you optimize your organization’s auditing efficiency. Consider things like: clarifying expense submission procedures and creating automated rules around approvals or notifications, supported by consistent and scalable policies. Here are some of our best practices to get your auditing process on-track:</p>
<p><strong>1. Identify Improvement Opportunities: Number of Exceptions by Expense Type</strong>: Examine which expense types are most frequently causing exceptions and address the root of the cause (examples: misunderstanding of policy, mis-categorizations, overly stringent audit rules)</p>
<p><strong>2. Reduce Number of Exceptions Over Time: Trend of Audit Rule Exceptions</strong>: The number of exceptions in an expense report significantly increases the amount of time your team spends auditing it. Decreasing this trend may reduce the burden on audit resources and increase employee productivity.</p>
<p><strong>3. Improve First Pass Ratio: Multiple Touches</strong>: Expense reports that repeatedly cycle between submitter, approver, processor, and auditor are costly. The best-case scenario is that most reports go through the process only once.</p>
<p><strong>4. Increase Card Adoption: Spend Channel Adoption</strong>: Card feeds ensure the accuracy of amounts submitted and reduce the need for manual validation. Making cards your preferred payment method when employees are spending company dollars simplifies the auditing process.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Finance Personality test: Which auditing type are You?</h2>
<p>So, after reading our best practices, which auditing type are you? Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/finance-professional-personality-test">Finance Personality test</a> to see where you stand.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Keep Calm and Carry on With a Relevant Duty of Care Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/keep-calm-and-carry-relevant-duty-care-program
2021-04-28T09:08:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Knowing where your employees are now where they are traveling to and how to communicate with them has significantly increased in importance this year Recent crises have deepened the...
<p>Knowing where your employees are now, where they are traveling to and how to communicate with them has significantly increased in importance this year. Recent crises have deepened the appreciation that some organizations have for their duty of care programs and have caused others to reevaluate. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">96%</a> expect their employers to proactively take steps to improve traveler safety and lower the stress associated with travel. As we long for the day when COVID-19-specific risk assessments are unnecessary, <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Business-Travel-Buyers-Handbook/2020/Travel-Risk-Management" target="_blank">BTN predicts</a> that travel managers will be in a more central role when it comes to strategic and operational decision-making. Having a plan that reduces risk and increases visibility ensures the safety of your employees and fulfills your organization’s obligation to keep them safe from harm. Comparing the level of adoption of booking tools within your organization to benchmarks of your industry colleagues, paired with ongoing assessment of your travel and expense data, will allow you to offer a relevant duty of care program that minimizes risk for your employees and maximizes communications and visibility when pandemonium erupts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How did they book that?</h2>
<p>The more employees use the booking tools that you provide, the easier it is for you to ensure their safety. Offering employees booking tools will automatically make their travel data visible. However, <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Research/Travel-Risk-Management/Taking-On-Travel-Risk-Management" target="_blank">31%</a> of organizations still say that they don’t manage data for the purpose of travel risk management. Since many employees still have their preferred ways to book and plan itineraries, comparing the level of adoption of tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> and My Travel Network (MTN) cross referenced with travel-related expenses will help you get a clear idea of who is booking inside and outside of the system, and still allow you to track all bookings – regardless of where they occur. Review the level of adoption benchmarks below and see how you compare to your industry colleagues:</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1618849440646-triplink adoption.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1618849440646-triplink adoption.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<p>Course correction towards increased adoption of your preferred booking tools is achievable. One small impact over time is to review your new employee onboarding process. Do you require that they set up a profile and opt into the tools that you offer, like My Travel Network? Based upon your annual onboarding volumes, a small change with new employees could lead to significant improvement of visibility in the future.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where did they buy that?</h2>
<p>When an employee makes a purchase on a corporate card rather than cash, you can leverage this information to know where they are. In the absence of more current information, card data can provide a traveler’s last known location. Additionally, traveling with large amounts of cash can make a traveler a target for criminals. Corporate card usage can serve as a significant line of defense in a duty of care program. While corporate card usage is a valuable spend management tool, you can also evaluate the risk threshold of your duty of care program by reviewing the level of corporate card adoption. By encouraging your employees to use their corporate cards, you’re also adding another layer of their protection from crisis.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>When did they book that?</h2>
<p>The earlier the booking, the more time you will have to ensure the proper precautions are taken. <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Research/Stakeholders/CEO-View-Align-Travel-with-Business-Strategy" target="_blank">93%</a> of executive stakeholders consider traveler safety reports extremely or very important, so having these measures in place is crucial. Even though we live in a completely connected society, advances in technology haven’t really helped us become better planners when it comes to business travel. Review your travel request policy to see if you can balance the planning-to-<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/last-minute-travel">booking window</a> that prioritizes employee safety.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Who did they ride with?</h2>
<p>If you could save your organization money and help your team travel more safely, would you? Of course, you would. <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ground-transportation-rideshare-safer-less-expensive-than-taxis">Our quick fix</a>: increasing rideshare over other ground transportation options. Travel by car is still one of the primary modes of business travel. Rideshare apps allow travelers to share their route information with others, so others can track their ETA. This is a way that travelers can take ownership of their own safety. Electronic payment within rideshare apps also reduces the need to carry cash and can automatically route data for expense report completion.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How safe is it?</h2>
<p>Reviewing the risk levels of a destination using tools such as TripLink, the <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel.html" target="_blank">U.S. Department of State portal</a>, or TripIt <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/trip-it-pro-neighborhood-safety-scores">neighborhood safety scores</a> before approval, booking, departure, and during travel, prioritizes employee safety and can be a simple check. Determining the right level of safety for your organization and reflecting this in your travel policy will help maintain a risk level that everyone is comfortable with. Considering the request process and incident response procedures, especially in destinations scoring high on the risk levels are valuable steps in your policy review process.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How can you improve?</h2>
<p>Actively monitoring where employees are located around the world and having a way to communicate with and assist them during a crisis is no small feat. Encouraging employees to book their travel in advance, using the tools and corporate cards that you provide, will allow your organization to offer a duty of care program that is relevant and effective.</p>
<p>Here are some of our best practices to get started:</p>
<ol>
<li>Regularly review your travel and expense data for trends</li>
<li>Maintain up-to-date employee information</li>
<li>Provide timely travel advisories (pre-trip and ongoing)</li>
<li>Ensure ability to identify employee location through a system of data and communication points</li>
</ol>
<p>Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Travel Risk Quiz</a> for a personalized score on how well your organization is managing employee risk.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
How Embracing Technology Can Help Make You an Awesome Leader
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-embracing-technology-can-help-make-you-awesome-leader
2021-06-09T08:14:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Bringing on top talent is a perennial challenge for companies Once hired keeping that top talent is also incredibly important An exceptional team leader can make all the difference in...
<p>Bringing on top talent is a perennial challenge for companies. Once hired, keeping that top talent is also incredibly important. An exceptional team leader can make all the difference in keeping employees productive and engaged.<br />
<br />
A survey conducted by Forrester Research and SAP showed that organizations with engaged workers who are empowered to do their best work are also good for business, leading to: </p>
<ul>
<li>4.3x increase in earnings per share </li>
<li>21% higher profitability </li>
<li>17% higher productivity </li>
<li>81% higher customer satisfaction </li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Ways to Become an Awesome Manager</h2>
<p>A free webinar led by management expert Lisbeth Claus</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://go.concur.com/051921_Bookinar__RegistrationPage.html">Watch on-demand</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How to be an awesome manager</h2>
<p>While being an awesome manager certainly isn’t easy, expert guidance can help you build your leadership skills.</p>
<p>Management expert Lisbeth Claus recently <a href="https://go.concur.com/051921_Bookinar__RegistrationPage.html">hosted a free SAP Concur webinar</a>, Leading with Impact: 5 Ways to Become an Awesome Manager.</p>
<p>Professor Claus’ book Be(Come) an Awesome Manager (with Scott Baker and Peter Vermeulen) was recently featured among <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/top-book-inspiration-2021-vp-head-global-talent-acquisition-mobility-uber">T&E industry experts' top books and podcasts</a>. Danielle Monaghan, VP, Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility at Uber, recommended the book, claiming it provides a solid foundation to grow your skills as a manager.</p>
<p>In the webinar, Claus shares several key tips you can put into action, including:</p>
<p>· Strengthening your leadership skills relating to people, project management, and workplace processes</p>
<p>· Developing a fluid learning mindset</p>
<p>· Embracing technology to set yourself and your company up for success</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Embracing technology for success</h2>
<p>These days, leadership and technology go hand-in-hand. Claus’ tip on adopting new technologies to help your company and employees—and yourself—succeed is a strategy many companies will be putting to work as they rebuild and look toward recovery.<br />
<br />
A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">survey completed in January 2021</a> by the SAP Concur organization and The Economist Group revealed the latest trends:</p>
<ul>
<li>89% of executives said implementing and deploying advanced technologies would be instrumental in building resilience.</li>
<li>Executives cited growth as their number-one goal, with cost control and spend visibility being central to their growth-related goals.</li>
<li>Nearly 90% executives said adopting new ways to increase speed and flexibility in managing their travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) is critical for their organizations to stay profitable and continue to grow.</li>
</ul>
<p>See how <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">SAP Concur solutions</a> can help your company embrace technology for success. More efficient processes can <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs-through-ap">free your employees up</a> to do their best work and help put managers in the “Awesome” category.</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Ways to Increase the Impact of Your IT team With Native SAP Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-increase-impact-your-it-team-native-sap-integration
2022-07-01T12:22:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Becoming a bestrun business requires strategic thinking and bold steps into a largely interconnected digital future Because these steps often require the adoption and development of...
<p>Becoming a best-run business requires strategic thinking and bold steps into a largely interconnected digital future. Because these steps often require the adoption and development of new technologies, IT organizations have a very big role to play. With integrated tools from both SAP and SAP Concur solutions, IT teams can simultaneously streamline the management of multiple systems in addition to improving the way that the entire business handles its data.</p>
<p>Here are three key ways that native solutions integration can give IT a much bigger impact on the larger organization:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Synchronizing your systems makes them easier to use</h2>
<p>Typically, when multiple systems are in use at once, complexity and difficulty can be a byproduct of the experience. But the single-system user experience between SAP software and SAP Concur solutions means that you can enable the applications to communicate and exchange data in both directions. The near real-time integration of both systems allows them to remain in sync, reduce errors, and automate cumbersome processes. This simplifies the jobs of your users and frees them up to focus on higher value tasks.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/10335-0.jpg?itok=xZvtouQU" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2><strong>Quickly integrate SAP Concur solutions with SAP S/4HANA and the SAP ERP application. </strong></h2>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-sap-and-concur-integration-benefits">Get the Infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. IT can help the business be more strategic by providing systems that offer additional insights</h2>
<p>The data that your business collects is its lifeblood. For companies of any size, the amount of data they have can sometimes be overwhelming if they aren’t able to derive valuable insights from them.</p>
<p>That’s why, with the analytics capabilities in SAP Concur solutions, all relevant data is located in one tool. Plus, you can now retrieve details from SAP ERP and S/4HANA about the status of your expense reports. Monitoring capabilities allow you to see message exchanges between the two solutions from both the technical and business perspectives also while simplifying audits.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Increase the value of your investment by lowering costs</h2>
<p>One of the best ways that an IT organization can have a noticeable impact on the rest of the business is by improving its bottom line. By implementing integration of SAP software with SAP Concur solutions more quickly, more easily, and at lower cost, you can reduce the resources it takes to manage your IT system.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Insights for CFOs as Travel Costs Emerge
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-insights-cfos-travel-costs-emerge
2022-07-01T16:58:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Returning to business travel is high on the agenda for many organizations Brian Vance VP of Finance at SAP Concur recently asked a panel of thought leaders for their insights on four...
<p>Returning to business travel is high on the agenda for many organizations. Brian Vance, VP of Finance at SAP Concur, recently asked a panel of thought leaders for their insights on four key travel topics, including: </p>
<ol>
<li>Is the lack of travel costing your company?</li>
<li>Distinguishing the blurred line between company and leisure travel</li>
<li>A shift in power on spend and travel preferences</li>
<li>Balancing flexibility with cost control</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>96% of employees are willing to travel in the next 12 months </p>
<p>- <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">Wakefield Global Business Traveler Report 2021</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Panelists:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pete Desiato – Managing Director for Ernst & Young LLP</li>
<li>Julie A. MacFarlane – Finance Services Division Indirect Services for Caterpillar</li>
<li>Tammy McEntire – Senior Director Shared Services for Spectrum Brands, Inc.</li>
</ul>
<p>Listen to the full webinar <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/3308363/AA9F68AE869EB46815E719D21E27B9B1">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Is the lack of travel costing your company?</h2>
<p>Employees have shifted from worry and anxiety about travel to eagerness to get back on the road. According to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">Wakefield survey</a>, it’s clear why: 45% of respondents feel they are unable to develop or maintain business connections when doing so completely virtually, which could be affecting attrition of new customers, as well as the retention of existing ones. </p>
<p>Although employees are returning to travel, it’s still not completely back to normal, so it’s important to determine when it’s essential to make a business trip. Pete Desiato, Managing Director for EY, shared that, “It’s important to have a framework that’s focused on ‘does the trip make sense from a business perspective?’” He recommended looking at four factors: </p>
<ul>
<li>Will it strengthen the business relationship?</li>
<li>Does it drive revenue? </li>
<li>Are the timing and frequency right? </li>
<li>Is it safe?</li>
</ul>
<p>Desiato also added that trying to build ROI models around business travel is nearly impossible and doesn’t suggest companies go down that path.</p>
<p>Evaluating these four questions before sending an employee on a business trip can help build and maintain both internal and external relationships, while keeping travel to an essential-only occurrence. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Distinguishing the blurred line between company and leisure travel</h2>
<p>When considering how expensive it can be to travel – not to mention the time to get to and from a destination – the return to travel has seen the emergence of “bleisure” travel: travel where the intention is business, but the employee tacks on as least one vacation day. In fact, the Wakefield survey found that 89% of respondents will add personal vacation time onto a business trip in the next 12 months. </p>
<p>Employees see this as an important perk of their jobs. However, there can be risks associated with this practice, so it’s important to distinguish the blurred lines between what is considered business and what is leisure. </p>
<p>Brian Vance, VP of Finance at SAP Concur shares three recommendations to help your organization control potential costs of “bleisure” travel:</p>
<ol>
<li>Recommunicate, or create, your organization’s policy around “bleisure” travel.</li>
<li>Have your team closely check costs and make sure only business-related expenses are getting reimbursed.</li>
<li>Consider using an audit service that combines Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to audit expense reports for anything unusual.</li>
</ol>
<p>Julie A. MacFarlane, Finance Services Division at Caterpillar, had some valuable insights on how important implementing an auditing service has been to catching and preventing non-compliant spending behavior. </p>
<p>She explained how, when manually processing expenses, it was only possible to look at one report at a time. “What they couldn’t see was the pattern from that individual traveler,” shared MacFarlane. Since Caterpillar has adopted an auditing solution that utilizes AI and ML, auditors are able to see the bigger picture, allowing them to spot potential non-compliant behavior and prevent it from happening again. “Now, because people know that it’s out there and there’s a potential to get caught, or visibility brought to it, people are more cautious about having things like that happen,” MacFarlane added.</p>
<p>An automated auditing process allows employees to enjoy the perk of “bleisure” travel, while ensuring they maintain policy compliance. </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1633652140465-image.png" />Source: <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/3308363/AA9F68AE869EB46815E719D21E27B9B1">Evolution of Travel Webinar</a>, September 2021, SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. A shift in power on spend and travel preferences</h2>
<p>Considering the return to travel has risks associated, employees are making it clear that they want to have a say in how they get back on the road. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>40% of employees would prefer to sit next to a crying toddler, rather than relinquish control over how they travel.</p>
<p>- <a href="https://on24static.akamaized.net/event/33/08/36/3/rt/1/documents/resourceList1631202613094/globalbusinesstravelerreport2021entrc1631202606409.pdf">Wakefield Global Business Traveler Report 2021</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>All the panelists agreed on the importance of keeping open lines of communication with their employees, as well as making it easier to return to business travel with the use of a corporate card program. </p>
<p>Tammy McEntire, a Senior Director at Spectrum Brands, Inc., explained how they host monthly roundtables with policy admins and travel & expense superusers. “As we get back into travel, there’s a need to go outside of the policy on some of these things, and so we’re trying to figure out why and how we can implement that into our tools and some of our policies,” shared McEntire. “As we go to do upgrades of our travel and expense, or change out services, we want to make sure that this group is involved and that it’s a feedback loop.”</p>
<p>Desiato shared his thoughts on how a corporate card program can make traveling easier for employees, as well as ensure spend compliance. “Corporate cards are a key control point of the business, and provide lots of benefits,” he said, such as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Control: know exactly what was spent and where</li>
<li>Tax rules: reduce the amount of receipts employees need to submit</li>
<li>Rewards: allow employees to reap some of the benefits of travel dollars or miles earned from card spending</li>
<li>Rebates: enable the organization to collect card rebates </li>
</ol>
<p>Providing an open line of communication with employees and implementing some of their suggestions, shows your organization cares about the thoughts and feelings regarding the return to travel. And once they’re back on the road, smoothing out the process for employees to travel is a win-win for both parties – such as issuing corporate cards.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Balancing flexibility with cost control</h2>
<p>Employees are looking for flexibility to feel safe and secure when they return to business travel, but it’s important to not let costs spiral out of control due to too much flexibility.</p>
<p>A few areas business travelers may be looking for flexibility towards are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Preferred accommodations and methods of travel</li>
<li>How long the trip will be</li>
<li>The ability to change travel plans without repercussions </li>
</ul>
<p>It all comes down to a balancing act between meeting your travelers wants and needs, versus what is cost effective for the organization. “We’re trying to listen to the concern of our travelers and put better tools in their hands,” shared McEntire, “such as on smartphones and then negotiating better rates at their preferred locations when they’re not inside the booking tool.” Additionally, all three panelists agreed that having travel and expense on one platform is extremely beneficial to gaining visibility into all your organization’s data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/3308363/AA9F68AE869EB46815E719D21E27B9B1">Listen to the full webinar</a> to get all the data and insights shared by our panelists.</p>
Kiersten Conner
People-First Approach: Good for Employees, Good for Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/people-first-approach-good-employees-good-business
2022-07-01T17:18:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
New normal for travel Putting people first The decision to travel for business today involves many competing demands from assessing whether to do business by Zoom instead of in person...
<h2>New normal for travel: Putting people first</h2>
<p>The decision to travel for business today involves many competing demands, from assessing whether to do business by Zoom instead of in person to weighing the desire to travel against the desire for safety.</p>
<p>Now, “travel is so much more than boarding the plane,” said <strong>Heather Allegrina</strong>, Global Travel Manager for workflow software company ServiceNow.</p>
<p>Allegrina and <strong>Crystal Schoenhals</strong>, Manager for Ernst and Young, shared their expertise about how business travel has changed during a recent session at SAP Concur Fusion, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/taking-a-people-first-approach-to-improve-your-travel-program"><strong>Taking a People-First Approach to Improve Your Travel Program</strong></a>. The session, now available on demand along with numerous others, was moderated by my SAP Concur colleagues <strong>Céline</strong> <strong>Roure,</strong> Solutions Consultant, and <strong>Natalia Navarro</strong>, Senior Value Experience Consultant.</p>
<p>Topics of conversation included how companies are assessing the value of trips, the changing roles travel managers play today, how sustainability fits into the conversation, and how businesses and other organizations must keep the concerns and values of employees for flexible and safe travel front and center – or face the consequences.</p>
<p>Cutting across all the topics was the realization change is the new normal. One example was the difference between this July, when travel revved up, and August, when it dropped as the Delta variant of COVID-19 surged. As Allegrina observed, “We’ll just continue to ride the wave.”</p>
<p>“The constant theme across all of our client base is really the only constant in all of this is change,” Schoenhals said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Assessing the value of a trip</h2>
<p>Cost and efficiency were long the main factors in deciding a business trip’s worth. Employees and their clients like doing business face to face and still want to – with 96% telling us they were willing to in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/business-travel-closer-look-over-next-12-months">survey</a> this year.</p>
<p>Now more questions are being asked and factors considered. “Before it was just go in and book your trip because your client said, ‘I want you to be here,’” Schoenhals noted. “Now it’s an active conversation, an active thought process.’”</p>
<p>One big factor, of course, is that more of us have grown accustomed to using Zoom or Microsoft Teams or other video platforms to do our work – from wherever. And if one does travel, can it be a one-day trip instead of a multiday one and what are the health risks of going to that location? Could an employee drive instead of fly because it feels more secure? Can they stay in this hotel vs. the company’s preferred one, because it seems more vigilant about health matters?</p>
<p>“The biggest challenge and the biggest change in this environment has been … less of a focus on how much does the trip cost and more of a focus on, is the travel safe, is there an ROI?” Allegrina said.</p>
<p>Providing data and access to other resources helps. The CDC and other agencies have updated information on risks and requirements in certain destinations. Solutions such as Concur Travel & Expense deliver the ability to track costs or institute pretrip approvals that trigger discussions about trip worthiness and safety. The SAP Concur mobile app and TripIt® can deliver pretrip and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/health-safety-tools-from-trip-it-for-your-travel-kit">on-the-ground information</a> about risks and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-in-trip-it">vaccine and testing requirements</a>, as well as notifications of changes along the way. All add up to this: Information is vital at every step.</p>
<p>“When you’re measuring the value of a trip, we’ve really empowered our individual business owners to do that,” Allegrina said. “The business owner, the sales team, the marketing team, they know what they need out of their trips. … We give them that information and trust that they’re going to make that right decision.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel managers’ roles</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/business-travel-closer-look-over-next-12-months">Our survey of over 700 travel managers</a> found 99% thought their job would be more difficult in the year ahead. A part of the challenge is considering factors they never had to before. Another is collaborating with parts of their organizations they rarely did before, bringing both opportunities and a heightened profile.</p>
<p>ServiceNow’s Allegrina interacts regularly with benefits and HR, which wasn’t the case before, and the travel department meets weekly with representatives of the benefits, facilities, and safety and security departments. Each week they go over such items as which offices are open or closed and where people are traveling, and then assess whether policies need adjustment. They make recommendations to senior management.</p>
<p>“This is the new mode of doing business,” Allegrina said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>Sustainability is an increasing priority for employees and the companies they work for, SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">research</a> has shown. That has only increased as the pandemic brought about a major rethink of what businesses do, how they do it, and the environmental impact. Travel, of course, is a major contributor to emissions, so it’s part of the discussion.</p>
<p>The majority of Ernst and Young clients – over 90% – have sustainability targets, and travel departments are contributing to the measuring and assessments. Organizations are taking a close look at – and often choosing – vendors based on their environmental impact. Workers weigh in as well.</p>
<p>“Even employees are making the push upward to say, ‘What are you doing about the environment, what are you doing about the sustainability and the contribution from this company to the world?’’ Schoenhals said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Flexibility and the costs of not putting people first</h2>
<p>A key element in a people-first approach is flexibility: for flights, for hotels, for whether an employee must travel if they don’t feel safe. Another key factor is ensuring communication is two-way: providing travelers the counsel and information to decide if and how to venture out, and listening to their concerns before, during, and after they do.</p>
<p>“Through the end of the year, we have a work of choice philosophy that is overriding anything,” Allegrina said. “If you are not comfortable going into the office, not comfortable traveling, you do not have to, no questions asked,” Allegrina said.</p>
<p>ServiceNow has instituted a pretrip workflow that spurs conversations with employees about their comfort with travel, along with helping weigh the need for the trip. It has also rolled out a microsite with links and information such as what’s required to get on a plane and whether a hotel’s restaurant is open or has limited hours. They’ve used their SAP Concur site to provide notes and prompts to deliver information to travelers and connect them to resources.</p>
<p>If you open and maintain those lines of communication, “it will start resonating with your employee base.” Schoenhals said.</p>
<p>Just as the pandemic has shown that, mostly, people can work anywhere, the current environment means employees may choose to go elsewhere. A recent SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/business-travel-closer-look-over-next-12-months">survey</a> found that 89% want changes to travel policies to prioritize health and safety, and 20% would look for a different position if their company didn’t accommodate that desire.</p>
<p>“The data speaks for itself. You’re going to lose great candidates, great employees, if you don’t offer that flexibility. And that’s just the bottom line,” Schoenhals said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Read the SAP Concur and EY whitepaper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/re-emergence-business-travel-where-are-we-going-next"><strong>The Re-emergence of Business Travel: Where Are We Going Next?</strong></a></p>
<p>Learn what business travelers and travel managers think via the SAP Concur annual surveys: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021"><strong>Global Business Traveler Report 2021</strong></a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021"><strong>Global Travel Manager Report 2021</strong></a>.</p>
Neha Mehta
Frictionless Business Travel? Yes, Please: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with American Airlines
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/frictionless-business-travel-yes-please-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-american
2022-07-01T17:25:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The onset of the pandemic took online interactions to a new level and organizations around the world urgently sought ways to improve the digital experience for customers and employees...
<p>The onset of the pandemic took online interactions to a new level, and organizations around the world urgently sought ways to improve the digital experience for customers and employees alike. Even as business travel became increasingly complicated, American Airlines prioritized a frictionless process to make everything customer-centric.</p>
<p>By anticipating needs and building in what’s available for business travelers, it’s easier than ever for those on the go to make changes and remain flexible. Moreover, improvements that account for wellbeing enable employees to feel valued, especially as they resume traveling for business and start to think about the post-pandemic era.</p>
<p>Anshuman Singh, Director of Digital Product Management and Experience at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a>, shared how they delivered a seamless and safer online booking experience amidst the global pandemic with Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/flexibility-on-the-fly-american-airlines-introduces/id1525744763?i=1000541992798">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4CpkhUePLSynzUAdBCM9lc">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/flexibility-on-the-fly-4FB3lhpP8ut/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/flexibility-on-the-fly-american-airlines-introduces-friction">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE5MjhkOTIyZTM0YjMwMDE0NjA3YjI1?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi4gZnooZ30AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/american-airlines-introduces-frictionless-business-travel">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>Smart, Simple and Customer-Centric</h2>
<p>Changing the booking experience for corporate travel is a hefty undertaking, and there are so many aspects to consider. To eliminate friction, “there is one code principle that we always abide by, which is trying to keep the customer at the core,” Singh says.</p>
<p>To make the most of their limited budgets and resources, organizations can help business travelers by including all available features at every touch point of the booking process. This setup simplifies the travel experience for employees and increases efficiency across departments. “If that sense of smartness is already built in and you know what you have at your disposal,” Singh says, “then the only decision you need to make is whether you want to actually go ahead with it or not.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to spend time thinking about other things,” he adds, “and I think that level of simplicity and ease of use drives greater adoption.”</p>
<h2>Frictionless at Your Fingertips</h2>
<p>While the booking experience makes it easier for business travelers to change their flights, upgrade to a different seat, or select other add-ons, everything they tap falls within the organization’s established parameters. “It’s not part of the corporate policy if it’s not within the duty of care elements, or if it’s not ensuring that a customer could actually go do that,” Singh says. “Ultimately, that’s not the experience or the friction we want to create.”</p>
<p>This seamless setup has additional benefits from a management perspective, too. An organization-wide adoption of the experience is especially pertinent for spend visibility, along with control and compliance.</p>
<p>As Singh notes, “It’s all about the limited resources or time that you have at your disposal.”</p>
<h2>A New Baseline for Better Travel</h2>
<p>As the world slowly opens, employees and organizations alike have a new perspective on work and health. With work-from-home and hybrid work trends skyrocketing, employees may be starting their trips from places other than the city where the organization’s headquarters are located. “It’s required for us to think about our business in ways that we didn’t have to think through [in the] pre-pandemic era,” Singh notes.</p>
<p>The shifts have spurred new innovations that help increase flexibility and create a sense of safety for travelers. Using biometrics to scan images and reduce the need to take out passports could be another advancement that further streamlines the travel experience, Singh notes. And he’s glad that the company is on the path it’s on today to make life easier for customers across their journey.</p>
<p>“One silver lining,” he notes, “is that it’s helped us expedite and fuel a lot of that innovation for the benefit of the customer, for their ease.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">Find out more about how you can leverage the partnership between SAP Concur and American Airlines to help your organization adopt a customer-focused, flexible travel system.</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Simplifying Your VAT Reclaim for T&E Program Resilience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplifying-your-vat-reclaim-te-program-resilience
2022-07-02T05:31:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the world gets back to normal now is the perfect time to improve your travel and expense TE program If your travel program includes any international travel one key area of focus...
<p>As the world gets back to normal, now is the perfect time to improve your travel and expense (T&E) program. If your travel program includes any international travel, one key area of focus should be regarding the reclaiming of goods and services taxes, such as VAT and GST. Each year, an <a href="https://www.oecd.org/ctp/consumption-tax-trends-19990979.htm">average of 44%</a> of potential VAT revenue is left on the table when it comes to travel expenses. Without a doubt, this area represents a valuable source of hard dollar savings for your company!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is your business failing to reclaim thousands of dollars in VAT?</h2>
<p>In a globalized, digital world – characterized by fast-moving markets, changing business models, and the increasing prevalence of transaction-based taxes – keeping pace with global indirect tax can be a challenge. In this blog, SAP Concur specialists and Deloitte Tax LLP (“Deloitte Tax”) explain how VAT impacts employee expenses, as well as discuss certain planning that may be available to assist taxpayers in recovering the VAT that’s incurred.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is VAT? </h2>
<p>VAT stands for value-added tax, which is also known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST) and operates in the same or similar way. It is a consumption tax levied in more than 160 countries, excluding the U.S. – the largest economy in the world that does not levy a VAT.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does VAT impact me?</h2>
<p>Like sales tax, VAT is ultimately borne by the final consumer on purchases bought within the relevant country. However, unlike sales tax, VAT is applicable throughout the entire supply chain (not just at the end) and is the responsibility of each business within that supply chain to collect VAT from customers and remit it to the relevant tax authorities. Each business in the supply chain can usually recover the VAT that they are charged with if they are making what the VAT world calls onward “taxable sales.” It is worth noting that VAT incurred in relation to exempt sales, for example, financial services and some land-related transactions, are often not recoverable.</p>
<p>Companies also often forget about VAT incurred on employee expenses. When traveling outside of the U.S., your employees most likely pay VAT on a portion of their business travel and expenses (T&E). Many businesses take this as a cost of business, however, because of the complexity in implementing the proper processes. Although, this VAT on T&E can usually be recovered from the local government. </p>
<p>“Businesses are often unaware that some countries have refund procedures which allow foreign businesses to apply to get the VAT back,” explains Phil Flynn, senior manager in Deloitte Tax LLP’s Global VAT Services practice. “Due to a lack of knowledge or the perceived difficulty of managing the internal company process, many businesses simply do not respond to these allowances and fail to put in place policies to make the’ process easier. Other businesses choose to hire an outside firm year-over-year to complete success fee-based refund claims. Although not necessarily significant if looked at on a single year basis, these services can become rather expensive when looked at over a number of years.”</p>
<p>“It’s one of the best-kept secrets for companies to save money,” said Hendrik Vordenbaeumen, CPO for SAP travel and expense solutions.</p>
<p>In addition, many U.S. multi-national corporations have foreign subsidiaries, who incur VAT on expenses locally. VAT in these cases is typically recovered through the local VAT return that entity is filing.</p>
<p>So, what can you do to reclaim the international VAT to which your company is entitled? </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What you need to know about reclaiming VAT:</h2>
<p><strong>1) On what kind of expenses is VAT typically recoverable?</strong></p>
<p>VAT is recoverable in approximately 30 countries around the world. The European Union has foreign VAT refund procedures for both EU-established and non-EU established companies. Although the rules and amount of VAT recoverable differ per country, the following are examples of expense types on which VAT can often be reclaimed: </p>
<ul>
<li>Hotels</li>
<li>Meals </li>
<li>Car hire and taxis</li>
<li>Fuel</li>
<li>Meetings, events, and conferences</li>
<li>Client entertainment</li>
</ul>
<p>When expenses are incurred for business purposes, the VAT on at least part of these expenses may be recoverable.</p>
<p><strong>2) How do I make VAT refund claims and when?</strong></p>
<p>Foreign VAT refund claims are often made in the year after the expense was incurred. </p>
<p>“There are strict time limits on making these claims, so it’s important that businesses act quickly before the opportunity to recover the VAT is lost,” says Flynn. “Businesses wanting to recover VAT on foreign travel should acquaint themselves with the rules in the jurisdiction in question and understand the process to prepare a refund claim. For example, although the rules in the EU are somewhat harmonized, each country does approach the refund process differently.”</p>
<p>According to Flynn, a major sticking point for businesses is often obtaining valid invoices to substantiate the VAT recovery: “Most countries require original invoices to validate that the expense was incurred – the challenge is that these invoices are often missing or contain missing fields, such as the traveler’s company’s registered name and address. This is often since an employee may not be very incentivized to ensure the invoice they receive is “VAT compliant.” However, with the T&E processes these days often being managed by large central organizations and/or through technology, there are many potential opportunities available to overcome such a hurdle if thought through properly from the outset of implementing the T&E process.” </p>
<p><strong>3) What can I do to improve my processes around foreign VAT recovery?</strong></p>
<p>Flynn explains that, aside from merely submitting a claim for previously incurred VAT, there is much businesses can do to make the process easier moving forward. “An impactful action a business can take right now is to work on streamlining its expense policies and processes using one of the many available technologies. This includes configuring your technology to capture the relevant expense data upfront, as well as implementing automated processes to capture the invoices for employee travel directly from the vendor, rather than through the employee,” Flynn states.</p>
<p>According to Deloitte Tax, the following is a starting point for businesses when considering how to strengthen their expense policies: </p>
<ul>
<li>Identify VAT-related data and documentary requirements at the outset of a new T&E process or technology implementation.</li>
<li>Identify the jurisdictions or group entities that have the biggest T&E spend. </li>
<li>Work with your IT and expense teams to build these requirements into the expense process and technology solution.</li>
<li>Make necessary policy changes for your employees to capture and input relevant details relating to their expenses.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>4) What’s the cost of doing nothing?</strong></p>
<p>42% of employee expense transactions fail to meet VAT reclaim requirements due to incorrect information or missing data, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/concur-tax-assurance-by-vatbox">according to VATBox</a>. Thus, failing to reclaim VAT can significantly increase the cost of your travel program, especially if your travelers aren’t aware of the correct steps to successfully complete its submission. Moreover, in today’s world of increasing electronic VAT reporting, tax authorities are now capable of using technology to identify “anomalies.” Many errors are identified in the space of VAT reclaims on expenses. As such, submitting an incorrect, incomplete, or not fully substantiated reclaim for VAT on expenses, involves potential risk, and possible exposure, of opening further enquiries by the tax authorities. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Automate VAT recovery to increase savings</h2>
<p>Michelin was able to <a href="https://vatbox.com/michelins-forward-thinking-path-to-tax-digitalisation/">recover $3.9 million</a> in just three years with VAT technology. Fortunately, SAP Concur solutions has an end-to-end spend management system that can help:</p>
<ul>
<li>Eliminate hours of manual labor, such as gathering and transferring data and managing reports as well as recurring costs from outside providers to perform success fee-based assessments. </li>
<li>Minimize tax exposure through powerful data analysis that reviews travel and expense (T&E) transactions against a multitude of VAT recovery parameters, including entities, dates of transactions, countries of origin, and countries of spend. </li>
<li>Offer direct integration with Concur Travel, empowering your business travelers with real-time alerts of VAT opportunities on upcoming travel itineraries.</li>
<li>Help your organization partner with international VAT recovery firms that can assist you in recovering VAT through integrated apps.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Visit us here</a> to see how an automated solution can simplify VAT recovery and improve cashflow.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>About Deloitte</h2>
<p>Deloitte Tax’s U.S.-based Global VAT Services practice has more than 50 team members with experience spanning the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific regions dedicating to serving US-based global businesses. The team has deep experience of assisting clients with designing VAT policies and procedures for T&E expenditure to streamline the reporting and recovery process, as well as requirements gathering for expense technology implementation projects. </p>
<p>The Global VAT Services practice is supported by Deloitte’s Global Indirect Tax network, comprising the member firms of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) and their affiliates around the world. This network contains over 1,500 Deloitte VAT professionals in approximately 150 countries. </p>
<p>For more information about Deloitte Tax’s VAT services relating to T&E, please contact Phil Flynn at <a href="mailto:phiflynn@deloitte.com">phiflynn@deloitte.com</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
Asia’s Growth Ceiling and How to Break It
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/asias-growth-ceiling-and-how-break-it
2022-08-29T12:21:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When working with customers around Asia Ive noticed that most businesses have a real desire to adopt the latest digital solutions They want to grow fast and they appreciate how the...
<p>When working with customers around Asia, I’ve noticed that most businesses have a real desire to adopt the latest digital solutions. They want to grow fast, and they appreciate how the efficiency and scalability of automated, self-service SaaS platforms can help them do so. But at the same time, they tend to not feel comfortable adopting these solutions unless they have someone to take them through the implementation process, one step at a time – which can result in longer deployment times and slower ROI than the solution might otherwise provide. That prompts the question: can reliance on that high-touch customer service slow down growth?</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Drive Business Growth with a More Intelligent Way to Manage Spend</h2>
<p>Learn how finance leaders can be more effective and help their businesses grow.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/drive-growth-with-a-more-intelligent-way-to-manage-spend">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is no secret that customer service is king in Asia: 3 in 4 consumers in the region think it should be <a href="https://www.eptica.com/blog/customer-service-expectations-comparing-asia-and-west">every company’s top priority</a>, an expectation they usually bring to their roles as businesspeople as well. Mostly, good customer service is synonymous with a high-touch experience: having a dedicated rep guiding you through the decision-making and purchasing process from start to finish. However, the two are not always one and the same. In fact, a more self-service and even automated approach to customer care may deliver the best experience for both businesses and employees alike.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The biggest risk: falling behind?</h2>
<p>Today’s <a href="https://www.concur.com.sg/newsroom/article/business-travel-throwbacks-remember-when1512114187585">digital solutions</a> tend to provide that self-service adoption model if customers want to take it up. Most SaaS services are designed to be rolled out at scale, with minimal fuss, by customers themselves. If need be, remote assistance and implementation support is usually just a click away, along with resources like webinars or tutorials that can fill the gap between self-service and high-touch. For most businesses, those resources prove more than enough to get new digital services up and running on their own.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If so, then why do Asian businesses still gravitate towards the slower approach where someone takes them by the hand through each stage of the adoption process? Confidence and awareness tend to play a part. If you’re rolling out a radically new product or service to your entire business, it’s understandable to be concerned about potentially making costly mistakes along the way. High-touch service often looks like a lower-risk option than doing it yourself – but this is only true up to a point.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A much bigger risk comes from the solution not delivering on its promise as quickly or as effectively as expected. If that happens, the rest of the business may end up unconvinced of the solution’s merits…and give up on something that could drastically help their performance and growth. Often, the best way to see the full benefits of new digital solutions is to take that seemingly riskier self-service approach and see just how fast and far the results extend. One of our largest customers, for example, rolled out <a href="https://www.concur.com">SAP Concur</a>’s platform to seven markets in just seven weeks – but only because they took the plunge with that self-service model of adoption.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A hand in need</h2>
<p>For us, we’ve been trying to strike the balance between high-touch interactions and self-service efficiency in various ways – like shorter, but more frequent, contact points between our sales teams and our customers. I’ve seen that in some markets, like Singapore, that awareness of self-service resources is leading to more and more businesses taking the DIY approach to adopt SaaS platforms like ours.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There will always be a need for a helping hand when bringing a new product or service on board, and it’s our responsibility as platform and service providers to extend that hand at a moment’s notice. The more businesses trust in their own hands to set things up, however, the faster they can scale and adapt to using these tools – which in most cases is why you’d want to go digital in the first place.</p>
Laura Houldsworth
Keeping Employees Connected, Motivated and Supported In a Work-From-Home World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/keeping-employees-connected-motivated-and-supported-work-home-world
2022-11-13T16:12:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Where do you begin? What kinds of things should you be doing? And how do you help your managers help their teams cope in these emotionally challenging times?
<p>This year, many of us experienced a different kind of March Madness—managing the logistics of transitioning onsite employees to a safer-at-home, work-from-home model.</p>
<p>Arming this newly remote workforce with the supplies and technology they need to be productive was just the first phase of the challenge. Now, organizations have to find a way to help those employees feel supported, motivated, and connected at a time when fear is high and face-to-face human interaction as we knew it before is in short supply.</p>
<p>Where do you begin? What kinds of things should you be doing? And how do you help your managers help their teams cope in these emotionally challenging times?</p>
<p>Here are a few strategies, approaches and ideas to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>There is no one, universal solution</h2>
<p>“First and foremost, realize there is no one-size-fits-all program that will do the job. Everyone is different, with unique concerns and needs. So, it’s important to take a step back and find a way to understand what emotions your employees are experiencing,” explained Jenn McColly, Global VP of People Connection for SAP Concur. “Then, you can work with your leaders to really support and lean into their people.”</p>
<p>The best way to gain this insight is simply to ask. If you create a space in which employees can share what they’re feeling, chances are, they’ll open up.</p>
<p>“We reengaged with a partner to prepare some sessions for our employees on how to maintain emotional well-being in times of uncertainty,” McColly said. “We asked anyone who was willing to share, via chat, what they were most worried about. For some, it was financial stability. For others, it was how to balance home schooling with a full-time job. For others, it was being single without any outlet for face-to-face social interaction.”</p>
<p>Those responses provided the insight into the needs of different groups of employees, which enabled McColly and team to create their own programs, as well as secure prepackaged tools, videos, and other resources that addressed those needs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Remember: It’s not all about business</h2>
<p>Today, every manager has to take on an additional role—helping his or her employees navigate through this difficult time. In most cases, this means becoming more involved and emotionally engaged than they may have been before.</p>
<p>“Work with your leaders to remind them that now more than ever, it’s not all about business. Help them check in—really check in—with their people, and find out how they are, and what they need based on their particular reality. Our role as a people manager is about managing emotions,” McColly said.</p>
<p>Sometimes, that means stepping out of their comfort zone.</p>
<p>“I have a smaller, younger team, with a lot of people who are single or at the start of a relationship,” McColly said. “Only a few of us on the team have kids.”</p>
<p>Because her team loved to come together and have fun, McColly had to get creative.</p>
<p>“I created a weekly touchpoint, where everyone owns a day and plans a virtual event,” she said. “We’ve done team Jeopardy!, someone has done a TikTok tutorial, someone has shown the team how to do a facial massage, and I recently hosted a cooking show.”</p>
<p>According to McColly, it’s all about giving people an opportunity to come together and have a little fun—even if they’re miles away from each other. “Social distancing doesn’t mean social isolation, we just need to get creative in how we stay socially connected when we aren’t able to physically come together.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Helping managers stay dialed in—but not mentally drained</h2>
<p>Managers now have an added responsibility that may not come easy. So, give them the coaching they need—and also make sure they have an outlet to deal with the stress that comes from being an emotional sounding board for their team.</p>
<p>“You have to engage your leaders by giving them the perspectives and the tools they need to engage with their people,” McColly said. “Help them realize that it’s not about productivity alone but employee health and well-being. It’s about leading with empathy and extending a tremendous amount of grace—and that won’t come naturally to everyone.”</p>
<p>Part of that responsibility is being cognizant of behavior changes and signs of distress.</p>
<p>“Stress manifests itself in different ways. So, as a leader, you have to stay dialed in to your people,” McColly said.</p>
<p>Is someone who is normally very vocal on conference calls suddenly silent? Does someone look more tired than usual, or thinner than usual, or is the normally punctual person now late to meetings—or doesn’t show up at all?</p>
<p>All could be signs of a bigger issue.</p>
<p>“You also need to find a way to take care of your managers and to give them some sort of outlets for their stress as well,” McColly said. “There is an additional toll, an additional burden on them. Listening to people’s stresses, and helping to manage people’s emotions all day, is important, but can also be exhausting.”</p>
<p>Give them the direction and the tools, but also give them some sort of release valve.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Find a new way to offer events and travel incentives</h2>
<p>The more normalcy you can bring to the equation, the better.</p>
<p>“We’ve continued to produce our biweekly newsletter, but have altered the content to make sure that it’s relevant, tone sensitive, and that we’re amplifying our available tools and resources,” McColly said. “We’re moving our quarterly, all-hands meeting to be 100% virtual, and rethinking how we’re handling our sales incentive trips.”</p>
<p>The goal is not to cancel an event or program, but find a new way to reinvent it to fit within the guidelines we’re all adhering to now.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Keep giving back—and maintaining perspective</h2>
<p>If your organization has a culture of corporate responsibility, it’s essential to make sure you find a way your employees can keep giving back.</p>
<p>“Talk to organizations your company supports to learn ways you can move to virtual volunteerism, so your employees can continue to give back to their communities, even though they can’t physically go onsite,” McColly said.</p>
<p>The act of giving is not only important to regain a sense of normalcy and purpose, but it’s also a good way for your employees to mentally step away from their own stresses for a while. Doing something good for someone else is often the greatest panacea.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Above all, do something</h2>
<p>Amid an ongoing crisis, there is no business as usual, or life as usual. By recognizing that fact, and seeking out ways to keep your employees safe, supported, and connected, you will protect your company’s most valuable asset—and ultimately, build a stronger team.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on SAP Concur, and our automated, mobile travel, expense and invoice management solutions,</strong> <strong>visit</strong> <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Read more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/links-covid-19-business-assistance-programs-every-state">Links to COVID-19 Business Assistance Programs in Every State</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/updating-your-expense-policy-employees-working-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times-faq">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-companies-can-prepare-future-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-normal-business-travel-what-expect-and-how-get-ready">The “New Normal” of Business Travel: What to Expect and How to Get Ready</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Surviving a Disruption: an SAP Podcast Conversation with the Award-Winning Lyndon Group
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/surviving-disruption-sap-podcast-conversation-award-winning-lyndon-group
2022-11-13T16:43:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It was interesting that during such a slow time many organizations seized the opportunity to retool their programs or retool their platforms shared Kara Bernard Managing Director of...
<p>“It was interesting that during such a slow time, many organizations seized the opportunity to retool their programs or retool their platforms,” shared Kara Bernard, Managing Director of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>. For the vast optimizations that the Lyndon Group was able to provide to customers amidst the global pandemic, the company received the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">SAP Concur Partner Growth award</a>. Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, uncovers the award-winning, best practices put in place at Lyndon Group with guidance from Bernard in a practical and optimistic podcast conversation.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-a-condo-with/id1525744763?i=1000537952715">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lxKPIfEcUALx78cUjis55">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-VDythUsiRwg/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-a-condo-with-different-floorpla">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE2MDAzYWQ5Y2I5ODcwMDEyOTViYmRi?sa=X&ved=0CAcQuIEEahcKEwio4720k7vzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-a-condo-with-different-floorplans-an-sap">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p>Or Read the conversation highlights below. (2-minute read)</p>
<h2>Q&A: Switching to an ERP System</h2>
<p><strong>Q:</strong> “When you have customers who are looking at moving due to a new ERP system, what should they be taking into account as they start to think about how it aligns with the Concur system?” -Dion</p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> “Get invited to the party early enough. I can't tell you how many of those projects last year was in a panic because Concur got left out of the design and the planning of that ERP rollout, and it was almost an afterthought. So, the first thing is making sure that if you own the Concur configuration, the platform, if you will, that you've got a seat at that table for that ERP planning and that deployment plan, because if you're changing, most of the time that you're moving to a new ERP, you're also reframing your chart of accounts.” -Bernard</p>
<p><strong>Q:</strong> “Is this a time to really take a look at what you're doing manually in the back office and see where automation could take place?” -Dion</p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> “Absolutely. And we deal with clients across all sizes, all industries, and some of our smaller clients do not have an automation or integration in place. They're literally still downloading a report and doing some manual manipulation and then loading it to that ERP.” -Bernard</p>
<p><strong>Q: </strong>“What are some of the tasks that you might want to build into a timeline?” -Dion</p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> “Understand what you need, what is in your chart of accounts, what do you want to change, and what do you ultimately HAVE TO post? They shouldn’t just be submitting, meeting their expenses, and not worrying about what GL account it's going to be hitting. That should be inherently put in your system for them.” -Bernard</p>
<p><strong>Q:</strong> “For a customer who doesn't know where to start from an expansion perspective, they've got the ERP in place, but now they need to grow their company. Where would you advise them to start?” -Dion</p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> “Make sure that you understand what the country specific statutory requirements are.” -Bernard</p>
<h2>Nice to Have vs. Need to Have: Improving Can Be Harder</h2>
<p>Setting up a spend management program is a lot of work, but it’s also a completely blank slate when starting from scratch. Change can be hard for people and programs; the need for improvements or expansions are just as much effort when compared to a completely new program. “Expansions are actually a little bit more difficult than just standing up an ERP because that's just making sure that the data aligns, that you've created the right forms and fields, whereas expanding into other countries or into other businesses, you need to start with really understanding those requirements.” shared Bernard.</p>
<h2>Proactively Staying Aware of Regulatory Changes</h2>
<p>Regulatory changes are mandatory by nature, so by keeping a running list and being ready to shift to the new requirements will make adjustments easier for employees to accept and for your organization to implement. To stay ahead of the game, Bernard recommends: </p>
<ol>
<li>Form a Travel and Expense steering committee</li>
<li>Always keep the employee experience in mind</li>
<li>Communicate the rationale for change clearly to employees</li>
</ol>
<p>“It's really fascinating when you tell somebody the context of why something is happening, how much more compliant they become.” shared Dion.</p>
<h2>Using Your Data: Finance Nerds Unite!</h2>
<p>Supporting decision-making and conversation points with clear spend data is a way to eliminate ambiguity around where dollars are going. “[SAP] Concur reporting tool is under-utilized,” shared Bernard. Leveraging reporting around topics such as key expense types and frequency of use are some of the top reports that will rapidly create clarity about where dollars are being spent, by who, when, and where.</p>
<p>Staying on top of credit card spend is a perfect use case for how to leverage your finance data reports. “I can't tell you how often we do optimization reviews of card programs [and find that] they're really not staying on top of the information that's [SAP] Concur, and we will see things, 90, 120 days late. Sometimes you have credit card charges that are still sitting in that system that are years old and it's just a lot of noise,” shared Bernard.</p>
<h2>Defining Configuration: Start with Policy</h2>
<p>Policy modifications are a regular best practice, but what does that mean and where do you start? Bernard suggests:</p>
<ol>
<li>Make sure your employees understand them (minimize the legalese)</li>
<li>Keep it brief-under 10 pages</li>
<li>Write it at a sixth grade reading level</li>
<li>Explain the “why” to get buy-in</li>
<li>Be consistent in tone and tenor</li>
<li>Regularly update to the new types of spend (like Covid-related or new WFH expense types!)</li>
<li>Look at global statutory requirements</li>
<li>Review your training practices</li>
<li>Think about your employee size, industry, generation, overall corporate culture</li>
</ol>
<p>“Understand company culture and what your employees can do, what they can't do, what they're going to understand, what their behaviors are, because you want to design your end program to meet those needs,” shared Bernard.</p>
<h2>Global Pandemic Impact: A Flood of Expense Platform Newbies</h2>
<p>Rapid adjustment to a global pandemic not only created an influx of new expense categories for things like home office supplies, or PPE, but it also increased the number and types of employees submitting expenses and invoices. “When we're trying to be proactive versus reactive, these hybrid business models are bringing more people in who have never used the expense platforms, because they've never had to. They're not necessarily travelers, but now because they're working from home,” shared Dion. An increase of spend in new areas, such as cash, or third party payment platforms, such as Venmo, PayPal, or Amazon (<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/amazon-business-integration-for-concur-expense">We’ve got a new App for that!</a>), create new areas of opportunity for policy updates and employee education.</p>
<h2>Mutual Trust Accompanied by Healthy Dose of Auditing of Expenses</h2>
<p>“I think employees inherently want to do the right thing and I do wholeheartedly agree with that. It's been proven through years of study and for those in any kind of an internal audit capacity, you know this; during any type of global catastrophe economic distress, there is always an uptick in employee-initiated fraud. There just is,” shared Bernard. Giving employees the benefit of the doubt is a wonderful gesture, but so are healthy auditing procedures. Bernard’s best practices for auditing expenses are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Have the right audit rules in place</li>
<li>Leverage AI to review receipts</li>
<li>Make sure cash reimbursements have receipts</li>
<li>Create audit rules based upon vendors</li>
</ul>
<h2>SAP Concur Administrators: "Congratulations for surviving one of the most disruptive events to have ever happened in our industry," -Kara Bernard</h2>
<p>Surviving, thriving, and preparing for recovery from a global pandemic is something that organizations are addressing today in some shape or form. Leveraging these best practices from the SAP Concur Partner Growth award winner, the Lyndon Group, is something our seasoned experts are prepared to help your organization tackle. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us to start growing today.</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
A Quick Win for CIOs in Financial Transformation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/quick-win-cios-financial-transformation
2022-11-13T19:01:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In enterprisesize companies CIOs and their teams align their IT strategies with their business strategies At times lending a hand to the business to help prioritize initiatives is...
<p>In enterprise-size companies, CIOs and their teams align their IT strategies with their business strategies. At times, lending a hand to the business to help prioritize initiatives is essential. In the past, decisions around digital transformation often took a backseat to other initiatives. However, the pandemic propelled the need to make digital improvements, largely due to the workforce moving remote. Employees needed access to programs and data to do their jobs, but that in turn exposed organizations to more security risks than ever before. Many organizations made the decision to move from archaic systems to emerging technologies, such as cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to combat these risks.</p>
<h2>How CIOs can help digitally transform finance departments</h2>
<p>A newly appointed CIO at a utility company helped lead the charge to modernize the organization’s travel and expense systems under its company-wide initiative to go digital. He referred to it as a “quick win” since it made a positive difference for all employees, deployed rapidly, and the transition didn’t bog down IT resources. This successful rollout opened the door to lead finance down the path to explore more complex digital transformation projects in the cloud that they had initially resisted.</p>
<p>Advancement in technologies, such as capturing receipts with embedded machine learning and human verification, have recently taken place so it may be worthwhile to check with finance to ensure the business is providing these options for its employees.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/eiu-us-executives-keeping-a-digital-eye-on-spend-management">66% of senior executives believe</a> a strong partnership between IT and finance leaders enables the organization to remain agile in the face of unforeseen challenges.</strong></p>
<p>CIOs need to ask their teams: “How can we help drive initiatives with finance, such as reducing employee spend (paying with company credit cards, non-PO spend), to help the company meet its cost savings goals? And "What’s the cost of doing nothing?"</p>
<p>The following are three questions every CIO should ask their teams if they want a “quick win” in advancing the digital transformation in finance:</p>
<h3><strong>1. Is the organization’s current expense solution unnecessarily using IT resources or outdated technology?</strong></h3>
<p>Some companies today are still using modules from on-premises software since it came free with an ERP system or a home-grown system. However, maintaining and supporting these systems can drain IT resources or rack up costs from system integrators, especially when much of the workforce has shifted to remote work environments. An <a href="https://go.concur.com/020620_Client_ISM_7010e000000xMlR_020620_Client_ISM__RegistrationPage.html?cid=CRM-IS20-ISM-PRLW001">IDC research report</a> found that roughly 80% of today’s AP managers' time is spent on lower-level financial tasks, such as invoice matching, purchase requisition, and vendor management – all tasks that have the potential to be automated.</p>
<p>Ask your team these questions: </p>
<ul>
<li>Is there a backlog of enhancement requests or report creation requests from the users that cannot be addressed in a reasonable amount of time?</li>
<li>Has the vendor of the technology announced an “end of life” strategy for the product? Or is the product in “maintenance only” mode?</li>
</ul>
<p>ERP providers have their eye on innovating in other areas of finance functionality and not investing in the expense module. Hence, companies that turn a blind eye and continue on this path aren’t benefiting from the innovations being developed; a positive end-user experience, integrating travel data to give a company an end-to-end view of spend, or accessing near, real-time data with insightful, visual reports.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Is the organization favoring solutions that increase the end-user experience?</strong></h3>
<p>Organizations are realizing the importance of putting employees first – especially as demographics of their workforce are changing. According to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/eiu-us-executives-keeping-a-digital-eye-on-spend-management">EIU study,</a>44% of US respondents listed “Increase employee productivity and satisfaction” in their top 3 strategic priorities for the next few years. The shift to remote work has created new expectations for how and when work gets done, and the tools businesses need to use. And it’s not just millennials—all generations are now accustomed to, and expect simple, easy-to-use experiences at work.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-us-spotlight-driving-better-ex-with-the-help-of-travel-expense-and-invoice-management">Forrester research report</a> found that “In the US, travel and expense software is considered the most important tool for enabling good employee experience.” Highly rated apps and approving expenses on the go are necessary in today’s workforce, rather than completing expenses using a spreadsheet. The easier these processes are for employees, the more likely they will follow organizational protocols, budgets, and safety measures.</p>
<p><strong>Companies with the most engaged employees <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-us-spotlight-driving-better-ex-with-the-help-of-travel-expense-and-invoice-management">enjoy 81% higher customer satisfaction</a>, experience half the employee turnover of their peers, and have a decisive competitive advantage.</strong></p>
<h3><strong>3. Is the organization capturing all employee spend data in one place? </strong></h3>
<p>An <a href="https://go.concur.com/020620_Client_ISM_7010e000000xMlR_020620_Client_ISM__RegistrationPage.html?cid=CRM-IS20-ISM-PRLW001">IDC survey</a> revealed 53% of respondents currently manage different types of spending with <strong>separate applications</strong>. Without one platform to capture and aggregate all employee spend, companies risk not being compliant with government or industry regulations and increase their chances of fraud.<a> </a>It takes, on average, 14 months to detect a fraud scheme, according to an <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/">ACFE report</a>. So, when finance and others don’t have control and visibility into the minute details of where and how company dollars are being spent, it becomes more difficult to detect fraud quickly.</p>
<p>While this spend eventually makes its way into the ledger, the ability to proactively monitor, report, and analyze this spend gets lost. For example, employees that book directly with airlines and other travel suppliers create a “leakage” issue that exists in mostly every company. Without reporting this level of information, it’s hard for the organization to understand spikes in costs or where they could potentially optimize spending in the future by negotiating better deals with vendors and suppliers.</p>
<p>Automation can help companies capture this spend without disrupting the employee experience, reconciling it so financial teams can use the data to their advantage when negotiating with suppliers. IT may also be able to couch this initiative within a Big Data project.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance">Learn more</a> about why companies shouldn’t wait to modernize their processes.</p>
Erin Giordano
How Far Will You Take Travel in a Post-Pandemic World?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-far-will-you-take-travel-post-pandemic-world
2022-11-13T19:41:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You kept your business on its feet while keeping employees safe happy healthy and productive You figured out working from home and how to turn your company on a dime when COVID...
<p>You kept your business on its feet while keeping employees safe, happy, healthy, and productive. You figured out working from home and how to turn your company on a dime when COVID-19 restrictions threatened to turn it on its head. You reeled in your traveling workforce and made the best of video conferencing.</p>
<p>Nice job. Seriously.</p>
<p>But now what? How are you going graduate from survival to industry leadership? How are you going to get back out on the streets again, so you can stay out in front?</p>
<p>How? You’re going to put travel back on the map, and you’re going to do things differently. Why? Because the old way of getting from A to B doesn’t work anymore, and – this is especially important – everyone is watching. Your C-suite, your travelers, your customers, your competition – they’re all waiting to see how you adapt to the next era of corporate travel. How you make it safer. How you make it more efficient and convenient. How you make it sustainable. How, in other words, you re-establish business momentum by rethinking business travel.</p>
<p>So, what do you do first?</p>
<p>Travel managers like you, who are adept at rolling up their sleeves, will say it comes down to two things: Compliance and flexibility. You have to give travelers the room to plan trips the way they want, so they can feel safe and therefore productive. You also want to give them the freedom to book travel in the way that works best for them – on the apps they love and with suppliers they prefer. This enhances the on-the-road experience and, again, leads to positive and more productive travel.</p>
<p>But flexibility, even now, must certainly have its limits. You have to be able to control costs, forecast expenses, oversee itineraries, and manage duty of care. These things haven’t changed and, in fact have become even more important as we creep out from behind COVID-19. The rules, regulations, and restrictions we followed before are even more constricting now, making compliance all the more critical.</p>
<p>Balancing compliance and flexibility might feel like a tightrope act, but organizations who’ve mastered it are building trust with their travelers and driving savings to their bottom line. And they’re doing it by following tips laid out in this recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/juggling-compliance-and-flexibility">compliance tipsheet</a> – tips such as: </p>
<ul>
<li>Adding preapprovals to the process.</li>
<li>Using tools to capture direct bookings.</li>
<li>Taking a closer look at mileage and working closer with finance to make sure critical charges are getting the right scrutiny.</li>
<li>Tracking and reporting it all, so they know where they stand with the budget and with various and ever-changing regulations.</li>
</ul>
<p>Businesses on the border between compliance and flexibility are tapping into technology to manage travel in ways they couldn’t have imagined before. They’re quite literally shaping the future, and you’re invited to join them.</p>
<p>How far will you go? </p>
<p>For more information, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/juggling-compliance-and-flexibility">read the compliance tip sheet</a>, or visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">business travel management page</a>. </p>
Neha Mehta
SAP Concur Doubles Down on Keeping Travelers Safe with Expanded Concur Locate Capabilities, Including Uber for Business Partnership, TripLink Expansion, and New TripIt Pro Features
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-doubles-down-keeping-travelers-safe-expanded-concur-locate-capabilities
2022-11-14T11:57:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Traveler safety is a growing concern in light of incidents like the shooting at a prominent Silicon Valley headquarters just down the road from my office At the time a faculty member...
<p>Traveler safety is a growing concern in light of incidents like the shooting at a prominent Silicon Valley headquarters just down the road from my office. At the time, a faculty member with a U.S. research institution received a Concur Locate alert with information advising him to avoid traveling near the San Bruno campus. The organization’s travel manager quickly got in touch with the faculty member to ensure his safety and notify him of available resources, and he was fortunate to be kept safe. </p>
<p>In this case, the organization’s travel risk management program worked exactly as it should, but not all organizations and travelers are so prepared. According to new <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/travel-buyers-looking-to-bring-innovation-to-booking-process">GBTA Foundation</a> research, more than one-third of travel managers don’t know how long it would take to locate employees during a crisis.</p>
<p>Here at SAP Concur, traveler safety is a priority, and we’re committed to empowering businesses and travelers to monitor risks and stay safe during times of crisis and uncertainty. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate with Active Monitoring</a> uses SAP Concur data to help businesses quickly identify and locate employees who may be in the vicinity of an incident, and then communicate with them to determine if they need assistance. Today we’re pleased to announce several updates to our traveler safety suite of solutions that reinforce SAP Concur’s status as the industry’s most comprehensive traveler safety solution provider.</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Expanded employee location dataset, including Uber for Business. </strong>Concur Locate is adding API support, which allows SAP Concur ecosystem partners like <a href="https://www.uber.com/business/">Uber for Business</a> to share information that can help quickly identify the location of travelers. Uber for Business is one of the <a href="https://www.uber.com/en-us/newsroom/making-uber-business-better-every-business-everywhere/">first partners to utilize this integration</a> and make business traveler coordinates available to Concur Locate. During an incident, the ability to pinpoint employee locations makes businesses that much more effective in helping them stay safe.</li>
<li><strong>More visibility into out-of-channel bookings as TripLink continues to grow.</strong> It used to be that all business travel was booked through a corporate booking tool, but the GBTA Foundation report found 15 fifteen percent of air travel and 37 percent of hotels are booked outside corporate booking channels. Without the ability to capture this information, businesses lack visibility, and their ability to ensure traveler safety is impacted. With TripLink, we help businesses protect travelers by giving visibility even if travelers book outside corporate booking channels. TripLink currently has 6.9 million registered users and 28 airlines, hotels, ground transportation providers, and more.</li>
<li><strong>New messaging capabilities with SAP Concur mobile app integration. </strong>Concur Locate messaging support is now available in the SAP <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">Concur mobile app</a>, the most deployed T&E app globally with millions of monthly users, making it possible for employees to receive and respond to Concur Locate security messages from within the app. Similarly, when an employee needs assistance or wants to communicate their location to their employer, they can check in via the SAP Concur mobile app. This expands the number of ways Concur Locate can communicate with employees to include SMS, e-mail, and the SAP Concur mobile app, which is important considering connectivity can vary based on location and incident.</li>
<li><strong>New TripIt Pro features arm travelers with important safety information.</strong> TripIt Pro, part of our TripLink offering, has new safety scores for neighborhoods around the world. The scores help travelers assess risks across a variety of categories such as physical harm, women’s safety, health and medical, political freedoms, and theft. In addition, TripIt Pro now offers important international information including embassy information, currency conversions, vaccinations, and more for 180 countries. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>The need for comprehensive traveler safety is growing: in the first half of this year, our Concur Locate customer base grew 122 percent year over year. Hearing stories where we’ve helped keep travelers safe – like the faculty member traveling near San Bruno – is what inspires us to continue innovating and expanding our capabilities.</p>
<p>If you’re at the <a href="https://convention.gbta.org/">GBTA Convention in San Diego</a> this week, we hope you will swing by the SAP Concur booth to discuss traveler safety and the steps we’re taking to empower both businesses and travelers. You can also <a href="https://www.uber.com/newsroom/making-uber-business-better-every-business-everywhere/">visit Uber’s blog</a> to learn more about our expanded Uber for Business partnership.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Does Your Expense Management Work from Anywhere?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/does-your-expense-management-work-anywhere
2022-12-02T13:32:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pandemic changed everything how we live how we work and how we manage spend The sudden move to a hybrid environment caught many businesses off guard quickly exposing the...
<p>The pandemic changed everything – how we live, how we work, and how we manage spend.</p>
<p>The sudden move to a hybrid environment caught many businesses off guard – quickly exposing the inefficiencies of manual processes and workflows. Digitalization is a top priority across the board, and finance and IT are tasked with finding cost-effective solutions – fast.</p>
<p>When it comes to the old way of doing expense management, all bets are off. Paper is completely out and businesses are seeing entirely new categories of spending for the home office that impact forecasting, budgets, and cash flow. In short, processes and policies that once relied on people being in the office are no longer tenable.</p>
<p>As companies play catch-up, it’s often hard to know whether the processes we put in place over the past 18 months were just a stop-gap or are sustainable and scalable over the long term. To help finance teams figure it out, the experts at SAP came up with a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/keeping-your-expense-processes-date-hybrid-work">simple checklist</a> to determine if your expense management is keeping pace with hybrid work demands.</p>
<p>First, you need to look at processes. Are they truly digital? If your employees are still scanning and e-mailing paper receipts and submitting expense reports in spreadsheets, then they are not. Keying in expense data is not only time consuming and error-prone, it also results in missing spend data when employees forget to submit receipts for a given transaction. The result is, at best, more time wasted going back through image and PDF files. At worst, it means gaps in your spend visibility. The only way to consistently apply spend policies, control costs, and understand what and how your company is spending is to automate expense management – from data capture to reporting and analytics.</p>
<p>If you’re unsure about whether your current setup is working for your remote employees, just ask. Remember, this is a whole new way of working, so there are bound to be some (if not many) hiccups along the way. Find out which expense management processes are simple to do from anywhere and which are not. See if your people have thoughts about new policies or suppliers. And ask how hybrid work is affecting their spending overall. In addition to gaining valuable information for finance and IT decisions going forward, you’ll also show your employees that you value their input – which will help get them on board as your expense management strategy evolves.</p>
<p>The next thing you’ll want to look closely at is your spending and what it’s telling you. Are you seeing changes in the types of things people are buying? Is your current supplier base able to meet those needs in a cost-effective way? Are there tax implications for remote-work purchases you need to know about? The only way to answer these questions and others is with clear, complete, and current expense data that is available to finance in a single place.</p>
<p>To clarify your spending even further, you’ll also need to evaluate your current expense categories and policies. For example, are there categories for home office equipment, supplies, software, and so on? Or does your “other” category continue to grow? With the right categories, you’ll have an easier time determining which expenses are ongoing and which are one-time purchases, so you can more effectively predict, plan, and budget for the future.</p>
<p>More spend categories invariably means increased auditing. So, you need to be sure your team is able to accommodate. Intelligent technology and services that enable automatic expense auditing and verification not only make life easier for auditors, they also help them take on more work without additional staff and overhead.</p>
<p>The last item you’ll want to review is approval times. Remote work can draw out the expense reporting process as spreadsheets are passed from employee to manager to auditor. Missed or buried e-mails mean time-consuming follow up and delays in consolidating month-end spend data. This makes it harder for finance to close the books on time and it slows down expense reimbursement – which can lead to disgruntled employees. Again, the key is automation to keep everyone on top of their approvals without a single e-mail reminder. Auditors and budgeting teams get the cash flow info they need when they need it, and your people get paid back faster.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/keeping-your-expense-processes-date-hybrid-work">Read our latest e-book</a> to find out more about what expense management automation can do for your organization. Then take this <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a> to see how the Concur Expense solution can help.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Corporate Cards and P-Cards: Get Better Insight into Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-cards-and-p-cards-get-better-insight-employee-spend
2022-12-06T11:18:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A unified reporting and reconciliation processes of corporate cards and P-cards streamlines work for your audit and treasury colleagues.
<p>As your organization continues to evolve managing employee spend, explore the benefits of using corporate cards and P-Cards to help facilitate visibility and control when employee spend areas are unclear. A unified reporting and reconciliation processes of corporate cards and P-cards streamlines work for your audit and treasury colleagues.</p>
<h2>Why is spend visibility important?</h2>
<p>Timing is everything when it comes to effectively managing spend. Many organizations have done away with pre-approvals for employee spend as it can delay associated approvals and lead to additional costs. Instead, many organizations have now incorporated organizational and departmental policies that guide employee spending behavior. The tradeoff here is that the employee decides when to buy, for how much, and it results in less visibility for the business.</p>
<p>Although there are many benefits that departments can leverage from gaining advanced visibility on payments due, the accounts payable (AP) department is the most obvious as they are responsible for making payments, ensuring that the firm takes advantage of early payment discounts, and avoids late-charges. But when employees use their own cash or credit card to pay for home-office expenses, meals, entertaining clients, or attending a local conference, AP does not know how much is due. Furthermore, they won’t know which department’s budget will be charged until the expense report is created and approved and/or the invoice is received for payment.</p>
<p>However, visibility extends beyond just benefiting AP. The department heads that are eventually cross charged for the expenses – such as engineering, field services, marketing, and sales – also have an interest in knowing how much their employees are spending. Each department has an expense budget they must adhere to from month to month, and without early notice of expenses hitting their budgets, limits may be exceeded, resulting in a difficult explanation to the treasurer or controller.</p>
<p><strong>Key takeaways:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Advanced visibility helps control spending:</strong> By having advance visibility on charges coming their way, all department heads can ask their employees to withhold spending until the next cycle or spend within the current budget if doing so will enable the department to stay within budget from one cycle to the next.</li>
<li><strong>Distributing employee cards speeds up financial processes:</strong> Firms that provide employees with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/playing-your-cards-right-getting-most-your-corporate-card-and-p-card-programs">corporate cards</a>, travel cards, or process payments with P-Cards have the benefit of receiving feeds from the financial institution within days of when the charge is made. This enables your finance and AP teams to gain visibility on amounts-due and payment-due dates usually days or weeks before the expense report or invoice is processed and approved for payment.</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Difference Between Corporate Cards and P-Cards</h2>
<p><strong>Corporate cards</strong> are cards issued by a bank or financial institution to employees that the firm wants to grant access to corporate funds. Each card is associated with an employee name and/or number, which helps track any disbursement made by that employee to any vendor. This association helps not only the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ap-work-still-work-it-just-doesnt-have-be-so-frustrating">accounts payable</a> department but also the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/paper-pushing-meets-financial-pattern-recognition-sap-concur-podcast-conversation">audit department</a> – when looking for patterns of employee spend for procurement synergies or checking for potential fraud.</p>
<p><strong>Purchasing cards, </strong>also known as P-Cards, are account numbers a financial institution – referred to as issuer or provider – issues to an organization for the purpose of making purchases by its employees. Suppliers are set up to accept and process payments via P-Cards through the existing credit card system. Information about the purchase, captured by the vendor’s point of sale (POS) system, may include the vendor’s name and transaction amount, as well as information like customer-defined codes and line-item details. The organization receives feeds from the financial institution with notifications of charges as they are incurred, and a billing statement once per month. Charges are allocated to the appropriate department and expense-type based on the employee making the purchase, the supplier code, etc. In addition, a benefit of P-Cards is the controls that the organization can implement for each P-Card, for example: purchase thresholds, monthly limits, and merchant category codes.</p>
<h2>P-Cards and Corporate Cards as Separate Spending Channels</h2>
<p>Charges made through corporate cards are typically matched to expense reports submitted by the employee or invoices processed, whereas purchases made through P-Cards have a higher degree of substantiation. This creates the added benefit of increased control on spend before it happens as well as a streamlined purchase reconciliation afterwards. Here’s how it works:</p>
<ol>
<li>First, P-Card purchases are matched with invoices and the P-Card statements.</li>
<li>Then, the employee making the purchase must verify that the charges are correct, and the goods were received.</li>
<li>Finally, the organization’s card-program administrator must validate the transaction and load it into the accounting ledger for payment. </li>
</ol>
<p>Because expense report submission, review, and approval processes are different for purchases made through corporate cards versus purchases made through P-Cards, it’s common for organizations to train employees on both processes; and to account for P-Card spend and corporate-card spend as two distinct spend channels – even if they are both a part of what we consider employee spend.</p>
<h2>Benefits of Combining and Automating Card Spend Channels</h2>
<p>Since employee spend occurs through both corporate card and P-Card channels, <strong>organizations that combine the corporate card and P-Card streams onto a single platform have much to gain</strong>. For example, by providing a similar, streamlined user experience for submission, validation, and approval of charges, the more likely purchases and expenses will be reported and submitted for approval and then reflected in the accounting ledgers driving to payments and reporting. </p>
<p>Automating these tasks with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can help minimize a large part of the work involved, resulting in increased productivity and more time spent on meaningful work, which enhances employee satisfaction. These advanced technologies can audit for human error, stay on the lookout for duplicate payments, and facilitate approvals for employee-defined amounts of charges as they flow through the same system. As a result, the treasury department benefits from more predictable cash management and quicker approvals for low spend, high volume card charges.</p>
<h2>Putting it All Together – Card Payment Key Takeaways</h2>
<ul>
<li>When it comes to employee spend, there are several different payment channels: cash, corporate cards, P-Cards, ACH, checks, and more.</li>
<li>Payment to vendors, reimbursement to employees, and reporting to department managers across the business are driven by how soon the employee creates and submits an expense report or substantiates, verifies, or reconciles charges that come through via card statements. </li>
<li>The sooner the charges are reconciled, approved, and recorded in the accounting ledgers, the more visibility AP has on payments due and department heads have on actual expenses versus available budget.</li>
<li>Integrating vendor lists across these channels means a more accurate view of volume spent by a vendor, resulting in additional opportunities for the procurement department to negotiate favorable pricing. </li>
<li>Combining corporate-card and P-Card spend into a single platform helps the internal audit department check the accuracy of record keeping and accounting and helps the treasury department with enhanced visibility on cash needs.</li>
</ul>
<p>Spend intelligence is an essential component of how organizations can better respond to their customer needs, engage talent in new ways, create disruptive business models, and more. For more information on how integrating corporate cards and P-Cards can benefit your organization, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/p-card-reconciliation">visit us online</a>, or contact your SAP Concur account representative.</p>
Kyla Kent
Travel and Expense’s Key Role in Improving Employee Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-and-expenses-key-role-improving-employee-experience
2022-12-06T14:53:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Heres a dream world for many of your employees Travel and expense technology and processes that make their work and lives easier instead of complicated whether theyre on the road in...
<p>Here’s a dream world for many of your employees: Travel and expense technology and processes that make their work and lives easier instead of complicated, whether they’re on the road, in the office, or working from home.</p>
<p>It’s technology that flags them if they’re breaking rules before making a purchase or booking a flight instead of after. It’s seamless, digitalized solutions that deliver up-to-date information to keep them safe or guide them to the right choice, whether it’s about price, compliance, or greener options that fit their and the company’s sustainability goals.</p>
<p>Often employees’ experience is far from that ideal, as revealed in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-oxford-economics-employee-experience-global-report">new research by Oxford Economics</a> done in conjunction with SAP Concur. The survey found that a sizable number of employees – 1 in 3 – who expect a seamless technology experience from their companies just don’t get one.</p>
<h2>The stakes of good vs. bad experiences</h2>
<p>You’re a finance leader charged with finding savings, ensuring compliance, and meeting broader company goals, so you may be examining how your system and technology measure up. This is especially true as expense types and policies shift with business and the world.</p>
<p>Have you considering putting automated solutions and processes in place or have existing ones you could enhance? Does your system work better for the finance team than for travelers and other employees? Do employees avoid using your system, lowering compliance, reducing efficiencies, and making it harder to satisfy your goals?</p>
<p>If that’s the case, it’s often because your fellow employees have better, value-adding things they and the company want them to be doing. The fact is, if they’re frustrated or not engaged, they may go elsewhere to find more job satisfaction.</p>
<p>As you debate the effects of technology and processes on users, consider that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-oxford-economics-employee-experience-global-report">60% of workers told Oxford Economics</a> that the past two years made them reevaluate what they value in a workplace. Also consider <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/351545/great-resignation-really-great-discontent.aspx">Gallup’s estimate</a> that replacing an employee can cost up to two times their salary.</p>
<h2>Solutions affecting the employee experience</h2>
<p>Add the numbers together and they lead to the conclusion it’s worth scrutinizing travel and expense technology through the lens of the employee experience.</p>
<p>A new tip sheet, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reimaging-employee-travel-and-spending-experience">Working Towards Better,</a> looks at the topic and discusses how a range of SAP Concur solutions and extensions can help you.</p>
<p><strong>Do employees view expense reports as tedious chores?</strong> Nobody wants to chase receipts, not travelers and certainly not the finance team. Make expense reports painful and confusing and employees avoid or delay, and your team ends up playing cleanup. To alleviate the pain, consider a mobile app that lets employees snap a shot of receipts and send the numbers directly to expense reports. Or capture spending from electronic receipts and corporate cards and stem the flow of paper and mistakes.</p>
<p><strong>Does the approval process get in the way of efficiency?</strong> Travel, spending, and policies grew more complex in complicated times. With money tight and safety top of mind, spending approvals got extra scrutiny and extra frustrating. Automation can smooth the process, ensuring all details are in and budget and safety policies met before money is spent. You can initiate travel and expensing with a simple request and later automatically match receipts to requests, streamlining time and frustration out of the system.</p>
<p><strong>Are your employees confused by ever-changing policies?</strong> The ground has been shifting under your business for two years now. Policies and processes shifted with it. Keeping up challenged employees, and now they’re relearning processes and technology they haven’t touched in ages. Make following the rules easier with an intuitive user interface that integrates request, expense, and travel solutions. Install in-solution tips and training, and automatically match itineraries and receipts to requests. You’ll raise compliance and lower the temperature.</p>
<p><strong>Can employees find all their travel information in one place?</strong> Business travelers want to get moving again, but many are nervous as heck about it. Information helps, so they know what they will confront at destinations and be alerted if conditions change. With apps that mesh with existing travel and expense solutions, you can put all that info in one place: itineraries, schedules, COVID-19 protocols, flight cancellations, gate changes, and plenty more. You can see where travelers are at a given moment, connect them with health care and other resources, and readily bring them home if it comes to that. You achieve duty of care; travelers have peace of mind.</p>
<p>No matter the solution, the most effective changes and improvements require actually knowing what employees really think. By incorporating intuitive feedback tools within SAP Concur solutions, it’s possible to accurately gauge sentiment, respond, and fine-tune. The result is an approach than can improve the employee experience, affect retention, and achieve flexibility and efficiency.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Get your copy of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reimaging-employee-travel-and-spending-experience">Working Towards Better</a> tip sheet and learn more about how adding and extending SAP Concur solutions can improve employees’ relationship with technology, processes, and your organization itself.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Let’s See What They Got Away With: A Quick Look at 2022 Spending.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lets-see-what-they-got-away-quick-look-2022-spending
2022-12-30T15:15:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your drive to Cleveland was miles so you might as well round that up to And dinner Well that was a little more than your per diam but hey you havent had work dinner in two years so...
<p>Your drive to Cleveland was 286 miles, so you might as well round that up to 300. And dinner? Well, that was a little more than your per diam, but hey, you haven’t had work dinner in two years, so why not splurge? Speaking of which, you had to buy cleaning supplies to keep Covid out of your home office, and if a new washer and dryer happened to fall in the cart when you were buying them, your employer has to pay, right?</p>
<p>And just so you know, dear reader, we’re not stretching the truth here.</p>
<p>The people spending money in your organization are by and large spending it as judiciously as possible, but sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they fudge things a little (you know who you are). And sometimes they lie like a dog. You know this, of course, because you’re in charge of spending and even you don’t know where the money went.</p>
<p>So, for a better look at spending in 2022, we need to take a peek at 2021.</p>
<p>Together with our partner, Oversight, we did that very thing for you, in fact, in a report aptly titled <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">2021 Spend Insights Report:</a> A better understanding of 2021 for a better view of 2022. In the first section of the report, you’ll see that while spending was down overall in 2021 compared to 2020 (which had help from a pre-pandemic first-quarter spending boom), things did begin to rebound from Q1 to Q4. And that is due in large part to travel and expense (T&E) spend. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">Check out the report for all the details.</a></p>
<p>It’s the second and third sections of the report – violations and exceptions – that really grab your attention. They went through the metaphorical roof last year, and if you want to know how to keep the lid on this year, you’re going to need a very clear picture of where your people are spending. Or perhaps we should say overspending.</p>
<p>Is 2,127% a lot?</p>
<p>According to the report, 2021 saw more expense violations per dollar than the year before, and while one year doesn’t make a trend, we certainly don’t want it to become one. Contributing to the rise in violations were excessive personal expenses, which jumped nearly 22%, and excessive missing receipts, which skyrocketed by almost 60%. But the big jump? Duplicate mileage submissions – where travelers not only bill you once for a trip they fudged by a few miles – they try to bill you twice.</p>
<p>That little category rose by 2,127% from Q3 to Q4, which is enough to drive you straight into the ditch.</p>
<p>Rising exceptions are also something to be concerned about as we consider 2021’s impact on 2022’s decisions. Missing receipt affidavits, for example, went up 306% over the course of the year, which means employees are not only using these affidavits too often, they could be trying to hide things from you.</p>
<p>So, if you want to see what they’re buying and how much of your money they’re spending at say, strip clubs (because that’s in there, too), you’ll probably want to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">take a look at the report</a>. You’ll probably also want to get a very close look at your specific numbers. And it might not be a bad idea to audit more of their spending in the coming year, which is something else you’ll learn about in the report.</p>
<p>Capturing these spending decisions – the moments that can turn your company by degrees or turn it on its head – is critical. Every moment can be an opportunity to spend smarter and learn more, but if you’re not watching, these moments are wasted. And remember that when you can see everything, it’s harder to get away with anything.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Build a Work Environment Your Employees Will Love
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-work-environment-your-employees-will-love
2023-04-03T16:22:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How an employee perceives both their job and employer is critical it not only attracts new talent but helps retain the valuable workforce you already have in place Yet measuring...
<p>How an employee perceives both their job and employer is critical. It not only attracts new talent but helps retain the valuable workforce you already have in place. However, measuring employee satisfaction isn’t as straight forward as obtaining a rating on scale. Instead, it’s measured through a combination of interactions with fellow colleagues, systems, processes, and rewards, as well as the physical space they work in – all this equating to your employee’s level of satisfaction.</p>
<p>Many of today’s organizations have too many technology platforms or tools to learn, and not enough time. Thus, the simplification of tech has grown in favor. Increasing an employee’s satisfaction level can certainly be tied to reducing the complexity or monotonousness of the tasks they are doing. For example, if employees are bogged down manually keying codes or shuffling papers, then they are missing out on opportunities to contribute to the overall vision and strategy of the organization. Or they use their personal time, leading to burnout and frustration. Both are situations that might cause them to seek work elsewhere.</p>
<p><strong>Here are four tips </strong>to help your organization streamline tech and build a work environment your employees will love:</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>1.</strong><strong>Gather experience data you can respond to</strong></h2>
<p>A simple and easy way to get real-time feedback from your workforce is to survey employees to better understand their needs, pinpoint critical gaps, and prioritize where to act on key areas of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">workplace experience</a>. The goal is to better understand how your policies are impacting employee sentiment, safety and wellbeing, productivity, and attrition risk. By prioritizing acute needs and taking swift action to ensure your employees are set up for success, you can begin gathering the experiential data you need to start addressing their problems, such as:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Mindset and well-being</li>
<li>Communication and collaboration</li>
<li>Enablement and serving customers</li>
<li>Environmental health and safety</li>
<li>Tools and processes</li>
</ul>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>2. </strong><strong>Provide the right applications, at the right time</strong></h2>
<p>There’s a tendency in business to make things too complicated. While this isn’t on purpose (companies grow, acquire, and change) simple business processes can become even more complex. By providing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/employee-engagement">state-of-the-art systems</a> and tools for managing daily activities – such as managing travel booking, expense reimbursement, purchasing card reconciliation, and invoice payment – you can build a positive employee experience that reduces the likelihood an employee will leave. And since these applications can be used on the go, you can also ensure employees will be <a>compliant with policies</a> and procedures, satisfying your employees and organization from the get-go.</p>
<h2><!--[if !supportLists]--><strong>3. </strong><strong>Use corporate cards to build employee sentiment and trust</strong></h2>
<p>Employees can get frustrated from having to front business expenses on their personal card. Start making amends with your employees by improving <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cash-vs-corporate-card-spend-does-it-really-impact-company-savings">corporate card adoption</a>. By trusting your workforce with corporate cards, you can empower your workforce to spend money within corporate policies, so they don’t have to worry about using personal funds or validating the money they spent. Card usage makes it easier for employees to:</p>
<ul type="disc">
<li>Complete expense reports and itemize expenses</li>
<li>Reduce receipts and out of pocket burdens</li>
<li>Spend less time creating and submitting expense reports</li>
<li>Improve back-office audits and approval processes</li>
<li>Ensure their spend is easy to track and validate</li>
</ul>
<p>See how your organization compares. Review the Card Adoption chart, then decide what you can do to increase corporate card adoption if deemed necessary.</p>
<p><strong>Credit card adoption rates by industry</strong></p>
<img alt="Card adoption 2022" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="d83eafb6-4308-4f21-98e6-70d3571f32a4" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/Card%20Adoption%202022_0.png" />
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<h2><strong>4. </strong><!--[endif]--><strong>Leverage best practices to increase employee satisfaction</strong></h2>
<p>Once you’ve incorporated the basics above, your organization can start implementing the following <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/improving-employee-experience-improve-engagement-and-productivity">best practices to increase employee satisfaction</a> over time, and ensure your employees are supported at work:</p>
<h2><strong>Keep it simple and remove the guesswork.</strong></h2>
<p>With automation, your organization can use built-in functionalities to remove unnecessary work, drive compliance, and automate workflows to reduce time spent creating reports. Here are some ways to get started:</p>
<ul>
<li>Integrate travel and expense</li>
<li>Tie expense types to merchant codes </li>
<li>Use audit rules and reason codes to passively correct and control behaviors</li>
<li>Enable email reminders to drive actions in timely fashion</li>
<li>Increase solution adoption through experiential learning</li>
<li>Set up pre-authorized requests to eliminate the need to maintain outside processes</li>
</ul>
<h2>Collect Feedback</h2>
<p>Context is important for understanding how your policies are impacting employee sentiment, safety and wellbeing, productivity, and attrition risk. Collect feedback from employees for helpful direction on solving employee experience gaps. For T&E processes in general, you can use this feedback to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Update configurations</li>
<li>Review policy requirements</li>
<li>Update employee trainings</li>
<li>Prospect new tools for increased satisfaction</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Provide user support where they need it most.</strong></h2>
<p>Providing your employees with a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/user-support-desk">24/7 support team</a> to answer their questions can help boost compliance along with reducing user errors, frustration, and time spent reclassifying accounting entries. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant#:~:text=Concur%20User%20Assistant%20by%20WalkMe%20gives%20your%20people%20valuable%2C%20easy,ROI%20as%20soon%20as%20possible.">digital adoption platform</a> also provides real-time guidance from within the solution allowing users to get immediate, contextual help with daily tasks.</p>
<h2><strong>Use highly rated mobile apps to simplify processes.</strong></h2>
<p>Travelers and approvers no longer need to be tied to a desk to gain the benefits of an automated system. Besides using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">mobile apps to reduce data entry time</a> and increase data entry accuracy, you can also use them to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Provide simplified mileage entries</li>
<li>Allow users to submit or approve reports and invoices</li>
<li>Alert users to flight changes – delays, gate changes, or cancellations</li>
<li>Download and store maps</li>
<li>Find restaurants</li>
<li>Get seat alerts</li>
<li>Track receipts</li>
<li>Tie expense reports to ride share provider apps</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Ensure employees understand the why’s and how’s of your corporate travel policy.</strong></h2>
<p>Most users don’t want to do the wrong thing; but if they don’t know how to do the right thing, they can become frustrated or confused. By ensuring training is delivered regularly and the materials provided are accurate, you create a more educated user who will, in turn, feel less frustrated and more invested in the process. To deliver timely training on both travel policy and travel tools, be sure you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Review all documentation on an annual basis.</li>
<li>Deliver training to all new hires and hold refresher training yearly.</li>
<li>Leverage reporting data and user feedback to drive compliance and satisfaction with the program.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Improve the Experience. Improve Your Results.</h2>
<p>Employees are your greatest asset! Ensuring their job efficiency and satisfaction can have limitless positive impacts on your employees’ experience, keeping them happy, productive, and focused on value-added responsibilities.<br />
<br />
<strong>For more tips on how to increase employee satisfaction </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in"><strong>take our quiz</strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>to see if your expense program optimally supports your teams.</strong></p>
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Kyla Kent
4 Best Practices for a Return to Travel at Higher Education Institutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-best-practices-return-travel-higher-education-institutions
2023-08-24T14:45:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In a world of reduced enrollments budget cuts and hiring freezes what will the future of higher education look like During this time of travel restrictions theres never been a better...
<p>In a world of reduced enrollments, budget cuts, and hiring freezes, what will the future of higher education look like? During this time of travel restrictions, there’s never been a better opportunity to completely reimagine your institution’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">travel and expense</a> policies.</p>
<p>Now is the time to ignore such thoughts as “This is how we’ve always done it” or “We can’t rein in faculty spending” with a more responsible, accountable, and transparent approach to travel. Based on our experience and discussions with SAP Concur customers, we believe the following best practices will help your institution update your travel and expense policies to promote increased visibility, efficiency, and accountability.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Best practice 1: Create a travel working group</h2>
<p>Working across campus to get input and buy-in from your different constituencies is crucial to building new policies and procedures that work for everyone. Be sure to include key stakeholders from Risk Management, Development/Advancement, Admissions, Athletics, Study Abroad/Global Education, Finance, your COVID response team, an academic dean or provost, and faculty and student representatives.</p>
<p>Discuss concerns around returning to travel, such as safety protocols and campus policies. Also examine which travel policies and processes have worked in the past and which were difficult or time-consuming to manage. How might your institution achieve cost containment goals while also simplifying processes for travelers?</p>
<p>Involving a full range of stakeholders in charting your new course will also help to gain buy-in from senior management. As your new travel policies take shape, the travel working group can become your on-campus advocates, helping to drive adoption of new processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Best practice 2: Consider mandating TMC use</h2>
<p>Travel management companies proved essential in helping travelers return from abroad during the early days of COVID-19. Their continuing assistance with unused ticket credits has also been a huge help. Institutions that don’t currently mandate TMC use can reap multiple benefits from doing so, such as greater transparency into travelers’ itineraries to support your duty of care; help with negotiating supplier discounts and additional supplier benefits for your employees; and more <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/in-higher-ed-covid-compliance-means-more-than-masks">visibility into expenses and compliance</a>.</p>
<p>If you have several TMCs, it may be a good time to consider consolidating them. Fewer TMCs can help travelers know where to go when they need assistance and make it easier for Finance to see all campus travel data. Consolidation can also help enforce consistent policies across campus; the same booking policies that apply to campus travel should also apply to Athletics, for example.</p>
<p>Investigate why different groups use different TMCs and seek to consolidate wherever possible, and work with senior leadership to enact this change. As you investigate, also keep in mind that having just a single TMC can hinder your university from fully taking advantage of supplier relationships and unused ticket. Additionally, the current economic climate poses the risk that some travel suppliers may merge or shut down. Take all of these factors into consideration as you evaluate your current TMCs to help you prevent potential disruptions and simplify processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Best practice 3: Develop new guidelines around travel approval<strong> </strong></h2>
<p>New travel safety concerns and budgetary constraints call for new rules. For instance, you may want to require pre-trip approval, considering not only standard concerns such as budget, trip purpose, and travel providers used but also COVID-19 risks such as policies around returning to campus after a trip. This could mean restricting or prohibiting travel to high-risk areas. Ensuring pre-trip approval helps decision makers learn about high-risk destinations before a traveler leaves, rather than after they’ve departed or already returned to campus.</p>
<p>New purchasing, spending, and accountability procedures may also need to be implemented to bring in more travel data to the university, cut costs, and create <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/survey-highlights-back-office-challenges-opportunities-remote-education">more efficient back-office procedures</a>. For example, you may want to change purchasing/travel card thresholds, ensure frequent travelers obtain a university issued credit card, update your per-diem policies, or require students and staff to use your TMC(s) for institution-funded trips.</p>
<p>Case in point: In 2020, how much time did your staff spend trying to track down ticket numbers, pull receipt images, and uncover how many unused tickets your AP department had reimbursed to your employees prior to travel or because they couldn’t get a refund? Consider requiring all airfare expenditures be charged to a university liability card to ensure ownership of the credits and refunds from cancelled tickets in the future. Or, better yet, provide a university travel card to all travelers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Best practice 4: Look for ways to improve back-office efficiencies </h2>
<p>Staffing cuts and hiring freezes place new demands on remaining employees and working remotely makes manual accounting processes impracticable. Reconsidering how you use your SAP Concur solutions can help you find new ways to remove data silos and reduce inefficient manual processes.</p>
<p>For example, you can set controls, such as flagging potentially noncompliant spend before reimbursement or creating thresholds to require preapprovals. If you don’t already use Concur® Invoice, consider adding it to automate vendor invoice data entry and routing, identify duplicate invoices, and reconcile invoices, as well as boost the amount of spend data you are capturing. If you find more staff and faculty members are driving for their jobs, requiring the use of Google Maps or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">automating mileage capture</a> can make it easier for them to submit their mileage expenses.</p>
<p>Besides helping the back office, automating more travel and expense processes makes life easier for employees. The easier it is for them to book travel, capture data from receipts and invoices that can flow into reports, and track mileage, the more likely they are to adopt new processes and perform these tasks promptly. As timeliness and compliance improve, so does your institution’s ability to control spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel reimagined</h2>
<p>The future of higher education – and higher education travel – is likely to look very different from the past. The current “travel pause” is a chance to reinvent your institution’s travel policy so that when travel does pick up again, your institution will be ready with more control over spend and happier travelers.</p>
Jason Grunin
Give Your People the Workplace Experience They Deserve
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/give-your-people-workplace-experience-they-deserve
2023-08-29T12:43:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What can you do to keep your people happy, productive, and engaged at work? Focus on employee experience.
<p>Some are calling it the Great Resignation, others the Great Reprioritization. Whatever you call it, workers are looking for jobs that give them greater flexibility – and they are leaving in droves if employers can’t accommodate.</p>
<p>It all began when companies started to announce plans to bring people back to the office after months of hybrid work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Safety concerns still loom large and many have realized they can do their jobs just as effectively – if not more so – without a daily commute. Whatever the case for your employees, retention has become more important – and more challenging – than ever.</p>
<p>So, what can you do to keep your people happy, productive, and engaged at work? <strong>Focus on employee experience.</strong></p>
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<h5><strong>5 Little Things That Can Have a Big Impact on Employee Experience and Retention</strong></h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/little-things-can-have-big-impact-on-employee-experience">Get the tipsheet</a></div>
</div>
<p>As an employer, you need to ensure that your entire workforce feels valued. That means giving them the tools they need to do their jobs effectively in the way that works best for them. Finance and IT leaders are well positioned to help make this possible because of their constant interactions with every department. But they must collaborate and follow some simple advice.</p>
<p>For starters, listen. Check in regularly with employees using surveys, all-hands calls, team meetings, and even one-on-ones to find out the processes that frustrate them the most. Their feedback might surprise you. For example, you may find that finance and accounts payable love the flexibility of working from home, but that gathering, checking, and rechecking expense spreadsheets, processing paper and e-mailed vendor invoices, and manually consolidating all that data for reporting is now harder than ever. These manual processes may have been manageable when everyone was still in the office, but they’ve become an albatross – slowing down everyone that touches those workflows.</p>
<p>It’s time to start showing employees that you value their time by investing in cloud-based solutions that automate tedious manual processes and streamline workflows, so they can focus on more interesting and fulfilling tasks. Take our expense and invoice example: With the right technology, employees, managers, and auditors can submit, approve, and process reports and invoices from anywhere. Not only does this allow them to work smarter from home, they’ll be able to hit the ground running when business travel comes back in full swing.</p>
<p>By supporting remote workers with the digital and mobile technology they need to connect, collaborate, and communicate, you are giving them greater freedom and autonomy and showing them that you appreciate the strategic importance of their roles. Plus, by automating and integrating business processes and data, you have all your information in one place – giving you deeper business insight in the bargain.</p>
<p>Finally, make sure to show your employees you care. We recommend gifts, perks, events, and other experiences that help them connect with each other and bring some fun to work. This might mean creating new expense categories or updating your policies. Luckily, those great spend management solutions should also make those updates simple to implement and follow.</p>
<p>Read our full <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/little-things-can-have-big-impact-on-employee-experience">tip sheet</a> to find out more about how you can improve retention and reduce turnover by giving your employees the work experience they deserve. Then <a href="http://www.concur.com">learn more about</a> how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
New Survey Highlights Back-Office Challenges and Opportunities for Educational Institutions in Remote Work Environments
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-highlights-back-office-challenges-and-opportunities-educational
2023-09-07T11:10:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the school year kicks off for many students across the US the impact of COVID continues to grow Colleges universities and K schools are all grappling with how to safely reopen...
<p>As the 2020 – 2021 school year kicks off for many students across the U.S, the impact of COVID-19 continues to grow. Colleges, universities, and K-12 schools are all grappling with how to safely reopen and continue to operate for the good of students and education. New research by the SAP Concur organization highlights challenges and opportunities for educational institutions as they continue navigating hybrid and fully remote work and learning environments.</p>
<p>To better understand the new operational reality in education, we commissioned a research study of more than 500 finance and administration decision makers in higher education and K-12 across the United States. The results offer a snapshot of not only respondents’ ability to manage an expanded portfolio of responsibilities in this new normal, but also the challenges presented by outdated policies and inadequate technology to support learning. </p>
<p>Some of the key highlights include:</p>
<p><strong>Sustained remote work may mean failure to comply with state and federal government reporting regulations:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Thirty-eight percent of all education decision-makers say complying with mandated state and federal reporting policies was a key challenge when transitioning to remote work environments.</li>
<li>While nearly all education decision-makers (96%) are concerned their institution will fail to comply with state and federal government reporting regulations due to sustained remote work, the degree of concern varies by geographic region.
<ul>
<li>Nearly one-third of all education decision-makers who work in cities (29%) say they are “very concerned” that they will not meet these regulatory requirements.</li>
<li>Fewer than one in 10 education decision-makers who work in rural areas (6%) feel the same way as their counterparts living in urban areas.*</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>When looking ahead to the Fall 2020 semester, higher education decision-makers (33%) are slightly less concerned about complying with outdated policies than their counterparts in K-12 (37%).</li>
<li>As employees continue to work remotely due to COVID-19 risks, 40% of all decision-makers indicate that adapting policies to allow for remote compliance would ensure their department could handle financial operations more effectively and over a longer period of time.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Managing COVID-19 health risks remains a top priority: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Fifty-one percent of higher education decision-makers at public colleges and universities are concerned that their school may not be prepared to keep them safe, while only 37% of higher education decision-makers at private colleges and universities felt the same way.</li>
<li>One in four higher education decision-makers (26%) and one in three (35%) K-12 decision-makers list requiring face masks as a top health concern. </li>
<li>Higher education decision-makers are concerned with managing dorm assignments to maintain social distancing (43%). Reducing on-campus dorm density is a behavior that may help reduce the spread of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</li>
<li>Forty-three percent of K-12 decision-makers say protecting at-risk members of the community is a top priority.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Technology is a prerequisite for long-term remote work and new work realities that will be shaped for months and years to come:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly all education decision-makers (99%) believe that some sort of investment, whether it be in technology or in personnel, is critical to maintaining operations.</li>
<li>Although 78% of all education decision-makers believe workforce productivity has either stayed the same or increased as a result of remote work, the confidence decision-makers have in sustaining high levels of productivity greatly diminishes as colleges, universities, and K-12 school districts remain online for another semester. </li>
<li>Seventy percent of all education decision-makers think less than 20% of their workforce will be able to work remotely without negatively impacting productivity levels.</li>
<li>To ensure departmental operations do not suffer due to sustained remote work, 69% of all education decision-makers say investments in hardware and software are critical. However, 63% of all education decision-makers say their finance and administrative departments lack a fully remote solution.</li>
<li>In addition, one-quarter (25%) of all education decision-makers say that their most commonly used tools to manage financial and administrative operations include localized software, documents, and data that must be accessed on-site at an office.</li>
<li>Since beginning remote work, finance and administrative departments also believe they have an increased scope of responsibilities. In fact, 41% of education decision-makers say they are managing three or more new responsibilities due to COVID-19.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Colleges and universities believe they will need to adopt new operational models within the next five years to offset revenue losses: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Fifty-six percent of higher education decision-makers anticipate that, within the next five years, colleges and universities will adopt a hybrid classroom model that incorporates both onsite and remote learning.</li>
<li>Before they adapt to these new models, a majority of higher education decision-makers suggest that short-term changes will need to be made to offset losses.</li>
<li>Ninety-four percent of higher education decision-makers anticipate taking cost-cutting measures (e.g., hiring or salary freezes, outsourcing jobs or tasks, reducing their workforce, enforcing pay cuts) to offset budget shortfalls due to reductions in student enrollment and on-campus attendance during the Fall 2020 semester.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Virtually overnight, COVID-19 transformed the way educational institutions operate both in the classroom and in the back office,” said David Ballard, Senior Vice President, U.S. Public Sector, SAP Concur. “As K-12 school districts, colleges, and universities begin a new semester and navigate this ever-evolving work and learning environment, education decision-makers will need to address financial and operational implications by balancing short and longer-term needs. This could include adopting mobile apps now, and a longer-term investment in tools that will help schools migrate to hybrid classroom and back office operation models.”</p>
<p>For more information on how to strengthen cost control and cut out the paperwork within your academic institution, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> has you covered so you can always track your school’s spend, whether you are in the office or working from your home. </p>
<p>###</p>
<p>*This rural sub-audience represents a small sample size. </p>
<p>The survey was conducted between June 15 – July 2, 2020 by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com), a leading independent provider of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research, among 150 K-12 and 350 higher education decision-makers who are based in the US and defined as business decision-makers, administrators, principals, and individuals who hold education administration titles.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Using AI to Automate AP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/using-ai-automate-ap
2023-09-08T16:12:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There are a lot of people who may still believe that artificial intelligence AI is something that belongs in the future Thankfully were not quite at the point where robots are planning...
<p>There are a lot of people who may still believe that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">artificial intelligence (AI)</a> is something that belongs in the future. Thankfully, we’re not quite at the point where robots are planning to take over the world, but there are many ways AI can help the smooth running of your business and make a positive impact right now.</p>
<p>As we soar through 2021, it’s more important than ever for your business to be fully operational from anywhere. One area where costly mishaps can occur, if you aren’t streamlined and automated, is within your AP process. It’s crucial to get this right in order to keep your business running efficiently and save money in the process.</p>
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<h2>The Robots Are Here</h2>
<p>How AI and ML Automation Solutions Can Solve Business Problems</p>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="http://concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Use AI to Streamline Your Invoice Process</h2>
<p>With a manual AP process, invoices are handled by multiple people within an organisation before they finally reach the finance team for payment. Not only can this slow things down, but it can lead to invoices slipping through the cracks, causing a major headache for your AP team and potentially costly problems when month end rolls around.</p>
<p>With the average cost to manually process a single supplier invoice sitting at £9, it’s imperative to find ways to streamline this costly process. AI can achieve this by capturing and uploading invoices to your spend management platform automatically, whether they are on paper or electronic. It can then provide you with a dashboard showing a clear view of your AP function in one place. This easy-to-use solution gives you greater visibility over which invoices need to be paid, when they need to be paid by and who the money needs to go to, as well as more detailed line items that may be useful.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Have Peace-of-Mind at Every Stage with Automated Processing</h2>
<p>Collecting invoices, especially paper ones, throughout the last 15 months has proven difficult for some companies; with tales of high-level execs acting as a post person and personally hand delivering invoices to AP teams being common place. So it’s no surprise that broken lines of communication between teams has meant that fraudulent activity is at an all-time high.</p>
<p>Michael Benn, an SAP Concur AP Specialist explained in his webinar, How to Automate Capture, Process & Pay a scary stat we’ve seen recently is that the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) estimated the average business loses 5% of top line revenue to fraud. Imagine how much money your marketing or sales team would have to spend to generate an extra 5% of revenue this year.”</p>
<p>By using AI to automate your invoice process, you don’t have to worry about human error when manually inputting data points. Solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> feed the invoice data into all the correct fields and flag up any potential issues or errors for closer inspection. Businesses using this solution have reported seeing an 18% increase in policy compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Save Your Business Valuable Time</h2>
<p>Spending time wisely and making sure your employees are happy is at the top of most business agendas. But without automating your invoice process, your AP team are still inputting important data manually. With the average supplier invoice having around 70 data points that need to be captured, if you roll this across the average 500 invoices received per month, we’re talking 35,000 data points that someone in AP is currently having to manually enter or validate.</p>
<p>Even before the challenges of hybrid working, approval processes for invoices could take longer than expected. From chasing for approvals to desk dropping for signatures, there are many factors that can hold things up which don’t look set to improve as we move through 2021. However, with the use of AI, your AP approver will automatically be alerted to which invoices still need approval regardless of where they are. And if using the Concur mobile app can be approved at the touch of a button on the go. On top of this, if your business is already using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, no retraining will be needed as the process is the same as when submitting and approving expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>AI Gives You the Confidence to Scale</h2>
<p>Whether you’re planning to grow in the future, or you’ve seen your business boom over the past year, it’s important to make sure your company can keep up with the workload and manage what’s being spent. Making sure that your workforce doesn’t feel too much added pressure can be difficult when your business is doing really well, but by using AI, you can let them enjoy your business’ success.</p>
<p>With 38% of SMBs believing they will go out of business if they don’t adapt to new technologies, it’s important to find a solution that will be there for the long run.</p>
<p>Whether you are processing 50 invoices one month and 1000 the next, there is no limit to the number of invoices the solution can process per month. Not only does this mean you can grow without fears of employee burnout, but you can make plans for the future without having to worry about how the workload will be handled. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Find Out How AI Can Transform Your Business</h2>
<p>With most businesses embracing technology to help simplify workflow processes, it’s time to see how AI can give you the ability to scale and adopt hybrid working models to improve employee satisfaction – companies using Concur Invoice saw an improvement of 46% in overall staff productivity.</p>
<p>AI is becoming commonplace and helping more functions across the business perform more efficiently. If you want to find out more about how AI can enhance your processes, take a look at our latest report <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">How AI and ML Automation Solutions Solve Business Problems</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Far Do You Have to Go to Connect All Your Travel Data?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-far-do-you-have-go-connect-all-your-travel-data
2018-01-31T07:19:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel is booming but not without its growing pains Think of how things were booked just a few years back Employees called up a travel agency and everything ran through the...
<p>Business travel is booming, but not without its growing pains. Think of how things were booked just a few years back: Employees called up a travel agency and everything ran through the system.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> Is your T&E solution is disconnected? Find out in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/your-travel-expense-solution-disconnected">interactive guide</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Today, employees get an offer from their favorite hotel, so they book it. They find a better seat on a different airline (one with whom you haven’t negotiated), so they book it. They get inundated with offers from dozens of travel sites, and they forget (or neglect) to book it through your corporate booking tool. So you don’t know where they are, how they’re getting there or what they’re spending.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a question of connection, and odds are<strong>, you’re not as connected as you’d like to be. </strong>Take a look at your current travel setup and ask yourself these three things:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li>Does your travel solution connect to your existing systems?</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>When you’re connected, and you capture every itinerary, you get visibility into your spending.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Does it connect to supplier data?</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>When you’re connected to airlines, hotels and other suppliers—and you can capture bookings made outside your booking tool—you can manage expense and travel spending whenever and wherever it happens.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>How about connecting to innovative, third-party applications?</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>When you’re connected to apps that manage mobile charges, tackle taxes, and keep up with industry regulations, you can improve compliance and find new ways to save.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>All Your Travel All in One Place</strong></h2>
<p>With a unified expense and travel solution, you can manage your travel program your way, travelers can plan their trips their way, and every itinerary and purchase is sent straight to your system. Plus, you’ll know where all your employees are at all times—and that takes care of your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/duty-care-101-three-good-reasons-consider-concur">duty of care</a>.</p>
<p><strong>To find out if your expense and travel solution is disconnected, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/your-travel-expense-solution-disconnected">answer a few questions</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Managing traveler risk in a world of uncertainty
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managing-traveler-risk-world-uncertainty
2019-08-21T05:58:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you dont know what might happen across the street tomorrowlet alone around the worldhow can you be prepared to support all your employees wherever they are Here are three key...
<p>When you don’t know what might happen across the street tomorrow—let alone around the world—<a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-home">how can you be prepared to support all your employees</a> wherever they are?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Here are three key elements to protecting your employees:</p>
<ol>
<li>Know where they are and how to find them—at all times.</li>
<li>Maintain open and two-way communication in crisis situations.</li>
<li>Predict (and respond to) risk events around the world.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Nearly half (46%) of businesses questioned in a 2017 Business Travel Show survey stated that health and travel security incidences had an impact on business continuity in 2016.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s interrupting productivity, in other words, but in real-world terms, that’s peanuts when you compare it to the critical importance of protecting your people. And travelers today are uneasy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A 2017 BTN survey shows more than half of business travelers have expressed increased anxiety levels about safety and security when traveling for work in the past three years.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>How do you protect people when you don’t know what the risks are? </strong></h2>
<p>Let’s say you have the data that helps you pinpoint every one of your travelers. Do you also have the data that shows political unrest in those areas? Data about labor disputes and travel disruptions? Data that goes so far as to cover weather emergencies?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Are you like 43% of the respondents in the Travel Show survey who reported that their greatest challenge in mitigating travel risks is accessing relevant information about the situation?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Do you have the process and protocols in place to protect employees? </strong></h2>
<p>You might think you’re covered, but when your people face very real dangers around the world, “hoping your plan works” isn’t a plan.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Does your current risk-identification and employee-monitoring solution:</p>
<ol>
<li>Connect to complete, accurate and timely information about potential risks?</li>
<li>Cover everything from flight delays to terror attacks?</li>
<li>Tie risk information to your travelers’ locations—putting both your people and the dangers they fact on an interactive map?</li>
<li>Give you the tools—and the staff—to monitor every traveler, every risk, everywhere, 24/7/365?</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Odds are, it doesn’t. And that’s putting everyone at risk. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-home">Take an Online Risk Assessment to See How You Stack Up</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/using-data-to-track-down-your-travelers">Using data to track down your travelers</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/providing-the-travel-support-your-employees-need-when-they-need-it">Providing the travel support your employees need, when they need it</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Eliminate end-of-the-year finance team blues
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/eliminate-end-year-finance-team-blues
2017-11-21T08:33:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Feeling busy and overwhelmed Youre not imagining it There is more work for finance departments at the end of the year In fact according to Concur data the highest volume of expense...
<p>Feeling busy and overwhelmed? You’re not imagining it. There is more work for finance departments at the end of the year. In fact, according to Concur data, the highest volume of expense reports for the year hit the finance department in December with a peak around December 19—just when you’d probably like to be slowing down for some holiday cheer.</p>
<p>How can you get ahead of it to free you and your team up from all that paperwork? Here’s some guidance to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Start by empowering yourself</strong></h2>
<p>Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started. A great starting place is to <a href="https://go.concur.com/q417busiestexpensedaywebinar_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bed_smb_newsroom_blog_post_20171116" target="_blank">join us for a webinar on December 5</a><span>. </span> We'll be chatting with small business analyst and co-founder of the Small Business Group, Laurie McCabe about how finance departments can beat the end-of-the-year blues. She’ll offer some great tips for SMBs on how to not just survive this time of year, but succeed through it. <a href="https://go.concur.com/q417busiestexpensedaywebinar_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bed_smb_newsroom_blog_post_20171116" target="_blank">Register here.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Minimize the number of steps</strong></h2>
<p>Take a moment now, before December arrives, to give your expense process a thorough review. Look for areas of improvement and ways to reduce steps.</p>
<p>One busy-season process buster is the approval workstream. Be sure you know who’s going to be out of the office and not available to approve expenses in December. Getting a back-up in place ahead of time can save headaches down the road. Streamlining your expense process makes it easier for your employees to follow, reducing frustration and saving time and money.</p>
<p>Remember, t<strong>he shortest distance between two points is a straight line.</strong></p>
<p>While reviewing your overall process, take time to evaluate your expense policy. Ensure it is clear and concise. The easier your policy is to digest, the better chance it will be followed. This will decrease errors and make expense reports easier to review and approve. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">Need a template? Find one here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Go beyond just automation to mobility</strong></h2>
<p>If you are still using a manual expense process, even if you’re emailing for approvals, it’s time to upgrade and join the modern era. Nothing will help you get through these busy times better than automating expense submission, approval routing and compliance monitoring with a cloud-based, mobile expense solution.</p>
<p>Automation is great. <strong>Mobility makes it even better.</strong></p>
<p>Moving to an automated and mobile system isn’t as hard as you think. Companies such as Concur offer affordable solutions for businesses of all sizes. They understand it isn’t a one size fits all thing, and can get you up and running quickly, and before year-end.</p>
<p>Being able to streamline processes, increase visibility into spending, pull real-time data and access and approve expense reports from anywhere (the road, home office, etc), makes your employees lives easier and allows them to focus on more important things.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Give your team the tools to feel empowered</strong></h2>
<p>Moving to an automated and mobile system not only saves your employees time, it gives them the tools they need to complete their tasks with confidence. For an employee who has come off a week-long business trip, the thought of sifting through receipts and filing an expense report is overwhelming. And the feeling is mutual for the finance team member who has to review and approve the report, especially when it’s one of many pouring in at the end of the year.</p>
<p>Why not make life happy all around by giving your employees the solutions that will make expense reporting (and approving) faster. Happy employees lead to increased retention and better work engagement.</p>
<p>Your employees will toast you during the holiday party.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Don’t miss out!</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://go.concur.com/q417busiestexpensedaywebinar_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bed_smb_newsroom_blog_post_20171116" target="_blank">Join us for a webinar on December 5</a>. Small business analyst and co-founder of the Small Business Group, Laurie McCabe will share great tips for SMBs on getting through the busy season with style and sanity! <a href="https://go.concur.com/q417busiestexpensedaywebinar_eventregistrationpage.html?pid=social&cid=jbutl_q417_bed_smb_newsroom_blog_post_20171116" target="_blank">Register now.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
We’re betting your T&E budget could use an extra $2.78 million
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/were-betting-your-te-budget-could-use-extra-278-million
2017-07-11T08:09:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The question is How do you get there IDC arrives at the answer and that particular figure in the InfoBrief sponsored by Concur The Connected Journey Evolving to the Next Level in...
<p>The question is: How do you get there?</p>
<p>IDC arrives at the answer (and that particular figure) in the InfoBrief, sponsored by Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gain-control-connected-business-travel"><strong>The Connected Journey: Evolving to the Next Level in Business Travel</strong></a>, a detailed look at what businesses need to do to keep up in a rapidly growing, constantly evolving travel ecosystem.</p>
<p>Among the top recommendations? Connecting travel to the cloud to improve the experience for your employees (thereby increasing productivity) and to help you more quickly and accurately manage:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Mobility</li>
<li>Visibility</li>
<li>Compliance</li>
<li>Savings</li>
<li>Duty of Care</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>By managing travel with a cloud-based solution, the InfoBrief suggests, your organization will be able to trim time, costs and other challenges out of the T&E process. These savings include:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>49%</strong> less time spent on travel planning</p>
<p><strong>70%</strong> less time spent creating expense reports</p>
<p><strong>35%</strong> more compliance with internal travel/expense policies</p>
<p><strong>54%</strong> fewer lost receipts</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gain-control-connected-business-travel">IDC InfoBrief</a> also describes what to look for in a cloud partner—so that you and your team can focus more on revenue generation and less on travel bookings and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a>. IDC goes on to outline specific pre-, during- and post-travel challenges and opportunities—from reining in booking policies and managing productivity to reviewing, integrating and reimbursing expenses.</p>
<p>The savings associated with these improvements are staggering. As an example, the InfoBrief highlights Concur’s connected travel ecosystem, which can save the average business $97,000 in invoicing/auditing processes, $122,000 in travel-related costs, and a game-changing $728,000 in improved staff productivity. Every single year.</p>
<p>And with that, you’re well on your way to $2.78 million (by 2020), simply by connecting travel to the cloud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gain-control-connected-business-travel">Download the InfoBrief now</a> to see what it takes to take your travel program to the next level. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How solution providers can capitalize on the booming cloud economy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-solution-providers-can-capitalize-booming-cloud-economy
2020-09-11T11:13:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Theres no question about itcloud computing is the vehicle for small and midsize businesses SMB to drive digital transformation and channel partners are feeling the pressure to drive...
<p>There’s no question about it—cloud computing is the vehicle for small and midsize businesses (SMB) to drive digital transformation, and channel partners are feeling the pressure to drive value and meet the ongoing cloud demands of their customers. According to a recent survey of 250 senior executives at IT companies, value-added resellers and cloud providers conducted by Wakefield Research, 97% of companies believe offering cloud solutions will grow their business, and 96% believe cloud-based solutions are also more profitable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/driving-sales-growth-cloud-based-solutions">Read our eBook</a> to learn more about driving sales growth with cloud-based solutions</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>While it is clear that cloud-based solutions are integral to the future of business, the speed to market for new partners is key in a fast moving technology landscape. As channel partners evaluate and embrace available cloud solutions, some partnership models may have more advantages than others when it comes to building a cloud practice and being profitable. In a traditional partnership model like resell, channel partners are expected to build capability and competency across all aspects of a customer lifecycle – marketing, pre-sales, sales, implementation, support and post-sales services. While this model has long-term advantages, in the fast-moving cloud/SaaS space, the model limits partner's expansion and adoption of new emerging technologies. In this scenario, a hybrid co-sell model helps the channel partner leverage their existing customer expertise without the immediate burden of investing in high-cost technical and post-sales capacity. By implementing a co-sell referral model with a cloud-solution provider, partners can focus on being a trusted business advisor without major investment in technical sales resources. Time spent on outside tasks such as training, marketing or sales is left to the solution provider so channel partners can focus on the success of their customers and on growing their business. In fact, according to the survey, every single company has expanded their client base since adopting a co-seller model, with average growth of 10%.</p>
<p>The survey also found:</p>
<ul>
<li>Seventy-seven percent of companies who offer a co-seller model have seen a direct or indirect profit increase since they began using it.</li>
<li>Nearly 9 in 10 companies believe traditional reseller models require significantly more time and financial commitment than co-seller models.</li>
</ul>
<p>Among those companies surveyed, the top reasons for adopting the co-seller model are:</p>
<ul>
<li>To free up employees’ time to focus on other tasks (63%)</li>
<li>To utilize more highly skilled sales and marketing support than their company has on staff (59 %)</li>
<li>To avoid having to train employees on a reseller model (53%)</li>
<li>To add more perceived value to their customer base (49%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Knowing how quickly the market is shifting and leaning more and more on cloud, now is the time for partners to set themselves up for long-term success and start solving their customers’ problems today. Almost all companies (97%) know their customers struggle with accounts payable processes and expense management systems, and 9 in 10 companies believe this is an untapped profitability source. By helping customers automate this workload, partners can drive immediate value by improving their bottom line, increasing profitability and simplifying an inefficient process.</p>
<p>In July of last year, Concur launched our <a href="https://www.concur.com/solution-provider">co-sell referral channel program</a> for partners interested in expanding their cloud practices with travel, expense and invoice cloud solutions. Since the launch, more than 300 partners have joined the program. With minimal investment in technical and support capabilities, partners can build a spend management practice to provide solutions for their customers and receive the tools, training and support needed to build a successful Concur practice. <strong>Download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/driving-sales-growth-cloud-based-solutions">e-book</a></strong> for more information on how to drive sales growth with cloud-based solutions.</p>
<p>The Concur Survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com/" target="_blank">Wakefield Research</a> among 250 Senior Executives at IT companies, value-added resellers, or cloud providers offering cloud solutions to their customers, between June 20 and June 29, 2017, using an email invitation and an online survey.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Nine Tips for Filling the Gaps in Your Duty of Care
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/nine-tips-filling-gaps-your-duty-care
2018-10-07T19:52:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your employees are in varying locations across town the country or even the globe Are you supporting them all Many organizations understand they need to support and protect their...
<p>Your employees are in varying locations across town, the country, or even the globe. Are you supporting them all? Many organizations understand they need to support and protect their business travelers, but few realize that their duty of care obligations extend to ALL employees.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns" target="_blank">In part one of our four-part series</a>, we discuss how even organizations with a good track record in fulfilling their duty of care obligations with some level of risk management solution in place, still have gaps in providing the right level of care to all travelers and employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Are you protecting ALL your employees? To find out, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/filling-gaps-duty-care">download our checklist</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Travel by nature is risky because it can place your employees in unfamiliar or unforeseen environments. The <a href="https://www.gbta.org/" target="_blank">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA)</a> outlines the risks for travelers and common gaps found in even the best-intentioned travel risk management programs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Risks for your travelers include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Standing out from the local population, making them a potential target</li>
<li>Driving in unfamiliar locations and conditions</li>
<li>Stress and fatigue from travel delays, and being away from home</li>
<li>Not speaking the language of the country</li>
<li>Unfamiliarity with local health risks and medical facilities</li>
<li>Having no idea who to alert in case of an emergency</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>To mitigate traveler risks, do you know where your gaps are? Common gaps include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Organization fails to inform and educate their travelers on general and specific travel risks</li>
<li>Organization does not document when they have advised employees on travel safety</li>
<li>Security only focuses on high-risk international travel and not domestic travel or a mobile workforce</li>
<li>Safety and security is not part of travel procurement criteria</li>
<li>Organization does not test its crisis management plan regularly</li>
<li>Organization does not have a fully mapped out travel risk strategy</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s not just travelers, but all employees that need to be considered for safety and security. The following outlines common duty of care gaps for diverse types of employees, and the actions organizations should be taking to better support them.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The Frequent Traveler</h2>
<p>Whether travelers book through your booking tool, TMC, or outside of managed travel programs, your organization has the moral and legal responsibility to care for their well-being.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Automatically prepare travelers before they go.</strong> Proactively educate your travelers with tips about safe travel, and adopt a tool that pushes out pre-trip advisories around recent incidents or events that may impact their trip.</li>
<li><strong>Pull together the right stakeholders.</strong> Establish a crisis management team to agree on the proper protocol for key departments involved in the event of an emergency. Set well-defined roles and responsibilities with internal stakeholders including travel management, security, HR, and legal.</li>
<li><strong>Capture and store accurate traveler location data.</strong> To best track travelers with quality data, adopt a system that centralizes all your employee data sources, including TMC, travel booking and request tools, and HR profiles, so you can pinpoint impacted employees.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>The In-Office Employee</h2>
<p>You may only think of travelers when it comes to duty of care, but your obligations extend to all employees, even those commuting into your offices every day.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Create and practice a master plan.</strong> Your plan should include common and severe incidents for both in-office employees and travelers. Determine how you’ll communicate with employees during an emergency, the frequency of communications, and the triggering factors.</li>
<li><strong>Keep employee profiles up-to-date.</strong> Encourage employees to regularly review and update their profile and travel data, including their office location (including remote employees), name, office, mobile numbers, and emergency contacts.</li>
<li><strong>Ensure communication lines are open.</strong> For both employees commuting to the office and traveling across the globe, develop clear two-way emergency contact communication during high-profile incidents, as well as more common events, including medical issues, road traffic accidents, and petty crime.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>The Road Warrior</h2>
<p>What about employees working in home offices or in the field? Or those driving from client site to client site? Employees constantly out of a physical office are some of the hardest to track and support. </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Make it mobile</strong>. Implement tools that can reach employees on-the-go, such as SMS, email, and text-to-voice, so your mobile workforce can check in and request help when they need it.</li>
<li><strong>Provide around-the-clock support</strong>. Major disasters and health incidents don’t keep to office hours, and neither should your duty of care program. Establish 24/7/365 support services for your employees, ensuring assistance no matter the time of day or location.</li>
<li><strong>Adopt an assistance provider.</strong> An assistance provider will be vital should your security department or travel manager become overwhelmed during an event. Ensure employees are briefed and have access to information on seeking assistance.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s impossible to predict if an emergency or crisis will take place, but with the right plan and technologies in place you’ll be ready to locate and assist an impacted employee no matter the time or location.</p>
<p>Learn more about the potential gaps in your duty of care program by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/filling-gaps-duty-care">downloading our checklist</a> so you can put a plan in place to proactively keep your people safe and connected.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: </h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">Be Aware of Your Duty of Care and the Increase in Traveler Concerns</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/data-is-key-to-protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-your-people">Data is Key to Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People</a></h3>
<h3>Part 4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-prepare-for-responding-to-a-duty-of-care-incident">How to Prepare for Responding to a Duty of Care Incident</a></h3>
Four Tools to Speed Up Your Expense Reporting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-tools-speed-your-expense-reporting
2021-10-20T20:12:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Admit it you always put your expense reporting off until the last minute Dont we all But avoiding your reporting means youre not getting reimbursed as quickly as you could be and maybe...
<p>Admit it, you always put your expense reporting off until the last minute. (Don't we all?) But avoiding your reporting means you're not getting reimbursed as quickly as you could be and maybe even risking credit-damaging late fees on your corporate card. Luckily, as an <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> user, you can take advantage of a few tips, tricks, and tools that make doing your expenses quick and easy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. ExpenseIt in the SAP Concur Mobile App</h2>
<p>Your favorite receipt app, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/expenseit-pro-turn-receipts-reports-snap">ExpenseIt</a>, is now in the SAP Concur mobile app. This tool will help you expense as you go and avoid sorting through a daunting pile of receipts at the end of a business trip. As soon as you get a receipt, open up ExpenseIt in the SAP Concur mobile app and take a picture. The image will be uploaded to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and an expense entry will be created, categorized, itemized, and attached to the corresponding corporate card charge if applicable.</p>
<p>More information about ExpenseIt can be found on the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/pr/expenseit_enduser?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">ExpenseIt User Resources</a> page as well as in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">post</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Account Connections</h2>
<p>Continue to automate your expense process by connecting apps like <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57868dac4659a61200efc32d">Uber</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/561d81c633702b1200b100ce">Lyft</a> to have receipts from business rides flow straight into Concur Expense.</p>
<p>Additionally, if your company has purchased access, you can enroll in My Travel Network and connect frequent traveler accounts. Once you do, receipts from the flights and hotels you booked with participating vendors will appear in Concur Expense.</p>
<p>All of these connections can be made in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a>.</p>
<p>Discover how to enroll in My Travel Network and connect your frequent traveler accounts on the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/triplink/traveler-benefits?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">SAP Concur Traveler Resources</a> page.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. TripIt</h2>
<p>TripIt is a great tool to help you organize your business trips, but did you know it can help you expense them as well? Connect your SAP Concur account to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bcdf5">TripIt</a>. Then, when you forward your travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, your itineraries will flow into Concur Expense and be attached to the corresponding charge if found. This will help simplify expensing items that require an itinerary to be attached.</p>
<p>With these tips you'll be able expedite your expense reporting and get reimbursed in no time. </p>
<p>If your company has purchased access to TripIt Pro, visit the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/triplink/traveler-benefits?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">SAP Concur Traveler Resources</a> page to learn how it can help you stay one step ahead.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Concur Drive</h2>
<p>If you drive your personal car for work, Concur Drive can help you cut down on the time you spend expensing mileage considerably. By capturing mileage as you drive, accurate expenses are created in real-time and can even be sent straight to Concur Expense for you.</p>
<p>You can learn more by visiting the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/toolkit/en-us/expense/drive/end-user?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">Concur Drive User Resource</a> page as well as this <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">post</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Colleen Fogerty
Mairs & Power: Utilizing Automation to Streamline AP Processes Through Concur Invoice
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/mairs-power-utilizing-automation-streamline-ap-processes-through-concur-invoice
2018-05-01T09:05:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Financial analysts are most effective when not weighed down by mundane administrative tasks When searching for a way to free up their finance team to spend more time on strategic...
<p>Financial analysts are most effective when not weighed down by mundane administrative tasks. When searching for a way to free up their finance team to spend more time on strategic decisions, <a href="https://www.mairsandpower.com/" target="_blank">Mairs & Power</a> knew they needed to make some changes to their current technology systems.</p>
<p>Mairs & Power Inc. is an 87-year-old SEC-registered investment advisory firm located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With more than $9.5 billion in managed assets for individuals, employee benefit plans, endowments, foundations, and three no-load mutual funds.</p>
<p>The firm needed a way to update their current accounting systems with an automated solution that was easy to implement, creating less, not more, work for their employees. After doing extensive research on available solutions, Accountant and Financial Analyst, CPA Luke Odegaard, turned to SAP Concur for assistance.</p>
<p>After implementing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>, Luke Odegaard gained an entire day every week back to focus on strategically growing the organization. The company not only has a better handle on invoicing and expenses, but the automated systems gives them the visibility into spending they need to make important business decisions. Implementation of Concur Invoice was a smooth process and the user interface made it easy for employees to get started with the new system right away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anytime you integrate new technology, it’s a big shift. I was shocked at how seamless the SAP Concur process was. There’s been vast and immediate improvements in our AP process and insights.” --Luke Odegaard CPA, Mairs & Power Inc.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Takeaway Tip: </strong>Use automated AP solutions to free up employee time for strategic initiatives and put balance in the ledger.</p>
<p>It’s National Small Business Week and SAP Concur is honoring our small business heroes. At SAP Concur, we create spend management solutions for all businesses, regardless of size or industry. Register today for our <a href="https://go.concur.com/nsbw2018c.html?pid=email&cid=emoln_mdrsig_20180405" target="_blank">Tips & Triumphs from SMB All-Stars webinar</a>, and learn from other small businesses as they discuss successes and how to avoid potential pitfalls.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
British Airways Goes Live With Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/british-airways-goes-live-concur-triplink
2020-09-21T19:39:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are proud to announce that British Airways has gone live with its integration of bacom with Concur TripLink The partnership enables mutual customers of SAP Concur and British...
<p data-id="b1e1f8b3-613b-448d-b4ea-df9fe458c83e">We are proud to announce that British Airways has gone live with its integration of <a href="https://www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_us" target="_blank">ba.com</a> with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>. The partnership enables mutual customers of SAP Concur and British Airways to capture business travel bookings that are made directly on the British Airways website so they can be managed along with other corporate travel bookings.</p>
<p data-id="58993d45-6dd9-4424-b0b1-fbb1375bf4d6">Any bookings made on ba.com by someone who has chosen to link their British Airways Executive Club and SAP Concur accounts will now be captured automatically by SAP Concur.</p>
<p data-id="3720b1e4-366e-4967-a4d7-e5588d37926f">If the company does have a negotiated discount with British Airways and has requested access to these on ba.com, the website will authenticate connected travelers and apply negotiated rates automatically. Travelers’ plans are automatically consolidated in Concur Travel, the Concur Mobile App and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/pro" target="_blank">TripIt Pro</a>.</p>
<p data-id="1671fe6e-2c7a-4468-ab11-ba3b73bc9aaf">From a travel manager’s perspective, the integration helps customers capture and manage bookings that occur directly on ba.com and is fundamental to meeting corporates’ duty of care for every trip, no matter where it was booked.</p>
<p data-id="77194774-dedf-4971-820e-259f89f4b633">Michelle Cullis, NDC and Customer Partnerships Manager, British Airways comments: “In today’s data-driven, fast-paced and mobile world, it’s more important than ever for companies to have the technology in place to oversee travel bookings and expenses. Through our connectivity with Concur TripLink, we can now offer this to a huge range of companies, no matter how they book.</p>
<p data-id="ceece471-ce9b-49ee-b083-8940d43dd3fc">“We have a varied customer base and we receive feedback from customers that they value a variety of booking channels so we are keen to provide them with a range of options and TripLink is an important one.”</p>
<p data-id="bf996064-0e44-404c-af3d-c231f290be6b">Chris Baker, MD of EMEA North, SAP Concur adds: “Through our research last year surveying business travelers, we discovered there is still work to be done around duty of care. For instance, 41% of business travelers surveyed were left to their own devices, by their company, while near a major incident. Therefore, bringing British Airways into the Concur TripLink ecosystem means that a vast number of bookings can now be tracked for duty of care requirements. Duty of care is not only important for responsible businesses, but a legal requirement for them. We look forward to seeing the difference this connection will make to both SAP Concur and British Airways Customers.”</p>
<p data-id="75714eda-2768-4978-9f1b-a5df211ed7bb">As an overview, Concur TripLink allows businesses to:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="6e2045d0-887a-4db2-85cc-b751a6e70a2c">Gain visibility into travel spend</li>
<li data-id="b02f9f02-27c2-497c-ab47-093bdb7aeac5">Fulfill duty of care requirements</li>
<li data-id="976091e9-9b61-4b7b-ae76-de0543cc6052">Increase end-user compliance with company travel policy</li>
<li data-id="3ce930b7-ab6d-49e3-ab0e-946b2eb0e04a">Maximize the use of negotiated corporate discounts</li>
<li data-id="b6ab893b-e6f0-4bd0-8989-8933efe7a083">Have a consolidated view of all travel program data</li>
<li data-id="cd9f9b6e-8954-4c95-b978-0bca877b941a">Increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with TripIt Pro for all travelers</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="ac2ee960-8c6b-4b99-ac23-808c90d4f767"> </p>
<p data-id="9fee6722-751e-4679-b936-d304cb341886">British Airways’ TripLink integration adds to a long list of connected travel suppliers including AccorHotels, Airbnb, Avis, Booking.com, Hertz, Hotel Tonight, InterContinental Hotels Group, Omni Hotels and Resorts, OUI.sncf, Marriot and Starwood Hotels, Sixt Rent a Car, Trainline Europe and United Airlines. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Click here</a> for more information on TripLink.</p>
Alistair Kent
How Your Mobile Phone Helps Keep You Safe When Traveling
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-your-mobile-phone-helps-keep-you-safe-when-traveling
2021-04-28T08:51:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In this fourpart blog series weve acknowledged the fact that female business travelers face greater risks while on the road compared to men Examples include assault sexual harassment...
<p>In this four-part blog series, we’ve acknowledged the fact that female business travelers <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">face greater risks while on the road,</a> compared to men. Examples include assault, sexual harassment, and personal and identity theft. We’ve also covered the importance of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience">knowing how to get help</a> when we feel threatened or are in physical danger due to a disease outbreak, political unrest, a terrorist event, or a natural disaster. If we work for a company with <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-to-safeguard-female-travelers">duty of care policies</a>, we can check that these policies address the unique safety needs of female travelers. If we’re solopreneurs responsible for our own insurance and personal protection, we have resources at our fingertips to make sure we have the critical safety basics covered.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11296-0.jpg?itok=--BqyRNH" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Safety Checklist for Female Business Travelers</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In the past decade especially, innovations in mobile technology have evolved making it possible for companies, travel insurance providers, and mobile phone manufacturers to offer apps and feature functionality to help protect our safety. We can now initiate a 911 or SOS alert within seconds, no matter where we are in the world. Voice activated translation apps can help us communicate critical words and phrases in countries where we don’t speak the language. Especially if we are traveling alone, our mobile devices can offer a powerful, real-time connection to needed resources. A great reason to keep our phones charged at all times and always remembering to pack phone chargers and a travel plug adapter if we’re traveling internationally. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Customize your device for safety</h2>
<p>Ahead of any business trip, initiating safety capabilities and protection on your mobile phone is a smart thing to do. Here are some tips to get you started. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Sign up for alerts and connect to an embassy</strong>. For international travel, <a href="https://www.usembassy.gov/" target="_blank">know the location</a> of the closest U.S. embassy or consulate, and check the option to enroll your trip so the embassy can send you mobile alerts in the event of an emergency.</li>
<li><strong>Consider installing <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-translate/id414706506?mt=8" target="_blank">Google Translate</a> or </strong><strong><a href="http://www.triplingo.com/" target="_blank">Trip Lingo</a></strong><strong>. </strong>Both are voice translating apps that can help you in emergencies when language barriers pose a problem. You can learn words like ‘Help’, ‘Emergency’, and ‘No’ in 103 languages.</li>
<li><strong>Research </strong><strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tripwhistle-global-sos-international-emergency-phone/id839654331?mt=8" target="_blank">TripWhistle</a></strong><strong>. </strong>You can dial local emergency police, fire, and ambulance phone numbers anywhere in the world with a single touch, immediately providing critical information to emergency responders.</li>
</ul>
<h2><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1539896284236-mobile-safety-hack.png" /></h2>
<h2>Protect yourself and your information if your mobile phone is lost or stolen</h2>
<p>These are all actions you can initiate from within your phone, ahead of your travel.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Lock your mobile device with a strong password or use biometric protection. </strong>This is the first line of defense against stolen phones.</li>
<li><strong>Update your software</strong>. Make sure your software is running the latest patch because many include fixes for security bugs.</li>
<li><strong>Banish unused apps. </strong>Delete any old apps you’re not using anymore because the data they store about you can also track your location—and can be used by criminals.</li>
<li><strong>Set up a PIN. </strong>Under ‘settings’, create a PIN, which sets up data encryption on newer Apple models and ensures your data is safe from unwelcome eyes.</li>
<li><strong>Turn off Wi-Fi. </strong>When you’re not using it, turn it off so it doesn’t automatically sign you onto the next free Wi-Fi which could possibly be unsafe.</li>
<li><strong>Turn on ‘Find My Phone’ and remote wiping. </strong>You’ll have to enable these features before you travel, so they can work for you if your phone is lost or stolen.</li>
<li><strong>Turn off location tracking. </strong>Even though this gives you access to location features, it’s also like a trail of breadcrumbs right to you—in the wrong hands.</li>
</ul>
<p>For companies looking to protect their female travelers through mobile technology, SAP Concur offers <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-travelers-safe-expanded-concur-locate-uber-business-triplink-tripit-pro-features">cloud-based software applications</a> called Concur Locate, TripIt and TripIt Pro. The TripIt apps show <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2018/06/neighborhood-safety-scores-and-international-travel-tools.html?us=tripithouse&um=banner&un=NeighborhoodSafety300X250&uc=FreePro&ut=Oct_18" target="_blank">safety scores</a> for neighborhoods, lodging, and restaurants around the world, including categories women care about: physical harm, women’s safety, health and medical, theft—and embassy information for more than 180 countries. Speaking of country safety, this <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/07/28/10-most-dangerous-places-for-women-travelers-and-how-to-stay-safe/#3e0f89852448" target="_blank">2017 Forbes article</a> lists the 10 most dangerous places in the world for women to travel. Good for all of us to know.</p>
<p>October and November are historically the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/keep-your-employees-safe-during-the-busiest-travel-season">busiest months of the year</a> for female business travel. If you’ve got a trip planned in the weeks ahead, and even if you don’t, adding mobile security and resource options to your devices is a great way to take very good care of yourself. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also:</h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">Why is Business Travel Safety Different for Women?</a></h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-to-safeguard-female-travelers">Are Companies Doing What They Can to Safeguard Female Travelers?</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience">How Women Can Create Their Own Safe Business Travel Experience</a></h3>
SAP Concur Executives
Cure ‘I Can’ Syndrome and Spark Business Growth by Automating your AP Invoice Processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cure-i-can-syndrome-and-spark-business-growth-automating-your-ap-invoice-processes
2020-09-11T11:55:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I can syndrome may not be recognized by the medical community but its a condition that affects millions of smallbusiness owners and other company leaders each year When managing a...
<p>“I can” syndrome may not be recognized by the medical community, but it’s a condition that affects millions of small-business owners and other company leaders each year.</p>
<p>When managing a business, you might confidently proclaim:</p>
<p>“I can make the product.”</p>
<p>“I can deliver the service.”</p>
<p>“I can manage the financials.”</p>
<p>Sure, it’s possible you can. But you don’t have to – nor should you want to.</p>
<p>After all, you have plenty of responsibilities, and taking on more than necessary could negatively impact both your individual and company performance. Mishandling your financials could be especially harmful, and could lead to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/three-steps-to-increasing-business-cash-flow">serious cash-flow problems</a>.</p>
<p>Automated accounts payable invoices management can help you avoid that risk. By gaining greater visibility to determine the true value of your expenses and control costs with a more sophisticated accounts payable solution, you can cure your case of “I can” syndrome and transform your company into a more viable, strategic business.</p>
<p>Here’s how.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Determine the true value of expenses with a precise picture of your cash flow</h2>
<p>Baseball has a long, storied history. For decades, home runs ruled the sport. But in 2002, one man changed all that.</p>
<p>Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane decided to shun conventional wisdom and emphasize on-base percentage over long balls. He theorized he could assemble a competitive team – at a fraction of the price – by signing players who excelled at walking and getting base hits instead of hitting home runs.</p>
<p>While the approach didn’t result in a World Series title, the A’s won 103 games in 2002 – tied for the most in baseball.</p>
<p>If there’s one thing you can learn from Billy Beane’s experiment, it’s this: Your business doesn’t always have to swing for the fences. There are smaller, alternative steps you can take to usher in victories.</p>
<p>For instance, consider your vendor costs. The Pareto principle says 80% of expenses come from 20% of vendors. So, a small portion of vendors account for a huge share of your business costs. And while it’s important to have insight into all your company’s expenses, it’s particularly crucial to understand where the vast majority of your money goes. And if you need to manually refer to a clutter of sloppy spreadsheets to do that, you’re bound to have a tough time.</p>
<p>An automated invoice management solution can provide you with a precise picture of your cash flow so you can build a strategy around optimizing vendor relationships, getting the best rates, taking advantage of discounts, and investigating ways to cut costs.</p>
<p>If your business can accurately visualize its spending and negotiate even a 1% reduction in vendor fees, it’ll do wonders for your profit margins. And by getting to the bottom of your finances, you can strategically analyze your spending habits, determine the true value of your expenses, and make better business decisions that positively impact your bottom line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Control creeping costs with better cash-flow visibility</h2>
<p>Parkinson’s law states that as a resource’s availability expands, the more people consume it.</p>
<p>Think of it like a tube of toothpaste: If you’re using a brand-new tube, you’ll likely squeeze a large bead of toothpaste onto your toothbrush. But even when your tube starts to empty, you can still manage to extract what you need from it to get the job done.</p>
<p>Businesses often view a full wad of cash like a brand-new tube of toothpaste: The more money they have at their disposal, the more they’re willing to spend.</p>
<p>One way many small businesses spend their money is on new software subscriptions. Companies see an influx of cash and decide to buy antivirus software, CRM software, and more.</p>
<p>While these purchases seem essential in the moment, they can lead to insidious costs – particularly if a business stops paying attention. Unused software subscriptions could end up costing your company hundreds of thousands of dollars each month.</p>
<p>When processing invoices manually, you may lack the clarity you need to see how much money unused software subscriptions drain from your bank account. You may not even know when those bills are due or paid.</p>
<p>Automating your AP invoice processes makes these expenses more tangible. And it’s only when you can observe these financial losses that you can truly experience and appreciate their pain.</p>
<p>An automation solution shines a light on creeping costs like this, allowing you to take the necessary steps to cancel the subscriptions, eliminate the unwanted fees, and start steering your company’s financial future in the right direction.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get finance right with automation</h2>
<p>Whether you’re capable of managing your business’s financial processes or not, it’s better off you find someone – or something – to help you do so. You have other duties. And doing it right is what’s most important.</p>
<p>Automating your AP invoice processes provides an opportunity for your company to manage its finances with precision. Not to mention, the business benefits are undeniable.</p>
<p>According to a new white paper by AMI-Partners in partnership with Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">How Finance Leaders Save Money and Drive Growth with Automated Invoicing</a>, automation tools enable businesses to save $1,100 for every 100 invoices and reduce invoice processing time by 16% a week.</p>
<p>Now, just imagine how much that extra time and money could help you grow your business.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Prevent Higher Ed Faculty and Staff Misspending Before it Happens
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prevent-higher-ed-faculty-and-staff-misspending-it-happens
2020-09-11T12:23:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Faculty and staff at colleges and universities have increasing access to and are spending more of their institutions money across more spend categories and using more payment methods...
<p>Faculty and staff at colleges and universities have increasing access to and are spending more of their institution's money across more spend categories and using more payment methods than ever before. For finance departments who may still be struggling with manual processes, it’s challenging to accurately track spending. Without greater visibility, universities have less control to enforce travel and expense policies, reduce fraud, and ultimately make informed, timely financial decisions with confidence. That is why it is critical for administrators to adopt tools that automate these processes and provide insight into the financial health of their institutions</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maintaining Financial Control</h2>
<p>Many spend management and travel solutions that were adopted by institutions decades ago are now outdated, making financial control difficult. This is why implementing a modern, easy-to-use spend management solution can increase adoption and increase visibility into spending. By consolidating all of your data in one performance dashboard, you can see every aspect of your spending. With valuable insights at your fingertips, you can prevent duplicate payments, flag unusual transactions, or lead more informed negotiations to take advantage of discounted supplier rates.</p>
<p>For finance departments to effectively manage their budgets, here are some critical steps to take:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automate all spending:</strong> Moving from a manual or semi-manual process across all faculty and staff spending will increase visibility and avoid error. Automating processes for expense, travel, and check requests creates efficiencies that result in reduced costs.</li>
<li><strong>Embrace an open strategy:</strong> Travel vendors will continue to develop direct relationships with faculty and staff. You can’t stop this behavior, but you can manage it by digitally capturing all spend through the apps your faculty and staff are already using. By connecting all travel, expense, purchasing cards, and invoicing tools directly with suppliers, you can better manage spend in ways that will avoid penalties and gain savings.</li>
<li><strong>Go beyond automation to strategically manage spending:</strong> Technology that enables effective management of all faculty and staff spending in a centralized manner ultimately paves the way for smart, proactive, and customized management of your company’s spending.</li>
<li><strong>Review Spending</strong>: Conducting an audit to see where costs can be recovered is a great way to spot issues and spend leaks before they get any worse. In the same way that regulatory bodies would review your books and processes in a business audit, an internal spend audit checks all your transaction data, as well as identifies any missed savings opportunities.</li>
</ul>
<p>By integrating automation tools and increasing visibility into institutional spending, you will gain a better understanding of where resources are going and be better able to develop a strategy to manage it proactively – and ultimately save your institution money.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn about how SAP Concur's solutions help higher ed manage spend <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-expenses-software">here</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Watch for These Two Business Trends Driving Change in Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/watch-these-two-business-trends-driving-change-spend
2020-09-13T04:21:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By now youre accustomed to the pains of an everincreasing list of priorities and an everdecreasing budget with which to get them done In some areas you may be able to get by but in...
<p>By now, you’re­­ accustomed to the pains of an ever-increasing list of priorities, and an ever-decreasing b­udget with which to get them done. In some areas you may be able to get by, but in others, ­sticking with the status quo can cost you more than it’s worth.</p>
<p>Travel and spend management is one area in which your organization may be missing out by making do. Whether deciding to automate just part of your expense process, building your own solution, or settling for technology that’s “good enough,” an inefficient, antiquated approach can hold you back – limiting your ability to capture spending and identify trends, causing you to leave money on the table, and opening up your organization to legal and financial risks.</p>
<p>Now, more than ever, it’s time to rethink your approach. Two key trends are disrupting the business landscape, presenting enormous challenges and leaving your organization vulnerable to hidden costs like never before:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Purchasing power is in employee hands</h2>
<p>Spending that was once under the control of your organization has now shifted to the employee. Employees are increasingly booking their own trips with airlines and others directly, choosing their own places to stay, and making purchases conveniently right from their mobile phones. In fact, the number of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/airbnb-bookings-rise-sap-concur-listings-available-concur-travel">SAP Concur clients using the Airbnb</a> increased 42% from 2016 to 2017, including 63% of Fortune 500 customers. And the reality is, your technology likely isn’t set up to address this change.</p>
<p>When you can’t see all that’s being spent, you can’t control that spending. And unfortunately, you may have more invisible spend than you think. According to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">August 2018 study by GBTA</a>, 37% of hotels and 15% of flights are booked outside of corporate channels, while just 20% of companies use technology to capture outside bookings. When you have limited visibility into what vendors are being used, you miss out on the opportunity to negotiate rates and leave money behind. Moreover, as the amount of employees that purchase directly with suppliers continues to rise, so will the amount of cash you’re missing.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">Read the full GBTA study</a> to learn more about the changing travel landscape </strong></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Rising tax and compliance regulations</h2>
<p>Employees aren’t the only ones changing the way they do things. Governments are, too. Hungry for revenue, they continue to impose new taxes, make changes to regulations, and are increasing their investigations to crack down on violators.</p>
<p>“Good enough” isn’t going to cut it when it comes to meeting regulations. With more ways and more channels for employees to spend, you have to stay on top of every dollar and every vendor. When your organization is audited, investigators will expect comprehensive, accurate reporting on all transactions. But if you’re still relying on an outdated, reactive approach, your chances of being successful are slim to none – resulting in executive involvement, additional costs, and a hard hit to your organization’s reputation.</p>
<p>As these two business trends bring change to your organization, how you approach your travel and spend should change, too. <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Embrace modern technology</a> that integrates data across all sources, connects you to all your employee spending, captures every transaction, detects fraud immediately and gives the data you need to prove compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about how to capture and manage ALL your employee spend and mitigate regulatory risks, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough">download our Cost of Doing Nothing eBook</a> or <a href="https://go.concur.com/Cost-of-Doing-Nothing-Landing-Page_Landing-Page.html?pid=direct&cid=direct">visit us online</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-fraudsters-find-weak-links-in-employee-spend-areas">How Fraudsters Find Weak Links in Employee Spend Areas</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/is-disconnected-spend-data-costing-you">Is Disconnected Spend Data Costing You?</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
Hyatt’s Integration with Concur TripLink Now Available on Hyatt.com and the Hyatt iOS and Android Mobile Apps
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hyatts-integration-concur-triplink-now-available-hyattcom-and-hyatt-ios-and-android
2018-11-05T08:13:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries even if their travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel It connects trips travelers and itineraries...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink </a>helps companies capture travel itineraries, even if their travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel. It connects trips, travelers and itineraries across multiple channels, allowing companies to apply policy and ensure traveler safety by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency.</p>
<p>Today, we’re excited to announce that <strong>Concur TripLink customers can now connect their SAP Concur account with Hyatt </strong>using the <a href="https://www.concursolutions.com/nui/appcenter/listings/5b732f91a618162b004a769fAA%20">Hyatt App Center listing</a> or by enrolling their World of Hyatt loyalty account in SAP Concur’s My Travel Network.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is connecting more than 120,000 World of Hyatt member accounts with SAP Concur via TripLink, allowing travel managers to capture the data of users who make reservations on Hyatt.com, or on the Hyatt iOS or Android mobile app. Travelers will also have their booking data sent directly to Concur Travel and Expense, the Concur mobile app, and TripIt Pro. Bookings automatically appear in a traveler’s SAP Concur account without a need to email anything, providing immediate visibility into traveler spend and monitoring for travel policy rules, if applicable.</p>
<p>New <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/travel-buyers-looking-to-bring-innovation-to-booking-process" target="_blank">GBTA Foundation</a> research found that travel managers continue to struggle to capture bookings made outside of corporate channels. Concur TripLink ensures travel managers can realize the benefits of their managed travel program, even if their travelers make reservations with Hyatt outside of Concur Travel. TripLink automatically captures those bookings, enabling immediate visibility into traveler spend, application of policy, and robust duty of care. TripLink also helps increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with access to TripIt Pro for all travelers.</p>
<p>“Integrating with Concur TripLink makes it easier than ever for business travelers to book hotels directly with Hyatt while helping to ensure travel managers have the visibility they need,” said Gus Vonderheide, VP, Global Sales, Hyatt.</p>
<p>To date, more than 7.5 million travelers have access to Concur Triplink, and the global TripLink network includes 28 partners representing airlines, hotels, rail, and rental car providers. For more information about TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Concur Connect Helps Life Sciences Organizations Stay Ahead of HCP Data Compliance Issues
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-connect-helps-life-sciences-organizations-stay-ahead-hcp-data-compliance
2020-09-21T19:21:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Ask any organizational staff member and youre sure to hear about the perpetual challenges and pains of managing data Sure we love it Data increases organizational efficiency and allows...
<p>Ask any organizational staff member and you’re sure to hear about the perpetual challenges and pains of managing data. Sure, we love it. Data increases organizational efficiency and allows staff members to make faster and more accurate decisions. But managing data can be a headache. It’s one task to collect, another step to enter, and a whole other project to go back and make sure what’s collected is reliable and consistent. Then, as the number of contributors expand, data inconsistencies and redundant records start to become even more rampant.</p>
<p>Consequently, managing data often takes an ample of amount of time and is a never-ending, tedious task to ensure data integrity—a crucial element when managing compliance issues.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Life sciences organizations face increasing transparency regulations</h2>
<p>Faced with unique operational challenges in managing data, the life sciences industry – pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device organizations – has recently felt increasing external pressures to ensure data integrity. Government compliance regulations such as the Sunshine Act, or Open Payments, have started requiring life sciences organizations to collect and disclose large amounts of healthcare provider (HCP) data.</p>
<p>While many industries and the organizations within them understand the common pains of managing data, life sciences organizations have the added challenge of routinely submitting their HCP spend data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS). But it’s not sending the data to CMS where life sciences organizations are struggling. The added complexity comes from the large amount of information that must be routinely reported, often requiring life sciences organizations to pour in massive investments into their data systems to ensure Open Payments compliance. <a href="https://www.concur.com/open-payments-compliance">PhRMA members have reported</a> that annual ongoing costs can range from <a>$2 million annually for mid-sized pharmaceutical organizations to more than $5 million each year for large organizations, making the process a financial burden.</a></p>
<p>Unfortunately, the potential financial costs don’t stop there. Inconsistent or redundant data could result in noncompliance and lead to a <a href="https://www.cms.gov/OpenPayments/Program-Participants/Applicable-Manufacturers-and-GPOs/Audits-and-Penalties.html" target="_blank">civil monetary penalty</a>, potentially costing your organization up to $1 million in fines.</p>
<p>Now more than ever, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/helping-pharmaceutical-biotech-and-medical-device-organizations">life sciences organizations need to be prepared</a> and ensure their HCP spend data is correct and consistent in order to stay ahead of compliance regulations.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A day in life sciences with a manual HCP data solution</h2>
<p>Even before Open Payments became a regulation, tracking HCP spend allocation was a monotonous task. Often searching your database for a HCP’s name to assign expenses never returned correct results and almost always involved missing information. Most likely, this was because staff members at the time didn’t find the information important, such as middle name or street address, but now it was required for Open Payments compliance. In other instances, search results would return duplicate records, and with common names and missing information combined, it was almost impossible to determine which Robert Smith or Maria Garcia was the right one.</p>
<p>Mistakes like these are all too common when data is manually entered. When the time comes to routinely submit your organization’s information for Open Payments, finance teams are burdened with the task of sorting through thousands of records, sometimes having to inspect multiple databases to ensure its integrity.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>A day in life sciences with a streamlined HCP data solution</h2>
<p>To help alleviate data and expense challenges, SAP Concur has partnered with healthcare database specialists, MedPro and IMS Health, to lift the burden off Life Sciences organizations. Through <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/compliance-risk">partnered Concur Connect apps</a>, Life Sciences organizations can streamline partnered HCP data and integrate it with their <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/570ed6f316680812000f7834">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxHKKs75MK2I8DRGoh63XJEW/medpro-concur-connect-expense">Concur Expense</a> solutions, to support regulatory compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>MedPro Concur Connect Solution had streamlined our Aggregate Spend reporting by eliminating the need to maintain an internal healthcare professional database, improving the overall accuracy of the data we report to CMS every year.—Steve Dawson, Finance Manager, AP, and T&E Reimbursement at Merz Pharma GmbH & Co.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With a partnered Concur Connect App, Life Sciences organizations can:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Eliminate the manual entry of HCP attendee information:</strong></p>
<p>Get near to real-time results from SAP Concur App Center partners databases, some which contain 21 million records of all HCPs required for the U.S. federal and state compliance report, as well as international HCPs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Search, capture, and export HCP data within Concur Invoice and Concur Expense:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Search from within Concur Invoice and Concur Expense to access HCP information at the time of expense capture.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Quickly capture accurate, comprehensive <a href="https://www.medproid.com/public/solutions/directidconcurconnect">HCP data fields required</a> to meet federal and state Open Payments regulations and add data to a Concur Invoice payment or Concur Expense report.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Automatically import Attendee Detail Extract (ADE) files from SAP Concur to any internally developed or 3rd part Aggregate Spend reporting solution.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Stay ahead of Open Payments compliance Issues</strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur helps Life Science organizations meet industry demands by delivering an ecosystem of innovative solutions that facilitate compliance in both company policy and government regulations to help control costs and drive complete visibility into spend.</p>
<p>With a streamlined HCP data solution, Life Sciences organizations have found an average 10 to 12 percent higher search match rate. A simple search of the HCP first and last name returns correct results, rather than having to enter the HCP license number.</p>
<p>But most importantly, the burden to provide correct HCP data is lifted off of your organization’s finance team and transferred to the SAP Concur App Partner. Steve Dawson, Finance Manager, AP, and T&E Reimbursement at Merz Pharma GmbH & Co speaks to this benefit, “MedPro Concur Connect Solution has streamlined our Aggregate Spend reporting by eliminating the need to maintain an internal healthcare professional database, improving the overall accuracy of the data we report to CMS every year.” And if regulations change from CMS, like they often do, healthcare data organizations stay up to date, constantly publishing the latest information required so that your organization can stay ahead of HCP compliance issues.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information on how to manage your HCP spend data, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/the-essential-guide-to-open-payment-compliance">download our Essential Guide to Open Payments Compliance</a> or visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/life-sciences">Life Sciences Solutions website</a> to review additional materials including brochures, videos, and case studies.</p>
<div> </div>
Kyla Kent
Flight Centre Travel Group Expands use of Concur Compleat
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/flight-centre-travel-group-expands-use-concur-compleat
2019-01-10T09:01:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur our relationship with travel management companies TMCs is multifaceted and one important part of the relationship that we dont talk about as much is TMC automation which...
<p>At SAP Concur our relationship with travel management companies (TMCs) is multi-faceted, and one important part of the relationship that we don’t talk about as much is TMC automation, which includes things like file finishing (adding a billing code, department or other information to a reservation), quality control (such as double checking that the check-in date for your hotel matches the day your flight lands), and the ticketing process required by the GDS.</p>
<p>Our solution, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tmc-solutions/compleat">Concur Compleat</a>, is the industry’s leading provider of travel agency automation, responsible for providing these turnkey automation services to the world’s largest corporate agencies. The integration between <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> and Compleat improves the traveler booking experience with better seat selection and streamlined resolution of ticketing and form of payment failure resolution. In 2019 Compleat is expected to ticket over 120 million reservations. </p>
<p>In my job I’m fortunate to get to work closely with Flight Centre Travel Group (Flight Centre), one of the world’s largest travel agency groups with company-owned operations in 23 countries and a corporate travel management network that spans more than 90 countries. Flight Centre has been a valued partner of ours for over ten years, leveraging Compleat in the U.S. As a Platinum Partner, the use of Compleat by Flight Centre’s corporate travel management brand, FCM Travel Solutions, ensures that mutual Concur Travel clients have full access to the current and future points of integration between the two products.</p>
<p>Today we’re happy to <strong>announce an expanded partnership, which will enable Flight Centre to utilize Compleat globally and incorporate the services into new geographies and brands.</strong> Flight Centre expects to implement Compleat in all of the countries where FCM Travel Solutions does business. The expanded partnership is expected to at least triple the annual number of transactions Flight Centre processes through Compleat.</p>
<p>“We’re looking forward to growing our use of Compleat to new brands and countries. Flight Centre Travel Group is continuously growing and evolving. The partnership with SAP Concur and use of Compleat brings additional efficiency, responsiveness and cost reduction to our current operations. This platform lends itself to future innovation and integration with SAP Concur,” said John Morhous, Chief Experience Officer, corporate brands, Flight Centre Travel Group.</p>
<p>I’m excited for SAP Concur to be an important part of Flight Centre’s continued global growth and success. We look forward to continuing to evolve Compleat and add new integrations to help our TMC partners succeed.</p>
Learn Why Top CFOs Are Embracing Cloud Technology
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/learn-why-top-cfos-are-embracing-cloud-technology
2021-04-03T19:05:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This wont come as a surprise to anyone but effectively controlling spending is key to boosting performance and efficiency The surprise perhaps is how CFOs are doing it Or maybe we...
<p>This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but effectively controlling spending is key to boosting performance and efficiency. The surprise, perhaps, is how CFOs are doing it.</p>
<p>Or maybe we should say – how they’re doing it differently.</p>
<p>Oxford Economics, along with SAP, conducted a global survey of 1,500 finance executives to see what separates the leaders from the followers. The findings were collated into a research report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance" target="_blank">Oxford Economics Research: Effective Spending Management Boosts Performance</a>.</p>
<p>The report revealed that the best finance leaders usually have some, or all, of these six traits:</p>
<ol>
<li>They have strong influence beyond the finance function.</li>
<li>They drive strategic growth initiatives.</li>
<li>They improve efficiency with automation.</li>
<li>They are very effective at core finance processes.</li>
<li>They collaborate regularly with business units across the entire company.</li>
<li>They work closely with governance and are well-equipped to handle regulatory change.</li>
</ol>
<p>While all six traits are invaluable, automation seemed to stand out.</p>
<p>“Automation takes dreary, repetitive work away from staff, and the shareholder benefits because the organisation is more efficient," said David Craig, CFO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.</p>
<p>But you can’t have automation without embracing technology, and again, that’s what top CFOs are doing in earnest. In fact,<strong> 95% of CFOs consider cloud-based applications as critically or very important </strong>to successful financial performance.</p>
<p>So, if you’re still relying on legacy or paper-based systems, now is the time to make some changes to become a true finance leader.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance" target="_blank">Download the full report</a> to learn more.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Celebrates the 2019 Innovation Award Winners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-celebrates-2019-innovation-award-winners
2019-10-01T14:36:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each year at SAP Concur Fusion our annual conference that brings together SAP Concur customers partners and expertswe recognize a select group of bestrun businesses through our SAP...
<p>Each year at <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a>, our annual conference that brings together SAP Concur customers, partners, and experts—we recognize a select group of best-run businesses through our SAP Concur Innovation Awards. These customers push the boundaries of travel, expense and invoice solutions to make a meaningful impact on their employees, their business, and their communities—locally and globally.</p>
<p>This year, Mike and I had the honor of announcing our 2019 Innovation Award winners. We received 58 entries from customers spanning 11 countries across a variety of industries. These customers all had super inspiring and innovative solution stories to tell, from saving thousands to millions of dollars in business spend, to creating safer, more enjoyable travel experiences for their employees.</p>
<p>The five 2019 Innovation Award winners selected represent some of the best run organizations in their industries.They’ve driven automation and integration into travel, expense, and invoice processes. They’ve reimagined employee experiences and eliminated tedious tasks so their teams can work smarter. And they’ve developed new ways to sharpen visibility into spend, so their business can run better and employees can focus on what matters most. </p>
<p>I’m grateful to all our Innovation Award nominees for sharing their experiences. Their feedback and stories inspire us to relentlessly innovate to keep them running at their best. SAP Concur is honored to be their trusted partner.</p>
<p>Meet this year’s 2019 Innovation Award winners: </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Alteryx</strong>: By partnering with SAP Concur, the company eliminated manual processes and applied analytics to travel and expenses. In addition to saving hours every week, SAP Concur and app partner <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/alteryx-saves-time-simplifies-travel-and-expense-sap-concur">Rocketrip allowed Alteryx to save more than $130K on travel</a> within the last year. “The innovation we’re able to achieve now with SAP Concur is fantastic, and the solutions are simple, easy, and helps us all focus on doing what we do best,” said Libby Duane, Chief Customer Officer & Founder.</p>
<p><strong>Discovery: </strong>As the global leader in real-life entertainment, Discovery knows how important it is to adapt to the latest technology. Since adopting SAP Concur and TripLink, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/discovery-inc">the company has connected travel and expense in one solution</a>. And by integrating with brands like Uber and Airbnb, employees can now book directly with suppliers while staying in policy, and the company has full visibility into spend. “Having a connected travel ecosystem and access to critical data analysis from SAP Concur is critical to how we effectively manage our travel program,” said Yukari Catherine Tortorich, VP, Global Travel Service.</p>
<p><strong>George Washington University: </strong>GW aspires to change the world through the students it educates and the research it conducts. With Concur Expense, the university was able to move “from a paper-based system to state-of-the-art technology, providing improved controls and traceability,” said Darrell Darnell, Senior Associate VP for Safety and Security. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/george-washington-university">By simplifying travel and expense processes</a> and ensuring the safety of the university community across four international campuses, SAP Concur allows faculty and students to focus on teaching, learning, and making an impact. </p>
<p><strong>NEC:</strong> NEC is a global information technology provider, committed to improving lives and addressing societal problems through the power of digital technologies. "NEC was one of the first major Japanese companies to start ‘digital transformation’ by using one of the most advanced approaches in the Japanese market for travel and expense: SAP Concur,” said Kenichi Sugamuta, Executive VP and Personnel Services Division General Manager. Since implementing SAP Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/nec-achieves-cost-savings-and-compliance">NEC has reduced time spent on travel and expense management by 40%</a>, which translates to approximately 200 million yen ($1.8M USD) per year. By saving time and cutting costs, the company is able to deliver on its promise of "Better Products, Better Services."</p>
<p><strong>RED</strong>: RED is a leading global staffing organization with a mission to become the talent provider for the entire SAP ecosystem. “Because we can get a complete understanding of what we’re spending our money on,” said Luke Braham, Head of Technology Operations, “we were able to access <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/red-gains-insights-visibility-travel-and-expense">SAP Concur intelligence data to realize more than a 20% savings per year</a> on taxi services, simply by introducing Uber for Business.” This is one example of how access to better data and insights helped RED rethink their policies and innovate to better meet key business goals.</p>
<p>Watch for more stories about these amazing customers on our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom">SAP Concur Newsroom</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
How to Plug Skills Shortages in Your Finance Department
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-plug-skills-shortages-your-finance-department
2019-08-21T13:57:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
UK finance departments are facing a problem Many dont have enough of the right staff in place Six in ten chief financial officers CFOs at UK companies said that they expected to have...
<p>UK finance departments are facing a problem. Many don't have enough of the right staff in place.</p>
<p>Six in ten chief financial officers (CFOs) at UK companies said that they expected to have skills shortages, according to <a href="https://blog.totaljobs.com/over-60-of-accounting-and-finance-employers-expect-a-skills-shortage" target="_blank">research</a> published in August 2018 by recruitment company Robert Walters. Eight in ten of the CFOs surveyed said they expected their finance teams’ workloads to increase.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/11347-0.jpg?itok=U4D03hDJ" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How Finance Leaders Can Deliver Business Intelligence</h2>
<p>Help free employees from expense, travel, and invoice tasks so they can unlock new growth opportunities.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-how-can-finance-leaders-deliver-intelligence-across-business">Get the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The finance skills most in demand were analysis (38%), business partnering (36%) and financial reporting (29%), according to the survey of almost 1,000 UK accounting and finance professionals. Respondents said that technical “certifications” were more important than experience in accounting and finance.</p>
<p>Over half of employers questioned (53%) said that <a href="https://blog.totaljobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Solving-the-UK-Skills-Shortage-Accounting-and-Finance.pdf" target="_blank">ACA/ICAS was the most important technical qualification</a>, followed by ACCA and CIMA.</p>
<p>So how can finance leaders plug the gap in their skills shortages and ensure they have the right qualified members on their team?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Interim Solutions</h2>
<p>Interim staff can help plug skills gaps in your finance department.</p>
<p>Norman Broadbent, an executive search company, said that demand for interim chief financial officers (CFOs) <a href="https://www.normanbroadbent.com/2018/06/27/interim-cfo-market-high-demand-seen-h1-2018/" target="_blank">increased by 69%</a> in the first half of 2018, compared to the same period a year earlier.</p>
<p>Digital transformation projects and geo-political upheavals, such as Brexit, were increasing demand for interim CFOs and senior finance professionals, the company said. This demand was seen in companies of all sizes.</p>
<p>The variety of work and experience involved in being an interim FDs is a plus. Being an interim FD can strengthen a CV and make it easier to return to full-time FD roles, or other board functions.</p>
<p>Cloud technology can make being an interim FD easier by providing access to IT systems and tools when out of the office and on the go. Technology like video conferencing and calls can also replace face-to-face meetings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Perks of the Job</h2>
<p>Another trend we see emerging is that amid a shortage of finance staff, candidates are becoming more demanding. They’re able to ask for higher salaries and be pickier about the work they accept.</p>
<p>Some companies are offering new perks to attracts the best candidates, especially among younger workers. For example, some companies are letting staff choose what hours they work (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45353786" target="_blank">new recruits to PwC can choose what hours they work</a>) free food, generous parental leave and trendy <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-companies-are-creating-their-own-coworking-spaces" target="_blank">shared work spaces</a>, rather than soulless office cubicles.</p>
<p>Companies are using shared workspaces to encourage staff to interact more, boost team spirit and make workers feel more motivated and inspired.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation</h2>
<p>It’s not just offices that are changing. So is the type of work in all levels of finance and accounting. Accountants and finance teams need to be business analysts, project managers, comfortable with the latest technology and have good “soft skills” too (for example, communication skills, empathy, leadership and team work).</p>
<p>After years of training, newly qualified accountants and finance staff don’t want to spend most of their jobs capturing data and filling in forms. If finance staff feel unmotivated, staff morale will fall and your staff turnover may increase.</p>
<p>Higher salaries and staff turnover increase costs for businesses in a number of ways. There’s the training and recruitment factors to consider for starters. So, how can finance leaders keep turnover to a minimum?</p>
<p>Technologies such as mobile apps, machine learning and AI can reduce the drudgery from finance jobs by eliminating paperwork for administrative tasks such as expenses and invoices.</p>
<p>Little changes like this can improve staff morale. It can also mean that finance staff spend more time on interesting work, such as analysing business performance and planning strategy.</p>
<p>For many businesses, it’s early days for co-working, AI and choose-your-own hours. But finance departments that ignore these trends in recruitment and working are likely to regret it. They may struggle to attract the best finance staff and see their staff turnover increase as unmotivated workers leave for companies offering better terms and conditions.</p>
To Be a Leader, Put People First, Your Position Second, and Pride Last
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/be-leader-put-people-first-your-position-second-and-pride-last
2019-09-17T02:38:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Asian culture is very big on tradition Sometimes its harmless but sometimes its not And there is one tradition I absolutely do not agree with in the office topdown hierarchy This...
<p data-id="c9c246ed-e15f-463a-9506-f82d1d1fa51d">Asian culture is very big on tradition. Sometimes it’s harmless, but sometimes it’s not. And there is one tradition I absolutely do not agree with in the office: top-down hierarchy.</p>
<p data-id="c9c246ed-e15f-463a-9506-f82d1d1fa51d"> </p>
<p data-id="d5bd805a-d7ac-416b-bce6-6284aadaafda">This tradition has many names: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/guanxi-mianzi-impact-culture-doing-business-asia-li-tony-li/" target="_blank">guanxi</a>, “giving face”, even the euphemistic “respect for elders.” Frankly, I don’t see the point in the workplace. Within your business, be mindful of tradition, but also be aware of where it detracts rather than adds value. Just because I am older than most of my team doesn’t mean I am by default any wiser. In fact, it probably implies I should be learning as much as I can from them.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1556667468289-nsbw_ebook_automating_recipe_growth_cover.PNG" /></div>
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<h2>Automating Financial Processes: A Recipe for Wellness and Growth</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">Read the eBook</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p data-id="d5bd805a-d7ac-416b-bce6-6284aadaafda"> </p>
<p data-id="b577d990-7f5d-4b2e-bb47-e68dfbd2fb21">I would attribute the success and vibrancy of SAP Concur in Southeast Asia to our blatant disregard for traditional hierarchy. I’m proud of it, and I actively cultivate it at every opportunity that I can. This counter-cultural approach to management is not my own idea: I learned it from how various mentors of mine also encouraged their teams to speak up, be honest, and treat everyone no matter their “rank” with respect and compassion. Here are a few tricks to make this nontraditional approach to management work:</p>
<p data-id="b577d990-7f5d-4b2e-bb47-e68dfbd2fb21"> </p>
<h2>1. Treat your people like people</h2>
<p data-id="45e7dc0b-1638-4eef-9eb6-0e3e055b0f52">A collaborative non-hierarchical environment, promotes putting <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/07/01/how-a-people-first-culture-is-changing-how-leaders-manage-employees/#2048f32b2c87" target="_blank">people first</a>, and position second. This strengthens an organization with trusting, mature, and inspired employees. Take each opportunity to interact with everyone within your business – especially your juniors – to foster a healthy respectful, open minded culture. This is not hard to do, either. The simplest way is to ask everyone from the most junior staff to your top leaders “how are you?” when you arrive at work – and take the time to genuinely listen to their answer. Set the example, and others will catch on.</p>
<p data-id="45e7dc0b-1638-4eef-9eb6-0e3e055b0f52"> </p>
<h2 data-id="9a77e64c-ee84-4a40-a271-b39ec025c437">2. Encourage real conversations</h2>
<p data-id="6652dc2b-f1b3-4765-9592-9ac067dd8b8b">Honest, candid conversations with my people, where they can express not only what they think but also how they feel, are priceless. In Asia, we tend to gloss over our feelings and emotions because they either make us vulnerable or they’re not deemed “useful.” But we need to acknowledge them if we want to build healthy workplaces free of politicking, personal agendas, and other wastes of time. One way I try to encourage this is by testing my thoughts and plans with not just my top leadership, but even junior staff who may not feel as empowered to speak their minds. Doing so sends a clear message that everyone’s opinion has value, and that you shouldn’t think you’re above listening to others because of your job title.</p>
<p data-id="6652dc2b-f1b3-4765-9592-9ac067dd8b8b"> </p>
<h2 data-id="42ef104f-b198-49b0-a25a-310ebbc27e7a">3. Take the pressure off</h2>
<p data-id="d7e422ad-1596-47c0-82d7-1b019ad67937">Often in traditional hierarchies, the leader at the top puts pressure on those below to perform. From my experience, it should be the leader’s role to shield their people from unnecessary pressure – so that they can perform to the best of their ability. In the SAP Concur team, we have a WhatsApp group where anyone can ask questions or request help on certain things, even personal ones. Others will quickly step in to assist and take the pressure off. Sometimes, I find myself lending a hand with things I’m not even that familiar with! But it all starts with how we as leaders model that sort of behavior to those around us.</p>
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<p data-id="f12e9f5b-9734-49af-bb61-9907055874a5">When we let people be themselves, and align who they are to our bigger goals as an organization, we see them reach their full potential. Start from emptying the workplace of ego – beginning with yourself. If there’s one thing business leaders might learn from our success at SAP Concur, I would say it’s this: put your people first, their positions second, and your pride last</p>
How Digital Transformation is Impacting Travel Managers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-digital-transformation-impacting-travel-managers
2020-01-13T08:19:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As innovation and technology continue to disrupt nearly every aspect of an organization the Global Business Travel Association GBTA and SAP Concur have partnered to explore the impact...
<p>As innovation and technology continue to disrupt nearly every aspect of an organization, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and SAP Concur have partnered</a> to explore the impact this is having on corporate travel management. Our recent poll reveals interesting insights on the evolution of the role of the travel manager in a world of digital disruption.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>SAP Concur and GBTA Survey: The Evolution of Corporate Travel Content</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Digital transformation, like the emergence of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ndc-in-the-corporate-space-and-concur-travel" target="_blank">New Distribution Capability (NDC)</a>, continues to influence employee experiences and travel program management and, one key result is the responsibilities of a travel manager are shifting. Rather than primarily managing people and policies, travel managers are spending increased time overseeing the technology enabling business modern travel management.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at some of the results of the poll and main takeaways:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel managers are confident online booking tool (OBT) use will increase.</h2>
<ul>
<li>72 percent expect bookings made through their OBT will increase in the next three years, with only 4 percent believing OBT use will decrease during that time.</li>
<li>In contrast, four in ten expect bookings made directly through airline (40 percent) or hotel websites (38 percent) to decrease.</li>
<li>It’s not surprising to see travel managers confident that their OBT use will increase, and as an OBT provider we’re happy to see that confidence in and commitment to the OBT channel.</li>
<li>It’s also not a surprise to see travel managers less bullish about supplier direct bookings. However, we continue to encourage travel managers to pursue increased visibility and transparency in their managed travel program, regardless of where travel originates.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>At the same time, travel managers are taking steps to incorporate more content and technology into their managed travel programs.</h2>
<ul>
<li>NDC is on the rise – more than half (58 percent) of travel managers either already have (12 percent) or expect to include NDC bookings (46 percent) in their managed travel program within the next year.</li>
<li>One-third (34 percent) of travel managers currently incorporate supplier direct bookings, and another one-third (37 percent) plan to have this integration within the next year.</li>
<li>Almost half (46 percent) already have direct connect bookings as part of their managed travel program today, and another 20 percent plan to add them in the next year.</li>
<li>Travel managers can use changes to technology and content to their advantage to draw more travelers toward policy compliance, provide better traveler care, contain program costs, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-invisible-bookings-impact-travel-program" target="_blank">reduce invisible spend</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel managers plan to try to avoid changing fee structures such as increased airline fees for bookings made via travel management company (TMC) and global distribution system (GDS) channels</h2>
<ul>
<li>One-half (51 percent) plan to attempt to negotiate away such fees, while 30 percent would seek to implement alternative sources without fees.</li>
<li>Only 12 percent say they would pay the additional fees.</li>
<li>Travel managers should keep a close eye on technology innovations in the industry and think about which partners can help them avoid increased fees in a way that provides more transparency in to all bookings to better fit their needs.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Most travel managers collaborate with their TMC to make configuration changes to their OBT, but the majority do not review configuration settings regularly</h2>
<ul>
<li>57 percent of travel managers say their TMC is responsible for making OBT configuration changes, but only with explicit direction from the travel manager.</li>
<li>Despite the previously mentioned confidence that OBT bookings will continue to increase, OBT configuration changes don’t happen regularly.</li>
<li>A majority of travel managers say OBT configuration changes are made on an as-needed basis, such as when there are traveler complaints that require review (42 percent) or when major changes occur like changes to suppliers or policy (11 percent).</li>
<li>For travel managers who want to see their OBT use increase, it’s even more important for them to stay on top of and understand enhancements and improvements to the OBT which can help increase usage among their travelers.</li>
</ul>
<p>These takeaways point to a larger trend - travel managers today, in their increasingly challenging roles, are embracing new technologies to better meet the needs of their travelers and company policies.</p>
<p>Irrespective of which OBT a company uses, we hope their technology provider and TMC partners can provide guidance and support to help travel managers understand all the features the OBT offers and which functionality can help increase transparency, visibility, and compliance in a fast-moving industry.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>More About the Poll</h2>
<p>The poll, a collaboration between GBTA and SAP Concur, gathered responses from 226 travel managers and buyers to learn more about the effects of the emergence of new business travel technology – what managed travel programs currently look like, how programs are changing, how travel managers expect their programs to evolve in the future, and more. To learn more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content">check out our executive summary</a> with a deeper dive into the poll.</p>
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Ralph Colunga
Why Fraud Examiners Think AI and ML Should Be Used in Company Travel & Expense Programs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-fraud-examiners-think-ai-and-ml-should-be-used-company-travel-expense-programs
2019-09-04T18:23:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Teams are more strategic with AI and ML The sheer volume of travel and expense TE spending means keeping up with expenses can be overwhelming and create an opening for fraud in your...
<h2>Teams are more strategic with AI and ML</h2>
<p>The sheer volume of travel and expense (T&E) spending means keeping up with expenses can be overwhelming, and create an opening for fraud in your organization. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)</a> are tools that members of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) agree should be used in T&E programs to help combat organizational fraud. In fact, <strong>more than two-thirds (80%) of members</strong> revealed during an ACFE webcast association poll on August 12 that AI and ML should be utilized.</p>
<p>“Many feel you shouldn’t identify fraud the same way it was done 30 years ago. Robots make it easier,” says Connie Hoen, Program Director of Growth & Strategy and Extended Services at SAP Concur. “Some are shifting resources from searching for issues to analyzing issues using AI and ML which helps reduce cost and duration of fraud research.”</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_SecurityIncidentServers_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Tips for Identifying T&E Fraud</h2>
<p>Catch our on-demand webinar with ACFE to learn how to make your fraud management practices best-in-class. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/acfe-webinar-tips-for-identifying-travel-entertainment-expense-fraud">Watch now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Leaning on this technology enables in-house or outsourced audit teams to focus on remediating issues and creating best practices. Spending more time in these strategic areas will benefit organizations, especially since employees are spending an increasing amount of money spread across more spend categories, and using more payment methods than ever before. “Fraudsters use multiple means to steal and pull off their schemes and many <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/new-age-fraud-preventing-fraud-across-employee-spend-areas" target="_blank">fraudsters attack the company</a> from multiple angles,” says Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, and Director of Research for the ACFE.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Using T&E data for fraud investigations</h2>
<p>Certified Fraud Examiner, Kellie Lintner, CIA and CPA from Ford Motor Company, recommends organizations always do an expense report review for every individual fraud investigation. If someone is doing one fraudulent act in one area of the business, he or she is most likely cheating on expense reports as well. Having reliable, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/new-age-fraud-preventing-fraud-across-employee-spend-areas" target="_blank">accessible data on hand</a> to pull in further evidence is critical for investigators. This data also comes in handy for departmental investigations.</p>
<p>Yet, <strong>fewer</strong><strong> </strong>than half (41%) of ACFE members are using T&E data as part of their individual or departmental investigations all the time or often. And a large majority (59%) of members may only be using this data sometimes or never because their organization doesn’t have the proper reporting or means to easily share and analyze data across multiple departments. The sheer volume of data that stems from employee-related travel and entertainment expenses can be overwhelming, especially when there is a lack of audit oversight or viable reports that others can use.</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1567525028938-updated-acfe-2019-3.png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1567525028938-updated-acfe-2019-3.png" /> </a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Policy: A formal document or a guideline? </h2>
<p>Many would agree that preventing fraud often starts with the organization’s policy. However, holding employees accountable to the policy can get complicated internally, especially when the fraud is found to be intentional. Companies need to determine if the policy is really a formal document or simply a guideline. An organization’s appetite for risk, as well as its culture often determines this.</p>
<p>Nearly all ACFE members (93%) felt that a policy should be considered as a formal document that holds employees responsible with consequences. Only a handful (7%) considered it more of like a “guideline” with employees sometimes being held accountable with some consequences.</p>
<p>Many clients come up with various ways to penalize and educate employees who commit travel or expense fraud. Some have a “three strikes you’re out” policy while others leave it to the direct report’s manager to come up with the consequences. At times, human resources, legal, or compliance will intervene, especially when it’s a high dollar expense.</p>
<p>Curious to learn more? <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact?pid=direct&cid=ACFEwebinar" target="_blank">Contact us</a> to see how SAP Concur helps companies prevent and detect fraud or view more of our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud" target="_blank">solutions here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
Erin Giordano
Business Travelers Can Make a Bigger Environmental Impact
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travelers-can-make-bigger-environmental-impact
2019-10-29T08:51:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As awareness of sustainability issues grow many organizations have taken greater steps to control and manage their environmental footprint Business travel remains a weak link in many...
<p>As awareness of sustainability issues grow, many organizations have taken greater steps to control and manage their environmental footprint. Business travel remains a weak link in many firms’ efforts to make an impact in this area.</p>
<p>Business travel decisions are almost always optimized for cost and time efficiency, not environmental sustainability. Travel bookings and subsequent expense claim processes today remain paper-based in many organisations.</p>
<p>Few travelers are aware that rail is a much more efficient mode of travel than airplanes, and actively include rail travel in their itinerary. In Asia, China and Japan have embraced train travel in business travel, particularly for congested routes, due to infrastructure and costing. The Belt-and-Road initiative for the region, and discussions for India as well as potential enhancement to the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore line may open up more options for travelers in the future.</p>
<p>When renting cars, not many businesses point employees to environmentally friendly rental companies or car models. When flying, many travelers chose their flights based on cost, timing, or proximity of airports. Perhaps it is time for companies, through their travel management and booking systems, to give staff an option of choosing flights based on emissions?</p>
<p>In some cases, there is even the option of not travelling completely. Trips between corporate offices comprise a significant portion of business travel. Some travel apps allow organizations that have invested in video conferencing, for instance the SAP group of companies, to inform staff of this option during their travel booking process.</p>
<p>Thoughtful capabilities like the above help firms meet their environmental obligations.</p>
<p>With regard to paper use, in particular, modern expense and invoicing solutions have progressed to a point where no employee need to print out paper-based forms, or attach paper receipts or paper invoices, to file their claims. But this is far from the scenario in many offices today. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">The Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM)</a> found that the average business receives 63% of its invoices as paper. Sixty-two percent of businesses surveyed by IOFM say that they manually handle more than 75% of the invoices they receive as paper. Beyond the fact that manually processing paper invoices results in error-prone keying of invoice information, misplaced invoices, long approval and exception resolution cycles, compliance and security risks, moving to an automated system would greatly free up finance professionals’ time for more strategic work.</p>
<p>A study by the research firm APQC also shows that the average finance worker spends <a href="http://ww2.cfo.com/budgeting/2015/12/metric-month-finance-people-spend-time/" target="_blank">49% of his time processing transactions</a>, which equates to roughly half his day filling out forms and dealing with invoices.</p>
<p>Today, mobile and web-based apps can automate and accelerate expense management from start to finish. Besides bypassing manual, paper-driven processes, such systems provide a seamless flow of data to give CFOs and finance managers a new level of control over and visibility into business expenses. They also help companies become more productive and compliant.</p>
<p>The benefits accrue to employees too.</p>
<p>SAP Concur’s mobile apps and machine learning powered tools, for instance, enables employees to spend 49% less time on travel planning, and 70% less time on expense reports.</p>
<p>Such solutions can also help to organize and manage business travel. They can automatically populate expense claims using electronic receipts from airline, hotel, restaurant and ground transportation companies. They also allow employees to do virtual submission of receipts by taking pictures of those receipts with their mobile phones and uploading them from anywhere.</p>
<p>For business travelers, this means no more compiling expenses at the end of a trip, no more retention of paper receipts, and most importantly every traveler would save hours of time per month that could be channeled into productive work for the company.</p>
<p>To quote a real-life example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcmgAasOMvo">NEC</a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/nec-achieves-cost-savings-and-compliance"> tapped SAP Concur</a> as part of its digital transformation exercise, and reduced time spent on T&E management by 40%. This translated to substantial savings of about $1.8 million per year.</p>
<p>So for firms wanting to transform their business and conserve the environment at the same time, there’s no better way than smart digitization and some technology-enabled assistance to give employees a leg-up. </p>
Andy Watson
Lufthansa now integrated in Concur TripLink
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lufthansa-now-integrated-concur-triplink
2019-11-25T08:42:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The booking of Lufthansa flights with SAP Concur is now even more flexible and transparent With the integration of Lufthansa in Concur TripLink activated today corporate bookings made...
<p>The booking of Lufthansa flights with SAP Concur is now even more flexible and transparent: With the integration of Lufthansa in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> activated today, corporate bookings made by business travellers directly on <a href="http://lufthansa.com/" target="_blank">Lufthansa.com</a> or via the Lufthansa App are automatically synced with SAP Concur, giving companies more visibility into corporate bookings to support <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-duty-of-care">duty of care</a> and manage costs. This requires travellers to link their Miles & More and SAP Concur accounts to activate.</p>
<p>The Lufthansa and Concur TripLink integration makes travel and expensing easier by synchronising with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel and Expense</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">Concur Mobile</a> and TripIt Pro. As part of the integration travellers will have access to company negotiated fares on Lufthansa.com for their corporate trips.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Integration with just a few clicks: Important steps for travel managers</h2>
<p>Before business travellers can sync their Miles & More and Concur accounts, their employers or the intermediary travel management company (TMC) must first activate TripLink and load the company rate code into SAP Concur. Business travel agencies or companies enter the LHG CLID /CUG (Client Identifier /Closed User Group) details into the SAP Concur system via the field "TripLink Discount Code". They receive the corresponding code via their Lufthansa Group Account Manager on request.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1574699738932-lh-go-live-1-final.jpg" />
<p> </p>
<h2>How business travelers connect their accounts</h2>
<p>When a traveller logs into Lufthansa.com with their Miles & More number, Lufthansa authenticates the traveller with SAP Concur. This allows the employee the option to choose the corporate booking path. For this to work, users must connect their Miles & More and Concur accounts just one time. Travellers have a few options to connect their accounts:</p>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://www.concur.de/app-center/listings/560c29ba34857ae301684cee">My Travel Network</a> in the SAP Concur App Center</li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5b36796832b2a810006cefad">Lufthansa App</a> in the SAP Concur App Center</li>
<li>Their <a href="https://www.concursolutions.com/profile/personalprofile.asp?">Concur Travel</a> profile via Profile >> Profile settings >> Personal details and scroll down to travel preferences.</li>
</ul>
<p>After confirmation of the General Terms and Conditions, users will receive a connection confirmation e-mail from SAP Concur, as well as a personalised welcome e-mail from Lufthansa.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1574699781105-lh-go-live-2.jpg" />
<p> </p>
<h2>User-friendly booking</h2>
<p>Once the connection is established, users can book on Lufthansa's website at any time. It is important to select “Corporate Travel” for business trips. This selection will send the travel down the corporate booking path.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1574699799898-lh-go-live-3.jpg" />
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1574699817719-lh-go-live-4-jpg.png" />
<p> </p>
<p>After booking, users receive a confirmation on the Lufthansa confirmation page that the trip was synced with SAP Concur. The booking is immediately visible in Concur Travel, the Concur Mobile App and TripIt Pro. If users also use Concur Expense, the e-receipt is automatically created in Concur Expense.</p>
<p>Cancellations on Lufthansa.com are also automatically synchronised with SAP Concur solutions.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Workplace Distractions and the Multitasking Myth Hurt Employee Productivity and Focus
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-workplace-distractions-and-multitasking-myth-hurt-employee-productivity-and-focus
2020-09-13T04:24:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Work collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams were supposed to help us reduce time spent on unnecessary emails However according to the Adobe Email Usage Study employees...
<p>Work collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams were supposed to help us reduce time spent on unnecessary emails. However, according to the 2019 <a href="https://cmo.adobe.com/articles/2019/9/if-you-think-email-is-dead--think-again.html#gs.p74kas" target="_blank">Adobe Email Usage Study</a>, employees still spend an average of 209 minutes – three and a half hours – each day checking email. While that’s down from 256 minutes in 2016, it seems that collaborative apps aren’t replacing email, but simply adding yet another layer of distraction during our workday.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.briansolis.com/">Brian Solis</a>, a leading digital analyst and best-selling author of the new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119535867">Lifescale: How to Live a More Creative, Productive and Happy Life</a>, studies enterprise and consumer technologies to understand their impact on businesses, markets, and society. Below, he shares his insights on digital distractions and what we can do to make technology work for us rather than against us.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Distracting by design</h2>
<p>We live in an era of unprecedented access to information and people via technology. And that has come without life lessons, a manual, or training. As a result, it has created a free-for-all. It’s instant. It's gratuitous. It's validating. It's informative. It's also, among all of those things, if left unchecked, incredibly distracting – and it’s distracting by design.</p>
<p>If we look at our social networks or digital games, attention is a currency. The designers behind these apps must grab and hold as much attention as possible, while constantly finding new ways to stoke it so that the existing experiences don't tire consumers. Everything – from the like button and notifications to how those notifications appear to introducing new types of sharing mechanisms – have all been designed to create a sense of urgency and constant feedback.</p>
<p>It’s called persuasive design. And much of it has been practiced without understanding its long-term intellectual, emotional, and psychological effects. This design has changed the behaviors of users, and people are literally becoming addicted to these experiences.</p>
<p>With the consumerization of technology, workplace apps are replicating what we use in our personal lives, causing the same distractions. One great example is Slack and similar team collaboration tools. In many company cultures, these collaboration tools are a real-time communication system, ironically used to thwart the dependency on email communication. But what we actually see is the same type of phenomenon we see with Facebook or Instagram. It’s constantly pulling you and making you feel that you need to be present in that system or you're missing out. That pressure to be present exists at the expense of doing the other things that require a deeper form of focus or work. This can cause real anxiety, stress, and pressure that's unaddressed and maybe even undiagnosed by the individual – and definitely undiagnosed by managers and executives within the organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The myth of multitasking</h2>
<p>There are studies that show that we receive up to 200 notifications a day, and we’re programmed to look at them in real-time without considering the effects of disengaging from a concentrated task. Switching between tasks is estimated to cause loss of upwards of two hours or more per day in the workday. There are some studies that show that when working on a deep project, it might take as long as 23 minutes to get back into that focused state after engaging in a distraction.</p>
<p>Your brain then learns how to think and operate this way. We call it multitasking, but it’s really task-switching. It takes chemicals inside of your brain to do these tasks, and by repeatedly switching tasks – even to glance at a single email or chat message – you deplete them over time. Task-switching doesn’t allow for true depth and focus, and you find yourself working on projects and tasks far longer than you used to or completing deeper work after hours when distractions are fewer.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Business leadership needs to recognize there's a problem</h2>
<p>If businesses want to take the problem seriously, they need to recognize the cost to the bottom line. It's a simple matter of math. Here are a few examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-social-economy" target="_blank">McKinsey & Co.</a> found that highly skilled workers spend 28% of their day reading and replying to email, and that doesn’t include social media distractions.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.managementstudyguide.com/economic-effects-of-digital-distractions.htm" target="_blank">The Economist</a> reports that workers logging into social media costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year, or $4,500 for each worker.</li>
<li>Finally, the <a href="https://iorgforum.org/" target="_blank">Information Overload Research Group</a> reports that knowledge workers lose about 25% of their workday dealing with the constant stream of data.</li>
</ul>
<p>When you can bring the conversation to Profit and Loss, then certainly there will be attention paid. Leadership has to start to audit analytically. It can begin by asking questions. What is the state of the organization? Is this a problem? Should we start having employee interviews to look at what their morale is like and what their employee experience is like?</p>
<p>It is going to require a culture change. But the problem first has to be diagnosed. Yet, this isn’t happening because these conversations aren’t happening. Many employers simply don’t want to admit that there’s a problem. One of the reasons I wrote my book Lifescale was to help bring awareness to the problem and show that it requires a significant investment of time and resources to solve. <br />
</p>
<h2>The answer lies within us </h2>
<p>The solution isn't as simple as using technology less, turning off notifications, deleting apps, or conducting a digital detox. I wrote my book to demonstrate a human solution to the problem: rethinking where you are and where you want to be, and then connecting the dots of getting to your vision and your purpose. Your daily technology use should empower that move and that change. Instead of letting technology dictate how we go through the day, we dictate how we go through the day – and how technology helps us do that.</p>
<p>This can be done in our work lives, as well as our personal lives. If your organization’s employees aren’t focused on the meaningful work that contributes to the vision of your company, but are instead drowning in emails, meetings, and chat notifications, it may be time to address the problem of distraction in your workplace.</p>
<p>Technology that simplifies workplace tasks can help relieve the problem of distraction, rather than add to it. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/travel" target="_blank">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> help automate travel and expense tracking and reporting, creating a better employee experience. With technology that automatically syncs travel itineraries, expense policies, and digitally captures receipts on the go, travelers can quickly and easily complete expense reports for less distractions while in the office or on the road.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Brian Solis is world-renowned digital analyst, author, and keynote speaker. Brian’s research, advisory, and presentations humanize the relationship between disruptive innovation and its impact on institutions, markets, and societies. Brian has advised leading brands and startups. He’s a regular contributor to leading business and industry publications including Forbes, Harvard Business Review, CMO.com, TheNextWeb, and Adweek. His work is followed by more than 700,000 people across social media.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Links to COVID-19 Business Assistance Programs in Every State
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/links-covid-19-business-assistance-programs-every-state
2020-05-31T11:38:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Businesses across the world are being impacted by COIVD and the internet has a wealth of information and misinformation for business leaders To help understand the resources available...
<p>Businesses across the world are being impacted by COIVD-19 and the internet has a wealth of information and misinformation for business leaders. To help understand the resources available to you, your business, and your employees, explore the links below.</p>
<p>At the national level you can go to the <a href="https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources">U.S. Small Business Administration</a> site to learn about the economic disaster loan program that provides small businesses with working capital loans of up to $2 million. On the SBA site you can also find information for businesses on how to plan and respond to COVID-19.</p>
<p>Most states and cities have also created small business assistance programs. We have done our best to wade through all the data for you and provide links to COVID-19 resources for each state.</p>
<p>Many businesses have multiple options for assistance. The pages we have linked to below often times have hotlines you can call for no-cost guidance to help you find the best option for your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<table class="tg">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th class="tg-0pky"><a href="https://governor.alabama.gov/newsroom/2020/03/gov-ivey-alabama-small-businesses-can-seek-sba-covid-19-disaster-loans/">Alabama</a></th>
<th class="tg-0pky"><a href="https://aksbdc.org/covid19/">Alaska</a></th>
<th class="tg-0pky"><a href="https://ein.az.gov/emergency-information/emergency-bulletin/sba-offers-disaster-assistance-arizona-small-businesses">Arizona</a></th>
<th class="tg-0pky"><a href="http://asbtdc.org/covid-19-resources/">Arkansas</a></th>
<th class="tg-0lax"><a href="https://business.ca.gov/coronavirus-2019/">California</a></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://choosecolorado.com/covid19/">Colorado</a>
<a href="https://ctsbdc.com/covid19-businessresourcecenter/">Connecticut</a>
<a href="https://coronavirus.delaware.gov/resources-for-businesses/">Delaware</a>
<a href="http://floridasbdc.org/disaster/">Florida</a>
<a href="https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-businesses-and-employers">Georgia</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://covid19.cochawaii.org/government-resources/">Hawaii</a>
<a href="https://commerce.idaho.gov/covid-19/">Idaho</a>
<a href="https://www2.illinois.gov/dceo/SmallBizAssistance/Pages/Coronavirus-Disease-2019-(COVID-19)-Information-for-Small-Business.aspx">Illinois</a>
<a href="https://isbdc.org/indianacovid19smallbusiness/">Indiana</a>
<a href="http://iowasbdc.org/covid-19/">Iowa</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://www.kansascommerce.gov/covid-19-response/">Kansas</a>
<a href="https://www.ksbdc.org/coronavirus">Kentucky</a>
<a href="https://www.opportunitylouisiana.com/covid19">Louisiana</a>
<a href="https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/covid-19">Maine</a>
<a href="https://govstatus.egov.com/md-coronavirus-business">Maryland</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-resources-and-guidance-for-businesses">Massachusetts</a>
<a href="https://www.michiganbusiness.org/about-medc/covid19/">Michigan</a>
<a href="https://www.mnchamber.com/blog/covid-19-business-toolkit">Minnesota</a>
<a href="http://www.mssbdc.org/resources/business_resilience_information">Mississippi</a>
<a href="https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/health/communicable-disease/covid-19/economic-recovery/">Missouri</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="http://dli.mt.gov/employer-covid-19">Montana</a>
<a href="https://www.nechamber.com/coronavirus-update.html">Nebraska</a>
<a href="https://www.mynevadacounty.com/2927/Coronavirus-Guidance-for-BusinessesEmplo">Nevada</a>
<a href="https://businesshelp.nheconomy.com/hc/en-us">New Hampshire</a>
<a href="https://www.nj.gov/labor/employer-services/business/covid.shtml">New Jersey</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="http://www.nmsbdc.org/">New Mexico</a>
<a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/sbs/businesses/covid19-business-outreach.page">New York</a>
<a href="https://edpnc.com/nc-business-relief-resources-covid-19/">North Carolina</a>
<a href="https://www.ndchamber.com/covid19">North Dakota</a>
<a href="https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/home">Ohio</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://www.okcommerce.gov/covid19/">Oklahoma</a>
<a href="https://bizcenter.org/covid-19/">Oregon</a>
<a href="https://www.pachamber.org/coronavirus/">Pennsylvania</a>
<a href="https://commerceri.com/covid-19/">Rhode Island</a>
<a href="https://www.sccommerce.com/sba-assistance-during-covid-19">South Carolina</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://dlr.sd.gov/covid_19_resources.aspx">South Dakota</a>
<a href="https://www.tn.gov/ecd/covid-19-small-business-resources.html">Tennessee</a>
<a href="https://gov.texas.gov/business/page/coronavirus">Texas</a>
<a href="https://business.utah.gov/news/utah-offers-small-businesses-assistance-amid-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic/">Utah</a>
<a href="https://accd.vermont.gov/about-us/disaster-planning/covid-19-guidance-vermont-businesses">Vermont</a>
</tr>
<tr>
<a href="https://www.vachamber.com/covid-19/">Virginia</a>
<a href="https://www.business.wa.gov/site/alias__business/1561/covid-19.aspx">Washington</a>
<a href="https://www.nfib.com/content/news/coronavirus-state/covid-19-updates-resources-for-wv-small-businesses/">West Virginia</a>
<a href="https://wedc.org/programs-and-resources/covid-19-response/">Wisconsin</a>
<a href="https://www.wyomingsbdc.org/covid19/">Wyoming</a>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>Learn more: </h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-companies-can-prepare-for-the-future-of-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/keeping-employees-connected-motivated-supported-work-from-home">Keeping Employees Connected, Motivated and Supported In a Work-From-Home World</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travel-new-normal-what-to-expect-how-to-get-ready">The “New Normal” of Business Travel: What to Expect and How to Get Ready</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Driving FCPA Compliance Globally
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/driving-fcpa-compliance-globally
2020-06-15T09:46:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
An overwhelming majority of companies reported that they could be doing more to mitigate against bribery risks by reconfiguring their expense processes procedures or tools How mature...
<p>An overwhelming majority of companies (83%) reported that they could be doing more to mitigate against bribery risks by reconfiguring their expense processes, procedures, or tools. How mature is your company’s approach?</p>
<p>This will be explored on June 23 during the <a href="http://go.concur.com/062320_NB_FCPApt2__RegistrationPage.html" target="_blank">Strategies for Minimizing Bribery & FCPA Risks Webinar: Part 2</a>.</p>
<p>According to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) expert <a href="http://fcpaprofessor.com/corporate-fcpa-enforcement-2019-compared-prior-years/" target="_blank">Mike Koehler</a> featured in the part one webinar on this topic, companies “without adequate internal controls allowable corporate hospitality can easily morph into problematic conduct.”</p>
<p>View the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/strategies-for-minimizing-bribery-fcpa-risks">executive summary</a> from part one.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where’s the disconnect?</h2>
<p>It’s important to break down internal silos and work across teams. Companies with more experience have learned that while evaluating travel and expense data is valuable, even more so, is ensuring that the teams leading the charge are proactively meeting with those who oversee both travel and expense reimbursement within the organization to uncover better ways to mitigate this risk.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Who’s in charge?</h2>
<p>A first proactive step for those who oversee or manage expenses within their companies is to identify the internal team responsible for minimizing this risk. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/strategies-for-minimizing-bribery-fcpa-risks">SAP Concur research</a> shows that almost two-thirds of companies (64%) site compliance teams as leading bribery prevention programs. Other departments named include legal (22%) and finance departments (7%).</p>
<p>Many compliance and legal teams are unaware of how using a pre-spend request tool, audit rules, connecting to a third-party app and other strategies can contribute to the overall goal of minimizing bribery. This is where finance, AP, expense, travel managers or those who oversee the entire employee spend process can add significant value. Sometimes, compliance and legal departments will also contribute additional funds to help with the overall goal.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/062320_NB_FCPApt2__RegistrationPage.html" target="_blank">Register today</a> for part two of this webinar on Tuesday, June 23<span>,</span> 2020. View the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/strategies-for-minimizing-bribery-fcpa-risks">part one executive summary</a> to learn more about how you can get creative with minimizing risk in your company today.</strong></p>
Erin Giordano
3 Ways Technology Drives More Effective Back Offices in Higher Ed
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-technology-drives-more-effective-back-offices-higher-ed
2020-09-21T20:08:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you look around a university campus its easy to forget that its a business like any other Like most forprofit organizations success in the business of higher education relies on a...
<p>When you look around a university campus, it’s easy to forget that it’s a business like any other. Like most for-profit organizations, success in the business of higher education relies on a complex, interconnected system of people and back-office processes that work together to control costs, find efficiencies, and evolve with the times.</p>
<p>As with many industries and organizations around the world, higher education institutions are struggling to navigate the new normal created by COVID-19. Already-tight budgets are now even tighter, and universities face difficult questions on how (or even if) students can return safely to campuses and classrooms in the fall. To deal with these and other challenges, many institutions are turning to technology to bring people and processes together, do more with less, and cut costs.</p>
<p>SAP Concur partnered with Education Dive to explore how universities are taking advantage of modern technology both in and out of the classroom. Together, we identified three back-office benefits driven by these technologies:</p>
<ol>
<li>Employees are empowered to work more efficiently and prodictively from anywhere</li>
<li>Compliance is supported</li>
<li>Cash flow is improved</li>
</ol>
<p>We also examined how the savings generated from an investment in software to automate expense, travel, and invoice payment processes go well beyond the initial cost of the technology. And that an automated system has far-reaching benefits that include better cash flow, streamlined operations, and helping faculty and staff be more efficient.</p>
<p><strong>To see how automation can help universities save both time and money, check out <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/spons/the-value-of-automation-in-higher-educations-back-office/577779/">the full e</a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-value-of-automation-in-higher-educations-back-office">book</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Does IDC Say about T&E Management Software? Just Take A Look at What They’re Telling the Companies Who Build It.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-idc-say-about-te-management-software-just-take-look-what-theyre-telling
2020-08-17T17:35:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your travel program isnt what it was a year ago Nobodys is and thats okay Whats not okay is leaving it as it is and hoping things will be fine when we take to the roads rails and skies...
<p>Your travel program isn’t what it was a year ago. Nobody’s is, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is leaving it as it is and hoping things will be fine when we take to the roads, rails, and skies again.</p>
<p>Sure, you’ve got other fish to fry right now – big ones – it’s just that addressing travel and expense management now, when you’re not sending out thousands of travelers each week, gives you a chance to fix the machinery before things gear up again.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src=" http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2019</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So what should you be looking for in regard to travel and expense management software? IDC has a pretty good idea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Enterprises need to leverage advanced technologies to augment their capabilities for streamlining approvals, combating fraud, and maintaining compliance,” says Kevin Permenter, IDC research manager. “Many of these technologies have taken large leaps forward in terms of usability and accuracy in the last 12 months.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He adds, however, that the market has a strong desire for even more innovation and that travel and expense software vendors need to fill that demand. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">IDC report offers advice</a> as to what tech companies can do to meet those consumer needs – and what you should expect of them.</p>
<p>As you examine your solution and/or potential solution providers, look for tools that:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Prioritize the user experience.</strong> Making the tool easy to use is going to be the easiest way for travel and expense software vendors to differentiate their wares. It will also be the best way for you to ensure adoption; if it makes travel easier and more enjoyable, your travelers will use it. And you’ll capture their bookings, itineraries, and spending.</li>
<li><strong>Create intelligent workflows.</strong> Intelligent workflows save time, increase efficiency and, more importantly, add a layer of big-data analysis that human beings simply cannot duplicate. Applications that bring intelligent workflows to travel booking, itinerary management, approvals, and receipt processing are going to stand out. And that’s what you’ll want to find.</li>
<li><strong>Enhance analytics capabilities.</strong> Business intelligence and analytics improve visibility into employee travel and spending patterns, and they also give you a good look at employee travel management. With this kind of visibility, you can build more detailed budgets and accurately forecast spending.</li>
<li><strong>Integrate digital payments.</strong> Much to travelers’ delight, the travel and expense market is moving away from paper-based payments and processes. So instead of saving receipts and reeling over expense reports, they use an app to track spending and submit the transactions automatically. This saves them time and gives you better data. And that’s where travel is headed.</li>
<li><strong>Add more risk management.</strong> The dangers of business travel have never been more apparent, but now you can do more than ever to keep your travelers safe. Look for applications that help you pinpoint your travelers in real time by connecting itinerary details and corporate card charges. Your solution should also provide neighborhood safety scores and security alerts, so travelers know where to stay and what to avoid.</li>
<li><strong>Focus on fraud management.</strong> Everyone, from finance leaders to travel managers, is fighting to reduce rogue spending and other fraudulent activity, and many travel and expense software vendors are following suit – enhancing current capabilities and launching individual products to help in the fight.</li>
<li><strong>Emphasize the ecosystem.</strong> For your travel management program to be most effective, it needs to work well with back-end systems, like accounts payable, CRM, and ERP. This connection keeps the data flowing back and forth freely, so you get the real-time data needed to make instant, intelligent decisions. Make sure your solution has this connection capability.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-worldwide-travel-expense-management-software-market-shares">IDC Worldwide Travel and Expense Management Software Market Shares, 2019</a> report also outlines how software companies are handling these demands, as well as who’s in the lead. It’s good information for any company looking to make travel and expense management work for them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
5 Things to Do to Prepare for the Coming Sunshine Act Expansion
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-things-do-prepare-coming-sunshine-act-expansion
2020-09-11T14:41:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Since the enactment of Open Payments Sunshine Act life sciences organizations have faced the daunting task of collecting verifying and reporting compliancerelated spend The necessary...
<p>Since the enactment of Open Payments (Sunshine Act), life sciences organizations have faced the daunting task of collecting, verifying, and reporting compliance-related spend. The necessary tracking is time-consuming and can be error-prone, leaving exposure to risk. Penalties for willful or fraudulent reporting to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Open Payments program can range from $10,000 to $100,000 per expense report line item.</p>
<p>Life sciences companies are required to report to CMS any direct or indirect payment or other transfers of value (ToV) provided to a covered recipient or any payment provided to a third party on behalf of a covered recipient during a calendar year. ToVs are broadly defined and can include expenses ranging from simple meals to speaker’s fees to stock options. Companies are required to capture the specifics of expenses that are reportable, including who the ToVs were provided to, the type of expense, amount of expense, form and nature of payment, and related drug or device information.</p>
<p>To reduce the chance of penalties and fines, organizations have been going to great lengths to track transactions and incorporate controls in their spend management systems. Additionally, due to the public nature of Open Payments data, the amount spent on physicians is often cited in the press and can fuel litigation in the age of the opioid epidemic, so reporting only what is required is a priority for many manufacturers. </p>
<p>The expanded scope of the Sunshine Act is a material change to the number and types of HCPs that life sciences organizations need to track. In 2019 alone, 615,000 physicians received over $2B in general payments and more than $71.5M in research payments. Now more than ever, organizations need to review and strengthen their HCP processes and make sure the tools they use to track HCP spend are robust, evolving, and ready for the 2021 shift.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Changes to Open Payments for 2021: Data collection and the impact to life sciences companies</h2>
<p>Under the CMS Final Rule, the Open Payments program is impacted in the following ways for data collected in 2021 to be reported in 2022:</p>
<ul>
<li>The definition of a “Covered Recipient” is expanded to include five additional provider types:
<ol>
<li>Physician Assistants (PA)</li>
<li>Nurse Practitioners (NP)</li>
<li>Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS)</li>
<li>Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA) (CMS includes Anesthesiologist Assistants in the definition of a CRNA) </li>
<li>Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM)</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We will refer to the NP, CNS, CRNA, and CNM providers collectively as Advance Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) for the balance of this article.</p>
<p>This is the first significant expansion to the Open Payments program since reporting started in 2013. Capturing and reporting expense transactions for required HCPs is an already complex process for life sciences organizations, and the addition of APRNs and PAs will only increase this complexity. Internal systems, data management, policies, and training will all need to be updated to support the changes to the Open Payments program. </p>
<p>The number of licensed physicians in the United States has been declining and this trend is expected to continue. Conversely, there has been steady growth in the number of licensed APRNs and PAs, along with expanded scope of practice and prescribing authority for these professions. Due to these changes, life sciences companies interact with APRNs and PAs in the same manner as physicians. The difference, up until 2021, is that these interactions were not reportable at the federal level.</p>
<p>Including APRNs and PAs will increase the number of possible reportable HCPs by 350k – 400k individuals. </p>
<p>The number of licensed APRNs and PAs in the U.S. is only part of the challenge. For example, licensing of APRNs varies from state-to-state. Some states use the APRN Consensus Model, which standardizes education, accreditation, certification, and credential identifiers across their member states - but many do not. This inconsistency results in more than 400 variations of state license credentials for APRNs. Another complication is how states identify RN vs. APRN licenses and which version of the nursing license is reporting in the NPI record.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5 ways to prepare for the expansion of the Sunshine Act</h2>
<p>The bottom line is that life sciences organizations will have thousands of additional HCPs to track and will need to manage the complexity of identification, licensing, and certification differences by state, in addition to the sheer increase in the volume of transactions to be reviewed. Here are five steps to take now to make sure you’ll be ahead of the game:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Leadership:</strong> Establish a cross-functional team to implement the new requirements. Include members from Transparency, Commercial Operations, Medical Affairs, Clinical Operations, and Legal. Follow <a href="https://www.cms.gov/" target="_blank">CMS</a> for updates to reporting requirements.</li>
<li><strong>Internal Processes:</strong> Review your HCP data collection process from data capture through reporting and auditing. Make sure your systems and processes are prepared for the additional data collection and review.</li>
<li><strong>Data Management:</strong> Take time to engage with your Data Management team. What attributes do you currently gather for PAs and APRNs? Consider doing a review and update using a validated HCP database such as MedPro Systems' 25 million record HCP databases, MedProID®, which validates practitioner license information obtained directly from state licensing boards.</li>
<li><strong>Spend Capture:</strong> Review your spend capture process and the critical opportunities for error. Are your users entering HCP names and license numbers by hand? It may be time to consider an integrated solution to minimize accidental data inaccuracies. <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxHKKs75MK2I8DRGoh63XJEW">MedPro Systems’ connector for Concur Expense and Concur Invoice</a> eliminates manual entry of HCP data and quickly captures comprehensive HCP data elements required for Federal Open Payments and State Aggregate Spend reporting. The MedPro Concur Connect suite of solutions also offers a one-step export of HCP data to any Aggregate Spend reporting platform.</li>
<li><strong>Reporting Tools:</strong> Don’t forget the importance of creating accurate and timely reports for CMS. Consider using a reporting process that doesn’t leave your compliance to chance by using a dedicated vendor solution for Aggregate Spend reporting</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/app-center-solution-demo-streamline-open-payments-compliance-with-medpro-systems">Watch this video</a> to learn how MedPro Concur Connect integrates with SAP Concur solutions to enable pharmaceutical and medical device companies to effortlessly maintain compliance with Open Payments physician spend tracking regulations.</p>
<p>Learn more about how <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxHKKs75MK2I8DRGoh63XJEW">MedPro Concur Connect</a> can help you prepare today.</p>
Bryan Andrews
The Most Exciting Article On Taxes You'll Ever Read
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/most-exciting-article-taxes-youll-ever-read
2021-02-24T13:09:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I know I know Tax articles are boring But not this one Why Because Im going to share with you a big tax deduction you can take for your business that could save you thousands of...
<p>I know, I know: Tax articles are boring. But not this one. Why? </p>
<p>Because I'm going to share with you a big tax deduction you can take for your business that could save you thousands of dollars. Every year. And the best thing about it? You don't even need to spend money to take the deduction...at least for a while.</p>
<p>It's called the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p946" target="_blank">Section 179 deduction</a> and it's about depreciation. Don't fall asleep on me yet because you do need to know some details.</p>
<p>Most businesses—particularly small businesses—qualify for this deduction. And the deduction is not small. If you do qualify, you can deduct up to $1,040,000 in 2020 for an individual capital purchase or $2,590,000 in total for all your capital purchases. After that amount the benefits begin to phase out until you've purchased a total of $3,630,000. But yes, you're reading this right: It's all deductible, within those limits. You don't have to put it on your balance sheet and depreciate it over a period of years. You can write off the full expense in the first year. </p>
<p>Just think about that. You can purchase office furniture, a forklift, a printing press, a piece of testing equipment for your shop, or a big truck. You can even purchase technology like computers, servers, switches, access points, monitors, and devices, as well as all the software you need for your business. Regarding software, it needs to be "off-the-shelf" and not custom-written or heavily modified.</p>
<p>When you make these purchases, you can just write them off as an expense against your income immediately and in that year. The items can be new. Or they can be used. It doesn't matter. You can't take a deduction in excess of your taxable income that year. However, you can carry over for an unlimited number of years because of the business income limitation.</p>
<p>But here's the greatest thing: Like I mentioned above, you don't have to spend any money to take advantage of this deduction...yet.</p>
<p>I say yet because ultimately you're going to have to spend. But the rules for taking a deduction in the first year is that you put the item "into service"—in other words it’s operational and ready for use in your business.</p>
<p>The IRS doesn't care if you paid for it, as long as it's operational and being used. Which means that you can finance your purchase and still take the deduction even though the item was bought with borrowed funds. So there's no cash out of your pocket. However, you still get the deduction. And with interest rates being as low as they are, it's a great time to get financing. </p>
<p>Suppose you don't qualify for a traditional bank loan? Don't worry, there are plenty of other places to try. I always point my clients to the Small Business Administration. Its <a href="https://www.sba.gov/partners/lenders/7a-loan-program/types-7a-loans" target="_blank">Section 7(a) loans</a> allow qualified small business to borrow funds from member banks that can be used to purchase technology and equipment (as well as property, inventory and even working capital) and, because the SBA is backing the loan, banks can extend the financing to companies that otherwise wouldn't be qualified. Again, the IRS doesn't care. </p>
<p>Now that you understand what Section 179 is I have even better news: You may not need to understand it all. That's because, thanks to the 2017 tax reform act, businesses are allowed to deduct 100% of their first-year purchases—the same as above and with most of the same rules of Section 179 anyway. It's called "<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-finalizes-regulations-for-100-percent-bonus-depreciation" target="_blank">bonus depreciation</a>" and it starts phasing out in 2023. So why choose Section 179 instead of "bonus depreciation"? It could be because your state has limits on bonus depreciation or you have property that you want to deduct that doesn't qualify for Section 179.</p>
<p>So to recap: You buy technology like software or a piece of equipment. You get a lender to finance it while interest rates are low. You put it into service by the end of the year. Then—whether you elect Section 179 or bonus depreciation—you write the entire thing off. You save significant money on your taxes. </p>
<p>So, considering that your tax bill—if you're like most small and medium sized companies—is probably one of your biggest expenses is this not the most exciting article on taxes you're ever read? Of course it is. Oh, and of course talk to your accountant. But make your plans now. The year is coming to an end sooner than you think.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-a-small-business">Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/3-ways-a-biden-administration-will-impact-your-business">3 Ways A Biden Administration Will Impact Your Business</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-3-things-youll-need-to-get-ppp-forgiveness">The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness</a></li>
</ul>
Gene Marks
How State and Local Governments Can Manage Invoices and Expenses in the New Normal
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-state-and-local-governments-can-manage-invoices-and-expenses-new-normal
2020-11-23T09:07:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Working in the finance department of a state or local government has always meant working under pressure But now when many if not most of your coworkers are working from home those...
<p>Working in the finance department of a state or local government has always meant working under pressure. But now, when many if not most of your coworkers are working from home, those pressures are greater than ever.</p>
<p>The pandemic has driven down funding sources while the demand for services is climbing. Your constituents need new and different kinds of support as they sort through this new and disrupted reality – yet the income and sales tax revenues which fuel that support are declining at unheard of rates.</p>
<p>To make matters even worse, state and local employment numbers are dwindling. Job losses have topped 1.2 million – nearly twice the amount of jobs lost in the Great Recession. </p>
<p>So there you have it: Less money, fewer people and, just because it’s government, greater scrutiny.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Is Remote Working Working for Your Budget?</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/how-is-remote-working-working-for-your-budget">Get the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>First, a little red tape</h2>
<p>Managing spending is difficult even in the best of times, but work-from-home realities, like preserving continuity of operations, timely payment of vendors, and overall financial discipline – not to mention the health and safety of employees – make it even harder.</p>
<p>And every day in government offices across the country, AP teams are sending in shifts of people to do check runs or compile invoices, only to bring them home for manual processing. They’re driving invoices from house to house to get reviews and approvals. And we’ve even heard of a CFO who was printing checks at home, so AP could pick them up, take them to the Post Office, buy stamps, and mail them.</p>
<p>This isn’t safe, it isn’t sensible, and it certainly isn’t how to deliver the sound financial state and local governments need right now.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s a government to do?</h2>
<p>Automate. Integrate. And digitize. These are significant concepts, yet with the right tools, they’re relatively simple to put to work. And they simplify the process for AP while letting CFOs effectively control costs.</p>
<p>Better yet, they eliminate the need to drive from house to house to pick up checks and get approvals. They save you time while saving you money, and every payment, p-card charge, corporate card charge, cash payment, virtual payment – or any other type of payment – is automated and connected.</p>
<p>Every invoice and each expense report gets routed through simple, configurable, automatic workflows. And you get the critical data you need to see and manage what’s going out the door.</p>
<p>Here's how automation ends traditional trouble spots:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Exception Handling:</strong> Drive down the data-entry errors of paper-based invoices; you’ll see fewer exceptions, and you’ll have the insight you need to deal with those that arise.</li>
<li><strong>New Spend Categories: </strong>When you suddenly have to buy something like PPE, you can quickly adapt to track the costs.</li>
<li><strong>Late Fees:</strong> Automated efficiency eliminates the roadblocks in your process that result in added fees.</li>
<li><strong>Audits:</strong> AI-driven auditing does the hard work for you, checking every expense report against your policies, so you can deliver more oversight in less time.</li>
<li><strong>Compliance:</strong> Real-time visibility allows you to take proactive control of how compliance polices are working and how grant, CARES, or rainy-day funding is being used.</li>
<li><strong>Forecasting:</strong> When you can see what’s spent, what’s pending, and what’s left in your budgets, you can accurately and instantly forecast (and reforecast) as funding sources shift. You’ll also know when budget shortfalls are coming, and you’ll have the insight to make the in-the-moment decisions – so spending goes where you need it most. </li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>This is how government gets back on track</h2>
<p>Investing in digital expense and invoice processes isn’t something you have to do, but as state and local governments face a changing and challenging future, it is the best way to gain the adaptability it takes to manage those changes – at lease from a financial perspective.</p>
<p>It’s a much-needed solution that offers immediate value and equips you with both the efficiency and intelligence to manage your budgets for years to come.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Make Card Reconciliation Easier for Your SMB’s “Honorary Accountants"
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-card-reconciliation-easier-your-smbs-honorary-accountants
2021-01-26T10:06:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Anyone who leads a small business knows that it can feel like a constant collision of big aspirations and limited resources To make the most of what youve got one person is often asked...
<p>Anyone who leads a small business knows that it can feel like a constant collision of big aspirations and limited resources. To make the most of what you’ve got, one person is often asked to take on a handful of different roles.</p>
<p>For instance, when hiring a finance department is out of the question, “accountant” is a job that can fall to an employee who knows just enough about bookkeeping to get by. Which may work if an SMB’s spending is easy to track. However, when multiple employees use multiple cards for many different purchases, verifying transactions can get messy. And when discrepancies emerge, these individuals are forced to add scavenger hunter, financial detective, and paper-receipt wrangler to their growing list of job titles.</p>
<p><strong>Credit card reconciliation</strong> is the process of matching your business’s monthly credit card transactions to receipts. While many organizations have processes to achieve this that get the job done, “good enough” doesn’t necessarily translate to good. And like most things in life, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to back-office financial processes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> can help your small business automate the entire credit card reconciliation process from start to finish. With these solutions, transaction data can be imported from almost any source, and then automatically compared against card statements, receipts, and other internal data. And through this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dramatically speed up the reconciliation process</li>
<li>Eliminate the burden of manually matching transactions to receipts</li>
<li>Spot errors, discrepancies, and oversights immediately</li>
<li>Identify unusual transactions and possible fraud</li>
</ul>
<p>Moving to a digital solution also allows your business to operate with easy access to accurate and up-to-date financial data. With this increased visibility, your team can stay ahead of spending, track cash flow, and make better decisions as you plan for the future.</p>
<p>Card reconciliation is a task that every company must do. There’s really no getting around that. And as a company grows, visibility into spending becomes even more challenging and more important. With the right tools, your business can simplify the reconciliation process, track and control spending, and make life easier for the honorary accountants on your team.</p>
<p>To learn more about managing expenses for your business, check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">SMB page</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Conferma Pay Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/conferma-pay-integration
2021-03-10T09:00:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Conferma Pay has expanded its role in the SAP Concur partner program providing virtual payment technology and helping businesses using SAP Concur solutions to transform how they make...
<p>Conferma Pay has expanded its role in the SAP Concur partner program, providing virtual payment technology and helping businesses using SAP Concur solutions to transform how they make and manage payments across more spend categories. The new integration of Conferma Pay with Concur Invoice enables businesses to pay suppliers using virtual cards rather than legacy checks or bank transfers.</p>
<p>When a business receives an invoice from a supplier, there’s no need to follow a cumbersome payment approval process. Instead, a virtual card is generated against that invoice for a specific amount within Concur Invoice, and pre-authorized payment details are securely provided to the supplier for processing. The virtual payment is automatically reconciled against the invoice, reducing manual work for finance teams. </p>
<p>Paul Raymond, Director Strategic Relationships, Conferma Pay commented: </p>
<p>“Building on our successful SAP Concur partnership for virtual payments in travel, we are expanding to also bring this capability for B2B payments integrated with Concur Invoice. Businesses using SAP Concur solutions can now use virtual cards to pay in a much wider range of scenarios, which increases automation, reduces fraud risk, and helps to better control spend.”</p>
<p>To learn more about SAP Concur solutions and Conferma, please visit <a href="https://confermapay.com/" target="_blank">confermapay.com</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Things You Might Be Overlooking If You’re Looking to Grow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-things-you-might-be-overlooking-if-youre-looking-grow
2021-04-21T10:10:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
They call them growing pains for a reason Business growth does not come without a price Whether its headcount or brickandmortar buildouts or overseas expansions or all three getting...
<p>They call them growing pains for a reason: Business growth does not come without a price. Whether it’s headcount, or brick-and-mortar buildouts, or overseas expansions – or all three – getting bigger means spending more.</p>
<p>But you’re on top of it: You’ve got the tools in place to see and stay ahead of spending. You’ve made the commitment to continued improvement, and your investment in SAP Concur solutions is paying off. That’s all good. But is there more you could be doing to drive additional data and dollars into your expansion strategy? Is there a way to soften those pangs of progress?</p>
<p>Well, we probably wouldn’t be writing this if there wasn’t.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Ways to Get Further Faster by Maximizing Your SAP Concur Investment</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/gathering-momentum-5-ways-get-further-faster-maximizing-your-investment">Get the tip sheet</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>You know what’s been spent. You’re a little foggy on what’s going to be spent</h2>
<p>Preapprovals: It used to be that you had to wait until the end of the month to see how much your employees had drained the coffers. Now, with SAP Concur solutions in place, you can see spending before it happens and track actuals as they accrue. That makes it easier to make decisions and protect your bottom line, but what about forecasts? We’re guessing here, but they’re often still a shot in the dark, and not knowing those numbers makes it hard to know if growth is feasible. How do you get a better look at what’s next?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You don’t have time or money for more audits, even though mistakes and fraud cost you time and money</h2>
<p>Audits: Sure, it would be great to audit each invoice and every expense report, but it would also be nice to be a gazillionaire. The truth is, audits take time away from your overworked AP team, and adding staff just doesn’t add up. But when you consider the fact that errors and fraud typically eat through 5% of your annual revenue, recouping some of those losses (and fueling your growth strategy) sounds like pretty good idea. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Your processes could use a little sharpening</h2>
<p>Automation: Your workflow works, but there’s a chance it could work better – it could work on its own, in fact, if you could automate more tasks and inform your processes with artificial intelligence and machine learning. And if you could do that, you could shift staff from tedious functions to focus on more strategic work. Well, you can. You just need the right tools.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Your big data feels like a big problem</h2>
<p>Intelligence: You’ve got enough data to satisfy every query you could possibly have, but by the time you find the answers, you can’t remember the questions. Sure, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but digging through data isn’t getting you anywhere, and until you get qualified, capable help, your data isn’t worth its weight in ones and zeros. You need tips to interpret the data you have.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’re too overwhelmed to care about overpaid taxes</h2>
<p>VAT reclaim: Growth means going places, but the requirements and regulations of doing business beyond borders is simply too taxing to follow. So you pay your value-added taxes and your goods-and-services taxes and your harmonized-sales taxes, and you forget about it. Fine, but you’re forfeiting your share of billions of tax-reclaim dollars, and you may face hefty fines. That’s your money, and it could be funneled into growth.</p>
<p>If these pains feel at all familiar, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/gathering-momentum-5-ways-get-further-faster-maximizing-your-investment">take five minutes and read the growth tip sheet.</a> You’ll see how expanding SAP Concur solution could help expand your business.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Small Business Owners: Get Your Company Recovery-Ready
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/small-business-owners-get-your-company-recovery-ready
2021-06-08T09:10:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Small businesses are the engine of the economy generating of economic activity according to the US Small Business Administration Many small businesses have emerged from to welcome...
<p>Small businesses are the engine of the economy, generating 44% of economic activity, according to <a href="https://advocacy.sba.gov/2019/01/30/small-businesses-generate-44-percent-of-u-s-economic-activity/" target="_blank">the U.S. Small Business Administration</a>. Many small businesses have emerged from 2020 to welcome <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/01/26/2021-world-economic-outlook-update" target="_blank">predictions of stronger economic growth</a> in 2021-2022.</p>
<p>But the road ahead is still unclear, and it might seem challenging for a business to really know – and prepare for – what’s coming next. When it comes to getting back to business, we have some tips and strategies to help guide small business entrepreneurs as they look ahead.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Smart business growth strategies</h2>
<p>Even in times of uncertainty, a small business can establish an action plan for business growth. That includes getting spend processes into shape for whatever the next phase of the economy brings. Let’s look at some of the key things you can do to get your SMB on firmer financial ground and continue contributing to the economy.</p>
<h3>1. Set up an expense policy</h3>
<p>No matter how small your business is, if you have employees, you probably need an expense policy. An expense policy is a clear, concise guide that outlines how the company manages employee expenses.</p>
<p>It should outline all the main expense types and specify what’s an acceptable company expense, and what isn’t. It also should address reimbursements and expectations around instances of fraud.</p>
<p>Setting up an expense policy doesn’t have to be a difficult task. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/expense-policy-entrepreneurs">free expense policy guide</a> contains the steps you can follow to set up your own employee expense policy and get a handle on your employee expenses before spending happens.</p>
<h3>2. Optimize your AP process</h3>
<p>Business owners know that their cash flow is the lifeforce of their business. And a key component of healthy cash flow is having clear visibility into your invoicing process. Here are some ways you can fortify your AP process:</p>
<ol>
<li>You can start by <a href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment">taking a risk assessment</a> to identify opportunities to improve your AP process.</li>
<li>Use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">free template to set up an invoice policy</a> for your company.</li>
<li>Consider moving from a manual AP process to an automated AP process:
<ul>
<li>It ensures greater accuracy and reduced chances of fraud</li>
<li>It puts all your data in one place</li>
<li>It can offer clear data insights for better spend decision-making</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>3. Get smart about tracking and monitoring spending</h3>
<p>Tracking multiple employees’ spending introduces many layers of complexity. You may already have a process for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/simplify-credit-card-reconciliation-sap-concur-solutions">credit card reconciliation</a> – squaring up monthly credit card transactions against receipts – but there are probably opportunities to improve on it to make it more efficient and accurate.</p>
<p>As you look ahead to the next economic phase, consider automating your process for tracking and monitoring spending. Doing so can help you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Speed up your verification process</li>
<li>Catch mistakes and discrepancies quickly</li>
<li>Spot unusual spending and signs of potential fraud</li>
</ul>
<h3>4. Employ technology to increase efficiency</h3>
<p>Sometimes adding to the size of your staff is just not an option. Technology can help the people you do have work to more efficiently ­– and maybe even remove some tasks from their already-full plates.</p>
<p>This will free them up to work on things they enjoy and can add the most value for the business. A survey of SAP Concur customers found that companies that adopted a cloud-based technology to automate their expense management process increased their process efficiency by 42%, by reducing costs, errors, and risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Solutions for small business success </h2>
<p>When it comes to optimizing your AP and expense management processes, there are several good resources <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">for a small business to tap into</a>. We know the important role entrepreneurs play in the economy, and offer solutions to meet the needs of small businesses as they carve a pathway to success. Hear what some of our customers are saying about the benefits of SAP Concur solutions: </p>
<p>“Concur actually makes us money when you consider the savings in time … Manual entry was especially difficult for employees traveling around the world … And with the Concur mobile solution, you virtually eliminate the problem of lost receipts. Our employees definitely appreciate the solution.” - <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/encell">Chris Maier, CFO of Encell Technology</a></p>
<p><br />
"Implementing Concur Travel & Expense has saved time for both our employees and the back office. It makes our data more reliable; it gives our employees more access to all of their information such as expenses, historic data, etc. It makes our lives way easier and much more connected!" -<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/mcknight-foundation">Malaika Smith, The McKnight Foundation</a><br />
<br />
“Prior to using SAP Concur solutions, our month-end process could be up to 15 days—or more, depending on what was going on that specific month. Once we had the SAP Concur platform in place and started using it efficiently, we reduced our close time to three days. And quite honestly, if we were in a pinch, we could probably close in a day. We wouldn’t be able to do that without SAP.” - <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/bishop-wisecarver">Joe Lusby, Assistant Controller for Bishop-Wisecarver</a></p>
<h3>Concur Expense </h3>
<p>Concur Expense lets you automate your spend management. That means you can easily capture your business expense data from multiple sources and compile it into one place. It provides clear, accurate data to help inform your spending decisions and creates a simpler expense reporting process for your team.</p>
<p>Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">sign up for the free trial</a>.</p>
<h3>Concur Invoice</h3>
<p>Through automation, Concur Invoice gives you greater visibility into your vendor spending, which can have a sizable impact on your cash flow. It also helps boost compliance, while providing critical data that you need to run your business.</p>
<p>Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a>.</p>
<h3>SAP Concur Community</h3>
<p>As an entrepreneur, you can gain valuable guidance from networking and mentoring. So when you have questions about your spend management or AP process, look to the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a>. It’s where you can connect with other small business entrepreneurs like you and tap into the knowledge of subject matter experts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Running a successful business takes hard work and requires flexibility. Creating efficiency and greater accuracy around your finances can also give you greater control over – and insight into – your spending, which is critical to the financial health of your business as it grows and changes.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Duty of Care: Not Just for Emergencies Anymore
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/duty-care-not-just-emergencies-anymore
2022-07-01T12:06:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Duty of care often used to be crisis management largely used by oil and gas companies and others operating in remote and dangerprone environments The COVID pandemic and the evolving...
<p>Duty of care often used to be crisis management, largely used by oil and gas companies and others operating in remote and danger-prone environments.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic and the evolving nature of work changed that. Now, it’s not tenable to look at duty of care as responding to an emergency every five years or so. One can’t just dust off the crisis plan and respond.</p>
<p>“Executive leadership, they recognize that there's a much broader emphasis and a much more strategic focus on duty of care,” Isaac Bowman, senior manager at Deloitte, said during a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/evolution-duty-care-how-manage-and-anticipate-risks">session on the topic</a> during the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. “We've all known that employees are your most valuable asset. And the travel program is basically the logistics of moving those people, those valuable assets, all over the world.”</p>
<p>The pandemic, of course, made safety an everyday and everywhere concern affecting both travelers and other employees. Organizations realized their growing responsibilities and have studied, changed, and improved systems and practices.</p>
<p>They have tightened controls such as ensuring travel is approved by leaders, who may receive regular reports and have weekly meetings to stay apprised of travel changes and requirements. They’ve increasingly used traveler-tracking technology that not only allows the company to know where employees are but can apprise them of restrictions and other concerns.</p>
<p>“One of the changes we've noticed is in the past the lightly managed programs just simply relied on the TMC to take care of everything, and we're fine with that,” said Tony Peter, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at Travel Incorporated and a member of the session’s panel. “We’ve always had great interactive tools … but what we've seen now since the pandemic is the client at any level is really getting more active and accessing that data.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Every employee, not just traveling ones</h2>
<p>As the pandemic emptied corporate offices and turned spare bedrooms and dining tables into workplaces, the differences between employees who traveled and those who didn’t narrowed. At the same time, the definition of duty of care and who it covered expanded.</p>
<p>Just as organizations felt responsible to keep tabs on travelers and their locations, now they had remote workers with many of the same needs. Contacting an employee is no longer a simple matter of going to their cubicle or looking up their home address. Organizations had to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach.</p>
<p>“The core functions of what is inside a duty of care actually have much broader value to the organization than simply responding to natural disasters,” Bowman said. “Work is actually anywhere that the employee sits, and one day that could be in my home office or could be my backyard, it could be that I'm working in a coffee shop across the street, but I could just as easily be spending half of my year working in a vacation home” across the state, country, or globe.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Mental health and the work-life balance</h2>
<p>The wider-screen view of duty of care extends well beyond the capability to send alerts to travelers or to extract them from abroad in the case of illness.</p>
<p>Now, the duty can extend into workers’ home offices and encompass mental and physical health. To take care of and preserve their work forces, organizations can assess and tend to their exercise, diet, and even spiritual needs. Outside the confines and controls of a company facility, the improper configuration of a home office – dining tables aren’t ergonomic – could be a risk management issue. With such a broad set of factors, duty of care extends beyond the travel management team to HR, security, operations, and more.</p>
<p>Research clearly shows the pandemic’s impact on mental health. Companies need to be cognizant of that and welcome the discussions about it.</p>
<p>“Duty of care has evolved and taken on a much larger meaning not just to involve travelers or people in the office, but also people working from home, and not just to discuss physical ailments and work injuries, but really to embrace mental health issues,” said <strong>Dr. William Hauptman</strong>, medical director pf Assistance at International SOS.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Information and buy-in</h2>
<p>A frequent question from travelers involves whether they must do all their booking through their corporate travel management system. The common query raises issues involving education, information, and buy-in.</p>
<p>Travel managers generally prefer a closed system because it can allow them to better protect and advise travelers and help bring other departments such as security into the loop. But with travelers’ desire for flexibility and growing duty of care concerns they acknowledge they must have the capability to capture outside booking information, so they can contact travelers and keep them apprised.</p>
<p>Systems and employee education are essential.</p>
<p>“We can create a great policy for how to respond to every kind of contingency under the sun. But if we don't have processes that can implement that strategy, and we don't have data available to assess the strategy, the strategy itself won't be able to take off the ground,” Bowman said.</p>
<p>“It's great for the traveler to be given new direction, but they need to understand why and what else is involved in it in order for them to be really active, willing participants,” Peter said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more</h3>
<p><strong>The Evolution of Duty of Care: How to Manage and Anticipate Risks </strong><strong>session from</strong> <strong>SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit </strong><strong>features panelists</strong> <strong>Anne Hamilton</strong>, The Walt Disney Company; <strong>Isaac Bowman</strong>, Deloitte; <strong>Ralph Colunga</strong>, SAP Concur; <strong>Tony Peter</strong>, Travel Incorporated; and <strong>Dr. William Hauptman</strong>, International SOS. Watch the session <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/evolution-duty-care-how-manage-and-anticipate-risks">HERE</a></p>
<p>Duty of Care Isn’t Only About Traveler Safety Anymore. <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-isnt-only-about-traveler-safety-anymore">HERE</a></p>
<p>More than a Matter of Safety. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/more-matter-safety">HERE</a></p>
<p>Deloitte’s Global Risk Management Survey. <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/global-risk-management-survey-financial-services.html">HERE</a></p>
Neha Mehta
Go Back to School with IT Modernization Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act Funding for K-12 School Districts
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/go-back-school-it-modernization-thanks-american-rescue-plan-act-funding-k-12-school
2022-07-01T12:25:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Emerging from the challenges that a pandemic caused K school districts are opportunities to innovate and modernize curriculua and instruction information technology and building...
<p>Emerging from the challenges that a pandemic caused K-12 school districts are opportunities to innovate and modernize curriculua and instruction, information technology, and building maintenance. While strategic collaboration and needs assessments look different for each community, there are some key guiding principles to follow when determining how to most impactfully leverage this funding.</p>
<p>Here are some key things to consider:</p>
<p>Congress passed three COVID-19 relief aid bills and the U.S. Department of Education developed the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund to distribute money to schools. Eligible expenses dating back to March 13, 2020 include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Curriculum and instruction</li>
<li>Information technology</li>
<li>Building maintenance</li>
</ul>
<p>K-12 school districts must spend this relief aid by the following dates:</p>
<ul>
<li>ESSER I: September 30, 2022</li>
<li>ESSER II: September 30, 2023</li>
<li>ESSER III: September 30, 2024</li>
</ul>
<p>Like all grant and relief aid funding, inscrutable transparency is both essential and time-consuming. Equipping all recipients and fund managers with assistive technology to streamline documentation and reporting processes will provide them with confidence and efficiency to use these funds responsibly. This clarity provides administrators with real-time visibility on how, when, and who is using which funding for their intended uses. By improving travel, expense, and invoice management processes, K-12 school districts can bring the IT modernization that they need to best serve their communities through transparent fiscal management of American Rescue Plan Act funding now, and other opportunities in the future.</p>
<p>Learn more in our tip sheet: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/american-rescue-plan-act-and-it-modernization-four-things-k-12-school-districts-need-know">The American Rescue Plan Act and IT Modernization: Four Things K-12 School Districts Need to Know</a>.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Community and Innovation in Higher Education Tech: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Huron about Penn State University
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/community-and-innovation-higher-education-tech-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-huron
2022-07-01T16:59:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Taking a spend management program from excellent to astounding is a specialty that Huron Group does for its SAP Concur partner customers daily This certainly was the case for Penn...
<p>Taking a spend management program from excellent to astounding is a specialty that Huron Group does for its SAP Concur partner customers daily. This certainly was the case for Penn State University, one of the longest-running higher education customers of SAP Concur solutions who was ready to optimize and modernize their spend management program and ERP system. Penn State University leveraged the SAP Concur Higher Education Leadership Forum (CHELF) to confirm with their industry colleagues that Huron was the right partner for them, and then transformed their program before and during the global pandemic. “How do we take the technologies that we have, and the expertise we have, and the needs of different organizations, and just get creative with the stuff to make it work?” asks Phil Bunnell, Senior Solutions Consultant for SAP Concur, in this compelling podcast conversation with Tonia Raber, Consulting Manager for Huron. Discover innovation and community at its finest as they walk us through this incredible transformation story for Penn State University.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an/id1525744763?i=1000537835215">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YAZFt0CnpA7rkQrKnIK8J">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an-sap-con">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE1ZWQxOWJlOTkzZWIwMDE0ZjRiN2Mw?sa=X&ved=0CAcQuIEEahcKEwjAyqjm3bjzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>All right. Hi, welcome everyone to the SAP Concur podcast. Today, we're going to be speaking with Huron Consulting Group and discussing how they collaborate with SAP Concur and others, and really make differences in organizations that are looking to optimize their processes. My name is Phil Bunnell. I am a Principal Solutions consultant here at Concur, and really my role is to engage with our customers on a daily basis and look into their needs and ways to optimize their programs. But I'm also joined by Tonia Raber today from Huron. Tonia, would you mind giving an introduction to yourself and even maybe a little intro to Huron as well, for those that aren't familiar?</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Hi, Phil. Thank you. My name is Tonia Raber with Huron Consulting Group. I am a manager, and I've been with Huron for about three years. Huron is a consulting firm that specializes in higher ed and healthcare organizations, as well as beyond that, but those are our two main verticals that we deal with. More specifically, from a T&E (travel and expense) perspective, we are an SAP Concur customer success partner and certified implementation partner. We provide an extensive variety of services designed to support organizations' travel and expense automation initiatives.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Awesome. Thank you, Tonia. So glad to have you here today. And, as you hear Tonia explain some of what Huron does for different clients and customers, and how they work with Concur, we really want to focus today on Penn State University, which is one of the largest universities in the country, and from SAP Concur's perspective, one of our largest higher education customers. And, when we look at Penn State University, they've been a long-time client of Concur's, but a few years ago, they were really looking to optimize different processes. A lot of that included travel and expense. And they were even looking at a new ERP system and had a lot on their mind of different ways they were going to bring in new technologies, make things easier, and look at different processes.</p>
<p>So, on an annual basis, Concur has a higher education group. So, we have what we call our Concur Higher Education Leadership Forum, where we get all of our higher ed clients together to really feed off each other and talk to their peers on how they do things. But, through that, we also welcome our trusted partners like Huron. And, Penn State did have that relationship with Huron in other perspectives but got reconnected with them at this event a few years ago to really look into optimizing their travel and expense processes through Concur. And, through that, they were really looking for multiple aspects, but being able to bring those groups together and have this community really started this relationship, and then to help our now mutual client go down the path they wanted to go to.</p>
<p>And a big piece of that is multiple different aspects where we want Tonia to really kind of show where Huron came in and really helped these processes. I think we'll maybe take one of these at a time, but I know Penn State was really looking to optimize their overall P-Card program management, but then also looking to consolidate different workflows. And, then I mentioned that ERP that they were looking at, which ultimately became Concur's parent company, SAP, with the S/4HANA ERP. Tonia, can you comment? I mean, maybe if we take one of those at a time, or maybe start with their P-Card management, or wherever you want, but what they were looking to do and where Huron came in to help out.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, Penn State had a legacy system that was fully automated, where they were bringing in procurement related charges into that legacy system. And their providing bank was splitting the feed and sending travel-type charges over to their old Concur instance. What Huron did, is we helped automate the Concur Request Module to manage their P-Card expenses, and then get the automated feed to go 100% into Concur, so they could actually start reconciling their procurement charges in Concur as well.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Okay. And, then through that process, we see a lot of organizations that have moved that way to bring those P-Card transactions in and reconcile all that information. Did you help then, from that perspective, kind of guide them on some of the best practices when it came to bringing in those types of charges? Here's what we see other organizations do, and really kind of give those best practices around that?</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>We did. We explored all the options with bringing those charges in and how to reconcile them. So, SAP Concur has their Company Bill Statement module, or you can bring them into a separate quote-unquote, "Concur Policy," for a non-travel expense report type that allows you to segregate travel from non-travel purchases. And that was the road that Penn State decided to go down, was that non-travel expense reimbursement policy in Concur. From a request perspective, getting those things through the system and automated back out to their providing bank for processing of their P-Card Program, in general, was a bit more challenging, but very exciting in how we figured that out.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Yeah. So, I'd be curious to hear a little more about that. When you say Request, you're talking about Concur Request. For those that don't know, a lot of organizations use it for a kind of pre-trip approval process, if I plan to travel somewhere. So, I'd be curious how you utilize that tool from a banking perspective, credit card perspective.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, Request is a really amazing tool, the Request Module. You can actually, from a travel perspective, have that incorporate into an expense report. But you also have the option to say this particular Request will never be assigned to an expense report, which opens up the door of possibilities. So, being the innovative thinkers that we are, brought this to the forefront and said, "Hey, why don't we try to use this for some P-Card maintenance or credit card program management?" And so that's what we did; we introduced it. I apologize, I don't remember the first client that we took that to, but we've exploded it since then. And we've taken it out to about 10 other clients since then, if not more, and have introduced it, or spoken about it, at both CHELF and CHEAB. And CHEAB is the Concur Higher Ed Advisory Board, which Penn State actually had a representative on for many years.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>I mean, that's great. And so, I kind of prefaced that question like I didn't know where you were going to go with it. And I obviously know what you did for Penn State, and I know you've done it for quite a few other organizations too. And to be quite honest, this is where I want to highlight for a second. I work for Concur and we know our products, obviously. But, when we partner with groups like Huron, it's interesting to me where you really came up with that separate process for one of our tools. And, usually, that credit card requisition process is common throughout our client base. And, when we heard about that, I mean, we stole it a little bit, but we are now promoting that to our customers as well. And I don't</p>
<p>I came from a Concur customer quite a few years ago, and if I would've known about it then... We were finding different ways to... How do we automate this process a little bit, instead of people filling out paper forms saying, "Hey, I need a credit card." So, to hear that you can bring that right into Concur, where you're doing your expense reports for those credit card charges, and it's really the same teams managing those processes, I mean, that's just a very cool aspect of these partnerships where we have our knowledge, you have your knowledge, and we put that all together to expand this for different customers. So, it's great to see that process. I'd be curious too... We talk about bringing the P-Card transactions in, and then finding a way to manage the requisition of those cards. What about working that from a banking relationship? So, obviously, there was a bank involved. I guess, what was that like, trying to ensure that we have the right files coming in, the right files going out, and make sure that data is fairly seamless?</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, Penn State's banking partner was phenomenal to work with. They went above and beyond. And we actually sat with them in a couple of different sessions and mirrored a Cognos report that mirrors their TSYS, or their system of record report for mass issuances, or mass changes to credit cards. So, when we gather that information out of the Request Module, we put it into that report format. It's electronically sent through SFTP, emailed out of Intelligence to the SFTP. It's picked up by Penn State's financial management team. That data is automatically interrogated and filled in with some other data that we do not house in Concur for PII purposes. We don't want to get into any data security or credit card security issues. So, they store that in-house. They input that information back into the report, and then they send it up to their providing bank, who reads it and processes it. And, then in turn, sends what they call a "daily dump file" back to Penn State, who then interrogates that data, strips out any PII, puts it back in a report, and sends it back up to Concur.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Interesting. It sounds like a lot of different steps, but realistically, if you're thinking about that from a credit card administrator within your organization, I mean, that's all happening behind the scenes. You're just getting the data that you need, and the cards are getting ordered. There's not all these steps of filling out the form, going into the bank, filling all that data in, submitting it, waiting for the card to come in the mail. All that is just happening automatically. That's a great story of just how we can optimize some of these manual processes that are out there. And kudos to Huron, to Penn State, for being able to do that. And, maybe not even on purpose, for Concur to be able to accommodate that, right? It's just a great way to see how creative ways we can do different things with the technologies that we have.</p>
<p>So, I know thinking about that as well, if we're using Concur from an expense reporting perspective, or in a book on travel, or even having some kind of pre-trip authorization... I don't know if you were involved in this aspect of it, but I got to imagine the rollout of that to say, "Hey, if you need a credit card, you go to Concur now." I got to imagine a piece of that is you don't have much training around that. I mean, obviously, people need to know where to go. But it's a familiar look and feel, right, for those end users?</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>It is. They did have a little bit of a learning curve because the P-Card maintenance and P-Card reconciliation for purchasing-type charges was taken care of in their old legacy system. So, many of those people actually did not have exposure to Concur. So, what we did is we targeted those particular individuals as part of our UAT test group. So, it got them in on the ground floor, gave them exposure to how Concur actually works. And, then we did a completely separate UAT session on just credit card processing. And we were able to, I think, push through about 300 end users, that we highly encouraged become power users, and helped the rest of the campus with that. And, then of course, they had the larger change management initiative, where they incorporated hints and clues and information about the new Concur rollout as part of their broader change management plan for the S/4HANA project.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>And so, let's dive into that in a minute here. But I think part of this too, though, with the P-Card charges now, and the travel charges, we're consolidating workflows, right? And, even realistically, with this credit card requisition now. And was there other... I thought there was other types of workflows that were out there too, that we helped consolidate both from a Concur perspective, and I believe in the new ERP that we helped out with too. I don't know if you could expand on that at all.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Well, I don't necessarily know that we consolidated out the workflow, Phil. What we were able to do is specialize the workflow to where the same person could potentially be getting both purchasing and travel related expense charges on a report. And, if it was a 100% P-Card, non-travel, it went through one workflow. If it was out of pocket, it went through another workflow. Or, if it included out of pocket, it went through another workflow. So, we were able to accommodate special circumstances within a couple of different workflows based off travel and non-travel policy types.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Okay. Interesting. I mean that, yeah, consolidate, or whatever the word is. But, yeah, it's taking that and again, being creative with it, right? And I think that's kind of the theme I'm coming up with here is: How do we take the technologies that we have, and the expertise we have, and the needs of different organizations, and just get creative with the stuff to make it work? And I think that's a big piece of what I'm seeing here. So, if we do expand on that... I mean a long story short; Penn State was also looking at a new ERP system and ultimately chose Concur's parent company, SAP, with their S/4HANA ERP. And I know with that Penn State being such a longtime customer of Concur's, they had a lot of information in Concur that they had added on over years. And, it became for lack of a term, somewhat of a complicated site.</p>
<p>And now we have a new ERP that we have to make sure things are mapped to, and the data's flowing properly. So, they also went with a new instance of Concur as well, which maybe we should have started there too, because I think when we talk about the Request credit cards, and some of these workflows, that was really built into this new instance. But another part of that was now getting an ERP. And, if anybody listening that's ever been part of an ERP migration... I mean, this is not a small effort by any means; that's a big effort. And, to think of all the touch points, Concur being one of those, I know Huron made a big assist there with being able to help configure Concur to fit into the new ERP as well. So, could you maybe start from, maybe not from the beginning, but kind of just take... Tell the story there, if you will, of what it was they were trying to accomplish and what we did there.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, not only did we configure a new instance for Penn State, we optimized what they had. As you mentioned, longtime customers, and basically self-taught because they were so long term with Concur. And they did a great job within their previous instance, but there was a lot of workarounds there, a lot of manual back-office effort on their part to make sure that things flowed the way they needed them to. So, with the optimization, within the new instance, we started asking more questions about why is their workflow this way, or what can we add to the profile in order to make the workflow easier? So, it can just trigger off of a certain indicator in the profile versus listing out a whole bunch of individual employee IDs within a workflow audit role. So, we did that. We messed around with their chart of accounts.</p>
<p>They had very in-depth... they had over, I want to say 500 expense GL accounts that they wanted to utilize. They had the high level, and then they had some detail under that. Not everybody or not every department, financial operating unit, needed to go to the level of the minutia, but others wanted that option. And, therefore, Penn State wanted to accommodate it. As part of that, we started thinking about sub lists, or lists that can be used under the expense type. As most people with Concur know, your chart of accounts, or your accounting structure, almost always ends with the expense type. You select your expense type; you get your GL code from there. Well, we took it a step lower. So, you're choosing your expense type, but then you choose a sub list, and that sub list is actually what holds the GL account. So, that was fun to explore. We got their expense type lists down to less than 200.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Wow. That's very interesting. Again, I can't think of a better term. I said it for all these now, but it's being creative, right? How can we accommodate 500 or so GL accounts without making it look crazy for our end users, right? To have 500 expense types to choose from, and to be able to take that, you said about 200, so you're more than cutting that in half. And I'm sure that 200 is across multiple different units within the university. But then, this is just a creative way to think about that; let's take it down a level. Just because we've always done it this one way does not mean that's how it has to be done every time. I think from Concur's perspective, I mean, we're set up that way because it is fairly simple, but once you get to be that large, and there's a lot of more complex things going on, this is where we have to be creative.</p>
<p>And, this is really, to me, that benefit of the partnership that we have with Huron here. You guys are thinking so much more outside the box, to how do we accommodate this stuff? Let's make it work. And that's just great to hear. And, I can imagine from Penn State's perspective, what that means. I'm just thinking surely from the user's perspective, right? To now come into this new instance of Concur, that has the same look and feel, but now it's even easier than it was before. And, then the back office or the finance team, getting that information into their new ERP, is flowing seamlessly because you were able to bring that down that extra level to keep the broader set of GLs, but not make it so complicated.</p>
<p>Very interesting to hear. And, I think from that, I have to assume we're talking very much about Concur, but there was that new ERP through SAP. We have native integrations, but when we're talking about some of these more complex projects and some of the creativeness that we're building, I'm sure there was a lot of communication there. Can you talk about that relationship at all, on how getting that data back and forth to make that process simple as well?</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, as you're aware, with the native integrations between the SAP ERP products and the SAP Concur product, that's one of the primary reasons Penn State had went with an SAP ERP product, at least is my understanding. So, that native integration was extremely important to them. There was one part of the native integration from the employee-feed perspective that was lacking. And that is the fact that the Request-user and Request-approver check boxes were not options on the native integration. So, they couldn't... I don't... How do I put this? I don't want to say they couldn't use it, because they did use it. But the partnership there with Concur is what I really want to speak to in that regard. So, Concur knew that that piece of the pie was missing, right?</p>
<p>And, so, what they did is they worked very closely with Penn State and their IT group and developed an API that came back daily and updated those Request-user and Request-approver check boxes. So, Penn State did not have to ultimately use the 3-0-5 record to import their employee profiles. And I know that that was a pretty heavy lift, I think all things considered, from the Concur side, which they're very pleased with that collaboration.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Again, it's the creative side of this. I just keep coming back to that word. It's just... We're finding ways to make things work and make things better. And, then thinking about that, what else I'm seeing through this whole conversation is Huron and Penn State had a relationship prior to all this in different forms and fashions. Penn State and Concur had this relationship for quite some time. But, bringing that community together with all the Concur higher education colleges and universities, et cetera, coming together to feed off each other, to also bring in our partners, like Huron, into that same venue, same event, to make those connections. But, then to think about it even further from there, working with the bank, working with SAP, working obviously with Penn State; they're obviously a huge piece of this as well.</p>
<p>If we think about how making those connections throughout made this process now for Penn State travelers, or anybody doing an expense report, or needing a credit card at Penn State, and their back-office teams, whether that's IT, Finance, et cetera, we're pulling this all together. And, that Huron is a significant piece in the creativeness that came out of that, and the support for Penn State to make this all work. But I think the community aspect of that is huge here, of bringing everybody together. Not a specific question, but I don't know if you want to comment on that anymore. That's kind of what I'm getting out of all this.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. So, it was definitely a collaboration across many different communities we had at the CHEAB. The higher ed community, in general, is highly collaborative within each other. And, then you give them a forum like Concur has, to specifically talk about their travel and expense opportunities, and areas for improvement, talking about being able to be innovative and bring some of those trusted partners in to bounce ideas off of. It's just a really great community that Concur has embraced. And the higher ed community has... I don't want to say taken advantage of, but they've really taken advantage of it. They've taken it to the next level, I think. And we love being a part of that community that Concur has opened up for the higher ed area. It brings in so many different aspects. And we are able to then build off of that as well, with other partners, with banking partners, with other consulting partners on the ERP side, like we did for Penn state; we had to work pretty closely with them.</p>
<p>I talked about the employee profile before. So, we had to work with them and their Accounts Payable team, and their HCM team, to make sure that we could get what we needed in and out of both SAP products in order to have them work cohesively together. So, a huge, huge community effort, and we really like being a part of that.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Yeah. And that's great. I mean, I think just bringing that story out and how we can bring everybody together... I'll be honest, just the partnership between Concur and Huron. When I work with a lot of our higher education customers, and plenty of other customers in other industries as well, and when I come in and they say, "Oh, we're working with Huron too," it just puts me at ease, because I know that you guys are going to handle them well, come up with different ways to do things, make sure that we're accomplishing what needs to get accomplished. And so having that partnership between Concur, Huron, the customer, obviously, and then anybody else that needs to be a part of that, just tying all that together, I think is what we need to emphasize here.</p>
<p>It's strength in numbers, almost, is bringing the level of expertise of all these well-educated and experienced people to come up with different ways to do things, to make things that much more efficient. Tonia, I can't thank you enough for all of this, and Huron as well, for all the help that they've given Concur and our clients. If there's anything else you'd like to add... Otherwise, I think we can wrap it up here, but this has been a pleasure for me.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Absolutely. I appreciate you having me on. It's been great. I love working with Concur. I do want to just make one more plug about the community, and Concur in general, being able to be open to new ideas. It's a very robust product, and it's exciting to be challenged by the client to bring something new to the table with what might seem like an out-of-the-box product, but it's really not. It's so robust and can do so much more than I think the average person even thinks they can, and to be challenged, and to be able to bring that through to fruition, just with thought, leadership, innovative creativity, as you keep mentioning, Phil, and the support of Concur to be, "Yeah, hey, it looks like we can do that. Let's do it." And I really enjoy being a part of that.</p>
<p>Phil Bunnell:</p>
<p>Awesome. Yeah, I mean, this has been great. I really appreciate the time. Hope our listeners feel the same. I think we really got a lot out of this, and things to think about. So, appreciate the time and wish you the best. And I'm sure we'll cross paths again. And, like I said, that's one of the best parts of my job when I hear that Huron's involved. So, we look forward to that.</p>
<p>Tonia Raber:</p>
<p>Thanks, Phil. Appreciate it.</p>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Tonia%20Square.png" /> </p>
<p>Tonia’s experience with Travel and Expense goes back 20+ years. Many of those years include an in-depth knowledge of SAP Concur, during which time Tonia has become a Certified Implementation Partner and trusted advisor for the SAP Concur system. Tonia enjoys challenging the status quo and provoking thoughts that inspire conversations resulting in true modernization of Travel and Expense programs. Tonia has worked with SAP Concur in both the private and public sectors in a variety of industries with her recent focus being in Higher Ed. She has worked with several institutions both large and small. Tonia lives in Northern Colorado with her youngest daughter and three spunky dogs but it’s her granddaughter that keeps her young and on the run, and she’d have it no other way.</p>
<p>Follow Tonia on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonia-raber-96291a30/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Phil_Bunnell.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Phil joined the SAP Concur team in 2018 and has assisted many SAP Concur customers to expand and optimize their Travel and Spend Management programs. He has a passion to consult with organizations to ensure they have proper controls, compliance, and governance all while providing a great employee experience.</p>
<p>Previously, Phil managed a great T&E program with a large global manufacturer including being the global business owner of Concur Travel and Expense and the corporate credit card programs. He has also held positions in varying aspects of accounting and finance.</p>
<p>Phil lives in New Jersey with his wife, two young children and their 14-year-old dog Maggie. Phil is an avid hockey fan which likely come from his roots of growing up in Minnesota which he still considers his second home.</p>
<p>Follow Phil on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-bunnell-103a1122/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Dynamic Spend Management in Higher Education: Establishing a Travel Program with Strong Duty of Care Principals
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dynamic-spend-management-higher-education-establishing-travel-program-strong-duty-care
2022-07-01T17:19:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As colleges and universities work to relaunch and prioritize their travel and spend management programs disrupted by the COVID pandemic institutions have an obligation duty of care...
<p>As colleges and universities work to relaunch and prioritize their travel and spend management programs disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions have an obligation – duty of care (DOC) – to protect their travelers. DOC processes have evolved over time to become more encompassing and now is top of mind of university leadership. Before the 1960s, colleges and universities were operating “in loco parentis,” or in the place of one’s parent, creating an expectation that a university would look after the welfare and safety of students under its care. When the United Kingdom passed the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act (Manslaughter Act) in 2007 — which posed criminal liability on corporations that had a gross breach of duty of care — more organizations implemented DOC processes. While colleges and universities have now followed suit, challenges remain especially with staff, faculty and students dispersed worldwide. </p>
<p>While DOC protocols have always been in place for domestic and international travel, the growing globalization of education and increased focus on student study abroad programs are catalyzing advancements in the field. Colleges and universities are now tasked with identifying areas of automation, streamlining supply and increasing communication with travelers. Here are four ways leaders can optimize DOC principles within their institution’s travel policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Establish a travel approval and booking process</h2>
<p>For colleges and universities, setting up a travel management program means deciding what data to track and how, logistically, to do so. By adopting SAP Concur technologies, a university can streamline reporting, gain insight into spend and be informed should an emergency arise during travel. For example, when using Concur Request, universities can determine if the destination is safe to visit and if the risk outweighs the need for the travel. By including additional criteria on the request form, universities can modify workflow and check if a medical screening is needed prior to trip approval. This formal request process for all travel helps to mitigate possible risks. Universities can also minimize risk by mandating travel programs that traditionally have not been enforced. We are hearing from many institutions that are now mandating, at minimum, air travel to be booked with Concur Travel or promoting the usage of TripLink to gather this data inside of SAP Concur. For example, in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/university-alabama">SAP Concur case study on the University of Alabama</a>, the university outlines its plan for mandating all non-essential travel to be booked through Concur Travel. Recent discussions with our clients suggest that these processes appeal to faculty, staff and students because traveler sentiments have shifted surrounding safety in wake of the pandemic.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Optimize traveler communication</h2>
<p>Once a trip has been approved and booked, it is up to the university to communicate important messages to the traveling population, including briefing students and faculty on travel risk, and implementing communication/check-in protocols. This is a partnership between the traveler and the university to provide the best possible service to the traveler. One of the more challenging aspects of university-based DOC programs is understanding where the traveler is always. For example, a faculty member or student my fly into one location but drive to their destination. If an event occurred in that destination and the university only leveraged air booked data, they would not know to support the traveler. Universities need to leverage and send intended travel data, booked itinerary data and mobile check-ins to the DOC worldview/map partner so that the Risk Managers can quickly develop the list of impacted travelers and send out mass communications to those that need support or ground evacuation.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Encourage campus-wide engagement in travel programs</h2>
<p>Universities should ensure that their duty of care program is free of gaps and that their partners, technologies and policies are not operating in silos. Leadership can create stakeholder engagement by forming a committee including representatives from public relations, human resources, safety and security, campus travel and international program departments. This committee should also include program directors and deans that can drive more awareness, compliance and consistency in communications. This would ensure awareness and the success of the university’s travel program, allowing the university to protect the well-being of faculty and students, as well as helping to attract top talent and students.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Use tech to mitigate foreseeable risk</h2>
<p>Using the right combination of technologies and removing manual reporting and processes, universities can streamline reporting, be better informed and, when needed, speed up the ability to track and rescue those at risk. SAP Concur has stated that in their 25+ year history, what propels them forward is by asking themselves the question, “Is there a better way?” for solving complex business challenges. For over a decade, SAP Concur has focused on how to solve the gaps in Duty of Care programs, especially in universities where managed programs were not mandated. Duty of Care needs have rapidly evolved and considering the post-pandemic DOC-related needs such as providing medical assistance or security needs, DOC providers have become very specialized. However, they are still in need of comprehensive data to provide the best service to their clients. In 2021, SAP Concur moved to the model of providing all itinerary services from Concur Request, Concur Travel, Concur TripIt and Concur TripLink for outside bookings via API automation to university-based DOC providers, thus sunsetting Locate and providing their consolidated data to their partners. As the travel and technology providers continue to evolve in supporting DOC regulations, universities should consistently review their DOC needs and combine technology partners to develop best-in-breed programs to support travelers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Huron is a global consultancy that collaborates with clients to drive strategic growth, ignite innovation and navigate constant change. Through a combination of strategy, expertise and creativity, we help clients accelerate operational, digital and cultural transformation, enabling the change they need to own their future. By embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo, we create sustainable results for the organizations we serve. As a Certified SAP Concur Advisor, Huron has extensive experience in implementing travel and expense solutions and understanding the unique challenges of assessing, building, and optimizing best-in-class travel and expense management programs. Learn more at <a href="http://www.huronconsultinggroup.com">www.huronconsultinggroup.com</a></p>
Katheryn Nolfo
When’s The Last Time You Measured Your Measurements?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whens-last-time-you-measured-your-measurements
2022-07-02T05:32:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Before we get into all that I just want to ask how youre doing Its been a long couple of years hard years on all of us and because I care I want to know how you are You know...
<p>Before we get into all that, I just want to ask how you’re doing. It’s been a long couple of years – hard years on all of us – and because I care, I want to know how you are.</p>
<p>You know, financially.</p>
<p>Okay, so there’s a conversation your mother would never allow you to have. You just don’t ask people about money. And it’s generally true, but you have to wonder if we should start asking more questions about what’s coming in and (more importantly) what’s going out – at least when it comes to your business.</p>
<p>Sure, you have KPIs to keep yourself in line on spending. But if you haven’t noticed, (see the aforementioned “hard years”) spending has changed, considerably, and if your key performance indicators haven’t been adjusted to reflect those changes, you could be measuring the wrong things the wrong way and getting the wrong information.</p>
<p>And no matter how you’re doing financially, your company can’t afford that.</p>
<h2>So how do you measure this stuff?</h2>
<p>As a finance leader, you know just about everything there is to know about staying on top of your spending. You’ve got the tools in place to capture the data, report on the findings, and steer your financial strategy. But if you haven’t updated your indicators, how do you know how you’re doing?</p>
<p>We recently created spend management <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/rethink-your-spend-management-kpis">KPI scorecard</a> designed to help companies rethink their spending measurement. It’s a way for you and your team to measure risk, improve program performance, gauge the accuracy of your budgets, and make the most of your investment.</p>
<p>Just what, for example, are you doing to make sure you’re not spending cash when corporate cards give you a better deal, say, at the negotiating table? And if your organization sends out fleets of road warriors, how are you ensuring that the mileage they turn in is accurate? Because, as the scorecard points out, duplicate mileage submissions <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">increased 2,127%</a> in the last quarter of last year. That’s a jump that would make any CFO, well, jumpy.</p>
<p>And where do you stand on things like the employee experience, or audit coverage, or data integrity? And are you bogged down in invoice exceptions? These are KPI categories that can make or break your budget, and they need to go on the list of things to watch – and watch out for.</p>
<h2>Rethink about it.</h2>
<p>Things have changed more in the last two years than most businesses have seen since their ribbon cutting, and while you and your peers are doing everything possible to stay ahead of this fast-motion evolution, it’s time to rethink not only your processes, but the gauges that protect them. The KPI scorecard offers 17 new indicators to consider, and it’s certainly worth seeing how you measure up.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Prepare Your Travelers For Their Destination with Neighborhood Safety Scores from TripIt Pro
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/prepare-your-travelers-their-destination-neighborhood-safety-scores-tripit-pro
2022-11-13T16:15:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to business travel preparation is key Making sure to remember all necessary devices cords notes appropriate attirenot to mention everything else required for an overnight...
<p>When it comes to business travel, preparation is key. Making sure to remember all necessary devices, cords, notes, appropriate attire—not to mention everything else required for an overnight trip—means travelers already have plenty to worry about. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> customers can now take any additional worry off their travelers' minds thanks to Neighborhood Safety Scores feature, available within TripIt Pro.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Support your travelers with health and safety</strong></h2>
<p>As travelers prepare for their next business trip, whenever that might be, a better understanding of the safety of the areas they are visiting will be top of mind. With TripIt Pro, one of the most popular elements of our Concur TripLink offering, they’ll have access to that information—right alongside all their other travel plans and details.</p>
<p>With the Neighborhood Safety Scores feature, travelers can see safety scores— from 1 to 100, representing low to high risk—for the areas they’ll be visiting. A safety score will be available for where they are staying as well as any meetings, activities, or dining plans they have scheduled. It will also show how those scores change based on time of day.</p>
<p>Travelers will be able to see scores for overall safety along with scores specific to six other categories:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Physical harm</strong>: including muggings, drug activity, gang prevalence, and limited police presence</li>
<li><strong>Women’s safety</strong>: including verbal harassment, physical assault, violence directed against women, and adequacy of women’s support facilities</li>
<li><strong>LGBTQ</strong>: including likelihood of harm or discrimination against LGBTQ persons or groups and level of caution required</li>
<li><strong>Theft</strong>: including petty theft, pickpocketing, burglaries, auto theft, and grand theft</li>
<li><strong>Political freedoms</strong>: including political unrest, limited political rights, and incidents of riots and protests</li>
<li><strong>Health and medical</strong>: including environmental pollution and contamination, illnesses, regulation of sanitary conditions, and access to medical care</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Neighborhood-Safety.gif" /></p>
<p>Neighborhood Safety Scores are provided for 65,000 cities and neighborhoods, in every country around the world, via a partnership with <a href="https://geosureglobal.com/">GeoSure</a>. So, whether a traveler has been to the area before or is traveling someplace new, information will be available to help them stay up to date on the current environment and be better prepared when they arrive. A traveler will need to be using the TripIt app to access this feature.</p>
<p>Neighborhood Safety Scores is just one of the ways <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a> makes every trip easier for travelers, and gives companies an easy way to boost travel program satisfaction, gain visibility into outside bookings, and better fulfill duty of care responsibilities.</p>
<p>TripIt Pro is available as part of Concur TripLink, an SAP Concur solution that gives companies visibility into their employees’ travel, regardless of where bookings take place. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
AI and Machine Learning at Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-and-machine-learning-work
2022-11-13T16:54:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For a lot of people the words artificial intelligence AI fit neatly into a futuristic scifi narrative that goes something like this human beings create AI AI helps at first but soon...
<p>For a lot of people, the words “artificial intelligence” (AI) fit neatly into a futuristic, sci-fi narrative that goes something like this: human beings create AI; AI helps at first, but soon begins to think for itself; advanced technology decides its human creators are no longer necessary; calamity and chaos ensue.</p>
<p>Fortunately, it’s still early days for AI and its subset technology, machine learning (ML). And because this advanced technology is very much in the controllable, powerful tech tool phase of its existence, businesses around the world are adopting AI and ML to simplify work process and run more intelligently.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/ai-at-the-office-how-tech-is-giving-companies-a-competitive-edge">our third article with Forbes</a>, three scenarios are laid out in which businesses can benefit from AI and ML. From standardizing policies to eliminating paper receipts, projecting travel budgets, and giving employees the freedom and ability to make cost-conscious travel choices — AI and ML can be valuable office assistants that help organizations of all sizes to grow, scale, and improve employee satisfaction.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are already helping customers stay ahead of the tech curve with products that use AI and ML to simplify travel, expense, and invoice management. Employees can use their smartphones to take photos of receipts, and then easily upload these to expense reports. Travel information can be pulled into reports from travel booking sites, emails, and corporate credit cards. Accounts payable professionals are saying goodbye to paper receipts and can complete tasks more quickly and accurately.</p>
<p>Here are a few SAP Concur products that currently use AI and ML to assist at work:</p>
<ul>
<li>Within the SAP Concur mobile app, <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app"><strong>ExpenseIt</strong></a> uses traditional optical character recognition (OCR) to extract information from receipt photos. Where our technology goes further than others is by using ML to add context to receipt information. By identifying and understanding data like currencies, dates, and expense types, receipt photos can be easily and automatically converted into completed expense reports.</li>
<li>For expense auditing,<strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by AppZen</a></strong> uses AI and ML to quickly cross check expenses against hundreds of external data sources before reimbursements occur. Because Concur Detect integrates with Concur Expense, expense reports that may contain errors or incidents of employee fraud are flagged for immediate review.</li>
<li>On the employee safety side, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate"><strong>Concur Locate</strong></a> uses ML to analyze credit cards, itineraries, and other data to determine where traveling employees may be in the world. This allows organizations to reach all of its employees in an emergency and fulfill Duty of Care obligations.</li>
</ul>
<p>Again, AI and ML are still in their infancy. And SAP Concur solutions will continue to emerge, modernize the workplace, and give companies better visibility into spend. As AI and ML learns from human behaviors and evolves over time, the algorithms will get sharper, the tech will get smarter, and office processes will get simpler.</p>
<p><strong>Read our <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/ai-at-the-office-how-tech-is-giving-companies-a-competitive-edge">latest article</a> to learn more. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Do You Have a Supplier Invoice Policy in Place?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-you-have-supplier-invoice-policy-place
2022-11-13T19:06:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A supplier invoice policy is one of those documents that every business should have.
<p>A supplier invoice policy is one of those documents that every business should have. An effective policy will greatly reduce the amount of time related to the tasks of approving and processing vendor invoices, addressing exceptions, or storing, retaining and pulling documents for research, audit or litigation. If you don’t have one yet, our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/how-to-build-a-vendor-invoice-policy">invoice policy template</a> is a great place to start.</p>
<h2>Why you need an invoice policy</h2>
<p>When you first start out in business, chances are it was just yourself and a few close associates running the show. When it came to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice processing</a>, you shared an instinctive understanding of the process to follow and your company values in relation to purchases.</p>
<p>As you grow – and things get busier – this changes. There’s so much going on and keeping tabs on supplier invoices is just one of a thousand things that need your attention. Plus, as the team grows, the instinctive understanding of how things work gets lost. It means that confusion reigns and cost control and cashflow suffer.</p>
<p>An invoice policy helps you regain control. It helps you clearly define your accounts payable process. It means:</p>
<ul>
<li>All employees are aware of the invoice policy lifecycle and what steps they need to take at each stage.</li>
<li>Back-up documentation attached to an invoice like account codes, approvals, or other notes is accounted for.</li>
<li>You will speed up processes and reduce the risk of late financial reporting and payment.</li>
<li>Your finance team will be able to easily find documents needed for research and auditing purposes.</li>
<li>Senior management will be able to better access invoice and supplier data.</li>
</ul>
<p>An invoice policy should contain:</p>
<ul>
<li>Statement of purpose</li>
<li>Company expectations and policy compliance</li>
<li>Areas of ambiguity</li>
</ul>
<p>Beyond that, there are a number of other factors it could also cover. Let’s take a look at each of the big areas and the optional extras in turn:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Introduction and statement of purpose</strong>: The opening section of your invoice policy sets out the purpose of the policy and who it applies to. It covers the basic guidelines and is factual and clear. The easier a policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow and enforce.</li>
<li><strong>Company expectations and policy compliance</strong>: This section explains your company’s expectations for managing the receipt and storage of all accounts payable documents, the responsibilities every employee has when they handle a supplier invoice for any reason, and what happens when someone does not comply with the policy.</li>
<li><strong>Areas of ambiguity</strong>: Your invoice policy gives you the ideal opportunity to explain any common areas of confusion. These might include who has delegation of authority, segregation of duties, what happens if there is a purchase price variance, and what happens if there’s a challenge to the policy.</li>
<li><strong>Additional areas to consider</strong>: The first three sections of your supplier invoice policy cover the basics. There is a wealth of other subject areas you could consider. These include creating purchase orders, sending invoices from AP to the appropriate party for action and back again, coding invoices, approving invoices, recording results of exception handling, retention periods, payment terms, and many more.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Invoice automation takes you to the next level</h2>
<p>Having an invoice policy in place is the first step to gaining more control over your spend. Next, it’s time to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/everything-you-need-know-about-accounts-payable">automate your AP process</a>. Automated invoicing software will give you more efficiency, put you in control of spend, and provide a clearer picture of where your money is going and where you might be able to reduce costs.</p>
<p><strong>Want to learn more? Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment">five-minute assessment</a> to see if your current AP processes are posing a business risk.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
The New Duty of Care
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-duty-care
2022-11-13T19:43:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The next evolution of employee safety
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns, travel restrictions, and the additional risk of any interactions has inspired companies and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">travel managers</a> to take a fresh look at their Total Risk Management (TRM) and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">Duty of Care</a> programs. With every trip presenting increased risks, Duty of Care is being seen less as an afterthought of governance, and more as a potentially life-saving necessity.</p>
<p>This new emphasis on Duty of Care is driving a move to agile, cloud-based solutions that support robust care and protection for travelers. Let’s talk about what an optimized approach looks like today.</p>
<p>The legal concept of Duty of Care presumes that individuals and organizations have “legal obligations to act toward others and the public in a prudent and cautious manner to avoid the risk of reasonably foreseeable injury to others.” Breaching Duty of Care may give rise to legal action that can result in financial and reputational damage, or even criminal prosecution. But it’s more than that, Duty of Care is a moral obligation.</p>
<p>As a result, it’s important that travel managers make it clear within the organization that it is not a question of if something is going to happen, but of where, when, and how serious. This mindset isn’t just related to COVID-19, and spectacular events such as natural disasters and transportation accidents. Rather, it is the more common occurrence of someone traveling to a foreign country and falling sick, that the importance of Duty of Care comes into play.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>How TMCs Are Adapting to Provide Direction</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2>A new definition of the traveling employee base</h2>
<p>In this new environment, awareness of employee locations is a must. With the additional risks and threats, global situational awareness is paramount. And because employees never stay in the same place, it’s a 24/7 job. To keep track of employees constantly in motion, Total Risk Management (TRM) programs have had to go <strong>from optional to optimal</strong> to fully support Duty of Care. That requires new tools, new solutions, and new technology.</p>
<p>It is no longer enough to trust your internal security and risk research and expertise. True Duty of Care requires fast access to local contacts, researchers, networks, and on-the-ground reports. This global, always-on approach calls for a more comprehensive solution that tracks and messages travelers, while addressing and balancing employee privacy concerns. It demands a continually updated stream of security, travel safety, and medical information as well as quick-response assistance services when needed.</p>
<h2>Modern Duty of Care requires a cloud ecosystem of integrated partners. We’re on it</h2>
<p>The levels of data access required for modern TRM and Duty of Care require a more comprehensive cloud-based approach, powered by the most robust, timely, and complete data set to enable risk mitigation for all companies and organizations. At the SAP Concur organization, we believe a "best-in-class" solution requires an ecosystem approach that can address the unique needs of every organization as well as the new dynamics of the challenging travel landscape.</p>
<p>Putting our technology where our beliefs are, SAP Concur solutions have a robust network of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/power-of-collaboration-sap-concur-partner-ecosystem">integrated solution partners</a>. This approach enables us to provide greater value to our customers by consolidating traveler and employee data from all booking sources while providing rich data to specialized partners.</p>
<p>Our growing network of TRM and Duty of Care specialist partners can help you build a thoughtful and thorough duty of care program—supported by the latest cloud technologies.</p>
<p>This newly changed landscape of travel management is an opportunity to lower risk, provide employee experiences, and improve business performance, while supporting new levels of transparency across your business, throughout your ever-shifting employee population, and across the globe. Watch the video below to learn how Travel Management Companies (TMCs) can help you today.</p>
<p><strong>For more about the new age of TRM, listen to my Duty of Care panel discussion from the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">2021 SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> on-demand. </strong></p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;padding-top:30px;height:0;overflow:hidden"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HomE3MZllpQ" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p> </p>
Ralph Colunga
How and Why the Role of Travel Manager is Changing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-and-why-role-travel-manager-changing
2022-11-14T11:59:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to a recent survey conducted by GBTA over the past five years the role of travel manager has evolved to deliver an even more significant value to the company To provide this...
<p>According to a recent survey conducted by GBTA, over the past five years the role of travel manager has evolved to deliver an even more significant value to the company. To provide this added value, travel managers with at least 15 years of experience spend more time focusing on new responsibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>65% more time managing data, analysis, and reporting</li>
<li>70% more time evaluating new technologies </li>
<li>64% more time managing traveler safety and communications</li>
</ul>
<p>The GBTA report Lost in Translation highlights what has been driving the need for the travel managers’ evolution:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Invisible Spend</strong> – Two out of five of hotel bookings are made outside of corporate channels. This statistic is identical between companies with strictly mandated travel policies and companies with more flexible travel policies.</li>
<li><strong>Employee safety</strong> – In an emergency, employees today can expect their company to reach out quickly, sometimes in under an hour. Companies have found that they can react more quickly when they integrate employee safety, travel, and expense solutions.</li>
<li><strong>Traveler satisfaction</strong> – Many companies today strive to be traveler-focused. Those that are provide travelers with easy-to-use, mobile travel technology to increase traveler satisfaction.</li>
</ol>
<p>As the role of the travel manager continues to expand beyond familiar areas such as troubleshooting travel reservations and negotiating with suppliers, it becomes more strategic. As it does, experienced travel managers must become less siloed and collaborate with other teams in their companies.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges-infographic">Read the GBTA report</a> to learn more about how the role of the travel manager is changing, and how travel managers can deliver more value with their managed corporate travel programs.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Does a Flexible Work Environment Empower Employees and Drive Satisfaction?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-does-flexible-work-environment-empower-employees-and-drive-satisfaction
2022-12-02T13:49:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Employees around the world are taking a hard look at work. Since the COVID pandemic upended our lives at home and in the office people are asking themselves what their jobs mean to them...
<p>Employees around the world are taking a hard look at work.</p>
<p>Since the COVID-19 pandemic upended our lives at home and in the office, people are asking themselves what their jobs mean to them and how work can function in tandem with – rather than in opposition to – personal life.</p>
<p>To find out how this change is affecting the way we approach work and what we expect from employers, the experts at SAP and Oxford Economics teamed up to conduct a survey of 352 finance and IT decision-makers from small and midsize companies around the globe.</p>
<p>Across the board, respondents say they understand what matters to employees, but few are offering benefits that are aligned with employee expectations. Most leaders want their people back in the office full time, but for more than half, the reality of a hybrid work model feels unavoidable – at least over the next two years. Unfortunately, though, for many employees and the businesses they work for, workplace operations, such as travel and expense management and vendor invoice management, are simply not optimized to make working from anywhere possible.</p>
<p>The obvious question is: Do business leaders really know what their employees want?</p>
<p>In the United States, less than half of survey respondents (47%) even acknowledge that the pandemic may be causing employees to reevaluate what’s important to them.</p>
<p>At the same time, 53% say they know what employees want at work – but only 29% are using formal surveys to find out how their people really feel about their jobs. Nearly 70% list competitive pay as the most important factor in employee satisfaction – and 82% report that their companies are delivering it. But only 39% say that their organization is ultimately providing the right mix of benefits and compensation.</p>
<p>As we are seeing in “The Great Resignation,” pay isn’t everything. And as much as leadership may want everyone in the office, flexibility is the new name of the game. More than half (53%) of US respondents acknowledge that flexible work is important to potential employees, and even more (57%) say employees perform better if they have the flexibility to choose where they work. Yet 45% still say that the optimal policy for remote work is to require everyone to be in the office full time, and 41% expect to have that policy back in place in two years.</p>
<p>Whether business leaders want to acknowledge it or not, offering workforce flexibility is going to be critical to providing a positive employee experience that keeps people happy and attracts top talent in the future. With this in mind, finance and IT must ensure that employees can perform their jobs from anywhere. But for businesses around the world, process effectiveness is still low. When it comes to spend management, for example, respondents from the US report poor performance. Only 43% say they have completely optimized the process for updating compliance policy. And only 40% are effectively capturing employee spend. The numbers for managing travel and expense reports and managing vendor and supplier invoices are even lower at 34% and 26% respectively.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if employers want a satisfied and engaged workforce that can get them through these tumultuous times and move toward a brighter future they need to begin preparing today.</p>
<p>The first step is to start listening to employees to find out what is working, what is not, and how finance and IT can help. Regular surveys are a good first step in keeping up to date with where your employees are now and what they need to feel empowered to give their very best.</p>
<p>Next, make sure you are getting people the training they need to keep up with a continuously changing work environment. The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, but with time businesses are adapting. It is critical that your people have the guidance, support, and tools they need to adapt as well – including keeping up with changing policies and regulations for everything from expenses to invoices, remote work, and travel.</p>
<p>Finally, finance and IT must work together to put technology in place that supports the hybrid work experience. Whether it’s finance experts, account payable, procurement teams, business travelers, managers, or general employees, your people expect to be able to work from anywhere – and for the near future, they have to. So, make sure you have the flexible, scalable, integrated solutions you need to make that possible today, tomorrow, and for the long term.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-us-fact-sheet-empowering-your-people?pid=email&cid=jrodr_eywbw3fseextips_20211214">full report</a> to see how you can empower your people, drive employee satisfaction, and support flexible work. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What It's Like to Take an SAP Social Sabbatical
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-its-take-sap-social-sabbatical
2022-12-06T11:19:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The social sabbatical journey for each participant is unique Mine started a few years ago when colleagues in the SAP Concur Manila office were able to participate in the program and...
<p>The social sabbatical journey for each participant is unique.</p>
<p>Mine started a few years ago, when colleagues in the SAP Concur Manila office were able to participate in the program and gave great feedback on their experiences. I got a closer look at the program through my involvement as the local executive sponsor for the first Social Sabbatical Program for Local Engagement Philippines. I saw a great learning opportunity. With the encouragement of my manager, I took the step of applying to the 2018-2019 cohort. I am grateful to be chosen to be part of the 12 employees who make up the Durban, South Africa team – the Durban Dozen. We named ourselves Team “Sekela,” which in the Zulu language means to “support.”</p>
<p>I feel truly fortunate I was sharing this journey with a great group of colleagues all with the drive and passion to make a positive difference. As an individual, what I can do to help others is limited, but to put in effort with others while being supported by SAP multiplies that effort to make that contribution much more significant.</p>
<p><strong>Can you tell us a little bit more about the project for this Social Sabbatical?</strong></p>
<p>Along with two colleagues from the Germany and Prague offices, I was assigned to work with the KZN e-Skills CoLab which is housed in the Durban University of Technology. The CoLab is established to assist the government in e-skilling the citizens of the province of KwaZulu-Natal through training, e-literacy programs, and research.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558535272212-social-sabbatical-jackets.jpg" /></p>
<p>Our scope of work was to create a marketing strategy to support the CoLab’s work in driving awareness and knowledge for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to their target audience. </p>
<p>We created a repeatable solution that the CoLab team can continue and reuse for each new project in the future. We laid the groundwork and partnered with the university to rework their website to more accurately reflect the CoLab identity. Social media channels that they can continue to use were created and the knowledge roadmap transferred for them to take forward. </p>
<p><strong>What were your favorite memories from your experience?</strong></p>
<p>The program is an exciting four-week adventure full of stories and great memories and an easy favorite is that of our first ideation workshop session with the CoLab team. For many of them, it was their first time attending such an activity. An ice breaker game and a lot of sweets certainly helped to create a more comfortable atmosphere and encouraged great ideas to flow out with enthusiasm. Our sweets and games became a staple in the rest of our workshops.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558535299205-social-sabbatical-workshop.jpg" /></p>
<p>On the SAP team front, my favorite memories are of our team get-togethers at breakfast and our weekends where we had the chance to see the beauty of South Africa. We hiked the Drakensberg mountains, saw the Valley of a Thousand hills, went on a Safari, and went on a hippo tour at the St. Lucia wetlands.</p>
<p><strong>How does participating in the Social Sabbatical support you being your best-self at SAP Concur?</strong></p>
<p>I am my best self when I am able to continue to learn and grow in my role at work and balance this by being able to give quality time to my family and personal endeavors. Social sabbatical is able to support this by providing a venue for rich experiential learning. I have gained a more culturally-sensitive mindset and learned lessons that allow me to increase my leadership capacity outside of my comfort zone. The relationships I have built through meaningful connections are priceless. Not only did I grow in my work life, I have also gained lifelong friends I treasure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1558535466013-social-sabbatical-4.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>What inspired you to participate in a social sabbatical?</strong></p>
<p>I take inspiration from my children. I have realized that when I participate in volunteer activities, these become opportunities for me to teach them life lessons and raise them with the mindset that they have to take action to contribute to make this world a better place. It is my hope that they too will become adults who have the passion to make a difference and I believe my participation in this program will contribute towards that. It is a journey of many lessons and one worth taking.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Spend Management Thought Leader at Booz Allen Hamilton Shares Top Read for 2022
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spend-management-thought-leader-booz-allen-hamilton-shares-top-read-2022
2022-12-06T14:54:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense TE industry is now available Tori Simpson Senior Manager Financial Operations Accounts...
<p>Our 2022 top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense (T&E) industry is now available! Tori Simpson, Senior Manager, Financial Operations – Accounts Payable, Booz Allen Hamilton, shares why she recommended The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson:</p>
<p><strong>Q:</strong><strong> Why did you recommend this book as a top read? </strong></p>
<p>A: From this read, I discovered our actions are always working for or against us: There is really no in between. For example, it’s just as easy to watch tv as it is to read a book. One will bring you up while the other will carry you down. And with the compound effect in play, your wins compound just as your losses compound so stack the small wins in your favor. Let the compound effect skyrocket you to new heights!</p>
<p><strong>Q: How do you think your colleagues in the T&E industry could benefit from the advice in this book? </strong></p>
<p>A: With all of the change our team faced due to the Pandemic and from the implementation of our new systems (a new instance of Concur, a new accounting system and a new front end system), everyone had to think very creatively and positively over these past couple of years and remain as flexible and adaptable as possible. Being able to focus on actions that took all this change into consideration helped me see the small wins which has really helped me along the way in leading the team.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see the full list of books, podcasts, and videos our thought leaders recommended? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love"><strong>Download the list</strong></a></p>
Kyla Kent
Staying Agile and Supporting Growth with SAP Concur Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/staying-agile-and-supporting-growth-sap-concur-solutions
2022-12-30T15:16:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If small and midsize business have learned anything over the past two years it is that agility is critical to staying flexible in the face of change Whether your organization is just...
<p>If small and midsize business have learned anything over the past two years, it is that agility is critical to staying flexible in the face of change. Whether your organization is just getting back to prepandemic levels or is experiencing major growth, the old way of doing business is no longer an option. From a finance perspective, that means maintaining tight control over cash flow while also providing your people with the tools they need to function in the new hybrid work environment.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, organizations like yours are connecting all types of spend – from travel and expenses to vendor invoicing – and gaining insight across every category, department, location, and individual. Plus, by making the entire spend management process digital, they are supporting their entire workforce with automated and intelligent processes that can be executed from anywhere.</p>
<p>Take <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/tech-interactive">The Tech Interactive</a>, a family-friendly science and technology museum in San Jose, California. As the controller for this nonprofit organization, Brandon Lewke must ensure that every budget dollar is tracked and that donations are correctly applied to the programs they are intended to support. “In some way, shape, or form,” he says, “all the money that comes in has got to go through me.” But his team still had issues with invoice coding and routing, which involved manually tracking approvals. “It used to take hours over a couple of days,” he explains, “and it all had to happen onsite.” Working for a tech-focused museum in the heart of Silicon Valley, Lewke knew there had to be a better way.</p>
<p>This is led The Tech Interactive to SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>With the Concur Expense and Concur Invoice solutions, approval workflows are preset and expense reports and vendor invoices are automatically routed from one approver to the next. “We’ve saved a lot of that manual running around and headache,” Lewke explains.</p>
<p>Spend visibility has also improved. “Now, an individual can log in and get a digital copy of all of their expenses saved in the cloud,” he continues. “Plus, you can do it on your phone or computer.”</p>
<p>The ability to manage spend from anywhere was a huge plus when the pandemic hit. “It was not a pleasant time to be in a hands-on science museum,” says Lewke. To meet the challenge, The Tech Interactive pivoted to a digital strategy that actually allowed it to reach more kids in more schools well beyond San Jose, which meant a whole new type of budget. But, says Lewke, “having SAP Concur solutions already up and running meant we didn’t need to reinvent financial processes.”</p>
<p>Looking forward, Lewke and his team anticipate a smooth transition to the new world of remote work. “We’ve realized that not everything has to happen onsite. I think we’ll start seeing a more flexible workforce – and having SAP Concur solutions is going to help us manage that.”</p>
<p>As we learn to adapt to new health and safety protocols, more companies are getting their sales teams back on the road, in the air, and to the customer site. This is especially true for Wisconsin-based <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/wb-manufacturing">WB Manufacturing LLC</a>, which designs and builds cabinets, lockers, casework, and mobile furniture for businesses and organizations across North America.</p>
<p>“We’re anticipating doubling our sales in the next three years, so we'll have more team members needing to travel and get reimbursed on their expenses,” says the company’s controller, John Adleman. “We needed to scale that without adding a lot of additional overhead and complexity.” To make this possible, WB Manufacturing turned to SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>Adleman and his team worked with a coach from the SAP Concur solution team, participating in an activation workshop and talking with other customers. “We walked through each module, got hands-on guidance, bounced ideas off each other, and learned some best practices from other companies using the solution,” he explains.</p>
<p>From the first meeting until everything was up and running, WB Manufacturing was fully operational with the Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions in less than three months. And after just one day of training, key members of the sales team were already submitting expense reports. </p>
<p>“This is the third travel and expense system I’ve worked with,” says Adelman, “and it has been the most user friendly and straightforward. If you need to put together a travel and entertainment program, take a look at SAP Concur solutions. The return on investment is amazing.”<br />
To find out more about how The Tech Interactive and WB Manufacturing are staying agile and supporting growth with digital spend management, check out these videos:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/tech-interactive">The Tech Interactive</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/wb-manufacturing">WB Manufacturing</a></p>
<p>Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com/">here</a> to find out what SAP Concur solutions can do for you.</p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Insights on Taxes and the Post-Pandemic Remote Workplace
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-insights-taxes-and-post-pandemic-remote-workplace
2023-08-24T14:48:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While may go down in history as The Year of Resilience may come to be known as The Year of Adjustment as individuals companies and governments adapt to the new realities of a world...
<p>While 2020 may go down in history as “The Year of Resilience,” 2021 may come to be known as “The Year of Adjustment” as individuals, companies, and governments adapt to the new realities of a world where a COVID-19 vaccine is (keep your fingers crossed) greatly reducing the virus’ effects.</p>
<p>Take some time to consider the following four key areas regarding taxes and the post-pandemic remote workplace:</p>
<ul>
<li>The new meaning and practices of sustainable and safe business travel</li>
<li>The rise of a new employee-driven remote work paradigm</li>
<li>The modern location-free meeting</li>
<li>The tax compliance issues of the new distributed workforce</li>
</ul>
<p>On this last topic, Scott Peterson, VP of U.S. tax policy and government relations, Avalara, an SAP Concur partner, shared an interesting perspective at a December webinar on 2021 sales tax changes. He observed that after the tax revenue shortfalls of 2020, states could be looking for other ways to increase tax revenues in 2021.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>10 Tips to Improve VAT Compliance</h2>
<p>How to protect against audits and penalties, and maximize your profitability</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-tips-for-improving-vat-compliance">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This is borne out by the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities’ October 2020 report that states budget deficits are likely to exceed $500 billion over the next two years. As a result, says Peterson, governments will be seeking to broaden their tax bases. He predicts they will be looking into a host of new revenue sources, including new ways to tax remote work.</p>
<p>The new “work from anywhere” paradigm has generally been a win-win, with employees getting more freedom and less drive-time, and employers benefitting from productivity increases of up to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2020/05/20/new-survey-shows-47-increase-in-productivity-3-things-you-must-do-when-working-from-home/?sh=f1bc53e80dc8">47%.</a> These benefits could result in additional profits for states from taxation of industry, and income from taxation of individuals.</p>
<p>One central issue for companies and individuals to consider include what new taxes will states, provinces, and countries incur for the new distributed workforce norm. Different locations have different tax regulations, so business and employee income tax liability may change based on the location they are in for work purposes. Though your desk may be in British Columbia, your employer may be in Hong Kong. This raises questions: Where is the individual earning the income? Where does the company have a tax presence? What state? What province? What country?</p>
<p>Considering those pandemic-triggered tax revenue shortfalls, it’s understandable that any jurisdiction will want their fair share of potentially increased income tax revenue and corporate payroll taxes. These are trends for which SAP Concur and our service partners are already planning.</p>
<p>Case in point, Ian Scott, Asia-Pacific nternational tax and transaction services leader at EY, an SAP Concur ecosystem partner, noted in a <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_gl/tax/how-workers-stranded-by-the-crisis-are-creating-inadvertent-tax-issues">recent blog</a>:</p>
<p><strong>“The concern would be as governments start to see revenue falling because of the economic downturn, they will need to pursue additional tax revenue. And obviously, if the rules aren’t clearly stated either way, it leaves the door open to do so.” </strong></p>
<p>He noted that the <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_gl/tax/how-workers-stranded-by-the-crisis-are-creating-inadvertent-tax-issues">pandemic has created</a> highly complex cross-border individual and corporate regulatory and tax risks. Scott calls on tax, immigration, and mobility teams to <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_us/tax-compliance">work closely together</a> to proactively address these challenges before we need to react to new laws. </p>
<p>Paul Klimowicz, EMEA business travel leader at Deloitte, another SAP Concur ecosystem partner, announced a new remedy for this evolving tax issue at an SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/deloitte-new-app-sap-concur-collaboration-ease-travel-remote-work-compliance">travel consultants</a>’ webinar in early November 2020. A new app called <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/tax/deloitte-uk-deloitte-travel-ready-app-brochure.pdf">Travel Ready</a> now helps cross-border business travelers and remote workers comply with regulatory requirements, including travel restrictions, visa and work permits, income tax, European Union cross-border posted worker rules, social security and payroll and corporate taxes, according to the company.</p>
<p>The tax implications of the new world of remote work and travel are still emerging as governments and organizations look to maintain tax revenue and optimize financial performance. However it plays out, one thing is true: the SAP Concur organization and our expanding universe of partners will continue to proactively innovate, working to keep our customers ahead of the ever-changing business landscape.</p>
<p>Learn more about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfKg1cOCWiE">SAP Concur service partners</a> today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Ralph Colunga
GW University Makes Traveling Safer and Easier for Students and Faculty Abroad
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/gw-university-makes-traveling-safer-and-easier-students-and-faculty-abroad
2023-08-29T12:49:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Chartered by an Act of Congress nearly years ago The George Washington University GW was founded as an intellectual hub for the United States With its main campus located just blocks...
<p>Chartered by an Act of Congress nearly 200 years ago, The George Washington University (GW) was founded as an intellectual hub for the United States. With its main campus located just blocks from the White House, GW turns Washington, D.C., into a living classroom by giving students and faculty direct access to a wide variety of learning and research opportunities through nearly every U.S. federal agency. But the GW experience goes far beyond the U.S. capital. “We aspire to be a comprehensive global research university,” explains Sharon Heinle, associate VP and comptroller at GW. "We are seeking to change the world, not only the students we educate, but through the research that's done here at the university and abroad to help improve the lives of citizens around the world."</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your higher ed institution’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To achieve this global mission, GW prides itself on sending faculty and students to learn and teach in more than 100 countries, with primary campuses in Chile, England, France, and Spain. It is also focused on attracting international students and faculty to its three Washington, D.C. campuses. All of this adds up to a lot of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">travel and expense management</a>. A primary goal of the university’s finance and security departments is to make sure that experience is as hassle-free and safe as possible. To do this, it must make services for students and faculty overseas simple and accessible, while also minimizing back-end operations and overhead. “It has to be one, two, three,” says Darrell Darnell, GW’s senior VP for safety and security. “It can’t be complicated.”</p>
<p>As with many <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">higher education institutions</a>, manual back-end processes, outdated technology, and siloed data made it difficult for GW to offer students and faculty a truly seamless travel experience. Saving and copying receipts and then completing manual expense reports took up time that should have been spent focused on study, teaching, and research – not to mention the excessive time it took finance administrators to review and approve those reports. From a security perspective, contact data scattered across different systems made it difficult to keep track of student and faculty whereabouts, which in turn made it hard for security teams to send out location-specific security alerts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>GW needed a better way. Enter SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>To make expense invoicing and reporting more simple, fast, and accurate, GW chose SAP Concur solutions. Now, students and teachers traveling for GW can use their smartphones to take pictures of receipts and have their expenses automatically uploaded – right at the point of sale. Not only does this save them the worry of losing paper receipts, but it also means they don’t have to sit down and manually complete a time-consuming and error-prone expense report. In short, it leaves more time for students and teachers to focus on their studies, their research goals, and enjoying their time abroad.</p>
<p>But traveling GW students and teachers aren’t the only ones benefitting from SAP Concur solutions. The convenience and time savings extend to finance and controlling administrators, who can also review and approve expenses through the mobile app. Antoinette McCorvey, GW’s deputy EVP and CFO explains, “Now, when I get ready to approve an expense report, I can take time that would be wasted time and turn it into productive time.” Having automated expense report generation also means finance can be confident the data it gets from travelers is correct, making it easier to ensure that all charges align with internal and regulatory compliance requirements – an especially important step for publicly funded higher education institutions.</p>
<p>In addition to streamlining T&E and invoice management, SAP Concur solutions are helping the GW security team keep its people safer. With the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/public-sector-risk-management">Concur Locate</a> Web service, GW can pull comprehensive, accurate, and timely student and faculty location data from multiple sources. This allows the university to proactively monitor weather, violence, system disruptions, and other potential risks, then communicate with people in affected areas and connect them to the support and services they need. “Before SAP Concur solutions, we didn’t really have a way to get information out efficiently,” explains Darnell. “Concur Locate allows my office to know exactly where an individual is – from their travel itinerary, to their contact information – in case there is an emergency. We can send out one mass notification to a broad spectrum of students and faculty members across different countries and platforms. Having this at your fingertips puts you at ease, so you can focus on your teaching and learning.”</p>
<p>Across the board, GW is dedicated to providing mission-critical services to students and faculty. "You want to make the processes that support the business as effective as possible," says finance director, Kadriene Sylvain. When it comes to safer travel and more convenient travel and expense management, SAP Concur solutions are helping GW do just that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Watch the video to learn more about SAP Concur solutions are making life easier and travel safer for GW faculty and staff, then <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/george-washington-university">read the full case study</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Next-Gen Spend Management Has Arrived – And Just in Time
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/next-gen-spend-management-has-arrived-and-just-time
2023-09-07T11:14:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How much of your organizations revenue goes toward spend For most companies its to Thats a huge part of the revenue pie and a notoriously difficult slice to monitor and control...
<p>How much of your organization’s revenue goes toward spend? For most companies, it's 40% to 45%. That’s a huge part of the revenue pie – and a notoriously difficult slice to monitor and control company-wide. As explored in a 2019 survey on intelligent spend management commissioned by SAP and conducted by IDC – which polled 800+ leaders worldwide across finance, procurement, supply chain and IT functions – spend control issues are diverse and widespread (see the figure).</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/third-w350/1576781338707-image.png" /></p>
<p>Figure: Specific spend control issues as noted by business leaders. Source: Mickey North Rizz and Kevin Permenter, “The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities and Challenges in a Digital World," IDC white paper sponsored by SAP, November 2019.</p>
<p>Nor do most companies have real-time insights into spending to drive better decisions before it’s too late. Without centralized, real-time spend data and controls, how can you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Manage financial fundamentals for the business?</li>
<li>Redirect spend as priorities change and new opportunities emerge?</li>
<li>Select vendors that will improve product satisfaction, employee safety, and brand reputation?</li>
<li>Reduce expedited logistics costs and reliance on costly buffer stock?</li>
<li>Get a consolidated spending view of spend and suppliers?</li>
<li>Properly audit invoices matched with POs and contracts?</li>
<li>Address excessive employee travel?</li>
</ul>
<p>Put simply, you can’t. Consider the need to optimize spend on things like travel, expenses, and procurement. Without actionable, real-time data that considers both present and future conditions, how can you gain visibility into employee travel patterns needed to negotiate optimized rates for frequently used hotels, rail services, or airlines? How can you incentivize budget-conscious spending at just the right time – when employees are making travel decisions?</p>
<p>The key to addressing spend management challenges – whether in travel, expenses, or invoiced spending by employees – is digitalizing spend management processes on a single platform. Digitalization involves shifting away from transactional processing and semiautomated processes, so you can centralize data and manage supplier relationships while also controlling costs and reducing risk.</p>
<p>In fact, 90% of IDC’s survey respondents reported having room to improve how they control spend<strong>.</strong> Key priorities of such investments include enabling audits across all types of spend, providing transparency across all spend categories, and enforcing compliance with organizational spend policies. In addition, 95% of survey respondents said they were likely to invest in and deploy intelligent spend management platforms in the next two years. </p>
<p>But none of this can be achieved without leadership from IT partnering with finance to deliver intelligent spend management. In a new research paper, “The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities and Challenges in a Digital World,” IDC notes: “Intelligent spend management is where the traditional processes of spend management are augmented with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. The added intelligence is essential to maximizing both the cost-saving potential of a unified spend management approach and the agility gains inherent in an intelligent spend management solution.”</p>
<p>These intelligent technologies and solutions are used to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Break down barriers</strong> between finance, procurement, and the supply chain for a unified view of spending.</li>
<li><strong>Bring all spend together</strong> on a safe, secure infrastructure.</li>
<li><strong>Give finance, procurement, and supply chain leaders visibility and control</strong> of each spend category with tools to orchestrate spend across categories.</li>
</ul>
<p>According to IDC, intelligent spend management is a hot topic amongst business leaders, with 60% of survey respondents reporting that they are already talking with a technology vendor about an intelligent spend management platform. Want to learn more about how you can transform spend management? Read the full IDC White Paper, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/idc-infographic-sap-concur-optimizes-employee-spend-management-while-improving-business-efficiency"><strong>The Future of Spend Management: Approaches, Opportunities and Challenges in a Digital World</strong></a>.”</p>
<p>We encourage you to join us on February 6 for a live Webinar with guest speakers from IDC for an expert view of the impact the digital world has on your spend management, and the challenges and opportunities companies face in making spend seamless, agile and transparent. Register <a href="https://go.concur.com/020620_Client_ISM_7010e000000xMlR_020620_Client_ISM__RegistrationPage.html?pid=blog&cid=newsroomblog">here</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Utilizing Artificial Intelligence to Manage Compliance Risks within Life Sciences
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/utilizing-artificial-intelligence-manage-compliance-risks-within-life-sciences
2023-09-08T16:15:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Mark Linver is Managing Director of Deloitte Life Sciences Advisory To comply with industry regulatory requirements and manage risk when engaging with healthcare professionals...
<p>Mark Linver is Managing Director of Deloitte Life Sciences Advisory</p>
<p>To comply with industry regulatory requirements and manage risk when engaging with healthcare professionals (HCPs), <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/life-sciences">life sciences</a> manufacturers implement controls to review and audit ongoing activities. Since it is not feasible to audit or monitor all activities that may involve HCPs, compliance organizations utilize a risk-based approach to set priorities and monitor those activities that exhibit the highest potential for compliance risk.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"> </div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Fending Off Fraud in Life Sciences</h2>
<p>See why fraud is gaining more attention and learn best practices for your organization to successfully combat it.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/tipsheet-fending-fraud-life-sciences">Get the tipsheet</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>As technology has evolved and capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) have increased, life sciences manufacturers are exploring new ways to automate elements of the risk identification, auditing and monitoring process, and are finding new ways to leverage monitoring data for strategic decision making.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increasing auditing and monitoring capabilities</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, Deloitte and Touche surveyed life sciences manufacturers to better understand the industry’s expectations for employing advanced technologies to identify and manage compliance risk. Responding manufacturers identified the following as opportunities to apply AI and robotic process automation (RPA) technologies at their companies:</p>
<ul>
<li>Monitor financial transactions in real time to identify non-compliant cases or behaviors and understand trends.</li>
<li>Implement automatic controls to prevent overspend on specific individuals (HCPs) or events</li>
<li>Automate the manual or repetitive processes such as:
<ol>
<li>Extracting information from multiple sources into one platform to provide a centralized repository of data or documents which could be accessed by the required teams and automating mundane tasks such as filling out forms.</li>
<li>Reviewing contracts for compliance with:</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Corporate policies and procedures.</li>
<li>Regulatory requirements.</li>
<li>Corporate general business terms.</li>
</ul>
<p>By employing AI technologies, manufacturers can automate several audits to monitor and review processes while simultaneously:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increase the amount of data that can or should be reviewed</li>
<li>Increase the frequency that audit routines can be implemented</li>
<li>Identify anomalies</li>
<li>Prioritize compliance risks</li>
<li>Manage possible resultant investigations</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>The process</h2>
<p>As illustrated in the diagram below, manufacturers employ a structured process to review data, identify risk, set priorities, as well as create and execute an annual audit plan.<br />
In this context and throughout this blog, the term “audit” means a compliance assessment and does not constitute an audit conducted in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, an examination of internal controls, or other attestation or review services in accordance with standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or other regulatory body.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559672852345-blog.png" /></p>
<p>While the data review and risk identification processes are complex, they present a series of opportunities to maximize productivity and become more closely integrated with other operational aspects of the business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Utilizing knowledge-based and model-based approaches to identify risk</h2>
<p>Predictive analytics can advance modeling techniques to assess compliance risk on a prospective basis, enabling users to make timely and informed decisions to address identified anomalies. By implementing a dynamic rules base and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/machine-learning-in-concur-mobile">machine learning</a> algorithms, manufacturers can proactively monitor potential risks such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Inappropriate travel and expense spend</li>
<li>Contracting/payment anomalies</li>
<li>Off-label promotion</li>
<li>Kick-backs</li>
<li>Misbranding</li>
<li>Over utilization of or non-policy payments to specific HCPs</li>
<li>Speaker program attendees or anomalies</li>
<li>Potential actions that as an aggregate or implementation may not be in compliance with regulations or company policies</li>
</ul>
<p>With the insights provided from AI applications, the process of monitoring and acting on risk data can be transformed into a far more useful tool for compliance officers and others. Machine learning can be used to comb through large datasets not only to identify potential risk areas, but also to surface performance trends in provider engagements that are difficult to identify in a manual process and optimize use of resources. For example, knowledge-based solutions can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify issues or patterns in appropriateness of Physician Specialty Targeting (e.g., on-label/off-label; NSAID Rx volume)</li>
<li>Optimize the use of key opinion leaders— specifically identifying the most appropriate HCP to engage based on objective parameters, thereby maximizing the use of resources, identifying appropriate venues and optimizing budgets</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The human factor</h2>
<p>An ideal compliance solution environment has a solid data infrastructure that is integrated with public information to provide needed cost benchmarks and uses cognitive intelligence to identify valuable risk and performance trends. Nevertheless, without the right interface, a proactive approach to compliance and risk management is difficult, while moving past compliance to assess business performance is all the more challenging. Data visualization software can be used to put cognitive intelligence insights into a visual context for human decision makers. Well-designed dashboards and user interfaces have the power to move insight into action.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A vision for compliance</h2>
<p>As regulatory pressures mount and business processes grow ever more complex, the need for automation and cognitive intelligence in compliance becomes all the more pressing, as well as presents several opportunities.</p>
<p>Flexibility in a well-designed compliance system allows for rapid scale-up or down depending on the nature of the compliance task or business issue, while potentially freeing up existing human resources for other purposes, all while presenting several avenues for cost reduction.</p>
<p>Beyond flexibility and efficiency, compliance modernization is an opportunity to gain an enterprise-wide view of risk, moving from sensing to predicting, acting, and monitoring. Over time, the lines between these formerly separate operational areas and compliance functions should disappear. With the right tools in hand, compliance teams can expand from an oversight role to becoming a central part of organization operations, offering insights that can drive an organization’s competitive advantage.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Actions to Consider</h2>
<p>Implementing compliance focused AI systems can help manufacturers proactively manage risk. To help identify opportunities to apply cognitive applications, project teams should:</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify processes where rules can be applied to quantify compliance risk</li>
<li>Document the decision process and rules that are applied for each decision or analysis stage</li>
<li>Define levels of risk and scenarios that cause identified risk</li>
<li>Identify data elements and sources required</li>
</ul>
<p>Once the candidate process, scenarios, rule sets and data have been identified, the appropriate technology can be applied.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>About Deloitte</h2>
<p>Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the “Deloitte” name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see <a href="http://www.deloitte.com/about">www.deloitte.com/about</a> to learn more about our global network of member firms.</p>
<p>This blog contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this blog, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This blog is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. </p>
<p>Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this blog.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2019 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.</p>
SAP Concur Team
As it turns out, managing your money is a good thing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/it-turns-out-managing-your-money-good-thing
2019-08-29T05:38:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This wont come as a surprise to anyone but as Oxford Economics recently pointed out effectively controlling spending is key to boosting performance and efficiency The surprise perhaps...
<p>This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but, as Oxford Economics recently pointed out, effectively controlling spending is key to boosting performance and efficiency. The surprise, perhaps, is in how CFOs are doing it.</p>
<p>Or maybe we should say how they’re doing it differently.</p>
<p>Oxford, along with SAP and Concur, conducted a global survey of 1,500 finance executives to see what separates the leaders from the number crunchers, asking: "What do top financial performers do differently from the rest of their peers?" </p>
<p>Six traits floated to the top:</p>
<ol>
<li>They have strong influence beyond the finance function.</li>
<li>They drive strategic growth initiatives.</li>
<li>They improve efficiency with automation.</li>
<li>They are very effective at core finance processes.</li>
<li>They collaborate regularly with business units across the entire company.</li>
<li>They work closely with governance, risk and compliance, and are well-equipped to handle regulatory change.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">Read the report</a> to learn more about how effective spend management boosts performance.</strong></p>
<h2><br />
Getting a tighter grip on costs by letting go of manual processes</h2>
<p>All six points are invaluable, but automation seems to stand out—especially in regards to efficiency and, ultimately, performance.</p>
<p>As the paper shows, companies with 5-10% revenue growth are twice as likely as slower-growing companies to strongly agree that automation improves finance function efficiency.</p>
<p>These same companies are also more than twice as likely to rate themselves as “very effective” at T&E <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management</a> and working capital optimization—which (again not so surprisingly) happen to be two of the top three most important business goals, trailing only risk management/compliance.</p>
<p>Or, to put it more clearly, as David Craig, CFO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is cited in the paper as saying:</p>
<p>“Automation takes dreary, repetitive work away from staff, and the shareholder benefits because the organization is more efficient.”</p>
<h2><br />
Another fine performance by the cloud</h2>
<p>You can’t have automation without embracing technology, and again, that’s what these top CFOs are doing in earnest. 95% of them, in fact, consider cloud-based applications as critically or very important to successful financial performance.</p>
<p>Eighty-eight percent of financial leaders using these apps say they are extremely useful for managing T&E costs. And among those who rely on Big Data analytics, nearly all say they help manage T&E expenses. </p>
<p>And as a financial expert yourself, you know that the numbers don’t lie.</p>
<p><strong>See how financial leadership pays off. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">Download the full Oxford Economics report</a>.</strong> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Building a community of women leaders at Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/building-community-women-leaders-concur
2020-09-13T05:32:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur alongside SAP is committed to achieving gender balance in leadership across our organization Today percent of leadership positions are held by women at Concura milestone we...
<p>Concur, alongside SAP, is committed to achieving gender balance in leadership across our organization. Today, 37 percent of leadership positions are held by women at Concur—a milestone we recently reached. We are helping SAP achieve its goal of exceeding 25 percent women in leadership by the end of 2017. This puts us near the leading edge of technology companies, where women typically are underrepresented in every level of leadership.</p>
<p>But, there is much more work to be done. A recent <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/female-ceos-women-in-leadership-survey/">survey</a> found that 25 percent of Americans believe time travel is more realistic than women leading half of the Fortune 500 companies. (Today, only 6.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women). Globally, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/pf/women-corporate-leadership/index.html">50 percent of companies</a> have no senior women executives, and women still make only <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2016/12/28/4-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/#14daa56d3326">80 cents on the dollar</a> compared to men.</p>
<p>How will we continue our momentum? With intention. At Concur, we talk about diversity and inclusion with leaders, both men and women. We hold ourselves accountable to the goals we set as an organization, working to actively improve representation at every level, across our entire business. We conduct diversity training to elevate awareness and spark action.</p>
<p>Another important strategy is diversifying our talent pipeline by engaging with young women early on, during our summer internship program. Each year, we recruit, develop and inspire the next generation of women leaders at Concur, and within the technology industry, through this program. </p>
<p>Just last month, 75 Bellevue-based women interns and senior leaders gathered for the fourth annual Women in Leadership Dinner, held by SAP iXp. The event began as a way to foster community among women at Concur, and has since become an anticipated summer staple for interns and leaders alike.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1502740883850-women-in-leadership-1.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am constantly inspired by the women at Concur, and this event was no exception. Four fantastic leaders from across the business shared insights, advice and personal stories in a panel discussion led by my co-host for the evening, vice president of Customer Experience Tabitha Dunn. Following dinner and guided table discussions, our Diversity and Inclusion leader, Charlotte Flanagan, shared an impassioned message about the importance of focusing not only on inclusion, but also on gender intelligence, and recognizing the unique values that diverse employees bring to their organizations.</p>
<p>The interns who attended were inspiring in their own right, representing nearly every department at Concur. They brought thoughtful questions and curiosity to their conversations with the leaders in the room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1502752734263-women-in-leadership-3.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m proud to work for a company that recognizes diversity, and also recognizes there is still more progress to be made,” said Emily Lindner, an intern on the Distribution Enablement team, after the event. “You could feel the solidarity in the room. It was cool to see parts of myself in these inspiring female role models.”</p>
<p>“I took away that we all need to be our true, authentic selves at work,” said Global Product Marketing intern Nahid Arif. “When you're true to yourself, that's when the best work comes out.”</p>
<p>“This event helped us celebrate the women that surround us, and empowered the women in the room to be leaders and role models,” said Amber Caudle, a field marketing intern. “It’s not something you see often.”</p>
<p>When women come together to support each other, amazing things happen. We need to be intentional about creating these opportunities—like our women in leadership dinner—that bring women together to learn, connect and inspire. During the event, I shared the important lesson I learned from my late mother, an accomplished physician and a role model to many. She realized later in her career that she had to actively promote the work of women around her to see real progress towards gender diversity and equality in the medical field. This shift inspired and informed my own leadership philosophy. As a woman, and a leader, I have a responsibility to support and grow a community of women who will, in turn, support and grow other women as they progress in their careers.</p>
<p>Across the tech industry, and across all businesses, women need to come together to build each other up and support rising talent. It’s something I’m so proud to be a part of at Concur. I can’t wait to see what our female leaders accomplish in the future.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Don’t let your expense reports become a game of clue
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-let-your-expense-reports-become-game-clue
2019-08-29T05:17:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Do your companys expense report reconciliations look like a crazy wall If your finance team is starting to resemble a group of detectives then its time to give your expense system a...
<p>Do your company’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense report</a> reconciliations look like a crazy wall? If your finance team is starting to resemble a group of detectives, then it’s time to give your expense system a second glance. Fortunately, advances in technology have made automation and cloud technology more mainstream than ever. That means automated expense reporting software is accessible to businesses of all sizes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Alleviate the chain of custody</strong></h2>
<p>Is automation really necessary for a small business? Absolutely. A single manual expense report passes through many hands before it is filed and put to rest. It starts with the filing employee, who has to physically enter the expenses into a spreadsheet or document and attach the corresponding receipts. From there, it goes to an approving manager, who also has to sift through and review, before passing it along to the finance department.</p>
<p>Once the report makes it to the finance department, a review and reconciliation takes place. If all necessary paperwork is in order, then the expense report is entered for reimbursement. But most of the time, a receipt is missing, a line item is allocated incorrectly, or there are lasting questions. The expense report then has to go back through the chain of custody until all issues are resolved. A single expense report can end up costing way more in time than is the amount being claimed for reimbursement.</p>
<p>Automated expense reporting eases this pain by making it easier and faster for an employee to submit a report. In addition, the report is more easily accessible to all approvers and reviewers, saving them from passing a stack of papers back and forth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">how effective spend management boosts performance</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Keep track of associative evidence</strong></h2>
<p>Lost receipts can put a crimp in expense report filing and reconciliation. While your employees don’t intentionally try to lose receipts, it easily happens when traveling. Can someone bag this evidence please?</p>
<p>If only it were possible for employees to simply take a picture and submit their receipt right there on the spot.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the technology is available and more accessible than you think. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, your expense process gets an upgrade in both automation and mobility. Employees simply take a picture of their receipt, submit for approval, and the system takes it from there. No lost receipts, no lost expense data.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Eliminate the cross examination</strong></h2>
<p>With automation and mobility comes accuracy. The system does the heavy lifting, adding up columns and organizing receipts, which saves time (and ultimately saves money) and aggravation for both the finance team and the submitting employee. Expense reports are approved faster and reimbursements are timelier. By utilizing cloud technology, reports are accessible by all players, anytime, anywhere. This leads to all-around happy employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>This case is closed </strong></h2>
<p>Put your expense report investigations to rest and make the move to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">automated and mobile expense system</a>. Your team will be happy to hang up their detective hats and get back to their “real” jobs.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The duty of caring for your employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/duty-caring-your-employees
2017-07-20T08:31:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Despite growing global uncertaintyfrom terrorist attacks natural disasters and world health issuesorganizations show no signs of slowing down on their investment in business travel...
<p>Despite growing global uncertainty—from terrorist attacks, natural disasters and world health issues—organizations show no signs of slowing down on their investment in business travel. Global business travel continues to rise and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020, according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). The workforce is also changing with the global landscape with more and more employees working remote. For these reasons, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/duty-care-101-three-good-reasons-consider-concur">duty of care and travel risk management programs</a> need to be at the forefront of your organization’s security conversations.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Do you know the risks your employees face?</h2>
<p>Travel, by nature, is risky—and understanding what those risks are will help you start identifying what you need to fulfill duty of care obligations to employees. </p>
<p>Risks for your travelers include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Standing out from the local population, making them a potential target</li>
<li>Driving in unfamiliar locations and conditions</li>
<li>Stress and fatigue from travel delays, and being away from home</li>
<li>Does not speak the language of the country</li>
<li>Unfamiliar with local health risks and medical facilities</li>
<li>Unclear on how or who to alert in case of an emergency</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, there are risks to employees that go beyond travel or catastrophic events, such as pedestrian and car accidents on commutes, and incidents on public transportation. And when you factor in a mobile workforce, creating a physically safe work environment becomes more challenging.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-home">Take the travel risk quiz</a> to see how well your organization is prepared. </strong> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do you know where your duty of care gaps are?</h2>
<p>You might genuinely think you are fulfilling your duty of care obligations. Even if you have a good track record in providing safety and security measures, you most likely have gaps in providing the right level of duty of care to create a secure work environment for your local, remote and traveling employees in today’s global landscape.</p>
<p>Do you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Inform and educate your travelers on general and specific travel risks?</li>
<li>Document when an employee has been advised on travel safety?</li>
<li>Only focus on high-risk foreign travel, and not domestic travel or your mobile workforce?</li>
<li>Include safety and security as a part of your travel procurement criteria?</li>
<li>Have a fully mapped out travel risk management strategy and a dedicated crisis management team?</li>
<li>Regularly test your crisis management plan?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Are you prepared for the new norm?</h2>
<p>As organizations continue to grow and expand their operations, the risks will continue to grow. Business travel will continue to be core to conducting business and having a remote or mobile workforce has become the new norm. The landscape and workforce have changed, but the way organizations are managing their duty of care programs have not changed with it.</p>
<p>The demographic of your workforce has diversified with a blending of Millennials, Gen X-ers, Baby Boomers, and Gen Z soon trailing in behind. Millennials are digital natives and all employees expect consumer-like tech experiences in the workplace for travel, expense, communication and productivity purposes.</p>
<p>Employees are increasingly booking their own trips, choosing their own places to stay and making expense purchases right from their phone. While having mobile and flexible options for travelers and remote workers provides employees with the freedom and personalization they seek while on the go, plus the ability to reap personal rewards directly from suppliers, it raises new safety risks and concerns for organizations whose current strategies and solutions don’t capture employee spend where and when it’s happening. Technological innovation has provided employees with more control of their own travel while simultaneously creating challenges for managed travel programs.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Do you know where your employees are?</h2>
<p>Are you able to track your employees’ location during a crisis event? If you don’t have your duty of care program integrated with your travel and expense programs, it can be difficult to locate and communicate to employees that may be in harm’s way. </p>
<p>You need clear visibility into where your employees are initiating travel and expense spend, and location-based analytics to be able to fully fulfill your duty of care obligations in today’s landscape. Technology can help close the gaps in your travel risk management programs, help drive more compliance, and track and communicate to your travelers in case of an emergency.</p>
<p>For all the risks that travelers and employees face, technology can help organizations level up their duty of care program, close the gaps in travel risk management programs, and limit risks to your organization and employees… because disaster truly can strike anywhere and you need to be able to communicate with your employees, anywhere and anytime, when the unforeseen takes place.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Concur can help you be a hero</h2>
<p>The new norm when it comes to the global landscape and workforce can feel overwhelming and alarming for organizations. Fortunately, there’s also a new way to manage and fulfill your duty of care obligations by enhancing the Concur solution you’ve already invested in to help you evaluate, mitigate and respond to safety and security risks.</p>
<p>No organization can protect its employees’ safety with full certainty, but with the right plan and technologies in place, you can greatly improve your ability to mitigate, locate and communicate with employees no matter where they are or what time of day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>With Concur as your risk management partner, you’ll gain detailed location visibility, actionable intelligence, proactive and round-the-clock monitoring, real-time data in one tool and connectivity at a moment’s notice. </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-messaging"><strong>Learn more on how to expand your existing Concur</strong></a><strong> solution to keep your people safe and connected, anytime and anywhere.</strong></p>
Why SMBs are Combining Their Expense and Travel Processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-smbs-are-combining-their-expense-and-travel-processes
2018-03-19T10:48:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Expense and travel go hand in hand yet too often theyre handled separately The travel manager knows when members of the team are going on a business trip because theyre often involved...
<p data-id="180fbdfc-d930-4384-9cfd-721e920b137d">Expense and travel go hand in hand, yet, too often they’re handled separately. The travel manager knows when members of the team are going on a business trip because they’re often involved in booking the flights. But, the finance manager isn’t aware of the trip until the expenses claims land on their desk at the end of the month. As a result, it’s difficult to get visibility into expenses or budget reliably for them.</p>
<p data-id="180fbdfc-d930-4384-9cfd-721e920b137d"> </p>
<p data-id="180fbdfc-d930-4384-9cfd-721e920b137d"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">Read the report</a> to learn how to overcome top expense and travel challenges. </strong></p>
<p data-id="180fbdfc-d930-4384-9cfd-721e920b137d"> </p>
<p data-id="801a70ee-8cd4-47da-91da-9e91dd721413">The solution is to see travel and expense as the integrated process it is. When you streamline your approach by moving away from paper and spreadsheets to an integrated cloud-based T&E platform, spend becomes more transparent. And, it isn’t just large companies that stand to benefit. Technology that automates can suit businesses of any size, and scale with them as they grow. </p>
<p data-id="bcd73ffb-78e0-4f15-b02a-6c768ccc3277">So what are the advantages of using cloud technology to manage expense and travel?</p>
<p data-id="bcd73ffb-78e0-4f15-b02a-6c768ccc3277"> </p>
<h2 data-id="1dd0043d-7ce1-48d4-8b40-1470dc61100b">You Streamline the Expense and Travel Process</h2>
<p data-id="4aaaf261-ceba-4f3e-b315-8e493dc4d58e">Moving to the cloud immediately puts an end to the old system of paper-based receipts and expense claims. When an employee books a trip, whether inside or outside your booking tool, the costs and details can be automatically imported into an expense claim ready for sign off on their return. This efficiency makes everyone’s life easier, and encourages employee adoption.</p>
<p data-id="4aaaf261-ceba-4f3e-b315-8e493dc4d58e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c73e9b08-a5ed-4ece-984b-1dda21d888af">You Reduce Manual Data Entry and Increase Accuracy</h2>
<p data-id="dede8670-08fe-4a45-86d1-f5e428f0a8d7">Because <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">travel bookings</a> are automatically posted to your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense system</a>, there’s no more manual data entry in multiple places. And, because expense and travel apps work on a mobile phone, your employees can take photos of receipts that are then added to expense claims, saving time and removing the need to keep hold of dog-eared bits of paper. This all leads to time savings and increased accuracy, as there’s no risk of mistyping. It also becomes more diffucult to pass off fraudulent expenses. </p>
<p data-id="2b44dbb3-b8d1-46bc-9ffc-d159312dc39f"> </p>
<h2 data-id="f3933b38-1b11-46a3-aa40-05a297f73e0c">You Save Time and Money When Booking</h2>
<p data-id="be82adc0-5be6-401e-881f-148c3218a05c">You want your employees to get the best deal on their travel, but you don’t want to lose sight of where they are booking. Even if they book outside the system, solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> mean that all travel and passenger information can still be captured.</p>
<p data-id="a97bd735-9635-4a75-969f-6ce7260fe059">Travelers get a handy app with itineraries for all of their trips in one place, while the company can see where and when travel is taking place. That means you can forecast and budget for travel spend, negotiate discounts with regular suppliers, and, perhaps most importantly, you'll know where your travelers are going to be so you can fulfill your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/duty-care-101-three-good-reasons-consider-concur">duty-of-care obligations</a>.</p>
<p data-id="a97bd735-9635-4a75-969f-6ce7260fe059"> </p>
<h2 data-id="abf79518-7b3e-4db6-9bd3-07fa5dab3b96">You Embed Your Policies in the Process</h2>
<p data-id="7067b2c6-d46a-4f5c-9d6f-60413650c519">You might have an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">expense and/or travel policy</a>, but how can you make sure it’s followed? Cloud-based expense and travel solutions have policy rules embedded, and can flag to employees when they are booking trips or claiming expenses that are out-of-policy so you catch non-compliant spend before it happens.</p>
<p data-id="7067b2c6-d46a-4f5c-9d6f-60413650c519"> </p>
<h2 data-id="df6c7161-192c-470b-a78e-2aaf0036f607">Above All, You Get Better Visibility Into Your Spend</h2>
<p data-id="4ae0d62e-2140-4e6d-b7f7-58728e891814">Expense and travel go hand-in-hand as travel is often one of the largest areas of business expenses. When you combine and automate the two, it’s much easier to keep an eye on costs and budgets. You’re also better placed to uncover inefficiencies and make sizable savings.</p>
<p data-id="25e9ea20-887d-4fa5-a361-a7a3a020f874"><strong>Learn more about how your business can drive growth and innovation by embracing the full power of expense and travel solutions. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">Download the report</a>.</strong> </p>
SAP Concur Solutions Provide Real-Time Visibility and Spend Control with New Budget Tool
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-solutions-provide-real-time-visibility-and-spend-control-new-budget-tool
2020-01-29T20:28:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to a recent Oxford Economics report strong profitability and revenue growth are tied to effective cost control However managing spend is increasingly complicated In the last ...
<p>According to a recent Oxford Economics report, strong profitability and revenue growth are tied to effective cost control. However, managing spend is increasingly complicated. In the last 15 years, travel spend alone has doubled to more than $1.2 trillion.(1) <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-top-five-ways-in-which-employees-are-decentralizing-spend">Employee-initiated spend</a> is today the second-largest expense in organizations.(2) These are spending categories, ranging from entertainment, consulting, mobile roaming charges, home office expenses, and more, shifting to employee control. When this spend data is incomplete, inaccurate or late, budgets mean little more than a number. Managers can’t be held accountable and poor visibility inevitably leads to poor business decisions, including the dreaded company-wide “budget freeze.”</p>
<p>To help budget owners effectively manage resources and make better decisions, SAP Concur is today announcing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget</a>, a new solution that makes budget data visible, near real-time, and actionable. Budget synthesizes data from SAP Concur solutions including Expense, Invoice, Purchase Request and Travel Request, creating a comprehensive dashboard for spend – before and after it occurs. As a result, finance leaders, sales leaders, and project managers alike can see spending events unfold. Collectively, each employee making better decisions leads to better overall financials and strengthens the bottom line. </p>
<p>Budget empowers everyone to see what’s happening, anticipate risks around the corner, and take action – before it’s too late. It allows companies to move beyond one-size-fits all, after-the-fact monthly budget spreadsheets. It’s holistic and flexible, whether companies map budgets to employee hierarchies or to projects. Employees can finally be held accountable to eliminate overspending, while gaining autonomy to proactively adjust spend to seize unexpected opportunities. Key features include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easy-to-consume data</strong>: Regular budgetary discipline is easy when you can see performance dashboards on both mobile and web, and budget insights embedded directly at the point of expense or invoice approval.</li>
<li><strong>Tailored to individual employee needs</strong>: For example, set your own predetermined limits on budget buckets, or auto-email alerts when budget thresholds are reached. Set up personalized budget sub-categories to track more granularly.</li>
<li><strong>Gain corporate control</strong>: Customizable budget approval workflows, user permissions, and audit rules help maintain policy decisions across the organization.</li>
<li><strong>Connect deeper into the organization</strong> by integrating with financial systems via a public API.</li>
</ul>
<p>According to a recent Gartner report, CFOs need better technology to facilitate timely analysis and decision making, monitor performance, and inform business decisions using quality data. (3) Traditional budget solutions lack the flexibility, organizational scale, and ease-of-use necessary to meet these business needs. These solutions focus solely on planning, doing little to help finance leaders empower budget owners to make informed decisions based on quality data in near real-time. With Budget, line managers now have access to timely, actionable insights that were traditionally available only to the C-suite. Appropriate for companies large and small, optimizing budgets is a universal opportunity.</p>
<p>Budget is a new solution available to customers today. For more information, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget Management</a> page.</p>
<div>
<hr />
<div id="ftn1">
<p>1. Global Business Travel Association</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p>2. Juniper Research</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p>3. Gartner-FEI Study</p>
</div>
</div>
Jessica Staley
Celebrating International Women's Day
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/celebrating-international-womens-day
2018-03-08T05:53:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur we know when our people are at their best our business is at its best Foundational to our efforts in achieving this is how we drive and support diversity inclusion and...
<p>At SAP Concur, we know when our people are at their best, our business is at its best. Foundational to our efforts in achieving this is how we drive and support diversity, inclusion, and belonging across our business, in every region, at every level. This is a topic I am incredibly passionate about and committed to driving across our entire business – for our leaders, employees, and customers. We know diverse and inclusive teams are happier, more engaged, and more innovative, which leads to a more positive experience for our customers. We also know that diversity is only part of the equation. Inclusion and belonging are essential elements that must be in place in order to see the power of diversity come to life.</p>
<p>Today we celebrate <a href="https://www.internationalwomensday.com/" target="_blank">International Women’s Day</a> with the theme #PressforProgress. It’s a day to pause and reflect on how far we have come towards gender equality, and more importantly, a day for collective dialogue and commitment to stand up and say “We still have a long way to go.” Today is a call-to-action. Now, more than ever, we need to come together to support and act on gender inclusion and equality in our workplaces and communities.</p>
<p>I’m proud to highlight some of things we have been working on to #PressforProgress on gender equality at SAP Concur and offer these insights in the hopes it will inspire others to act. Within SAP Concur we have solid representation of women in leadership overall (38%), and although this puts us in a leadership position in our industry, we aren’t where we want to be. As is often seen in most organizations, our numbers towards the top tier leadership levels aren’t good enough and we are committed to taking a variety of actions to change that. As part of SAP, we have leveraged career development resources for women such as LEAP, a program that aims to empower SAP women to expand their knowledge and skills and achieve career success while positively impacting our business. We also foster thousands of connections through our employee network groups, such as the Business Women’s Network (BWN) and PRIDE@SAP employees.</p>
<p>One program I am particularly proud of is our Activating Men for Parity initiative – what we refer to as AMP. This program invites senior male leaders within SAP Concur to take a more active role in our diversity, inclusion, and belonging efforts, particularly across gender inclusion, intelligence, and equality. I am the executive sponsor of this first-of-its-kind program at SAP, and am thrilled with the open dialogue, the awareness the group is gaining, and the actions that are being taken across the business. The genuine focus and partnership across genders that we’ve seen through this effort has been fantastic.</p>
<p>What’s even better is that, within the coming year, this program will be rolled out across SAP in various functions and regions. There is absolutely no way we can continue to press for progress without everyone getting in the boat and rowing together – gone are the days where gender diversity efforts are thought to be the responsibility of everyone else but men.</p>
<p>As we look to the future we know diversity, inclusion, and belonging will be the differentiator for us as an employer and as a business. I’m committed to furthering our efforts in this area and know that as we #PressforProgress within SAP Concur, and across SAP as a whole, we are doing so as a team.</p>
How Can You Improve Your Cash Flow?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-you-improve-your-cash-flow
2018-07-06T11:32:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Cash flow is king is one of those business mantras that we all repeat but never stop to question But have you ever wondered why its king Shouldnt profit be the ultimate end goal Read...
<p>"Cash flow is king" is one of those business mantras that we all repeat but never stop to question. But have you ever wondered why it’s king? Shouldn’t profit be the ultimate end goal? Read on for the answers to the cash flow questions you’ve always wanted to ask.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is cash flow?</h2>
<p>Cash flow is the money that goes in and out of your business. Many figures feed into it including accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, capital expenditures, and finance repayments. Time is also a factor. For example, when you invoice a customer you create revenue that shows in your profit and loss. It’s only when your customer pays you that you get the cash.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why is cash flow important?</h2>
<p>Cash flow is one of the most important factors to keep an eye on in a small or midsize business. Why? Because if your cash flow isn’t healthy it could mean you won’t have the money you need to invest for growth when you want to. And in the worst-case scenario when there’s more money going out than coming in, you’ll be facing bankruptcy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How do you manage cash flow?</h2>
<p>To be certain you have your cash flow under control and aren’t in for any nasty surprises, you should be tracking it weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly. Tracking cash flow will give you the visibility you need and help you project future cash flow when you’re thinking about investing to grow your business.</p>
<p>You can track cash flow on a spreadsheet, but using cloud accounting software makes it so much easier and more efficient. Aside from the other productivity benefits that an automated approach gives you, you’ll have all the figures and all the visibility when and where you need it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How can you improve cash flow?</h2>
<p>So you’ve started tracking cash flow and you’re getting the visibility you need. But what happens if you don’t like what you see? Here are a few ways you can improve cash flow.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Cut costs:</strong> We’ll start with an obvious one first. Can you get better deals on your rent, your utilities, or your insurance? Can you negotiate discounts with frequent suppliers? Look for areas where it’s easy to cut back or save a few pennies.</li>
<li><strong>Lease equipment instead of buying it:</strong> When you lease equipment, you don’t have to find capital to buy it. There can be tax advantages too.</li>
<li><strong>Invoice promptly:</strong> The quicker you invoice the quicker you’ll get paid. It may seem a bit of an administrative burden that’s tempting to put off, but it could be impacting your cash flow.</li>
<li><strong>Offer discounts for prompt payment:</strong> This can be a great way to encourage sluggish payers. Just make sure the discount makes good financial sense!</li>
<li><strong>Ask for deposits or invoice in stages:</strong> This is especially useful for large contracts or contracts that may go on for some time and will help smooth out peaks and troughs.</li>
<li><strong>Get control over your travel and expenses:</strong> A typical company spends more than 10% of its annual budget on expense and travel, so this is a biggie. Tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink" target="_blank">Concur TripLink</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> help you get travel and expense spend into your system much more quickly and help you see where you could cut down or negotiate discounts.</li>
<li><strong>Don’t pay your suppliers too quickly:</strong> It will harm your relationship to pay late, but the more quickly you pay the more quickly the cash leaves your account. Make your capital work for you by finding the optimum time to pay.</li>
<li><strong>Save money:</strong> Put spare cash aside for a rainy day or future investment plans. And if you can save it somewhere that pays interest, even better.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Cash flow crunch time</h2>
<p>Business Insider found that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-small-businesses-fail-infographic-2017-8?r=UK&IR=T" target="_blank">82% of small businesses fail</a> due to cash flow problems, which is a sobering thought. And it’s why cash flow, not profit, needs to be king in your business. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/5-steps-strategic-spend-management">Download the whitepaper</a> to learn five steps you can take towards strategic spend management. </strong></p>
Why Some Financial Decision Makers are Skeptical of Automation, and Why They Shouldn’t Be
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-some-financial-decision-makers-are-skeptical-automation-and-why-they-shouldnt-be
2018-05-30T09:41:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When business is running smoothly the choice to automate your expense travel and invoice management isnt always black and white Companies that have a manual process in place may find...
<p data-id="b838ca2a-4dcd-45b5-bafa-aeefb4c53912">When business is running smoothly, the choice to automate your expense, travel, and invoice management isn’t always black and white. Companies that have a manual process in place may find it more burdensome to introduce a new process. AMI Partners surveyed more than 400 financial decision makers at small and midsize businesses across five different industries to learn about the barriers and benefits of automation. They discovered that the most common inhibitors skeptics have is lack of IT expertise needed for implementation, cost, and lack of resources to roll out an automated solution. Let’s explore the benefits that come with automation.</p>
<p data-id="b838ca2a-4dcd-45b5-bafa-aeefb4c53912"> </p>
<p data-id="b838ca2a-4dcd-45b5-bafa-aeefb4c53912"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Download the report</a> to learn more about better managing spend with automation</strong></p>
<p data-id="b838ca2a-4dcd-45b5-bafa-aeefb4c53912"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2a728aea-691f-46c7-9621-b054bdeaeb19">Strong support</h2>
<p data-id="9e48be1e-083d-4c4e-b6a4-bf0938103a11">Implementing a new solution doesn’t have to be overwhelming ¬– even for small and midsize businesses. The best solution providers can also provide the people and resources necessary to help with implementation and strong support for ongoing management.</p>
<p data-id="9e48be1e-083d-4c4e-b6a4-bf0938103a11"> </p>
<h2 data-id="3a7d3a3d-0693-4b44-812a-1a62fa88ab1a">Time savings</h2>
<p data-id="20c99a05-a286-43b2-92b9-8c1f10d7aa77">An automated system can cut the time it takes to submit an expense report in half, and can give time back to employees. Those surveyed reported a 15% decrease in time spent processing expense reports and a 16% decrease in time spent processing invoices. This time savings gives companies the opportunity to spark growth while maintaining the size of their AP teams.</p>
<p data-id="20c99a05-a286-43b2-92b9-8c1f10d7aa77"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e71d4230-cd92-41ec-a15b-309359252669">Cost savings</h2>
<p data-id="8e087876-af51-4f2a-a830-b51bfabcc707">While it’s important to be aware of the up-front costs involved with implementing an automated solution, don’t underestimate the long-term savings your company can gain from better visibility. AMI Partners found that solutions which fully integrate expense, travel, and invoice – along with other ERP and CRM solutions – offer the clearest picture of company spend. AMI respondents who automated their travel and expense processes saw an average annual savings of $30,000. Those who automated their invoice process saw an average annual savings of nearly $34,000.</p>
<p data-id="8e087876-af51-4f2a-a830-b51bfabcc707"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c52e7929-7260-491a-a0a1-c608b2410c0c">Employee satisfaction</h2>
<p data-id="fd560579-0dbd-46ef-ab4d-17a0e00e19cc">A fully integrated solution results in faster reimbursement times. In fact, respondents saw up to an 80% reduction in the time between purchase and reimbursement which ultimately led to happier employees. An effective solution is easy to use and increases employee adoption – giving you more accurate data.</p>
<p data-id="fd560579-0dbd-46ef-ab4d-17a0e00e19cc"> </p>
<h2 data-id="4c7eface-7cf4-40c9-9e12-449367ea0b50">Improved compliance</h2>
<p data-id="d00ebb79-ff83-4436-a020-8b4628edb2a8">Financial decision makers who implemented a cloud-based, automated solution found that their employees have a better grasp of their policies and are less likely to submit non-qualified expenses. Audits have also become easier, as an automated solution keeps documentation updated and easy to find.</p>
<p data-id="d00ebb79-ff83-4436-a020-8b4628edb2a8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="285c997d-493e-4c26-97a3-f022081a6c94">Better data visibility</h2>
<p data-id="cd2ec678-4a4a-4e81-8f5e-386070f209da">When expense, travel, and invoice data come together in one place, finance teams have more insight into company cash flow and can make smarter business decisions. More than half of the financial decision makers surveyed reported improved analytics as an important benefit provided by their automated solution.</p>
<p data-id="0a815087-511f-4904-a50a-fac2e034c5de">The benefits of automation outweigh the barriers. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Read the AMI report today</a> and learn why the best run businesses automate their expense, travel, and invoice management to elevate business performance in their company.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Regain Your Sanity with Concur Travel and Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/regain-your-sanity-concur-travel-and-expense
2019-03-19T08:13:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results Have you heard this phrase before Have you ever thought about applying it to your business How many...
<p>“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”</p>
<p>Have you heard this phrase before? Have you ever thought about applying it to your business? How many times have you looked at a messy budget at the end of a quarter and thought “next month will be different," or “I’m fairly certain this won’t happen again,” or “we’ll just try harder to expect the unexpected.”?</p>
<p>Nowadays, it’s far too common to be in the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mindset. But do you really want to wait for something to break before you act?</p>
<p>Some companies hope that their issues across unexpected spend, poor productivity, and employee dissatisfaction will resolve themselves. But unfortunately, if you’re still following the same policies and relying on manual processes and outdated systems – even with a little more care and attention – things won’t change.</p>
<p>But there is a way for you to regain your sanity. With cloud-based solutions, improving your processes doesn’t have to be daunting. And, as travel and expense is often the second largest spend for businesses, isn’t it time you got things under control? </p>
<p>Concur Expense and Concur Travel are solutions from SAP Concur that make it quick and easy to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Review consolidated and reliable data in one place</li>
<li>Spot cost saving opportunities and make more informed budget decisions</li>
<li>Improve policy compliance, productivity, and employee satisfaction </li>
</ul>
<p>So, what are you waiting for?<strong> </strong>Check out the infographic to <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic">see the benefits of automating your expense and travel processes</a>. </strong></p>
<p>And, learn more about SAP Concur solutions for expense and travel in the video below: </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
How to Stop Special Projects Breaking the Budget and Impacting Cashflow
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-stop-special-projects-breaking-budget-and-impacting-cashflow
2019-03-19T08:14:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its a situation familiar to every small business owner the nightmare project thats spiralled out of control and sucked everything into its orbit In many cases it started out sounding...
<p>It’s a situation familiar to every small business owner: the nightmare project that’s spiralled out of control and sucked everything into its orbit. In many cases, it started out sounding like a simple, easy-to-deliver project and ended with you throwing everything at it – including the kitchen sink – in a desperate attempt to get it off the ground.</p>
<p>When it’s finally over there’s a sense of elation. There’s also the sinking knowledge that the budget management was a disaster. Perhaps it was a contract for a client and you know you didn’t break even, let alone make any profit. Maybe it was in-house activity, such as exhibiting at a conference, and you know you can never hope to achieve return on investment.</p>
<p>But, while everyone remembers the nightmare projects, it’s often true to say that many projects end up being less profitable than originally planned. Little additions here, changes of direction there, all take their toll. So how can you keep a handle on a project and the budget? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scope the project carefully – and communicate it clearly</h2>
<p>It’s a truism because it’s true: It’s all in the preparation. Take time to scope each project carefully and establish the requirements. Make sure you document these requirements in detail and get them signed off by all the stakeholders whether they’re internal or external. Doing this achieves two things: It gives you certainty that you’re all on the same page, and helps you rein the project back in – or negotiate a change to the budget – if the scope starts to creep.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Budget realistically</h2>
<p>When it comes to putting the budget together, build in an element of contingency so you have some flexibility and can cope with a few surprises. It’s also worth considering whether the budget could be affected by things you can’t control. Perhaps you buy components in dollars but sell them in pounds, leaving you at the mercy of currency fluctuations. Or perhaps there’s a risk a supplier could let you down at the last minute meaning you have to find a more expensive alternative at short notice or risk missing the deadline. Is there a backup plan for situations like these? Does your contract cover you?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Keep checking in on the budget so you can take action before it’s too late</h2>
<p>A budget should be a "live" document, one you check in on regularly throughout the duration of a project. It gives you the ability to see when the costs are starting to drift much earlier in the process. It also means you can take action to put it back on track much earlier too. Plus, a 10% budget overrun is easier to deal with than a 50% one. A big part of that is knowing what you have spent upfront on expenses, or committed to spend on invoiced purchases. The earlier you are able to get this insight, the sooner you can correct course.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make a habit of it</h2>
<p>Keeping a handle on your budget is a habit worth getting into. As the saying goes, "a stitch in time saves nine." It’s the only way to stop nasty surprises later down the line. If you’re thinking about the additional workload it will entail, it’s worth bearing in mind that tracking costs and budgets becomes much easier when you’ve automated some or all of your finance functions like expense and invoice management.</p>
<p>In essence, you spend less time processing data so you have more time to analyze it. It means it’s easier to make informed decisions that are best for your business. One SAP Concur user, a Director of Company Operations at a small financial services firm, recently reported: “We are now able to better understand the total return on investment of working with a client, which helps us to manage workflow and gives us the ability to be more selective on the projects we work on.” That’s powerful insight that can mean the difference between ticking over or flourishing.</p>
<p>To see what return on investment an automated expense or invoice process can deliver, we commissioned research with independent analyst AMI. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Take a look at the research findings here</a>.</p>
Healthcare Here, There, Everywhere: Staff Auto Mileage Adds Up
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/healthcare-here-there-everywhere-staff-auto-mileage-adds
2018-12-20T13:23:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Projected to more than double by the number of Americans ages and older will increase to million ultimately driving up the demand for mobile healthcare For healthcare professionals...
<p>Projected to more than double by 2060, the <a href="https://www.prb.org/aging-unitedstates-fact-sheet/" target="_blank">number of Americans ages 65</a> and older will increase to 98 million, ultimately driving up the demand for mobile healthcare. For healthcare professionals, this means more trips on the road to provide at-home care and respond to emergency house calls, but, for healthcare organizations, it also means keeping track of all those miles driven.</p>
<p>As more healthcare staff enter the road, manually tracking mileage will only become more complex and expensive for organizations to handle. The current cost of transportation and personal cars already among the top 10 expenses incurred by companies worldwide, and SAP Concur knows its healthcare customers spend the highest portion on personal car mileage, at 11%, more than double the average spend of any other industry.</p>
<p>As an organization, you undoubtedly care about providing the right tools to ensure your staff is satisfied while also helping your business drive costs down.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Self-reported mileage is costing you money</h2>
<p>You may think that your organization’s current process for tracking employee mileage is adequate. After all, how hard can it really be to google the distance from point A to point B? That’s close enough, right? But what about the personal miles traveled in between? Did your staff forget to exclude that restaurant stop along their route or quick personal errand?</p>
<p>Last year, SAP Concur customers <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">spent $2.3 billion reimbursing personal car expenses</a> without any documentation. Failing to properly document self-reported mileage puts your organization at risk for fraud and compliance, which is more common than you may think. In a recent survey, 82% of SAP Concur healthcare customers found mileage padding, while 42% found claims for the same expense twice. Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, it is also found that <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/us-ebook-healthcare-overwhelmed-to-overjoyed-ebook.pdf">travelers over-estimate their mileage by 15%</a> on average, potentially costing you of hundreds and thousands of dollars.</p>
<p>Not only is manual calculation of mileage inaccurate but gathering the information from hundreds of field staff members who drive on a daily basis is a nightmare for finance to keep up with. Just think about what could be done with that extra money and time. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Gain control with Concur Drive</h2>
<p>Without the proper tools to track miles, it’s really hard to know what you are missing. SAP Concur helps you gain more control over self-reported mileage, so that you can increase accuracy and reduce spending. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a> is an automated distance-capture solution that enables your organization to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Document, report, and reimburse actual distances driven</li>
<li>Improve mileage reporting, and help with compliance and audit readiness</li>
<li>Proactively manage and standardize expense reporting</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about how you can smooth out the road for your organization by downloading our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/best-practices-guide-mileage-healthcare">Mileage Best Practices guide</a> or visit our website to find your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/healthcare">healthcare employee spend management solution</a>.</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
How Fraudsters Find Weak Links in Employee Spend Areas
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-fraudsters-find-weak-links-employee-spend-areas
2020-09-21T15:08:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In part one of our fourpart series we discuss how changes in employee spending and a rise in regulations are costing organizations that have decided to make do when it comes to travel...
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/two-business-trends-driving-change-in-spend">part one of our four-part series</a>, we discuss how changes in employee spending and a rise in regulations are costing organizations that have decided to “make do” when it comes to travel and spend management. But the disadvantages to using an inefficient, antiquated approach don’t stop there -- it also opens up your organization to substantial fraud and noncompliance risks.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Rising regulations and the costs of noncompliance</h2>
<p>With regulations ever-changing, understanding the rules and how to play by them is a key challenge for every business. But when employee spending isn’t completely visible and complex regulations are being introduced, it can be difficult to stay on top of it all – especially when you’re not operating with modern technology that can build custom reports in minutes.</p>
<p>The risks of financial crime, data breaches and regulatory infringement place extra importance on financial transparency, data integrity and internal auditing. Not being up to par in these areas means risking hefty fines and intense scrutiny. FCPA violations, for example, have resulted in <a href="http://www.fcpablog.com/blog/2018/6/7/socgen-replaces-total-sa-on-the-top-ten-list.html" target="_blank">hard hits to businesses</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>$965M by a European telco</li>
<li>$800M by a multinational technology company</li>
<li>$795M by a global telecom</li>
</ul>
<p>Connecting travel and spend in one integrated, cloud-based system can keep you compliant across multiple areas, provide faster reporting, and give you more accurate data. Plus, policy rules built into your solution help to guide employees to make the right decision from the start.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Employee purchasing power and the challenges of fraud detection</h2>
<p>If your travel and spend management solution isn’t set up to manage noncompliance, it also won’t be able to capture fraudulent spend. And as employee spending habits are changing, purchases across new channels and payment methods make it easier to conceal fraudulent spend without a trace.</p>
<p>But when your travel and spend solution has built in anti-fraud safeguards, your organization’s risk will be substantially lower. In fact, <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/" target="_blank">ACFE found</a> that companies that use data monitoring and analysis technology had 52% lower losses and 58% faster detection.</p>
<p>For example, CenterPoint Energy used modern reporting on employee expenses to uncover fraud schemes that were far reaching:</p>
<ul>
<li>A $3.95 late fee charge for a DVD rental automatically flagged on an expense report led to an employee investigation for over a decade’s worth of fraudulent time reporting for the both the employee and her department staff, plus gift card purchases for personal use.</li>
<li>A purchase discovered from a home store led to an employee investigation uncovering thousands of dollars for a new home when their purchasing card showed details that conflicted with the employee uploaded receipt. Additional meal expenses that fell under the threshold amount for receipts were also found fraudulent.</li>
</ul>
<p>With regulations ever-changing and employees gaining more power to spend on your behalf, it’s becoming more difficult to remain fully compliant with legal and regulatory measures, plus remain confident you have everything in place to effectively manage the risks of fraud and financial crime. But when your travel and spend technology is still stuck in years past, it’s almost impossible to confidently uncover employees that accidentally violate the rules, or worse, intentionally commit fraud. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone.</p>
<p>SAP Concur can help you put the right safeguards in place. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">Download the infographic</a> or <a href="https://go.concur.com/Cost-of-Doing-Nothing-Landing-Page_Landing-Page.html?pid=direct&cid=direct">visit us online</a> to learn more about how to upgrade your travel and spend solution for better risk management, fraud detection, and increased compliance<strong> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/two-business-trends-driving-change-in-spend">Watch for These Two Business Trends Driving Change in Spend</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/is-disconnected-spend-data-costing-you">Is Disconnected Spend Data Costing You?</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
SAP/SAP Concur Employees Solve Business Problems for King County Non-Profits
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sapsap-concur-employees-solve-business-problems-king-county-non-profits
2020-06-29T21:38:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I will be the first to admit that when I had first heard of SAPs vision of helping the world run better and improving peoples lives it seemed a little daunting However time and again...
<p>I will be the first to admit that when I had first heard of SAP’s vision of “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives” it seemed a little daunting. However time and again, we at SAP/SAP Concur have witnessed, participated and contributed to this vision in our own way.</p>
<p>Throughout the last six weeks, I have had the honor of sponsoring SAP’s Concur’s first Social Sabbatical in our Bellevue-based headquarters. Last week we hosted the closing event, where 12 SAP/SAP Concur employees and four local King County non-profits presented their results of the work they did together to help address a current business problem. SAP Concur employee teams collaborated and solved strategic challenges alongside the nonprofit organizations to focus on bridging the digital divide.</p>
<p>The organizations that SAP/SAP Concur worked alongside during the Social Sabbatical program are fundamental to the local King County community including Pike Place Market Foundation, Techbridge Girls, 21 Progress and College Success Foundation. Each program faced various challenges ranging from building a revenue source for a professional development STEM curriculum to revamping a data management system and protocol across a bicoastal network. The success of these projects will continue to develop, grow and strengthen the impact that each organization has on our local community.</p>
<p>This opportunity has created a long lasting, transformative volunteer experience for 12 hardworking employees that emulate the culture of SAP/SAP Concur; “helping the world run better and improving people’s lives”. Deepening SAP’s commitment and relationship with the local community, this opportunity presents a symbiotic relationship for all parties. The nonprofit clients extended their organizational developments, improved staff skills, and addressed strategic challenges with the help from our talented employees. For our participants, they stepped outside their comfort zones to problem solve and gain a different perspective on social justice issues within their own backyards. They not only developed their leadership, cross-cultural, and entrepreneurial skills, but built relationships with each other and gained valuable personal insights.</p>
<p>It means so much to me and SAP Concur that we are building, learning, and engaging our local communities through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">corporate social responsibility</a> (CSR) efforts like the Local Social Sabbatical. Events like these are uplifting, energizing, and speak to the CSR mission of powering opportunity through digital inclusion, this is just the start for drving continued positive social impact in our local communities. </p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1541791942212-social-sabatical.jpg" />
<p>Seema Kumar is VP of Human Resources</p>
SAP Concur Team
Trading Places: How to Find Wins for Both Finance and Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/trading-places-how-find-wins-both-finance-and-employees
2019-03-19T08:12:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We speak to many finance leaders in small and midsize businesses who tell us that expense processes are inevitably cumbersome and create a lot of work for someone in the business We...
<p>We speak to many finance leaders in small and midsize businesses who tell us that expense processes are inevitably cumbersome and create a lot of work for someone in the business. We understand the concern.</p>
<p>The common belief is that if you make the expense process simple for the rest of the business, you make more work for the finance team. But if you ask the rest of the business to take on more of the work, the process takes even longer and leads to frustration for employees. Perhaps even inaccuracies and shortcuts.</p>
<p>But, there doesn’t have to be a trade off. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Download the report</a> to learn more about expense management for SMBs</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You can easily capture receipts and populate expense claims from your phone</h2>
<p>Compiling expense claims manually is incredibly time-consuming. It’s no wonder it’s rarely top of anyone’s to-do list and it’s put off until the last moment, meaning there’s a delay before the spend is recorded – let alone reimbursed.</p>
<p>But with the SAP Concur app it’s simple and fast. Employees just need to take a photo of the receipt and the data is automatically read and populated in an expense claim. It means employees can capture receipts and submit claims on the go. Research shows it speeds up the time it takes to compile a claim by up to 50%.</p>
<p>Employees win because their expense claims write themselves. The finance team wins because the automated data entry leads to a higher degree of accuracy and there’s no more chasing half-completed claims. Plus, expenses enter the system more quickly so it’s easier to manage the monthly balance sheet and you can reimburse employees quicker too.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You can embed policies in the system so it’s easy to be productive and compliant</h2>
<p>Automation means rules can be set so that employees are alerted when an expense is out-of-policy or more documentation is needed.</p>
<p>Employees win because they are more informed and spend less time checking rules and policies. You and your finance team win because you know the right rules and approvals are being applied automatically so you can be confident in your compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Managers can approve expenses on-the-go to speed up the process</h2>
<p>SAP Concur has a simple mobile app that managers can use to review and approve expenses on-the-go. It means there are fewer delays than before. And research suggests <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic">the difference is dramatic</a> – the review to reimbursement period is reduced up to 80% with automated solutions.</p>
<p>Employees win because they’re reimbursed more quickly. The finance team wins because shorter approval times mean you can schedule payments and manage capital more effectively.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You have a single simple interface to manage everything to do with expense</h2>
<p>SAP Concur is a cloud-based tool that’s so intuitive to use, many people find they don’t need any training at all. You use the same system for expenses as you do for invoices (and travel, if you have a travel booking process) so there is less to learn. And it’s scalable, so the tool you’re using now can be the same tool you use when the company has grown in years to come.</p>
<p>Employees in the rest of the business win because they have a single intuitive platform to manage everything. You win because you spend less time training employees on separate systems and can be confident you have a tool that will scale as your business does.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>These are just a few of the ways that expense automation can make life easier for the finance team and the rest of the business too. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Download the report</a> to learn more about elevating business performance and better managing spend.</strong></p>
Mileage Reimbursement: How Much Are You Paying for Overstated Expenses?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/mileage-reimbursement-how-much-are-you-paying-overstated-expenses
2018-12-11T07:24:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Selfreported mileage is an honor system and while you naturally trust your team on the road mileage mistakes are easy to makeeven for you Think about your last outofoffice meeting Did...
<p>Self-reported mileage is an honor system, and while you naturally trust your team on the road, mileage mistakes are easy to make—even for you.</p>
<p>Think about your last out-of-office meeting. Did the trip include a quick stop at home, a visit to your son or daughter’s school, or maybe a few other errands? And how far is it downtown and back? How many miles exactly?</p>
<p>Seriously, how many people know how to keep track of how far they’ve gone?</p>
<p>Whether it’s tens or hundreds of thousands of miles each year, the pennies-per-mile add up quickly. If you don’t have a system to accurately log who’s going where, you may literally be getting the runaround.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t worry, mileage drives everyone crazy</h2>
<p>Inaccurate tracking and reporting costs every company money and leaves them wide open to potential fraud. You don’t get receipts, so you simply don’t know if people are telling you the truth or stretching it. And with self-reported numbers, it’s almost impossible to know if you’re complying with regulations.</p>
<p>You need to take mileage calculation out of the hands of drivers and <strong>ensure that every single mile they drive comes with documentation of the actual distance and route.</strong></p>
<p>Not only will this reduce fraud while improving reporting, it will increase audit readiness and establish a culture of compliance in which you can be assured you’re meeting tax and regulatory requirements.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trust, but verify</h2>
<p>It’s an ages-old proverb, but it still rings true. And there are tools out there to help you do it—tools that take the guesswork out of reimbursement by accurately tracking mileage and automatically adding it to employee expense reports.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a> reduces self-reported mileage (along with the mistakes and exaggerations often riding shotgun) with automated distance-capture GPS. This allows you to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Categorize every segment driven, whether business or personal</li>
<li>Capture distance automatically and more precisely</li>
<li>Submit driving expenses seamlessly</li>
<li>Reduce overspend</li>
<li>Easily measure distance from anywhere</li>
</ul>
<p>It also takes the burden off your employees. No more mileage logs, no more guessing, no more wasted time. That keeps them focused on the job at hand and keeps one more layer of risk off your desk.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>See for yourself</h2>
<p>Find out how Concur Drive—and a host of other SAP Concur solutions—are helping companies like yours drive down risk while driving up compliance. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Learn more about Concur Drive</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Calculating Mileage Doesn’t Have to Be Painful
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/calculating-mileage-doesnt-have-be-painful
2019-02-18T08:48:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Manually calculating mileage driven for work got you down Heres what a day in the life could look like with the help of Concur Drive It has been a long day driving the backroads around...
<p>Manually calculating mileage driven for work got you down? Here's what a day in the life could look like with the help of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a>: </p>
<p>It has been a long day driving the back-roads around the state, but it was worth it! I hit my sales quota and drummed up a few new leads. Now, thanks to Concur Drive, I can enjoy my evening.</p>
<p>Only two months ago, I would have been pulling out the mileage logs I had tried to update throughout the day. On busy days, when I wasn’t able to update them, I could spend hours in the evening calculating mileage, making corrections, or filling in missing entries with estimations on how long a drive was.</p>
<p>But thankfully, my new company uses SAP Concur. All day, Concur Drive, which is part of the SAP Concur mobile app, was using the GPS in my phone to automatically and accurately calculate mileage and create logs for me. Concur Drive is more than a mileage calculator. I can easily turn those logs into expense line items with a button-press. Plus, if I miss one, Concur Drive will notify me – so I don’t lose any mileage reimbursements at the end of the month.</p>
<p>Plus, it’s integrated with Concur Expense, so from there I just give my expense report a name, add any other expenses I created throughout the day, then send it on. With Concur Drive, I get my evenings back, am reimbursed faster, and my back-office is happy.</p>
<p>Ready to learn more about making this a reality? <strong>Watch the video below to learn more about the benefts of Concur Drive. Then, see how to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HucS4adPt_g" target="_blank">set up Concur Drive</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZFfBnFXBz4" target="_blank">how to expense car trips</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Empower Your Finance Team with Continuous Accounting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empower-your-finance-team-continuous-accounting
2019-03-19T08:10:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Little and often Its an approach thats recommended for selfimprovement activities such as exercise and learning Its also recommended for keeping on top of chores such as gardening and...
<p>Little and often: It’s an approach that’s recommended for self-improvement activities such as exercise and learning. It’s also recommended for keeping on top of chores such as gardening and housework.</p>
<p>You can apply this approach at work, too. In fact, it’s the theory that sits behind the concept of continuous accounting. Just like we know it makes more sense to go for a daily walk rather than one long weekly hike, continuous accounting allows you to keep flexing your finance muscles. The good news is a continuous accounting system is much easier to embed into your routine.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The end-of-period accounting model</h2>
<p>Let’s take a moment to consider the traditional set-up. It’s a process designed to accommodate standalone ERP systems and is built around reporting requirements. At the end of the period, all data is gathered and entered ready for reporting and analysis.</p>
<p>It’s a set-up that has several problems:</p>
<p>There’s a <strong>productivity issue.</strong> Whether it’s a few days or a few weeks, at the end of a period, everyone’s attention turns to an administrative task and all other work takes a back seat.</p>
<p>There’s an <strong>accuracy issue.</strong> Entering information by hand is notoriously at risk of error and inaccuracy, and the risk increases when you’re entering multiple transactions at a time.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, <strong>there’s a visibility issue.</strong> When you enter information in arrears, the reports you are able to produce are always out-of-date. The problem becomes worse the nearer you get to the end of the next reporting period when you are confined to looking at data that is weeks, months, or even a year behind your current situation. “You’re looking at data that shows you as you were, not as you are.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The continuous accounting model</h2>
<p>In a continuous accounting model, transactions enter the system as they come in – a continually rolling process. It’s an approach that offers several benefits.</p>
<p>Productivity improves because transactions are processed little and often. It puts an end to the end-of-period scramble and smooths out the spikes in activity.</p>
<p>Visibility improves dramatically, too. You are able to access real-time information so you're always looking at figures that show you how the business is performing now, not then. It puts you in a much stronger position.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why continuous accounting now?</h2>
<p>It’s easy to see the benefits of continuous accounting, but it’s a system that would have been harder to achieve until recently. Tools such as finance automation have transformed the landscape. When implemented, such systems tend to make continuous accounting the norm rather than the exception.</p>
<p>Expense, travel, and invoice transactions enter the system automatically with little data entry needed. In the first instance, this means that the administrative workload is reduced if not eliminated entirely, and errors are minimized. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">research has shown</a> that an integrated, automated expense, travel, and invoice solution saves the average finance employee 500 hours a year – that’s around ten hours per week.</p>
<p>When data enters the system in real time and there are many more hours available to focus on key business tasks, the benefits are clear. The information you have access to is up-to-date and therefore more useful. Plus, your team has more time to analyze the data and provide more meaningful insights. More than half of SMBs that have implemented an automated solution say that improved analytics has been an important benefit.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The impossible has become possible</h2>
<p>Technology advances facilitate approaches such as continuous accounting. Not only do they make life easier, they also mean the finance team can add more value to their organisation than ever before. To find out more about how automation and continuous accounting could empower you and your team, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">download the report</a>. </p>
The Secret to Successfully Scaling Up Culture is Letting Go
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/secret-successfully-scaling-culture-letting-go
2019-09-17T02:39:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I believe that getting culture right is the key to business growth But at the same time growth also poses the greatest risk to culture It is relatively easy to foster openness warmth...
<p data-id="c25de6c9-2f84-4666-a215-81a4ba8b2e94">I believe that getting culture right is the key to business growth. But at the same time, growth also poses the greatest risk to culture. It is relatively easy to foster openness, warmth, and genuine trust amongst a small group of people – but how do you replicate that as your team gets bigger?</p>
<p data-id="c25de6c9-2f84-4666-a215-81a4ba8b2e94"> </p>
<p data-id="76505ffa-3399-4686-b376-f410d1046aab">This is probably the single most troubling question I ask myself today. In Southeast Asia, SAP Concur currently has an incredible culture tying together its 24 employees. But what will that culture look like when we reach 240? Will we be able to spend the same time and build the same relationships with new hires in Manila, or Jakarta, or even Kuala Lumpur, as we currently do in our Singapore office? How do we make sure that each new generation of talent “catches” the ethos and values that have brought us to where we are today?</p>
<p data-id="76505ffa-3399-4686-b376-f410d1046aab"> </p>
<p data-id="b4881d4c-5ebe-4870-b8f5-59ac2f95bc20">I confess that I don’t have all the answers, and only time will tell how well we do in this regard. But even though I see scale as a huge threat to our culture – more than anything else at present – I believe that it’s not impossible to overcome. Here’s how we are planning to do so:</p>
<p data-id="b4881d4c-5ebe-4870-b8f5-59ac2f95bc20"> </p>
<h2 data-id="988cb0da-8535-4b59-a7fd-4b6f85c919e3">1. Empower new leaders</h2>
<p data-id="8aacbf4e-290a-42cd-ae2a-3b2f5c5d3914">One of the biggest dangers when building a strong corporate culture is for it to rest upon a single person. It shouldn’t have to be Madanjit Singh doing the work of having those personal conversations, encouraging honest dialogue, and making new joiners feel at home. In fact, the <a href="https://www.themuse.com/advice/5-strategies-that-will-turn-your-employees-into-leaders">more people doing it the better</a>!</p>
<p data-id="8aacbf4e-290a-42cd-ae2a-3b2f5c5d3914"> </p>
<p data-id="118057da-176a-4ee8-88cc-9a7eb4cfdfd3">One focus of mine so far has been to decouple our culture from my leadership. I’ve been trying to mentor and nurture our new leaders, giving them more responsibility to track how people settle in, canvas feedback, and make the bigger decisions. Sometimes, they’ll do things a bit differently – and that’s something I need to embrace as part of who they are! Otherwise, we risk getting stuck in a cult of personality that has no hope of scaling across more countries and greater headcount.</p>
<p data-id="118057da-176a-4ee8-88cc-9a7eb4cfdfd3"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6ffc63c6-2fb3-4e7f-b34a-027f904a6daa">2. Make recognition a habit</h2>
<p data-id="8f7286aa-4d77-4ec2-8c27-c308df6435ee">Part of empowering new leaders, and members of the team more generally, is to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/one-email-leaders-should-send-daily">acknowledge the value</a> they bring to others and the business. This, I believe, must be done in public, and with 100% authenticity. Public recognition sends a clear message to your people that they’re working with individuals whom they can trust, and who have their best interests at heart. It also sets an example for others to aim for, which in turn helps you keep your core values alive as your team expands in scale and geography. I believe the more role models you can establish in your business – people who genuinely live and breathe what you stand for – the better your culture can withstand the stresses of scale.</p>
<p data-id="8f7286aa-4d77-4ec2-8c27-c308df6435ee"> </p>
<h2 data-id="ca4a111b-15ea-45db-9892-17067b939594">3. Break the taboo around succession</h2>
<p data-id="cbb98a91-0013-43f6-9335-bce514c37ee8">I’ve noticed that in Asia, people often contrive to make themselves “indispensable” to the business. The assumption is that if nobody else can do your role, you’re more valuable…when the opposite is more likely to be true. After all, it’s only by passing things on that we can take on new responsibilities and grow along with the people around us! Breaking that taboo can only come from the top. Nowadays, I try to have frequent conversations about responsibility: identifying what I can do, versus what others can or should do, and looking to reallocate those responsibilities in a way that lets everyone both grow and raise up others.</p>
<p data-id="cbb98a91-0013-43f6-9335-bce514c37ee8"> </p>
<p data-id="7473f730-1217-4fde-929c-4de4d695e76b">As new leaders take the reins and new employees join us, our culture will change, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But if we can continue passing down our core values, like honesty and family and a disregard for hierarchy, I think we can remain a place that everyone is proud to be a part of.</p>
Do You Have All Your Business Risks Covered?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-you-have-all-your-business-risks-covered
2019-09-17T02:42:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For finance managers its very easy to focus on the risks that fall into your remit failing to comply with legislation breaching travel and expense policy falling victim to fraud and...
<p data-id="7ba6cd3b-1e41-47c6-bfd1-974cda9a405f">For finance managers, it’s very easy to focus on the risks that fall into your remit: failing to comply with legislation, breaching travel and expense policy, falling victim to fraud, and the like.</p>
<p data-id="ea076635-4c38-480f-a0d7-9fbd72816be9">But businesses face other risks too. And as a finance manager you’re in a powerful position to help your business spot and manage them.</p>
<p data-id="366e100e-49c8-47e9-a6c5-98cdfc31b2c0">In the second of our three blogs on risk and compliance, I’ll look at some of the other risks a business can face and how the finance department can help tackle them.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Preventing Employee Expense Fraud</h2>
<p>Examine how today’s savvy companies put a microscope on employee spend to better prevent and detect fraud across their business.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/new-age-fraud-preventing-fraud-across-employee-spend-areas">Download the Brochure</a></div>
</div>
<h2 data-id="ad473709-af1b-4ab0-93a0-ae6c1d82c39e"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="ad473709-af1b-4ab0-93a0-ae6c1d82c39e">Human Error</h2>
<p data-id="82bdefb7-536c-4624-a885-512541087353">Everyone makes mistakes. Submitting an invoice for payment twice or not submitting it at all. Forgetting to call the client to let them know about a vital change in schedule.</p>
<p data-id="b622c1ba-c16a-4cf9-93d0-0ee873b42a06">Technology can help you spot some human errors. Concur Invoice, for example, will spot duplicate invoices and you’re able to see at a glance when a purchase order has been raised but there isn’t a matching invoice yet.</p>
<p data-id="247259b1-b338-4c93-9628-de7a2457cfe9">When it comes to errors such as failing to communicate in a timely manner, it’s how you handle the fallout that’s important. Consultant David Hand <a href="https://www.theceomagazine.com/business/management-leadership/foster-no-blame-culture/" target="_blank">points out</a>: “A business culture that supports employees who make mistakes is one that can better foster loyalty, effective problem-solving and high performance.”</p>
<h2 data-id="247259b1-b338-4c93-9628-de7a2457cfe9"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="34b2498f-1e4e-41b8-8c86-5d4e95c851fd">Machinery and technology lifecycles</h2>
<p data-id="fb23df19-92bc-4c33-920f-941ef489159a">Nothing lasts forever. Machines will eventually need to be replaced. At the same time, technology moves on. Is your business running as efficiently as it can or could you be making better use of new technologies?</p>
<p data-id="ccc73aae-46b0-4a25-b80e-58681fa68baa">The questions about machinery and technology in your business are best answered by the relevant heads of department. But the questions about when and how the business can afford to replace or upgrade equipment fall to you.</p>
<p data-id="ccc73aae-46b0-4a25-b80e-58681fa68baa">SAP Concur gives you visibility around cashflow. It also equips you to interrogate the numbers at the click of a mouse. It means you’re able to budget for equipment replacement and advise on affordability with much more confidence.</p>
<p data-id="7e931770-e1bd-4a3c-96c7-3dd01f8175e8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="96cbaaca-110a-4195-8b91-2bd7e4f5b040">Business policies and best practice</h2>
<p data-id="805c846b-43ba-4025-b67a-862f62888d13">How do you ensure rules and policies are being followed throughout the business? Are you confident the business – and its employees – are compliant and protected in all areas?</p>
<p data-id="e67260b8-075c-452c-9d33-fd5ba23906ec">In the finance department, technologies such as SAP Concur solutions ensure policies are enforced on every single line item automatically.</p>
<p data-id="ccbd9615-8b7f-468c-b129-4e355abe7203">But what about elsewhere in the business? When it comes to health and safety, for example, measures such as fire alarms or CCTV could help manage the risks. You can work with leaders to find out what investment is needed – whether it’s training, technology or a new process – and explore the most cost-effective solutions.</p>
<p data-id="ccbd9615-8b7f-468c-b129-4e355abe7203"> </p>
<h2 data-id="1a910589-c4f6-4560-b5b9-0a5ce6d8c83f">Strategic direction</h2>
<p data-id="72834add-f947-45c3-a8f8-3465cff488e0">Having a clear strategic direction is essential. The demise of firms such as Blockbuster and HMV shows us what happens when a business fails to change with the times.</p>
<p data-id="c3a5198d-4af7-4556-a8fa-6906c961085c">As a business you’ll be analyzing competitors, assessing the market, setting goals, and exploring new opportunities.</p>
<p data-id="c3a5198d-4af7-4556-a8fa-6906c961085c">And as a finance manager you need access to financial information required to make informed decisions. How do those goals break down? Can the business afford the investment that would be needed to enter a new market?</p>
<p data-id="f639f81e-a422-444f-955e-ae0b98379ede">It is vital that this financial information is readily available. When you automate your processes, you spend less time inputting the numbers and have more time to analyze them. In other words, you’re able to support the business and its strategic direction much more effectively.</p>
<p data-id="f639f81e-a422-444f-955e-ae0b98379ede"> </p>
<h2 data-id="1da9588d-b50e-43a4-9edb-4ac1652e4e36">A spotless reputation</h2>
<p data-id="9199d5ca-5243-4494-8f72-27a4a73d674c">When you fail to manage risk in your business, one of the fallouts is likely to be negative publicity. The saying might be ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’, but few of us want to find out if that’s true.</p>
<p data-id="25cedaa2-b22f-454c-aa4a-7ac2ca365d0d">As a finance professional you’re responsible for managing financial risk and compliance in your business. But you can also add a great deal of value when it comes to staying on top of all the other risks it faces too.</p>
<p data-id="05358b6b-e65e-4139-85d4-b59526ad29fb">In doing so, you can help your business stay in control of its growth and direction – and its reputation.</p>
<p data-id="05358b6b-e65e-4139-85d4-b59526ad29fb">Ready to learn more? Visit concur.com to learn about solutions for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/visibility-and-compliance" target="_blank">visibility and compliance</a>.</p>
Plan for Future Expansion with Lessons from Around the Globe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/plan-future-expansion-lessons-around-globe
2019-08-14T14:48:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Earlier this year Oxford Economics completed a survey sponsored by SAP Concur solutions of companies that have expanded within the last months The purpose of the survey was to find...
<p>Earlier this year Oxford Economics completed a survey, sponsored by SAP Concur solutions, of companies that have expanded within the last 12 months. The purpose of the survey was to find out how expansions are addressed by companies around the world: operational and management changes, processes and planning that support expansion, and why the companies chose to expand. Recently, I joined Joan Warner, managing editor and finance practice lead at Oxford Economics, for a Webinar called, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/managing-scale-lessons-growing-enterprise-us" target="_blank"><strong>Managing Scale: Lessons From Growing Enterprises in the US</strong></a>,” to discuss the results. We analyzed findings from the study and what they could mean for enterprises looking to expand in the near future.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Managing Scale: Lessons From Growing Enterprises in the US Webinar</h2>
<p>Learn how intelligent enterprises are controlling costs and gaining better control over total spend management - a crucial pillar of successful expansion. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/managing-scale-lessons-growing-enterprise-us">Download webinar</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The survey reached 500 executives worldwide, 350 from enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. One of the biggest takeaways from the survey was that successful expansions rest on prudent cost control. While relatively few survey respondents reported exceeding budget during expansion, a group of enterprises where spending and cash were at the forefront of planning emerged – we refer to these companies as “cost-conscious enterprises.” I found it interesting that cost-conscious approaches to expansion directly correlate with more-flexible operations, better spending transparency, and good communication between business units.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Conversely, the companies that didn’t prioritize cash flow and spending during decision-making prior to an expansion were more likely to run into problems post-expansion. These problems affected not only the cost-related areas you would expect, such as travel and expense reports and supplier invoices, but corporate culture and employee satisfaction as well. Since most surveyed enterprises, regardless of expansion type, said they needed to grow to meet rising competition, capture new customers, and improve efficiency, the need to be a cost-conscious enterprise at the inception of expansion becomes clear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So what are the best strategies to utilize when you’re moving forward with expansion as a cost-conscious enterprise?</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Manage processes</h2>
<p>Nearly 40% of U.S. respondents reported their expansion happened by merger or acquisition. In that type of expansion, make sure that your growth strategy and processes are in place in advance of the expansion and that your companies can integrate quickly. This approach should be a repeatable, scalable process that adapts and improves with each new growth spurt and should be reviewed after each growth event a part of a continuous improvement mind-set.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maintain spend visibility</h2>
<p>Multiple sources of data knitted together from multiple source systems can make even the most involved executive lack trust in the data. Add to that outdated legacy technology and processes used to analyze ever-growing amounts of data, and true visibility into numbers can be difficult. As a company preparing to expand, you need a comprehensive total spend management strategy. Using whatever technology you have available to you, consolidate into a single source of data (a single source of the truth) to get a more expansive understanding of where your spend is happening and how much cash flow you really have available to you.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Sustain employee satisfaction</h2>
<p>Employee satisfaction and retention is critical when it comes to growth. For many companies I work with, employee satisfaction is often linked to the technology they are provided with in order to do their jobs. And while the bridge between employee satisfaction and expense might not seem obvious, for many employees, the biggest interaction they have with the back end is with your T&E tools and processes. The easier you can make it for your employees to do their job, with more access and visibility into spending, the happier your employees will be.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Collaborate throughout your organization</h2>
<p>We tend to think about cost avoidance and control as a pure finance issue. But the reality is every department plays a critical role in cost avoidance strategy – when you’re speaking about using tools and creating policies and processes, make sure that everybody who has a vested interest is part of that conversation. Besides your finance and AP teams, talk to your tax team about tax strategy, your security team about compliance and business continuity, and so on. Engage in conversation with your internal customers to find out what they need to run their portion of the business. If you aren’t talking to managers about what reports they need, you’re just guessing at what they want. Collaboration is critical to success.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is only a snapshot of the larger conversation we had on the Webinar – you can now watch the full recap of the Webinar, including a lively question-and-answer session, and read the Oxford Economics study, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/managing-scale-lessons-growing-enterprise-us" target="_blank">Managing an Expansion Keys to Successful Business Growth</a>.”</p>
SAP Concur Team
Hear Why SAP Concur is a G2 T&E Leader for Summer 2019
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hear-why-sap-concur-g2-te-leader-summer-2019
2019-09-04T13:48:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The kids are back in school the pumpkin spice lattes have arrived and regularseason football has begun That can only mean one thing fall is right around the corner But before we bid...
<p>The kids are back in school, the pumpkin spice lattes have arrived, and regular-season football has begun. That can only mean one thing -- fall is right around the corner. But, before we bid farewell to barbecues and beach days, we wanted to share some exciting news: SAP Concur has been named a G2 leader for summer 2019!</p>
<p>Our users have spoken (more than 4,000 of them!) and they have ranked us #1 in the <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/b6f71d6e-5613-46fe-966f-eb415ec67998">Travel Management</a>; <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/dd9804fa-1ebf-4de2-9412-acac18276607">Expense Management</a>; and <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/605b4b79-3823-4aae-8d5b-f1f25b85b592">Travel and Expense</a> categories.</p>
<p>"SAP Concur earned its position as a Leader in G2's Summer 2019 Grid® Reports for Travel Management, Expense Management, and Travel & Expense Management by demonstrating a large market presence and receiving high Satisfaction ratings from its users," said Kara Kennedy, Market Research Director, G2. "In reviews, users especially appreciated SAP Concur's receipt capture, employee reimbursement, and bank/credit card integration features."</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/G2CR_GR053_Grid_Image_for_SAP_Concur_V1%5B1%5D.png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/G2CR_GR053_Grid_Image_for_SAP_Concur_V1%5B1%5D.png" /> </a></p>
<p>So, what makes SAP Concur solutions so great? We’ll let our happy customers tell you for themselves: </p>
<p>"Highly recommend to any business that does travel and expense reports! I actually look forward to turning in my reports each month because it's a fun system!" – <a href="https://www.g2crowd.com/survey_responses/concur-review-469775">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend for anybody that needs invoice and expense management for their company! It is truly the very best there is." – <a href="https://www.g2crowd.com/survey_responses/sap-concur-review-1393955">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"With tools like Concur, it takes less time to capture, submit, approve and pay travel and business expenses. I whole-hardheartedly recommend Concur for your travel expense reimbursement needs!" – <a href="https://www.g2crowd.com/survey_responses/concur-review-585889">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"I think that this is a phenomenal way to keep track of expenses and travel but also take care of it all in one place. SAP Concur does a great job of helping companies stay organized in one place. Would highly recommend SAP Concur to anyone in the business industry looking to make their lives easier in this area! " – <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-2122948">Read full review</a> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews">Visit G2</a> to see how SAP Concur ranks against competitors, or take our solutions for a spin in our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense</a> demos.</p>
Rebecca Dolan
How Going Beyond Travel Automation Helps Your Business Go Green
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-going-beyond-travel-automation-helps-your-business-go-green
2019-11-06T17:40:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your organization established a corporate travel program to get more control of employeeinitiated spend As a travel manager you can now provide an easytouse booking tool that displays...
<p>Your organization established a corporate travel program to get more control of employee-initiated spend. As a travel manager, you can now provide an easy-to-use booking tool that displays the selection of air travel and hotel vendors in order of corporate-policy preference, based on the terms and rates you and your procurement team negotiated with airlines and hotel reservation programs. As a controller, you now have an automated system that matches financial institutions’ credit card feeds to smartphone-scanned receipt images uploaded by your employees, providing you more timely visibility into spending against budget.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Future of Corporate Travel</h2>
<p>With the rapid pace of technology, see what business travel will look like in 2030.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/corporate-travel-2030">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition to the obvious financial benefits, there are more subtle rewards brought about by the digital transformation you have embarked on. As a director of HR, you can now showcase your firm as a leader in employee experience, providing T&E automation tools that eliminate tedious tasks, enable employees to be more productive, and, as a result, increase employee retention. Your travel and expense data can also help to track and assist employees during emergencies, by rapidly indicating to your HR and security personnel where in the world traveling employees are located.</p>
<p>Yet if your organization focuses on automation only as a means to cut costs, improve employee satisfaction, and ensure safety in your travel program, you’re missing a key benefit that will have a huge impact on the way you do business going forward: sustainability.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Adapting business travel to a low-carbon world</h2>
<p>Many companies, such as the <a href="https://www.iairgroup.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/newsroom-listing/2019/net-zero-emissions" target="_blank">airline giant IAG</a>, are shifting their priorities to focus corporate goals on sustainability, and more recently, environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). Like IAG, SAP has also realized the value in focusing on ESG. Since 2014, SAP has used 100% green electricity for all data centers, buildings, and e-car charging stations, and also <strong>puts</strong> <strong>an internal price on carbon for business flights</strong>. And these efforts aren’t going unnoticed. According to NPower, one of Britain’s leading energy companies, a quarter of the world’s professionally managed investment funds now <a href="https://www.npower.com/business-solutions/blog/2019/04/26/why-esg-is-replacing-csr-and-what-this-means-to-your-business/#targetText=Corporate%20Social%20Responsibility%20–%20or%20CSR,way%20today's%20responsible%20businesses%20operate" target="_blank">only invest in companies that demonstrate solid ESG credentials</a>. </p>
<p>If your organization is looking for ways to promote your green values, going beyond automation to provide transparency in business travel is a great place to start. Consider adopting a travel booking system that provides information on flight emissions for each flight segment and opt to promote suppliers with sustainable practices.</p>
<p>For SAP Concur customers, expanding your travel program to include sustainability best practices is made easy. SAP Concur and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center partners</a> such as <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scope-5-joins-concur-app-center-to-help-customers-track-emissions-impact-of-business-travel-300373259.html" target="_blank">Scope 5</a>, <a href="https://blog.lyft.com/posts/2019/5/29/a-year-of-carbon-neutral-lyft-rides" target="_blank">Lyft</a>, and auto rental companies can help track emissions from business travel, assist the sustainability-conscious traveler in the selection of flight or train-routes based on carbon emissions, include hybrid options in car-rental selections, and provide carbon-neutral rides. Plus, customers can run reports to see the travel categories where carbon emissions are the highest and educate their employees on ways they can reduce their footprint.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1572536895052-air-carbon-footprint.png" />
<p>Every action we undertake to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travelers-can-make-a-bigger-environmental-impact">reduce our negative impact on the environment</a> helps a company’s standing in their environmental, social and corporate governance goals. Using your existing travel program to achieve goals beyond automation can have a direct impact on new business challenges – challenges that were unbeknown to most at the time when the travel program was initially implemented.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more information on how SAP Concur can help your organization’s sustainability efforts, please contact your local SAP Concur sales office.</strong></p>
Serge Kogan
Delta Air Lines Goes Live with Concur TripLink Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/delta-air-lines-goes-live-concur-triplink-integration
2020-09-21T18:39:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink gives companies visibility in to their employees travel regardless of where bookings take place It connects travelers trips and itineraries across multiple channels...
<p>Concur TripLink gives companies visibility in to their employees’ travel, regardless of where bookings take place. It connects travelers, trips, and itineraries across multiple channels, making it easier for companies to locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency, apply negotiated rates, and benefit from enhanced reporting data.</p>
<p>Today we’re thrilled to announce the <a href="https://www.delta.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Delta Air Lines</strong></a><strong> integration with Concur TripLink is now live</strong>, allowing customers to realize the benefits of their managed travel program for flights booked via delta.com and the Fly Delta App. SAP Concur is connecting nearly 500,000 SkyMiles® member accounts with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> via Concur TripLink. Concur TripLink users can also connect their SAP Concur account with Delta using the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5dbae7a4ef16ef001b910c0d" target="_blank">Delta App Center listing</a>.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/digital-transformation-impacting-travel-managers" target="_blank">survey from GBTA and SAP Concur</a> found that one-third (34%) of travel managers currently incorporate supplier-direct bookings, and another one-third (37%) plan to have this integration within the next year. With Delta Air Lines content now integrated with Concur TripLink, we expect that percentage to continue to rise as travel managers and financial decision makers pursue full visibility into travel spend within their organizations.</p>
<p><strong>Sara Reid, Managing Director of Sales Innovation at Delta commented,</strong> “We are excited to offer our corporate travelers who book on delta.com or the Fly Delta App the ability to have their bookings included in their company’s managed travel program.</p>
<p>Our integration with Concur TripLink is just one example of our customer-centric strategy to invest across all channels and deliver an industry-leading retail experience for corporate travelers in their channel of choice.”</p>
<p>Concur TripLink is the first solution of its kind to extend the benefits of a managed travel program to direct supplier bookings. This allows businesses to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Increase end user compliance with company travel policy</li>
<li>Fulfill duty of care requirements and ensure traveler safety</li>
<li>Maximize the use of negotiated corporate discounts</li>
<li>Gain visibility into spend, even when booked directly with suppliers</li>
<li>Have a consolidated view of all travel program data</li>
<li>Increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with TripIt Pro for all travelers</li>
</ul>
<p>To date, more than 10 million travelers have access to Concur TripLink, and the global Concur TripLink network includes 26 partners representing airlines, hotels, ground transportation providers, and more. For more information about Concur TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink" target="_blank">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Employee Experience Isn’t All About Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-experience-isnt-all-about-employees
2020-02-14T09:10:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The happier employees are the better your business Thats really as far as you have to read the rest is just proof and some insight into how to make it work for your company Ways...
<p>The happier employees are, the better your business. </p>
<p>That’s really as far as you have to read; the rest is just proof and some insight into how to make it work for your company. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>7 Ways Finance Can Champion the Employee Experience</h2>
<p>Boost the bottom line by boosting satisfaction and engagement. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-ways-finance-can-become-the-new-champion-of-employee-experience">Read now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>You’re still reading, so let’s start with the proof. A <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238079/state-global-workplace-2017.aspx#formheader" target="_blank">Gallup Study</a> shows organizations which offer an exceptional employee experience typically see: </p>
<ul>
<li>17% higher productivity</li>
<li>21% higher profitability</li>
<li>24% lower turnover</li>
</ul>
<p>Okay, read those numbers again because they’re really quite spectacular. Then do a little of your own math to see what it means for your organization in terms of real dollars. Then consider the simple fact that, in addition to having more money, you’ve got happier, more engaged employees — employees who want to work for you. </p>
<p>This is good news, and companies know it, but they’re often unsure how to get there. To add another point in the proof column, Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report shows that 84% of leaders point to employee experience as a top priority — but only 9% believe they are ready to address the issue.</p>
<p>That brings us to the “how.” </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>T&E and the road to happiness</h2>
<p>The story’s fairly short here, as well. When it comes to creating better, easier, more enjoyable work experiences for your team, you start by taking menial, manual tasks off their desks. In other words: </p>
<p><strong>Automating travel, expense, and invoice processes boosts engagement, productivity, and savings.</strong></p>
<p>It also helps, according to recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-ways-finance-can-become-the-new-champion-of-employee-experience">Forrester research</a>, to have everyone in the C-suite involved. “In order to deliver better employee experiences and drive positive business outcomes, firms need both automated, scalable T&E and invoice management solutions, and to have finance, IT, and HR partner in the service of employee experience transformation.” </p>
<p>What they’re saying is you have to work together to make this happen. It isn’t just capturing receipts, booking travel, filling out expense reports, and managing reimbursement that weigh down the process and slow productivity, it’s the fact that finance, IT, and HR processes are often misaligned. Again, according to Forrester, about one-third of firms struggle as a result of conflicting strategies in these departments — creating an incentive to work together. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A little deeper into the “how.” </h2>
<p>What does Forrester recommend? You can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-ways-finance-can-become-the-new-champion-of-employee-experience">read the full Forrester report</a>, but it all boils down to this: </p>
<p><strong>Reframe expense management as an investment in the employee experience:</strong> Engagement peaks when employees spend their time doing work they believe is important. And they simply do not believe expense reports are as vital as you do. Automate those processes and give them time to be fully engaged in work they know is valuable. </p>
<p><strong>Look beyond finance in calculating the benefits of T&E:</strong> If the finance department is the only decision maker behind T&E automation, they may only consider how they benefit, not how it benefits employees and, ultimately, the business as a whole. </p>
<p><strong>Use T&E as a way to align HR, IT, and finance</strong>: Automating T&E makes employees’ lives easier, and when they celebrate that fact, there’s a halo effect that benefits HR, IT, and finance — aligning these three groups behind a common cause. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Four results you won’t forget</h2>
<p>Where does this all lead? Where does automation get you? What does happiness at work equate to on the balance sheet? You’ll find it all in the recent SAP Concur e-Book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-employee-experience-and-its-impact-on-business">The Employee Experience and Its Impact on Business</a>, but we’ve narrowed it down to these four tenets: </p>
<ul>
<li>Fewer manual processes mean employees get more done </li>
<li>Better tools give you visibility into booking, itinerary, and spend data </li>
<li>Integrated travel, expense, and invoice data helps you manage all your spend one place </li>
<li>Simpler systems mean fewer IT inquiries</li>
</ul>
<p>You might not see the change overnight, but automating travel, expense, and invoice processes will replace tedium with job satisfaction. Finance will see policy compliance go up and get a better view of the data needed to manage spending. IT will free up time and resources by taking T&E to the cloud. And these are experiences we can all enjoy. </p>
<p>For more: <br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/seven-ways-finance-can-become-the-new-champion-of-employee-experience">Download the Forrester Research</a><br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-employee-experience-and-its-impact-on-business">Read the SAP Concur eBook</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Corporate Hospitality Remains a Focus for FCPA Enforcement Actions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-hospitality-remains-focus-fcpa-enforcement-actions
2020-04-14T09:33:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you oversee or manage corporate hospitality expenses in your organization then recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act FCPA enforcement actions may have served as a useful reminder...
<p>If you oversee or manage corporate hospitality expenses in your organization, then recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions may have served as a useful reminder that corporate hospitality remains to be a focus even during uncertain times.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Strategies for Minimizing Bribery & FCPA Risks Webinar</h2>
<p>For more information on strategies for minimizing bribery and FCPA risks, register to attend our webinar on<strong> April 16th </strong>at <strong>11:00 AM PST</strong>. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://go.concur.com/041620_NB_FCPA__RegistrationPage.html?pid=webinar&cid=FCPAWebinar_blog_7010e000000xQ0K_041620">Register Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>What the most recent FCPA enforcement cases have included</h2>
<p>More recently, enforcement actions have been against companies in a wide variety of industry sectors, involving businesses who provided:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gift cards</li>
<li>Spa services</li>
<li>Sightseeing tours</li>
<li>Shopping excursions</li>
<li>National park excursions</li>
<li>Tickets to sporting events</li>
</ul>
<p>In one enforcement action, the government alleged that a corporate event was held at a luxury resort and that after a daily half-hour business meeting, participants engaged in leisurely events such as “golf, scuba diving, snorkeling cruises, horseback riding, ocean kayaking, surfing lessons, and cocktail and luau dinner receptions,” reports the FCPA enforcement action documentation.</p>
<p>None of these underlying activities are inherently illegal or unethical, but issues with the FCPA arise when such things of value are offered or provided to “foreign officials.” It is important for compliance personnel to understand here, that FCPA enforcement agencies consider employees of state-owned or state-controlled companies and foreign health care providers, amongst others, to be “foreign officials.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What are the FCPA’s rules?</h2>
<p>The FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions contain an affirmative defense to the extent of the things of value provided or offered to a foreign official as a “reasonable and bona fide expenditure, such as travel and lodging expenses” that was “directly related to: the promotion, demonstration, or explanation of products or services; or the execution or performance of a contract …” In construing these concepts, the FCPA enforcement agencies have seldomly suggested, if ever, the following items be reasonable and bona fide or directly related to a business purpose:</p>
<ul>
<li>First class airfare</li>
<li>Five-star hotels</li>
<li>Expensive food and drink</li>
<li>Lavish entertainment</li>
<li>Per diem spending money</li>
<li>Inclusion of spouses or children of the foreign official</li>
</ul>
<p>Moreover, compliance personnel at publicly traded companies need to understand how corporate hospitality can present these issues under the FCPA’s internal controls of provisions. These companies should accordingly track corporate hospitality expenditures and implement criteria for oversight and supervision of such expenses. For example, in a recent enforcement action, the government alleged that the problematic travel was approved internally “with little or no required review,” and that when a review took place, there was a failure to “note basic red flags such as travel to tourist destinations.”</p>
<p>In resolving FCPA enforcement actions, the government often commends the remedial actions for a company engaged, serving as a “best practice” for other businesses to model. One enforcement action the government positively cited, for instance, was a company that instituted “compliance oversight across a broad category of business expenditures.” And in a separate enforcement action, the government noted that the company now requires “pre-approval for third-party gifts, travel and entertainment, channel partner marketing expenses, and even certain operating expenses in high risk markets.”</p>
<p><strong>For more information on strategies for minimizing bribery and FCPA risks, </strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/041620_NB_FCPA__RegistrationPage.html?pid=webinar&cid=FCPAWebinar_blog_7010e000000xQ0K_041620" target="_blank"><strong>register to attend our webinar</strong></a><strong> on April 16th at 11:00 AM PST.</strong></p>
Erin Giordano
The Financial Perspective Podcast: Discussing Digital Transformation with Carina Soubiea from OSIsoft
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/financial-perspective-podcast-discussing-digital-transformation-carina-soubiea-osisoft
2021-02-11T15:55:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur solutions consultants Jen Linden Susan Isaacson and Erin McDermott recently interviewed Carina Soubiea from OSIsoft to discuss its companies global expansion experience and...
<p>SAP Concur solutions consultants Jen Linden, Susan Isaacson, and Erin McDermott recently interviewed Carina Soubiea from OSIsoft to discuss its companies’ global expansion experience and implementation process.</p>
<p>As large enterprise organizations already know, when businesses cross borders, managing all of the different components can be highly complex and offer new sets of challenges and unfamiliar territories for business leaders to overcome. Fortunately, Soubiea has a passion for implementation and offers our listeners incredible insight into how to formulate a game plan for organizations like yours across the globe.</p>
<p>While a successful launch doesn’t happen overnight, you can be more prepared with the lessons learned on timing, tracks, resources, and focus areas that Soubiea shares here. And, no matter where you are on your expansion or implementation journey, this podcast offers real-world problems and lessons about what your organization can expect.</p>
<h3><strong><a href="https://www.thefinancialperspectivepodcast.com/episodes/episode-1-digital-transformation-global-expansion">Listen to the episode now</a></strong></h3>
SAP Concur Team
New Integrations with SAP Concur Solutions and American Express Benefit Small Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-integrations-sap-concur-solutions-and-american-express-benefit-small-businesses
2020-07-08T09:21:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Two new integrations with SAP Concur solutions and American Express have recently been introduced to help automate invoice and expense processes The integrations give small businesses...
<p>Two new integrations with SAP Concur solutions and American Express have recently been introduced to help automate invoice and expense processes. The integrations give small businesses a more efficient end-to-end spend management experience.</p>
<p>The first integration, which brings together American Express’ B2B payment capabilities and Concur Invoice, helps American Express Business or Corporate Card Members automate their invoice management process. By combining American Express’ B2B payment capabilities with Concur Invoice, finance and accounts payable departments can:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Pay suppliers efficiently and securely.</strong> Businesses can pay eligible suppliers using American Express Business or Corporate Cards right from Concur Invoice. Each transaction utilizes a unique single-use virtual card number, which can help protect accounts from fraudulent charges.</li>
<li><strong>Simplify processes and save time. </strong>Concur Invoice digitizes the invoice capture and workflow process and streamlines the reconciliation process, helping minimize manual data input and errors, reducing processing times and costs, and avoiding late payments.</li>
<li><strong>Easily manage cash flow.</strong> Users can view transaction details and payment status in the American Express B2B Payments App while taking advantage of the benefits associated with their American Express Business or Corporate Card, as well as the flexibility of having more cash on hand until their American Express payment is due. Within Concur Invoice, businesses also have access to more in-depth spending data, allowing them to spot spending trends and cut unnecessary costs.</li>
</ul>
<p>The next integration brings the American Express Business Card Program and Concur Expense together. The offering delivers a seamless, direct experience from the moment employees complete a transaction with their American Express card. Transactions flow automatically into their expense report through Concur Expense within 24 hours, which reduces time wasted completing expense reports and gives employees a better end-user experience.</p>
<p>Helping employees have positive interactions with day-to-day tasks like filing expenses is essential to keeping them happy and engaged with their work, which can have a positive impact on a business’s bottom line. A recent commissioned <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-improve-travel-expense-invoice-management-solution-to-drive-better-ex">study</a> conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of the SAP Concur organization found that a focus on tools employees use on a regular basis is critical to enable good employee experiences. Over 60 percent of those surveyed named travel and expense (T&E) management software (63%) and accounts payable (AP) automation tools (68%) as two of the most important tools when it comes to good employee experience.</p>
<p>The American Express Business Card Program integration with Concur Expense offers the following benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Streamlines the expense report process. </strong>Often, the tools small businesses use to manage expense reports require employees deal with time-consuming, manual methods that inhibit productivity. Through this integration, expenses made with their business card move directly into employees’ expense reports, eliminating the need to remember to keep track of transactions for future submissions.</li>
<li><strong>Helps decrease errors. </strong>By automating the expense report process, small businesses can reduce data entry errors. Accidental fraud, such as credit card expenses entered twice, can be prevented, and employees automatically see expenses that need to be submitted, helping to ensure they don’t miss out on a reimbursement.</li>
<li><strong>Greater visibility and reporting. </strong>Data that is accessible, accurate, and comprehensive is essential to the success of any business. Through the American Express business card integration, business leaders receive detailed reporting of expenses incurred, which can be leveraged to improve overall spend management decisions.</li>
</ul>
<p>The integration of American Express GoTM virtual cards with Concur Expense is also now available, helping corporate clients manage expenses incurred by contractors and employees on temporary virtual cards.</p>
<p>In addition, the SAP Concur organization and American Express recently extended their longstanding partnership. The collaboration allows the two market leaders to provide end-to-end management solutions that result in greater value to American Express and SAP Concur customers and an enhanced experience for their customers’ employees.</p>
<p>For more information about American Express and SAP Concur co-innovations, please visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/americanexpress">https://www.concur.com/americanexpress</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share Their Perspectives, Part 1
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/returning-work-and-travel-cdc-and-sap-concur-customers-share-their-perspectives-part-1
2020-10-21T11:46:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Since the world went virtual overnight making remote work the new norm and testing our conferencecall capabilities government travel restrictions have been fluctuating All of these...
<p>Since the world went virtual overnight, making remote work the new norm and testing our conference-call capabilities, government travel restrictions have been fluctuating. All of these struggles have forced companies to stay agile, discussing plans such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>When is the right time to return to the office?</li>
<li>What exactly is considered essential and non-essential travel?</li>
</ul>
<p>As companies continue this journey of returning to work or travel, it’s important to keep in mind the three basic tenets to stay safe during the pandemic. According to Matthew Dahm, PhD, MPH, Research Industrial Hygienist at <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/ask-cdc.html" target="_blank">Centers for Disease Control</a> and Prevention (CDC), during a<a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank"> July 16 webinar</a> for SAP Concur customers and other stakeholders, “Always wear a cloth face mask when in public, maintain social distancing at least 6 feet apart, and have guidelines in place for when you cannot keep 6 feet away from others.”</p>
<p>In this series, we’ll explore how taking advantage of <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/ask-cdc.html" target="_blank">free resources</a> from the CDC, paired with advice from SAP Concur customers, can help businesses further plan and enact policies that support their travel and employee spend decisions. It’s important to assess your company’s unique situation and recognize that every organization’s journey will be different.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What are organizations doing right now?</h2>
<p>Amid rising COVID-19 cases, companies are moving quickly to change their policies. According to finance, travel, HR, risk, security and other professionals from Fortune 500 companies, more than one-third (39%) of companies have already updated their plans, 27% are in the process, and 18% are planning to do so. Only 6% aren’t updating policies – we suspect these are most likely essential businesses. Here are some other stats to take into consideration, which stem from our <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">July 16 webinar</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Half of companies (50%) are <strong>taking control of cash flow by evaluating employee spend before it happens with a </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions"><strong>pre-spend process</strong></a></li>
<li>More than 90% of companies are considering <strong>a </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions"><strong>pre-trip approval process</strong></a></li>
<li>Almost three-fourths (73%) of companies find it extremely important to have <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate"><strong>a tool</strong></a><strong> that communicates with all employees, not just travelers</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>“We’ve actually heard from many, who in the past contemplated optimizing their spend and travel program, that it may be essential to start doing so now and that it’s not just a nice to have,” said Ralph Colunga, Thought Leader of T&E for SAP Concur. “Whether it’s technology to automate the process, capturing travel spend that’s getting booked outside of their corporate tool, or streamlining accounts payable (AP), companies are taking actions.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>At what stage is your company in evaluating and updating travel and expense policies since COVID-19?</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1596144943354-1.jpg" />Source: Return to Work and Return to Travel, <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">SAP Concur webinar, July 16</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>For more information</h2>
<p>Listen to the full <a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register">Return to Work Return to Travel webinar</a> with the CDC and SAP Concur T&E expert, Ralph Colunga, to get additional insight on how to help your company return to its journey ahead. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-2">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 2</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-3">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 3</a></p>
Erin Giordano
New SAP Concur Duty of Care Partner Network
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-duty-care-partner-network
2020-09-01T11:21:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Throughout our year history we have been propelled forward by asking the question Is there a better way for solving complex business challenges As organizations around the world begin...
<p>Throughout our 25+ year history, we have been propelled forward by asking the question “Is there a better way?” for solving complex business challenges. As organizations around the world begin to consider their employees restarting business travel, duty of care for all employees, whether at home, in the office, or on the road, is a top priority. With the new realities of 2020 and beyond, we have been investigating if there is a better way for us to empower our customers to deliver on their duty of care commitment to all their employees. After careful assessment, we believe organizations require a more comprehensive solution set, extending the value of travel and expense data through the power of the SAP Concur platform and industry-leading partners.</p>
<p>Duty of care has rapidly evolved, and our customers are seeking specialized solutions that not only track and message travelers, but also provide critical security and medical assistance services, when needed. This need requires a more comprehensive approach, powered by the most robust, timely data set to enable duty of care for all companies and organizations. SAP Concur solutions provide wide-ranging data through our Itinerary API that delivers the entirety of consolidated travel information from Concur Travel, TripIt from Concur, Concur Request, and Concur TripLink. Customers have access to both intent-related travel data and confirmed itinerary data, providing visibility into who might be impacted as well as who is actively being impacted by an event.</p>
<p><strong>Today, we are pleased to announce the expansion of our duty of care partners within the SAP Concur App Center</strong> to take advantage of the rich data stream that SAP Concur travel booking produces and, in turn, enable customers to provide the level of duty of care their employees expect.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Healix International’s</strong> Healix Sentinel Tracker provides an efficient and effective way to locate and communicate with employees, tapping into Healix’s wealth of health and security intelligence gathered by a network of experts on an hourly, daily and weekly basis. It is integrated with employee location data in Concur Travel and Concur Expense, resulting in rapid location of employees that could be impacted by a critical incident and real-time two-way communications to ascertain their safety and provide assistance if required at times of critical need.</li>
<li><strong>International SOS </strong>is in the business of saving lives & protecting a total global workforce from health and security threats. Their innovative technology and health and security expertise offers real-time, actionable insights and unparalleled on-the-ground quality services, be it for prevention or in emergencies. They have over two decades of experience in itinerary-based pre-travel advice, alongside industry-leading monitoring and notification capabilities. International SOS’ evacuation capabilities and global assignee services are truly unrivalled. They are trusted by 12,000 organizations to fulfil their Duty of Care responsibilities, while empowering workforce resilience, business continuity and sustainability. 10,000 health, security and logistics experts stand-by to provide support & assistance 24/7.</li>
<li><strong>Terra Dotta’s</strong> cloud-based travel risk solutions for higher education provide pre-travel briefings and automatically notify affected students, faculty and staff, as well as school administrators, when there is an itinerary change or critical incident in close proximity – whether locally or abroad. The solution includes Terra Dotta’s AlertTraveler mobile app, which provides travelers regional alerts, quick-dial emergency services numbers and a convenient mobile check-in button. Campus administrators have direct access to travelers’ itineraries and GPS data to determine who is affected so they can send institution-specific alerts and serve as a command center for locating, communicating with and reporting on students and staff – whether on campus, across the country, or traveling abroad.</li>
<li><strong>WorldAware </strong>provides intelligence-driven, integrated <a href="https://www.worldaware.com/our-approach" target="_blank">risk management solutions</a> that enable multinational organizations to operate globally with confidence. WorldAware's end-to-end tailored solutions integrate world-class <a href="https://www.worldaware.com/products-and-services/global-intelligence/threat-awareness-and-analysis" target="_blank">threat intelligence</a>, <a href="https://www.worldaware.com/products-and-services/platform-and-products-overview" target="_blank">innovative technology</a>, and <a href="https://www.worldaware.com/products-and-services/global-assistance-response" target="_blank">response services</a> to help organizations mitigate risk and protect their employees, assets, and reputation.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>As part of our evolved approach, we have made the decision to retire Concur Locate and Active Monitoring, effective September 1, 2021. This will allow us to focus on delivering the most comprehensive data set to power and grow our duty of care ecosystem through SAP Concur App Center partners. The extended time frame allows our customers to determine which elements of a duty of care program are right for them today and in the future.</p>
<p>Kevin Permenter, Research Manager, Enterprise Applications at IDC commented, “In a world and business environment which is uncertain and sometimes volatile, the approach to duty of care needs to be flexible to meet the unique and changing needs of organizations. Comprehensive travel and expense data along with powerful duty of care solutions can better enable companies to put their employees’ safety first as they continue working from home, re-enter the office or get back on the road.”</p>
<p>We are committed to working with current customers over the coming months as they evaluate and transition to one or more of our SAP Concur App Center partners and new clients who want to take advantage of our partner network. We understand that duty of care in today’s environment is not static. We plan to continue to identify partners who can work with us to satisfy future duty of care requirements—as we will always be driven by finding “a better way” to serve our customers.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
"New Normal" Considerations: Remote Workers, PPE, and Potential Tax Implications
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-normal-considerations-remote-workers-ppe-and-potential-tax-implications
2020-10-28T15:27:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we begin Q one has to wonder how much longer the COVID pandemic will continue I shared the hope that by now a vaccine would have been deployed and we could all have a new sense of...
<p>As we begin Q4, one has to wonder how much longer the COVID-19 pandemic will continue. I shared the hope that, by now, a vaccine would have been deployed and we could all have a new sense of normal—whatever that may look like! Alas, we will have to wait a little longer for the cure and hope a second wave won’t arrive as predicted this winter.</p>
<p>The ripple effects of the Ides of March have already been felt, and no doubt are causing more havoc across the travel industry. <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Procurement/United-Long-Tunnel-to-Recovery-Sees-2024-for-Pre-Covid-Level-of-Business-Demand" target="_blank">United Airlines announced its “long tunnel,”</a> predicting that it will take until 2024 for the industry to return to the same levels of travel as 2019. This mirrors <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Management/FCM-Survey-Travel-Managers-Predict-Fewer-Trips-Through-2023">a recent FCM study</a>, which predicts “the level of business travel is likely to remain low until 2023.”</p>
<p>Then there is the workplace. Who would ever have imagined longing and wanting to go back to the office? The once optimal meeting place for social gathering and collaboration is quickly becoming a distant faded memory as it, too, has become a causality of this pandemic. As corporations and companies around the globe have had to adapt to their employees working remotely, one has to ask what role will the office play after the pandemic. While once unthinkable to not have a physical company business center, it’s undeniable that some savings and sustainability gains will come from not having to occupy as much office footprint post pandemic.</p>
<p>Certainly employees have seen the savings in not having to commute. The longer this wave continues, the harder it will become to move back from this new work-from-home model.</p>
<p>As with anything, there are always pros and cons that have to be weighed when considering what makes the most sense for each company and its employees. New health and safety protocols factor in heavily as these costs cannot be ignored or denied. As I said <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-covid-19-will-affect-business-travel-in-the-near-future">in a previous blog</a>, the cost of travel will continue to rise, not fall. Try explaining to your employees that the company will not cover any health and safety equipment when they are traveling on business and possibly being exposed to a virus risk. No mask, no disinfectant wipes, no hand cleaner...I would suspect that will go over like a “lead zeppelin” with one’s employees.</p>
<p>So, while the company may be saving at the office, employees working from home may potentially raise new costs and concerns for their companies. Take the simple question of home internet. Will your management approve the cost of home internet for every employee or just the employees who were deemed “remote workers” and identified and verified as such by not having an office space within your HR system? If everyone is working from home, then in effect they are all remote workers, yes? But the costs are understandably concerning to finance leaders. If you do the math of, say, $65 per month for 10,000 workers, this is an added $650k in costs <strong>monthly</strong>. And for a company with 100,000 workers that number balloons to $6.5M in additional <strong>monthly</strong> costs! Then you have to consider home office equipment: desks, chairs, mats, printers, and the like. Could one argue a portion of the electricity bill should be reimbursed? The list to me is pretty endless.</p>
<p>I will share that I have had a discussion with one CFO and just approached this as “what ifs.”</p>
<p>Predictably the first reaction to all of these previously mentioned cost implications was “no, we cannot cover all these costs. We did not plan for this, nor do we have the budget for all these additional costs.”</p>
<p>My immediate reaction was, “well, maybe yes and maybe no.” There has to be some middle ground amid all this uncertainty and the realization that it is going to cost us more, or differently, than in 2019. But having raised this, I have to believe the reality is that most employees will not want to claim these cost, but this has to be discussed and determined as <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">new guidelines for employees</a>.</p>
<p>One other issue that must also be of consideration are “work from anywhere” taxes. While your employees may not be traveling officially, what if they have another home in another state or country that’s different than their location of residence within the company HR system? Let’s say I reside in California, but decide I am going to go work from my vacation condo in Hawaii for the next two months for a change of pace. Logical right? Now, while maybe not on official business as far as my travel cost to get to Hawaii, a consideration is: Are there tax risks for both myself and my employer while working in another state? Is the employer under obligation to report this if it’s known? It is understandable that Hawaii in this scenario will want their fair share of income tax revenue, right? If you think this couldn’t happen, think again.</p>
<p>I recently received a tax notification from a communication service provider, which stated that “ like many technology companies, X company is routinely evaluating its tax collection and remittance obligations. The application of these taxes to businesses like X that offer new types of technologies is a complex and evolving area.” Now, it turns out this is for a California imposed utility tax that goes into effect November 1, 2020, but begs the question: Will this supplier be forced to provide their users’ location data for tax purposes? Something like <strong>location-linking</strong>?</p>
<p>The reality is, as states and countries clamor for revenue dollars given these hard times, all of these “new-normal” considerations need to be given serious thought.</p>
<p>I must admit that, as I reflect on this pandemic and the events of 2020, I am reminded of what Bob Dylan recorded back in October 1963:</p>
<p>The line it is drawn…..The curse it is cast<br />
The slow one now….Will later be fast<br />
As the present now….Will later be past<br />
The order is rapidly fadin'<br />
And the first one now…..Will later be last<br />
For the times they are a-Changin'</p>
<p> </p>
Ralph Colunga
Is Your Spend Going Through the Proper Channels? Or Is It Just Going Away?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-spend-going-through-proper-channels-or-it-just-going-away
2021-03-08T14:00:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It might be hard to imagine now but there was a time when you didnt have to think about how much facemasks cost or how many disposable gloves you needed in the office Or for that...
<p>It might be hard to imagine now, but there was a time when you didn’t have to think about how much facemasks cost, or how many disposable gloves you needed in the office. Or, for that matter, how to source HDMI cables for the home offices of every single one of your employees.</p>
<p>There was time when business was business as usual, and now, all that’s up in the air. Along with many of the spending controls you might have had.</p>
<p>How do you get that control back? Well, if you ask your peers (as EIU did in a recent survey of 552 senior executives in 11 countries), you’ll learn that 91% of those executives say technology-driven expense management systems are key to meeting spend policies and protocols across your business.</p>
<p>The EIU report goes on to say a staggering 95% agree that using real-time data analytics (made possible, of course, by those tech-driven systems) has helped their organizations keep spending and operations in line with company goals.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>EIU Report: In Tech-Led Pursuit of Sound Financial Footing</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/in-tech-led-pursuit-of-sound-financial-footing">See the survey results</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>It’s going to take tech to get back on our feet</h2>
<p>Prospering in this pandemic – let alone working through it – is a prospect many businesses aren’t sure how to achieve. But they do know that managing the impact of this tumultuous year is only possible with a solid financial foundation.</p>
<p>And, if there is a silver lining in any of this, it’s that the coronavirus is becoming a catalyst for long-term change – at least in terms of smarter spending and decision making.</p>
<p>So what kind of tech will help make your business more financially surefooted? According to the report, executives are relying heavily on emerging technologies like cloud, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, automation, and other innovations to achieve strategic priorities. Expense management solutions which utilize these high-tech tools not only provide oversight into spending, they deliver the data that drives better decision making, along with consistency and clarity.</p>
<p>Imagine that in this day and age: Consistency and clarity in your spending. Imagine knowing that your employees – wherever they may be working – are picking the right suppliers, the right products and services, and the right price, so that you can get the best value for your budget. Imagine having crystal-clear visibility into all of it, so that you’re actually able to manage it.</p>
<p>Your counterparts aren’t imagining it, they’re doing it. And the tech they’re turning to automates and audits their spending processes, so they can be confident they know where every bit of the budget is going and that it’s all going through the proper channels.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/in-tech-led-pursuit-of-sound-financial-footing">Read the report</a> for all the details</p>
SAP Concur Team
New SAP Concur Solution Extensions Expand Our Compliance Portfolio
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-solution-extensions-expand-our-compliance-portfolio
2021-01-25T06:01:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today we are pleased to announce two new solution extensions delivered through the SAP Concur partner ecosystem that will address our customers broad compliance requirements Concur...
<p>Today, we are pleased to announce two new solution extensions, delivered through the SAP Concur partner ecosystem, that will address our customers’ broad compliance requirements – Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox and Concur Detect by Oversight.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox</h2>
<p>VATBox, a technological leader in AI and Value Added Tax (VAT)/Goods and Services Tax (GST) compliance, offers a new approach to solving complex challenges around tax compliance and VAT recovery. Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox helps organizations comply with global tax regulations by confirming data integrity and offering collection and enhancement tools to increase reclaim potential. A dynamically updated financial platform designed with sophisticated AI algorithms and embedded with intricate tax knowledge digitizes the compliance process and maximizes recovery.</p>
<p>More than 160 countries apply Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services, and each of these countries enforce varying policies, which can make complying with VAT regulations confusing and complex for many businesses. In fact, more than 42 percent of employee expense transactions do not meet compliance requirements for reclaim due to incorrect information and missing data,1 causing a compliance issue and a lost opportunity for businesses to recoup funds.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Concur Detect by Oversight</h2>
<p>Concur Detect by Oversight brings together Oversight’s spend management and risk mitigation expertise with SAP Concur data and technology, simplifying an organization’s expense audit and compliance program with embedded intelligence and automation. Unlike many approaches, Concur Detect by Oversight analyzes expenses both before and after payment to mitigate immediate risks, spot suspicious spend patterns across time, and prioritize risk to drive greater audit efficiency.</p>
<p>Finance teams face constant pressure to increase spend compliance and reduce errors, fraud, and waste. However, manual processes and the lack of business context needed to make decisions about financial transactions make approving expense reports with accuracy an almost impossible task. According to the ACFE’s 2020 “Report to the Nations,” the median loss to a company from expense report fraud is $33,000. The report also found that a lack of internal controls contributed to nearly one out of three frauds, underscoring the need for anti-fraud controls that increase visibility and control over spend.2</p>
<p>“Modern, automated solutions can help finance leaders ensure compliance despite frequently changing rules, requirements and business needs,” said Kevin Permenter, Research Manager, IDC. “A streamlined process can also deliver better financial outcomes while maximizing staff productivity, clear advantages for those looking to get ahead in this difficult economic environment.”</p>
<p>There’s no doubt 2020 made a lasting impact on how organizations do business and transformed their need to service their employees and customers, particularly with regards to the solutions and technologies that became vital to continuity. Now, more than ever, the need for visibility and control of expenses is imperative to a business’s success. We’ve heard our customers tell us that compliance requirements continue to evolve and shape their business operations, and they want the ability to choose technologies that fit their unique needs. We are excited to usher in the new year with these new solutions, addressing our customers’ ever-evolving compliance needs and helping their businesses grow and succeed in 2021 and beyond.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1 VATBox 2018 Data Benchmark</p>
<p>2 <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/" target="_blank">Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, 2020 Report to the Nations</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Announcing the 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Award Winners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/announcing-2021-sap-concur-innovation-award-winners
2021-03-16T09:02:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Every year at SAP Concur Fusion we take the time to recognize customers who exemplify innovation and use SAP Concur solutions to help them focus on being best run And over the past...
<p>Every year at <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> we take the time to recognize customers who exemplify innovation and use SAP Concur solutions to help them focus on being best run. And, over the past year as our customers faced disruption and were forced to adapt to enhance employee safety, it has been gratifying to see our customers embracing this spirit of innovation. Through these unusual times, we have seen our solutions used to support the transition to remote work and to ensure travelers are safe and accounted for.</p>
<p>To recognize this commitment to rethinking what’s possible together, I’m happy to announce our six 2021 Innovation Award winners who share our passion and commitment to innovation. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2021 SAP Concur Innovation Award winners</h2>
<p><strong>“Siemens</strong> creates technology to transform the everyday. Their ambition is to become the leading technology company for the industries that they serve – not just today, but in the future. Therefore, Siemens has already started to use different distribution channels and see the NDC standard as a great feature to get customized offers for their demand,” explained Thorsten Eicke, Vice President Global Mobility Services, Siemens Supply Chain Management.</p>
<p>“Reshaping our travel and expense processes, Siemens required digital solutions to enable employees to focus on the work that drives business performance rather than spending time on complicated administrative tasks,” explained Sean Walkinshaw Vice President Strategy & Portfolio, GBS HR Services, for Siemens. “In our private lives, we've evolved to online immediate results-oriented services from any device. Our employees expect that same solution in their professional lives."</p>
<p><strong>Learn more in the Siemens <a href="https://youtu.be/u_0-g_ahrhI" target="_blank"><strong>customer story video</strong></a><strong>.</strong></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Vodafone</strong> is a global technology communications company that thrives on innovation and keeping society connected. The organization operates mobile and fixed networks in 21 countries and partners with mobile networks in 48 more. Vodafone leaders had a vision of moving from a fragmented travel and expense (T&E) management process to a global, transformational, best-in-class digital operation, with mobility and automation at its core. SAP Concur solutions are helping Vodafone achieve that mission by enabling it with one, comprehensive suite of cloud-based software solutions that improves spend visibility, is easy to use, and delivers value to every layer of the business.</p>
<p>“We’ve been moving forward to become a digital technology communications company so we can provide absolutely the best experience for our customers. We knew SAP Concur solutions could help us become that digital-first company,” explains Gary Allen, Global Program Manager for SAP Implementation Programs, Vodafone Group plc.</p>
<p><strong><strong>Learn more in the Vodafone </strong><a href="https://youtu.be/d6TYJVHTcFE" target="_blank"><strong>customer story video</strong></a><strong>.</strong></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Founded in 1992, <strong>CAF America</strong> is a leading expert in international philanthropy, with a network of more than 1.8 million charities in 110 countries worldwide. Concur Expense provided the visibility that CAF America needed, while equipping its staff with automated, user-friendly tools that enable them to focus their time on leading cross-border giving to validated charities, not on paperwork.</p>
<p>“As a nonprofit organization, we have to ensure that we run as efficiently as possible, keep a close eye on expenditures, and make sure those expenditures are well documented for audit purposes,” said Ted Hart, President and CEO of CAF America. “The SAP Concur platform enables us to accomplish all of those goals.”</p>
<p><strong><strong>Learn more in the CAF America <a href="https://youtu.be/MY6RG6FxzL4" target="_blank">customer story video</a>.</strong></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Bishop-Wisecarver</strong> is a family-owned company that’s been committed to earning the trust of its customers with the highest-quality products for the past 70 years. Bishop-Wisecarver leaders wanted to find one comprehensive, integrated platform to automate employee reimbursements, invoice approvals and payments—and provide an exceptional user experience in the process. With Concur Invoice the AP department alone saves 80 hours per month and additional controls and visibility enabled by Concur Expense allowed the company to reduce credit card spend by nearly 25%. </p>
<p>“Prior to using SAP Concur solutions, our month-end process could be up to 15 days—or more, depending on what was going on that specific month,” said Joe Lusby, Assistant Controller for Bishop-Wisecarver. “Once we had the SAP Concur platform in place and started using it efficiently, we reduced our close time to three days. And quite honestly, if we were in a pinch, we could probably close in a day. We wouldn’t be able to do that without SAP.”</p>
<p><strong><strong>Learn more in the Bishop-Wisecarver </strong><a href="https://youtu.be/ro08IV2atjo" target="_blank"><strong>customer story video</strong></a><strong>.</strong></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Serco Ltd</strong> is one of the world’s largest providers of essential public services to governments and by applying best practices and innovation, fueled by more than 50,000 employees in 20 countries around the globe, Serco makes a positive difference in the communities it serves. Within the first 12 months of using SAP Concur solutions, Serco was able to realize significant reductions on travel spend and, amidst the global pandemic and as countries went into lockdown, using Concur Travel allowed Serco to run reports to identify where they had travelers, cancel the bookings that were in the system, and quickly reschedule them to get those employees back home.</p>
<p>“SAP has enabled us to respond to the welfare and safety of our employees. When the pandemic hit, our first mission was to bring home our employees quickly and safely—and the SAP Concur platform really facilitated that,” said Joanne Cartwright, Manager Services Director for Serco Ltd.</p>
<p><strong><strong>Learn more in the Serco </strong><a href="https://youtu.be/LgXlOYv7FrE" target="_blank"><strong>customer story video</strong></a><strong>.</strong></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Keppel Corporation</strong>: The Singapore-based multinational found the SAP Concur platform to be an excellent T&E solution because of its ease of deployment and use. The integration of SAP Concur solutions with Keppel’s existing systems helped automate a lot of work for finance teams and ensured employees received timely payments.</p>
<p>“SAP Concur has provided a common platform to process T&E across our business units, ensuring greater financial governance and internal controls,” said Jason Chin, General Manager, Group Information Technology.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In a challenging year, it is gratifying to see SAP Concur solutions help our customers adapt and transform their business and we are proud to have these great organizations–Siemens, Keppel Corporation, CAF America, Vodafone, Bishop-Wisecarver, and Serco–as our 2021 innovation Award winners. </p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
Christopher Juneau
You Overpaid Your Taxes. Would You Like Some Back?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-overpaid-your-taxes-would-you-some-back
2021-04-22T10:49:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A quick look at Value Added Tax reclaim Taxes are as unavoidable as ever but there is some good news out there at least in terms of the money you can put back in your pocket when you...
<h2>A quick look at Value Added Tax reclaim:</h2>
<p>Taxes are as unavoidable as ever, but there is some good news out there – at least in terms of the money you can put back in your pocket when you go after the Value Added Taxes you’ve paid. Or, if you’re like most organizations, overpaid.</p>
<p>We get it – it’s confusing. VAT is as complex as a regulation can get, and it doesn’t help that every time you cross a border to do business, it changes. The rules, the regulations, the restrictions: They’re different in every country, and it seems as if they’re always evolving.</p>
<p>There are ways, however, to simplify the reclaim process and help you get your fair share of the billions* left unclaimed each year.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
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<h2>Reclaiming Overpaid Taxes</h2>
<p>Revamp your approach to VAT and bring money back into the business</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/are-you-reclaiming-overpaid-taxes-revamp-your-approach-vat-and-bring-money-back-business">Get the tip sheet</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Yes, we said billions</h2>
<p>Because of the aforementioned changes and complexities, companies often don’t even attempt to reclaim their rightful VAT refund. Or their Goods and Services Taxes. Or the Harmonized Sales Taxes they’ve shelled out. Many companies don’t even know what’s out there or if it’s worth the effort.</p>
<p>But when 54% of VAT goes unclaimed, it’s at least worth looking into.</p>
<p>Now, if you try to manage VAT in-house, you’ll want to watch out for human errors. This isn’t a scare tactic, it’s just a fact: Manual processes mean mistakes. And when it comes to VAT reclaim, there are significant regulatory and financial penalties for getting things wrong.</p>
<p>You can outsource it, of course, but you’ll have to make sure the solution works with your system (and by that, we mean “make sure it works”), and you’ll want to know not only what success is going to look like, but what it’s going to cost you.</p>
<p>The third option is to, well, do nothing. This is undoubtedly the easiest, but it’s also the most expensive. You’ll be forfeiting your reclaim, you’ll risk non-compliance with international regulations, and you may end up facing tax liabilities and fines.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So what do you do?</h2>
<p>You pick #2 above, then find a solution that fits your business while supporting VAT compliance no matter where you do business. As you’re sourcing this solution, make sure to ask:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does it offer intuitive dashboards that let you drill down to transaction-level data?</li>
<li>Will it capture duplicate receipts, invoices, and other data that can disqualify VAT claims?</li>
<li>Does it use AI and ML to automatically find and reclaim VAT and other taxes?</li>
<li>Can you count on greater accuracy and speed than human auditors?</li>
</ul>
<p>Look for a solution that automatically helps you deliver the clean data it takes to reclaim your money. It should be able to identify eligible transactions, enrich transaction data to get it ready for reclaim, and confirm what’s recoverable based on unique rules in each market. For more ideas and other details, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/are-you-reclaiming-overpaid-taxes-revamp-your-approach-vat-and-bring-money-back-business">take a quick look at this VAT tip sheet</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Let’s get it all under control</h2>
<p>Because every dollar, euro, or yen you spend faces regulations and restrictions, you have to keep spending in line to keep taxes in check. Fortunately, the same tools and controls you use to tackle VAT can be used to bring visibility and control to the rest of your travel and expense spending. So instead of facing the complexities surrounding tax requirements, you’ve got clarity. And instead of wondering what you’re spending, you’ve got control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Source: Vanson Bourne, Connecting the Dots on Travel, Expense, and Invoice Spend</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Why VAT Goes Unrecovered (and What to Do About It)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-vat-goes-unrecovered-and-what-do-about-it
2021-06-10T08:54:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to research conducted by Vanson Bourne for the SAP Concur organization of eligible value added tax VAT is left unclaimed by businesses Thats millions if not billions of...
<p>According to research conducted by <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resource-centre/whitepapers/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend">Vanson Bourne for the SAP Concur organization</a>, 54% of eligible value added tax (VAT) is left unclaimed by businesses. That’s millions – if not billions – of dollars left on the table. Why?</p>
<p>The simple answer is that while VAT (also known as GST or HST, depending on the country) is recoverable in many situations, the process is a paperwork nightmare with which many companies just do not or cannot bother. In our whitepaper, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/unrecovered-tax-dollars-5-reasons-companies-miss-boat-on-vatgsthst">Unrecovered Tax Dollars: 5 Reasons Companies Miss the Boat on VAT/GST/HST (and How to Get It Back)</a>, we provide the more complex answer – five reasons, actually, why VAT goes unrecovered:</p>
<ol>
<li>Businesses don’t realize that VAT can be recovered</li>
<li>Regulations are ever shifting</li>
<li>Expenses are difficult to rack and validate</li>
<li>Organizations lack the necessary time and expertise</li>
<li>Technology and processes are outdated</li>
</ol>
<p>Not surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced even more compliance challenges into an already complex tax landscape. Companies have been forced to pivot their ways of doing business in order to survive financially, at times unknowingly opening themselves up to tax risk as employee spend spikes in new areas. At the same time, governments have rapidly changed VAT regulations and deferred tax deadlines in an effort to aid struggling businesses. And as the world slowly recovers from these trying times, governments are beginning to shift their attention away from relief and toward a renewed focus on audits to recover the revenue they have lost.</p>
<p>Together, this creates the perfect storm of confusion, additional burden, and uncertainty for finance, tax, and compliance teams around the world – making it ever more critical for businesses to have a rock-solid strategy for VAT compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Getting a handle on VAT</h2>
<p>While the whitepaper lays out some understandable reasons for leaving VAT unclaimed, it also makes a strong case for modernizing your VAT program. Organizations can – and should – recover VAT with intelligent technology, optimized data, and automated recovery processes.</p>
<p>The benefits of doing so go beyond recouping lost dollars. With the right solution in place, VAT-eligible expenses can be automatically and efficiently recovered, improving quality, compliance, vendor trust, and reliability, and removing a massive administrative burden on your team.</p>
<p>To learn more about VAT recovery, download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/unrecovered-tax-dollars-5-reasons-companies-miss-boat-on-vatgsthst" target="_blank">whitepaper</a> today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
It’s Time to Become a Travel Management Strategist
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-become-travel-management-strategist
2022-07-01T12:06:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Safety risk sustainability and control of spend are common topics at the moment As travel managers learn about and assess those and other challenges they may ask themselves a gutlevel...
<p>Safety, risk, sustainability, and control of spend are common topics at the moment. As travel managers learn about and assess those and other challenges, they may ask themselves a gut-level question: How can I prove my value when we’re traveling less and budgets are lower?</p>
<p>The temptation is to go back to doing what you have always done, but it might not be the best approach for your organization or for you. This is the perfect time to re-evaluate not only your travel program but also your role.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Corporate Travel is All Over the Map</h2>
<p>How are TMCs adapting to provide direction? </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In the days and years ahead, successful travel managers are expected to become strategizers instead of tacticians. Become thinkers as opposed to doers, the orchestra’s conductor instead of second fiddle. Make sure you’re in touch with how fellow employees feel about getting back on the road and be able to articulate to the organization the value of travel itself.</p>
<p>Thought leaders not heavy lifters look to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">travel management companies (TMCs)</a> and technology to do the heavy lifting of booking, expensing, invoicing, information-sharing, and other elemental tasks so you can focus on the strategic role. </p>
<p>Collaborate with providers on ways to use their tools and tech to ensure your travel policies and priorities align with the goals of your organization. SAP Concur solutions provide many embedded and extended options to produce the data and reports necessary to track progress on goals and to help demonstrate travel’s value to upper management.</p>
<p>Think of the change as comparable to what HR has undergone. As HR moved from an administrative role into one of employee development and coaching, it became a more valued player in the C-suite. Travel managers could be, too.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>A seat at the table</h2>
<p>Study your company and other organizations, so you can answer the question that top management will have: What’s the value of meeting in person? </p>
<p>Engage with employees and learn how they feel about traveling again and what concerns they have. Become knowledgeable about what others in industry are doing with travel, because that’s something senior leaders often love to hear about. Think of it as a PR role, in a sense. Become the voice of travel in your organization.</p>
<p>Ask such questions as:</p>
<ul>
<li>What’s the ideal mix between in-person and remote contact?</li>
<li>How do we ensure travel dollars are making the right impact?</li>
<li>What are the signs we’re not traveling enough, such as lower trust scores, lower engagement, and less collaboration?</li>
</ul>
<p>If you can frame those questions in the right way, then senior management can properly assess whether you’re traveling too much or too little. And that’s adding visible value to the travel manager’s role.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, your organization’s travel goals and policies are changing. So, make sure you’re informing and taking part in the decision-making. This is certainly a challenging growth opportunity or even a stretch for some travel managers, but the success of your company and career could depend on it.</p>
<p>Ready to learn more? Travel experts Mark Ziegler, NetApp Inc.; Louise Kilgannon, Festive Road; Philip Wooster, CWT; and Scott Gillespie, tClara LLC, discuss how the roles of travel managers will evolve along with travel in their organizations, in a session from the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/inside-the-minds-of-travel-experts-the-future-of-corporate-travel">Watch it today</a></p>
Neha Mehta
Post-Pandemic Wanderlust? Using Your Best Judgment for Business Travel: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Acquis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/post-pandemic-wanderlust-using-your-best-judgment-business-travel-sap-concur-podcast
2022-07-01T13:36:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As business travel becomes safe again organizations are empowering their employees with greater autonomy to use their best judgement and comfort levels to determine when where and how...
<p>As business travel becomes safe again, organizations are empowering their employees with greater autonomy to use their best judgement and comfort levels to determine when, where, and how to meet with clients and team members. Get thinking about your post-pandemic travel program by listening to a candid and jovial conversation between Danny Smout, Principal Solution Consultant at SAP Concur, and Hansini Sharma, Practice Lead of Corporate Travel for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/acquis-consulting-group">Acquis Consulting Group</a>. “Sometimes some of the smallest edits lead to the broadest strokes of impact. This is one of those times where we have an incredible amount of opportunity to do that,” shares Sharma. Fine-tune your organization’s travel program to today’s travel standards to have the greatest impact.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/post-pandemic-wanderlust-using-your-best-judgment-for/id1525744763?i=1000534603345">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bIsUw1wVcKmR1dHdSDdQT">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/post-pandemic-wanderlust-using-your-best-judgment-for-busine">Acast</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Hey everyone, welcome to the SAP Concur and Acquis joint podcast. Where, we're talking about what's going on with travel these days. My name's Danny Smout. I'm a Principal Solution Consultant with SAP Concur. And joining me is Hansini Sharma from Acquis. Hansini you want to say hi?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Hey Danny, thanks so much for having me today, as he said, my name is Hansini Sharma. I work for Acquis Consulting Group and I lead our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">corporate travel </a>practice and separately I'm a hugely avid traveler. So, this is a fun topic for me and very near and dear to my heart personally and professionally.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome and for those who haven't had the pleasure of working with Acquis, do you want to give a quick one line of what Acquis can do?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Acquis Consulting Group is a boutique management consulting firm. We're based in New York City, but we have colleagues all over the world. We do work across multiple areas, but I think what's of interest here is that we've been working with SAP Concur for many years now. And we have supported Concur teams with implementations, change management and product management, and a lot of strategic work throughout the years.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. Sorry to put you on the spot, but that was a good elevator pitch of what Acquis can do that. So, that's awesome. So as I said, I'm a Principal Solution Consultant with SAP Concur. My role is I speak to clients and basically help them out with the challenges they've got, whether that's through our Concur product or service, or just an idea or best practice. So what other clients are doing, it's fun. So basically, if you read between the lines, I listen to what other clients tell me, and then tell my other clients that and pretend I came up with that idea. So, Hansini, you said you're an avid traveler, what do we think after the pandemic is said and done...and we're kind of, on the downward spiral, latest news aside, we're starting to see some companies starting to travel again here at Concur, I don't know if you'll see in that trend as well. What do you think is going to be different when we all start traveling again?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's really interesting. I am working, just thinking about my clients right now, I'm working with one client, who has a very strict, no travel mandate in place, still. In fact, they have no plans to return to the office anytime soon, which I think is probably amongst the strictest I've seen and most rigorous, if you will, regarding COVID precautions. But a lot of what I'm seeing is kind of nice in the sense of, I think about like a pre-pandemic world. And I think personalization was like the hottest word; any conference I went to, so many webinars were talking about personalization and travel, and I think that was important then, and it's more important now, but ironically, I'm seeing the most personalization of travel I've ever seen now. So for me, what that looked like is people are being offered choices. If they need to travel for work, they're being given the option.</p>
<p>Do you think that it makes sense to go in person? Do you feel comfortable going, could this be a meeting? And we're giving people the option of kind of making their own business decisions and that's translated a lot into the way people are booking travel and how they're choosing their carriers and their suppliers. And I think that's really nice because it kind of empowers the person who's traveling to feel really comfortable and confident in the way that they're conducting their professional lives. And I really liked that and I think it's paving the way for a much broader conversation about how we continue to build managed travel program by offering people the option to make the decisions that they feel are best for them at the time. Whereas I think in the past there's been, not that companies forced people to do things they don't want to do, but I think there's been the like little nudge-nudge, like, "Hey, you should really go on this trip". Like you should really, really go on this trip. And I think it's nice to be able to have some of that optionality added back in.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think in a lot of clients that I've been speaking through, there's a huge focus on employee experience, especially when it comes to traveling and stuff. So with me, or with companies kind of saying, "choose your best guess. Like, could this be a Zoom?" And that was always a rule, right? Every travel policy I've ever seen from any of our customers said, "if it makes more sense to do a Zoom don't travel" and everyone was like "yep, screw that. I'm going, I want to travel".</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Really? I just didn't see that very often.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>I just don't think anyone did, I just think anyone was like, "yeah, no, an in-person is always going to be better". So, we're going. Like, it was just a company's kind of disclaimer to try and save some money, which kind of leads me on to my next question for you, Hansini. Do you think the companies want us to start traveling again, given that, they still make money without travel, like some companies where the saving a ton with not having to spend so much money on people traveling around? Yeah. I know you're a big fan of in-person and as am I, and there's a lot to be done there, but do you think our companies want us to start traveling again?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. It's funny. So, I went to-quick note about myself-I went to business school at NYU and studied finance and I have a number of friends whose careers are in financial services. And if you've been reading news, there've been some heads of some major financial services companies in the world who have had made very strong statements about the return to work and the return to travel. I don't think anyone wants to necessarily follow in those footsteps in the same way that has been maybe strongly set. But I think there's this general desire to go back, to go back to the office and to get back on the road. Because generally, there's no true replacement for face-to-face interaction. So it's kind of this newer balance with all the people I've spoken to, everyone wants to do the right thing. And the right thing in this situation is a big gray box.</p>
<p>No one knows the answer. I think we can agree on the extreme, like no one should be forced to travel, but maybe for the most part, we don't need to have super strict mandates in place that no travel and no access to the office is allowed. But finding that middle ground of like pushing people towards, getting back out there, re-integrating into professional society, industry events. I think it's a tough balance, but generally I think people want that to happen. I think we're seeking some sense of normalcy and something that reminds us of a world pre-March 2020.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Just even if it's just to get out the house. And finding an excuse to wear some of those clothes that you bought that you never got to wear from a business standpoint.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I have a really lovely shoe collection collecting dust at the moment. I started wearing them around my apartment, just like with my sweatpants, just because I feel like they've gotten lonely. I'm here for that.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Do yourself a little fashion show. I found a box in my closet, not too long ago that had all nice clothes in it and stuff that I'd never worn and was like, all right, gotta’ do a bit of a fashion show. So, my TikTok and my Snapchat users got the benefits of that. You think our customers want us to go visit them? You think there's an urge for them? Those that are in the office, you think they're ready to receive us if we didn't want to go there?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>I think so. I actually had a colleague go on a business trip a couple of months ago, and this is super nerdy, but I love a good whiteboard session. And there is just no virtual replacement for a good whiteboard where you get to stick the post-it notes on there, draw a bunch of weird pictures, take a quick snack break and come back to it. There's just no replacement for it. And this colleague of mine went in-person to this client and just had a great experience. And he shared his experience with the company later and said that the type of work and collaboration that they got done in that amount of time is just like, could have never happened virtually perhaps they would have gotten 70% there if they really made an effort. But sometimes that extra 30% is really what takes something from good to great.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>And I think that people, to your point, just want to see each other again, we've been stuck at home with the same people or by ourselves for so many months now, that when you spent so much time with someone virtually, at some point you just want to like meet them and like go grab a beer and hang out and do the things that you would do in person gripe about the colleagues that you don't like.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Exactly. And that's the way I think, like I've worked remotely since 2013 and I have best friends that I speak to everyday for multiple hours, that I've never met in person and between work and then also call of duty. I have a bunch of people that I've never met that I speak to all the time. And it's just crazy. Like I speak to, I think I've spoken to you in the last couple of months, more than I've spoken to my actual parents and stuff like that. And it's strange that we've never met, even though we live kind of close, but we, it'd be weird for us to have met because of the restrictions, but the same with our clients. Right. I mean as people that want to help our clients out in a consultative manner, they need to see that we're humans, right?</p>
<p>And we can smile and whatever else, and yeah, you can turn your video on, and have a green screen behind you. So, you're on like a fancy beach or maybe wear a funny hat, but there's nothing like getting in the room. Like you said, a bit nerdy, but standing up, writing on a whiteboard, spit-balling ideas, showing off your fancy shoes, whatever you need to do, to walk with the clients and get them engaged. Because as much as we get Zoom fatigue, they definitely get Zoom fatigue as well, right? And we've got stuff happening in their lives with their kid's homeschooling and dogs jumping around and Amazon guys showing up every five minutes. But I will say, one of the things I do like about this, no travel stuff is I routinely would get up at 4 AM, get on a plane, fly to Boston or Chicago, have a one-hour meeting, two-hour meeting with a client, have a great time, shake hands, kiss babies, all of that fun stuff, get back on a plane, fly home, right?</p>
<p>So, I got home at like midnight, right? So, I'd spend like a full 20 hours out wearing a suit, productive day meeting with one client, right? Flip side to that, I could speak to five or six different clients, not have to wear pants and just sit on Zoom at my desk all day. So, you think there's going to be some of that when we do start traveling again, you're going to get those people that are like, "Hey, I can be productive with Zoom". And, going back to the, "it's the people's choice". So, the person's choice and giving them the choices. What do you think? Do you think there's going to be a lot of people that are like, "no, I'm stuck in my house now- Zoom works for me just fine. I've got a fancy camera. This is where I'm staying". Or you think a lot of people are out there, like "get me back on the road. I want to get out"?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>I think we're going to have a mix of both. But I think that the people who want to stay home, aren't going to be asked to travel, which I think is awesome. In so many ways, when you travel to a destination to meet a client, it's so much more than the act of like getting on the plane and, making it there and having the meeting, it's kind of an attitude thing. If you don't want to be there, it's very apparent and it's much easier to have a productive conversation if you're in this frame of mind that enables that conversation. So, I think there's going to be a lot of people. I think about my aunt, her office is not too far from her home. She actually was just a few minutes away from my parents' house in Plano, Texas. And she loves the work from home environment.</p>
<p>I mean, she'd go on a business trip if she needed to, but they recently shifted to her organization recently shifted to two days a week back in the office. And for her, it's been a big shift, like a big change for her that she wasn't like mentally prepared for. And obviously she has completely adapted to it and it's fine. And she really doesn't complain about it, but she didn't want to go back. She felt that they were just as productive virtually, everyone was happier because they didn't have to go into the office and deal with the commute. But I think there's going to be a lot of people like my aunt who might have to do the one or two days in the office but are likely not going to be the people who are called upon to go on multiple business trips in a year.</p>
<p>But I think it's going to give the people who do want to travel a new-found appreciation for business travel. One thing that is sort of like tangentially related to this is we keep forgetting that like companies still made a lot of money in spite of not meeting face to face. And I think some people argue that, that means we probably don't need business travel, but in some ways I think that it's like heightened our appreciation for the in-person interactions that sure we've been able to make it work, but we really miss the interactions. But more importantly, from a travel management perspective, I think that actually helps people be a lot more strategic with the way they spend their travel budget. So I think what I'm seeing with travel managers and hearing around the industry is that people are being a lot more mindful and strategic about how they're leveraging their partners.</p>
<p>Like, what are the key aspects of the tools that they're using? I've heard so much more about like reconsidering the use of NDC technology or integrating that into Concur with the solutions that you have or thinking about direct connect or just really taking this as an opportunity to be creative and the way that they're solutioning their program. And I think that is kind of what the next stage of travel looks like. Not your very traditional ways of travel, which I think certainly have a place and will continue to stay in place or will be the thing that people do for a long time. But I think people are a little more open now to other solutions that augment their existing experiences. And I think that's going to make it a lot easier and better for people to travel moving forward.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>For sure. I 100% percent think that this pandemic, as bad as it was, and what, all of that stuff, this is the opportunity that we can have. We always call it like the compelling event or whatever sales process. This is the compelling event for companies to now readdress what's happening when it comes to employees traveling, for sure. So, before the pandemic, I was on a plane every week, it got to the point where I was like "ugh, I've got to be in Chicago. I've got a fly to Salt Lake City, Utah, ugh, I've got to do this", but now I'm like, "let's go eager, chomping at the bit. Let's go, let's kill this. Let's wow the client with these new shoes that I've got, or this whiteboarding that I've been training on and planning to do for these years", but now I want to do it in person and, I want to meet this person that I've spoken to every single day for the past six months.</p>
<p>And it's given me as a traveler kind of a little bit of an impetus to like "yeah, let's do it. Let's hit the reset button and let's go". And I think before the pandemic from an organizational standpoint, we always talk about the internal corporate battles between the millennials and the more seasoned employees. And I think after this, the millennials are going to win and get not, I wouldn't say win, because it's not a war, but or a competition, but the millennials are going to get more of this say in how things work. Because some of these more seasoned people, being polite, have had to get to grips with how Zoom works, how they can do Microsoft Teams on their phone, as well as on the computer, webcams, all of this stuff.</p>
<p>And then viewing like "Hey, this is a somewhat easier life". So, then the millennials can come in and say, "Hey, instead of the rule, 'always have to book through the corporate travel tool,' I shouldn't be saying this as a Concur employee, but always have to use our preferred vendor.</p>
<p>I think customers or clients are going to start realizing like, hey, giving our employees flexibility, keeps them happy and they can move and kind of have that feeling that they can do what they want, still within the boundaries of rules, but still make their own choices of how that works for them. I've seen some policies that allow for a combined business and leisure trip and stuff. I always used to play it that, I'm going to stay the night after my meeting to refresh after the meeting, which happens to be a Friday, so I could spend the weekend in Chicago. And then I'd pay for the hotel myself. The flight home was on the company because the flight out and back, and in an old world that used to be, we need to see how much it will cost it from you flew back on the Friday versus the Sunday night and you have to pay out the difference.</p>
<p>But now I think we're going to see a lot more of like, "hey, if you're going do it and we trust you to make the right choice and not screw the company", because at the end of the day, if I'm out selling a couple of million dollars a year of software to clients or services to clients, why can't I just extend my flights a day and pay for the incidentals myself and things like that. So, I feel this opportunity that COVID presented, again, it wasn't a good thing, COVID, but the opportunities that can come out of it are going to be great. Do you see any other opportunities that might come out of this with the flexibility and kind of rethinking how travel is going to happen?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I resonate with-so many of the things that you just said resonate so well with me. And there's three things in particular, I'll start with the most, something you said towards the end was about trust. I think that so many programs fail or struggle because there's no trust between the company and the employee. They operate under the assumption that the employee, to your point, is trying to screw them over, trying to make a quick buck, not expending things correctly, but that's not the case. I think that's the exception, that's not the rule. And I think we have, to your point exactly, I think COVID is, a post COVID world will create more of a sentiment of trust because we now have this universally shared experience where we were all exposed to the same risk factors and we're making decisions together. Whereas in the past playing field wasn't even. And I think that's going to, as I was talking about earlier, it's going to be an opportunity for people to be a lot more strategic about how they're managing their programs.</p>
<p>Because something that hasn't changed is, at the end of the day, for a managed travel program, you need compliance, forget cost savings. All of that is kind of secondary to actually getting people to follow the program that you have put in place. When you follow the program, your duty of care is comprehensive when you follow the program you're consolidating spend, which enables stronger negotiation tactics, which in turn will also lead to cost savings. When you follow the program, you have great data and analytics. And when you follow the program, you're able to provide comprehensive feedback to your travel manager to continue to iterate on it. So, I think that we're going to see more of that, hopefully, because I think people will start to realize the work that goes into building a program and keeping you safe. And a couple of other things you said, it's funny that you mentioned millennials.</p>
<p>I actually had a conversation earlier today with someone about this and how millennials adapted a lot more quickly to someone who's virtual technology because of what they're used to. I'm kind of on the fence. So, I'm in my thirties, I split between two generations, I think. And it was very easy for me to transition into using all these tools because I used them prior as I'm sure you did as well, but I haven't enjoyed it.</p>
<p>I actually hate working from home. I love being in an office. I go in really often, even now, since our office has been open, there are days where I'm the only one there, but I'm on a smaller team as well and in New York City. But there's something about being in an office, makes me feel more professional and more focused. And I just, I like the environment. So, I think that there's a lot of good things that came with this replacement of like in-person interactions with technology and that some of the millennial style of working of, not just working the nine to five and getting work done when you can get done, has been good in some cases, but I'm not sure that that should be the standard moving forward.</p>
<p>I think we've allowed our colleagues and companies have allowed their employees a lot of flexibility in this time because we need it. And because it's what we needed to make it through this, it's what we need to continue making it through this. But realistically, looking forward, these scattered working hours, that doesn't really work when things return to whatever this new normal is going to be, or maybe that won't work. I can't say that it won't, but I think we're going to have to pick and choose what we want to take with us, because I think some of it has been very good and some of it has been time appropriate given the situation that we were in. So, I'm curious to see how that will play out. But I do imagine that we will over time revert back to some of the more traditional constructs around our working day. So while I think that there's going to be a lot more personalization and a lot more flexibility, I think there will be some balance back to what we used to do.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>It's interesting, back on that flexibility point. When you were saying, it's been tough, you want to get as many people in the program as you can. So, you can optimize your duty of care, to optimize your vendor negotiations and stuff. Historically, the theory behind getting as many people in your program was you have to do this, you have to book this way. And as humans, we're pre-wired to, I want to say kind of rebel, if you see that button that says, do not push you're hundred percent want to push it. It's in your every being of your nature to press that button, but you have to refrain. So, a lot of companies are kind of flipping out around now and saying, okay, rather than saying, "you have to do it this way"</p>
<p>"Let's find a way of incorporating the way that you want to do it into our program, which is going to help", with the direct connect, with the direct suppliers that we have through concurrent and stuff, people can have that semblance of freedom in the booking process, but that's still within the program, so they can still get that data to better negotiate and have that duty of care and stuff. And, duty of care is important, with what we just went through. Companies need to be able to look after us and make sure we're doing okay, which is good. And then the millennials point versus the non, I can't give out my age for personal reasons just because I like to pretend I'm younger than I actually am. But I'm also thirties, and I'm right on that cusp. And I think, you agree, I'm not in witness protection or anything before anyone starts trying to Google me.</p>
<p>But I definitely agree, like before the pandemic, the millennials were all about the meetings and stuff, and we want to get back to traveling. And maybe it's the older generation that has learned to use the Zoom and is happy with Zoom now and doesn't want to get traveling. So maybe there's been a bit of a flip that the other ones that want to use the technology and the millennials like, "oh, Hansini, we want to go back on the road and meet people and have these sessions". So be interesting to see what happens when we come out of it. You know, all things are looking positive with the way that companies are approaching the return to office, return to travel things. So if we were to travel, start traveling today, do you think companies are going to have to sit us down and teach us how to travel again? What to pack and how to pack? Have you seen any of that out there?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>You know, it's funny. I think it's actually like a two-way retraining. So, I think there's some guidance that's required from the company and to the traveler. And yeah, honestly, I could use a checklist or two of, don't forget to pack these four things because I never had to pack them before. So it would be nice just to have a friendly reminder, but I think something kind of slightly off topic, was the question you asked me just now is more of, travelers aren't asking for different things now than they were two years ago. I think there's just been a huge shift in priorities because of everything that's happened in the last couple of years, people have always wanted flexibility. Leisure trips are not new, we've been talking about this for years. Flexibility in travel not new, personalization not new, these are all topics we've been talking about for many years, but I think our priorities before were compliance, mandates, getting people to follow the policy.</p>
<p>And Danny, you said it just because that's what was in place. And now, what companies really value is duty of care. Are employees safe when they travel? What is our responsibility and role in ensuring their safety and comfort? Even beyond just like their fiduciary obligation to keeping their employees safe and happy. I've heard of some companies who were allowing their employees to use their TMC services for personal travel, because it's a great perk to offer, because they leverage the company discounts, but it also offers kind of this added layer of protection to the employee because there's a duty of care aspect that comes with travel management company booking that doesn't come if you just go to whatever online travel agency or direct to supplier. So, I think that what we're seeing more than anything is employees are almost retraining companies and travel programs on here's what we really want.</p>
<p>Here's what we've always really wanted. And we think we can get there. And I think on the other side, companies are also taking this as an opportunity for them to rethink from a business perspective. Like, "should you be traveling? What do you value in your customer relationships or even colleague to colleague when you need to meet, you're based in New York and you need to meet a colleague in San Francisco, could it be a Zoom, could it be a meeting?" So, I think it's a sharing of information that we're, again, I think this is the catalyst of these conversations has been this shared experience that we've had over the last year and a half. That's enabling us to have these conversations now, information sharing and learning from one another and what we actually want out of a managed travel program.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I love that idea. I'd never really thought about that. It was like the travel is teaching the travel teams, kind of what we want and how we want it. And the travel teams are teaching us kind of make sure you pack more than two pair of underpants and upon travel and, Lysol wipes and stuff like that. Back to that duty of care thing on the company's allowing people to use the corporate travel tool to book personal travel. I was actually working with a couple of companies that were really into like duty account and stuff. And they told me that, "I'm that corporate insurance," so if you're on a business trip and there's a lot of laws in place in Europe for this, if you're on a business trip and something happens to you, your company is liable for your safety, your executives and C-level employees could go to jail. If they don't do everything that they can to help you.</p>
<p>So, they have these insurance policies in place through these different vendors that can send in SWAT teams or medical professionals or a helicopter to rescue you or whatever else is part of their insurance package and stuff. And one of the companies was telling me, it's not that much more to add personal travel to that policy. And for a company that's a huge incentive, if you're going for a new job and they say, "Hey, Hansini, next time you go to Antarctica, you can book your trip, maybe not Antarctica. You can book your trip through your corporate travel agency and get our corporate rates and stuff. Obviously, you have to pay for it yourself. And if something happens to you or someone in your party while you're there, we'll send the Acquis helicopter to rescue you because we value you as an employee. Regardless if you're traveling for business or pleasure, we still want to make sure you're good".</p>
<p>And that'd be a huge thing for companies to be able to offer. And in the information that I've got that doesn't really affect their insurance premium, that much to have that coverage. So that would be awesome. And then if, SAP Concur ever rolled that out, that's when I might go to Antarctica just in case, and then say, "Hey, send me a Concur chopper to come and get me". I'm over this.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, I think you make a really good point if this has shown, if I've learned anything throughout this year and a half, from a professional perspective, the company that you work for and the way they show that they care about you is so important. I think about all the different things Acquis has done for us over the last year and a half. And it's really special. It's so unique whether it's inviting a comedian to an all-hands meeting, to just lighten the mood, sending us random gifts for no reason, other than it's just nice to get something in the mail, that's not something you bought off from Amazon. Just the random virtual events. We've had cookie decorating classes for kids. We had a virtual wine and paint night. We've had bourbon tastings. I mean, we've done trivia, we've done so many different things. And it's these little things that add up. To create a travel program has so much control over people's general satisfaction and an organization.</p>
<p>And I don't think they realize that very often. And I think, the examples I gave about Acquis there obviously it's not travel related, but when you have the opportunity to do something like this, where you can allow the personal touch to a very professional offering, I think that goes a really long way. And that's really important for people to know. I mean, that's how you earn loyalty. That's how you increase employee satisfaction. And I really liked that people are thinking about doing things that way but related to this is something I've thought a lot about again, in this conversation I had earlier today is that there needs to be a collaborative approach to this across the industry, for companies to be able to allow their employees, to book personal travel through their TMC accounts. There needs to be kind of a shift in the way TMCs have their business models.</p>
<p>I'm not saying anything earth shattering, but I guess the onus is on all of the suppliers and the buyers to figure out a way to make this work. So, I think there is a general responsibility for everyone to kind of step up and figure out how we can make corporate travel better. Only one piece in this value chain, all the responsibility can't be on them. One because it's too much work and two, because it's impossible. But I think the travel industry is very unique in that one piece doesn't work without the other. You can't just extract one piece altogether and be like, "oh, that's it", now all of the air is just going to be the way this airline does it forever. It just doesn't work that way. We kind of are a house of cards of sorts that if like the airline industry just like decided to stop serving the corporate travel market, I mean, you're out of luck and that's really unique to the travel industry.</p>
<p>Other industries have multiple economies of scale and supply chains that support them, whether it's people, whether it's actual physical goods, but we don't have that. And so, there is a shared responsibility that moves us forward. That's to me what the next phase of travel is, what is everyone going to do in terms of stepping up to this next phase of duty of care to technology innovation, to program transformation. And until everyone kind of lays their cards on the table, I don't know that we have a clear view, but I am very optimistic from what I'm seeing and hearing. And a part of that people, that are thinking that way and putting their talk into action.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it definitely seems like the opportunity from this, the opportunities to change from this as being adopted by the airlines and the TMCs. Kind of reminds me of that meme. It's like, "oh, no, United need to bail out and stuff". And it was like, "yeah, I don't feel sorry for them. They tried to charge me $50 to bring an extra apple on the flight or something at one time" and an oversized bag fee and stuff like that. And I think we're going to see a lot of that changing and being more transparent in the way that the fares are coming out. So, question for you. If Acquis gave you an Acquis-branded face mask to wear on a flight, would you wear it?</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>A hundred percent. Acquis actually already sent me two, and I've worn them on planes before-actually, I have a picture of me in one.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, wow! Okay. Well maybe that could be the thumbnail for the podcast then.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Happy to send it over. I've got my Acquis mask on and my University of Texas, I'm a Longhorn through and through, my baseball cap on which I always travel with, that hat has seen five continents itself, probably needs to be retired soon, but for sentimental purposes, it remains atop of my head any time I'm traveling.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>That's awesome. Your hat has been to more continents than most people I know, that's impressive. So, SAP Concur haven't given me a mask, but I did have the option to receive one. And I absolutely would not wear it on a flight, not because I'm not proud to work for SAP Concur, is an amazing company, amazing products, but I just get hounded on the flight, like "Hey, you work for SAP. Can you help me with my expenses?" Or, "Hey, last week I tried to charge this and my manager rejected it. I hate your tool and stuff". So I would just buy a nondescript maybe from like some kind of a boring company or something mask. So people would just leave me alone.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>My own friends call me sometimes when they're doing their expense reports, because they can't figure it out. As I always tell them; this is a you problem, not a me problem because it's not that hard. So, you can do it.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>I like it though. When I see someone on the flight, doing their expenses on their phone and stuff, I never tell them, "Hey, that's the company I work for". But I do be like, "Hey, that's pretty cool. How do you do that?" And stuff just to try and pump up the company a little bit. But yeah, I'm an AirPods in, watch something on my iPad or read a magazine, kind of a flyer. So actually, speaking of magazines on a flight, I learned an interesting couple of interesting statistics yesterday about air travel in that, United reduced the paper density on the in-flight magazines by one ounce per magazine, recently. And they were able to save over $200,000 worth of fuel just because their planes were a little bit lighter. And United also-everyone knows that guy years ago took one olive out of the American Airlines salad and saved a ton of money.</p>
<p>They saved a ton of money, but United made the magazines a little bit lighter and then saved a ton of money from that. They also painted the planes, remember they used to be like solid blue and other more white. White paint is actually lighter than blue paint. So, they can save a ton of money by painting their planes white. So, from now on, I'm only going to buy white cars, because I'll save some money on gas. But it's funny, like when you think just the changes like that, but the amount that they fly, how much money they can save just by removing an olive or taking a page out of the magazine and then to one extreme, all Nippon Airlines in Japan used to ask everybody to go to the bathroom before they got on the plane, because they calculated, their scientists calculated there was up to 240 pounds worth of urine in people's blotters, sorry to take it down this route, on the plane, and if that was expelled before they got on the plane, they could save a ton of money.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, I think you've hit on a really good point. Those really subtle changes have lots of cost savings. I think this can be extended to so much more, they're such subtle changes that you can make that are probably imperceptible to most, if not all. Because I doubt anyone is counting either the paperweight or the number of pages in the United in-flight magazine. But I think sometimes some of the smallest edits lead to the broadest strokes of impact. This is one of those times where we have an incredible amount of opportunity to do that.</p>
<p>And I think we also have a general sentiment of patience in the sense of the flexibility of, trial and error. So, I don't think airlines are going to get it right every time. I don't think any travel supplier or travel buyer is going to get it right the first time. But I think we all have the same shared mentality that, "let's move forward. Let's figure out how to change a little bit. Let's figure out how to be better and could a couple of different things to trial. And if they work great, if they don't, we'll try the next one," which is unique. I don't think we've always been given that latitude in the past.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>For sure. Yeah. And thank you for bringing it back to the topic at hand, as opposed to random plain facts. Definitely, we're going to see a lot of changes over the next couple of months when companies start to travel again and loosen up some of the restrictions. Hansini, thank you for your time and your pearls of wisdom. Based on my introduction, I'm going to take all of your comments and points, pretend they're my own, when I speak to my clients, that's kind of what I do. But thank you for your time. Thanks to Acquis for sending one of their best and brightest and funniest to speak with us about kind of the, what the hell is going on with travel topic.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Thanks Danny so much for having me today. This is a lot of fun and you should keep the airlines jokes coming, are not the jokes, the random facts back coming-I love them. The Nippon one is unique-but very interesting. I'll keep that in mind next time I fly.</p>
<p><strong>Danny Smout:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. Check that magazine out and see if there's any less pages next time.</p>
<p><strong>Hansini Sharma:</strong></p>
<p>I'm definitely going to do that.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
SAP Concur Solutions is like a Condo with Different Floorplans: an SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with the Lyndon Group
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-solutions-condo-different-floorplans-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-lyndon
2022-07-01T17:00:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I always liken Concur to a condominium building if you have been on the Concur platform for years and every time you move somebody into the new building you let them decorate their...
<p>“I always liken Concur to a condominium building; if you have been on the Concur platform for 10 years and every time you move somebody into the new building, you let them decorate their condo the way that they want it, they have their own set of expense types, their own set of processes, you may have over-engineered your system. So, to really make sure that your system is optimized for those expansions, you need to try to streamline where you can,” shares Kara Bernard, Managing Director of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a>. Enjoy every moment of this practical podcast conversation between Kara Bernard and Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur. You’ll learn how to transform your organization’s spend management to meet the rapidly changing needs of a post-pandemic, global business environment. </p>
<p>This is an innovative, four-episode podcast series celebrating the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/lyndon-group-llc">Lyndon Group</a> received the Partner Growth Award, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. The other award winners included <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-suppliers/american-airlines">American Airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/service-partner/neylux-gmbh">neylux</a>, and<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-management-companies/american-express-global-business-travel"> American Express Global Business Travel</a>. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes">SAP Concur Conversations</a>, for best practices to implement at your own organization.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-a-condo-with/id1525744763?i=1000537952715">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lxKPIfEcUALx78cUjis55">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-VDythUsiRwg/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/sap-concur-solutions-is-like-a-condo-with-different-floorpla">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE2MDAzYWQ5Y2I5ODcwMDEyOTViYmRi?sa=X&ved=0CAcQuIEEahcKEwio4720k7vzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<div>
<p><strong>Want to join this special circle of winners?</strong></p>
<p>Nominations are now open for the SAP Concur Partner Awards, now part of the SAP Concur Innovation Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements from our partner ecosystem.</p>
<p>As an SAP Concur partner, <a href="https://sapinsights.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3dWRrfkTwvR34a?Link=web&mkt_tok=MDEzLUdBWC0zOTQAAAF_9jXftkReO_UE-0J9ioO-p4385p7WjwUoS-1jidOmi1kS_QZJozC2IZ0Tp74fEn__bwpT4DDeElqM4nNNBgvz&pid=null&cid=null">please submit a nomination to win awards</a> in either “Growth” or “Innovation” categories.</p>
<p><strong>Criteria: All partner types are eligible to submit.</strong></p>
<p>Growth Awards: Based on measurable growth in your SAP Concur partnership.</p>
<p>Innovation Awards: Based on innovation you brought to a specific customer engagement or to your overall SAP Concur relations.</p>
<p>Questions? Email: <a href="mailto:sapconcurpartners@sap.com">mailto:sapconcurpartners@sap.com</a></p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Hi everybody. I'm Jeanne Dion, the Director of the Value Experience Group here at SAP Concur and I'm here today to talk with one of our partner growth winners, Kara Bernard, from the Lyndon Group. Kara, I was wondering if you could go ahead and introduce yourself and the role that you play at the Lyndon Group.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Thanks Jeanne. My name is Kara Bernard. I am the Managing Director here at the Lyndon Group. Lyndon Group has been a partner with Concur for about 10 years in some capacity. We are a boutique consulting firm that specializes in travel expense and spend management.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Excellent. Thank you. And the award that you won this year as one of our top partners is the Growth Award, where you were able to actually implement 27 certified implementation projects during 2020. And I have to ask, in a year where travel was down and expenses were down, it seems like a lot of projects to be able to implement. What do you think the reason was for customers coming in and wanting to really execute on that type of project in the year of 2020?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>It's interesting. I think most of the clients that we engaged with on most of the projects there were clients that recognize the fact that they needed to standardize their internal processes. Maybe it was other systems such as ERP migrations. A lot of them were ERP migrations. Some of it was due to M&A activity, meaning they divested a company and they needed to stand up a whole new platform. They were moving this company onto a new instance to get them ready for a sale or in the process of their transition services agreement. So it was all across the board. It was really interesting that during such a slow time, that that many organizations seized the opportunity to retool their programs or retool their platforms.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. And you mentioned something interesting, that changed to an ERP system. A lot of our customers or I've come across a lot of customers who are looking at that. Who are either implementing newer ERP systems or updating what they have moving to the next level. So, I'm just curious. When you have customers who are looking at moving due to a new ERP system, what should they be taking into account as they start to think about how it aligns with the Concur system?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Well, the first thing is to make sure you get invited to the party early enough. I can't tell you how many of those projects last year was a panic because Concur got left out of the design and the planning of that ERP rollout, and it was almost an afterthought. So, the first thing is making sure that if you own the Concur configuration, the platform, if you will, that you've got a seat at that table for that ERP planning and that deployment plan, because if you're changing, most of the time that you're moving to a new ERP, you're also reframing your chart of accounts.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>You're either adding new segments or change. Something is changing. And with that, you have to reconfigure Concur. And a lot of times, I always joke that it's like back surgery because it creates the foundation of your system, right? This is your accounting processes. So sometimes that's easier to get into an existing system and just reconfigure everything. A lot of times, it may be easier if you're bringing on new countries or new entities at the same time, you're doing that ERP migration. You might want to replatform depending on how long you've had that instance.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>It's interesting you say, "Make sure we have a seat at the table," and one of the things that I always think about when I think about the SAP Concur platform is the ease of use for the end user, who typically is the traveler. But when you're looking at how things are working from an ERP system, is this a time to really take a look at what you're doing manually in the back office and see where automation could take place?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Absolutely. Absolutely. And we deal with clients across all sizes, all industries, and some of our smaller clients do not have an automation or integration in place. They're literally still downloading a report and doing some manual manipulation and then loading it to that ERP. If they're implementing a new ERP, it's absolutely the right time to look at any of those manual processes. Try to do as much automation and integration work as you can. Obviously, it's creates a risk if you're touching anything before you're doing that final financial posting, but also any other processes regarding reporting and accruals and different things like that.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>So another thing that I was thinking about as you were just saying, that was when you're looking at that type of back office and automation, what are some of the tasks that you might want to build into a timeline? Should we be looking at things like middleware or integrations? And how can Lyndon Group work with a customer to ensure that those things are not overlooked?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah. I mean, that's a loaded question actually, but it really depends. I think the first thing is understanding. We always start with, "Tell us what it is you need in your ERP. What is it? What is your chart of accounts look like? What are you changing to? What is it that you ultimately have to post?" And then working back from that process. And it could be that they need a middleware process, or if they're moving on to S4/HANA and they could leverage Concur's great native integration, there's going to be less of a heavy lift, but if it's some other ERP or in some cases, it's a home-grown system, right? And if that's the case, then that's a lot of sitting down and understanding the lists, the exchange of the data between the two systems, so that they're always in sync, and making sure that you're configuring Concur in a way that you're not going to get your users to give you invalid chart of account combinations.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>How do you really make sure that what you're building in Concur takes, like you said, ease of use for the end user? They should just be sitting, meeting their expenses and not worrying about what GL account it's going to be hitting. That should be inherently put in your system for them. So if today you already have a platform that your users are driving that account coding of an expense, then there's probably some room for optimization there.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>It's interesting you mentioned all of these things as they tie to ERP. Is because I was asking the question about ERP, but I see a lot of similarities when you think about growth and expansions, where customers have these expansions of maybe a policy into a region, or they're expanding with a new organization they've purchased to that point of the M&A activity. They've purchased something and they don't really know where to start. A lot of the foundational elements are probably the same as what's happening when you're looking at a new ERP system, but if for a customer who doesn't know where to start from an expansion perspective, they've got the ERP in place, but now they need to grow their company. Where would you advise them to start?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Well, the first thing is if they're expanding globally, you have to make sure that you understand what the country specific statutory requirements are. I can't tell you... Even myself years ago when I was on the Concur, but I was in the client side, right? And I had to expand into countries, and I would start my requirements gathering to understand, they would tell me things that I had to decide if this was really a statutory requirement or just something that they always did that way. Is it a more of a cultural or a business process that they created? So, making sure that you leverage a partner that has that expertise. Concur obviously has a lot of great functionality in the new configuration templates, if you will that allow for a lot of the functionality that allows you to stay compliant, but there's still a lot of business decisions that go around that.</p>
<p>So, when you're talking about expanding in other countries, you have to make sure you understand what those requirements are. The other thing is, and I always liken Concur to a condominium building, if you will, is if you have been on Concur platform for 10 years and every time you move somebody into the new building, you let them decorate their condo the way that they want it, they have their own set of expense types, their own set of processes, you may have over-engineered your system. So, to really make sure that your system is optimized for those expansions, you need to try and streamline where you can. We did a client optimization recently. They had over 800 expense types in their system. By the time we were done, we got it down to about 50, because once the analysis was done to really, really look at what was being used, the frequency, the dollar amount of that spend, most of it came down to they just allowed people to call something something different and it all was the same thing at the end of the day.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>So really, I think those expansions are actually a little bit more difficult than just standing up an ERP because that's just making sure that the data aligns, that you've created the right forms and fields, whereas expanding into other countries or into other businesses, you need to start with really understanding those requirements.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely agree. And you mentioned something that was really... That hit home for me. As somebody who owned a program as a former Concur customer and now working at SAP Concur, I had real trouble in identifying and going through the mandated or regulatory requirements versus what was just a nice to have. And it was really difficult to get everybody on the same page or to get anybody to tell me what the difference was truly between that regulatory or just a nice to have.</p>
<p>And I ended up putting together a global governance council, kind of a steering committee that would have cross-functional stakeholders in there who were able to keep me on top or abreast of what was happening from a regulatory perspective and also helped me to be able to know when to push back. Is that something that the Lyndon Group actually is able to do with customers? Are you able to provide some of that ongoing support once they have stood up a globalized system?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah. Actually, we DO do that. In fact, we're one of those once you're a client, you're always a client. So, we keep a pretty comprehensive database of where our clients have a country present and we will proactively stay on top of it. So, if something significant changed, a tax law, maybe a new mandate or a change in a travel allowance, we'll proactively just say, "Did you know that this changed? This is something that is going to impact you. You need to consider it. And it is just that, because it's not just being compliant with the statutory requirements. When you take something like travel allowance, for example, you need to also look at the company culture. In some cases, the company may be a U.S. company and they really want to make sure that they're giving their employees the right allowances, for example.</p>
<p>So if say for example, they only get €24 a day, but they still want to allow their employees to claim actuals, that's a business decision that drives the way that you set up Concur so that you can track what they would have had, and then anything above and beyond that that's taxable, you now have available and reporting to pass on either to the employee or potentially to your payroll department, because remember, these statutory laws don't just impact the company. In a lot of cases, there's an individual, employee tax liability. And when you're thinking about employee experience, you want to make sure that you're doing the right things so that you're giving them the right information so that they, as an individual are also staying compliant.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>I think that's going to be actually even more important domestically in the U.S. as we start to move to some of the hybrid organizations where employees are traveling from home offices into a headquarters and working for specific amounts of time within different states from where they live. Those become tax events for a lot of corporations. So, it's one thing to keep in mind. I know we look at it from a real global perspective, but I think we're going to have to start focusing on some of that from a domestic perspective as well. Have you heard of anything that's happening on that front with your customers? I know we've been getting some questions about it. I wasn't sure if you had at this point.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>It is interesting. We've had some conversations with clients about that, but there are some really great Concur partners that have amazing programs that... But I think that Deloitte that provide that cross border of payroll tax reporting, and that's always our thing. Is go to the experts for something like that, because again, you're creating that employee liability. So you want to make sure you're doing the right thing.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. I think that's great. The partner areas where we're also identifying as well. You did mention the term that I really love that, "Think of Concur like a condo and you have different floor plans you can use." We've talked about building out from an M&A or a country expansion perspective, but for a customer who's had a site for a very long time and as we all know, businesses are living organizations, right? They change their goals, change their corporate needs, change...So, what was built 15 or 10 years ago may not actually be what they need moving forward. Do you have any advice for customers who are thinking about how they're going to update, or maybe even re-platform their site to better identify with some of the business outcomes that they're looking to do now to make people more compliant, to make it a bit more expansive, to make it easier to scale within the organization?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. And I think it ties back to what we've already talked about, is really making sure that you understand the requirements, right? Versus those nice to have. And then really thinking like a global company. And then when I say global, it could be a U.S. only company, but maybe they have 13 different entities or business units within their organization that represent 13 different business models. Maybe one is doing client-side billing and the other one's doing project work. And really making sure that you look for the commonality so that you can develop... We use those floor plan analogies.</p>
<p>So that within your site, if you're re-platforming, when you're reconfiguring it, you know that these are the three, four plans you need, and then figuring out a way to fit your different business entities into that is going to keep you more scalable and leave some of those building materials, if you will, those custom forms and fields consistently available for any other expansion or any other new kind of business operations that come into play. Maybe today, you don't do a bell back, but in the future, you might, but now you've over-engineered your site and you're out of custom fields to be able to do something like that.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>When I think about all these different opportunities that customers have to reimagine or redefine where they're going, I think about change management and program launch best practices. Is there something that you can share with our customers from a perspective of... And they are our customers because they're joint.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>We're sharing the same customers. Is there something you can talk to our customers about when they think about how they're relaunching their programs, whether it's through our review to update for new ERP systems, whether it's a re-platforming, whether it's an expansion, what should they be thinking about from a change management perspective?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Well, it's a couple of different parts to answer that. The first thing is you said earlier that when you were on the client side, you had to a global steering committee. I can't stress enough that if you're running a large enough program, that you need some form of T&A steering committee. If you've got a huge sales organization, bring your sales leaders into those conversations. When you're getting ready to change something like that, include your biggest customers, your internal end-users in part of that, bring some champions in to get their point of view for the right way to position things. The other is some of our clients are going through some economic crisis right now, and they may be for the first time in a long time, really laser focused on cost cutting and spend control. But you don't want to do that at the risk of degrading overall employee experience, right?</p>
<p>If it's your road warriors and you've made it so restrictive to them that travel's miserable on top of it already being miserable because of the state of the world, you have to really make sure to balance that. So including them in those conversations not only gives you their point of view, but it also gets you to have support from the leaders in those organizations. It's really effective. The other piece of it is just making sure that you always find an opportunity to position things. The best way to say it is I really believe your employees inherently want to do the right thing. Most of them. We do this. We do hundreds of written policy reviews. And a lot of times we will read those policies, or we'll look at client's training materials and they just say what you can and can't do, but they never really explained why, right?</p>
<p>This is a rule. It's just a rule. It is what it is. But if it is because you are trying to cut costs, if it is because maybe you took... I had a client years ago... It's a funny story. It's a rather large company. They were going through cost cutting. I was there for a business meeting and she made a joke about, "I'm sorry, we got rid of liquid creamer. It's one of our cutbacks. And here's some powdered creamer for your coffee." And later in that meeting, we were talking about things like that liquid creamer and some things in her program that she wasn't doing. And I said, "Wouldn't you be a champion if you could bring back liquid creamers?" You were able to position all this savings and it became like a joke for the longest time for years.</p>
<p>I still run into that client. We always joke about the creamer, but I think it's really important that you include them in on the why, and that you position the change for things is understanding that "We have to do this. This is something we're all required to do." Or trying to find the benefit at things. That, "We're trying to keep you compliant; we're trying to keep you safe. We want you as an individual to comply with any statutory tax requirements you have. We want you to be safe when you're traveling." Whatever those things are, is making sure that that communication is employee focused.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>It's fascinating that you mentioned bringing people in and explaining the why. I think we don't do enough of that in any situation. When people have the context for what's happening, they tend to change their behavior fairly quickly. I'm always reminded of when I ran a program that I had a group who needed to purchase a piece of equipment. It was affecting work-life balance. People were having to work overtime, there were too many people on the machine, but the other thing that they were also doing was that every Friday, they bought donuts for the floor. It was donut Friday. And as we went through and looked at their spend on donuts, they were complaining again that they couldn't buy this piece of equipment, and I reminded them that they spent $40,000 on donuts the year before on expense reports.</p>
<p>So, which was more important? The donuts or the machine? And when they started to think about it that way, all of a sudden, the light bulb went off and we had fewer doughnut Fridays. There was still high morale, but it was even higher because now everybody could work normal hours. It's really fascinating when you tell somebody the context of why something is happening, how much more compliant they become. So, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that. I think it's something we don't talk about enough. As we look forward here, when we talk about customers rethinking and re-imagining, talking about providing the why, that's an aha moment for us. So, there are other aha moments that you could share with us that you've seen customers have. I mean, I think I just talked about one using some data, but are there other places that you can think about it?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>I mean, I think all the aha moments using your data, I can't stress this enough. I've done several Concur speaking engagements lately and I think the information that sits in the Concur Reporting tool is just so grossly underutilized. I know a lot of times; people are looking at just what you said. They're looking at spend, but are they really looking at that spend to be able to prove something, to drive a conversation? And even using that configure, and even using that data to look at things, not just where spend is, but like I said, on expense types. Really focusing on the frequency of use. And we were doing a project with a client and one of their business units was arguing, arguing, arguing over a certain expense type that needed... We were trying to get it removed from the system.</p>
<p>And when we came back to them and said, "This has literally been used four times a year, which means it's probably some quarterly payment that could go out. A complication over there says you could do X, Y, and Z." And once we were able to prove the frequency and the actual spend of that, they were able to back off a little bit. The other thing is really just staying on top of your credit card program spend. I can't tell you how often we do optimization reviews and find on card programs, they're really not staying on top of the information that's Concur, and we will see things, 90, 120 days. Sometimes you have credit card charges that are still sitting in that system that are years old and it's just a lot of noise. And if you are... As with all things going on right now, there's a constant, a lot of shift.</p>
<p>I've seen people moving to new ERPs, they're replacing TMCs. There are also a lot of movement in the credit card space. And if you're moving to a new credit card program, but you haven't been proactively managing that, you're going to be prepared to write some big fat check to whoever that bank is at the end of that, if you're not cleaning up and really reconciling what you've got in your system. And I just think that's one of those things that is often really overlooked for clients and we find that's something that a lot of times, we have to help them clean up and get their systems ready if they know they're going to be having a new card program coming.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>I love that you brought that up. So as a former finance nerd who was always having to do accruals, that becomes a real financial reporting concern, because if you can't tie out what you've paid out to a card to what employees have spent, and they haven't submitted it, you're spending money that may or may not be truly tied to the business and you're not tracking what is actually going on and what is coming in. So, I love that you brought that up. That just made my heart so happy in a weird way.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Us finance nerds have to stick together.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>That's right. That's right. We recovering accountants need to do our stuff. So, when I think about all the things that we've talked about so far, to bring me back out of my nerdiness, when I think about what customers are doing where they start, where do we start? You mentioned something about the written policy. And I know for me, the written policy, when I was a program owner, when I worked on the implementation side in the Concur environment, written policy was like that bible. So if you can start us from there, what does a customer need to do as they start to come to you to define configuration? We start with the policy, correct?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah. We consider that to be the foundation of anybody's program, because those are your roots, right? So, the first thing is making sure that your policy is good. No offense to the lawyers out there, but a lot of times, they're written in a way that your employees don't even necessarily understand them. If it is more than maybe 10 to 15 pages, it's probably too long. It's actually said that it should be written in a sixth grade reading level to make sure that you encompass everybody. It needs... Like I said, you need to explain the way to get buy-in from your employees, but it also needs to be consistent in tone and tenor. I can't tell you how many times we read a policy and it's written from-it's inconsistent. If cost control is your company's focus, then you want that tone to carry through it. There's a lot of “may or might” or “you should versus you need tos,” and just making sure that's consistent.</p>
<p>But also, really making sure that it encompasses some of the changes that we've had to the work environment lately and making sure that you're thinking about the new types of spend that you're having in your system and updating those written policies for work from home type expenses, because in a lot of cases, going back to that employee tax liability, you could be creating one. I always joke that you your employee need a stand-up desk because now they're working from home, maybe full-time or part-time and unless they're going to put that desk in their car and bring it back to your brick and mortar someday, that could be construed as a taxable benefit. So, are you making sure that those types of work from home expenses are clearly defined in your policy, what's allowable, but more importantly, again, if you put that in your policy, what have you done in Concur to make sure that you have the reporting data available to say this information, if an employee requests it, if you need to track it?</p>
<p>All those different types of things, and then we use the policy, but we also look at, again, those global statutory requirements. And then I really... One of the first questions I ask a new client if I'm doing a program optimization, meaning we're not just looking at the Concur configuration, but we start with, "Hey, today is Bob's first day. Tell me how Bob gets a credit card. Show me your written policy. Show me how they're trained." I really want to make sure. We ask a lot about your employee base. Because of the fact we deal with so many different companies, different sizes, different industries, what you might do from a change management and configuration, a communication, training, all of that, is going to be different if you have a purely millennial workforce versus if you're oil, mining and gas and your guys still have flip phones and they're covered in oil.</p>
<p>It's just going to be different. So when I'm designing a program, not just a configuration, I really want to understand company culture and what your employees can do, what they can't do, what they're going to understand, what their behaviors are, because you want to design your end program to meet those needs.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>You mentioned something that I think is really critical especially in this environment for the next 12 to 18 months. When we're trying to be proactive versus reactive, these hybrid business models are bringing more people who have never used the expense platforms in before, because they've never had to. They're not necessarily travelers, but now because they're working from home, that uptick of spend ties to a lot of things that we think about as controls within an expense system-things like using credit cards versus cash, making sure that the... You mentioned the purchase of the stand-up desk, that purchase of fixed assets and how things are depreciated. Are there things that we should be looking at from a non-travel spend that are controls that are key for work from home policies that tie maybe back to things that we haven't thought about, those things like OSHA requirements and data, business continuity type things?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Actually, we have a white paper on this, and it talks just through that. It talks to everything about the fact that you have your employees now working from home, it's not just a work from home policy of what expense types they can use and what the treatment and how they're supposed to submit those things. It is all those things. It is the OSHA requirements, it's data privacy. I mean, in the early days, I mean, my house was a school, it was a gym, it was music class and I had people coming in out of my house and I'm sitting here and working on a customer. What if I'm talking about a customer and they overhear something? So that's a really good point when you think about work from home policy. You should be engaging all your cross-functional stakeholders in your organization to make sure that you are protecting the business and your employees for sure.</p>
<p>And then with regards to the fact that you have a whole new potential user base that you haven't had before, I mean, there's a couple of different ways to approach that. I mean, some of our clients have said, "I don't want them to see all the expense types that I give to our field-based employees. I want them to have their own policy in Concur, so it just has these work from home related expenses." So, there's a couple different approaches there when you think about it, because now you've got to train users to use something they've never used before and you have to make sure that there also isn't any rub. If you maybe have different allowances or different... Maybe your field's allowed to submit some things that you would normally have your corporate work from home employees submitting and you need to not show it to them in the system if that makes sense.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Mm-hmm (affirmative). It makes absolute sense. A couple of things that I can think of just off the top of my head as it relates to the work from home, what we're seeing in our customer base, and I'm sure you are as well, the uptick in the cash spend, which is a very different type of spend because you're not going to be giving a corporate card to everybody in the organization. So that idea of the cash spend being higher brings a whole set of issues to the fore. You mentioned earlier about credit card submissions and those transactions maybe being out 120 days or more. In a cash situation, that becomes a taxable liability for the organization past a certain number of days in the U.S.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>120. Yeah.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. So, you really need to keep on top of that. So being able to put in some controls, even some audit rules and making sure that you're really using the configuration to your advantage with notification emails and stuff are really big. The second thing that I've seen personally in the customer base that I'm looking at are the vendor types that are coming in. The Venmos, the PayPals the Amazons. Venmo, PayPal, Amazon are things that are... In some cases, with Venmo, it's a social media. So, everybody can see the purchase that's been made by this person if they have their profile set to public. And it's pretty easy for any other customer of that organization to be able to see what's happening. So, have you seen a lot of that vendor type consideration, the Venmo, the PayPal, the Amazon? And Amazon, the thing that concerns me is that most of those are private accounts. They're not typically business accounts. So, when you return something to Amazon, typically you're getting a credit to your account. It's not going back to the card.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>So it sets up a whole another set of problems for our customers to be able to reclaim that money that they've already paid for out of perhaps a corporate credit card. Have you seen a lot of this, and do you have any advice for customers related to this?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah, I have lots of. I mean, there's so, so many different ways to approach this. So, the first thing I'll address is... And I just want to level set on this. I said earlier that I think that employees inherently want to do the right thing and I do wholeheartedly agree to that. I also know and it's proven through years and years of study and if you're in any kind of an internal audit capacity, you know this. During any type of global catastrophe economic distress, there is always an uptick in employee-initiated fraud. It just is. It's a trend. So more now than ever, you should be making sure that, to your point, you have the right audit rules, you have one of the great Concur audit services from Concur, that you're getting that extra layer, especially if it's one of the newer products that have AI, where it's looking at those receipts, making sure that your cash reimbursements must have receipts, creating audit rules based off vendors.</p>
<p>We have lots of clients that have came to us in a flurry and said, "We have to do a hundred percent audit on things like PayPal and Venmo for just that." How am I supposed to know they didn't go...? Well, last year they weren't really going out to dinner, but this year, how do I know they're not just at dinner with their friends and they're just chipping in and this has nothing to do with work? I mean, there's... Even the receipt that I get doesn't tell me what vendor they spent the money with. So, you're really going to have to A, make sure there's some kind of documentation there and that you're adding that extra layer, but also setting expectations with employees they should use... If that's the way that they're sending their money, you can draw a line in the sand and say, "We're not going to reimburse you if you're using PayPal to pay for this. If it's a cash out of pocket, use your own personal credit card, use your own personal so that you'll get that information."</p>
<p>And I think you're always going to have inherently some cash spend. I mean, you're not going to put people's mobile spend and mileage. There's always going to be a certain set of expenses that are going to be cash spend, but those are relatively low risk items because they're things like mobile reimbursement where it's a fixed amount, but this really does create a whole new set of risks for companies because of the increase in cash spend for sure.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I was thinking about and that I've been recommending to our customers is that <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/amazon-business-integration-for-concur-expense">we've recently just come out with an Amazon app on the expense side</a>. So, Amazon for Business partner app is something that customers can take a look at. It's a free app to take a look at and be able to control some of that Amazon spend so that you know what's happening from a business perspective. It's a really great new tool that has come out of us watching this happening with our customer base.</p>
<p>And when I think about it, as we're watching our customer base, last year was a big year for those implementations for you. Are you seeing a similar trend this year? Customers still continuing to optimize and configure and roll out to take advantage of the downtime to fix root causes versus just answering to the symptoms?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>I think, yes, absolutely. There is some of that. There's also, I think a "lessons learned" that came out of it, especially on the travel side, where organizations might've allowed a decentralized travel program, meaning EMEA might've had a TMC and a process and over here, we had something. And during the early days of that, realizing having such a... So many different types of individual travel programs, it was really hard for global travel managers to get their head around everything. So, we're seeing a lot of consolidation and standardization, both on the travel and expense front where organizations realized not only is it the downtime, but that there's definitely a need for them to be a little bit more standard about everything from booking to expense management within their organizations.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. I fully agree with that. We recently did a poll survey of our TripIt users and one of the things we discovered was customers are willing to travel. However, about 31% of them are still willing to book directly with the vendor versus using a corporate tool. So, I think this ties back to that idea of a root cause and a symptom. I think nothing has really changed even given pandemic and it's more important now than ever before for our customers to ensure that they get all that travel information into the system so that they can track in a much more consolidated way for business continuity perspectives, for duty of care perspective, and for cost and an employee convenience perspective. So, I think about things like our partner apps and our TripIt tools and our TripLinks and I just think that now is the time. Are you seeing an uptick in customers asking about those type of travel consolidation tools?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>And I love TripIt.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>I do too.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>I mean, as a road warrior, there couldn't be a better thing out there. I just have to throw that out there.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. It is just a pleasure to use, and I bought a license for my daughter because she was doing a lot of traveling for her company and they don't have it and she can't live without it now.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Yeah. Exactly. My favorite is when you're traveling, and you know something about a gate change or a delayed flight before even the gate agent does. So, they're like, "We don't know." And I'm like, "I do. It says right here that we're not... We're leaving in two hours. It says right here."</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. "I need to change the flight because you've delayed it." "I don't know that." "I do."</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. Well, is there anything else that I have forgotten to ask about or anything you wanted to share with our customer base before we close out?</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>No, I just... Anytime that I can talk to a Concur administrator, I always just want to tell them... Pat them on the back and say, "Congratulations for surviving one of the most disruptive things that have ever happened in our industry." And I think they're one of the most undervalued roles within an organization. It breaks my heart. Again, it doesn't matter what size company it is. It's often the second largest controllable spend right after payroll yet it seems to not be elevated to that same level as some of the other processes within an organization. But you're really are true champions and using all the great things from Concur or partners like ourselves or many of the other great ones out there to really help you figure out how to position yourself within the organization because you touch so many cross-functional teams within an organization, it can be overwhelming.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yep. They make it look so easy, but it really isn't.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>It is rocket science.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Mm-hmm (affirmative).</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>It really is. So, thank you for calling that out. I one hundred percent agree with you. Well, thank you today for sharing all of this information with me, Kara. I really appreciate it. And congratulations to the Lyndon Group on our growth award. We're really excited to have you as a partner and just thrilled to see what the next year brings for us as a team.</p>
<p>Kara Bernard:</p>
<p>Great. Us too. Thank you for having me.</p>
<p>Jeanne Dion:</p>
<p>Yeah. Thanks. And thanks everybody for listening. Please feel free to take a look at Concur.com and look up any of the solutions or partner applications that we talked about today in our conversation.</p>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634769511097-kara square.png" /> </p>
<p>Kara, based in Oregon, is the Managing Director and oversees all Spend Management related projects for Lyndon Group. She has 13+ years’ experience in the Travel Management and Expense space, six of those on the client side, four with SAP Concur and the last four with Lyndon Group. Leveraging her extensive experience in travel, meetings and expense spend management, she helps client organizations achieve success through optimization of their processes and programs. Throughout her career, Kara has written or contributed to several industry whitepapers and has spoken at numerous SAP Concur events. Outside of her work successes, she enjoys collecting 1950’s Sci Fi Movies and Robots while enjoying LOTS of coffee. </p>
<p>Follow her on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kara-bernard-5762563/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634175398494-jeanne square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community.</p>
<p>Follow her on<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-dion-67062b8/"> LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
SAP and Qualtrics Launch Concur Experience Optimizer
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-and-qualtrics-launch-concur-experience-optimizer
2022-07-01T17:19:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
BELLEVUE Wash and PROVO Utah Oct SAP SE NYSE SAP and Qualtrics Nasdaq XM today announced the availability of Concur Experience Optimizer a new solution that allows companies to...
<p><strong>BELLEVUE, Wash. and PROVO, Utah — Oct. 27, 2021 — </strong><a href="http://www.sap.com/">SAP SE</a> (NYSE: SAP) and <a href="http://www.qualtrics.com">Qualtrics</a> (Nasdaq: XM) today announced the availability of Concur® Experience Optimizer, a new solution that allows companies to improve employee experiences and confidently adapt travel and expense programs for the future of work. Concur Experience Optimizer combines the listening and analysis capabilities of Qualtrics EmployeeXM™, the leading product for employee experience management, with operational intelligence data from Concur® Travel and Concur® Expense solutions to help companies design travel programs for the hybrid workplace, improve spend management processes and increase employee retention.</p>
<p>Many employees are ready to return to pre-pandemic levels of business travel, with seven in ten (70%) expecting to go back to traveling as much as they did before the pandemic, according to <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/business-travel-study/">recent research</a> from Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, and the SAP Concur organization. A small majority (54%) of business travelers say traveling for business is still very important or critical to their role and four in five (84%) say they are willing to travel within the next year.</p>
<p>Yet the experience of traveling for business is unlikely to go back to exactly the way it was pre-pandemic due to marked changes in employee expectations. Global business travelers expect new benefits — like the ability to choose direct flights or select premium seating — from their employers to help ensure their health and safety, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-to-business-travel">research</a> said. Alongside business travel, employee spending behavior is also evolving with more non-travel purchases initiated directly by employees, requiring new expense categories to support remote, hybrid and in-person work.</p>
<p>“People are a company’s greatest asset, and it’s no secret that retaining employees has become even more critical,” said Mike Koetting, SAP Concur solution area lead at SAP. “A company’s travel and expense programs can directly impact an employee’s experience. Concur Experience Optimizer helps organizations understand the reasons behind employee behavior so they can make adjustments that are in line with both employee sentiment and business objectives.”</p>
<p>“Our research shows that demand for business travel is returning to pre-pandemic levels, but getting the employee experience right is more nuanced and complicated than ever before,” said Jay Choi, Qualtrics chief product officer. “It’s critical for organizations to understand how employees feel about the new world of travel and use that experience data to meet their evolving health and safety needs.”</p>
<p>Concur Experience Optimizer uses technology from Qualtrics and SAP® Concur solutions, plus expert services from SAP Concur Experience Management consultants to help companies listen, analyze and act on employee feedback to create continuous feedback loops and understand the impact of adjustments made over time. Companies can easily capture employee sentiment with science-backed feedback templates and view the results through simple, intuitive dashboards that show the impact of sentiment against operational data metrics. Those insights can be turned into focused action plans to improve employees’ travel and expense experiences, compliance, and budget predictability.</p>
<p>With Concur Experience Optimizer, companies can level up their entire program — from buying behavior to supplier options to workflow — to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Improve employee experiences.</strong> Better understand how policies are affecting employee sentiment, safety, well-being, productivity and attrition risk. </li>
<li><strong>Effectively manage spend. </strong>Gain insight into the critical influences that impact employee buying decisions and organizational spending patterns, supporting early detection of potential saving opportunities and closing policy and process gaps.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Reduce risk and non-compliant spend.</strong> Identify risks in programs and adjust processes that allow for noncompliant and potentially fraudulent spending.</li>
<li><strong>Optimize programs for growth.</strong> Make confident travel, expense, compliance and spend management program adjustments to lead healthy business growth with enhanced visibility into critical business problems.</li>
<li><strong>Drive sustainability. </strong>Make enhancements that align with organizational sustainability objectives, enhance the organization’s brand and reduce the carbon footprint.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Concur Experience Optimizer brings together the horsepower of SAP Concur and Qualtrics to allow finance leaders and travel managers to be active drivers of improved employee experiences,” said Kevin Permenter, Research Director at IDC. “This solution has potential to help companies get ahead of spend problems by shaping spend with employee sentiment as a guide.”</p>
<p>To learn more visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">Concur.com/experience-optimizer</a>.</p>
<p><strong>About SAP Concur</strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur is the world’s leading brand for integrated travel, expense and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. The highly rated SAP Concur mobile app guides employees through business trips, charges are directly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to analyze transactions, businesses can see what they’re spending, improve compliance and avoid possible blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur solutions help eliminate yesterday’s tedious tasks, make today’s work easier and support businesses to run at their best. Learn more at <a href="http://www.concur.com">concur.com</a> or the SAP Concur <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom">blog</a>.</p>
<p><strong>About SAP</strong></p>
<p>SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as a sustainable intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 87% of the world’s total global commerce touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into sustainable intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want, without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">www.sap.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>About Qualtrics</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/">Qualtrics</a>, the leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business—customer, employee, product and brand. Over 13,500 organizations around the world use Qualtrics to listen, understand and take action on experience data (X-data™)—the beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/">qualtrics.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>For more information, press only:</strong></p>
<p>Alex Vaught, +1 (425) 590-0844, <a href="mailto:alex.vaught@sap.com">alex.vaught@sap.com</a>, PT</p>
<p>Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. © 2021 SAP SE. All rights reserved. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices</p>
SAP Concur Team
Compliance and Fraud: What You Can't See Can Cost You
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/compliance-and-fraud-what-you-cant-see-can-cost-you
2022-07-01T17:27:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the way in which we do business and the ways that employees spend on behalf of organizations continue to increase in complexity issues around compliance and fraud are also...
<p>As the way in which we do business and the ways that employees spend on behalf of organizations continue to increase in complexity, issues around compliance and fraud are also increasing in complexity. Many organizations currently perceive that their policies and processes are “good enough” because they either haven’t had a major issue to contend with yet, or that they trust their employees to be honest about their company spending. However, there are many things to consider in today’s landscape. The world has changed, and the way finance departments are managing spend needs to evolve with it.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/default/Infographics.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Minimizing Fraud, Maximizing Compliance</h2>
<p>See what more could you be doing to protect your organization from the risks around employee-initiated spend.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-economic-uncertainty">Download the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Employee spending has complicated spend management</strong></h2>
<p>Employees today are spending more money, across more spend categories, using more payment methods than ever before. Additionally, suppliers are developing direct and personal relationships with your employees, and the consumer-like technology used to make purchases is the new normal. This spending behavior is what we call employee-initiated spend, and the influx of channels of employee spend creates numerous points of potential risk for accidental or intentional policy violations and fraud without a capacity to capture spend across all categories and from all suppliers:</p>
<ul>
<li>37% of business travelers had at least <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">one exception on the T&E report</a>s</li>
<li>$2,448 was the average reimbursement amount requested by <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/whats-your-spend-management-costing-you">employees who submit fraudulent claim</a>s</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Expense and travel is a major area vulnerable to fraud and compliance risks</strong></h2>
<p>The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) conducts a study every two years on the topic of <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/">occupational fraud</a>, when the employee is the perpetrator of schemes defrauding their organization. Asset misappropriation was by far the most common form of occupational fraud, though the least-costly, occurring in more than 86% of cases and resulting in a median loss of $100,000. Examples of asset misappropriation include employees embezzling company assets, falsifying timecards, and padding travel and expense claims. On the other hand, financial statement fraud schemes are the least common and most-costly, accounting for 10% of cases and a median loss of $954,000.</p>
<p>The ACFE has identified travel fraud schemes occurring at organizations today, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Profitable per-diems:</strong> The fraudulent activity that can occur, even for the most ethical traveler, is instead of utilizing the daily allowance (per-diem), the traveler decides to profit from it by using a small portion of the allowance, and then pocketing the rest.</li>
<li><strong>Mileage padding:</strong> Without proper controls in place, it’s difficult to validate mileage claims, especially if you’re still utilizing a manual log instead of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">GPS tracking capabilities</a>. This leaves the door open for fraud perpetrators to pad by a little or by a lot.</li>
<li><strong>Fake expenses:</strong> If you have a policy that does not require a receipt for expenses under a certain amount, employees could take advantage of you. For example, they could submit an expense for breakfast under the limit amount without a receipt, when in fact, they ate breakfast free at the hotel.</li>
<li><strong>Unused airline tickets:</strong> Fraudulent activity occurs when a ticket has been booked for a business trip that gets canceled or rescheduled, then the employee books and expenses a second ticket instead of paying a small fee to cancel or rebook on the first ticket. Now, the employee has a free airline trip at the expense of your organization.</li>
<li><strong>Last-minute flight bookings:</strong> The closer to a travel date that a ticket is purchased, the more it costs – and frequent travelers will know that more expensive tickets are easier to upgrade. The cost of the ticket opens the door for an opportunist to obtain upgrades and rewards by booking their travel at the last minute.</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, difficult-to-detect expense fraud schemes include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Double-dipping:</strong> This occurs when an expense is claimed twice. For example, if two employees dine together and they each get a receipt for the total bill, and both employees claim the entire meal instead of their individual meal.</li>
<li><strong>Pattern identification:</strong> Without an integrated spend management system in place, you miss a huge opportunity for reporting capabilities to analyze and uncover spend patterns and prevent fraud that is hard to detect.</li>
<li><strong>Schemes that work across different financial systems (AP, T&E, P-card):</strong> Opportunists will inevitably continue to find new ways to defraud a singular system, therefore, predictive learnings across multiple systems will help you catch fraudulent activity and patterns – whether it’s a T&E or corporate card scheme – by pulling in data from your CRM, accounting systems, and more.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Fraud and compliance violations are expensive</strong></h2>
<p>With the overwhelming number of regulations and standards globally, it’s challenging for organizations to have confidence in their spend data for ensuring compliance. It’s critical now, more than ever, to put the right technology in place to detect and prevent risks around fraud and compliance. Without the right systems, it takes a lot of time and resources to build and maintain the expertise required just to understand all the regulations and policies necessary to create a culture of compliance.</p>
<p>Not complying with government rules and regulations is not an option for any organization. Furthermore, not playing by the rules can lead to crippling fines, property seizure, incarceration, and more.</p>
<p>Top <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/">fraud expenses organizations incu</a>r include:</p>
<ul>
<li>5% of a typical organization’s annual revenues are lost <a href="https://go.concur.com/20489-sg-control-compliance-helping-org-reduce-waste-and-risk-of-fraud-lp.html">due to frau</a>d</li>
<li>86% of fraud cases involve asset misappropriation, including padding T&E claims</li>
<li>$100K is the median loss from asset misappropriation</li>
</ul>
<p>Top penalties for <a href="https://fcpablog.com/2021/05/26/whats-new-on-the-fcpa-top-ten-list/">Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations</a> include:</p>
<ul>
<li>$3.3B by a U.S.-based investment company </li>
<li>$2.09B by a European multinational aerospace corporation</li>
<li>$1.78B by a multinational petroleum company</li>
</ul>
<p>Monetary loss is not the only risk that fraud and non-compliance can bring upon an organization. Reputational risks and legal ramifications can be worse than losing money. ACFE found that 46% of victim organizations declined to refer cases to law enforcement because internal discipline was sufficient. This is followed by fear of bad publicity (32%): loss of confidence with the board, partners, and shareholders; and potential employee fallout.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>Putting fraud safeguards in place is essential</strong></h2>
<p>When employees accidentally violate the rules, or worse, commit outright fraud, the cost can be substantial and your organization gets exposed to unnecessary risk. Organizations with proactive data monitoring/analysis reduced their losses to fraud by 33%.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can help put safeguards in place by:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Simplifying expense reporting:</strong> Our apps make it simple for end-users to submit expenses and receipts, meaning faster reporting and more accurate data from the get-go.</li>
<li><strong>Uncovering hidden spend:</strong> We can provide full visibility into employee travel spend, even if employees book outside of approved tools.</li>
<li><strong>Audit preparation:</strong> Our tools offer an automatically created audit trail for every employee-initiated transaction<strong>.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Outsourced audit expertise:</strong> Our skilled audit team provides objectivity, multi-language support, and quick turnaround for expense report reviews.</li>
</ul>
<p>Fraud and compliance risks exist at every organization of every size, of every industry, and in every location. To learn more, <strong>download the eBook </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-economic-uncertainty">Preventing and Detecting Fraud During Economic Uncertainty</a>.</p>
Lara Edwards
How to Bring Invisible Employee Spend Onto Your Radar
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-bring-invisible-employee-spend-your-radar
2022-07-02T05:33:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Intelligent Spend Management is a comprehensive way for organizations to obtain a unified view of employeeinitiated spend A key component of employeeinitiated spend is travel In the...
<p>Intelligent Spend Management is a comprehensive way for organizations to obtain a unified view of employee-initiated spend. A key component of employee-initiated spend is travel. In the paragraphs below, we will examine some reasons why employees are booking outside of the corporate managed travel program, how that behavior can introduce risk to the company, and suggest ways in which technology can be used so that expenses booked outside of the corporate program can be managed and brought into view.</p>
<p>As travel begins to pick up, customization and control are the demands of employees. Though the general consensus is that travel will return, there’s no denying that it will be forever changed by the pandemic. Traveling employees’ requirements around safety and comfort have never been more important. In fact, according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">a Wakefield survey</a>, twenty-four percent of Gen Z and Millennial respondents would search for a new position if these needs weren’t met. If the perception is that a travel booking tool is difficult to use, it likely will not be used.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What are risks generated by employees booking outside of corporate travel tools?</h2>
<p>If you are the treasurer, procurement director, or travel manager in charge of the corporate travel budget, one of your goals is to maximize the savings you can obtain from booking with preferred vendors you have negotiated contract prices with. Your corporate travel booking tool and travel management company (TMC) can help in directing employees according to your travel policies. However, employee bookings outside of the managed-travel program reduce the opportunity to apply negotiated rates and keep track of the number of flights or nights booked. Booking outside the managed-travel program also foregoes application of your corporate policies. While you may be able to track bookings <strong>after</strong> the trip is completed and the expense report is submitted, additional work by your accounting team will be required to reconcile and aggregate the spend. Bottom line: you can exercise more control of spend when employees book everything through the corporate travel program.</p>
<p>More control generally means less risk.</p>
<p>If you are the head of human resources and have a goal to increase employee satisfaction and attract and retain top talent, you want to enable your employees to use tools they are familiar and comfortable with, demonstrating your organization’s commitment to keeping up with innovation. Supporting your employees with tools that enable them to stay within policy – even when booking outside of the managed travel program – while simultaneously informing your organization’s travel manager of booking details, could keep your travelers happy and provide the desired visibility and integration with your managed travel program.</p>
<p><strong>Intelligent enterprises capture employee-initiated spend and apply policy as soon as spend occurs, providing a unified view of spend without burdening the employee with additional reporting requirements.</strong></p>
<p>Capturing data from bookings outside of the corporate travel program can increase visibility and control of spend. How do we capture that data while enabling travelers to book the way they prefer?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Enhancing the employee experience</h2>
<p>Suppliers in the travel ecosystem are looking for ways to make a traveler’s life easier. Mobile apps enable air, train, hotel, and rental car vendors to book reservations and keep track of bookings from a smartphone. Data from the traveler’s record and booking history are tracked through the frequent flyer or loyalty traveler number. The traveler’s itinerary and receipts can be emailed to the traveler, eliminating the need for the traveler to scan and attach paper documents when sharing their travel info with family and friends, or in the process of generating expense reports. Local transportation can be booked online through ride apps, and e-receipts automatically emailed to the traveler. Free travel apps, such as<a href="https://www.tripit.com/web"> TripIt from Concur</a>, enhance the employee experience by integrating data feeds from different vendors so that travelers can see a unified view of their trip and receive alerts when unexpected changes to their plans occur – all from their smartphone.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does the organization benefit?</h2>
<p>Sharing the above information with the traveler’s organization ensures stakeholders get visibility into the bookings and reservations that the employee makes outside the corporate managed travel program. Combined with travel booked using the corporate booking tools, these organizations gain a complete, unified view of employee-initiated travel spend.</p>
<p>Customers using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel and Expense</a> can accomplish the above with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>. Employees can book directly on the hotel and airline websites and have the corporate negotiated rates applied. All the booking details are automatically passed to the managed travel program provided by the SAP Concur platform, enabling the finance organization to have full visibility on travel plans and accrued payables. The human resources and corporate safety teams benefit by being able to more accurately locate and support employees that are traveling in the event of a natural disaster or regional disturbances. With tools such as Concur TripLink, organizations can bring invisible spend into view, improving their spend governance, enhancing the employee experience, and addressing their <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-duty-of-care">duty of care</a>.</p>
<p>SAP Concur helps organizations attain desired business outcomes through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/intelligent-spend-management">Intelligent Spend Management</a>, enabling control of every source and category of spend while delivering workforce experiences that increase engagement and productivity. The SAP Concur Customer Improvement team will help your organization realize more value from your investment in SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on how SAP Concur can help, please </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact"><strong>contact us</strong></a><strong>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Are Your Employees Ready to Get Back On the Road? Are You Ready to Ask Them?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-your-employees-ready-get-back-road-are-you-ready-ask-them
2022-11-13T16:17:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your employees know they need to go, but how they get there is going to change.
<p>It’s happening, albeit slowly. The world is moving from virtual back to actual, and as you prep for it, you need every ounce of help you can get. Arguably, the most important requirement in this case is the honest opinions and apprehensions of your employees – especially those who travel for business. You need to know what they’re thinking and feeling before you ask them to pack up their roller bags and head back down the jetway.</p>
<p>It’s also important to know that their demands stem from legitimate concerns. This isn’t about having to fill out expense reports or being forced to fly coach, it’s about the very real possibility of bringing a disease home to their families.</p>
<p>No one wants that, and you don’t want to ask it of them.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Small-Medium Business Traveler Report 2020</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2020">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p>As a small or midsized business, you see first-hand how employee engagement – or employee anxiety – impacts their work. You see it because you’re right there with them, not in some out-of-touch boardroom. Your employees are everything to your company, and you want them to have the tools they need to be confident and comfortable in their careers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So where do they stand on traveling?</h2>
<p>Sure, your people want to come back to the office – many of them do, at least. And while they also want to reserve the right to work from home occasionally, they want to collaborate face-to-face. To sit around the same table. To stand at the proverbial watercooler and discuss last night’s fan-less game through their facemasks.</p>
<p>But are they ready to cram themselves into an airplane for three hours? Or a crowded train? Not quite. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2020">Wakefield Research whitepaper</a>, 37% of travelers expect to limit their use of public transportation, with 26% saying they’ll use their personal vehicle.</p>
<p>Business travelers do want to start traveling again, however. Wakefield also discovered that there are almost as many business travelers (31%) who are excited to get back out there as there are travelers who are worried about it (36%). And their worries aren’t just about safe travel. About half (51%) anticipate fewer contracts or deals that require in-person meetings, and more than 2 in 5 (43%) expect declines in new business due to lack of in-person meetings.</p>
<p>So they know they need to go, but how they get there is going to change.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Staying outside the hub</h2>
<p>Wakefield’s report also outlines how these and other traveler concerns will impact travel costs. For example, 28% plan to prioritize shorter, more direct flights, and 21% will try to avoid larger airports in major cities. These flights they’re talking about aren’t always going to be cheaper, so you’ll have to work harder to stay on top of their travel spending.</p>
<p>And if they end up in forced quarantine when they reach their destination, as 22% expect to be the case, how will you manage their work and working conditions?</p>
<p>It’s more change in a year of head-spinning changes, but if you want (and you do want) to keep your employees safe, happy, and productive on the road – while containing costs and maintaining compliance – you’ll have to be ready to adapt.</p>
<p>So ask yourself: What are the tools you need to get there? Then see what you find in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2020">Wakefield whitepaper</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
Going Global: The Traveler Experience in a Global Travel Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/going-global-traveler-experience-global-travel-program
2022-11-13T16:55:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When implementing and maintaining a global travel program, it is important to understand the traveler experience in each of your key segmented business markets.
<p>This guest post is by World Travel Inc. Will you be at SAP Concur Fusion in Orlando? Be sure to stop by booth 501 to chat with the team.</p>
<p>When implementing and maintaining a global travel program, it is important to understand the traveler experience in each of your key segmented business markets. Do I know what is important to my travelers in Australia? How will the decisions I make impact travelers in Singapore? As a global travel manager, it’s not always easy to understand the unique nuances of your global travelers, but that is where SAP Concur tools can help. In 2019, the SAP Concur organization published a whitepaper in conjunction with Wakefield Research featuring several essential insights into business travel trends and innovation useful to managers and travelers alike. A few of the report's key takeaways highlight the following similarities across all travelers in all markets, with the focus being that better travel solutions create happier and more dedicated employees. These employees are more productive and more likely to stay with the company long term.</p>
<p>Technology is driving employees’ desire for both flexibility and convenience. They want to book their business travel however they want, with many pointing to a single integrated tool as the best way to meet their needs. Let’s look at some of the key areas of technology and how SAP Concur solutions and World Travel can assist further with them.</p>
<p>Safety remains the top priority of business travelers worldwide. Therefore, a comprehensive global travel program will maintain a focus on traveler safety, security, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care">Duty of Care</a>.</p>
<p>That’s why World Travel, Inc. not only partners with proven risk management specialists but is also investing in a new platform that keeps watch over world events. Coming in Q2 2020, look for WorldWatch to identify and manage trip disruption with real time messaging and features like a Global 360° view of travelers anywhere and current travel conditions based on airport, flight route, and location.</p>
<p>Even with an online booking tool, business travelers like to have options when it comes to finalizing their itineraries. Travelers want to take advantage of every tool available to maximize the benefits they receive. When using Concur Travel as your online booking tool, your company will use a singular SAP Concur site. But based on your travel program needs there can be multiple configurations of the site, including subsites for specific markets. Multiple configurations have different use cases in Concur Travel and will always be used in a multi-agency service set-up. Each travel management company will have a configuration off the main site, while HR data feeds can be configured globally. These sites also provide region specific air, rail, hotel, and ground content and global data management.</p>
<p>Safety and variety are combined in the form of travel technology. A single, integrated platform like World Travel's propriety WorldHub system, can morph to meet travelers’ needs by market. Having one technology that can be taken anywhere on any device creates a consistent experience while providing access to the most relevant policy information and market specific content. </p>
<p>As a global reseller of SAP Concur solutions, World Travel, Inc. works with our international partners and fulfillment agencies to provide localized service while maintaining best practices for data security, risk management, consolidated reporting, and maximized site configurations. To learn more about our global travel service or SAP Concur solutions, visit us at booth 501 at SAP Concur Fusion 2020 in Orlando and <strong><a href="https://www.worldtravelinc.com/concur-fusion-2020">join us at Siro Urban Italian Kitchen for a post-show party on March 11</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Ease Corporate Growing Pains With a Clear View of Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ease-corporate-growing-pains-clear-view-spend
2022-11-13T19:08:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Seeing where you are is crucial to seeing where you can go.
<p>If you’re expanding, you’re adding costs — additional headcount, new facilities, upgraded systems, foreign tax codes you may be unfamiliar with, and any number of unexpected expenses. But knowing where you stand financially by focusing on spend visibility and cost control as you plan for growth makes it easier to realize the revenue growth that comes with expansion.</p>
<p>Eight out of 10 businesses agree. According to a survey by Oxford Economics <strong>81% of leaders say they would benefit from concentrating more on efficiency and cost control.</strong></p>
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<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The keys to successful business growth</h2>
<p>Read the survey to understand common growth challenges and how successful enterprises are meeting them. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In the study, Oxford also points out that having a clear view into costs across an organization can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Boost performance by limiting waste and redundancy before they happen.</li>
<li>Free up executives and employees to focus on strategy and other critical issues.</li>
<li>Improve flexibility, speed, and the ability to funnel resources where they’re needed most.</li>
</ul>
<p>Having this level of cost awareness can greatly impact the success of any expansion. The question is how you get there. The answer lies in these four recommendations:</p>
<p><strong>1. Emphasize cash flow early</strong>: The more you factor spending into your expansion, the fewer challenges you’ll face. Businesses that can see what’s going out the door have an easier time growing, and the most successful of those companies have a keen eye on everything from invoices to T&E spend.</p>
<p><strong>2. Facilitate internal collaboration</strong>: Silos don’t lead to success. Companies whose finance and IT teams work together to create consistent processes are able to move faster, and those that bring together all their travel, expense, and invoice data are better able to forecast spend and create accurate long-term plans.</p>
<p><strong>3. Focus on cost visibility and efficiency</strong>: When spending data is easy to find and use – when you have a single, global, near real-time view of your data — you can make smarter, faster decisions about where and how to expand your organization. You can also drive greater efficiencies, spot trends in the company, and unlock useful new insights about where you stand.</p>
<p><strong>4. Consider automating spend management</strong>; Freeing employees from finance tasks allows them to focus on more valuable work, and it helps you handle an expanded workforce without adding to your team. The right solution will also help you manage the tax and regulatory requirements of the countries into which you’re expanding, while steering you around some of the risks associated with high-growth opportunities.</p>
<p>Seeing where you are is crucial to seeing where you can go. You have to know what you’re spending to know where, when, how, and if you can expand. To learn more, <strong>download the Oxford Economics article <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth">Managing an Expansion: Keys to Successful Business Growth.</a></em></strong></p>
<div> </div>
SAP Concur Team
If You’re Not Analyzing Travel Data, How Do You Know Where You’re Headed?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-youre-not-analyzing-travel-data-how-do-you-know-where-youre-headed
2022-11-13T19:45:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Because if you can’t see what your company’s spending, you can’t see where it’s going.
<p>No one plans a trip without planning a way to pay for it – whether it’s a family vacation or a corporate excursion. But if you’re not capturing, connecting, and dissecting all the digits of your business travel data, you’re essentially doing the same thing. Because if you can’t see what your company’s spending, you can’t see where it’s going.</p>
<p>Travel is undergoing an overhaul right now, and not only is it being watched by every business owner and CFO, as well as challenged by every traveler who wants greater safety and increased flexibility, it is a critical part of kickstarting post-pandemic business momentum.</p>
<p>Your travel strategy has never enjoyed this much attention (and it may not be enjoying it now), but because it impacts how business takes off again: You should know every single thing you can about how your travelers are booking, what they’re spending, where they’re going, and how your organization is making sure their trips are both safe and sustainable.</p>
<p>Simply put, it would behoove you to find a travel analysis tool that fits your company and the new realities of business travel.</p>
<h2>Get a good look at the numbers</h2>
<p>Since all eyes are on you, you need the best possible way to see and analyze your travel and expense data. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/adding-analytics-without-adding-complexity">This quick tip sheet</a> lays out four things to look for when comparing solutions, and if you’re including the status quo in the competition, you’ll want to ask yourself:</p>
<ol>
<li>Can you capture every booking and itinerary detail, regardless of how or where your travelers booked their trips?</li>
<li>Are you automatically logging mileage, or just hoping employees aren’t making mistakes when they manually plug in the numbers?</li>
<li>Can you see spending by vendor, cost center, and employee, thereby boosting savings, discounts, and negotiations?</li>
<li>Does all your spending come together in one, easy-to-access place, like your ERP or accounting system?</li>
</ol>
<p>If you answered “no” to one or all of the above, don’t worry. You’ll still be able to send your travelers out to spark sales and foster relationships. The problem is, without any of the data or analysis, you’ll be flying blind.</p>
<ul>
<li>How will you know where your travelers are if there’s an emergency or a new quarantine?</li>
<li>How will you forecast the budget if you don’t know if more people are traveling by rail or by air – or by car, because they’re currently avoiding public transit?</li>
<li>How will you respond to employee requests about tracking (and reducing) their corporate travel carbon footprint?</li>
</ul>
<h2>A sermon to the choir</h2>
<p>Naturally, you want these numbers as much as anyone. You want to know everything you can about where and how and when your teams are on the road. You want not only to see their spending, but to effectively control it. You want to bring insights and accurate information to the table, because you know the role travel plays in moving your company forward.</p>
<p>It’s just a matter of getting there, and<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/adding-analytics-without-adding-complexity"> this tip sheet</a> is a good place to start.</p>
Neha Mehta
How Much Could You Save With an Expense Management Solution?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-much-could-you-save-expense-management-solution
2022-12-02T13:52:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Before investing in any solution or project you want to be able to estimate the potential return on investment and determine whether its worth your time and money Its simply a part of...
<p>Before investing in any solution or project, you want to be able to estimate the potential return on investment and determine whether it’s worth your time and money. It’s simply a part of good financial decision-making.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img alt="Calculator icon" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="d2a389fb-2908-445c-ba77-6ad1b4093a7c" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/281285_Calculator_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h5>
<p>Use our tool to quickly discover how much money your company could save with automated expense management.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Do the math</a></div>
</div>
<p>ROI can be measured in different ways: hard and soft returns. Cash back in the bank is one way to prove ROI. For instance, small to mid-size business (1-999 employees) users saved an average estimated $49K annually by implementing an automated travel and expense solution, and they saw positive ROI within eight months of implementation. (Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study)</p>
<p>So-called soft returns, such as time savings and user satisfaction, may not be soft at all and can ultimately add up to hard returns. Take it from SAP Concur customers: </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/avocados-from-mexico">Avocados From Mexico</a> (based in Irving, Texas) activated its SAP Concur solutions, they spent 50% less time on their expense input processes.</p>
<p>Bishop-Wisecarver (based in Pittsburg, California) also <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/bishop-wisecarver">dramatically reduced processing times</a>.</p>
<p>“Prior to using SAP Concur solutions, our month-end process could be up to 15 days—or more, depending on what was going on that specific month,” said Joe Lusby, Bishop-Wisecarver’s assistant controller. “Once we had the SAP Concur platform in place and started using it efficiently, we reduced our close time to three days. And quite honestly, if we were in a pinch, we could probably close in a day.”</p>
<p>If your business is still processing expenses manually using spreadsheets and paper receipts, do you know what it’s costing you? Consider what you stand to gain with automation.</p>
<p><strong>Use the </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator"><strong>Expense ROI Calculator</strong></a><strong> to find out what the return on your investment could be. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What to Do in London
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-do-london
2022-12-06T13:29:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Heading to SAP Concur Fusion in London Our friends at Hipmunk share a few things you should know about visiting London on on on So says artist Jeremy Dellers Art on the...
<p>Heading to <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/emea/london">SAP Concur Fusion in London</a>? Our <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/the-go-guide-london/">friends at Hipmunk</a> share a few things you should know about visiting: </p>
<p>“London & on & on & on & ….” So says artist Jeremy Deller’s <a href="https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/londonisopen/">Art on the Underground</a> installation in Brixton. The city of London sprawls, yes, but it also welcomes. Whether you’re headed to London for work, fun, or <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/five-tips-first-bleisure-trip/">a little bit of both</a>, here are our tips for making the most of your time there.</p>
<h2>Where to fly in</h2>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559079526933-shutterstock-347689907.jpg" /></p>
<p>London metro area is served by five major airports: <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2018/04/heathrow-airport-guide.html">London Heathrow Airport</a> (LHR), <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2019/01/london-gatwick-airport-guide-lgw.html">London Gatwick Airport</a> (LGW), London Stansted Airport (STN), London City Airport (LCY), and London Luton Airport (LTN). When determining which airport is the best to fly into for a personal trip, know your options by searching for flights to multiple airports at once. If you’re based in San Francisco, for example, you can enter ‘SFO, OAK’ in the From box and ‘LHR, LGW’ in the To box and Hipmunk will show you results that include combinations for each of those options. Alternatively, you can enter the city name itself (London) or the city code (LON) and all nearby airports will be included in the search results.</p>
<p>Pro tip: If you’ve been hoping to stretch your business travel budget to plan a trip to London, 2019 is likely the year to do it. With the recent announcement of JetBlue’s entree into cross-Atlantic flights, <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/this-years-most-disrupted-direct-routes/">routes between many major US cities and London airports</a> are seeing a dip in year-over-year pricing.</p>
<p>Once on the ground, Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted airports offer express trains that connect travelers to Central London. The Heathrow Express transports passengers to Paddington Station in just 15 minutes, where travelers can then change to a taxi, bus, or the Underground (also known as the Tube) to reach their final destination in the city. The Gatwick Express transports passengers to London Victoria Station in about 30 minutes, where travelers can then change to the Tube, a taxi, or bus. The Stansted Express runs every 15 minutes and transports passengers to London Liverpool Street. The journey takes about 45 minutes. Travelers flying into Luton can take an East Midlands or Thameslink train to Central London; trains depart from the Luton Airport Parkway train station. Finally, travelers flying into London City Airport have the advantage of flying into the airport closest to Central London. Travelers can take the Tube directly from the airport’s Docklands Light Railway stop.</p>
<p>Cabs are available upon arrival at all airports, but they cost the most of the ground transportation options. As an example, a cab ride from Heathrow to Central London can range between £45 and £70 and takes about an hour. Comparatively, the Heathrow Express costs about £22 and takes 15 minutes.</p>
<h2>Where to stay</h2>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559065419263-shutterstock-103279226.jpg" /></p>
<p>Across every budget and borough, there’s a London hotel to fit your needs. In town to catch a glimpse of the royals? Book <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/Hotels-in-London/The-Stafford-London-509c015766edc846610454b4-Reviews">The Stafford London</a> to stay close to Buckingham Palace and The Mall to catch any comings and goings. Looking to <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/5763-2/">explore the literary side</a> of the city? Stay at <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=London,+United+Kingdom;i=2019-05-09;o=2019-05-12;sid=509bfc1c66edc84661003ee6;s=Grange+St+Paul's+Hotel;is_search_for_business=true">Grange St. Paul’s Hotel</a> for an easy walk to the Tower of London—a must-see for history and historical fiction lovers alike.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/four-useful-features-savvy-business-traveler/">business travelers</a> look for a different set of amenities, and unsurprisingly, many hotels in London meet those specific needs. Here are our picks for the best hotels to stay in during your next business trip:</p>
<ul>
<li>If you’re attending an event at ExCeL London, the <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels?poi=ChIJDeUJ5gyo2EcRx67XBfflDQo#w=London,+United+Kingdom;i=2019-05-09;o=2019-05-12;sid=509c015c66edc846610458ad;is_search_for_business=false">Hilton London Canary Wharf Hotel</a> is just a short Tube ride away and features a footbridge to the station entrance. (Plus, Concur Hipmunk users receive exclusive discounts when staying at a Hyatt property).</li>
<li>If a hotel in a prime Central London location is what you’re after, look no further than the <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=London,+United+Kingdom;i=2019-04-12;o=2019-04-14;sid=5479e77fc0852e35760003d1;s=Amba+Hotel+Charing+Cross;is_search_for_business=false">Amba Hotel Charing Cross</a>. The hotel is just a few minutes walk from Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the Thames.</li>
<li>Need space for an event? The trendy <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels?poi=ChIJH-tBOc4EdkgRJ8aJ8P1CUxo#w=London,+United+Kingdom;i=2019-05-09;o=2019-05-12;sid=509c015766edc84661045463;is_search_for_business=false">W London – Leicester Square</a> offers over 1,300 square feet of meeting and event space, a WIRED Business Center, and individual event studios that can also be combined to create larger spaces.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to get around</h2>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559064675214-shutterstock-752729497-1.jpg" /></p>
<p>Much like <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/the-go-guide-manhattan/">Manhattan</a>, getting around London requires you to prioritize two of the following: time, money, or convenience. Taking the Tube, for example, is your least expensive option. The Tube runs on a zone system, meaning you pay a variable price point based on the length of your journey. Depending on the duration of your stay, you may want to purchase a pay-as-you-go <a href="https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do">Oyster card</a> to avoid purchasing multiple single ride passes.</p>
<p>Your Oyster card also gives you access to the city’s bus system. While the red double-decker buses move infinitely slower (thanks to increased stop frequency), they also travel where the Tube doesn’t. Here, you’re choosing convenience and low cost over time.</p>
<p>Also available above ground—the iconic black cab. Hail one, call out your destination to the driver, and away you go. Grabbing a cab is typically convenient, but cost can greatly fluctuate based on your destination—especially if you’re heading to or from the airport.</p>
<p>Both cabs and Uber are available in London and are likely your best option for getting around the city if you’re staying in an area far from a Tube station. Plus, if you manage your travel and expenses with Concur or <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/business-travel/">Concur Hipmunk</a>, your Uber trip receipt will automatically populate into your expense report.</p>
<p>Pro tip: Use TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2017/05/announcing-go-now-more-new-tripit-features.html">Navigator</a> feature to search transportation options available to you. It will show you the estimated costs and travel times for each option, so you can decide which works best. You can find Navigator within your flight, hotel and rental car details screens. Plus, if you add a restaurant reservation to your itinerary (more on where to eat below), Navigator also helps you find the best transportation options for getting to your table.</p>
<h2>Where to eat</h2>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559077908030-shutterstock-55854544.jpg" /></p>
<p>From pub grub to Michelin stars, <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/best-restaurant-in-london">London has it all</a>. <a href="https://sushisamba.com/">SUSHISAMBA</a> blends the flavor of Japanese, Peruvian and Brazilian cuisines into a memorable dining experience. The Covent Garden location is ideal for business lunches or dinners, or for grabbing a bite after you’ve explored the market. Or, check out the 110 Bishopsgate location for stunning views from the 38th and 39th floors.</p>
<p>Speaking of views, head to <a href="https://www.oxotower.co.uk/who/oxo-tower-restaurant-bar-brasserie/">OXO Tower Restaurant, Bar & Brasserie</a> to enjoy seasonal British fare while overlooking the Thames, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and really, the whole of London. Don’t have time in your itinerary for a multi-course dinner? You can stop in for a drink, afternoon tea, or weekend brunch… and to snap that IG shot, of course.</p>
<p>In pursuit of wine and cheese? Head to <a href="https://gordonswinebar.com/">Gordon’s Wine Bar</a>. This cavernous wine bar is cozy in the winter and spills out to the outdoor patio seats in the summer. Order the Lebanon Red and a cheese board—with over 20 cheeses to choose from, you might need to bring a friend or two to help. (Just let us know when you’re headed over.)</p>
<h2>What to do</h2>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1559065112476-shutterstock-423394819.jpg" /></p>
<p>Looking to get some sightseeing in while you’re in town? Both <a href="https://londonshellco.com/">London Shell Co.</a> and <a href="https://www.citycruises.com/london-thames-experiences/showboat-dinner-cruise/">City Cruises</a> offer a unique way to experience London’s sights—by boat! Ever-changing views, entertainment, plus dinner and drinks, add up to a memorable event for clients or a fun night on the town. </p>
<p>If your family tagged along on your business trip, there are plenty of kid-friendly things to do. To start, London is a playground for the imagination, just ask <a href="https://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/sightseeing/london-attraction/harry-potters-london">Harry Potter</a>. Kids will love discovering all of the Harry Potter-inspired attractions across the city, especially a visit to Platform 9¾. Or, get up close and personal with nature at the <a href="https://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo">ZSL London Zoo</a>, where kids can partake in the daily Meet the Animals experience or be a <a href="https://www.zsl.org/experiences/junior-keeper-for-a-day">Junior Keeper for a Day</a>.</p>
<p>Adults-only? The West End is the place to head for theatre shows at a discount. You can buy discounted tickets online or head to the <a href="https://officiallondontheatre.com/tkts/">TKTS booth in Leicester Square</a> for half-off tickets. Or, get your culture fix at any of the city’s world-renowned museums, including the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/">British Museum</a>, <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/">National Portrait Gallery</a>, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/">Victoria and Albert Museum</a>, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern">Tate Modern</a>, or <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain">Tate Britain</a>.</p>
<p>Looking for something a little less curated? Head south of the river to Brixton where you can explore <a href="https://www.popbrixton.org/">Pop Brixton</a>, <a href="https://brixtonmarket.net/">Brixton Market</a>, the famed Electric Avenue, and the unique boutique shops lining the borough’s lanes. And be sure to check out the public art installations while you’re there, too.</p>
Amanda Wowk
When Strategy Meets Spending: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Zero Based Budgeting with Accenture
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/when-strategy-meets-spending-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-zero-based-budgeting
2022-12-06T14:57:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
So much has changed in the past couple of years and nearly every shift has impacted organizational budgets in some form Rather than making deep cuts with percentagebased reductions...
<p>So much has changed in the past couple of years, and nearly every shift has impacted organizational budgets in some form. Rather than making deep cuts with percentage-based reductions when planning, organizations have the chance to do more with zero-based budgeting. The right technologies and systems allow greater visibility, flexibility, and overall savings. Moving forward, a well-planned budget transformation can give employees greater insight into the role they play, while generating growth for the company. </p>
<p>Alberto Herrera, Senior Value Consultant for SAP Concur, discussed best practices for leading optimization strategies and focusing on value when allocating resources with James Portnoy, Senior Strategy and Consulting Manager at Accenture, and Manoj Das, Managing Director of Human Experience Management for Accenture.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-for-your-buck-zero/id1525744763?i=1000551022000">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/1DHeYvePJoXJZRJwRyHLXo">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-L0aZYIUXOir/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://play.acast.com/s/sap-concur-conversations">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjIwYTMzZjkyNjU4MDEwMDEyM2ZiNGQx?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiIkKCVyIL2AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-your-buck-zero-based-budgeting-demystified-accenture">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>Budgeting with “Why?” vs “How Much?”</h2>
<p>Zero-based budgeting, at its core, doesn’t use the previous year as a starting point to develop the upcoming budget. “You’re really starting from scratch in certain areas of spend, like travel and meetings,” Portnoy says. “It makes the budget holders and employees think through what they need to spend in order to achieve the overarching business strategy.” The exercise can help everyone focus on cost allocation and keep careful tabs on expenses.</p>
<p>“Zero-based budgeting is not a cost-cutting measure; it’s a way to allocate resources to your business strategy.”</p>
<h2>Spending Where It Matters</h2>
<p>The best time to switch to zero-based budgeting? It might be now. “The assumption of whatever we spent last year is a good indicator for what we should be spending this year on a category-by-category basis doesn’t necessarily hold true anymore,” Portnoy says. What was allocated for PPE and travel in 2019 may have been quite different than the amount spent in 2020, with 2021 bringing further variance. For companies looking to grow, thinking through how every dollar is spent can be a great technique that breaks down expense barriers.</p>
<p>“Some companies use zero-based budgeting as an aggressive cost cutting tool, while other organizations use it as a way to get better visibility and be more granular in terms of how they do their financial planning.”</p>
<p>When implementing zero-based budgeting, leadership involvement can help pave the path for change. “It’s a way to demonstrate that the organization is serious about adopting this new budgeting process—this new culture of cost consciousness,” Portnoy explains. “If you have the right communication to employees, they’ll see money is being put where it matters.”</p>
<p>Tech Assistance to Truly Transform</p>
<p>When undergoing a budget transformation, Das says, “You need a system that can hold the budget information—the financial system. Then you need all the systems that will provide the necessary input, and the inputs need to be tracked.” This reporting can provide insights into the variations from the budget.</p>
<p>If a travel budget is missed, for instance, compliance on policies can be reviewed. “Am I following the number of hotel nights I’m allotted?” Portnoy explains. “Having that operational reporting to understand the deviations in the financials is something we’re seeing a lot of companies want to get their hands around.”</p>
<p>With the right technology, organizations gain a granular look at spend in an ongoing, automated, and sustainable way—one which fuels long-term growth and profitability.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/accenture">Find out more about how you can leverage the partnership between SAP Concur and Accenture to help your organization transform the budget and make every dollar count.</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Build Relationships in Your First 90 Days as Finance Leader
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/build-relationships-your-first-90-days-finance-leader
2022-12-30T15:18:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a new finance leader youll spend your first few months building important relationships throughout the company and setting goals for yourself As part of that youll also be gaining a...
<p>As a new finance leader, you’ll spend your first few months building important relationships throughout the company and setting goals for yourself. As part of that, you’ll also be gaining a true understanding of company culture and politics, while forging new connections with your fellow employees.</p>
<p>Navigating the interpersonal aspects of a company isn’t a clear-cut task. But using a simple framework can help you meaningfully observe, learn, and network to succeed in your new role.</p>
<p>Here’s how to gain a deeper understanding of the people and relationships at your company in your first 90 days as finance leader.</p>
<p>Get the detailed checklist to help build relationships and set career goals in your first 90 days as finance leader.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>New Finance Leader Checklist</h5>
<p>Your 30-60-90 day action plan.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Build strong relationships to ensure success </h2>
<p>In your new finance leader role, you should be ready to manage up and manage down. It helps to have strong working relationships, which you can nurture with frequent, clear, two-way communication.</p>
<h3>Manage up effectively to make an impact</h3>
<p>In most cases, the manager you report to will be instrumental to your success. Set up a meeting as soon as possible with your manager to discuss priorities and clearly define your new roles and responsibilities.</p>
<p>In your first few meetings, see if you can learn more about business objectives, how things get done, and who the main decision-makers are. Try to gain insights into the team members who will report to you, their roles, and the best ways to communicate with them.</p>
<p>You should also get the basics on—and get access to—the systems and platforms you’ll be using regularly.</p>
<p>Learn more about the finance process and technology and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-technology-systems-and-best-practices">get the checklist for the first 90 days</a> as a finance leader. </p>
<h3>Build relationships with direct reports</h3>
<p>Early on, set up weekly one-on-one meetings with direct reports, plus a weekly team meeting. This will help you start building a working relationship with each person before dealing with everyone as a group.</p>
<p>Encourage an open and ongoing discussion—with individuals and teams—about what aspects of their job are most important to them, what they love doing, what they dislike doing, what their challenges and wins are, and what it takes for them to do their job. And don’t forget to ask them—regularly—what you can do to help them succeed in their role.</p>
<h2>Decode the company culture</h2>
<p>Understanding the culture and norms of the company—and where you fit within that space—is key to informing how you do your own job. If you’re new to a company, it can take some time to really get to know its culture. </p>
<p>Start by looking in company documents for details about the company’s vision and mission statements—this should give you a general sense of the intended culture. But you’ll discover even more about the culture in everyday interactions and processes. See opportunities for improvement in culture? <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-authentic-corporate-culture-and-why-you-should">Check out tips to help improve it</a>.</p>
<p>When you meet with teams, ask them what their culture is like within the team, and within the company. Engage them on what they value most and how they interact and work together. Listen to what’s being said directly and listen for cues in their stories to learn the history and reasoning behind how they operate and how that might have an impact on company finances.</p>
<h2>Navigate the politics of current financial processes</h2>
<p>You need to understand the political landscape within a company so you can navigate it efficiently. You usually won’t find this aspect of a business documented in writing, but it’s basically how things get done in the business.</p>
<p>In your first few meetings with team members, find out who runs things and makes key decisions. Not just the CEO, but everyone who influences those decisions. </p>
<p>Find out whose buy-in you’ll need across decision-makers and build those relationships. Their support will help you bring your ideas to fruition and make a bigger impact on the organization.</p>
<h2>Explore cross-functional teams’ finance needs </h2>
<p>Meeting with department heads, or managers within those departments, could give you valuable information. Before these meetings, review company numbers at the departmental level to get some background and create discussion topics.</p>
<p>When face-to-face, ask them about their pain points and challenges when it comes to finance and accounting, including how they overcame challenges in the past, and what issues they see coming up in the future.</p>
<h2>Plan to improve on your role</h2>
<p>When you step into a new role, it’s a good time to review what you’d want to do differently from your previous roles. Looking at your previous role, reflect on your successes and failures. Use this opportunity to evaluate areas where you might want to take a different approach that would also benefit the new company.</p>
<p>Read the previous article in our series: <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-tech-and-best-practices-new-finance-leaders">Navigating Tech and Best Practices for New Finance Leaders</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Tools to Rein in Your Spending Cowboys
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-tools-rein-your-spending-cowboys
2023-08-24T15:04:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Rogue spend can be the archnemesis of even the most seasoned finance departments.
<p>Rogue spend can be the archnemesis of even the most seasoned finance departments. Yet when you consider how much time it takes to wrangle rogue spend, you can understand why. IDC found that roughly 80 percent of today’s spend managers’ time is spent on lower-level financial tasks such as invoice matching, purchase requisition, and vendor management. Not to mention, lacking visibility into where, with whom, and how much all your cowboys are spending makes it difficult to capture a full financial picture for your business.</p>
<p>If your organization is having trouble properly governing spend, then it may be time to call in some reinforcements:</p>
<p><strong>Tools f</strong><strong>or reducing wasteful spend</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Sometimes, employee preferences are hard to change – especially when it comes to travel. Instead of punishing employees for spending out of policy, consider rewarding them when they make decisions that benefit your business. <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce41">Rocketrip</a> helps employees earn rewards (like retail gift cards and charitable donations) when they spend under budget and stay within policy, plus your organization gets to enjoy the cost savings. This approach in reducing wasteful travel spend has saved organizations an average of 30 percent on travel expenses alone.</li>
<li>And sometimes rogue spenders can work in your favor — enter ridesharing. Employees opting to rideshare over traditional services, such as taxis and black cars, can save organizations an average of 30 percent on ground transportation. But if employees are spending directly with these ridesharing companies or manually expensing rides, it can reduce visibility into overall rideshare usage across the company, hinder decision-making, and lend itself to waste and abuse. <a href="https://app.highspot.com/items/5b99a3ed1aab555db062935d">Uber for Business</a> and <a href="https://app.highspot.com/items/5d717f5ff7794d548d2dfb73">Lyft Business</a> can integrate with your spend management platforms to automatically add rides to expense reports, helping employees comply with policy, and providing a better view into exactly where your dollars are being spent.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Tools for </strong><strong>connecting siloed spend</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>It’s clear to many finance departments that automating and integrating travel and expense (T&E) brings great value to the business. But what about spend outside of T&E, such as accounts payable and procurement? A recent IDC study found that 53 percent of surveyed businesses currently manage different types of spend (direct, indirect, T&E, and services) with separate applications. But when rogue spend is dispersed throughout many systems, you drastically reduce your view into various categories, which, in turn, restricts informed decision-making and hinders your ability to quickly adjust spending due to changing government regulations and the needs of your business. By utilizing <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/erp-integrations">financial integrators</a>, you can seamlessly transfer spend data from your spend management system to your ERP, financial, and other systems. As a result, you can establish end-to-end, real-time visibility into spend, gaining the ability to better control and redirect it as needed.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Tools for improving spend against budgets</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>While an effective budget can be the bread and butter of your business, it goes without saying that ineffective budgets can be your downfall. Therefore, wrangling in your spending cowboys is especially imperative when it comes to how you manage your budgets; proactive and effective budget management reduces operational interruptions and improves the effectiveness of planning activities. To lasso in your rouge spending, considering choosing partners that can help you better align your dollars spent against what’s projected. <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/tax-management">VAT reclaim solutions</a>, for example, allow organizations to recoup a significant amount of spend on travel by helping increase VAT reclaim by up to 50 percent. While spend associated with travel is just one category within your overall budget, the benefits gained from reclaiming up to half of that spend can be extremely impactful.</li>
</ul>
<p>Wrangling rouge spend may seem complicated, especially when it’s assumed you have to manage it all alone. But when you choose to empower your business with the right tools, you can easily get the support you want and the visibility you need.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about SAP Concur partners that can help your business with better spend governance, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">visit our App Center</a><strong>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Help Your Finance Team Breeze Through Expense Season
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/help-your-finance-team-breeze-through-expense-season
2023-08-29T12:58:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With so much to do at the end of the year and not enough time to get it all done your finance team may feel overwhelmed by the volume of work According to SAP Concur data the highest...
<p>With so much to do at the end of the year and not enough time to get it all done, your finance team may feel overwhelmed by the volume of work. According to SAP Concur data, the highest volume of expense reports hit the finance department in December with a peak around December 19. Often that means processing much more paperwork in addition to all the other year-end activities your team is handling.</p>
<p>So, as a finance leader how can you help your team maximize productivity, cruise through year-end activities, and prepare for 2019?</p>
<p>Get started by empowering yourself.</p>
<p>Begin learning more about how to help your team thrive during expense season by joining us for a <a href="https://go.concur.com/help-your-finance-team-breeze-through-expense-season.html">30-minute webinar</a> on November 28. During this event, hosted by SAP Concur Solutions Specialist Nicholas Wong, you’ll learn unexpected ways you can lead your team to a strong year-end finish and breeze through the stress of expense season.</p>
<p>This webinar will also help you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Understand common end-of-year challenges and how to face them</li>
<li>Find unexpected ways to help your finance team thrive during the next few weeks</li>
<li>Make next year even smoother</li>
</ul>
<p>Space is limited. <a href="https://go.concur.com/help-your-finance-team-breeze-through-expense-season.html">Register today</a> to reserve your spot.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Non-Profit Transformation: Higher Impact, Better Expense Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/non-profit-transformation-higher-impact-better-expense-control
2023-09-07T11:41:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Gaining control over spending is important for any organization but its especially top of mind for nonprofit organizations as they work to make the most of their resources With the...
<p>Gaining control over spending is important for any organization, but it’s especially top of mind for non-profit organizations as they work to make the most of their resources. With the start of a new fiscal year and a pre-recovering economy on the horizon, it’s a good time for non-profits to take stock of existing processes and gain traction on helping their dollars go farther, sooner.<br />
<br />
Adopting efficient <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/non-profit-organizations">expense management processes</a> can help non-profit teams work more efficiently. Moving manual expense reporting processes to a cloud-based, automated solution is a simple, effective way to do that.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Real-life examples of how Concur Expense helps non-profits</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions make it possible for people across a non-profit organization to collaborate, give finance leaders clearer visibility into budgets, and offer built-in expense policy compliance. All things that can help support an organization’s credibility and ensure financial efficiency.</p>
<p>For the Prison Fellowship, a Virginia-based non-profit helping imprisoned people and their families, accounting for how their dollars get spent was crucial. By using Concur Expense paired with other SAP Concur solutions, they increased efficiency and customer satisfaction across the organization, while seeing a strong return on investment.</p>
<p>“Concur Expense with Policy Audit has given us a hard cost ROI of 3:1, and our soft costs have been in the range of 4 or 5:1,” says Stephen Tucker, Prison Fellowship’s Senior Finance Director.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/simons-foundation">Simons Foundation</a>, a New York City-based non-profit organization supporting math, basic science, and autism research, looked to Concur to help keep their overhead low and boost efficiency, while simplifying processes and streamlining operations. They first transformed their operations with Concur Expense and other solutions, then shifted their manual invoice process to Concur Invoice, giving them near real-time visibility into their spending.</p>
<p>“The visibility into the data we now have is mind-blowing,” says Nick Sanghvi, Simons Foundation Accounts Payable Manager. “The more we see, the better we can update policies, adjust guidelines, educate users, or make business decisions.”</p>
<h2><br />
Tips on transforming your non-profit’s spending</h2>
<p><br />
A non-profit needs to run a lean organization, but there are steps you can take today – for free – to improve processes to make the most of every dollar spent.</p>
<ol>
<li>Over 20% of an organization’s expenses are not compliant. But you can establish an expense policy, or improve an existing one, using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">our free expense policy guide and template</a>, to strengthen expense compliance across the organization.</li>
<li>Set up an invoice policy, using our free invoice template and tips, to streamline and improve your invoicing process.</li>
<li>Comparing the numerous expense automation solutions on the market might feel like a full-time effort. Trying the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">Concur Expense 30-day free trial</a>, using your organization’s data, can help you and your team cut through the complexity and get on the path to clearer and more efficient spending.</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s important for non-profits to easily track costs when, where, or how they happen. And gaining near real-time control over expenses is an important key to helping their resources make a bigger impact in the world.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What are Supplier-Direct Bookings, and Do They Impact Your Travel Program?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-supplier-direct-bookings-and-do-they-impact-your-travel-program
2023-09-08T16:21:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Employees today have the world in the palm of their hands In some ways this makes the travel managers job easier but it can also make it more complicated For example mobile devices...
<p>Employees today have the world in the palm of their hands. In some ways, this makes the travel manager’s job easier, but it can also make it more complicated. For example, mobile devices give employees greater access to suppliers, making it easier to book direct and out of channel. Out-of-channel means out-of-view, so direct bookings are invisible to your travel program until they appear for reimbursement.</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>GBTA Report: Changing Landscape, Familiar Changes</h2>
<h2>Discover the challenges and future of travel management.</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">Read the Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Can travel programs keep up?</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">the GBTA report</a>, 37% of hotel reservations, and 15% of air reservations are invisible – made directly with suppliers or through online travel agencies. Perhaps surprisingly, these percentages remain the same between companies with flexible travel policies and companies with strict travel policies. So, no matter your policy type, supplier-direct bookings are a cause for concern. Today, 80% of travel programs do not use technology to capture supplier-direct bookings. Showing that current methods are not keeping up with the continued rise of supplier-direct bookings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s driving the rise in supplier-direct bookings?</h2>
<p>Generations expert Ryan Jenkins points out that by 2025 millennials will make up 75% of the workforce. But, it’s not just millennials that are driving this rise in supplier-direct bookings.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Convenience</strong>: People prefer booking travel where it’s easiest for them. Mobile self-service tools make booking travel simple.</li>
<li><strong>Low-cost carriers and discounts</strong>: Relatively new low-cost carriers, and carriers that offer discounts for direct bookings, entice employees to book outside their corporate booking tool.</li>
<li><strong>The sharing economy</strong>: Since they offer the ease of use and differentiated customer experiences travelers demand, the use of sharing economy apps like Uber and AirBnb is bleeding over into business travel.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taking control of supplier-direct bookings</h2>
<p>Bring supplier-direct bookings into view by including them into your travel program. This can be done by automatically capturing direct bookings from connected suppliers, or encouraging employees to send their booking information.</p>
<p>Bringing direct bookings under management gives you the ability to always know where your employees are and add invisible spend back into your sum of total-supplier spend, which helps when it comes time for rate negotiations. Other benefits include increased policy compliance, improved duty of care, increased savings, and better data.</p>
Neha Mehta
Say goodbye to manual expense reports and other dinosaurs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/say-goodbye-manual-expense-reports-and-other-dinosaurs
2017-08-07T13:50:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Expense reports can take some time to get processed especially if there are errors or discrepancies However when an employee submits an expense report he or she is usually expecting to...
<p>Expense reports can take some time to get processed, especially if there are errors or discrepancies. However, when an employee submits an expense report, he or she is usually expecting to get reimbursed sometime in the current decade. If your finance team is struggling to process expense reports in a timely manner, then it is time to review and update your expense process.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Manual processes are “so yesterday”</strong></h2>
<p>It’s no joke -- manual expense reporting slows down the process before it even begins. With each step, someone has to physically touch the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense report</a>, whether it be to enter a line item into a document or look through a stack of receipts. It can be easy to justify the manual process by saying this only takes minutes to do each task, but minutes quickly add up to quite a few dollars in the long run.</p>
<p>Speaking of that stack of receipts, even right now precious paperwork is making its way through your office to the finance department. Something might be getting lost, never to be found again, making reconciliation unnecessarily hard. The entire process just feels old and tired.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">Read this report</a> to learn more about the true costs of paper-based invoice processing.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>It’s time to join the 21st century</strong></h2>
<p>Trading in your manual process for an automated one will add the needed speed to save your finance team time on <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management</a>. Saving time equates to many great things, including saving money and providing timely reimbursements.</p>
<p>Automation also helps with decreasing errors, which circles back to time savings, and consequentially, less frustration. Much like humans, manual processes are fallible because they are carried out by humans. If there is any error or discrepancy, it often requires the expense report to be returned to the sender, and the process is started all over -- plus the added bonus of aggravation. Enabling a system that ensures line items match and totals add up correctly makes life that much better.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Speeding into the future</strong></h2>
<p>Moving from a manual to an automated system means not just giving employees the ability to capture and submit expenses inside and outside the office, but also increasing ease of use. It means gaining the opportunity to improve visibility into spending company-wide, in real time. Not to mention, it keeps the expense management process moving forward towards both speedier processing and reimbursement times, which keeps employees happy.</p>
<p>Expense reports require receipts, even with automation and mobility. But with an expense management system, like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, mobile phones can become tools that can create faster (and error free) expense reports. By using their mobile phones to capture and submit photos of their receipts, employees can easily submit expenses while on the road. And, capturing receipts digitally eliminates any potential of losing receipts on the road or in the office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Ready, steady, upgrade!</strong></h2>
<p>All the arrows are pointing towards upgrading to an automated and mobile expense reporting system. Increasing your processing and reimbursement time makes for happier employees, and happier bottom lines. Seize the opportunity before you become ancient history.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Glassdoor names Concur a best place to interview
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/glassdoor-names-concur-best-place-interview
2017-08-16T10:59:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At Concur we know that first impressions matterwhich is why we strive to put our best foot forward when it comes to our interview candidates Were proud to announce today that Concur...
<p>At Concur, we know that first impressions matter—which is why we strive to put our best foot forward when it comes to our interview candidates.</p>
<p>We’re proud to announce today that Concur has been named one of the <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Interview-LST_KQ0,24.htm" target="_blank">Best Places to Interview</a> on Glassdoor, according to the company’s 2017 report. <a href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/" target="_blank">Glassdoor</a>, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing job sites, released its annual Glassdoor Candidates’ Choice Awards honoring the Best Places to Interview in the U.S. and UK—according to those who know best, the job candidates.</p>
<p>Concur ranks 80 out of 100 on the US list with an impressive Glassdoor interview experience rating of 68%. See for yourself what interviewees have had to say on <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Concur-Interview-Questions-E8763.htm" target="_blank">Concur’s Glassdoor profile</a>.</p>
<p>As our employees know, we value the potential of every individual to make a meaningful difference within the company. We put our people first, because we know that they’re at the heart of what fosters our innovative, collaborative, and transparent work environment. That’s why we have a commitment to hiring and supporting great people—and the interview process is where it all begins. We want to provide an excellent interview experience for our candidates so that we can attract the best and brightest to join our team.</p>
<p>Based on anonymous job candidate feedback shared on the site over the past year, winners were determined using Glassdoor’s proprietary algorithm taking into account the employer’s overall interview experience rating, <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/interview-difficulty/" target="_blank">interview difficulty rating</a>, and interview length (number of days for the interview process).</p>
<p>At a minimum, employers for the U.S. list (those with 1,000 employees or more) must have received at least 50 Glassdoor-approved interview reviews, including at least 50 interview experience ratings, from U.S.-based employees between July 2, 2016 and July 1, 2017. For reporting simplicity, interview experience ratings are displayed as whole numbers, though calculations extend beyond the thousandth place to determine final rank order. Complete report <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/List/about-employees-choice-awards.htm" target="_blank">methodology</a> can be found and downloaded <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/List/about-employees-choice-awards.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>Check out the complete list of Best Places to Interview in 2017 on the Large U.S. list <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Interview-LST_KQ0,24.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is an efficient, employee-friendly travel program an oxymoron?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/efficient-employee-friendly-travel-program-oxymoron
2017-07-27T12:49:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Not according to a new eBook on Cost Saving Methods for TE Expenses Are your employees booking lastminute travel Tickets booked fewer than seven days before departure cost an average...
<p>Not according to a new eBook on <a href="https://www.rocketrip.com/resources/employee-travel-costs-introduction?utm_source=concur&utm_campaign=financeintro_ebook" target="_blank">Cost Saving Methods for T&E Expenses</a>...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Are your employees booking last-minute travel? Tickets booked fewer than seven days before departure cost an average of 44% more than those booked 15 or more days in advance. Requiring trip preapproval would cut last-minute travel spending, but would also create more work for managers. A less drastic option would be to schedule recurring reminder emails for employees to book their trips in the month ahead. But would sending one more email on top of hundreds be well received?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While T&E is one of the largest controllable expenses, it’s also one of the most difficult to manage. The fundamental challenge is that normal price considerations don’t apply for reimbursable business travel, so employees have little incentive to limit spending. It’s not that employees try to spend a lot on their business trips, they just don’t have a reason not to. Managing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">travel expenses</a> then becomes a matter of influencing thousands of individual spending decisions made by employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What if you could create an efficient, employee-friendly travel program? <strong>Cost Saving Methods for T&E Expenses</strong>, a guide co-created by Concur and Rocketrip, helps you do just that – including step-by-step instructions for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Analyzing existing travel spending. </li>
<li>Evaluating the potential ROI of different corporate travel solutions and services.</li>
<li>Writing clear travel expense policy guidelines.</li>
<li>Using incentive programs to motivate reduced spending.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Download the eBook <a href="https://www.rocketrip.com/resources/employee-travel-costs-introduction?utm_source=concur&utm_campaign=financeintro_ebook" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Ready to motivate your employees to reduce spend? <a href="https://go.concur.com/AppCenterInquiry.html?acp=rocketrip&pid=appcenter&cid=rocketrip">Get started</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Intern success: Project approved by the president
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/intern-success-project-approved-president
2020-09-11T12:52:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As Talent Acquisition Intern I work on creative content and use social media to highlight SAP Internship Experience Project SAP iXp SAP iXp is a robust tenweek internship program in...
<p>As Talent Acquisition Intern, I work on creative content and use social media to highlight <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">SAP Internship Experience Project</a> (SAP iXp). SAP iXp is a robust ten-week internship program in ten locations around the world. Interns work across all areas of the business, from marketing to human resources, finance and engineering, and are challenged to bring their innovative perspectives to the forefront of their work.</p>
<p>I caught up with a few of this summer’s interns to learn more about how they are moving the needle here at Concur. Today we check in with Matt Watson, a pricing analyst intern who recently pitched a new pricing plan to Concur President Mike Eberhard.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Meet Matt </strong></h2>
<p>Matt, whose background is in economics and finance, completes the five-member Pricing Team within Global Product Marketing. He plans to graduate a year early from the University of California, Berkeley, and is passionate about all things finance and problem-solving. In his role, Matt’s goal is to create and improve financial models that show customers the return on investment (ROI), or the financial benefit, of implementing Concur solutions. After only a few weeks at Concur, Matt presented that project to Mike Eberhard.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1502470383083-matt-pic-copy.jpg" /></p>
<p>Pricing Analyst Intern Matt Watson </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>About the Project </strong></h2>
<p>It was day three of Matt’s first week when his manager Carrie Miller assigned him his first pricing plan project: to develop a client-facing ROI model. The model will be used to show customers how much money they could save by implementing Concur solutions.</p>
<p>After working with his team to create a detailed draft of the ROI model, Matt presented the model to Mike Eberhard. Now that it has been approved by Mike, the next step is for Matt’s team to train Concur sales teams so they can begin using the pricing model.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What’s Next?</strong></h2>
<p>When talking about the importance of trust in the workplace, Matt shared that his manager Carrie allows for greater freedom to run with certain projects. “I think what’s cool is that, once you get in, you figure out how your team operates, you can pick out problems or areas for improvement and then kind of take on your own project,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be passed down from your manager.”</p>
<p>That trust between manager and intern has driven Matt to solve problems he has encountered in pricing models and has encouraged him to start another project. “The pricing team has one model for all of its analysis, kind of like a template,” he explains. “There are a lot of different templates they apply to different scenarios, so I’m trying to build one pricing model that can be more robust and can be applied towards all of the situations that could arise on the pricing side of things.”</p>
<p>Matt recognized the inconsistency between using several pricing models, which led him to work towards creating one concise, structured model. He is already almost done with his second project and hopes to create a portfolio of his incredible work at the end of the summer.</p>
<p>Matt’s ability to spot incongruences in economics allows for greater transparency and efficiency not only within Concur, but also with our customers. Keep an eye out for great things from Matt Watson and the impact he will make at Concur, and throughout his career.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the </strong><a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank"><strong>iXp program</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns"><strong>Concur internships</strong></a><strong>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank"><strong>iXp Twitter</strong></a><strong> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Here's How to Simplify Expense, Travel, and Invoice Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/heres-how-simplify-expense-travel-and-invoice-management
2021-03-01T16:47:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If your company is facing issues with expense travel and invoice management youre not alone A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur found that ...
<p>If your company is facing issues with expense, travel, and invoice management, you’re not alone. A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur, found that 60% of companies face issues with manual processes and timeliness due to their current tools.</p>
<p>Outdated legacy technology is one of the core causes of inefficient expense, travel, and invoice management. Manual processes are clunky, time consuming, vulnerable to human error, and lack visibility across company spend. The inaccuracies and slowdowns they cause can also lead to auditing headaches, additional work, and extra costs.</p>
<p>The other major issue facing companies in this area is the lack of alignment between the IT and finance departments. Sixty-one percent of firms say that IT is focused more on the usability and employee experience, and less on spend reductions. Conversely, 64% of firms say that finance is focused more on reducing spending, and less on usability and employee experience.</p>
<p>What if there was a solution that would increase visibility, save time, and cut costs–all while satisfying the needs of stakeholders in both departments?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Financial teams want to simplify processes and save money</h2>
<p>While new invoice management tools can’t lower your bills themselves, they can optimize your processes in ways that will cut costs. Automation will ensure those bills are accounted for and paid on time, saving you from late fees, reducing the time spent managing invoices, and allowing you to focus valuable time on other tasks.</p>
<p>Beyond time savings, you need visibility into what is being paid, to whom, and from what budgets. Inadequate visibility into expenses is a key challenge for better managing the expense, travel, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice process</a>. This type of reporting is critical for understanding where and when spend happens with enough time to influence it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>IT managers want to reduce the burden of tech support</h2>
<p>Thirty-eight percent of finance and IT decision makers cite increasing automation as a top expense and travel priority in the next year or two. And, it makes sense that the IT department has a stake in the game. Automated, cloud-based tools enable the efficiency that companies lack, lessening the burden on the internal IT support team, and allowing them to focus attention on supporting employees in other ways.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>For employees, cloud-based tools increase productivity, adoption, and satisfaction
</h2>
<p>In a modern world, employees expect that the technological advances they enjoy in their personal lives will carry over to their work lives. Instead, they face fragmented, manual expense and payment processes that are inefficient and time consuming. As a result, both managers and employees in the Forrester survey ranked manual processes as a top frustration when it comes to managing expenses.</p>
<p>By fully automating expense, travel, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice systems</a> with cloud-based tools available on mobile devices, you can reduce employee frustration, encourage adoption, and increase compliance. Likewise, better tools to track expenses in one place can help them make responsible spending choices and give managers visibility into any potentially fraudulent spending. All of this translates into money saved.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A unified solution benefits everyone</h2>
<p>When we combine needs across the board, the solution emerges: An automated expense, travel, and invoice management process will improve employees’ experiences and reduce spending. This can be accomplished by full alignment of IT and finance, which then allows both departments to accomplish their own goals.</p>
<p>Indeed, we think the results of the Forrester survey demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. Seventy-five percent of companies with a unified strategy reported high satisfaction with travel and expense tools, compared to just 35% without a unified strategy.</p>
<p>Aligning the goals of the finance and IT teams has a profound effect on the overall travel, expense, and invoice management process. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Download the full study</a> now to learn more</strong> about how you can simplify your expense, travel, and invoice solutions.</p>
Rebecca Dolan
Be Aware of Your Duty of Care and the Increase in Traveler Concerns
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/be-aware-your-duty-care-and-increase-traveler-concerns
2018-10-07T19:04:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The Global Business Travel Association GBTA has stated that spending on global business travel continues to grow and is expected to reach trillion by Despite growing global...
<p>The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has stated that spending on global business travel continues to grow and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020. Despite growing global uncertainty around unforeseen events, organizations show no signs of slowing down on their business travel. Therefore, duty of care and travel risk management programs need to be at the forefront of your organization’s security conversations, as outlined in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/steps-achieving-effective-travel-risk-management-program">report produced by the Business Travel News (BTN) group</a>.</p>
<p>Your organization most likely has some level of a duty-of-care solution in place; however, even organizations with a good track record in providing safety and security measurements still have some gaps in providing the right level of duty of care to their travelers and employees – and gaps that may be perceived by the organization as small could be viewed as negligent.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/steps-achieving-effective-travel-risk-management-program">Read the whitepaper</a> for the next steps towards an effective travel risk management program</h3>
<p> </p>
<h2>Risks for Travelers and Employees Are on the Rise</h2>
<p>With the continual increase in business travel – global crises that are hitting the headlines are grabbing the attention of travel decision makers at organizations. The potential risks your travelers could encounter, domestically and internationally, are numerous – including geopolitical, health-related, and environmentally-related incidents. Even historically low-risk areas are reporting catastrophic events that are adding to the growing concerns for traveling employees.</p>
<p>Not only do organizations need to be prepared to fulfill duty-of-care obligations in high-profile incidents; you need to consider the smaller, more common travel risks that can happen when commuting into the office, including pedestrian accidents, car accidents, and incidents on public transportation. </p>
<p>“The broader notion of traveler well-being and duty of care issues are not only linked to emergencies and medical incidents,” as outlined in GBTA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Toolkit. “The stress of business travel caused by delays, lost baggage, less productivity (yet consistently high workload), or the simple fact of being away from friends and family should not be underestimated.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">Travel risk management programs</a> need to incorporate all your employees’ (not just travelers’) safety and security; and be prepared to assist with the range of risks and incidents possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>An Ethical Responsibility, Not Just a Legal One</h2>
<p>Legal obligations concerning insurance, lawsuits, and costs are what typically drive most organizations to implement duty-of-care initiatives, however, the moral obligation to your travelers and employees needs to be a driving factor as well.</p>
<p>“When companies concentrate on the moral part, their actions tend to answer the legal questions as well,” explains Stephen Barth, University of Houston law professor and founder of the Hospitality Lawyer media and information platform. “The companies that we see take the more proactive approach are the ones that don’t view it as a legal obligation, but view it as an ethical corporate responsibility.”</p>
<p>In the U.S., workers’ compensation reaches only so far, covering those who get injured on the job, and within a certain distance of their workplace. However, with growth and expansion increasingly taking business across borders – where an organization’s duty of care responsibilities begin and end are unclear when sending employees abroad.</p>
<p>In recent years, numerous countries around the world have started implementing legal statutes that side with the employee when there is a gross breach of duty-of-care responsibilities resulting in the death of an employee.</p>
<p>A recent traveler survey demonstrates that <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/steps-achieving-effective-travel-risk-management-program">safety and security is one of the fastest-growing topics of concern</a> for employees traveling on behalf of their organizations. Proactively incorporating an ethical responsibility in your duty-of-care program assists in addressing the increase in employee anxiety about medical and security disruptions while traveling. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Mitigating Business Risks While Protecting Your Greatest Asset: People</h2>
<p>A single duty-of-care incident can result in staggering costs to an organization including medical expenses, sick pay, employment litigation, morale and productivity loss, and employee fall out – as well as damage to the organization’s reputation.</p>
<p>To help mitigate liability risks while fulfilling the moral obligation to your employees’ safety and security, industry experts suggest:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consistent travel risk management policy and procedures encompassing all employees</li>
<li>Proactive safety training</li>
<li>Clear monitoring and communication channels</li>
<li>Multi-channel data management for tracking and response coordination</li>
<li>Legal and executive management cooperation</li>
<li>Incident response reporting and measurement for ongoing improvement</li>
</ul>
<p>Organizations cannot afford to be negligent with the safety and security of their travelers and employees in today’s global landscape. It’s imperative to implement a travel risk management program, or re-evaluate your existing program to determine that you’ll be able to monitor, locate, and communicate to all employees and fulfill your duty-of-care obligation if a crisis arises.</p>
<p>Download the full BTN report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/steps-achieving-effective-travel-risk-management-program">The Travel Risk Management Imperative</a>, for more. Then, learn more about how to fulfill your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care with SAP Concur solutions</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: </h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/nine-tips-for-filling-the-gaps-in-your-duty-of-care">Nine Tips for Filling the Gaps in Your Duty of Care</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/data-is-key-to-protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-your-people">Data is Key to Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People</a></h3>
<h3>Part 4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-prepare-for-responding-to-a-duty-of-care-incident">How to Prepare for Responding to a Duty of Care Incident</a></h3>
Fusion 2018: Your Potential is Our Passion
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fusion-2018-your-potential-our-passion
2018-03-23T09:00:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Last week I enjoyed participating in my th SAP Concur Fusion event Every year I look forward to hosting customers and partners from across the globe at our annual client event that...
<p>Last week I enjoyed participating in my 15th SAP Concur Fusion event. Every year I look forward to hosting customers and partners from across the globe at our annual client event that spans multiple days and offers a wide range of opportunities for attendees to learn, network and have fun. This year was extra special as we hosted Fusion in our home town of Seattle.</p>
<p>Our theme this year was “Your Potential is Our Passion.” At SAP Concur customer success is at the center of everything we do. We believe when our customers succeed, we succeed, which is why we chose this theme. Our passion is to help our customers unlock their full potential and empower them to do more, reach further, and have even more impact in their businesses. Throughout Fusion we focused on enabling our customers and partners to do just that. </p>
<p>Our vision is to unlock the full potential of cloud solutions to accelerate the success of our customers, our partners, and our industry. We aspire to help our customers unlock the full potential of cloud solutions so they can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Grow and evolve their businesses through streamlining processes, removing barriers, and saving money.</li>
<li>Bring the latest technology to their businesses as soon as it’s available and get the most value out of their solutions every day. Solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/three-tips-for-combatting-expense-report-fraud">Concur Detect</a>, an artificial intelligence and machine learning solution delivered by AppZen, an SAP Concur partner, that audits expenses. </li>
<li>Gain powerful insights that enable them to run their businesses better and deliver the experience employees expect. Insights like what can be discovered from our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ey-concur-collaborate-first-fully-integrated-tax-immigration-solution-business-travel">integration with EY</a> that analyzes data to make real-time assessments of a business traveler’s tax and immigration obligations before they travel, with no additional effort required from the traveler. </li>
</ul>
<p>During the keynotes on Wednesday and Thursday we covered our vision and three focus areas that underscore how this comes to life: expertise our clients won’t outgrow, innovation that benefits our clients, and how an open ecosystem expands their view. SAP Concur speakers were joined on stage by customers and partners who shared insights about how our partner ecosystem enables them to leverage their spend and partner data to run their businesses better. One of the highlights every year is celebrating our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/announcing-the-2018-sap-concur-innovation-award-winners">Innovation Award winners</a> on stage who are making a significant impact through the use of our solutions. These keynotes were bookended with an engaging keynote by Fariba Alamdari, Vice President, Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, who spoke about the importance of owning our value and not waiting for inclusion to come to us, and a heartfelt performance by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, Brandi Carlisle.</p>
<p>Being a part of Fusion is one of the most rewarding things I do each year. I appreciate the thousands of customers and partners who spend the week with us and the opportunity to listen and learn so much in such a brief period of time. Whether you are a travel manager, financial decision maker, human resource manager, procurement officer or IT administratior, your potential is our passion and we look forward to being by your side to help you succeed. </p>
Data is Key to Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/data-key-protecting-your-most-valuable-asset-your-people
2018-10-07T19:52:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In part one of our fourpart series we shared how organizations today still have gaps in their duty of care programs Then in part two we dived deeper into what those common gaps are...
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">part one</a> of our four-part series, we shared how organizations today still have gaps in their duty of care programs. Then, in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/nine-tips-for-filling-the-gaps-in-your-duty-of-care">part two</a>, we dived deeper into what those common gaps are for travelers and employees, and the actions you can take to better support all of your people.</p>
<p>Next, we turn our attention to the role <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/data-support-whats-needed-successful-travel-risk-management">data plays in implementing a successful travel risk management (TRM) program</a>. The effort required to manage a TRM program is a huge task, and having the right stakeholders in place is essential to understanding the data requirements for effectively monitoring and managing TRM.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A team approach to travel risk management</h2>
<p>Historically, the burden of managing travel risk might’ve fell strictly on an organization’s travel manager. However, according to a 2017 Business Travel News (BTN) report, “ Taking on Travel Risk Management,” companies are trending towards a ‘team approach’ in bringing multiple internal and external stakeholders for TRM initiatives.</p>
<p>Of the 229 travel managers and corporate safety and security managers surveyed by the BTN, internal travel risk management stakeholders include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Travel management (76%)</li>
<li>Traveler (65%)</li>
<li>HR or benefits (62%)</li>
<li>Executive management (54%)</li>
<li>Health, safe and/or risk (50%)</li>
<li>Legal (42%)</li>
<li>Corporate security (40%)</li>
<li>Travelers’ families (23%)</li>
<li>Compliance (21%)</li>
<li>Corporate communications (21%)</li>
<li>Other (1%)</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, approximately a third of respondents said travel management companies (TMCs) are their primary external partners for TRM, while 29% said they mostly rely on travel risk providers, and 19% rely on traveler tracking or risk management platforms.</p>
<p> “A lot of businesses that are getting into travel risk are just touching the tip of the iceberg,” said Stephen Barth, a University of Houston law professor and founder of the Hospitality Lawyer. “It’s really unfair to put that burden on a travel manger. You have to think about your entire ecosystem of travel risk management.”</p>
<p>Once you’ve gotten the right stakeholders involved, you can then start to better understand the data requirements needed for an effective TRM program.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Integrated data is the heart of a TRM program’s success</h2>
<p>With the different internal and external stakeholders involved, integrating data collected from various sources for an effective TRM program can be difficult, especially with the increase in travel bookings made outside of the TMC or directly with suppliers.</p>
<p>The BTN research demonstrates a reliance on itinerary data and employee contact data to fuel an organization’s TRM program – internally and externally by travel management companies. Data sources companies use to support TRM include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Itinerary data (66%)</li>
<li>Employee contact information (66%)</li>
<li>Market-specific threat information (46%)</li>
<li>Ongoing threat information (43%)</li>
<li>HR data (30%)</li>
<li>Credit card swipe history (18%)</li>
<li>GPS-enabled traveler location data (18%)</li>
<li>Social media data (15%)</li>
<li>None (13%)</li>
</ul>
<p>At a minimum, TMCs should be able to inform TRM stakeholders on travel booked with data around who is traveling, and where, when and how, according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). Additionally, they should be able to provide risk alerts, news around airline issues, warnings about weather conditions, and any other incidents that could impact your travelers. Some TMCs might also provide traveler tracking and communication tools, however, bookings outside the TMC makes it challenging to capture this data for risk management.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Leveraging technology for data collection and compliance</h2>
<p>For an effective travel risk management program, organizations need to keep pace with the evolution of how employees travel and spend today – and technology will help you to collect travel and spend data from the various channels your employees are using for the purpose of keeping them safe and compliant.</p>
<p>“With access to tracking capabilities, a travel manager or security manager can locate travelers immediately in a crisis to reassure them that their company is monitoring every aspect of their trip and doing everything possible to maintain their safety,” GBTA reported.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Tracking your travelers.</strong> Traveler tracking information should be the foundation to keeping your people safe. Traveler tracking data should be kept current and accessible, and should include:
<ul>
<li>Complete booking itinerary</li>
<li>Expense data</li>
<li>HR information</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p>By adopting a technological tool that centralizes and consolidates your data from various channels and sources – expenses, itineraries, supplier e-receipts, mobile check-ins and card – you can alert, accurately locate, and have two-way communication with your people should they find themselves in harm’s way.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Mobile tracking for good.</strong> There’s been a growing trend in leveraging mobile services to protect traveling employees. GPS tracking could be viewed as an invasion of privacy; however, many organizations are having success in rolling out opt-in tracking and check-ins for their people with apps that provide mobile services in the event of an emergency.</li>
</ol>
<p>For your TRM program to be successful, you must take an integrated approach to collect and connect data from all sources and channels. By leveraging quality tools and solutions, you can gain collect quality, meaningful data to keep travelers compliant and safe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Download the full BTN report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/data-support-whats-needed-successful-travel-risk-management">Data Support: What’s Needed for Successful Travel Risk Management</a>. Then, learn more about how to fulfill your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care with SAP Concur solutions</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: </h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/duty-of-care-increase-in-traveler-concerns">Be Aware of Your Duty of Care and the Increase in Traveler Concerns</a></h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/nine-tips-for-filling-the-gaps-in-your-duty-of-care">Nine Tips for Filling the Gaps in Your Duty of Care</a></h3>
<h3>Part 4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-prepare-for-responding-to-a-duty-of-care-incident">How to Prepare for Responding to a Duty of Care Incident</a></h3>
How Cardinal Health Cuts the Time it Takes to Submit Expenses by More Than 90%
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-cardinal-health-cuts-time-it-takes-submit-expenses-more-90
2018-06-05T11:14:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the healthcare world nothing is a higher priority than exceptional patient care However the complicated administrative work involved with running a healthcare system can sometimes...
<p>In the healthcare world, nothing is a higher priority than exceptional patient care. However, the complicated administrative work involved with running a healthcare system can sometimes make patient care more difficult. That’s where Cardinal Health comes in.</p>
<p>Cardinal Health uses its nearly 100 years of expertise to reduce the total cost of healthcare and to improve the lives of patients. The company helps by providing medical products and services to many of America’s most prestigious medical institutions.</p>
<p>As a large global company making a big impact, Cardinal Health needed a way to unify its expense reporting process for both users and analysts. “We are in about sixty countries and we process about 225,000 expense reports,” says Amber Starkey, Manager of Supplier Financial Services.</p>
<p>By switching away from spreadsheets to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, Cardinal Health was able to reduce the amount of time it takes each user to submit an expense report from one hour to just five minutes. Concur Expense also allows the company to move away from manual reconciliation and lets employees submit and approve reports on the go. As a result, employees at Cardinal Health can focus on the mission of improving healthcare systems by spending more time in hospitals and pharmacies and less time on administrative tasks.</p>
<p>Watch the full video to see how SAP Concur helps Cardinal Health run at its best. Check out more customer success stories <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/index">here</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Check Out Our Newest Solutions Created With Your Needs in Mind
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/check-out-our-newest-solutions-created-your-needs-mind
2020-09-11T13:20:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The travel and expense technology space is changing The introduction of automation and AI has opened the doors for creating intuitive tools that save employees time and employers money...
<p data-id="ad8aa8ef-7534-47ed-b740-2a5a1b8308b3">The travel and expense technology space is changing. The introduction of automation and AI has opened the doors for creating intuitive tools that save employees time and employers money. At SAP Concur, innovation flows through our veins and propels us forward. With our clients in mind, we are continuously looking for ways to improve our current solutions and create new ones that meet your ever-changing business challenges.</p>
<p data-id="1ef4db0c-1df4-48a0-8dcf-d16110ecb9e5">We are proud to offer the latest additions to our robust platform—an innovative lineup of products that will make spend management that much easier for your organization, regardless of size. Meet Concur Budget, Concur Drive, and Concur Detect by Appzen, and get to know them a little better:</p>
<p data-id="0ede6f1a-69bb-4b86-9aa3-b21bc5f59570"> </p>
<h2 data-id="7d290fff-db0e-4353-b672-ec81025e9e86">Concur Budget</h2>
<p data-id="45f0309d-8e7d-42dc-9e62-3f2122c9f961">Managing budgets is no easy feat and can give even the most seasoned of budget owners heartburn. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Concur Budget</a>, you have the tools you need to see not only what has happened, but what is coming up in the future. Concur Budget gives you access to powerful dashboards give you the data you need for strategic decision-making and complete financial control.</p>
<p data-id="45f0309d-8e7d-42dc-9e62-3f2122c9f961"> </p>
<h2 data-id="f2bcd1db-caf7-48cb-9cc7-f6bdbf162167">Concur Drive</h2>
<p data-id="52deb738-b5e7-4252-ada6-6f9479859db8">Mileage tracking and reimbursement is anything but easy, and often brings with it errors and unnecessary spend. At SAP Concur, we feel your pain, which is the catalyst for creating <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a>, our automatic distance capture, documentation, and reimbursement system. This solution integrates with users mobile devices and uses smart sensors to track when a vehicle is in motion. And with measuring distances in mileage and kilometers, Concur Drive easily goes where ever your employees go.</p>
<p data-id="52deb738-b5e7-4252-ada6-6f9479859db8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="98461e40-5d27-4818-b0e1-981105559aad">Concur Detect by AppZen</h2>
<p data-id="9756f4a7-5d19-461b-90f2-ae09779d1de3">Nobody likes being the “bad guy,” but someone has to review all those expense reports for errors and potential fraud, right? Not anymore. Enter <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a> by AppZen, which applies machine learning to audit 100% of expense reports, before reimbursement occurs. Using artificial intelligence and ML, Concur Detect by AppZen validates whether expenses are legitimate and accurate by cross-checking them within seconds against hundreds of external data sources. It's integrated with Concur Expense and enables seamless, automatic processing of low-risk expenses with high-risk reports flagged on the dashboard for review and alerts sent real-time.</p>
<p data-id="9756f4a7-5d19-461b-90f2-ae09779d1de3"> </p>
<h2 data-id="a6afc1d0-b072-41b6-965a-a1af9744621a">Ready to learn more?</h2>
<p data-id="14ee7bcd-614e-480d-86e1-ee238ec76a30">Find out more about our latest industry innovations at today’s webinar, <a href="https://go.concur.com/Events_NA_SMN_Prospect_Webinar_0618_Innovation_01RegistrationPage.html">Future-proof spend management tools for your business</a>. Not only will you be able to watch live product demos, but you will hear from SAP Concur solutions consultant, Landon Bickel, as he gives you a sneak peek of the future of travel and spend, and how to proactively prepare your business for the future. Can’t make this time? Not to worry, register and you can watch the recording anytime afterward.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Connected Journeys Mean Better Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-connected-journeys-mean-better-business-travel
2018-07-06T11:37:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre looking for ways to make business travel better look no further IDC research sponsored by SAP Concur has the answers The Connected Journey Evolving to the Next Level in...
<p data-id="486e23f9-5455-40ff-8450-90a3e7b65a4e">If you’re looking for ways to make business travel better, look no further.</p>
<p data-id="2194569d-ed06-41e3-93e1-36a61252d3a8">IDC research, sponsored by SAP Concur, has the answers: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gain-control-connected-business-travel">The Connected Journey: Evolving to the Next Level in Business Travel</a> takes a detailed look at what businesses need to do to keep pace with a rapidly growing, constantly evolving, travel ecosystem.</p>
<p data-id="f891a42d-f4b4-471b-88a2-eb1aa7cfcfda">Among the top recommendations? Connecting travel to the cloud to improve the experience for your employees (thereby increasing productivity) can help you more quickly and accurately manage the following:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="2c073bca-54e6-4aef-bf38-d8df90282f97"><strong>Mobility</strong>: Most <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">millennials</a> prefer self-service technologies to manage their travel.</li>
<li data-id="cd70cc04-95f2-4bc4-bb55-02bee8670811"><strong>Visibility</strong>: All your data is all in one place to spot new opportunities such as VAT reclaim.</li>
<li data-id="ca253625-bc14-4193-a99d-fd5dc19dee3e"><strong>Compliance</strong>: Spot over-spending and non-compliance to travel and expense policies.</li>
<li data-id="7ff8b01d-9f8b-4aa3-8219-bfe8958cfbcc"><strong>Costs</strong>: Get consolidated data from multiple sources to negotiate more effectively with suppliers.</li>
<li data-id="372c7701-0aa9-42cd-8bee-51f0c66b7dbe"><strong>Duty of Care</strong>: Get near real-time expense and travel data to locate and protect your employees.</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="6db27688-7992-42a5-af8c-e0cac26909cb"> </p>
<p data-id="a58b5360-617d-41ac-9ac0-86b712e56aba">So, what do these benefits look like? According to IDC, by managing travel with a cloud-based solution your business can realize a number of benefits including:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="3d3a4361-7f37-459c-aa03-caf6c53529ac">49% less time spent on travel planning</li>
<li data-id="2f31f831-f805-41b5-9b3a-904278e3d208">70% less time spent creating expense reports</li>
<li data-id="3e4cdbe6-e5c7-4528-9e1f-87b82310f1f3">35% more compliance with internal travel/expense policies</li>
<li data-id="035b86b0-4cbf-473b-bd94-23ae66bbe342">54% fewer lost receipts</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="d2ca1d69-8193-4e80-9c4d-5749e3ab70a3">IDC also describes what to look for in a cloud partner so you and your team can focus more on strategic growth and less on travel bookings and expenses. IDC goes on to outline challenges and opportunities before, during and after travel – from tighter controls over booking and improving productivity to reviewing, integrating, and reimbursing expenses.</p>
<p data-id="1b7a449a-549d-49f8-ba43-6251045a5b0d">The savings associated with these improvements are staggering. As an example, the InfoBrief highlights SAP Concur’s connected travel ecosystem, which can save the average business $97,300 in invoicing/auditing operations efficiencies, $122,000 in travel-related costs, and $728,000 in improved staff productivity.</p>
<p data-id="99bf54a6-c2ea-4692-a570-39e43bec8dab">Is your business ready to get connected? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gain-control-connected-business-travel">Download the IDC InfoBrief to learn more about connected journeys for better business travel.</a></p>
Manual to Mobile: How and Why to Make the Shift
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manual-mobile-how-and-why-make-shift
2018-08-02T09:50:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its underway For generations businesses worked on paper Whether it was communication bookkeeping or expense reports people toiled away entering numbers on gridded sheets checking...
<h2 data-id="c490e99c-d252-483c-8199-996a2b28441a">It’s underway</h2>
<p data-id="62ba8f5c-ff33-410a-8150-b6eca4ae99ec">For generations, businesses worked on paper. Whether it was communication, bookkeeping, or expense reports, people toiled away entering numbers on gridded sheets, checking, double checking, and correcting errors. To work on the sheets, you had to be where the sheets were, which was almost always in the office. But beginning in the 1960s, and accelerating in the 1990s, digital technologies disrupted manual processes. In the last few years, the advent of smart and powerful mobile devices – phones and tablets – and the demographic trends among the people using those devices, have taken the change on a rocket ride.</p>
<p data-id="62ba8f5c-ff33-410a-8150-b6eca4ae99ec"> </p>
<h2 data-id="024462be-ffd4-43bc-8058-08b1b9396d2a">It’s a journey </h2>
<p data-id="024462be-ffd4-43bc-8058-08b1b9396d2a"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-ask/forrester-2017-prediction_b_12749956.html">In a November 2016 article for the Huffington Post Blog</a>, Forrester Research VP Julie Ask (who co-authored the book The Mobile Mind Shift) talked about the stakes for businesses in getting mobile right. She wrote, “The future of experiences is one that depends on agility, continuous learning and automation. Building these experiences must be viewed as a journey augmented by new technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.” That article portrays the face of digital as being mobile. There are a lot of reasons for that.</p>
<p data-id="024462be-ffd4-43bc-8058-08b1b9396d2a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="94ffbbc3-67ef-44c9-ae7e-2dc6783fc13a">It’s trending</h2>
<p data-id="94ffbbc3-67ef-44c9-ae7e-2dc6783fc13a">Mobile is at the heart of one of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smb-groups-top-10-technology-trends">SMB Group's Top Ten Technology Trends for 2017</a>. Trend #8 notes that “SMB mobile momentum continues, but mobile management lags”, in other words, there’s more work to be done. But the stats are there: SMB Group research, sponsored by SAP Concur, shows that more than half of SMBs say half or more of their employees now use mobile devices for business. Mobile productivity and collaboration apps (like HipChat and Slack) are now considered mainstream. More than two-thirds of SMBs surveyed agree that mobile solutions are critical to their business.</p>
<p data-id="94ffbbc3-67ef-44c9-ae7e-2dc6783fc13a">Meanwhile, a generational shift tilted towards people who prefer mobile devices for work (and play) is gathering speed. In 2015 millennials passed baby boomers as our country’s largest living generation. And, as boomers retire at an accelerating rate, your workforce, and everybody else’s, is <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">increasingly a millennial culture</a>. And millennials are always on their smartphones – just look around you.</p>
<p data-id="94ffbbc3-67ef-44c9-ae7e-2dc6783fc13a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c6ba64aa-72ba-445e-b60d-2c6ba1694c32">It’s better</h2>
<p data-id="3f8d1c4f-e6d3-4396-8775-da51f4254c61">Millennials aren’t the only workers who prefer the option of mobile devices – and for good reasons. The power of a modern smartphone or tablet has crossed a line, to the point at which it really is possible to get a lot of work done literally any time, from anywhere. Communicating, collaborating, submitting business documents for approval, and approving are just some of the processes that are now mobile-capable. That’s boosting productivity and giving workers unprecedented flexibility. The trick is for businesses to equip their employees with the right mobile solutions, and to guard the security of the data that’s flying through those devices and into the cloud.</p>
<p data-id="6e724a30-5cd5-46b0-b6eb-01a64453e8a5"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e4f5c34a-6e7d-4cd3-8300-233c6b52abe1">It’s here</h2>
<p data-id="a45898ca-e394-463a-b286-1dc07fefb11c">SMB Group data shows two-thirds of SMBs agree that mobile solutions are already changing how they work and collaborate. And there is nothing on the horizon right now that suggests that trend will reverse itself in the foreseeable future.</p>
<p data-id="0045aee7-c944-4277-aba7-e724f704bec0">Want to know more about the mobile change and how the best SMBs are embracing it to serve their customers and grow? <strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/0818_ManualtoMobile_Registration.html" target="_blank">Register for our upcoming webinar</a>: The Benefits of Moving from Manual to Mobile Expense </strong>with Rich Adams, Director, Mobile Spend at SAP Concur, on Tuesday August 7, 2018 at 2PM ET.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is Disconnected Spend Data Costing You?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/disconnected-spend-data-costing-you
2020-09-13T04:22:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to automating the travel and spend management process its likely your business has already stepped up to the digital plate But automation alone doesnt always translate...
<p>When it comes to automating the travel and spend management process, it’s likely your business has already stepped up to the digital plate. But automation alone doesn’t always translate into effective processes, especially when it comes to managing employee-initiated spending.</p>
<p>Employee spending on travel expenses, traditional POs, non-PO invoices, p-cards, and corporate cards, just to name a few, typically fall into the bottom 20% of overall spend, yet they involve the majority of your vendors – and your department’s time and resources. How many orphan invoices do you have floating around your organization?</p>
<p>In parts <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/two-business-trends-driving-change-in-spend">one</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-fraudsters-find-weak-links-in-employee-spend-areas">two</a> of our four-part series, we discussed how employee spending – and the resulting orphan spend – can put a wrench in spend management, plus what that means for an organization’s ability to mitigate fraud and manage compliance.</p>
<p>Next, we take a look at how a limited automation and archaic technology not only puts you at risk for lost dollars, but also can impact your organization’s ability to make strategic decisions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Being a Victim of Disconnect</h2>
<p>For many organizations, these payables are spread across multiple systems, or, worse yet, are completely paper based, making it challenging to manage it all. Too much effort is spent hunting down lost invoices, chasing down approvals and giving payment status updates to suppliers – it’s nearly impossible to stay ahead of schedule and focus on forecasting future spend, while controlling costs and staying compliant. So, when all of this disconnected spending from all of these sources, across all these categories finally comes crashing into view, it’s too late.</p>
<p>If your employee spend management is disconnected, it leads to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lack of accurate and timely data</li>
<li>Challenging to stay on top of payment due dates, which leads to late fees</li>
<li>Limited Insights to maximize working capital</li>
</ul>
<p>When you’re drowning in details and manual busy work, how can you move your department from being just another cost center to a strategic partner in your organization? Simple: you can’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Managing Spend Strategically</h2>
<p>The only way to drive long-term growth and improve productivity is by embracing technology that connects all spend, so all data is captured and you get complete control over all employee purchasing. Similarly, a complete spend picture empowers you to make informed, strategic decisions on behalf of your organization. Ensuring your current technology is up to date can help. To strategically manage your spend, your technology must:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Integrate with your existing systems</strong>. This allows you to bring together data from your credit card provider, HR technology, and other business systems, all in one place, to give you the information needed to negotiate better vendor rates, make better budget decisions, or spend on initiatives that will have the greatest impact for your business.</li>
<li><strong>Run in the cloud</strong>. Cloud-based, automated technology is critical for improving efficiency and reducing processing time. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-business-value-through-travel-and-expense-management-maturity">according to IDC</a>, organizations that use cloud-based expense management can save employees an average of 70% on the time it takes to do their expense reports. It also lessens the burden on the internal IT support team, allowing them to focus on tasks that are more helpful to the business.</li>
<li><strong>Provide a single solution for all departments. </strong>A single solution leveraged across the business allows managers from T&E, AP, and beyond, to get a high-level view of trends. Similarly, it allows departments to develop better budgeting and financial projects for the quarter, year, and well into the future.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Download the full Forrester report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/getting-better-mileage-out-your-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">Getting Better Mileage Out Of Your Travel, Expense, And Invoice Solutions</a>, to learn more about how automated, cloud-based technology can help with strategic spend management. Or <a href="https://go.concur.com/Cost-of-Doing-Nothing-Landing-Page_Landing-Page.html?pid=direct&cid=direct">visit us online</a> to dive deeper into minimizing costs by connecting all your employee spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/two-business-trends-driving-change-in-spend">Watch for These Two Business Trends Driving Change in Spend</a></h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-fraudsters-find-weak-links-in-employee-spend-areas">How Fraudsters Find Weak Links in Employee Spend Areas</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
Are Your Systems Ready to Scale as You Grow?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-your-systems-ready-scale-you-grow
2019-08-29T05:49:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Think for a moment about the systems you have in place and the processes you use on your team How many of them were strategically implemented with an eye on the short medium and long...
<p>Think for a moment about the systems you have in place and the processes you use on your team. How many of them were strategically implemented with an eye on the short, medium and long term? And how many of them were invented as a quick fix at the time and have evolved to give you what you need? (For the most part.)</p>
<p>How will those processes invented as a quick fix at the time work as you grow? Will they continue to give you what you need with a few tweaks here and there? Or will they sink under the strain?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/10831-0.jpg?itok=J7eBdH0L" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Save Money and Drive Growth</h2>
<p>Learn how automated invoice management helps SMBs reduce processing, save money, and scale.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">Get the Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Systems and processes that are no longer fit-for-purpose is one of the most common reasons that people talk to us. Take Maria Santos Roman, Office Manager at <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/drc-capital-llp" target="_blank">DRC Capital</a>, an SAP Concur customer: “It would take days to approve an invoice and even though I was only involved in creating expense reports for three or four people it was all taking a lot of time. Plus, I was concerned about the massive amounts of paper we were printing and how much we were spending on storage.”</p>
<p>If you’re concerned about how your systems and processes will cope as you scale up, maybe now is the time to take action to address any challenges you may have in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation equals scalability</h2>
<p>Automating processes such as invoice, expense and travel makes them more lightweight, which means they are scalable as you grow. But, it is important to think strategically about the solutions you implement.</p>
<p>Choose integrated tools that talk to each other, so you aren’t just streamlining one process - you’re streamlining all of them. Luke Braham, Head of Technology Operations at SAP Concur customer, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/red" target="_blank">RED</a>, said: “We liked the multiple layers we could look into further down the line. The single platform gave a benefit you don’t get with other products.”</p>
<p>Another decision that could mean less work and admin in the future, is to choose tools that are cloud-based. Tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> upgrade automatically with the latest tax and government regulations, so you’re always using the most up-to-date version. Most importantly, built-in policies and triggers speed up time to reimbursement by as much as half. There is also no up-front investment in expensive hardware and no expensive upgrades required. It means you can use the same tools and get the same benefits as your big business counterparts.</p>
<p>Choose tools that can be customized so you have technology that fits your processes rather than trying to make your processes fit technology. SAP Concur solutions can be tailored to your precise requirements. At the same time, every implementation is led by an SAP Concur expert who can make sure your processes are optimized, so you get the very best from what the tools have to offer.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The not-so-fringe benefits of automation</h2>
<p>Automation won’t just save you time in the future it will save you time now. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">recent study</a> found that finance teams using automated T&E solutions saw a 15% reduction in the time spent processing expense reports and invoice management users saw a 16% reduction.</p>
<p>The time you save can be spent on analysing your numbers and providing meaningful insights that add value to the business – helping it to grow. And the good news is that with automation, you get greater visibility in the first place. Laurence Harper, Finance Systems Analyst at SAP Concur customer <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/das-0" target="_blank">DAS</a>, said: “I don’t think we could do without the business intelligence side of SAP Concur. Our teams are now proactive instead of reactive to changes within the finance department – a transformative shift.” </p>
<p>In other words, automation has the power to make a good team even better.</p>
How Collaborative HR and Finance Leaders Can Unlock Lasting Business Value
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-collaborative-hr-and-finance-leaders-can-unlock-lasting-business-value
2018-12-13T08:08:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Theres a simple solution to success and it hardly matters what line of work youre in Its the key to a sports team winning a championship Its the core element in a bands rise to fame...
<p>There’s a simple solution to success, and it hardly matters what line of work you’re in.</p>
<p>It’s the key to a sports team winning a championship. It’s the core element in a band’s rise to fame. It’s the driving force behind a company’s triumph over its competitors.</p>
<p>What’s the trick? It’s collaboration.</p>
<p>In the business world, it’s crucial that professionals from different departments come together and lend their unique talents and perspectives to creating value for their companies. Human resources and finance leaders who unite can have a particularly profound impact.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Three game-changing ways teamwork generates results</h2>
<p>Henry heads the HR department at a small textiles business in Pittsburgh. Francine is the company’s finance leader. By leveraging the right technology and working side by side, the pair can help the firm:</p>
<p><strong>1. Gain better data visibility to improve strategic decision making</strong>: Henry and Francine may not have a ton in common, but one thing they do share is poor company-wide insight. And they’re not alone. Nearly a quarter of all finance leaders cite a lack of visibility into company spending as their biggest challenge. (1)</p>
<p>This inability to see what’s going on within the company prevents HR and finance executives from making strategic decisions designed to control costs and uncover lucrative business opportunities. For instance, with better data visibility, Henry and Francine can collaboratively find new ways to keep employee expenses low while hiring enough staff to fulfill a massive order.</p>
<p><strong>2. Simplify workflows to increase employee engagement and productivity</strong>: Too many HR and finance employees are mired in manual processes. They waste hours of their time completing tedious administrative tasks when they could be focusing on strategic, revenue-generating activities. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix. According to recent McKinsey & Company research, 50% of the work employees currently perform manually can be automated. (2)</p>
<p>By jointly deciding to deploy powerful human capital management (HCM) and spend management solutions, Henry and Francine can automate their processes to simplify workflows and optimize staff performance. For Francine’s finance team, automation helps eliminate costly errors during invoice processing. Henry’s HR team, meanwhile, can reduce the burden of time-consuming data-entry payroll tasks by automating. And on top of freeing up staff to lend their talents to growing the company’s bottom line, Henry and Francine can create more fulfilling and rewarding workplace experiences that keep staff motivated and engaged.</p>
<p><strong>3. Stay flexible to meet and exceed revenue and growth goals</strong>: The business world is anything but predictable. Constant changes in the economy and the labor force require companies to stay agile to compete. As an HR leader, Henry must ensure his team can attract and retain exceptional employees that help spur sustainable business growth, even in the face of talent shortages. And Francine needs to guarantee her finance team can mitigate risk and pave the way for a more prosperous future, even during economic downturns.</p>
<p>By embracing scalable HCM and spend management technology, Henry and Francine can do exactly that. They can make sure they have the right staff in place to guide the business forward and the financial wherewithal to seize potentially rewarding business opportunities. And by combining their efforts, they can align their respective HR and financial strategies with the company’s overall business objectives to fuel the organization’s rise. In fact, 41% of finance and HR leaders who collaborate have experienced a 10% EBITDA growth. (3)</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Build a productive partnership between HR and finance</h2>
<p>When HR and finance leaders like Henry and Francine are on the same page, businesses can excel like never before. From lowering company costs to boosting employee productivity to climbing to the top of a particular industry, anything is possible.</p>
<p>To learn more about unlocking lasting business value by strengthening the connection between HR and finance, view our infographic, <a href="https://go.concur.com/programs_na_smn_channel_social-media_1127_adp_social-media-1127_adp_landing-page.html?pid=social&cid=ccaff_adp_concur_q4_sm_20181212">HR and Finance Leaders Who Work Together Win Together.</a></p>
<p>by SAP Concur and ADP</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1 How Finance Leadership Pays Off: Six Ways CFOs Stay Ahead of the Pack, Oxford Economics, 2017</p>
<p>2 A Future That Works: Automation, Employment, and Productivity, McKinsey&Company, 2017</p>
<p>3 Partnering for Performance – Part 2: The CFO and HR, EY, 2014</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Are Your Barriers to Business Growth?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-your-barriers-business-growth
2019-03-19T08:15:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With the big change in the form of Brexit on the horizon we asked market research specialist Vanson Bourne to survey UK finance leaders to explore growth strategies in a changing...
<p>With the big change in the form of Brexit on the horizon, we asked market research specialist Vanson Bourne to survey 500 UK finance leaders to explore growth strategies in a changing economic landscape. Let's take a look at some of the findings below. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.co.uk/sites/default/files/uk/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/1962-0.jpg?itok=VXuijpO7" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How Finance Leaders Can Drive Strategy and Avoid Risk</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/fuelling-business-growth-how-uk-finance-leaders-can-drive-strategy-and-avoid-risk">Download Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Preparing for business growth in the age of uncertainty</h2>
<p>The acceptance of uncertainty and an unwillingness to let it stand in the way of growth was evident in the survey results. 96% of the businesses surveyed say they are planning to grow and uncertainty is not seen as one of the barriers to that growth.</p>
<p>In fact, for the business as a whole, the top five barriers according to finance leaders are:</p>
<ul>
<li>IT/finance infrastructure (43%)</li>
<li>Staff productivity (41%)</li>
<li>Growing customer base (40%)</li>
<li>Profits for investment (39%)</li>
<li>Cash flow (38%)</li>
</ul>
<p>For the finance team specifically, the top five barriers according to finance leaders are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lack of funding for finance (IT, staff training etc) (39%)</li>
<li>Staff turnover and low team morale (35%)</li>
<li>Other competing business priorities (35%)</li>
<li>Increasing compliance requirements (34%)</li>
<li>Lack of scalability of finance systems as you grow (32%)</li>
</ul>
<p>What we see is that the big theme in these answers is not uncertainty but a technology gap. Let’s delve a bit deeper.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The technology gap</h2>
<p>Our research found that a lack of efficiency in finance systems is resulting in problems for 92% of finance leaders.</p>
<p>When we look at the problems faced by finance teams, we start to see why IT and finance infrastructure is holding businesses back. Problems cited include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Payment delays to suppliers / employees (30%)</li>
<li>Inability to forecast and plan for the future (28%)</li>
<li>Employee / team dissatisfaction (27%)</li>
<li>Inability to manage cash flow effectively (26%)</li>
<li>Inability to budget effectively (25%)</li>
</ul>
<p>The reasons behind the difficulties finance leaders face in planning and forecasting, managing cash flow and budgeting effectively are revealed when we look at how spend is managed.</p>
<p>For many businesses, manual processes still underpin travel, expense and invoice systems. In fact:</p>
<ul>
<li>53% of travel booking processes aren’t automated</li>
<li>45% of expense processes aren't automated</li>
<li>38% of invoice processes aren't automated</li>
</ul>
<p>On average, enterprise businesses host 52% of their business systems in the cloud and for SMBs it’s 42%.</p>
<p>Given these figures then, it’s hardly surprising that 67% of finance leaders aren’t confident their expense, travel, and invoice systems will scale with them as they grow. In fact, there’s already an awareness that scalability is a problem:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only 30% say their travel process is completely efficient</li>
<li>36% say their expense systems are completely efficient</li>
<li>43% say their invoice systems are completely efficient</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>The benefits of closing the technology gap</h2>
<p>It is clear that finance leaders understand the problem and see the benefit of automation in solving it. The vast majority (98%) of the finance leaders we surveyed say automation would benefit their organization. The principle advantages are seen as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Helping to reduce manual errors (53%)</li>
<li>Getting real-time insight into data (50%)</li>
<li>Controlling costs (48%)</li>
<li>Helping with faster payments (46%)</li>
</ul>
<p>What’s more, 93% of respondents agree that connecting expense, travel, and invoice processes is important to achieving their growth objectives.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t let the technology gap hold your business back</h2>
<p>These findings show that finance leaders understand how important it is to close the technology gap. In fact, failure to do so could be the difference between growth and stagnation. To learn more, access the full research report, F<a href="http://www.concur.co.uk/resources/fuelling-business-growth-how-uk-finance-leaders-can-drive-strategy-and-avoid-risk" target="_blank">uelling Business Growth: How UK Finance Leaders Can Drive Strategy and Avoid Risk</a>.</p>
Gain Control Over Mileage Calculation With These Three Best Practices
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/gain-control-over-mileage-calculation-these-three-best-practices
2019-02-06T08:21:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With so many employees behind the wheel driving to meet with clients and commuting between offices selfreported mileage and personal vehicle expenses are one of the last expense...
<p>With so many employees behind the wheel driving to meet with clients and commuting between offices, self-reported mileage and personal vehicle expenses are one of the last expense categories many companies decide to tackle. But, taking control of this category with tracking technology that helps employees calculate mileage automatically can bring significant savings. Keep reading as we examine three personal mileage best practices you can put in place to end unreliable distance calculations and provide more accurate information for tax purposes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Update your policies</h2>
<p>Clearly define your company’s personal mileage policy in your expense policy. Sixty-three percent of frequent road travelers find submitting expenses a frustrating experience, making your mileage policy easily accessible can help you get started on the right foot and help assuage your travelers' frustrations head-on.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Keep it accurate</h2>
<p>Each mile an employee drives incurs another cost. Give employees a to increase the accuracy of distances reported and reimbursed. Encourage employees to track mileage against maps online or provide them with an automated solution that uses GPS to track miles actually driven. Last year, SAP Concur customers spent $2.3 billion on mileage. Documenting miles more accurately leads to greater visibility and cost savings.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make it mobile</h2>
<p>Most of your employees already have the hardware they need to save your company 20%-30% in personal mileage spending in their pockets. Take advantage of the GPS tracking built into their mobile devices to make calculating mileage simple and intuitive, put an end to self-reported mileage, and gain control over personal vehicle expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To dive deeper into these personal mileage best practices, read the e-book <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">Driving Your Business: Best Practices for Personal Mileage Reporting</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Share Your Experience with Us at SAP Concur Fusion
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/share-your-experience-us-sap-concur-fusion
2019-03-06T06:55:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur Fusion is right around the corner and we couldnt be more excited Our largest annual customer event will take place from March when customers from around the globe will...
<p>SAP Concur Fusion is right around the corner, and we couldn’t be more excited!</p>
<p>Our largest annual customer event will take place from March 11-14, when customers from around the globe will descend upon sunny San Diego, California for four days of learning, networking, and fun. One event feature we hope you will be sure to take advantage of the chance to talk with the SAP Concur Customer Experience Transformation team at our booth.</p>
<p>For us, one of the best parts of SAP Concur Fusion is having the opportunity to connect directly with customers, face-to-face. The SAP Concur Customer Experience Transformation booth, which will be located in the center of the expo hall in the SAP Concur booth, is a place for us to connect one-on-one with you to hear what’s working well, as well as where you would like to see us improve. We value this feedback as a way to guide where we focus our investments for continuous improvement. As <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-fusion-2018-your-potential-is-our-passion">SAP Concur President Mike Eberhard</a> has said:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At SAP Concur customer success is at the center of everything we do. We believe when our customers succeed, we succeed… Our passion is to help our customers unlock their full potential and empower them to do more, reach further, and have even more impact in their businesses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What can attendees expect at the Customer Experience Transformation booth?</h2>
<p>Interested Fusion attendees can sign up for a 30-minute interview with a member of the Customer Experience Transformation team. Participants will be asked a few questions about their SAP Concur experience and there will also be time to share anything else that is top-of-mind. We welcome any and all thoughts, as your feedback helps us learn how SAP Concur can better set you up for success.</p>
<p>To add to the fun, an artist will be on hand to illustrate feedback in real-time. If you choose to participate, custom art will be sent to you after the event. Talk about the ultimate souvenir!</p>
<p>If you’re interested in participating, learn more and sign up for a meeting with the Customer Experience Transformation team <a href="https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/350badb0f05241c2a807b32197da59e6" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Psst: If you haven’t registered for Fusion yet, there’s still time. Everything you need to know can be found <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
Susan Berg
Don't Build a Company, Build a Family
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-build-company-build-family
2019-08-29T05:19:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I grew up in India the son of a military family so by the time Id reached college Id been to seven different schools in the space of years Every time we relocated Id have to make a...
<p>I grew up in India, the son of a military family, so by the time I’d reached college I’d been to seven different schools in the space of 12 years. Every time we relocated, I’d have to make a conscious effort to introduce myself to the other kids there. And every time, I was terrified! For most people, it gets easier the more often you do it, but I clearly wanted to buck the trend because I’d become more frightened with each city and year that passed.</p>
<p>Nowadays, however, I cherish the opportunity to reach out and connect with new people. I like to tell anyone who’ll listen, “if I can do it, anyone can.” Those childhood experiences have, in fact, played a big role in shaping not just who I am today, but the way I think about leadership and team-building.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons why I joined SAP Concur was because it operated like a family, not a typical corporation.</p>
<p>From the very first interview I had, you could sense the respect that the team had for people – even me. Now that I’ve been with SAP Concur for a few years, I’ve worked out three main principles that create this sense of family here.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Competence matters, but so does chemistry</h2>
<p>Whenever we hire someone, they go through up to five interviews with different teams and individuals. This isn’t to test the candidate’s ability so much as to see how well they get along with the rest of the family. We want to hire people who aren’t just bright sparks, but who will thrive and grow from being part of SAP Concur. Our way of working doesn’t suit everyone, and that’s okay. The chemistry needs to work both ways if we want to achieve great results both for our people and our business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. You need enough trust to talk to each other</h2>
<p>“Madanjit, so-and-so is asking us to do this, but I think we should do this other thing. What should I do?” Go talk to them face-to-face. If people don’t feel safe to directly address concerns or debate with others in their team, you end up with a set of individually brilliant performers working in isolation – and where’s the joy or business value in that? I believe one of my main responsibilities at SAP Concur is to build up that trust in the family. I constantly challenge them to tell me what they really think, instead of what they assume Madanjit wants to hear. Sometimes, especially in Asia, people aren’t so comfortable doing so at first – but it’s necessary if you want to maintain the correct course for the business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Earn respect before you give your view</h2>
<p>Well-functioning families aren’t democracies – most of us learn this in our early years. Without respect for age, experience, and track record, the family unit breaks down. I don’t expect the team at SAP Concur to respect me just because I’m older than most of them. I do, however, remind them that they need to earn respect from their peers and leaders for their views to carry greater weight. Respect is the currency of the family unit, and when we acknowledge its value we ensure that although everyone gets their say, the wisest words usually rise to the top.</p>
<p>Why is this idea of family in the workplace so important to me? Because what we end up remembering, at the end of the day, are the relationships and human connections that we create, both in the workplace and out of it. You have to reach out on a personal level if you want to go forward, both in your career and in your own development as a happy, healthy human being. Remember, “businesspeople” is a compound word – business is important, but we’ve got to remember our needs as people too, and that inclusiveness of family is one of them.</p>
Why We Need to Stop Hiring Millennials
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-we-need-stop-hiring-millennials
2019-09-16T13:50:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Millennials are the future of the workplace says everyone But when we were growing our team at SAP Concur I made it a point not to look for millennials to join us Who did we search for...
<p>"Millennials are the future of the workplace,” says everyone. But when we were growing our team at SAP Concur, I made it a point not to look for millennials to join us. Who did we search for, then? Smart, enthusiastic, fast-moving individuals – of any age.</p>
<p>To me, “millennial” is just another unnecessary label. Moreover, it encourages us to think about younger employees in a very specific way – and a rather close-minded one at that. We tend to perceive millennials as entitled, high-maintenance, even spoilt, when instead we should focus on what we can all learn from one another.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1556667468289-nsbw_ebook_automating_recipe_growth_cover.PNG" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Promote well-being and boost business results with automation</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">Read the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we have typically hired more mature salespeople with a certain number of years’ experience under their belt. That’s largely because selling a relatively unfamiliar solution to a relatively conservative Asian market is no easy task. More recently, however, we’ve hired a much younger team of sellers from a range of backgrounds – and the more “experienced” of us have found ourselves racing to keep up with their speed and creativity.</p>
<p>These new members of our team have challenged the status quo of how we traditionally sell, and they’re showing great results for it. They spend much less time waiting to check in with customers and prospects, shortening the sales cycle as much as humanly possible. They factor data points into their sales pitches far more consistently than more traditional sellers do. Most of all, they’re constantly asking why. Why do we have to sell in a linear mode, instead of running multiple deals in parallel? Why can’t we use the data to identify what we are doing wrong as well as what we do right?</p>
<p>All these questions and challenges have, at times, resulted in moments of creative tension and even conflict. But I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. To constantly improve on how we do things – something particularly important for a fast-moving space like SAP Concur’s – we need to break the mindset that we know all there is to know. Having 10 years of sales experience doesn’t mean you can’t learn something new, just as being new to the industry doesn’t mean you don’t have something unique to teach. The trick is to acknowledge that tension openly and constructively: that way, we’re all able to help each other grow.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282728_Receipt-on-phone_R_blue.png" />
<p>What Impact do Millennials have on Corporate T&E?</p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">Learn more</a></p>
</div>
<p>I don’t think our business, or any other business, needs to hire millennials to succeed. I think we do need to hire individuals who can not only understand and make sense of data, but know how to apply it wisely to their everyday decision-making. We also need to reward and praise individuals based on the results they deliver, not on how well they follow one methodology or another. If you can achieve great things with unconventional means, perhaps your approach should become the new convention!</p>
<p>Finally, we need to constantly encourage our people to keep learning and never stop. That applies irrespective of age, seniority, or experience. Personally, I’ve found myself challenged when it comes to incorporating data into my rather more established ways of doing things, something my newer colleagues are quick to encourage me on. When we get rid of labels like “millennial”, we open a two-way street for learning new things and tearing down the ones that don’t work. We’ve got to keep that street open if we want to grow as a business and as people.</p>
Laura Houldsworth
Up in the Air, Whose Duty is Duty of Care?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/air-whose-duty-duty-care
2020-01-28T11:49:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There are more than one million people in the air right now More than of them are traveling for business And odds are you have no reliable way of knowing how many of them are...
<p>There are more than one million people in the air right now.</p>
<p>More than 400,000 of them are traveling for business.</p>
<p>And odds are, you have no reliable way of knowing how many of them are yours.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These figures, reported by Security Magazine in 2017, should cause some concern for anyone in management. Think about it: Dozens or potentially hundreds of your employees, taking business on the road in an increasingly unsafe and unpredictable world. And you may not know where they are, where they’re going, or what’s happening in that particular part of the globe today.</p>
<p>Add to that the number of employees already on the ground in…China? Germany? Argentina? And where were those riots you were just reading about?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Who's in Charge of Duty of Care eBook</h2>
<h2><span>Find out how to keep employees safe while keeping an eye on travel spending.</span></h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tipsheet">Download the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Again, it should be elevating concerns in the C-suite—but it’s barely registering. According to a 2018 SAP Concur customer survey, 98% of organizations “express confidence” in their approach to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care</a>, even though:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly 25% don’t store or regularly update employee contact information</li>
<li>More than 40% either don’t capture every trip within their booking program or are unsure whether they do</li>
<li>Almost 75% rely on information from that same booking tool to track employee location</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>It’s not all about danger. It’s about the day-to-day. </strong></p>
<p>It should be a concern for management, because the world is a more dangerous place than it used to be, and there are legal and moral obligations to protecting the people who work for you—with serious financial repercussions that, one way or another, eventually land on the CFO’s desk.</p>
<p>And while these are critical issues to have under control, this isn’t just about T&E safety. You must also have a handle on what your travelers are going through when they take your business on the road. How much more work does it take to work while traveling? How difficult is it to be productive when they’re away from their desk? How hard is it to manage spending—while trying to figure out and follow the rules and regulations of a volatile region?</p>
<p>These answers don’t fall to finance alone, but, as a finance leader, it is your job to know how they impact the bottom line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Who’s there to help?</h2>
<p>Protecting and supporting your team takes a team from across your organization.</p>
<p>As the people in charge of people, your HR department will be heavily involved in the process. Your security team will play an integral role, as well. And perhaps more than anyone else, your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">travel managers</a> and TMC will be critical to providing traveler support and protection.</p>
<p>As a financial leader, however, you’re in the ideal spot to pull this team together and make sure your entire organization—from employees to T&E spend—is protected.</p>
<p>With the right approach and technology, you can combine the strengths of these individuals and departments and build on the capabilities of the T&E systems you currently have in place. You can be fully in charge of your duty of care to know where your employees are and support them in times of need, while you stay on top of how they’re spending your travel budget.</p>
<p>You can keep them safe while keeping an eye on spending.</p>
<p><strong>To find out how you can find and reach every employee everywhere download this free eBook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tipsheet" target="_blank">Who’s in charge of Duty of Care?</a></strong></p>
Neha Mehta
A New SAP Concur Partner Program Helps TMCs Define and Deliver More Value to Customers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-sap-concur-partner-program-helps-tmcs-define-and-deliver-more-value-customers
2021-02-26T16:14:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Well admit it We couldnt do this alone Travel and expense can be incredibly complex but our TMC partners have always been with us helping bring organization clarity and control to...
<p>We’ll admit it: We couldn’t do this alone. Travel and expense can be incredibly complex, but our TMC partners have always been with us — helping bring organization, clarity, and control to corporate travel for more than two decades. And as we’ve evolved together, our partnerships have grown more valuable than ever. That’s why we’re making it easier than ever for TMCs to demonstrate and differentiate what they bring to the customer’s table.</p>
<p>The revamped SAP Concur Partner Program for TMCs is an expanded answer to the customer question “Which TMCs are going to maximize my company’s SAP Concur investment?” It’s an intelligent evolution of our Preferred Partner Program, offering clear guidelines for our collaboration and outlining every expectation between us. Essentially, it outlines:</p>
<ol>
<li>The commitment TMCs make to SAP Concur,</li>
<li>The commitment we make to supporting them, and</li>
<li>A simple way for customers to find the TMC who matches their needs and goals.</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s a multi-level system, but it is not a pay-to-play program. A TMC can’t write a bigger check and become an Elite Partner; they earn it by what they offer customers.</p>
<h2>We work together. That’s how it works.</h2>
<p>The SAP Concur Partner Program for TMCs is made up of three engagement models, each of which offers a different level of alignment between our teams and a different level of benefits to our customers.</p>
<p><strong>TMC Partner</strong></p>
<p>The first level includes partners who are licensed to sell Concur Travel and integrate ticket fulfillment within their suite of services. This ensures an exceptional experience for customers who want a fully connected online booking and TMC travel program.</p>
<p><strong>TMC Select</strong></p>
<p>Partners in this level have adopted not only Concur Travel, but also have committed to using Concur Compleat, which provides additional automation that can boost program efficiency and effectiveness. TMC Select Partner staff must also go through our TMC Certification, which trains them to provide expert implementation and support services and deliver a fully integrated travel program. It’s how we ensure our customers receive the best quality and experience.</p>
<p><strong>TMC Elite</strong></p>
<p>Partners in this top level have embraced the full suite of SAP Concur travel solutions (including TripLink) and are using Concur Expense in their own business. This provides customers a seamless integration with the entire ecosystem of SAP Concur travel solutions, plus hands-on knowledge. TMC Elite-level partners are uniquely capable of capturing spend and supporting travelers — no matter how or where those trips were booked. As a result, they can deliver increased visibility and control of all T&E spend, compliance across all reservations, and, most importantly, improved traveler safety and an enhanced travel experience. </p>
<h2>Better for the customer means better for everyone</h2>
<p>SAP Concur restructured the program into these three levels to make it easier for customers to know — at first glance — the level of integration they’re going to get from a particular TMC. Because the closer we collaborate on our solutions and the more engrained our partnerships become, the better our customers’ experience will be.</p>
<h2>We wouldn’t go anywhere without you</h2>
<p>As business travel offers more choices for the traveler, managing those trips becomes more difficult for business. It’s a complex industry built on a global scale, and for any of us to be successful on any level, it requires collaboration and integration.</p>
<p>We need to work together for this to work, but we’ve been working well together for decades — supporting each other’s success. We’re excited to strengthen that relationship and see how far we can take our customers.</p>
Brian Hace
Realizing the Potential of Veterans Transitioning to Civilian Jobs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/realizing-potential-veterans-transitioning-civilian-jobs
2020-09-11T12:07:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
of veterans leave their first civilian job within a year citing a lack of personal development and opportunities for career advancement I was one of them and so began one thousand job...
<p><a href="http://myvetadvisor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Job_Retention-infographic.pdf" target="_blank">43% of veterans</a> leave their first civilian job within a year, citing a lack of personal development and opportunities for career advancement. I was one of them, and so began one thousand job rejection letters as I looked for something that gave me the kind of purpose I had left behind. At nearly a year of unemployment and submitting an average of three applications a day, being turned down a thousand times becomes a thing more and more difficult to weather. When going into the career search from a world where help was not asked for, the mission was all and you accomplished it no matter what, coming face to face with that which is faceless was a difficult chasm to cross.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The transitioning veteran - realizing their potential</h2>
<p>Cross your arms. It’s ok – no one is watching. Easy, right? Now cross them the other way. Not so simple, was it? You’ve done a thing one way for as long as you can remember, it’s now as normal as breathing. Doing it differently caused you to, quite literally, get all tangled up.</p>
<p>Now imagine living life a certain way. Rigid. Regimented. Weeks of boredom punctuated by moments of chaos. Placing your life in the hands of someone, and someone placing their life in your hands. Eating, sleeping, working, and living with the same people for months at a time without a break. Sharing those experiences and forever having them a part of your memory.</p>
<p>Then one day, after years or decades of this life, the time comes to put it all behind you. The chaos and boredom manage to average out to something resembling what people might refer to as a “normal” existence, you have to pick your clothes out at the beginning of the day, the food gets better, and the faces seen during the day are replaced with different ones at night. You’ve gone from being on Active Duty to being a Veteran, and possibly in knots for your efforts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taking off the uniform</h2>
<p>Transitioning from uniformed service to the civilian world is a change unmatched elsewhere. We have already covered part of the lifestyle, but what about the really sobering challenges? In the United States, an estimated <a href="https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/job-hunting/vets-facing-difficult-transition-to-civilian-jobs.html" target="_blank">4.5%</a> of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are unemployed, compared to a run of record low nationwide unemployment. In Australia, the <a href="https://www.dva.gov.au/health-and-wellbeing/research-and-development/homelessness-amongst-australian-veterans-summary" target="_blank">Department of Veterans Affairs</a> found that approximately 5.3% of veterans who had recently left the Australian Defense Force had experienced homelessness in the past 12 months, a higher rate than the 1.9% for the general population. Worse, the suicide rate of US veterans has reached <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide" target="_blank">over 20 lives</a> taken per day.</p>
<p>The science and statistics behind these and other numbers are varied and offer a considerable swath of reasons and solutions. The loss of identity, the loss of tribe, a rift between the uniformed and civilian populations, and a misunderstanding of life in the civilian world are all on the list. Some of these challenges can be prepared for, some have to be managed as they occur. Mental health efforts, counseling, acknowledgement of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury as diagnosable and treatable within the warrior culture, and outreach efforts all help make the transition smoother and more productive with the assistance of veteran support organizations, friends, and family.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Not just one bucket</h2>
<p>Not all veterans are coming out of the military with these sorts of obstacles to clear. They have a considerable skill set waiting to be utilized. Even a junior enlisted coming out with just four years in uniform has likely led a team of fifteen with three direct reports. In their realm of expertise are skills like crisis management, peer counseling, budget management, scheduling, business continuity, disaster recovery, and contingency planning. There are no certificates for a Veteran’s experience, no degrees or diplomas, because these proficiencies typically can’t be taught.</p>
<p>Veterans have been put in charge at age 21, and often come out looking to find a leadership role with a different organization. They’ve been in different branches of service. They’ve been different places and held different roles. Some are out in three or four years. Some retire at twenty or thirty and are looking for a second career. Some go straight to school, or learn a trade, or use the trade they learned while serving. Some head straight into another government role while others want to leave taxpayer funded responsibilities well behind.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where I landed</h2>
<p>I found help from a number of places. Transition programs abound. <a href="https://fourblock.org/" target="_blank">FourBlock</a>, <a href="https://www.veterati.com/" target="_blank">Veterati</a>, <a href="https://www.uso.org/" target="_blank">USO</a>, and <a href="https://www.hiringourheroes.org/" target="_blank">Hiring Our Heroes</a> work tirelessly to fill in the gaps that mandatory transition programs leave. There are companies out there with aggressive and well-publicized veteran hiring campaigns. However, it was an SAP employee who was a member of my MBA cohort and a fellow veteran, who referred me for a role at SAP Concur. The pivotal words in the first interview with the recruiter was, “You sound really senior for this role. Now the other role you applied to, the hiring manager wants someone with more enterprise software experience, but I’m going to pitch you again. I’ll call you in two days.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So began my career in Critical Incident Management at SAP Concur. I now manage the P1 process, ensure customer trust is maintained, and determine what happened so we don’t have the same issue again. My manager likes to say I wasn’t brought into the organization because of my extensive knowledge of enterprise software, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tomodachi" target="_blank">“because I could drive aircraft carriers through tsunamis.”</a> The SAP family saw something in me, and I’ve been excited to call the Bellevue office my second home since.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How can you help?</h2>
<p>Veterans additionally have a tendency to mistranslate their military expertise when it comes time to find a job. Not just “a” job, but “the” job. In all their years, never was a resume drafted, never was a job interview conducted. Methods for proving proficiency were on the spot, as well as documented annually via evaluations against their peers. The word “audit” was a thing from a finance world far, far away, while “inspections” came on all days at all hours. Officers who attempted to wield tools were admonished by Enlisted to put down the wrench and step away from the toolbox, so leadership did not always arise from technical experience. They’re not necessarily interested in heavy equipment operation, law enforcement, franchising, warehouse work, coffee making, retail sales, or going back to work for the government.</p>
<p>This Veteran’s Day, here’s the ask: Ask to read a veteran’s resume. The goal here is twofold. First, give the veteran an opportunity to translate their skills into things that are corporate or civilian applicable. Talk with them about degree programs, certifications, and opportunities that may align with their skill sets. Help them turn their resume into something that a recruiter or hiring manager would better understand. Second, take the opportunity to read about what they are proficient in, what their ambitions are, and what capabilities they might be able to bring to an organization (like SAP!) that there are no degrees or certifications for. As a recruiter or hiring manager, develop a better understanding of their background and goals. Be more than Veteran Friendly – be Veteran Ready.</p>
<p>To those reading who have worn a uniform, across all of SAP, thank you for your service. To those who served well in advance of me, thank you for paving the way. And for the team that gave me a chance, thank you for seeing the potential in me.</p>
SAP Concur Team
20 Predictions for 2020 From SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/20-predictions-2020-sap-concur
2020-08-11T19:35:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In todays technologydriven business world changes in customer expectations societal shifts and industry disruptions rule Thats why leaders at SAP Concur and those from our parent...
<div id="new-year-predictions">
<p>In today’s technology-driven business world, changes in customer expectations, societal shifts, and industry disruptions rule. That’s why leaders at SAP Concur, and those from our parent company, SAP, think constantly about trends with the potential to impact our customers, partners, and the global community. While there is no magic crystal ball that reveals the future, staying one step ahead allows us to envision solutions before they are widely needed. Here, our global team of technology, customer engagement and business experts once again share their predictions for the coming year. With 20 predictions for 2020, it is our most comprehensive list ever, divided into trends about economics, technology, business, travel, the environment, diversity, corporate social responsibility, education, and the public sector.</p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281100-earth.svg" />Global Economic Trends</h2>
<ol>
<li>Small businesses will tighten budgets to safeguard against economic and government downturns<strong> </strong> <br />
Social, political, and economic factors caused serious bumps in the road for small businesses in 2019. Volatile stock markets, the threat of a recession, and a government shutdown that caught them off guard levied <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/a-reality-check-on-small-businesses-and-the-federal-shutdown-impact.html" target="_blank">a massive impact</a>. With similar threats remaining a possibility for 2020 and beyond, small businesses will stay even tighter on budgets, holding on to more dollars to safeguard their business health from factors beyond their control. While these businesses – which create the vast majority of the world’s jobs – are especially vulnerable to the unanticipated ups and downs of economies, they will fare much better by expecting, and preparing for, the unexpected. <br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-brewer-5240002/" target="_blank"><strong>Ben Brewer</strong></a><strong>, SVP and GM of global SMB, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li>Fears of a slowing economy in Asia-Pacific will bring more pressure on businesses to do more with less<strong> </strong><br />
As a result, more CFOs will steer their companies to calmer waters by improving visibility into corporate spend to better control budgets. By harnessing technologies like AI, machine learning and deep data analytics, automation will deliver greater productivity and intelligence to operations, without growth in headcount. In addition, more travel managers will leverage technology to help their teams achieve the same business outputs with fewer trips. Asia Pacific airline and hotel prices are also expected to climb about three percent in 2020, according to <a href="http://www.asiatraveltips.com/news19/239-TravelIndustry.shtml" target="_blank">BCD Travel’s 2020 Industry Forecast</a>, and there will be a bigger emphasis on implementing corporate travel systems to get the best deals. And as a region with so many countries and borders, solutions that help firms manage the complexities of business T&E – such as country-specific tax regulations, traveler tax and immigration, VAT reclaim, and cashless payments – will grow in popularity.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andywatson-sap/?trk=chatin_wnc_redirect_pubprofile&ctx=cnpartner&trk=people_also_view_7" target="_blank"><strong>Andy Watson</strong></a><strong>, SVP and GM, Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li>Trade tensions will create uncertainty and reshuffle global priorities<br />
A period of widening free trade and travel came to an end in recent years, replaced by rising tensions that will continue to build, at least in the early part of 2020. These tensions will shift business practices in travel, procurement, and beyond. A trend that we predicted last year, that shifting immigration and tax policies would increasingly subject multi-national companies to additional tax liabilities, will continue. In addition, in 2020, companies should no longer expect the same levels of visa and tax flexibility that they took for granted in the earlier part of the new millennium. They will need to keep a close eye on current events and adjust their travel policies accordingly. Add to these challenges new pressures to diversify supply chains to be less dependent on Southeast Asia and South America, where trade tensions with certain super-powers grew in 2019. There may also be “wildcard” trade impacts in the coming year – or for that matter, a reduction in tensions – as we are in a period of trade uncertainty. However, it’s conceivable that mixed economic growth around the world will encourage parties to come to the table to negotiate, which would push the pendulum back in the direction of freer trade.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cajseattle/" target="_blank"><strong>Chris Juneau</strong></a><strong>, Senior Vice President, Business Operations</strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281474-machine-learning-3.svg" />Technology Advancements</h2>
<ol>
<li>Workers looking to save time will kick demand for AI into overdrive<br />
In 2020, workplace changes related to artificial intelligence will become a noticeable trend. While societal tensions around AI will continue, workers’ growing openness to automation will incrementally drive changes that will ultimately impact everyone. For example, millennials, who now represent the majority of workers, are instinctively comfortable using AI. As consumers, they are more likely to approve of <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/gen-z-and-millennials-want-ai-based-personalized-support/" target="_blank">AI-provided customer support</a>, <a href="https://geomarketing.com/millennials-are-ready-to-embrace-ai" target="_blank">automated product recommendations</a>, and even want AI to enhance their <a href="https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2019072656792/millennials-demand-ai-to-enhance-sport-viewing-experience.html#axzz62jVkyBJw" target="_blank">experience watching sports</a>. Millennials and others will increasingly bring their consumer preferences for AI to work and expect that routine tasks can be automated. We’re already seeing this today, as a growing number of employees are <a href="https://evernote.com/blog/6-ways-to-automate-simple-work-tasks/">using AI</a> to sort and forward emails, proofread documents, schedule meetings, and build custom workflows. This trend will lead to many benefits, including higher productivity and more economic activity. Employers will need to lean into this shift, supporting those employees who want to use automation to be more productive, helping others understand the benefits, and providing support to those who need help learning to use it. <br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koetting-3463315/" target="_blank"><strong>Michael Koetting</strong></a><strong>, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li>Artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence converge<br />
Customers are individuals with similar needs: to feel important, listened to and respected. As a result, “empathetic AI” is increasingly applied in advertising, customer service, and to measure how engaged a customer is in their journey. For example, are they attentively focused or just passively scrolling? Consumers are already benefitting from this trend, through music streaming services that suggest artists, songs or playlists based on your listening history, or from digital vendors that suggest items of potential interest, based on your past purchases. In 2020, this trend will kick into much higher gear, with more technology companies infusing empathy into their AI. Expect to see it more often in the enterprise technology space, as well. As companies use empathetic AI to bring more of the benefits of advanced technology to life, they will instill more trust, create better user experiences, and deliver higher productivity.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-weingartner-3ab83/" target="_blank"><strong>Michael Weingartner</strong></a><strong>, CTO, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li>Machine Learning moves from a novelty to a routine function <strong> </strong><br />
Businesses, technology companies, and everyday people have been fascinated by the novelty and promise of machine learning (ML). But in 2020, ML will be less of a novelty, as it proliferates under the hood of technology services everywhere, especially behind everyday workflows and forms. In a way, it will fade into near invisibility, even while making a huge impact. Technology services will increasingly anticipate your needs, whether they be related to expense reports, scheduling, or other processes. Eventually it will do all or a portion of certain tasks, with more accuracy and speed than a human being. SAP Concur is already working on advances in these areas. Your preferred travel itinerary may be suggested and filled out based on previous trips, and automatically combined with your company’s preferred vendor commitments. ExpenseIt will ultimately predict the location of expenses based on the cities you visited, making the process of filling out your expense report even faster. All of this, and more, will be possible as ML fades into the background, thinking through elements of your work-life, and allowing you to put more of your effort into creative and productive tasks. It’s a trend that will bring more benefits in 2020 and beyond.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aglambert/" target="_blank"><strong>AG Lambert</strong></a><strong>, SAP Concur Senior Vice President, Spend, Data and Analytics </strong></li>
<li>“Super Apps” will catch fire in Southeast Asia<br />
In 2020, the “super app” trend that dominates mobile commerce and communications in China will reach critical mass among consumers in Southeast Asia. True to its name, a super app is a number of apps within a single seamless experience. They tend to start as messaging or payment apps that merge and grow to include ride-hailing, dining, social media, health tracking, games, common business applications, and more. Where they proliferate, super apps become the primary way people interface with the Internet on mobile. China’s WeChat, with over a billion monthly active users, is the best-known. In addition to the usual payment and chat features super apps are known for, you can apply for loans, rent housing, apply for a visa, request time off, and according to <a href="https://qz.com/1167024/all-the-things-you-can-and-cant-do-with-your-wechat-account-in-china/" target="_blank">Quartz</a>, even “drift bottles into a sea,” letting random people pick up your messages. The trend is growing far beyond China, as payment and messaging apps converge and add a wide range of other features in Southeast Asia. Singapore’s <a href="https://www.grab.com/sg/" target="_blank">Grab</a> offers transportation, food, payment, movie tickets and more, in eight countries. <a href="https://www.gojek.com/" target="_blank">Gojek</a>, started as a ride-hailing call center in Indonesia, offers more than 20 services in four countries. <a href="https://linecorp.com/en/">Line</a>, a messaging app from Japan, offers coupons, news, videos, and payments through Line Pay. South Korea’s <a href="https://www.kakaocorp.com/service/KakaoTalk" target="_blank">Kakaotalk</a> super app grew by about 10 million monthly active users, to about 44 million, over the last year alone. In Asia, it’s becoming easier to use super apps than apply for and use credit cards. That means any vendor that wants to create seamless experiences for mobile customers – and especially providers of transportation, dining, and travel – needs to keep a close eye on this trend.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dseth1/" target="_blank"><strong>Deepak Seth</strong></a><strong>, SAP Concur Vice President of Product Strategy, Asia Pacific</strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281283-briefcase.svg" />Business Imperatives</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Data moves from an analytical – to decision-making – tool</strong><br />
In 2020, the shift to leveraging data for real-time decision-making will accelerate for a growing number of business functions. For example, through intelligent platforms and network ecosystems, companies will access more and more data sets to shed light on such things as a potential supplier’s financial capability to fulfill a contract. Data can also be used to make budgetary decisions informed by the current status of each and every area of a company’s spending. Organizations possess, and can access, much or all of this data today, with the right tools. And with an increasing number of data points uncovered by IoT and machine learning, there is more information than ever before to help drive results. This allows organizations to make better sense of what’s happening, what’s coming, and, ultimately, make more intelligent decisions. In the coming year, many more organizations will start to realize the potential of their data to intelligently guide business decisions and leverage it to reach even greater levels of success. And looking even further into the future, they will eventually be able to determine whether potential suppliers’ policies adhere to international laws and social ethics, and be able to use data to identify, in advance, a host of potential supply chain disruptions, such as a small number of suppliers concentrated in a region vulnerable to weather or manmade disasters.<br />
<strong>– <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeeberhard/" target="_blank">Mike Eberhard</a>, President, SAP Intelligent Spend Group</strong></li>
<li><strong>Organizations will treat their employees as technology customers</strong><br />
In 2020, more organizations will endeavor to meet employee expectations about how workplace technology should evolve. The trend is related to the “consumerization” of workplace tech: having become used to great experiences with mobile phones or shopping websites, for example, employees expect their enterprise applications to work just as well. Yet it can be difficult for employers, who face cost, policy, and other roadblocks, to keep up. At the same time, it is important to make the investment because employee satisfaction and retention are critical. One thing that makes SAP Concur different from many enterprise technology companies is we have always focused on the experiences of end-users – our customers’ employees – to shape our products. In the coming year, more organizations will gather data on the user-experiences of their employees and use it to improve productivity, human resources, travel, expense, and other technologies. They will begin selecting solutions which leverage AI and machine learning to improve those experiences. In addition, we anticipate that organizations will increasingly bridge the gap between how their enterprise travel-booking tools are configured, relative to consumer-travel apps, without forgoing the discounts, control, and real-time visibility into the choices that employees are making. The range of possibilities is huge, but the common denominator comes down to better employee experiences with office tech.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimlucier/" target="_blank"><strong>Jim Lucier</strong></a><strong>, President, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li>A move toward "co-location with a purpose" office spaces<br />
The Internet has finally freed organizations from static workplaces and recruiting policies. We may now hire and work with the best people we can find, anywhere in the world. In addition, “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barnabylashbrooke/2019/08/27/this-is-the-hottest-trend-in-office-design-right-now/#237b142a7787" target="_blank">mobile-first nomadism</a>,” favored by a growing number of workers, is changing the way we collaborate. Virtual meetings are as common as in-person ones. People feel less tethered to a traditional office and want the ability to work from home, a coffee shop, a library, or a park (or all of the above, depending on the day). In 2020, especially in cities known as tech hubs, these developments will lead to noticeable changes in office spaces. I like to call the trend “co-location with a purpose.” More office spaces will be designed to be flexible: open-space hubs to host teams coming together for shorter-term projects, touch-down spaces for work-from-home employees or those visiting from distant home bases, plentiful conference rooms for more confidential work, and easily available focus rooms for introverts and others who need an occasional alternative to open spaces. These are spaces ready to be used for a variety of important purposes and reconfigured as needs change.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-kahan-491294/" target="_blank"><strong>Darren Bauer Kahan</strong></a><strong>, Senior Vice President of Development, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li><strong>Paper receipts decline, smart receipts rise</strong><br />
According to the <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nada-farhoud-latest-eco-challenge-20571755" target="_blank">Mirror</a>, in 2018, approximately 11 billion receipts were printed in Great Britain alone, with two-thirds thrown away almost immediately – the equivalent of 53,000 trees, or the annual destruction of Sherwood Forest. There is a productivity cost to go along with the environmental toll, and these are among the reasons the trend of digital payments is growing. In 2020, we will see a significant increase in the number of digital receipts provided by suppliers. China is moving toward a more cashless society. Japan is moving to change laws requiring paper receipts for reimbursable transactions, allowing transaction data to count instead. Mexico has already made that change, and many other countries will follow, including Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and Brazil. Employees will benefit, as receipt data floats more easily into expense reports, eliminating frustrations about lost “receipts” and helping employees get reimbursed faster.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-vordenbaeumen-a561491/" target="_blank"><strong>Hendrik Vordenbaeumen</strong></a><strong>, SAP Concur Vice President, Product Strategy</strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281090-airplane.svg" />Shifts in Travel</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Employees will travel with purpose</strong><br />
Whether picking destinations to support a community impacted by a natural disaster or spending vacation time volunteering, people are increasingly approaching travel with a sense of purpose. They are choosing trips, activities and brands that support their values, and nearly <a href="https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2018-10/2018_Edelman_Earned_Brand_Global_Report.pdf" target="_blank">two-thirds</a> of consumers engage in belief-driven buying. This carries into their booking experiences, and in 2020, we predict this will influence business travel significantly. With “bleisure” trips already <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">on the rise</a> and customers investing in purpose-driven programs at their companies, employees will not only extend their business trips to explore the local cultures, they will also become active in the communities they visit by volunteering for local organizations. Companies will factor this into their travel policies, providing breathing room and additional programs for their employees to make a difference.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christalbemont/" target="_blank"><strong>Christal Bemont</strong></a><strong>, Chief Revenue Officer, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li><strong>Safety will go hand in hand with employee satisfaction</strong><br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travel-spend-management-trends-2019">A year ago</a>, I predicted female traveler safety would rise to the top of corporate agendas. While there has been progress, the issue of traveler safety overall – for all employees, and especially for those in under-represented groups – will reach critical mass in 2020. It’s becoming an issue of employee satisfaction that employers will need to address. Workers will increasingly demand more information and resources to stay safe during their work trips. According to a recent <a href="https://news.sap.com/2019/10/sap-concur-survey-top-concerns-business-travelers/" target="_blank">study</a> from Wakefield, 78 percent of women report being harassed during business trips and a majority (52 percent) want more guidance and support from their employers. Ninety-five percent of LGBTQ+ travelers have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip, with 57 percent saying they do that to protect their safety. In 2020 and beyond, companies have an opportunity to step up and enrich their traveler safety resources for employees, from introducing flexibility within travel policies to offering access to tools that keep them safe and protect their rights on the road. Emerging features like Uber’s <a href="https://www.uber.com/newsroom/emergencybutton/" target="_blank">emergency button</a>, TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2019/09/neighborhood-safety-scores-and-international-travel-tools.html" target="_blank">neighborhood safety scores</a> and the U.S. Department of State’s <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-traveler/id442693988" target="_blank">automatic advisories</a> for travelers won’t be considered “added,” they’ll become an expected, and hopefully common, part of the traveler experience.<br />
<strong>–</strong> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimalbrecht1/" target="_blank"><strong>Kim Albrecht</strong></a><strong>, CMO, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li><strong>Hotels and other travel vendors will make</strong> <strong>wellness amenities the new norm </strong><br />
Those of us who travel frequently for business worry about the impact it has on our health, and the evidence is more than anecdotal. <a href="https://journals.lww.com/joem/Citation/2018/07000/Business_Travel_and_Behavioral_and_Mental_Health.6.aspx" target="_blank">Recent research</a> from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, investigating health outcomes of frequent business travel, found higher body mass index scores, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and trouble sleeping, among other problems in frequent travelers. Hotels and travel brands are catching on – several major hotel brands already offer healthier meals, bike-sharing programs, and in-room exercise equipment, from yoga mats to Peloton bikes. Wellness features are also increasingly <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanemag.com%2Ftravel-tips%2Fthe-biggest-airport-wellness-trends-of-2019%2F&data=02%7C01%7CSasha.Hopkins%40edelman.com%7C3209610673134a202fd808d763e7f154%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C1%7C637087720154390684&sdata=P7RABrREH6WdcsMGX3Bqw3WcO5UrK4KE1Ia2Y7PoevM%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">found in airports</a>, from napping pods, to nutritious food options, and even therapy dogs. This trend will continue to grow in 2020, and business travelers will have more options, in more places, and at a wider number of price-points, to help them maintain a healthy lifestyle on the road.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaseanderson/" target="_blank"><strong>Doug Anderson</strong></a><strong>, Senior Vice President for Travel Strategy, SAP Concur </strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281255-recycle-symbol.svg" />Environmental Stewardship</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Environmental concerns will accelerate eco-conscious travel</strong><br />
A recent study by Wakefield research found that one-third of business travelers have adjusted their form of travel due to environmental concerns, and we predict that number will rise. With the EU’s commitment to the Green New Deal pushing companies to reduce their carbon footprint, airlines adjusting seating options to maximize travelers per flight, and hotels rethinking the sustainability of their designs, it’s only the beginning of a shift to eco-friendly travel. As discussions around climate change intensify, travelers and companies will continue to strive for more sustainable traveling options. Whether you’re in the rural country-side or populous city, expect to see green travel alternatives in 2020.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-dietz/" target="_blank"><strong>John Dietz</strong></a><strong>, VP, Concur Labs</strong></li>
<li><strong>Led by executives, businesses will go green</strong><br />
The year 2019 was a great year for environmentalism. The European Union launched a Green New Deal to achieve European carbon-neutrality by 2050, and 181 CEOs announced a new <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessroundtable.org%2Fbusiness-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7C9b58b076062741215fdc08d762ef5ca2%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C1%7C637086652516786121&sdata=sMQtmOGlhdRSnQoTbyb44XBDvASm01EKuD3kQvvF9cE%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">“Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,”</a> identifying environmental sustainability as one of their top concerns. Corporate sustainability is now at the top of the agenda for people of <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nielsen.com%2Fus%2Fen%2Finsights%2Farticle%2F2018%2Fglobal-consumers-seek-companies-that-care-about-environmental-issues%2F&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7C9b58b076062741215fdc08d762ef5ca2%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C1%7C637086652516796112&sdata=fEPG4p6nBHkrCupjaFZJvfx6rCBIpwHV1LWVbBFZUaw%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">all ages</a>, and in 2020 we’ll see companies’ efforts to reduce their environmental impact create positive shifts across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). A major emphasis will be providing more sustainable choices for employees, especially around travel. The <a href="https://www.gbta.org/blog/sustainability-hasnt-translated-into-travel-policies-but-is-an-important-topic-for-travel-managers/" target="_blank">Global Business Traveler Association</a> (GBTA) reveals that many travel programs do not mandate, or even encourage, travelers to make sustainable choices. Yet, the travel sector <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0141-x.epdf?referrer_access_token=ocH0nJOhndI0hnWdDP157dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OWchRe3LnakvyDKR-guL4qsoWG671RwjXXASZXjuYXViN5GNExVom0dYR6XhPaLhQK24uQDFrgD4E4XVnZPI_lHmaqcNa8Diqy1gq9jWkSMFfn05_4mbvzJbQhiwFhGPCVjxbN_D2Ja0UaVWUE5jQlrXHkVe0KCIIyW4uYYTKBVByzV8lZ-26bcnJsoV_ICqo%3D&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.co.uk" target="_blank">accounts</a> for eight percent of global carbon emissions. Organizations in EMEA and beyond will start to address that problem in 2020, one of many moves we’ll see by companies looking to do more to fight global warming in the coming year.<br />
– <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-emmanuel-tetaz-a7a51b/" target="_blank"><strong>Pierre-Emmanuel Tetaz</strong></a><strong>, EMEA SVP and General Manager, SAP Concur </strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" />Growing Emphasis on Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility</h2>
<ol>
<li>Non-traditional tech recruiting will go mainstream <strong> </strong><br />
Immigration in the United States <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/us/census-immigration.html?module=inline" target="_blank">fell by about 70%</a> in 2019, and colleges and universities are not able to graduate enough people to meet the insatiable demand for workers in the technology sector. These and other factors point to a growing shortage of workers qualified for technology jobs. As a result, in 2020, we will see companies increasingly go outside traditional worker pipelines to find the people they need. First, we will see more “mid-termships,” apprentice-like roles for those who, in most cases, have degrees but want to learn and grow into technology careers. Second, we will see more outreach to women who left the workforce after starting families and want to re-enter the technology workforce. Third, we will see more companies participate in tech summits and conferences held outside of the U.S. to find top talent (<a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2018-march-2019/2019-year-return-african-diaspora" target="_blank">Year of Return</a>, in Ghana, for example). Last, connected to these summits, there will be growing investments and new offices<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/17/africa/tech-giants-in-africa-intl/index.html" target="_blank"> in Africa</a>. This trend will help companies find exceptionally talented technology workers on a continent not yet fully appreciated as an employee pipeline. These welcome shifts will not only help address a serious shortage of technology professionals but will bring greater diversity – and thus greater innovation – to a sector that thrives on new perspectives.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-grover-24b835149/" target="_blank"><strong>Michelle Grover</strong></a><strong>, VP of Development, SAP Concur and TripIt</strong></li>
<li><strong>2020 will be the year of the “purpose-driven workplace”</strong><br />
In 2020, with labor markets tight in North America and elsewhere, many employers will retune their cultures to create or showcase purpose-driven workplaces. These are workplaces in which work has meaning, according to <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhrdailyadvisor.blr.com%2F2018%2F10%2F05%2Fa-primer-on-creating-a-purpose-driven-culture%2F&data=02%7C01%7CAudra.Proctor%40edelman.com%7C21edcb7ea62246a8440f08d771ddb24b%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637103069311891778&sdata=4Dt3s7qV651r4yM3YIj6BlyfyTn6Qkna5D0nquWKxm4%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">HR Daily</a> and others, and “connects to a purpose beyond profit.” Millennials, <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inc.com%2Fpeter-economy%2Fthe-millennial-workplace-of-future-is-almost-here-these-3-things-are-about-to-change-big-time.html&data=02%7C01%7CAudra.Proctor%40edelman.com%7C21edcb7ea62246a8440f08d771ddb24b%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637103069311901775&sdata=QGIz9EEwL2GCKxRMGGbUS5t%2FLT1jBZVkf7MyXjH0%2FnE%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">projected</a> to represent half of all workers in 2020, are driving the trend. Fair compensation is important to them, but no longer the only priority, according to <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.gallup.com%2Fopinion%2Fchairman%2F191426%2Fmillennials-live-work.aspx&data=02%7C01%7CAudra.Proctor%40edelman.com%7C21edcb7ea62246a8440f08d771ddb24b%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637103069311901775&sdata=gIhDBkiP0YcsOeTTP1%2FGePjSNm8EqZBR1Ho68kb%2BZ58%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">Gallup</a>; the emphasis for this generation has switched from paycheck to purpose. Based on this, in the coming year, expect more employers to adjust their missions accordingly, while helping employees understand how they align to, and impact, those missions. Expect to see more of them demonstrate their societal, environmental, and nonprofit impact. And expect more employers to focus on finding meaningful intersections between how employees prioritize their time inside and outside of work, with an emphasis on encouraging volunteerism. This will result in both attracting and retaining top talent, higher engagement and productivity, and ultimately, even better financial performance.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-mccolly-529b891/" target="_blank"><strong>Jenn McColly</strong></a><strong>, SAP Concur Vice President, Employee Experience</strong></li>
</ol>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615-government-building.svg" />Changing Public Sector and Education Landscapes</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>New tech investments at the state and local level will chip away at old government tech debt </strong><br />
Technical debt, while not a <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffederalnewsnetwork.com%2Fopen-first%2F2018%2F12%2Fpaying-off-technical-debt-for-successful-it-modernization%2F&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7Cf7b17ad4de88443d055e08d756761aa4%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637072937565632944&sdata=vOlHiqNWh%2F86%2BoBR%2F5vut8IRzX%2FH1D7md5gPTeSXfxg%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">new concept</a>, will take center stage in the year to come as state and local government agencies work to overcome the challenges – and costs – associated with legacy technology systems. Historically, agencies tended to hold on to older systems as long as they could in order to avoid new upfront expenses. And, maintaining older systems requires staff who are knowledgeable about those systems – a challenge from both an attrition and recruiting perspective. Even while state and local governments spent a <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.govtech.com%2Fnavigator%2Fnumbers%2Fstate--2019local-annual-it-spending_132.html&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7Cf7b17ad4de88443d055e08d756761aa4%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637072937565642900&sdata=BtbuoXRaZAf3poXOjo9H6awn1%2FOUYtr8jPh3kT3t3mQ%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">reported</a> $107.6 billion on IT in 2019, they may still be spending too much on maintenance of legacy systems, rather than investing in new technologies to create efficiencies. As agencies push these purchases forward, they will find it unsustainable to maintain outdated, manual systems because in most cases, doing so turns out to be more expensive than investing in modern applications. In fact, newer technologies are less expensive to run, while bringing added benefits such as automation and intelligence, that further increase ROI by freeing up resources to allow employees to work on more mission-focused tasks to serve their communities.<br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-ballard-367b53/" target="_blank"><strong>Dave Ballard</strong></a><strong>, Senior Vice President, Public Sector, SAP Concur</strong></li>
<li><strong>Colleges and universities will reach a transparency tipping point</strong><br />
Some of the biggest questions about higher education in the year ahead will be around two things: money and transparency. As frequent headlines continue to remind us, students and parents grapple with <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhbr.org%2F2019%2F09%2Fwhat-will-it-take-to-solve-the-student-loan-crisis&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7Cf7b17ad4de88443d055e08d756761aa4%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637072937565632944&sdata=eWp725zhBHI0Q0YsrWMeKfJfIbBVM1BDcI%2BWW3jMf%2B8%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">rising tuitions</a> and the impact of student debt, while <a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.insidehighered.com%2Fadmissions%2Farticle%2F2019%2F08%2F19%2Fhas-admissions-changed-scandal&data=02%7C01%7CJessie.DiMariano%40edelman.com%7Cf7b17ad4de88443d055e08d756761aa4%7Cb824bfb3918e43c2bb1cdcc1ba40a82b%7C0%7C0%7C637072937565632944&sdata=X2Kdrjj6r3N4zMd2GnKa0DblzR%2F3jMRQ54SNaf5%2FrIY%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">admission scandals</a> draw attention to school finances and admission policies. That’s why, in 2020, colleges and universities will start to visibly raise the bar on transparent governance. By proactively sharing financial data that demonstrate responsible and compliant spending, institutions will strengthen their reputations and competitiveness. As these institutions become more transparent, they will set new standards for managing fraud, waste, and abuse. <br />
<strong>– </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-dover-b433367/" target="_blank"><strong>Mike Dover</strong></a><strong>, Director, Public Sector, SAP Concur</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com">Concur.com</a></p>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
The Wider Impact of Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wider-impact-business-travel
2020-02-26T10:46:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The appetite for travel has never been greater in the past year the global travel and tourism sector contributed a record US trillion and million jobs to the world economy according...
<p>The appetite for travel has never been greater – in the past year the global travel and tourism sector contributed a record US$8.8 trillion and 319 million jobs to the world economy according to the <a href="https://www.wttc.org/about/media-centre/press-releases/press-releases/2019/travel-tourism-continues-strong-growth-above-global-gdp/" target="_blank">World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)</a>.</p>
<p>Globalised workplaces which employ large numbers of highly mobile employees are also contributing to this boom with business travel in Asia <a href="https://www.webintravel.com/bleisure-and-sharing-services-growing-in-popularity-among-apac-business-travellers-reveals-research/" target="_blank">growing at double the pace</a> of the rest of the world, China becoming the <a href="https://skift.com/2018/10/11/the-promise-of-chinas-enormous-corporate-travel-market/" target="_blank">world’s largest business travel market</a>, and ASEAN growing business travel spend by 35.2% since 2014 (up from US$27.3 million to US$37.1 million at present).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/special-and-periodic-reports/business-travel-white-paper_executive-summaryfinal.pdf" target="_blank">WTTC</a> notes that business tourism often plays an important role in growing a country’s travel and tourism sectors. It creates benefits like infrastructure that other industries later utilise (such as conference centres and hotels), and boosts locals trade, skills, and investment. But what has changed significantly over the last few years is the impact technology has had on the industry. On World Tourism Day today, we take a look at how an increasingly digitalised and connected world has shaped the expectations of the business traveller and how organisations can work to accommodate their needs.</p>
<h2>Freedom and flexibility </h2>
<p>Mobile devices have become extensions of ourselves, and business travellers are armed with better trip preparation and more options for adaptability on-the-go. Employees today expect mobile, consumer-like experiences at work and while on the road − they are increasingly booking their own trips, choosing their own places to stay and making expense purchases directly on their smartphones. This mobile-first culture is nowhere more pervasive than in Asia, where 58% of the world’s millennials live. Organisations’ ability to cater to them will increase their job satisfaction, boosting productivity and talent retention.</p>
<p>Organisations today must strive to give travellers the flexibility and support to book and travel whenever and wherever, but with prompts and controls that make it easy for them to stay within policy. The firms must also be able to capture accurate travel and spend data. Having travel itinerary, credit card and other sources of data feed into an expense report helps travellers be more productive, and data can be verified coming from reliable sources.</p>
<h2>Accommodating bleisure</h2>
<p>Bleisure typically refers to the practice of tacking on a few extra days of leisure time after a business trip. According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe" target="_blank">SAP Concur travel and expense data</a> gathered between January 2017 and December 2017 there’s an increasing trend to break out of the confines of a typical business trip – 2.2 million bleisure trips were taken during that period. For companies that allow a bleisure component in their corporate travels, technology and clear travel policies can help with tricky expense reporting, define when business ends and leisure begins, and establish clear processes to segregate the two.</p>
<h2>Duty of care</h2>
<p>With global weather and geopolitical risks on the rise, businesses recognize the need to know where their employees are 24/7, and get them information and help they need in a pinch when the need arises. On the other hand, travellers also expect to be taken care of and feel safe wherever they go.</p>
<p>For all the risks that travellers and employees face, technology can help organisations level up their duty of care program, close the gaps in travel risk management programs, and limit risks to their firm and staff. In today’s competitive hiring environment, it is critical for companies to have resources in place to capture traveller data and keep them safe, and to educate travellers about which resources are available on leisure days.</p>
Andy Watson
7 Tips to Manage Productivity When Navigating the New Challenges of Working from Home
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-tips-manage-productivity-when-navigating-new-challenges-working-home
2021-02-24T12:59:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Updated February Working from home was once thought of as a dream come true But for the many of us who are unfamiliar with working remotely it can create some difficulties when it...
<p>Updated February 2021</p>
<p>Working from home was once thought of as a dream come true. But for the many of us who are unfamiliar with working remotely, it can create some difficulties when it comes to managing our productivity and well-being. Often, the biggest challenges when working from home include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Establishing work hours to avoid burnout</li>
<li>Communicating with team members</li>
<li>Feeling engaged and connected</li>
</ul>
<p>And while we are trying to quickly readjust and manage the challenges listed above, we now have to navigate some newer complexities that come with social distancing, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Working at home with your spouse, partner, or housemates</li>
<li>Caring for or schooling children during work hours</li>
<li>Focusing on work during times of uncertainty</li>
</ul>
<p>No matter the struggle, all of these factors can take a toll on our emotional and mental health, and can lead to a decrease in productivity. Because when you have to think of new ways to entertain bored children or how to keep your mind in the work zone due to being concerned with other more serious matters, such as health, it’s hard to walk away from work feeling satisfied. And that’s okay. Giving ourselves some slack during this uncertain time is completely reasonable.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How to Create a Remote Employee Expense Policy</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Re-adjusting how we approach this new environment can also help us regain focus and monitor our emotional state to help get us through this period of time. In hopes to provide some alleviation and guidance, we’ve reached out to some of our own remote workers to share the following tips. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>7 tips to stay productive when navigating times of uncertainty</h2>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Set Designated Work Times</strong></p>
<p><strong>One of our favorite newsletters called </strong><a href="https://thriveglobal.com/stories/5-tips-to-boost-productivity-while-working-at-home/" target="_blank">Thrive Global</a><strong> by Arianna Huffington, speaks to the importance of setting designated work hours to maintain productivity. </strong></p>
<p><strong>“</strong>When you work from home,” Christy Cegelski, copywriter and email marketing strategist for Thrive Global states, “It can be difficult to keep personal and professional tasks from blending together. On one hand, it seems perfectly reasonable to throw a load of laundry in between conference calls, but setting boundaries is the only way to ensure work tasks take priority and are completed on time. It’s important to maintain a separation between work hours and home life.”</p>
<p>Setting designated work hours doesn’t always mean working a regular nine to five. For Andrew Walker, senior value consultant, he shares that “This is likely the area where I have felt the greatest impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Illinois, we have been in an economic shutdown since the end of March, which means my wife and 15-month old have now been home every day. I try to make sure my breaks lineup to give my wife regular breaks from the little one.”</p>
<p>Another fully-remote employee, Marja Moore, analytics director for Global Value Enablement, shares her own insight on how she plans her schedule, “This is more about setting designated non-work hours. I try to manage my time on devices – whether it be my laptop, phone, or tablet – and pick a couple of hours of everyday where I disconnect from technology. Whether I’m reading, playing fetch with the puppies, listening to music, or exercising, I think it is important to disconnect. As a remote worker, you have everything accessible (as it is every day), so there is nothing to stop you from checking in on work at 10 p.m. or starting at 4 a.m. because you are sleepless. Finding the time to give yourself a break from technology (and work) is healthy. Let yourself recharge and come back with intention and energy!”</p>
<p><strong>Our advice:</strong> Find designated work hours that fit your unique schedule, then try to follow that schedule as closely as possible to help regulate some level of normalcy. Remember to be flexible and forgiving as some time other things can pop up. Being aware of these challenges, how they affect us personally, and how we can adapt our mindset can help us reduce stress and remain productive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Create a Routine</strong></p>
<p>For some people, being in a comfortable environment with less structure can be creatively stimulating. Lauren Nevanen, senior marketing research manager, for example, finds that while having a routine can be important, you can’t always depend on it. “Whether it’s the household chores you want to get done, the weather outside, or finding something to eat for lunch – every day will look different. Picking one or two of those things that make up your routine can help you embrace the new day but get comfortable with the fact that different situations come up. Accept those things, be present and grateful for them, and when you get back to your desk, give your undivided attention and focus.”</p>
<p>But for others, not having a normal routine makes it hard to feel motivated, thus leading to a potentially downward shift in production. For Cathy White, director of Solutions Consulting, sticking to her regular routine is important for setting the tone of her day. “I start early in the morning, but when 5 p.m. hits, I log out of Skype, and go relax for about 30 minutes (I call this my commute time) before starting dinner for the family. Any time after 5 p.m., I will look at emails, but since it is my time, I decide which emails need a response, and which ones can wait until the morning. The other thing I do is that I never go back to my computer in the evening or on weekends. If I can’t answer an email from my mobile, then it needs to wait.”</p>
<p><strong>Our advice:</strong> Depending on who you are, and what works for your own schedule, our advice is to try to create a routine that was similar to before. Whether it’s getting ready in the morning by going for a jog or putting on a fresh outfit, some of the small things we do daily helps us boost our energy and prep our mindsets, so we feel motivated to start each new day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Set Rules with Family or Roommates</strong></p>
<p>Probably one of the more difficult challenges that social distancing creates for us now that we are all working from home, is the fact that our families and roommates are all home too. As much as we love them, we have to set boundaries to remain productive. Establishing rules early on, such as certain quiet hours and times to not disturb us, is important to ensure that everyone can remain productive. Ryan Oliver, senior manager for demand generation, for example, has a known rule with his wife and two young children to keep quiet and leave him alone when the “office” door is closed.</p>
<p>As for Marja, she has incorporated some of her own “water cooler” chats with her husband who also works from home, “We just squeeze in time to check-in when our calendars align.” As for others who are stuck at home working alongside their spouse, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyZvOq6_Z8&feature=emb_title" target="_blank">this video from Thrive Global</a> is quite humorous about showing some of the added challenges.</p>
<p><strong>Thrive Global advice</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Communicate before your workday about potentially conflicting schedules, phone calls, and when it’s a good time to do chores</li>
<li>Find a separate, quiet place to work – even it it's the bathroom</li>
<li>Communicate how each individual handles work stress, including positive ways to help comfort and lend support</li>
<li>Spend at least 10 minutes apart to wind down and recharge before coming back together at the end of each day</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>4. Communicate Reasonable Expectations</strong></p>
<p>Once you start to find your own work rhythm, you’ll be able to gauge how many projects you can take on and increase or decrease the amount when appropriate. But it’s important to stay connected through conversation. Frank Lucier, VP of client development, offers a good perspective: “Work clearly takes time during the week and so does life, especially right now. Reiterating that it’s okay to take time during working hours to take care of one’s children, pets, family, friends or oneself is important. This is a message that needs to be repeated so that it’s not lost in the shuffle and that employees are feeling comfortable and supported during this time because they are.”</p>
<p>Whether you have a set number of hours during the day, or an on-call policy, let your coworkers know how and when you plan on communicating with them. It’s here where keeping coworkers in the loop helps them feel valuable, included, and invested into their well-being. Misty Duran, senior program manager and team lead for Americas Marketing, shares just how she does this with her team: “I have worked from home for many years and wasn’t overly concerned when I learned my children would now be home with me. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was going to be anything but business as usual. I immediately connected with my team and expressed that I would need a lot of flexibility and grace. Our new normal would now include team meetings with my 17-month old in attendance and in between meetings I would need to dedicate my time to helping my older two with schoolwork. My colleagues were overwhelming with support. I also found more peace of mind and support from my peers by being open and vulnerable, clearly expressing my needs and expectations. I learned that even when life feels messy, it’s up to you to build a structure that leaves room for flexibility.”</p>
<p><strong>Our advice:</strong> Communicating early and often is key here. Do regular check-ins with your team on project workloads and mental health. When it comes to coping, scheduling time to chat with colleagues can really help individuals become more aware of their feelings, responsible for how they can adjust, and in the long run, stay happy and productive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>5. Schedule Regular Check-Ins</strong></p>
<p>While this one is similar to above, the end goal is a little different. Even with clear expectations and good communication, the best plans can go awry. Still, scheduling time for regular check-ins allows for natural conversation when it comes to identifying project roadblocks or even drops in motivation. We all know how tough it is, so the sooner and more frequent we can support each other, the quicker both sides can get back on track.</p>
<p>Frank recommends checking in with direct reports on video as much as possible: “While this may seem obvious, there are many days with full schedules and time has to be made to check in. I have switched a lot of calls, even casual calls, to video because the sense of connection is dramatically different.” And during critical times like so, it’s so important. “Even doing a call that is less than five minutes can help me understand how my direct reports are coping,” Frank states.</p>
<p>Andrew also weighs in with another piece of advice: “For those new to working from home, you may have in the past been more dependent on stopping by coworkers desks to check in, so there should definitely be more attention given to setup virtual chats and continue checking in with coworkers during this time.”</p>
<p><strong>Our advice:</strong> Don’t hesitate to reach out. Scheduling virtual lunches, happy hours, or just time to casually chat through a video call can help bring comfort and connection to all of us during this time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>6. Take Regular Breaks</strong></p>
<p>The more you hone-in, the more you ignore the opportunities for context and miss out on the ability to recharge and be creative. Even if you aren’t in a highly creative position, taking breaks can help you better approach how to solve problems and navigate tough conversations – which is even harder to do when we’re working remote.</p>
<p>Getting up and moving can also help boost other sources of energy. Clay Thompson, senior communications manager for Global Product & Solutions Marketing, claims: “When working from home, it’s easier to sit on the couch or in your home office all day without ever having to walk very far to the break room or bathroom, so I have invested in a standing desk for myself. You don’t need a fancy electric one – there are affordable alternatives that sit on a tabletop. You can even use your kitchen counter if you’re desperate. The goal is to avoid sitting all day long.”</p>
<p>Getting up for a half hour of light activity — like walking, when a person would usually be sitting — corresponds to an estimated <a href="https://time.com/5502042/sitting-exercise-move/" target="_blank">17% lower risk</a> of early death, according to Time. Marja and Katherine Taylor, senior events marketing manager, both enjoy taking breaks to go outside and play with their dogs.</p>
<p>“My new routine is more dog-focused, but it helps immensely. I take our puppy outside for playtime two to three times a day, depending on my schedule and weather. It helps to clear my mind, experience some joyfulness, and spend time with my family,” Marja states.</p>
<p><strong>Our advice:</strong> Remember to take a step back and recharge by getting outside, moving your body, or scheduling playtime with your family and/or pets. All of these are great ways to stimulate other senses that may have fallen asleep during the workday.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>7. Know When It’s Time to Switch Off</strong></p>
<p>For some of us out there who are quarantining alone, this one might be one of the hardest. But in the long run, establishing boundaries for ourselves when it comes to our work hours can help us avoid burnout and keep us focused on what really matters – our own well-being.</p>
<p>Katherine sums it up perfectly when she says: “The main thing I have found to be helpful is sticking to set hours. I don’t start work too soon and I don’t end work too late because both of these can quickly get out of hand and make for very long days.”</p>
<p>Frank, on the other hand, offers us a different approach when it comes to wrapping up the entire work week. And it’s been extremely enjoyable. Frank comments: “Personally, I’m a huge fan of video calls at the end of the week that have nothing to do with work other than the fact that everyone on the call is from the same team. The team claims what we have been doing on Fridays has started to become the best part about their week and it has even brought out a whole new level of camaraderie. It also goes a long way to show that we are all in this together without even having to mention that fact.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>We’re all in this together – stay connected, stay safe</h2>
<p>With more personal check-ins, team video calls, and a comprehensive productivity plan, we can ensure that we are all staying safe and healthy, while making a valuable contribution (even if we are wearing our pajamas). And while we aren’t always in control of every minute, establishing some of the tips above can really help us create boundaries and routines that keep us focused on what really matters: our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/preventing-detecting-fraud-risks-in-times-of-economic-uncertainty">Preventing and Detecting Fraud Risks in Times of Economic Uncertainty</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-companies-doing-to-prepare-for-the-return-to-travel">What are Companies Doing to Prepare for the Return to Travel?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-in-trip-it">COVID-19 Travel Guidance in TripIt</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/maintaining-the-employee-experience-even-when-working-from-home">Maintaining the Employee Experience Even When Working from Home</a></li>
</ul>
Kyla Kent
Why a Pandemic Can’t Stop the PNW Chapter of Pride@SAP from Celebrating the LBGTQ+ Community
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-pandemic-cant-stop-pnw-chapter-pridesap-celebrating-lbgtq-community
2020-08-18T12:03:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
June is Pride month a time for greater visibility and celebration of the LGBTQ community The first Pride march was held on June in New York City Since then...
<p>June is Pride month, a time for greater visibility and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. The first Pride march was held on June 28, 1970 in New York City. Since then, annual Pride parades around the world have become events where the LGBTQ+ community and allies celebrate acceptance and advocate for advancements in civil rights protections. Like so many events during the pandemic, Pride this year has required a new format and experience. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pivoting Pride </h2>
<p>Pride@SAP PNW went to work when it was realized that the Seattle Pride Parade would be going virtual, and that the pandemic-related closure of our Bellevue, Washington office would prevent the group from hosting its annual in-office Pride celebration. How could they best support the local LGBTQ+ community with funds originally planned for the events? After much thought and partnership with the SAP Concur SMB Marketing and People Connection teams, along with the Greater Seattle Business Association (the largest LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce in North America), they announced a two-pronged approach that involves supporting queer- and minority-owned small businesses and donating to homeless youth. </p>
<p>The group is directly funding meal and clothing donations purchased from these three queer-owned small businesses: </p>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="4">
<p><a href="http://marinationmobile.com/" target="_blank">Marination</a>: Taco Wednesday meals for 50 homeless youth for 10 weeks (500 total meals) </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="4">
<p><a href="https://cafeflora.com/" target="_blank">Café Flora</a>: Tuesday dinners for 40 homeless youth for 4 weeks (160 total meals) </p>
</li>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="4">
<p>Brand Pride: 460 clothing items for young people </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Who will be receiving the meals and clothing? Pride@SAP PNW teamed up with <a href="https://youthcare.org/" target="_blank">YouthCare</a>, a nonprofit in Seattle that works to end youth homelessness. At YouthCare, 80% of the youth served are BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) and one-third are queer youth. Pride@SAP PNW has a longstanding partnership with YouthCare, having volunteered many times with the organization, so it was a natural fit. </p>
<p>To augment the SAP Concur commitment, Pride@SAP PNW is hosting a virtual in-kind donation drive. SAP Concur employees can purchase additional meals and clothing from YouthCare’s <a href="https://gooddler.com/Wishlist/10296" target="_blank">wishlist</a> to be delivered to YouthCare. </p>
<p>Additionally, Erica Overfield (HR business partner, and yoga and mindfulness instructor) will lead a beginner-friendly yoga flow and seated meditation class open to all SAP Concur employees in honor of Pride month and the fight for equality. For every person that attends, Erica is making a personal $1 donation to <a href="https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/" target="_blank">Black Visions Collective</a>, a black, trans, and queer-led organization in Minnesota that focuses on healing, creating systemic change, and justice for black lives. This event is a testament to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-intersectional-inclusion">intersectionality of Pride</a> and the allies who bring this intersection to the forefront. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Allies and partnerships </h2>
<p>There is a strong connection between this work to support minority-owned small businesses and other initiatives at SAP Concur to support SMBs. </p>
<p>“This is a natural and inspiring extension of our organization’s broader work to support small businesses struggling to keep the lights on during the pandemic,” said SAP Concur Chief Marketing Officer Chris Juneau. “What I love about the Pride Committee’s effort is that it brings together two movements so close to our hearts: supporting the LGBTQ+ community and the small businesses that power our economy.” </p>
<p>Juneau, who serves as the executive sponsor of Pride@SAP’s PNW chapter and recently <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/becoming-an-lgbtq-ally-during-pride-month-and-beyond" target="_blank">wrote</a> about his experiences as an ally, added the SAP Concur organization is involved in a range of efforts to support small businesses. SAP Concur is holding free virtual consulting sessions to help SMBs adapt, and has joined with partners such as American Express’s ‘<a href="http://www.sap.com/standforsmall" target="_blank">Stand For Small</a>’ campaign and the <a href="https://covaidbusinessfestival.com/press/" target="_blank">Covaid Business Festival</a> to provide needed resources and guidance tuned to today’s challenges. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>A bigger mission </h2>
<p>Pride@SAP maintains a responsibility to give back during the current pandemic and racial injustice crises. Across SAP globally, Pride chapters are hosting more than 50 events and engagements during June. It’s more than just a socializing and networking group – it’s a space for LGBTQ+ SAP Concur employees and supporters to create real change. They advocate for community equity where they work and live, while raising awareness of the business value of full inclusion and authenticity. A big part of this mission is giving back to their local communities, and with this year’s Pride pivot, they’re living their values out loud. </p>
Devan Vaughn
Return to Work, Return to Travel: CDC Shares Insight
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/return-work-return-travel-cdc-shares-insight
2020-08-28T15:51:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How can those in finance travel auditing compliance HR and shared services contribute to their organizations plan to help employees return to work or travel Return to Work Return to...
<p>How can those in finance, travel, auditing, compliance, HR, and shared services contribute to their organization’s plan to help employees return to work or travel?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Return to Work, Return to Travel with the CDC</h2>
<p>on-demand</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fconcur.ouropal.com%2Fmoments%2Fsap-concur-2020%2F1114321&eventid=2463979&sessionid=1&key=013D12AE432EEBEB4A5BD85D5ED79173&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="new_window">Watch Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>No doubt, COVID-19 has changed our business travel environment for the foreseeable future and created many unknowns for organizations. As some states begin to ease shelter-in-place restrictions, and economies begin to re-open, companies are preparing for employees to return to work and travel.</p>
<p>We’ve invited speakers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to share their guidance and free resources on how companies can make the many difficult, timely decisions over the next year as they prepare their employees to return to the new normal. During this one-hour webinar session on July 16, we’ll also share how finance, travel and other departments are doing their part now in preparation for what’s ahead.</p>
<p>In addition, we’ll cover these questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>What’s the current situation around COVID-19?</li>
<li>What role can companies can play in the safety, health and well-being of their work from home and on-site employees, travelers, expatriates, contractors and others?</li>
<li>Are there any free resources available to help companies with their plans and educate employees and travelers?</li>
<li>What will the new office environment look like?</li>
<li>How important is the use of mobile capabilities to communicate and manage employee spend and travel before it happens?</li>
</ul>
<p>Webinar panelists:</p>
<ul>
<li>Matthew Dahm, PhD, MPH | Research Industrial Hygienist at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</li>
<li>Allison Taylor Walker, PhD, MPH | Team Lead at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</li>
<li>Ralph Colunga | Thought Leader, Travel and Expense Technology Solutions SAP Concur</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fconcur.ouropal.com%2Fmoments%2Fsap-concur-2020%2F1114321&eventid=2463979&sessionid=1&key=013D12AE432EEBEB4A5BD85D5ED79173&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">register here</a>. Can't make it to the live presentation? Not to worry: Anyone who registers will receive the recording. Attendee participants can earn one CPE credit for attending.</p>
Erin Giordano
Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 2
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/returning-work-and-travel-cdc-and-sap-concur-customers-share-their-perspectives-part-2
2020-10-21T11:47:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Part Returning to Work As the quarantine guidelines have extended in many places the traditional office and workspace as we know it has changed and likely will be impacted The best...
<h2>Part 2: Returning to Work</h2>
<p>As the quarantine guidelines have extended in many places, the traditional office and workspace as we know it has changed, and likely will be impacted. The best way to prepare your business to return to work is to emphasize the three basic tenets of safety during the pandemic as covered in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1" target="_blank">Part 1</a><a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1">: Returning to Work and Travel</a>.</p>
<p>Along with this, it’s also important to utilize the resources available from the CDC to best analyze your unique situation and make the smartest decision possible. The resources is has to offer include <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/general-business-faq.html" target="_blank">FAQs</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-business-response.htmless-response.html" target="_blank">General Guidance</a>, and a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/resuming-business-toolkit.html" target="_blank">Resuming Business toolkit</a> that acts as a checklist.</p>
<p>But preparation shouldn’t stop there. Even though travel has decreased for many, employees are continuing to spend. Here’s a list of best practices many of our customers are following: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Controlling cash flow</strong>: Governing cash and spend has been a priority to help control cash flow. Companies are also instituting a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions" target="_blank">pre-spend tool</a>, as mentioned above, to control spend before it happens within their expense solution.</li>
<li><strong>Expanding globally:</strong> Many are using this “pause” in time to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/global-travel-expense-management">expand and optimize</a> their travel and expense (T&E) programs to other countries. Senior management is realizing the need to have better oversight of spend management globally through integrating T&E onto one platform, so they can mitigate fraud, tax, and other business risks. With SAP Concur solutions, expanding T&E programs to other countries doesn’t take years considering our experts are well-versed in understanding various country regulations.</li>
<li><strong>Implementing new remote spend policies:</strong> Customers are <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">quickly adjusting</a> their expense workflows and software to accommodate agile policies that enable their employees to be productive at home.</li>
<li><strong>Setting further controls and compliance:</strong> The <a href="https://www.acfe.com/" target="_blank">ACFE</a> shared during our April webinar that they expect occupational fraud to increase by 90% over the next year. Companies are looking to provide a mix of audit rules, services, and technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to battle this and ensure they have the necessary reporting capabilities.</li>
<li><strong>Instituting project codes to signify COVID-19 related expenses:</strong> Senior management expects finance to have a way to track COVID-19 related expenses as they are found to be typically unusual or unexpected when relating expenses to the previous environment. Other teams who manage areas such as tax and compliance may need them as well.</li>
<li><strong>Automating AP: </strong>Many companies required a fast reinvention of their AP processes. Some customers even revealed that invoices disappeared when the initial work-from-home mandates were issued, and it has been an ongoing struggle to update vendors with invoice delivery instructions. Many banking software tools are falling short in managing p-card spend and providing clear visibility in this new mobile environment.</li>
<li><strong>Improving the WFH employee experience:</strong> Aberdeen Analyst Bryan Ball, in a recent <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">webinar</a>, shared that Mobile is back. Automating the expense process and streamlining workflows with mobile-enabled tools are essential. When expense reports write themselves, it makes it so much easier for employees, plus, reimbursement happens more quickly. But companies need to set this up to streamline on the back-end. For example, pulling in credit card feeds into the employee’s report with spend, date, and vendor saves time and leaves less room for human errors. When you make things easy, positive outcomes can emerge for both the business and the employees when considered holistically.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is your company considering implementing a pre-approval expense process before employees spend to help control cash flow?</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1596169249408-2.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How important is it to your company to have a tool or mechanism that can communicate with all employees, not just travelers?</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1596169259504-3.jpg" /></p>
<p>Source: Return to Work and Return to Travel, <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register">SAP Concur webinar, July 16</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share Their Perspectives, Part 1</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-3">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 3</a></p>
<p> </p>
Erin Giordano
T&E Management: The Road to Recovery, Part 2
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/te-management-road-recovery-part-2
2020-11-12T16:59:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
During a recent Aberdeen webinar analyst Bryan Ball shared that Mobile is back and Return to travel will be robust Mobility will be key on the road to recovery as many employees...
<p>During a recent Aberdeen <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">webinar</a>, analyst Bryan Ball shared that, “Mobile is back!” and “Return to travel will be robust!”</p>
<p>Mobility will be key on the road to recovery as many employees continue to work from home. According to Ball, travel will be robust once it returns, so it is important to make adjustments to policies. More importantly though, companies need to determine how quickly they can incorporate policy changes into their spend workflows and processes in place. In this second part of our blog series, we take a closer look at the path to recovery and the methods and tools businesses are taking advantage of.</p>
<h2><br />
Why mobile expense management matters now?</h2>
<p>The effect that mobility has had on expense reporting is astonishing. In just a short amount of time, the move to a more mobile business world has vastly improved the visibility into spending processes, the speed of reporting, and the accuracy. The pandemic is pushing more companies to evaluate their expense software to ensure these capabilities are in place to improve the employee experience.</p>
<p>Here are some key benefits of having dynamic remote capabilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Entering expenses from a mobile device provides earlier visibility to expenses</li>
<li>The ability to capture receipts at the source and enter into a report cuts days off reporting time</li>
<li>Entering expense reports from a mobile device provides earlier visibility to expenses and cash flow</li>
<li>Remote submission for approval saves time for the employee as well for reimbursement</li>
<li>Including categorization options makes reporting analysis much faster</li>
<li>Mobile approval also eliminates wasted time</li>
</ul>
<p>Here are some tips and tricks that best-in-class (top 20%) companies are using to take full advantage of the mobile world.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Photograph and digitally attach receipts.</strong> T&E processes and reporting should be consistent with the quality and simplicity that employees are accustomed to in the consumer world. Best-in-class companies use this service to rise above the rest, as 53% do this compared to only 35% of all other companies.</li>
<li><strong>Enter expenses right away for things like travel and entertainment.</strong> Reduce reporting times by days by entering expenses when they happen. Additionally, there is earlier visibility to cash flow and expenses. Fifty-two percent of best-in-class companies enter expenses on mobile compared to only 36% of all other companies.</li>
<li><strong>Submit, edit, and delete expense reports from mobile devices.</strong> This convenience saves employees time and reduces time to reimbursement. Fourty-four percent of best-in-class companies submit expense reports on mobile compared to only 29% of all other companies.</li>
<li><strong>Categorize all your expenses with ease.</strong> By including categorization options, expense reporting is much quicker and allows for better analysis. Thirty-nine percent of best-in-class companies utilize mobile categorization to save time, compared to 31% of all other companies.</li>
<li><strong>Approve expenses right away.</strong> The ability to mobile approval expenses cuts down on unnecessary wasted time and allows you to focus your attention on high value tasks. Mobile approval is seen in 27% of best-in-class, companies compared to 16% of all other companies.</li>
</ol>
<p>The best part about these practices is that the benefits are not only applicable to T&E management. According to Jeanne Dion, senior value consultant for SAP Concur, “digital attachments, the ability to submit and approve via mobile apps, and using application configuration to drive compliance and governance is also important for invoice processing solutions, for more visibility into spend, and increased cash flow management." She also makes mention that this type of mobility and convenience is a “game-changer” and will become a <strong>big</strong> deal on the invoice side.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1599591737620-picture1.jpg" /></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How to make your expense management policies resilient</h2>
<p>T&E masters need to quickly adapt policies in response to direction they are getting from internal business continuity teams which is fluid. Ball explained during the webinar that strong policies are the backbone for expense management. </p>
<p>"You need to make it easy for employees to comply," said Dion. "Your T&E tool can do this. We've spent countless hours with clients, figuring out how to get creative with their configuration and workflows to meet their business needs while making it easy for their employees to do the right thing the first time."</p>
<p>Here are some policy tips discussed:</p>
<ul>
<li>Compliance improves visibility by driving more spend through standard processes</li>
<li>Best-in-class companies are much more likely to have a well-documented process in place. Good policies contribute to higher compliance rates.</li>
<li>A well-defined exception out-of-policy exception process eliminates a lot of manual approvals that cause delays in the approval process and require unnecessary management attention.</li>
<li>Part of the homework by the best-in-class policy making is accomplished by having cross-functional stakeholders involved in the process</li>
</ul>
<p>Human resources, tax, compliance, audit, legal, purchasing, security, and others should be influencing decisions around an enterprise company’s T&E policy and processes. “These departments are realizing the value of T&E as not just a way to control costs but as a way to gain better compliance in all areas of the business to limit its enterprise risks,” says Dion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1599591752400-picture2.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The bottom line</h2>
<p>Having solutions in place to leverage mobile capabilities, and policies in place to accommodate employees, will give your company the best foundation for recovery. The benefits are clear when looking at the KPIs and how best-in-class companies are performing as they take advantage of these solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>44% </strong>ROI after implementation</li>
<li><strong>36% </strong>Year over year savings</li>
<li><strong>57% </strong>of VAT-compliant T&E expenses</li>
<li><strong>64% </strong>of travel expenses are on or below budget</li>
</ul>
<p>For more insight on the road to recovery and growth when it comes to T&E management, listen to this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/preparing-for-growth-in-managing-te-through-recovery-after-the-economic-downturn" target="_blank">Aberdeen webinar</a>. Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-t-e-road-to-recovery-and-growth-part-1">part one</a> if you missed it!</p>
Erin Giordano
Corporate Spending Innovations Now an Automated Payment Provider of SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/corporate-spending-innovations-now-automated-payment-provider-sap-concur
2020-10-29T12:41:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are excited to announce the launch of Corporate Spending Innovations CSI Paysystems an integrated payments automation platform within the SAP Concur App Center This integration...
<p>We are excited to announce the launch of Corporate Spending Innovations’ CSI Paysystems, an integrated payments automation platform, within the SAP Concur App Center. This integration streamlines accounts payable (AP) automation for Concur Invoice customers, enabling them to automate functions, including processing invoices and workflow approvals to payments decisioning and reconciliation.</p>
<p>With Concur Invoice and CSI Paysystems, customers can experience a robust AP automation solution, from invoice capture to vendor payments to optimize their AP processes, reduce costs, and generate net new income. The integration of CSI Paysystems with Concur Invoice provides powerful features and functionality enabling customers to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sync vendor data</li>
<li>Scan, code, route for approval, and extract and post invoices ready for payment to ERPs</li>
<li>Automatically send payments data and information to CSI Paysystems to execute all supplier payments including secure virtual card payments</li>
<li>View details of the payments and complete additional approval workflows for payments, as needed</li>
<li>View payments status updates within Concur Invoice and CSI Paysystems for full transaction visibility</li>
<li>Receive settlement data, reconciliation, and reporting</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information, please visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5a55097f5429601200a4fa78">CSI’s listing on the SAP Concur App Center</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Keeps CFOs Up at Night?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-keeps-cfos-night
2021-04-03T19:04:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you encounter a difficult time like the COVID crisis it really helps you to see whats important and recalibrate You learn about some of the areas of your business that perhaps...
<p>“When you encounter a difficult time, like the COVID crisis, it really helps you to see what's important and recalibrate. You learn about some of the areas of your business that, perhaps, needed to be corrected all along, and it affords you the opportunity to focus on that.” –Tom Lavin, SAP Concur CFO</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If everyone who spends money across your company did exactly what you told them to do, or if they could somehow do exactly what you know needs to be done at any given moment, everything would be just fine.</p>
<p>No more cashflow issues, no more cost concerns, no more work-from-home conundrums.</p>
<p>But because people can’t read your mind, you, like other <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-to-become-the-next-cfo">CFOs and financial leaders</a>, likely spend at least some of your nights worrying about what to do about these issues and, ultimately, how to get employees to do what you need.</p>
<p>And there’s proof that you’re not alone. A recent Gartner survey, highlighted in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/times-crisis-cfos-help-turn-adversity-into-advantage">this whitepaper</a>, shows how 2020 has impacted CFOs, detailing three key findings:</p>
<ol>
<li> Focus has shifted from growth, efficiency, and business partnerships to back-to-business continuity.</li>
<li> Increasing cash positions, reducing functional costs, and enabling remote work have become top priorities.</li>
<li>Finance leaders are unsure of what to do next.</li>
</ol>
<p>Sound familiar?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You realize in times like these that if you want to survive, you need to have that flexibility and agility to respond to quickly changing business conditions, and you need to have the right technology to do that.” –Tom Lavin</p>
<p> </p>
<p>All right. You can’t automatically get everyone to do what needs to be done (or perhaps you can – more on that in a moment). What do you do now? Well, if you’re like all those other CFOs, your goal is to bring as much order and oversight to spending as you can, creating as much consistency and clarity in your processes as possible.</p>
<p>But how? Digital transformation of your processes is an essential strategy for managing spending. It’s how you make certain that each type of spending gets directed through the proper approvals and that the appropriate policies are applied. High tech, in other words, is how you gain the confidence that employees are choosing the right supplier, the right product, and the right price, so you get the best value for the budget.</p>
<p>There are three core focus areas where technology can be put to immediate effect.</p>
<p><strong>1. Creating clear, consistent spending policies and processes.</strong><br />
The right digital solution will make it simple to set up workflows that automate control. For example, you might add a simple request feature to the purchase process, so managers can review spending decisions before they’re made.</p>
<p><strong>2. Get true visibility into spending. </strong><br />
Detailed reporting and easy-to-analyze dashboards can shine a light on hidden spending, helping you see a) if supplier payments that should be covered by POs are winding up on expense reports, b) how much spending is going on personal cards and why, and c) where your expense categories are working and where they’re falling short.</p>
<p><strong>3. Increase process efficiency and employee productivity. </strong><br />
An easy-to-use digital process across all your spending functions – from preapprovals to submitting expense reports – increases the odds that processes will be followed, your finance team will get accurate data, employees can spend more time working and less time managing spend, and you’ll maintain control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The one thing we've learned from COVID is that when you go from having everybody in the office to suddenly everyone's at home, it really emphasizes the need to adapt to new work paradigms quickly.” –Tom Lavin</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s as simple as this: Give employees intuitive, automated tools to help them manage spending, and they’ll do what you want. You, on the other hand, will be able to see their expenses, control the costs, and finally manage a good night’s sleep. To learn more how CFOs help turn adversity into advantage in times of crisis, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/times-crisis-cfos-help-turn-adversity-into-advantage">download this brief whitepaper</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Putting AI to Work in New Ways
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/putting-ai-work-new-ways
2021-04-02T17:02:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Artificial intelligence AI is changing the way people work how enterprises operate and how entire industries transform The challenge of datas explosion in recent years is providing...
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way people work, how enterprises operate, and how entire industries transform. The challenge of data’s explosion in recent years is providing necessary structure and interpretation to derive meaning and draw business value from what would otherwise be digital noise. At the same time, using this abundance of data to drive intelligent automation is increasingly important—especially with the accelerated digital demands brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and remote work environment.</p>
<p>These challenges increasingly require the use of emerging and advanced technologies like AI, which goes beyond just processing data. AI analyzes and extracts insights, creating a level of understanding and prediction that was not possible before. It also provides the ability to automate steps and spot patterns at scale, which can bridge the gap between in-office and remote operations, and relieve workers of tedious tasks so they can reinvest that time in more valuable work.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/fusion_cube_RGB.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Concur Fusion 2021: Exploring a World Where AI is Essential</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/exploring-world-where-ai-essential">Watch on-demand</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The SAP Concur team continually invests in advanced technologies that incorporate AI to help customers quickly and accurately analyze travel and expense information and apply automation to key processes along the way. We prioritize use cases that lead to the biggest improvements in customer efficiency, effectiveness, and cost savings. In turn, our customers can accelerate their AI deployment, reduce risks, and operationalize the technology more productively.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>AI at work in T&E</h2>
<p>When people are traveling, for instance, they produce a considerable amount of data that is often fragmented — bits that, by themselves, do not provide the necessary context to understand what really happened. This new generation of tools allows us to analyze the travel experience, especially purchasing behaviors. Our integration tools and various applications of AI allow companies to look at not only what happened but why and where it happened. We can interpret the entire context to provide companies with meaningful information that can improve compliance, identify cost savings, and more.</p>
<p>With AI, we can automate an enormous quantity of data and reduce human errors. This then leads to predictive analytics, allowing companies to take proactive action in making business decisions. This is not a little thing: It is a key component of the digital transformation drive that is fueling improvements in operational efficiency and profitability.</p>
<p>For example, the ability to extrapolate travel trends over multiple periods, destinations and modes of transportation can lead to powerful insights in aggregate. Our customers can use these to better plan and negotiate their expense budgets, while also developing early warning flags for fraud or other anomaly-based alerts, such as those in expense reports or on itemized receipts, to underpin the accuracy of their data and reporting.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Looking Ahead</h2>
<p>Using AI offers more than just cost savings. It helps organizations predict and shape future outcomes. Significantly, this allows people to do higher-value work and create new business models that will help organizations stay ahead. The combination of AI-powered tools and knowledge works is also a powerful combination. AI is great at looking at massive data sets, identifying patterns, benchmarking, and sifting through information people might miss. Humans compliment this with the ability to look at a piece of data and determine if it's an outlier and contextually accurate, based on the AI analysis. In this case, it’s more about using AI to surface those higher risk scenarios for people to quickly adjudicate and resolve, and maintain focus on their higher value responsibilities, versus having employees in the trenches examining those high volumes of data.</p>
<p>In fact, IDC <a href="https://blogs.idc.com/2019/10/28/the-ceos-nine-agenda-items-for-running-a-digital-business-part-2/#:~:text=By%202025%2C%20AI%2Dpowered%20enterprises,of%20their%20non%2Dintelligent%20peers." target="_blank">predicts</a> that by 2025, AI-powered enterprises will see a 100% increase in knowledge worker productivity, resulting in shorter reaction times due to anticipating market and operational changes, greater product innovation success, and improved customer satisfaction.</p>
<p>Incorporating advanced technologies is a part of broader trends brought on by a complicated set of business challenges, including the increasing pace of business, volume of data, the growing scope of global commerce, and a multitude of risk factors. Enterprises are faced with the need to rationalize, modernize, and transform their application portfolio. All this feeds into the idea that AI and other advanced technologies are increasingly being used to create an intelligent enterprise that is more resilient, profitable, and sustainable.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur team is continually finding new ways to incorporate AI for the benefit of our customers. Ongoing technology improvements are rapidly enhancing the processes surrounding expense management. Expense reports and travel-related information needs are already far less challenging than they were even five years ago. We have made significant advances over the last several years through in-house development and partner integrations that help with everything from automating expense reports and workflows, auditing transactions against travel and expense policies and regulations, and ensuring tax compliance.</p>
<p>As we continue to work with AI, travel and expense management systems will advance at an even faster pace — and transform how we do business. 2021 will be an exciting year for new capabilities and SAP Concur solutions will continue to lead the way with advanced technologies that help businesses move forward</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Strengthens Compliance Options for Customers with TripLink Admin Controls, Solution Extensions, and TripIt Features
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-strengthens-compliance-options-customers-triplink-admin-controls-solution
2021-03-16T10:18:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives COVID has introduced a new element of risk and uncertainty In our personal lives we...
<p>The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives. COVID-19 has introduced a new element of risk and uncertainty. In our personal lives, we respond to these health and economic risks by being more cautious; we limit our activities, and probably spend less, too. Most businesses and organizations are responding to the uncertainty of COVID-19 in a similar way–they want to be more cautious and work even harder to identify, avoid, and mitigate risk. In other words, in times of uncertainty, most organizations become even more focused on compliance. At the same time, business travel is starting to return. A <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/summer-vacation-forecast-air-travel-road-trips.html" target="_blank">recent survey</a> of U.S. TripIt from Concur users found that nearly half of respondents plan to travel for business this year.</p>
<p>Focusing on compliance during times like these makes sense, but outdated compliance solutions can be expensive, inefficient, and have the unintended consequence of stifling employee autonomy and creativity, which will be key to successfully emerging from the pandemic.</p>
<p>Thankfully, compliance isn’t what it used to be. New tools and advanced technology make it possible to focus on compliance in ways that are cost effective, minimally intrusive, and deliver the control organizations demand.</p>
<p>During the pandemic, SAP innovation has had an even greater focus on helping organizations meet their compliance needs in a way that empowers employees, and today from our virtual <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> event, we’re happy to announce <strong>new admin controls for Concur TripLink</strong>.</p>
<p>TripLink is designed to bring bookings made outside of traditional channels back into a managed travel program through the SAP Concur global network of integrated travel partners and through TripIt Pro. It increases visibility into travel plans, allowing organizations to apply policy and negotiated rates to all travel, and fulfill duty of care obligations.</p>
<p>With TripLink admin controls, available in the second quarter of 2021, travel managers have the flexibility to choose how integrated travel partners are presented and communicated to travelers, in order to reflect their organization’s travel policies and provide travelers with clear messaging around whether travel supplier-direct bookings are allowed or discouraged, so they are aware of the guidelines and can more easily stay in policy. With the new customizable controls, TripLink is now a fit for all organizations, regardless of their policies around direct booking.</p>
<p>TripLink admin controls give travel managers the options to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Select preferred integrated travel suppliers</li>
<li>Provide clear messaging to employees if travel supplier-direct bookings are allowed or discouraged</li>
<li>Inactivate integrated travel suppliers, if needed, by request</li>
</ul>
<p>This year, we’ve already made strides in helping companies meet their compliance needs. In January, we <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-sap-concur-solution-extensions-expand-our-compliance-portfolio">announced</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions"><strong>Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox</strong></a>, helping organizations comply with global tax regulations by confirming data integrity and offering collection and enhancement tools to increase reclaim potential.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud"><strong>Concur Detect by Oversight</strong></a>, simplifying an organization’s expense audit and compliance program with embedded intelligence and automation. Concur Detect by Oversight analyzes expenses both before and after payment to mitigate immediate risks, spot suspicious spend patterns across time, and prioritize risk to drive greater audit efficiency.</li>
</ul>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/newsroom/article/the-hidden-potential-of-vat-reclaim" target="_blank">recent survey</a> found that only 23% of European finance leaders say every opportunity is taken to reclaim VAT, and 41% have experienced increased errors in expense and invoice submissions and processing. Smart organizations are evaluating technologies and partners that can help them control these often-overlooked costs.</p>
<p>We’re also hard at work to give travelers the information they need to make the best decisions for their trips and help them remain compliant with local regulations while traveling. Last month, we announced <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-guidance-travel-plans.html" target="_blank"><strong>COVID-19 travel guidance in TripIt</strong></a>, which allows users to see the latest destination-specific COVID-19 guidance for items in their itinerary. <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-health-and-safety-features-tripit-app.html" target="_blank">We also announced</a> the ability to search for guidance by destination within TripIt Pro, prior to a trip being booked, available as part of Concur TripLink. Guidance includes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Key information about infection rates, hotspots, and any quarantine or testing requirements for travelers entering the area</li>
<li>Requirements and restrictions currently in place, including mask requirements, curfew orders, and restrictions on dining and shopping</li>
<li>Travel guidelines issued for destinations, such as health documentation requirements, entry and exit rules, travel bans, and more</li>
</ul>
<p>With policies and regulations in a state of near-constant change, the need for technology to help companies and travelers remain compliant is more important than ever. We hope you’ll join us at our first global <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> event this week and attend breakout sessions to understand ways to rethink and redesign processes and policies to improve compliance within your organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Mike Koetting
Duty of Care Isn’t Only About Traveler Safety Anymore
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/duty-care-isnt-only-about-traveler-safety-anymore
2021-07-13T08:36:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It turns out that keeping people safe happy and productive actually makes them safe happy and productive Maybe that isnt a huge surprise but after turned all our spare bedrooms into...
<p>It turns out that keeping people safe, happy, and productive actually makes them safe, happy, and productive. Maybe that isn’t a huge surprise, but after 2020 turned all our spare bedrooms into offices, we’re ready to get back out there safely, to enjoy and be engaged in our work, and to be more efficient with our time and our tasks.</p>
<p>And more than ever, those workplace wishes are falling under the purview of duty of care.</p>
<p>So whether your employees are working from home, jetting off to London, or simply reveling in a renewed sense of corporate responsibility (think diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability), their emotional and physical well-being is grabbing the spotlight. And it’s your job to take care of it.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>More Than a Matter of Safety</h2>
<p>How duty of care can be a key to resilience </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/more-matter-safety">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>We’re still talking about travel, right?</h2>
<p>Yes, but not exclusively. You’re required to maintain duty of care when an employee is working in the far corners of the globe, but you’re also responsible for their safety and well-being when they’re working in the far corners of their dining room.</p>
<p>And now that we’ve learned remote work doesn’t diminish productivity, companies are working on ways to keep employees happy, healthy, and engaged regardless of where their desk is. According to a recent SAP Concur duty of care whitepaper entitled <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/more-matter-safety" target="_blank">More Than a Matter of Safety, Duty of Care as a Key to Resilience</a>, “mitigating health and safety exposures for employees is rapidly becoming one of the most important resilience and risk management strategies for companies.”</p>
<p>Health and well-being have moved to the top of the agenda and onto the boardroom table, and it isn’t just about the company being healthy; this time, it’s about the people who work there. The paper goes on to discuss how organizations are developing a more holistic “culture of safety,” outlining the need to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Get all the necessary departments involved.</li>
<li>Arm employees with information.</li>
<li>Put safety at the heart of travel policies.</li>
</ol>
<p>So yes, we’re talking about travel, too, because it’s starting back up, and people want to get out there.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.ihgplc.com/en/news-and-media/news-releases/2021/is-togetherness-the-next-destination-for-travel" target="_blank">IHG research</a>, for example, 40% of business travelers say they miss seeing clients face-to-face. Fifty percent miss the meaningful relationships they’re able to build through corporate travel. And 45% say that business travel improves their mood and level of motivation.</p>
<p>See how it’s all tied together? Remote work, mobile work, responsible workplaces – they’re all linked to duty of care, and they each need to support the emotional and physical health of your workforce. To bolster that support, companies are turning to technology that keeps travelers and other employees safe and informed, while making sure the ROI isn’t measured merely in dollars, but in terms of safety, efficiency, and sustainability.</p>
<p>The whitepaper includes a list of must-haves when considering any safety-focused solution:</p>
<ul>
<li>Tracking and visibility tools</li>
<li>Round-the-clock communication channels</li>
<li>An immediate security or medical response when minutes matter</li>
<li>A way to anticipate and avoid location-specific safety concerns before travelers arrive</li>
<li>Quick adjustments to travel logistics when plans or itineraries change</li>
<li>Extraction support when necessary</li>
</ul>
<p>Any way you look at it, duty of care is in the spotlight. And the better your employees feel about where they’re going (or not going) for work, the better it’s going to be for your business.</p>
<p>To see how taking care of your employees can spark resiliency in your organization, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/more-matter-safety">download the whitepaper</a> today.</p>
Neha Mehta
Who’s Driving the Next Era of Corporate Travel?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whos-driving-next-era-corporate-travel
2021-07-13T08:37:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You stand at the helm your travel program your newly modified completely adaptable travel program that you rebuilt during the last months of downtime but even though the Csuite now...
<p>You stand at the helm your travel program – your newly modified, completely adaptable travel program that you rebuilt during the last 16 months of “downtime” – but even though the C-suite now looks at you to singlehandedly restart corporate travel and get business moving again, there’s someone else they need to consider.</p>
<p>Before we get to the answer, let’s take a deeper look at that C-suite idea, because it’s critical to what your travel-management team does next.</p>
<p>Your corporate higher-ups really are looking to you to get travel going again; corporate travel drives business momentum, and while virtual meetings have kept the engine running, it can’t propel companies quite as effectively as sitting across the table and shaking hands over a deal. Because of these simple facts, you – as a travel leader – have a critical seat at the strategic table, and everyone from the CFO to the CEO is seeking your input. They need to hear big, bold ideas about getting your travel program ready to go, ready to adapt to the changes that are sure to come, and ready to carry the business forward.</p>
<p>But again, the C-suite isn’t steering the ship here, either.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>4 Tips to Re-Establishing Travel</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/4-tips-re-establishing-travel">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In our new, more cautious, more unpredictable world, it is the individual traveler who holds the keys. It’s up to her to decide when she’s ready to board the plane or train again. It’s up to him to say “it’s too soon” to tour your APAC facilities. It’s up to them, collectively, to demand new policies and procedures dealing with when, where, and how they travel – and how you’ll keep them safe on the road.</p>
<p>Travelers’ comfort level is key to the return to travel. They need to know you can provide the PPE they need; they need to know you can reach them and retrieve them if they get caught in an emergency situation; they need to know you know what to do. And until they’re confident you have them covered, they’re not going anywhere, and the CEO is going to wonder why business isn’t rebounding.</p>
<p>The crux of the issue is confidence – business leaders and travelers alike need confidence in your travel program. They want to know they don’t need to worry about getting ill or getting into some other sort of trouble as travel resumes. They also want to be confident that, in addition to new safety protocols, you’ve factored in sustainability as a tenet of your new travel program. Travel isn’t just about increasing sales anymore, it’s about reducing your corporate carbon footprint.</p>
<p>If it all seems overwhelming (and there’s reason for that), there’s a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/4-tips-re-establishing-travel" target="_blank">travel checklist</a> circulating among your peers that’s worth far more than the five minutes it takes to read. Most notably, it offers four travel manager tips designed to help you rebuild confidence into your ever-evolving program – from embracing a travel<strong>er</strong>-management mindset, which is what we’ve been talking about above, to shifting from duty of care to “duty of caring.”</p>
<p>In a recent global business traveler survey, 90% of travelers said expect their company to provide benefits that ensure health and safety while traveling. They expect policies and practices, not promises. And while travelers will have their say before they hit the road, rails, or skies again, initiating those new protocols is up to you. Continually reshaping your travel program will take big thinking and brave actions, but with the right tools in hand, you’ll have more authority over where travel is headed than ever before.</p>
<p>And you’ll have the confidence of corporate travelers and business leaders alike.</p>
Neha Mehta
Travel Managers Are Seeing More Travel and Expanded Roles
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-managers-are-seeing-more-travel-and-expanded-roles
2022-07-01T12:07:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Whether a companys travelers are taking to the skies and roads again is as they say about real estate often a matter of location location location Many US companies are restarting...
<p>Whether a company’s travelers are taking to the skies and roads again is – as they say about real estate – often a matter of location, location, location.</p>
<p>Many U.S. companies are restarting domestic travel to varying degrees, but international travel largely remains business-critical and requires special approvals. In some organizations, U.S.-based employees are, in effect, testing the new systems and procedures that corporations have put into place for travel and duty of care.</p>
<p>Sally Abella, senior director of Global corporate travel at Harman International Industries Inc., said, “Our travelers are very, very anxious to get back on the road, they want to be in front of the client, they want to be having some collaboration there.”</p>
<p>But the likelihood employees will be allowed to travel can depend on its purpose. The pandemic and its virtual meetings demonstrated in-person contact might not be as necessary.</p>
<p>“When we look at business-critical when it's customer- or partner-facing, it's definitely going to have a little bit different of an outcome than if we look at the need for internal meetings and getting face to face,” said Kate Rilling, senior manager, global travel and expense at ServiceNow.</p>
<p>Abella and Rilling spoke as panelists during a recent session, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/inside-the-minds-of-travel-managers-navigating-travel-today">Inside the Minds of Travel Managers: Navigating Travel Today</a>, of the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. They and other experts acknowledge the pressure to travel will grow as corporate offices reopen. For now, gaining approval to travel can involve extensive screening that includes senior management and security officers.</p>
<p>“And it will remain remain that way,” said another panelist,<strong> </strong>Alison Roga<strong>n</strong>, head of travel and expense at Barclays.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What companies have done</h2>
<p>In addition to tightening approvals, organizations have instituted systems and technology to provide information to their travelers. Managers say they know many are hesitant about venturing out into the world again, and education and resources are ways to make the travelers more comfortable while fulfilling duty of care.</p>
<p>Companies have added internal microsites and beefed up the information – including prompts – on travel portals. One company created a popular five-week series on travel in the new normal, with airline, hotel, rental car, and airport representatives sharing insights.</p>
<p>As office locations reopen, one organization has made sure travelers can be safely accommodated, basically allowing visitors to book a seat at the office. Employees of another company can check, via the travel portal, and find the status – Open? How open? Restrictions? – at individual company locations.</p>
<p>The relevance and length of available information matters, as travelers are more likely to use it if they aren’t buried by it. One company went beyond portals and electronic prompts, with a travel team member reaching out once an employee books a trip to make sure they knew about new resources and protocols.</p>
<p>“These are tools that gives them insights about the destinations they're traveling to, what to expect on the ground, whether they need to wear face masks, what supplies are doing, the airlines, the hotels,” Rilling said. “The process has to be intuitive.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Sustainability goes hand in hand</h2>
<p>The heightened emphasis on sustainability is a natural fit with new ways of traveling.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/sustainability-more-carbon-calculation">Organizations are illustrating greener option</a>s when travelers book flights, hotels, rental cars, and more. They’re giving hints, such as reminders to bring one’s own cup, and seeking suppliers with more sustainable practices and then highlighting them.</p>
<p>The pandemic provided the opportunity to reconsider past practices. One travel manager described how, previously, employees at one office would fly within their state to be present for meetings at headquarters, often multiple times a month.</p>
<p>“It really has forced us during this time to say, ‘Was that an efficient use of my time as the traveler? And was it an efficient use of the company's time to have that happen?’” Rilling said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel managers’ changing roles</h2>
<p>Travel managers say that although they often had a voice with senior management, their roles have grown and been heightened during the pandemic.</p>
<p>“We've picked up additional responsibilities that perhaps wouldn't have sat in our in our area before,” Rogan said.</p>
<p>The appreciation has grown that getting employees from one place to another safely is no simple matter, and that travel should be a central part of the business plan instead of an outlier that’s solely the responsibility of travel managers.</p>
<p>“It's really just been a great opportunity to find our place within the organization and to say, ‘You know, it's really time that we take a better focus on our global travel and expense program, and invest in it, invest in it so that we can be a key contributor towards environmental sustainability efforts, a key contributor to health and safety … really championing that duty of care process,” Rilling said.<br />
</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Panelists Suzanne Neufang, GBTA; Alison Rogan, Barclays; Kate Rilling, ServiceNow; and Sally Abella, Harman International Industries Inc., share their insights in the session <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/inside-the-minds-of-travel-managers-navigating-travel-today">Inside the Minds of Travel Managers: Navigating Travel Today</a><strong> </strong>from the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. Watch the session today.</p>
Neha Mehta
Stopping Fraud From the Inside Out: A Conversation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/stopping-fraud-inside-out-conversation
2022-07-01T13:39:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In every crisis there are people who can take advantage of the situation While we want to assume positive intent we must acknowledge that we are working often in wholly new...
<p>In every crisis, there are people who can take advantage of the situation. While we want to assume positive intent, we must acknowledge that we are working, often, in wholly new environments. The pandemic has created new challenges in compliance, with new policies and expense types creating opportunities for mistakes and misuse. Traditional audit approaches, like human-based sampling are not always the most effective. Technology exists today to allow you to review all your expense reports, helping ensure you are identifying your problem areas.</p>
<p>My collaborator on this blog, Connie Hoen, Director of Audit Services for SAP Concur, joined me for a conversation about how fraud can be detected given the significant shift in working environments. She explained it this way, “Once an employee is called out for a potentially fraudulent transaction, they often claim it was an error—unintentional. But, when the same ‘erroneous’ submission is in report after report, the realization hits that this is no longer an innocent mistake—now it’s turned into a behavior-change requirement.”</p>
<p>The 2020 Report to the Nations of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) shared some recent trends:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>14 months: </strong>The duration of the typical fraud scheme before detection at the cost of $8300 per month.</li>
<li><strong>5% of annual revenues: </strong>Estimated operational losses each year due to fraud.</li>
<li><strong>Billing fraud, payroll and check and payment tampering: </strong>The most likely fraud risks to small businesses as opposed to enterprise companies.</li>
<li><strong>The four sources of over 50% of corporate fraud:</strong> Operations 15%, Accounting 14%, Executive and Upper Management 12%, and Sales 11%.</li>
</ul>
<p>In <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/">the full report</a>, the ACFE also states that the presence of anti-fraud controls is associated with lower fraud losses and quicker detection. </p>
<p>In our discussion, I asked Connie to share her perspectives on this topic and what her teams are starting to see, as well as what she is hearing from customers in the wake of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Ralph: HI! Connie, thank you for joining us today. First, please tell us what you are hearing from customers and what your teams are observing currently.</p>
<p><strong>Connie:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you, Ralph, and happy to share some perspective.</p>
<p>We have heard loud and clear from customers that their focus last year was to ensure their employees remained safe and healthy, which resulted in many of them shifting to a remote working environment. While those shifts happened quickly, there were changes that people were not aware of or understand.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph:</strong></p>
<p>What did you focus on to help customers manage remote or hybrid work-related spend?</p>
<p><strong>Connie:</strong></p>
<p>One way we assisted customers during the change was we suggested they make updates to their travel & expense policies that added work-from-home expense types.Doing so continues to help them manage COVID-19 and remote work-related expenses; it also makes it easier to identify non-compliant spend in those categories.</p>
<p><strong>Ralph:</strong></p>
<p>From your experience, are there practical actions that travel and expense managers can take to help decrease potential fraudulent exposure?</p>
<p><strong>Connie:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely! Here are some actions companies can take:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>At a minimum, conduct random checks of expense reports: say, any report more than a certain amount turned in over a certain number of times per year.</strong> If you’re not performing a 100% audit selection, we recommend a random audit of some percentage of regularly submitted reports (commonly, companies look at 50%, 30%, 20%, or 10%). Other methods that can trigger audit target lists include specific dollar amounts, key expense categories, and reports resubmitted due to an earlier exception identified.</li>
<li><strong>Don’t take things at face value……dig a little deeper in the data.</strong> Here is an example: When I was working with an Expense Administrator on compliance topics, we ran a report showing the spend across all expense types. She noticed one department with a higher spend in the “Florist” expense category. This expense category should have been used to send flowers to the employees who had a life event: a new baby, a wedding, funeral, or anniversary. When the Expense Administrator dug further into this, she uncovered that an employee was expensing her personal wedding flowers through her corporate card and expensing it under the department “florist” expense category!</li>
<li><strong>Keep a list of habitual abusers and review them often. You’ll probably find where there’s smoke, there’s fire.</strong> The SAP Concur Audit Service has a configuration available to select an employee to have 100% of their submitted reports processed through audit. We also have reporting to show compliance exception ranking across all employees that have submitted an expense report.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Ralph:</strong></p>
<p>Great advice! Thanks, Connie. Any other tips?</p>
<p><strong>Connie:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. Here are a few that could save hassle and heartache:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Make certain Expense Administrators who have signature authority for their bosses are not approving their own expense reports.</strong> That’s not great compliance control, to say the least!</li>
<li><strong>If you have a corporate credit card program, ask the supplier to run a monthly insights report to monitor high risk questionable spend and compliance. </strong>You’ll be surprised what you see. Remember, SAP Concur also has a suite of reports available related to Compliance/Fraud activities.</li>
<li><strong>Post a pandemic review of insights from compliance data into a higher level of unauthorized spend submissions on expense reports</strong>. This sets them apart and increases visibility.<br />
Some examples of non-compliant spend our SAP Concur auditors have seen include paint and painting supplies, pet kenneling, home internet, family plans, wall art, office furniture. And my favorite – mileage for daily Starbuck runs.</li>
<li><strong>Add Intelligent Audit and Machine Learning (AI/ML) to your current compliance program</strong>. It’s a smart move. It allows for higher accuracy and faster identifications of non-compliance spend.</li>
<li><strong>Reviewing receipts attached to expense report line items</strong> – even if not at receipt required values – can identify receipt data alterations.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Ralph:</strong></p>
<p>Connie, this is great advice. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!</p>
<p><strong>Connie:</strong></p>
<p>It’s my pleasure! In fact, it’s my job. This is a reality in the business world we contend with daily. We want to eliminate as much of this exposure as possible, whenever possible.</p>
<p>That’s why SAP Concur has such a wealth of solutions to fight fraud, in addition to our partners<a> </a>who work to increase the effectiveness and resilience of expense programs as our customers navigate the ever-changing expense auditing landscape.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ready for more? Learn about our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-financial-services-partners">Financial Service Integrator Partners</a> and how they can help. Also, check out our eBook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/more-matter-safety">More Than a Matter of Safety</a> and see why <a href="http://youtu.be/xKBjfsbL33U">business resilience begins with SAP Concur solutions</a>. </p>
Ralph Colunga
If There Was Ever a Time to Keep an Eye on Your Money, It’s Always.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-there-was-ever-time-keep-eye-your-money-its-always
2022-07-01T17:01:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Remember the first time mom gave you money to run down to the store and grab some milk And you thought Heck milk is cheap Ill have plenty left over for a bag of candy and shell never...
<p>Remember the first time mom gave you money to run down to the store and grab some milk? And you thought, “Heck, milk is cheap. I’ll have plenty left over for a bag of candy – and she’ll never know!”</p>
<p>Yeah, well, she knew.</p>
<p>The story isn’t much different in the big, grown-up world of business, except it’s billions and billions of dollars, and people aren’t trying to sneak a cheap snack, they’re buying home office equipment, ordering in expensive meals (For clients? For themselves? For fun?), and trying to put goodness knows what else on their expense reports (more on that in a moment).</p>
<p>Obviously, the bulk of their spending is legitimate. But with the stratospheric rise in remote and hybrid workers, it’s getting harder and harder to tell how much of their spending crosses the line.</p>
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<h2>How the Pandemic Has Altered Spend and Introduced Risk</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Pandemics tend to ruin everything.</h2>
<p>It’s been a rough couple of years, to say the least. And while your team’s newfound freedom has its perks (working from the couch can be comfy), it is much, much harder for you to see how they’re spending your money. So when you get a $1,500 receipt from Amazon, you don’t know if it’s milk, candy, or a home-theater system, which they definitely don’t need for work.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">recent SAP Concur Spend Insight Report sponsored by Oversight</a>, corporations’ spend risk has nearly tripled since the beginning of the pandemic, and remote work has become an open invitation to high-risk and highly questionable spending. One customer, for example, had an employee try to pass off a rifle silencer as a work-from-home expense. A rifle silencer.</p>
<p>Anomalies like this might be easy to catch (though that’s not always the case), but how do you know if the $100 gift card you’re paying for is for a customer or for an employee’s personal use? How do you tell if a DoorDash dinner was gifted to a client or devoured by one of your sales people?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This is just plain wrong.</h2>
<p>Spend violations are inching up, too. Or skyrocketing, as the case may be. According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">the report</a>, T&E spend infractions shot up 292% between 2019 and 2020. And in the confusion and relative chaos that ensued with the rapid shift to remote work, out-of-pocket and fraud violations climbed by 32% and 12% , respectively.</p>
<p>It isn’t all intentional, of course. We don’t all want to squander mom’s milk money. But as more and more employees become corporate spenders – without corporate cards – more and more mistakes are going to happen.</p>
<p>And yes, it matters if it’s accidental or intentional. But at the end of the day, your company’s money is going out the door, and it’s not coming back.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What can you do?</h2>
<p>The massive, overnight change we all went through in 2020 demands a commitment to continuous improvement. It requires us as finance leaders to re-examine how we manage spending to make sure the policies and processes we used to count on can keep up with today’s changes and challenges. It means we must find new ways of monitoring employee spend to maintain compliance even when those employees aren’t in the office. It necessitates stronger cost controls and more fluid processes, so that we can adapt the rules to our current reality while making them harder to break.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur/Oversight report weighs in on this topic, too, offering a hefty list of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/spend-insights-how-the-pandemic-has-altered-spend-and-introduced-risk">suggested actions you can take to take on spending and its inherent risks</a> – everything from monitoring spend in high-risk categories to expanding corporate card programs to beefing up your audits.</p>
<p>So run on down to the store, grab yourself a treat, and take a look. Then speak with your SAP Concur representative, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a>, for more.</p>
Sylvana Chang
Quenching Our Post-Pandemic Wanderlust: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Acquis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/quenching-our-post-pandemic-wanderlust-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-acquis
2022-07-01T17:19:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As employees abandoned airports for spare bedroom workstations during the pandemic one silver lining was the sheer amount of money that organizations saved by slashing corporate travel...
<p>As employees abandoned airports for spare bedroom workstations during the pandemic, one silver lining was the sheer amount of money that organizations saved by slashing corporate travel activity. Still, for many businesspeople, there’s no substitute for face-to-face interactions. As business travel resumes, how will it look different from the Before Times?</p>
<p>We asked Danny Smout, Principal Solution Consultant with the SAP Concur organization, and Hansini Sharma, Practice Lead for Corporate Travel with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/acquis-consulting-group">Acquis Consulting Group</a>, to discuss how business travel is changing as employees satisfy their post-pandemic wanderlust.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/work-from-anywhere-redefined-an-sap-concur-podcast/id1525744763?i=1000535515838">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bIsUw1wVcKmR1dHdSDdQT">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/post-pandemic-wanderlust-HZTt58s_2RF/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/post-pandemic-wanderlust-using-your-best-judgment-for-busine">Acast | Google </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/using-your-best-judgment-for-post-pandemc-business-travel">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2>To fly or to Zoom, that is the question</h2>
<p>After a year and a half of Zoom meetings, businesspeople worldwide are itching to get back on a plane. “[Virtual meetings] have heightened our appreciation for in-person interactions,” Sharma says. As the world reopens, organizations are reassessing their approach to business travel.</p>
<p>“I’m seeing the most personalization of travel I've ever seen,” says Sharma. “People are being offered choices. If they need to travel for work, they're being given the option to make their own business decisions. ‘Do you feel comfortable going? Does it make sense to have this meeting in person?’ That empowers the person who's traveling to feel comfortable and confident. It’s also paving the way for a much broader conversation about how we continue to build managed travel programs.”</p>
<p>In the past, employees may have been pushed to travel when they didn’t always want to, says Sharma. Now, she predicts, “the people who want to stay home aren't going to be asked to travel, which I think is awesome. When you travel to meet a client, it's so much more than the act of getting on the plane. It’s an attitude, and if you don't want to be there, it's very apparent.”</p>
<h2>Mixing business and pleasure</h2>
<p>Travel managers are also becoming more mindful and strategic about leveraging their partners. Giving employees flexibility within the boundaries of the organization’s travel policies, such as the ability to combine business and leisure, keeps them content and encourages compliance with your managed travel program. After all, Sharma notes, the first step to cost savings is persuading your people to follow the program.</p>
<p>“When you follow the program, your duty of care is comprehensive,” Sharma says. “You're consolidating spend, which enables stronger negotiation tactics and cost savings. [You also] have great data and analytics, and [can] provide comprehensive feedback to your travel manager to continue to iterate on it.”</p>
<p>Flexibility and personalization in travel are nothing new, Sharma points out; what is new is that priorities have shifted. Pre-pandemic, compliance was the priority. Now, what companies value most is duty of care.</p>
<p>“Are employees safe when they travel? What is our role in ensuring their safety and comfort? The way [employers] show they care about you is so important,” says Sharma.</p>
<p>“There’s a general responsibility for everyone to step up and figure out how we can make corporate travel better.”</p>
<p>Ready to reassess your corporate travel program? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Learn how SAP Concur solutions can help your organization create a travel program that works for your needs</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
2022 SAP Concur Partner Summit Growth and Innovation Awards: Celebrating Partner Excellence
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2022-sap-concur-partner-summit-growth-and-innovation-awards-celebrating-partner
2022-07-02T05:33:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The SAP Concur Partner Ecosystem designed with the customer at heart is vast and growing From App Center partners to Travel Management Companies TMCs travel suppliers and service...
<p>The SAP Concur Partner Ecosystem, designed with the customer at heart, is vast and growing. From App Center partners to Travel Management Companies (TMCs), travel suppliers, and service partners, our partner network is designed to expand the value that SAP Concur solutions deliver to our customers. This unrivaled global network sets the standard in the Intelligent Spend Management space.</p>
<p>Each year we take time to recognize a small number of our partners for their outstanding contribution to customer success. This year, we recognize four partners who help customers to digitally transform and run at their best, either through creation and deliver of new solutions, or through helping customers optimize their SAP Concur deployments. These four partners rose to a level of success to warrant individual recognition. In addition, we recognized 20 partners with our Distinguished Partner Awards.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2022 SAP Concur Partner Growth and Innovation Awards Winners Innovation Award winners </h2>
<p><strong>Zylo offers a timely and relevant solution</strong></p>
<p>Focused on SaaS optimization, a problem that presents itself across nearly every SAP Concur customer, Zylo’s solution provides joint customers unprecedented visibility into their SaaS ecosystem. For one joint customer using the Zylo integration with Concur Expense, they uncovered a single employee that expensed more than $160,000 in multiple application subscriptions on a credit card, recorded on an expense report. </p>
<p>Congratulations Zylo for helping our customers realize even more value from their SAP Concur solution.</p>
<p><strong>Transfermate </strong><strong>instrumental in the international payments space</strong></p>
<p>Paying international vendors and employees in multiple currencies is a significant challenge for most businesses and was made even more challenging with the pandemic. Thankfully, customers were able to turn to “PaymentsHub” by Transfermate, a solution to enable cross border payments. In 2021, transaction volumes through the PaymentsHub took rose by over 800% as customers looked to optimize their payment processes.</p>
<p>Thank you Transfermate for your dedication in your partnership and the value you provide to our customers through the pandemic in providing businesses with the ability to make and receive payments to, and from, anywhere in the world, in any currency, at any time and with utmost security and cost efficiency.</p>
<h2> Growth Award Winners</h2>
<p><strong>Blue dot’s innovation drives huge success</strong></p>
<p>Blue dot, headquartered in Israel, has built a sophisticated AI/ML engine to help customers comply with global tax regulations and to maximize the VAT/GST they are able to recover. In the first full year of availability, the Concur Tax Assurance by Blue dot Solution Extension was deployed by hundreds of customers interested in optimizing their tax position.</p>
<p>Thank you to Blue dot for your innovative approach and collaborative efforts on driving customer success.</p>
<p><strong>Flexso shows how integration is key to success</strong></p>
<p>As a long-time SAP partner, becoming a Concur partner in 2018 was a natural extension of their business engagement. Flexso is a Concur Implementation Partner and reseller that has had great success helping customers integrate Concur, Successfactors and SAP systems. In addition to assisting complicated, lengthy engagements, like a 6,000+ employee project spanning 17 countries, Flexso also doubled the number of SAP Concur focused project managers and technical integration specialists on staff to support customers using SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>Announcing our 20 Distinguished Partner Awards</strong></p>
<p>In addition to our Growth and Innovation Awards, we celebrate the following partners for their ongoing excellence and industry leadership.</p>
<p>Accenture</p>
<p>Lyndon Group</p>
<p>Acquis Consulting Group</p>
<p>MedPro Systems</p>
<p>American Express GBT</p>
<p>neylux</p>
<p>AvidXchange</p>
<p>PwC Japan</p>
<p>BCD Travel/Advito</p>
<p>PwC Singapore</p>
<p>Cognizant Technology Solutions</p>
<p>rocon</p>
<p>Consilio</p>
<p>Ryvit</p>
<p>Deloitte</p>
<p>TCG Consulting USA</p>
<p>Hitpoint Consulting Co. Ltd</p>
<p>Viseo Asia Pte Ltd</p>
<p>iProCon GmbH</p>
<p>VoyagExpert</p>
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<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is incredibly satisfying to see how these great partners deliver value to customers every day, and how they continue to grow their businesses and drive innovation. We look forward to continuing to showcase our partners’ stories throughout 2022.</p>
Kirk Hayes
Brex Card Integrates with Concur Expense to Streamline Expense Report Submissions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/brex-card-integrates-concur-expense-streamline-expense-report-submissions
2022-11-13T16:18:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur and Brex the company reimagining financial systems for growing businesses recently launched an integration that helps Concur Expense and Brex card users streamline the...
<p>SAP Concur and Brex, the company reimagining financial systems for growing businesses, recently launched an integration that helps Concur Expense and Brex card users streamline the expense report submission process, decrease data entry errors, and provide more granular reporting into a company’s spend. Brex provides corporate credit cards, cash management, and financial technology that allow businesses to save time and scale faster than with traditional banking systems.</p>
<p>This new integration delivers to customers a seamless, direct experience from the moment employees complete a transaction with their Brex card. Transactions flow automatically into their expense report through Concur Expense within 24 hours, which eliminates the user pain of manually entering expense reports and allows finance teams to spend more time driving strategic business initiatives. </p>
<p>Expense management can be a painful, time-consuming process. This integration makes it easier and seamless by integrating all types of spend activity into a single consolidated record.</p>
<p>The Brex integration with Concur Expense offers the following benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li>Efficiency through automation: Brex card spend automatically appears as Concur Expense records without any changes to customers’ familiar workflow. Users swipe their Brex cards and the expense record automatically appears the next day. </li>
<li>Visibility for better decisions: Customers can get a centralized view of both personal and corporate card expenses for better visibility and control over their spending. </li>
<li>Compatibility with existing financial stack: Customers can enjoy the benefits of automatic reconciliation across multiple systems simultaneously. The Brex and Concur Expense integration helps organizations better automate financial processes while enabling integration across multiple financial systems (e.g., accounting platforms, ERPs, etc.).</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information about Brex, please visit <a href="https://www.brex.com/integrations/concur/">www.brex.com/integrations/concur</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
When it Comes to K-12 Budgeting, You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/when-it-comes-k-12-budgeting-you-cant-manage-what-you-cant-see
2022-11-13T16:57:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You value transparency with your staff and students so why not the same with your spending Using paper spreadsheets or hybrid systems to manage your school districts spend makes it...
<p>You value transparency with your staff and students, so why not the same with your spending? Using paper spreadsheets or hybrid systems to manage your school district's spend makes it nearly impossible to get the most out of your budget. Especially when making budget decisions and controlling spend are already difficult. Now add in the fact that your disconnected systems are fogging up your school’s visibility and it only gets more complicated.</p>
<p>A recent audit of 42 school districts in Pennsylvania, for example, found incorrect payments of more than $8.4 million in transportation expenses. But the problem goes beyond just wasted funds. A lack of transparency can be costly and lead to even more liabilities, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Squandered resources</li>
<li>Overworked personnel</li>
<li>Non-compliance with AP protocols or school guidelines</li>
</ul>
<p>Fortunately, automation can help reverse these trends. With the ability to manage every aspect of the expense process efficiently, your finance team can regain control – from spend requests to recording invoices and expenses. The benefits of an updated, automated system are extensive and include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Shortening the reimbursement cycle</li>
<li>Easily creating reports to meet your district’s internal policies and external compliance requirements</li>
<li>Cutting down on fraud, waste, and abuse</li>
</ul>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Conquering the Accounts Payable Nightmare</h5>
<p>Learn how school districts can improve, streamline, and modernize spend management to help leaders make informed choices.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/conquering-the-accounts-payable-nightmare">Get whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p>Because when it comes to making budgets stretch, transparency and control is key.</p>
<p>To reach this level of clarity, schools and school districts need a new approach to enable a transparent process to compliment with their staff’s spending patterns. One way you can do this is by streamlining the spend process, so your staff can be empowered to accurately track and account for public funds while remaining compliant. Your district will also be able to allocate resources more strategically and foster a culture of accountability and transparency. Now that’s satisfaction when it comes to expense reporting!</p>
<p>The bottom line is you can’t manage what you can’t see. Gaining visibility allows you to reduce or eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse – regardless the complexity of your spending programs – allowing for complete transparency of your school’s spend. So, you can finally give your staff access to the simple and secure tools that they’ll want to use and boost compliance and transparency.</p>
<p>Learn more about how automating spend can help fight fraud, reduce risk, and make every dollar count by visiting our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/public-sector-k-12">K-12 solutions webpage</a>.</p>
Jillian Graff
How Technology Can Empower City Managers to be More Effective When It Comes to Serving Citizens
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-technology-can-empower-city-managers-be-more-effective-when-it-comes-serving
2022-11-13T19:11:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Stuck in the world of paper receipts and excel sheets city managers are tasked to allocate taxpayers dollars grants and other forms of funds to essentially keep the citys lights on...
<p>Stuck in the world of paper receipts and excel sheets, city managers are tasked to allocate taxpayers’ dollars, grants, and other forms of funds to essentially “keep the city’s lights on.” Whether that includes planning community development and transportation, combating dramatic increases in crime, or advising public health crises, all of these are areas that fall within a city’s jurisdiction. But instead of using the proper financial data in comparison with societal trends to develop all the possible contingencies, city managers are stuck managing a different challenge – the manual spend process.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/state-accounting-office">state agency</a>, for example, had their finance teams sift through paper-based reports, compile spreadsheets, and then calculate required totals just to obtain the necessary reporting information. Talk about wasted time. Even after all of that work, the finance teams still didn’t have enough detailed data that they needed to track spending and increase visibility.</p>
<p>This lack of process efficiency and visibility into spending data is forcing city managers to constantly work with outdated budgets, preventing them from being able to access to the right data and information to make informed decisions. And while manual processes or spreadsheets may seem free, they aren’t. The city has to pay their finance team in hours, inconvenience, and late payments which often adds up to costing even more than an automated spend management solution. Here are four ways automating spend management technology can help city managers better manage budgets and direct dollars efficiently to aid their cities:</p>
<h3><strong>1. Speed up the process of submitting paper receipts and manually completing expense and invoice reports.</strong></h3>
<p>It takes an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/state-business-travel-2016">average of 26 minutes</a> to manually complete just one expense report. Whether it’s sorting through a pile of paper receipts, manually entering data, or getting that stamp of approval needed to move forward – all of these are steps that tack on more time to the expense and invoice process, preventing efficiency. And when those initiatives are emergencies, that’s where the whole process can get a little stressful and sticky.</p>
<p>By automating the expense, travel, and invoice management process, city finance teams can increase their efficiency and re-direct the saved time to focus on more strategic initiatives. Imagine being able to compare last year’s budget to this year’s, create financial models, and make more informed, accurate decisions.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Automatically populate, itemize, and categorize reports with spend data to keep budgets up to date.</strong></h3>
<p>As employee spending becomes more complex, the manual reporting process becomes even more painful. From sorting through different payment methods to piecing together spend data within disparate systems – these homegrown solutions are just another recipe for wasted hours, days, and dollars. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/battle-fraud-compliance-issues-public-sector">31 percent of managers</a> within the public sector space even say they still lack adequate visibility into their expenses.</p>
<p>Automating the spend process not only saves time but helps consolidate expense, travel, and invoice data together for increased visibility and a holistic view of spending. This allows city managers the active control they need over their budgets, so they can adjust it based on the cities evolving initiatives. And while city managers can’t always predict the severity, it certainly helps to have a near real-time view into budgets and spending, so they can monitor the funds needed and re-direct spend when possible. Maybe that new construction bill or transportation service can wait after all.</p>
<h3><strong>3. Use spend data to increase accuracy and oversight, as well as policy and regulatory compliance.</strong></h3>
<p>In a 2018 Kelton report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk/">73 percent of government</a> financial decision-makers reported their organization struggled to remain compliant. This is most likely because, while the city manager is in charge of allocating the budget to inner-city departments, city employees are in control of how they spend it. And unless there are previous controls in place to limit spending, then employees don’t always know how, or care, to follow it. Mileage reimbursement, for instance, is one area that is high in spending when it comes to service employees. And in 2017 alone, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce17">Mile IQ</a> reported that 34.5 percent of employees admitted to inflating their mileage for reimbursement. Of those, <a href="https://go.concur.com/121019_Client_Mileage_7010e000000xMBd_Registration-Page---Finance.html?pid=sales&cid+Client%20Mileage%20Webinar_7010e000000xMBd">76 percent</a> said they were able to do because their organizations handled expenses manually.</p>
<p>Although mileage is just one area in focus, automating spend management and using a mileage tracking tool can help collect the data needed to increase accuracy and oversight, thus eliminating fraud and accidental overestimation. City managers can then utilize this data to set benchmarks and internal controls, such as spending thresholds, alerting finance teams to review when employees go over the limits. Proactively managing spend this way enables your finance team to capture spend before it goes out the door – a highly effective strategy to ensure budget efficiency and regulatory compliance.</p>
<h3><strong>4. Prevent erroneous mistakes and detect fraud to save taxpayer dollars and grant funds.</strong></h3>
<p>Entering expense data by hand can be monotonous and intensive (no wonder humans make mistakes). But cities may not be aware of just how many errors the manual expense and invoice process are prone to. On average, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/true-cost-invoice-management">19 percent of expense reports</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/true-cost-invoice-management">10 percent of invoice reports</a> have errors, both which take valuable time and interrupt productivity to fix.</p>
<p>Manual processes are also vulnerable to fraud. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/battle-fraud-compliance-issues-public-sector">2018 report on occupation fraud</a> concluded that “internal control weaknesses were responsible for nearly half of frauds” with the government sector’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/battle-fraud-compliance-issues-public-sector">median loss in cases</a> of fraud accumulating to $125,000.</p>
<p>Fortunately, automation can set things right. With mobile tools, receipt capture, and optical character recognition (OCR), automated tools can help reduce errors by more than <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/whats-your-spend-management-costing-you">90 percent</a>, enabling city managers and finance teams to make less mistakes and be more productive. It’s all about creating spend transparency and automating discovery.</p>
<h2>How SAP Concur can help</h2>
<p>SAP Concur can help your finance teams automate and simplify how you track spending, so you can better spot budget shortfalls, create efficiencies, and take control of how you manage spending. Learn more about how we can help maximize your city’s budget by visiting our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/public-sector-city-manager">Government and City Leaders solutions</a> webpage.</p>
Kyla Kent
We Make Learning Easy: How the SAP Concur Customer Community Keeps You in the Know
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/we-make-learning-easy-how-sap-concur-customer-community-keeps-you-know
2022-11-13T19:45:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Like many business functions travel expense and invoice TEI management continues to evolve From technology improvements to regulatory updates to worldwide events the amount of...
<p>Like many business functions, travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) management continues to evolve. From technology improvements to regulatory updates to worldwide events, the amount of information needed to stay on top of TE&I changes can be daunting when you add it to your daily tasks. But finding ways to trim costs, improve compliance, and create new efficiencies doesn’t just please your leaders and end users – it helps you remain competitive in your own career. </p>
<p>This is why we’re committed to investing in your ongoing learning. </p>
<p>To make sure the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bright-ideas-all-in-one-place">SAP Concur customer community</a> gets the information it needs, we frequently survey our customers to better understand industry nuances, top challenges, and evolving needs. We then respond to those surveys with relevant and exclusive content, forums, and events that are chock full of advice and best practices from experts you can trust. </p>
<p>Ready to start learning? Here’s what you can find – and where can you find it:</p>
<ul>
<li>Login to our <a href="https://community.concur.com/">digital community</a> to access exclusive on-demand content. Once there, you can see what other customers are asking, participate in hot topic discussions, and connect directly with experts during Ask Me Anything sessions.</li>
<li>Join relevant User Groups to learn from our own technical, industry, and regulatory experts and executives in small group settings. We bring in industry-specific experts for events, as well as provide opportunities for you to learn from your peers – and share your own great tips.</li>
<li>Access our Leadership Council content to learn from the best of the best in your industry. You can validate your own assumptions, make recommendations in your organization based on their knowledge, and up level your role by applying what you learn. Hear directly from Leadership Council members by participating in our digital community and user groups.</li>
<li>Attend <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> to gain a whole lot of knowledge in just a few days. You can attend education sessions presented by industry leaders and partners, enjoy breakout sessions with peers and experts, and even find industry-focused learning opportunities. Wondering what’s in store? Start learning today with on-demand sessions from our last event in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center?search=fusion">Resource Center</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p>In all these venues, the SAP Concur team is dedicated to bringing together internal and external leaders from several industries and backgrounds, ensuring diverse perspectives are represented in our experiences and content. </p>
<h2>What can you learn today? </h2>
<p>If you bring your curiosity, we’ll bring the knowledge and expertise to help you continually learn and grow in your role within the TE&I world. Start exploring the many facets of the <a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Customer-Community.html">SAP Concur customer community</a> today. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Are Companies Doing What They Can to Safeguard Female Travelers?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-safeguard-female-travelers
2022-11-14T12:03:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the past two weeks thousands of business travelers had to cancel or rebook travel due to weatherrelated natural disasters raging across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans Im one of...
<p>In the past two weeks, thousands of business travelers had to cancel or rebook travel due to weather-related natural disasters raging across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I’m one of those travelers, yet because of the storm warnings, my female colleague and I could change the location and timing of our travel plans. Imagine if we weren’t so lucky. We’ve all seen images of the tragic impact of Hurricane Florence on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and Typhoons Mangkhut and Barijat across the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Southern China.</p>
<p>While natural disasters pose a serious, high-level safety threat to all travelers, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">we’re learning</a> that women, in particular, can face other serious safety threats like assault, theft, sexual harassment, or culturally threatening situations while on the road for business. Educating ourselves about our companies’ duty of care policies is proving more important than ever. Duty of care is an organization’s moral and legal obligation to take serious responsibility for the safety of its traveling employees, and a travel risk management program is the response to that obligation—in the form of actionable policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Are companies protecting their female travelers?</h2>
<p>Research this year from AIG Travel Inc., and the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) in partnership with WWStay, shed light on some of the gaps in travel risk management policies for female travelers.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1537886350018-top-travel-concerns-women.jpg" /></p>
<p>While research showed that travel managers may offer safety and security resources through third-parties, such as 24-hour emergency hotlines, only 44% said their companies book women into rooms with additional safety features like double locks and 24-hour security. Three out of five said they “rarely” or “never” offer chauffeured transportation services at travel destinations, even though taxi rides and airport transfers were noted as particularly hostile environments for women. </p>
<p>Companies can take proactive steps to bolster their duty of care obligations for female travelers in specific ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Prepare your female employees in advance: Do they understand the legal, cultural, or even religious restrictions they may face at their destination? </li>
<li>Provide local destination guidance information: What are the lodging, meeting, and transportation safety precautions in place, and how can they get help when they need it? </li>
<li>Offer emergency travel service resources: <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/01/276945.htm">US Department of State</a>, <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> (for example), and technology assistance in the form of apps and alerts. </li>
<li>Share critical behavioral safety tips: What not to wear in certain countries, how to be situationally alert to surroundings and others at all times, and tips for protecting their person and information. </li>
</ul>
<p>As a frequent traveler, I’m a passionate advocate of self-education. It’s actually not possible for our companies to completely eliminate risk for us while we’re on the road because we live in an unpredictable world. In the end, it may not matter if you’re covered by the most comprehensive travel risk management program out there. What matters is that you know how to immediately respond if a security incident or threat jeopardizes your safety and well-being.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1537887292383-kim-travel-blog-2-quote-trimmed.jpg" /></p>
<p>In my next blog, <strong>How Can Women Create Their Own Safe Business Travel Experience?, </strong>I’ll share a simple checklist of the most important items to tick down through in advance of your stateside or international travel, and how to stay safe once you’re at your destination. These tips are especially helpful for the “unmanaged” female business traveler, those responsible for making their own arrangements without the assistance of a company travel program.</p>
<p>I’m also excited to quote Kathy Leodler, CEO of security firm Rampart Group and former FBI special agent and corporate security director, as she shares the smartest things we can do no matter where we are in the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also:</h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">Why is Business Travel Safety Different for Women?</a></h3>
<h3>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience">How Women Can Create Their Own Safe Business Travel Experience</a></h3>
<h3>Part 4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-your-mobile-phone-helps-keep-you-safe-when-traveling">How Your Mobile Phone Helps Keep You Safe When Traveling</a></h3>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>1 <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/majority-of-travel-buyers-believe-female-business-travelers-face-greater-risk-on-the-road">Research</a> conducted by Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) in partnership with WWStay (2018)</p>
<p>2 <a href="http://www.travelguardworldwide.com/aig-travel-for-women">AIG Travel, Inc. 2018 Research</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Improving Your Payment Processes With Digital Payments
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improving-your-payment-processes-digital-payments
2022-12-02T14:28:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This post was contributed by American Express an SAP Concur Partner If your business is like many your accounts payable team is hardworkingproductivebusyand quietly frustrated The...
<p>This post was contributed by American Express, an SAP Concur Partner</p>
<p>If your business is like many, your accounts payable team is hard-working…productive…busy...and quietly frustrated. The massive paper piles, tedious tasks, and inefficiency of your paper-based processes are amongst the <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-things-your-ap-team-didnt-sign">things your AP team didn’t sign up for</a>. And it’s keeping your business from growing. One key solution is digital B2B payments. Compared with manual payment systems, they’re faster, more accurate, and rich in data that can improve decision-making and reporting.</p>
<p>Today, we’ll look at a key solution to help eliminate those hassles: digital B2B payments. Compared with manual payment systems, they’re faster, more accurate and rich in data that can improve decision making and reporting.</p>
<p>In April 2018, American Express commissioned Forrester Consulting to design a survey of 100 US decision makers in accounting, finance, or procurement roles. The survey explored these professionals’ current approach to B2B payments, and how adopting a more integrated, automated B2B payments system can help them achieve their operational efficiency goals. Here’s what the survey found, and how you can use the results to improve your payment processes.</p>
<h2>Operational excellence is a top priority for finance and procurement pros</h2>
<p>Success in today’s marketplace depends on coordinating teams, technology, and processes for an efficient, responsive business. Finance and procurement teams are heeding this call: Survey respondents told us that improving operational efficiency was their No. 1 priority over the next 12 months. They also wanted to modernize their finance technology systems for more holistic and accurate reporting. That means improving access to real-time data and integrating internal and external processes.</p>
<h2>A transformed B2B payments system means real business results</h2>
<p>Many companies have already embraced B2C digital payments. But because B2B payments can be more complicated, many companies have been slower to adopt new digital processes. As people carry their expectations for convenient digital purchasing from their personal lives into their business activities, pressure to streamline B2B payments will only continue to rise.</p>
<h2>B2B payments optimize the allocation of scarce resources</h2>
<p>Decision makers surveyed associated a more integrated and automated B2B payments approach with a number of benefits—above all, less manual labor and lower costs, freeing up resources for more strategic uses. Many of those surveyed also expected more accurate reporting, improved payment processing speed, visibility, control, data security, compliance, and the potential to strengthen their supplier relationships, which opens the door for new collaborations and more favorable purchase agreements.</p>
<p>To succeed in the digital age, organizations need lean, integrated — and most of all — <strong>digital</strong> processes to support B2B commerce. Finance and procurement decision makers who prioritize fast, connected, and insight-led B2B payments processes will surpass those who continue to rely on inflexible, disconnected, paper-based systems. Solutions that integrate systems with automated B2B payment tools can generate important operational efficiencies, such as reduced manual labor and costs and greater visibility into and control over payments and cash flows. </p>
<p><strong>Provide your contact information <a href="http://corporate.americanexpress.com/forms/Concur">here</a> so an SAP Concur representative can contact you to discuss how SAP Concur and American Express could help benefit your business.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
U.S. Department of Defense Awards Production Contract to SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/us-department-defense-awards-production-contract-sap-concur
2022-12-06T13:33:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur is committed to supporting government agencies as they transform their travel and spend management programs We have been a fortunate and proud partner with the US Department...
<p>SAP Concur is committed to supporting government agencies as they transform their travel and spend management programs. We have been a fortunate and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/us-department-defense-selects-sap-concur-reform-its-travel-system">proud partner</a> with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on its journey toward travel modernization beginning with the concept of policy simplification and arriving at a state-of the-art travel system. The DoD spends $10 billion annually on travel in a typical year, processing over four million travel vouchers for temporary duty (TDY) travel.</p>
<p>On Sept. 14, 2021, the DoD issued SAP Concur a single-award production contract for what will be known as the MyTravel program, providing the DoD with a proven, always up-to-date, modern capability to book travel, manage travel-related expenses, and initiate travel-related financial transactions. </p>
<p>DoD will launch MyTravel through a phased rollout of the successful Defense Travel Modernization prototype, which deployed 2,000+ users in DoD organizations other than the military services, also known within the government sector as the Fourth Estate. Over $1 million in travel reimbursements were processed successfully during the prototype contract. Additionally:</p>
<ul>
<li>Touchless travel fulfillment increased from approximately 30 to 80 percent</li>
<li>Process workflow reduced by 45 percent</li>
<li>Lowest Logical Airfare increased from approximately 48 to 60 percent</li>
<li>The U.S. DoD FY2022 quarterly reports identified a 4.3 percent reduction in improper payment rates as well as increased customer satisfaction rates compared to DoD’s legacy travel system</li>
</ul>
<p>MyTravel uses SAP Concur solutions to deliver a secure and modern travel capability that reduces costs, processing times and workflow complexity; maintains audit readiness; and provides improved customer satisfaction, all while utilizing industry best practices and technology innovation. MyTravel is housed within the Concur Cloud for Public Sector. The Concur Cloud for Public Sector is a multi-tenant data center hosting SAP Concur commercial travel and expense Software as a Service (SaaS) solution on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)-approved infrastructure. The Concur Cloud for Public Sector is available to all U.S. Government customers (Federal, State, Local, and Tribal; including educational entities) and commercial contractors processing data on behalf of the U.S. Government.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is honored to be chosen to continue our work to implement this travel modernization solution for the DoD. We look forward to our continued partnership.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Four reasons why employee network groups are essential to your company
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-reasons-why-employee-network-groups-are-essential-your-company
2022-12-06T15:09:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the Talent Acquisition intern at Concur my role is to share our employees stories And I love hearing from our professionals about their passions and career goals while also gaining...
<p>As the Talent Acquisition intern at Concur, my role is to share our employees’ stories. And, I love hearing from our professionals about their passions and career goals, while also gaining insight into our company culture.</p>
<p>I was eager to speak with Client Marketing Manager Chad Minnick about Employee Network Groups (ENGs) at SAP and Concur. Chad leads the Pride@SAP PNW chapter which currently includes 50 members. Recently, Chad was introduced as the new co-lead for the larger U.S. chapter of Pride@SAP.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1508435622180-chad-copy.jpg" /></p>
<p>U.S. Pride@SAP co-lead, Chad Minnick</p>
<p>Becoming part of SAP has afforded Concur an opportunity to create regional chapters of each employee network and join current groups, as Chad explains: “The ‘aha moment’ was when Concur saw through SAP that recognition of diversity and how it works toward inclusion really helps [the business and our employees]. I saw how that pattern helped their evolution.” That evolution brought forth the Pride@SAP PNW chapter, which has increased momentum throughout the past year.</p>
<p>Between learning about Chad’s favorite place in the world (his couch) and his potential superpower (networking, unsurprisingly), I gained a deeper understanding of the value that ENGs bring to employees and their company. Based on my understanding, below are four areas in which ENGs are essential to companies:</p>
<h2><strong>1. ENGs help support employees to be their authentic selves</strong></h2>
<p>I asked Chad, “what three words would you use to describe yourself?” and while all of the adjectives he described intrigued me to learn more about him, one in particular stood out. That one word: authentic.</p>
<p>Chad explained that he lives his authentic self every day. “I spent two and a half decades being somebody I wasn’t and really hiding who I was,” he says. “So authenticity is something that people try and put down and that’s something I don’t put up with.” He adds that he wants “to be a model on how to be able to navigate challenges that come your way and still be your authentic self.”</p>
<p>Within the Pride@SAP PNW chapter, Chad and members alike bring their authentic selves to the network because they know that, within their group, they will be supported. Being a part of an ENG brings a sense of togetherness that you aren’t alone because you have shared experiences with the people surrounding and supporting you.</p>
<p>Chad’s hope with the Pride@SAP PNW chapter is to create a space where people can express themselves in a way that elevates their teams and the work that they do. At Concur, we are encouraged to bring our authentic selves to the workplace. Not only does doing so create a welcoming atmosphere for all, but it also increases vulnerability and trust, and can lead to a more supportive environment within teams. Chad explains, “I’ve been able to live authentically on a team and not hide who I am and that has increased my output. I can work comfortably. I can make mistakes comfortably.”</p>
<h2><strong>2. Employees have the opportunity to educate others and advocate for their network</strong></h2>
<p>Chad notes that Concur has always been supportive of the LGBTQ community. He loves his work experience and wants others within the LGBTQ community at Concur to feel the same. This initially sparked Chad’s desire to form the Pride@SAP PNW chapter.</p>
<p>ENGs are safe spaces for members to be known and heard, but also are a support network to all employees. Chad explained that there may be an employee that is questioning their sexual orientation or they could have a child experiencing something similar, but they don’t quite know where to go for support. “Overall, what we want to be is a resource to employees,” he says. “They don’t have to be directly involved, just know there’s a group here.”</p>
<p>Within that, Chad says that the group has small committees called “buckets.” Each bucket has a role that it focuses on, such as educating Concur about the unequal problems that the LGBTQ community faces and then overall advocating for the group. They host talks with speakers, attend LGBTQ organized events and work toward making change not only within Concur, but the community. Educating and advocating for their ENG is a powerful way to get people involved in their network and that is essentially Chad’s hope.</p>
<h2><strong>3. ENGs drive policy change, impacting employee engagement and retention</strong></h2>
<p>One important topic that Chad and I discussed was one of the chapter’s buckets focusing on internal and external policy. Internally, some changes that the Pride@SAP PNW chapter focused on were bringing awareness to LGBTQ employees and their benefits. He explains that policy is “not something that is against us, it’s just never been thought about.” The ENG is currently working cross-functionally with the HR benefits team to include same-sex couples when referring to parental leave, adoption and fertility treatment.</p>
<p>On an external level, the ENG fought against Washington state bills that negatively impacted the trans community. The PNW chapter brought this to President Mike Eberhard to place Concur on the Washington legislature business list promising that it won’t discriminate against trans people.</p>
<p>Chad explains this was a huge milestone; “it was the first time that SAP allowed an entity on a statewide ballot initiative.” The policy would have affected thousands of employees in Washington. The fight against this legislation had a positive impact at Concur and within the community.</p>
<p>The Pride@SAP PNW chapter has brought profound change to policy internally and externally, but it still has more work to do. Chad states that his goal is simple: “We always want to be a resource to Concur and of Concur.” Members don’t just want to be a resource to employees, but also make visible improvements that can be made in unintended policies.</p>
<h2><strong>4. Diversity is at the forefront of business success</strong></h2>
<p>Diversity is meant to be celebrated. At Concur, we take pride in our diversity that shapes our incredible company culture. Although it may seem like an obvious question, I asked Chad: “Why is having diversity in the office so important?” Chad’s response was profound. “The more diverse you make a community, the broader and more successful the ideas can become as long they’re listened to. And ENGs are a platform to be listened to.”</p>
<p>As Chad explains the relationship between diversity and success, he also discusses intersectionality and how it can enhance teams as well as the employee experience. With an intersection of various backgrounds and experiences, teams unify and can further determine areas where success is needed.</p>
<p>One of the greatest things about ENGs is that they bring together various people and backgrounds, but they also represent SAP values. Chad agrees with this sentiment as he said: “[It’s important] to have that channel to hear a voice, listen to that voice and be able to know that representation fits within your business values. Diversity fits in very well at Concur.” ENGs are not simply a voice to employees, but also to the company as they represent what SAP stands for: diversity, inclusion and belonging.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense Saves Time and Reduces Errors
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/amazon-business-integration-concur-expense-saves-time-and-reduces-errors
2022-12-30T14:49:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today were pleased to announce a new Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense Available for free via the SAP Concur App Center the integration reduces the time and effort...
<p>Today, we’re pleased to announce a new <strong>Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense</strong>. Available for free via the SAP Concur App Center, the integration reduces the time and effort required for employees to create expense reports from Amazon Business purchases and increases the accuracy of data captured on purchases. Amazon Business purchases will automatically appear in an employee’s available expenses in Concur Expense, eliminating the hassle of uploading receipts or tracking down receipts for multiple transactions.</p>
<p>“The creation of an expense report is not a key performance indicator for most companies. Rather, the goal is to enable employees to spend the company’s money wisely, and to settle those employee purchases as efficiently as possible,” said A.G. Lambert, chief product strategy officer, SAP Concur Solution Area. “With the Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense, companies can streamline this process for their employees, saving time while reducing errors and improving compliance with company policies.”</p>
<p>SAP believes that organizations of all sizes should be able to manage employee-initiated discretionary spend, while reducing risk, saving money, and helping ensure compliance – all without sacrificing employee productivity and satisfaction. This belief guides innovation of SAP Concur solutions and integrations we make available to customers through our partner ecosystem.</p>
<p>Early adopter customers are already seeing benefits from the new integration:</p>
<ul>
<li>“The Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense has made the process of purchasing from Amazon less time intensive by providing itemized receipts automatically. Employees have appreciated having less to find and attach during their expense process.” – Shelley Shearer, University Payables Director of The George Washington University.</li>
<li>“We’ve received positive feedback from our priority users. They recognize what a huge time saver this integration provides. Tasks that were a bit of a hassle are now streamlined. We are really excited about this new feature.” – Nata-Leigh Preas, Finance Administrator of Ball Horticultural Company, a leader in all facets of horticulture.</li>
</ul>
<p>Amazon Business is a global procurement solution now used by more than five million businesses, from sole proprietors to multinational enterprises with tens of thousands of employees on a single account. It provides access to hundreds of thousands of sellers who offer business-only selection and quantity discounts, and access to time-saving features that help businesses run better.</p>
<p>The integration is easy to set up and provision, requiring just a few clicks from administrators. It is available for U.S.-based Amazon Business spend via the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/6008c8d512660c00150b2a29">SAP Concur App Center</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur 2022 Predictions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-2022-predictions
2022-12-30T15:20:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While the effects of the pandemic continued to be felt across the globe in SAP Concur is optimistic the new year will bring innovation and progress as we embark on the next chapter of...
<p>While the effects of the pandemic continued to be felt across the globe in 2021, SAP Concur is optimistic the new year will bring innovation and progress as we embark on the next chapter of the future of work – including business travel, digital transformation, sustainability, and employee experience initiatives.</p>
<p>As we reflect on 2021 trends, our global team of experts share perspectives and predictions for the coming year and how businesses can prepare for emerging opportunities across sectors. Here is what is top of mind for our executives as we look forward to 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Say hello to smarter, speedier settlements </strong></p>
<p>By now, it’s fair to assume that all the big gains to make the internal combustion engine more efficient have already taken place. There will always be a place for it in our world, but to make impactful change at this point a bigger pivot is needed, for example, to electric vehicles. I think about the automated expense reporting in a similar way. Technology providers can spend increasing amounts of resources to make incremental gains, but a big pivot is needed to usher in the next wave of efficiency and innovation. That big pivot is a shift to settlement.</p>
<p>Creating an expense report is never the ultimate goal – the goal is to settle payments for employee-initiated spend. While the expense report isn’t going away any time soon, more innovation will lead to bigger improvements in capturing, processing, and verifying expenses, driven by increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence. With this pivot we will shrink and evaporate expense reports, with a subset of expenses moving to automated settlement and skipping the traditional expense report process entirely.</p>
<p>-Mike Koetting, SAP Concur Solution Area Leader</p>
<p><strong>Hybrid spend to match hybrid work </strong></p>
<p>The dramatic rise in long-term remote work associated with the shift to a hybrid working model is creating the need for hybrid spend management. Flexibility and agility will be key in all aspects of work, including spend management, as employees split their time between the physical and remote office.</p>
<p>We’ll see the need for more nuanced budget discussions, policies and spend categories—ones that address the various in-office and remote expenses that employees will now incur, and companies will now allow, to run a business safely and efficiently. Data and technology will play a growing role in informing budgets and determining expense categorization to improve business decision-making, spend management, and overall organizational efficiency.</p>
<p>-A.G. Lambert, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur</p>
<p><strong>2022: The Year of the Bucket List Business Trip </strong></p>
<p>“Revenge travel” was a hot topic in the leisure travel segment over the past year as travelers ventured out with a vengeance. In March, when vaccines started to become more available, traveler comfort levels rose with 94 percent of respondents from a TripIt customer <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/americans-eye-europe-post-covid-bucket-list-trips.html">survey</a> saying they’d take a trip in 2021. Of those, one in four planned to take a bucket list trip. Now as business traveler confidence rises, leisure travelers won’t be the only ones eyeing a wish list getaway.</p>
<p>A Qualtrics and SAP Concur study found that seven in 10 business travelers (70 percent) expect to go back to traveling as much as they did before the pandemic. Separate research shows that nearly 90 percent plan to add personal vacation time to their business trips once they resume traveling for work. With business travel returning and employees eager to reconnect, we’ll see this trend permeate the workplace. This year, employees will look to tack on their bucket list trip to their business trip to take advantage of the time away from home.</p>
<p>-Jen Moyse, Senior Director of Product, TripIt from Concur</p>
<p><strong>Embracing sustainability as business travel ramps up </strong></p>
<p>Global business travel spend is <a href="https://www.gbta.org/blog/from-setback-to-surge-business-travel-expected-to-fully-recover-by-2024/">expected</a> to rebound 14 percent in 2021 to $754 billion. Simultaneously, record-breaking <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-health-environment-and-nature-d1cd773bfb6000e0d77a58ea743c135f">climate disasters</a> in 2021 have underscored the need for more sustainable travel as we embrace a new era of work.</p>
<p>While more companies have built sustainability initiatives into their organizational framework and corporate travel programs, the bar is getting higher to make impactful changes and offset unavoidable carbon emissions. Businesses are under increasing scrutiny for misreporting carbon emissions or “green-washing” their sustainability metrics, which is exacerbated by non-standardized carbon footprint calculators and disparate sustainability reporting criteria.</p>
<p>We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in how businesses respond to climate change. In the coming year, more comprehensive sustainability reporting will help guide organizations down a more eco-conscious path and enable responsible travel in the future.</p>
<p>-Brian Hace, Vice President, Global Travel Strategy, SAP Concur</p>
<p><strong>Travel as the Great Resignation antidote </strong></p>
<p>Workers are feeling burnt out and, in turn, are demanding more from their employers, leading to a record number of Americans quitting their jobs in search for better employment options. This “Great Resignation” has underscored the need for an increased focus on employee sentiment, experience, retention, and wellness in the workplace. More than ever, it’s imperative employers thoroughly understand the needs of their workers and adapt programs and policies to better support employees in the new business landscape—including opportunities to travel for business.</p>
<p>Business travelers are eager to get back on the road for work, according to SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel">research</a>, but they have new expectations for increased flexibility, health and safety protocols, and wellness and mental health initiatives. To appease the 20 percent of business travelers that are willing to walk over their preferences not being met, organizations need to reevaluate and tailor policies with employee needs in mind.</p>
<p>As global travel rebounds and corporate travel programs restart, companies will refresh travel policies to create and encourage more flexibility, including opportunities for bleisure travel, providing business travelers a chance to add personal time onto their business trips or work from a vacation home/destination. Carving out additional time for rest and relaxation or a chance to explore local areas also will help relieve the tension and stress of business travelers’ usual routine. While business travel can be stressful, trust, transparency, and understanding between employers and business travelers on key priorities and expectations will be critical to mitigate potential risks of employee retention and keep employees satisfied.</p>
<p>-Ralph Colunga, Thought Leader, Travel and Expense Technology Solutions, SAP Concur</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Bright Ideas, All in One Place
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bright-ideas-all-one-place
2023-07-12T16:20:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youve heard the phrase two heads are better than one but what about Imagine a place where you can connect with peers and join a culture of collaboration A place that can help you...
<p>You’ve heard the phrase two heads are better than one – but what about over 50,000? Imagine a place where you can connect with peers and join a culture of collaboration. A place that can help you achieve success by exchanging tips and tricks with likeminded customers. A place where you can access exclusive content on how to improve processes, policies, and maximize your investment. Look no further than the SAP Concur Community.</p>
<p>Join over 50,000 active SAP Concur customers, including 80,000+ (and growing) online in the<a href="https://community.concur.com/"> SAP Concur Community</a>, where the options to collaborate are endless!</p>
<h2>Leverage collective brain power</h2>
<p>Have you ever been stuck on a problem and wish there were someone knowledgeable to consult? The SAP Concur Community is the perfect place to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/best-practices-bright-minds-how-leverage-power-sap-concur-customer-community">connect with people who have been there and done that</a>. By connecting with likeminded organizations, you can skip the hours of researching and testing temporary-fix solutions. With both online and in-person experiences, our community offers you numerous opportunities to share ideas, exchange best practices, and engage with other organizations so you can thrive.</p>
<p>Community Forums and User Groups provide you with an intimate and conversational setting to interact with peers in your industry or region. Our user conferences, SAP Concur Fusion and SAP Concur Fusion Exchange, bring together customers, partners, and prospects for educational sessions and networking opportunities. Plus, you can access the community any time, any place by engaging with our digital community.</p>
<h2>Elevate your professional brand</h2>
<p>Success and inspiration come from interactions – use the power of the community to accelerate your growth, stay agile, and unlock innovation. No matter the stage in your career, the SAP Concur Community has <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-ways-tap-sap-concur-customer-community-elevate-your-career">opportunities to support your professional development.</a></p>
<p>If you’re an expert in your space looking for a platform to share your knowledge or want to develop your virtual brand, our community programs provide you with multiple</p>
<p>avenues to showcase your expertise. Whether you choose to participate as a user group panelist, speak at a user conference, or provide mentorship by answering the community’s toughest questions, we offer you endless opportunities to shine.</p>
<p>Are you an admin looking to gain new skills and maximize your T&E solutions?</p>
<p>Use the SAP Concur Community to achieve lasting success. Engage and network with our industry leadership councils and subject matter experts, find a mentor by engaging in our online community, and attend our user conferences to deep dive into your day-to-day challenges. By connecting with our community, you’re sure to become an expert in no time.</p>
<h2>Stay competitive through continuous learning</h2>
<p>As the T&E industry continues to evolve, it’s more important now than ever to be informed. That is why we are committed to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/we-make-learning-easy-how-sap-concur-customer-community-keeps-you-know">investing in your ongoing learning</a>. We frequently survey our community to understand industry nuances, top challenges, and needs so that we provide you with relevant and exclusive content, forums, and events.</p>
<p>Let us do the heavy lifting by curating and creating on-demand advice and best practices from experts across the T&E ecosystem. Hear directly from key opinion leaders to gain confidence and validate your assumptions, all while making data-driven recommendations for your organization. The SAP Concur Community brings together internal and external leaders from a variety of industries and backgrounds, ensuring diverse perspectives are represented in our experiences and content.</p>
<p>At the SAP Concur organization, we love to see our customers succeed. What’s even more fun? Seeing them succeed together. Explore our community offerings and choose your own adventure. Learn more about the <a href="https://go.concur.com/SAP-Concur-Customer-Community.html">SAP Concur Community</a> today!</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Federal Agencies Can Jump the Enterprise Mobile App Hurdle
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-federal-agencies-can-jump-enterprise-mobile-app-hurdle
2023-08-29T13:04:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Increasing mobility in government operations and service delivery is critical to achieving a mobilefirst government IT strategy Although its not a new concept it certainly is an IT...
<p>Increasing mobility in government operations and service delivery is critical to achieving a mobile-first government IT strategy. Although it’s not a new concept, it certainly is an IT strategy that many agencies have struggled with for some time now, as considerable achievements in citizen engagement are being deployed every day across the government.</p>
<p>Agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have a suite of mature apps for citizens to engage with them on services and educational content, but having a <a href="https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2018/01/how-digital-revolution-transforming-government/144997/">mobile-first government</a> extends broader than just citizen engagements.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In reality, extending a mobile-first strategy to employees can drive an increase in workforce performance and overall government operations. Now is the time for the <a href="https://www.concur.com/federal-government">federal government</a> to adopt an enterprise-wide mobile strategy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do You have the Right Tools On the Go?</h2>
<p>Smartphones are used by virtually every government employee. In fact, according to a recent public sector study by Frost and Sullivan, almost half of all government employees are in a remote location on a regular basis. In that same study, 55% of all government agencies allow employees to use their own personal mobile devices. The remaining 45% have issued mobile devices to some or all of their employees. When provided with the <a href="https://www.govloop.com/becoming-digital-first-innovations-transform/">right tools</a>, government employees experience higher job satisfaction rates, enabling them to make decisions faster, remain policy compliant, and have higher accuracy rates, all while on-the-go.</p>
<p>One such app that is helping civilian agency employees is the ConcurGov mobile app for federal <a href="https://Updated url https://www.concur.com/federal-government">government travel</a> and expense management. The mobile app allows a government-wide mobile workforce to complete approximately 85% of any government traveler or approver’s needs on-the-go. Complex travel and unique vouchering scenarios are always handled best with a personal touch, but imagine your travelers submitting and approving authorizations within the app the same way as they would on a desktop – in near real-time. Being able to create and edit vouchers on-the-go puts valuable time back into employee’s schedules and allows for better compliance outcomes. Imagine, your approvers are no longer bound by office hours and can often be seen approving authorizations and vouchers on the Metro, and during off-hours as needed. When employees have to make snap decisions while traveling, often times that’s when policy regulations are of least assurance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Go Mobile with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Adopting enterprise mobility for travel and spend management – from bookings, vouchers, receipt capture and approval – anywhere, anytime is an efficient, compliant, and reliable tool for government agencies to have in their toolbox. ConcurGov mobile can accommodate those needs quickly and efficiently. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/federal-government">Contact SAP Concur today to learn more. </a></strong></p>
Roger Williams
In the Public Sector, Even Minor Spend Management Mistakes Can Have Major Consequences
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/public-sector-even-minor-spend-management-mistakes-can-have-major-consequences
2023-09-07T11:44:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Public sector institutions bear a unique responsibility around travel expense and invoice management For those in state and local government as well as in higher education theres no...
<p>Public sector institutions bear a unique responsibility around travel, expense, and invoice management. For those in state and local government, as well as in higher education, there's no wiggle room when it comes to accountability. </p>
<p>When you have access to public funds, you also have a greater sense of obligation and a higher level of fiscal responsibility. Even small mistakes can have big consequences. Unfortunately, many in the public sector and higher ed find themselves saddled with manual processes and siloed data that gets in the way of fraud and compliance management.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_SecurityIncidentServers_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Battle Fraud and Compliance Issues in the Public Sector</h2>
<p>How the right technology solution can ensure your organization meets the highest levels of fiscal responsibility</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/battle-fraud-compliance-issues-public-sector">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Technology can help. Modernized solutions automate and integrate travel, expense, and invoice management with artificial intelligence and machine learning to simplify employee compliance while giving administrators more granular insight into spending activities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why automated travel, expense, and AP management solutions? </h2>
<p>Automation in travel, expense reporting, and vendor invoice processing can ease the burden on employees. The simpler it is for them to submit receipts and process invoices, the more likely they are to play by the rules. Automation is a boon to administrators as well. When reservations feed directly into the system and auditing functions take place automatically, they’re free to devote their energies to more important tasks.</p>
<p>Additionally, a modern travel, expense, and invoice management platform should deliver automated workflows, pulling together end-to-end data – from reservation to receipt – with minimal human effort. “It’s about transparency and it’s about automating discovery,” said Ralph Colunga, thought leader, travel and expense tech solutions. With automated routines, “you get descriptive words and exception reports for review, rather than having to look for a needle in a haystack.”</p>
<p>For example, a system may automatically gather itinerary data, receipts, and other key information to streamline the expense reporting process. And, an invoice processing tool can eliminate manual invoice routing and approvals. This means you can catch duplicate invoices, speed payments, and easily manage exceptions. GPS-enabled <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-mileage">mileage tracking</a> automatically delivers accurate mileage reporting, while online travel request systems can automatically import trip details and costs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence</h2>
<p>Modern capabilities such as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) can ease the reporting and compliance burden on public sector and higher education by flagging potential issues that a human might miss.</p>
<p>ML and AI can be trained to spot anomalies to support detection and auditing. A human auditor can only see so much, whereas AI can dig deeper, faster via training on millions of anonymized expense reports as well as public information. Leveraging this vast knowledge base, AI can rapidly and accurately assess factors too numerous or subtle to be caught by manual means.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Advanced processing</h2>
<p>Technology also offers the means to bring a higher level of accuracy to <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">public sector travel</a>, expense, and vendor invoice processing. Take for example optical character recognition (OCR) and three-way match: two high-end tools for boosting transparency and compliance.</p>
<p>OCR is technology that can converts written or printed documents into data. When bolstered by machine learning, OCR can go beyond receipts to read boarding passes, cell phone bills, and other key documents. This speeds payment requests and ensures a higher level of accuracy in reporting.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/three-way-match">Three-way match</a>, meanwhile, offers a powerful means to stream together key pieces of information, such as a <strong>v</strong>endor's invoice, purchase order, and receiving documentation. It allows you to match vendor’s invoices with purchase orders and received services before the invoices are processed and paid.</p>
<p>With three-way matching, you can alleviate late payments and duplicate payments; mitigate against unauthorized, unapproved, or fraudulent payments; and guard against theft and embezzlement.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Meeting the higher bar</h2>
<p>Officials in the public sector and education must meet a higher bar of responsibility around travel, expense, and invoice management. SAP Concur solutions can help meet that unique obligation by delivering a high level of automation backed by ML and supported by specialized tools like OCR and three-way matching. It’s a modernized approach that helps those in the public sector and higher education fulfill their mandate.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Does Your Travel Policy Look Like Through Your Travelers’ Eyes?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-your-travel-policy-look-through-your-travelers-eyes
2023-09-08T16:30:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Last month our team participated in a great SAP Concur Fusion Exchange event in Houston Texas If youre not familiar with Fusion Exchange these are regular events that SAP Concur hosts...
<p>Last month our team participated in a great <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/fusion-exchange">SAP Concur Fusion Exchange</a> event in Houston, Texas. If you’re not familiar with Fusion Exchange, these are regular events that SAP Concur hosts around the world designed for its customers to participate in networking, educational sessions, business conversations, and <a href="https://community.concur.com/">community</a> building. They’re excellent and a powerful testament to SAP Concur’s deep knowledge and leadership in the travel and expense space.</p>
<p>We had the opportunity to facilitate a roundtable conversation and discuss what a traveler-centric policy looks like and share a simple framework you can use to inspect and reflect upon your company’s policy. We started off by acknowledging the responsibility and importance of the travel/expense manager role. The job is essential, and the priorities are many.</p>
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<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get started now</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p>We then asked our roundtable participants to briefly remove their “travel/expense manager hats” and pretend for a moment that they are the traveler they support while we discussed traveler satisfaction and the meaning of the traveler experience. We encourage you to do the same as you go through this exercise.</p>
<p> In many ways, it’s more challenging and complex than ever to satisfy your business travelers. This is due to many factors, like expectation of personalization, demand for experiences, and personal travel tools exceeding business travel tools, to name a few. But perhaps the greatest factor complicating traveler satisfaction is the generational differences of business travelers. The expectations and priorities of a millennial or Gen Z employee are different than a baby boomer. The point here is that understanding traveler satisfaction comes from understanding what’s uniquely important to the traveler.</p>
<p>So what we did next (with our “travel/expense manager hats” still resting comfortably by our sides) was dissect a typical <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy</a>, reviewing the components one by one from the eyes of our travelers, and noting whether that component reflected a more negative experience or a more positive experience. For example, take airfare booking rules. Would your travelers say they are fair and provide the opportunity for a positive travel experience? Or would they say that they dread the rules around booking, and they make for a negative experience. How about the expense process? Do you utilize integrated data and technologies to make this a positive experience for your traveler, or would you say your expense process is more of a negative experience for travelers? Here’s the full list of T&E policy components that we reviewed:</p>
<ul>
<li>Airfare booking rules</li>
<li>Airport experience/efficiency</li>
<li>Lodging booking rules</li>
<li>Expense process</li>
<li>Booking process</li>
<li>Meals and entertainment</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">Bleisure</a> and culture</li>
<li>Communication and availability of information</li>
</ul>
<p>Try it yourself: Take the categories above. Note negative experiences with a -1 and positive experiences with a +1. Then, tally your scores to create a traveler experience score. Our highest score was a +6, and we discussed the contributing factors and had some fun dialogue around the -1s.</p>
<p>That’s it! Simply discussing your T&E policy from your travelers' point of view is the first step. It’s easy, quick, and leads to powerful steps towards focusing on traveler experience and creating a traveler-centric policy.</p>
<p>And rest assured, at the conclusion of our roundtable our "hats" were promptly returned to their appropriate heads.</p>
Steve Newton
The impact of millennials on corporate travel and expense – and why it may surprise you
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/impact-millennials-corporate-travel-and-expense-and-why-it-may-surprise-you
2020-06-29T20:57:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Within the past year millennials born surpassed baby boomers born as the largest living generation in the US and make up the largest share of employees in the American workforce...
<p>Within the past year, millennials (born 1981-1997) surpassed baby boomers (born 1946-1964) as the largest living generation in the U.S. and make up the largest share of employees in the American workforce, according to <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/" target="_blank">Pew Research</a>. This generation, totaling more than 75 million people, has changed how organizations recruit, retain and use their workforces, but to date, there has been little information about what millennials actually spend on corporate travel and expenses. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/infographic/field_pdf_image/10698-0.jpg?itok=oFgI7Y4F" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Learn how Traveler Behaviors and Preferences are Changing</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-traveler-behavior-invisible-spend">Get the Infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To gain more insight, Concur analyzed $36 billion in dining, entertainment and hotel expenses processed via Concur Technologies between Q1 2015 and Q1 2017, broken down by general age brackets: 22-35 (millennials), 36-49 (Gen X) and 50-65 (baby boomers).</p>
<p>Here’s a look at what we uncovered:</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>Older generations still spend the most, but millennial spending habits may surprise you. </strong></h2>
<p>Employees ages 36-65 account for 80 percent of dining, entertainment and hotel transactions, and total expenses per employee in this age range are 66 percent more than millennials, averaging $8,596 compared to $5,188 over nine quarters (Q1 2015 to Q1 2017).</p>
<p>However, breaking things down by transaction tells a slightly different story.</p>
<p>Millennial purchasing patterns may defy their <a href="https://www.holmesreport.com/agency-playbook/sponsored/article/fortunately-the-largest-workforce-in-history-is-the-most-creative-the-millennials" target="_blank">reputation for being selfish and entitled</a>, but they aren’t drastically different than their senior colleagues, which we might expect.</p>
<p>In fact, millennials spend:</p>
<ul>
<li>18 percent less than employees ages 36-65 on dining and entertainment, approximately $44 per transaction compared to $52.</li>
<li>$33 per meal when traveling, while colleagues between ages 36-65 spend $39 (which also indicates a senior-level title may not necessarily come with a more lavish per diem).</li>
<li>3 percent more on hotel related expenses (from their room, to parking, Wi-Fi and room service) than senior colleagues, averaging $114 per transaction compared to $111.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h6><strong>Age Bracket Spend Per Transaction</strong></h6>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive hidden-xs hidden-sm" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1502840152883-age-bracket-spend-per-transaction-desktop-2x.png" /></p>
<p><img class="img-responsive hidden-md hidden-lg" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1502840172481-age-bracket-spend-per-transaction-mobile-2x.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>The spending gap gets bigger when you compare industries and countries. </strong></h2>
<p>On average, all generations in the financial services and public services industries spend more per business travel transaction compared to other industries – 22 percent and 19 percent more respectively. For example, employees ages 36-65 working in financial services spend an average of $52 per meal, while employees in the same age range working in healthcare spend $42. Meanwhile, millennials in public service jobs spend an average of $124 per hotel transaction compared to millennials working in healthcare who spend $107.</p>
<p> </p>
<h6><strong>Difference From Average Industry Spend - Financial Services and Public Services</strong></h6>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive hidden-xs hidden-sm" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1502840528395-difference-from-average-industry-spend-desktop-2x-1.png" /></p>
<p><img class="img-responsive hidden-md hidden-lg" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1502840575313-difference-from-average-industry-spend-mobile-2x.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>By and large, millennials spend less on dining, entertainment and hotel expenses than older generations globally. By region, we see the biggest difference between what senior colleagues and millennials spend in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.</p>
<p> </p>
<h6><strong>Difference From Millennial Spend</strong></h6>
<p> </p>
<h2><img class="img-responsive hidden-xs hidden-sm" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1502840671395-difference-from-millenial-spend-desktop-2x.png" /></h2>
<h2><img class="img-responsive hidden-md hidden-lg" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1502840684101-difference-from-millenial-spend-mobile-2x.png" /></h2>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>How different generations spend company dollars is one piece of the puzzle.</strong></h2>
<p>As the workforce evolves, employee spend patterns is one of many factors companies should consider to make sure travel, expense and invoice management programs meet their changing needs. For example, the millennial generation is looking for a seamless experience to book and manage travel, but are companies adapting quickly enough to implement integrated online and mobile booking experiences?</p>
<p>Regular check-ups on your travel and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/">expense policy</a> are also a great way to stay ahead of the curve. And regardless of employee age, a few key policy principles stand true: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Be clear and to the point. </strong>Make sure your policy is straightforward. The easier your policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow (and enforce).</li>
<li><strong>Ensure policies are easy to find.</strong> If your policy is buried in an intranet, it isn’t going to be used. Making your policy visible keeps it top of mind. And if you update it, plan a procedure to inform employees of this change.</li>
<li><strong>Emphasize the benefits</strong>. Explaining the reasons behind the policy and how it benefits all employees helps with acceptance. Not only having a policy to follow, but holding everyone accountable (no exemptions, regardless of rank), keeps it fair all around.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Tim MacDonald leads the company’s T&E Cloud initiatives such as fostering an ecosystem of partners to create value for clients, their employees and the travel suppliers who support them as well as developing Concur's data science capability and product offering. Mr. MacDonald’s travel industry experience prior to Concur includes senior vice president & general manager of Expedia US, chairman and president of luxury travel provider Classic Vacations and vice president of product management at Hotwire.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Fusion Exchange Tokyo: Charting new frontiers with Concur Labs
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fusion-exchange-tokyo-charting-new-frontiers-concur-labs
2017-10-05T10:52:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Richard Puckett Senior Development Manager Concur Labs and Christopher Trudeau Senior Developer Concur Labs Last week we had the opportunity to join colleagues in Japan for Fusion...
<p>By: Richard Puckett, Senior Development Manager, Concur Labs and Christopher Trudeau, Senior Developer, Concur Labs </p>
<p>Last week we had the opportunity to join colleagues in Japan for Fusion Exchange Tokyo to showcase emerging technologies and demonstrate what Concur Labs is doing with virtual reality, machine learning and more. It was a tremendous event with roughly 2,000 attendees and 40 partners. It was an honor to be able to meet with customers and partners to learn about the innovative work taking place in Japan, one of Concur’s fastest-growing markets. The reception was incredible and attendees were excited to talk about the ROI and workstyle reform that Concur can bring to their organizations, through improved productivity, leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence, enhanced and product features, including works for e-Bunsho.</p>
<p>We also had the chance to join Concur Japan CEO Masamune Mimura on stage to talk about Concur Labs. Concur Labs explores what travel and expense will look like in the future, and continually researches nascent technologies. Our latest initiatives involve connected cars, conversational and voice-based interfaces, IoT integrations, machine learning, and more recently – virtual reality. Part of our approach is to collaborate with teams inside and outside of the company.</p>
<ul>
<li>We’re exploring how virtual reality can assist travel and security managers with fulfilling Duty of Care responsibilities </li>
<li>With the Concur Mobile team, we created a proof of concept called Project ARC: Accessible Receipt Capture. ARC helps increase usability of our mobile app among people with visual impairment. Take a look at our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNyirtdcZwE">video</a>!</li>
<li>Earlier this year we introduced our first <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/collaborative-design-sprint-leads-to-new-bot-for-slack-beta">Concur for Slack</a> bot to explore what bots can do for users. In Tokyo, we announced Concur for Slack now supports Japanese language.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="https://concurlabs.com/images/slack/japanese-concur.gif" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>As we learn and insights into the latest trends, we’re thinking about how to apply some of these learnings in Japan. Concur Labs and Concur Japan have been working together on new interfaces and sharing knowledge, and discovering new opportunities to exchange ideas. With that in mind, Concur Labs and Concur Japan are developing plans for the first <strong>Concur Labs Protohack in Tokyo </strong>next year.</p>
<p>Hackathons are a way to challenge our thinking and explore new ideas and partner integrations. We’ve hosted hackathons in the United States and across Europe and seen impressive results. This Protohack will give people a chance to design new prototypes and explore ideas they may have in mind or address problems from an entirely new point of view, with no coding required. There’s an amazing wealth of knowledge and ingenuity at Concur Japan, and we can’t wait to see what happens.</p>
<p>This is an exciting time for travel & expense. Significant advances in machine learning, bots and virtual reality are enabling us to do more work on behalf of our customers. Working with colleagues across the globe will drive the next generation of features and services, and help redefine how we think about travel and expense.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1507227085065-vr-demo-byaqty-1.jpg" /></p>
<p>Event attendees try a demo of how virtual reality could assist global security managers with duty-of-care</p>
Concur Labs
Key Considerations for Building a Scalable Audit Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/key-considerations-building-scalable-audit-process
2020-09-11T11:43:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
These days many finance leaders focus on optimizing systems and processes to drive down the cost of their spend management programs This challenge becomes more complex by pressures to...
<p>These days, many finance leaders focus on optimizing systems and processes to drive down the cost of their spend management programs. This challenge becomes more complex by pressures to increase profitability through acquisitions, new domestic locations or global expansions.</p>
<p>While analyzing spend data and defining the right policies are important first steps to building a program that can scale as you grow, finance leaders also have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the organization is complying with global regulations, and that employees are following policies that have been set internally. Having the right controls and appropriate level of oversight in place is imperative, but what once made sense for your organization may change as you grow and expand.</p>
<p>When building a scalable audit process that will accommodate the growth initiatives of your organization, it’s important to consider when, what and why you are auditing. Below, we’ll explore each of these considerations in more depth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about closing compliance gaps, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices">read the full whitepaper</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When</h2>
<p>Depending on the nature of your business, what types of purchases are being expensed, where in the world you are operating and the maturity of your program, you will need to decide when you should be auditing: either before manager approval, after manager approval or after payment.</p>
<p>There are benefits and drawbacks to each approach, but to determine which is best for your organization, it will be important to have a grasp on current compliance levels. If you are unsure, or your program is new in a particular location, you may make your decision based on the need to uncover where compliance levels are currently at. Another consideration is the bandwidth of your audit resources – what is the best timing for your team based on their other processes and responsibilities?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What</h2>
<p>Next, you need to determine what you will be auditing. With an increased volume of expenses flowing through the system, it can be difficult to decide where to focus your efforts.</p>
<p>If you’ve expanded globally to multiple locations, you may audit a different mix of submissions based on what types of teams are working in each area, or the region-specific regulations you are subject to in that geography. Whether you’re defining audit policy domestically, for new global locations or an acquisition, start by assessing your situation:</p>
<ul>
<li>What appears to be working or not working in your policy?</li>
<li>What are the biggest areas of risk in each location?</li>
<li>Who is doing the most travel or has the highest expenditures?</li>
<li>What teams are based in each location?</li>
</ul>
<p>The answers to these questions will provide you with some guidance as to what you should be auditing in your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Why</h2>
<p>During the process of defining your global audit policies, it’s important to keep in mind why you’re auditing. As your organization grows, so does the challenge of managing the compliance of your workforce. Your policies are in place for a reason, and with well-publicized auditing procedures, you can make sure they’re being followed. When you do identify trends of bad behavior, you can pinpoint the issue and implement corrective actions. With more employees spending company money, it becomes more important than ever to audit so you can control costs, capitalize on Value Added Tax (VAT) reclamation opportunities and prevent over spending.</p>
<p>With more expense and cost control complexity comes more regulatory risk. You need to have the right controls in place to catch instances of potential fraud or regulatory violations, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/proactive-approaches-to-mitigate-foreign-corrupt-practice-act-fcpa">such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act</a> in the US and the UK Bribery Act.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How</h2>
<p>Determining and implementing the right audit process can be daunting, especially if you’re building one that can scale with growth. That’s why it’s vital to tap into peer resources and look to other experts for guidance on the best approach.</p>
<p><strong>To learn what your peers are doing from an Audit perspective, download our whitepaper: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices">Closing the Gaps in Compliance</a>, and get audit tips and best practices from other Concur clients.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Making an impact in 10 weeks: The SAP iXp internship experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-impact-10-weeks-sap-ixp-internship-experience
2020-09-11T12:30:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today internships are a vital part of your education that help you build career experience and make you the most competitive candidate in the job market when applying for jobs after...
<p>Today, internships are a vital part of your education that help you build career experience and make you the most competitive candidate in the job market when applying for jobs after college. But internships where you gain deep experience and build a network within a diverse work community can feel few and far between. Through the SAP Internship Experience Project (SAP iXp), I’ve been fortunate to find an internship that offers just that.</p>
<p>As a content marketing intern at Concur, an SAP company, I’ve enjoyed a balance of guidance from my team and freedom to contribute to a growing, fast-paced company in a tangible and effective way. Although a 10-week internship seemed lengthy, once I arrived at Concur, I quickly realized that “Concur time” moves at a quick pace. Throughout my internship, I have constantly been immersed in the development and growth of not only my team – focused on small and mid-sized businesses – but also of the entire company as it takes on the second half of a year of advancement, innovation and success.</p>
<p>In addition to learning about Concur’s products, customers, and industry as an SAP iXp intern, I also learned a few key strategies to geting the most out of an internship:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Take the time to meet people.</h2>
<p>Your coworkers are your best resource, so getting to know them both personally and professionally is an essential part of your internship. Building a concrete network, both inside and outside of your immediate team, will help you the most out of your experience. Not only will you be able to go to your network as questions pop up – which they inevitably will – but you can also learn about other roles and gain cross-functional experience . Make the time to schedule a few coffee meet-ups – everyone loves to chat over a latte!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Ask questions about everything.</h2>
<p>There’s no such thing as a dumb question, especially during an internship when you are constantly learning new information about every aspect of the company. It’s like drinking water from a fire hose, and sometimes you need to take a step back and break down exactly what’s being asked of you. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if they may seem silly or unimportant. The network I referred to before? They’re all there to help you, so make sure to utilize their knowledge whenever possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Seeking out more work is a good thing.</h2>
<p>Although I never had too much downtime during my internship, there were times when I finished a project early. In those situations, I always reached out to my mentor and coworkers to see how I could help them achieve their goals too. Asking for more to do is a good thing – it shows that you know how to manage time, exceed expectations and most importantly, that you are invested in your role and want to contribute as much as possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. If it’s offered, take advantage of it.</h2>
<p>This one is a little vague, but that’s absolutely how it’s intended. At Concur, I was given the opportunity to sit in on important company meetings, attend power hour sessions with long-standing executives, network at company-wide events and even partake in some fun intern events along the way. All of these things were considered optional, but who wouldn’t want to learn more about the company in nontraditional ways?</p>
<p>Concur extended invitations to all of these unique events because they added value to my internship and allowed me to continue my learning far beyond the confines of my cubicle, team, floor, etc. Take up every opportunity that you’re able to because there’s no need for your learning to be stagnant at such an innovative company.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Be aware of the future.</h2>
<p>Internships are essentially a trial-run of the “real world” of work life. Use each experience to find out which aspects of your role you like and which you dislike. Sometimes the best thing to take away from an internship isn’t what you liked, but rather what you didn’t, so you can filter out opportunities in the future that don’t coincide with your aspirations. Projecting into the future can be challenging when you’re still in a university student’s mindset. Keeping your ideas close will help you manage the direction you want to take your career in the years after graduation.</p>
<p>Internships are the perfect way to learn what it’s like to work for a specific company and understand the fields and environments in which you thrive. The SAP iXP internship experience provided me with innumerable ways to become involved at the company and make my personal mark as a content marketing intern. Putting these steps into action will ensure you share a similar success story at your own internship.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the </strong><a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank"><strong>iXp program</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns"><strong>Concur internships</strong></a><strong>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank"><strong>iXp Twitter</strong></a><strong> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
AI and Blockchain are the Accounting Tools of the Future. Are You Ready?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ai-and-blockchain-are-accounting-tools-future-are-you-ready
2020-09-11T13:17:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The face of the accounting industry is changing Cloud computing opened up the door for automation and mobility and now with the emergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence AI...
<p>The face of the accounting industry is changing. Cloud computing opened up the door for automation and mobility, and now with the emergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI), the way you handle your accounting is never going to be the same. These new tools can make a positive impact on business bottom line, especially for smaller accounting firms, alleviating labor-intensive, data heavy tasks and opening up time for more client interaction and strategy.</p>
<p>But before integrating these new tools, it is important to first understand the how and why behind them and how they can help your business. To get you started down the path of integrating this new technology, below are some of your initial questions answered.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/10437-0.jpg?itok=zNRZD7rd" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Robots are Coming!</h2>
<p>See why you should be excited about artificial intelligence and machine learning.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What is AI and Blockchain Anyway?</strong></h2>
<p>Blockchain and AI are often referenced together as accounting industry disruptors. One thing to note is that they are different technologies that impact different aspects of daily tasks. Let’s start by looking at a definition of each.</p>
<p><strong>Blockchain </strong>is a secure, distributed ledger. When a transaction takes place in a blockchain ledger, it is not only updated in real time, but the transaction is closed instantly upon completion. This means that using blockchain can increase the speed of monthly reconciliations, since there are no outstanding transactions, and prevent anyone from going back and making adjustments to something that happened in the past. Reports and audits are more accurate, and pulling them is faster, allowing teams to do more each month.</p>
<p>Boiled down, <strong>AI </strong>is using computer programming to do large, labor intensive tasks that are currently done by humans. A good example is using AI to review and analyze large volumes of data. AI can cut tasks that would normally take weeks down to a few days and sometimes even a few hours.</p>
<p>Accountants are ready for this new technology, and it’s only a matter of time before the use of blockchain and AI will be a natural part of any accounting firm. A recent survey of 700 accountants across the globe by <a href="http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/global-research-reveals-accountants-welcome-technology-automation-administrative-relief-2208078.htm">Sage</a> found that:</p>
<p>“Eighty-six percent of accountants say they would be happy for technology to make the admin elements of their job invisible, so they can focus more on their clients and building their practice.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>How will AI or Blockchain help me?</strong></h2>
<p>The possibilities for AI and blockchain in the accounting field are endless. But, as with any new technology, it is only as good as your current process. Start by evaluating your current workflow to determine where and how AI or blockchain can help you and your team.</p>
<p>AI is often integrated into firms of all sizes to help with data analysis. For example, think of the time saved at year-end if a program could pull, compile, and analyze all the reports, leaving only the final decision making to you and your team.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>How do I get started?</strong></h2>
<p>Start by getting the education you need on the “how” and “what” behind these tools from industry experts. Attend Accounting Today’s <a href="http://pages.marketing.accountingtoday.com/20180201_act_concur_sage_ws_lp.html??source=client" target="_blank">Blockchain, AI and emerging technologies for your firm</a> webinar, sponsored by Concur and separate the hype from the reality on these industry disruptors.</p>
<p>Getting the correct background information can make all the difference in how successfully you integrate AI and blockchain into your organization.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Meet Generation Z: The Newest Members of Your Workforce
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/meet-generation-z-newest-members-your-workforce
2018-07-06T11:36:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It seems like only yesterday we were talking about Millennials entering the workplace but its already time to start thinking about their successors Generation Z Doesnt that make us...
<p>It seems like only yesterday we were talking about Millennials entering the workplace, but it’s already time to start thinking about their successors – Generation Z. (Doesn’t that make us feel old!)</p>
<p>Generation Z is generally taken to be the generation born between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. It’s true that this demographic is technically Millennial, but there are some striking differences between this generation and its older sibling.</p>
<p>So, what are the differences? What are they looking for from their career? And perhaps most important of all, how you can make sure you attract the best and brightest to your finance teams?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They Value Security</h2>
<p>Generation Z was at a formative age when the 2008 crash happened. They saw first-hand what it did to their parents and <a href="http://www.ey.com/gl/en/about-us/our-people-and-culture/ey-global-study-trust-in-the-workplace-study-highlights-generation-z-values" target="_blank">it’s had an effect on their thinking about their careers</a>. They’re more likely than Millennials to want to stay with one employer than to move around. Whether this is a trend that has lasting implications is yet to be seen.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>But They Want Clear Opportunities for Advancement</h2>
<p>Generation Z might see the advantages of staying with a single employer, but they won’t stay unthinkingly. This group is highly motivated by opportunities for advancement – <a href="http://millennialbranding.com/tag/gen-z/" target="_blank">34% cite this as their most important motivation</a>.</p>
<p>It’s perhaps a reflection of the pessimism of this generation – <a href="https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf" target="_blank">71% of Millennials</a> think they’ll have a higher standard of living than their parents, but only <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/hiring-millennials/2016/8-things-you-need-to-know-for-hiring-generation-z" target="_blank">56% of Generation Z thinks they will</a>.</p>
<p>It means you’ll need to demonstrate how you develop your team and invest in its future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They Start With Why</h2>
<p><a href="http://millennialbranding.com/tag/gen-z/" target="_blank">When surveyed</a>, 42% of Generation Y said money would motivate them to work harder and stay with their employer. In contrast, it’s only a motivator for 28% of Generation Z. That’s a massive dip.</p>
<p>Far more likely to be a concern for Generation Z is the ‘why’. Simon Sinek’s renowned business book <a href="https://startwithwhy.com/shop/books/start-with-why" target="_blank">Start with Why</a> posited that consumers don’t care what you do – they care why you do it. This is something that chimes strongly with Generation Z, who want to know <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/08/14/generation-z-employers/" target="_blank">how the organisation they’re working for benefits the wider world</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>They Want Their Work to be More Productive and Less Repetitive</h2>
<p>Entry-level roles have a reputation for being repetitive. But Generation Z members are much less likely than their predecessors to put up with what they see as meaningless tasks. They know that technology can do these things better – and they’re right. The capabilities of AI are advancing rapidly and tools to <a href="https://www.concur.com/">automate travel, expense, and invoice</a> are already transforming the workplace and dramatically reducing the need for manual data input.</p>
<p>If you’re going to attract the best Generation Z-ers by giving them the <a href="http://millennialbranding.com/tag/gen-z/" target="_blank">meaningful work they crave</a>, you need to make sure you’ve got the tools and technology in place before they arrive.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>But They’re Not in Thrall to Technology</h2>
<p>While this generation can see the advantages technology brings, they’re not in thrall to it. In fact, they express <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/generation-z-enters-workforce.html" target="_blank">concern about the way technology is impacting on their ability to maintain interpersonal relationships</a>.</p>
<p>By automating manual tasks, not only do you empower Generation Z employees to do the meaningful work they want, you also help them develop their skills in key areas and improve the productivity of your team. Paul Jackson, head of finance at London charity Thames Reach, said of the decision to implement <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>: “My team spends their time in a more intellectual way, chasing, training, meeting with people one-on-one and having to be creative and come up with solutions. I see people who are more challenged and more fulfilled.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Does This Generation Reflect Recent Shifts in Workplace Practices?</h2>
<p>In many ways, it could be said that the desires of Generation Z chime with what organisations already know and have been seeking to implement.</p>
<p>If you want a loyal, productive workforce, you have to do two things. Have the HR and career development initiatives in place that will make employees feel valued. And harness what technology has to offer to make work meaningful and productive.</p>
<p>How is your business responding to these challenges?</p>
Dafydd Llewellyn
It's Stress Awareness Month. How is Your Team Coping?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-stress-awareness-month-how-your-team-coping
2018-07-06T11:35:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Hows life Its a simple question but ask it of someone and if theyre answering honestly youll likely get a roll of the eyes and the answer Busy or Stresssful Dashing around with a long...
<p>How’s life?</p>
<p>It's a simple question, but ask it of someone and, if they’re answering honestly, you’ll likely get a roll of the eyes and the answer: “Busy!” or "Stresssful!" Dashing around with a long to-do list and juggling competing demands is the reality of day-to-day life for most of us. To a certain extent, we need this pressure to motivate us and help us get things done. But, when healthy pressure becomes unhealthy stress, that’s when the problems start – and we see this a lot in busy finance teams under the weight of a heavy workload.</p>
<p>Stress Awareness Month aims is to increase public awareness about stress, its causes, its negative effects, and how to relieve it. For both employers and employees it’s a valuable opportunity to stop, take stock, and start to tackle the problem.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point.aspx" target="_blank">According to the American Psychological Association</a>, 61% of Americans cite work as a significant stressor in their lives. That can translate into significant health issues and productivity losses. As <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/07/the-high-price-of-workplace-stress/" target="_blank">The Harvard Gazette reports</a>: "Nearly half (44%) of working adults say that their current job affects their overall health." What's more, "36% of workers suffer from work-related stress that costs U.S. businesses $30 billion a year in lost workdays."</p>
<p>So if stress is affecting you, what can you do about it?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Assess Your Stress Pain Points</h2>
<p>The first step is to identify what is causing you stress. For business owners and finance managers, number crunching and poor processes are likely to be big sources of stress.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do you have the visibility around the numbers that you and the business need or are you in the dark about where the business is financially?</li>
<li>Are your processes overwhelming you because they’re too cumbersome, manual, and error-prone for the size of business you’ve become?</li>
<li>Are phone calls from angry suppliers about late payments becoming more frequent because your accounts payable system is all over the place?</li>
<li>Do employees consistently not follow travel and expense policies and you find yourself spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to correct claims and educate employees?</li>
</ul>
<p>Facing reality and taking steps to get control back will not only make you healthier it will make the business healthier, too. Once you’ve identified any key stressors, put an action plan in place to take the next steps to make workflow changes. You’ll feel so much better for making a positive move in the right direction.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Manage Your Health and Well-being</h2>
<p>While tackling the causes of stress is incredibly important, taking good care of yourself is vital as well – a healthy body is better able to cope with the demands you place on it.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do you eat a healthy diet?</li>
<li>Do you take time for regular exercise or is running up the stairs to deal with another crisis as good as it gets?</li>
<li>Do you enjoy a good night’s sleep or is it hard to remember the last time you woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go?</li>
<li>Are you able to make time to relax with friends and family, or do an activity you love?</li>
</ul>
<p>You’ve heard it all before, but these things really do make a difference.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Create a Positive Working Environment for Everyone</h2>
<p>As well as taking care of your own stress levels, managers also need to take care of those on their teams. And, if you’re an employer, you have a duty to maintain a safe and healthy workplace for your employees.</p>
<ul>
<li>Is your team able to cope with the demands of their jobs?</li>
<li>Are they able to control the way they do their work?</li>
<li>Do they receive all the information and support they need?</li>
</ul>
<p>Putting strategies in place to protect your team from stress will not only help you meet your obligations, it will also strengthen your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you’re keen to tackle stress in your workplace, take a look at some tips from the <a href="http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/work-stress.aspx" target="_blank">American Psychological Association</a> or the <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/coping-with-stress/art-20048369" target="_blank">Mayo Clinic</a>.</p>
<p>If you’ve think a bad expense or invoice process could behind many of your work woes, learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur's expense and invoice solutions</a>. </p>
With Concur Expense, This Healthcare Company Freed its Employees to Focus on Better Medical Care Experiences
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-healthcare-company-freed-its-employees-focus-better-medical-care
2018-05-31T10:07:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur we try to embody a spirit of innovation that not only drives ourselves to be better and more thoughtful but also inspires and recognizes other individuals and businesses...
<p>At SAP Concur, we try to embody a spirit of innovation that not only drives ourselves to be better and more thoughtful, but also inspires and recognizes other individuals and businesses to be their best. That’s why each year at our annual <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion conference</a>, we gather together our customers, partners, and staff to connect, collaborate, and inspire.</p>
<p>This year, among the many winners of the 2018 SAP Concur Innovation Award was Cardinal Health. Cardinal Health uses its nearly 100 years of expertise to reduce the total cost of healthcare and to improve the lives of patients.</p>
<p>When patient experience and quality of life are on the line, it’s important to do everything possible in service of that mission. That’s why SAP Concur is thrilled to be able to help Cardinal Health deliver on this promise by creating an easy-to-use, expense management solution that gives employees time back to focus on what matters most – being "essential to care."</p>
<p>Watch the full video on Cardinal Health and see how its people-focused mission made them a perfect fit for SAP Concur solutions and for the Innovation Award it deserved.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Innovation Slump? Use These Three Tips to Bring the Magic Back
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/innovation-slump-use-these-three-tips-bring-magic-back
2020-09-11T13:19:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo Bob Iger Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company Companies of all sizes from microbusiness to global corporations...
<p>“The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.” – Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company</p>
<p>Companies of all sizes, from microbusiness to global corporations, must continuously look for innovative ways to grow, meet customer needs, and capture top talent. In fact, a survey by <a href="https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/innovationsurvey/files/gis_execsummary.pdf" target="_blank">PWC</a> found that “93% of business executives believe that organic growth through innovation will drive the greater proportion of their revenue growth.”</p>
<p>To be truly innovative, companies need to remove the busy work that can get in the way of their employees’ inspiration. Financial visibility and spend management are two areas that if managed well, can support the time for innovation. Does your organization have what it takes?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Let technology clear the way</h2>
<p>How can your staff be innovative with a stack of expense reports, receipts, and paper invoices to slog through? While cloud computing and mobile technology is on the rise, 55% of small business owners feel their current technology solutions are actually “<a href="https://www.insight.com/en_US/learn/content/2017/02232017-these-small-business-technology-statistics-are-surprising.html" target="_blank">a hindrance to incorporating or adopting new technologies</a>.”</p>
<p>Don’t let bad technology or manual processes get in the way of your mission critical efforts. Oftentimes, making the leap from manual to automated processes is where many businesses struggle. Take expense reports as an example. The current way (manual) of doing things may seem to be working. But, as the company grows and more employees are hired, using spreadsheets and paper receipts gets out of control quickly. Not only does the review and approval process slow your team down, but also reporting on spending becomes too cumbersome to consider.</p>
<p>Implementing automation programs now will make a smoother transition when your growth trajectory spirals upwards. Choosing the right system starts with understanding the long-term goals of your organization. Implementing the latest trend or quickest fix often will not stand the test of time. Take the initiative now to find solutions from a technology partner who is innovative and offers products that will grow with your organization. And your creative thinkers will be able to get back to what they do best.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Know your financials</h2>
<p>Getting insight into your full financial picture provides much needed information for making strategic decisions. When was the last time you had a 360-degree view of your budget that includes both spending before and after it happens? Do you have a good handle on financial leaks (fraud and compliance)? Knowing your big picture financials will make you feel comfortable taking those leaps toward what could be the next big opportunity.</p>
<p>According to a recent Forbes article, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenwunker/2015/07/29/5-strategic-big-businesses-use-to-build-a-culture-of-innovation/2/#7876bec94e40" target="_blank">5 Strategies Big Businesses Use To Build A Culture of Innovation</a>, companies fail their employees by “investing in innovation programs to bring in new ideas, but not giving individuals the tools or frameworks to show why those ideas are worthwhile.” Financial reporting comes to play here, being able to look at the full spend view – employee expenses, travel costs, and vendor costs – to understand the viability and impact of an idea. Full financial visibility means quicker, better decisions so you can jump on that next opportunity before it’s gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Check your environment (it’s about more than foosball)</h2>
<p>We like a good game of foosball as much as the next person, but innovation is not built on pool tables, free snacks, and cool office designs. While those are nice perks to have, they aren’t what creates a truly innovative environment. Employees need to feel safe and empowered to take risks, try new things, and to fail, as best explained by <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/282664" target="_blank">Entrepreneur author, Johan Hanekom</a>:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Employees need to feel independent enough to own their innovative thinking and to pursue the ideas they are passionate about. In fact, if management effectively fosters a creative and open environment, innovation will happen naturally. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ensure your working environment is giving employees the freedom they need to be creative and forward thinking. The last thing they need to think about is filling out an expense report, managing paper invoices, or searching the internet for the cheapest plane ticket.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn more about the future of spend management</h2>
<p>Take advantage of the present to prepare your business for the future. At SAP Concur, we are constantly improving upon our current solutions to provide our clients with the best possible technology for today and tomorrow.</p>
<p>Ready to learn more? Join our on-demand webinar, <a href="https://go.concur.com/Events_NA_SMN_Prospect_Webinar_0618_Innovation_01RegistrationPage.html">Future-proof spend management tools for your business</a>. Get a sneak peek of the future of travel, expense, and accounts payable management and find out about our latest innovations: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-hipmunk">Concur Hipmunk</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Concur Budget</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
There’s a Hole in My Data! Plug These Finance Gaps With Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/theres-hole-my-data-plug-these-finance-gaps-automation
2019-03-19T08:09:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Spreadsheets and other manual solutions are the cornerstones of many financial processes Im sure you have a few in your business as they appear to provide documented evidence for every...
<p data-id="73eb2dad-23b3-4543-95ea-5efa5ea15a15">Spreadsheets and other manual solutions are the cornerstones of many financial processes. I’m sure you have a few in your business, as they appear to provide documented evidence for every penny of spend.</p>
<p data-id="50c5c881-6663-43d8-8e70-8505ede6a35e">But they really mean a lot of paper-shuffling that drains everyone’s time. And, what's worse, they can create blind spots in your data.</p>
<p data-id="50c5c881-6663-43d8-8e70-8505ede6a35e"> </p>
<p data-id="b25fefd4-5052-4f35-b76c-6d846bc8d7a1"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Download the report</a> to see even more benefits of automation</strong></p>
<p data-id="b25fefd4-5052-4f35-b76c-6d846bc8d7a1"> </p>
<p data-id="b3dbc9b5-bb3c-4903-8182-2032afc34217">Chances are you think of these blind spots as a fact of life. After all, 81% of finance leaders say they don’t have complete visibility over their travel, expense, and invoice spend, so you aren't alone if you feel that way.</p>
<p data-id="ab5f3459-7343-4f1a-8af0-5902ba45647c">You’ve heard it before, but it's worth repeating: Automation can help eliminate blind spots by giving you greater visibility while making everyone more productive. But how does it work in reality? Let’s take a look.</p>
<p data-id="ab5f3459-7343-4f1a-8af0-5902ba45647c"> </p>
<h2 data-id="bf4af351-bdf2-4ab6-ab7e-e325f9ffa039">You get control over the second biggest area of expenditure</h2>
<p data-id="8f61a804-bdf2-4792-adba-77dbbf3e1869">Travel and expense is typically the second largest controllable item on a business’s finance books. It means you need to know about this spend as early as possible if you want to manage it proactively rather than reactively.</p>
<p data-id="1dff5982-e2aa-4689-b966-cb5d85f448dd">Starting with travel, the sooner you can capture future travel arrangements upfront, the more prepared you will be to budget and anticipate associated expenses. Products like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> get travel spend into the system at the time trips are booked, which means you know about it sooner rather than later.</p>
<p data-id="4150758d-6d74-41d9-815c-d178a0b39a2a">At the same time, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> allows employees to scan receipts and submit claims on the go so you’ll know about them as they happen rather than when the pile of receipts lands on your desk much later.</p>
<p data-id="4150758d-6d74-41d9-815c-d178a0b39a2a"> </p>
<h2 data-id="b28f2989-a5c8-449c-8c5a-2208872dcb17">You can pay suppliers on time and accrue for the spend more quickly</h2>
<p data-id="d906fbae-8f53-4cb0-b7e4-1a8255030f8a">Almost 80% of companies admit to paying supplier invoices late.</p>
<p data-id="d43a09f2-49f8-4887-878d-0048ef0e9598"><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> uses OCR technology to reduce invoice capture times by up to 75%. Businesses that use purchase orders can streamline their invoice matching meaning that up to 45% of their processing can be touchless. System reports mean you can see how long each stage of the process takes, making it easy to identify and resolve bottlenecks. It all speeds up payment times, improves productivity, and frees you and your team to focus on more strategic activities.</p>
<p data-id="d43a09f2-49f8-4887-878d-0048ef0e9598"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6df81c60-5480-4303-9192-ded198c8ed12">Your policies are maintained and your costs are more accurate</h2>
<p data-id="2836f2a6-c012-4ae4-a29a-190bd3af8318">We found that 60% of finance leaders aren’t confident that employees comply with company T&E policies. It’s a problem when you want to control your costs and it’s a bigger problem come audit time.</p>
<p data-id="5df187e2-adb2-4bf5-8265-3c74cc39228e">True automation means having your travel and expense policies built in so that out-of-policy spend is flagged at the time of booking. (We recently worked with a customer who reported that the percentage of their approved expenses that were out of policy reduced from 15% to 1%!)</p>
<p data-id="5df187e2-adb2-4bf5-8265-3c74cc39228e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="4395a8e4-1ddf-4ed5-b627-8e2443a83025">Your VAT return is a breeze</h2>
<p data-id="08576b65-1655-4f86-8885-f5a00cfe4e0c">Reclaiming VAT manually is a time-consuming chore. There’s also every chance you’ll miss reclaimable expenses because you don’t have complete data. When you automate the process, everything changes. Current VAT rules are automatically applied to expense types so you can be confident you are always reclaiming the right amount.</p>
<p data-id="08576b65-1655-4f86-8885-f5a00cfe4e0c"> </p>
<h2 data-id="11b7ec75-b3e0-4af7-b1df-31b40416a65b">Banish those blind spots</h2>
<p data-id="2c76a459-079b-4c2c-8f61-0f59ed10b82c">In 2017, SAP Concur solutions helped customers process nearly 124.6 million expense claims and more than 58.7 million travel bookings, pay more than 22.7 million suppliers, and undertake more than 13 million audits. It means we’re able to see just how effective automation is in helping businesses to capture data more effectively, reinforce policies and rules and – ultimately – get better visibility into their numbers.</p>
<p data-id="e500fe7b-bfdf-4f81-a00e-9207ef9eee4f"><strong>For more insights, tune into our on-demand webinar <a href="https://go.concur.com/TopBlindSpotsinyourFinanceData_RegistrationPage2018.html?pid=sites&cid=concur.ouropal.com:">The Top Blind Spots Hiding in Your Finance Data</a>. </strong></p>
You are Your Best Advocate: Learning to Navigate the Corporate World as an Intern
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-are-your-best-advocate-learning-navigate-corporate-world-intern
2020-09-11T11:43:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The butterflies I felt as I was riding the elevator to my interview were like the ones I felt on a first date In hindsight a first interview is very similar to a first date except its...
<p data-id="ec4010b8-6921-4a70-9887-fac9ee073a1e">The butterflies I felt as I was riding the elevator to my interview were like the ones I felt on a first date. In hindsight, a first interview is very similar to a first date, except it’s for a professional connection as opposed to a personal one. Once I wrapped up my interviews and got back on the elevator, I knew SAP Concur was the one. </p>
<p data-id="eb522d06-a977-4611-a674-d6d279ae37e1">This internship is my first experience in a corporate setting and I’m glad that managers and teammates make the effort to welcome me into this space. This has helped me feel more at ease, and it lets me focus my energy to present my best self at work. My journey from searching for an opportunity to becoming the Global iXp Team Intern is full of lessons:</p>
<p data-id="eb522d06-a977-4611-a674-d6d279ae37e1"> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1533244331134-patricia-blog.png" />
<p data-id="eb522d06-a977-4611-a674-d6d279ae37e1">My goal is to tell interns' stories through social media. </p>
<h2 data-id="b5b47c22-0752-498e-92d5-31c6847c2711"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="b5b47c22-0752-498e-92d5-31c6847c2711">Lesson One: Communicate goals with everyone.</h2>
<p data-id="5aa730a0-def8-432f-a9c3-fcfe13fa8e43">When I first began looking for internship opportunities almost a year ago, I had no real way to go about it. As a business administration major, I knew that I wanted any experience within corporate, but I had no inkling of what that would look like. Additionally, I never started a conversation telling others what I wanted – I usually began by asking them what they had to offer. After many fruitless months, and perhaps out of desperation and impatience, any conversation I had about my future began with the proud exclamation that I was actively looking for an internship. This seems like an easy step, but I had to learn to do this, instead of worrying that I’d seem overeager. Looking back, I recognize that I was not getting what I wanted because I did not communicate exactly what I was looking for. Even now, I must remind myself to be forward and vocal about my goals as I continuously develop in my position.</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="a75e97f7-9c32-48b5-b7d8-67225c14d03c">Takeaway: Have a clear goal and communicate it consistently</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="14bfbed8-007a-403b-a74a-5cb3209e8001"> </p>
<h2 data-id="14bfbed8-007a-403b-a74a-5cb3209e8001">Lesson Two: Be honest about the expectations and goals I have of my internship.</h2>
<p data-id="9584457b-0c6a-43ea-8fc4-b887e905489f">I knew I wanted experience in a corporate setting, so I would be able to make better, more informed decisions once I begin looking for full-time roles after graduation. In my first interview, I can still remember stating: “I want to know what a company like SAP has to offer, and whether it would be a good fit for me in the future.” I wanted to challenge myself by continuously developing and building new skills in an environment I was unfamiliar with. As part of the iXp team, my goals are to communicate and share the experiences my fellow interns have throughout the summer by sharing their stories on social media and ensuring their experiences are positive and worthwhile. It’s my willingness to convey my needs that guides my manager to give me the advice I need to meet my goals.</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="1a1a04c7-6781-434e-969a-f54529da9ca5">Takeaway: Make goals that are relevant to you and your development</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="5eb9dd33-5afd-4149-b6e4-a12cfcf8c869"> </p>
<h2 data-id="5eb9dd33-5afd-4149-b6e4-a12cfcf8c869">Lesson Three: I learned to advocate for myself.</h2>
<p data-id="bac87d50-6959-41f0-9919-3ac55b922477">This is the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn from the time I was searching for an internship to when I started at SAP. It is easy for me to be honest about what I want but communicating it and making it a priority for others is not natural to me. I first learned to communicate my goals and to be honest and open about them. Now, how do I make my team invested in my growth as well? Building strong bonds with my team members which allow us to share our backgrounds and growth from one another. I now feel more comfortable asking for help when I need it and asking for advice on what my next steps as an intern are.</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="290247c9-1ee4-43f3-bf03-c8c2bc3709ce">Takeaway: Build strong bonds with your team and communicate your goals so they are also invested in your growth</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="cd161467-d6c0-448a-be1d-c6ea9f06c43a"> </p>
<p data-id="cd161467-d6c0-448a-be1d-c6ea9f06c43a">The butterflies I get on the elevator now are a symbol of the excitement and anticipation I get when I start the day. Professionally, I am better equipped to communicate my expectations to my colleagues and my manager as I continue to move on into new roles. At last, I know what makes a good match.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Tackle Three of the Top Challenges Faced by Travel Managers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-tackle-three-top-challenges-faced-travel-managers
2018-09-24T12:13:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to a new GBTA survey of travel managers the travel ecosystem continues to change Having the right tools to tackle the issues posed by these changes can enable you to deliver...
<p>According to a new GBTA survey of travel managers, the travel ecosystem continues to change. Having the right tools to tackle the issues posed by these changes can enable you to deliver even more significant value to your organization. Here are three top challenges faced by travel managers today, and how you can overcome them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about the changing travel landscape: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges-infographic">Download the full GBTA report</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Policy compliance and invisible spend</h2>
<p>An average of 37% of hotel bookings, and 15% of air bookings occur outside of corporate booking channels. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> , part of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, you can capture direct bookings without encouraging them so you can ensure your company receives your negotiated rates and you can apply policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Traveler experience</h2>
<p>Many companies today are becoming more traveler focused. In fact, 34% of travel managers surveyed by GBTA said they’re spending more time communicating directly with travelers or addressing their concerns. Travel managers can meet this demand with TripIt. TripIt helps travelers get to where they’re going with features like Go Now ­– features like Go Now that alerts travelers when it’s time to head to the airport. TripIt also provides gate notifications, airport maps, and lists of ground transportation options once travelers land.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Employee well-being and safety</h2>
<p>According to GBTA respondents, travelers expect quick communications from their company during an emergency. However one-third of Travel Managers still do not know how long it would take to confirm every employee’s safety in an incident. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> helps you get in touch with travelers at a moments notice and begin two-way communications via voice, SMS, and email. You can also send incident analysis and pre-trip reports to keep travelers informed about dangerous situations. And, with Tripit, you can provide travelers with access to neighborhood safety scores for categories such as women's safety, political freedoms, health and medical, and theft.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges-infographic">GBTA report Lost in Translation</a> for a more detailed look into the issues travel managers are facing today and ideas on how to make your travel program run at its best.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Four Most Difficult Challenges Small and Midsize Businesses Face When Managing Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-most-difficult-challenges-small-and-midsize-businesses-face-when-managing-spend
2018-06-27T05:33:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It goes without saying but running a small business isnt easy The financial decision makers at small and midsize businesses know this the most intimately because they are often the...
<p data-id="780ea637-57e2-43cd-9281-95a6d4fa03cf">It goes without saying, but running a small business isn’t easy. The financial decision makers at small and midsize businesses know this the most intimately, because they are often the individuals held responsible for the success or failure of the business. That’s why it’s helpful for leadership to have as much information as possible going into every decision they have to make.</p>
<p data-id="780ea637-57e2-43cd-9281-95a6d4fa03cf"> </p>
<p data-id="780ea637-57e2-43cd-9281-95a6d4fa03cf"><strong>Ready to better manage spend with automation? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Download the free report</a></strong></p>
<p data-id="780ea637-57e2-43cd-9281-95a6d4fa03cf"> </p>
<p data-id="cb7052bf-50db-4f7e-96a7-7a5fd0f234ed">That’s where AMI Partners comes in. The research group <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">surveyed more than 400 financial decision makers</a> at small and medium-sized businesses across five different industries to learn more about their spend management practices. Several challenges related to expense, travel, and invoice management were common across many of the businesses surveyed. Below, we’ve compiled the top four pain points decision makers encountered most often:</p>
<p data-id="cb7052bf-50db-4f7e-96a7-7a5fd0f234ed"> </p>
<h2 data-id="05b2b83d-2d9d-4279-967d-737ddb89fcb8">1. Many common business processes are cumbersome</h2>
<p data-id="f57020ce-a722-4431-9d4e-fc79295fc8ef">Among the respondents to the AMI survey, 69% of them found that their manual expense, travel, and invoice solutions were inefficient and laborious. This pain point topped the list for nearly every industry that the research firm tracked.</p>
<p data-id="f57020ce-a722-4431-9d4e-fc79295fc8ef"> </p>
<h2 data-id="820f0cb1-ac4b-4647-96bb-bdac713ca8a3">2. Tracking spending trends and behaviors is often difficult</h2>
<p data-id="daac9197-0414-4737-9e85-273c5ab5c618">As businesses grow, the number of employees submitting expenses grows, too. So do the number of invoices from various suppliers. And with the increasing number of methods for spending and invoicing, tracking cash flow can go from an ongoing challenge to an enormous headache very quickly. Sixty percent of companies surveyed felt that this was a pain point before they implemented an automated solution.</p>
<p data-id="daac9197-0414-4737-9e85-273c5ab5c618"> </p>
<h2 data-id="cd1dbda9-35ee-47b5-ad5f-0dffac4561b1">3. Documentation is often incomplete or nonexistent</h2>
<p data-id="63078c53-57f2-49f8-820f-653dc81994db">Manual processes are frequently prone to human error, which results in missing paperwork for receipts and invoices. According to the report, 56% of businesses saw this as a challenge, and “moving away from manual solutions can eliminate the issue of missing documentation and the need for paper-based filing.”</p>
<p data-id="63078c53-57f2-49f8-820f-653dc81994db"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e7534005-708b-43ec-8d88-a476da4c2710">4. Approval cycles and reimbursements are too protracted</h2>
<p data-id="bd89b657-687d-4701-810a-58d200ab71ac">Nobody likes to wait – but manual solutions involve a lot of waiting. Slow approvals and reimbursements were a significant pain point for more than half of the decision makers AMI spoke to.</p>
<p data-id="bd89b657-687d-4701-810a-58d200ab71ac"> </p>
<p data-id="c9170d45-541c-4985-88f9-2c9bdab0f4ed">As a result of the research that AMI conducted, they found that the best run businesses adopted automated solutions for expense, travel, and invoice management. Those businesses had the highest employee satisfaction, saved key roles hundreds of hours, and reduced costs by thousands of dollars per year. See all of the insights and data that AMI discovered by reading the full report today.</p>
<p data-id="147f6f96-4c2e-417f-baf6-8d86dc3a164c"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Get the free report</a> </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP and Singapore Airlines Collaborate to Boost Corporate Travel Visibility for Enterprises
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-and-singapore-airlines-collaborate-boost-corporate-travel-visibility-enterprises
2018-11-08T15:36:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SINGAPORE SAP SE NYSE SAP today announced a collaboration with Singapore Airlines SIA to boost travel visibility for businesses SIA is the first Asiabased carrier to sign an...
<p><strong>SINGAPORE</strong> — <a href="http://www.sap.com/" target="_blank">SAP SE</a> (NYSE: SAP) today announced a collaboration with Singapore Airlines (SIA) to boost travel visibility for businesses.</p>
<p>SIA is the first Asia-based carrier to sign an agreement with the SAP Concur organization, and customers utilizing the Concur TripLink web service will be able to realize the benefits of their corporate travel program when they make reservations with SIA outside of the Concur Travel solution.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink connects travelers, itineraries and receipts across multiple channels, allowing businesses to apply their travel policies to direct bookings. It also makes it easier for businesses to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an emergency.</p>
<p>By seamlessly identifying corporate bookings made through SIA’s website, SIA will be able to enhance the overall corporate booking experience through personalized products and services for businesses and their employees. The ecosystem of connected travel-related apps that Concur TripLink is part of and the collaboration with SIA ease potential inconveniences caused by expense reporting and alleviate compliance issues arising from out-of-policy travel spend.</p>
<p>“Singapore Airlines is pleased to be the first Asia-based airline to join the Concur TripLink network. With this collaboration, our corporate clients can enjoy greater visibility over their travel and more personalized products and services, enhancing the experience Singapore Airlines is already famous for,” said Singapore Airlines Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Campbell Wilson.</p>
<p>“Having Singapore Airlines on board the Concur TripLink network provides businesses with greater transparency and control over travel spend, while delivering an integrated and intuitive travel experience for employees,” said Scott Russell, president, SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “We are honored to collaborate with SIA and look forward to helping more businesses in the region simplify travel and expense management and boost duty of care for their employees.”</p>
<p>To date, more than 7.5 million travelers have access to Concur TripLink. The global Concur TripLink network includes 28 partners representing airlines, hotels, rail and rental car providers.</p>
<p>For more information, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
<p>This post originally appeared on the <a href="https://news.sap.com/2018/11/sap-singapore-airlines-boost-corporate-travel-visibility-enterprises/" target="_blank">SAP News Center</a>. Follow SAP on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/sapnews/" target="_blank">@sapnews</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About SAP</strong></p>
<p>As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 413,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.sap.com/" target="_blank">www.sap.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Note to editors:</strong><br />
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit <a href="http://www.sap.com/photos" target="_blank">www.sap.com/photos</a>. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit <a href="http://www.sap-tv.com/" target="_blank">www.sap-tv.com</a>. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.</p>
<p><strong>For customers interested in learning more about SAP products: </strong><br />
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24<br />
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)</p>
<p><strong>For more information, press only:</strong><br />
Selina Yeo, +65 6664 4436, <a href="mailto:selina.yeo@sap.com">selina.yeo@sap.com</a>, SGT<br />
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<a href="http://www.news-sap.com/press-room/" target="_blank">SAP News Center press room</a>; <a href="mailto:press@sap.com">press@sap.com</a></p>
<p>Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.<br />
© 2018 SAP SE. All rights reserved.<br />
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see <a href="https://www.sap.com/copyright" target="_blank">https://www.sap.com/copyright</a> for additional trademark information and notices.<br />
Please consider our <a href="https://www.sap.com/corporate/en/legal/privacy.html" target="_blank">privacy policy</a>. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact <a href="mailto:press@sap.com">press@sap.com</a> and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Machine Learning in Concur Mobile
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/machine-learning-concur-mobile
2020-09-11T12:39:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Many SAP Concur users will recognize the ExpenseIt service or app as one that in the background automatically extracts information such as amount date and expense type from your...
<p>Many SAP Concur users will recognize the ExpenseIt service or app as one that, in the background, automatically extracts information such as amount, date, and expense type from your uploaded receipt. To perform the task, ExpenseIt uses an array of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-power-of-machine-learning-to-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">machine learning (ML) algorithms</a>, but in the latest release of Concur Mobile, ExpenseIt users may notice something different when they capture a receipt.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>What CFOs Need to Know About Artificial Intelligence for AP Management</h2>
<p>Learn how to take your AP team to the next level by grabbing your copy of this eBook on artificial intelligence for AP management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/what-cfos-need-know-about-artificial-intelligence-ap-management">Download the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Here are three highlights that may be interesting to you too if you’re considering implementing SAP Concur (or any cloud-based technology at that!).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur has led the way in developing ML algorithms to reduce time on task and help minimize the amount of user entry needed to create an expense report. Cloud computing is attractive for many reasons, such as seamless updates of the service. But on-device, or Edge computing, offers the benefit of real-time processing.</p>
<p>Throughout the last year we’ve been working on a new algorithm which is able to predict (or extract) the total amount from a receipt image, and it runs – on device – in the SAP Concur mobile app, which will reduce turnaround time for users and help with extracting handwritten total amounts as seen below.</p>
<img alt="Concur Expense receipt" class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1546967786236-receipt-image.jpg" />
A prototype of the new algorithm in the SAP Concur mobile app
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>More data helps, and the data scientists at SAP Concur are fortunate to have the largest data set in the T&E (travel management and expense) industry to pull from, with more than 51% of the total T&E market share according to IDC. In the third quarter of 2018 we processed more than $115 billion in customer expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Millions of images used for training</h2>
<p>The new algorithm for extracting the amount only needs the image as input and has been trained using millions of receipt images. When you use the app you will quickly see the result from the algorithm on the screen and have the option to correct any inaccuracies right there. ML isn’t a 100% accurate process, and blur, shadows, and other factors can occasionally result in errors. Overall, users will have a better experience with the new functionality inside the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>From text to images</h2>
<p>The ExpenseIt machine learning system works by first sending the images uploaded though a process called optical character recognition (OCR), which extracts the text from the receipt images. All token extraction algorithms developed to-date by SAP Concur have used only the text as input, but the new amount extraction algorithm works by processing the image directly.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A solution for handwritten receipts</h2>
<p>The new algorithm can deal with printed text receipts as well as receipts containing handwriting. This really helps with U.S. meal receipts, which often contain a handwritten total amount when a tip is added to the bill. This class of receipts has been notoriously difficult, since the text extracted sometimes didn’t contain the handwritten portion, and as a result the algorithm often couldn’t extract the amount correctly. We hope that you will find this new algorithm very useful.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>ExpenseIt Pro standalone app sunset</h2>
<p>The ExpenseIt Pro standalone mobile app will not receive the on-device algorithm and was sunsetted December 31<span>, </span>2018. ExpenseIt users are now able to access it inside the SAP Concur mobile app as a value-add service that turns receipts into expense line items and sends them directly into Concur Expense.</p>
<p>ExpenseIt will continue to process receipts in the background and automatically extract information such as amount, date, and expense type, leveraging the best of ML and human auditors while helping minimize the level of data entry by the user.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Data science at SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Data science, machine learning, and deep learning are rapidly changing the software industry, and at SAP Concur we’re taking advantage of the opportunities this presents. We have a team of brilliant engineers working on improving the software and services we deliver every day. We hope you will enjoy the new Concur Mobile ExpenseIt experience and if you have comments please let us know next time you submit an expense report!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Download the whitepaper</a> to learn more about why you should be excited about ML and artificial intelligence. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Are you Taking a Global Approach to Capturing Spend Across the Enterprise?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-taking-global-approach-capturing-spend-across-enterprise
2020-09-13T04:22:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to IMFs recent World Economic Outlook Update the certainty of global expansion is under threat due to international trade pressures and a plateau in global growth that began...
<p>According to IMF’s recent <a href="https://blogs.imf.org/2018/07/16/the-global-expansion-still-strong-but-less-even-more-fragile-under-threat/" target="_blank">World Economic Outlook Update</a>, the certainty of global expansion is under threat due to international trade pressures and a plateau in global growth that began more than two years ago. So whether your business is further expanding to new markets or maintaining work with suppliers overseas, it has become increasingly important you continue to ensure your organization can operate successfully on a global scale. And if you are still managing your spend with outdated technology, seeing what’s happening globally is especially challenging. </p>
<p>In our four-part series, we have discussed the shortcomings of travel and spend management with technology that is less than ideal. From <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/two-business-trends-driving-change-in-spend">today’s trends impacting spend</a>, to how it impacts <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-fraudsters-find-weak-links-in-employee-spend-areas">fraud and compliance</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/is-disconnected-spend-data-costing-you">managing spend strategically</a>. In our final installment, we take a look at travel and spend management challenges that can affect your ability to globally scale, improve, and adapt to these market changes and how to overcome them.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Challenges to new market entry or maintaining a winning global approach</h2>
<p>Whether you’re beginning your adventure into new markets or have been doing so for years, your task is the same: navigate compliance, foreign taxes and currencies, intricate regulatory structures, and the increased complexity of managing travel and spend policies, all while supporting employees. Effectively accomplishing this task is not without challenges, some of the most common being:</p>
<ul>
<li>Managing multiple complex travel policies and capturing all travel data, which is difficult to track in outdated or disparate systems.</li>
<li>Supporting multiple languages and currencies with different banking institutions, various financial regulations and unique (often manual) processes.</li>
<li>Reclaiming Value Added Taxes (VAT) that are typically left unclaimed or partially claimed especially for US-based companies sending travelers across borders.</li>
<li>Staying in compliance with international laws and regulations, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-fcpa-enforcement-actions-are-you-mitigating-this-risk">including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)</a>.</li>
<li>The need for connected global financial systems that supply the right data at the right time to drive informed decision-making.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Overcoming obstacles to global growth</h2>
<p>Prevailing over these challenges in order to break into new markets requires connectivity between processes, people, and systems. So when employee spend data is dispersed, falls outside of formal programs, and is hard to track due to inadequate technology, you’ve got a greater hill to climb.</p>
<p>Adopting travel and spend management technology that is driven by accurate data helps you to evaluate risks, inform your business decisions, and prime your organization for growth and global ambitions, making the uphill climb that much easier. Plus, a global solution helps you scale now and into the future.</p>
<p>In order to set your expansion up for success, effective data and technology helps you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Understand and comply with global regulations</li>
<li>Identify and assess financial risks</li>
<li>Manage complexities around tax and compliance</li>
<li>Build an effective risk mitigation program</li>
<li>Utilize resources and workflows for growth and scale</li>
<li>Provide support across the globe</li>
<li>Respond to supply chain disruptions</li>
<li>Make payments overseas and format receipts across the globe</li>
<li>Strategize global business travel and duty of care obligations</li>
<li>Improve user experience across your employees</li>
<li>Align spend management across different ERP systems</li>
</ul>
<p>For companies both large and small, it’s a lot to manage. The good news is you don’t have to go it alone. SAP Concur travel and spend management solutions, along with our system integrations and solutions from our partners, make growing a smooth journey.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/abcs-global-expansion">Download our tip sheet</a></strong> <strong>to learn more about managing growth with confidence with SAP Concur. Or <a href="https://go.concur.com/Cost-of-Doing-Nothing-Landing-Page_Landing-Page.html">visit us online</a> to dive deeper into minimizing risk by connecting all your employee spend.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Technology Can Keep You Ahead of New Business Travel Trends
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-technology-can-keep-you-ahead-new-business-travel-trends
2021-02-11T15:55:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence AI are revolutionizing global business travel and expense management These technologies are being used by companies around the world...
<p>Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing global business travel and expense management. These technologies are being used by companies around the world to boost human intelligence and provide better visibility into how money is being spent and how risk is being managed. Is your business keeping pace?</p>
<p>In the first episode of the Intelligent Business podcast, The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Barnwell explores how SAP Concur helps companies keep up with the latest trends in corporate travel management.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Episode 1: A Shifting Landscape - Business Travel Insights</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>While the automation of business travel is a significant innovation today, tomorrow it will be status quo. Trends like direct booking and focusing on the user experience are something every organization will need to face. The sooner your organization incorporates new technology into its business travel management, the sooner it will be running at its best.</p>
<p>In this episode you’ll learn about:</p>
<ul>
<li>The attitudes travel buyers have around travel, risk management, and the optimization of international business travel in their organizations</li>
<li>The risk of not capturing spend when employees book outside of the corporate booking tool and associated challenges with managing costs, maintaining compliance, and performing duty of care</li>
<li>How other organizations are using technology to mitigate the risk of invisible spend through personalization, automation, and simplification</li>
</ul>
<p>The Intelligent Business podcast is a collaboration between SAP Concur and The Wall Street Journal’s Custom Studios. This new series digs into the stories behind the innovations that allow companies to become smarter about business travel. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business">Listen to the five-part series here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Innovating VAT Reclaim Through Automation with Taxback International
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/innovating-vat-reclaim-through-automation-taxback-international
2020-08-18T11:44:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we prepare to exhibit at SAP Concur Fusion for the ninth year in a row we cant help but reflect on all the fun weve had at Fusion events across the globe from Las Vegas New...
<p>As we prepare to exhibit at SAP Concur Fusion for the ninth year in a row, we can’t help but reflect on all the fun we’ve had at Fusion events across the globe - from Las Vegas, New Orleans and Seattle to Tokyo, London, Paris and more. It’s been incredibly gratifying to watch our mutual clients go from not even knowing what VAT was, to reclaiming hundreds of thousands of dollars/euros/pounds every year. As the first technology partner to integrate with SAP Concur to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce03">automate the entire VAT reclaim process</a>, we’re constantly innovating to make the process even more effortless, provide you with even more visibility, and stay ahead of changing legislation to support compliance.</p>
<p>The tax world is not only extremely complex, but also constantly changing, and global political changes in 2019 will have an impact on both your recovery potential and compliance risk. Fortunately, our flexible, cloud-based software adapts easily to changing rules and regulations, making compliance and reclaim effortless regardless of the changes that governments around the world throw our way. Here’s just a few of the hot topics we’re watching closely:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Meals and Entertainment:</strong> The <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-taken-fun-out-of-companys-meals-entertainment">Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA)</a> brought the most substantial overhaul of the U.S. tax code in decades, limiting the deductibility of meals and most entertainment expenses. With meals and entertainment spend contributing up to a staggering 22% of the total travel budget, this has significant impact on your bottom line. From catered lunches to meals for company meetings to fees for hosting clients at sporting events – this major tax legislation impacts a multitude of business activities. <strong>Luckily, you can leverage your travel and entertainment expense data to ease compliance and improve the accuracy of your tax filings. </strong>Taxback International’s integrated solution with SAP Concur enables companies to simplify the process and improve compliance in line with the new legislation. Stop by booth 301 at Fusion for a free analysis of your Meals and Entertainment compliance risk. </li>
<li><strong>Brexit</strong>: Post-Brexit plans include a new directive that will require paper invoices and receipts for VAT recovery, creating headaches for companies that are used to relying solely on paperless expense and corporate card systems. In addition, after March 29, 2019, EU and non-EU companies looking to reclaim VAT from business in the UK will no longer be able to use the European VAT Reclaim mechanism. It’s unclear what the UK’s new mechanism will look like in a post-Brexit world, or how many delays will be created as a result of the new process. If your company is registered for VAT in the UK or participating in cross-border trade in the other EU Member States, stop by booth 301 to learn about our Brexit-impact analysis.</li>
<li><strong>New VAT rules for online retailers selling in the EU</strong>: The European Commission (EC) has announced new detailed measures that will pave the way for a smooth transition to <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6732_en.htm" target="_blank">new VAT rules for e-commerce </a>that come into force in January 2021. The rules lay out the steps needed to ensure online marketplaces can play their part in fighting tax fraud and to ease administrative burdens for online distance sellers. From 2021, large online marketplaces will be responsible for ensuring VAT is collected on sales of goods by non-EU companies to EU consumers. Since online marketplaces will be liable for the missing VAT, authorities can be certain that they can claim the tax due when sellers from outside the EU have not complied with the rules. These new rules will ensure goods sold from storage facilities within the EU will have the correct VAT charged. To stay up to date on this and other changes in EU taxes for non-EU companies, subscribe to our blog.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are just a few examples of upcoming changes that will impact your <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">VAT reclaim</a> potential and compliance risk. VAT is complex, but we make it simple with automated solutions in the cloud and experts on the ground to ensure your end-to-end VAT process is effortless. Come by booth 301 at SAP Concur Fusion in San Diego to learn more!</p>
Joe Healy
How to Manage Employee Spend Risk and Compliance in Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-manage-employee-spend-risk-and-compliance-your-business
2020-09-21T13:19:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Managing risk and ensuring compliance is a vital part of every finance managers role Yet in the average small to mediumsized business its often one of those areas that gets squeezed...
<p data-id="19373ba1-8ac5-4d35-b2c8-f9a989e9cddd">Managing risk and ensuring compliance is a vital part of every finance manager’s role. Yet in the average small to medium-sized business, it’s often one of those areas that gets squeezed because of a lack of time and money.</p>
<p data-id="19373ba1-8ac5-4d35-b2c8-f9a989e9cddd"> </p>
<p data-id="19373ba1-8ac5-4d35-b2c8-f9a989e9cddd">In this compliance series, I’d like to explore the subject of risk and compliance and look at how managing them effectively can be easier than you might think.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Preventing Employee Expense Fraud</h2>
<p>Examine how today’s savvy companies put a microscope on employee spend to better prevent and detect fraud across their business.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/new-age-fraud-preventing-fraud-across-employee-spend-areas">Download the Brochure</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<p data-id="89dde4e1-4e27-4219-968a-7178259bcf37">In this first article, let’s look at the risk and compliance issues around employee spend. How does your business manage risk when it comes to employee spend? And how do you ensure employee compliance with your internal policies and external government regulations?</p>
<p data-id="89dde4e1-4e27-4219-968a-7178259bcf37"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6ec4875e-9c60-442a-b1cb-cbd2275bdb04">Managing regulatory risks and external compliance</h2>
<p data-id="2b4e31c6-1e0d-4b4c-b03b-0a53027c5f1e">We all know our businesses have to be compliant with legislation. But what if you inadvertently break the rules? In the UK, it’s worth remembering the penalties HMRC can charge don’t just apply if you deliberately break the law. They also apply if your error is due to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/penalties-an-overview-for-agents-and-advisers" target="_blank">“a lack of ‘reasonable care’”</a>.</p>
<p data-id="2b4e31c6-1e0d-4b4c-b03b-0a53027c5f1e"> </p>
<p data-id="2b4e31c6-1e0d-4b4c-b03b-0a53027c5f1e">No matter where you operate, laws like this means it makes sense to have a system in place that gives you end-to-end visibility over your spend. Whether it’s travel, expense or accounts payable, a robust system that allows you to see non-compliance as it happens makes all the difference. It’s where tools such as SAP Concur excel.</p>
<p data-id="2b4e31c6-1e0d-4b4c-b03b-0a53027c5f1e"> </p>
<p data-id="c565a047-808c-4099-8b65-50806e6779fe">Not only does a robust process give you confidence in your compliance, but it also helps in other areas of finance too. For instance, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-payment-practices-and-performance-reporting-requirements" target="_blank">Duty to Report on Payment Practices</a> was introduced to reduce the impact late payments were having on the cash flow of small businesses. When you have visibility, you are able to take steps to make targeted improvements.</p>
<p data-id="c565a047-808c-4099-8b65-50806e6779fe"> </p>
<h2 data-id="862c5fad-bbd4-475b-98a1-e9164305f379">Managing financial risk and internal compliance</h2>
<p data-id="fb7e7d2f-e7f8-4ac6-9735-11ae949c7ca3">Alongside regulatory risk and external compliance, there are also internal ones to think about.</p>
<p data-id="fb7e7d2f-e7f8-4ac6-9735-11ae949c7ca3"> </p>
<p data-id="608904f1-4e2a-43a1-8cd9-13c1606a2aa9">Are travel bookings and employee expenses consistently checked so you can be confident they are compliant with your policies? Or do you rely on employees’ better nature to ‘do the right thing’? Yet our research shows that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance" target="_blank">37% of business travelers</a> had at least one exception on their expense reports.</p>
<p data-id="608904f1-4e2a-43a1-8cd9-13c1606a2aa9"> </p>
<p data-id="3db7f2f1-183b-4536-94e5-f67b49664cfa">Then there are financial risks. Maintaining a consistent, balanced cashflow is critical to the health of your business. Being able to provide accurate forecasts is essential when you are planning to invest for future growth. But without the right systems in place, you lack the visibility you need and any plans you make are based on out-of-date information.</p>
<p data-id="3db7f2f1-183b-4536-94e5-f67b49664cfa"> </p>
<p data-id="2956eebe-3cde-4920-b224-64159f217c51">Integrated travel and expense management solutions enable your policies to be enforced on individual line items automatically. They also give you near real-time visibility so it is easier to track and forecast spend.</p>
<p data-id="2956eebe-3cde-4920-b224-64159f217c51"> </p>
<h2 data-id="570e383f-7ca9-4b81-bf2a-43d75e16e1ec">Minimizing fraud risk</h2>
<p data-id="0bd716de-2c74-4eb2-ab02-cdd48be5339c">No one likes to think their business is at risk of fraud, but sadly that’s not true. If you have employees, you have fraud risk. Asset misappropriation is by far the most common form of occupational fraud, which T&E falls into, averaging a median loss of $125,000.</p>
<p data-id="0bd716de-2c74-4eb2-ab02-cdd48be5339c"> </p>
<p data-id="cbcf49c8-7700-4b62-b3a6-474469a66d48">And <a href="https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/know-your-suppliers" target="_blank">Action Fraud</a> says it’s believed that as many as 675,000 businesses have fallen victim to a fake invoice fraud at some point in their trading history.</p>
<p data-id="cbcf49c8-7700-4b62-b3a6-474469a66d48"> </p>
<p data-id="3da09b67-65ab-451d-825e-e13deef0c9cd">SAP Concur solutions help enable you to spot duplicate invoices. They also give you a complete audit trail and visibility into spend. It means you are taking steps to protect your business from those less scrupulous than you.</p>
<p data-id="3da09b67-65ab-451d-825e-e13deef0c9cd"> </p>
<h2 data-id="7d9ad62e-47fe-4c94-b538-d5be4668e90c">Managing risk and compliance around employee spend effectively</h2>
<p data-id="4da44e35-b74b-4379-b98f-179b87222231">Only <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/audit-assurance/risk-assurance/services/governance-risk-and-compliance/insights/2018-state-of-compliance-study.html" target="_blank">17% of businesses</a> say they are very satisfied with the effectiveness of their compliance programs. And those businesses were more likely to use technology to help them manage the risks than their peers. </p>
<p data-id="4da44e35-b74b-4379-b98f-179b87222231"> </p>
<p data-id="88961968-28b4-48b3-b1de-32e391126458">Cloud solutions such as SAP Concur give you the visibility you need to manage risk and compliance. And their scalable nature means they will fit your business both now and into the future too. Visit concur.com to learn more about solutions for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/visibility-and-compliance" target="_blank">visibility and compliance</a>.</p>
Fighting Fraud in the Financial Services Industry
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fighting-fraud-financial-services-industry
2019-06-24T12:12:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The financial services industry and the fight against fraud The ACFE recently published their report on global fraud and abuse in the workplace and the findings are eyeopening With...
<h2>The financial services industry and the fight against fraud</h2>
<p data-id="a3d4fbf1-4b22-4a70-8e42-9a220b9a2db5">The ACFE recently published their <a href="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/acfepublic/2018-report-to-the-nations.pdf" target="_blank">2018 report on global fraud and abuse</a> in the workplace, and the findings are eye-opening. With losses from occupational fraud totaling $7 billion last year, organizations worldwide are faced with finding ways to not only combat this behavior, but to recoup losses. The study shows that no industry has gone untouched, and financial services and insurance organizations in particular are feeling the impact of these schemes. However, there are steps companies can take to protect themselves, and by understanding the facts, you can form a plan that will help you tackle fraud head on.</p>
<p data-id="a3d4fbf1-4b22-4a70-8e42-9a220b9a2db5"> </p>
<h2 data-id="ae816fc9-2a57-47f8-84bd-0dba58ad60fe">Financial services industry standings</h2>
<p data-id="dd898254-2188-44af-b515-c0ad8edcbe3a">Where does the financial services industry stand when it comes to occupational fraud? Here are a few interesting facts from the report:</p>
<ul data-id="8a3c5686-8a95-40b6-be53-5c255c21a13e">
<li>The median loss on reported fraud was $153,000 for insurance, and $110,000 for financial services organizations.</li>
<li>The most common occupational fraud schemes for banking and finance were corruption (36%) and cash on hand (23%), whereas insurance experience more instances of corruption (45%) and billing (20%).</li>
<li>The greatest number of fraud cases occurred in the banking and financial services, along with manufacturing, and government and public administration sectors.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2 data-id="97727f7c-a14a-42c5-87b6-f497c9da3fdc">Data visibility and analysis is key</h2>
<p data-id="ee7de702-ccac-409b-963c-c6531ef07738">In an industry that is highly regulated and under strict scrutiny, compliance is key. So what is the best way for a financial service company to control fraud? The key is in data visibility.</p>
<p data-id="ee7de702-ccac-409b-963c-c6531ef07738"> </p>
<p data-id="81298ab3-c18a-4cd8-9129-6d120636d644">The ACFE report found that companies with internal anti-fraud controls had lower instances of fraud. In particular, those organizations that were proactive with data monitoring and analysis brought the largest reductions in fraud loss, with 52% lower losses and 58% faster detection. Surprise audits also brought similar results.</p>
<p data-id="81298ab3-c18a-4cd8-9129-6d120636d644"> </p>
<h2 data-id="6d5551ac-e6dc-4bba-bfe2-39e966a8de9d">Read the full report </h2>
<p data-id="8398f626-6cc0-43d4-9222-259ee68bcc31">The ACFE report goes in depth to discuss more interesting and helpful information surrounding occupational fraud, including detection methods and data surrounding perpetrators. Download your copy of <a href="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/acfepublic/2018-report-to-the-nations.pdf" target="_blank">The Report to the Nations: 2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse</a>, to learn more about the AFCE’s findings and what this means for your organization. Once educated, you can develop an internal plan that will help combat fraud and abuse in your organization.</p>
Courtney Buskirk
Do Governments Have a More Holistic View of Your Spending Than You Do?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-governments-have-more-holistic-view-your-spending-you-do
2019-08-30T10:22:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you cant easily bring travel expense and invoice spending data together from across categories for a single nearrealtime view without cobbling together reports from different...
<p data-id="b3f5f537-e9d2-4cc7-8272-751af2a56df0">If you can’t easily bring travel, expense, and invoice spending data together from across categories for a single, near-real-time view without cobbling together reports from different systems – then yes, governments likely have better visibility into at least some areas of employee spending than you do.</p>
<p data-id="b3f5f537-e9d2-4cc7-8272-751af2a56df0"> </p>
<p data-id="3aaf6802-56af-4399-988c-e2b50b490491">And yes, this should concern you. Because as business has become more digital and real time, your employees are leaving a rich digital exhaust behind them. Every travel reservation, expense charged, and product and service they buy from vendors who send your business an invoice results in a digital data trail that governments are capturing, storing, and analyzing. They’ve invested in systems that bring it all together in one place so they can turn it into insights about your company and staff.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Understanding Intelligent Spend Management</h2>
<p>Find hidden costs and opportunities by capturing every source of spend, across each category, in one unified view. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/intelligent-spend-management-tackling-the-complexities-of-modern-spend-management">Download the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="bd272b6e-335f-466c-b627-f781528f1120"> </p>
<p data-id="bd272b6e-335f-466c-b627-f781528f1120">These data-driven insights can and will be used against your business. As noted in a recent <a href="https://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/session/45754" target="_blank">interview with experts from EY and Goldman Sachs</a>, governments around the world are rapidly analyzing this data to generate higher revenues. Taxes on traditional brick-and-mortar companies are falling in the age of digital business, so they’ve needed to get smart and modernize how they gather data, tax, and enforce laws. For example, in the United States today, state governments are pulling data and sharing it liberally with other states to ensure that all transactions are taxed properly, laws are followed, and noncompliance fines are issued, where appropriate. And in foreign markets, 34 countries are already engaged in BEPS – base erosion and profit sharing – which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) way of tracking spend across country lines.</p>
<p data-id="bd272b6e-335f-466c-b627-f781528f1120"> </p>
<p data-id="1582a9fa-e3d5-426a-a5b8-54ec99d13e31">What’s their goal? To know who is working where and when; what employees spend while traveling; how to maximize tax collection and where there’s noncompliance; and more – all to ensure government coffers are full. They are experts at aggregating and understanding spending, and they use this information to know what companies corporate travelers work for, which ones are in or out of compliance, whether fines are due and how much, what taxes are due based on this spending data, and more. In one case, an executive of a large firm was traveling internationally and was held by airport security because the company he worked for had unpaid taxes to this country. Of course, the situation was resolved, but meanwhile, this employee was held in detention for five days.</p>
<p data-id="1582a9fa-e3d5-426a-a5b8-54ec99d13e31"> </p>
<p data-id="58879832-1c69-4233-845b-97c6577f3620">If your business is like most, you likely have poorer or delayed visibility relative to many state and federal governments today. Typically, spending is spread out across companies – with key spending categories such as direct and indirect, services and external workforce, and travel and expense managed by different teams. At the same time, spending for many categories is increasingly decentralized, as more employees across businesses are empowered to buy what they need to get their work done.</p>
<p data-id="58879832-1c69-4233-845b-97c6577f3620"> </p>
<p data-id="0362ab3c-e1f9-48a8-9465-26163561eb95">Addressing this fragmentation requires total control of each category of spending as well as a broader, comprehensive way to orchestrate spending and policy across categories. But traditional solutions can’t do both. Certainly, each category of spend – from travel and expenses, to direct and indirect, to consultants, contractors, and an extended workforce – has unique nuances that require specific workflow, functionality, and processes. But tackling broader business issues and advising employees about purchases before it’s too late requires being able to work across categories. Only with full transparency into spend, every time money is spent, can companies gain better control. This means all of your systems have to communicate so that all spend data comes together quickly and gives business leaders the visibility to make informed decisions and respond to the rapid pace of change.</p>
<p data-id="0362ab3c-e1f9-48a8-9465-26163561eb95"> </p>
<p data-id="18d2f777-993a-4f64-a06b-94f055ce4347">At SAP Concur solutions, we call this the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/intelligent-spend-management">Intelligent Spend Management</a> concept. It’s the key to ensuring that spending moves the entire business forward and people at all levels can make better spend decisions before it’s too late. Deeper, real-time information is transformative, enabling total control of each category of spending as well as broader orchestration of spending and policy across categories. Intelligent Spend Management also allows your business leaders to strike the delicate balance of optimizing spend while increasing business agility and minimizing business and employee risk.</p>
<p data-id="18d2f777-993a-4f64-a06b-94f055ce4347"> </p>
<p data-id="764573ac-064a-4d23-b624-e78a3f12c1c9">Want to learn more? Watch a <a href="https://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/session/45754">video</a> from the 2019 SAPPHIRE NOW conference with Jim Lucier, president of North America and chief services officer at SAP Concur, to learn about SAP’s vision for intelligent spend management, and hear from EY and Goldman Sachs about their journey to achieve world-class spend management. And download the latest paper from SAP Concur: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/intelligent-spend-management-tackling-the-complexities-of-modern-spend-management" target="_blank">Intelligent Spend Management: Tackling the complexities of modern spend management</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Spending Your Way to Intelligent Business Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spending-your-way-intelligent-business-growth
2019-08-02T09:37:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
No business large or small can afford to rest on its laurels today Continued expansion is critical But as noted in a new paper by CFO successful growth requires more than a...
<p>No business – large or small – can afford to rest on its laurels today. Continued expansion is critical. But as noted in a new paper by CFO, successful growth requires more than a scattershot approach. Winners in the race to grow must be strategic and smart about how they realize their goals, particularly in how they spend money to enable current <strong>and</strong> future business expansion. As noted by Dr. Christian Campagna, senior managing director for CFO and enterprise value within Accenture Strategy, “It is a delicate balancing act of reallocating spending to fund the new business while still maintaining the established business.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being this strategic about spending is extremely difficult for companies using disparate systems, fragmented data, and manual processes to track and manage different types of discretionary spending. This problem is widespread, according to the Aberdeen Group’s 2018 T&E Expense Trends and Benchmarking Spending report, which found that 60% of small and midsize businesses still use spreadsheets and other manual systems to track spending. This means that today, most finance leaders responsible for ensuring their budget is directed toward top priorities lack the real-time visibility, insights, and controls they need to do their jobs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So the big question is: <strong>How can finance leaders proactively manage spending on current business model(s) while simultaneously budgeting for spending needed to propel the company forward?</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>As explored in a new paper by CFO, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/tools-cfos-need-smart-growth" target="_blank">The Tools CFOs Need for Smart Growth</a>, the answer is simple: Use a unified system that integrates travel, expense, and invoice management with ERP and other financial reporting tools and brings automation and artificial intelligence–enabled technologies to the process. This integration enables companies to gain insight into how expenses and cash flow are related, leading to better business decisions that smooth out bumps in the road. Finance leaders can determine, for example, when it makes sense to pay an invoice early to achieve an early payment discount, which frees up more capital to fund a growth program. Similarly, they can advise other line-of-business leaders if it’s worth using a less expensive component in a product or if the savings will be short-sighted at best and hamper future sales opportunities, which will really quash sales revenues.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to learn more about how to spend your way to intelligent business expansion? <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/tools-cfos-need-smart-growth" target="_blank">Download the whitepaper</a>. </strong></p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
New Research Reveals Top Concerns Among Business Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-reveals-top-concerns-among-business-travelers
2019-10-30T07:04:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business Travelers Report Feeling Unsafe With Female and LGBTQ Travelers Regularly Experiencing Harassment According to an SAP Concur Survey BELLEVUE Wash Oct SAP SE NYSE SAP has...
<p>Business Travelers Report Feeling Unsafe, With Female and LGBTQ+ Travelers Regularly Experiencing Harassment According to an SAP® Concur® Survey</p>
<p><strong>BELLEVUE, Wash. — Oct. 30, 2019 — </strong><a href="http://www.sap.com/">SAP SE</a> (NYSE: SAP) has announced the results of a new SAP® Concur® survey revealing that more than three in four female business travelers have suffered harassment while traveling and more than one in two change their plans because of safety concerns. SAP Concur is the world’s leading brand for travel, expense and invoice management solutions. The SAP Concur survey results identified concerns of personal safety while on the road and frustration that some companies seem to put self-interest ahead of employee needs. Notable highlights of the responding 7,850 business travelers in 19 global markets include:</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Concur Business Traveler Report 2019</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/business-traveler-report-2019">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travelers often feel unsafe:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Of the respondents, 58% say they have changed their travel arrangements because they felt unsafe, while 52% of business travelers cite travel safety as the most valuable training their company could provide.</li>
<li>Millennials are more sensitive to current events: In the last 12 months, 42% of business travelers in this age range have reduced travel to a location because of political unrest or health hazards, compared to 36% of Gen Xers and 23% of Baby Boomers. Nearly as many of the Millennials (40%) selected a flight based on aircraft type, compared to 33% of Gen Xers and 21% of Boomers.</li>
<li>Nearly one third (31%) of business travelers prioritize their own safety as the most important factor when taking a business trip, yet over half (54%) believe safety is not their companies’ top priority.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Female travelers report high levels of harassment and sexism on the road:</strong>
<ul>
<li>More than three in four female business travelers (77%) have experienced some sort of harassment or mistreatment while traveling. Women are asked if they’re traveling with their husband (42 %), ignored by service workers (38%), or catcalled on the job (31%).</li>
<li>Nearly half of young female business travelers face discrimination. Forty-six percent of Gen Z women report having been asked if they were traveling with their husband compared to 31% of Boomers. At the same time, 41% of female Millennials have been ignored by service workers compared to 23% of Boomers.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>LGBTQ+ travelers hide aspects of their identity when traveling for work:</strong>
<ul>
<li>The vast majority (95%) of LGBTQ+ travelers have hidden their sexual orientation while on a business trip, with the most common reasons being to protect their safety (57%).</li>
<li>Eighty-five percent have changed their travel arrangements out of concern for their safety, compared to just 53% of their non-LGBTQ+ colleagues.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Business travel isn’t getting easier or less stressful:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Sixty-seven percent believe their company lags behind when it comes to adopting the latest technologies to make business travel easier.</li>
<li>An overwhelming majority of business travelers (94%) are willing to share personal information to improve their business travel experience – an impressive number in an age of data privacy concerns.</li>
<li>Thirty-seven percent of business travelers feel the most stress before a trip when they’re planning, booking and organizing travel. On the flip side, when a traveler returns home, 24% of business travelers say they would rather have a cavity filled at the dentist than complete an expense report.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>“Societal issues and employee experiences are increasingly impacting the way we travel. With these shifts come new expectations from traveling employees that shouldn’t go unnoticed,” said Mike Koetting, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur. “While companies continue to try and maximize traveler satisfaction, the reality is that employees are hungry for more empathy, guidance and better technology as they run into both common frustrations and unique individual concerns, leaving room for improvement among organizations of all sizes.”</p>
<p>Additional findings from the study include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Delays in getting reimbursed for expenses are affecting business travelers’ trust in their companies: </strong>43% report they forfeited expenses in 2018, either because they did not think the expense was worth filing or because their employer never paid them the money owed. On average, in the past year business travelers forfeited $893 from expenses that weren’t reimbursed by their employers.</li>
<li><strong>Employees are eager to embrace booking and expense reporting tools:</strong> More than half of respondents say this is the area of business travel that companies are most behind in adopting. In fact, business travelers who use traditional online booking tools (OBTs) say they offer better information (66%) and are more convenient (65%). Mobile apps are also a focal point, with 73% wanting a mobile app that includes robust booking features.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Download the full white paper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/business-traveler-report-2019">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (<a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com">www.wakefieldresearch.com</a>), a leading independent provider of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research, among 7,850 business travelers defined as those who travel for business three or more times annually from the following markets: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Malaysia, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. The survey took place July–August 2019.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About SAP Concur </strong></p>
<p>SAP® Concur® is the world’s leading brand for integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. The top-rated SAP Concur mobile app guides employees through every trip, charges are effortlessly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to audit 100% of transactions, businesses can see exactly what they’re spending without worrying about blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur solutions eliminate yesterday’s tedious tasks, make today’s work easier, and help businesses run at their best every day. Learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com/">concur.com</a> or the SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom">blog</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About SAP</strong></p>
<p>As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, SAP is market leader in enterprise application software, SAP helps companies run better. SAP applications and services enable our customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.sap.com">www.sap.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p># # #</p>
<p>Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.</p>
<p>© 2019 SAP SE. All rights reserved.<br />
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see <a href="https://www.sap.com/copyright">https://www.sap.com/copyright</a> for additional trademark information and notices.</p>
<p><strong>For more information, press only:</strong></p>
<p>Alex Vaught, <a href="mailto:concurpr@sap.com">concurpr@sap.com</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.news-sap.com/press-room/">SAP News Center press room</a>; <a href="mailto:press@sap.com">press@sap.com</a><br />
Follow SAP on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/sapnews/">@sapnews</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Please consider our <a href="https://www.sap.com/corporate/en/legal/privacy.html">privacy policy</a>. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list, please contact <a href="mailto:press@sap.com">press@sap.com</a> and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How People Analytics Can Drive New Business Insights
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-people-analytics-can-drive-new-business-insights
2019-12-10T10:17:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
People analytics is a hot business topic and rightfully so Organizations need to leverage the plethora of data thats generated today to glean patterns about untapped talent potential...
<p>People analytics is a hot business topic and rightfully so. Organizations need to leverage the plethora of data that’s generated today to glean patterns about untapped talent potential, ways to positively impact productivity, and opportunities for growth and innovation.</p>
<p>Analytics practitioners often focus only on top-level data sources (sales quotas, expenses, performance ratings, etc.). However, there are new types of data and ways to analyze them that can provide insights to help keep your employees happy and productive. Organizations that don’t examine patterns about the largest part of their balance sheet – their people – will be left behind in retaining and developing employees, influencing business outcomes, and potentially surviving in the long run.</p>
<p>As a relatively young field, there are many misconceptions about people analytics. Here are three of the biggest myths and what you need to know as your organization dives into the data:</p>
<h2><br />
Myth #1: People analytics involves just one kind of analytics</h2>
<p>While people analytics can be performed through many frameworks, there are three general categories of analytics work.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The foundational analytics</strong> gives your organization a consistent language to understand workforce dynamics and detect early signs of issues to investigate. This foundation should have the following elements at its core:
<ul>
<li><strong>A “golden copy”</strong> of high-quality workforce data, which includes historical trends to help you answer “What has happened or is happening now?”</li>
<li><strong>Standard measurements and definitions</strong> based on that data (headcount, turnover, hiring, movement, diversity, etc.) that enable business leaders to understand, in a consistent and repeatable way, how well they are managing the workforce. These measurements can help you identify trends that normally would be difficult to spot, like attrition spikes or certain positions that take longer to fill.</li>
<li><strong>Easy-to-navigate visualizations</strong> that users, with the appropriate access levels, can access across the organization.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Advanced analytics</strong> is data collected during the workforce lifecycle that have an impact on important outcomes. It leverages and augments foundational data with more sophisticated types of data and analyses to address questions like “Why has a certain outcome happened and what can we do differently to improve it?” and “What new insights can we make available across the organization?”</li>
</ol>
<p>Business leaders, including in HR, are increasingly being asked to link the impact of actions they take, such as initiatives and programs affecting customer service, employment brand, and employee experience, to measurable outcomes. With advanced analytics, you can develop insights and identify the interventions that will have the most positive impact. For example, understanding that having three people cycle through one management role in a single year is correlated with higher attrition of their team members, which then results in significant cost to replace the individuals and a decrease in customer satisfaction, could help HR make a great business case for creating a program to increase manager and team stability.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Research, development, and experimentation.</strong> Just like product and service development, analytics can benefit from R&D. As the organization introduces technologies in the workplace, new data sources and analytics techniques can offer workplace behavior insights, and enhance the organization’s ability to positively influence the overall employee experience. This category of analysis is answering the questions “What are we not thinking about yet? What could be the unintended consequences of some of our actions, practices, or tools? How can we learn something new?” For example, during a pilot program of social sensors, data analysis uncovers a pattern of movement of employees near a specific area. Can you change the pattern to introduce serendipity and encourage people to meet each other and have a conversation? Will the change impact innovation or the cohesion of the team?</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Myth #2: You need expensive technology to implement people analytics</h2>
<p>To get started with people analytics, you don’t need big investments in technology. You need something much simpler: the business question you want to answer. Once you have a good understanding of the question, you can back into the data needed to answer that question; then, you can move on to telling a story with the data. Start with a simple spreadsheet and run some numbers to see if a compelling story develops. A picture tells a better story than rows and rows of data do, so use visualization tools to support your story. Effective storytelling with data will increase the likelihood of that project, budget, or change gaining approval with decision makers.</p>
<p>Data analytics can become complex, as data flows in different forms and from varied sources – for example, large amounts of text in multiple languages or unstructured data. But this complexity also allows you to create more in-depth answers to your key business questions. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>Can you detect sentiment in how people express themselves in the chatter on internal social platforms? And can you track how sentiment is spreading across geographies?</li>
<li>Is there a relationship between significant external public events (like an ousted CEO or taking an unpopular stance on a social issue) and the spike in attrition?</li>
<li>Can you integrate data from smart building sensors or chatbot interactions? And can that data point to ways to improve productivity or team collaboration?</li>
</ul>
<p><br />
As you get into more complex manipulation and modeling massive amounts of unstructured data, you’ll discover opportunities to incorporate predictive capabilities using more sophisticated statistical analysis, machine learning, and AI.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Myth #3: People Analytics is for HR only</h2>
<p>While people analytics is usually considered an HR function, there are many other groups and departments that can benefit from people analytics as well, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Workspace planning and design. </strong>People analytics can help forecast workforce size and composition; look at the trends impacting workforce behaviors (remote or co-working space preferences, for example); and drive projections for physical space allocation and configuration to maximize desired outcomes, such as increased productivity or collaboration. Given that many of us can (and do) work from our devices and are untethered to a physical space, an interesting question that organizations can think about is how the digital infrastructure, as a workspace, is just as important as the physical one. This can bring the real estate/space planning and IT departments together to design a workplace experience that integrates both the physical and digital worlds.</li>
<li><strong>Work design. </strong>Labor shortages are making headlines and one big factor that I believe is amplifying the problem is job descriptions. Hiring managers typically take a job description from a prior source (a previous manager, one found online, etc.), add a few cool tool names, sprinkle a few “purpose and passion” statements, and then go on a “unicorn hunt.” There are just not that many data scientists who earned a PhD in neurobiology, have 15 years of experience, speak five languages, and are still “early in their career” (a proxy for “cheap”).</li>
</ul>
<p>Through analytics, however, you can deconstruct job descriptions to understand what needs to get done, so that you can reframe assumptions that get in the way of finding the right employees and reimagine how certain functions exist. For example, some work might not require face-to-face interaction; a remote work program could solve hiring issues for such roles.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automation, integration, and employee experience. </strong>I recently heard a quote that automation and AI is removing the robot out of the human. So true! It’s time to bring human-centered design to the workplace and pair it with technology to automate routine, boring, mundane tasks. Leave the engaging, creative, stimulating tasks to the humans! Imagine how much productivity your employees can gain by integrating all their tools, so they don’t have to remember seven passwords that expire frequently or re-enter things multiple times. People analytics can help you track the efficacy of such changes.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Organizations that bring customer-centric solutions to their products and services are the leaders that capture the hearts and minds of their customers – along with wallet- and market-share. People analytics can help bring the same experience to the workplace. For example, if you can forecast your headcount over the next 12 or 24 months, you can also project the associated expenses (travel, equipment, licenses, network capacity, etc.) and not only have a more accurate budget, timely fulfillment, and better planning cycles for all the involved functions, but also a smoother onboarding of new hires, shorter time to productivity, and higher ratings on Glassdoor. </p>
<p>Another example: If your spend data shows an increase in employee travel to a particular region, this could be an opportunity to set-up and negotiate better infrastructure and accommodations (i.e., longer-term rentals, flexible office space, localized technology solutions, etc.) that not just saves money, but improves the employee experience for those travelers, and shows thoughtfulness of the organization and care for its employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Conclusion </strong></p>
<p>Through people analytics you can understand the perception and sentiment of your workforce regarding areas, technology, or processes that are irritants or barriers to their ability to perform, and insights on where to focus your efforts to better the employee experience. Ultimately this will create an environment where people feel they are heard, with fewer silos that impede collaboration, and a better experience that unleashes creativity, productivity, and offers a great employment value proposition.</p>
<p>One area of people analytics that can have a direct effect on your bottom line is how your people spend, from travel expenses to outstanding invoices. Get expert help on maximizing your spend data with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis" target="_blank">Consultative Intelligence from SAP Concur</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Stela Lupushor is the founder of <a href="https://www.reframe.work/" target="_blank">Reframe.Work Inc.</a>, a consulting firm that helps organizations prepare for digital transformation by changing the workplace at the intersection of technology, design, HR, and analytics. Previously, she led the analytics function and worked in a variety of management consulting roles at several Fortune 100 companies. She is a sought-after speaker on the topics of People Analytics and the Future of Work.</p>
Stela Lupshor
4 Questions to Ask When Interviewing B2B Payment Providers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-questions-ask-when-interviewing-b2b-payment-providers
2020-02-27T11:25:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Thanks to the internet and new technology businesses are saving moneyand even generating entirely new revenue streamssimply by changing the way they pay suppliers Checks are being...
<p>Thanks to the internet and new technology, businesses are saving money—and even generating entirely new revenue streams—simply by changing the way they pay suppliers. Checks are being replaced with faster, easier and more secure digital payment methods and, in the process, businesses are reconsidering their overall accounts payable operations.</p>
<p>But who should you partner with in optimizing and implementing an electronic payments program? Not all fintechs are created equal, so keep the following four questions in mind as you consider which payment provider is best-suited to deliver on your program goals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Is the payments solution customized or out-of-the-box? </h2>
<p>Every business has different needs related to payment volume, timing and type, not to mention processes and systems. Finding a payment provider who can meet you where you are and help you transform your accounts payable to reach your goals can be challenging. So, consider your objectives!</p>
<p>Are you looking to cut payment processing costs? Reduce headcount or repurpose employees? Minimize processing time? Reduce exposure to fraud? Maximize your credit card rebate? All of the above? Look for a payment provider who will work with you to define program objectives that uniquely support your business goals, from delivery and implementation to optimization and growth, all the way through review and analysis. A good relationship with your payment provider means just that—a relationship—not a premade solution.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>2. When a payment provider says “vendor analysis” what do they mean?</h2>
<p>If you’re currently paying a high volume of your invoices by check, there’s a huge opportunity for you to create new revenue and reduce workload by paying your bills via card, instead. But will your suppliers accept card? That’s where vendor analysis, from a fintech perspective, comes into play—and it’s a critical component of an effective payment strategy.</p>
<p>Many payment providers generate this kind of analysis in order to establish program expectations, but it’s important to understand how they arrived at their conclusions. Eric Riddle, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CSI, said, “In predicting the likelihood that a vendor will accept cards, we look at hundreds of thousands of accepting vendor records from within our internal database, which houses 20 years’ worth of information, as well as likely accepting vendor data from Mastercard and Visa.”</p>
<p>You can also ask payment providers about how they define program metrics and what their client success rate is—how often do they deliver on their vendor analysis predictions? How will they measure the success of your program?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. How does the payment provider support onboarding new vendors? </h2>
<p>It’s important to prepare your suppliers for automated and digital payments in order to avoid processing issues and soured relationships. Consider how a payment provider handles communication around this transition—especially if you have a strong preference about when, how and from whom the communication originates.</p>
<p>Some businesses prefer to manage supplier relationships, themselves, so they can introduce changes related to payment method or timing. Other times, it’s really helpful to let your payment provider take care of the transition for you. In that case, do you have input or final approval over messaging? Or, maybe a blended approach—with outreach responsibilities shared between you and your payment provider—would work best.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. How well does their platform integrate with your systems? </h2>
<p>Finally, take a look at the payment platform, itself. Can the payment provider’s technology integrate with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and invoicing systems, and will it transmit all of the remittance data necessary for reconciliation? And, if so, can the payment platform sync with those systems one-way, or can information flow two-ways? Do you have the flexibility to determine which system serves as your ultimate source of truth for reconciliation between systems? Finally, how do you transmit data—manually, via SFTP or through an API?</p>
<p>Ultimately, you want to make sure that you choose a payment platform that can accommodate the systems you have in place, at the frequency (daily, hourly, real-time, etc.) you require, with options for one-off or batched invoice payments.</p>
Stefanie Nelsen
Maintaining the Employee Experience Even When Working from Home
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maintaining-employee-experience-even-when-working-home
2021-02-24T13:01:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Updated February We know from research that a positive employee experience is good for business Quite simply organizations that create exceptional experiences for employees see...
<p>Updated February 2021</p>
<p>We know from research that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/better-employee-experience-better-business-results" target="_blank">a positive employee experience is good for business</a>. Quite simply, organizations that create exceptional experiences for employees see exceptional results:</p>
<ul>
<li>17% higher productivity</li>
<li>21% higher profitability</li>
<li>24% lower staff turnover.</li>
</ul>
<p>And in the current situation, maintaining and enhancing the employee experience is even more important. Because when your team is engaged and on side, everyone emerges connected, committed and ready to move forward with purpose.</p>
<p>Here are three thoughts on how businesses could enhance their employee experience – and add value to the business.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>6 Steps to Improve Employee Experience and the Bottom Line</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/6-steps-for-finance-leaders-to-improve-employee-experience-and-the-bottom-line">Get the free guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fulfil your duty of care for home workers</h2>
<p>As an employer you have a duty of care to your employees and this covers their emotional well-being, as well as their physical safety.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/a-guide-to-managing-your-newly-remote-workers" target="_blank">Harvard Business Review</a>, three leadership and management experts comment that loneliness is one of the most common complaints about remote working; they highlight that this isolation can cause employees to feel less a part of their organization and even make them <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2008-16251-016.html" target="_blank">more likely to want to leave the company</a>.</p>
<p>To combat this, their suggestions include regular structured check-ins with staff, both in team situations and one-on-one. They also advise facilitating social interaction to maintain interpersonal relationships. This helps maintain the sense of ‘belonging’.</p>
<p>You should also consider how to support employees as they transition to working from home, especially if it’s new to them. Remind them about the importance of structure and routine, and encourage them to create a dedicated, ergonomic workspace. However, <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/pages/how-to-engage-remote-employees-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic.aspx" target="_blank">as the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) points out</a>, working remotely can make it it difficult to carve out a healthy work/life balance. "As a result, you should communicate to your employees the importance of creating boundaries. Suggest that they work their normal hours and then step away from the computer until it's time to start working the next day." The organization <a href="https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/remote-work-has-become-the-new-normal.aspx" target="_blank">also recommends</a> that employers change thier productivity mindset, encourging them "to take steps to lighten things up and help reduce feelings of isolation."</p>
<p>Likewise, it's important to keep in mind that their lives and homes may be under a great deal of pressure during this moment. Many employees are juggling childcare as well as work, while others are living entirely by themselves – which can amplify feelings of isolation. <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/human-resources/encouraging-productivity-for-remote-workers" target="_blank">The U.S. Chamber of Commerce suggests</a> "leaders should additionally encourage self-care among employees, who mentally are trying to adapt to remote work, the stress of new environments and the stress of daily updates around COVID-19. Managers should advocate for remote employees to exercise, get quality sleep, take showers, and continue on with lives as normally as they can."</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Review your work from home expense policies </h2>
<p>With so many employees working from home, it’s likely your expense policy is being put to the test. Take the opportunity to review it and make sure it’s fit for this new purpose.</p>
<p>Similarly, your expense policy may need to be reviewed or amended, even if it’s only temporarily. For example, while under normal circumstances employees would not be allowed to reclaim broadband or heating costs, this may need to be reviewed in these circumstances. And if you provide free or subsidized food on site, will staff be able to make a subsistence claim for lunch while working from home?</p>
<p>Thinking about these things will demonstrate your practical commitment to your employees.</p>
<p><strong>See also: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">How to create a remote employee expense policy</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Providing care in a time of uncertaintiy means rethinking the way things have always been done </h2>
<p>Many businesses will seize this opportunity to look at things from a brand-new perspective and make changes while there is time and headspace to do so. Processes that were cumbersome before may simply not work in this new, remote world. How could they be improved so they put people first, be more efficient, and better fit-for-purpose in abnormal times?</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-03-25-gartner-identifies-six-initiatives-hr-can-undertake-t" target="_blank">report from Gartner </a>says, “While managers and employees may understandably become more risk-averse in this uncertain environment, it is during these times of change and disruption that innovation and risk-taking become even more important for employee engagement and organizational success. Even when the organization has constraints on new investments, managers can emphasize the need and provide opportunities for incremental innovation or process improvements. This can be particularly meaningful if it addresses a challenge the team or organization is facing related to process disruptions or business impact.”</p>
<p>Now is the time to reach out and rethink prior processes because keeping employees engaged and connected is really important for good business. Just because it’s the way things have always been done, doesn’t mean it’s sufficient.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more: </h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-companies-doing-to-prepare-for-the-return-to-travel">What are Companies Doing to Prepare for the Return to Travel?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-in-trip-it">COVID-19 Travel Guidance in TripIt</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-3-things-youll-need-to-get-ppp-forgiveness">The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-a-small-business">Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Trust in Business Leaders is Falling. Here are 3 Actions to Take Now
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/trust-business-leaders-falling-here-are-3-actions-take-now
2020-06-25T12:49:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The Coronavirus pandemic caused a seismic shift in the trust of our institutions with government businesses NGOs and newsmedia rising in esteem But not everyone is...
<p>The Coronavirus pandemic caused a seismic shift in the trust of our institutions, with government, businesses, NGOs and news-media rising in esteem. But not everyone is coming out unscathed: Verdicts in the court of public opinion are tipping in the wrong direction for senior leaders of the world’s corporations. This news comes from a new <a href="https://www.edelman.com/research/trust-2020-spring-update" target="_blank">Trust Barometer</a> survey by the global communications firm <a href="https://www.edelman.com/" target="_blank">Edelman</a>, which also provides recommendations for how we can adapt to the shifting landscape on trust. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why trust in major institutions is on the rise </h2>
<p>Edelman’s survey conducted this year in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, shows that governments have become the world’s most trusted institutions for the first time in 20 years. Governmental institutions surged 11 points since January, with 63% of respondents indicating strong trust, and trust in government leaders themselves rose by 13 points. </p>
<p>The survey makes it clear why governments are gaining: “The speed and scale of the lockdowns, the brave performance of the public health services and the extent of public expenditure to support the private sector have shown government taking quick decisive action,” explains Richard Edelman, the firm’s CEO. “This is a stunning turnaround for government, which has always languished at or near the bottom of the trust hierarchy.” </p>
<p>Other beneficiaries from the changing trust landscape include businesses and non-governmental organizations, which are right behind government, each with matching trust ratings of 62%. The news-media rose to 55% —a substantial change for an institution that dipped below 50% several times throughout the last 15 years. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Warning signs for business leaders — and how they can rise to the occasion </h2>
<p>These are among the indicators of the way forward for businesses, which can take three major actions to fortify trust during the pandemic and beyond: </p>
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<p><strong>Put employees first</strong>: Business leaders need to regularly communicate with employees about measures to keep them safe, and to protect their income and positions to the degree possible. Once this is being done sufficiently, these moves should be communicated with customers, partners, and the broader public. </p>
</li>
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<p><strong>Clarify your mission and support for the community</strong>: Many companies have a broader purpose than profit, yet large portions of the public may not be aware or believe those missions are merely slogans. In addition to clarifying and amplifying corporate missions, now is also the time for those who can afford it to assess financial support for community organizations, including nonprofits that help those hit hardest by the pandemic. Edelman’s survey confirmed the public’s wide-ranging concern for societal inequities that impact those with less education and financial advantages, which are amplified by the pandemic. </p>
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<p><strong>Make leadership visible</strong>: Edelman’s survey reveals an enormous opportunity for CEOs and other top business leaders to speak to the public more assertively and frequently, especially at a time in which the foundations of society have been shaken. When they speak, they must address the expectation that business leaders will innovate, collaborate, and invest to repair the communities in which they operate. Just as business leaders report quarterly and annual results to shareholders and others, they should also regularly report to the larger public how their organizations are improving, year-over-year, in helping others. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed by Edelman said a brand’s response to the crisis will include future purchase decisions. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We are in an era of fast, often jarring, change. The pandemic has amplified existing concerns about the place of our institutions. Those of us in the business community have a responsibility to put our employees and communities first, and to explain how we are turning those responsibilities into action. The world is watching. </p>
<p><br />
<strong>To learn more, watch <a href="https://go.concur.com/how-businesses-are-acting-with-certainty-in-uncertain-times-registration-0620.html" target="_blank">Chris Juneau’s webinar with Edelman’s Jim Prosser, on Edelman’s annual “Trust Barometer” survey.</a> </strong></p>
Christopher Juneau
SAP Concur Expands Concur TripLink in EMEA with TripIt Pro
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-expands-concur-triplink-emea-tripit-pro
2020-07-13T13:13:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink was the first solution of its kind to extend the benefits of a managed travel program to direct supplier bookings by giving companies visibility into their employees...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> was the first solution of its kind to extend the benefits of a managed travel program to direct supplier bookings by giving companies visibility into their employees’ travel regardless of where the booking takes place. The solution also gives employees access to their company’s negotiated rates and any additional ticket types or booking options that are available on supplier websites, while still allowing travel managers to administer policy and get a consolidated view of all travel program data. </p>
<p>Now, Concur TripLink is being expanded in EMEA with the addition of TripIt Pro. This gives companies visibility into even more travel bookings, and a way to enhance employee satisfaction by providing sustainability and safety tools as part of their travel programs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increase travel program satisfaction with tools that help travelers</h2>
<p><a>TripIt </a>the world’s highest-rated travel-organizing app, is now available to all Concur TripLink customers across EMEA in its premium version, TripIt Pro. The app has also been adapted into <a href="https://www.concur.fr/newsroom/article/sap-concur-renforce-la-solution-concur-trip-link-dans-la-region-emea" target="_blank">French</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.de/newsroom/article/concur-triplink-loesung-in-emea-um-tripit-pro-erweitert" target="_blank">German</a> and British English, and now supports travelers in these local languages.</p>
<p>TripIt Pro keeps travelers organized and one step ahead, with helpful alerts and updates throughout their trip. This makes every trip easier for travelers and gives companies an easy way to boost travel program satisfaction.</p>
<p>TripIt Pro also gives companies a way to extend the support they provide to their travelers, with features that range from helping employees track and offset their carbon footprint to showing health and safety scores for the neighborhoods they are visiting.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expand travel program visibility across multiple booking channels</h2>
<p>Concur TripLink connects travelers, trips, and itineraries across multiple channels. This gives companies a consolidated view of all travel program data that makes it easier to provide duty of care and apply negotiated rates and travel policies to booking made in multiple channels.</p>
<p>Concur TripLink captures travel bookings directly through its global network of connected suppliers, which includes popular suppliers like Lufthansa, British Airways, Accor, Sixt, Booking.com, and Trainline Europe, among others. With the addition of TripIt Pro, travelers can now also forward almost any type of travel plan—including train, flight, and hotel reservations that are booked through suppliers or online travel agencies that aren’t part of the Concur TripLink supplier network—to <a href="mailto:plans@tripit.com">plans@tripit.com</a> and that reservation is organized into a master itinerary within their TripIt account. Those bookings are then also made available to travel managers within their SAP Concur offering, alongside bookings made in Concur Travel or directly with connected suppliers, giving companies visibility into travel plans regardless of where they are booked.</p>
<p>By increasing visibility into bookings made across multiple channels, Concur TripLink has captured more than $2 billion in supplier-direct bookings between 2017 and 2019 from approximately 14 million eligible users across 15,000 organizations. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For more information about Concur TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink" target="_blank">Concur.com/TripLink</a> </p>
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SAP Concur Team
Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 3
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/returning-work-and-travel-cdc-and-sap-concur-customers-share-their-perspectives-part-3
2020-10-21T11:44:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Part Returning to Travel In part two we discussed planning for a return to the workplace And just like adjusting work habits adjusting the approach taken to travel is critical The...
<h2>Part 3: Returning to Travel</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-2">part two</a> we discussed planning for a return to the workplace. And, just like adjusting work habits, adjusting the approach taken to travel is critical. The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/ask-cdc.html" target="_blank">Centers for Disease Control</a> during a <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">July 16 webinar</a> recommended only essential business travel at this time. But what is essential business travel?</p>
<p>“In my personal view ‘business essential travel’ would be deemed as ‘revenue generating’ travel and business operations essential followed by customer facing, as permitted,” adds Ralph Colunga, SAP Concur Thought Leader of T&E. </p>
<p>When your employees do return to travel, it’s important to assess the risk involved. As discussed by <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/ask-cdc.html" target="_blank">CDC’s</a> Team Lead Allison Taylor Walker, PhD, MPH, here are some questions to ask:</p>
<p>All these are crucial to answer in order to return to travel safely. If you do end up traveling, you can mitigate risk by taking these steps:</p>
<ul>
<li>Is there a COVID-19 outbreak at your destination?</li>
<li>Is there a COVID-19 outbreak in my community that I could possibly spread?</li>
<li>Will I be able to safely socially distance and quarantine if necessary?</li>
</ul>
<p>All these are crucial to answer in order to return to travel safely. If you do end up traveling, you can mitigate risk by taking these steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Wash hands often. (If soap and water are not available, use hand sanitizer with more than 60% alcohol.)</li>
<li>Avoid touching eyes and mouth.</li>
<li>Avoid close contact with others.</li>
<li>Wear a cloth covering.</li>
<li>Cover coughs and sneezes.</li>
</ol>
<p>In addition to the advice above, many companies are following these best practices on their return-to-travel journey while keeping their plans agile:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Putting traveler health, safety, and well-being first:</strong> Many customers are ensuring that all employee information, such as mobile number, is updated in travel profiles, as well as making sure their online booking tool models current policies with helpful pop-up information. Ensuring travelers have access to apps such as TripIt Pro can alert travelers when flights change (<a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center" target="_blank">see the new traveler resource center</a>) and give safety information upon arrival. Having the ability to track and communicate with all employees, not just travelers, is also emerging as <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-duty-of-care">duty of care</a> expands beyond just international travelers and expatriates.</li>
<li><strong>Developing a resilient travel policy:</strong> There’s a strong desire to connect people, processes, and systems so companies can quickly approve or review visibility into who is seeking travel and where (or when) a trip is booked, before company dollars are spent. The workflow for such a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">tool</a> is being viewed not only by direct managers but also company security, medical, or travel teams who support a company’s duty of care policy. In some countries, such as Brazil, this approval is commonly accepted, but in the U.S., this was seen as an inconvenience in the past. This pre-trip tool also reduces the fluid visa or immigration issues that are evolving.</li>
<li><strong>Taking a safely phased approach to travel:</strong> Customers have their eyes set on incorporating travel booked <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">outside of their corporate booking tool</a> into one platform. By doing so, travelers have more options as situations change, while companies can stop T&E leakage that happens, despite everyone’s best efforts. </li>
<li><strong>Discovering that ground transportation is a new priority:</strong> Travel departments can help prioritize recommended providers (like ride shares or private car services) based on their cleanliness regime. Employees may look to use personal or rental forms of transportation in place of flying when possible, or use private car services or ride-share services. Figuring out how to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/calculating-mileage-doesnt-have-to-be-painful">automate mileage</a> into expense reports is being addressed by many now.</li>
<li><strong>Bringing a new lens for travel partners:</strong> Many companies are using advanced reporting tools to help them re-assess their travel suppliers, ensuring that they are aligned with safety goals and flexibility is required. </li>
<li><strong>Enhancing the user experience:</strong> Companies are spending endless hours on how to make the new travel experience easier for employees. Travelers need a reliable app that can not only book travel and capture their expenses at the same time, but also connect to partners and other apps that will make their journey easier and safer. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is your company more likely to consider installing a pre-trip approval process before employees travel?</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1596170612750-4.jpg" /></p>
<p>Source: Return to Work and Return to Travel, <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpsaE1XSmtOMkZoTVdKbCIsInQiOiJQWDhpQmVxTDV3VEE2Y0hEXC9pa3hRSXlPM2ZYUkdVTnZOclZaaXB0VGZJVkJId1o0ZldCWGdodG0wekM3UFZJVTlHWmlcLzVhN1wvVlozMW4wR2VPM2x4bEN5SktwTkJCWXI0OVVscHFDYktQTVVyTjdIMWJ1UkpGNmhpTldyOWUyTiJ9&eventid=2281591&sessionid=1&key=8EE3F4A92AF40FB107D97CCFE9D72248&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">SAP Concur webinar, July 16</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>For more information</h2>
<p>Listen to the Return to Work Return to Travel webinar with the CDC and SAP Concur T&E expert Ralph Colunga to get additional insights to help your company return to its journey ahead. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/ask-cdc.html" target="_blank">Email the CDC</a> with any other questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also: </h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share Their Perspectives, Part 1</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-2">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share their Perspectives, Part 2</a></p>
Erin Giordano
How To Tell a Great Story – and Have Fun Doing It – During These Unique and Challenging Times
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-tell-great-story-and-have-fun-doing-it-during-these-unique-and-challenging-times
2020-09-11T12:17:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The COVID pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of how work is conducted This new normal was at the forefront of our minds this summer as we sought to create two new online video...
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of how work is conducted. This “new normal” was at the forefront of our minds this summer as we sought to create two new online video advertisements that speak to the challenges faced by small and mid-sized businesses. The videos we had in mind would need to speak to the reality that, on top of having to worry about the health of their businesses during an economic downturn, working from home has also been a big adjustment. We wanted to make it clear that SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">solutions</a> make this new work environment much easier.</p>
<p>I am sharing our experiences putting the ads together because other organizations – including our thousands of customers – might benefit from hearing how we overcame pandemic-era challenges during the production. The overarching puzzle we faced was how to create these videos while adhering to necessary and important state and federal health guidelines. “No ad is worth risking the health and safety of our team and contactors,” Kate Ratliffe, our director of advertising, rightly points out.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most creative solution that Kate’s team came up with was around how to shoot at least one of the ads with actors that could interact with each other – and not from six feet away. The answer was elegant and effective: The team hired a family. In the spot, a woman appears to be enjoying a spa treatment to sounds of a pan-flute until the camera zooms out and reveals her to be filing an expense report from home. Viewers also learn that the spa’s ad-hoc staff members are her daughters. What viewers don’t realize is that the girls are the actor’s real-life children.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1599665191190-daughters.jpg" /></p>
<p>“Casting an actual family went a long way in ensuring that the actors had great chemistry,” Kate says. “Making it a family affair also helped in making sure they were comfortable enough with each other that unusual aspects of the shoot, such as staying well away from the small crew and constant sanitizing and cleaning, didn’t get in the way of their energy. This also minimized the bubbles of people involved.”</p>
<p>Acting is a family affair for Los Angeles’s, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mehalinajewels/?hl=en" target="_blank">Michelle Kopacz</a>. “It was so much fun,” she remarked after the production wrapped. “My girls had just told me they wanted to appear in something with me when this job came along. It was my seven-year-old’s first acting job. And my 12-year-old, who loves to ham it up, her personality came through perfectly.” Kopacz also works as a teacher, and like most of us, she’s also working from home these days. So, in one sense, this shoot was just another day at the office for the Kopacz family.</p>
<p>Another issue was how to spur creativity on-set. This was a significant problem to solve, as these videos were written to be humorous. People don’t always expect laughs in business-to-business advertising, which is why we use it in unexpected ways to capture the audience’s attention. Kate worried, however, that with the production team, actors, and creative team all working apart, it would detract from the energy and improvisation that usually happens when people can work together directly.</p>
<p>Part of the solution was to use digital communication tools like Zoom to communicate across continents – as our team is global – and to hire a director that is flexible and collaborative. That’s where Director <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-laden-9226294/" target="_blank">Dave Laden</a>, from <a href="http://hungryman.com/" target="_blank">Hungry Man Productions</a>, came in. Thanks to his many talents, he was able to spur nearly the same level of collaboration virtually throughout the eight-hour shoot. “The SAP Concur team, and our creative agency, <a href="https://www.omnicomgroup.com/our-agencies/bbdo/" target="_blank">BBDO</a>, all sat on the video conference for the entirety of the production day and immersed ourselves in the shoot through our laptops,” Kate told me. “We were able to able to provide feedback and ideas in real time.”</p>
<p>So, while we hope the world goes back to normal sooner rather than later, with a little ingenuity and adaptability, it’s still possible to create great outcomes in new ways. Please see the full spots below. And if you are an organization struggling to manage your operations from home, please visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur.com</a> to learn how we can help.</p>
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Christopher Juneau
Running Government Finance from Home: Tools to Help You Manage Remote Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/running-government-finance-home-tools-help-you-manage-remote-work
2020-11-09T17:11:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
COVID has caused considerably worse problems for considerably more businesses but the daytoday impact on state and local governments is no picnic to say the least For starters of...
<p>COVID-19 has caused considerably worse problems for considerably more businesses, but the day-to-day impact on state and local governments is no picnic, to say the least.</p>
<p>For starters, 67% of staff have accepted three or more new responsibilities to help manage the chaos caused by work-from-home demands and the inability of aging infrastructure to keep up. This, according to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/examining-and-optimizing-remote-work-for-state-and-local-governments">Wakefield Whitepaper</a> and survey of 500 state and local government finance and administrative departments – 88% of whom reported that accessing the information and tools to do their job are the top challenges of remote working.</p>
<p>To put it simply: Working from home isn’t working for many government finance teams. At least not without some high-tech help.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>Optimizing Remote Work for State and Local Governments</h2>
<p>How to support Finance in the new normal</p>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/examining-and-optimizing-remote-work-for-state-and-local-governments">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Does any of this sound familiar? Limited remote access to files, limited communication technology, and limited automation of processes are the top challenges for most state and local governments, but predicted average budget shortfalls of 24% for the upcoming fiscal year are a close second. And when you add in the fact that 89% of state and local governments do not have a fully automated platform to track travel and/or expenses, remote fiscal stewardship gets quite difficult. So without an investment in technology to alleviate these information and communication concerns, how can your department – and the citizen who depend on you – get through?</p>
<p>Now the good news. Wakefield reports that 75% of state and local governments say the pandemic has accelerated their department’s decision to invest in cloud-based budget management solutions. This will allow them to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Automate expense reimbursement and invoice processes.</li>
<li>Use mobile tech (paperless expense reports and receipts) to increase adoption and compliance.</li>
<li>Access real-time expense information.</li>
<li>Improve visibility into spending.</li>
</ul>
<p>By giving people easier tools to track and manage their spending, government finance and admin departments will get a better look at the spending that’s happening. And like they say, you can’t control something if you can’t see it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/examining-and-optimizing-remote-work-for-state-and-local-governments">The whitepaper</a> also suggests that partnerships with the private sector may help speed government’s digital transformation, noting that 31% of officials say private industry could show them how to track process end to end or integrate digital collaboration across departments. One-quarter of government officials said private companies could help them with automation or real-time data analytics.</p>
<p>Think about that for a second: Private industry and the public sector working together to improve processes, increase efficiency, and cut costs. That’s an idea that not only works for your overworked government staff, it works for all of us.</p>
<p>Because anytime the government saves money, everyone saves money.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Are Your Processes Clouding Your Spending Picture?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-your-processes-clouding-your-spending-picture
2020-11-24T13:56:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Managing your spending has never been more important or more difficult And if your processes and policies arent adapting to remotework realities youre probably seeing even less of your...
<p>Managing your spending has never been more important or more difficult. And if your processes and policies aren’t adapting to remote-work realities, you’re probably seeing even less of your spending than you were before 2020 threw all the rules out the window.</p>
<p>There is a way to bring order to all this chaos, however, and it begins with visibility. Simplifying your processes and clearing up your policies will go a long way toward sharpening the spending picture, but how do you do that?</p>
<p>To get the answer, you have to ask a few more questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do your corporate card policies and your processes support each other?</h2>
<p>Data is critical to managing compliance, and the best spending data you’re going to see is from your corporate card. It’s a direct look at what is actually being spent – and it’s not only accurate, it’s automated. So if an employee adds a $20 tip to a $30 meal, you’ll see it and can do something about it.</p>
<p>If, however, that employee (or any of the hundreds or thousands you employ) pays out of pocket, you may not see the non-compliant behavior, and, as a result, you can’t enforce your policies.</p>
<p>So ask yourself:</p>
<ul>
<li>Do we want everyone to have – and use – a corporate card?</li>
<li>Do our policies support that corporate card commitment? </li>
<li>If not, and if we want to offer more payment flexibility, do we have the processes in place to protect us?</li>
<li>Do we have audit rules to assess and correct out-of-policy bookings, overspending, and fraud?</li>
</ul>
<p>These are not easy questions, but there’s no question about their importance. Especially now, when spending oversight is more critical than ever. Here are a few more questions to keep you thinking.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do your processes support your cash-receipt policy?</h2>
<p>When employees pay cash or use their personal card, the only way you know what’s being spent (and whether or not it fits your policies) is to sort through stacks of receipts. This process, while time-consuming, also has the benefit of being error-prone. So are you really getting the data you need?</p>
<p>If you made the process simpler – say, automated – could you require receipts for more expenses and therefore effectively enforce compliance? (This one is easy: It’s yes.) Now what about snapping pictures of receipts as a way to eliminate archaic and annoying paper processes? This is a huge productivity benefit, no doubt, but the real reward is in the accuracy and relative immediacy of the 2 information. The right app gives you more than just an image, it breaks down the data contained in the image – automatically itemizing, categorizing, and populating it into expense reports.</p>
<p>So ask yourself:</p>
<ul>
<li>Can we really get rid of manual-entry errors?</li>
<li>Can we capture accurate and more complete data on each charge?</li>
<li>Can we ensure that cash spend is on policy while lowering our cash-receipt requirement and making users happy?</li>
</ul>
<p>These aren’t so much yes/no questions as they are yes/of course questions. You just need to put the right tools in place or expand the tools you have.</p>
<p>Okay, last few questions here.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is your process flexible enough to fit changing policies?</h2>
<p>As we’ve all learned in the past few months, change really is a constant. A constant headache, to be precise. So as you move forward and start thinking of recovery, you’ll want to work adaptability into your process. As markets change, as consumers change, as organizations change, your policies will need to adapt.</p>
<ul>
<li>Are you flexible enough for that? Ask yourself:</li>
<li>Can we easily add new expense categories, like those required for working remotely (e.g. home-office equipment, PPE, etc.)?</li>
<li>Do we have audit rules in place to correct out-of-policy spending as more and more employees (who do not have corporate cards) make more and more spending decisions?</li>
<li>Can we see if supplier payments that should be on POs are actually winding up on expense reports?</li>
<li>Do we know how much spending is going on personal cards? Do we know why?</li>
</ul>
<p>Again, the right tools are out there, and they’ll drive data directly into your system, effectively closing the gaps that keep costs hidden. And when you can see that data, it’s far simpler to manage spending.</p>
<p>How does that sound?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-manager-solutions">See the tools to tackle travel, expense, and invoice management</a> – they’ll bring spending in line, even as spending changes.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is Your Business Ready to Travel?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-business-ready-travel
2021-01-27T09:39:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As much of the world is still working from the kitchen counter COVID restrictions and thus travel restrictions are starting to loosen in some regions But just because it may be safer...
<p>As much of the world is still working from the kitchen counter, COVID-19 restrictions and, thus, travel restrictions are starting to loosen in some regions. But just because it may be safer to travel in a particular country, is your business really ready to travel to that particular country?</p>
<p>As the world looks forward, however, expect to see more borders beginning to open, more restrictions starting to ease, and more travel corridors coming back on line. And when this happens, the number of business travellers will no doubt take off.</p>
<p>Which makes now the time to start getting ready – not just for travel, but for safer travel.</p>
<h2>Preapproval can’t be an afterthought.</h2>
<p>As business travel begins to inch forward, travel managers are responding swiftly to employee concerns, making near- and long-term changes to travel programs. 40%, for example, are now requiring pre-trip approvals for business travel.</p>
<p>Typically, these pre-trip approvals have been mandated by cost-control concerns (it’s far easier to stay on top of expenses when you know who’s going where and what they’re planning to spend), but as countries around the world continue to reshape COVID-19 restrictions, advanced approvals can dramatically impact traveller safety.</p>
<p>Think about it from a travel management standpoint: You’ll know where employees are going before they go, so you’ll know if there are quarantine requirements; you’ll know about testing, masking, and other mandates; and you’ll know if they’ll be able to get into (or, more importantly, out of) a country where rules are changing daily.</p>
<p>In a post-pandemic world, preapprovals aren’t only about cost savings, they’re key to your duty of care.</p>
<h2>If this trip isn’t essential, is it still okay?</h2>
<p>Pre-trip approvals are essential, but you can’t depend solely on that process to keep employees from heading out when they shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Your company needs to define for itself what makes a trip essential as well as what is merely permissible. Think about the types of travel you’d readily approve, the scenarios that are critical for your company to be part of, the business needs that can only be met by travelling – these are the parameters you have to establish to keep people on the ground before the world is fully ready to go.</p>
<p>Then, of course, you need to make those restrictions abundantly clear to travellers and put safeguards in place to make sure the rules don’t get broken.</p>
<p>As far as permissible travel goes, the guidelines are a little blurrier. You need to understand what’s going on in each of your markets and compare those needs to your organisational risk tolerances.</p>
<p>Specifically, you must be able to capture and communicate each country’s travel rules and requirements during the booking process. So if someone is bound for Japan (or departing Japan), you need to be ready to deal with those particular regulations. Testing regimes, quarantine requirements, and current infection levels, for example, will influence travellers.</p>
<p>You’ll also want to examine your company’s insurance and health coverage – as well as the medical systems in the region where you’re sending employees. Will they be covered by your plans in each country? And are the hospitals in that country currently overwhelmed?</p>
<p>Your answers to these questions will help clarify what’s permissible and what’s inexcusable.</p>
<h2>Are you getting all this?</h2>
<p>Data has always been king, and you can be assured that as the world re-emerges from its stay-at-home pandemic proclivities, tracking travel details is going to be more important than ever.</p>
<p>Are you confident in your current pre-trip approval process? Are you capturing all the data, and is it all pulled together so you know at a glance who’s booking, who’s in the air, who decided to stay home, and who can’t get home because of a surprise quarantine?</p>
<p>And if you can get your hands on that data, can you reach those travellers in an instant to provide support.</p>
<p>Many companies are consolidating travel management into a single TMC to centralise that data and simplify the process. TMCs, for their part, are working feverishly to make the changes necessary to support and protect travellers in this unpredictable landscape. So be sure to review their pricing models and any new or updated services they’re offering for pre-, during-, and post-trip security. And remember, TMCs aren’t just a ticketing service, they’re a way to protect your travellers during the trip itself.</p>
<h2>Nothing is certain, and that’s for sure.</h2>
<p>Border requirements are changing virtually every day in literally every market, so you need to stay in close contact with your TMC and booking-tool technology providers to make sure you’re getting accurate information and immediate updates. These resources are imperative, and Deloitte is working closely with its partners to offer simple travel tools that keep travellers safe and compliance in check. <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/deloitte-new-app-sap-concur-collaboration-ease-travel-remote-work-compliance">See how</a>. </p>
<p>You can also access dozens of free portals, like <a>Travel Vitals </a>and the <a href="http://[10:59 AM] Mehta, Neha https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center/ Traveler Resource Center - TripItwww.tripit.com">TripIt Travel Resource Center</a>, to supplement your travel data and stay ahead of your travellers’ safety concerns.</p>
<p>We’re emerging from this pandemic, and while things might not be perfect, now is the best time to review your travel program and get ready to return to the road. Get tips and more <a href="https://www.concur.com.sg/business-travel-management">here</a>.</p>
Carl Jones
Rethinking Travel and AI With Trust As a Critical Component
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rethinking-travel-and-ai-trust-critical-component
2021-03-16T10:19:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By AG Lambert Chief Product Strategy Officer SAP Concur Brian Hace Vice President Global Travel Strategy SAP Concur SAP Concur Fusion kicked off today with two compelling panels...
<p>By: A.G. Lambert, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur & Brian Hace, Vice President, Global Travel Strategy, SAP Concur</p>
<p><a href="https://fusion.concur.com">SAP Concur Fusion</a> kicked off today with two compelling panels exploring how the pandemic has impacted two key areas: travel and technology like artificial intelligence (AI). The panels delved deeper into how businesses should approach both areas as we move closer to a post-pandemic world.</p>
<p>The common thread that ties both topics together is the issue of trust. Both businesses and travel providers must establish policies and processes that instill trust and increase the willingness to travel. And in the case of AI, with the pandemic speeding up the need for its adoption, business leaders and employees must develop a sense of trust in the technology for it to succeed and benefit businesses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trust in Travel</h2>
<p>While there are many reasons for business travel–from collaboration to developing relationships–the desire to establish trust with customers, colleagues, and clients is an important one. Ironically, as travel resumes post-pandemic, trust will play a key part in employees’ willingness to get back on the road and in the skies on behalf of the business. They’ll look to their employers and travel providers to help keep them, and even their families, healthy and safe</p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/global-survey-covid-19-impact-business-travel">SAP Concur study</a> fielded in May–June 2020 found that one of the top concerns among business travelers when it comes to returning to travel is the health and safety of family members (55%). During the SAP Concur Fusion panel “Exploring the Current Evolution of Travel,” Raj Varadarajan, senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a frequent business traveler, noted that employees who live with their family or others must also think about the well-being of those around them when making the decision to travel again.</p>
<p>Beyond health and safety precautions, business travelers also want help with staying informed. Lisa McKenzie, senior vice president of global sales at BCD Travel, noted that customers who are currently traveling, along with those who plan to travel in the future, want to understand the various restrictions in place around the world. “It’s not just about duty of care, it’s about traveler care,” said McKenzie.</p>
<p>Kerrie Henshaw-Cox, associate director of business travel at AstraZeneca, echoed this sentiment, “We’ve moved away from travel management to traveler management…travelers need information, and we need to have all the information that’s out there in one place.”</p>
<p>For travel providers, ensuring customers feel safe in their hands is an essential component to reactivating travel. According to British Airways’ Head of Distribution and Payments Rogier Van Enk, the company has adapted its products and services to be more contactless–whether at the airport or on the airplane. While the ultimate goal is to keep customers safe and healthy, British Airways hopes such measures will give customers confidence while flying with them.</p>
<p>In the end, the importance of face-to-face interaction to develop key business relationships has not been forgotten. “There is something powerful to a face-to-face discussion–a lunch, a dinner, a meal, a meeting in the office… ” said Varadarajan. There is no doubt business travelers are eager to get back on the road to strengthen old business relationships and create new ones, and as the travel industry looks to the post-pandemic world, the importance of trust will be front and center.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trust in AI</h2>
<p>The adoption of advanced technologies, like AI, has seen a rapid increase during the pandemic. Businesses are racing to invest in new technologies that allow them to stay resilient and successful in today’s business landscape. In many cases, the speed and efficiency AI offers is the best way to automate processes due to work from home requirements or the influx of more customers conducting business online or over the phone.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Fusion panel “Exploring a World Where AI is Essential,” explored this topic with a focus on the use of AI to improve the customer support experience. Omar Tawakol, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Contact Center Business Unit, discussed how AI can benefit companies from a customer support perspective and, in turn, create a better and faster experience for customers.</p>
<p>“We’ve been talking in [the support] industry for years about the transformation of AI to help agents become super agents and to automate. And then COVID-19 came along, and I think it accelerated the adoption of AI in this industry by three or four years… ” said Tawakol. “So what the AI can do is listen along with the [support agents] and nudge them, look at knowledge base articles or past resolution articles and tell them ‘Hey, I think this is the resolution to your problem.’”</p>
<p>But even with such benefits, AI still faces challenges with regard to adoption. Business leaders, and even employees, may be wary of fully embracing its benefits due to the perceived complexity of the technology. According to Massimo Mascaro, technical director, Applied AI at Google, this is not necessarily an AI problem, but more of a process and engineering problem. A combination of more awareness in responsible AI and investments in the technology, tools, and framework can help increase trust and, as a result, adoption. Mascaro notes that strict and constant monitoring of the AI models that are put into production is key, allowing businesses to understand when they start drifting from what they’re expected to do and when they start showing bias.</p>
<p>When it comes to developing trust around AI and, thus, adoption, Stela Koleva, vice president, EMEA service and support, SAP Concur, knows first-hand the best approach to take. Koleva implemented an award-winning AI project in her department, and she noted that starting small and collecting feedback continuously was crucial. The way results are measured also should leave no space for doubt as to whether AI has contributed to the business.</p>
<p>In the end, AI will continue to become an essential part of doing business and, ultimately, an organization’s success. The journey to AI shouldn’t be complex or intimidating. With the right approach and perspective, trust in AI can be established among business leaders, employees, and customers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s Next?</h2>
<p>Trust has risen to the forefront as we begin the return to travel and ramp up the adoption of technologies like AI to help reinvigorate businesses.</p>
<p>The pandemic has challenged our view of who and what we can trust. What was once familiar and routine–from old friends to business travel–now feels unknown. And what’s new and vital to the future–from new clients to technologies like AI–might be accepted with uncertainty. The good news is that with the right policies and processes in place, trust can be developed and maintained in both travel and AI.</p>
<p>To learn more about the evolution of travel and the benefits of AI, visit the SAP Concur Fusion <a href="https://fusion.concur.com">website</a> for recordings of both panels.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Executives
Mileage Reporting that Employees will Actually Love
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/mileage-reporting-employees-will-actually-love
2021-05-04T09:23:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When driving for work the last thing that most employees want to focus on is tracking their mileage From site visits to team leadership meetings and keeping their eyes on the road...
<p>When driving for work, the last thing that most employees want to focus on is tracking their mileage. From site visits to team leadership meetings and keeping their eyes on the road, mileage reporting is likely to be one of the last things on their mind. Once they’ve completed a trip, activating the meeting takeaways should be their focus, rather than submitting a mileage report. Turning on mobile app functionality for automated mileage capture can significantly reduce the amount of time employees spend submitting and approving mileage. In addition to inefficiency, manual mileage reporting leaves significant room for inaccuracy and a need for explanation. Since employees are the greatest assets for most organizations, saving them time on mileage reporting can have a significant impact on the employee experience and bottom line. Take a look at where mileage sits as a percentage of your overall expensed spend reporting. For most SAP Concur customers, it ranges from 2-12%, which can add up to a significant chunk of change.</p>
<h2>How much can I save?</h2>
<p>In addition to saving your employees time, you’ll also save your organization money with automated mileage tracking. SAP Concur experts estimate that you can shave at least one minute off every mileage transaction reported. For instance, if you use the Glassdoor average hourly rate of $37.50/hour and calculate for 33,000 entries, you could save $20,625 for your organization. Use our handy formula to calculate the total mileage reporting savings for your organization:</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1619453143010-kat blog.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What level of impact does mileage reporting really have?</h2>
<p>With so many competing priorities, how do you determine if addressing the time spent on mileage reporting will have a big enough impact? Running a report to see what percentage mileage makes up of total expense spend will help you determine its priority, and if adjustments may be needed. Here’s a benchmark report of SAP Concur customers broken down by industry for your comparison:</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1619453154855-kat blog 2.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1619453154855-kat blog 2.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h2>Getting the most out of those miles</h2>
<p>Offering employees a way to automatically capture and report mileage from GPS tracking solutions instead of providing self-reported estimates can reduce the amount of time spent submitting and approving mileage. Not only does this save time and improve the employee experience, but it also increases accuracy of mileage reporting and reimbursement amounts, which means your organization can get a more accurate picture of what is truly being spent on mileage. Here are some best practices to start saving time and money on mileage reporting:</p>
<ol>
<li>Capture distance automatically with GPS tracking enablement</li>
<li>Configure the auto deduct commute option</li>
<li>Consider promoting rideshare when appropriate</li>
<li>Use data to monitor mileage trends</li>
</ol>
Kathryn Kamin
You Don’t Have to Fly Solo
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-dont-have-fly-solo
2021-06-16T09:33:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Partnering with TMCs is a key component to rebuilding corporate travel With changing regulations compounding compliance concerns increasing traveler demands and a jittery CSuite eager...
<h2>Partnering with TMCs is a key component to rebuilding corporate travel.</h2>
<p>With changing regulations, compounding compliance concerns, increasing traveler demands, and a jittery C-Suite eager to get people back on the road, it might seem like the future of your business travel program rests squarely on your shoulders and your shoulders alone.</p>
<p>But unless you’re actively avoiding your TMC partners for some reason, you don’t have to reconfigure corporate travel all by yourself.</p>
<p>Now, in our post-pandemic business world, where the return to travel is in a brighter spotlight than you’ve ever known, and where CFOs and road-warriors alike are watching your every move, travel management companies are collaborating with travel managers in new and impactful ways.</p>
<p>According to a recent eBook aptly titled <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">Corporate Travel is All Over the Map</a>, TMCs are offering:</p>
<ul>
<li>Clear insight into what’s actually happening at ticket counters, car-rental companies, and in hotel lobbies as people brave the new unknowns of business travel after COVID-19.</li>
<li>Guidance on how to get your internal teams aligned behind you to ensure you have everything it takes to reactivate your travel program.</li>
<li>Ramped-up automation to spur greater efficiencies, while at the same time making sure there’s always someone on the line should travelers find themselves in trouble.</li>
</ul>
<p>TMCs are also able to offer an insider’s view into the new world of travel – how remote work impacts trips to far-flung destinations, for example, and how travelers and their organizations can handle reducing overnights, combining meetings, selecting direct flights, and otherwise shifting where, when, and how they go places.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">eBook</a> also highlights the increasing importance of unused tickets. While it’s always been important to stay on top of canceled trips and the credits you’re due, no one has ever seen this kind of volume before. And your TMC can help you make sure you take full advantage of the investments you’ve already made and avoid leaving any tickets on the table.</p>
<p>The bottom line is: Your TMC can help you out, so you don’t have to do it all. And by “all,” we mean more than you’ve ever had to do before. Travel isn’t what it was two years ago, and it never will be again. You, as a travel manager, are helping shape the “new normal” of corporate travel, and leaning on your TMCs will inform your decisions, shore up your ideas with best practices, and keep the process from getting out of hand.</p>
<p>That is not to say, however, that your partnership with a travel management company is the singular answer to building the momentum business leaders expect and offering the flexibility travelers demand. You’ll also want the right tech partner to manage the details behind your new program and policies – someone who can make safe, sustainable, secure travel attainable, no matter where your business is headed. You’ll find more about that in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tmcs-are-adapting-provide-direction">the eBook</a>, as well.</p>
<p>In the end (or rather, the beginning, because this is new to all of us), travel is always better with someone in the passenger seat. And TMCs are in for the long haul.</p>
Neha Mehta
96% of Business Travelers Willing to Hit Road This Year
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/96-business-travelers-willing-hit-road-year
2022-07-01T12:07:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travelers reflecting concerns about the impact on companies and careers want to return to the skies road rails and hotels to meet clients and colleagues in person Our recent ...
<p>Business travelers, reflecting concerns about the impact on companies and careers, want to return to the skies, road, rails, and hotels to meet clients and colleagues in person.</p>
<p>Our recent 2021 <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021"><strong>Global Business Traveler</strong></a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021"><strong>Global Travel Manager</strong></a> reports, in fact, found that virtually all those surveyed desired to travel again, with nearly two-thirds “very willing.” Budgets are expected to rise nearly all around but not to pre-pandemic levels, meaning more employees may be willing to go than budgets allow.</p>
<p>Interestingly, more than 2 in 3 travelers say they are driving the return to the road instead of their companies, some of which are leaving it to employees to decide when to travel again based on their comfort levels.</p>
<p>As top management resumes traveling, they can serve as valuable role models as to how to safely do so, such as promoting their own vaccinations and showing they are properly assessing the need for travel and the risks involved. Staying informed about pandemic-related restrictions and requirements is vital, as is the realization that what one will encounter at airports has changed, requiring understanding and patience.</p>
<p>Dr. Ian Norton, a former WHO staffer and founder and managing director at Respond Global, shared his thoughts on company best practices. “I see differences in those who are forward leaning, particularly in the way they message,” he said. “Those who have embraced real-time information for their travelers are doing it best of all. Those who have a culture of openness and listening are doing best of all.”</p>
<p>Recently, Dr. Norton and three other experts weighed in on some of the survey topics during a session at the <strong>SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit 2021</strong>. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/new-data-employees-drive-the-return-to-global-business-travel">Watch the session on-demand</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Flexibility: 72% value it most</h2>
<p>Being able to choose how they fly and where they stay is a top priority of more than 7 in 10 travelers. Just over half expect to have the freedom to book direct flights.</p>
<p>Travelers’ desire for flexibility could conflict with what their organizations are doing, as only 40% of travel managers report they are likely to increase flexibility in booking and other matters.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>68% oppose return to pre-COVID policies</h2>
<p>Travelers know organizations’ polices will change, as shown by nearly 7 in 10 not wanting policies to return to the way they were.</p>
<p>Travel managers know their travelers expect organizations to put systems and technology in place to provide the latest travel updates and warnings while they are making their way to destinations or are on the ground. To help with this, travel managers need to create well-established feedback channels so employees can share if things changed or didn’t go as expected during their trip. Employees should be able to easily report back if expected COVID-19 related restrictions or mandates were not enforced. Information, communication, and access are key for safety, flexibility, and sustainability.</p>
<p>“Travelers want and need to travel for business, but they want to do it both safely and responsibly,” said Ann Kloepfer, a senior travel manager for Microsoft. “They’re expecting us to provide tools that give them better insight into more responsible choices.”</p>
<p>About 40% travelers say they – even more than their companies – are most responsible for their health and safety during trips. But they’re also watching how their employers respond. Just over half say they’d make changes if their organization doesn’t take necessary safety measures, with 1 in 5 saying they would look for a different job.</p>
<p>Travel managers know the stakes and say one of the top new measures they’ll take is to deliver real-time updates and alerts. Nearly all of the 700 travel managers surveyed expect to confront challenges in the next year, with the top one being informing travelers about new policies and ensuring they comply. So, again, information is key.</p>
<p>“Any type of restrictions and requirements need to be very accessible and easily understood by both the traveler manager and the traveler,” Kloepfer said. If a client has restrictions, travel managers “need to be able to prompt the traveler to obtain that information.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pent-up demand: 89% hope to tack on vacation time</h2>
<p>It’s not just business travel resuming. Leisure travel is revving up, with flyers filling planes and airlines adding flights. Business travelers indicate they and their families hope to get away from home, with 9 in 10 planning to add personal time to business trips.</p>
<p>Resuming travel requires flexibility, patience, and understanding. Rental cars are in short supply or unavailable in some locations. TSA staffing is ramping up, but security lines will be long. Promised contactless interactions might prove not to be. Airport food vendors and coffee shops are short of employees. Travelers might not get a meal or a drink on the plane these days.</p>
<p>“We are already seeing TSA reporting more than 2 million people traveling per day again, which is just mind-blowing. … If you are planning on adding more time on to a business trip … you need to book things well in advance,” said Natalie Compton, a reporter and columnist with The Washington Post.</p>
<p>Adjusting expectations is essential as we hesitantly but excitedly travel again and commit to expect the unexpected. A sense of grace and perspective will go a long way, especially for those of us fortunate to live in countries with widespread vaccinations and dropping COVID-19 rates.</p>
<p>Travel may seem awkward or even strange after such a long break, but don’t let that keep you from embracing the joy of traveling again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>See what Ami Taylor, SAP Concur; Ann Kloepfer, Microsoft; Dr. Ian Norton, Respond Global; and Natalie Compton, Washington Post, say about data from the 2021 SAP Concur travel reports and the return to business travel, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/new-data-employees-drive-the-return-to-global-business-travel">in a session from the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>.</p>
<p>SAP Concur <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">Global Business Traveler Report 2021</a></p>
<p>SAP Concur <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">Global Travel Manager Report 2021</a></p>
<p>Highlights of the 2021 reports are available <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-to-business-travel">HERE</a>.</p>
Neha Mehta
Are You Ready to Get On Board with Automated Travel and Expense?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-ready-get-board-automated-travel-and-expense
2022-07-01T13:44:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travelers are eager to get back on the road to keep deals moving forward and serve their customers A June Wakefield Research study surveyed businesses under employees and...
<p>Business travelers are eager to get back on the road to keep deals moving forward and serve their customers. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/small-medium-business-traveler-report-2021">June 2021 Wakefield Research study</a> surveyed businesses under 1,000 employees and found that 95% of corporate travelers are willing to get back on the road for work. Meanwhile, 81% said they were concerned about their careers if travel didn’t pick up in the next 12 months.</p>
<p>It’s important to note, however, that traveler safety has now become a leading factor in accelerating recovery and keeping business flowing. Many travelers are also concerned about managing the environmental impact of their travel. Is your company ready and able to get on board? </p>
<p>As growing businesses work hard to stay resilient, they need to keep a tight rein on spending. So it helps to enter the recovery—however near or far on the horizon—with better, smarter tools to manage business travel as it ramps up again.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Optimizing travel and expense processes with automation</h2>
<p>Many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) still use manual, disparate processes to manage travel and related expenses. But as travelers set out for the friendly skies (or open road), full visibility into T&E is a must. This helps you gain better control over costs, find ways to maximize cash flow, and get clearer insights into how best to allocate funds.</p>
<p>Automating your T&E processes with a solution like Concur Travel can help you do this, and more, by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Providing an easy-to-use mobile app so employees can submit expense reports on the go</li>
<li>Offering tools to manage travel requests and approvals, monitor for compliance, and detect potential errors or fraud</li>
<li>Presenting near-real-time visibility into current spend in a single dashboard</li>
<li>Offering customizable policies to support sustainable travel practices and traveler safety</li>
</ul>
<p>Manual processes might have worked well enough in the past. But for the new world, ditching the paper and digitizing your T&E gives you the control and insights you need to navigate the changing economic climate.</p>
<p>See our latest video to learn how Concur Travel can help you control costs, increase employee productivity and policy compliance, support sustainable travel, and keep your travelers safe.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Travelling Better: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Corporate Sustainability with TCG
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travelling-better-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-corporate-sustainability-tcg
2022-07-01T17:01:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As organizations slowly return to business travel many are reassessing their travel policies with an eye to traveling more sustainably How can you reduce emissions from corporate...
<p>As organizations slowly return to business travel, many are reassessing their travel policies with an eye to traveling more sustainably. How can you reduce emissions from corporate travel while managing costs? And what solutions can help you achieve those goals?</p>
<p>We asked Ryan Hamilton, Senior Value Consultant for the Value Experience Group at the SAP Concur organization, and Sally Crotty, Senior Consultant and Sustainability SME for our partner, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/tcg-consulting">TCG</a>, to discuss practical steps organizations can take towards more sustainable T&E. This is the second of a two-part series; for more about corporate sustainability from a high level,<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/people-planet-and-profit-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-on"> read highlights</a> from our previous episode.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right/id1525744763?i=1000531530344">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5IgT9s2Middu0SXTaA16Y4">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/transforming-corporate-fd4-Vj1epnC/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right-now-an-">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjExMTkxZGYyNGYzZGYwMDEzNTYxYmI0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjAq_zNlsjzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google</a>, or read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/transforming-corporate-sustainability-programs-right-now-podcast-part-2?ite=22020&ito=2138&itq=710730cc-f95a-4dc8-a343-e24774eeb564&itx%5Bidio%5D=29058848">transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>One small step for you, one larger benefit for the planet</h2>
<p>The drastic reduction in business travel and commuting during the worst of the pandemic had unforeseen benefits for the planet. “Scope 3 emissions [aka greenhouse gas emissions generated by a company’s value chain] were drastically reduced overnight,” says Crotty. As business travel makes a comeback, organizations are taking a more thoughtful approach.</p>
<p>“Companies are assessing their need to travel and what this looks like in the future,” Crotty explains. “Policies are changing. We need to really consider that as we start to travel again, we should do that in a more sustainable way.”</p>
<p>Of course, organizations must balance sustainability and costs. TCG takes a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) approach to travel, meetings, payment and expense with its TCO-TMPE® program, which has 18 components, including sustainability.</p>
<p>“From a cost-of-ownership perspective, we're not only looking at what can be done to reduce emissions for travel,” says Crotty. “We're taking a holistic view and looking at the total costs of managing sustainability.”</p>
<p>Hamilton agrees, noting that <strong>the goal is not necessarily to travel less but to travel better.</strong></p>
<p><strong>TCO-TMPE®</strong><strong> program</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Total Cost of Ownership</li>
<li>Travel</li>
<li>Meetings</li>
<li>Payment</li>
<li>Expense</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Solving the travel puzzle</h2>
<p>When weighing travel options, organizations have much to consider. Is it a direct or connecting flight? What’s the freight load? How many business-class passengers does the airplane carry? How old is the aircraft? These are just a few of the factors that affect a trip’s environmental impact. SAP Concur solutions can help travelers make more sustainable decisions without getting overwhelmed by their choices.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>SAP Concur solutions can help in four key areas, Hamilton explains:</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reporting</strong>. A unified platform provides a single source of data so organizations can accurately measure their environmental footprint and progress.</li>
<li><strong>Raising awareness among individual employees.</strong> “If you're not confronted with the idea that you've bought the most emitting flights or that your expenses are in the top 1 percentile, you're probably not even thinking about emissions as you travel,” Hamilton notes.</li>
<li><strong>Guiding behavior.</strong> Companies can create settings in SAP Concur solutions to ensure that travelers use the most sustainable airlines, understand emissions as they're booking, and get approval before traveling.</li>
<li><strong>Direct contributions.</strong> Automation with SAP Concur solutions can reduce or eliminate paper in many travel processes, directly impacting environmental sustainability.</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Easy does it</h2>
<p>An organization with a fully implemented T&E policy that uses <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a> to get pre-trip approval, books within Concur Travel, and uses SAP Concur expense and reporting tools, can measure reductions in emissions with relative ease, Crotty says. For organizations with less-defined travel policies, TCG can suggest best practices for creating T&E policies that support environmental goals.</p>
<p>Ready to travel better? <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel">Learn how SAP Concur solutions can help your organization</a> reduce corporate travel emissions.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
What Are SAP Concur Integrations?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-sap-concur-integrations
2022-07-01T17:20:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Transferring data across multiple systems can be costly taking time and resources away from your organization So were here to say fuhgeddaboudit SAP Concur integrations allow you to...
<p>Transferring data across multiple systems can be costly, taking time and resources away from your organization. So we’re here to say –“fuhgeddaboudit!” SAP Concur integrations allow you to bring your organization’s existing ERP system along for the ride. But first – what exactly are they? SAP Concur integrations are digital connectors that offer a quick, secure, and accurate way to process expenses and post financial transactions and payments to your ERP system. Our ERP partners provide ERP integrations beyond the Concur-built integrations, such as QuickBooks, NetSuit, and SAP ICS. By leveraging these digital connectors, you can help your organization integrate its SAP Concur data within its existing ERP system to see all your spend data in one place.</p>
<p>SAP Concur integrations are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Simple to activate and require minimal IT resources.</li>
<li>Improve accuracy by eliminating the need to enter data into multiple systems.</li>
<li>Provide timely information and reduce reporting delays.</li>
</ul>
<p><a> </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz56j17_ark">Watch this video</a> to learn more about SAP Concur integrations and see how they can help your organization deliver a more connected, seamless travel and expense experience that benefit your employees in the office, at home, or even while they’re on the go.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What SAP Concur integrations are available?</h2>
<p>See for yourself! The <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> provides you a place to discover the partner apps and services that can extend the value of your SAP Concur solution. These apps and services provide greater insights into your total spend, simplify travel and expenses, and bring travelers closer to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwOrvMttaxc">the perfect business trip</a>.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur App Center includes apps for both companies and individual users:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enterprise Applications:</strong> Discover turnkey business solutions that seamlessly integrate with your SAP Concur platform. For example, apps like Taxback International help companies reclaim Value Added Tax (VAT) for international travel; Rocketrip helps cut costs by incentivizing employees to spend less on travel; and MedPro Connect Expense & Invoice enables industry-specific compliance measures for Open Payments to be simplified and followed.</li>
<li><strong>Individual User Connections:</strong> Individual users can link user connection apps to their own SAP Concur account. These links are created in a secure fashion, using authentication tokens, rather than through manual sharing of usernames and passwords. Examples include Uber, Lyft, and a variety of apps to help users manage their travel and expenses more efficiently. Additionally, users with Concur TripLink will be able to link their accounts with travel suppliers like IHG or Starwood so reservations made on their websites flow automatically into Concur Travel.</li>
</ul>
<p>Improve spend management and compliance while making travel and expensing easier for users. <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">Visit our App Center today</a> to see how our pre-built integrations allow for easy adoption and deployment.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Kyla Kent
What to Do In Orlando
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-do-orlando
2022-07-01T17:30:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Were excited to be hosting SAP Concur Fusion in Orlando this year If youll be attending the conference with us or just heading to town on a bleisure trip our friends at TripIt...
<p>We're excited to be hosting SAP Concur Fusion in Orlando this year. If you'll be attending the conference with us, or just heading to town on a bleisure trip, our friends at <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/city-break-orlando-guide.html">TripIt</a> share what visitors should do around town: </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where to fly in</h2>
<p>Orlando metro area is served by <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/orlando-airport-everything-need-know.html">Orlando International Airport (MCO).</a> Located 10 miles southeast of downtown Orlando, MCO airport is one of the top-15 busiest airports in the U.S. It has one main airport terminal, consisting of four airside concourses. </p>
<p>Once on the ground at MCO, travelers can rent a car to get around the city—Orlando is the largest rental car market in the world, after all—with many of the major rental car agencies located <a href="https://orlandoairports.net/parking-transportation/rental-cars/#on-airport">on-airport</a>. Additional off-airport rental car agencies, and their lots, can be accessed via complimentary shuttle. Alternatively, MCO is served by SunRail—Orlando’s commuter rail—or the <a href="https://www.golynx.com/core/fileparse.php/97651/urlt/LNX_Lft_OrlandoAirport_WEB.pdf">LYNX</a> local bus system. Taxis and ride shares are also available from MCO. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where to stay during your city break</h2>
<p>Kids aren’t the only ones living their best lives in Orlando. Leisure travelers have loads of entertainment options, including treating themselves to the city’s luxury hotels. Choose from four-star digs like Universal’s <a href="https://www.loewshotels.com/portofino-bay-hotel">Loews Portofino Bay Hotel</a>, <a href="https://www.wyndhamgrandorlando.com/">Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort Bonnet Creek</a>, or <a href="https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/grand-floridian-resort-and-spa/">Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa</a> for your city break.</p>
<p>In Orlando on business? Here are our picks for where to stay:</p>
<ul>
<li>If you’re attending an event at the Orange County Convention Center, you can’t beat the convenience of the <a href="https://www.westgateresorts.com/hotels/florida/orlando/westgate-lakes-resort/overview/">Westgate Lakes Resort & Spa</a>. You’ll be staying less than a half a mile from the convention center, as well as an easy 10-minute drive to Universal Studios for after-hours fun.</li>
<li>If a hotel in a prime downtown Orlando location is what you’re after, look no further than the <a href="https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/mcodo-marriott-orlando-downtown/">Marriott Orlando Downtown</a>. Business travelers will appreciate the close proximity to Amway Center, plus the hotel’s amenities, including a business center and express check-in and check-out. </li>
<li>Short on time? Book a stay at the <a href="https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/florida/hyatt-regency-orlando-international-airport/orlan">Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport</a>—located immediately inside MCO airport—to make catching your return flight a breeze.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How to get around</h2>
<p>As mentioned above, renting a car is your fool-proof way to traverse Orlando during your city break. Prefer to stick to public transportation? Your options include the city’s <a href="https://www.golynx.com/">LYNX</a> bus system; a single ride costs $2.00 (you can pay when you board) or an all-day pass costs just $4.50. Utilize their <a href="https://www.golynx.com/resources/pdf/LNX_PST_Msys_29x39_WEB_190813.pdf">system map</a> to plan your journey. Alternatively, you can take the <a href="https://sunrail.com/">SunRail commuter rail</a> system. With <a href="https://sunrail.com/stations/">16 stations</a> serving four counties and covering almost 50 miles, SunRail is your <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/10-sustainable-travel-tips.html">most eco-friendly option</a> for getting around the Orlando metro area. </p>
<p>Alternatively, Lyft and Uber are available in Orlando and are likely your best option for getting around the city in a jiffy if you didn’t rent a car. </p>
<p>Pro tip: Use TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/announcing-go-now-more-new-tripit-features.html">Navigator</a> feature to search transportation options available to you. It will show you the estimated costs and travel times for each option, so you can decide which works best. You can find Navigator within your flight, hotel and rental car details screens. Plus, if you add a restaurant reservation to your itinerary (more on where to eat below), Navigator also helps you find the best transportation options for getting to your table.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where to eat</h2>
<p>If you only have time for one meal during your city break in Orlando, make it at <a href="https://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/florida/orlando/dining/knife-spoon">Knife & Spoon</a>. Award-winning chef John Tesar helms the kitchen, producing not-your-average surf-and-turf dishes that impress from the very first bite. </p>
<p>Craving Asian food? You’ll be spoiled for choice in Orlando. Choose from local favorites like <a href="https://www.king-bao.com/">King Bao</a> for gourmet Taiwanese bao buns, Domu for creative ramen, or <a href="http://kadenceorlando.com/">Kadence</a> for sushi and sake. More in the mood for Mexican? Try <a href="http://www.blackroostertaqueria.com/">Black Rooster Taqueria</a>. We recommend their made-to-order guac to start, followed by their delectable tacos—start with two, though we suspect you might go back for more. </p>
<p>Have breakfast on the brain? Start your day at <a href="http://www.se7enbites.com/">Se7en Bites</a>, located in Orlando’s Milk District. Breakfast is served all-day long—as is lunch—so pop in for a bacon morning biscuit or skip straight to the 5 Cheese Mac n’ Cheese. You won’t leave hungry. You will leave happy. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What to do on your city break</h2>
<p>In a city known worldwide for its entertainment, you’ll surely find something to do, even if you just have a few hours after work to explore. If you’re visiting Orlando during the NBA basketball season, be sure to catch the Magic at Amway Center. More of a soccer fan? The <a href="https://www.orlandocitysc.com/">Orlando City Soccer Club</a> play at Exploria Stadium; the <a href="https://www.orlandocitysc.com/pride">Orlando Pride</a>—Orlando’s professional women’s soccer team—share the stadium and team colors with their MLS counterparts. (Hint: Pack purple and white if you want to root for the home team.)</p>
<p>If your family tagged along on your city break, it goes without saying that there are plenty of kid-friendly things to do in Orlando. Choose from any of the world-renowned amusement parks, including <a href="https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/admission/">Walt Disney World Resort</a> and its many theme parks, <a href="https://www.universalorlando.com/">Universal Orlando Resort</a>—with its can’t-miss Islands of Adventure and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, <a href="https://www.legoland.com/florida/">LEGOLAND Florida</a> theme and water parks, and more. </p>
<p>Adults only? By day, take an airboat ride through the Florida Everglades to experience the area’s unique fauna and flora. Prefer to stay on dry land? Spend the day at the <a href="http://omart.org/">Orlando Museum of Art</a>. By night, visit <a href="http://www.orlandobrewing.com/">Orlando Brewing Company</a> for a <a href="http://www.orlandobrewing.com/visit/free-tours/">free brewery tour</a> or head straight to the taproom to sample their freshly brewed, organic beer. </p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> As cities reopen around the world, be sure to consult and adhere to all local guidelines and travel restrictions, as they vary widely and will continue to change. One way to stay on top of changing guidelines is to consult the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/covid19-guidance-travel-plans.html">COVID-19 travel guidance</a> feature in the TripIt app for destination-specific information, including current infection rates, quarantine rules upon arrival, testing requirements, and other information you need to know before visiting the area.</p>
Amanda Wowk
A Master Class in Sales Tax Recovery for Higher Education
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/master-class-sales-tax-recovery-higher-education
2022-07-02T05:34:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Anyone who works at a university or college knows how to operate on a lean budget cutting costs to ensure maximum funding can go toward fulfilling the schools mission Yet many of these...
<p>Anyone who works at a university or college knows how to operate on a lean budget, cutting costs to ensure maximum funding can go toward fulfilling the school’s mission. Yet, many of these same organizations leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table every year because they don’t take full advantage of the sales tax exemptions to which they’re entitled.</p>
<p>The process is simply too complicated and too time-consuming for most to handle on their own.</p>
<p>“Organizations have to be registered as exempt in all the states where they make purchases — it’s not something that's automatically awarded to them,” explained Joe Healy, Chief Strategy Officer at Taxback International.</p>
<p>That’s the first step. Then, institutions must educate their faculty and staff to ask for exemptions when they travel or make purchases, and arm them with the right forms to do so. But, even with these pieces in place, there’s still bound to be people who forget, or don’t have time, or abandon the project because the hotel personnel or store clerk they’re dealing with didn’t know how to process a tax-exempt transaction.</p>
<p>Over time, those seemingly small dollar amounts can quickly add up to some pretty big numbers.</p>
<p>“Organizations have the opportunity to reclaim those exempt taxes on the back end, but that process involves going through thousands of individual transactions, identifying those that qualified for exemptions, and going through the recovery process, which differs from state to state,” Healy explained. “With some states, you go directly through the tax office for reclamation; with others, you have to work through the supplier to get the claim back. It’s not a straightforward process, nor one that most organizations have the bandwidth to effectively pursue.”</p>
<p>That’s why Taxback International, a long-time SAP Concur App Center partner, began developing and piloting a new service for sales tax reclamation. The goal was to create a solution that enabled universities, colleges, and other non-profit organizations to recoup as much sales tax as possible, without having to invest staff time or funding to do so.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The assignment: A less taxing reclamation process</h2>
<p>“We had decades of experience in Value-Added Tax (VAT) reclamation, extensive internal audit expertise, and tight integrations with SAP® Concur® solutions already in place,” Healy said. “We knew we could leverage that expertise, and by building out a data base of each state’s rules, regulations and reciprocity mechanisms, expand our offering to include sales tax reclamation.“</p>
<p>Healy began introducing the new service to SAP Concur higher education clients at the annual Fusion conference, including one large university client that agreed to participate in the pilot. This institution was unique in that its finance and procurement teams had already done a great deal of work educating its faculty and staff on how to get tax exemptions at the point of purchase. They had even created pre-filled forms to simplify the process — something few other colleges were doing at the time.</p>
<p>“This was an excellent test case for us. We knew that if there was still sales tax to be reclaimed after all of the time and effort this institution had put into getting exemptions upfront, then we had a very viable service here,” Healy said. “We couldn’t promise what we would find, but we could promise that our client and his team wouldn’t have to lift a finger, and that that we were taking on all of the risk.”</p>
<p>The process began with a “health check,” an analysis by audit to scope the reclamation opportunity. The integration with the SAP Concur platform made data exchange a seamless process.</p>
<p>“The client goes into our app in the App Center, clicks “connect,” and all of the data and receipt images flow directly from Concur Expense into the Taxback International environment,” Healy explained. “From there, our technology stack takes over, matching the receipt images to the line items of data, and using artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify the receipts with paid sales tax that qualified for exemptions. This data is then run through a recovery rules engine to segment those from jurisdictions that allow direct reclamation submissions.”</p>
<p>With this information in hand, the Taxback team began the actual reclamation process, working directly with the various tax authorities and filing the appropriate paperwork on their client’s behalf.</p>
<p>Not unexpectedly, the process came with its share of challenges.</p>
<p>“In some cases, the tax offices hadn’t seen this type of claim volume come in at one time before, and were a little overwhelmed. Others had not worked with corporate card claims before. So, they required the actual card supplier to connect these payments back to the specific expenses, which required a little more legwork on our part,” Healy said. “A number of tax authorities were operating remotely, or with a skeleton crew, so, we had to work around those obstacles, as well.”</p>
<p>But, despite all of these challenges, as well as being in the middle of a global pandemic with restrictions changing daily, Taxback was still able to deliver on its promise. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Passing the test with flying colors</h2>
<p>At the end of the pilot, the university had recovered $150,000 in sales taxes, without expending resources, staff time, or incurring any upfront costs.</p>
<p> “I can very comfortably say that we literally gave Taxback our [SAP] Concur data and they managed the entire process. We had to sign some of the recovery forms, but, the research, the paperwork — they did it all on their own,” this client said. “I didn’t have to get involved,”</p>
<p>In addition to the “found money” the university could put toward its mission, Taxback also provided them with reporting data that pinpointed where the leakage occurred, so the university’s finance leaders had the insight they needed to refine and improve their front-end processes, as well.</p>
<p>At a time when a lot of colleges and universities are under budgetary pressures and challenged to trim costs, Taxback offers a better means of getting there than by cutting staff or cancelling programs.</p>
<p>“If they’re tax exempt, and if they’re trying to close budgetary gaps, Taxback International offers another tool in the toolbox to do so,” Healy said. “There’s no downside, there’s no risk. We simply offer an opportunity to ensure that these colleges and universities take full advantage of the tax exemptions they’re entitled to.”</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about, or engage with TaxBack International, please contact your account manager. To learn more about our solutions for Higher Education, please visit us </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions"><strong>here</strong></a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Monumental Moments Call for Monumental Changes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/monumental-moments-call-monumental-changes
2022-07-12T11:27:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When times have monumental change so does organizational spending Where your employees buy what they buy and how they buy is different today than it was just a few years ago So just...
<p>When times have monumental change, so does organizational spending. Where your employees buy, what they buy, and how they buy is different today than it was just a few years ago. So just imagine how different it will be in the next years to come. With all these changes, every decision to spend is a critical moment for your organization. Each moment needs to be managed, and each transaction needs to be guided to keep spend flowing through the right channels, payment methods, and approvals to keep your costs under control.</p>
<p>But how do you ensure your organization is keeping up? IDC and SAP Concur solutions recently developed a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/2022-idc-travel-and-expense-software-maturity-model">maturity model</a> to help you understand where your spend management program is currently at, and what steps to take next, so you can achieve your organization’s outcomes and meet its ever-changing priorities.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">Take our assessment</a> to find out what stage your travel and expense program falls in the Maturity Model.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The 5 stages of travel and expense: Compare your spend management solution to IDC’s maturity model</h2>
<p><strong>1. Legacy Applications</strong></p>
<p>Legacy systems are programs that have been used in organizations for many years. These systems are often homegrown and monolithic, utilizing spreadsheets and multiple, non-integrated systems to track financials.</p>
<p>At this stage, organizations risk untimely expenses, often resulting in inaccurate accruals, disconnected analytics for reporting, and the potential for non-compliant spend. Instead, finance teams are left with a lack of visibility, impacting their ability to accurately manage budgets and forecast spend, thus further hindering any efforts to be agile and flexible with changing organizational needs.</p>
<p><strong>2. Automated Point Solutions</strong></p>
<p>At this stage, organizations have automated segmented aspects of their financial process with single-purpose solutions. These individual solutions are quicker to get up and running, but they remain disconnected and require Finance and IT teams to learn, manage, and train employees to use multiple different systems.</p>
<p>Linking disparate pools of spend data limits controls and reduces accuracy of reporting. Additionally, the use of siloed systems requires staff to manually enter data points, which increases the chance for errors, and reduces overall employee experience and productivity.</p>
<p><strong>3. Connected Platform Ecosystem</strong></p>
<p>With a connected platform ecosystem, organizations have gone the extra mile to connect their automated point solutions in their back-office via APIs and third-party partners, enabling information to flow freely amongst the systems.</p>
<p>But users of these programs still need to move from one system to another, gathering disparate employee information and managing spending policies that remain difficult to enforce. With fragmented spending channels and new expense categories – such as home office supplies, PPE, etc. – it often becomes more complex to manage multiple systems and sources of employee spend. A lack of process and compliance guidance may open the door to wasteful spending, budget overruns, and even fraud.</p>
<p><strong>4. Integrated Application Suites</strong></p>
<p>Organizations at this stage have connected their applications to a specific workflow or process via cloud-enabled software. These integrated applications enable finance teams to have a more holistic view of spend and risk exposure.</p>
<p>However, integrated process can become stagnant without continuous feedback from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to spot the discrepancies. A lack of intelligent data reporting can prevent organizations from optimizing program performance, slow down growth, and inhibit the ability to respond to major disruptions.</p>
<p><strong>5. Intelligent/Predictive Processes</strong></p>
<p>The final stage of T&E maturity utilizes predictive processes with employee spend management systems to provide services that mitigate unplanned or needless expenses and forecast future spend before it happens. Organizations gain overall policy compliance and control with predictive T&E budgeting and planning, ML-based fraud detection, and near real-time data visibility to track trends and leverage valuable insights. Harnessing intelligent automation increases business agility, establishes resilience, and keeps organizations ahead of the competition.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Continue to level up your T&E program with SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>For the first moments, the big moments, the uncertain moments, the growing pains – SAP Concur solutions support your organization’s changing needs. Whether it’s to scale in size, adopt to new rules and regulations, or aid a dynamic workforce – we enable you to confidently guide employees through change, so you can reduce the risks associated with legacy systems, disparate processes, and non-compliant spend. It’s time to improve visibility into spend data, while increasing productivity and compliance. It’s time to digitize to level up spend management.</p>
<p>To learn more, check out these resources:</p>
<ul>
<li>Move your organization towards greater efficiency, cost reduction, and actualize ROI by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/maximizing-maturity-gain-momentum-public-sector">downloading our eBook</a>.</li>
<li>Find out where your organization falls in the Travel and Expense Maturity Model by <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-and-expense-assessment#/">taking our assessment</a>.</li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
U.S. Bank Instant Card Now Integrated with Concur Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/us-bank-instant-card-now-integrated-concur-expense
2022-11-13T16:19:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
US Bank Instant Card transactions now seamlessly integrate into Concur Expense.
<p>U.S. Bank Instant Card transactions now seamlessly integrate into <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, simplifying expense tracking, reporting, and reconciliation. Instant Card users can easily capture their expenses with e-receipts, populate expense reports, and submit expenses for approval from anywhere using their mobile device.</p>
<p>The new U.S. Bank Instant Card is a fast, efficient, and simple way for employees, contractors, or consultants to make business purchases without using a personal credit card or filling out complex expense reports. With Instant Card, companies can push a virtual corporate card to the Apple Pay or Google Pay wallets of employees, contractors, or consultants in seconds, giving them the ability to make purchases online or in person using contactless technology. Companies can also set the credit limit and expiration date on the card. </p>
<p>“We’ve seen tremendous interest in Instant Card since its debut in June,” said Bradley Matthews, senior vice president for the Corporate Payments group at U.S. Bank. “The card is perfect for companies who need to extend temporary use of a commercial card to almost anyone. And now, we’re excited to be partnering with the SAP Concur organization, with a full integration into their innovative expense management platform. SAP Concur customers can now provision commercial cards directly to a mobile wallet –– and the expenses post automatically to Concur Expense.”</p>
<p>The Instant Card uses a uniquely generated card number, expiration date, and security code as a proxy, providing an extra layer of fraud and misuse mitigation. Mobile wallet use provides an additional layer of payment security.</p>
<p>“SAP Concur has a rich history of partnering with issuing banks to provide our joint customers an integrated way of managing their corporate card spend,” said Valerie Blatt, business head and general manager, Global SMB, at SAP Concur. “The current business environment has compelled companies to increasingly embrace digital transformation. A marked increase in the use of virtual cards, in lieu of traditional plastic corporate cards, is one example. This is why we’re pleased to partner with U.S. Bank to provide a full integration with Instant Card. Customers will now be able to optimize their card program with U.S. Bank, while still having complete visibility into their total employee spend through Concur Expense.”</p>
<p>The card can currently be used in a wide variety of scenarios: expenses for someone who needs to travel to interview for a job, an employee who travels too infrequently to have a corporate card, or a volunteer who needs to buy items for an event. Plus, there are many other potential ways the Instant Card could be used in the future: an employer could send money to an employee who is stranded while traveling, or a management company could send a virtual card to a contractor making unanticipated repairs on a property. </p>
<p>To learn more about the U.S. Bank Instant Card and Concur Expense integration, visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/financial-services/us-bank">SAP Concur Partner Directory</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size">Note: Instant Card is available to current U.S. Bank One Card, U.S. Bank Corporate Travel Card and U.S. Bank Purchasing Card customers with Access Online. Instant Card requires U.S. Bank Payment Plus in order to use.</p>
SAP Concur Team
You Don’t Need to See the Future if You Can See Clearly Now
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/you-dont-need-see-future-if-you-can-see-clearly-now
2022-11-13T17:02:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you can see your spend, you can control it. And if you can control it, you can adapt more quickly to both challenges and opportunities.
<p>No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be ready for it. And while “getting ready” for further disruption might conjure images of a total corporate overhaul or revamping your entire workforce – again – getting started can be as simple controlling spend.</p>
<p>Wait. Controlling spend is simple?</p>
<p>Well, let’s just say it doesn’t have to be impossible. And as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/3-ways-to-future-proof-your-business">this recent whitepaper</a> points out, shedding light on spending blind spots in areas like travel and expense can be critical to business continuity as you attempt to weather change.</p>
<p><strong>Simply put: If you can see your spend, you can control it. And if you can control it, you can adapt more quickly to both challenges and opportunities.</strong></p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Future-Proof Your Business</h5>
<p>Learn 3 key capabilities that all businesses need for business continuity.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/3-ways-to-future-proof-your-business">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Where is all the money going?</h2>
<p>This question is at least as old as your dad, because you’ve been hearing it your whole life. It’s just that now, the numbers are in the tens of millions. Travel and expense is typically a company’s second-largest line item after payroll, so any amount of leakage or hidden spend – or even the cumulative casual mistakes we all make on expense reports – add up quickly.</p>
<p>And there’s any maverick spend you can’t currently control. Plus the regulatory fines you don’t know about until it’s too late. Then the increased spending outside your policies and negotiated rates. When you take all of that into account, and you’ll soon begin to see why the money runs out.</p>
<p>You might not immediately feel the pain of this invisible spend (because you don’t know it’s happening), but when you start peeking into the gaps in your data, it all becomes clear.</p>
<h2>Is anyone following the rules?</h2>
<p>Compliance is the second part of the spending problem, and again, visibility is the answer. If you can see where people are sidestepping policy, you can help keep things in line. And if you give employees tools that give them options – like booking travel directly with brands they love, and simple apps that make managing expenses easy– they’ll be far more likely (one might even say happy) to comply.</p>
<p>These same tools make it abundantly clear where your policies are working and where they can be improved. They show you the data, the tracking, and the trends And with the help of AI and machine learning, you’ll have a second, unblinking set of eyes on the rules.</p>
<p>You can’t make everyone follow policy, but you can see where the problems are. And that makes it considerably easier to fix them.</p>
<h2>Whatever happened to the honor system?</h2>
<p>No one is asking you to mistrust your teams, and the honor system still works fine when it comes to paying for donuts in the breakroom, but when we’re talking about cold, hard, company cash, you need to be able to see and verify what’s going out the door.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/3-ways-to-future-proof-your-business">This white paper</a> has input on this, as well, in two very challenging categories of spending: mileage and cash payments. Currently, most companies are expected to trust what ends up being guesswork in the mileage category (How far is it to Cleveland, anyway?). And cash or pCard payment validation depends on a wrinkly little receipt getting stapled to the right expense report and, of course, being keyed in correctly in the first place.</p>
<p>Fortunately, technology has surpassed the odometer and the stapler. Mobile management tools automatically record mileage – so employees don’t have to worry about entering their miles – and you don’t have to worry about the entries being wrong or, at the very least, late. And regarding receipts, simply <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">snapping a picture</a> is all it takes to upload the charges and automatically categorize them in an expense report.</p>
<p>Again, this makes it easier for employees to comply – and for you to control what they’re spending.</p>
<h2>Future-proof, not future promise.</h2>
<p>This technology isn’t like the flying car; it’s here now, and it’s here to prepare you for the changes and challenges ahead. Because you’re better able to stand up to disruptions when you know your financial footing, and you’re better able to answer opportunity’s knock when you’ve got cash on hand.</p>
<p>Sure, travel and expense management isn’t the end-all, be-all. But it’s a start, and right now, that’s all any company needs.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Royal Voluntary Service Uses SAP Concur Solutions to Support NHS Volunteer Responders During COVID-19 Crisis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/royal-voluntary-service-uses-sap-concur-solutions-support-nhs-volunteer-responders
2022-11-13T19:12:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Royal Voluntary Service is currently contributing to the health crisis relief effort by mobilising volunteers to support those in need Volunteers have been drafted to ease the burden...
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1589276624223-image.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/">Royal Voluntary Service</a> is currently contributing to the health crisis relief effort by mobilising 600,000 volunteers to support those in need. Volunteers have been drafted to ease the burden on the National Health Service by providing vital non-medical care services to those self-isolating due to Covid-19 across the UK. To better enable the thousands of <a href="https://volunteering.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/nhs-volunteer-responders#_ga=2.208718166.510851548.1588160668-391453563.1586887159">NHS Volunteer Responders</a>, Royal Voluntary Service has partnered with the SAP Concur organization to automate expense claims, enabling volunteers to be reimbursed quickly and efficiently during this time.</p>
<h2>The mission: an army of expenses</h2>
<p>For over 80 years, Royal Voluntary Service has been harnessing the power of volunteers to protect and support society in times of great social need. </p>
<p>Key responsibilities for the 600,000 NHS Volunteer Responders include driving people to and from hospital, delivering groceries and medication, check in and chat phone calls, and supporting the NHS to transport equipment and supplies. The decision to collaborate with SAP follows the enormous demand for expense claim management relating to these tasks.</p>
<p>The partnership will streamline the expense process for volunteers whose goal is to help those most heavily impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Their expenses relate to the non-medical tasks they conduct which often rely on the use of personal funds. The subsequent costs can be reimbursed quickly and easily through the NHS Volunteer Responders Expenses System which is supported by SAP Concur software. This immediately processes expense claims and enables responders to continue their good work. The volunteers can also donate the expenses back to Royal Voluntary Service if they want to.</p>
<p>Rebecca Kennelly, Director of Volunteering for Royal Voluntary Service said: “We want to make it as easy possible for volunteers to claim expenses and the partnership with SAP Concur solution allows us to do this. There are so many kind hearted volunteers gifting their time to support others in their local community and we are delighted we are able to offer the certainty of fast, accurate reimbursement for anyone taking on extra responsibility during this time.”</p>
<h2>Mission critical and timely service delivery</h2>
<p>Every second counts at the moment, so acting quickly and collaboratively is key. Royal Voluntary Service has chosen SAP Concur solutions in view of the upfront resource and scalability available. The charity will be rolling out the expense system shortly to allow volunteers to claim back their expenses. The service delivery timeline has been implemented in record speed in response to the emergency, proving the value of technology to alleviate some of the pressures during this confusing, complicated and testing time.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more about this partnership at <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/rvs">concur.co.uk</a>.</strong></p>
Alistair Kent
Recovery or Not: How Finance Leaders Can Maintain Balance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/recovery-or-not-how-finance-leaders-can-maintain-balance
2022-11-13T19:47:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Staying agile has always been important, but it’s now more important than ever.
<p>As a finance leader of a small or mid-size business, you’ve got a ton on your plate. 2020 and beyond shined a spotlight on many challenges, with an urgency for many organizations to improve how they run—immediately.</p>
<p>In this new landscape, many SMBs adopted some form of digitization to help connect workers and improve processes, according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">an Oxford Economics survey of small businesses</a>. But some aren’t sure if the changes will stick, while many still work with manual paper processes or have only partially automated their finances. So, many operations still face workflow roadblocks, gaps in spend visibility, and spotty policy compliance.</p>
<p>These are the things that <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-management-whats-keeping-finance-leaders-night">keep a finance leader up at night</a>.</p>
<p>But creating a resilient business is an ever-evolving process. So here are some best practices to follow, particularly when you have no spend to waste.</p>
<h2>Best practices for spend management</h2>
<p>In any economy, it’s critical to control costs, but even more so when navigating unpredictable terrain. But the building blocks of resilience include:</p>
<p><strong>Streamlined processes: </strong>Manual data entry and paper processes cost a lot of time (and, therefore, money) to maintain. They’re also prone to higher rates of errors, which take additional time to reconcile. Meanwhile, automated financial processes and data capturing gives financial workers the right tools to do their jobs efficiently and more accurately.</p>
<p><strong>Clear policies: </strong>Creating and communicating <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policies</a>, and incorporating them into your processes, makes a distinct difference in keeping everyone compliant with spend—and therefore keeping costs in check.</p>
<p><strong>Up-to-date spend visibility: </strong>Do you know where your cash flow stands now? Like, right now? A resilient business is an informed business when it comes to knowing exactly how much money is coming in and going out. With a manual process, you might have a lag time of days, weeks, or even months, on where your cash flow stands, which means you’re probably making very important business decisions in the dark. Having real-time spend visibility lets you see your next steps more clearly.</p>
<p><strong>Employee support: </strong>Making it easier for employees to do their jobs, and do them accurately, makes for happier and more productive employees. Providing clear policies and processes eliminates the guesswork—and resulting errors—when employees spend on the company dime.</p>
<p><strong>Cost control: </strong>All of these factors—visibility into spend, keeping processes efficient and accurate, adopting clear policies, and helping everyone be more productive—play into controlling costs, which can give you greater fiscal resilience to keep going in almost any economic climate.</p>
<h2>Spend management automation and business resilience</h2>
<p>You work to apply these best practices every day. But there’s an easier way to do it: By embracing full automation of your finance processes.</p>
<p>If you’ve wondered whether automation is right for your business, consider this: more and more organizations are automating their manual tasks. Your competitors might also be automating their manual tasks, adopting processes that make their teams more productive, and getting insights to help them make better financial decisions—and ultimately stay resilient when it matters most.</p>
<p>How are finance leaders looking to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">spend management automation</a> to accelerate the recovery and growth in these times? According to Bryan Ball, research director for <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/why-now-is-time-to-digitalize-how-manage-company-spend">Aberdeen’s Supply Chain and Supplier Management</a> research practice: “In this current environment, having visibility into critical spending information that impacts cashflow and such as expense reports and vendor invoices can make a difference in terms of survival or how quickly companies can return to a stable position and be better prepared for the future.” </p>
<p>Automating your expense and accounts payable processes will:</p>
<ul>
<li>Show up-to-date spending across your organization</li>
<li>Eliminate paper receipts</li>
<li> Auto-populate expense reports based on uploaded captured receipts</li>
<li>Automatically reimburse employees and pay vendors and creditors</li>
<li> Create a secure system of checks and balances by matching submissions with charges and receipts</li>
<li> Help spot and mitigate fraud</li>
</ul>
<p>Staying agile has always been important, but it’s now more important than ever. See the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/concur-expense-product-demo">Concur Expense demo</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice demo</a> to learn how they can help.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Travel Risk Management: 4 Reasons Why It's a Business Imperative
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-management-4-reasons-why-its-business-imperative
2022-11-14T12:04:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel does not exist without a degree of risk whether it be from flight delays natural disasters transportation strikes or even pickpocketing Because of such threats...
<p>Business travel does not exist without a degree of risk, whether it be from flight delays, natural disasters, transportation strikes, or even pickpocketing. Because of such threats, businesses have both a legal and moral duty to develop or enhance travel risk management (TRM) policies in order to fulfill duty-of-care obligations to employees and maintain the well-being of the company. Here are four things to consider as you develop your TRM policy:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. There Are Liability Issues</h2>
<p>When employees travel within the U.S., employer liability in the case of illness or injury is limited due to workers’ compensation. Once an employee travels a certain distance from where the business is located, the company has obligations under U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to provide a safe work environment.</p>
<p>In the case of international travel, these legal duty of care obligations aren’t always clear. But legal experts say that the lack of any specific duty of care law does not necessarily mean there are no legal obligations for the health and safety of U.S. business travelers abroad. A proactive TRM policy could help mitigate against corporate liability for domestic and international travelers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Business Travel is Increasing</h2>
<p>In January, the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) forecast that U.S.-person trips are expected to hit 537.1 million in 2017, which is up 2.9% from 2016. And, with all that travel comes risks of varying degrees, such as infectious diseases like Zika and Ebola or unexpected weather events and natural disasters like tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Smaller Risks Matter, Too</h2>
<p>When it comes to travel risks, it’s not just about high-profile incidents and catastrophic events. Lower-impact risks like medical issues, road traffic accidents, public transportation incidents and petty crime might not get as much attention, but they are much more common. Thus, it’s important to consider these as part of a broader notion of traveler well-being, and keep them in mind when crafting a TRM.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Business Risks Need to be Mitigated</h2>
<p>Not only is it critical for companies to protect their greatest assets – their employees – but it’s also important for them to protect themselves. While there are costs associated with implementing a TRM program, the cost of failing to provide adequate duty-of-care can be exorbitant in terms of medical expenses, sick pay, employment litigation, loss of productivity and morale, etc. What’s more, a poorly-managed traveler emergency can also have negative ramifications for the business’ reputation, competitive advantage, business continuity and financial health.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are key reasons why establishing travel risk management and duty-of-care practices for your organization is so important. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Part Two: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-data-integration-is-key-to-your-travel-risk-management-plan">Why Data Integration is Key to Your Travel Risk Management Plan</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Three: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/time-to-take-next-step-towards-travel-risk-management">It's Time to Take the Next Step Towards Your Travel Risk Management Plan</a></strong></p>
Rebecca Dolan
New Pulse Surveys Explore Financial Impact of COVID-19 Business Travel Reductions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions
2022-12-05T14:55:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
More than half of U.S. finance managers say it’s very or extremely likely that their industry sees a boom in business travel by the end of the year—but only 16% say their organizations are prepared.
<p>How has the pandemic, and the associated decrease in business travel, impacted businesses’ finances? Are organizations prepared for business travel’s impending return? New research commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in January 2022 suggests that while there is high demand—and likelihood—for a return to business travel this year, most organizations have yet to fully lay the groundwork.</p>
<p>Key findings from SAP Concur pulse surveys of 100 U.S. finance managers (vice president and above) and 1,000 U.S. business travelers include:</p>
<p><strong>A reduction in business travel cost companies revenue and perfect scores from employees.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Most finance managers (88%) say that their company experienced a revenue loss over the past year as a direct result of employees’ inability to travel at pre-pandemic levels.</li>
<li>Nearly half of business travelers (44%) say that their company needs an increase in business travel to remain viable beyond 2022; 35% say the same for their career, and 30% say the same for their entire industry.</li>
<li>Nearly all finance managers (99%) and business travelers (99%) gave their company a passing grade on how it handled the reduction in business revenue due to decreased travel during the pandemic.
<ul>
<li>Among finance managers whose companies lost revenue, 2% gave their company an A and 28% gave them a D.</li>
<li>Business travelers were more generous: 27% gave their company an A and only 3% gave them a D.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Business is gradually trending toward business as we knew it. </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-eight percent of surveyed finance managers report that their company has returned to the office in some capacity.</li>
<li>More than half of finance managers (52%) say it’s very or extremely likely that their industry sees a boom in business travel by the end of 2022. And business travelers agree: 73% say that an increase is very or extremely likely this year, and 62% anticipate an increase in their own business travel compared to 2021.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Employees and companies continue to clash over travel, compliance, and expense.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travel</strong>
<ul>
<li>Most finance managers (84%) say that their company is less than completely prepared to handle an increase in business travel in 2022. Also, most finance managers (62%) agree that their company will fall behind competitors if their financial systems and staff aren’t prepared to immediately respond to these changes.</li>
<li>Ninety-six percent of business travelers acknowledge areas where their company leadership could have better prepared for an increase in business travel during the past year.
<ul>
<li>These include increased flexibility and control for business travelers (52%), prioritization of in-person trips that drive business value (44%), and new or improved travel management technology (42%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Compliance</strong>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-eight percent of finance managers say they have seen an increase in non-compliant expenses during the past year.</li>
<li>The vast majority of business travelers (89%) admit they’ve submitted at least one travel expense during the past year that may violate their company’s travel policies—on average, a whopping $3,397 of questionable expenses.
<ul>
<li>And while the majority of finance managers (53%) believe those expenses stem from unclear policies, their employees admit to being a bit more mischievous: Nearly two-thirds of business travelers (65%) admit that questionable expenses come from employees intentionally trying to get reimbursed for personal expenses.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Expense</strong>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-three percent of business travelers say that their company leadership could have better prepared during the past year for new and different business expenses likely to be submitted in 2022.
<ul>
<li>Suggested focus areas include investing in new or improved expense reporting technology (50%), increased training on expense policies (47%), and increased training on the company’s expense reporting systems (44%).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>During the past year, 86% of business travelers reported that their company has been delayed in reimbursing their business expenses at least once, and 89% say that a delay in receiving reimbursements impacts their personal finances.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Finance managers and business travelers don’t necessarily see eye to eye on everything.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Only 12% of finance managers think it’s extremely likely that their industry will see an increase in business travel before the end of 2022, compared to 36% of business travelers.</li>
<li>Only 16% of finance managers feel their company is ready to handle an increase in business travel this year, compared to 39% of business travelers.</li>
<li>While most business travelers (78%) gave their company an A or B grade for how it handled decreased revenue from business travel during the pandemic, only 38% of finance managers whose company lost revenue gave their company an A or B.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>New and unique challenges for finance managers could explain the disparity.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>All finance managers (100%) said that the Great Resignation was impacting their organization, and 51% expect continued impact through the end of 2022.</li>
<li>All finance managers (100%) said that their role has changed—and become more challenging—since the start of the pandemic. Top reasons include taking on additional work caused by staffing shortages (59%), additional auditing and paperwork requirements (45%), and new or added involvement in internal communications (45%).
<ul>
<li>On average, they are spending six hours each week on these tasks collectively.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Technology offers solutions for companies, finance managers, and business travelers alike.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>All finance managers (100%) expect their company to make financial technology investments in 2022, including 37% who expect their company to invest in new financial technology solutions. This is likely a welcome change, as the majority of finance managers (57%) use multiple applications to perform their role—and 17% use multiple applications with no integration between them.</li>
<li>In 2022, business travelers would like to see their company invest in adding or updating apps with real-time travel updates and booking (46%), tools for quicker expense reimbursement (43%), and tools for navigating the latest travel safety requirements (41%). A travel management system (40%) and an integrated system for travel and expense reporting (39%) round out their top five.</li>
</ul>
<p>These pulse survey findings underscore the urgency to get ready for the return of business travel in 2022, lest organizations fall behind their competitors. <a href="https://go.concur.com/022322_all_tetrends__registrationpage.html?pid=blog%E2%80%8B&cid=ksoen_t_etrends_blog_7017v000000ju2b_20220223">Join our webinar</a> on February 23 to learn more about these trends and how companies can best prepare.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size">The Concur Finance Managers Survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com">Wakefield Research</a> among 100 U.S. finance managers with a minimum seniority of vice president, between January 3rd and January 13th, 2022, using an email invitation and an online survey.</p>
<p class="small-size">The Concur 2022 Business Traveler Companion for Finance Managers Survey was conducted by <a href="http://www.wakefieldresearch.com">Wakefield Research</a> among 1,000 U.S. business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business 3+ times in the past 24 months, between January 3rd and January 13th, 2022, using an email invitation and an online survey.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Futureproofing for Financial Disruption: 3 Things to do Right Now, An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with TCG Consulting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/futureproofing-financial-disruption-3-things-do-right-now-sap-concur-podcast
2022-12-06T13:35:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Having a plan for financial recovery without sacrificing employee productivity or risk is paramount for your organization to prepare for the next disruption We asked Jason Grunin...
<p>Having a plan for financial recovery, without sacrificing employee productivity or risk, is paramount for your organization to prepare for the next disruption. We asked Jason Grunin, Senior Value Consultant for the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur, to explore the top three financial considerations that organizations should be evaluating right now with subject matter experts Jim Coufal, Senior Principal and Advisor, and Edward Curtis, Associate Director, of TCG Consulting. Listen to this podcast for tips on how to help your organization both prepare for recovery, as well as be ready to tackle the next disruption.</p>
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<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Hello, I'm Jason Grunin, a Senior Value Consultant in the Value Experience Group here at SAP Concur. I've been here for about two years, and prior to that, I was responsible for efficiency, accounts payable, T&E, and initiatives for a higher education institution.</p>
<p>One of the goals of the team I'm on is to share best practices and help customers maximize their return on investment with their employee-initiated spend program. Today, I have with me Jim and Edward from our partner, TCG Consulting. Jim and Edward, would you like to introduce yourselves?</p>
<p><strong>Edward Curtis:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, Jason. My name is Edward Curtis and I'm the Associate Director for TCG's Expense and Invoice practice. I've been with TCG Consulting for almost two years now and prior to TCG, I worked for two of the largest expense management systems software suppliers in enterprise implementations. So today, I manage our team of global certified implementation resources, who help our customers implement, optimize and manage their SAP Concur systems. I'm joined by my colleague, Jim Coufal. Jim, would you please introduce yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, thanks, Edward. Hi, my name is Jim Coufal, I'm a Senior Principal and Advisor for TCG in the areas of travel meetings, payment, and expense with an emphasis in spend management. I provide subject matter support for integration of payment systems and expense managements with the goal of really minimizing total cost of ownership for travel meetings, payment, and expense.</p>
<p>I've acquired most of my knowledge over the 30 years in the industry supporting our global clients in over 110 countries and many different market verticals. I'm looking forward to our discussion today and excited to talk about employee-initiated spend and how the spend management solutions can help manage that.</p>
<p>One of the areas is the miscellaneous category and I think everyone who is probably listening to this [podcast] cringes when they hear that "miscellaneous." Because we know that if a traveler can't find the expense, or a non-traveler and non-traveler type expenses, they'll book it into the miscellaneous.</p>
<p>And then the other happens, if you don't have a “miscellaneous” they're going to put it somewhere that looks like it might be the right category and it might get misclassified. So, the challenge around that is to really find that balance and how do you get to that.</p>
<p>The other portion of this applicable to the purpose of the podcast is, and what can be done in the next 90 days or the near future in terms of managing some of these types of expenses. And as we get into the holidays, one of the big ones is around spend categories where gift cards might tend to increase. And so, from an audit perspective, where would you look for that and how would you do that? Some of the areas that tend to creep up over the holidays are for example, Amazon charges getting booked to office supplies, postage, Starbucks cards into meals, Best Buy cards for office equipment.</p>
<p>A lot of airfare possibly during the holidays, is that really business or potentially some personal travel accommodate to be mixed in there. Accommodations over the weekends and holidays. Rental cars in your holidays, personal mileage, air for hotel and rental cars.</p>
<p>The way that auditing and what you're looking for may need to adapt during these periods of time. There's the payment system, corporate card reports that could be reviewed. You could look at age transactions also to make sure that everything's being put through before the year-end. As well as we mentioned there in the expense solution, you could see Saturday night stays as well on corporate card programs and then any department store or jewelry purchases.</p>
<p>And so how do you manage that? So, taking a review of your policy, but also of your expense types and categories in the solution or in the spend management solution. Do you have the right balance and how do you review that? Part of it will depend on the type of spend.</p>
<p>So, for example, starting with the P-Card non-travel expenses, those typically would have more granularity to them in terms of how they're categorized in an organization. Also, the type of user who has those P-Cards for example, are usually someone in a capacity that would understand the categories from a procurement perspective, for example, or an accounting or office management where they're more trained in the use of those and therefore the level and the number of expense types for that tend to be and can be a little bit higher to get more granularity.</p>
<p>But on the contrary, when you get over to the travel side and you have your employee base that's traveling and they're not accountants, and you're really wanting to be able to categorize their spend and account for it accurately, that balance there would tend to be fewer expense types, but enough that you don't have them putting it in inaccurate categories.</p>
<p>And there's that ever-surrounding question about that miscellaneous, do you have it, or do you not? And so, the idea behind that would be to monitor an expense category such as miscellaneous to understand what's actually being booked to that. And that will help you determine if you need to be adding more expense types.</p>
<p>So, if you're seeing constantly, for example, some at home office expenses that are being booked in there now under the new COVID, that might be time for you to actually add those as expense types. And maybe you have an expense type called "home office expense," and you have a policy that revolves around that.</p>
<p>So point to really this is, there is a balance that you will eventually feel is correct for your organization, but our recommendation would be that you err on the side of simplification because the more categories you have, the harder it will be for employees to actually accurately identify these expenses, but yet you want to balance it with the controls and compliance that you need from an organizational perspective, to manage the spend and to maintain the compliance based on policies.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Jim, you made a great point. I recently worked with a customer who has a global presence and they started evaluating their gift card spend. And ran some reporting in their travel and expense program and looked for the "gift" or "card" in any of the comments. And what they identified was over $150,000 in spend across 12 different expense types.</p>
<p>And once they started looking into that, they realized that their employees were really confused as far as where gift cards should be charged, if it was even appropriate at all. And making sure that attendees were being required for those expense types where they are appropriate. And so, again coming back as we think about coming towards the holidays with get togethers being more limited, take a look at your program. What are your employees faced with if they were trying to expense the gift card and where would they put it?</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. Final comment on that would be the configuration of the spend management solution. So, on certain types of expenses and I'm going to go back to that "miscellaneous" require a comment. So that you do have that ability to mine some of that data later, like you just described and some other areas. Take a review to see if you've got attendees attached to the right expense category. Sometimes they might be inappropriate as well. So, it's also is a good time to take that review, especially post-COVID as we'll anticipate volumes to increase. Now is the opportunity to actually make those changes while you can manage that and then be ready for hopefully the return of our travel and our spend.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Jim. Our next topic is around mobile adoption and employee experience. And I'm sure many of you listening in are probably listening from your iPhone or your Android, perhaps even your work computer. But nowadays, as you think about the business traveler, the business employee who does not have a smart phone? Everyone is really, in some ways, good and bad, attached to the hip more so than the old days where you wore a Blackberry.</p>
<p>But if you about that and think about your organization, how would implement mobile-first approach? How do you make the tools and technology that your organization adopts in the hands of your fingertips of the employees that are using it on a daily basis?</p>
<p>Some of that really revolves around having integrated platforms. Thinking about how many different applications and mobile apps do users want to load on their phone? They really don't want tens of pages of apps. They want simple, simplistic apps that do the job that they need in the amount that is less time-consuming and they can get off their phone as quick as possible.</p>
<p>So that mobile-first approach really thinks about an integrated platform. Having simple-to-use expense types. Balancing back what Jim was just talking about. You want to have the appropriate amount. What is a number that works for your organization? Does your tool book it all? Does your tool do it all? Can you request pre-approval for your trip? Can you book your trip? Expense your trip, manage your card expenses and then confirm that you received reimbursement for that item?</p>
<p>When platforms are disconnected, it requires multiple apps. It requires more training. It requires more engagement with internal customers which can be time consuming and leading to a poor employee experience. Thinking about that from an approver perspective, same thing. What is the role of the approver from a mobile and from an employee experience perspective?</p>
<p>Are they your trained auditor? Are they there to simply say, yes, Jason took this trip and it's authorized? Are they there to be reviewing the cost and accounting sub strings attached to that trip? If so, that's probably not something that the user is going to be able to do easily on mobile. And you want to have those clear and separate boundaries for what your personas are on the mobile application.</p>
<p>The other thing to consider in your organization is, do mobile phones, are they available to all classes of employees? Is it fair and reasonable and even potentially regulated? State and federal regulations may even dictate or require the employer to provide a mobile device to that employee if they're using it for a work benefit. Thinking about HR, tax implications and fairness to all classes of employees.</p>
<p>Does everyone who travels have a bring your own device policy? What is your mobile reimbursement policy for employees? I know as running an organization prior to joining Concur, my employees were expected to have a mobile phone. It was part of the job. It was part of their on-call status. And in that case are their compliance in HR policies that need to be considered?</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>Jason, do you see a difference in an organization across different types of users? For example, let's use the newer, younger employees that are coming in versus some of the more established employees who have been with the organization longer?</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, definitely. That makes a tremendous difference on the expectation of coming in. So, an employee coming in just fresh out of college or in the tech industry is going to expect to be able to do everything on their mobile phone. They're going to want to be able to take a picture of their receipt, match it straight to their expense report and not even think about it again. The idea that they even take a printed receipt.</p>
<p>So, looking at application partners where my Uber receipt can flow straight into my expense report and I don't even have to forward it or take a picture, it's become an expectation in some generations because they don't want the paper receipt, they walk away without it. And then all of a sudden now you're faced with an audit problem in certain environments. Did that transaction really happen? How can I encourage my mobile users to just snap a picture and then walk away from the transaction?</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Jason, that's a good point especially with the mobile, but in general you mentioned about the auditing and the employee responsibility. What's the threshold or the trigger level, for example that you would think or want to recommend organizations to consider?</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So, it really depends on the payment type. So, if your organization has a corporate card platform and depending on this locale of where your organization is based. Whether you follow the US Internal Revenue Service Policy of all expenses greater than $75 must have a substantiation, some organizations I've still seen have the $0. You have to have a receipt for everything.</p>
<p>And at what cost to your organization in reviewing a $5 taxi receipt, does that really add value to that person's time? And really, it's a form of payment, expense type thresholds, whether it's a invoiceable expense report, all of those things should factor into your policy on whether a receipt is being required and how the user can then streamline that process.</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>Our next topic is regarding new behaviors in spend. And are we listening, in our organization, to our employees? Are we connected in our industry and are we doing it right? How do know if we're in touch with our community? And I think COVID has been a good reminder for us to maintain that type of relationship in our organization. And to be cognizant of our employees and their behaviors. And the changes that are occurring in those behaviors.</p>
<p>Prior to COVID, we've had other disruptions in the industry. As I mentioned in my introduction, I've been doing this for a while now. And I can recall like September 11th, we had the volcano over the North Atlantic that shut down all the travel over the North Atlantic. We've got COVID now.</p>
<p>So, have we learned from these previous disruptions? I think we have, but going forward, especially from COVID, I think there's changes that are coming in the industry around duty of care, watching quickly and being able to shift according to travel regulations especially at least now in our COVID scenarios where every day borders are opening and closing. And how do you keep track of that? How do you stay on top of that? So as our travelers in the next three months hopefully start to travel again, are we ready? And are we able to help manage that for them?</p>
<p>So, listening to what they need or staying current in the industry to actually be able to provide tools for them to be able to know what those requirements are if they're traveling internationally, for example and they're going between two countries, because it's a very complicated combination.</p>
<p>If you take all the countries combined with all the other countries, they're all very different. And so managing that is essential going forward and helping our travelers understand that. But what's the financial impact as well? And how are we manage that? I think with COVID we found a lot of unused tickets all of a sudden. And for companies who may have learned from the volcano or September 11th, they were hopefully being able to manage and track these through the spend management solution or the online booking tool to be able to identify these and reapply them or request refunds for some of this travel as well.</p>
<p>And then how sustainable is this going forward? Are we ready and able to provide this on an ongoing basis and are we building this into new policies and procedures for example? And our recommendation is if you haven't done that, there's still time.</p>
<p>As we see today with the new Omicron variant, just as we think we're coming out of it, we're going back in again. So, it may be a little bit longer before we start getting our normal travel patterns back. So, our recommendation is using this time. If there's a created time in your scheduling to be able to really focus on the structure of the program; reaching out to your peers in the industry, but also within your own organization, making sure that you have a stakeholder team that's involved in the different components of the travel meetings, payment and expense, and that you have that structure and infrastructure in place that allows and empowers these different areas to basically make decisions at the time of these events and that the company can then be proactive and not as reactive when some of these occur. And there will be the next one, whatever that is. Our goal would be to be able to minimize any disruption and any costs to the organization.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>So, Jim absolutely relevant. So many of those events just bring back so many memories of frustration and panic. So how can we be ready for and insulated from the next disruption that comes our way?</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>I wish we had a crystal ball, we don't. But what we do have is planning and proactive reaction to what we've learned from other events. And as I mentioned, for example, the North Atlantic shutdown or September 11th, we learned things then that we applied now for COVID. So same with COVID, being able to take what we've learned and make sure we apply it into our program because you'll never be completely ready. Because you don't know what that next disruption is going to be.</p>
<p>But at least you can minimize the impact to the organization by having that infrastructure in place and a plan, just like any other disaster recovery in the event of any kind of disruption. With that, I'm going to move this onto the next topic that Edward's is going to take, which is future proofing our travel program from disruption. How do we prepare for future disruptions, so we don't have that great of an impact?</p>
<p><strong>Edward Curtis:</strong></p>
<p>Great. Thanks, Jim. So, as you look at, how do we prevent having as massive disruption in the future when hopefully nothing like COVID happens again, but if there is something else that does happen, how does it not have as great of an impact? And I think the first thing to realize is that many of the changes in travel and expense for companies that came about during COVID will actually be permanent, and they're not just temporary.</p>
<p>So COVID brought to light many deficiencies within organizations especially around process and workflow. As we hopefully reach the light at the end of this COVID tunnel, it's important we future proof our travel and expense programs from these future disruptions, no matter what type, whether it be a September 11th tragedy or a volcano explosion or some type of disease. It's important to note that we might be living with COVID for the foreseeable feature. It's not something that's just going to go away. It's just going to be something that we have to manage and live with.</p>
<p>So, keeping all of this in mind, your company will need to take a hard look at whether or not travel bypass will be allowed from your program. The risk of not knowing where your travelers are and the consequences of them, say being sick and needing care, or bringing an illness back to the office and that causing a massive disruption in that particular location that would need to be shut down and cease operations, really cannot be overstated.</p>
<p>And also, for financial reasons. For many of the reasons that Jason and Jim both spoke to earlier, it's important to have all your travel spend within one location to drive your airline, or hotel discounts and to help with these future contract negotiations. Your company will also need to evaluate the new working normal. So, will employees be allowed to work remotely full time?</p>
<p>Will they be returning to the office? Will there be a hybrid approach? So, Jason talked to the need to have constant revisions to your travel and expenses policy especially around the home office approach. So, your policies will need to reflect the direction your company has taken and to make sure your expense management system reflects this new policy.</p>
<p>So, should new expense sites be created to allow for home office expenses? Should certain medical expenses be allowed? All things that you'll need to consider as you build this policy for the future. Another key element of the new normal is how your company views travel as an essential part of your business.</p>
<p>Some travel may never come back. We're constantly asked at TCG consulting, when will travel be back? So, we always like to say, it's not a matter of when it's a matter of how. And part of that how is realizing that some items such as internal meetings that used to take place in-person may no longer be required as people become more comfortable with certain video conferencing tools like a Zoom, like a Microsoft Teams.</p>
<p>And this could actually be a good thing for your organization. It could certainly save from a travel budget standpoint. But certainly, there is going to be some travel that is essential whether it be meeting with customers. If you're in the manufacturing industry ensuring that plants are running correctly. If your competitor is out there traveling and they're winning all the sales deals, you're going to make sure that your people are out on the road so that you also close those deals too and increase the revenue at your company.</p>
<p>But we are sure that your policy clearly defines what travel is and is not allowed. And this will be very important as we work towards the road to recovery. So as look at how we're preparing for future disruptions, so they don't have as great of an impact. The key is automation.</p>
<p>Manual processes are not sustainable in the future work environment. I think we all found out during COVID for the organizations that were still mailing receipts and mailing expense reports how burdensome of a process that really was. Not having a centralized system or automation caused major issues for company as everyone then shifted remotely.</p>
<p>So being able to have centralized systems where employees and administrators can access from anywhere from any device will prevent shifts to a remote working environment as being as impactful as they've been during events such as COVID. Now business will continue to run as usual, and it'll allow your company to be more proactive rather than reactive.</p>
<p>So, I would like to leave everyone and strongly encourage them by saying, spend this time while travel is not yet back to the pre-pandemic levels to truly assess their current systems and all the pain points that they identified pre-COVID that mysteriously went away during COVID as people were not traveling again are going to come back. All the pain points that you identified during COVID; you need to address. And build a strategy around improving these items to develop a more automated and integrated workflow.</p>
<p><strong>Jim Coufal:</strong></p>
<p>So, I'd like to take as back to the two value pillars, which is the control and the compliance as well as employee experience. You've heard us talk about different areas, but there isn't a wrong or right answer for your organization. It's what works for your organization. So, it's the culture. It's the type of employees that you're servicing. It's the industry that you may be in. But I think generally overall the balance, I think even with our health systems, when you hear Dr. Oz, "anything in moderation!" And so similar to this as well is a balance between expense types policy, which really helps you drive towards a strong employee experience as well as being able to maintain those controls and compliance.</p>
<p><strong>Jason Grunin:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Jim, great points both of you. SAP believes that organizations of all sizes should be able to prepare for the unexpected while managing employee-initiated discretionary and travel-related spend while reducing risk, saving money and ensuring compliance without sacrificing employee productivity and satisfaction. This belief guides our innovation of SAP Concur solutions and integrations we make available to our customers through our partner ecosystem. Edward, Jim, and I thank you for attending today's podcast and hope that this discussion helps guide your organization in developing the right path to recovery for your business.</p>
<p>----------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Edward%20Curtis%20Square.png" /> </p>
<p>As TCG’s Associate Director, Expense & Invoice, Edward is responsible for business development, client relationships, engagement delivery and overall global strategy of the E&I practice. Edward manages a global team of experienced E&I resources that help deliver successful engagements across all industries. He has over 10 years of experience in software sales, SaaS implementation and management consulting. His work with clients spans across all industries both domestic and global.</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-curtis-mba-pmp-31446619/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Jim%20Coufal%20Square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jim is the Senior Principal for Payment, Expense, and Invoice. He has led and successfully completed complex and diverse global engagements for clients across multiple industries and geographies. Jim is responsible for advisory oversight to elevate our PSO and E&I delivery, and actively participates in many of TCG’s highest priority client assignments. With over 29 combined years of experience in corporate travel, finance operations, and business processes, Jim leverages his comprehensive perspective and experience with a thorough understanding of current ERP systems, expense management technologies, decision support models, and integration strategies to deliver optimized solutions for TCG clients.</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimcoufal/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Jason%20Grunin%20Square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jason Grunin is a Senior Value Delivery Consultant within the Global Value Enablement, Value Experience team with a focus on Public Sector. In this role, Jason assists customers by creating and delivering value-based engagements to help recognize opportunities for optimization and program growth. By mapping business outcomes to solutions, Jason helps organizations discover areas to improve management of employee initiated spend. Outside of the office, Jason, his wife Mary, their daughter Kathleen, and their dog, Jack (an English springer spaniel) are residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They enjoy cycling, skiing, and outdoor activities. In addition, they are avid travelers and try to spend time exploring new places!</p>
<p>Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-grunin-4b322b48/">LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
You’ve Been Flexible, but Are You Ready for What’s Ahead?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/youve-been-flexible-are-you-ready-whats-ahead
2022-12-06T15:19:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You adapted readapted and reinvented You developed more resilience than you thought possible But if theres one lesson from the past two years its that more challenges and opportunities...
<p>You adapted, readapted, and reinvented. You developed more resilience than you thought possible. But if there’s one lesson from the past two years, it’s that more challenges and opportunities are ahead.</p>
<p>Many of your company’s policies and processes have been scrutinized as revenue, spending, workplaces, travel, and other elements of business shifted. One part worthy of ongoing scrutiny is the employee experience, a quick way to summarize interactions with policies, processes, and technology and how employees feel about those encounters.</p>
<p>Two data points show why employee experience is top of mind: Recent surveys find 25% to 40% of workers might quit their job within a year, while 78% told our partner Accenture that their employer is responsible for helping increase their job satisfaction and well-being.</p>
<p>Your organization has been flexible – about spending, travel, working from home, and more – because it was necessary. But now that many employees see that as the norm, is your company ready to embrace it in a systemic way through processes and technology?</p>
<p>As a SAP Concur customer, your business has already invested in solutions that deliver a connected travel and expense experience. Extending and enhancing the solutions is a way to address and improve the employee experience, while gaining greater visibility and control of costs and compliance.</p>
<p>A new tip sheet<strong>, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/building-better-experience-improve-efficiency-and-tool-adoption">Building a Better Experience</a><strong>,</strong> takes a deeper look at additions that can serve finance teams and often other employees as well. Below are examples of how meeting today’s expectations about work, technology, and processes can satisfy your company’s goals at the same time.</p>
<h2>Receipts, audits, AI, and integration</h2>
<p>Just as employees don’t want to spend more time than necessary on receipts and expense reports, finance team members would rather do engaging work like forecasting instead of chasing paper.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a> app lets users take pictures of receipts on a smartphone and automatically itemizes and categorizes expenses. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a>, employees can quickly seek approval for an expense before it occurs, submitting prices and justifications while enabling the company to approve, modify, or reject.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by Oversight</a> automatically reviews receipt and expense data, and allows auditors to focus on cases where risk has been identified. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-audit-service">Intelligent Audit</a> uses artificial intelligence (AI) and a team of expert auditors to help businesses find non-compliant spending and meet tax and regulatory obligations. Through automation, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> delivers employees from the tedious handling of invoices while integrating with ERP and other systems.</p>
<h2>Safety and the changing nature of work</h2>
<p>Business travelers want to take to the road again soon if they haven’t already. Employees are working from home, and that’s likely to remain the case for some. Businesses are again planning in-person events. Safety, duty of care, and spending patterns all come into play.</p>
<p>In addition to gathering itineraries and other travel details in one place, the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/pro">TripIt Pro</a> app has COVID-19 guidelines for destinations and many other health and safety features, along with timely alerts about changes. Travelers receive information and peace of mind, while employers fulfill duty of care. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/connect-platform/customers">SAP Concur App Center</a> is another resource, seamlessly connecting receipt, expense, and other information to your SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>With in-person events returning, visibility into expenses allows better cost controls and decision-making. <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">Concur Event Management by Groupize</a> is an all-in-one solution that eases and speeds event planning, while allowing you to enforce spending policies. You gain the tool to run events yourself, while gathering data to guide budgeting in the future.</p>
<h2>Education, adoption, and feedback</h2>
<p>It will be harder to improve the employee experience if workers feel like nobody is listening or are consistently frustrated by technology or processes. This is especially true as they return to the workplace or relearn technology they have hardly touched in ages.</p>
<p>Operating within existing solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant">Concur User Assistant service by WalkMe</a> provides training and guidance to drive adoption and enforce policies. <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">Concur Experience Optimizer</a> combines technology and expert consultants to gather hard data on how users really feel about using your travel and expense solutions. You receive insights to improve compliance, cost efficiency, duty of care, and the overall employee experience.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Obtain a copy of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/building-better-experience-improve-efficiency-and-tool-adoption">Building a Better Experience</a> to discover more about how SAP Concur extensions can expand upon and connect existing solutions to help provide the experience employees seek, as well as allow your finance team to focus on the engaging work that matters most.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Reach Sustainability Goals with Responsible Travel Spending
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/reach-sustainability-goals-responsible-travel-spending
2022-12-30T14:51:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Transportation contributes to of greenhouse gas emissions in the US which is why sustainability should be a top priority for every business travel program Luckily a recent SAP Concur...
<p>Transportation <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions">contributes</a> to 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., which is why sustainability should be a top priority for every business travel program. Luckily, a recent SAP Concur survey of 100 U.S. travel managers—those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses—found that the majority (76%) say their company has updated travel guidelines or policies in the past 12 months to have a greater focus on sustainability. In a companion survey of 1,000 U.S. business travelers, nearly all business travelers (89%) concur it is important to their company, particularly when pre-approving employee travel requests (presumably so, avoiding emissions for non-essential travel), in travel policies (influencing employees to reduce emissions), and in reporting sustainability impact information (before compensating unavoidable travels). </p>
<p>Business travelers are also cognizant of their environmental footprint. A new SAP Concur survey* of 1,000 U.S. business travelers found that most (88%) are willing to take steps to reduce their environmental impact while traveling for business, including: taking fewer but longer business trips (40%); staying in a less preferred but greener hotel (40%); using public transportation (33%); and using a less preferred mode of transportation (28%). Gen Z (93%) and millennial (89%) business travelers are especially willing, compared to Gen X (82%) and baby boomer (84%) business travelers.</p>
<p>It turns out that business travelers are more conscious when spending on their company’s dime. Our study showed they’re more likely to consider the environmental impact of their choices for business travel than personal travel (60% vs. 40%). When booking, they’d like more information to guide their purchase. Eighty-eight percent of business travelers would like to see sustainability information when booking business travel, including comparing sustainability measures for different accommodation options (47%) and transportation options (45%).</p>
<p>SAP Concur recently <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/blog/article/gaining-greater-visibility-your-business-travel-programmes-emissions-sap-concur-thrust">partnered</a> with Thrust Carbon to help companies and employees monitor and better control the environmental impact of their business trips. Customers can connect their Concur Travel and Expense solutions to Thrust Carbon to calculate emissions from spend and itinerary data. This means any travel manager can set carbon budgets in line with company-specific goals and then view and assess their live travel emissions against these targets. Additionally, travel managers can analyze every travel emission, from flights to hotels, and trains to mileage from rental cars.</p>
<p>“This integration enables companies to effortlessly track and manage their global travel emissions with customizable reports and data visualizations,” said Mark Corbett, Founder and Director of Thrust Carbon. “This is important because without oversight, it simply won’t be a priority. We empower organizations of all types and sizes to focus on their climate goals and get on with reducing emissions.”</p>
<p>Reducing environmental impact is no small feat, but company travel spend is a great place to start—and luckily employees are willing to partake. On the heels of Earth Month, we encourage leaders to look for opportunities in travel programs and policies and booking tools so this time next year, we have progress to report. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ariba.com/solutions/solutions-overview/supplier-management/supplier-risk">Click here</a> for more information about the SAP Supplier Risk solution visit.</p>
<p>Download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/build-sustainability-your-travel-program">eBook</a> to learn how to build sustainability into your travel program.</p>
<p>Further trends and research findings covering the current state of corporate business travel sustainability in EMEA will be released next month on the <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/blog">SAP Concur Newsroom</a>.</p>
<p>*The SAP Concur Business Traveler Survey was conducted by <a href="https://www.wakefieldresearch.com/">Wakefield Research</a> among 1,000 U.S. business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business 3+ times in the past 24 months, and an oversample to reach 250 high-frequency travelers who travel at least twice a month, between April 1st and April 10th, using an email invitation and an online survey</p>
SAP Concur Team
Achieve Your Business Outcomes with Intelligent Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/achieve-your-business-outcomes-intelligent-spend-management
2022-12-30T15:25:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When youre building a business that can withstand the challenges of today it helps to find smarter ways to run your organization Its important to address how employee spend is changing...
<p>When you’re building a business that can withstand the challenges of today, it helps to find smarter ways to run your organization. It’s important to address <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-spend-insights-report">how employee spend is changing</a>, find <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-there-was-ever-time-keep-eye-your-money-its-always">ways to mitigate fraud</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-ap-automation-can-help-smbs-gain-better-control-over-spend">maximize your visibility into cash flow</a>, discover ways to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/company-spend-control-infographic">control low-level expenses</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-pro-tip-benefits-corporate-credit-cards">tap into the power of corporate and p-cards</a>.</p>
<p>But you’ll also need to focus on achieving your business outcomes. You can support those efforts by adopting best practices and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/intelligent-spend-management">intelligent spend management</a> processes for your employee-based spend.</p>
<h2>What are business outcomes? <strong> </strong></h2>
<p>Business outcomes are broad goals the organization strives to achieve to meet its commitments to shareholders, employees, clients, and suppliers. When it comes to employee-initiated spend, including travel, expense, and discretionary or low-level spend, we group these business outcomes into three pillars:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Controls and compliance</strong></li>
<li><strong>Spend visibility and management</strong></li>
<li><strong>Employee satisfaction and workforce engagement</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>For instance, shareholders benefit when the organization is in control of spend. Employees benefit when tedious administrative and repetitive tasks can be automated so they can spend more time on activities that move the business. And suppliers benefit from timely payments for the goods and services they provide.</p>
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<h5><strong>Intelligent Spend Management: Six Questions to Consider</strong></h5>
<p>Find hidden costs and opportunities by capturing every source of spend, across each category, in one unified view. To see where you stand on spend management, ask yourself the following questions.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/six-questions-for-your-business-spend-management-solution">Download the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2>What is intelligent spend management?</h2>
<p>Intelligent spend management of employee-based spend is a comprehensive way for organizations to obtain a unified view of spend. Intelligent spend management consists of managing:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Every source of spend</strong> – such as air travel, auto mileage, non-P.O. invoices, cash payments, services, etc.</li>
<li><strong>Every category of spend</strong> – such as sales expenses, home office expenses, marketing support, supplies, etc.</li>
<li><strong>A unified view of spend</strong> – which benefits multiple functions of the organization’s finance, accounting, and HR departments.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1565899171591-image.png" /></p>
<p>We achieve the above by:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Capturing </strong>data every time money is spent – e.g. through corporate cards, online booking tools, automatic mileage logging, image capture of receipts, etc.</li>
<li><strong>Categorizing</strong> spend as soon as it occurs through the application of rules, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.</li>
<li><strong>Applying policies</strong> for approval routing and payment authorization.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Best practices for intelligent spend management</h2>
<p><strong>Capturing spend</strong> should be an initial area of focus. Best practices include using mobile devices for scanning receipts and approving expense reports, OCR and machine learning to automate the capture of invoice data, and an integrated system linking travel reservations and expense reporting.</p>
<p><strong>Categorizing spend</strong> involves one or more of the following activities: assigning invoices/expenses to departments and project owners; determining the tax treatment of expense; validating that the vendor is in the database of suppliers; and more. </p>
<p>Approaching your spend categorization like this can affect the volume of business your organization is spending on each vendor and the amount of money charged to each corporate department. Best practices for categorizing spend include using automation to record and categorize expense and invoice items, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">automation of mileage recording and entry</a>, and using corporate cards and P-cards instead of cash.</p>
<p><strong>Policies for approval of reimbursement and payments</strong> may include limiting the expense to an allowable range, purchasing from approved vendors, attaching receipts for tax substantiation, obtaining prior approval to the purchase, and so on.</p>
<p>Best practices associated with applying policy include the use of automated tools to detect unusual expenses or reimbursement requests, tools to reject non-conforming p-card charges, and tools to track non-P.O. expenses against approved budgets.</p>
<h2>Applying intelligent spend management best practices improves business outcomes</h2>
<p>The same best practices associated with intelligent spend also help an organization reach its desired business outcomes of spend visibility and management, internal controls and compliance, and employee engagement and satisfaction. </p>
<p>For instance, practices that minimize under-the-radar travel spend or integrated tools that link bookings and travel expense improve the organization’s <strong>spend visibility and management</strong>. Practices that include tools to detect unusual expenses or track expenses against approved budgets improve the organization’s <strong>internal controls and compliance</strong>. And practices that involve automating expense report creation, categorization of invoice items, or mobile tools for receipt capturing and approvals, improve <strong>employee engagement and satisfaction</strong>.</p>
<h2>Best practices in action</h2>
<p>By using corporate cards instead of cash, an organization can get rebates up to 1.5% on the spend charged to corporate cards. Integrating the corporate card program with the organization’s T&E management system provides enhanced <strong>spend visibility</strong>, with daily reports from the financial institution showing employee name, amount charged, vendor name, and other category info.</p>
<p>SAP Concur data shows that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">automated mileage tracking programs</a> can save up to 21 hours a year, per employee. In addition, organizations that automate their spend management tend to approve expense reports 4.9 days faster, spend less time handling receipts, and can approve expense reports on the go, all of which can lead to higher <strong>employee engagement and satisfaction</strong>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/top-performers-manage-spend-digital-transformation">according to an Aberdeen report</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">2021 Oxford Economics study</a> found that automation can increase the effectiveness of finance processes by giving leaders more visibility into spending across the organization, creating a “single source of truth,” and increasing efficiency.</p>
<p>Companies that have automated the following processes reported multiple benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Invoice management</strong> – increased agility and resiliency for 43%</li>
<li><strong>Expense management</strong> – increased productivity for 42%</li>
<li><strong>Cash flow management </strong>– increased functional collaboration for 35%</li>
</ul>
<p>All these benefits support an organization’s business outcomes of increasing agility and efficiency, while strengthening cross-team collaboration.</p>
<h2>Successful business outcomes across teams</h2>
<p>The best practices associated with intelligent spend management help organizations improve their <strong>business outcomes</strong>. Those outcomes benefit multiple departments and people in the organization, for example:</p>
<ul>
<li>The HR manager benefits from happier employees who can dedicate more time to their functions instead of spending so much</li>
<li> time on expense reports</li>
<li>Procurement gains more visibility into opportunities to aggregate spend by vendor or supplier category</li>
<li>Finance leaders have more visibility into managing cash flow</li>
<li>The director of compliance can spot non-compliant charges and potential fraud faster</li>
<li>Accounting will gain increased productivity in data entry and categorization</li>
</ul>
<p>As each department focuses on the benefits of spend automation and integration tools, it’s important to communicate that value so the organization’s leaders see how automation can support the company’s business outcomes.</p>
<p><strong>For more information on how SAP Concur solutions can help you and your organization, please <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact the SAP Concur team</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Concur Travel Works
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-travel-works
2023-02-16T11:19:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With so many travel options to choose from empower your employees to make the right choices with Concur Travel By integrating travel expense and vendor invoice management into a...
<p>With so many travel options to choose from, empower your employees to make the right choices with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>.</p>
<p>By integrating travel, expense, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/concur-invoice-product-demo">vendor invoice management</a> into a single system, SAP Concur makes booking business travel simple. Concur Travel helps your organization stay compliant with policies while also making it easy to make changes to travel plans as needed, no matter where and when those changes arise.</p>
<h2>Booking a trip with Concur Travel</h2>
<p>Booking a business trip should be easy. Using a single, intuitive interface it’s simple for employees to search and book flights, trains, hotels, and rental cars at the right price, all while staying compliant to your travel policy.</p>
<p>Negotiated and published fares are displayed in an easy to read table, with convenient color-coded indicators that show which options are within policy, and which aren’t.</p>
<p>Drawing travel content from multiple sources, Concur Travel not only gives employees more options together in one place, but also guides them to make the best choices for their travel needs. They can even see which options offer e-receipts to facilitate fast and seamless expense reporting.</p>
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<h5>Take a deeper dive into SAP Concur</h5>
<p>Our free Concur Travel & Expense demo is an in-depth look at two of our core offerings, exploring how to book travel, submit expense reports, and more. </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/depth-travel-and-expense-demo">Watch the demo</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Concur Request</h2>
<p>Stop bad travel spending before it happens with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a>. Using Concur Request, you can create a customizable pre-spend control document to identify anticipated expenses. This request and approval process allows managers to review travel spend and spot issues on bookings before they happen.</p>
<h2>TripLink</h2>
<p>Even when travel is booked outside the booking tool or your travel management company, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> lets you track every traveler, every dollar, and itinerary, across booking channels. With TripLink, employees easily connect SAP Concur solutions to suppliers like Avis, Marriott Bonvoy, and United, ensuring negotiated rates are obtained <strong>and</strong> giving you visibility into their travel plans no matter how they’re booked.</p>
<h2>The SAP Concur mobile app</h2>
<p>When employees are on-the-go, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a> lets them manage everything from booking air, hotel, car, or train trips, viewing the details of their itineraries, as well as capturing receipts and submitting expense reports. And with an automated approval process, it’s fast and simple for managers to approve requests wherever they are, right from their smartphone.</p>
<h2>TripIt Pro </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a>, included with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>, helps users effortlessly keep track of their itineraries, find better seats, track frequent traveler program balances, and get flight alerts when there’s been a cancelation or delay – all at their fingertips.</p>
<p>Help your employees be more productive with solutions they’ll love to use that lets you manage spending at the source, across both travel and expenses, for one unified view. You’ll get transparency and visibility into employee spend, the ability enforce policy, and the agility to make intelligent spend management decisions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>See also:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/how-concur-expense-works">How Concur Expense Works</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/concur-invoice-product-demo">How Concur Invoice Works</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Are You Breaking the Golden Rule of Travel and Expense Management?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-breaking-golden-rule-travel-and-expense-management
2023-08-24T15:24:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If one thing is certain in travel management its that you cant manage what you cant see For many companies travel is a significant category of spend and yet one that most finance...
<p>If one thing is certain in travel management, it's that you can’t manage what you can’t see.</p>
<p>For many companies, travel is a significant category of spend – and yet one that most finance leaders struggle to monitor and control. According to <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/fuelling-business-growth-how-uk-finance-leaders-can-drive-strategy-and-avoid-risk">a research report</a> by SAP Concur in partnership with Vanson Bourne, 86% of finance leaders agree that their travel, expense, and invoice systems could be better connected for a single view of spend.</p>
<p>As the global economy slows down, this single view will be increasingly important to have. Experts believe that cost reduction will be the top priority for companies in 2019, and this will put pressure on you, as a finance leader, to find ways to improve efficiency across all areas, including T&E. To do this well – without hurting your business or curtailing growth – you will need to make data-driven decisions powered by unified data about spending.</p>
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<h2>Gain More Value from Your Travel Program</h2>
<p>Given travel’s role in shaping, growing, and driving the success of your business, it’s vital to continuously innovate to demonstrate its impact.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/realize-more-value-from-your-travel-program-by-extending-it">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So what’s the best path forward?</p>
<p>Many CFOs are partnering with travel managers to select and deploy state-of-the-art cloud solutions that automate travel and expense processes and bring together all relevant data for near real-time spend visibility and control. The business benefits can be fast and significant.</p>
<p>For example, consider how <a>Discovery</a> a US$6.5 billion mass communications company, recently replaced its two separate solutions for travel and expense with integrated SAP Concur solutions (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/triplink/traveler-benefits">TripIt Pro</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a>). Before, employees had to book travel on one system and then reconcile their expenses on another system.</p>
<p>Now, with the Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions, everything is more transparent and efficient, from the moment Discovery employees book travel to the moment they come back home. Their credit card and paper receipts are already in their expense profile – including receipts for travel bookings and invisible spend which, for a long time, finance didn't even know existed. SAP Concur solutions’ connected ecosystem also makes things easier for finance and travelers, for example, because employees can use preferred third-party apps and Web sites such as Uber, Lyft, Booking.com, or AirBnB and automatically have receipts go to the company’s expense system. When it’s time to generate expense reports, most data is already prepopulated in templates, saving time and reducing errors.</p>
<p>All this data, once centralized and seamlessly captured at the point of purchase, helps finance executives and managers of employees see what’s really happening on the spend front – and proactively make informed decisions that keep budgets directed toward what matters most.</p>
<p>As this example illustrates, as CFOs and travel managers work together to evaluate travel technologies, the focus must shift to how IT innovations can automate and integrate travel and expense management. It also must shift to capture and connect all travel transactions, so stakeholders have the visibility and control they need to keep people safe. This will require solutions that help you:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Drive innovation into improving compliance, visibility, and cost control: </strong>Look for solutions that capture and centralize travel spending and itineraries booked using both corporate booking tools and third-party apps.</li>
<li><strong>Reinvent employee experiences ahead of their expectations: </strong>Look for solutions that deliver intuitive apps that guide users through every trip, providing a consumer-simple way to request travel and manage itineraries and expense reports even while on the go.</li>
<li><strong>Support travelers wherever they are: </strong>Today’s innovative cloud solutions help you meet your organization’s duty of care obligations by triangulating consolidated itinerary and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/corporate-card-p-cards-gain-visibility-control-employee-spend">corporate card</a> data with global risk information and specialized assistance resources.</li>
<li><strong>Integrate travel and expense processes for unified visibility and control: </strong>Look for integrated solutions that can bring more efficiency and control to the entire travel process – from travel requests and booking to reimbursement and every step in between.</li>
</ol>
<p>Want to learn more? <strong>Download the new paper from SAP Concur solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/realize-more-value-from-your-travel-program-by-extending-it">Realize More Value from Your Travel Program by Extending It</a>, and watch the video testimonial of Discovery below. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Neha Mehta
How One State Changed the Compliance Game with Automated and Integrated Travel and Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-one-state-changed-compliance-game-automated-and-integrated-travel-and-spend
2023-08-29T13:06:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For state and local governments transparency and accountability are everything But as spending becomes increasingly decentralized and employees make more of their own spending...
<p>For <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local governments</a>, transparency and accountability are everything. But as spending becomes increasingly decentralized and employees make more of their own spending decisions, the risk of overspending, human errors, and even fraud, goes up. This is especially true when an organization uses manual spend management processes and data is not integrated between back-office systems.</p>
<p> </p>
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<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>When it came to employee travel, one state accounting office (SAO) in the United States was getting bogged down in paper-based processes. Not only did employees need to save and scan receipts and e-mail expense reports, travel policy enforcement and cross-check was also manual – requiring human auditing at every level of approval and increasing the risk of error. The process was also time-consuming, which meant long reimbursement wait times for travelers. But worst of all, the SAO had minimal reporting capabilities, resulting in very limited insight into spend and no efficient way to effectively enforce spending policy.</p>
<p>Two particular areas of concern for this SAO were <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/government-mileage">self-reporting of mileage</a> and the departure and arrival times used to calculate per diem allowance, both of which created an unnecessary opportunity for human error and fraud. To increase compliance and also make overall expense reporting faster and easier for employees, the state needed a flexible, user-friendly, automated, and integrated solution.</p>
<p>Enter SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>The state’s SAO found a comprehensive answer to its expense reporting woes with the <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">Concur Expense</a> solutions. Because they are cloud-based software-as-a-service solutions, they could be quickly implemented across the state using in-house resources, and then rolled out to all 70,000 employees at a low cost.</p>
<p>The benefits were clear right out of the gate.</p>
<p>For travelers, Concur Travel and Concur Expense provide a truly end-to-end expense management solution. Not only can they be used to book travel and make hotel reservations, travelers can take pictures of paper receipts and directly upload them to their account through a mobile app. The app also lets them classify expenses based on type (rather than by confusing codes) and then create expense reports right from their smartphone. Approvers can, in turn, approve expense reports on the go, from any device.</p>
<p>To ease governance and compliance, specific audit rules can be built into the solution. For example, mileage is now reimbursed automatically based on the shortest route between departure and destination – regardless of the route a driver decides to take. Calculating per diem is also done automatically by pulling departure and arrival dates from the employee’s itinerary.</p>
<p>Because the state now has automated T&E management processes, better data, and tighter controls, it has been able to reduce the number of approval levels required for auditing – saving time and allowing finance teams to focus on more strategic tasks.</p>
<p>Most approvers confirm that it takes no more than three days to complete a report from the time it is submitted. And employees have full visibility into the status of each report. In fact, based on an internal survey, 86% of the state’s users who submitted at least six expense reports determined it was easy to approve reports in SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>Where the SAO is seeing the highest return from its SAP Concur solutions is in increased visibility and simplified compliance. Because booking is done through the app, giving auditors enhanced reporting capabilities, the state has found travelers to be more conscious of their travel choices. Specifically, they are making a greater effort to select vendors with cost-efficient rates. In addition to the cost savings, visibility into hotel spend, for example, is greater than ever before. The SAO can run reports to see where the traveler stayed, how much the hotel was per night, and so on – helping it make more-informed decisions when it comes to tasks such as hotel rate negotiations.</p>
<p>By automating and integrating travel, expense, and invoice processes, the state is eliminating costly mistakes and time-consuming auditing requirements by putting payment controls in place to improve compliance. And with a single source of centralized data, it has the visibility and tools to proactively reduce fraud and misuse of travel funds.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/state-accounting-office">Read the full case study</a> find out more about how this state’s SAO went from stacks of paper reimbursement forms to a fully integrated and automated solution with Concur Travel and Concur Expense.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Research Reveals Nearly Two-Thirds of U.S. Companies Fail to Reclaim VAT from U.S. Travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/research-reveals-nearly-two-thirds-us-companies-fail-reclaim-vat-us-travelers
2023-09-07T12:13:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Navigating the minefield of international valueadded tax VAT can be tricky for USbased companies Many companies feel they have it covered yet each year billions of dollars of VAT go...
<p>Navigating the minefield of international value-added tax (VAT) can be tricky for U.S.-based companies. Many companies feel they have it covered, yet each year billions of dollars of VAT go unclaimed. In fact, nearly two-thirds (69%) of U.S. companies revealed that they are not confident that their company is reclaiming VAT from their U.S. travelers going overseas. <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1843981&sessionid=1&key=62ABB31965E0A7A4E1F50D4B98A84452&regTag=&sourcepage=register">More than a quarter (29%) are somewhat confident while only 2% are very confident</a>. </p>
<p>According to Global VAT Manager, Judith D’Aguilar from Citrix Systems, Inc. “These findings are not surprising. Reclaiming VAT is less mature for U.S.-based companies versus those based in Europe.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why U.S.-based companies lag behind</h2>
<p>As U.S. employees travel around the world, the VAT tax they incur can often be reclaimed from the tax authority by their employer. In the past, many felt this was a true headache and administrative nightmare: understanding the individual country reclaim rules, educating travelers as to their responsibilities, gathering spend data and acceptable receipts and submitting them in a timely manner to the applicable tax authorities. However, today the advent of electronic receipt capture, cloud technology and the ability to aggregate travel and expense data on one platform can make this process quite painless.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Trends driving change</h2>
<p>Nearly half of companies (42%) cite <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1843981&sessionid=1&key=62ABB31965E0A7A4E1F50D4B98A84452&regTag=&sourcepage=register">containing costs as the leading reason</a> that U.S.-based organizations are re-evaluating their workflows and processes in this area. Other reasons include globalization, more travelers (22%); new government reporting standards (20%); digital capture of receipts (11%); and employee satisfaction (4%). </p>
<p>It’s inevitable that as companies become more global they will have more international business travelers, expatriates and other mobile workers. For U.S.-based companies, this creates some new areas of risk when it comes to complying with various government tax and other regulations. However, as our case study later shows, reclaiming international VAT should be viewed more so as the silver lining in the minutiae.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Who and what department spearheads reclaim</h2>
<p>Every company has a unique approach. Some companies manage reclaims internally and at SAP Concur we facilitate this by applying country-specific templates during the implementation process that ensures accurate data gathering and rapid enablement. Other clients tap app center partners that specialize in VAT reclaim to provide an end-to-end solution leveraging their data in SAP Concur.</p>
<p><a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1843981&sessionid=1&key=62ABB31965E0A7A4E1F50D4B98A84452&regTag=&sourcepage=register">According to SAP Concur research</a>, tax, finance and travel managers are most likely the ones within organizations managing this process. </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Case Study Results</h2>
<p>Companies moving from expenses with poor reporting typically see a 75%increase in reclaimable VAT after switching to SAP Concur, according to a study by VAT reclaim specialist company VAT IT. While this is not true for every client or every circumstance, it was certainly found in the 25 companies <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/financial-services/vat-it">analyzed by VAT IT</a> that utilized their solution and SAP Concur. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1543429357098-findings-at-a-glance.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To find out more about this topic listen to <a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1843981&sessionid=1&key=62ABB31965E0A7A4E1F50D4B98A84452&regTag=&sourcepage=register">International VAT: So You Think You Have it Covered</a> on-demand webinar now.</strong></p>
Erin Giordano
What Does Visibility Look Like for a Growing Business?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-visibility-look-growing-business
2023-09-08T16:32:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You cant control what you cant see Its a motto that applies to virtually every aspect of your business but theres no place where visibility makes a bigger impact than spending Or more...
<p>“You can’t control what you can’t see.” It’s a motto that applies to virtually every aspect of your business, but there’s no place where visibility makes a bigger impact than spending. Or, more dubiously, invisible spending.</p>
<p>Consider this picture: You’re a global business, expanding into a variety of jurisdictions and regulatory environments. You’ve got a workforce in place (and travelling) all over the world, so it’s likely you may have a few headaches here at home. How can you be confident you’re controlling the budget? How do you manage risk in regions that are largely unknown to you? How can you standardize processes around the globe when you don’t have a clear picture of what protocols are being followed?</p>
<p>It all impacts the dollars, euros, and yen going out the door, and if you can’t see and control those, you can’t effectively channel funds into further growth.</p>
<h2>You’ve got to see globally to grow globally</h2>
<p>Measured growth requires a single, consolidated view into your spending in real time. This requires tracking and controlling travel and expense spend wherever and whenever it occurs – even before it happens – so every necessary bit of budget can be directed to your growth objectives. When companies see their spend this clearly, they can cut costs and redistribute those funds. They can literally see deeper into their business, spotting trends earlier and acting on growth opportunities faster. And they can accurately forecast their global budget, informing better decisions about where to go next.</p>
<p>Here’s what you’re looking for:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>A single, clear view into spend.</strong> Make sure centralized finance teams are getting integrated travel, expense, and invoice data analytics from every business unit, in every market, all in one place.</li>
<li><strong>Interactive, roles-based dashboards and reports.</strong> Give leaders across the business a window into their business-unit spending, so they can see what’s been spent, where it’s been spent, and what’s pending – then dive into the details to make any necessary changes.</li>
<li><strong>Tools that show budget managers what’s happened and what’s happening next.</strong> Offer managers the means to stay ahead of budgets and accurately adjust spending to their changing business needs and priorities.</li>
<li><strong>Visibility to take on unique challenges.</strong> Tackle everything from VAT reclaim and mobile spending to tax and regulatory requirements that only increase as you expand.</li>
<li><strong>Spending alerts.</strong> Get real-time email alerts when spend exceeds policy or specific budget thresholds are met, so you can keep controls in place even as your team gets bigger.</li>
</ol>
<p>These capabilities are crucial to deliberate growth, and they only become more important as both spending and spend data grow in complexity with worldwide expansion. Seeing it all is critical. It’s also possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to see what intelligent business tools can show you? Watch this </strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=6FJf0aH7gCM"><strong>video</strong></a><strong>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Simplify Your Vendor Invoice Process with Our Free Invoice Policy Template
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplify-your-vendor-invoice-process-our-free-invoice-policy-template
2023-10-20T10:35:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sales rise and fall. Economic downturns, global instability, and other uncertainties occur. Regulations and business priorities shift. It’s not easy to predict exactly what the future holds, but accou
<p>Sales rise and fall. Economic downturns, global instability, and other uncertainties occur. Regulations and business priorities shift. It’s not easy to predict exactly what the future holds, but accounts payable (AP) plays a critical role in the ability of your business to manage spending and prepare for the change ahead. A strong vendor invoice policy is a key element in that effort to build agility. </p>
<p>While creating an invoice policy can be time-consuming, the benefits are well worth it for your employees, suppliers, and processes. In addition to speeding up supplier invoice approvals and processing, it will make it easier for your AP team to address exceptions and manage documentation so suppliers get paid on time. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Free Invoice Policy Template </h5>
<p>Learn best practices and build your own vendor invoice policy today </p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">Get it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tips for Designing a Policy </h2>
<p>To help get started, consider these seven tips for creating a policy: </p>
<ol>
<li>Collaborate. Find out what the various teams across your business need and discuss vendor-related challenges. They can serve as champions for the policy and its adoption. </li>
<li>Find better ways to work with suppliers. Study how invoices are submitted and paid and whether those methods can be standardized to speed the process (like paying by purchasing card or ACH instead of checks </li>
<li>Review policy drafts. Send drafts to multiple departments to make sure the policies are clear, fair, concise. If they’re easy to understand, they’re more likely to be followed by employees. </li>
<li>Emphasize the benefits. Tell the reasons behind the policy and how they’ll benefit departments and the company. </li>
<li>Put it where you can find it: The invoice policy won’t be followed unless people know about it. Send it to employees and put it up on the company intranet. </li>
<li>Take questions. Employees may have concerns about the time involved in following the policy or may not understand a section. Listen to them and adjust the policy if needed. </li>
<li>Seek improvements in AP processes. When you write such a policy, it’s an opportunity to also look at your invoice processes. Seek ways to increase efficiency and accuracy. </li>
</ol>
<h2>What Your Policy Should Include </h2>
<p>At its most basic, your supplier invoice policy should cover the following: </p>
<p>Statement of purpose: Explain why you need an invoice policy, to whom it applies, and basic guidelines. Be sure to include the benefits of having a policy for employees, suppliers, and the business. </p>
<p>Company expectations and policy compliance: Clarify the responsibilities of each employee when dealing with supplier invoices; rules for managing documents; policies and procedures for reviewing, coding, and approving invoices; and consequences for noncompliance. </p>
<p>Delegation of authority and approval chains: Address common areas of confusion, such as who can approve invoices, what the purchase order (PO) process is, the rules for purchase price variances, and who can approve exceptions. </p>
<p>Periodic policy review: Ensure your invoice policy is always up to date. Be sure to include instructions for periodic reviews of the policy with a clear designation of the role(s) and department(s) responsible for carrying them out. </p>
<p>Subject areas: Detail the nuts and bolts of your invoice policy. Be sure to cover everything from where invoices should be sent to how to record receipts, code and send invoices to AP, manage approvals, manage exceptions, store and access documents, and any other related policies and procedures. </p>
<h2>A Template and Technology to Consider </h2>
<p>Look at the complete <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">invoice policy template</a> to find out more about what the right vendor invoice policy can do for your business. At the same time, consider an automated vendor invoice management solution such as Concur® Invoice® can help end manual invoice wrangling and accelerate payments, digitize invoices and standardize data, and deliver better insights decision-making. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
3 ways to provide long-term value in a cloud-first world
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-provide-long-term-value-cloud-first-world
2020-09-11T11:13:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There is no arguing that the cloud has arrived Those of us who grew up in the world of technology and the channel know the role partners have played in educating and helping small and...
<p>There is no arguing that the cloud has arrived. Those of us who grew up in the world of technology and the channel know the role partners have played in educating and helping small and midsize business customers in their cloud transformations. Today, SMBs are using cloud to enhance their decision-making, their profitability and their competitiveness more than ever, and they’re doing it with their technology advisers — for now. As cloud adoption in SMBs continues to grow, however, the key question for channel partners is, “How do we build multi-year revenue streams and cement customer loyalty?”</p>
<p>In July of last year, my company, Concur, launched its <a href="https://www.concur.com/solution-provider">Solution Provider program</a> using a co-sell model for partners looking to expand their cloud practices. Since the launch, more than 300 partners have joined the program. Over the past year, we (along with our partners) learned a few things about what makes partners sticky for their customers, and what successful partners do to add continuous value in this cloud-first world.</p>
<p>Here are some of our top tips for gaining loyalty:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Have a portfolio of cloud services. </strong></h2>
<p>At a time when data visibility is increasingly the differentiation for companies, SMBs are embracing cloud to have faster, less expensive, anytime/anywhere access to information. To fully leverage that benefit, though, companies need at least three to four of their core technology needs fulfilled through cloud services and applications. Partners that become the customer’s technology consultant-in-chief, and can help customers around their digital and cloud transformations, win the customer’s loyalty and business. Our most successful partners have a cloud practice that includes an ecosystem of third-party apps that connect seamlessly, across multiple best-of-breed technologies. Assembling custom bundles that meet customers’ unique data and interoperability needs increases stickiness.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Continuous training increases knowledge retention and ensures success. </strong></h2>
<p>One of the key areas where partners struggle is keeping their sales teams and consultants updated on the latest training and information offered by the solution providers they work with. As customers get more sophisticated, partners who deliver timely and relevant information will succeed. With sales teams today exposed to information overload, balancing training with knowledge retention is a challenge. To be successful, it is important to look for technology providers that equip partners with training that ramps up their sales teams quickly and frequently and that employ training systems that emphasize retention techniques like short (2-5 minutes) training content, mobile delivery of training, <a href="https://elearningindustry.com/6-killer-examples-gamification-in-elearning" target="_blank">gamified experience</a>, and emphasis on recall. We’ve seen great success with these methods.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Helping customers maximize their cloud technology investments is the holy grail of customer retention. </strong></h2>
<p>Usage and continuous value are the only metrics that matter when it comes to cloud services. This is also where the channel partner adds the most value for the customer and the technology provider alike. At Concur, we know that a partner is the expert on all things customer. With the cloud, partner business models have also evolved, and the most successful are engaging with their customers through the complete cloud life cycle: pre-sales, sales and post-sales. The best partners – both for customers and the cloud providers – are those that add continuous value.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, these partners also have the most loyal customers and the most profitable cloud practices.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The cloud has redefined the relationships among the provider, the partner and the customer. With this change comes the opportunity for channel superstars to differentiate themselves by shifting to the “continuous value” partnering model that emphasizes a solution-centric approach, continuous learning and value creation across the full customer life cycle.</p>
<p>This blog post originally appeared in <a href="http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/blog/3-ways-to-provide-long-term-value-in-a-cloud-first-world/" target="_blank">Channel Partners</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Business Travel is Growing. Is Your Expense Policy Ready?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travel-growing-your-expense-policy-ready
2018-07-27T07:00:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Do you find yourself spending more time than youd like reviewing and approving employee business travel expenses Youre not alone Travel and expense policies are often too vague or...
<p>Do you find yourself spending more time than you’d like reviewing and approving employee business travel expenses? You’re not alone. Travel and expense policies are often too vague or confusing, leaving employees struggling to know how to claim expenditures. Sometimes an organization will completely lack a policy, or it will be out of date. This leads to duplicate claims, questionable expenditures and occasional fraud, not to mention the ridiculous amount of time your finance team is spending on reconciling all the details.</p>
<p>An expense policy needs to cover a broad range of possibilities, but still be concise, direct, and easy to find. This can be challenging for many companies, which is why so many travel and expense policies leave much to be desired.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Elevate your T&E policy </strong></h2>
<p>You know the basics of what to cover (business travel, corporate cards, personal issues, and administrative guidelines), but what about the nitty-gritty? Business travel and entertainment expenses are not always straightforward, and it’s important to cover possible scenarios or questions that may come up. Here are a few examples from our popular expense policy template to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What your company expects in order to process reimbursement</strong></h2>
<p>Before, during and after any type of business travel expense, employees need to know exactly what is needed to get reimbursement. Receipts are obviously a must, but what about other items, such as attaching the expense to a job number or client code? Or does there need to be a list of who was present at a meal or a deeper explanation for what the expense was for? These expectations must be clearly articulated in your policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Who pays when more than one employee is present</strong></h2>
<p>An employee, a manager and an executive walk into a bar...start of a bad joke? Not exactly. There are times when a team is meeting a client for lunch or drinks. Who is in charge of paying the bill? Establishing the protocol upfront relieves any chance of an awkward moment when the check arrives at the table.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Preferred suppliers and booking methods</strong></h2>
<p>Is there a preferred airline or booking site you want your employees to use? Does a trip need to be booked within a certain time period? Make sure it is clearly stated in your policy. What if there are multiple flights going to the same location? Is it required that employees take the cheapest flight? Or can they opt for the most direct flight or the flight at the best time? Clear policies take the stress out of business travel expense management.</p>
<p>And this is only the tip of the iceberg. A best practice expense policy covers everything from corporate cards to personal add-on trips.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Not sure where to start?</strong></h2>
<p>Feeling overwhelmed? We’re here to help. Use our <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> and get the guidance you need to create a complete, easy-to-use and understandable expense policy customized to your company.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
What is sentiment analysis and how can machine learning help customers?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-sentiment-analysis-and-how-can-machine-learning-help-customers
2020-09-11T12:25:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When you think of artificial intelligence AI the word emotion doesnt typically come to mind But theres an entire field of research using AI to understand emotional responses to news...
<p>When you think of artificial intelligence (AI), the word “emotion” doesn’t typically come to mind. But there’s an entire field of research using AI to understand emotional responses to news, product experiences, movies, restaurants, and more. It’s known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis" target="_blank">sentiment analysis</a>, or emotion AI, and it involves analyzing views – positive, negative or neutral – from written text to understand and gauge reactions.</p>
<p>Sentiment analysis can be used for survey research, social media analyses, and tracking psychological trends. Picture software that scans articles, reviews, ratings and social media posts to determine sentiment changes for hotel guests. Hoteliers will, for example, aggregate and assess ratings and reviews in effort to improve guest satisfaction.</p>
<p>The tech behind sentiment analysis involves natural language processing or linguistic algorithms that assign values to positive, negative or neutral text (converting opinions into datasets), while machine learning processes the datasets to reveal relevant trends over time. There’s significant planning required: How do you ensure the algorithms capture useful information? Are you identifying the right phrases to analyze? How can you convert findings into better products, services, and experiences?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Analysis Helps Uncover Customer Needs</strong></h2>
<p>At Concur, understanding our users and their needs is important. This allows us to see what we’re doing well and where we can improve, and sentiment analysis can provide invaluable insights. Recently, Concur Labs and Concur UX Analytics developed a sentiment analysis tool for user product reviews. Our tool automatically extracts themes to determine how customers feel about our service, and helps identify which features people like most and which ones they find frustrating.</p>
<p>Unlike other apps, we measure success not in how much time you spend in our app, but how little. The faster you can expense a trip, for instance, the better. Our analysis found that people wished for even faster capabilities. It also revealed that people really like some of the lesser known features, like mileage tracking.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Emotion Gauging is Complicated</strong></h2>
<p>If we could categorize responses with just one emoji that would easy. But humans are far more complicated and fascinating. This complexity applies to sentiment analysis. For example, comments like “the film was very good” are easy to analyze. But it gets a little harder when you add negation: "The film wasn't bad." It gets much harder when you add terms that would normally come across as positive but are actually negative, based on context. For instance, "I wish this film was good. There were great many things it could have done right but didn't.”</p>
<p>As a relatively new field, approaches are varied and maturing. Analysis has been traditionally conducted by taking what's called a "bag of words" approach. Basically creating a list of all the words used along with how many times they were used. With this method, word order is thrown out the window. So "not bad" would come out as negative. Modern methods use recurrent neural networks called LSTMs (long short-term memory) to compress the entire sentence into a vector (a list of numbers) that encapsulates the meaning of the sentence, taking word order into account. This tends to have higher accuracy.</p>
<p>For businesses invested in customers, analyzing each piece of feedback by hand can be overwhelming. Sentiment analysis, developed within context, can help catch issues early and provide guidance on how to improve services. The related machine learning algorithms can take vast amounts of data; learn and perform specific tasks quickly; and sift through data based on your priorities. As the technology advances, businesses can benefit from these in-depth insights and customer satisfaction will surely follow suit.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
New FCPA enforcement actions: Are you mitigating this risk?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-fcpa-enforcement-actions-are-you-mitigating-risk
2017-08-17T14:18:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
During a July webinar regarding how companies can better minimize Foreign Corrupt Practices Act FCPA risks we shared how savvy practitioners are helping their companies along this...
<p>During a <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1435144/A11E0DB9FC186C8736ACF279F3F95980">July 12, 2017 webinar</a> regarding how companies can better minimize Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) risks, we shared how savvy practitioners are helping their companies along this journey by properly configuring their travel and expense tool, providing big picture data visibility into employee spend and providing various reports for compliance, security, finance, auditing, HR and other teams to help manage this risk further.</p>
<p>The summary below highlights two recent enforcement actions. I tend to wonder how much, if at all, the company was able to utilize their employee spend or travel data or tools to help manage this instance or produce details needed. Obviously, I cannot answer this question but can provide for you below some insight into these recent settlements to help understand this complex risk a bit more.</p>
<p>Over the summer, the Department of Justice quietly released two corporate FCPA enforcement actions in which the government stated that its decision to resolve the actions in the (relatively speaking) lenient manner in which they were resolved was based on the companies’ timely and voluntary self-disclosure as well as full cooperation in the DOJ’s investigation.</p>
<p><a href="http://fcpaprofessor.com/first-corporate-fcpa-enforcement-action-trump-era-11-2-declination-disgorgement-linde-nearly-decade-old-conduct-acquired-entity/">As highlighted on</a> Professor Mike Koehler's FCPA Professor website, the first enforcement action was resolved through a so-called “declination with disgorgement” in which the company agreed to pay approximately $11.2 million based on allegations that an acquired entity made improper payments to high-level officials in the Republic of Georgia in connection with a business transaction.</p>
<p><a href="http://fcpaprofessor.com/doj-quietly-releases-another-declination-disgorgement-concerning-cdm-smith-inc/">As further highlighted on the FCPA Professor website</a>, the subsequent enforcement action was likewise resolved through a “declination with disgorgement” in which the company agreed to pay approximately $4 million based on allegations that employees and agents of its Indian subsidiary made improper payments to Indian officials in connection with various infrastructure projects.</p>
<p>“Declinations with disgorgement” are a form of resolving corporate FCPA enforcements invented by the DOJ in April 2016 as part of its <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog-entry/file/838386/download">FCPA Pilot Program</a>, a program designed in part to “motivate companies to voluntarily self-disclose FCPA-related misconduct” and fully cooperate with the DOJ’s investigation. Compared to the other options the DOJ has for resolving corporate FCPA scrutiny (such as plea agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, or non-prosecution agreements) “declinations with disgorgement” are generally viewed as the least harsh DOJ sanction including – at least what the DOJ says – are lower settlement amounts.</p>
<p>While it is obviously too soon to draw any meaningful conclusions regarding FCPA enforcement in the Trump administration, these two enforcement actions were near carbon copies of the <a href="http://fcpaprofessor.com/doj-releases-two-called-declination-letters/">previous “declinations with disgorgement” enforcement actions</a> that occurred during the Obama administration in September 2016. In short, at present not much appears to have changed in terms of FCPA enforcement including the DOJ’s stated decisions to reward companies’ timely and voluntary self-disclosure as well as full cooperation in the DOJ’s investigation.</p>
<p>In the FCPA Pilot Program, the DOJ provided the following framework for “voluntary self-disclosure:"</p>
<p>“In evaluating self-disclosure during this pilot, the Fraud Section will make a careful assessment of the circumstances of the disclosure. A disclosure that a company is required to make, by law, agreement, or contract, does not constitute voluntary self-disclosure for purposes of this pilot. Thus, the Fraud Section will determine whether the disclosure was already required to be made. In addition, the Fraud Section will require the following items for a company to receive credit for voluntary self-disclosure of wrongdoing under this pilot:</p>
<ul>
<li>The voluntary disclosure [occurs] “prior to an imminent threat of disclosure or government investigation;"</li>
<li>The company discloses the conduct to the Department “within a reasonably prompt time after becoming aware of the offense,” with the burden being on the company to demonstrate timeliness; and</li>
<li>The company discloses all relevant facts known to it, including all relevant facts about the individuals involved in any FCPA violation.”</li>
</ul>
<p>In the FCPA Pilot Program, the DOJ listed the following items that will be required for a company to receive credit for full cooperation:</p>
<ul>
<li>“[D]isclosure on a timely basis of all facts relevant to the wrongdoing at issue, including all facts related to involvement in the criminal activity by the corporation’s officers, employees, or agents;</li>
<li>Proactive cooperation, rather than reactive; that is, the company must disclose facts that are relevant to the investigation, even when not specifically asked to do so, and must identify opportunities for the government to obtain relevant evidence not in the company’s possession and not otherwise known to the government;</li>
<li>Preservation, collection, and disclosure of relevant documents and information relating to their provenance;</li>
<li>Provision of timely updates on a company’s internal investigation, including but not limited to rolling disclosures of information;</li>
<li>Where requested, de-confliction of an internal investigation with the government investigation;</li>
<li>Provision of all facts relevant to potential criminal conduct by all third-patty companies (including their officers or employees) and third-party individuals;</li>
<li>Upon request, making available for Department interviews those company officers and employees who possess relevant information; this includes, where appropriate and possible, officers and employees located overseas as well as former officers and employees (subject to the individuals’ Fifth Amendment rights);</li>
<li>Disclosure of all relevant facts gathered during a company’s independent investigation, including attribution of facts to specific sources where such attribution does not violate the attorney-client privilege, rather than a general narrative of the facts;</li>
<li>Disclosure of overseas documents, the location in which such documents were found, and who found the documents (except where such disclosure is impossible due to foreign law, including but not limited to foreign data privacy laws);</li>
<li>Unless legally prohibited, facilitation of the third-party production of documents and witnesses from foreign jurisdictions; and</li>
<li>Where requested and appropriate, provision of translations of relevant documents in foreign languages.”</li>
</ul>
<p>When learning of FCPA issues, a business organization does not have a legal obligation to voluntarily disclose and cooperate with the government’s investigation (something even the FCPA Pilot Program recognizes), but in the above-referenced enforcement actions the DOJ stated that its decision to resolve the actions in the (relatively speaking) lenient manner in which they were resolved was based on these factors.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more, download this executive summary that highlights key points <a href="http://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1435144/A11E0DB9FC186C8736ACF279F3F95980" target="_blank">from an educational webinar</a></strong><strong> held on Wednesday, July 12 led by Professor Koehler. </strong>This session explored recent FCPA enforcement actions based on corporate hospitality, and compliance take-away points from those actions. Also, former practitioner and now Sr. Functional Consultant at Concur, Lacey Hughes, shared some real practices companies are taking today to mitigate this risk within their T&E programs. </p>
Erin Giordano
Four Tips to Prepare for Financial AI
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-tips-prepare-financial-ai
2020-09-11T13:17:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Artificial Intelligence AI is mainstream and there is no going back now In order to maintain competitiveness organizations of all sizes should start planning to incorporate it into...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/artificial-intelligence-blockchain-accounting-tools-future-are-you-ready">Artificial Intelligence (AI)</a> is mainstream and there is no going back now. In order to maintain competitiveness, organizations of all sizes should start planning to incorporate it into their business processes. One area in particular that has seen the benefits of AI is that of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/artificial-intelligence-blockchain-accounting-tools-future-are-you-ready">finance and accounting</a>. However, incorporating AI into your finance department isn’t a simple plug-and-play, you must first have a solid spend management process in place.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Tune into this 5-part series to learn about innovations that are helping companies become smarter.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Use these tips to strengthen your spend management process, so you can begin to plan how you will gain a competitive advantage by using artificial intelligence.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Understand the Importance of Spend Management</strong></h2>
<p>It is not uncommon for business owners to question whether or not spend management is even necessary for their company. Often times, when cash flow is strong, corporate spending is considered “part of doing business” and isn’t given a second thought. This attitude isn’t fiscally responsible and can eventually lead to problems down the road.</p>
<p>Jason Woods, CFO of SAP Concur says it best: “A spend management plan is critical to a company’s financial health, regardless of industry or size.”</p>
<p>So, whether you are a small business with a handful of employees or a global organization with thousands, it is good business practice to have a spend management process in place. Put pen to paper and begin creating a plan.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Get the 30,000-Foot View of Your Current Processes</strong></h2>
<p>Cliché? Maybe. But, when it comes to adding any new technology, it will only be as good as the process behind it. If your current process has any hang-ups or issues, it won’t matter how much AI you incorporate, it won’t fix what is already broken.</p>
<p>Take the time to thoroughly review your current spend management process. Talk to members of your finance team to learn about any bottlenecks, as well as to find out what is working. Take the time to interview members of other departments to find out what is and isn’t working. You might be surprised to find that what is great for your finance team, might not necessarily be ideal for your sales team.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Update Processes With AI in Mind</strong></h2>
<p>Now that you have a list of current issues, you can start to develop or adjust processes to make things run smoother. When updating processes, keep AI in mind. For example, could the gathering and analyzing of data for monthly expense reports be done by robotic processes versus a team member, freeing up time for more strategic tasks?</p>
<p>Don’t forget to involve team members from all departments when making updates. People are more apt to follow a new process when they feel invested.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>4. Get Help From the Experts</strong></h2>
<p>Don’t get overwhelmed by your spend management process. Use the tools experts in the field have created to give your company the competitive edge. Start by <strong>downloading SAP Concur’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/5-steps-strategic-spend-management">5 Steps to Strategic Spend Management</a>.</strong> This eBook will help guide you towards a more strategic approach to spend management, enabling you to integrate AI and gain a competitive advantage.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Five Tips for Keeping Business Travelers Safe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/five-tips-keeping-business-travelers-safe
2018-07-06T11:34:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A few weeks ago at the Business Travel Show one topic that frequently came up was the rising importance of adequate duty of care controls in business Every time a member of staff...
<p>A few weeks ago at the <a href="https://www.businesstravelshow.com/" target="_blank">Business Travel Show</a>, one topic that frequently came up was the rising importance of adequate duty of care controls in business. Every time a member of staff travels for work, you have a legal duty of care to predict the risks they face and be able respond to them.</p>
<p>Effective travel and expense management is more than just better cashflow visibility and streamlined administration. It’s also about people. Tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> give businesses powerful solutions that enable them to know where employees are when necessary and proactively monitor risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Take our quiz</a> to assess your company's travel risk</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>You could say that the likelihood of something happening to a traveling employee is small and to try not to worry too much. The fact that <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connected-travel-and-expense-management-how-companies-all-sizes-can-make-spend-visible" target="_blank">77% of UK finance leaders</a> said they weren’t confident their business could quickly and accurately locate business travellers in the event of an emergency suggests no one thinks this is a viable approach.</p>
<p>And quite apart from your legal obligation, you also have a human obligation. As the Global Business Travel Association says: “One incident could destroy a family or an organization.”</p>
<p>So, if all this has got you thinking about how you can fulfil your duty of care obligations, what should you consider? Effective duty of care combines common sense and cutting-edge technology. Here are some tips to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Have a plan</strong>: Perhaps the most important thing is to know what you would do in the event of an emergency. Compile a plan that considers all the risks your employees could face while they’re travelling and what you would do about them. Get all stakeholders involved, including your travel suppliers, so they can add their expertise. The plan can’t prevent unforeseen emergencies but it can put you on the front foot when it comes to dealing with them.</li>
<li><strong>Communicate and educate</strong>: Crucially, make sure your employees know who they should contact in an emergency. But also make sure you’re sharing your travel security plans and policies so employees know the support that’s available and the things they can be doing to stay safe.</li>
<li><strong>Encourage responsibility</strong>: Information on your employees’ whereabouts when they’re travelling is only as good as the information you’ve got. Encourage your staff to take responsibility about communicating changes of plan to people back at base. It means that in an emergency you’ll know whether it’s something they’re likely to be caught up or not.</li>
<li><strong>Have a team approach</strong>: Duty of care isn’t something that rests with one person or one department. It’s something everyone has an input in. From HR to management to the finance team, everyone has got something to bring to keeping travelling team members safe.</li>
<li><strong>Harness technology</strong>: We’d also suggest looking at Concur Locate, including the partnerships we have with security specialists, letting you communicate with and safely recover employees in the event of an emergency.</li>
</ol>
<p>A travel risk management plan enables you to assess safety levels and locate all employees – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-safe-are-your-business-travellers">no matter where they are or how they booked their travel</a> – even when travel plans change. It isn’t Big Brother. It’s an easy-to-use tool that helps you fulfil your duty of care obligations – and your human obligations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Answer a few quick questions</a> to assess your company's level of travel risk. </p>
<p> </p>
Dafydd Llewellyn
Lesbians Who Tech Summit Sets the Stage for What Tech Conferences Should Look Like
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/lesbians-who-tech-summit-sets-stage-what-tech-conferences-should-look
2020-09-11T11:47:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Lets get one things straight men are not more talented than women Sheryl Sandberg echoed this sentiment during her interview in the opening keynote session of the Lesbians Who Tech...
<p>“Let’s get one things straight, men are not more talented than women.” Sheryl Sandberg echoed this sentiment during her interview in the opening keynote session of the 2018 <a href="https://lesbianswhotech.org/sanfrancisco2018/" target="_blank">Lesbians Who Tech Summit</a> (LWT), held in San Francisco’s Castro Theate, from March 1 to 3.</p>
<p>Sandberg went on to reference a recent study by her organization, <a href="https://womenintheworkplace.com/#key-findings" target="_blank">Lean In</a>, which found that not only is it harder to be promoted as a woman, it’s even harder for a woman of color or minority group. Here’s a glimpse of the numbers (and you can find the full Women in the Workplace 2017 study <a href="https://womenintheworkplace.com/#key-findings" target="_blank">here</a>.) </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1520621627840-wiw-2017-charts-download-02.jpg" /></p>
<p>The goal of LWT is to help lesbians in the tech industry be more visible to one another, be more visible to others as leaders, and to get more women and lesbians into technology. The conference offers coding scholarships, recruiting opportunities, workshops, speed mentoring, demos, and after-parties for networking. LWT is a thriving community with more than 30,000 members in 39 cities around the world. </p>
<p>Leanne Pittsford, founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech, mentioned in the opening keynote that, when booking the summit’s speakers, very intentional representation goals were set. This year, the speaker goal was 50% women of color and 10% trans and gender non-conforming professionals. </p>
<p>“I knew that if we wanted to build a community that was intersectional, it had to be intentional,” <a href="http://gomag.com/article/lesbians-tech-wants-inspire-offend-action/" target="_blank">Pittsford told GO Magazine</a> in an article published last year about forming LWT.</p>
<p>Intentionality is paramount.</p>
<p>Here are a few takeaways from Pittsford’s keynote:</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1520621747862-leannepittsford.png" />
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Demystifying Diversity and Inclusion</strong></h2>
<p>Here’s the part about diversity and inclusion that must be understood: They are two parts that coexist. Diversity cannot operate without inclusion, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Look at this as you would the scientific concept of mutualism: when two organisms of different species “work together,” each benefitting from the relationship. An easy example of this is the oxpecker that lands on a zebra. The oxpecker eats the ticks and parasites on the zebra’s skin, nourishing itself, while the zebra benefits with pest control.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Plugging It In </strong></h2>
<p>I work in talent and acquisition at SAP, specifically for SAP’s global Internship Experience Project (<a href="http://sap.com/careers/ixp">iXp</a>). Every day I am faced with thinking about two problems:</p>
<ol>
<li>How do we reach diverse candidates in order to build a diverse workforce for SAP?</li>
<li>How do we ensure each intern feels included in our workplace and is equipped with the tools needed to succeed in their career?</li>
</ol>
<p>In order for me and my colleagues in recruiting at SAP to truly do our jobs well, we have to consistently challenge ourselves to look at each candidate as holistically and unbiasedly as possible.</p>
<p>In early talent recruiting, we don’t look for the school they attended or the GPA they achieved right away. We are trained to look at their extracurricular activities, passions, and projects, and ask interview questions that help us grasp who that person really is.</p>
<p>What obstacles have they faced? Did they work a full-time job to put themselves through school? Are they excited to work at our company because this is an opportunity they worked hard to achieve?</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianhonigman/2018/02/02/leanne-pittsford-how-to-diversify-company-leadership/#4abd533c1a9d" target="_blank">Q&A with Forbes</a>, Pittsford said:</p>
<p>“A lot of times people kind of hire one type of a person. You have to get to a certain point in terms of representation to provide a more equal range of opportunities. One of the quotes one of our members said was 'the best way to hire women and people of color is just to hire them.' I think that's true for upper mobility as well. The best way to get women, people of color and LGBTQ people to leadership positions is just to put them in leadership positions.”</p>
<p>This is exactly our mission at SAP: To move the needle with every new hire we add. At SAP iXp, we like to call this hiring “culture adds,” as opposed to culture fits.</p>
<p>This year at the LWT summit, SAP had 25 attendees, sponsorship and recruiting booths, and three summit speakers. You can read their conference stories <a href="https://blogs.sap.com/tag/lwtsummit/" target="_blank">here</a>. To view open roles at SAP iXp <a href="http://sap.com/careers/ixp" target="_blank">go here</a>. For all other roles visit the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers.html" target="_blank">SAP careers page</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Stevens Engineers & Constructors Recoup Employee Expenses Using Concur Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/stevens-engineers-constructors-recoup-employee-expenses-using-concur-expense
2018-11-19T08:53:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For engineering and construction firms its the finished project that leaves a lasting impression on clients So when unclaimed employee expenses were consistently showing up after a...
<p>For engineering and construction firms, it’s the finished project that leaves a lasting impression on clients. So when unclaimed employee expenses were consistently showing up after a project was finished, Stevens Engineers & Constructors Inc. found themselves with costs that couldn’t be recovered.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stevensec.com/" target="_blank">Stevens Engineers & Constructors</a> is an Ohio-based leader in commercial and industrial building. Known for a reputation of being detailed oriented and creating a quality finished project. Mary Ann Andrews, the firm’s corporate accountant, had reason for concern when she began to notice a troubling trend of expense forms not being submitted by staff until after construction projects were complete. This meant costs that couldn’t be billed to the client, and it was time to take action. Mary Ann Andrews reached out to SAP Concur for help.</p>
<p>Andrews manages the expenses of 250-plus full-time staff and thousands of part-time employees, working across the U.S. By choosing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, she is now able to easily track employee expenses across multiple ongoing constructions projects and reliably recover costs associated with each. Employees are able to claim expenses on their mobile phones, regardless if they are on a construction site or in an office, making claims and reimbursements much faster.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We used to have issues with expense reports not being filed until after projects were complete, so costs couldn’t be recovered. With Concur Expense, that problem has simply gone away. -- Mary Ann Andrews, Stevens Engineers & Constructors</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Takeaway Tip:</strong> Build better employee expense processes through the use of mobile automated software solutions.</p>
<p>It’s National Small Business Week and SAP Concur is honoring our small business heroes. At SAP Concur, we create spend management solutions for all businesses, regardless of size or industry. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/national-small-business-week-sap-concur-customer-stories">Read more</a> about how SAP Concur has helped Stevens Engineers & Constructors and other small businesses overcome obstacles to build a better future.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
RXBAR: A Transparent Commitment to Healthy Growth with Concur Expense
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rxbar-transparent-commitment-healthy-growth-concur-expense
2018-05-02T09:01:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Experts predict the US market for cleanlabel foods could reach more than billion by With the demand increasing daily RXBAR was in need of more transparent expenses to allow for agile...
<p>Experts predict the U.S. market for clean-label foods could reach more than $4 billion by 2020. With the demand increasing daily, RXBAR was in need of more transparent expenses to allow for agile business decisions and optimal growth.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rxbar.com/" target="_blank">RXBAR</a>, a whole food protein bar company, was catapulted into rapid growth and in need of a financial solutions partner with the sensitivities of a small business, but the technical scale and know-how to help them continue to scale intelligently. RXBAR reached out to SAP Concur to implement a cloud-based, automated employee expense solution.</p>
<p>Vice-president of Finance & Global Controller, Kelsey Letizia, found what she was looking for in cloud-based <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>. This tool not only makes it easy for easy for employees and finance to keep track of spending, it includes a mobile app for tracking expenses on the go. Getting visibility into expenses allowed Kelsey to make more informed business decisions quickly, giving her the flexibility needed in a fast-paced marketplace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At RXBAR, transparency and innovation are built into our core. As we continue to rapidly scale the business, we strive to ensure we are remaining direct and nimble, while providing our customers with the best products possible. I like having a technology partner who shares these same values. -- Kelsey Letizia, VP Finance & Global Controller</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Takeaway Tip:</strong> Rapid business growth starts with healthy visibility into employee expenses. Implement solutions that will give you the whole picture.</p>
<p>It’s National Small Business Week and SAP Concur is honoring our small business heroes. At SAP Concur, we create spend management solutions for all businesses, regardless of size or industry. Register today for our <a href="https://go.concur.com/nsbw2018c.html?pid=email&cid=emoln_mdrsig_20180405" target="_blank">Tips & Triumphs from SMB All-Stars webinar</a>, and learn from other small businesses as they discuss successes and how to avoid potential pitfalls.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Fraud in Focus: How Can You See It All?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/fraud-focus-how-can-you-see-it-all
2019-03-19T08:11:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre asking yourself if fraud is truly a threat to your business the answer is yes It is estimated that the typical organization loses of annual revenues to fraud each year Ready...
<p data-id="8b28ecdf-cdf9-4dbc-bce8-e7ff813f15a5">If you’re asking yourself if fraud is truly a threat to your business, the answer is yes. It is estimated that the typical organization loses 5% of annual revenues to fraud each year.</p>
<p data-id="8b28ecdf-cdf9-4dbc-bce8-e7ff813f15a5"> </p>
<p data-id="8b28ecdf-cdf9-4dbc-bce8-e7ff813f15a5"><strong>Ready to minimize fraud and maximize compliance? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">Get the infographic</a></strong></p>
<p data-id="8b28ecdf-cdf9-4dbc-bce8-e7ff813f15a5"> </p>
<p data-id="bc724f48-64ba-45b5-91c7-4f51af85d8be">Fraud exists within every organization of every size and industry. And if you are not leveraging the right technology to prevent and monitor fraud, you are losing money. Detection is not a solution on its own, but coupled with prevention and monitoring strategies, you will be better protected.</p>
<p data-id="02ecfe33-de6d-424f-9deb-bb7a17c2d625">How can you see it all? While fraud can seem like a complex issue, companies can take these proactive steps to help identify any red flags:</p>
<ol>
<li data-id="2393de17-aa47-408d-bb3d-7ab4baac2a7c"><strong>Use a preventative approach</strong>. Adopt systems that allow employees to submit expenses for preapproval, guide travel decisions with color-coded cues, and capture every itinerary regardless of where it was booked.</li>
<li data-id="ded275ec-df25-496d-9e17-6f4377814ccd"><strong>Remember information is power</strong>. Set audit rules like requiring receipts and itemized line items. Review individual transactions and look for patterns – essential information can be gathered to help with FCPA violations.</li>
<li data-id="911f0522-c11d-4a4c-98df-4821e9d0423f"><strong>Mandate a corporate card program.</strong> Expenses that are auto-imported into an management system, ensure that travelers cannot modify their expenses. Also, with a corporate card program, you can add additional controls, such as setting credit or transaction limits.</li>
<li data-id="2ed5421c-bc6e-429c-b892-beb24c05593c"><strong>Organize and share data to empower.</strong> Package and share travel and expense data with key stakeholders within your organization. Make the data easy to understand and actionable.</li>
<li data-id="e2d28cf0-d876-46fc-adb3-710c0a7fd09c"><strong>Identify key trends.</strong> Review areas of concern such as volume of expense reimbursements, personal payments, top spenders, cash advances, high mileage, and lump sum tips.</li>
</ol>
<p data-id="416da397-a349-47ba-b677-09578678d659">This is just the start of your journey to detecting and preventing fraud within your business. There are additional avenues you need to explore to ensure inaccuracies and intentional fraud is identified before your money is lost.</p>
<p data-id="0b3ecd5f-6671-47fa-939b-220418cd5f3b"><strong>To learn more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">read our e-Book</a> to see how companies like yours are fighting back agains fraud. </strong></p>
<p data-id="b099e3ab-1228-4ba1-b788-8af506a3dc65"> </p>
<p data-id="342d8f56-3683-40de-b27a-d91e64b1d069"> </p>
Lauren Wood
Meet Our New SAP Concur Community Impact Partners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/meet-our-new-sap-concur-community-impact-partners
2021-03-01T15:42:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur Every day at SAP Concur we work to help the world run better and improve peoples lives To ensure a...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>Every day at SAP Concur, we work to help the world run better and improve people’s lives. To ensure a sustainable future, not only do we strive to enable our customers to be their best, we want to achieve the same for our employees, as well as the global community. Being purpose-driven is an integral part of our culture and is vital to our business strategy. We are excited to share our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Community Impact Partner program.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur CSR team works hand in hand with SAP to foster digital inclusion and create opportunities for underserved people and communities through programming and partnerships. In particular, our CSR efforts are focused on quality education and digital inclusion for all youth by growing STEM education, creating access to quality education, and supporting girls and young women in tech and leadership.</p>
<p>With this focus as the guide for our SAP Concur CSR strategy, we are excited to announce our new SAP Concur Community Impact Partners—Washington STEM, Summer Search, and CARE. Each one of these organizations were selected for their missions and impact.</p>
<p><strong>Washington STEM</strong>, our local headquarter Community Impact partner, advances excellence, innovation, and equity in STEM education for all Washington students, especially those historically underrepresented in STEM fields. Read more <a href="http://www.washingtonstem.org/sapconcur/" target="_blank">here</a> on how we’re partnering with Washington STEM to grow the access of STEM for youth in the state of Washington.</p>
<p>Our national partner, <strong>Summer Search</strong>, helps students from low-income backgrounds transform what they believe is possible for themselves, strengthening skills they need to succeed in school and in life, and giving back to their families and communities. Read more <a href="https://www.summersearch.org/file/press/2018_SAP_Concur_and_Summer_Search.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> on how SAP Concur is working with Summer Search to provide the technology needed to ensure academic success. </p>
<p>We’re proud to announce <strong>CARE</strong> as our global Community Impact partner. CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice. CARE is committed to working in partnership with 200 million people to improve their lives. We have teamed up to support their STEM and education programs around the world. Read more <a href="https://www.care.org/newsroom/press/press-releases/care-selected-sap-concur-community-impact-partner-to-boost-girls" target="_blank">here</a> on our Community Impact Partnership and how we’re helping grow access to STEM and basic education for girls and all youth.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we believe that when our people are at their best, our business is at its best, and ensuring employees have opportunities to give back is a key ingredient. We look forward to deepening our partnerships with these three incredible organizations.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Thank You for 25 Years
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/thank-you-25-years
2021-03-08T16:12:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It was the year Sleepless in Seattle tugged at the hearts of romantics people listened to music on Walkmans Intel introduced the Pentium family of bit microprocessors and one of the...
<p>It was the year 1993. “Sleepless in Seattle” tugged at the hearts of romantics, people listened to music on Walkman’s, Intel introduced the Pentium family of 32-bit microprocessors, and one of the world’s most popular athletes, Michael Jordan, retired from basketball (the first time). People booked travel with an agent –online travel had not quite taken off – and business expenses were managed (at best) with Microsoft Excel. This tedious, and often frustrating process of dealing with a pile of receipts after a business trip, drove the creation of Concur by our founders Rajeev Singh, his brother Steve Singh, and friend Mike Hilton 25 years ago.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/third-w350/1531324859867-concur-25th.png" /></p>
<p>Concur founders</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Concur was originally founded to solve this all-too-common problem of expense reporting. Since then, we have grown to offer a completely connected spend management solution surrounded by an ecosystem that adds even greater value to our customers and partners. We have evolved within an exciting and ever-changing industry that has played a critical role in the globalization of businesses, consumerization of IT, and ultimately the wider economy.</p>
<p>We are proud of what we have accomplished, and more importantly, humbled by the differences we have been able to make across our community of customers, partners and employees. We have and will always view our relationships with our customers and partners as a journey. One that begins with our ability and interest in helping them simplify processes, deliver solutions that users like, and deliver value as their business grows. Simply put, we improve how people work, which improves their lives. Every day, alongside our partners, we begin this journey with new customers, while we work hard to ensure our current customers build their future with us as a trusted company that can support them through every stage of growth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1531324752566-moorea-office.png" /></p>
<p>One of our first offices circa 1994</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As we reflect on 25 years, we are grateful for our opportunity to work with more than 42,000 customers and hundreds of partners throughout the world. We are also grateful for our 7,500+ employees who are the heartbeat of SAP Concur. </p>
<p>Together, with our customers and partners, we have a lot to look forward to. Looking ahead to our next 25 years as SAP Concur, we are inspired by new technological innovations such as machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), bots, and the Internet of Things (IoT). We will continue to grow our ecosystems of partners who enhance our platform. We are excited to see what is possible for customers as they transform their businesses into Intelligent Enterprises and, for our partners, as they continue offering solutions that meet specific market needs and take data to the next level. As always, we continue to be committed to the success of our customers and partners. </p>
<p>In honor of this milestone, THANK YOU to all our current and future customers and partners. We can’t wait for what lies ahead! </p>
SAP Concur Team
Budget Like a Boss: How to Take Charge of Finances with Automation and Reporting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/budget-boss-how-take-charge-finances-automation-and-reporting
2020-09-11T13:20:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Budgeting and managing cash flow arent for the faint of heart but that doesnt mean you need to be a CPA to manage your finances Having clear visibility into your expenses and being...
<p>Budgeting and managing cash flow aren't for the faint of heart, but that doesn’t mean you need to be a CPA to manage your finances. Having clear visibility into your expenses and being able to easily pull reports is key, giving you the data you need to make those important business decisions. Getting access to this data is much easier than you think thanks to automated technology solutions.</p>
<p>Not sure if automation is for you? Below are a few common business challenges you may face on a daily basis, along with how automation can help you get the visibility you need.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Eliminating surprise employee expenses</h2>
<p><strong>Scenario:</strong> It’s been a beyond stellar month, and you are looking forward to finally being able to put a little extra money back into your business. That was until you finally finish entering all those employee expense reports and find a few surprises. Say goodbye to that extra cash.</p>
<p>Take comfort in knowing you are not alone. According to <a href="https://www.nfib.com/content/resources/money/top-small-business-money-challenges-cash-flow-management/" target="_blank">Catherine A. Wood, founder of Unbounded Potential</a>:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the biggest struggles that small business owners face is learning how to project expenses—what is important, what is not, what the immediate needs of the company are, and so on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Solution:</strong> Expense report automation is your friend in this situation. Not only does an automated solution eliminate all that data entry you’ve been doing each month, but it puts all the much needed financial information in one, easy-to-access location. Pull reports, create personalized dashboards, and reduce your chances of getting blind-sided.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Kissing late payments goodbye</h2>
<p><strong>Scenario:</strong> You’ve finally got a handle on this whole inventory thing. Shelves are stocked and you have just the right amount of merchandise in your backroom. Then the phone rings, and a vendor is on the other line asking for the status of their invoice. Another late payment, another late fee.</p>
<p>This is a bad situation on a number of fronts. Not only do those late fees add up after a while, but your payment history determines <a href="https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/fico-credit-score-payment-history-1270.php" target="_blank">35% of your FICO Score</a>. This could negatively impact your ability to get a loan.</p>
<p><strong>Solution:</strong> It’s time to take your invoice process up a notch. Moving away from a paper invoice system to an automated solution not only keeps you organized, it gives you more control over cash flow and helps to ensure invoices are paid on time. Thanks to easy-to-access information, you can quickly pull the necessary reports to show outstanding invoices and which ones are lingering too close to their due date.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Managing employee travel and controlling spend</h2>
<p><strong>Scenario:</strong> Your company is growing. You now have not only local, but regional and national clients. While this is exciting and an important step in your growth plan, it also means you suddenly have employees leaving the home office and booking flights and hotels. How do you maintain control?</p>
<p>Business travel is heating-up. According to <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/293608/travel-managers-expecting-an-increase-in-business-travel-by-country/" target="_blank">Statista</a>, 43% of US business travel managers are expecting an increase in business travel this year.</p>
<p><strong>Solution:</strong> Thanks to automated travel solutions, you can select preferred air and hotel vendors for your employees. These systems often feed into your expense report processes, automatically give you a full view of employee expenses. Not to mention, with an automated system, you can easily access the data you need to do things such as negotiate lower fees with most used vendors, or manage <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ramp up your reporting and get the data you need</h2>
<p>The scenarios outline above are just a few of the situations you face as a business owner. You can imagine how having access to the right data and reports can positively impact your organization and your bottom line.</p>
<p>Join us for our on-demand, joint webinar with Ziff Davis, <a href="https://assets.toolbox.com/research/5-secrets-hiding-in-your-ap-data-85986" target="_blank">5 Secrets Hiding in Your AP Data</a>, and learn how reporting can positively change the way you manage your finances.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Gain Visibility and Control of Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-gain-visibility-and-control-employee-spend
2020-09-14T18:42:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Employeeinitiated spend refers to spend instigated and controlled by the employee in support of their role or job function such as the typical travel and expense categories in...
<p>Employee-initiated spend refers to spend instigated and controlled by the employee, in support of their role or job function – such as the typical travel and expense categories – in addition to other types of spend that contributes to business operations. It’s not just travel and expense, but all categories of spend and employee buying behaviors that have shifted.</p>
<p>With this shift, a more pressing focus on accruals and timely recognition of expenses is here to stay. Recognition of the expense within the appropriate fiscal period, leading to voluminous generic accruals in most cases, can be overwhelming and lead to inaccuracy of your financial health measure. The timing between when a purchase is made and payment disbursement (when suppliers and credit card companies need to be paid, and employees reimbursed) can vary depending on employee reimbursement of the transaction activity across expense report submittals and utilization of corporate tools for purchasing (e.g. use of a corporate on-line booking tool, use of corporate credit cards or P-cards, etc.).</p>
<p>This challenge is often grouped into the accrual category but spreads quickly into budgetary and margin control. While most adhere to strict reconciliation timing policy, many don’t understand the implications of untimely processing of expense activity. The downstream impact can be detrimental to an organization who operates strictly to the budget or one that manages to very thin margin. Financial reporting requirements are also a factor in that tardiness can lead to extensive accrual journal entries to then be reversed the following period, which leads to confusion of actual expenses. </p>
<p>There are various ways in which finance departments can gain better visibility into and control of this impact:</p>
<ol>
<li>Through dashboards that report multiple aspects of current-period spend</li>
<li>Receiving alerts as actual spend approaches budgeted spend for the period</li>
<li>Reviewing daily or weekly corporate credit-card transactions</li>
<li>Integrated travel data set, providing insight into upcoming spend</li>
<li>All of the above</li>
</ol>
<p>Below we will explore how <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> can assist your organization. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> provides dashboards and a suite of over 100 standard reports that finance and accounting departments can use to facilitate expense monitoring, contributing to more control. </p>
<p>Dashboards can show in a single view at a high-level, inclusive of spend KPIs such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Period spend by department</li>
<li>Top spend by category</li>
<li>Top exceptions to compliance policies</li>
<li>Expense accruals</li>
<li>Spend forecasts</li>
</ul>
<p>Additional details can include spend by employee, spend by department, accrued credit card transactions, air travel bookings by department, expense exception detail, period-to-period spend comparison, hotel negotiated rates vs. actual charged, approval cycle time by manager, reports approved but receipts not checked, and more. </p>
<p>A complete listing of reports available to SAP Concur users can be <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/pr/reporting/resources">found here</a>. SAP Concur customers that wish to further customize their reports can either do it themselves, or through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">Consultative Intelligence services</a> from SAP Concur.</p>
<p>SAP Concur also offers its customers a tool that alerts them as spend approaches a set amount or budget per period. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/budget-management">Budget by SAP Concur</a> is a service that enables financial executives to compare departmental spending by period against a projected spending limit, and alerts designated department heads as actual spending approaches the established departmental budget. If anything looks unusual, the department manager can take action that will enable them to better control spend. As we aggregate across the entire company, the net result is better control of spend across the organization.</p>
<p>Use of corporate credit cards and purchasing cards (P-Cards) is another way for the finance and accounting departments to obtain advanced smoke signals of accruals or any other spend challenges. P-Cards are a dominant payment channel for employee spend, enabling employees to act quickly without hinderance. Transaction data is consolidated in a statement-like format within the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/p-card-reconciliation">Company Bill Statement</a> function, supporting the visibility necessary to understand spend while it’s happening. Similar to that of Expense and the corporate card payment type, P-Cards must also be controlled. Timing of these cards is particularly important as most P-Card programs are established as Corporate Bill, Corporate Pay (CBCP). This means that your organization is required to pay the monthly bill in full to the card provider, regardless of reconciliation status. Without proper tools, most CBCP programs roll with significant accruals. </p>
<p>Another typical employee behavior that impacts visibility of spend, and thus accrual entry, is when employees book and/or pay for travel without using their organization’s corporate on-line booking tool, approved travel agency, or corporate card. For example, when hotel reservations are made using the corporate on-line booking tool, the finance department – through the KPI reporting and dashboards discussed above – has visibility to upcoming spend. However, when employees reserve a room using the hotel’s reservation channel, or when they pay using a personal credit card, the organization loses insight to the upcoming expense. It isn’t until later that the expense transaction is visible, when the employee manually enters the expense. This could be weeks or months out; disabling the organization’s ability to report on the transaction in the proper fiscal cycle, drastically impacting budgets. </p>
<p>In order to capture the amount and timing of this anticipated spend, SAP Concur has developed the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Relationships with major hotel and airlines to interface with their frequent traveler systems.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur Triplink</a>, a tool that enables hotels, airlines, and other service providers such as car rental companies, Uber, etc. to:
<ul>
<li>Apply to the reservation or the charge the organization’s corporate-negotiated rates</li>
<li>Send to SAP Concur electronic receipts, using the employees’ frequent traveler or user IDs as the identifying link. This not only benefits the organization by enabling it to see spend before it is reported in expense reports, but it also benefits the employees by allowing them to get frequent traveler points while reducing the need for the employee to detail and itemize where and how much they spent on their travel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), 37% of hotel reservations and 15% of air bookings are made by employees outside of corporate channels. The expenses associated with bookings carried out through these external channels is what we refer to as invisible spend. Using Triplink, organizations that use Expense can capture this invisible spend, enabling them to have more visibility and control of cash flow needs.</p>
<p>When you combine spend-reporting dashboards, alerts on actual spend vs. budget availability, use of corporate card, and integration of feeds from external-spend channels, organizations gain more insight to employee spending behavior for accurate budgeting and forecasting, thereby protecting your company’s financial health. </p>
<p><strong>The SAP Concur Value Consulting team is available to SAP Concur customers to review current processes related to timely spend capture and reconciliation. Establishing a baseline of best practices and uncovering additional value will be largely impactful on the customer’s business and improve the performance in these areas. </strong></p>
<p><strong>For more information, please contact your SAP Concur representative.</strong></p>
Serge Kogan
Managing a Corporate Travel Program is Getting More Complex. Here’s How to Simplify
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managing-corporate-travel-program-getting-more-complex-heres-how-simplify
2018-11-06T06:27:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Corporate travel management is changing rapidly Travel managers report that they are now spending more time focusing on areas such as data analysis and reporting evaluating or...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Corporate travel</a> management is changing rapidly. Travel managers report that they are now spending 60% more time focusing on areas such as data analysis and reporting, evaluating or implementing new technology, and traveler safety and duty of care. However, they have found that they’re also spending more time focusing on traditional tasks such as managing payment methods and negotiating rates with suppliers than they had been five years ago.</p>
<p>How can travel managers better allocate their energy and reduce the number of repetitive tasks they have to do each day? The answer may be the automation capabilities that come from a connected travel solution.</p>
<p>We’ve seen great advancements in integrated automation technology for the travel industry. These advancements can give time back to travel managers by providing actionable insights into their travel data, lead to better compliance, offer a better traveler experience, and improve traveler safety.</p>
<p>However, according to the results of a 2018 survey conducted by the GBTA Foundation, travel managers aren’t taking full advantage of these benefits. The research shows that as many as 80% of travel programs don’t use technology to capture bookings made outside of their programs. Furthermore, 86% don’t use a tool that enables suppliers to send reservations directly to TMCs.</p>
<p>Is your organization taking advantage of the best technology for its travel program? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/gbta-webinar-lost-translation-5-counter-intuitive-realities-business-travel">Watch the webinar</a> 5 Counter-Intuitive Realities in Business Travel Management to learn more about GBTA’s research, and why you should adopt an integrated, automated corporate travel solution.</p>
SAP Concur Team
There’s Nothing Magic About Cash Flow. (But We Do Have a Few Tricks Up Our Sleeve)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/theres-nothing-magic-about-cash-flow-we-do-have-few-tricks-our-sleeve
2018-11-30T07:43:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Cash flow is king in any business but effectively controlling it is a mystery to many One thing most business leaders can agree on however is that managing cash on hand requires...
<p>Cash flow is king in any business, but effectively controlling it is a mystery to many. One thing most business leaders can agree on, however, is that managing cash on hand requires visibility into what’s going out the door.</p>
<p>Keeping an eye on spending is more of a challenge than ever; employees have more ways to spend and, consequently, more ways to potentially circumvent your current systems of control. And things like data-entry errors, processing mishaps, late or incorrect payments, and employees’ mistakes and fraud can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Here are a few quick tips to simplify how you manage your cash:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Add oversight without overhead</h2>
<p>If you can see what’s being spent in near real time and eliminate both manual data entry and the errors that go with it—<strong>and</strong> if you can automate or outsource expense report policy audits and confirm every invoice against the correct PO—you can literally take control of spending before the money gets spent.</p>
<p>Easy, right?</p>
<p>Well, yes, actually. Automating AP, and specifically your T&E and invoice processing, allows you to control every dime with fewer demands on human capital. And with the right solution, you can put your funds back to work and put a system in place that scales with you as your business grows and changes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Making simple tools do harder work</h2>
<p>Moving spend and invoice management to the cloud with <a href="https://www.concur.com/">SAP Concur</a> allows you to connect spending data directly from suppliers, credit providers and virtually every other source. So no matter where or how spending happens, you can capture it accurately down to the last dollar. SAP Concur solutions also help you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Give employees mobile tools that automatically write expense reports on the go—so there are no delays or mistakes, and budgets accrue accurately</li>
<li>Automatically audit every transaction, so you’re not trying to recoup funds that shouldn’t have been reimbursed</li>
<li>Automatically apply spending controls and audit rules to every purchase, and keep fraud away from your funds</li>
<li>Automatically check invoices against goods and services received, so you can catch duplicates before overpaying</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-accurately-capture-mileage-driven-for-work">Accurately track mileage</a> (a massive source of fraud and honest overestimation) and automatically add it to expense reports</li>
<li>Get detailed reports and dashboards to help you spot unusual spending behavior, and you’ll automatically get alerts when spend nears specific thresholds</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Seeing more of your spending, so you can control more of your cash</h2>
<p>You can’t control what you can’t see, so every solution we design makes spending more visible. And, ultimately, easier to manage.</p>
<p>And if you noticed: Every bullet in the list above contains the word “automatically,” which gives you a sense of how this solution has streamlined processes across the board.</p>
<p>Essentially, it adds up to simple control of your funds. And that takes all the mystery out of cash flow.</p>
<p><strong>Sill curious? Learn more about invoice automation <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management#/learn">here</a>, and read more about T&E data analysis <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-data-analysis">here</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
To Improve Business Travel, Let a Robot Handle Your Expense Report
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improve-business-travel-let-robot-handle-your-expense-report
2021-02-11T15:56:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
No one goes to work excited to file a claim for travel expenses Nobody was ever hired because theyre a superstar at entering receipts And no major business trip was made better because...
<p>No one goes to work excited to file a claim for travel expenses. Nobody was ever hired because they’re a superstar at entering receipts. And no major business trip was made better because a supervisor spent a day at the end of it approving expense reports. So, if that’s the case, why not just let a robot handle your expense and travel management?</p>
<p>In the latest episode of the Intelligent Business podcast, The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Barnwell explores how SAP Concur uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to manage the expense report process and give decision makers more visibility into company spend. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Episode 3: A Robot Completed My Expense Report</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>From filling out the report to approving expenses to flagging potential items that are outside of company policy, automation and machine learning give travel managers and finance professionals confidence that funds are being spent wisely while reducing the time employees spend on paperwork.</p>
<p>In this episode you’ll learn:</p>
<ul>
<li>How companies are already using automation to create “the perfect business trip”</li>
<li>How virtual reality, chatbots, and other emerging technologies will change the way business travelers interact with corporate travel policies</li>
<li>How one company incorporated SAP Concur across facilities in 23 countries to reduce time spent reviewing expense reports from 10 hours a day to five minutes</li>
</ul>
<p><br />
The Intelligent Business podcast is a collaboration between SAP Concur and The Wall Street Journal’s Custom Studios. This new series digs into the stories behind the innovations that allow companies to become smarter about business travel. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen to the five-part series here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Ways a Travel Management Company Can Transform Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-travel-management-company-can-transform-your-business
2019-03-05T09:56:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to a JP Morgan study company TE travel expense is the second largest expense behind payroll The good news is that it can largely be controlledif you have the right tools and...
<p>According to a J.P. Morgan study, company T&E (travel & expense) is the second largest expense behind payroll. The good news is that it can largely be controlled—if you have the right tools and expertise. The bad news is a lot companies don’t. Effectively managing a corporate travel program requires experience, smarter technology, and quite frankly, more staff. This is where TMCs enter the picture.</p>
<p>So what’s a TMC? TMC is an acronym for travel management company, and TMCs help companies streamline and optimize their travel programs. If you’re looking for quantifiable savings, convenient and value-added services, enhanced data visibility, increased automation, and happier travelers, you need a TMC.</p>
<p>Read below for our top three reasons why TMCs are good for business.</p>
<p><strong>Service:</strong> With a TMC, travelers don’t waste time finding the best flights at the lowest price within the company travel policy. And when an emergency arises or en-route changes occur, you don’t have to sweat it because most TMCs have agents available 24/7/365 to step in and resolve the issue. That leaves more time for business travelers to be productive on their trip and accomplish more for the company—and it helps keep them happy (which is really good for business).</p>
<p><strong>Savings:</strong> Without a TMC to manage your travel program, an inestimable amount of savings are lost. Not only can TMCs leverage your T&E spend with suppliers to lower your rates and increase your amenities, but a TMC will also help enforce the company travel policy, which is crucial when it comes to the bottom line. Without policy enforcement, the traveler—not the corporate policy—is defining the “lowest cost.” A TMC also assists in savings through unused ticket management, international faring, continual lower airfare searches, contracted discounts, reporting, and much more.</p>
<p><strong>Visibility</strong>: Know exactly how, where, and by whom your travel budget is spent with comprehensive and intuitive reporting tools. If a travel program is unmanaged, consolidated reporting is unavailable, which is key for driving better decisions and improving business performance. Most TMCs offer standard reporting packages and that provide spend analysis and supplier management to policy/risk management and activity reporting. With improved data collection for Air, Hotel, and Rental Car expenditures, your company's negotiating leverage with vendors is greatly enhanced. Reporting tools can also help you pinpoint travelers who continually choose noncompliant rates—tsk, tsk!</p>
<p>While these three areas will definitely impact your company’s bottom line, there is an array of other benefits to fully managing your corporate travel program through a TMC. If you’d like to learn more about how a TMC can positively impact your business, visit us online at <a href="http://www.adtrav.com" target="_blank">www.adtrav.com</a>. We would love to connect you with a travel expert.</p>
<p> </p>
Chesley Vague
Volunteering Abroad: Two SAP Concur Employees Share Their Stories
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/volunteering-abroad-two-sap-concur-employees-share-their-stories
2019-02-26T09:16:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Kathy Boyd and Shannon Blackwell In October SAP North America announced that employees would have the opportunity to apply to participate in Service Unites an international...
<p><strong>By Kathy Boyd and Shannon Blackwell</strong></p>
<p>In October 2018, SAP North America announced that employees would have the opportunity to apply to participate in “Service Unites,” an international volunteer experience in Thailand. After submitting a two-minute video on their purpose, passion, and why they would be the best person to represent SAP in this opportunity, SAP Concur employees, Shannon Blackwell and Kathy Boyd, were two of the five employees selected to embark on this journey.</p>
<p> </p>
<div><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551199638234-at-the-school-3-copy.jpg" />
<div>Our project was to build hand washing stations at a local school in the Nan Province of Thailand</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Kathy’s story</h2>
<p>From the beginning of this opportunity, both Shannon and I kept asking “why me?” I have never been overseas, I don’t speak multiple languages, I am older than the other team members…but can still lift and haul with the best of them! But we both want to make the world a better place and were honored to be selected.</p>
<p>SAP partnered with an organization called <a href="https://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/">Cross-Cultural Solutions</a> (CSS) that focuses on child education and health. Our project was to build hand washing stations at a local school in the Nan Province of Thailand. Our time in Thailand and with the staff at CCS was great. We both felt that they worked diligently to ensure we felt comfortable in the Thai environment, that we understood customs, and knew what to expect when interacting with students, teachers, and the public. This was extremely helpful and allowed us to focus on our project, instead of sorting out any confusion.</p>
<p>Our task was to install hand washing stations and to educate on hygiene. For the first three days, we worked on re-building the hand washing stations—this included mixing and pouring the cement, tiling, adding grout to the tile sections, and painting. On the last two days, we taught multiple sessions to groups of students on the importance of good hygiene and hand washing. We finished our task, but it was sad to see the ongoing need for more.</p>
<p>This is meant to be eye-opening, not depressing. In North America, we don’t even think about what it would be like living without soap and warm water. It made me realize that the hand washing stations we built will help these students stay healthy, allowing them to continue in school and improve their lives.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551199333575-working-at-the-school-thailand.jpg" />
For the first three days, we worked on re-building the hand washing stations
<p> </p>
<h2>Shannon’s story</h2>
<p>For me, personally, this was a brand-new experience. I was the only one in the group who had not experienced volunteering internationally, so it was definitely a different experience.</p>
<p>The hand washing station project was very important, but we did not even scratch the surface. Everywhere we went hygiene was an issue. Soap and hot water were rarely available in bathrooms. The teacher’s bathroom at the school, that is also used to wash dishes, was the only place where we saw soap. The need was overwhelming.</p>
<p>However, I thought the smaller moments had the most impact. One day, Rybo (another SAP volunteer) and I taught a class about germs. We finished early, so we opened it up to questions about anything—these kids were curious about a lot! The conversation landed on the topic of careers and one student said he wanted to be a programmer. Lucky for him, that’s Rybo’s job. After a few minutes of chatting, the student revealed he was teaching himself online. Rybo shared a multitude of resources with the student and suggested specific data science he should learn. This child was so excited, and Rybo, quite possibly, could have changed his life just from this conversation. He now knows where to go and how to improve his skillset to become a programmer and someday work for a company like SAP.</p>
<p>After seeing this exchange, the principal asked if we could go over to the computer class to potentially help some more students. It turns out they were learning Dreamweaver and we were so happy to assist. The hand washing station project was great, but we had so many interactions that will have just as much impact, if not more. That’s what we will all remember—the moments that SAP helped create, the moments that really mattered. Those are the stories we will tell over and over.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1551199366135-before-and-after-thailand.jpg" />
<p> </p>
<h2>Kathy’s takeaways</h2>
<p>One thing that stood out to me is that kids are the same, no matter where you are. They are curious, smart, funny, and emotional. The language barrier didn’t matter. I could smile, nod, or speak my (really bad) Thai and they would smile back. I know that we were there to build hand washing stations, but we were also there to provide encouragement. As I was awake at 2:00am this morning from jetlag, I thought about the result we all wanted, to give these students and staff access to clean water to stay healthy. If our being there, helps just one student stay in school and not miss out on an education because they were sick, or pass along an illness to those around them, we succeeded in what we set out to do.</p>
<p>Through the education on germs, hygiene, and proper hand washing, we were able to help the students succeed in their education and improve their lives. But I believe we can do more.</p>
<p>We can <strong>all</strong> do something to help others. I am thankful that SAP and SAP Concur also believe this. SAP’s purpose of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives is one that we all embraced.</p>
<p>As Concurians, we are afforded the opportunity to volunteer eight hours per quarter and I want to encourage all my colleagues to use those hours. We can all help in some way – this is our purpose and the purpose of SAP. You don’t have to travel globally to make an impact, but we were all thankful that SAP created this opportunity, selected us, and we are looking forward to the next experience!</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Key Factors in Achieving a Compliant, Efficient Month-End
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-key-factors-achieving-compliant-efficient-month-end
2020-07-12T11:39:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Does your monthend start long before the last working day of the month and typically spill into the start of the next Is it a stressful inefficient exercise that doesnt really deliver...
<p data-id="3784a987-bfd8-4486-b57e-5ed52fd99347">Does your month-end start long before the last working day of the month and typically spill into the start of the next? Is it a stressful, inefficient exercise that doesn’t really deliver as much value as you’d like? If you use a paper-based process, this is likely to be a familiar scenario.</p>
<p data-id="e0dcec4f-b48e-4a65-9e53-23adb1fca7d9">However frustrating the process is, the end of the month is a critical time. Accurate data capture and analysis is a vital part of compliance.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Are Manual Processes Hurting Your Bottom Line?</h2>
<p>See the value of T&E and AP automation. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2 data-id="98bf7b08-8064-44ab-8162-6f71aed9a84a">Three things that stop you having an efficient month-end</h2>
<ol>
<li data-id="5fd5cadc-d1c1-42db-8ebf-1d76267633aa"><strong>G</strong><strong>etting hold of the paperwork: </strong>You ask for expenses to reach you by a certain date each month, but the reality is you spend a lot of time following up. You and your team feel like schoolteachers chasing homework rather than the skilled professionals you are. (See more <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/5-things-your-ap-team-didnt-sign-up-for">things your AP team didn't sign up for</a>.)</li>
<li data-id="1bae8417-f3d5-467f-961e-a6e08b6a4462"><strong>Data entry:</strong> It’s time-consuming and tedious to enter figures and code costs. But it’s an activity that can’t be rushed because when you do, mistakes creep in and accuracy is compromised.</li>
<li data-id="80d24877-616e-47ca-aa33-4f088bf9f67c"><strong>The quality of the data you have available</strong> Because you’re working with figures in arrears, you don’t really have a clear picture of the current finances of the business. This is something that’s all-too-clear when an unexpectedly large expense claim or invoice lands on your desk and throws all your cashflow forecasting out.</li>
</ol>
<h2 data-id="75b4e191-8eef-4a7f-b476-50135912e413"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="75b4e191-8eef-4a7f-b476-50135912e413">Automation is the answer to creating much-needed efficiency</h2>
<p data-id="ecd6568b-1396-4774-bf41-2f12c5ec437e">There is a solution to all three problems: automation. Automation helps you overcome all three problems caused by a paper-based month-end, and turns a stressful, tedious scramble into an efficient process. It also makes it easy to plan your cash flow and give the management team valuable information they can use in business planning. It also gives you more confidence in your compliance.</p>
<p data-id="efc7d2e5-39a7-4d99-82a3-837e40484e5d">Gathering the paperwork is effortless. With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, expense claims can be compiled on the go. Employees simply <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">photograph their receipts</a> on their smartphone and they’re automatically converted into claims to be checked and submitted. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> captures travel plans and spend, no matter where it happens so it’s in the system from the moment it’s booked. Plus, nothing slips through the gaps – every detail is captured and your policies are applied automatically so your end-users know spend is compliant.</p>
<p data-id="14e51b7a-cd37-4a00-af71-71e58a761d2d">With these solutions, data entry is a thing of the past. They capture data automatically and even code costs too. Data flows seamlessly into your finance system so everything is in one place. With the risk of manual error eliminated, you save time and you can be confident nothing has been missed.</p>
<p data-id="1a4f29f2-6bc4-4ced-bb9a-cde297edb452">The other advantage of having costs in the system so much earlier is visibility. You can see spend as soon as it goes out the door (rather than weeks later) giving you the ability to make business decisions proactively. You can see at a glance where claims are in the approval process so you can follow up quickly. Your data is digitized and connected, so you can interrogate and analyze information much more easily and your reporting capabilities are super-charged. You also have an end-to-end audit trail should you ever need it.</p>
<p data-id="1a4f29f2-6bc4-4ced-bb9a-cde297edb452"> </p>
<p data-id="4c8544c2-1eb5-4415-b854-0927b88abb7d">Your manual processes are likely slowing your business down, which is costing you time and money while leaving you at risk of non-compliance. To learn more about the benefits of automated, expense, travel, and vendor invoice processes, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">read this report by AMI-partners</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Customers, Are You Overlooking Process Efficiency?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-customers-are-you-overlooking-process-efficiency
2020-09-13T04:22:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are you getting the most out of your SAP Concur solution As a customer youve realized the value in automating your spend management processes Youve made it easier for employees to...
<p data-id="e0908dec-7170-483a-8713-3bb443f36407">Are you getting the most out of your SAP Concur solution?</p>
<p data-id="bec46235-758d-4466-b299-36dc1f8dfe32">As a customer, you’ve realized the value in automating your spend management processes. You’ve made it easier for employees to avoid errors, submit receipts quickly, and do it all on the go. But organizations that assume automation alone is the primary benefit of spend management technology are selling themselves short.</p>
<p data-id="b1159207-0399-4eeb-af35-0a833eb34daa">If you have adopted the “set and forget it” approach, you’re likely overlooking areas where your processes can be optimized further to realize even greater ROI. Unsure where to start? Check out how efficient your expense processing cycles are, from report submission and approval to payment. Here are four reasons why efficiency should be an area of focus:</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Digitally Transform Your Processes</h2>
<p>Learn the costs and benefits associated with SAP Concur solutions for expense, travel, and invoice management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2 data-id="b1159207-0399-4eeb-af35-0a833eb34daa"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="5a2f8438-d971-4d97-a1df-b3e86e76c14d">Time back to drive business</h2>
<p data-id="2d9edddb-ea65-44fd-823f-104d9372e966">As a customer, long gone are the days of employees piecemealing together paper receipts and tracking down expenses. Because expense reports can be submitted by end users more easily, your back-office staff can do more with less. But can your staff be even more productive?</p>
<p data-id="95b09710-5752-449c-9a16-b88d5fc1ef66">When you focus on the time it takes to approve and pay across your business, your employees can process more expenses even faster. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing" target="_blank">IDC research</a> found accounts payable staff were 30% more efficient with an optimized SAP Concur solution. At the same time, your audit staff get access to the financial data they need to do their jobs even quicker. The same IDC study found that with optimized spend management processes, efficiency for audit staff improved by 28%.</p>
<p data-id="52a347d6-e8ee-4924-b950-1f3d3a3626e2">Increased efficiency for your people means increased value for your business. With less time being spent doing administrative tasks like processing payments or hunting down financial data to audit, employees can focus on more strategic initiatives that provide greater value. That’s something both you and your employees can celebrate.</p>
<p data-id="52a347d6-e8ee-4924-b950-1f3d3a3626e2"> </p>
<h2 data-id="b9e2b605-c36d-43cd-9a38-7bef110b4b39">Better visibility into total spend</h2>
<p data-id="3cdaf5be-973a-45e9-87c4-837cba6ee6dd">Nothing is worse than suddenly finding you still have outstanding liabilities at the end of the quarter. Whether expenses are unassigned or assigned to a report but not yet paid, outstanding accruals can make it difficult to see where your total spend stands for the quarter. By optimizing your expense processes and reducing the time it takes for approvals and payments, you can get a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/tips-to-proactively-manage-spending-for-increased-visibility-and-compliance">more accurate view</a> into what has actually been spent, improved financial reporting, and can better manage cash flow.</p>
<h2 data-id="3cdaf5be-973a-45e9-87c4-837cba6ee6dd"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="bb1a126f-8850-4101-9ab2-65f3a0526689">Maximized rebates on corporate cards</h2>
<p data-id="9785c5d8-ded6-42e5-9ed4-3227ed942673">With SAP Concur, you’ve already cut down on the costs of labor. But the cost benefits don’t have to stop there. If late fees from delayed payments are already getting you down, your card rebates are also being impacted. Optimizing your processes can ensure you get more bang for your buck by allowing you to realize a significantly higher rebate by reducing the time to approve and pay your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/corporate-card-p-cards-gain-visibility-control-employee-spend">corporate cards</a>.</p>
<p data-id="e51427da-3f6b-4e35-92d2-f38d8834e5a1">Increases in rebates are leveraged by many customers to help pay for their SAP Concur solution. In fact, one major motion picture studio drove an additional $1.5m in annual spend onto their card program, which yielded more than $80,000 in rebates.</p>
<p data-id="e51427da-3f6b-4e35-92d2-f38d8834e5a1"> </p>
<h2 data-id="00719f82-e69d-4c2e-a584-054f72f7c7eb">Fewer employee late fees</h2>
<p data-id="b9cd7ef3-19da-41f8-9a7e-654598947ee2">Think about how long it takes your employees to a submit a report. The longer it takes, the less time managers have for review to either approve or send back before processing and payment take place. As a result, the total workflow increases the amount of time it takes to pay the corporate card, resulting in late fees associated with the delay of payment. And nobody likes that.</p>
<p data-id="ed07f223-6619-4e35-9e0a-e5fc4ee6a2d4">Efficient processes reduce the time it takes to submit a report, allows more time for accurate review, and ensures that payments will be made on time, every time. That means not only will corporate cards get paid quicker, but so will employee reimbursements – a win all around.</p>
<p data-id="7ce60c82-0dc1-479b-beaa-4e71468dc96c">To learn more about the benefits of thinking beyond automation, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">download the full IDC report</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Is Your AP Process Holding Your Business Back?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-ap-process-holding-your-business-back
2021-03-08T13:54:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Chances are your business is planning for growth You arent alone Research shows of businesses are planning to grow and expect to hit their peak in the next two years As part of your...
<p>Chances are, your business is planning for growth. You aren’t alone. Research shows 96% of businesses are planning to grow and expect to hit their peak in the next two years. </p>
<p>As part of your preparations, you’re probably looking at your systems and considering whether they’ll be fit for purpose as you scale. When it comes to looking at AP, you’ll find our latest assessment tool useful. It’s called Is Your AP Process Putting Your Business at Risk? </p>
<p>It guides you through the three phases of the AP process (receiving invoices, the approval cycle, and payment optimization) and asks questions that will help you identify your weak points.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment_UK_Pound.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Is Your AP Process at Risk?</h2>
<p>Find out how mature your invoice process is and whether there is room to optimize.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment">Take Quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>If your business has a paper-based AP process, you’re probably already aware you’re going to outgrow it sooner or later.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Manual processes cause problems when you scale</h2>
<p>The typical finance team spends 60% of its time on day-to-day processes – inputting invoices, checking for errors, chasing approvals, and so on. How will the team manage when you start to scale? Will you be able to recruit more people to handle the additional workload? Or will your department grind to a halt because recruitment isn’t an option?</p>
<p>If you’re concerned about your team’s ability to cope, you aren’t alone. Research shows 41% of finance leaders are concerned about staff productivity and 32% are worried about staff turnover and low morale. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-ap-automation">AP automation</a> removes manual processes. The average five-person finance team saves 40 hours a week by using an invoice management solution. It means your system is able to scale. It also means staff are freed up to be more proactive and bring more value to the business. Plus the average business using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> saves $34,000 every year.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Paper-based processes lack visibility </h2>
<p>When your AP process is paper-based you don’t have the visibility you’d like to have. This causes several problems.</p>
<p>When you can’t see your outstanding liabilities in a single place, it’s hard to understand your future cash flow requirements or fine-tune your procure-to-pay (P2P) process. </p>
<p>Then there’s fraud. When time is tight, checking isn’t necessarily as good as you’d like it to be. It’s hardly surprising that more than two-thirds of finance leaders aren’t completely confident their business is protected against fraud.</p>
<p>It’s also worth remembering that better visibility equals a better chance of achieving the growth you want. One of the key findings in research we commissioned was that a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/give-finance-tools-needs-business-growth">cost-conscious approach</a>, with clear visibility into spending across the organization and careful attention to cash flow, supports successful growth.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Slow processes hold back your negotiation ability </h2>
<p>In a paper-based process, everything takes longer than you’d like. It often means it’s a race against time to pay an invoice by the due date. In fact, more than eight in ten finance leaders admit to paying supplier invoices late at least some of the time. </p>
<p>This results in frustrating, difficult conversations with suppliers chasing late payments and puts business relationships under strain.</p>
<p>But that isn’t the only problem. </p>
<p>It means you can’t negotiate or take advantage of early payment discounts. Plus if you’re always pushing against payment term deadlines, it means you can’t optimize payment dates to help manage cashflow. And having more control over your cashflow will be critical as you grow.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Top tips to transform your AP process </h2>
<p>If you think your AP process is holding you back, find out by completing our assessment tool, Is Your AP Process Putting Your Business at Risk?</p>
<p>As well as getting your results, you’ll also unlock:</p>
<p>• Best practice cheat sheets for each of the three process categories <br />
• A guide for building your invoice policy<br />
• Research comparing the costs and value of manual versus automated accounts payable processes<br />
• A buyer’s guide for evaluating AP automation solutions</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/ap-process-risk-assessment">Use the assessment now</a> to find out where your business risks may lie.</strong><br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
3 Regulatory Pressures Impacting Business Travel in 2020
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-regulatory-pressures-impacting-business-travel-2020
2020-01-29T13:28:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With worldwide business travel spend set to reach trillion by the complexities of traveling for business continue to rise From managing payroll intricacies increasing tax and...
<p data-id="c52d78d7-f8a2-4c2d-92fa-cf088ea3c342">With worldwide <a href="https://www.fcmtravel.com/en-us/resources/insight/business-travel-2020" target="_blank">business travel spend</a> set to reach $1.4 trillion by 2020, the complexities of traveling for business continue to rise. From managing payroll intricacies, increasing tax and immigration regulations, to mitigating concerns surrounding duty of care – the obligations for businesses to remain compliant are skyrocketing. While at the same time, the consequences for mismanaged travel and spend continue to involve significant monetary and reputational consequences. In 2018 alone, there were:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="b7e05c94-0291-490c-a768-d64b20a5b2a1">84 public cases of non-compliance with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration" target="_blank">Canadian immigration law</a>, resulting in penalties from $1,000 CAD to $10,000 CAD</li>
<li data-id="d90e082e-27a2-4cfb-8961-9e8f2f1183a6">49 organizations that received two-year bans for Canadian immigration violations</li>
<li data-id="29141806-f041-4c7a-a677-6dc8a326f306">12 public cases of noncompliance with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration" target="_blank">U.S. immigration law</a> resulting in fines of $275,000 to $34 million</li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Cost of Doing Nothing eBook</h2>
<p>Find out why the status quo of your employee spend management program may not be good enough. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough">Download Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="29141806-f041-4c7a-a677-6dc8a326f306">An article from <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Technology/Concur-and-EY-Automate-Immigration-and-Tax-Compliance" target="_blank">Business Travel News</a>, explains why there may be a sudden focus on business travel:</p>
<p data-id="968cc779-fa09-4d81-8f7c-7fffb78574f8">“Traditionally, tax authorities have focused on expatriates.” Nick Bacon, the People Advisory Services at <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_gl" target="_blank">EY</a> states. “In more recent years they have begun to focus on people who maybe travel on business for just a few days and can represent areas of tax compliance failure. We do see in many countries business travelers as one of the key items on an audit checklist. Tax authorities will be looking for evidence that travelers coming into their country are being properly tracked and reported,” Bacon warns.</p>
<p data-id="2346ca8d-468b-456c-a2a0-b1ed47b4086e">As businesses continue to globalize, it’s clear that governments are becoming more concerned with protecting their borders. But the jobs and financial interests of local populations are also creating frictions for global travel. Here are some of the key areas of corporate travel that will be scrutinized by governments in 2020:</p>
<p data-id="2346ca8d-468b-456c-a2a0-b1ed47b4086e"> </p>
<p data-id="0c97fa0d-20ec-4a54-930a-5a796ee48ade">1. International business travel</p>
<p data-id="4503ebd5-b756-4520-baa6-00161ba9e34f">As more and more businesses go global, international business travel will be vital for companies around the world. “Workforce mobility is an important driver of competitive advantage, as well as an operational necessity,” states Michael Bertolino, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration" target="_blank">EY Global People Advisory Services</a> leader. Nonetheless, tax authorities will continue to step up their enforcement on the movement of international business travelers through increased income tax, social security compliance, and the potential creation of <a href="https://shieldgeo.com/ultimate-guide-permanent-establishment/#targetText=Permanent%20Establishment%20Definition,presence%20in%20a%20foreign%20country." target="_blank">permanent establishment</a> in focus.</p>
<p data-id="7f9c2e1e-c5b1-4c13-a448-58045281e898">“A perfect storm of global tax reform, bad publicity about corporate tax avoidance, and increased scrutiny of corporate balance sheets is putting corporations under a microscope and making it harder than ever for them to manage their international tax operations with certainty.” – <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joeharpaz/2016/04/04/permanent-establishment-becomes-tax-authorities-weapon-of-choice-in-attack-on-corporates/#473a88054f5d" target="_blank">Forbes</a></p>
<p data-id="caa578b1-b93c-44fc-9ead-a01e0e4e9b64">The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Action Plan (BEPS), organized through the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/" target="_blank">Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECD)</a>, broadly exists to align taxation with real economic activity. Rather than accept tax arrangements in which profits are shifted to low-tax countries in which a company records few workers, facilities, or sales, the plan encourages tax authorities to insist on taxation where these markets of real activity occur. The flow of business travelers into a country is one such area. Today, there is a greater likelihood that company activities in a country will mandate the presence of a permanent establishment, which means corporate income tax will be payable.</p>
<p data-id="ad727925-5349-4158-b8c7-93f38c3c5b3e">2. Interstate travel within the U.S.</p>
<p data-id="f3c4b31a-bb95-4794-908a-c98677e4bc3a">You may feel there isn’t as much of a compliance concern for employees who travel within the U.S. However, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/Tax/us-tax-business-traveler-management-and-tax-032715.pdf" target="_blank">a report from Deloitte</a> claims that many U.S. states are looking to close budget gaps, and one way they are doing so is by identifying the source of revenue from the nonresidents traveling there for business. From tax revenues to monetary penalties, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration" target="_blank">states have found</a> they have much to gain by using technology to easily identify interstate tax violations.</p>
<p data-id="ca5c1e65-bd7f-4bae-b555-9e07aea38226">What makes this even more difficult for companies and their employees is that states have inconsistent, varying requirements for employees to file <a href="https://www.mobileworkforcecoalition.org/problem" target="_blank">personal income tax</a> returns when traveling to non-residing states for temporary work periods. For example, the <a href="https://www.mobileworkforcecoalition.org/problem" target="_blank">Mobile Workforce Coalition</a> reports: Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania, and some 20 other states that have personal income tax require employers to withhold tax from a nonresident employee’s wages beginning the first day the employee travels to the state for business purposes. While other personal income tax states – such as California, Virginia, and Georgia – provide a threshold before requiring tax withholding from nonresident employees. New York, on the other hand, is one of the most onerous states because the employer and employee requirements don’t match.</p>
<p data-id="4d9be741-e474-45f0-b476-b13f1f4342b0">Talk about a headache for corporate payroll managers. The varying requirements like those listed above require finance teams to navigate filing for different rules in all 54 states and territories, using hundreds of their municipalities to ensure compliance.</p>
<p data-id="5839315c-97e6-45f0-9785-ee9f5ae5d31d">3. Intra-European travel</p>
<p data-id="26e87006-4609-4d4d-b860-7ca6d6879320">The free movement of employees within Europe will be much more limited with the passing of the enhanced <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/global-eu-posted-workers-directive.aspx#targetText=Posted%20workers%20(or%20%22secondments%22,Workers%20Directive%20on%20June%2028." target="_blank">EU Posted Workers Directive</a>, a revised set of rules intended to give temporary workers the same level of pay and benefits as their local counterparts. Under <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration" target="_blank">the directive</a>, posted workers are entitled to a set of core rights in each EU member state, including minimum rates of pay, maximum work periods, minimum paid annual leave, and health and safety standards.</p>
<p data-id="1b56f3e0-8423-4c77-90b8-5bc07bc6c32e">Often, companies will be required to register their employees with the country where they are traveling – a process that will be highly cumbersome for employers and employees, including:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="1ff1c82f-5c9f-4ec1-8f1c-9be1c3e2a2ce">Filling out a registration form that varies country to country for every business traveler</li>
<li data-id="b7294172-e57c-46c4-a861-233e5984398e">Covering travel, board, and accommodation costs, rather than deducting costs from employees’ salaries</li>
<li data-id="bac4fdd2-49f4-4366-968b-19752723528c">Taking into account registration deadlines and country-specific requirements for lodging</li>
<li data-id="36f3b233-96ce-494f-96fc-264cff69ac71">Limiting travel activity to new rules, meaning travel planning will involve added steps to adhere to country-specific requirements</li>
</ul>
<h2 data-id="3804ce6c-f0a7-4812-b4d1-a72ce2ef2c07"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="3804ce6c-f0a7-4812-b4d1-a72ce2ef2c07">The cost of doing nothing: Risk, fines, and reputational damage can be crippling</h2>
<p data-id="12f601f1-ade5-479c-9c7b-e408c6dbc6c0">Maintaining compliance in 2020 is only getting more complex. In order to stay compliant with interstate and global tax regulations, companies need to understand where their business travelers are, for how long, and the work activities they are doing. Thus, proper visibility and control over travel and spend management are going to be essential.</p>
<p data-id="490d6402-bbcf-44aa-b0fc-939b20b0d0b6">Given the evolving environment, a <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/Tax/us-tax-business-traveler-management-and-tax-032715.pdf" target="_blank">report from Deloitte</a> recommends that organizations will need to implement a way to constantly monitor new jurisdictional requirements, assess evolving risks, and adjust original policies and guidelines accordingly. It’s also important to review compliance and employee satisfaction regularly to be sure that the systems are providing you with the information you need, but in a way that is not burdensome or culturally inappropriate.</p>
<p data-id="070bf4bf-409b-4527-88ab-18648d4d5b7b">Fortunately, a connected and automated approach to travel, expense, and invoice management can keep you compliant across these multiple areas. With robust spend data and reporting that can stand up to even the most intense tax-authority, a spend management solution can help spot noncompliant and fraudulent spending, signaling your finance teams with red flags before it’s too late.</p>
<p data-id="99ab5544-a6ca-4b53-88d7-7f7dfd1d3e57">Do you feel confident that your current spend management process or system is putting your organization in the best position to remain compliant? If not, find out why the status quo of your employee spend management program may not be good enough by downloading our eBook <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-doing-nothing-why-status-quo-may-not-be-good-enough" target="_blank">The Cost of Doing Nothing</a>.</p>
Kyla Kent
Thought Leaders in T&E Recommend Great Reads for 2020
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/thought-leaders-te-recommend-great-reads-2020
2019-12-10T10:54:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Need a shortlist of the best spend management reads to inspire you in Weve got you covered From books that helped transform some of the top thought leaders lives in travel and expense...
<p><strong>Need a shortlist of the best spend management reads to inspire you in 2020?</strong></p>
<p>We’ve got you covered! From books that helped transform some of the top thought leaders lives in travel and expense (T&E) management to reads that make you sharper in your spend management role, here are two recommendations to get you started:</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1575917935052-281518-openbook-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Reading List for 2020: Travel, Expense, and Spend Management</h2>
<p>These are the recommended reads of some of the most revered leaders.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reading-list-for-2020-the-books-visionaries-in-travel-expense-and-spend-management-recommend-most">Get the full list</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1575917405815-whendl.jpg" /></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink</strong></li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Recommended by Bhart Sarin, Director, Procurement Operations, Corporate and North America at Ingredion Incorporated, Sarin claims, “This is an easy read that dives into the science as to how we can maximize our productivity and life balance by understanding our personal characteristics and applying them to generate positive outcomes. As we continue to do more with less in the travel and expense space, juggling multiple priorities from the business and employees, and generally try to ‘have it all‚’ this book gave me great ideas to maximize every second of my time both personally and professionally.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica</strong></li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Recommended by Jeffrey Bastings, Sr. Manager of Accounts Payable, Employee Business Expense & Corporate Card, Verizon. Basting states, “This book opened my eyes to a new and fresh perspective in connecting my own passion to my work life. I often tried to separate my work life from my home life until I read this book and realized I could use my passion and talents within the workplace. It sparked more creative ideas, which led to innovative conversations. I’m now motivated to look for these creative and innovative ways to improve how we do things to open up efficiencies. I’ve seen myself grow individually, which has resulted in me sharing what I‘ve learned with others to help motivate them in their careers as well.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to see the next 7? <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reading-list-for-2020-the-books-visionaries-in-travel-expense-and-spend-management-recommend-most" target="_blank">Download the full list</a>. </strong></p>
Erin Giordano
Experience Management Gives Your Company a Competitive Edge
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/experience-management-gives-your-company-competitive-edge
2020-03-05T16:10:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Do you have a goto coffee shop If so chances are you go there for more than just your favorite flavor of beverage Its about all the important touchpoints and moments that matter to you...
<p>Do you have a go-to coffee shop? If so, chances are you go there for more than just your favorite flavor of beverage. It’s about all the important touchpoints and moments that matter to you. The baristas are friendly and call you by name. They always get your drink order right and done quickly, you can count on a consistent taste, and you leave feeling valued as a customer.</p>
<p>It’s not just about the coffee – it’s about your <strong>experience </strong>with their company. In today’s ultra-competitive environment, it’s not enough to have a great product. Experience management is what sets companies apart and continues to drive customer loyalty and revenue growth.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are designed with our customers in mind. When you are successful, we are successful.</p>
<p>To help you be best-run and to reach your full potential, we strive to be a trusted partner to you, creating an experience that adds value for your business throughout your Intelligent Spend Management journey. That’s why we pay close attention to your experience when using our solutions, and we’re constantly listening to your feedback and making improvements based on what you tell us matters most.</p>
<p>To learn about some of the actions we are taking based on your feedback, check out SAP Concur’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/2019_cx_annual_report.pdf">2019 Annual Customer Experience Report</a>.</p>
<p>Leveraging experience management and turning insights into action gives your company the ability to respond to evolving customer needs and provides the competitive edge you need to win in the marketplace. And we want to be a trusted partner with you on that journey.</p>
<p>Warm regards,</p>
<p>Susan Berg</p>
<p>Vice President, Customer Experience Transformation</p>
Susan Berg
Rubber Stamping: It Could be Saving You Time, but Costing you Money
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/rubber-stamping-it-could-be-saving-you-time-costing-you-money
2020-05-04T08:32:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From trade show costs and conference room rentals to consulting fees subscriptions training and office supplies many employees have purchasing power beyond traditional travel and event...
<p>From trade show costs and conference room rentals, to consulting fees, subscriptions, training, and office supplies, many employees have purchasing power beyond traditional travel and event expenses. Because expenses are diverse and are used in a variety of ways across a business, they require scrutiny that many managers don’t have time for. According to a <a href="https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2444" title="https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2444">report</a> by the Global Business Travel Association, 19% of expense reports have errors, it takes an average of 18 minutes and $52 to fix one expense report.</p>
<p>When processes like rubber stamping of expense reports get out of control, it’s no good for business-especially during these unprecedented times. While these oversights are rarely the reviewer’s mistake, they can be avoided. Errors may happen for a few reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>A lack of clarity on process and compliance may open the door to wasteful spending, budget overruns, and even fraud. This presents potential reputational damage along with legal and financial penalties.</li>
<li>Non-compliant spending can result in excessive, unpredictable, and unbudgeted expenses. This could prevent your organization from accessing savings with pre-negotiated rates or lead to potential financial penalties or even fraud.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Ensure Compliance with Controls</h2>
<p>Reduce errors, duplications, and omissions with these best practices:</p>
<ol>
<li>Establish checks and balances that make it easy for employees to comply with spend policies.</li>
<li>Equip employees with policy compliance training so that they are familiar with their spending tools.</li>
<li>Drive better spending behavior and increase visibility by implementing front-end controls.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Mitigate Rubber Stamping for Good</h2>
<p>Ensure your organization is keeping up proper expense and invoice report approvals with these best practices:</p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> <strong>Capture digital receipts with smart phones:</strong> Increase the accuracy of data entry and eliminate the need to scan or attach paper receipts to an expense report through smart phone receipt capture. Ensure receipts are accurate through point-to-point GPS tracking while eliminating potential mileage padding.</p>
<p><strong>2. Simplify the submission workflow and approval process</strong>: Lay out an efficient expense workflow process to decrease frustration and increase consistent policy enforcement.</p>
<p><strong>3. Conduct audits to check for policy adherence</strong>: Flagging non-compliance through manual or AI-aided audits will help drive more compliant spend behavior. It will also identify areas where additional training is required by individuals, departments, or the overall organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What’s the Result?</h2>
<p>Automated controls prevent travel, expense, and invoice errors that are often created by rubber stamping. Additional benefits include increased visibility into spend categories which can aid in vendor negotiation and deeper analysis. And when all the “rubber stamping” ducks align, (see what we did there!) you may even increase your performance margins by reducing wasteful spending. </p>
<p>Empower your finance leaders to avoid these kinds of errors with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/empowering-finance-leaders-with-unified-visibility-control-and-compliance">Intelligent Spend Management</a>.</p>
<div> </div>
Kathryn Kamin
Stay Resilient and Responsive with Automated Spend Control and Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/stay-resilient-and-responsive-automated-spend-control-and-compliance
2020-06-19T12:19:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
These are unprecedented times for your business You and your people are adapting to a new way of life and work Whether it is VPN virtual meetings process automation or centralized data...
<p>These are unprecedented times for your business. You and your people are adapting to a new way of life and work. Whether it is VPN, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/keeping-client-relationships-strong-in-a-virtual-world">virtual meetings</a>, process automation, or centralized data access, the right technology will be critical to your ability to stay flexible, productive, and profitable, so you can continue supporting your workforce and your customers.</p>
<p>Whether business is booming or you are concerned about the future, you still have to buy the things you need to keep operations running. But when it comes to managing that spend, e-mail-, spreadsheet-, and paper-based expense and invoice management processes are a nonstarter. Automation is no longer just about saving time that could be spent on more value-added tasks – it is about your newly-remote accounting team’s ability to manage cashflow, stay on top of costs, and redirect budgets to where they are needed most.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Stabilize and Reinvent Your Business</h2>
<p>We’re right there with you to help your business navigate every phase of your reinvention process.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/stabilize-reinvent-your-business">Find out more</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">According to a recent survey</a> by AMI Research of 500 financial decision makers at small and midsize businesses (SMBs) around the globe, 59% indicated that automation allows them to better respond to business challenges due to improved spend visibility.1 This improved responsiveness puts those companies one step ahead when it comes to dealing with the new challenges we all face.</p>
<p>On average, SMBs process 110 expense reports and 217 invoices per month.2</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, you can get that work done anytime and from anywhere using mobile apps and automated workflows.</p>
<p>Managers and employees can review and approve invoices as well as track and manage expenses right from their phones – a must-have convenience for teams working from home. Plus, with all the data in one system, finance and accounts payable (AP) won’t need to manually rout documents, dig through e-mail chains, or track down approval delays.</p>
<p>Prior to deploying automated spend management solutions, 61% of SMBs reported lack of visibility into cash flow as a major challenge and 66% wanted to track and analyze expense trends and pinpoint opportunities to reduce costs.5 So, in addition to making it possible for your people to keep doing their jobs, automation will increase spend control to help your business stay out of the red.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, you can automate and integrate expense and invoice management, bring all your spending together, and see where to save, where to renegotiate, and where to redirect budgets based on your plans and priorities. Plus, all your spend information is clean and categorized correctly using AI and machine learning. Not only will your finance team gain the visibility to ensure on-time payments, avoid late fees and double payments, and capture early payment discounts, it will also have the insight to cut unnecessary costs and negotiate better deals – making it possible to reallocate those savings where you need them most. Budget managers will also have greater visibility into what’s been spent and what’s pending, so they can better plan, forecast, and allocate resources.</p>
<p>Managing risk and compliance is another critical business function that can no longer be handled manually from the office. Already, more than 60% of SMBs report difficulty staying on top of industry-specific regulations, including pulling together materials for audit prep and time spent on expense audits due to noncompliance.6</p>
<p>In addition to the increased efficiency, spend visibility, and financial insight automation brings, with SAP Concur solutions, you also get the support and guidance of auditing and review services that help ensure compliance and increase oversight and accuracy without increasing workload for your teams. Plus, whether it relates to internal policy compliance or external regulatory requirements, you can automatically apply spend controls and audit rules to every transaction, allowing you to flag noncompliant spending before it even occurs. And, with the ability to bring all expense and invoice data from across budgets and departments together in real time, you can track spend by category, vendor, cost center, team, employee, and more – helping identify errors and waste quickly so you can take immediate action.</p>
<p>These are uncertain times – for you, your employees, and your business. Let us help by allowing you to see and manage all your spending from anywhere in real time, so you can be sure you’re getting the most out of dollar.</p>
<p>Find out how you can control spend, improve visibility and compliance, maintain profitability, and make spend management – and life – simpler for your people by taking a look at our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">small business offerings</a> today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="text-sm">1.–6. “Control Spend and Maximize Savings with Travel, Expense and Invoice Automation,” AMI Research sponsored by SAP, Month 2020.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Benefits of Automating Government Invoice Payments
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-benefits-automating-government-invoice-payments
2020-08-11T19:42:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When an organization operates on taxpayer funds you know how important it is do more with less While making the most of what your agency currently has may appear fiscally responsible...
<p>When an organization operates on taxpayer funds, you know how important it is do more with less. While making the most of what your agency currently has may appear fiscally responsible, outdated tools and technologies are costly, inefficient, error-prone, and can cause frustration among employees.</p>
<p>One big area in which agencies don’t take full advantage of digital solutions is managing and processing their accounts payable system. If state and local government officials understood just how expensive old-school AP processes can be, they would think twice about relying on the status quo.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How Invoice Automation Can Help Government CFOs Boost Cashflow</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-invoice-automation-can-help-government-cfos-boost-cashflow">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM) found that the cost to process just one invoice is, on average, between $13 and $25. When you add another $7.15 to process a single paper check, as well as hidden costs tied to errors, poor visibility, and fraud, it’s easy to see how costly paper-based AP systems can be. And how quickly these costs can spiral out of control.</p>
<p>SAP Concur partnered with StateScoop to uncover and quantify the costs of using manual AP systems. The report also explored how an integrated, automated, cloud-based AP management system can lay a strong foundation for regular software upgrades, offer access to valuable data, and help government agencies retain top IT talent.</p>
<p>Here are five big benefits agencies can see when they automate government invoice payments:</p>
<p><strong>1. Increase productivity and improve employee satisfaction</strong>: Automating invoice payments means your employees waste far less time on tedious, manual tasks and can devote more time to work that delivers on your agency’s mission.</p>
<p><strong>2. Get more visibility into spending</strong>: Integrating your invoice, ERP, and other accounting systems gives you a complete view of spending and allows leaders to make informed, data-driven decisions as they plan and strategize for the future.</p>
<p><strong>3. Manage invoice payments from anywhere</strong>: With employees now working largely from home, it’s more important than ever that they have tools that will help them working remotely. Going digital allows your AP team to do their jobs quickly, easily, and from anywhere.</p>
<p><strong>4. Be more efficient and generate revenue</strong>: When your AP process is fast, streamlined, and error-free, your agency can take full advantage of vendor discounts and rebates.</p>
<p><strong>5. Reduce audit and compliance costs</strong>: Automatically create a paperless audit trail and eliminate the chance that documents will be lost, misfiled, or stolen.</p>
<p>For CFOs and other government leaders concerned with the optics of investing in a high-end software system, the report concluded that automating invoice payments can pay for itself in less than one year. To see more benefits and get expert opinions on AP automation, download the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-invoice-automation-can-help-government-cfos-boost-cashflow">full StateScoop report</a>. Or give the <a href="http://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice</a> demo a try and see how easy it is to use.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 New Health and Safety Tools from TripIt for Your Travel Kit
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-new-health-and-safety-tools-tripit-your-travel-kit
2020-08-04T11:08:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From disparate bookings to flight delays you already had enough to worry about when you traveledand that was before COVID When you hit the road again TripIt from Concur has new tools...
<p>From disparate bookings to flight delays, you already had enough to worry about when you traveled—and that was before COVID-19. When you hit the road again, TripIt from Concur has new tools to help you navigate <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travel-new-normal-what-to-expect-how-to-get-ready">the "new normal" of travel</a>. With your health and safety in mind, we’ve created new resources—and enhanced some of the most-trusted features—so you’re better prepared for each step of your journey.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Before you go</h2>
<p><strong>TripIt Traveler Resource Center</strong>: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, global travel guidelines are constantly changing, making it hard to know what to expect. We want to help you stay as informed as possible. From public health and safety advisories to cancellation policies and new travel guidelines, the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center" target="_blank">TripIt Traveler Resource Center</a> makes it easy to find the latest travel advisories, restrictions, and guidelines, alongside other helpful resources, so you have the information you need to make the best decision for your next trip. </p>
<p><strong>Where to find it: </strong>The TripIt Traveler Resource Center is available to all travelers via the TripIt website and mobile web. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Neighborhood Safety Scores</strong>: TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/06/tripit-neighborhood-safety-scores-include-covid-19-data.html" target="_blank">Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> help travelers learn about the safety of the neighborhood they’re visiting, including a Health and Medical score that factors in COVID-19 data. </p>
<p>Travelers can access hyper-local safety ratings along any point within the TripIt itinerary for more than 65,000 cities and neighborhoods for both daytime and nighttime. This helps users visualize and gain an understanding of current safety conditions by location.</p>
<p><strong>Where to find it:</strong> Neighborhood Safety Scores are available for each location with an address on a user's TripIt itinerary.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Point Tracker</strong>: Airlines, car rentals, hotels, credit cards: no matter where the points come from, <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/03/updated-tripit-pro-hub-features.html" target="_blank">Point Tracker in TripIt Pro</a> stores all account numbers, balances, and expiration dates in one place. Point Tracker has been recently redesigned with an improved view of point balances and history to help users manage their reward programs. We’ve also made it easier to see when an account needs attention. For iOS users, we also added support for travel providers’ regional programs to ensure the most accurate information.</p>
<p>When you’re ready to travel again, Point Tracker’s enhanced features can help make the best decision about how to get where you’re going. </p>
<p><strong>Where to find it: </strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/pro/pointtracker" target="_blank">Point Tracker</a> can be found under the Pro tab in the TripIt app.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>While you’re on the go</h2>
<p><strong>Nearby Places</strong>: Nearby Places—the TripIt feature that makes it easy to find places close to where you’re staying—now shows the locations of the nearest medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies. </p>
<p>Should you need medical help while traveling, TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/08/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places.html" target="_blank">Nearby Places</a> will provide the medical facility’s contact details, hours, and more. TripIt will also show an interactive map with each option tagged so users can see where it is in relation to your accommodations. Easily find directions or tap the plus (+) sign to save it in TripIt to visit later. </p>
<p><strong>Where to find it:</strong> Users can access Nearby Places in the lodging details screen of the TripIt app. To get there, tap on your trip, and then tap on where you’re staying. There you will find Nearby Places. Select the type of place you’re looking for, and TripIt will find what’s close by. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Siri Shortcuts</strong>: Touchless technology can help minimize your contact with surfaces as you travel. With TripIt's newly enhanced <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/07/travel-plans-your-command-siri-shortcuts.html" target="_blank">Travel Plans shortcut</a>, Siri will respond with the most relevant details at any point in an itinerary—whether that's a flight, hotel, <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/07/sustainable-road-trip-tips.html" target="_blank">road trip pit-stop</a>, or other plans.</p>
<p>The TripIt Travel Plans shortcut for Siri automatically adjusts to the current part of a trip, giving you the information you need most, in that moment. </p>
<p><strong>Where to find it: </strong>By saying “<a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2018/09/ios12-siri-shortcuts.html" target="_blank">Hey Siri, Travel Plans</a>,” iOS users can receive an update on what’s next in their itinerary.</p>
<p><br />
From planning to landing—and every touchpoint in between—TripIt can help you plan and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/2020/06/passengers-wear-masks-flying-during-covid.html" target="_blank">prepare for traveling</a> in our new normal.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Procurement Executives: How to Plan for a Return to Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/procurement-executives-how-plan-return-travel
2020-09-24T11:36:15Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
To say that this global pandemic has kept procurement and corporate travel executives busy would be an understatement Redefining how organizations will return to travel while also...
<p>To say that this global pandemic has kept procurement and corporate travel executives busy would be an understatement. Redefining how organizations will <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/take-a-peek-at-where-travel-is-headed">return to travel</a>, while also attempting to negotiate refunds, fee waivers, and credit balances from canceled trips will require a high degree of interdepartmental communication and coordination. Ensuring that travel decisions meet employee health and safety criteria, while also providing corporate visibility and control, are now fundamental determination factors. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>CPOs and Procurement Executives Want to Play a More Strategic Role in Managed Travel </h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cpos-procurement-execs-want-more-strategic-role-in-managed-travel">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>A new normal: What to consider now</h2>
<p>Before COVID-19, typical considerations negotiated into lodging and air travel agreements consisted of items such as committed number of hotel nights, number of airline seats between city pairs, flexibility of cancellations, included meals and amenities, and rebates for meeting or exceeding negotiated hotel or air spend.</p>
<p>Today, there is a growing list of health and safety-related recommended standards that corporate travel buyers and suppliers have developed and published as part of the <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/uploadedFiles/Covid/Management/TAMS-SOS-Report.pdf" target="_blank">Travel and Meetings Standards task force – TAMS</a>. This document spans air travel, hotels and apartments, ground transportation, rail, TMCs, and meetings and events. Key topics include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Airports and Planes: creation of barriers, floor-direction arrows, signage to enforce physical distancing</li>
<li>Checked Baggage: minimizing contact points and cleaning/disinfection of touchpoints</li>
<li>Ground Transportation: cleaning and disinfecting of taxis and shared rides</li>
<li>Hotels: frequency of cleaning high touch common areas (elevator, escalator, front desk, lavatories, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<p>We have created the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/health-safety-tools-from-trip-it-for-your-travel-kit">Tripit Traveler Resource Center</a> to connect customers with resources from public health and safety advisories, supplier guidelines, cancellation policies, and new travel protocols.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The cost of change</h2>
<p>While the costs to adjust to a new normal in travel may temporarily be absorbed by travel suppliers, they will eventually be passed on to customers.</p>
<p>Because the pandemic has caused disruption in global supply chains, along with significant furloughs and business losses, procurement executives must recognize that cost reduction should not be the sole consideration when negotiating or renewing agreements with travel suppliers. Just as important will be to ensure that key travel suppliers – such as the travel management company (TMC), key lodging partners; air, rail and ground transportation providers; and related services providers – are adequately compensated for the additional effort and costs associated with ensuring traveler health and safety required to keep the travel suppliers financially healthy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel spend visibility and control</h2>
<p>The resumption of travel will be very different now. As companies continue to maintain a tight grip on travel spend, a poll conducted in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1" target="_blank">July 2020 webinar</a> for SAP Concur customers, indicated that 90% of companies are considering pre-trip approval process, and 50% are taking control of cash flow by evaluating employee spend before it happens. While controlling spend and ensuring employee safety, procurement and corporate travel managers need to reassess travel policies to facilitate business resumption in cooperation with their human resources, finance and accounting, functional directors and risk/security counterparts.</p>
<p>Travel will resume in a phased approach:</p>
<ul>
<li>Essential travel for revenue-generating and service personnel</li>
<li>Day trips using ground transportation</li>
<li>Domestic travel before international travel</li>
</ul>
<p>Providing employees with self-service booking tools that display preferred air, lodging, train, and auto rental options, as well as information on health and hygiene standards will go a long way to help traveling employees feel safe with their booking selections. These tools have the added benefit of providing their organization visibility and control of travel spend. This will be essential when there are last-minute changes to travel plans due to pandemic-related circumstances, such as new government-mandated quarantine orders, exposure to infected individuals during travel, or when employees are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maverick spend as we work from home and return to travel</h2>
<p>Maverick spend, which occurs when employees buy products or services without an accompanying P.O. or prior approval, has always been hard to manage. As employees work from home, and as business travel resumes, unforeseen and unplanned expenses will be incurred. For instance:</p>
<ul>
<li>A maintenance engineer checked into a hotel with limited availability of sanitized rooms in order to do an emergency equipment repair at a client’s site, requiring a last minute, out-of-policy hotel room upgrade.</li>
<li>A university professor had to buy a high-quality headset at the last minute because the university-provided headset broke down just before teaching a remote class.</li>
</ul>
<p>These types of maverick spend will become visible to the company or institution when:</p>
<ul>
<li>Employees submit expense reports for reimbursement</li>
<li>Invoices without a P.O. or prior approval are presented for payment</li>
</ul>
<p>In order to increase visibility and compliance, procurement executives, in collaboration with their HR, IT and accounting colleagues, may want to update their corporate policies regarding travel and expense management. By creating new fields in their expense report system so that employees can flag last-minute spend on COVID-19 related expenses, they can facilitate expedited approval for reimbursement to the employee or payment to the vendor. These last two actions consistently increase employee satisfaction and vendor payment timeliness. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Corporate travel impacts everyone</h2>
<p>While travel spend can be closely monitored, there are other aspects of corporate spend that are triggered by travel to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>Governmental regulatory compliance, such as location of work that creates an income tax liability for both employer and employee (and fines if immigration law compliance is not met)</li>
<li>Value-add taxes paid that can be recovered with proper documentation. </li>
</ul>
<p>Other aspects where procurement and corporate travel managers play a role is duty of care and sustainability. Organizations must ensure the safety of their traveling and non-traveling employees. When unplanned events, such as natural disasters, political unrest, or incidents of health risk occur, it is critical that companies know where their employees are, can reach them via phone, email or text, and can assist them to get to safer grounds.</p>
<p>As sustainability initiatives gain momentum in global supply chains, procurement organizations play a central role in offering employees transportation and lodging choices that are consistent with corporate sustainability goals. If there are frequently traveled city-pairs that in the past were served by plane, they may now have to be served by car or rail. Finding, negotiating, and contracting transportation, fuel, service and rental options that meet the new corporate safety criteria will be a key role of the procurement and travel management team. Promotion of rail over airplane travel where practical, lodging that is powered by renewable energy, or opting for hybrid or electric vehicle rentals are all parameters to add to sustainable travel plans.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Communication and coordination: A top priority</h2>
<p>As we adjust to the new normal, corporate travel and expense management will be very different than what it was prior to the pandemic. Procurement and corporate travel executives will have to select travel, venue, and service suppliers that meet the revised goals and policies of their organization. In order to ensure that they remain financially able to support the needs of the organization’s employees and their customers, procurement executives must also be proactive with key vendors.</p>
<p>Interdepartmental communication and coordination will ensure that decisions regarding travel and its impact to an organization’s business continuity are well understood and documented. Prioritizing a clear communication and coordination plan with the following teams in particular is key to a successful return to travel program:</p>
<ul>
<li>Procurement</li>
<li>Travel</li>
<li>Accounts Payable</li>
<li>Human Resources</li>
<li>Risk Management and Compliance</li>
<li>Tax and Accounting</li>
<li>Legal</li>
<li>Information Technology</li>
<li>Manufacturing</li>
<li>Sales and Marketing</li>
<li>Government Relations</li>
</ul>
<p>Providing clear and concise directions to employees as to what they can expect when traveling, along with establishing two-way communications when on the road, and clarity on what expenses are permitted, play critical roles in a successful return to travel plan for all organizations. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Additional Resources:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-t-e-road-to-recovery-and-growth-part-1" target="_blank">Aberdeen Insights: The T&E Road to Recovery and Growth, Part 1 – August 2020,</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/returning-to-work-travel-cdc-sap-concur-customers-share-perspectives-part-1" target="_blank">Returning to Work and Travel: The CDC and SAP Concur Customers Share Their Perspectives, Part 1 - July 2020</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.30secondstofly.com/corporate-travel-management/smb-travel-deal-negotiation/" target="_blank">How to Negotiate Great Corporate Travel Deals for Your Small or Medium-Sized Business</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.vdr-service.de/fileadmin/services-leistungen/fachmedien/geschaeftsreiseanalyse/VDR-Business-Travel-Report-2019.pdf" target="_blank">VDR Business Travel Report 2019</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/xe/Documents/About-Deloitte/mepovdocuments/mepovissue23/business-travel_mepov23.pdf" target="_blank">Deloitte | A Middle East Point of View - Summer 2017 | Business travel</a></p>
Serge Kogan
AvidXchange AvidPay Now Integrated with Concur Invoice
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/avidxchange-avidpay-now-integrated-concur-invoice
2020-11-10T05:59:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are excited to announce the launch of AvidPay from AvidXchange an accounts payable AP automation integration with Concur Invoice This cloudbased integration allows Concur Invoice...
<p>We are excited to announce the launch of AvidPay from AvidXchange, an accounts payable (AP) automation integration with Concur Invoice. This cloud-based integration allows Concur Invoice customers to pay bills efficiently by offering flexible e-payment options to suppliers through the AvidPay Network, including virtual card and AvidPay Direct – a proprietary ACH+ product leveraging ACH with enhanced information.</p>
<p>Concur Invoice allows businesses to capture and automate invoices using machine learning, integrating those payments into a single system to manage spending. Through this partnership, Concur Invoice customers have visibility to streamline approvals and speed the transfer of funds by completing the AP process with AvidPay. Customers sending e-payments through the AvidPay Network experience fast and secure payments, ensuring suppliers are paid accurately and on time. They also receive support from AvidXchange’s 400-person supplier services team to field payment inquiries and maintain payment preferences on behalf of suppliers so internal teams can focus on more value-add tasks. </p>
<p>Additionally, with AvidPay, Concur Invoice customers can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Maximize efficiency by eliminating the need to print, stuff, sign, or mail checks</li>
<li>Minimize security risks around sensitive supplier bank account data and limit liability associated with check fraud</li>
<li>Drive predictable ROI by reducing hard costs associated with paper checks, including check stock and postage</li>
</ul>
<p>Access to the AvidPay Network for Concur Invoice customers is now available in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5d93a558c9ab62001cc6dd8e">SAP Concur App Center.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
What Can Tweaking Spending Possibly Do About All This?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-can-tweaking-spending-possibly-do-about-all
2020-12-02T08:09:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
I wont be the first to say it but it is time for this year to move on The pandemic the politics the pretending to be your childs science teacher when in fact you work on a finance team...
<p>I won’t be the first to say it, but it is time for this year to move on. The pandemic, the politics, the pretending to be your child’s science teacher when, in fact, you work on a finance team – we need to rip this page off the calendar, toss it in the trash, and pour ourselves another big glass of Burgundy.</p>
<p>Ah, but if only we could.</p>
<p>Instead, we’re going to get up again tomorrow and deal with what we’ve been dealt. And any card in our hand that helps keep the lights on is a card we’re going to use.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expenses, invoices, and better results</h2>
<p>Budgets are going down, money is flying out the window – use whatever metaphor you want, times are tight for many businesses. And when that happens in the business world (or at home), your first thought is to cut – or at least more tightly control – costs.</p>
<p>It’s a great idea, especially if you know what those costs are. If, however, you’re like many businesses, you don’t have a completely accurate picture of your expenses. Too much of it is hidden from view. Too much of it is going on personal credit cards. Too many employees are doing too much spending with too little oversight.</p>
<p>And working from home has only made the matter messier.</p>
<p>However, if you have the tools to govern that spending – to capture every expense of every employee, to automate invoices and auditing and, well, all the other critical costs that hit your balance sheet – you’re going to know exactly where you stand financially. No worries. No wondering. No waiting for expenses to come in next month to see what you spent last month.</p>
<p>You’ll see it all in real time, so you can make informed decisions about where to spend and how to save.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Okay, this doesn’t make sense at all</h2>
<p>In this time of cost control, you need to make it easier for your employees to spend money.</p>
<p>Now, while that might seem counterintuitive, it’s actually a little bit brilliant. When it’s hard for employees to buy the things they need for work the right way, or when it’s difficult for them to manage the paperwork and other processes that directs spending to the right places, they’re still going to buy what they need. It’s just that they’re going to do it their way. They may pay cash or put it on their own card, and then they’re going to procrastinate on their expense report. The result is that you can’t see what they’re spending until long after it’s gone.</p>
<p>Direct them to their corporate card, point them to the right payment method and process for each and every purchase, give them expense reports that write themselves – give them the easiest possible ways to get what they need – and you’ll get all the spending data you need to stay on top of spending.</p>
<p>In other words, when you make following your spending rules the easiest, fastest option for employees, they’ll actually follow the rules.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>See what you’re up against</h2>
<p>Really, the biggest thing you can do to tackle spending (and thus save your business from unexpected expenses that erode your budgets), is to make sure you direct the right type of spending to the right payment method through the right process. The tools we talk about here are all designed to do just that. To shed light on your expenses, so you can finally see them and manage them. They’re meant to give you visibility into what employees are spending, so you can not only see some consistency in your spending patterns, you can see the dollars going out the door.</p>
<p>Without this level of governance and visibility, there can be no control. And with no control, it’s just going to be 2020 all over again.</p>
<p>To see more on this topic and the tools to help you do the work, read this quick eBook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/foresight-2021-never-been-more-critical-time-to-see-spend">Foresight 2021</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Power of Collaboration: The Power of The SAP Concur Partner Ecosystem
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/power-collaboration-power-sap-concur-partner-ecosystem
2021-01-28T09:47:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its a whole new world when it comes to how your company manages finance travel and expense programs Success in the remote work age and beyond will be less a matter of individual effort...
<p>It’s a whole new world when it comes to how your company manages finance, travel, and expense programs. Success in the remote work age and beyond will be less a matter of individual effort than of collaboration among a constellation of specialized services. SAP Concur makes it easy to find and connect with the best of them through a vast network of partners and applications—and this is your chance to integrate them and begin 2021 on the right foot.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Build resilience into your travel and expense program with diverse solutions and services</h2>
<p>Seize this time to adapt your program for the greater good of your fellow employees and your company. <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/10/new-research-sap-partner-revenue-opportunity-nearly-double-2024/" target="_blank">A recent report from IDC states</a>:</p>
<p>“Data shows that due to the pandemic-driven increase in remote work, digital transformation efforts are advancing, and companies are expected to spend more on cloud-based solutions.”</p>
<p>By adopting and providing additional cloud service solutions, this will help you on your path to standardize, simplify, and automate your travel and expense (T&E) program.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur partner ecosystem is here so you can deliver a better employee experience and still meet the ongoing demands of the COVID-19 and post-pandemic era.</p>
<ul>
<li>Improve employee experiences from procurement to automated vendor payment.</li>
<li>Provide tools and technology to enhance services offered by travel management companies (TMCs).</li>
<li>Get help with the latest industry/geographic regulatory compliance, and immigration and taxation issues.</li>
<li>Gain greater transparency of integrated financial data between systems.</li>
</ul>
<p>This blog marks the first of several we will publish this year to highlight this unique and highly beneficial global ecosystem.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How businesses thrive in the SAP Concur partner ecosystem</h2>
<p>The SAP Concur partner ecosystem is a growing network of more than 700 partners providing innovative ways to build, sell, service, and run the dynamic workplace of today. The ecosystem includes:</p>
<p><strong>Platform Partners</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a></strong> offers a travel and expense marketplace for related partner products and services.</li>
<li><strong>Travel Suppliers </strong>ensure you have robust access to air, lodging, and ground inventory; your company’s negotiated rates; and visibility into employees’ travel.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Distribution Partners</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Financial Services</strong> provide digital payment solutions for employee initiated spend.</li>
<li><strong>Resale and Service Partners</strong> provide consulting expertise and technological innovations which can help you optimize your T&E programs efficiency.</li>
<li><strong>Travel Management Companies</strong> simplify the complexities of managed travel programs and can provide a trusted and tailored experience.</li>
</ul>
<p>Whether you need innovative technology integrations, apps for your employees, or the right service partner to assist in planning and deployment, our ecosystem is constantly evolving to rise to the ongoing demands of post-pandemic business practices.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Bring it all together for a better employee experience</h2>
<p><strong>Take a closer look at the SAP Concur partner ecosystem and unlock the power of collaboration in the video below</strong><strong>.</strong> You’ll see how to get an operational and competitive boost, whether your company needs innovative and streamlined technology integrations, new and powerful apps for your employees, or a service partner to bring it all together.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur partner ecosystem is a single resource for the next phase of your business. Contact <a href="mailto:sapconcurpartners@sap.com">sapconcurpartners@sap.com</a> for more information.</p>
<p></p>
Ralph Colunga
Top Book Inspiration: Uber's VP, Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility Shares Her 2021 Pick
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-book-inspiration-ubers-vp-head-global-talent-acquisition-and-mobility-shares-her
2021-03-18T10:58:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense TE industry is now available Danielle Monaghan VP Head of Global Talent Acquisition and...
<p>Our 2021 top book and podcast recommendations from thought leaders across the travel and expense (T&E) industry is now available! Danielle Monaghan, VP, Head of <a href="https://www.uber.com/" target="_blank">Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility at Uber</a>, shares why she recommended <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Come-Awesome-Manager-Essential-Leadership/dp/0988932954/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lisbeth+claus&qid=1615580636&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Be(Come) an Awesome Manager: The Essential Toolkit for Impact Leadership</a> by Lisbeth Claus with Scott Baker and Peter Vermeulen:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Q: Why did you select this book as your recommendation for 2021? </strong></p>
<p>A: Be(Come) an Awesome Manager is a comprehensive guide for building strong management capability. If you’ve ever managed or been managed, you’ll understand the critical role managers play in engaging, motivating and retaining critical employees and talent. But, while good intentions matter, managers cannot make a real impact when they do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to back them up. This book is an opportunity to assess your own managerial skills, create your own development plan, and gain new insights from theory and practice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Q: How can the advice from the book help others in the business environment and T&E industry? </strong></p>
<p>A: People are at the core of getting work done. Employees want managers who will provide goals as well as direction, feedback and coaching—and who recognize and reward them for good performance. Yet, not all managers are delivering on these expectations and this has ripple effects for the organization in terms of engagement, productivity and retention risks. Today’s workforce has options, and people are clear about the fact that they want to work for companies that will invest in their ongoing development. Employees want managers to help them grow their careers and support them along the way—and if their bosses don’t step up, they will take their talent elsewhere! This book deals with human behavior in the workplace whether we are managing projects, processes, people or even ourselves. The modular format of the book and the Learning-in-a-Box supplemental online materials (critical thinking guide, interactive exercises, PPT slides, and practice questions) make it ideal for self-study, a book club, or even running your own management development workshops. Professor Claus also runs a series of six-week online <strong>Awesome Manager Masterclasses</strong> (bronze, silver and gold badge-level) in January, May, and September with cohorts of learners from different continents. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to see the next 12, as well as the top podcasts recommended? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love"><strong>Get the full list</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Making Sustainability Profitable and Profitability Sustainable
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/making-sustainability-profitable-and-profitability-sustainable
2021-05-05T18:15:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Just like we cannot ignore the pandemicwe cannot ignore climate change and the major contributions of enterprises Together we can lead this change and become intelligent enterprises to...
<p>“Just like we cannot ignore the pandemic...we cannot ignore climate change and the major contributions of enterprises. Together, we can lead this change and become intelligent enterprises, to make sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable.” - Christian Klein, SAP CEO</p>
<p>To help our customers address climate action, <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/06/climate-21-track-greenhouse-gas-emissions/" target="_blank">SAP launched the Climate 21 program</a> building analytical and transactional capabilities into our enterprise applications that can help our customers understand and minimize the Green House Gas (GHG) footprint of their operations. Through the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement" target="_blank">Paris Agreement</a>, European countries have mutually agreed to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030. There is growing recognition that sustainable business isn’t just about social responsibility, but is also about driving success – reducing cost, improving efficiency, and attracting and retaining both customers and employees. In fact, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-source-of-climate-pressure-for-companies-workers-11581861601" target="_blank">94%</a> of Generation Z believe that companies should address urgent social and environmental issues and will consider the social purpose of a company when deciding where to work.</p>
<p>Many non-European organizations are using the Paris Agreement to assess and adjust their carbon footprints starting with corporate travel. Understanding the carbon footprint of travel through measurement of CO2 emissions from travel activity such as air, rail, and car will help you build and monitor progress towards this noble goal. While work from home measures due to the global pandemic created a temporary reduction in carbon emissions, temperatures continued to rise stressing the urgency of this issue. In fact, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/2020-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-nasa-analysis-shows" target="_blank">NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) reports</a> that 2020 tied 2016 as the single hottest year on record.</p>
<h2>Measure your impact</h2>
<p>While business travel can account for more than half of a (non-manufacturing) organization’s carbon footprint, how do you truly measure the impact? Ranging from air, to car, to rail and even motorcycle, the primary data for every travel activity type is very different. However, calculating their GHG emissions is the same process. Generally speaking, you can calculate GHG emissions by multiplying the <a href="file:///C:/Users/I536716/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/ZQ4HHAZ3/epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-04/documents/ghg-emission-factors-hub.pdf" target="_blank">EPA’s Emission Factors for Green House Gas for the type of activity</a> by the distance traveled. Here’s our handy formula:</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1619454166376-sustianable.jpg" /></p>
<p>This calculation allows you to assess your organization’s baseline carbon footprint and then reduce overall emissions through adjustments in your travel policies moving forward. Following your industry colleagues to compare emissions benchmarks, like this <a href="https://research.skift.com/report/sustainability-in-travel-2021-emissions-benchmark-hotel-companies/">Skift Research</a> report, is a great way to set and track goals for your organization.</p>
<h2>Expand your vocabulary</h2>
<p>Circulating key terms will help your organization authentically adjust its travel policy for immediate and long-term reduction in carbon emissions. Here are a few to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li>Greenwashing: disinformation disseminated by an organization to present an environmentally responsible public image</li>
<li>Carbon calculator: tool used to influence booker’s decision and fund carbon offsets or budgets</li>
<li>Carbon offset: compensation for the emission of carbon or other greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere (wind/solar initiatives, planting trees)</li>
<li>Carbon budget: metrics to provide transparency to investors interested in this goal (carbon tax, implied price, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2014/08/12/pricing-carbon-a-carbon-tax-or-cap-and-trade/#:~:text=A%20carbon%20tax%20is%20one,%2Dand%2Dtrade%20is%20another.&text=A%20carbon%20tax%20sets%20the,the%20market%20determine%20the%20price." target="_blank">cap-and-trade</a>)</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index" target="_blank">59% of business professionals</a> indicated that they feel positively if not passionately about sustainability in corporate travel but find it difficult or are unsure on how to put it into practice. Getting everyone using the same terms will help garner momentum around a cohesive change management plan around the reduction of carbon emissions by corporate travel.</p>
<h2>Get reducing today:</h2>
<p>Here are some best practices to start reducing the carbon emissions by your organization today:</p>
<ol>
<li>Determine your current baseline carbon footprint with our above GHG calculation</li>
<li>Implement and automate a carbon offset program in ways that are authentic to your organization (donations, tree planting, solar power)</li>
<li>Engage travelers in sustainability efforts and offer a work environment that aligns with their values around sustainability</li>
<li>Encourage or require rail instead of air travel if reasonable</li>
<li>Promote renting hybrid cars</li>
<li>Review hotel policies for greener alternatives</li>
<li>Encourage and recognize green booking behavior by showing calculated carbon emissions inside booking tool</li>
<li>Promote travel alternatives</li>
</ol>
<p>Regardless of the level of understanding, outlook, or priority of reducing carbon emissions within your organization, adjusting business travel policies and behavior is a great place to have a significant impact, and we’re here to help you along the way. Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index" target="_blank">sustainability in business travel</a> in our 2020 report and contact your account representative to get sta</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Comdata Announces Integrated Virtual Card Solution for Businesses Using Concur Invoice
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/comdata-announces-integrated-virtual-card-solution-businesses-using-concur-invoice
2021-06-11T07:54:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Comdata has unveiled a native integration with Concur Invoice offering businesses a streamlined and paperless way to receive invoices from suppliers and execute secure electronic...
<p>Comdata has unveiled a native integration with Concur® Invoice, offering businesses a streamlined – and paperless – way to receive invoices from suppliers and execute secure, electronic payments.</p>
<p>Because the payments are delivered through Comdata’s integration with the Mastercard network, clients earn rebates on invoice payments, similar to the way a consumer earns cash back on a personal credit card.</p>
<p>“Offering our virtual credit card program as an embedded solution within Concur Invoice is a powerful tool for organizations that are actively seeking to automate the accounts payable process and reduce the pain and hassle associated with paper checks,” said Chris Shanahan, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partners Group at Comdata. “We have many joint clients, so building an integration between Comdata and SAP Concur platforms was a natural progression that is now available to every Concur Invoice user.”</p>
<p>Concur Invoice and Comdata work with a client’s ERP or accounting system, giving CFOs and controllers a way to easily build a unified solution to manage the entire process of capturing invoices electronically, executing payments, and reconciling their books. The solution adapts to the user’s invoice management process – not the other way around – allowing clients to keep their existing approvals, rules, and workflows.</p>
<p>With Comdata’s integration, Concur Invoice customers can simplify vendor payments. The basic process works like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>The customer submits invoices for payment using the usual process.</li>
<li>If the vendor being paid is flagged as a credit card acceptor, the payment file is automatically sent to Comdata.</li>
<li>Comdata generates a single-use 16-digit Mastercard number and delivers that number, along with full invoice and remittance data to the vendor.</li>
<li>The customer receives a reconciliation file back, just like a positive pay file from the bank.</li>
</ol>
<p>Concur Invoice clients can now easily implement the Comdata solution by activating the Comdata application in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5e4d6bc95be5fb0018254b6d?_sm_au_=iVVdt0TVDTJBD6VrWF44kK7FcTJR4">SAP Concur App Center.</a> For more information, let a <a href="https://payments.comdata.com/payment-solutions/ap-automation/virtual-credit-card/" target="_blank">solutions specialist contact you</a>, call 1-800-COMDATA, or email <a href="mailto:payments@comdata.com">payments@comdata.com</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Sustainability Becomes a Business Fundamental
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sustainability-becomes-business-fundamental
2022-07-01T12:08:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sustainability is not just another dimension we optimize like savings and amenities of hotels It is the new normal to do and grow business in the public market of the future Martin...
<p>“Sustainability is not just another dimension we optimize, like savings and amenities of hotels. It is the new normal to do and grow business in the public market of the future.” – Martin Biermann, Chief Product Officer, HRS</p>
<p>Regulators and markets are watching to ensure organizations are making progress on ever-increasing and ever-more-critical goals to reduce emissions, save energy and preserve our planet. Instead of being just one business metric among many, sustainability is now a business fundamental, one bringing systemic change as travel resumes.</p>
<p>Sustainability is good business and particularly good HR, as 4 out of 5 travelers told us they would rather work with an organization with a sustainability policy when we were putting together this year’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">Corporate Travel Sustainability Index</a>.</p>
<p>But how does an organization – and its travel managers – move beyond good intentions and carbon offsets and encourage impactful, greener choices when it comes to deciding how employees get to their destinations and where they stay?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Knowledge is power</h2>
<p>With business travel moving from a cost-above-all model to one where the costs of going green are costs worth considering, travel managers and other decision makers must educate themselves on the intricacies of sustainability. It’s not simple – one veteran consultant says it took him a year to understand the topic – but attaining a grasp of the details of emissions and comparable metrics is essential.</p>
<p>Educating business travelers themselves is an opportunity to help those employees develop a deeper appreciation of the impact of their choices when booking. Provide quick ways for them to see the difference between direct and multi-stop flights, aircraft and trains, and public transit and rental cars. Use apps and policies to steer and explain their choices. And that can include choosing to not travel in some cases.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where change can occur</h2>
<p>Transportation and lodging are two sizable contributors to emissions but are both areas where businesses and other organizations can help drive change. The airlines and lodging chains they decide to use can help those industries become more sustainable themselves.</p>
<p><strong>Air travel:</strong> Sustainable aviation fuels, from renewable instead of fossil source, are more expensive, but they provide an opportunity. Organizations can encourage or require airlines and other suppliers to choose sustainable fuels, driving both change and the markets. In the same vein, organizations can choose use airlines with newer, greener fleets.</p>
<p><strong>Lodging:</strong> A hotel stay can produce as much emissions as a one-hour flight. Hotels vary widely on how green they are, and experts say it’s a misconception that big hotels with lots of services are less green than smaller, more basic ones. So, it doesn’t have to be a question of comfort vs. sustainability (a fact worth sharing with travelers). Weighing the sustainability of hotels isn’t easy, as there are many competing, sometimes proprietary measures. Travel management software can help provide comparables.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tools that help</h2>
<p>Core and extended SAP Concur solutions provide tools to direct travelers to greener options while booking and to educate them about the effects of their choices. Other features provide timely reports and other information that travel managers and financial decision makers can use to share progress with the C-Suite on sustainability initiatives and demonstrate how they align with your company’s goals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn more</h2>
<p>In a session from the <strong>SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</strong>, experts <strong>Julie Avenel</strong>, American Express Global Business Travel; <strong>Martin Biermann</strong>, HRS Group; and <strong>Sarah Wilkin</strong>, Fly Green Alliance, discuss actions being taken in the aviation and hotel industries sectors and steps you can take in your travel program. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/sustainability-more-carbon-calculation">Watch on-demand</a>.</p>
Neha Mehta
How Expense Automation Supports Business Recovery and Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-expense-automation-supports-business-recovery-and-growth
2022-07-01T13:47:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As companies of all sizes prepare for the coming economic recovery controlling spend and optimizing cash flow can help them be more resilient But the key to controlling spend and...
<p>As companies of all sizes prepare for the coming economic recovery, controlling spend and optimizing cash flow can help them be more resilient. But the key to controlling spend and optimizing cash flow can prove elusive—particularly if an organization relies on manual processes for expense management.<br />
<br />
Let’s look at how expense automation can help businesses become more resilient and position themselves for recovery and growth.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong> Digital transformation and business resilience</strong></h2>
<p>Many smaller businesses have already been recognizing the need to embrace digital transformation in their finance processes. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/sap_sme_study_-_executive_summary_designed_-_06_16_2020_final.pdf">2020 survey by Oxford Economics</a> of 2,000 small and midsize businesses found that almost all respondents plan to shift their manual finance processes into the digital realm over the next few years.<br />
<br />
These organizations expect digital processes to help improve their financial performance and gain more flexibility to withstand uncertainties and challenges. In addition:</p>
<ul>
<li>45% of respondents expect to increase efficiency by minimizing error, risk, and cost</li>
<li>43% expect to boost productivity via transformation and intelligent process automation</li>
<li>40% expect to free up employees to focus on higher-level business tasks</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Choosing a solution that accommodates a growing business</strong></h2>
<p>Smaller businesses have the advantage of being nimble but need to make the most of their cash flow. Transitioning from inefficient manual expense management to a customizable, automated expense platform like Concur Expense can provide a clearer pathway to doing that.<br />
<br />
Here’s how Concur Expense <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/6-strategies-for-finance-resiliency-via-digital-transformation">can help prepare a business</a> for whatever lies ahead.</p>
<ul>
<li>Create customizable expense policies that grow and shift to fit your changing business needs</li>
<li>Gain clear visibility into expenses and get key data to guide better decision-making</li>
<li>Improve efficiency and accuracy by eliminating manual processes</li>
<li>Get customizable reports to spot opportunities for cost savings, freeing up cash flow</li>
<li>Make it easy for employees to submit expense reports</li>
<li>Free up employees from time-consuming manual tasks into higher-value work<br />
</li>
</ul>
<p>There’s no spend to waste. See our short video above, “Why Concur Expense?” to learn how you can accelerate business recovery and growth with SAP Concur solutions. Then, check out our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur Expense demo</a>.<br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
Top Considerations for Integrating SAP Concur Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-considerations-integrating-sap-concur-solutions
2022-07-01T17:02:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Selecting the right spend management solution for your company is about more than just evaluating features and benefits Equally important is how that solution will integrate with your...
<p>Selecting the right spend management solution for your company is about more than just evaluating features and benefits. Equally important is how that solution will integrate with your existing business systems.</p>
<p>Here are the top considerations you should keep in mind, whether you’re in IT, Finance, HR, or senior management.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Which integration method is right for us?</h2>
<p>The answer to this depends on your current business systems and data handling requirements. With SAP Concur software, there are four main integration methods:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>On-Demand</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>The on-demand method allows you to log directly into your SAP Concur application to make a change. It’s not a fully integrated solution because it does require a manual resource to log into the make the change, but it is extremely convenient for companies with limited IT support.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Secure FTP</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>With this method, a Secure FTP directory is provided for you to import and export data. Approved expense reports and invoices are then generated by the SAP Concur application through an overnight process.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Web Services</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>With Web Services, you can leverage SAP Concur RESTful APIs to integrate your data with a middleware or in-house solution. The advantage of Web Services over the Secure FTP method is that you can run data updates multiple times throughout the day.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Pre-built Connectors</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Using a pre-built connector allows for a near real-time connection of data between SAP Concur and your other business systems. In addition to a wide range of connectors built by SAP Concur, you’ll also be able to use our App Centre to find hundreds of pre-built third-party connectors for the world’s leading business systems and apps.</p>
<p>Still not sure which method is right for you? Our Solution Integration Experts can also work with you to develop an integration process specific to your data handling requirements.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How will our data be protected?</h2>
<p>Even the most seamless integration option is a non-starter if the spend management</p>
<p>solution doesn’t continually meet or exceed international data security, privacy, and</p>
<p>compliance standards. SAP Concur solutions are audited regularly for compliance with global standards of security and service management, so you can have the assurance that data confidentiality, integrity, and availability is always maintained.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Can we easily scale the solution in the future?</h2>
<p>For any spend management solution to be of value beyond the day you integrate it into</p>
<p>your business, it must also ensure future scalability. The SAP Concur platform includes a wide range of connected spend management solutions, tools and services guaranteed to meet your needs as you grow. You’ll also gain access to SAP’s growing ecosystem of over 21,000 connected partner solutions, apps, and tools for maximizing your integration options.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Will the solution be reliable?</h2>
<p>The proof is in our longstanding customer loyalty. Over 48,000 of the fastest growing and best-run companies in the world connect their financial systems to SAP Concur solutions every day. We’ve earned this trust by continually delivering:</p>
<ul>
<li>Industry leading expense, travel, and invoice management solutions</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Exceptional product reliability and performance backed by a knowledgeable</li>
<li>support team</li>
<li>New technology, AI, and ML innovations</li>
<li>A rapidly growing ecosystem of partner products, apps, and connectors</li>
<li>Proactive customer support and a vibrant user community</li>
</ul>
<p>Take the next step in your consideration and integration process with these helpful resources:</p>
<p><strong>For IT Leaders:</strong></p>
<p>Download ebook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/integrating-sap-concur-solutions-your-ecosystem">Integrating SAP Concur Solutions into Your Ecosystem</a><br />
Watch video: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/top-integration-questions-it-leaders">Top Integration Questions from IT Leaders</a></p>
<p><strong>For Finance Leaders:</strong></p>
<p>Download checklist: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/top-5-questions-on-integrating-sap-concur-solutions">Top 5 Questions on Integrating SAP Concur Solutions</a></p>
<p>Watch video: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/common-questions-on-spend-management-solution-integration">Common Questions on Solution Integration</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Getting the Business Side of IT Right: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Penn State University
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/getting-business-side-it-right-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-penn-state-university
2022-07-01T17:20:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are really good at doing the things of IT but we were really bad at doing the business of IT shared Bennett Ulmer Operations Analyst and Manager of Analysis and Audit for Penn State...
<p>“We are really good at doing the things of IT, but we were really bad at doing the business of IT,” shared Bennett Ulmer, Operations Analyst and Manager of Analysis and Audit for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state">Penn State University</a>. Phil Bunnell, Solutions Consultant for SAP Concur, spoke with Ulmer to learn how he harnessed the power of an already successful travel and expense program to improve their central IT processes, functionality, and business management.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wrangling-process-in-an-it-wild-west-an-sap/id1525744763?i=1000535436890">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/1JTLszkvLiwoagWXHb4VRd">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/wrangling-process-in-an-it-93mKikefOvt/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/wrangling-process-in-an-it-wild-west-an-sap-concur-podcast-c">Acast </a>| <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE0MjE5YzBjOGRkNGIwMDEzNjVjMTk3?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjQp6a09cjzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/wrangling-processes-in-the-it-wild-west-an-sap-concur-podcast-conversation">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Piggybacking modernization for holistic improvement</h2>
<p>Ulmer is all about scaling improvement. When he learns about innovations in one area at Penn State, he gets scrappy and wonders how he can leverage it in other areas of the institution.</p>
<p>"And so, that's sort of my focus. One of the things I think is really critical for us to sort of drag this lumbering institution into a modern world is taking a holistic look at: How can we make financial transactions easier? How can we make processing these things better within our own shop at Penn State IT, while bearing in mind the implication it can have across the university engine?”</p>
<p>As one of the longest-running customers of SAP Concur, Penn State University has been constantly improving it’s spend management program for more than seventeen years. Through trust and collaboration, teams at Penn State leverage each other’s best practices and successes continuously.</p>
<p>“So, it's not something that we in central IT own and manage, but it's a different group that we had to build a relationship with and come and say, ‘As you're building these new pieces and this new functionality within SAP Concur [solutions], we think that there are ways that you can help us and that we can build additional functionality, and processes into the tool that will streamline things here for us, and for others,” shared Ulmer.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Relationships for the win: Relentless problem-solving at scale</h2>
<p>Collective problem-solving through developing trusting relationships is par-for-the-course at a top university like Penn State:</p>
<p>“Because of the kind of size and breadth of the university, you really have to seek it out. And ‘relationships’ is really the right word, I think. We had to, in this instance specifically, we had to reach out to the director of the team that was managing the SAP Concur product and relationship with SAP and plead our case. We had to kind of introduce – we knew each other generally – but these weren't folks that we worked with on a day-to-day basis. So, we really had to negotiate a way to prove that it was going to be the right thing, not only for Penn State IT, but that it was something that could bring value to the larger university,” shared Ulmer.</p>
<p>After he had won the team over, he continued to solve these large-scale IT and business challenges through an ongoing pursuit of thoughtful and strategic collaboration. “And so, I'm sort of relentless in that kind of problem-solving space where we brought it to the team and we said, ‘Hey, we know that you guys are really busy in the middle of this implementation of the new version of SAP Concur [solutions], but this is something that we really think can benefit, not just us, but a lot of folks. And can you please squeeze time into your project plan that you haven't already planned for? And let's see if we can build this out.’ That team was great to work with,” shared Ulmer.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tightening the budget screws: When spend visibility becomes essential</h2>
<p>This type of resourcefulness is not just nice to have, it’s essential to running a successful program at any Higher Education institution. “At a Higher Ed, you're always asked to do more with less. I mean, budgets are always tight, and you always sort of have to figure these things out…If the university is already paying for this thing, can we find a way to join into that? Or to team up with this group that already has this thing instead of going out and buying and paying for or building something ourselves?” shared Ulmer. Plus, the need to document and justify how every dollar is spent is only increasing; institutions are shifting to accommodate hybrid work and educational environments.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Scaling pre-approval functionality in one department for the benefit of others</h2>
<p>Here’s where the innovation comes in: Penn State University identified user experience comfort across the university with the digital process to approve travel in advance, so they applied this foundation to their corporate card program. Ulmer shared the thought process, “Because we're already familiar with the look and feel of [SAP] Concur [solutions] – having done travel and expense management in the same system in the past – [the team] didn't really have a great learning curve that they had to overcome in order to start doing this pre-approval process in the same tool.” The quick win here was that Penn State had successfully built upon its user experience familiarity to create and manage a totally new program.</p>
<p>Excitement to keep the innovation ball rolling continues to accelerate throughout Penn State University and the higher education community at-large: </p>
<p>“We have had more and more people start to come to us and say like, ‘What are you guys working on? How have you made this work and is it something that we can do?’ The pre-approval request process that we worked with the SAP Concur team to build in – which for your listeners, is not a travel expense – but any kind of other expenses that our staff need to incur. We have built into the system to collect that preapproval. Yes, I know that I have a budget. I know that I have the funds for it, but we require, in IT, an extra layer of: ‘Am I authorized to go and spend these funds?’” shared Ulmer.</p>
<p>“Folks were really excited about it. It was fun to see that it means that this thing, this idea that we have, and this thing that we built really is starting to catch some seeds,” continued Ulmer.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Centralized data forall</h2>
<p>Having one place to look for answers that inform day-to-day or strategic decision-making is crucial. That’s why Penn State University’s program is such a model for other institutions. On this, Ulmer shares,</p>
<p>“That data is really flowing seamlessly…I think that's a big piece of understanding the integrations as we look at all these different systems and where that data is flowing to. Having that integration between the request and the expense report is really helpful. We know that it makes it a lot easier and a lot more streamlined for our staff to create those expense reports, which then flow downstream into the financial ERP system.” </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Taking advantage of the downtime to optimize</h2>
<p>While the global pandemic presented many challenges, the Penn State University team stayed busy optimizing all their programs. Ulmer shared, “This is really giving us an opportunity to look at the kind of entire life cycle of how we spend money at Penn State, and how we do it responsibly for the university and how we do an efficiently…We've got a lot of stuff that we're really hoping to streamline over the next couple of years, and this time has really given us some time to think about that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>For a good time, follow central IT at Penn State</h2>
<p>It’s music to any employer’s ears that teams are having fun, and Ulmer, the ideal IT and Business unicorn manager, leads a team that finds joy in their work. “I think doing what we did in SAP Concur, gave us a win, and gave us a little kind of credit under our belt to say, like, ‘This is how we're looking at things more broadly.’ And this is how we, as our team here in our central IT unit are starting to think about things in a way that can benefit the whole university, and if you want to come along with us, we think you'll have a good time,” shared Ulmer. More efficiency AND fun at work? Yes, please!</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Iterative improvement: The PSU-SAP Concur legacy</h2>
<p>As with all great partnerships, there are great questions required to continue the growth. Bunnell shares, “If I could almost sum this up, we've had a great relationship… we've done a lot of things together and have that great history, but a lot of it has been:</p>
<ol>
<li>How do we make things easier?</li>
<li>How do we make things better?</li>
<li>And how do we keep that innovation going?</li>
<li>how can we continue to optimize these processes?</li>
<li>How do we keep that innovation going?</li>
<li>And how do we keep this simple for our end users?</li>
</ol>
<p>That's what I think what we all need to be thinking about constantly. Technology is advancing every day, and that would almost be my final thought here is just to say, keep that innovation going, keep the end users in mind, keep simple, and where it makes logical sense to not have multiple steps to do things.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Include IT early!</h2>
<p>Parting advice from these thought leaders was to make sure to include IT early in the decision-making process. On this, Ulmer shared, “I'm a huge advocate for having your kind of operations and business analysts involved early, both on the business side and on the IT side, basically, because that's what I do. And just kind of making sure that you've got all the people at the table as early as possible in those processes. And that's where I find that we have the most success is when we're really working well together.” A long, healthy, and happy marriage of IT and business are key ingredients to the secret sauce of what keeps the Penn State University expense management system growing and thriving today.</p>
<p>Ready to start innovating your higher education institution? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solution">We’re here to help.</a></p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Embracing Digital Solutions and Engaging Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/embracing-digital-solutions-and-engaging-employees
2022-07-01T17:31:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How do you free finance team members for the meaningful work they want to do And as a finance leader how can you balance the need for flexibility and resilience with the pressure to...
<p>How do you free finance team members for the meaningful work they want to do? And as a finance leader, how can you balance the need for flexibility and resilience with the pressure to manage costs and ensure compliance?</p>
<p>It’s a juggle occurring amid thin budgets and the nagging realization valued team members could go elsewhere if they feel you value their work life less than they do. In addition to the expense of replacing them, the loss of institutional knowledge and experience could deepen the financial toll through noncompliance, fraud, and waste.</p>
<p>When examining the need to reinvent spend management systems and processes, it’s worth asking yourself if members of your financial team are among the 25% to 40% reporting to pollsters that they might quit within a year.</p>
<p>Digital solutions can be part of the answer to improving the employee experience at your company, replacing frustrating processes and technology with straightforward, empathetic ones. Businesses that incorporate automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and integration with ERP and other systems can provide the engaging work employees seek. And you achieve the efficiencies and savings the times require.</p>
<p>Here are some numbers to weigh as you consider your next steps. Among the benefits of using SAP Concur solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>43% less time to fill out an expense report</li>
<li>50% less time to reimburse expenses</li>
<li>32% more employees following T&E policies</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Specific topics for you to consider</h2>
<p>Our new eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/better-employee-experience-finance-teams">Making Time for More Meaningful Work,</a> sketches out five key questions for you and finance peers to weigh as you reimagine travel, invoice, and expense management.</p>
<p><strong>Is manual work bogging your team down?</strong> The time your team spends entering data and managing approvals by hand is time taken from ensuring compliance and spotting fraud. Automating tasks and integrating travel and expense data with your ERP can regain lost time, while machine learning and AI can uncover fraud and noncompliance.</p>
<p><strong>Are you always waiting on someone or something?</strong> Creating a more intuitive, digital process for employees can mean easier submissions, faster approvals, fewer bottlenecks, and less duplication of work. With less back and forth and manual work, finance teams can focus on more essential business challenges.</p>
<p><strong>Can you catch errors before they happen?</strong> Finding mistake patterns and spotting repeat offenders are essential to controlling costs and preventing fraud – before the payments go out. Utilizing AI and machine learning, digital solutions can uncover those issues, see and process legitimate exceptions, and continuously adapt as your organization does.</p>
<p><strong>Do you have the visibility to make good decisions quickly?</strong> Your employees, no matter how diligent or experienced, cannot be expected to make the best decisions without the relevant information. With intelligent technology and travel and expense data integrated with other financial systems, they get the full picture.</p>
<p><strong>Are you always on top of reclaimed taxes?</strong> Rules and regulations for value-added taxes – like the locations – are all over the place. An organization is likely to lose out on reclaiming taxes if it depends on a people-based approach. Automated, intelligent solutions can keep your business in compliance and obtain the money it’s owed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more: Solutions up to the challenge</strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions provide businesses with the automation and intelligent technology that can free their finance and accounts payable teams for engaging work. Obtain a copy of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/better-employee-experience-finance-teams">eBook</a> for a deeper look at how the right tools and processes can demonstrate that your organization values not only employees’ time but them as well.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div> </div>
</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Managing Event Costs: Six Tips to Do It Right
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/managing-event-costs-six-tips-do-it-right
2022-07-02T05:36:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If your organization tends to host a lot of events and meetings there are ample opportunities for overspend whether on venues travel food audiovisual and more And if multiple people...
<p>If your organization tends to host a lot of events and meetings, there are ample opportunities for overspend, whether on venues, travel, food, audio-visual, and more. And if multiple people are making purchases on your organization’s behalf, that spending can become unwieldy—opening the potential for budget overspend.</p>
<p>Fortunately, controlling costs and preventing overspending on your events and meetings doesn’t have to be complicated. Below are six tips for doing it right and staying within budget:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Have a solid meeting and event strategy</strong>. Let’s face it: Hosting events and meetings is expensive. To keep costs in check, create a list of all the events and meetings your organization has planned. Then, outline your goals and objectives for each of them. Determine if all your events and meetings are really necessary or could be conducted in a more cost-effective way, such as virtual instead of in-person. Afterward, prepare a formal plan for each event, including everything you’ll need to host the event and the anticipated costs involved. This will make your event needs and costs more visible and tangible. More importantly, when you know all the potential costs up front, you can make better decisions about how to allocate your budget.</li>
<li><strong>Think about all your events and meetings—regardless of size—in an holistic way</strong>. By viewing all of your organization’s events and meetings as a whole rather than as individual events, you can find opportunities to showcase your brand’s message across every event, leverage and reuse items from one event to another, and make every dollar you spend work harder for your organization. </li>
<li><strong>Plan ahead</strong>. An easy way to save money and prevent overspending on your events and meetings is to start the planning process early. This will give you time to request and compare quotes from multiple vendors (such as venues and hotel blocks) and negotiate better rates. With a more accurate sense of market prices, you can make adjustments to your budget as needed. By taking this approach, you’ll also have a better chance of getting the venues you want while saving money on travel costs, too.</li>
<li><strong>Use technology to centralize your process</strong>. Select one technology solution that will support both professional and occasional planners for managing your events and meetings, and that also integrates with your travel and expense platform. This will make the process of planning and holding events and meetings faster, easier, and more cost effective by providing a holistic view of all spend related to the event or meeting.</li>
<li><strong>Set aside one-fourth of your budget up front for unexpected expenses</strong>. No matter how much you try to plan and budget in advance, unexpected needs and expenses will inevitably arise. The key is to set aside enough room in your budget up front to cover any unexpected meeting and event expenses. That way, you won’t have to go over budget to cover them.</li>
<li><strong>Track, view, and analyze all your event- and meeting-related spending throughout the year</strong>. Not only will this prevent overspending, but it will also enable you to prepare more accurate budgets in the future while optimizing your organization’s spending. What’s more, you’ll have all the data you need to easily track and view cross-event spend, and if any overspending does occur, figure out when, where, and why it happened.</li>
</ol>
<p>Hosting events and meetings can be fun and worthwhile. Just make sure your organization has a solid plan and technology solution in place to assist you with controlling costs, preventing overspending, and staying within budget. You’ll be glad you did.</p>
<p>Learn more about event management by <a href="https://www.concur.com/event-management">visiting us online</a>.</p>
Kiersten Conner
Preventing and Detecting Fraud Risks in Times of Economic Uncertainty
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-risks-times-economic-uncertainty
2022-09-19T10:57:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Even during this challenging time fraud unfortunately does not stop According to the President of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners ACFE Bruce Dorris The COVID pandemic and...
<p>Even during the ups and downs, fraud unfortunately does not stop. According to the President of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (<a href="https://www.acfe.com/press-release.aspx?id=4295010491">ACFE</a>), Bruce Dorris, “The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic instability will not only increase levels of fraud, but will also lead to more discoveries of existing fraud. Now’s the time to prepare your organizations.” </p>
<p>While these predictions may seem dire, organizations can still put protections in place to try and soften the blow from fraud through bolstering internal controls. One way to do so is to put a lens on how companies are currently detecting and preventing fraud in expense, invoice, and other employee spend areas. By doing so, companies can potentially save up to thousands of dollars and uncover other fraud schemes as well.</p>
<h2>3 Tips to Prevent & Detect Business Fraud Risks</h2>
<p>To learn more, we encourage you to watch our on-demand webinar, in which certified fraud examiner (CFE) and public accountant (CPA), <a href="https://www.acfe.com/bio-amcneal.aspx">Andi McNeal</a> – who is also the director of research for the ACFE and co-author of the newly released <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/?_ga=2.133266894.11134991.1662752019-1498175809.1662068211">Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse 2022 Global Study</a> – helps organizations: </p>
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li><strong>Discover trends:</strong> Learn how fraud is committed, along with the some of the most effective ways to detect it, so you can identify fraudulent trends at the global, industry, and organizational levels. Then discover how other organizations respond when occupational fraud has been identified.</li>
<li><strong>Benchmark your organization:</strong> Compare your organization’s risks of fraud by industry, region, and size, so you can benchmark your anti-fraud efforts against similar organizations, as well as some of the most effective methods for reducing fraud losses.</li>
<li><strong>Uncover who puts your organization at risk:</strong> See which employees or departments pose the greatest risks when it comes to committing fraud for your organization. By uncovering where some of the largest cases of fraud are likely to occur, you can start identifying the behavioral clues that can be indicators of fraudulent conduct.</li>
</ol>
<p>To wrap it up— Connie Hoen, who has more than thirty years of experience in auditing as an SAP Concur program director, shares some best practices and ways that companies are re-adjusting their programs to prevent and detect fraud. </p>
<p><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2308077/D13FEE5B092310D64B80C986F36FB18E">Watch the webinar</a><strong> today! </strong></p>
Erin Giordano
Maximizing Corporate Card Rebates: Our 80/20 Rule
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maximizing-corporate-card-rebates-our-8020-rule
2022-11-13T16:23:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
An immediate way to get a pulse on who how and when your organizations dollars are being spent what we call spend governance is to look at your corporate card usage.
<p>An immediate way to get a pulse on who, how, and when your organization’s dollars are being spent –what we call spend governance – is to look at your corporate card usage. The perks of maximizing corporate card rebates go beyond optimizing cash flow to things like improving employee satisfaction, increasing spend transparency, and policy compliance. What’s the translation? More money, happier employees, and fewer rules broken.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Leveraging the 80/20 Rule</h2>
<p>Before digging into your organization’s initiatives, we strongly encourage using the best practice for corporate cards to be set at 80%, while cash spend is limited to 20% of all transactions. This will save your organization hours of authentication prior to approval. According to a <a href="https://www.jpmorgan.com/cm/BlobServer/Corporate_T_E_Spend_Benchmarks.pdf?blobkey=id&blobwhere=1320626471111&blobheader=application/pdf&blobheadername1=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=private&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs">JP Morgan study</a>: “With an automated system, there’s an even greater benefit in heightened productivity of clerical staff…companies that offer electronic expense reporting are much more likely to use data mining to flag out-of-policy spend or card misuse.”</p>
<p>When employees use their corporate credit cards, you gain the benefit of receiving feeds directly from the financial institution on the day that transaction is posted, granting visibility on amounts-due and payment-due dates. By having advance visibility on charges coming their way, department heads can ask their employees to withhold spending until the next cycle or spend within the current budget if it allows that department to stay within budget from one cycle to the next. And voila! Efficient spend governance is enhanced.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Big Money: The formula to calculate your corporate card rebate</h2>
<p>Now, here’s the fun part. Use this formula to help you calculate the dollars you’ll get back when you maximize your corporate card rebates to their fullest potential:</p>
<p>(TOTAL CASH SPEND * AMOUNT TO MOVE TO CARD (AS A PERCENTAGE)) * REBATE PERCENTAGE FROM CARD PROVIDER = REBATE DOLLAR AMOUNT</p>
<p>Doesn’t that sound like a lot of money just sitting there waiting to be added to your organization’s bank account? We think so! The greater the spend on your corporate cards, the higher potential rebate dollars back for you to reinvest into your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Industry benchmarks for corporate card adoption: How does your organization compare?</h2>
<p>While every organization is unique, knowing the corporate card adoption percentage rate by industry provides a frame of reference as to whether or not your organization meets the general trends.</p>
<img alt="Chart showing credit card adoption rates" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="76bd8c9d-9c50-4794-9fdd-2bcb2ccb3a5f" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/Card%20Adoption_1.jpeg" />
<p>Now, when your colleagues express that increasing corporate card adoption is impossible due to limitations unique to your industry, you can base your recommendation off of increasing corporate card adoption with compelling data. Just pull a report of your corporate card adoption spend percentage and compare it to these industry benchmarks so you have a more compelling case.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pro tip: Corporate cards</h2>
<p>When employees use corporate cards, everyone wins. Your organization gains visibility into who spent what, where, and why every time an employee uses their corporate card to pay their invoices and expenses.</p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NsYXvrmVIeE" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p>Here are some do’s and don’ts that can help change how employees submit expenses:</p>
<p>Do:</p>
<ul>
<li>Use the SAP Concur mobile app receipt capture and approval capabilities to streamline and automate processes when possible</li>
<li>Encourage immediate expense reporting when cash is used.</li>
</ul>
<p>Don’t:</p>
<ul>
<li>Accept cash expenses without a receipt to help encourage card usage.</li>
<li>Reimburse cash transactions older than 60 days.</li>
</ul>
<p>We’re glad that your interest is piqued. Corporate cards are a great way to empower employees while gaining greater control and visibility over spend. If maximizing corporate card rebates is one of your organization’s goals, we’re here to help. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Contact us</a> today to start maximizing your corporate card rebates!</p>
Kathryn Kamin
How Much Do You Worry About Business Travel?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-much-do-you-worry-about-business-travel
2022-11-13T17:06:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to traveler safety – especially in a year like 2020 – SMBs have every right to be concerned.
<p>If you run a business with fewer than 1,000 employees, you’ve got bigger things to keep you up at night than travel management. But when it comes to traveler safety – especially in a year like 2020 – you have every right to be concerned. And you’re not alone.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/top-of-mind-for-ceos-and-coos--traveler-safety-well-being-and-satisfaction">whitepaper published by BTN Group</a>, which states that even before our current challenges, 54% of small to midsize business leaders were concerned about traveler safety, well-being, and satisfaction.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>What's Top of Mind for CEOs and COOs</h5>
<p>Traveler safety, well-being, and satisfaction</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/top-of-mind-for-ceos-and-coos--traveler-safety-well-being-and-satisfaction">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2>What’s everyone so scared of?</h2>
<p>Slowing or ceasing business travel is frightening enough (something else we’ve all learned in the past few months), and the top executives surveyed cited cyber threats, trade conflicts, and terrorism as chief concerns when asked about what could impede their ability to travel.</p>
<p>That’s a worrisome list made even more troubling by fears of infection and the need for social distancing. Add to that the very real concerns about an economic downturn, and it’s hard to imagine getting out of bed in the morning, let alone flying across the country for a meeting.</p>
<p>This is all to say that now, as the world slowly begins to go out on the road again, there are dozens of critical factors to consider. </p>
<h2>Should we sound the alarm or send up a solution?</h2>
<p>Both.</p>
<p>Travel has had its most difficult year, and we cannot afford to forget its lessons. But we are taking to the skies (and rail, and road) again, and that literally gives us a reason to look up.</p>
<p>It’s also good to know that there are solutions out there designed specifically to make business travel easier and safer for your employees – travel management tools that not only improve the overall experience, they give you a decidedly uncomplicated way to capture all your travel spend.</p>
<p>That’s a fairly big statement, so let’s break down its benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li>You can improve traveler satisfaction by offering app-based tools that let employees book the way they like with brands they love. These same apps allow them to easily manage their itineraries, access upgrades and updates, and even receive safety data about the neighborhoods they’re traveling to. </li>
<li>You can improve employee engagement and productivity with travel and expense solutions that eliminate paperwork from the process. So instead of tracking receipts, they simply snap a picture and hit submit. And instead of filling out expense reports after long, tiring trips, their charges are automatically categorized and uploaded. This takes mindless work off their desks and keeps them focused on their purpose.</li>
<li>You can improve traveler safety with these same tools. Because every booking is automatically captured, every itinerary is available for your review, and credit card charges are centralized and easy to see, you can quickly pinpoint every traveler. So if there’s a problem, you can help them get home safely.</li>
<li>You can improve visibility into spending and, ultimately, control over costs. Again, there are ways to capture every booking and each transaction. There are systems that give you proactive controls, ensuring policy compliance. There are tools that pool all this data for you – automatically. So you can see what’s being spent, spot savings, and channel funds where they’re needed most.</li>
</ul>
<p>And, as it turns out, you can do all these things without adding overhead or extra tasks for your already busy team.</p>
<h2>Rallying around the answers.</h2>
<p>Never fear. The <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/top-of-mind-for-ceos-and-coos--traveler-safety-well-being-and-satisfaction">BTN whitepaper</a> posted some positive stats, as well, reporting that the majority of executives found the following cost-avoidance methods highly effective:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reviewing regular reports and analysis of travel budget and program adherence. (77%)</li>
<li>Enforcing travel policy compliance. (72%)</li>
<li>Proactively educating travelers about booking preferred suppliers. (70%)</li>
<li>Using a pre-trip system to approve or deny travel. (70%)</li>
</ul>
<p>In the end, there’s really nothing to fret about. The right travel and expense solutions cover all these benefits, so you can protect your travelers and your business at the same time. Employees will enjoy a greater travel experience, and you’ll enjoy the cost control and compliance that go with it. No worries.</p>
Neha Mehta
If Cash Is No Longer King, Who’s Making the Rules?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-cash-no-longer-king-whos-making-rules
2022-11-13T19:14:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Cash used to run the show Its how business happened It was as they say what made the world go round But times were simpler then and wait times are simpler now Weve got corporate...
<p>Cash used to run the show. It’s how business happened. It was, as they say, what made the world go ‘round. But times were simpler then, and – wait – times are simpler now. We’ve got corporate cards and electronic payments to cover everything, and every charge can easily be accounted for.</p>
<p>But cash and personal credit cards are virtually impossible to find or follow. You can’t know who’s spending what – or where or when – because you don’t find out until the expense reports come in. And what if that’s a month or two too late? So, no. Cash isn’t king. It’s more like an aging despot who’s causing the problems instead of bringing control to the kingdom.</p>
<p>Yet employees use it all the time, leaving you searching for their hidden spend. When you can’t see what’s going out the door, you can’t stop it.</p>
<h2>Now’s not the best time to lose control of spending</h2>
<p>Margins are tight in the best of times. Spending is something you always need to have mastery over – even if profits are coming in by the bucketload. Plus, in our current situation, when things are a bit tenuous, it is an absolute must to maintain control of spending.</p>
<p>That can be tricky, of course, because as we have mentioned – cash spending is invisible. At least until it shows up in expense reports. Or in mileage reports. Or in the stacks of receipts your team is sorting through right now. Even then, it’s not always accurately reported – and by that, we mean employees are not only making entry errors, some of them may be pushing your policies to the point of fraud.</p>
<p>So how do you take the reins?</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/small-adjustments-big-changes">checklist</a> discusses the power of controlling cash spend by exploring how small spending adjustments in your company can make a big difference. For instance, how does raising the threshold for corporate card use – while lowering it for cash – help drive employees to use their corporate cards? How many minutes can you cut from paperwork processes by having expense reports automated – and how many dollars are each of those minutes worth? </p>
<h2>What’s it like to spend money in your company?</h2>
<p>It’s also important to look at spending from the vantage point of the people who are doing it. Is it easier for your employees to use their own credit cards? Do they even have a corporate card? Do all your policies, programs, and procedures encourage the average individual to sidestep the rulebook?</p>
<p>You can begin to answer these questions by improving the way your employees – specifically, your traveling employees – book and manage their trips. And you already have the system in place to do so.</p>
<p>Extending your SAP Concur solution to further reduce the paperwork and processes employees have to go through will increase the likelihood that they’ll use your processes and systems. When your employees use your corporate tools, you’ll see (and capture) their spending.</p>
<p>So your travel and expense program isn’t a guessing game of “Who’s headed where and how much is it costing me?” It’s a simple way for employees to plan and purchase their business trips while you keep an eye on the expenses.</p>
<p>You’ll find more about it – and what business leaders are doing (and not doing) in regard to spend management – in the eBook: <em><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/cost-compliance-and-the-keys-to-control">Cost, Compliance and the Keys to Control</a>.</em></p>
<p>You’re in charge of every charge.</p>
<p>Cash doesn’t have to be a surprising little secret in your company. You already have the infrastructure in place. And with a few simple additions, you can get cash spending under control by giving your employees the kinds of tools they want to use. Tools that reward them with less busywork and more perks. Tools that keep them safe on the road and focused on their jobs. Tools that, in the end (actually from the very beginning) show you what they’re spending, so you can keep more cash in the company.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Don’t Let Legacy be Your Legacy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-let-legacy-be-your-legacy
2022-11-13T19:49:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Examining the five stages of travel and expense program maturity.
<p>The pandemic didn’t tap you on the shoulder and whisper, “Hey, you should really think about updating your legacy travel and expense (T&E) systems so you can more easily adapt to global business fluctuations.” It kicked in the door, sent your employees home, put its feet up on your desk, and demanded immediate changes. </p>
<p>And now, when 50% of the world has moved on and beyond their “dinosaur systems,” the businesses left behind are scrambling to take their first few tentative steps toward the cloud and away from manual, monolithic models. If you find yourself in this latter group, you’re in the first of five stages of T&E maturity as outlined in the recent IDC Presentation, sponsored by SAP Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/2022-idc-travel-and-expense-software-maturity-model">Enterprise Travel and Expense Software Maturity Model</a>. Being there, however, doesn’t mean staying there. </p>
<p>You can move forward. You can reevaluate how you get work done. You can commit to continuous improvement. And you can actually find ways to get better results. But first, you have to get unstuck. </p>
<h2><strong>Legacy applications: Dislodging yourself from the bad old days</strong></h2>
<p>These once-great beasts of on-premise power have outlived their usefulness, and adopting a modern, cloud-based financial application can breathe new life into employee productivity and business efficiency. Automating and imbedding intelligence in your T&E processes will deliver better data for more strategic decisions, increased agility, predictive budgeting, and the speed to stay ahead of the competition. </p>
<p><strong>“The sudden shift to remote work put a spotlight on the inadequacies of legacy software…Employees could not access the application, and (it) could not work remotely.” </strong></p>
<h2><strong>Automated point solutions: One small result at a time</strong></h2>
<p>Specialized solutions built around workflows like AP or treasury are good in that they solve the problem at hand. The trouble is that problems tend to go hand-in-hand across all your departments, so even if you solve an issue in one area, it still might exist somewhere else. Instead of a specific solution to a specific issue, a connected spend management platform allows you to combine spend data from across your organization, so you can not only improve visibility into things like savings and bookings, you can address multiple issues at once, in one place. </p>
<p><strong>“Covid has accelerated the adoption of automated technologies. The shift toward automation has also included a shift away from older, more cumbersome, rule-based automation to intelligent automation driven by machine learning.” </strong></p>
<h2>Connected platform ecosystems: Better, but not perfect </h2>
<p>Connecting travel and expense data to your system and to third-party apps like airlines and hotels is a great way to share traveler data, but you still have to jump from system to system to collect that data. Move to the next stage, and you can connect business applications to budget tracking and pre-approval functions, so you can see spending before it’s spent. All in one place. </p>
<p><strong>“42% of survey respondents describe their financial apps as ‘disconnected’.” </strong></p>
<h2><strong>Integrated application suites: Pulling apps together around a task</strong></h2>
<p>Let’s say you want an end-to-end view of working capital. To get it, you need to bring together info from your T&E, corporate card, CRM, and ERP/financial systems. A suite can handle this quite nicely, but a fully connected, cloud-based system can support a full transformation of your financial processes. And you can use intelligent tech to reduce processing time, improve audit efficiency, and otherwise get finance back on its post-pandemic feet. </p>
<p><strong>“59% of respondents cited a preference for integrated suites vs. ‘best of breed’.” </strong></p>
<h2><strong>Intelligent/predictive processes: Welcome to financial adulthood. </strong></h2>
<p>This is where everyone wants to be – where they can predict (and therefore avoid) unplanned and needless expenses, and where they can forecast future spending and be ready. This forward-looking approach is a far cry from where many organizations are today: Looking back over the past few months, trying to determine what was spent and why. Putting intelligence to work in this way will enable you to continually evolve and improve, and when a world-shaping event knocks on your door, you’ll know what to expect. </p>
<p>Get a deeper look into each of these stages – and how to move on – when you check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/2022-idc-travel-and-expense-software-maturity-model">IDC Presentation, Enterprise Travel and Expense Software Maturity Model</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
The top five ways in which employees are decentralizing spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-five-ways-which-employees-are-decentralizing-spend
2022-11-14T12:07:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Todays workforce and the way employees spend on behalf of an organization have greatly changed in the digital economy Employees are spending more money across more spend categories...
<p>Today’s workforce and the way employees spend on behalf of an organization have greatly changed in the digital economy. Employees are spending more money across more spend categories, and using more payment methods than ever before. And it’s not just digital natives—all employees now expect a consumer-like experience in their professional lives for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">booking travel</a> and making purchases. As a result, employees today will not operate within an archaic process, and finance departments are struggling to see accurate spend data and manage it strategically without a solution that keeps pace with digital purchasing habits.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: Spending categories formerly under company control have shifted to employee control. We call this <strong>employee initiated spend</strong>, and the ways in which employees spend will continue to diversify and create challenges for organizations as they grow and as technology continues to evolve.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The challenges around employee initiated spend</h2>
<p>Employee initiated spend is decentralized by nature. This, in turn, creates problems for finance and procurement teams that tend to manage spend in a centralized manner. </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Largest unmanaged spend category:</strong> Unlike corporate initiated spend where an organization plans and allocates resources for budgeted purchases—employee initiated spend is more difficult to create strategy around in a centralized manner despite best efforts to do so. Employee initiated spending includes traditional T&E and non-traditional items that are being lumped together. A diverse range of purchase types reside in this category including ancillary fees (from travel to credit cards), mileage tracking, event fees (from supplies to shipping), mobile roaming charges, VAT compliance fees, and remote or home office expenses—making it challenging to effectively capture, see and track this category of spend.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>More payment methods, more problems: </strong>With new types of technology comes new ways to pay for purchases. Corporate, ghost, virtual and P-cards, as well as personal cards, are all payment channels used by employees to pay for goods and services. The challenge comes when multiple payment methods are managed by multiple systems that are not connected and do not share data. Additionally, employees are putting all types of spending on corporate cards that are meant to be used solely for travel and expense, including office-related, entertainment, meetings and tradeshow costs.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Traditional booking channels aren’t enough: </strong>As the demographic of the workforce continues to diversify, preferences for how and where employees book travel is complicating traditional managed travel programs. From home-share accommodations to ride hailing apps, the appeal of the share economy is undeniable. It provides travelers with mobile and flexible options, and employees now want the same freedom, personalization and flexibility they get when booking personal travel to carry over to their professional lives. And they want to be able to do this all from their fingertips, on-the-go. The share economy has moved from being a consumer-adopted practice to one for business travelers, and the number of spend categories being generated will only continue to grow. Lacking the ability to capture out-of-program bookings and associated spend will continue to challenge organizations because this trend is now a permanent fixture.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Reaping rewards directly from suppliers: </strong>Vendors and suppliers are now marketing directly to your employees with upgrades and offers, incenting them to purchase directly from them. Since employees now want a more personalized and flexible experience, to compete with all the options available to travelers in a digital economy, suppliers are creating more and more incentives and rewards for your employees to reap. Disconnected silos of information are then created due to the multiple booking channels that are available to employees, making it very difficult for organizations to accurately track spend and properly negotiate supplier discounts.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Finance departments can’t keep up.</strong> Most finance departments aren’t set up to see—let alone manage—today’s complex employee spending behaviors because they haven’t been keeping up with technology. If you haven’t taken the first steps of automating the fundamental spending processes you manage, and then systematically automating every part of the spending process, you most certainly haven’t taken the next step of connecting all of those spend sources and processes so that all data is captured for complete control over spend. How we buy for business is changing and the way finance departments manage this spend needs to change with it.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>A Better Way for Managing Employee Spend</h2>
<p>The truth is, employee initiated spending is not just about travel or expenses, or even invoices. It’s the way those things intersect with each other, and with the apps and payment methods employees are using to make purchases. If you’re not equipped to understand, connect and control these factors, you’re not equipped to ensure every dollar you spend is put to the best use throughout your organization.</p>
<p>Automating your travel and expense processes is a critical first step. Then, you must go beyond automation by embracing an open strategy to digitally capture all spend whenever and wherever it happens. Adopting technologies that will connect your travel, expense, purchasing cards and invoicing will help you gain the insight to properly forecast and keep you from exceeding budgets—and in the end, help you more effectively manage your organization’s spend.</p>
<p><strong>And that’s where Concur comes in.</strong> Concur is the only solution designed to connect to all your employee initiated spend data so you can see it and proactively manage it—all at once. Concur knows how employees spend, so you can manage employee spending.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about how to capture and manage ALL of your spend to strategically run and grow your business while simplifying the process for your employees, </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact"><strong>contact us today</strong></a><strong>!</strong></p>
SAP Concur
Cash vs. Corporate Card Spend: Does it Really Impact Company Savings?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cash-vs-corporate-card-spend-does-it-really-impact-company-savings
2022-12-05T15:03:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to buckling down on budget there are many ways to find extra savings But with each reduction comes an intangible cost that might be detrimental to your competitive...
<p>When it comes to buckling down on budget, there are many ways to find extra savings:</p>
<ul>
<li>Combine organizational meetings and events</li>
<li>Freeze or reduce budgets for departments</li>
<li>Hold down employee pay increases</li>
</ul>
<p>But with each reduction comes an intangible cost that might be detrimental to your competitive advantage–whether it’s customer satisfaction, employee morale, offering a competitive wage, or limiting the available resources to bring innovation into the market. Fortunately, there’s a less controversial way to drum up extra savings: switch cash spending to corporate cards and gain better control of "invisible" spending.</p>
<h2><strong>Why Your Organization Should Reduce the Use of Cash</strong></h2>
<p><strong>1. Paying with card is cheaper</strong></p>
<p>When you think about what it takes to manage cash at scale – having to manually count the cash, verify the expense, confirm per diems, and key-in expense amounts – the labor and incidental costs can be much more costly. For example, when employees must manually enter cash expenses, errors can be introduced, and non-compliant spending can slip through. Paying with a corporate card forgoes all of that, posting transaction data right into your expense system.</p>
<p><strong>2. Tracking high volumes of cash is difficult</strong></p>
<p>When your employees use cash to pay for corporate expenses, it can be hard to see what expenses are going out the door. And when you can’t see what’s being spent, then you can’t stop it; meaning there’s a higher risk it might not align with your organization’s expense policy. Here’s why cash can cause so many problems when compared to corporate cards:</p>
<ul>
<li>It’s unaccountable and easily abused</li>
<li>It has less documentation and data</li>
<li>Tracking high volumes is difficult for finance and AP teams</li>
<li>Validating manually mapped expenses is more time intensive</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Fraudulent spending lurks around the corner</strong></p>
<p>Asset misappropriation is one of the most common fraud schemes. For cash on hand, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found in its <a href="https://legacy.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2022/">latest 2022 report</a> that the median loss to fraud in a year is $15,000 and lasts an average of 12 months to uncover; the typical velocity (median loss per month) averages $8,300.</p>
<h2><strong>Corporate Cards Increase Opportunities for Savings</strong></h2>
<p>By <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maximizing-corporate-card-rebates-our-8020-rule">leveraging the 80/20 rule</a>, you can encourage more employees to use corporate cards, so your organization can have better controls and visibility. This also makes it easier to connect exact, reconcilable spending data right into your SAP Concur solution. Companies who do this save in many areas, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Quickly gain visibility into spend</strong>: Corporate card transactions can be populated into expense reports within minutes, while cash receipts can take weeks or even months to show up in an expense report.</li>
<li><strong>Return higher quality of data</strong>: Card feeds provide access to digital data that automatically gathers, sends, and verifies where expenses are coming from using bank and receipt information.</li>
<li><strong>Increased corporate rebates</strong>: The more you can put on your corporate cards, the more you can use economies of scale to increase your corporate rebate returns.</li>
<li><strong>Better opportunity to prevent and detect fraud</strong>: With more digital tools to automatically run audits–like with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a> by Oversight–you can flag and address fraudulent spending.</li>
<li><strong>Increased employee satisfaction</strong>: Employees don’t have to pay for company expenses with their own cash, and corporate card spending thresholds can be set to require or forgo the capture of a receipt.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Tips to Increase Corporate Card Adoption</strong></h2>
<p>Sometimes, changing your employees' buying behaviors is the hardest part. If your organization needs help encouraging corporate card adoption, use these best practices:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ensure all employees who should have a corporate card have one.</li>
<li>Provide training to educate your employees and encourage the use of corporate cards.</li>
<li>Make it more difficult to use cash or personal cards.</li>
<li>Consider mandating corporate card use for booking air, car, and hotel spend.</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>SAP Concur Solutions Help You Save More</strong></h2>
<p>Our customers’ corporate card programs help them recoup more funds while getting detailed visibility into employee spend. For more information on reducing non-compliant cash spend, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/playing-your-cards-right-getting-most-your-corporate-card-and-p-card-programs">download our whitepaper.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Expense is the Center of the Business Travel Data Universe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-center-business-travel-data-universe
2022-12-06T13:36:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For as long as I have been in the travel management industry there has always been one consistent topic of discussion What is the best data source for my travel spend data Ive heard...
<p>For as long as I have been in the travel management industry, there has always been one consistent topic of discussion - <strong>What is the best data source for my travel spend data?</strong></p>
<p>I’ve heard arguments for using Travel Management Company (TMC) data, I’ve listened to ideas for using corporate card spend data, and I’ve heard arguments for using supplier data.</p>
<p>But what I’ve come to learn over the years is this - <strong>The true single source for “Travel Spend Truth” is, without a doubt, your expense data!</strong></p>
<p>Expense data is where you’ll find all spend that’s not going onto corporate credit cards and all spend that’s going <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/supplier-direct-bookings-our-post-covid-world">supplier direct</a>.</p>
<p>Another significant realism about travel spend data is that the expense data is tied back to your company’s General Ledger (GL) data. Why is that important, you ask?</p>
<p>Well, it’s important because the GL information is used by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) when reporting a company’s monthly and quarterly earnings. </p>
<p>As travel managers, ask yourself: “What information source does my CFO trust more? The travel data I provide - OR - the GL data coming from a financial analyst?”</p>
<p>I believe the answer is obvious!</p>
<p>While travel is undoubtedly the more appealing aspect of the Travel & Expense (T&E) world, expense is where the rubber meets the road. Your travel program responsibilities do not stop with the booking process and supplier management.</p>
<p>Consider the last time you sat down with your expense manager to strategize how your two departments can work more closely.</p>
<p>In my book, if you already have/do, you’re a progressive, forward-thinking travel leader! And if you haven’t – well, now is a good time to start.</p>
<h2>Taking action</h2>
<p>It would seem to me that the ultimate question you as a travel manager has to consider is, what can you do to become a trusted provider and advisor of T&E spend truth at your company?</p>
<p><strong>Here are four great tips to consider:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Align with your expense manager or team and determine how you two can work more closely with the expense data</li>
<li>Determine how much your expense data can be dissected and what reports are available to work with</li>
<li>Work with the finance data analyst to determine what GL categories of spend the expense data get allocated to</li>
<li>Restructure your travel reports to align with the GL categories of spend</li>
</ol>
<p>Aligning your travel reporting with expense data and GL rollups will help you obtain more accurate travel spend data, gain credibility, and become that trusted adviser across your company’s organizations.</p>
<p>Be a builder of bridges, not silos, and the results will speak for themselves!</p>
Ralph Colunga
Slashing Budgets or Biggest Bang for Your Buck? Zero-Based Budgeting Demystified by Accenture: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-your-buck-zero-based-budgeting-demystified-accenture
2022-12-06T15:23:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Getting teams to think critically about what they need to spend to achieve their goals is no simple feat Defining the outcomes to be achieved places value realization on any change for...
<p>Getting teams to think critically about what they need to spend to achieve their goals is no simple feat. Defining the outcomes to be achieved places value realization on any change for an organization. If overall growth and profitability are key metrics for your organization, zero-based budgeting, or ZBB, might be something to consider. Listen in for immediate tips for how to combat the Great Resignation, harness the power of spend technology, and disambiguate the financial priorities for your organization today. </p>
<p>Alberto Herrera Senior Value Consultant for SAP Concur, shares that this is not a “cost-cutting haircut” but rather showing employees that you’re “putting money where it matters” in this interview with James Portnoy, Senior Strategy and Consulting Manager, and Manoj Das, Managing Director of Human Experience Management for <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/accenture">Accenture</a>.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-for-your-buck-zero/id1525744763?i=1000551022000">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/1DHeYvePJoXJZRJwRyHLXo">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-L0aZYIUXOir/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/slashing-budgets-or-biggest-bang-for-your-buck-zero-based-bu">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjIwYTMzZjkyNjU4MDEwMDEyM2ZiNGQx?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjAi7S4qoD2AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for joining the latest edition of the SAP Concur Conversations Podcast series. So today we're going to be discussing budgeting tips and how organizations are turning to methods like zero-based budgeting to ensure they are spending wisely to help navigate this rapidly changing business landscape. My name is Alberto Herrera, and I am a Senior Value Consultant on the Value Experience Delivery team here at SAP Concur. Joining me today, we have two experts from Accenture who can speak to how companies are using these mindsets to transform culture, align priorities, and also what role data and technologies are playing in this transformation. So, Manoj, let's start with you. Can you just give a brief introduction? Tell us a little bit about yourself.</p>
<p><strong>Manoj Das:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, Alberto. Thank you for hosting this podcast. My name is Manoj Das. I'm Managing Director in our Human Experience Management practice of Accenture North America. And besides HX and practice, I also look after our SAP Concur Travel and Expense practice, and I've done this work in the HR space been for 21 plus years delivering large-scale programs in HR transformation both in on-premises and cloud solutions. Happy to be here.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Fantastic, thank you. And James, can you do a little introduction?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, James Portnoy, also with Accenture. Been with Accenture for a little over 12 years. I'm part of our strategy and consulting practice focusing on CFO and Enterprise value and have spent a considerable amount of time doing some shape or form of finance transformation. And then also part of our strategic cost management, COE in the past where we do a lot of ZBB or ZBx type implementations.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Fantastic. Well, thank you again. Thank you both for being here. So happy to have you on. So, with that, we have a lot of content to cover. So, let's just go ahead and jump right into it. So, I think probably the best place to start is just going to be the basics, just Budgeting 101. So why should companies be thinking not only about budgets, but the underlying process of how to budget? Why is that so important right now?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's a great question, Alberto. Let me maybe take this one. I think if we just back up to the very basic principles of budgeting, it's all about developing your annual operating plan and figuring out what your resource allocation is going to be for a given year. And there's a lot of different methods of budgeting, but ultimately, that's really what it comes down to. And the reason why it's so important is, especially in modern times is the business environment is changing so much, the markets are changing so much. There's a lot of volatility. There's a lot of "black swan" events. And so, having a good process in place to really allocate your resources to where the world's going, where your business strategy is going is really where the premise of budgeting really started and it's been refined over time.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And so how have companies traditionally approach budgets? I think we're going to discuss some newer technologies and approaches, but how is this traditionally approached?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, I think when you talk to anyone who's worked in finance for a while, I think when they hear the term traditional budgeting, it's the typical process of going back and looking at your last year's actuals and just making a percentage-based adjustment. Not necessarily really thinking through and starting from zero around where's the company heading in the next year? What are our strategic priorities? And therefore, what are the optimal? What's the optimal resource allocation to really achieve that business strategy?</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Right, and with those traditional approaches, that's where you get that end of fiscal year rushed to spend as much money as you can, so you don't lose it for next year thing?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the other shortcomings of the traditional budgeting approach is what I mention before. The business environment is changing at a faster pace than it ever has. And so the assumption of whatever we spent last year is a good indicator for what we should be spending this year on a category by category basis doesn't necessarily hold true anymore. I mean, the pandemic's a great example of that.</p>
<p>If someone had budgeted a certain amount of PP&E in 2019 and used that as the basis for their 2020 estimate, I'm sure when they did their budget to actuals variance, there's going to be a massive variance. And some things can't be foreseen, but that's really the premise behind maybe abandoning a traditional budgeting approach and going to something a little bit more dynamic and a little bit more forward and future looking.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, it seems like all these companies are looking for more agility in these processes and their approach to the market. And then so with the traditional budgeting, are there any specific considerations when it comes to the employee initiated spend or travel budgets? Obviously, this is top of mind for us here at SAP Concur.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I mean, I think from a traditional budgeting standpoint on the travel side, it goes back to what I just talked about. A lot of times you'll look at what you spent in the prior year. And then you might get a challenge from your budget holder to see if you can drive some savings off of that. But again, it's usually done on a percent reduction basis in a traditional budgeting process versus if you were to introduce something like a zero-based budget, the change becomes more of you're starting from zero. You don't start from last year and you really have to think through what is the required travel based on where my business is heading for this year and justifying that spend through the ZBB process.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>So, identifying those different needs in your business makes a lot of sense. So, I think that's the perfect transition to go into this zero-based budgeting. So just now that we have those basics down, let's just unwrap what ZBB is. So, can you help define what ZBB is and explain that a little bit?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I'd love to take a crack and I think the concept and the term of ZBB has a lot of different meaning and a lot of different connotations to a lot of different people. And so, if I break down just the acronym of ZBB, it translates into zero-based budgeting. And so, if we look at it purely from a budgeting process, the concept of ZBB is what I just alluded to. It's instead of starting from last year as your starting point to develop your budget, you're really starting from scratch in certain areas of spend like travel and meetings and those things.</p>
<p>And it's a much more rigorous process where because you're starting from scratch, it really makes the budget holders, and the employees think through what do they really need to spend in order to achieve the overarching business strategy. And one of the other concepts that usually is involved in zero-based budgeting is as you're budgeting from zero, you're really incorporating a lot of policies into your budget. Budgeting essentially is policy compliant. And it's a really good way to really control you spend and really focus on what the business needs for the coming year.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Interesting, so it sounds like you touched on it a little bit, but can you elaborate on what problems are companies trying to solve with zero-based budgeting?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and I'd say people use zero-based budgeting for a number of different reasons. I think one of the primary reasons of adopting zero-based budgeting is to get your spend under control. If companies are looking to grow, but they feel like they're bogged down by their expenses or their expenses aren't necessarily supporting their growth initiatives, that's really where it comes into play. And so, I think what people find is that they start with it thinking it's more of a cost optimization exercise. And one of the things I really like to demystify is it's not a cost cutting exercise, it really is about cost allocation. And so, you might be reducing spend in some certain categories, but that doesn't mean you're taking all of that to the bottom line. You might just be reallocating it towards a different category of spend that's more in line with your business strategy and growth.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So instead of that traditional approach of just basically slashing a little bit from everywhere, it's looking at where are my resources going to get the biggest bang for a buck thing, right?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, that's 100% the concept behind it.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And are there specific organizations that this appeals to or is this an across-the-board thing?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's really interesting. I think based on Accenture's experience and we do a lot of this work in a lot of different industries with a lot of different clients. And I'd say there's a spectrum in terms of zero-based concepts that different organizations adopt. And so, some companies use it as an aggressive cost cutting tool while other organizations just use it as a way to get better visibility and be a little bit more granular in terms of how they do their financial planning and allocate their resources.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And so, I want to make sure that we touch on this because I know we're going to mention it a little bit later on in the conversation, but so focused on this overview of ZBB, we have this concept of dual cost ownership. So, what is that and why is that important in terms of zero-based budgeting approach?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so a lot of companies who adopt zero-based budgeting from a budgeting process technique will also take a look at the governance over their budgeting process and introduce, as you said, this concept of dual cost ownership. So, if we think about traditional budgeting, your budget holders own their full P&L and they had the liberty to really move dollars around into different buckets as long as they hit their bottom line and spend and are in line with plan.</p>
<p>The introduction of dual cost ownership essentially introduces almost like a horizontal owner of a budget that looks at a specific category of spend. So, I'll take travel as an example. You might have a global travel category owner whose part of the budgeting process and works with the individual budget holders to ensure that he's really challenging them to budget from zero and make sure that they're really allocating only the dollars they really need to hit their overarching strategy. And so, what that does is it really drives standards and consistency around policy adoption and policy compliance across different areas of the organization.</p>
<p>And it's especially in global companies where you have a lot of different business units and working in a lot of different regions, having this concept of a global cost owner or even a regional cost owner to drive these standards is a way to really normalize spend across the organization. And where you might find little pockets of savings in each cost center, each budget holder, when you add those all up across the organization and drive that through a dual cost ownership structure, it can actually result in really significant savings. And we've seen those materialize across our clients a lot.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>So, when we talk about that dual cost ownership, it sounds like it's a way for accountability, but also a way to get some buy-in from some leadership and some managers that are managing these budgets, right?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah, and we might start touching on the change management approach a little bit later, but that's absolutely one of the bigger benefits of the dual cost ownership structure. A lot of times you'll actually put pretty senior folks into these dual cost owner roles or global cost package owner roles and it's a way to really demonstrate that the organization is serious about adopting this new budgeting process or this new culture of cost consciousness.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>So, is that a really time consuming task for some of these senior leadership that are at that level and having to improve at that dual cost?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think I'd say it's in the short term as you're really standing up these programs, it does take some time. You have to onboard them; you have to explain the concept of dual cost ownership and you have to explain what their roles and responsibilities are. And there's obviously a change adoption approach in terms of getting them comfortable with their role and getting them integrated into the budget cycle and having them go through a couple cycles. So, I'd say upfront, there's a little bit of extra work. As companies continuously repeat this process, it really just gets embedded their DNA and it just becomes part of business as usual.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, so let's elaborate on some other pros for zero-based budgeting. So, there's a concept of optimizing cost not just budgets. So how does that help?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so I mean, I think, again, it goes back to some of the concepts we talked about before. So, I think the number one benefit of going through a zero-based budgeting process is what I already mentioned, which is really optimizing your resource allocation to where the business is going and where the business strategy is leading the company. I think secondly, because you're budgeting at a more granular level and you're putting a lot more rigor into the process, once you're done with the budget, it's set, but then you're going to be adjusting and things happen throughout the year.</p>
<p>Because you've planned at such a detail level, things come up throughout the year. What it really gives you is flexibility to make changes on the fly as you're going through the year and still hit those budget targets as things happen across the business. So, I think one is, again, it's maximizing that resource allocation against strategy and two is the agility and flexibility it gives you to make changes throughout the year as things happen in the business.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so I would assume that the companies that had already implemented a zero-based budgeting approach before March of 2020 probably fared a little bit better in those preceding months, right?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think obviously having your budget outlined at a granular level could only have been a beneficiary. I think those who also had not only the budgeting process nailed down, but really good ongoing, what we call control and monitoring or just ongoing visibility and reporting. Those who have that near real time information at a granular level, easy to access are able to really react a lot faster and understand what the levers they have to pull because they planned at such a detail level.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And then so billing off of what you spoke earlier about just some of the human intents resources that are required at the beginning setup upstage or that granularity of data that's needed, are those some of the larger barriers to this process? And how do some of these clients overcome those?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think, and I mentioned this earlier too, I think absolutely if you haven't done the process before and it's a completely new concept, there is a change adoption curve that every single company needs to get on. Anybody who's used to doing things a certain way, if you completely transform that and have a completely new process to put in place that's way more granular, requires way more effort, there's going to be a learning curve and a little bit of pain and noise up front.</p>
<p>What we've seen though is those who stick with it and really have that sponsorship at the top of we want to be a cost-conscious culture, after they go through a couple cycles, again, it just becomes business as usual and the norm. And it becomes a lot easier once you get comfortable with what the process looks like, how you do it, the different driver-based models you would use for different categories of spend. It just becomes second nature to companies.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And so also you had touched on some of these misconceptions around zero-based budgeting and I want to focus on the management technique versus the budget cutting process. I think a lot of people see this as just a way to slash budgets. It's another excuse to slash budgets, start at zero thing, but it really is more of a management technique. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. And it's always one of the first things we talk about in terms of demystifying ZBB. It's not about cost cutting just for the sake of cost cutting. Usually, the end result is you do generate savings out of doing this process, but you do that by really getting to that granular visibility of what is currently going on, identifying savings initiatives around policy compliance, around vendor rationalization and building all of those into your budget to really optimize your cost towards where your company's going. So, we talk about it as a management technique. It's a management technique to actually get your organization to allocate your resources to the business strategy versus just saying, we're going to do this to go after and cut costs when the end result might actually have a negative impact on the top line of the company.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, so I think that really speaks to that transformation of culture that we mentioned in the beginning. So, this ZBB approach, the intent is really to transform that culture, to have all of the people in the chain look at the resources that are required to do their jobs effectively and then determine, all right, where are these resources going to be most effective? Whereas you have these cost cutting initiatives that a lot of the ones that I've seen implemented throughout the years, you get a really nice return in that first year or something like that, year, year and a half and then a lot of that cost just bubbles back up in different ways.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's a great observation. Absolutely something that we see across a lot of our clients who go through, what I'll say, cut to the bone type cost cutting exercises without really thinking through is this is sustainable solution? And so, I think again, one of those demystification around ZBB or zero-based management being more of a management technique than just a budgeting process is exactly that because we see the ZBB process as being something that's sustainable in a way to continuously evaluate your spend and move those dollars around every single year based on where that company is going.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and I think sustainability is the key word there. I know that Accenture performed this analysis on, I think it was on some publicly traded M&E companies where they found that the cost cutting initiatives that they had implemented, they saw an initial positive impact, but it reverted below prior profit levels, I think within two years or something like that. So, they got that initial little bump and then within two years, it was completely gone. And I think that was something that you all had published on your site.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think one of the things that we see a lot of the time is they'll treat this as a one-time project. And you'll go through the rigor of understanding who spends how much on what. You'll go through the rigor of identifying a number of savings initiatives. You'll go through the zero-based budgeting process and bake those initiatives into your budget. And that's where sometimes they'll stop.</p>
<p>And then when you take your foot off the gas and don't pay attention to the ongoing visibility and the ongoing reporting and control and monitoring and the ongoing continuous identification of initiatives, that's where a lot of the times we'll see some of those savings start creeping back into the P&L because they treat it as a one-time exercise versus treating as a true cultural shift to being a cost conscious culture and starting to really think through how they spend and say, "I'm going to spend my company dollars as if they were my own."</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And I think one of the easy ways out for some of these cost cutting measures that they can piece it together. They can say, all right, we're going to cut the travel budget by X percent or we're going to cut this other procurement budget by X percent. Can a similar practice be used for ZBB? Can you piece ZBB into places or is it all or nothing thing?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, yeah, great question. It's an absolute spectrum. And so, there's different, even within zero-based budgeting, there's different budgeting techniques that you can take, and you might apply different techniques or different levels of initiatives on different categories of spend. And so, we talk about a spectrum too because there're certain companies who really do need what we call fuel for growth. They really do need to look at the entire spend, entire taxonomy and look at all categories of spend and try to incorporate zero-based budgeting concepts into as many of those as they can.</p>
<p>Other companies will take more of a hybrid approach and they might say, we're going to apply ZBB principles to a set of categories of spend like travel and meetings and go down that route. So, it's absolutely flexible. Like I said, it's a methodology and it's a technique and you can apply it to a number of different examples. And there's no one size fits all answer to this.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Do some companies use that as a buy-in technique to piloting certain areas of it and then rolling it out to other areas of the organization?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. We've definitely seen that where you might start with a couple categories and say, let's go prove this out. And they see the results that come out of that. And then they expand it into future categories. Absolutely, we've seen that happen.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent, and so we had talked about ZBB and how companies who implemented it before the pandemic probably fared a little bit better, but why should companies now start to think about ZBB as they prepare to engage in a recovery strategy?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>I think more important than ever, we're in this, what people are calling the new normal. And I think we're still trying to understand what that new normal is and it's a fluid situation. I mean, every single week, we've got new guidance from the CDC that could be impacting our return-to-work policies or our PP&E policies. And so, I think doing the zero-based budgeting process and trying to get down to that level of rigor could...</p>
<p>It's going to be really valuable for the recovery process because things are going to change. And so, having that granular visibility and knowing where the levers are to pull, when things do change is going to be incredibly valuable. So, I think it's absolutely something that other companies who haven't adopted it should take a close look at it to have that flexibility and agility throughout the year as things are changing.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Right, we have seen that huge shift in this employee initiated spend. When you think of the COVID work from home, expenses that came along with that, we were seeing new expense categories and different things like that. So, with that work from home, we've seen this dramatic increase in overuse or even misuse of miscellaneous and other expense types. So how does that impact the financial forecasting when you see more and more things being put in these large gray buckets?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, so when we talk about other and miscellaneous, we see issues in terms of visibility and getting visibility to spend both in your T&E systems like a Concur where you give employees the option to hit those other and miscellaneous as well as in, even in your general ledger, you're going to have ledger accounts that have that miscellaneous and other designation to it. When we go through this process as part of budgeting, we don't only look at the budgeting process.</p>
<p>The other thing we really look to do as part of this cost-conscious culture build is create ongoing visibility control and monitoring. And a lot of times what we'll do is we'll take a look at the ledger; we'll take a look at your T&E system and look at your category of spend and do the best to normalize your spend taxonomy. And when you start coding expenses, whether it's in your ledger, in your T&E system, having a home for every spend at least on the indirect side, that's going to come through and really trying to minimize the use of that other and miscellaneous.</p>
<p>And unforeseen things happen like the pandemic where new categories of spend that you never even thought of creep up. But I think that's really where a tool that Concur and the flexibility and ease of adding a new category and connecting into your ledger is pretty useful. You can do it incredibly fast and start getting visibility to those new categories of spend an incredibly fast way.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, with those tools that are highly configurable like Concur, we did see clients coming up with just really unique ways to handle these new business challenges. They really rose to the occasion and they were able to track all of this spend that would've just gone into those big gray barrels and just gone off into the ether, so.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and I can't even... On the surface, it might not even seem super material, but even just having that metadata that sits in your T&E system around who's buying the PP&E equipment and what work from home equipment are they buying, it can be really useful from a workforce planning standpoint and the return to work planning standpoint to understand what real estate are we going to need and what are the trends we're seeing across the organization in terms of what we should be budgeting for going forward.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>So, I think with that, let's go into the process and technologies that are required to implement a solution like ZBB. So just high level of what technologies are useful to gather these data points. And then what does that process look of setting up something like this in an organization?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, so again, I'll go back to there's a spectrum of ways to do it, but the way we've traditionally approached implementing a ZBB type program is actually starts before the budgeting process. So usually, the first thing we want to is establish our baseline of spend and we call that visibility at Accenture. It's really understanding who spends how much on what. And so, establishing that baseline, we look at the ledger, we'll look at accounts payable data, we'll look at purchase order data, we'll look at T&E data to essentially refine and do a forensic analysis on the general ledger and essentially restate 12 months of spend to establish a baseline.</p>
<p>Then what we do is we use that and then assess policies, we assess how many vendors are being used and essentially develop a series of what we call savings initiatives or value targeting initiatives, where we believe there's further opportunity for better cost allocation across the enterprise. And then we might move into the governance setup. We talked about the concept of dual cost ownership. And before you even want to go into your zero-based budgeting process, if you're going to go with that concept of dual cost ownership, you want to identify who those cost category owners are going to be, onboard them, explain what the ZBB process is going to look like.</p>
<p>And only then do you actually get to the actual zero-based budgeting process that we've talked about on this podcast so far. And that's where we start really ironing out and baking in and timing those savings initiatives that we identified and locking them into the budgets. And that's one of the biggest reasons that we see a lot of P&L benefit coming out of this process because you're actually locking those savings initiatives into the budget and trying to hold your budget holders accountable to them.</p>
<p><strong>Manoj Das:</strong></p>
<p>And to add from technology perspective, Alberto, you asked what technology is required? James talked about the process. Obviously, you need a system that can hold the budget information. That's your financial system. And then you need all the system that will provide necessary input either in the form of this spend such as Ariba from procurement perspective or a system like SAP Concur from travel expense perspective and some other information that are required to connect together such as the employee data, information such as the HR system.</p>
<p>So those are the systems that are required. And if the companies have other expense, they need a track such as real estate system that will track the cost that comes along with it. All the inputs need to be tracked somewhere. And those systems will provide the input ultimately to go to the finance system where the budget information will be held, and reporting will be done to understand the variation from those in the budget and to then do for the analysis to understand where things are not going according to the plans. Those are technology components that are required.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Right, and so it sounds like you're going into that control and monitoring phase. So, you're saying these are all the systems that are required to gather these data points in order to be able to go into that control and monitoring phase to make sure that all of those policies that you set up previously are being followed and things like that.</p>
<p><strong>Manoj Das:</strong></p>
<p>That's right. I think when clients are going through a journey like ZBB, there are two major aspects to consider broadly. One is the strategy of ZBB that they want to implement, being clear about what is outcome and the process in which they will apply the ZBB and the concept of their situation. But also, from sustainability perspective that was James was talking about, it is not just a one-time effort and one time exercise.</p>
<p>So, you need a set of tools that are able to be connected that will capture data from a spend category for example that will pass necessary information that can use for controlling and understanding whether the ZBB intentions are being followed and if they're not followed, what are the deviations? And being able to then drill down to detail to understand where deviations are coming from.</p>
<p>So, it's really important that when companies are going through this exercise, they're keeping these two aspects at the same time. One is understanding ZBB side, strategy and implementation. At the same time, having the technology that can be implemented at the same time so that you are able to sustain this on an ongoing basis, not just a one-time effort.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrara:</strong></p>
<p>And it sounds like that repeatability is one of those crucial aspects for that transformation of culture that this process is looking to do. And without that monitoring phase of this process, you would go ahead, you go through all this trouble, set this process up, everyone would go about their year and then you'd have to start from scratch the next year. I think it sounds like this control and monitoring phase helps this be a repeatable thing where the next year just gets easier and easier to be able to implement this, right?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, Alberto and I actually want to hit on what you talk about with control and monitoring and connect it back to talking about there's a spectrum of ways to do this in some of the trends we're seeing. And one of the trends lately that I'm seeing is there are companies out there who actually don't necessarily want to go through the visibility, the value targeting, even sometimes the zero-based budgeting process. And they skip straight to, I just want granular control and monitoring.</p>
<p>So, some companies, they might not go full on ZBB, but they're really, really emphasizing getting this visibility in an ongoing, automated and sustainable way. And so that's one trend I'd say that we're seeing more and more of is a bigger emphasis on this really good spend analytic reporting both from a financial standpoint as well as from an operational standpoint. And what I mean by that is some of the things Manoj was mentioning, which is financial reporting is one thing and understanding did I hit my budget, or do I have a variance? And where did that occur? And what spend category did that occur?</p>
<p>And another lens to put on is understanding why and some of that operational data travel for example, why did I miss my travel budget? You might have to go into your T&E system and understand how well am I doing on my compliance against policy? Am I following the number of hotel nights I'm allotted? Am I booking my flights 21 days in advance if that's my policy? And having that operational reporting to understand the deviations in the financials is something we're seeing a lot of companies want to get their hands around.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I mean, to me, that sounds like one of the key takeaways from this whole conversation because zero-based budgeting, when you're first introduced to it, it sounds like such a daunting task, insurmountable. It's easy to look at what you spent last year and say, "All right, this minus 5%." But to really start from scratch, it sounds like this mountain of a goal. But I think that what we're saying is that if you have those correct platforms in place and you're gathering the right data, that this just continues to get easier and easier and it becomes second nature, right?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>And so, one of the things that I want to get a little bit better understanding of was with this great resignation upon us, you have this employee retention is at the top of mind for a lot of executives. Are you able to gather the impact of ZBB on employee sentiment and what that experience is?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I don't know if we've seen anything specific as part of the great resignation, but it's always something you want to consider when you're implementing this. There's absolutely, off the bat, sometimes a negative reaction to it. And I think a lot of that's just rooted in needing to be educated and understanding what it is and what it isn't because I think going back to one of the first things we talked about, most people, if they hear the words ZBB will go and Google it.</p>
<p>And a lot of the things you'll get back is cost cutting and some really negative language around it. And so I think it's really important to demystify it up front and explain to your entire employee base why you're doing it, what the benefit is going to be to the company and in term what the end benefit is going to be to the employee. So, I think there's always going to be some noise whenever you're doing any transformation, but it's just about how you communicate it and get ahead of it from a change management strategy standpoint.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Right, and I think that just goes back to that buy-in, of getting that buy-in from not only leadership, but the individuals that are managing these budgets, the individuals that are contributing to these budgets. I think that having that right messaging makes all the difference. If you're talking about, hey, let's just have this cost cutting haircut compared to, hey, let's take analyze approach to this. Let's really look at what we're spending money on, where we're going to make the biggest impact. And I think that if you have that right communication to employees, they'll see like, oh, okay, they really care about what's important. They're putting money where it matters. We're just not wastefully spending and cutting money everywhere.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and I think I'll add just one more thing to that, Alberto, in terms of the evolution of this process over the last, even just five years because ZBB isn't even anything new. It's been around I think since the 70s or 80s. But I think one of the things that's really improved from an employee experience standpoint is even when we started doing this heavily in the market, it was extremely human intensive. And that was partly because of where technology was at the time.</p>
<p>And even in the last five years with S/4 coming in from SAP and the universal ledger. And it's just a lot easier to get your hands on some of this data. And a lot of companies have done a lot of work around automating certain reporting. And so, I think technology has also been a big driver of actually alleviating this process and making a little bit more automated and taking a little bit of the burden off of the finance, procurement and the employee base.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, and then so with all that, how do you assess or gauge if it's working? What is that golden metric that you look for to make sure that this is actually doing what is promised?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think it's a great question and there's a lot of different ways to measure success. I think it's important to start out when you start this is to define the outcomes that you're trying to achieve. And I think putting a value realization component on top of this that says, when we start this program, here's the outcomes we're trying to achieve and we're going to create metrics around that that are measurable and we're going to measure those.</p>
<p>So, I think in terms of what determines success, for me, I think is after two years or three years if they're still running this process and it's part of second nature and it's part of the culture. I think that's what we would consider success in a lot of these programs. And frankly, I haven't seen any of these that didn't actually result and both better resource allocation as well as actual P&L savings. And so, I think company growth and profitability growth is probably the best measure of success for these programs.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent, and so I know we covered a lot of information. So, if we had to narrow it down to three to five key takeaways, what are three to five things that you would want listeners to take away from this conversation today?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Sure, so I think one goes back to my key point on the demystification. I think the one thing I want anyone who's not super familiar with ZBB or if it's a new concept to them is to understand that ZBB is not a cost cutting measure, it's a management technique. It's a way to allocate resources to your business strategy. I think the second thing is that there's a spectrum. There's not a one size fits all for zero-based concepts and zero-based management techniques.</p>
<p>And any company can take a look at the full spectrum of a ZBx methodology and pick and choose concepts that fit best for them and implement them. And there's absolutely a way to do that. And then third is technology absolutely does play a role in the sustainability of running a process like this and getting that ongoing visibility control and monitoring and understanding not just the financial root of your spend, but also the operational drivers is what's going to create the sustainable solution and sustainable savings ongoing and that sustainable optimal resource allocation towards your strategy.</p>
<p><strong>Manoj Das:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I'll add a couple things to that from technology lens. It's really important that you have a technology that allows you to be able to implement with the degree of rigor that ZBB will be required to be implemented. So topnotch technology that has those capabilities are very important. So far as HR system is concerned such as SAP success factors, such as a cloud-based system, such as for talking about spend category, they industry related is SAP Conquer and that is extremely robust and that can meet all the needs of capturing information, having the controls right up front in the beginning, when the expenses are captured, passing on the data that will be further analyzed once it goes to the finance system.</p>
<p>That is a critical thing to keep in mind from technology perspective. The second thing on the technology perspective is the timing, when these technologies are put together in conjunction with ZBB. If the ZBB is done and all this controlling and monitoring activities are left to be done again manually after the first initial year, then likely the success that you're going to see is going to be reduced because you're going to have to have more effort, more project-based work from ZBB perspective and then redo the whole thing.</p>
<p>So, the best thing to consider is to do the technology implementation along with ZBB. So, the benefit A, can be realized in the first year itself in terms of savings and objectives that we have from ZBB, but also it can be sustainable. Sustainability is the most important factor here that allows you to use the benefit in longer term and change the culture per se.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>That is great input. Yeah, making this process repeatable, sustainable is definitely a key to a successful implementation of ZBB or a process similar. Fantastic, so anything else you would all like to add into this?</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, Alberto, maybe we can insert this. And I was going to add a fourth takeaway from this and that's on the adoption. And what I mean by that is where we've seen the most success of these programs is when there's a really C-suite level, top down sponsorship of moving towards a more cost conscious culture because I think a lot of times where we see it fail is if your senior leaders aren't bought in and they're not especially adopting the behaviors that they're expecting of their own employee base, that's where we a lot of times see it fail because if the employee base is being asked to give up some of their things that they love for the betterment of the entire company and they don't see those same behaviors being reflected in their leadership, then it's going to cause a lot of tension and that's where we see a lot of change management issues. So, I think top-down sponsorship and then top-down behavior is absolutely critical to the success of this program being sustainable.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, that's a great add in. Leading by example is always going to be a great way to get buy-in from those users. I completely agree.</p>
<p><strong>Manoj Das:</strong></p>
<p>And Alberto, to close it, I'll say thank you very much from our Accenture team, James and myself for having us here. And hopefully this conversation has been very useful to our listeners.</p>
<p><strong>Alberto Herrera:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, I want to thank both of you for being on today. I hope the listeners found this very useful. I know I did. It was a great conversation, a lot of content, a lot of things to take away and think about. So again, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.</p>
<p><strong>James Portnoy:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Manoj_Das.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Manoj has 21+ years of experience in advising clients in their HR transformation journey using technology. He leads global HR technology implementations for clients across industries in the areas of HR, talent management, time management, payroll operations, travel and expense management, integration with enterprise Management applications.</p>
<p>Manoj runs a non-profit organization focused in providing educational services in the field of Meditation. His year around Meditation workshops are attended by people across USA, Canada, Australia, and India</p>
<p>Follow Manoj on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoj-das-5a72092/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Alberto_Herrera.png" /> </p>
<p>Alberto is a Sr. Value Consultant on the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data driven insights for programmatic improvements. He’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. He has managed multiple T&E programs in both the financial services and life sciences industries. His background in Tax Accounting and Corporate audit drive a passion for process improvement, looking to bring best practice to all clients that align with their primary business objectives. When he is not wading through data he enjoys traveling with his family and volunteering his time with one of the two non-profits he is on the board of.</p>
<p>Follow Alberto on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-herrera-public/">LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
What every CPO should know about employee spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-every-cpo-should-know-about-employee-spend
2022-12-30T14:52:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of finance So what does this mean for the reality of employee spend If the patterns of employee spending are changing then your...
<p>The pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of finance:</p>
<ul>
<li>New spending patterns take hold</li>
<li>Employees are buying like never before</li>
<li>Global travel is making a comeback</li>
<li>Employee work expectations have shifted</li>
</ul>
<p>So, what does this mean for the reality of employee spend? If the patterns of employee spending are changing, then your strategy and spend management processes that uphold transparency and compliance must also evolve. Take this most recent situation as an example:</p>
<p>During the year 2020, many businesses experienced an intense period of change due to COVID restrictions and pivoting to remote and hybrid work environments. That year, SAP Concur customers saw a 58% increase in their expense category “Other”.</p>
<p>A category notoriously known for having no visibility, an increase in the expense category “Other” was a signal to companies that the business environment was changing. And if they failed to keep up, then it would affect their company’s ability to manage spending and forecast budgets come the new year. Hence, risking an infamous memo to be sent to all department heads to cut expenses and keep the business afloat in the company’s last quarter.</p>
<p>Quite often, employee spending spills into corporate travel managed programs, along with “Other”, which procurement oversees given its supplier role. This leaves it up to procurement and CPOs to ask their teams<strong>: </strong></p>
<p>“How are we adjusting to this shift?” and, "What’s the cost of doing nothing?"</p>
<p>Since the global disruption in supply chains, along with significant furloughs and business losses, procurement executives must recognize that cost reduction should not be the sole consideration when negotiating or renewing agreements with travel suppliers. Serge Kogon, Value Advisor at SAP Concur, explains:</p>
<p>“It’s just as important to ensure that key travel suppliers – such as the travel management company (TMC), key lodging partners; air, rail, and ground transportation providers; and related services providers – are adequately compensated for the additional effort and costs associated with ensuring traveler health.”</p>
<p>What role should CPOs and their teams play to better grasp true spend across their organization? Here are three questions every CPO should ask their teams:</p>
<h3>1. Are you connecting travel data and expense data together so you can gain a complete view of actual spend?</h3>
<p>Organizations that are fine with the status quo and fail to adjust end up being less profitable. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/in-tech-led-pursuit-of-sound-financial-footing">According to EIU,</a> in terms of the priorities that executives have top of mind, they revolve heavily around the deployment of technology to deliver increased use of data and analytics (42%). This means using connected technology to look at trips booked compared to actual spend -- and is a first step in getting better control and insight into true employee spend. While this may seem like a simple analysis, reporting on this spend can be challenging when two different internal teams with different priorities own the process and, worse yet, the data sits in separate silos. Sometimes this data sits outside the company within vendor usage reports.</p>
<p><strong>What can procurement do?</strong> It takes a cross-functional, aligned strategy to work with the various players in finance, travel, AP, etc. CPO’s should focus on helping lead the efforts to aggregate this data and bring visibility to the various internal stakeholders. Eventually, this heightened partnership can save money, provide better data to manage and forecast spending, and help negotiate better terms with travel suppliers and vendors. CPOs and procurement teams should also look to empower various stakeholders with visual dashboards and reporting that shows actual and forecasted spend to inevitably help keep costs down.</p>
<h3>2. In what channels do employees have to spend company dollars, and what systems are tracking this spend?</h3>
<p>The pandemic has only accelerated the fact that employees are using more and more channels to pay for goods and services – now with contactless credit cards, ghost cards, virtual cards, checks, P-cards, and other payment methods. And they are likely all managed by multiple systems that don’t connect or share data.</p>
<p><strong>What can procurement do?</strong> CPOs and procurement teams should look to conduct an assessment of channels, along with how your company is tracking each of the payment methods; this may help you identify the size of the disparate spending channel issue. Automating each part of the spending process, CPOs should start with expense and then move to travel, non-PO spend, or invoice, and connect those processes with all sources of spending. At SAP Concur, we’ve seen that digitizing data is at the forefront of many C-suite leaders, and some savvy procurement and finance leaders are connecting spend within this corporate initiative, sometimes referred to as “big data.” </p>
<h3>3. Is it easy to capture all outside bookings – or rogue spend – beyond your traditional corporate travel channels?</h3>
<p>Despite the pandemic creating even more strict travel policies and procedures, employees are excited to return to travel. But it’s often proven difficult to change employee buying preferences. Many organizations are still struggling with employees booking travel and paying for work expenses outside of company guidelines.</p>
<p>In an interview with Kathy Hinton, the former CPO for Tesero Corporations, she claims it is because “travel is often viewed as personal.” Whether for convenience, cost, or business need, employees who get reimbursed for outside bookings and offer no visibility into where that spend came from, contribute to a “leakage” issue – a problem that exists in every company. Travel suppliers also fuel spend management leakage, putting millions of dollars into clever marketing and loyalty programs that encourage employees to buy directly from their airline, hotel, taxi service, or short-term lodging.</p>
<p><strong>What can procurement do? </strong>Investing in a modern spend management solution with automation can help your business uncover this “leakage” and keep track of rogue spend. Whether it’s gaining visibility through integrating card feeds, encouraging mobile receipt capture, or flagging reoccurring, noncompliant spend as a signal that it’s time to update policies or provide employee training. You can also look to arm employees with mobile, consumer-like experiences, so they can capture receipts and accurate data while on the go.</p>
<h2>Increase procurement oversight with SAP Concur Solutions</h2>
<p>Every time money is spent, your business needs to capture that data and bring it back to a central system. Unfortunately, manual and disparate spend management systems prevent procurement teams from getting a comprehensive view of spend in time to effect strategy for budget. This is causing companies like yours to respond blindly to unexpected disruptions, exhausting the supply chain, and preventing the efficiency of managing resources. Fortunately, digital tools are helping procurement functions better understand, analyze, and improve their visibility into procured spend.</p>
<p>For more information, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/four-insights-every-cpo-should-know-about-travel-expense">read this whitepaper</a> on the four insights procurement officers should know about travel and expense. To learn more about key spend trends and risks you can’t afford to ignore, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance">visit us online</a>.</p>
Erin Giordano
What Are Industry Benchmarks for Accounts Payable Efficiency?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-industry-benchmarks-accounts-payable-efficiency
2022-12-30T15:27:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Time is money and accounts payable departments are continuously looking for ways to optimize cashflow by avoiding late fees taking advantage of early payments or negotiating better...
<p>Time is money and accounts payable departments are continuously looking for ways to optimize cashflow by avoiding late fees, taking advantage of early payments, or negotiating better pricing and delivery terms with vendors. Evaluation of the optimal amount of time between when these expenses are submitted, approved, and paid -- what we call spend governance -- is a barometer of whether an AP process is as efficient as it could be.</p>
<h2>Barriers to accounts payable efficiency</h2>
<p>Increasing the rate at which expenses are submitted, approved, and paid isn’t as simple as cutting the checks more quickly. Top challenges for AP processes include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Poor data entry and errors</li>
<li>Inefficient storage</li>
<li>Slow processing</li>
<li>Lost invoices</li>
<li>Ineffective fraud prevention</li>
<li>Lost cash</li>
<li>Exception invoice volumes</li>
</ul>
<p>Because accounts payable's core function is to pay only the organization’s expenses that are legitimate and accurate, challenges like these must be resolved before payments can be issued. Delayed payments can result in finance charges, unhappy employees, or poor vendor relations. Further consequences of delayed payments may result in delays in supply of future goods, downgrading of credit rating, adverse impact of manufacturing and shipment schedules and associated revenue, as well as dissatisfied customers or employees. Inversely, paying vendors too early can also impact a company’s ability to meet other financial obligations due to reduced cashflow. That’s why leveraging industry benchmarks to create a timeline that factors in all these elements can create and gauge an efficient AP process.</p>
<h2>Evaluate your AP process</h2>
<p>The "time-to-pay" metric starts from the moment when the first expense is approved to when it is marked as paid in your system. Optimize your time-to-pay to have a positive impact on your organization’s cash position, credit rating, relationships with suppliers, and accuracy of corporate financial reports. Look at your back-office processes as a starting point to uncovering inefficiency.</p>
<h2>Industry benchmarks</h2>
<p>SAP Concur experts recommend keeping your overall time-to-pay between two days to approve and three days to pay. Here are some time-to-pay industry benchmarks for you to celebrate if you’re on-track or to help you adjust your timelines in order to make your process more efficient:<a class="lightbox" href="#_"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/ExpenseWF_.png" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h2>How to get started</h2>
<p>Once you’ve seen how your timeline matches your industry standard, here are some best practices to make your AP processes more efficient:</p>
<ol>
<li>Configure audit rules on expense types and simplify approvals workflow</li>
<li>Integrate credit card and purchasing card feeds so that data automatically flows into your spend management system with minimal human touch</li>
<li>Facilitate the automatic capture and categorization of receipts and invoices while educating employees on how to use mobile apps for receipt capture, approval, and reporting</li>
<li>Automate the payment and reimbursement process to suppliers and employees</li>
</ol>
<p>If creating a culture of spend governance that values how, when, and who spends your organization’s dollars is a priority, we encourage you to start with establishing a reasonable time-to-pay expense processing timeline. Comparing your timeline to your industry colleagues’ will make your AP process more efficient. That way, instead of simply maintaining an AP process, the bottom-line performance of your organization is constantly optimized. <strong>Determine time-to-pay and other accounts payable efficiencies with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Expense ROI calculator</a>.</strong></p>
Kathryn Kamin
New Finance Leader 90-Day Action Plan
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-finance-leader-90-day-action-plan
2023-02-16T11:29:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Having a plan for your first days on the job can set you on a more solid path to success in your new finance leader role Writing down your plan and every major step involved can help...
<p>Having a plan for your first 90 days on the job can set you on a more solid path to success in your new finance leader role. Writing down your plan and every major step involved can help you track your progress during this busy time.</p>
<p>During your first few months, you’ll focus on being a great listener to understand how the business runs and learn about the individuals who run it. To get started, here’s a month-by-month look at the ground you’ll generally need to cover. You can also use our new finance leader checklist to structure your plan in more detail.</p>
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<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
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<h5>Your 30-60-90-day action plan</h5>
<p>The first days as a new finance leader can be a whirlwind. Our free checklist will help you create a successful plan for your transition into the role.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">Get the checklist</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Month 1: Start info-gathering and learning</h2>
<p>You just started your new role, but before you know it, you’ll be finishing your first month. Your calendar will be one of your most important tools to keep your plan on track.</p>
<p> First, schedule time with your manager to meet and determine how you’ll spend your first few weeks. Prioritize the items that are important to your manager, and get those on the calendar, too.</p>
<p>Then, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-technology-systems-and-best-practices">find out which systems you’ll need access to</a>, and schedule time to set up your access and learn how to use each one.</p>
<p>You’ll also be setting up one-on-one meetings with your direct reports, plus regular team meetings, to learn more about your team, discuss challenges, and set goals. Be sure to schedule meetings with department leaders <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-build-key-relationships">to start building relationships</a> and gain a better understanding of the company. For example, connecting with human resources and IT leaders can give you greater insights into the employee experience and the technology considerations of the business.</p>
<p>Also, be sure to block out time regularly to do industry and business research.</p>
<h2>Month 2: Evaluate what you’ve been learning</h2>
<p>As you enter your second month, you’re probably establishing informed opinions on what you’ve been learning about the company, its people, and your role.</p>
<p>Take advantage of your access to data and the numbers to complete the storylines. With this information and your additional research, you can start to identify opportunities for improvement that can maximize your impact and make a lasting difference for the business.</p>
<p>For example, maybe you see how updating the expense process could make a big impact on cash flow. Or maybe you can find ways to improve the accounts payable process that would also make vendors happier. It might not be time yet to act on these thoughts. But it is the ideal time to gather ideas and do some research.</p>
<p>Further into month two, as you continue to gain context, is a great time to continue growing relationships with other leaders in the business. Schedule check-ins to see how their projects are going. Start discussing how you can help them reach their goals and how that all fits in the larger story of the company.</p>
<h2>Month 3: Collaborate and create your plan</h2>
<p>In your third month, you should be starting to hit your stride in your daily work and establish a certain level of trust with your colleagues. </p>
<p>You probably have a clearer idea now of which business areas or individuals need more support. This is a great month to focus on finding solutions to challenges. It’s also time to finalize your ideas on the business and develop an initial plan of actions you want to take. </p>
<p>Share your plan with your manager and get their feedback. They can be a major player in bringing your plan to life—like, for example, if it includes a new process or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">platform to handle expense reports</a>.</p>
<p>During this phase, you should also have figured out how you’d like to grow your new role and what kind of leader you hope to be.</p>
<h3>Looking ahead</h3>
<p>In your new role, you’ll need to quickly immerse yourself in the industry, finances, people, and company culture. Using the guidance in this article and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">this checklist</a>, you can be ready to go from day one with a framework to set priorities, gain support, and use technology to make a positive impact on company operations and cash flow.</p>
<p>Read the previous article in our series: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/build-relationships-in-your-first-90-days-as-finance-leader">Build Relationships in Your First 90 Days as Finance Leader</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Additional resources</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/remote-employee-expense-policy">How to Create a Remote Employee Expense Policy</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">Free Invoice Policy Template and 7 Tips for Getting Started</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/checklist-find-right-solution-smaller-business-expense-tracking">Checklist: Find the Right Solution for Smaller Business Expense Tracking</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Capturing Inaccurate Payments and Travel Voucher Fraud for the U.S. Federal Government Before They Hit the News
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/capturing-inaccurate-payments-and-travel-voucher-fraud-us-federal-government-they-hit
2023-08-24T15:27:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each instance of fraud in the Federal Government costs on average K according to ACFE While most government employee fraud is unintentional that doesnt stop it from occurring Each...
<p>Each instance of fraud in the Federal Government costs on average $194K, <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/default.aspx">according to ACFE</a>. While most government employee fraud is unintentional that doesn’t stop it from occurring. Each individual agency has additional travel policies beyond the Federal Travel Regulations (FTR,) and these policies are often difficult to communicate to field offices.</p>
<p>Individual travelers and approving officials may not be up-to-date on the latest and greatest travel policy change, and it may be impossible to catch all the mistakes —intentional or unintentional— that may be present on travel vouchers. Catching these mistakes before they are paid out is critical to avoiding embarrassing news coverage and congressional audits.</p>
<p>When automated auditing solutions aren’t possible, having a centralized auditing team is the best practice to make sure everyone knows what is and isn’t in policy. But building an internal audit team is a big lift for any organization, SAP Concur solutions offer enhanced services where individuals who know your travel policies in and out are available for you to use. These individuals will take care of auditing your travel documents before they go to final approval for payment.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more, read all about the enhanced services offered to our Federal Government customers <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">here</a>, and watch our <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2301187/114A73A63CD2ECE143E216AFCB638E11">on-demand webinar</a> to learn how to strengthen your federal travel program with supplemental services.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Bonnie Brumbeloe
How Public Sector IT Can Transform Government With AP and Expense Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-public-sector-it-can-transform-government-ap-and-expense-automation
2023-08-29T13:09:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
No one gets into public sector IT seeking hero worship Yet whether they know it or not government IT leaders today are in a position to swoop in and dramatically change their agency...
<p>No one gets into <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">public sector IT</a> seeking hero worship. Yet, whether they know it or not, government IT leaders today are in a position to swoop in and dramatically change their agency for the better. Thousands (nay, millions!) of dollars can be saved for decades to come. Generations of government staff will be spared tedious and time-wasting tasks. Staff will be able do their expenses from anywhere. Fraud will be a thing of the past. </p>
<p>All thanks to your one heroic investment in modern accounts payable and expense management software.</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Extending AP Automation to State & Local Governments</h2>
<p>Improve visibility into and control of cashflow. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/extending-automation-to-accounts-payable-in-state-local-governments">Get the e-Book</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>But, first things first. Before you can be catapulted from IT leader to IT legend, you’ll need to convince other decision makers within your agency that modern AP and expense management software is an essential and solid investment. Which is no small task given the current work climate. To help get that conversation going, here are a few talking points that you can use to make the case for upgrading your system.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“We can actually see where our money goes.”</h2>
<p>If your public sector organization runs on taxpayer dollars, there’s no such thing as too much transparency and visibility into spend. By automating and connecting expense and invoice processes, state and local government leaders can track spend more easily and thoroughly than ever, and then use this transparency to both build credibility and remain accountable to constituents.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“We can plan budgets based on real spend data.”</h2>
<p>When you don’t know how much money is coming in or going out, it’s impossible to make strategic decisions and plan well for the future. By connecting spend data, and seeing where every dollar goes, you get valuable insights on past spend that will allow you to guide and control future budget decisions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“Our staff will love this technology — and love us for providing it.”</h2>
<p>When government leaders bring simple, mobile-friendly spend management tools to their agency, they can give staff the freedom to work on their own terms and establish goodwill between managers and their staff. New spend management can also reduce time-consuming and frustrating manual processes, increase productivity, and help agencies hire and retain talent who expect the latest, greatest technology at work.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“We can eliminate errors and stop fraud in its tracks.”</h2>
<p>By automating travel and spend management, you can take honest mistakes and employee fraud out the equation. When you have solutions that automatically audit expense reports, allow employees to submit and approve expense reports from anywhere, and more, your agency can save hours of time and thousands of dollars.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, there you have it. You’re exactly one big IT solution away from achieving hero status. To learn more about how a streamlined and efficient AP and expense management system can transform your government agency, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">public sector hub</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Launches New U.S. Public Sector Resell Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-launches-new-us-public-sector-resell-program
2023-09-07T12:38:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
New program enables partners to deliver more value to government and education organizations Today SAP Concur is excited to announce the launch of its new US Public Sector Resell...
<p>New program enables partners to deliver more value to government and education organizations. </p>
<p>Today, SAP Concur is excited to announce the launch of its new U.S. Public Sector Resell program, allowing government and education organizations to tap into its trusted network of preferred partners. <strong>This introductory program underscores SAP Concur’s commitment to its customers and partner network and is part of a larger initiative</strong><strong> at SAP Concur </strong>designed to drive growth for resellers who can accelerate the automation of travel and spend management capabilities globally. To date, two leading resellers have signed on to join the program, including <a href="https://www.mp.team/">Meridian Partners</a> and <a href="https://www.lsiconsulting.com/">LSI</a>.</p>
<p>“The U.S. Public Sector Resell program strengthens SAP Concur’s ability to better serve public sector organizations as they work to modernize their technology investments,” said David Ballard, senior vice president, public sector, SAP Concur. “These regional resellers also have a deep understanding of the unique public sector requirements, especially in the state, local and higher education market, so organizations are able to turn to established, trusted advisors as they evaluate technology purchases and make these advancements.”</p>
<p>As the public sector continues to modernize its technical and financial systems, state and local government organizations spent a <a href="https://www.govtech.com/navigator/numbers/state--2019local-annual-it-spending_132.html">reported</a> $107.6 billion on IT in 2019, and <a href="https://itdashboard.gov/drupal/summary/000">data</a> from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget shows the federal government spent more than $88 billion on IT.</p>
<p>“Every year, government is given a longer task list without a budget to match,” said Wil Martinez, managing partner, Meridian Partners. “Through our partnership with SAP Concur, Meridian helps government agencies effectively automate their travel and spend management systems, reducing fraud, waste and abuse, which leads to operational efficiencies and cost savings.”</p>
<p>Concur Travel, Expense, and Invoice are the leading cloud solutions to help manage public sector spend, increase visibility and drive operational efficiencies. As SAP Concur’s public sector business continues to grow, additional reseller partners will be added to the program over the next year, further expanding the company’s ability to help transform government spend management within public sector organizations.</p>
<p>To learn more about how to become an SAP Concur public sector reseller partner, please visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/partners/search?title=&partner_attributes%5B291%5D=291">public sector partners page</a>. SAP Concur will also host partner showcases throughout the day today at its annual <a href="https://www.concur.com/fusion-exchange/washington-dc">Fusion Exchange</a> conference in Washington, D.C., allowing attendees to connect with preferred partners and gain a deeper understanding of the growing SAP Concur ecosystem of partners and supplier services. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What to Look for In a T&E Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-look-te-solution
2023-09-08T16:35:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In uncertain times business leaders need to control what they can managing change flexibly and responding quickly to new challenges Facing todays unpredictable market forces it can be...
<p>In uncertain times, business leaders need to control what they can – managing change flexibly and responding quickly to new challenges. Facing today’s unpredictable market forces, it can be more important than ever for companies to understand and make data-driven decisions about spend.</p>
<p>By exerting greater control of costs, enterprises can support a stronger financial statement that will position them for assertive action when the crisis passes. They can also redirect budgets to where funds are most needed. Active spend management helps companies identify mistakes, pinpoint fraud, and reduce unnecessary exposure to risk. And spend visibility provides new insights into costs that can spur stronger, more focused decisionmaking.</p>
<p>But what types of tools can help your organization become more responsive and flexible during times of disruption?</p>
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<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
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<h5>Guide to Choosing a T&E Solution</h5>
<p>Learn the key functionalities to look for when choosing travel and expense management software.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/a-buyers-guide-to-choose-the-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p>Modern travel and expense (T&E) management solutions can help you make the travel, expense, and invoice processes smoother and simpler for both employees and finance. By integrating travel and invoice management in the cloud, modern T&E solutions offer intelligent connectivity that lets employees efficiently record and manage every trip, expense report, and purchase order. And you can embed powerful analysis into everyday tools so finance can get a closer look at spending while empowering budget managers to more actively manage it.</p>
<h2>What to look for in a T&E solution </h2>
<p>Yet choosing the right T&E solution can be challenging. The market offers a variety of tools from different vendors and an even broader assortment of capabilities. How do you know which solution is optimal for your business?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">IDC MarketScape</a> reports that the best T&E systems “understand that . . . travel and expense is about moving data quickly, securely, and efficiently from one party to the next” – creating a “coordinated dance between dozens of systems and partner entities.”</p>
<p>To help enterprises choose the right T&E solution, IDC recommends that companies look for solutions with the following key functionality:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Workflow automation</strong> to streamline expense reporting by automatically capturing essential information from sources such as e-mail, credit card accounts, or photos of receipts. Solutions can prepopulate fields in expense reports, so employees don’t have to type in that data. Applications can also make booking recommendations that consider company policies and employee personal preferences. And solutions allow managers to create rules that automatically execute processes such as expense approval or audits, helping reduce fraud.</li>
<li><strong>Advanced analytics </strong>to convert expense report data into actionable information and help companies better understand and control spending. Sophisticated tools give organizations the ability to identify common spending patterns, so they can adjust T&E policies to reflect reality.</li>
<li><strong>Conversational user interfaces</strong> to create conversational user interfaces using machine learning algorithms and natural language processing. Human-like interfaces make it easier and faster for employees to book travel and create or approve expense reports.</li>
<li><strong>APIs</strong> to interact with multiple external applications using powerful APIs that allow T&E solutions to connect directly to a multitude of different systems. These solutions allow information to flow quickly and easily by creating a more connected, seamless workflow with systems such as external booking tools, credit cards, travel apps, and internal systems such as ERP, finance, and human capital management.</li>
</ul>
<h2>T&E solutions should have modern capabilities</h2>
<p>Next, you should evaluate the available T&E offerings. According to a new buyer’s guide for T&E solutions, enterprises need modern capabilities, such as ecosystem support, data security, advanced payment methods, and support for intelligence and automation. Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/a-buyers-guide-to-choose-the-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">buyer's guide</a><a> </a>for a more detailed list of critical features as well as a list of the top 10 questions you should ask solution providers.</p>
<p>After matching the available capabilities to your needs, you must evaluate the vendors offering T&E solutions. According to the IDC MarketScape report, “The best T&E systems are those that understand that at its most fundamental level, travel and expense is about moving data quickly, securely, and efficiently from one party to the next. As a result, the software vendors that provide the most tools for data management are likely the ones that are best positioned to deliver a top-notch experience.” To learn more about what to look for in a T&E solution or how to evaluate vendors, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">read the IDC report</a>.</p>
<p>Choosing an integrated solution that makes spend data available to finance and reduces the administrative burden on IT will help you best share data quickly among all relevant parties. By automating and integrating expense and travel processes, the right solution can also help you bring risks under control by reducing costly mistakes, auditing expenses efficiently, and putting payment controls in place to improve compliance.</p>
<p>We can’t control everything in our world, our businesses, or our lives. But by embracing tools that enhance business flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness, we can best protect our companies and our employees during times of disruption.</p>
<div> </div>
SAP Concur Team
What is Duty of Care?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-duty-care
2023-11-15T09:05:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Duty of care is an organization’s legal obligation to protect employees from harm. This responsibility extends to different aspects of workers' activities.
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">Duty of care</a> is an organization’s legal obligation to protect employees from harm. This responsibility extends to different aspects of workers' activities. The concept is especially vital outside of regular workplace settings, such as during job-related travel. Business travelers deal with different risks than they would in an office setting. </p>
<p>Here is an in-depth look at travel management duty of care. </p>
<h2>What is duty of care? </h2>
<p>Legal experts define duty of care as a broad legal term extending beyond the workplace to all aspects of public life. A person is obligated to take precautions to protect others. They must take all the steps a reasonable person would take in the same situation to avoid causing harm. </p>
<p>If someone's actions do not meet this standard of reasonableness, the law could consider them negligent. When someone is negligent, they are liable for damage caused by their dangerous actions or lack of appropriate care. </p>
<p> One of the simplest duty of care examples is observing the speed limit and following generally accepted safe driving practices on the road. In the workplace, it involves taking reasonable steps to protect employees from harm. Not only do employers have a legal obligation to care for employees, but there are also ethical reasons to keep employees from harm. </p>
<p>In travel management, duty of care involves taking reasonable steps to ensure health and safety, protecting employees from common travel problems, providing basic needs like food and drink, and avoiding putting workers in a situation where they are likely to experience stress or discrimination. </p>
<p>In other words, employers should understand common travel-related risks and take reasonable steps to mitigate them. </p>
<h2>Why does duty of care matter? </h2>
<p>Keeping people out of harm’s way is, of course, the right thing to do. When business leaders create a safe environment, it can establish employee trust, loyalty, and promote retention. </p>
<p>However, duty of care is more than an act of kindness. Predicting risk, taking preventative measures, and responding quickly to crises helps maintain business continuity, which is a critical corporate goal. It’s also a legal requirement that’s recognized and enforced around the world. Failure to provide duty of care can land a company in legal jeopardy. Just how much trouble depends on the nature of the offense and the country in which an organization is based. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more in our podcast: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/podcast/duty-care-protecting-your-travelers-protects-your-bottom-line-deloitte">Duty of Care: Protecting Your Travelers Protects Your Bottom Line with Deloitte</a> </strong></p>
<h2>Who is responsible for duty of care? </h2>
<p>Duty of care is a big, complex responsibility. And far too much for any one person or department to handle alone. Rather than being limited to travel managers, travel management companies, finance leaders, security teams, HR, risk and compliance professional – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/duty-of-care">it's up to an entire organization to work together and provide quality duty of care</a>. </p>
<p>The first step in meeting these obligations is to create a framework for duty of care and travel risk management. </p>
<h2>A framework for duty of care in travel management </h2>
<p>A duty of care framework covers all aspects of employee travel. </p>
<ul>
<li>Undertaking planning and booking and providing employees with information about the trip </li>
<li>Defining potential risks for the trip and destination </li>
<li>Taking steps to avoid these risks and providing contingency plans for known risks that can't be avoided </li>
<li>Offering reasonable health and safety protection and services during travel </li>
<li>Arranging communication, support, and expert care if needed. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Travel planning and information </h3>
<p>Travel managers need to book transportation and accommodations that meet reasonable standards. The modes of transport and accommodation should be safe and not expose employees to undue risk or health and safety problems. They should also meet any of the employee's special needs for accessibility or services. </p>
<p>Travel managers also provide employees with the information necessary to manage their travels and take advantage of the necessary services. This communication can also involve making the employee aware of risks and contingencies and providing access to a platform to access all travel information remotely. </p>
<h3>Risk assessment </h3>
<p>Risk assessment for business travel covers general and specific dangers. An organization's travel managers can get safety data from official sources, such as the US State Department, respected news agencies, and local governments. Dangers could include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Natural disasters, </li>
<li>Conflicts, </li>
<li>Civil or political unrest, </li>
<li>High crime rates, </li>
<li>Current health problems, </li>
<li>A lack of access to medical care, </li>
<li>Safety issues related to identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or other factors. </li>
</ul>
<p>An organization can perform and update risk assessments for destinations employees visit often and maintain a database for efficient assessment. </p>
<h3>Accounting for risks </h3>
<p>Risk management plans fall into two categories: avoidable and unavoidable. Travel planners can avoid some risks completely by adjusting plans. For instance, if the destination has a high risk of traffic accidents, they can book airplane or train trips and give employees information about a local subway service or book a hotel within walking distance of the meeting or conference venue. </p>
<p>Unavoidable risks require a plan to limit damage or danger. This step usually includes purchasing travel insurance to cover medical and evacuation costs and lost or stolen baggage. Travelers need access to this insurance information and should be aware of the procedures they need to follow in case they encounter these issues. </p>
<p>Duty of care in travel risk management extends to monitoring the situation in the destination, including weather forecasts, security and public health updates, and other risk-related information. Travel risks evolve. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, safety practices evolved from day to day. Duty of care involves ensuring employees are aware of such changes before and during their travels. </p>
<h3>Preparedness </h3>
<p>Risks can include accounting for general health and safety needs beyond those associated with emergencies. Duty-of-care examples include ensuring the employee has the necessary vaccinations or medication to avoid illnesses common at their destination. </p>
<p>Information about climate-appropriate clothing and other necessities will not only help the employee remain comfortable and avoid the stress of not having necessary items for their trip. While some employees are experienced travelers able to prepare independently, others may not yet have these skills. Sharing concise preparation information will <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/10-tips-for-creating-duty-care-program-that-supports-all-employees">ensure proper duty of care for all employees</a>, regardless of their experience level. </p>
<p>Duty of care extends to mental health, as well. Preparation can reduce the anxiety and stress levels of employees during their travels. </p>
<h3>Communication </h3>
<p>All organizations should ensure they communicate each aspect of their risk management framework to employees. A lack of clarity about expectations, procedures, or safety processes can confuse and lead to disruptions, safety problems, and other issues. As such, communication is an essential aspect of duty of care. An organization should assess how they communicate and the information they provide to ensure it is concise, clear, and covers all necessary topics. </p>
<h2>Challenges and trends in travel risk management </h2>
<p>Recent weather, public health, and societal events had and continue to have a strong impact on travel risk management. Examples of these challenges include the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, global <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-risks-times-economic-uncertainty">economic uncertainty</a>, and civil protests in the US, France, and Canada. </p>
<p>These events cause companies to adjust travel plans, re-assess the need for travel, seek alternatives like video conferencing and online project management platforms, prioritize preparedness measures, and assess individual risks of employees. Duty of care plays a vital role as companies tried to limit the dangers associated with these challenges. </p>
<p>The availability of data helps organizations make real-time updates to risk assessment plans. What type of information can affect travel plans and bring new risks? Public health issues like pandemics or disease outbreaks can expose travelers to risks and cause restrictions or travel shutdowns. Meanwhile, weather events or natural disasters can cause delays or cancelations, potentially leaving travelers stranded. </p>
<p>Even seemingly simple events, such as airline workers' strikes, can cause delays and leave employees stuck at a connecting airport. </p>
<p>The increased reliance on data to assess risks and conduct travel-related duty-of-care gives rise to a couple of issues. First, companies need to ensure the quality of the information they receive. Accurate weather forecasts, confirmed news reports, and policy changes from official sources are essential for good decision-making. Inaccurate data may not only cause delays, but it can put traveling employees at risk. </p>
<p>In other words, duty-of-care requirements include verifying the accuracy and quality of travel-related data. </p>
<p>Secondly, the information needs to be organized. Travel and HR managers have to be able to see data for a specific location and receive alerts that affect a specific employee's travels. With the ability to organize information and filter out irrelevant reports, managers would be overwhelmed and unable to take advantage of real-time updates. </p>
<p>Finally, thanks to advances in cloud computing and mobile data, travelers and employers can remain connected and share data and risk assessments in real time. This connection makes it easier to provide support to traveling workers. </p>
<h2>Is duty of care difficult to fulfill? </h2>
<p>Yes, it can be — especially today. The rise of online booking has blown the once-centralized travel system wide open as employees book travel themselves across multiple sites. These challenges make it harder than ever to capture complete reservation data, know where travelers are, stay connected, and get employees home quickly should an emergency arise. </p>
<p>The point is that understanding and planning for unforeseen risks is a significant aspect of duty of care. This goes for everything from canceled flights to severe weather to political unrest in a foreign country. </p>
<h2>How can a company fulfil duty of care obligations? </h2>
<p>There’s risk attached to almost everything in life. So, it’s impossible to eliminate travel-related risks. The best that any organization can do is to be ready for the unexpected. A big part of this comes from having the tools, partners, and data necessary to meet duty-of-care requirements. </p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions can consolidate booking, expense, credit card, and mobile data from multiple sources in near real-time. That way, companies create a comprehensive and integrated duty-of-care program that helps them: </p>
<ul>
<li>Find all employee locations and itineraries in one place, </li>
<li>Monitor risks and potential threats that could affect employees, </li>
<li>Communicate easily with employees and connect them to expert support. </li>
</ul>
<p>These tools help companies efficiently manage travel, meet duty-of-care obligations, and support employees as they embark on their journeys. </p>
<h2>Learn more about duty of care </h2>
<p>Ready to expand your knowledge about Duty of Care? Watch the on-demand replay of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/webinars/ask-experts-evolving-your-travel-and-expense-program">Ask the Experts: Evolving Your Travel and Expense Program</a> from SAP Concur Fusion 2023. And for more insights into travel and spend management trends, be sure to follow us on social media. </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to get the most out of your budget, part 3: Visibility
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-get-most-out-your-budget-part-3-visibility
2018-03-08T14:52:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the first two sections of this blog series we talked about efficiency and compliance in regards to spending and we discussed how having a connected streamlined system for tracking...
<p>In the first two sections of this blog series, we talked about <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-1-efficiency">efficiency</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-2-compliance">compliance</a> in regards to spending, and we discussed how having a connected, streamlined system for tracking and managing it all can help you make the most of every dollar.</p>
<p>And while that’s all well and good, if you can’t see every bit of your small or mid-size business’ budget, you’re still going to end up leaving money on the table.</p>
<p>So let’s have a brief chat about visibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>You can’t control what you can’t see. </strong></h2>
<p>We’ve been saying this for years, but it’s no less true now than when we started. If it’s your job to manage spending, you have to see everything that’s going out the door. Every dime your people spend. Where they spend them. How they spend them. All of it.</p>
<ul>
<li>How else do you consolidate spending with certain vendors and negotiate discounts? </li>
<li>How else do you make sure you’re getting the discounts you’ve already arranged? </li>
<li>How else do you know if you’re getting the desired return on a project or sales opportunity? </li>
</ul>
<p>Also, you need to know what type of spending rules to put in place. And you need to be able to see if the rules already in place are being followed.</p>
<p>All of this requires a solution that provides crystal-clear visibility into your company’s spending practices and policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Take a look on the bright side. </strong></h2>
<p>The Concur solution offers the connected, efficient system we mentioned, managing all your payments and expenses in one convenient place. It shows you where your money is going, helps you manage what it’s doing and sends you home at night knowing your budget is delivering every dollar.</p>
<p>That means a stronger position at the bargaining table, a more accurate gauge of ROI, and simpler finance system overall. All this, plus you can rest easy knowing you have your eye on the ball.</p>
<p>Learn more about Concur solutions for small businesses at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/smb-expense-management">Concur.com</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>See more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-1-efficiency">How to get the most out of your money, part 1: Efficiency</a></strong></h3>
<h3><strong>See more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-2-compliance">How to get the most out of your money, part 2: Compliance</a></strong></h3>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Give your company policies a health check-up
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/give-your-company-policies-health-check
2017-11-15T11:47:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are you spending more time than youd like fielding travel expense TE related questions and complaints and reviewing and approving expense reports How about monitoring your accounts...
<p>Are you spending more time than you’d like fielding travel & expense (T&E) related questions (and complaints), and reviewing and approving <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a>? How about monitoring your accounts payable (AP) processes, approvals and procedures? While it could be easy to blame kinks in the system on a number of potential issues, they are often due to outdated, confusing or non-existent policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/four-things-you-can-do-right-now-fix-your-travel-and-expense-management">Download the guide</a> to learn four things you can do now to fix your T&E management</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Growing businesses can go through a great deal of change within short periods of time, which can result in outdated and sometimes even obsolete policies. Similar to your annual doctor appointment, it’s good practice to review and update your expense and AP policies at least once a year and after every relevant large change to your organization’s business.</p>
<p>Why is this so important? These policies relate to how your employees get reimbursed, how money flows through your company and what will be paid or denied. These are emotional issues and you want to be absolutely clear about them.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What to include in your policy check-up:</strong></h2>
<p>Good T&E and AP policies align with corporate goals, and make reimbursements and payments easy and efficient. When giving your policies a health exam, there are a few things to keep in mind:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Be clear and to the point. </strong>Make sure your policy is straightforward. Cover the basics and don’t use legalese or corporate jargon. All points should be stated plainly. The easier your policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow (and enforce).</li>
<li><strong>Ensure policies are easy to find.</strong> If your policy is buried in an intranet or at the bottom of a notebook, it isn’t going to be used. Making your policy visible keeps it top of mind. And if you update it, plan a procedure to inform employees of this change, either by sending out an email or printing and handing out the updated sections. If the change is a big one, it is probably worth having a meeting to discuss it with your team.</li>
<li><strong>Emphasize the benefits</strong>. Let’s face it, no one likes being told what to do. But explaining the reasons behind the policy and how it benefits all employees does help with acceptance. Not only having a policy to follow, but holding everyone accountable (no exemptions, regardless of rank), keeps it fair all around. </li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>Keep in mind, these three points are only the beginning. There is more to a strong expense policy, such as addressing ambiguity and the use of corporate cards, not to mention rules around booking travel and personal expenses. And accounts payable policies help to clarify your approval processes, signing authority rules and basics like document storage.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Where does your T&E policy stand? </strong></h2>
<p>Are your employees set up for success? Taking the time to review and update your T&E policy now will save you time and aggravation in the future. A good policy starts with a strong foundation and solid outline. Whether you’re just getting started or you need a major overhaul, <a href="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=1445005&sessionid=1&key=E7A51CE3835FC6964C0D3B1B773D7A83&sourcepage=register&std9=Concur%20Guest&partnerref=ConcurGuest" target="_blank">watch a recording of our recent webinar</a><strong>, in partnership with IMA, which offers the information and support you need to update your T&E policy. In it, we walk through our proven expense policy template and give you the tools you need to create a customized policy to fit the needs of your company, now and in the future.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur TripLink partnership with United Airlines now integrates with United Airlines Mobile App
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-triplink-partnership-united-airlines-now-integrates-united-airlines-mobile-app
2018-06-13T12:00:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In January we announced United Airlines as a new TripLink partner for all Concur customers who have TripLink The integration allows users to connect their Concur account with United...
<p>In January 2017, we announced United Airlines as a new TripLink partner for all Concur customers who have TripLink. The integration allows users to connect their Concur account with United Airlines. After connecting their accounts, companies can capture bookings that those travelers make on United.com. The travelers also receive their company’s negotiated rate where available, and receive booking data in their Concur account. They can also easily submit United Airlines tickets with e-receipts that automatically create an expense.</p>
<p>Originally available only on <a href="http://www.united.com" target="_blank">United.com</a>, now the experience is also available via the United Airlines Mobile App on iOS and Android.</p>
<p>Now, companies can capture <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">corporate bookings</a> made both on the United Airlines Website and the United Airlines Mobile App, which are automatically synced with Concur without a user needing to email plans@concur.com, providing immediate visibility into traveler spend and monitoring for policy rules (if applicable). The integration also delivers further traveler flexibility through the delivery of an e-receipt for each booking. The United Airlines Mobile App provides even more flexibility to the travelers’ booking experience while still integrating the bookings into the managed travel program.</p>
<p>For more, you can view the TripLink App Center listing <a href="https://www.concursolutions.com/nui/appcenter/listings/57629f1b6d67a913000e6310">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Take it from our interns: People make the difference
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-it-our-interns-people-make-difference
2020-09-11T12:52:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a Talent Acquisition Intern at Concur my role is to share stories about employees on our blogs and social media channels Part of this work includes interviewing my fellow interns in...
<p>As a Talent Acquisition Intern at Concur, my role is to share stories about employees on our blogs and social media channels. Part of this work includes interviewing my fellow interns in <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">SAP’s Internship Experience Project (SAP iXP)</a> to learn more about who they are and the work they’re doing throughout the summer.</p>
<p>Today, I’ll dive into a conversation with Irene Kim and Katarina Espenscheid about the highlights of their internships.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Meet Irene & Katarina </strong></p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1504029283808-irene-headshot-copy.jpg" /><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> Ir</strong><strong>ene:</strong> User Experience (UX) Intern, Concur </p>
<p><strong> Hometown:</strong> Los Angeles, California</p>
<p><strong> School:</strong> Senior at University of Michigan</p>
<p><strong> Major:</strong> Business degree in Technology Operations & Marketing Strategy</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1504029351236-katarina-headshot-copy.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> Katar</strong><strong>ina:</strong> Public Relations Intern, Concur - TripIt</p>
<p><strong> Hometown:</strong> Pensacola, Florida</p>
<p><strong> School:</strong> Recent graduate, University of Miami</p>
<p><strong> Major:</strong> Marketing, minor in advertising and public relations</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Becoming Friends </strong></h2>
<p>During week one of the internship program, SAP iXp interns from across the U.S. traveled to Seattle for the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA1Z0iR1FI4&t=3s">SAP iXp North America Summit</a>. Katarina and Irene immediately became friends after spending so much time together on their journey from San Francisco to Seattle and back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1504029579980-intern-summit.jpg" /></p>
<p>Irene, Katarina and fellow interns pose at the photo booth at the iXp North America Summit </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shortly after, they discovered that they live just four blocks away from each other in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. From there, the friendship took off. “We walk to work together, go for coffee together every morning, eat lunch together and ride home together. We’re even members of the same workout program,” Katarina explained.</p>
<p>Their friendship has also extended to helping each other with work projects and presentations. “I’d say we rely on each other for support when things get hectic at work. We always practice our presentations with one another, help build up each other’s confidence, and overall make coming to work something to look forward to every morning,” Katarina stated. Further, Katarina shared: “Irene proofreads my PR writing materials and I volunteer to let her test ideas/features on me so she can get my insight and strengthen her UX projects.”</p>
<p>Not only are they simply “work friends,” but they spend time together outside of the office. Katarina explained that they both want to stay in San Francisco long-term, so “exploring what this amazing city has to offer is one of our favorite activities.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1504029596090-sf-interns.jpg" /></p>
<p>SAP iXp interns Katarina Espenscheid (left) and Irene Kim (right) in the San Francisco office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Positive People = Positive Experiences </strong></h2>
<p>Irene and Katarina both made it clear that they love their internships, but they love the people they work with most of all. From day one, Irene’s manager, Carly Lodge, encouraged her to share her ideas and help shape the foundation for UX research —a remarkable opportunity.</p>
<p>Although she was a bit nervous at first, Irene has made significant contributions to UX research over the summer. “This internship provides me with more flexibility than I’ve ever had,” she says. “I love the people here as well as my work.” The freedom Irene’s manager gives her has made their relationship stronger and her experience more impactful.</p>
<p>Katarina echoed Irene’s sentiments regarding her relationship with her manager, Angela Feher, and team members.</p>
<p>“Who you work with basically defines the experience,” she says. “I’ve never had an internship or job experience where I’ve enjoyed the people I’m working with or had such a great company culture, so that’s been such a positive realization for me. I never thought work could ever be this enjoyable.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Building Bridges Through Events </strong></h2>
<p>Irene and Katarina are a part of the San Francisco SAP iXp event committee. They planned fun outings such as Escape Rooms, a San Francisco food tour and a day trip to California’s Great America theme park.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1504029606895-escape-room.jpg" /></p>
<p>Escape Room fun for San Francisco interns </p>
<p> </p>
<p> “I think at work, [the interns] are very segregated [from each other],” Katarina says. “We’re on different teams and have different responsibilities … it’s really important to build those relationships outside the office. It makes it more exciting to come to work every day and be with people that you have close relationships with.” Irene agrees that building these relationships has only made coming to the office more exciting.</p>
<p>Almost every day, the interns in the San Francisco office eat lunch together. “We have the same specific time and table,” Katarina explains. A lot of the interns are not from San Francisco, so on the weekends they enjoy exploring the city together and hanging out at each other’s apartments.</p>
<p>The event committee that Katarina and Irene discussed has built strong intern relationships within the 10-week SAP iXp program. They know that fellow interns and colleagues are there for support, community and fun, and they have created their own home away from home in San Francisco.</p>
<p>Take it from these two that company culture is everything. Katarina explained: “I would say there’s much more to it than the perks everyone loves--the pool tables, free lunch, happy hours, casual attire and flexible hours. It’s about being surrounded by so many people who take genuine interest in you and share similar passions.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>To see our company culture in action, watch our video from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA1Z0iR1FI4&t=5s">SAP iXp North America Summit</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Use Your Career Capital to Find and Land an Internship
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-use-your-career-capital-find-and-land-internship
2020-06-29T21:49:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The old adage says that money makes the world go around You dont need to be employed to know this Its safe to say that most people are generally working for money and seek to get paid...
<p data-id="f312117d-9ec9-4f6f-bd49-ecb5d477d082">The old adage says that money makes the world go around. You don't need to be employed to know this. It's safe to say that most people are generally working for money and seek to get paid more as they advace their careers. Compensation can be that cold-hard cash we all know and love, or it can also be your capital-which vests and gains value over time.</p>
<p data-id="29855ead-bd74-4c48-a272-3cf831213aa0">That is exactly how I like to think of an internship: It's the capital you need in order to build your career. Let's start with the foundation, how do you gain career capital?</p>
<p data-id="29855ead-bd74-4c48-a272-3cf831213aa0"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e2f6e702-b833-423b-90e9-3ea644a313f7">Myth vs. Truth</h2>
<p data-id="fccbc236-ad79-4b97-98bb-31784c20961d">I meet with so many students around the world who tell me they don't have relevant work experience and therefore don't consider applying for their industry's internships.</p>
<p data-id="b639a809-2b08-4ca5-ac56-d2af50e190a1"><strong>Myth:</strong> You don't have to have exact professional experience for what the role calls for.</p>
<p data-id="3ea52e80-5803-48eb-97b4-e96f8e95c250"><strong>Truth:</strong> Everything you've done up until this point, whether it be retail, food service, nannying, or starting your own neighborhood business in high school is relevant work experience.</p>
<p data-id="80569083-2b5a-4aa7-b5eb-5fb156722034">Let's break that down a bit. If you've ever worked in retail you know it centers on one core principal: customer service. Understanding how to listen, problem solve, and delight customers is absolutely transferable to industry-related experience. If you were a nanny, you probably managed a complex family schedule, helped children with homework, cooked, cleaned, and much more. Hello, multitasking! For those of you who built an app, started a blog, or founded a club or organization, this shows entrepreneurship, leadership, drive, and most importantly, passion.</p>
<p data-id="7c390267-66b0-477f-9822-f4b2296c36d3">Many of our <a href="https://sap.com/careers/ixp" target="_blank">SAP iXp</a> recruiters aren't looking for the perfect GPA or a list of honor courses you took. They're looking at your resumé holistically. They want to know what you are passionate about. What do you do in your spare time outside of class? It's up to you to get creative about how you look at your career capital. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised to see how much you have already deposited in your account. If none of these apply to you, it's never too late to gain capital. Join a club, volunteer at a local organization, and get involved!</p>
<p data-id="7c390267-66b0-477f-9822-f4b2296c36d3"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e7ad8982-c5c1-4a59-93b8-480514c5e559">Choosing your Investment</h2>
<p data-id="1da8b0ce-4a34-4633-98d4-ff7f2891d587">Now that you have some capital, how do you choose an internship that fits your needs?</p>
<p data-id="bc124f17-8f9b-4f3e-8c57-fe4149778ae6">Do your research. Just like an investment account, you want to ensure you're investing in an internship program that will give you the biggest ROI on your career capital. The best places to gain insight on a company are Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and of course, your network. Do a LinkedIn search to see if any of your classmates, friends, or family members have worked at the company you're interested in. Reach out to them and ask for their honest feedback. Bonus: You'll also be building your network, which brings us to another popular adage: your network is your net worth. See what we did there?</p>
<p data-id="463a4957-3abf-454d-8fd3-0fecb7af52ca">Spend some time on the company's career site -- watch recruitment videos, listen to former intern testimonials (we have a few <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/making-an-impact-in-10-weeks-the-sap-i-xp-internship-experience">here</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/5-tips-to-break-the-intern-mold">here</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/power-in-people-how-i-transformed-my-internship-experience">here</a>), and dig into what extracurriculars its internship program offers. Added bonus: A recruiter loves it when you take the time to reference their recruiting material.</p>
<p data-id="be78ed9d-2e95-4933-b60b-57112e20a613">A holistic internship program program will be project-driven, offer additional learning curricula, and hold events that bring the culture of the workplace to life, whether through an after-work beer bash or a baseball game outing. For example, within SAP iXp, we focus on giving our interns opportunities to expand their skillset while working on project-based work aligned to their skills and expertise. Our curriculum focuses on things universities aren't necessarily teaching and hiring managers don't have the time to teach, such as emotional intelligence in the workplace and building a compelling business strategy. The opportunities are beyond the 9-5 schedule, with <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/from-our-interns-desks">regional onboarding summits</a>, mentorship mapping, virtual learning platforms, and much more.</p>
<p data-id="c6726ffe-fa1b-4fe7-aa74-be44bfdbed9f">Each and every program component within an internship is an opportunity to invest more into your career capital. Find a program that is going to give you more than just a few new bullets on your resume.</p>
<p data-id="c6726ffe-fa1b-4fe7-aa74-be44bfdbed9f"> </p>
<h2 data-id="66218069-6840-435a-8c10-654197f83c1f">Utilizing your Capital</h2>
<p data-id="6ef7058c-11a2-40b5-a8ef-59704d2a7959">Awesome, you got an invterview with your dream company, now what? Easy, prepare for your interview.</p>
<p data-id="011ee19e-020a-472a-8d45-fea8f3b39622">That seems like a given, but the interview is your opportunity to get to know the business on a more personal level and vice-versa. One of the first questions our recruiters ask is: "Why do you want to work for us?" This is your opportunity to tell your story. Did you grow up watching your mom pioneer engineering for women at her organization? Are you fascinated with marketing campaigns and how people make decisions. Having a compelling story is one of the biggest career capital investments you can make. Whatever you do, don't regurgitate your resume-we already have it infront of us. When the recruiter asks if you have any questios for them, you should always say yes!</p>
<p data-id="3de90c88-f0b2-4a3e-ae05-e19eb5791f0a">Here are some of my favorite questions:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="0aca32ab-354d-48ce-a0df-5b4358bb7a25">Can you describe how the company values flexibility and creative freedom?</li>
<li data-id="b985c8a0-d6ee-4d7d-8158-20452ac5446c">What are the company's opportunities for early talent development?</li>
<li data-id="5a2dbff6-51cc-435d-aa13-ab0f4f13b52b">What is it like to find a mentor when hired full-time?</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="8776edc5-f91f-41ae-a435-c3bb63d5361f">It's important to think of the people you surround yourself with as carer capital, as well. Good mentors focus on building character versus competency. They help shape people's values, self-awareness, and capacity for respect. Sure, mentors can help you polish a specific skillset, but are they ensuring you're growing into a well-rounded individual both inside and outside the office? Like any good relationship, mentorship should be a two-way street. Good mentees are prepared, they listen and aren't afraid to share their own tips and tricks.</p>
<p data-id="944f694b-6ed2-4849-8501-95bf82b39eef">Look at EVERY opportunity you've had as gaining career capital, no matter how big or small. Do your research on what is offered within internship programs and beyond. Just remember to start small, be intentional with your investments and know that career capitol can come in all forms, so be open to them all.</p>
<p data-id="a2d1f1df-33b4-4223-a01b-f491ecaa49f7">Are you ready to take the next step towards interning at SAP? Visit our careers page to see available positions in the <a href="https://sap.com/careers/ixp" target="_blank">SAP iXP internship program</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How State and Local Government Can Transform Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-state-and-local-government-can-transform-spend-management
2020-09-11T12:12:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This article was originally published at American City County on November While state and local governments face the same problems as the private sector they also face unique...
<p>This article was originally published at <a href="http://americancityandcounty.com/blog/how-state-and-local-government-can-transform-spend-management" target="_blank">American City & County</a> on November 15, 2017. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>While state and local governments face the same problems as the private sector, they also face unique challenges when modernizing legacy IT systems such as tight and highly scrutinized budgets, heightened citizen and employee expectations, and limited manpower. Additionally, because state and local governments’ focus is often divided between improving citizen services and basic day-to-day IT operations, innovation may not be a priority for every agency. However, CIOs across the country are recognizing the clear benefits of adopting cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) spend management solutions.</p>
<p>Cloud-based solutions are attractive within the public sector as there is significantly reduced upfront investment when compared to the cost of building an expensive in-house system. Additionally, in-house systems are expensive to maintain and often become antiquated within a few years. Cloud-based SaaS solutions can be quickly implemented and are continuously updated by third parties. SaaS solutions provide greater value for significantly less investment while providing government with continuous innovation, meeting their needs today as well as in the future.</p>
<p>Because state and local governments face tighter budgets, they require a high level of transparency and control over how and where employees are spending taxpayer resources. Typically, employee-initiated expense is the second largest controllable expense for most state and local organizations right after payroll. State and local governments are also heavily scrutinized on the quality of citizen services, forcing agencies to focus on how every taxpayer dollar is spent. With enhanced expense tracking, agencies can better control costs as well as reduce overhead spending through the adaption of SaaS solutions which require less IT involvement.</p>
<p>Outdated and slow spend management systems can frustrate employees and hurt agency morale. Modernization puts employees in the driver seat, resulting in higher productivity and accountability while improving user experiences.</p>
<p>State and local governments need to understand that the move to the cloud is happening across all software platforms. It is now a question of “when” the move to the cloud will occur rather than “will it?” If you want to keep and retain the best talent, you need the best technology, and cloud-based SaaS offerings provide that. They improve the user experience, making it easier for employees to do their job and better serve taxpayer interests.</p>
<p>Non-systematized tools and processes create challenges for smaller government agencies because they rely heavily on manual data inputs that typically take longer to complete, are more expensive when you factor in the cost of human capital and are prone to data entry errors, making compliance very difficult. By embracing SaaS, agencies can automate interactions, streamline processes and save time and money.</p>
<p>Government agencies require a holistic, automated solution where human resources, accounting, and ERP teams can all interact to obtain a complete view of the agency’s spending. For example, the State of Georgia recently consolidated travel arrangements by combining its online travel and expense management system and its designated travel agency. The state now provides a web-based, fully automated, paperless travel solution that is integrated within its travel and spend management system. This solution strengthens enforcement of travel policies, provides better information to agency management, and results in quicker expense reimbursement to employees.</p>
<p>When adopting cloud-based SaaS solutions, government agencies should also focus on user experience, productivity, and mobility. Travel requires a mobile-friendly interface that is easy to use. When agencies have dozens of employees traveling for work, those employees should be able to book and change travel plans, submit supply requests or approve requests from their mobile device.</p>
<p>Now is the time for state and local governments to invest in the people, processes, and technology that will fuel their digital transformation. Moving to the cloud with a SaaS solution provider can help state and local agencies save money, increase productivity, and improve delivery of government services.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Here's Why You Should Go to the Next Lesbians Who Tech Summit
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/heres-why-you-should-go-next-lesbians-who-tech-summit
2020-01-29T13:01:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Amanda Casari senior product manager and data scientist The beginning of every year is time to start planning for conference season I like to share ideas and meet new people so it...
<p>By Amanda Casari, senior product manager and data scientist</p>
<p id="f5a7">The beginning of every year is time to start planning for conference season. I like to share ideas and meet new people, so it is a balance between calls for proposals and evaluating past speaker selection to gage the depth and breadth of conferences. Because traveling and speaking are not my life, this becomes an optimization conversation with my family and company.</p>
<p id="b972">Being a data scientist, here’s my qualitative methodology for how I rank conference and speaking opportunities:</p>
<p id="e5f7">Maximize:</p>
<ul>
<li id="70d4">Opportunities for professional growth through meeting new people and old friends</li>
<li id="a85c">Speakers and audiences who will challenge my current assumptions</li>
<li id="e76e">Technical topics that will advance my team’s work and my own personal roadmap</li>
</ul>
<p id="8b00">Minimize:</p>
<ul>
<li id="b0a3">Events that do not develop and support codes of conduct</li>
<li id="a721">Events that create hostile environments or invite speakers who intentionally incite hostile environments</li>
<li id="d031">Cost of tickets and travel expenses</li>
<li id="53ba">All commitments between end of May and mid-September, when I am off the grid as much as I can be</li>
</ul>
<p id="bbcf">For me, it comes down to this: If I am not spending time with my family or moving forward with my team to push technology horizons, where do I want to spend the most valuable resource that is my time?</p>
<p id="ab17">Enter Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit, 2018, San Francisco, with more than 5000 attendees from more than 30K members. Turns out that <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/lesbians-who-tech-summit-sets-the-stage-for-what-tech-conferences">SAP has been attending and sponsoring</a> this amazing organization since its inception five years ago.</p>
<p id="f662">I was honored to be invited as one of the 20% of ally speakers accepted to the conference, and I was completely blown away by the breadth of brilliant, badass people who showed up to share their experiences.</p>
<p id="f5c6">Wondering if you should go? <strong>Yes. You should.</strong></p>
<p id="0802">Wait, what if you aren’t a lesbian? Lesbians Who Tech gives the best answer on community inclusion, and why your identity is not as important as your dedication to improving the lives of this vibrant community.</p>
<p id="14c1">Now, are you in a position to wonder if you should sponsor this conference with money, time and people? <strong>Yes. You should.</strong></p>
<p id="9fc0">Here’s why:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cross Functional Dream Team</h2>
<p id="d968">Technology and technology teams are evolving. No longer can we build teams and silos of specialists, throwing projects over walls and retreating to their caves. We need a spectrum of talents and specialties. We need diverse backgrounds, points of view, and analogues to understand our customers. For three days, these are the people that surround you at the Summit.</p>
<p id="172a">Everyone I met was an “and” with clear potential and experience. This is the future of what our teams will need to reach the next technology horizon.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 id="f2f6">Your Heroes are All Around You</h2>
<p id="e2a6">The level of access to powerful, inspiring people in tech at this conference was unprecedented. Usually there is a divide between keynote speakers, speakers, organizers, attendees, and conference staff. A feeling of a star-provider-customer relationship. Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit is the largest, coolest, and most well-organized family reunion you’ve ever been to, where your <a data-href="https://lesbianswhotech.org/speakers/megan-j-smith/" href="https://lesbianswhotech.org/speakers/megan-j-smith/" target="_blank">once-nerdy aunt became the most powerful technologist in the US government</a> and your cousins are now breakthrough artists and <a data-href="https://www.teganandsarafoundation.org/" href="https://www.teganandsarafoundation.org/" target="_blank">philanthropists</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 id="5195">The Mountain Continues to Grow</h2>
<p id="0ad0">It may have been called a “summit”, but don’t let that fool you. The challenges of gay women and non-binary identifying people in technology has not been overcome by bringing together these events. We are not yet at the top of a mountain of cultural and institutional challenges in technology that this community faces every day.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2 id="30f8">Showing Up Matters</h2>
<p id="01b4">Weak networks and information bubbles are no longer an excuse for lack of diversity in conferences, speakers, or technology hiring searches. So much of the work has already been done for you! Not only is there a huge list of proven technologist speakers, but entire directories of potential hires await you with just a simple sponsorship.</p>
<p id="70fd">If you have privilege, power, money, you have a responsibility to use it. Build soapboxes. Shine spotlights. Amplify.</p>
<p> </p>
Concur Labs
Boost Business Performance and Increase Collaboration with the Right Tools
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/boost-business-performance-and-increase-collaboration-right-tools
2019-02-11T16:07:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For financial leaders visibility into company expenses is a fundamental need and better collaboration is the way to get it When employees and groups in the organization are working...
<p data-id="bab86bc4-1492-4dd7-a9c4-83e106d305bd">For financial leaders, visibility into <a href="https://www.concur.com/">company expenses</a> is a fundamental need, and better collaboration is the way to get it. When employees and groups in the organization are working better together, that means greater adoption and more data fed into the whole system – data that can help leaders make more informed decisions. But how can you be certain that everyone has the tools they need to get the job done?</p>
<p data-id="3f4fe1ed-8a38-4d8f-8fd6-e8194bfac7b0">That’s exactly what Oxford Economics set out to learn. The researcher conducted a global survey of 1,500 finance executives to discover what business leaders were doing that made their companies so successful. What they found could help other finance leaders follow suit.</p>
<p data-id="3f4fe1ed-8a38-4d8f-8fd6-e8194bfac7b0"> </p>
<p data-id="3f4fe1ed-8a38-4d8f-8fd6-e8194bfac7b0"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">Download the full report</a> to learn how effective spend management boosts performance</strong></p>
<p data-id="3f4fe1ed-8a38-4d8f-8fd6-e8194bfac7b0"> </p>
<h2 data-id="8c689a97-f5bc-46e6-a0de-4fbd6806cc22">Staying Ahead of the Curve Is Critical</h2>
<p data-id="9e21eabd-0dbc-46af-be94-2d2dfceaab5f">The changing business landscape has put greater demands on the CFO and other finance leaders, in addition to adding complexity to their jobs. As a result, finance leaders are far more likely than others at the business to say that the latest technologies are critically important.</p>
<p data-id="9280cb30-4dc5-4f55-ba11-37aef7a3c09f">Because CFOs shoulder so much responsibility, they have a greater need for data and the visibility that comes with it. More than 90% of finance leaders said that big data, the cloud, and security platforms are necessary for them to meet their goals. “They are tech pioneers,” the report states, “recognizing that today’s emerging technologies are tomorrow’s core tools.” It continues, “In fact, our research shows that the further out one goes [on] the technology innovation curve, the wider the gap between finance leaders and other respondents.”</p>
<p data-id="9280cb30-4dc5-4f55-ba11-37aef7a3c09f"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2957cb44-a101-441e-9b2c-b7eed31bc69d">Working Across the Business Has Huge Benefits</h2>
<p data-id="4256bb43-f0ae-49ed-8ad0-f1de7247ec7e">Many businesses suffer from data silos and the divides they create between departments. But few groups suffer the consequences like finance. By encouraging collaboration between finance and all of the other business units, not only will groups work better together, but finance will be better able to provide input to other areas of the business to boost performance.</p>
<p data-id="b03f4150-9c01-4a83-ab50-728321b5002f">According to the findings from Oxford Economics, the fastest-growing businesses had leadership that encouraged this kind of cross-functional collaboration. “These executives see the connection between a collaborative finance function and business success, and they do all they can to inspire it.”</p>
<p data-id="b03f4150-9c01-4a83-ab50-728321b5002f"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2e4b1c46-7fe6-4c71-b65a-14c78015625d">Automation Can Help You Get There</h2>
<p data-id="01ee1419-35ce-47a3-b69d-4b900d15c473">Nearly a third of the respondents whose revenues grew by 5.1% to 10% over the past year credited automation with improving the finance function’s efficiency, particularly in the areas of governance, risk, and compliance. New technology streamlined repetitive tasks and freed CFOs and their colleagues to focus on strategy. CFOs were also able to take advantage of big data, shared platforms, and cloud-based applications that foster collaboration and decrease complexity.</p>
<p data-id="51b916b3-91e5-4579-b7d5-b0d475982082">To see how the best run businesses use automation and collaboration tools to enable finance leadership to have a greater impact, read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">full report</a> from Oxford Economics.</p>
<p data-id="cf38f6a9-a4d4-4c54-a994-01223a913a91"> </p>
<p data-id="e3dc5f76-6fd9-47d1-8b6b-8f15ff706024"> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Expense, Travel, and Invoice Management: Three Processes, One Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/expense-travel-and-invoice-management-three-processes-one-solution
2020-08-18T11:40:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
On any given day you can almost guarantee that one of your employees is booking a business trip submitting an expense claim or raising a purchase order Thats a lot of spending out of...
<p>On any given day, you can almost guarantee that one of your employees is booking a business trip, submitting an expense claim or raising a purchase order. That’s a lot of spending out of your hands – how do you keep track?</p>
<p>Do you manage travel on one system and review expense claims on another? Perhaps you have a paper-based expense process. Or maybe your invoicing system is completely disconnected from everything else.</p>
<p>Things would be easier if all three processes – travel, expense, and invoice – were managed in one place. One tool to learn, one source of reliable data, one reporting system. That’s what you get with SAP Concur.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Travel, expense and invoice management are all part of the SAP Concur platform. Alone, these solutions can help you increase visibility, improve compliance and cut costs. But when you bring everything together, the benefits are even greater – for you, your business and your employees.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/">Learn more</a> about Concur Solutions, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">take it for a test drive</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><br />
</p>
How the Traveler’s Shift to Mobile Booking Impacts Your Travel Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travelers-shift-mobile-booking-impacts-your-travel-program
2020-03-05T07:52:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Travel technology has changed substantially in the past decade and continues to change In Phocuswright surveyed travelers regarding their business travel booking habits and found...
<p>Travel technology has changed substantially in the past decade – and continues to change. In 2017 Phocuswright surveyed 2,300 travelers regarding their business travel booking habits and found that 88% of business travelers use a smartphone, more than those who use laptops. So, it may come as no surprise that a shift toward mobile bookings has occurred over the past few years. Even those in the Baby Boomer generation are booking directly with suppliers through mobile apps. Let’s look at a few ways this shift can affect your travel program.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. An increase in invisible spend</h2>
<p>Invisible spend, also defined as travel data not captured by traditional means, such as TMC reporting, is one of the biggest challenge for travel managers. Solutions have been developed to bring in much of this invisible spend, but travel managers must continue to watch for new channels from which invisible spend can creep in and grow. One such channel is new supplier-agnostic booking apps that are independent of online travel agencies and increase the odds that a traveler may book with out-of-policy suppliers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1533755092417-concur-invisible-spend-rev-1030.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1533755092417-concur-invisible-spend-rev-1030.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. The inability to provide proper duty of care</h2>
<p>Most companies offer traveler safety programs to their employees. But, Phocuswright’s research indicates that most travelers aren’t aware of these programs, or how their corporate booking tools and supplier relationships impact the travel manager’s ability to keep them safe. Of the business travelers surveyed, 50% stated that they had made a new hotel booking on their smartphone, meaning duty of care programs that are largely dependent on TMC reports may be missing a significant amount of critical data.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. A decrease in policy compliance</h2>
<p>Travelers often strive with good intentions to find the lowest rates for their company by booking through an outside channel. But, many don’t realize that by not using recommended booking channels they can negatively impact the leverage their company has during supplier negotiations. The increase in the percentage of travelers booking through a smartphone coincides with an increase in the number of travelers surveyed who state they “usually” adhere to booking travel in-policy, as opposed to “always”. As this trend continues, online attachment rates will no longer be the only valid metric for measuring hotel channel compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/capturing-and-controlling-invisible-spend">Download the report</a> from Phocuswright for more insight into these changing traveler behaviors and see why it’s imperative that the best run travel programs capture and monitor 100% of spend no matter where it is booked.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Welcome to SAP: A World of Unexplored Opportunities
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/welcome-sap-world-unexplored-opportunities
2020-09-11T11:47:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A former skeleton racer a soap opera actress and marathon runner all have one thing in common They each picked SAP as the place to launch their careers Its been said to never judge a...
<p>A former skeleton racer, a soap opera actress and marathon runner all have one thing in common: They each picked SAP as the place to launch their careers. It’s been said to “never judge a book by its cover,” likewise, you can never judge a person’s abilities by their title. We know this too well in the field of recruiting. Every year, the students we hire worldwide surprise us with their diverse talents and ambitions.</p>
<p>Such as the first-generation college student whom at the last minute chose to attend college and later worked relentlessly through dozens of internship rejections to finally land an offer. Or the digital creative merging their journalism career with a role to create corporate learning videos.</p>
<p>We hear our interns’ stories on taking risks to follow their career goals, on working part-time jobs throughout the school year to make ends meet, on challenging themselves to lean a bit deeper into the unknown.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1531337478097-img-8059.jpg" /></p>
<p>Interns check-in to their first-day iXp orientation at the SAP and SAP Concur Prague office</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The power of now</h2>
<p>“If not now, when?” asked Davidson Young, UX Design Intern at Palo Alto, while sharing his personal journey with fellow interns at an iXp U.S. Summit Persuasive Storytelling breakout session.</p>
<p>The annual U.S. Summit was held in San Francisco on June 13–15. Around 300 interns attended the two-day conference to hear from SAP business leaders on subjects that include the future of work, D&I, emerging technology, SAP Leonardo and more.</p>
<p>“Now is really important to me because now means right now,” Young continued. “But to me, now also means two years ago.” Two years ago, Young was in HR doing executive coaching. After interviewing a UX designer and hearing about the role, he had an “ah huh” moment and bought a book about UX design that same day.</p>
<p>In 2018, SAP has hired around 2,700 interns worldwide. More than 600 of these interns are a part of the iXp program. We know this is a generation that eats opportunity for breakfast. They don’t settle and they work hard for what they want.</p>
<p>“Now happened three months ago, when I declined a full time offer from Stanford to take this internship and that now led to this now, standing in front of you,” Young said, ending his story to a loud audience applauding his talk.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1531337282507-ixp-event-2.jpg" /></p>
<p>SAP iXp UX Design Intern Davidson Young networks with SAP leaders at the U.S. Summit expo hall</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Opportunity, meet lifelong learning</h2>
<p>At SAP, our message to students is: We hear you!</p>
<p>Our goal is to create the space for each intern to grow and discover their purpose – and take that with them to further influence their careers.</p>
<p>This year, we’ve hosted five Summits across our global cities that include Bangalore, Dublin, Vancouver and Prague. We picked “Unexplored Opportunities” as the 2018 Summit theme because opportunity is a key staple to the iXp program.</p>
<p>The program’s curriculum offers weekly learning sessions from SAP experts that include subjects like coding, presentation skills, D-shop workshops and more. Throughout the program, interns are also encouraged to build community and self-discovery through offerings like Women in Leadership events, hackathons and the iXp Experience Exchange mentorship program.</p>
<p>In her Future of Work U.S. Summit Keynote, SAP’s Chief Learning Officer Jenny Dearborn said: “We have to learn to unlearn and relearn.” Learning to be malleable with change is not an easy feat, but with the right mindset and network, it can be done. It’s time for all of us to lean into the unexplored opportunities.</p>
<p>Or, as Young reminds us, we have to ask ourselves: “If not now, when?”</p>
<p>Want to turn your when to now? <strong>View our <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">open internship roles worldwide</a>. And, be sure to follow along with our interns over on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sapixp/">Instagram</a> and with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/myixpstory/">#MyiXpStory</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Key Small Business Growth Mistakes to Avoid
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/key-small-business-growth-mistakes-avoid
2019-03-19T08:13:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your small business is successful so successful in fact youre starting to think about growing it So how do you grow a business The first step to growth is to plan for it Because...
<p>Your small business is successful – so successful, in fact, you’re starting to think about growing it. So, how do you grow a business?</p>
<p>The first step to growth is to plan for it. Because whether you’re baking a cake or growing a business, the difference between falling flat and rising like a dream is all in the preparation.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Read the recipe</h2>
<p>If you’re planning to grow, now is the time to get to grips with your numbers and what they mean.</p>
<p>Understanding profit and loss is just the start. The number you really need to be concerned about is cashflow. Why? Because one of the biggest contributors to small business failure is <a href="https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-blog/top-9-reasons-small-businesses-fail/">poor cashflow</a>. Getting <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-can-you-improve-your-cashflow">visibility around your cashflow</a> – and all your other numbers – is crucial if you want to make sure your business is in a strong position for growth.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get the measurements right</h2>
<p>The difference between success and failure is all about the detail. A pinch too much of this, a little too little of that can cause the whole enterprise to sink.</p>
<p>Remember how you scrutinized every penny of spend when you first started and made sure you could justify it? It’s easy to forget those thrifty days now the business is successful, but it’s important that you don’t.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already, put an expense policy in place – it’s likely that your growth will involve more people travelling more often so it’s time to formalise your policies and outline what’s acceptable and what’s not.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make light work of the labor-intensive parts</h2>
<p>Just as a food processor makes cake baking easy, so processes and automation make accounting admin easy. A growing business will mean more paperwork to process, putting additional pressure on your accounts team just when they’re trying to focus on the bigger growth picture.</p>
<p>Automation is the key to giving them more time to focus on the important things. Solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">TripLink</a> automate travel and expense processes to make everyone’s life easier. Click on the links to see how. But it doesn’t stop at T&E, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> can reduce the average cost of processing a single invoice by more than 80%. All combined, greater automation gives greater visibility, helping you to see your business picture much more clearly.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Keep an eye on the time</h2>
<p>It’s all too easy to lose track of the time when your cake is baking, and we all know what happens when that happens.</p>
<p>Now’s the time to make sure your business is operating efficiently and everyone is making the best use of their time. Look at all the activities in your business and see which ones lead to income generation and which ones don’t. Focus your efforts on the activities that bring cash in and keep the time that’s spent on other tasks, like administrative duties, to a minimum. Doing this will make your business more productive and more successful.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t forget to admire your handiwork</h2>
<p>Careful planning gives you the best possible chance of success. But growing a business is hard work, so don’t forget to enjoy the journey. Take time to celebrate the small wins as well as the big ones. Because success isn’t so sweet if you forget to enjoy it!</p>
U.S. Department of Defense Selects SAP Concur to Reform its Travel System
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/us-department-defense-selects-sap-concur-reform-its-travel-system
2018-08-20T08:33:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur is deeply committed to supporting government agencies globally as they transform their travel and spend management programs Our years of experience in travel and spend...
<p>SAP Concur is deeply committed to supporting government agencies globally as they transform their travel and spend management programs. Our 25 years of experience in travel and spend management is a natural fit for helping our government customers meet the commitments of modernization, digital government and cloud initiatives. We have been fortunate to work alongside government agencies to drive digital transformation throughout the world, and our recent award from the U.S. Department of Defense is another example of our commitment to helping governments achieve their missions.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Defense, which spends nine billion dollars annually in travel spending, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1604916/dod-announces-award-to-reform-its-travel-system/" target="_blank">awarded SAP Concur</a> a prototype project agreement to modernize their Defense Travel System (DTS). Through this agreement SAP Concur will deliver an end-to-end travel-as-a-service capability that will improve their travel management experience, reduce costs, scale, meet efficiency objectives and transform the satisfaction and usability for government employees. </p>
<p>This is a significant milestone for SAP Concur and we are honored to be chosen to deliver this commercial prototype for the U.S. Department of Defense. We look forward to building upon our relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense and delivering innovation that will help their business run better. </p>
David Ballard
Business Travel Safety: Send People into Meetings, Not the Unknown
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-travel-safety-send-people-meetings-not-unknown
2019-08-29T05:37:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Good managers wouldnt send employees onto the factory floor without the proper safety equipment and training So why do they send people all over the world without knowing what theyre...
<p>Good managers wouldn’t send employees onto the factory floor without the proper safety equipment and training. So why do they send people all over the world without knowing what they’re sending them into?</p>
<p>Think about it. Let’s say it’s monsoon season in the Indian Ocean, but you don’t put two and two together until you hear that storms are making landfall, the airports are closed, and cell service is down.</p>
<p>How many people do you have in the region? How do you even find out when they didn’t use your travel tool or TMC? And most importantly, how do you bring them home?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You can now predict the weather...</h2>
<p>Events like this, or delays and dangers like political unrest, medical emergencies – even everyday flight disruptions – can now be managed with enough precision to keep your team on its toes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> gives you:</p>
<ul>
<li>An intuitive and dynamic map with enhanced search capabilities, allowing you to quickly identify employees impacted by an event.</li>
<li>Two-way communication via SMS, email or SAP Concur Mobile app, wherever your employees may be.</li>
<li>Automated advance notice, so travelers know what to expect at their destination, and it’s easier to make wise choices in unfamiliar environments.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>...So you can now protect your people</h2>
<p>SAP Concur continually and proactively monitors the globe for these types of events. And, because it can connect you to affected employees while connecting them to expert support, you’ll know you’re lowering their risk as well as yours by confidently delivering duty of care. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">Learn more about our Duty of Care solutions</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Small Business Growth: What Stage Is Your Business In?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/small-business-growth-what-stage-your-business
2021-04-28T08:50:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What is your businesss approach to growth Are you taking it steady and growing it organically Or do you have ambitious plans about where you want to go Your answer is likely to be a...
<p>What is your business’s approach to growth? Are you taking it steady and growing it organically? Or do you have ambitious plans about where you want to go?</p>
<p>Your answer is likely to be a reflection of two factors. The first is where you are on the Ansoff Matrix, a framework developed in the 1950s by Igor Ansoff to help businesses devise strategies for growth. The second is the stage in which your business is currently.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/10831-0.jpg?itok=J7eBdH0L" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Save Money and Drive Growth</h2>
<p>Learn how automated invoice management helps SMBs reduce processing, save money, and scale.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">Get the Report</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How much risk are you willing to take?</h2>
<p>The Ansoff Matrix outlines four approaches to business growth. All are valid but they involve greater or lesser degrees of investment and levels of risk. In ascending order of the investment required and the risk at stake, they are:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Market penetration</strong>: selling existing products into existing markets</li>
<li><strong>Market development</strong>: selling existing products into new markets</li>
<li><strong>Product development</strong>: selling new products into existing markets</li>
<li><strong>Diversification</strong>: selling new products into new markets</li>
</ul>
<p>Each approach requires you to have a clear strategy if your business is going to achieve them, but only you and your leadership team will know which is the right one for you.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Which stage is your business in?</h2>
<p>Search the internet and you’ll find numerous approaches to defining the stages of a business’s growth. We like the seven stage approach.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 1</strong> sees you just starting out. You are taking on your first employees, but some functions (not least finance) are still outsourced. Key concerns at this stage are likely to be around whether you are working in the most efficient way you can, and whether you’re abreast of all legal and government requirements.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 2</strong> is expansion. You’re starting to take on more responsibility – more staff, bigger premises. This is the stage where you’re looking at opportunities to move into different areas. Key concerns at this stage are likely to involve financial governance. Are your finances set up effectively and responsibly?</p>
<p><strong>Stage 3</strong> involves putting more structures in place. Your team is now big enough for you to have employees in defined roles in specific departments such as HR and finance. At this stage, the dangers are around capturing and controlling spend as your headcount increases. Cashflow needs to be monitored more carefully than ever.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 4 </strong>is about gaining control and visibility so you’re well placed to expand. At this stage, you want insight into your numbers so you can see where you want and need to invest to take advantage of new market opportunities.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 5</strong> sees you wanting to scale and seeking outside investment to do it. But when you bring in outside investment, the focus for finance changes. Investors will want to see return on investment so you’re concentrating more on profit and less on revenue.</p>
<p><strong>Stage 6</strong> sees you going public and issuing shares in the business. The structures in your business are more important than ever at this stage. Have you got the right skills in your management team? What reporting structures will be required now you will be open to much more public scrutiny?</p>
<p><strong>Stage 7</strong> is about international growth. This is often a step change for a business. Ensuring maximum efficiency is essential as you ramp up in scale. At the same time as you expand, you need to ask yourself how your strategy needs to change and how you can protect your business against the risk of failure.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Failing to plan is planning to fail</h2>
<p>However your business is growing, you’re undoubtedly better off doing it with a plan. <a href="https://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-students/2012/sa_jj08_mpogue.pdf" target="_blank">Two of the biggest reasons for business failure</a> are poor business planning and poor financial planning.</p>
<p>Once you have your plans in place, the first step to achieving them is to make sure you’re equipped for the task. Manual processes that are inefficient and time-consuming now will only get worse as you grow. It's a downward spiral – the more time you spend grappling with cumbersome systems, the less time you have to focus on growth.</p>
<p>But with the right systems in place, finance leaders get the efficiency and visibility they need to save money and scale. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">Get the report</a> to learn how automated invoicing can help. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Female Business Travelers: Is Your Safety Protected for Bleisure?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/female-business-travelers-your-safety-protected-bleisure
2021-04-28T08:50:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Women are out there getting business done in greater numbers than ever before booking nearly half of all business travel This trend is expected to grow and right along with it women...
<p>Women are out there getting business done in greater numbers than ever before, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2018/07/11/the-percentage-of-women-traveling-for-business-is-rising-but-so-are-their-unique-travel-safety-risks/#2f4fde5a3ab5" target="_blank">booking nearly half</a> of all business travel. This trend is expected to grow and right along with it, women will be tacking leisure time onto their business trips—which is also a growing trend. Last year, a report1 released by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation and Hilton found that within the previous year, one-third (37%) of North American business travelers extended a work trip for leisure. Millennials (48%) added leisure at a higher rate than Gen-X travelers (33%) and Baby Boomers (23%). And on average, travelers added three additional days for leisure. </p>
<p>To me, it’s exciting that so many of us—across generations—are traveling domestically and internationally for business, with the ability to extend days to explore new locations and cultures. I’m also aware that as female business travelers, our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">unique travel safety </a>needs are starting to receive the right level of industry and risk management attention.</p>
<p>Which begs the question, Do the travel safeguards that help protect us during the business segment of our trip extend to our leisure time? How do we know what’s covered? Are we covered? What’s our plan in case of an emergency or security incident? Our first step is to make sure we understand where business stops, and leisure starts—and what’s covered and not, so we can plan ahead and make sure our safety and wellbeing are protected across the length of our trip. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11296-0.jpg?itok=--BqyRNH" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Safety Checklist for Female Business Travelers</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taking the travelers initiative</h2>
<p><strong>Know your company’s bleisure travel policy.</strong> Some companies have bleisure policy coverage as part of their duty of care obligation, and some don’t. While companies routinely provide safety-related services such as travel insurance, risk intelligence, concierge services, and a 24/7 helpline—they may not automatically extend these to the leisure portion of your trip. Your company representative or travel manager should be able to clearly detail this coverage for you. If there are gaps, and especially if you are traveling to a foreign country, it’s a good idea to research your options for purchasing travel insurance. Sites with updated 2018 recommendations include <a href="https://www.consumersadvocate.org/travel-insurance/a/best-travel-insurance?&pd=true&keyword=travel%20insurance&gca_campaignid=777663508&gca_adgroupid=61007986251&gca_matchtype=p&gca_network=g&gca_device=c&gca_adposition=1t4&gca_loc_interest_ms=&gca_loc_physical_ms=9033254&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrszdBRDWARIsAEEYhreflql7W78FlvvmqFnVaM8SnaGnhkirUc3T1f9NT40KpTmZmjtu-isaAlK7EALw_wcB">Consumers Advocate</a> or <a href="http://www.travelinsurancereview.net/trips/business/">Travel Insurance Review</a>. Coverage can include emergency evacuation, baggage loss or damage, medical and dental coverage, and emergency travel assistance services.</p>
<p><strong>Make sure your bleisure travel companions are also protected.</strong> The GBTA/Hilton research reported that 44% of business travelers journeyed with someone else for their leisure portion. If you have companions joining you for your vacation time, or, if they are also with you for the business portion of your trip, you’ll want to ask if they are eligible for any of your company’s duty of care coverage. Typically, they will not be covered. If that’s the case, it’s recommended you look into purchasing extra insurance, especially for children traveling with you so they’re protected in case of a medical emergency or safety threat. Also, be sure to share your total trip itinerary (business + leisure) with your travel manager and company manager, so they can reach out and locate you in case of an emergency. </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1543947694969-11-29-cmo-blogposts-5-sapsyndication-graphic.jpg" />
<h2>The case for bleisure duty of care policy</h2>
<p>It’s possible that bleisure travel may increase the <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/majority-of-travel-buyers-believe-female-business-travelers-face-greater-risk-on-the-road" target="_blank">risk we’re exposed to</a> and increase the duty of care companies need to provide, but it’s also becoming an increasingly valuable asset to leverage for organizations that want to attract top talent. In today’s competitive marketplace, having a defined bleisure policy that’s actively promoted and socialized throughout the company (and beyond) can be a great way to attract leading candidates. It’s also a perk for existing employees, who can benefit by arranging bleisure trips with corporate travel discounts. </p>
<p>As a fellow road warrior, I know that if we make sure we know the company duty of care policy and how to close any coverage gaps, and if we study up on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">female business traveler safety basics</a>, we can experience results-producing business meetings and a great travel adventure in the same trip. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>1.Extending Business Travel into Leisure Time – Bleisure Study; North America-Based Business Travelers, June 2017, Global Business Travel Association Foundation and Hilton.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Executives
How Small Businesses Are Using Spend Management To Drive Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-small-businesses-are-using-spend-management-drive-growth
2021-02-11T15:56:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When it comes to small and mediumsized businesses growth is the goal However growth can also lead to new challenges Taking the business to the next level can bring new complications...
<p>When it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, growth is the goal. However, growth can also lead to new challenges. Taking the business to the next level can bring new complications, new costs, and new risks. To help overcome the unknown, organizations must be able to use their business spending data to know where they stand while anticipating what to expect in the days, weeks, and years to come.</p>
<p>In the latest episode of the Intelligent Business podcast, The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Barnwell explores how SAP Concur helps companies sharpen their visibility into spending so they can continue to scale and grow.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Episode 5: The End Game: Using Spend Data to Drive Growth</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>By automating processes like travel, expense, and invoice management, an organization can get a single, clear view into spend. Maximizing spend effectiveness fuels growth in the present while putting systems in place to better manage spend as the company scales.</p>
<p>In this episode you’ll learn about:</p>
<ul>
<li>The most troublesome spend management pain points small and medium-sized businesses struggle with and how they use automation to overcome them</li>
<li>How visibility into spend can improve an organization’s process for managing cash flow</li>
<li>How companies use SAP Concur to speed up expense approval and reimbursements while saving money thanks to data-backed insights into spend</li>
</ul>
<p>The Intelligent Business podcast is a collaboration between SAP Concur and The Wall Street Journal’s Custom Studios. This new series digs into the stories behind the innovations that allow companies to become smarter about business travel. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business">Listen to the five-part series here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
EY Sheds Light on 3 Key Business Travel Risk Areas
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ey-sheds-light-3-key-business-travel-risk-areas
2019-10-16T12:36:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Global risks are on the rise for companies and they are coming from new sources Executives must respond to new uncertainties such as trade wars and emboldened regulatory authorities...
<p>Global risks are on the rise for companies, and they are coming from new sources. Executives must respond to new uncertainties such as trade wars and emboldened regulatory authorities, and understand how these changes apply across a company’s workforce – sourcing talented people and deploying them in the right places has never been harder. Simply sending workers on business trips is more fraught than ever, and a careless approach could leave workers stranded and expose companies to reputational risks.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/283591_Tax_Calculation_Euro_R_green.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Mitigating risk amid Brexit, travel bans, and trade Wars</h2>
<p>Learn how to manage the unique challenges of international business travel.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>With these new challenges in mind, EY through SAP Concur now offers an end-to-end travel management solution to help corporations manage their business travel risks. Focused on user experience, our service provides <strong>real-time assessments of a business traveler’s tax, immigration and EU posted-worker obligations before they travel</strong>. We use a data-driven approach that leverages SAP Concur’s platform and EY’s tax, immigration and posted-worker technology. “A business traveler needs to focus on the purpose of the trip and not on the challenges,” said Simon Stanaway, an EY partner and Americas Global Mobility leader within its People Advisory Services practice. “We've designed this solution to help the traveler and the company do just that.”</p>
<p>Our data suggests that currently companies are aware of the problem and are managing risk for now by sending workers on shorter business trips. They are also, in something of a paradox, relying more on trips of a month or less, because formal overseas postings are expensive and more difficult to manage as more countries erect barriers to free movement. According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), tax cuts on the scale just enacted in the U.S. in 2017 almost always lead to a surge in business travel, but that pattern may break this time.</p>
<p>How can we get back to an environment in which business travel requirements are no longer subjugated by external risks? The main risks cluster in three areas:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Trade risks are primary.</strong> The GBTA considers the rise in worldwide protectionism the biggest single risk to business travel, SAP Concur data already show fewer travelers on key global pathways. Business trips from the U.S. to China are suppressed compared with from other key Western countries.</li>
<li><strong>Tax risks come as countries seek to maximize receipts from corporations. </strong>A total of 129 countries have pledged to implement the Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Action Plan (BEPS) initiative, the biggest global rewrite of taxation laws and regulations in history. Expect more tax authorities to demand the creation of a permanent establishment (corporate tax presence), and more detailed verification processes.</li>
<li><strong>Talent risks come as countries seek to protect domestic workers.</strong> A recent example is the introduction of the posted-worker regulations within the European Union. Here, along with immigration and tax risks, the digitization of data boosts the risk profile. Digital records are easier to share across government agencies. In the U.S., the Internal Revenue Service now uses data from the Department of Homeland Security (Immigration) to check a company’s tax returns against those of its employees for potential inconsistencies. We’ve also seen similar approaches adopted in countries such as Canada, Singapore and Australia.</li>
</ul>
<p>For some, a cautious approach may be the best response, but our data shows that a proactive approach can create more options, said Timothy Dalton, a San Jose-based EY People Advisory Services partner and Global SAP Concur Alliance Leader: “We can’t just keep doing things the usual way. But if you have the controls in place to identify the risks, the impact can be minimal. Data needs to be used and made available in an ecosystem in an efficient, intelligent, and automated fashion so companies can benefit from high levels of productivity. And if you can make the user experience easy, you can drive compliance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Simon Stanaway
Your Expense Reports Could Be Writing Themselves. Here's How
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-expense-reports-could-be-writing-themselves-heres-how
2021-02-11T15:57:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Theres no way around it so were just going to come out and say it Expense reports are a pain Thats exactly why we work so hard to make expense reporting simple fast and accurate for...
<p>There’s no way around it, so we’re just going to come out and say it: Expense reports are a pain. That’s exactly why we work so hard to make expense reporting simple, fast, and accurate for businesses around the world.</p>
<p>Recently, though, new advancements in technology might mean that you’ll never have to fill out an expense report again. That may sound like a bold claim, but in a recent partnership with The New York Times, we explain how that’s possible – and how the technology that makes it possible is already here.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Can AI release us from the nightmare of expense reports?</h2>
<p>Read this article in The New York Times to see how, in the coming year, expense reports will be writing themselves.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/sap-concur/can-ai-release-us-from-the-nightmare-of-expense-reports.html" target="_blank">Read the full story</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Artificial intelligence</a> is changing the game for all kinds of technologies at a rapid pace. And <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/machine-learning-in-concur-mobile">machine learning</a> is the branch of AI that enables computers and applications to “learn” and improve from experience. When applied to expense management, machine learning allows AI to accurately evaluate reports by observing patterns in what human reviewers approve or reject over time.</p>
<p>Already AI is making expense reports less of a burden than ever. For the article, the Times interviewed several SAP Concur executives, employees, and customers, then outlined several benefits that businesses have seen from letting AI complete their expense reports, including:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Intuitive tools that blend into the background</strong><br />
When new and innovative tools become commonplace, they become an invisible part of your day, helping to complete tasks behind the scenes. More automation helps to reduce user error due to manual entry by up to 66 percent, improving the accuracy, compliance, and speed of expense reporting.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>More time for teams to innovate</strong><br />
Related to the point above, with fewer approvals and less daily manual effort, businesses see better results. Employees can use the time they free up to focus on higher-value, more strategic initiatives. For example, Cardinal Health was able to save up to 10,000 hours per month by automating its expense reports in 2011.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Complementary roles for humans and machines</strong><br />
Modern corporate policies that take advantage of these technologies allow existing employees to add more value to the business in other areas. As a result, rather than contributing to unemployment, artificial intelligence helps to create new efficiencies that didn’t exist previously.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>To discover the full scope of innovations that are here already – and many that are still yet to come – read the full NYT article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/sap-concur/can-ai-release-us-from-the-nightmare-of-expense-reports.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What it Means to be an Ally
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-it-means-be-ally
2020-06-18T21:27:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In business and in life we frequently hear that we cant just talk the talk but that we also need to walk the walk This phrase is used to describe situations in which its critical our...
<p>In business and in life we frequently hear that we can’t just ‘talk the talk’ but that we also need to ‘walk the walk’. This phrase is used to describe situations in which it’s critical our actions and behaviors align with what we’ve said. SAP Concur has its own version of this when we honor our coworkers for Keeping The Promise. Being an LGBTQ+ ally is no different, especially when it comes to allyship in the workplace. The Dalai Lama may have said it best when he said, ‘It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is an ally?</h2>
<p>If you Google what it means to be an LGBTQ+ ally you’ll get a multitude of results. The definition may be vague or specific, all-encompassing or narrow in scope, and may even be colored with encouragement or chastisement. In the most basic terms an ally is someone in alliance with a certain party who has a personal commitment to benefiting that party yet is not a member of the party themselves. In modern terms an ally is typically someone who fights oppression and prejudice by using their own privilege and position to push progress. You will frequently see allies in the workplace supporting minority groups like women, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color.</p>
<p>Luckily, anyone can be an ally. However, this isn’t necessarily an easy task. True allyship cannot be self-defined; if our efforts and actions are not recognized or appreciated by the people we’re seeking to help, then we are not truly being an ally. Allyship requires us to walk the walk, keep the promise, and act out of compassion. Without action our words exist only in theory, swirling around computer screens and email threads but never making a difference for the groups we’ve claimed to support.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why are allies important?</h2>
<p>People who support or work as LGBTQ+ advocates allow individuals to feel comfortable being themselves. You might be surprised to hear that according to research done by the Human Rights Campaign almost half (46%) of LGBTQ+ workers in 2018 said they were closeted (not ‘out’ as LGBTQ+) at work. Interestingly, 24% of employees in 2018 who came out at work made the decision because of the strong network of allies that had their back. At a company like SAP Concur, where bringing your authentic self to work is vitally important to the health of the organization, it’s clear that the presence of allies makes all the difference.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_Diversity_R_blue.png" />
<p>Learn how intersectional inclusion is a strength and asset in the corporate world. </p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-intersectional-inclusion">Read more</a></p>
</div>
<p>We spend approximately one-third of our lives at work. This means we spend about the same amount of time with our colleagues talking, sharing, collaborating and producing results. We are all here trying to be our most productive selves. For LGBTQ+ employees, feeling the need to hide certain parts of themselves at work – weekend plans, favorite hangout spots, special relationship milestones – creates tension and even anxiety. Compiled daily, these tensions turn into reduced productivity, lower retention rates for the company, and above all, a terrible feeling about coming to work for LGBTQ+ employees. When an ally creates the space for open and non-judgmental dialogue, especially in front of other non-LGBTQ+ coworkers, these tensions are eased, employees feel supported, and coming to work becomes a pleasant and welcoming experience.</p>
<p>Allies also play the important role of magnifying the voices of marginalized groups. Because of the inherent privileges that come with being in the majority (more access to leadership, less fear of discrimination or retribution, sheer volume of voices) allies have the unique ability to make the needs of the marginalized more visible to the eyes (and ears) of important decision-makers. Although LGBTQ+ workers can, and have, done the incredibly brave job of fighting for things like inclusive healthcare practices, pay equality, a diverse candidate pipeline and much more at work, the process can be made quicker, easier, and more impactful with the help of allies. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How can I be an ally at work?</h2>
<p>Luckily for us there are infinite ways to be an ally at work. Some behaviors and actions may be more impactful than others, and no one can be the real judge of that except the person or group you’re trying to help. There are steps you can take to be a better ally to those around you and no first step is better than asking your supported what you can do for them. Then, go out and do it.</p>
<p><strong>Here are some specific ways in which you can be an ally at work. (If you already are an ally, these suggestions can also help you become a better and more meaningful ally.):</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Gendered greetings are deeply ingrained in the US, but not all of us prefer the traditional male or female gender binary. Unless you’re totally sure of someone’s gender try using a more gender-neutral greeting at work. This excludes greetings like ‘Hey guys’, or, ‘How’s it going ladies?’. Using more neutral terms like ‘folks’ helps everyone feel welcome and allows space for all types of gender expression to flow freely. Additionally, use preferred pronouns and names appropriately and remind your coworkers to do the same.</li>
<li>Educate yourself on LGBTQ+ issues. Paying special attention to what’s happening on a local, state and national level shows you care about your affected coworkers and friends. Also, by staying abreast of current events you will be acutely aware of issues the LGBTQ+ community is experiencing in real time, which can indicate rough times when it might be necessary to show extra compassion.</li>
<li>As you educate yourself on social, economic and legislative LGBTQ+ issues, empower yourself to act upon what you’ve learned and advocate for your marginalized coworkers in the workplace. Are they receiving health benefits specific to their unique needs? If not, consider changing that. Is diversity, specifically LGBTQ+, included in onboarding for new hires? If not, see if you can make that happen.</li>
<li>Join an employee resource group for LGBTQ+ employees. If you don’t already have one in your office, consider teaming up with your LGBTQ+ work community and creating one. Leveraging the power of many with a unified vision can help you reach big goals.</li>
<li>Speak up when you hear something unacceptable. You have the strength and ability to call out individuals who make jokes, slights, or have indecent conversations that negatively impact our LGBTQ+ coworkers. You can talk to HR if necessary. The only way to create a safe environment is to take a stand against intolerable behavior.</li>
<li>Learn about your implicit biases and acknowledge them. Whether due to nature or nurture we all have implicit and subconscious biases that we carry around daily. However, awareness of our own biases allows us to check ourselves and make sure that we aren’t acting on these biases and carrying out behaviors solely because they align with a certain bias.</li>
<li>Amplify the voices of our LGBTQ+ coworkers and leaders in meetings and over email.</li>
<li>Ensure that every conversation and relationship you’re apart of feels like an open and welcome space for all LGBTQ-identifying folks to join. This means really analyzing what you say and who you say it with to make sure any LGBTQ+ employee would be comfortable in that space.</li>
</ul>
<p>Lastly, be visible and open about your allyship. Support cannot live in the dark or in our comfort zones. Although pride stickers and rainbow flags don’t automatically make you an ally, they can go a long way in showing you are proud to stand behind your LGBTQ+ community. When someone comments or asks about your support, use it as a jumping off point to explain your passion around allyship and its importance. You may even provide further resources to empower your non-LGBTQ+ coworkers to educate themselves about allyship.</p>
<p>This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the actions you can take to be an ally. There are many online resources, books, movies, news sites, and more where you can find information on how to be the best ally you can be. Remember that ‘ally’ is not just a noun but a verb - it takes consistent effort and you may, at times, find yourself in the spotlight of some uncomfortable situations. Using the examples above and additional resources on websites like PFLAG, the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN and the National Center for Transgender Equality you can equip yourself with the necessary tools for becoming a better ally and supporting the LGBTQ+ workplace community in a way that is most impactful to them.</p>
<p>Being an ally is not always easy, but it is always worth it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Katie Sears is a former global enablement program manager for SAP Concur.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Stand Out from the Crowd: 2020 SAP Concur Innovation Awards Nominations Are Now Open
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/stand-out-crowd-2020-sap-concur-innovation-awards-nominations-are-now-open
2020-08-11T19:36:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each year the SAP Concur Innovation Awards is an opportunity to celebrate customers who are driving digital innovation and purposedriven business practices This is an incredible...
<p>Each year, the SAP Concur Innovation Awards is an opportunity to celebrate customers who are driving digital innovation and purpose-driven business practices. This is an incredible opportunity to put our customers’ stories center stage and showcase the various ways in which they make the world run better with the help of SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does SAP Concur help your organization run at its best?</h2>
<p>Has SAP Concur contributed to making travel and expense management easier for you, your travelers, and/or your internal finance and travel teams? We want to hear from you to potentially make you the hero of your own customer story!</p>
<p>For 2020, SAP Concur is excited to announce that we’ll identify <strong>seven industry-leading stories</strong> of innovation in travel, expense and intelligent spend management – with focus on people, process, and purpose.</p>
<p>What needs to be center stage is your organization’s use of SAP Concur solutions to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Impact employee’s time, experience, and finances in a meaningful way</li>
<li>Support your bottom line by improving or evolving your internal travel and expense processes</li>
<li>Solve business or industry challenges that allows your organization to focus on what matters to run your best</li>
</ul>
<p>Please share your digital transformation and purpose-driven story by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominating your organization here</a>!</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>And the winner is…</h2>
<p>The 2020 SAP Concur Innovation Awards winners will receive:</p>
<ul>
<li>A complimentary pass to SAP Concur Fusion 2020 in Orlando</li>
<li>Special recognition at SAP Concur Fusion 2020</li>
<li>Star in a custom video shoot that captures your story (winners must be available and able to participate in a custom video shoot)</li>
<li>Prospects for recognition throughout the year (e.g. PR, social amplification, speaking opportunities)</li>
</ul>
<p>Through September 27, 2019 – you can nominate your organization for its achievements and innovations. Don’t miss the opportunity to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">stand out from the crowd</a> and be the star of your own story!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Customers who run at their best</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1565201948806-2020-ia-launch-blog-body-image.jpg" /></p>
<p>In case you missed it, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/sap-concur-announces-2019-innovation-award-winners-alteryx-discovery-gw-nec-and-red">meet the 2019 Innovation Awards winners</a> that are pushing the boundaries of travel and expense.</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/alteryx-saves-time-simplifies-travel-and-expense-sap-concur">Alteryx</a></strong><strong>:</strong> An award-winning platform that is revolutionizing business through data science and analytics, Alteryx helps companies deliver game-changing business outcomes. By partnering with SAP Concur, Alteryx has been able to go beyond automation to apply analytics to travel and expenses.</li>
</ol>
<p>“The innovation we’re able to achieve now with SAP Concur is fantastic, and the solutions are simple, easy and helps us all focus on doing what we do best.” <strong>Libby Duane, Chief Customer Officer and Founder</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/discovery-inc">Discovery</a></strong><strong>:</strong> Powering people’s passions around the globe with content that inspires, informs, and entertains is how Discovery runs their best. Accelerating innovation to help global audiences explore their world requires a lot of travel for this global leader in real life entertainment, and with SAP Concur solutions, Discovery was able to improve the traveler experience and fulfill their duty of care obligations.</li>
</ol>
<p>“Having a connected travel ecosystem and access to critical data analysis from SAP Concur is critical to how we effectively manage our travel program.” <strong>Yukari Catherine Tortorich, VP of Global Travel Service</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.gwu.edu">George Washington University</a></strong><strong>:</strong> Located in the heart of Washington, D.C. where the city is the classroom – GW students gain access to leading international institutions, multinational corporations, global media outlets, and governments of 177 countries. With a huge potential for international engagement and travel for students and faculty, the University adopted SAP Concur solutions to improve visibility and control of spend, simply expense processes for users, and provide duty of care for traveling students.</li>
</ol>
<p>“We are exploring expanding our population of SAP Concur users to include students so that we can leverage integrations to systems supporting study abroad [programs] and provide an improved level of duty of care to our students through tracking and messaging.” <strong>Donna Ginter, Executive Director</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/nec-achieves-cost-savings-and-compliance">NEC</a></strong><strong>:</strong> As a global information technology provider, NEC is committed to creating a safe, efficient, and equal “Solutions for Society” through the power of digital technologies. NEC achieves sustainable management by collaborating with customers globally. Since implementing SAP Concur solutions, NEC has been able to standardize and automate travel and expense processes while achieving cost savings and compliance.</li>
</ol>
<p>“NEC was one of the first major Japanese companies to start digital transformation by using one of the most advanced approaches in the Japanese market for travel and expense: SAP Concur.” <strong>Kenichi Sugamuta, Executive VP and Personnel Services Division General Manager</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/red-gains-insights-visibility-travel-and-expense">RED</a></strong><strong>:</strong> A leading global staffing organization focused on the SAP eco-system, RED’s resourcing expertise has resulted in an extensive network of professionals and leaders. RED processes thousands of job openings each year, matching experienced and knowledgeable consultants to organizations globally. With a mission to be the leading talent provider for the entire SAP ecosystem, leveraging SAP Concur solutions for their own travel and expense helps RED to continue to innovate.</li>
</ol>
<p>“Although SAP Concur is a mandatory solution for the employees, the user experience is so intuitive that training is minimal, and uptake was seamless.” <strong>Luke Braham, Head of Technology Operations</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>We hope to see you at <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion 2020</a> in Orlando, Florida for an unforgettable experience filled with valuable educational and networking opportunity. More details to come!</p>
The Impact of Intersectional Inclusion
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/impact-intersectional-inclusion
2020-06-10T11:16:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
intersectionality noun The theory that the overlap of various social identities as race gender sexuality and class contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and...
<p data-id="a54a6a85-518e-4d69-8922-d061e4d30f6f"><strong>in·ter·sec·tion·al·i·ty</strong></p>
<p data-id="aeadb268-e34f-4080-9587-2020495ea90a"><strong>noun</strong></p>
<p data-id="e1999597-8ea4-4d99-b066-744cd0e483b3">The theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively): Her paper uses a queer intersectionality approach. </p>
<p data-id="083af2d0-c363-4b17-be0b-de7c998f2c8b"> </p>
<p data-id="083af2d0-c363-4b17-be0b-de7c998f2c8b">As this is Pride month, it’s a great time to discuss intersectionality as a strength and asset in the corporate world. Members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community possess a vital perspective. Their broad and diverse intersectional experiences and characteristics make them one-of-a-kind employees.</p>
<p data-id="e8798661-ad4b-44d3-8da2-46b472d5a839">Intersectionality can be a difficult concept to grasp, but let’s try to simplify things. If you look at any minority group, each one likely has a stigma. It’s not too farfetched to say that the more minority groups an individual identifies with, the greater the stigma. For example, someone who is a queer black woman may face more challenges compared to a heterosexual white man. And these challenges will likely be unique to the intersections between sexual orientation, race, and gender.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_Diversity_R_blue.png" />
<p>How can you be an ally at work? Here are a few specific ways. </p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-it-means-to-be-an-ally">Read more</a></p>
</div>
<p data-id="e2e43d63-269a-40b7-ac98-1223f808c0cc">I am a first-generation immigrant, with a Latino, Central Native American, European background, who is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, and child of a U.S. Military Veteran. My own intersectional perspective and experience is quite unique and enables me to be empathic, self-aware of bias, and knowledgeable of planning blind spots. The combinations of these skillsets have led me to work on SAP’s Early Talent Acquisition team. In this role, I can contribute to an inclusive hiring process by recognizing the intersectionality of our candidates. By enabling candidates to present themselves through storytelling during the interview process, I have found it has been a great equalizer and has provided our candidates the opportunity to present their true authentic selves outside of a traditional resume review or phone screen.</p>
<p data-id="83d80c80-5979-4efc-9641-944b4b064bc9">Each candidate that is hired brings a new perspective leading to diversity of thought, innovation, and improvements to our company culture. The key to creating an inclusive interview process and making these hires is recognizing our own conscious and unconscious bias in our evaluation. The stronger we become in self-awareness of these biases, the better we can improve the overall candidate experience.</p>
<p data-id="31fed579-2911-48f0-834e-e29169df8f11">My own intersectionality has enabled me to see blind spots in planning and strategy development. Two key questions I ask myself in every development meeting is “What is the voice of the customer?” and “What are the different ways this plan can be perceived?” Once I have asked myself these two questions, I usually conclude that the plan is too micro or too macro. This tends to leave me as the person in the meeting playing devil’s advocate and suggesting a SWOT analysis, but ultimately battle testing our plan before implementation.</p>
<p data-id="370dd136-d821-4bef-8f1c-664d8af479ce">An inclusive culture matters and affects business’ bottom line. <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/at/Documents/about-deloitte/predictions-for-2017-final.pdf" target="_blank">Deloitte reported</a> that highlighted inclusive organizations generate more cash flow per employee, generate more revenue and rate themselves as more innovative. The impacts of fostering an inclusive environment for employee intersectionality not only benefits SAP and our teams but also benefits us as individual contributors to be our authentic selves every day.</p>
<p data-id="370dd136-d821-4bef-8f1c-664d8af479ce"> </p>
<p data-id="370dd136-d821-4bef-8f1c-664d8af479ce">This blog originally appeared June 24, 2019. Chris Krieger is a former senior technical recruiter at SAP.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Tackling Expense Chaos with Automated Solutions Built for Small-to-Midsize Businesses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/tackling-expense-chaos-automated-solutions-built-small-midsize-businesses
2019-11-13T09:47:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As your smalltomidsize business SMB grows youll have more employees spending more on everything from travel supplies and marketing services to computers and departmentfocused cloud...
<p>As your small-to-midsize business (SMB) grows, you’ll have more employees spending <strong>more </strong>on everything from travel, supplies, and marketing services to computers and department-focused cloud software. This means <strong>more</strong> spending decisions will be in the hands of employees – and <strong>more</strong> expense reports that employees will need to create, managers will need to review and approve, and finance departments will need to review, process, and pay.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Expense Automation Solutions: A Buyer’s Guide</h2>
<p>Gain insight into how to choose the right solution for your business. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/expense-automation-solutions-buyers-guide">Get it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>If your business is still using manual processes to create and process expense reports, all of this “<strong>more</strong>” will cost your business <strong>more employee work time and money</strong>, as these manual processes are inherently inefficient and laborious. Employees are expected to collect receipts and tape them to papers, make copies, fill out spreadsheets and Word templates, manually match credit card charges and receipts, walk around to get manager approvals, and then hand off a messy package for processing by finance. It can take hours and often gets done after hours.</p>
<p>There’s risk in all of this, too, as many managers don’t have the time to audit expense reports properly, so they miss issues like incomplete documentation, mistakes, and even fraud. At the same time, manual processes make it harder for finance to track and monitor what employees are buying and when payments are due; this leads to cash flow problems and out-of-control spending.</p>
<p>Savvy SMBs are tackling the expense chaos head on by deploying cloud software applications that automate expense management. Studies show that <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">automated travel and expense (T&E) users are saving</a> an average of US$30,000 annually, or about $600 per year for each employee using the application. They saved an average of $20 per expense report simply by capturing data digitally; eliminating manual, cumbersome tasks; and streamlining approvals.</p>
<p>But with all the cloud solutions out there today, how can you be sure you’re selecting what works best for your business?</p>
<p>While needs will vary in some areas, there are core expense automation capabilities that every business needs – specifically, the ability to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automate </strong>expense processes to save people time, ensure financial visibility, avoid risk, drive operational efficiencies, and increase data accuracy and timeliness</li>
<li><strong>Gain visibility </strong>into employee-initiated spending (so you can “see around the corner”), track processes and spend, and identify revenue and saving opportunities</li>
<li><strong>Consolidate data on expensed spend</strong> to make forward-looking, real-time strategic decisions</li>
<li><strong>Expand when you’re ready </strong>to connect the dots across all employee spending – for example, by making it easy to integrate solutions for travel, accounts payable, budgeting, and more, so you can proactively manage all employee spending</li>
</ul>
<p>To achieve this, you’ll need a solution with core capabilities. For example, to streamline and automate compliance, your solution should make policy instantly available to everyone across their desktop and mobile devices. This makes it easier for employees to understand and follow the rules – and easier for financial decision-makers to enforce them consistently.</p>
<p>It is equally important to make sure it’s truly taking the process paperless – for example, by making expense reports digital and automated to such a degree that they practically write themselves. Otherwise, you’ll have wasted money on a solution while your employees continue to spend valuable time gathering, organizing, and submitting receipts; accounts payable will still be tied up crunching numbers and verifying compliance; and financial decision-makers won’t be able to understand and optimize cash flows.</p>
<p>You’ll also want a solution that gives you early spend and cash flow visibility. The best solutions will provide complete, accurate visibility into every dollar of business T&E spending in real time – and allow you to monitor data trends so you can even anticipate spending before it happens.</p>
<p>These are just a few examples of essential functionality you should look for when evaluating cloud expense automation solutions. <strong>To learn more and gain insight into how to choose the right solution for your business, read the new resource from SAP Concur, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/expense-automation-solutions-buyers-guide">Expense Automation Solutions: A Buyer’s Guide</a>. </strong></p>
<div> </div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How Travel Managers Embrace Change With Agility
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-managers-embrace-change-agility
2020-09-21T17:51:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When we left our heroes we learned that travel managers are really superheroes and possess the power of tripovision We catch up with the tale as they encounter the forces of change and...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-travel-managers-are-business-superheroes">When we left our heroes</a>, we learned that travel managers are really superheroes and possess the power of trip-o-vision. We catch up with the tale as they encounter the forces of change and activate the power of hyper agility. </p>
<p>If we follow the script of almost any superhero story, the world is depicted as turbulent, uncertain, and complex. Citizens often face multiple crises, which highlight the very worst of humanity and greed, teetering on the brink of the abyss, whirling deviously into a volatile vortex with minimal time for anyone to react.</p>
<p>Then, as if on cue, a caped crusader enters. Calm, cool, and collected, they know exactly what to do to prevent the catastrophe at hand, and the hyper agility to react in the nick of time.</p>
<p>Wham! Bang! Zap!</p>
<p>Crisis averted.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1573854698076-286158-superhero-flowing-cape-male-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Travel Heroes</h2>
<p>The time has come to celebrate travel managers for what they are – heroes. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.saptravelheroes.com/">Learn more</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Sounds like something from the pages of a comic book, right? Maybe not. We actually do live in volatile times.</p>
<p>Organizations – and their travelers – face frequent changes to business standards, the economy, and political environments, requiring a flexible mindset in order to adapt quickly. That’s not only at the local or regional level, but globally. Just consider how GDPR, a European law, is changing the way in which businesses around the world treat personal data, and therefore operate on a daily basis.</p>
<p>New and changing legislation that affects the ways in which companies run will always be around the corner. So, it’s imperative to think a couple of steps ahead in order to survive and thrive. This means continually adapting to new technologies, and doing so rapidly, especially in the fore coming world of artificial intelligence (AI) coupled with machine learning (ML).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How travel and expense management can keep up</h2>
<p>Riddle me this: What do these changes mean for corporate travel and expense management?</p>
<p>The signs are as clear as a bat-signal in the sky: Travel and expense leaders are not unsusceptible to change. Now is the time to embrace the ever-fluid environment of digital disruption as an opportunity to bring even more value to this role.</p>
<p>In the past five years alone, we have seen tremendous change driven by the dominance of tech in the workplace. Business technologies have had to keep pace with consumer technologies in order to deliver an employee experience that satisfies their expectations of usability and mobility.</p>
<p>That seamlessness of the T&E experience is a key factor in retaining or losing employees. And in the Era of the Traveler, employee retention is essential as the fight for key talent continues to grow.</p>
<p>To address both the above business needs and traveler desires, we are now seeing traveler-centric T&E programs that empower and engage travelers, while streamlining process workflows, optimizing productivity, boosting compliance, and enhancing employee agility.</p>
<p>Hyper agility – the next power in a travel hero’s arsenal -- is rapidly becoming a requirement in the world of employee and traveler safety. Today’s employees expect companies to look after their safety and wellbeing, be it in the workplace or wherever else in the world they are for business. This is a tall order for a business of any size.</p>
<p>Can we say more here about what hyper agility means and what it gets you?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How SAP approaches travel and expense management</h2>
<p>We spoke with John Coovert, VP of global physical security at SAP about how SAP handles T&E management on a global basis in partnership with travel management and some hyper-agility. </p>
<ul>
<li>How many countries does SAP operate in and what role does SAP security play across this global landscape?
<ul>
<li>We currently have 418 offices in over 75 countries currently then of course we have employees traveling to other countries where don’t have a physical footprint. Some of those are high risk countries as well.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>What tools does SAP to help monitor its travelers?
<ul>
<li>We utilize tools like our Concur Travel & Expense system, Triplink, TripIt and corporate credit cards as well to identify the locations of our employees around the world. Changes in itineraries are updated to our system as well so we have visibility should we need to contact our employees. Our employees can also manually check in on our SAP Concur Mobile App to identify their location.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>How important is ’booking transparency’ in traveler safety and how do you close this gap?
<ul>
<li>This data gap is a risk for us but we believe we have put somethings in place to help us reduce that such as TripLink and the ability for our employees to forward their itineraries to our system so we have that visibility. We’ve also created internal marketing campaigns to bring awareness to our employees about the services available through our team in providing assistance so they then see the benefit of making sure we have their travel information.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>What methods does SAP use to communicate with its employees and travelers in the event of a crisis?
<ul>
<li>Within our Concur Locate tool we have the ability to send communications to all of our employees via SMS Text, Email and Mobile App Notifications so they can stay aware of incidents and events in their area that can affect their travel. The tools are capable of two way communications so we can stay in constant touch with the employees once we’ve opened up that channel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>How important is your partnership with travel management in providing ‘Duty of Care?’
<ul>
<li>My partnership with travel is extremely important because we both share the same belief and approach in being proactive about the safety and security of our travelers around the world. We continually look at new ways to better our service support and provide a better experience for the employee traveler. </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>In conclusion, just a couple of key points for Travel Managers to remember:</p>
<ul>
<li>Digital business agility is essential in order to be successfully competitive.</li>
<li>Be proactive vs. reactive in your travel and expense program transformations- be aware of the continual need</li>
<li>Build programs that can change with the times.</li>
<li>Help built hyper agility across your company’s workforce.</li>
<li>Embrace solutions that can help you better manage the changing business landscape.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Tune in next time to see how our heroes <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-travel-managers-harness-bionic-business-intelligence">embrace their bionic powers</a>.</p>
Ralph Colunga
How Traveler Data Shapes the Traveler Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-traveler-data-shapes-traveler-experience
2020-03-05T12:18:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Traveler data is essentially a subset of big datasets of data so large they cannot be processed through traditional processing means This data is collected from multiple sources and is...
<p>Traveler data is essentially a subset of big data—sets of data so large they cannot be processed through traditional processing means. This data is collected from multiple sources and is typically associated with customer views, habits, and behaviors. As technology advances, so do the opportunities to collect and utilize traveler data.<br />
</p>
<h2>Improving the traveler experience</h2>
<p>While many people are cautious about their data being used by companies, and rightly so, traveler data can absolutely be used to positively impact many different aspects of travel. From predictive analytics and proactive profile building, the opportunities to improve the travel experience through a better understanding of travelers are almost endless.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Easing traveler friction</h2>
<p>One of the biggest causes of traveler friction is having to standardize traveler preferences. Rather have something sweet for an in-flight snack? Too bad, they’re serving pretzels. Maybe you prefer two queen beds in your hotel room rather than a king. Through better management of traveler data, organizations can build more detailed profiles that enable them to better serve their clients. The ability to personalize an individual’s travel preferences in a mass-service industry will not only alleviate small frustrations that negatively impact the traveler experience but will also enable companies to better prepare for specific traveler requests, resulting in a more efficient product delivery.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Enhancing the reservation process</h2>
<p>And hotel rooms and in-flight snacks are just the beginning. Applications are available right now that proactively manage almost every aspect of travel from start to finish: apps that cross reference your favorite foods with restaurants in your destination city (and then offer to make reservations); apps that automatically change and update flight reservations based on events happening all over the globe; apps that automatically handle transfers to and from the airport without the traveler lifting a finger. All of it is made possible through the effective analysis of traveler data.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Streamlining operations</h2>
<p>By watching and analyzing data points from across the travel landscape, applications can automatically update travel policies. Not only will this save time by removing the human element from the process, it will ensure that travel policies perform optimally at all times.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The future of travel technology is bright</h2>
<p>As with other areas of big data, the capture and utilization of traveler data is inevitable. It’s the price we pay for the convenience afforded by the digital world in which we live, and there is plenty of reason to be cautious with <a href="https://www.adtrav.com/travel-industry-increases-focus-on-data-security/">how your data is captured</a>. The good news is that technology is removing many of the repetitive, mundane tasks associated with travel, ultimately resulting in a more hassle-free and enjoyable experience.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Are you maximizing travel convenience with your company’s data? Let us connect you with an ADTRAV travel expert and help you <a href="https://www.adtrav.com/contact-us/">optimize your travelers’ experience</a> today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Chesley Vague
How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-companies-can-prepare-future-business-travel
2020-05-28T16:25:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We are in the midst of one of the greatest paradigm shifts the modern world has witnessed And for those of us in the travel and hospitality industries what we are experiencing is...
<p>We are in the midst of one of the greatest paradigm shifts the modern world has witnessed. And, for those of us in the travel and hospitality industries, what we are experiencing is especially unprecedented.</p>
<p>While some have tried to draw comparisons to the impacts of other events and natural disasters, it is far from the same. Some examples to consider: </p>
<ul>
<li>Eight in 10 hotel rooms <a href="https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET_COVID19%20Impact%20on%20Hotel%20Industry_4.22.20_updated.pdf" target="_blank">are empty</a>.</li>
<li>2020 is projected to be the <a href="https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET_COVID19%20Impact%20on%20Hotel%20Industry_4.22.20_updated.pdf" target="_blank">worst year on record</a> for hotel occupancy.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Transportation/Air/ARC-Weekly-Air-Sales-By-US-Corp-Travel-Agencies-Again-Plummet?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eltrdaily&oly_enc_id=0806I1475178E9U" target="_blank">ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation) reported that</a>, compared to one year ago, airline ticket sales ending the week of April 5, 2020 fell 95.7%.</li>
</ul>
<p>We believe it fair to say that post COVID-19 we will be dealing with an economic recovery that will require a ramping up for the foreseeable future. What’s certain is that we are facing a landscape filled with new and evolving challenges -- be it further health risks, social distancing considerations, new travel restrictions, or company budget impacts – that the travel and hospitality industry needs to be ready to address.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1587659027626-checklist.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>5 Things to Think About Now to Stabilize Your T&E Programs</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/5-things-to-think-about-now-to-stabilize-your-travel-and-expense-programs">Get the checklist</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What can travel professionals do now?</h2>
<p>While it’s possible that the full ripple effects of the global health crisis have yet to be felt, there are many questions to be answered now. What can you do as the travel manager to stabilize your company for the present and prepare for what is to come? How do you take a leadership role during this time of crisis and be the voice of logical reason? What will be your plan of action be to communicate with you sr. management to prepare for the gradual return of business?</p>
<p>Whether your business is large or small<strong>, below are some action steps you may wish to consider as an initial checklist.</strong> As every company is different, we designed these areas of key topics for your review and discussion with your business partners. And while many may have already been in place in your T&E program, they will now need to be revisited as a result this business disruption.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Paradigm Shift</strong>: Adjust your T&E program to support the changing business environment.</li>
<li><strong>Transparency is Optimal</strong>: Is your reporting comprehensive?</li>
<li> <strong>Build Bridges, Break Down Silos</strong>: Align with stakeholder needs and new local and international regulations and requirements.</li>
<li><strong>Get Ahead of the Next Disruption</strong>: Stay vigilant on preparedness and develop improved duty of care as a part of your travel program.</li>
<li><strong>Partners of the Future</strong>: Build stronger relationships with internal stakeholders and external supplier, TMCs, and partners.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Our focus more than ever as travel managers needs to be as thought leaders</strong> to prepare our companies for the future. Your visibility matters now, as does your leadership expertise! Communication with your leadership and travel community is essential to understand their needs, as well as to further elevate the travel manager role at your company.</p>
<p><strong>While we can’t predict what a post-COVID19 world will look like, </strong>I believe we will emerge stronger -- as individuals, as service providers, as companies, and as a global community. The ways in which we conduct business may be forever changed, but we will find <strong>a new way of business as usual</strong>...<strong>however un-usual that seems!</strong></p>
<p><strong>For more, download our checklist <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/5-things-to-think-about-now-to-stabilize-your-travel-and-expense-programs">5 Things to Think About Now to Stabilize Your Travel and Expense Programs</a>, and watch the video below.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
Ralph Colunga
Is Your Business Prepared to Handle Whatever the Future Brings?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-business-prepared-handle-whatever-future-brings
2020-06-22T19:30:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Hope for the best prepare for the worst Wise words for living your life and for running your business Sudden changes good and bad can greatly impact demand for your products and...
<p>“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” Wise words for living your life and for running your business. Sudden changes – good and bad – can greatly impact demand for your products and services as well as your ability to deliver. The question is, are you and your employees ready to respond to whatever the future may bring? By ensuring your processes are flexible and you have enough cash on hand, you can better prepare for whatever boom or bust may be waiting around the corner.</p>
<p>At SAP, we are dedicated to helping businesses like yours stay flexible and adaptable. In light of that and the unprecedented times in which we are living, we have compiled a checklist – Seven Best Practices for Weathering Unexpected Change – to help you prepare for whatever the future may bring.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281001_Cloud_R_green.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Weathering Unexpected Change</h2>
<p>Learn 7 best practices for building a resilient, adaptable business.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-best-practices-for-weathering-unexpected-change">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The first step in meeting unexpected change head-on is to quickly figure out which processes are critical to stabilizing your business. One business may need everyone to be able to work from home while another may need all hands on deck to pack and deliver merchandise that can no longer be bought in the store. Whatever the case may be, you need to clearly communicate exactly what is expected of employees and give them the tools they need to focus on the most urgent tasks.</p>
<p>Another critical component of business preparedness is knowing exactly how and where you are spending money. This is, of course, a best practice under normal circumstances. But, when faced with a sudden crisis or a surge in sales, there’s no time to dig through paper invoices, e-mails, and spreadsheets to figure out which funds can be redirected to where you need it most. Having a comprehensive, automated, intelligent spend management solution can give you the visibility you need into fixed and variable expenses so that you can quickly optimize cashflow. It can also help you forecast where you would be financially given “what-if” scenarios, allowing you to adequately prepare – come rain or shine. Plus, by automating tedious, error-prone manual spend management processes, you will be saving money and time as well as protecting your business from costly mistakes and missed savings opportunities.</p>
<p>Remote, work-from-anywhere access is also key to helping ensure that your people are able to keep operations flowing in any situation. By moving your expense and vendor invoice management processes and data to the cloud, you are no longer dependent on documents stored on individual computers or tucked deep in the back of filing cabinets. This way, come what may, you can keep buying (and paying for) the materials and services you need to keep your business running and your vendors happy – without missing a beat.</p>
<p>Having a single, central cloud-based repository for all your business data has clear advantages beyond just spend management. Whether you are filing insurance claims or applying for government assistance, having fast and easy access to all expense documentation is a must. Not only are related costs clearly organized and categorized, you have the analytics capabilities to record a baseline for performance to show exactly how a given event has affected your business.</p>
<p>Finally, whether you are experiencing stormy weather today or have in the past, take advantage of what you’ve learned to make your operating procedures more resilient. What were the biggest challenges for your employees and your customers? And what tools could you implement to make sure those issues are resolved going forward? No one has a crystal ball. But with the right spend management technology, you’ll have the visibility, access, and financial insight to make unexpected financial decisions quickly. Plus, you’ll have that same technology in place to help you scale once the clouds have parted and sunny days are here again.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/7-best-practices-for-weathering-unexpected-change"><strong>Read the full checklist to find out how best to weather unexpected change.</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
How State and Local Government Agencies Are Modernizing Finance Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-state-and-local-government-agencies-are-modernizing-finance-management
2020-07-15T15:41:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
State and local agencies are in a tough spot when it comes to managing spending With a need to make taxpayer dollars go as far as possible and a belief that existing systems are good...
<p>State and local agencies are in a tough spot when it comes to managing spending. With a need to make taxpayer dollars go as far as possible, and a belief that existing systems are “good enough,” investing in modern technology to simplify back-office processes is a move that’s often difficult to justify. What’s overlooked, however, is that relying on these outdated, manual systems actually does more harm than good.</p>
<p>One vital area in which public sector agencies continue to use manual, paper-based processes is expense and AP management. While these outdated processes may look scrappier and more fiscally responsible on their surface, the truth is they’re inefficient, error-prone, and make tracking cash flow accurately nearly impossible.</p>
<p>We partnered with Route Fifty to uncover challenges that state and local agencies face when updating their expense and vendor invoice management systems. Not just in making the financial case for investing in a modern technology, but also misconceptions about what implementing an automated, integrated digital solution actually requires.</p>
<p>“A transition to a paperless system minimizes overhead costs significantly, speeds up time to delivery and payments, and increases the ability for throughput within an organization’s accounts payable and receivable office,” says Carlos Soto, former technology innovation manager, Bank of America</p>
<p>We also examined shifts within agencies that are helping pave the way to better expense and AP processes. As the next generation of tech-savvy IT and finance professionals join state and local government ranks, their partnership is making the adoption of digital tools far easier and more likely.</p>
<p>To learn all about how state and local government agencies are taking finance management to the next level, read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/going-digital-state-and-local-agencies-turn-to-powerful-financial-reporting-tools">the full article</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Recovery Plan: Five Ways to Get Your Business Back on Its Feet
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/recovery-plan-five-ways-get-your-business-back-its-feet
2020-08-17T17:36:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance business stories and interactive quizzes can be...
<p>This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark. The original article, as well as a collection of helpful guidance, business stories, and interactive quizzes can be found on this <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/spark/building-resilience/" target="_blank">Building Business Resilience</a> hub.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>COVID-19 is likely to have a long-standing impact on global economics. However, by being agile and open to change, companies can get back to business more quickly. In this article, we offer some advice for getting your business ready for the months ahead.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Focus on cash flow</h2>
<p>Businesses live or die by their cash flow. Even profitable businesses can go under if faced with an unexpected bill or a sharp downturn in demand. For many, the COVID-19 pandemic will have left a huge hole in their income that isn’t going to be filled immediately.</p>
<p>To improve cash flow, it’s important to focus relentlessly on getting money into the company by invoicing as soon as possible, chasing late payments and putting processes in place to ensure duplicate or fraudulent invoices are not accidentally paid. Keep outgoings to a minimum (such as by leasing, rather than buying, equipment), offer discounts for early payment and optimise stock levels to avoid any unnecessary expenses. Finally, if you need help, there are various <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/links-to-covid-19-business-assistance-programs-in-every-state">government programs</a> you can turn to.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Learn lessons from the pandemic</h2>
<p>One thing that the pandemic has taught us is that many of the tasks that once had to take place in the office can be done just as effectively at home. For example, it is possible to have productive meetings using video-conferencing tools and to collaborate with one another using cloud-based software.</p>
<p>Do you really need to keep paying for office space or can your business make do with a much smaller area with staff working remotely from home for part of the week? Whereas once a large boardroom for meetings would have been viewed as essential by company bosses, many are now finding they can manage without one. That includes office space for documentation such as invoices, expense receipts and other paperwork. For example, With the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a>, employees can easily <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-capture-receipts-with-your-mobile-phone">take a picture of their receipts</a> and upload them into an expense claim.</p>
<p>Going digital provides an instantly accessible database for all your essential documents so you can scrap the filing cabinets.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Addressing inefficiencies</h2>
<p>It’s tempting after a massive downturn in business to focus just on the “big-ticket items”, such as cutting back on staff or reducing the cost of suppliers. But this can be a high-risk strategy and damaging to business continuity. How do you know that fewer staff will be able to manage the workload as things pick up again, and can you really guarantee that a new supplier will provide the quality items you need for your business? As the expression goes, look after the pennies and the dollars will look after themselves. For example, you could aim to cut back on the stationery budget by going paperless and examine employee spend on expenses and invoices. You could also determine where to cut discretionary spend, putting in place spend thresholds and updating audit rules. SAP Concur solutions help businesses control costs, improve cash flow and support a remote workforce so that they can manage <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Thought-Leadership/UPDATED-Resources-and-Guidelines-for-Your-Business-During-COVID/ba-p/9375" target="_blank">business continuity</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Develop new business models</h2>
<p>What happens in the event of another lockdown, or if we’re faced with another crisis that completely changes the way we work? Inevitably those businesses that have succeeded during COVID-19 are the ones that have been the most adaptive and open to business opportunities – in other words, those that have found new business models to keep going. Examples are the restaurants that have turned into takeaways and the brick-and-mortar stores that have focused their resources on their online offerings. Some will even find that their new business models have proven so successful they will keep them going forward. Brainstorm ideas of what to do if disaster strikes again and put a contingency plan in place. Now is the time for creativity, speed and innovation.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Look after your talent</h2>
<p>Your staff members are your most valuable assets and how you treat them in the next few months will prove vital to your long-term success. Those who have been furloughed for the past few months may well be worried about their future in the company while others ponder the dangers of travelling into work and spending time in an office full of people after working remotely for so long. Make sure you address these concerns by putting in the necessary social distancing and hygiene measures, offering flexible working options and activating consultative communication plans so their concerns are heard.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are inevitably challenging times for everyone, but by planning now you can get your business back to normal much more quickly. Importantly, businesses need to put operations in place to become more effective, reducing inefficient processes when many employees are working remotely and identifying areas where you may be leaking money to improve cash flow.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Help Break Down Roadblocks for Latino Colleagues
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-help-break-down-roadblocks-latino-colleagues
2020-09-15T10:31:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In my career I have had many personal goals ranging from advancement targets to worklife balance desires However above all else is my goal to create a more equitable and inclusive...
<p>In my career I have had many personal goals, ranging from advancement targets to work-life balance desires. However, above all else, is my goal to create a more equitable and inclusive workforce. Having reached a point in my career where I am able to facilitate and implement hiring process decisions, this goal is no longer a desire, but rather, a necessity. As the executive sponsor of the Latinos@SAP Employee Network Group I find it especially relevant to discuss the impact an exclusive workplace has on the Latino community.</p>
<p>First and foremost, we must discuss the idea around intersectionality. This concept is defined as, “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group.” In other words, intersectionality is the crossover between pieces of an individual's identity. An example of this can be seen in a Latina, where she identifies as both a woman and a person of color. Intersectionality helps us to better understand how certain members of a stigmatized population may be disproportionately affected by uniform acceptance of majority culture. A study done by the Network of Executive Women (NEW), titled, “Latinas in Corporate America,” looks specifically at the impact on Latinas. The study identified two main issues contributing to the lack of advancement for Latinas: lack of an inclusive culture and lack of sponsorship.</p>
<p>According to the study, 76% of Latinas surveyed reported having repressed parts of their personas at work. An example of this can be found in the idea that many Latinos come from what is called a collectivist culture, where common goals supersede individual ones. Often, this drive to accomplish the common goal can be mistaken for a lack of hunger or interest in their work. Time and again, this incorrect translation of cultural norms leads to a well-qualified Latina candidate being overlooked for a position that is otherwise an excellent fit. What this ultimately tells us is that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to recruiting and retaining people of color in the workplace is not an effective method. Just as uniform performance standards disproportionately affect the Latina community, many other workplace processes and procedures unknowingly set up individuals with intersectional minority identities to fail.</p>
<p>What does all this mean? It means that there is a need for companies and individuals to make systemic change. People of color face obstacles to everyday activities that many of us are blind to, despite our efforts to educate ourselves. It is important to acknowledge all the intersectional challenges that come with being a Latina. Furthermore, it is vital that we don't succumb to the idea that those are the only challenges Latina women can face. If you are a woman of color who is a part of the LGBTQ+ community, you may experience additional roadblocks to success. The same goes for a Latina member of certain religious organizations, or any other stigmatized community. As such, we must strive to better understand, and then break down roadblocks our colleagues face. I have outlined some actions we can take to support people of color in the workplace based on feedback I have received from Latinos@SAP and my personal experiences.</p>
<ol>
<li>Increase diversity in the talent pipeline to improve representation of different cultures.</li>
<li>Consistently recalibrate your evaluation processes and expectations of employees to avoid a blanket application of a dominant culture’s practices.</li>
<li>Educate yourself on the cultural norms of those you encounter.</li>
<li>Take note of and avoid pigeonholing Latino individuals into positions focused solely on Hispanic markets.</li>
<li>Become a sponsor, not just a mentor, to Latino individuals.</li>
</ol>
<p>Creating an inclusive environment for our employees of varying cultures is essential. Every culture brings with it unique and valuable perspectives and thus helps your business to thrive. Encouraging your employees to be their most authentic selves is not simply the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.</p>
Pete Elmgren
Optimizing T&E Infrastructure: Benefits of a SAP Concur Re-Platform
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/optimizing-te-infrastructure-benefits-sap-concur-re-platform
2020-11-17T19:12:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Change is constant in the corporate business landscape Companies need to adapt to competitive forces in the global market which often requires mergers and acquisitions an expanded...
<p>Change is constant in the corporate business landscape. Companies need to adapt to competitive forces in the global market, which often requires mergers and acquisitions, an expanded geographic footprint, or other organizational changes to remain profitable. As changes occur, a company might find itself working across multiple software systems and technologies or working on an outdated platform that is not equipped for the current level of performance. </p>
<p>If you can answer yes to one of the following questions about your company, you may need to assess whether updates, upgrades, and/or new systems are needed:</p>
<ul>
<li>Have you expanded your geographic footprint?</li>
<li>Have you experienced mergers and acquisitions?</li>
<li>Are you working across multiple systems and technologies?</li>
<li>Is your company demanding more capabilities and efficiencies to keep up with current performance levels?</li>
</ul>
<p>Although some companies may continue operating with existing technology, others will evaluate their technology and software landscape for opportunities to upgrade and improve their operations. By evaluating their corporate travel technology footprint, companies ensure they are taking advantage of the latest SAP Concur solutions features. This may lead a company to look to optimize its current SAP Concur site or move to a new SAP Concur site, also known as re-platforming.</p>
<p>Sometimes, trying to optimize an outdated, legacy SAP Concur site will be more difficult than deploying a new SAP Concur site. For example, if historical issues have not been resolved, an optimization project will fall short of a best-in-class platform. With the right implementation approach, re-platforming will result in an optimized that supports your business’s current needs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Drivers for Site Re-Platform</h2>
<p>There are multiple reasons that might drive a company to move to a new SAP Concur site. Whether tied to major organizational changes, new system ownership, or changing priorities, all of these drivers will lead to tangible benefits. </p>
<p>Some common drivers for a SAP Concur site re-platform are:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>A merger or acquisition.</strong> Two companies merging will trigger a conversation about legacy sites and a go-forward infrastructure strategy.</li>
<li><strong>No available custom fields.</strong> Historical configuration has tied up all custom fields and is preventing the company from scaling to new business areas or markets.</li>
<li><strong>Complex data model. </strong>The cross use of fields in the system has made it difficult to extract useful reporting data. For example, Custom Field 1 and Custom Field 2 are both storing similar data.</li>
<li><strong>Infrastructure strategy.</strong> There is a new executive mandate to standardize the T&E systems and approach across the enterprise.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of global approach</strong>. The lack of a global approach to system design has led to disjointed decision making and a less-than-ideal system configuration. </li>
<li><strong>Changing system ownership.</strong> Centralization of operations or the promotion of a shared-services model is driving standardization to reduce the cost of ownership.</li>
<li><strong>Transformation of travel program.</strong> Changes to a portion of a company’s travel program (e.g., TMC) is driving the need for an upgraded platform.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Benefits of a Site Re-Platform</h2>
<p>A new SAP Concur site takes advantage of the latest SAP Concur functionality and global T&E best practices, and pairs them with the company’s current T&E policy and business objectives. Local-market statutory requirements are incorporated as needed. Benefits of re-platforming to a new SAP Concur site include both hard-dollar and soft-dollar savings: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Scalability:</strong> An optimized SAP Concur site utilizing a standard global model design and configuration allows for easier expansion. Bringing on new markets, businesses, or products will require less time and effort.</li>
<li><strong>System maintenance:</strong> Maintaining an SAP Concur site created with various market-driven requirements and no “global voice” makes system maintenance complex. Tasks such as system administration, regular maintenance, and deployment project work have lengthy design implications and regression-testing needs. Maintaining one global optimized T&E system site greatly reduces the ongoing maintenance and administration effort.</li>
<li><strong>Reporting:</strong> Reporting, especially at the managerial level, is only as good as the data itself. Older SAP Concur sites might have different custom fields used to collect similar data. This could lead to additional challenges in obtaining the data in the same format for aggregation, and global reporting becomes less meaningful. A new site allows for enhanced reporting capabilities due to alignment, improved management reporting, and back-office data analytics. </li>
<li><strong>New functionality</strong>: The launch of a new SAP Concur site is the perfect time to revisit functionality that your company might have been postponing. For example, if your company uses an SAP ERP and the interfaces were built before the SAP Native Integration (i.e., SAP ICS) was available, this could be a good time to take advantage of the increased functionality and benefits of SAP ICS. Many companies that deployed 10+ years ago can now take advantage of templates for many market-specific requirements that weren’t available previously.</li>
<li><strong>Site consolidation:</strong> If a merger or acquisition is the driver for change, then a new SAP Concur site can reduce the burden on IT and financial operations, simplify single sign-on (SSO) management, streamline user access, and consolidate travel policy-compliance enforcement. Combining two legacy SAP Concur sites into one streamlined site can help boost a company’s ability to operate, and reduce the need to run reports, set up users, and make configuration changes in multiple sites.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Streamlined implementation</h2>
<p>Acquis Consulting Group (Acquis) is a Global Certified Implementation Partner and Consulting Partner of SAP Concur. Acquis has more than 20 years of experience implementing SAP Concur in more than 100 countries and 170 companies. Acquis has created a seven-step re-platform approach that streamlines the implementation project to lower overall project costs and reduce project efforts. </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1605233134948-acquis7step.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Every company’s circumstances are unique, however, proactively addressing an outdated T&E system and taking advantage of the latest features of SAP Concur solutions will help your company achieve travel and expense system infrastructure improvements quickly. Understanding the wide array of benefits to your company will create a strong business case that resonates with executive sponsors. Using a streamlined approach to implementation will benefit your company in the near term, and could significantly lower the costs of a re-platform project.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more, please visit Acquis Consulting Group at <a href="https://www.acquisconsulting.com/how_we_help/services/acquis_and_sap_concur_partnership" target="_blank">www.acquisconsulting.com</a> or contact us at </strong><a href="mailto:sapconcur@acquisconsulting.com"><strong>sapconcur@acquisconsulting.com</strong></a><strong>. </strong></p>
Debra Moss
Does Your Spend Management Solution Feel Like It’s Solving Anything?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/does-your-spend-management-solution-feel-its-solving-anything
2020-12-03T12:35:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You keep a sharp eye on spending but every now and then youre bound to blink Think about it If youre missing any amount of expenses or anything on your invoices youre not in full...
<p>You keep a sharp eye on spending, but every now and then you’re bound to blink.</p>
<p>Think about it: If you’re missing any amount of expenses or anything on your invoices, you’re not in full control of what’s going out the door. You run the risk of making purchasing, budgeting, and forecasting decisions based on incomplete and, therefore, inaccurate data. And you could argue there has never been a more critical time to see all of this spend – every digit in every scenario.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Simpler, Smarter Strategy for Managing Spend</h2>
<p>The tools and tactics you need</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/tools-tactics-simpler-smarter-spend-management-strategy">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>But employees aren’t in their offices right now, so it’s harder for them to follow spending protocols and harder for you to see what they’re up to. New spending categories for things like personal protective equipment, home office furniture, and internet connections weren’t on your radar last year, now you’re spending – how much? – on them every month. People are using cash and personal cards to buy what they need for work, and you’re left in the dark on these transactions until expense reports come in weeks or months later. And while employees may have the best intentions, they still make typos, so not only is that spending data late, it’s often inaccurate.</p>
<p>The question, of course, is how do you open your eyes wider to where and why and when your employees are spending: How do you make sure your solution offers the order and oversight to see it all without blinking?</p>
<p>Well, you could stop reading right now and take a look at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/tools-tactics-simpler-smarter-spend-management-strategy">this solutions overview</a>, which outlines all the tools and tactics it takes to get spending under control.</p>
<p>You’ll get an accurate account of expenses in time to do something about them.</p>
<p>You’ll put an end to all those paper receipts.</p>
<p>You’ll know how much money is left and how much more must be spent.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a quick review of the tools it takes to actually solve your spending concerns. It’s not just a “solution,” in other words. It’s <strong>the </strong>solution.</p>
<p>You could also ask yourself six very important spending questions, as outlined in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/six-questions-for-your-business-spend-management-solution">this spending checklist</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your expense report process support your policies, and vice-versa?</li>
<li>Is the right type of spending going on your p-cards?</li>
<li>Are you focusing on invoices?</li>
<li>How adaptable are you when it comes to new expense categories?</li>
<li>Do your current reporting abilities match your needs?</li>
<li>What’s the spending experience like for the people doing the spending?</li>
</ol>
<p>Comparing your answers to those detailed in the checklist will give you a clear picture of where you’re succeeding and where your spending is slipping by unnoticed. But they aren’t meant to be discouraging, they’re intended to be inspiring – there are solutions out there that really can organize the chaos and complexity of spend management.</p>
<p>There are ways to turn an unblinking eye toward every expense and invoice, you just have to know where to look.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Now Arriving: COVID-19 Travel Guidance in TripIt
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/now-arriving-covid-19-travel-guidance-tripit
2021-03-08T16:56:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Travel restrictions related to COVID vary greatly and constantly change meaning the decision to traveland the process of travelingisnt as straightforward as it used to be Thankfully...
<p></p>
<p>Travel restrictions related to COVID-19 vary greatly and constantly change, meaning the decision to travel—and the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/passengers-wear-masks-flying-during-covid.html" target="_blank">process of traveling</a>—isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. Thankfully, that’s about to change. Starting today, TripIt shows you the latest COVID-19 travel guidelines, restrictions, and requirements—alongside infection rates—for the destinations you’re visiting. This new feature will help you stay as informed as possible, with the latest information all in one place.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does the COVID-19 guidance feature work?</h2>
<p>To help you stay up to date on the impacts that COVID-19 is having on your travel plans, we’ve added destination-specific travel guidance into the TripIt app. Once you book a trip, you’ll be able to easily see the latest information on COVID-19 for the destinations you’re visiting. This will include current infection rates, quarantine rules upon arrival, testing requirements, and other <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/neighborhood-safety-scores-personal-risk-level.html" target="_blank">information travelers need to know</a> before visiting the area. This information comes from our partner Riskline.</p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/tripit/gifs/covid_us_guidance.gif" />
<p> </p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where can I access COVID-19 travel guidance?</h2>
<p>The next time you view a trip itinerary in TripIt, you will notice a guidebook button on your trip summary screen (above the edit button). Tap the guidebook to see additional information to help you prepare for your next trip. </p>
<p>For every country (and for some countries, states, and provinces) you’re visiting, TripIt will show you COVID-19 related: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Key information</strong> including infection rates, hotspots, and any quarantine or testing requirements for travelers entering the area.</li>
<li><strong>Requirements and restrictions</strong> currently in place, including mask requirements, curfew orders, and restrictions on dining and shopping.</li>
<li><strong>Travel guidelines</strong> issued for your destination, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-travelers-need-to-know-about-digital-health-passports">health documentation requirements</a>, entry and exit rules, travel bans, and more.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Will every destination have COVID-19 travel guidance?</h2>
<p>COVID-19 travel guidance is available for more than 200 countries and territories. Some countries also have data available by specific regions: </p>
<ul>
<li>For Australia, you can view guidance by state. </li>
<li>For Canada, you can view guidance by province. </li>
<li>For the United States, you can view guidance by state.</li>
</ul>
<p>COVID-19 travel guidance is available to all TripIt users. </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<h2>What else is TripIt doing to help travelers?</h2>
<p>Adding COVID-19 travel guidance to the TripIt app is just one of the ways we’re making it easier to navigate your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/health-safety-tools-from-trip-it-for-your-travel-kit">health and safety needs</a> the next time you travel. You can also view a general health and medical score for the area you’re visiting in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/trip-it-pro-neighborhood-safety-scores">Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> and easily <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places.html" target="_blank">find nearby hospitals and pharmacies</a>, all within the TripIt app. And if you just want to stay up to date on what’s changed since the last time you traveled, visit our <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center/" target="_blank">Traveler Resource Center</a>—a collection of public health and safety advisories, booking cancellation and travel policies, and more, designed to help you stay as informed as possible. </p>
<p><strong>[</strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/free/download" target="_blank"><strong>Download the TripIt app</strong></a><strong>]</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Just Because Cloud Chaos is Real Doesn’t Mean You Have to Live With It
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/just-because-cloud-chaos-real-doesnt-mean-you-have-live-it
2021-03-19T14:23:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre in an IT department youre likely shaking your head right now And chewing your fingernails And quite possibly pulling out clumps of your hair Because as more and more...
<p>If you’re in an IT department, you’re likely shaking your head right now. And chewing your fingernails. And quite possibly pulling out clumps of your hair. Because as more and more businesses make their move to the cloud, more and more lines of business are consuming mindboggling amounts of technology. Often without telling anyone.</p>
<p>It’s true, and if you’re in IT, you’re now nodding that weary head of yours. Individual lines of business are increasingly deploying point solutions without oversight–and when IT doesn’t know who’s using what (and users don’t know how to use the tech itself), you guessed it: Chaos.</p>
<p>Add it up for yourself:</p>
<ul>
<li>According to <a href="https://www.blissfully.com/blog/announcing-saas-trends-2020/" target="_blank">Blissfully SaaS Trends 2020</a>, the number of SaaS apps in use per company is up roughly 30% year over year.</li>
<li>Duplicate subscriptions (and how many times do you need to buy an app, by the way?) have increased 80%.</li>
<li>Orphaned apps (which people aren’t using, just paying for) are up almost 100%.</li>
<li>And in an enterprise-size company, IT is managing an average of 21,580 app connections with 60% of their SaaS stack changing every two years.</li>
</ul>
<p>It’s tiring. It’s too much. And it’s time for a change. As your company takes a look at a key process–and the right solutions–for travel and expense, finance and IT should work together to gain control of it all and diminish chaos.</p>
<p>And to make sure you get a plan that works, you need to look at a few more numbers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Which do you trust more: 800,000 user reviews or 80?</h2>
<p>User experience matters more than ever, and because employees’ expectations are as high as their stress level, you’ll want to eliminate every possible point of friction or frustration from your travel and expense process. So when you’re looking for a solution, make sure the “5-star rating” doesn’t come from just five reviews.</p>
<p>And as long as we’re talking mobile, be sure you’re getting a fully functioning app that’s packed with features and functions and is entirely intuitive. The last thing you want is a responsive browser format squished down into your smartphone screen.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">A functional app</a> draws users in, simplifies their work, and keeps them on policy and in compliance. Anything less bogs them down and causes them to abandon your solutions as well as your processes.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Your ecosystem should have hundreds of components, not a couple.</h2>
<p>The long-term success of your travel and expense solution is determined by more than the solution itself. It should attract industry leaders, as well as upstart innovators, giving you a <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">full ecosystem</a> of apps and ideas that extend your solution in every direction and allow you to tackle what’s critical to your company. You should be able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stay ahead of the unique tax and regulatory requirements that go hand in hand with global spending.</li>
<li>Stay on top of the traveler and other employee safety requirements and risk assessments that have risen to the top of your priority list.</li>
<li>Connect to all the new and emerging travel brands–from Airbnb to Uber–giving travelers tools they actually want to use.</li>
</ul>
<p>The right solution cultivates and curates this app ecosystem for you, so you aren’t left trying to build or manage your own extensions. That gives you more time to focus on other work and gives finance more value.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is “a lot” a number? In this case, yes.</h2>
<p>Travel and expense solutions may not be as complex as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/7-questions-to-ask-when-choosing-a-cloud-based-erp">ERP systems</a>, but they at least need to be able to work together–and not merely “importing and exporting files” kind of work. There need to be automated and intelligent data and process integrations.</p>
<p>Your travel and expense solution also needs to work with payroll, with credit card companies, with TMCs and their systems, and with top travel brands from airlines to hotels, so traveler transactions flow right into your system.</p>
<p>You have to keep that spending data–and that’s a LOT of data–flowing from system to system automatically. So you need an automated, turnkey integration, and you can’t let finance settle for anything less.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>24/7 is only a start.</h2>
<p>Everyone comes to IT with questions, but the right cloud solution provides the answers for you. So be certain your solution offers program administrators 24/7 access to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/service-administration">experts and insights</a>, and be sure that isn’t all you get.</p>
<p>Every employee should have access to this expertise, so they can get what they need without filling your inbox. And if you want hands-on support for your finance team–helping them with configuration issues and working with them on long-term planning–you should get exactly what you need, whenever you need it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Serenity in numbers</h2>
<p>66 million unique users book their travel and process their expenses through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/5-reasons-sap-concur-is-the-right-solution-for-spend-management">SAP Concur solutions</a>. And while bigger doesn’t necessarily equate to better, it does mean that 66 million people have invested in and committed to SAP experience, ecosystems, integrations, and support.</p>
<p>That demonstrates confidence in the solution–trust on a global scale, in fact–and if there’s anything that can chip away at the chaos of your current cloud solutions, it’s knowing that the rest of the world is comfortable with its cloud solution.</p>
<p>After all those numbers, you’re bound to have a couple questions. For more information, visit <a href="http://concur.com">concur.com</a> or contact your SAP Concur sales representative.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Business Mileage is Rebounding Across Industries
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-business-mileage-rebounding-across-industries
2021-06-09T08:13:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Weve now passed the oneyear anniversary of nationwide shutdowns due to COVID The week of April marked the anniversary of the lowest level of business mileage over the last months...
<p>We’ve now passed the one-year anniversary of nation-wide shutdowns due to COVID-19. The week of April 5, 2020 marked the anniversary of the lowest level of business mileage over the last 12 months. As we look back at last year, it’s amazing to see the changes that occurred. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/us-report-business-driving-returns-first-quarter-mileage-trends-indicate-recovery-across-various-industries">latest flash trend report</a> found that field activity is 75% higher than it was the week of April 5, 2020.</p>
<p>Field activity can serve as a strong indicator of economic health. We’re trending in the right direction, with the average business mileage during WorkForward rising to 70% of pre-pandemic levels.</p>
<p>Business leaders can use field activity as an input to near-term decision-making. This report serves as an indicator of where commercial activity is headed – onward and upward.</p>
<p>Here’s a closer look at other notable findings from <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/us-report-business-driving-returns-first-quarter-mileage-trends-indicate-recovery-across-various-industries">the report</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Regionally, business mileage has increased across the country. The South and Western U.S. are experiencing the highest level of activity, both trending at about 72% of pre-pandemic levels. The Midwest is experiencing 70% growth in activity and business mileage in the Northeast has grown to 64% of pre-pandemic levels.</li>
<li>While activity levels vary from region to region, there is an even wider variety among industry sectors and their many subsectors. After seeing similar trajectories across most industries in March and April of 2020, different businesses are recovering at different speeds. Activity trends also differ depending on where and how companies operate.</li>
<li>Here’s a closer look at the recovery of various sectors:
<ul>
<li>Business Services (102%, +27% above the WorkForward average)</li>
<li>Food & Beverage (86% of pre-pandemic levels, a +46% increase over the lowest point the week of April 5th)</li>
<li>Construction & Building Materials (80% of pre-pandemic levels, -5% below the average)</li>
<li>Machinery (70% of pre-pandemic levels, +1% above the average)</li>
<li>Pharmaceutical/Biotech & Medical Devices (69% of pre-pandemic levels, +3% above the average)</li>
<li>Hospitals & Healthcare (64% of pre-pandemic levels, -15% below the average)</li>
<li>Retail (61% of pre-pandemic levels, +1% above the average)</li>
<li>Automotive (52% of pre-pandemic levels, +11% above the average)</li>
<li>Energy & Environmental (52% of pre-pandemic levels, +8% above the average)</li>
<li>Manufacturing (49% of pre-pandemic levels, +3% above the average)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Signs of pent-up demand are showing up on the leading edges of reopening states. As vaccinations increase among the population, we should expect to see a rapid recovery in business mileage across a broader range of economic sectors.</p>
<p>Business leaders can stay abreast of these trends and analyze their indicators to determine the best course of action. Companies can leverage their mileage data to quantify activity trends in their locations and industries as they WorkForward.</p>
<p>Read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/us-report-business-driving-returns-first-quarter-mileage-trends-indicate-recovery-across-various-industries" target="_blank">Business Driving Returns report</a> to learn more.</p>
Ken Robinson
How Are Finance and IT Leaders Navigating the Path to Post-Pandemic Success?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-are-finance-and-it-leaders-navigating-path-post-pandemic-success
2021-06-17T08:25:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It is with cautious optimism that we look forward to living and working in a postpandemic world If weve learned anything in the past months its that staying flexible and resilient in...
<p>It is with cautious optimism that we look forward to living and working in a post-pandemic world. </p>
<p>If we’ve learned anything in the past 15 months, it’s that staying flexible and resilient in the face of change requires clear spend visibility and tight control over cash flow. It also means allowing your people to do their jobs from anywhere at the drop of a hat. </p>
<p>To find out how businesses are adjusting to this new way of work, SAP teamed up with Oxford Economics <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">to survey 500 finance and IT leaders</a> from small and midsize companies around the world. Key topics covered were digital transformation and company culture – and how both have come front and center following a very bumpy 2020. </p>
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<h2>Oxford Economics Report: Leadership in a New Era</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">Get the data</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p>To begin with, the roles of IT and finance have changed drastically – requiring close collaboration to simultaneously adapt to a hybrid or remote work model and manage drastic flux in supply, demand, and revenue streams. In fact, of those surveyed, 47% have seen their role grow in strategic importance over the past year, and 57% anticipate playing an even greater role going forward. </p>
<p>Part of that will be addressing the operational shortcomings highlighted by the sudden onset of COVID-19. Nearly half (47%) of respondents found that the pandemic brought their companies’ inefficient business processes to light. But identifying operational inefficiencies and solving them are two very different things. At the heart of the challenge, finance and IT leaders point to a lack of collaboration as well as gaps in technology infrastructure. From siloed departments to inadequate data, weak analysis and planning capabilities, and insufficient cybersecurity, many companies do not have the tools they need to keep teams productive and operations running anytime, anywhere. </p>
<p>In addition to fostering a stronger community culture – where everyone is clear on company goals, strategies, and changes – finance and IT leaders must empower employees to adapt to more flexible ways of working that are supported by process digitalization and automation. </p>
<p>The hitch? Of our survey respondents, fewer than half the finance and IT leaders named the other as a key strategic partner, and most finance leaders did not consider their business expansion strategies to be unified with those of IT. On top of that, many leaders are taking a wait-and-see approach to digitalization – unsure whether recent changes are just temporary and hesitant about whether to move full-speed ahead. </p>
<p>One of these changes is the digitalization of spend management – with 27% of respondents assessing whether the change will be permanent and 25% planning to revert back to manual processes in the next two years. And while 78% of respondents are using new technology to improve financial reporting, the majority are unsure if the change is here to stay. Finally, while more than half of respondent companies have allowed employees to work remotely, just 1% plan to continue doing so over the long term. </p>
<p>Why then, after investing in and implementing new technology and a more flexible work environment, are so many companies unsure about the future and even making plans to go back to the way things were? Uncertainty in the continuing wake of COVID-19 is certainly in play, but so is the overall challenge of digitalizing processes while continuing to maintain daily operations. With many technologies, the learning curve can be steep – and taking the business offline for fixes and upgrades seems daunting. In short – digital transformation can be a slow process, made even more difficult by systems that cannot be easily adapted to changing business needs. </p>
<p>But with financial leaders citing their top concerns as compliance with expense policies (57%); financial planning and analysis (57%); and maintaining visibility into spending (40%), there is no doubt that digitalizing spend management is a must in order to help ensure future success. Not only can the right digital spend management platform address these concerns, it can also allow companies to unify and consolidate spend data in one place – providing a single source of truth that can be leveraged company wide. In fact, 42% of companies that have digitalized expense management report increased productivity. Of the companies that have digitalized invoice management, 43% report increased agility and resiliency. And for those having digitalized cash flow management, 35% say it has helped increase functional collaboration. </p>
<p>Whether you are starting from scratch or have already begun bringing your spend under management, choosing tried and trusted spend management solutions with a proven record of simplicity, agility, and scalability will help prepare your business and your people for whatever lies ahead. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era" target="_blank">Read the full report</a> to find out more about how finance and IT leaders are navigating the new normal. Then visit us at <a href="http://www.concur.com/" target="_blank">www.concur.com</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help you do the same. </p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
The Future Travel Community: Strength in Numbers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/future-travel-community-strength-numbers
2022-07-01T12:12:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As if it wasnt enough already responsible return to travel has been revealing a new twist that travel managers and companies will have to contend with Its strength is in its numbers...
<p>As if it wasn’t enough already, responsible return to travel has been revealing a new twist that travel managers and companies will have to contend with. Its strength is in its numbers, and it's not going away, nor does not seem to be backing down. If anything, it’s becoming a growing phenomenon and something that is real and may have a significant impact on your managed travel program.</p>
<p>It’s the new strength of your traveler community and how they are prepared to flex their muscle via their voice.</p>
<p>Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic impact and for several years, there already was a new focus on the end-user travel experience. Whether it was about personalization, booking choice empowerment, or supplier selection, the movement of providing greater flexibility for the traveler was on the rise.</p>
<p>Fast forward 16 months from March 2020, and while the entire travel landscape has undeniably been altered, one prominent area is the voice of the traveler.</p>
<p>Survey after survey echoes the same type of messaging from both travelers themselves and travel managers alike;</p>
<ul>
<li>Yes, I want to travel, but only when I feel safe to do so.</li>
<li>My health and safety will take prominence over the decision I will make regarding my travel.</li>
<li>I will pick and choose the suppliers that meet my business needs, and not just those of the company.</li>
<li>I want flexibility in my workplace and travel and not draconian rules.</li>
<li>And if I don’t get what I want I am prepared to leave my company.</li>
</ul>
<p>A recent EY & SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/re-emergence-business-travel-where-are-we-going-next">whitepaper on the re-emergence of business travel</a> states some findings from the EY Work Reimagined Employee Survey, 2021: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Nine in ten respondents want flexibility</strong> in where and when they work</li>
<li><strong>54% of employees</strong> are likely to quit if they aren’t offered the flexibility they want.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Travelers want and need to travel for business, but they want to do it both safely and responsibly,” said Ann Kloepfer, a senior travel manager for Microsoft. “They’re expecting us to provide tools that give them better insight into more responsible choices.”</p>
<p>In addition, the <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">2021 Global Business Traveler Report</a>, a Wakefield research study of 3500 travelers in 25 countries found that COVID-19, has altered the power dynamics in the workplace. In so much that business travelers <strong>will consider their options if employers don’t match their expectations.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Two out of three respondents (68%) clearly state that they want to return to business travel, but they want to do so on their terms.</li>
<li>Almost a third (31%) say they would ask to limit travel if their company does not implement policies or measures to help protect their health and safety, while 20 percent would go as far as looking for a different position.</li>
<li>72 percent of business travelers rank flexibility as a top consideration for business travel,</li>
<li>Flexibility, such as choosing your transportation, lodging, and travel dates, is now the most pressing need for business travelers, ahead of their vaccination-related demands (72% vs. 62%).</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transparency equals compliance</h2>
<p>While every company will need to approach this situation differently as every company’s culture is different, it is fair to state that this pendulum has swung. How far is the real question, and this will individually have to be determined. One suggestion given the importance of employee retention, working closely with your HR Business partners is advisable before changing any travel policies or rules.</p>
<p>It is my personal belief that empowering your global travel community can be a very positive step forward for your managed travel program – it builds trust and affords the opportunity for the implementation of travel and expense transparency solutions. And, <strong>transparency equals compliance</strong>.</p>
Ralph Colunga
Paradigm Shifts for the Future of Work
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/paradigm-shifts-future-work
2022-07-01T13:47:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What will be the new normal coming out of the pandemic This crucial question will drive important business decisions at every level of every organization Where people will work whether...
<p>What will be the new normal coming out of the pandemic? This crucial question will drive important business decisions at every level of every organization. Where people will work; whether or not to require masks, certificates of vaccination, or frequent COVID-19 tests in the office; how to determine if and when travel is safe—these things can’t be ignored. At the same time, they can be a major distraction.</p>
<p>I’d suggest three areas of focus that can put things into perspective as leaders evaluate their plans for a post-pandemic reality. Given the uncertainty we’re all feeling, navigating these three issues is crucial for companies to thrive. As leaders make decisions around policies and procedures for their company, they should ask “How does this impact employee experience, creative collaboration, and customer connection?”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Employee experience</h2>
<p>Like so many concepts in business, the term “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/employee-engagement">employee experience</a>” has been reduced to an acronym—EX. In this case, it’s appropriate; if you don’t get EX right, you may end up with EX-employees.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Thought Leadership Fusion panel Creating a New Playbook for Businesses explored this topic with a focus on the need to rewrite the rules of business—from shifts in budget priorities to more seamless policies and flexibility for employees to help navigate this new era of travel and spend management.</p>
<p>Luna Ness, global marketing manager at TCG Consulting, discussed the importance of the employee journey and experience.</p>
<p>“We’re seeing more and more companies focus their attention on the employee experience and the employee journey, specifically to meetings requiring travel, payments, and expense programs. An example that companies are taking into consideration is employees booking trips,” said Ness. “So, the approval process for that trip—how do they book the trip? How are they going to pay for that trip, their experience, and accommodation when they arrive at the hotel, the meeting space, and location? And then, when they get back, how are they going to expense that trip, and how are they going to get reimbursed? Those are some of the stages in the journey that companies need to assess…employees want simplified processes, easier access to information, and greater employee benefits and perks when they use employee channels.”</p>
<p>Creating a supportive, empowering EX is key to keeping talent on board, attracting new talent, and maintaining company culture. Employees who have been working from home have experienced an unprecedented level of autonomy—and by and large, they’ve delivered, and then some. The most exhaustive study of remote work, conducted by Stanford University involving roughly 20,000 employees over nine months, showed a productivity increase of <a href="https://nbloom.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj4746/f/wfh.pdf">13 percent</a>. Numerous, more recent studies report <a href="https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/is-remote-working-more-productive-new-findings-give-us-an-answer">even higher increases</a>.</p>
<p>Whether employees face a hybrid work model or a return to the office, many are re-evaluating their options and even actively considering quitting. According to a Yahoo Finance/Harris Poll survey, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/americans-are-considering-quitting-their-jobs-145258951.html">37 percent of workers</a> are either thinking of leaving their current jobs or are already preparing to make the move. And securing a new job before leaving the current one is no longer a requirement—a recent McKinsey report found that of those surveyed who had quit in the past six months, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/great-attrition-or-great-attraction-the-choice-is-yours">36 percent</a> did so without a new job lined up.</p>
<p>Losing anywhere near 37 percent of a talented, trained workforce would be disastrous for any company. Fortunately, there are plenty of actions and resources to avoid this, and SAP Concur solutions can play a significant role. We are dedicated to removing friction and hassle from day-to-day business life. We’re particularly focused on managing travel and expense (T&E) processes. Ultimately, our goal is to automate them to the point where they’re invisible, so that the employee effort required to get reimbursed for their expenses is zero. If companies want to improve their EX, this kind of thinking needs to be applied to all business processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Creative collaboration</h2>
<p>When employees work together in an office, collaboration happens in ways that simply can’t take place on a video call. An example of just how important casual collaboration can be is the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/upshot/when-chance-encounters-at-the-water-cooler-are-most-useful.html">chance meeting</a> of Prof. Katalin Kariko and Dr. Drew Weissman at a photocopier in 1997, which led to the foundational mRNA science behind today’s COVID-19 vaccinations.</p>
<p>While an extreme example, important breakthroughs do occur through casual encounters on a regular basis. Employees certainly recognize the value of face-to-face interactions. In one study, <a href="https://lucidspark.com/blog/report-collaboration-and-creativity-during-covid">75 percent</a> of workers cited collaboration as having suffered the most while working at home. Companies need to facilitate personal contact, both to boost creative collaboration and improve EX.</p>
<p>In some cases, this may mean revisiting the T&E budget to enable “mini-conferences” among employees who are geographically dispersed. It is nearly impossible to establish or maintain culture in a remote environment—in this new era, internal travel should be considered as an indispensable tool to instill and maintain company culture.</p>
<p>“This is a new expense normal. We have to be prepared to deal with the unexpected,” noted Tom Lavin, chief controlling officer of marketing solutions at SAP. “Companies have to be agile in their budgeting practices, especially as it relates to travel and expense. We have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable aspect of not knowing what we don’t know—we don’t have a crystal ball. The resurgence of the COVID-19 variant shows that you cannot expect to predict the future.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Customer connection</h2>
<p>The third focus area is customer connection, which may involve incorporating more frequent business travel. It is easier to build trust and have frank or delicate conversations in person than virtually. Lorraine Cohen, tax partner at Deloitte, noted, “Because people are moving to different locations and changing their primary work location, there’s going to be a need to meet with your teams or customers that may not be near where you are. I actually think that travel is going to increase as we get further along.”</p>
<p>Simultaneously, the value of such in-person interactions is difficult to quantify. Data from a large number of customers via surveys or other formal methods can help spot trends very well. On the other hand, a one-to-one conversation in an informal setting can lead to insights no survey would ever reveal—or perhaps a deal that otherwise wouldn’t have closed.</p>
<p>When many companies are feeling the need to reconnect with customers in person, the lingering effects of the pandemic have added two new dimensions to T&E budget and policy considerations. First is safety. In addition to deciding whether a particular business trip is cost justified, companies have a legal responsibility to ensure that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">the trip in question is safe</a>. Beyond that, there is the issue of travel restrictions. Many European countries, for example, now require a negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination before they’ll admit U.S. citizens, and some are imposing quarantines. Adding to these challenges is the fact that the rules are constantly changing.</p>
<p>These factors point to a need for new levels of flexibility in travel planning. All stakeholders need to be involved, and the intangible results of business trips should not be ignored. Tom Lavin echoes this sentiment: “If travel rebounds by X percent, or Y amount of spend, how would you plan that? How would you allow your workforce to go travel, and how would you be able to fund that? We have to be very comfortable with that unexpected reality, make sure we have scenarios available, and try to tap into as much real-time data as possible so that it can influence those decisions and give you the ability to course correct.”</p>
<p>On the topic of events, Lavin continued: “I think we’ll see some sustained increase in virtual events…both for customer engagement as well as internal meetings. That won’t go away. We’ll see the benefits of [a hybrid model], having some events held virtually continue, but you cannot sacrifice the really phenomenal benefits of human interactions—it’ll have to be a careful balance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Human Touch</p>
<p>Looking at these three focus areas—employee experience, creative collaboration, and customer connection—there’s a common theme: the human touch. While we are still amid the pandemic, and caution is as important as ever, it’s also time we start reconnecting.</p>
Mike Koetting
People, Planet, and Profit: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Corporate Sustainability with TCG
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/people-planet-and-profit-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-corporate-sustainability-tcg
2022-07-01T17:03:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
An increasing number of organizations are including corporate sustainability goals in their strategic imperativeseven more so since the start of the pandemic But what does...
<p>An increasing number of organizations are including <a href="https://www.concur.com/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">corporate sustainability</a> goals in their strategic imperatives—even more so since the start of the pandemic. But what does sustainability really mean from a business perspective? </p>
<p>We asked Ryan Hamilton, Senior Value Consultant for the Value Experience Group at the SAP Concur organization, and Sally Crotty, Senior Consultant and Sustainability SME for our partner, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrator/tcg-consulting">TCG</a>, to discuss the growing focus on sustainability and how sustainability could look like through a business lens. In the next episode, we explore practical steps companies can take to enhance their sustainability efforts.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-does-sustainability-mean-for-corporations-an/id1525744763?i=1000531525492">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5I8d62ySdUXUovvMI2DITU">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/what-does-sustainability-bmwIr3fPvhU/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/what-does-sustainability-mean-for-corporations-an-sap-concur">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjExMTkwYzI5ODhiNmEwMDEzOTRiNTJh?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwio9-jDgMTzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBg">Google</a>, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-does-sustainability-mean-for-corporations-podcast-part-1">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>People, planet and profit: 3 kinds of sustainability</h2>
<p>Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, often referred to as "people, planet, and profit," are keywords we hear on a regular basis, notes Crotty. Since the pandemic began, she says, “[we’re seeing] not just an environmental focus on sustainability but also an increased focus on social and economic sustainability.” She elaborates:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Social sustainability</strong>, sometimes referred to as people or human sustainability, includes things like fair pay for employees, healthy work-life balance, diverse and inclusive workplaces, and flexible working hours and locations. It may also include training employees and people in the community to create and support the future workforce. “It’s all about supporting the [communities] in which we live and work,” Crotty explains.</li>
<li><strong>Economic sustainability</strong>, sometimes referred to as governance or profit, means ensuring that your business can grow and maintain profitability in sustainable ways. “It's also understanding what the company emissions are today, what information is available to measure the reduction in emissions, and what's needed in order to achieve their sustainable goals as the business grows,” says Crotty.</li>
<li><strong>Environmental sustainability</strong> means that organizations need to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which provides the most widely used international accounting and reporting standards today, divides greenhouse gases into three categories:
<ul>
<li>Scope 1 are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources for business, such as fuel combustion and company vehicles.</li>
<li>Scope 2 are indirect emissions generated by a company’s purchase of energy, such as electricity to power a factory or the cost of heating and cooling an office.</li>
<li>Scope 3 are indirect emissions generated within a company’s value chain, such as purchased goods, waste generated from operating the organization, employee commuting and business travel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>The high (environmental) cost of business travel</h2>
<p>You may be shocked, as Crotty was, to learn how directly travel, meetings, payments, and expenses relates to environmental sustainability: Business travel can account for more than half of a company’s carbon footprint.</p>
<p>“Not only does this have a negative impact on the environment,” Crotty says, “but it can also negatively impact the organization's reputation and bottom line if their emissions are so high from traveling for business.”</p>
<p>Travel represents 5% of global emissions, Crotty notes. Because corporate travel makes up 30% of that, roughly 1.5% of all global emissions is directly related to corporate travel.</p>
<p> “It may not seem like much,” Crotty says, “but in the grand scheme of things, it’s quite a substantial amount.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Sustain your people, protect the planet</h2>
<p>Sustainability goals have become key to attracting talent. “For somebody [who] may be really interested in protecting their future and the generations of the future, this is really important,” Crotty says. A commitment to sustainability helps with employee retention, too. “If you think the company has great values and [is] really protecting the future, then you want to stay with them,” Crotty notes.</p>
<p>One organization that can support companies committed to reducing their emissions is the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which helps organizations disclose their environmental impact and reports on leaders who are reducing their emissions.</p>
<p>Organizations can also commit to science-based targets, which provide a clearly defined path of emission reductions in line with the Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming. More than a thousand companies globally are already committed to measuring their emissions and quantifiably reducing or eliminating them.</p>
<p>Ready to join the many corporations that are embracing ESG? <a href="https://www.concur.com/sustainable-travel">Learn how SAP Concur solutions can help your organization</a> achieve its goals for reducing corporate travel emissions. </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Going from Excellent to Astounding in Higher Education Tech: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Huron about Penn State University
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/going-excellent-astounding-higher-education-tech-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-huron
2022-07-01T17:20:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Innovation is often the sum of many parts that occurs after years of measured improvement and thoughtful collaboration Since Penn State University has been at the forefront of expense...
<p>Innovation is often the sum of many parts that occurs after years of measured improvement and thoughtful collaboration. Since Penn State University has been at the forefront of expense management technology since the 1980s, and is one the earliest SAP Concur higher education customers, collaborating with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/huron-consulting-services-llc">Huron</a> on a new project created an explosive acceleration to innovation. Their invention of a new way to use <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a> to manage corporate and P-Card spend is a far-reaching benefit for all users now, and the fact that they came together through the <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Higher-Ed-Group/cmp-p/grouphub:HigherEdGroup">SAP Concur higher education community</a> is a testament to the power of bringing everyone together in these forums. </p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an/id1525744763?i=1000537835215">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YAZFt0CnpA7rkQrKnIK8J">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/community-and-innovation-in-JxGlFWYQhk3/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an-sap-con">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjE1ZWQxOWJlOTkzZWIwMDE0ZjRiN2Mw?sa=X&ved=0CAcQuIEEahcKEwjQp6a09cjzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ">Google</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an-sap-concur">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Community for the win</h2>
<p>The higher education community is tight-knit, and they rely upon each other’s local knowledge to inform their own strategic decision-making:</p>
<p>“So, on an annual basis, [SAP] Concur has a higher education group. So, we have what we call our Concur higher education Leadership Forum, where we get all our Higher Ed clients together to really feed off each other and talk to their peers on how they do things. But, through that, we also welcome our trusted partners like Huron,” shared Bunnell. “And, Penn State did have that relationship with Huron in other perspectives but got reconnected with them at this event a few years ago to really look into optimizing their travel and expense processes through [SAP] Concur. Through that, they were really looking for multiple aspects, but being able to bring those groups together and have this community really started this relationship, and then to help our now mutual client go down the path they wanted to go to,” shared Bunnell. </p>
<p>Once Penn State University and Huron were re-acquainted, they were able to identify how they could continue to grow and improve in a new way. Before Penn State University decided to collaborate with Huron, they had the validation from their colleagues in the higher education field. Now, as they have found success, Penn State University and Huron continue to share this local wisdom with their higher education community, so that others can also benefit from their innovations.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Approving card spend before It happens</h2>
<p>Penn State University has always been cutting edge - they were digitizing expenses back in the 1980's! So, having a fully automated system that connected with their procurement and banking program was an old hat for them. Yet, they were still hungry for something better and more streamlined, so they added Concur Request to expand the ability to reconciliate expenses to their automation streams, which allowed for P-Card approvals before the expenses were incurred. And there was even more magic – things like expense reimbursements and vendor payments seamlessly and automatically cleared through their reviews and slipped right into the payment queues. Getting all the charges into one system, inside SAP Concur solutions, allowed for a more secure and timely processing of all P-Card spend-rather than just travel. A bonus: clearer and near real-time visibility on spend trends, behaviors, and cash-flow. What makes this innovative? Well, Concur Request is typically used to manage pre-approval for travel. However, Huron recommended that PSU use it to do pre-approval of P-Card and corporate credit card purchases. “It's interesting to me,” shared Bunnell, “where you really came up with that separate process for one of our tools. And, usually, that credit card requisition process is common throughout our client base. When we heard about that, I mean, we stole it a little bit, but we are now promoting that to our customers as well. And, I don't want to say promoting it; it's a great tool.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Hey, that looks familiar</h2>
<p>Since Penn State already had a robust, digitized expense program, literally dating back to the 1980’s, adding management of other processes was easier to adopt. In fact, Penn State was able to cancel trainings on new tools, since so many internal stakeholders were already familiar with the look and feel of the SAP Concur platform. Less staff training on a new tool means more time focused on their core work functions! Since knowledge of how to use the tool was widespread, the training narrowed in on individuals who hadn’t yet had experience with the programs. Guidance was therefore more focused and personalized to those unique groups.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The great migration (to a new ERP solution)</h2>
<p>If you had over 500 expense GL accounts to choose from when submitting a report, you might find that to be too many options to choose from. Huron helped Penn State identify which areas of granularity were necessary for expense types and then helped them to reduce that number to under 200. This was one of many areas where Huron helped do some deep cleaning of Penn State’s programs before helping them migrate over to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution:</p>
<p>“It's being creative, right? How can we accommodate 500 or so GL accounts without making it look crazy for our end users, right? To have 500 expense types to choose from, and to be able to take that, you said about 200, so you're more than cutting that in half. And I'm sure that 200 is across multiple different units within the university. But then, this is just a creative way to think about that; let's take it down a level. Just because we've always done it this one way does not mean that's how it has to be done every time. I think from [SAP] Concur's perspective, I mean, we're set up that way because it is fairly simple, but once you get to be that large, and there's a lot of more complex things going on, this is where we have to be creative.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The perfect partner</h2>
<p>Deciding to share information as well as invest time and resources - and trust - in a new partner is a big commitment. In the case of Penn State University, they were able to rely on their higher education community to help them make the decision to collaborate with Huron for its innovation of SAP Concur solutions. SAP Concur is honored to be able to enable this level of trust inside a partner ecosystem, so that they are deeply familiar and comfortable collaborating with them, rather than being forced into an awkward or strained partnership. “I work with a lot of our higher education customers, and plenty of other customers in other industries as well, and when I come in and they say, "Oh, we're working with Huron too," it just puts me at ease, because I know that you guys are going to handle them well, come up with different ways to do things, make sure that we're accomplishing what needs to get accomplished…It's strength in numbers, almost, bringing the level of expertise of all these well-educated and experienced people to come up with different ways to do things, to make things that much more efficient,” shared Bunnell.</p>
<p>As from the partner side, this cultivated partnership removes barriers between onboarding and implementation, so that they can hit the ground running. “I love working with [SAP] Concur. I do want to just make one more plug about the community, and [SAP] Concur in general, being able to be open to new ideas. It's a very robust product, and it's exciting to be challenged by the client to bring something new to the table with what might seem like an out-of-the-box product, but it's really not. It's so robust and can do so much more than I think the average person even thinks they can, and to be challenged, and to be able to bring that through to fruition, just with thought, leadership, innovative creativity – as you keep mentioning, Phil – and the support of [SAP] Concur to be, "Yeah, hey, it looks like we can do that. Let's do it." And I really enjoy being a part of that,” shared Raber.</p>
<p>Sheer joy and hunger for iterative innovation exudes from anyone that has touched this Penn State University success story with Huron. Since this level of enthusiasm is contagious, take a listen to their <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/community-and-innovation-in-higher-education-tech-an-sap-con">podcast</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/penn-state-huron-consulting">review their case study</a> and consider how you can leverage their win for your institution today.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Integrate Solutions and Be the Finance or IT Leader the Times Demand
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/integrate-solutions-and-be-finance-or-it-leader-times-demand
2022-07-02T05:19:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre the one making the decisions in finance or IT your role in the organization has changed No longer do you just corral numbers or keep computers running important as those tasks...
<p>If you’re the one making the decisions in finance or IT, your role in the organization has changed. No longer do you just corral numbers or keep computers running, important as those tasks are.</p>
<p>You’re now expected – and likely energized, challenged, or unsettled by the expectation – to be a significant player in moving your company ahead. Recent surveys drive home that the digital transformation is accelerating and that playing well with others is essential. You’re at the center of all that change, with the pandemic only shining the spotlight brighter.</p>
<ul>
<li>40% of CFOs are driving new business models, while 72% have the final say in the direction of their organization’s technology, <a href="https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/consulting/cfo-research-overview">Accenture reports</a>.</li>
<li>60% of CIOs are being primarily measured by their ability to help create new business models via company-wide collaboration<a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48333021">, IDC predicts</a>.</li>
<li>40% of CIOs will fail to evolve their IT capabilities in the next two years to provide modern digital infrastructure and support architecture-driven business outcomes, IDC estimates. (So now’s the time to evolve, as who really wants to among those 4 in 10?)</li>
</ul>
<p>Our new eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/benefits-integrating-your-spend-management-solution-erp">Bringing It All Together</a>, takes a deep look at a key tool – integration of your travel and expense solution with your ERP – for meeting your organization’s needs. It’s a way to obtain accurate, timely information while satisfying your broader role as a strategic, value-adding partner within the business.</p>
<p>Integration doesn’t need to be complicated – or drain all the energy from your IT and finance teams. Your solutions provider should be readily able to integrate T&E and invoice management systems with your ERP. And they should be able to tell you if it’s simple to set up, what internal resources are required, what support you’ll get, and how rollout time can be minimized.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Making life better for finance and IT</h2>
<p>With integration, you and your finance team obtain a better view of spending, especially travel and employee purchases. You can watch cash flow in nearly real-time and use analytics and intelligent technology to find spending patterns that highlight opportunities, catch errors, and cut waste. You close data gaps and gain insights that can control costs, ensure compliance, and satisfy regulatory requirements.</p>
<p>Instead of chasing paper and performing other manual tasks that eat resources and increase the risk of error, your finance team can focus its time on noncompliance and fraud. In other words, they can do the strategic, engaging work that they want and the company needs.</p>
<p>Integration also helps simplify what the IT team has to manage, maintain, and secure, as they will have a single solution for travel, expense, and invoice management to cover instead of several. They, and employees across the company, will appreciate having just one end-user interface to navigate, meaning less time spent taking questions and complaints. With data encrypted and flowing reliably between systems, both security and end-user confidence are enhanced.</p>
<p>The overall result is something going beyond just the IT and finance teams. A streamlined digital process can reduce the frustration travelers and other employees often feel when using a company’s systems and processes, especially with all the adapting and shifting the past two years required. So better technology not only provides efficiency and visibility, but also delivers a better experience for employees who are taking a hard look at what they value in work and workplaces.</p>
<p>At a time where your company is scrutinizing what it values and needs from your role, here’s a chance to meet their broader expectations and improve your own, personal employee experience along with it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Get your copy of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/benefits-integrating-your-spend-management-solution-erp">Bringing it All Together</a> eBook to learn more about how SAP Concur solutions and extensions can integrate your T&E system into your ERP and help fulfill the roles finance and IT leaders have today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Steps to Supercharge Your Organization’s Purchasing Power
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-steps-supercharge-your-organizations-purchasing-power
2022-07-02T05:37:06Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Over the past few years as priorities have changed and margins and budgets have tightened organizations have looked for more ways to save money and maximize the value of every dollar...
<p>Over the past few years, as priorities have changed and margins and budgets have tightened, organizations have looked for more ways to save money and maximize the value of every dollar they spend. To help identify potential areas for cost savings, many are examining how they handle purchasing.</p>
<p>For organizations that don’t have a formal procurement department or an employee dedicated to purchasing full time, employees who make purchases on behalf of the organization as a small part of their jobs represent a big opportunity for savings. These employees may be unfamiliar with your organization’s purchasing program, not understand supply chains, or know how to maximize supplier relationships, which can lead to unnecessary spending and lost time returning items or justifying expenses—time that could be better spent making core contributions to the organization.</p>
<p>How can you overcome these challenges to better manage and oversee purchasing across your organization? Taking the following steps can help:</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>1. Lay the groundwork</h3>
<p>Organizations without official procurement departments often lack established procedures to guide employee purchasing. To keep your employees on the right path when purchasing, you’ll need to set clear ground rules. Create policies that outline how your organization expects employees to select and manage suppliers as well as make purchases. Be sure to consider all the situations in which employees may need to make purchases, from those working in the office to employees traveling for business or working remotely from home. Your policies should also account for the different types of purchases your team may need to make, such as office supplies, meals with a client, or hotel and airfare reservations.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>2. Build a purchasing dream team</h3>
<p>Once your organization’s policies and procedures are in place, it’s important to train your team. Educate employees on how to research and select new vendors and suppliers, take full advantage of existing supplier relationships, and make the most cost-effective purchases. Boost compliance by keeping it simple. Your system should guide users step-by-step through the buying process, from choosing suppliers and getting approvals to making the purchase.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>3. Explain the “why”</h3>
<p>Employees are more likely to follow purchasing policies if they understand the reasons behind them. Share information with your employees on your organization’s corporate strategy, priorities for spending, and process for working with suppliers to give employees a better sense of how their purchases fit into the big picture. Does buying from preferred suppliers help your organization meet environmental, social, and corporate governance objectives; follow regulatory requirements; or benefit from negotiated discounts? When employees buy into your organization’s goals, they will get behind your purchasing policies, too. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>4. Streamline with technology</h3>
<p>The right technology solution can centralize all purchasing across your organization for better management. This is especially important for a hybrid, remote, or geographically dispersed workforce. Using a single platform to pull in and manage all transactions gives you a high-level view of purchasing behavior and valuable insights you may have missed otherwise. It also helps you spot duplicate, wasteful, or unnecessary spending; uncover areas for possible cost savings; and identify potential preferred suppliers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>5. Listen and learn</h3>
<p>Nothing is perfect, especially not the first time around. Honest input from users is essential to making your revamped purchasing policies and procedures the best they can be. Continually gather feedback from employees about what’s working and what’s not. Use that constructive criticism to fine-tune your policies and processes, building on your successes and addressing any problems. The outcome? Better spending management, enhanced efficiency, and improved compliance with your purchasing policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even small purchases can result in big savings when they’re properly managed. Developing purchasing policies, training employees to follow them, and taking advantage of technology to simplify and streamline purchasing can help you better oversee and manage spending across your entire organization.</p>
<p>Want ideas to share with your employees on how to select and manage suppliers and make more cost-effective purchase decisions? If so, download the our tip sheet <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/level-8-tips-boost-employee-purchasing-power">Level Up: 8 Tips to Boost Employee Purchasing Power</a>.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-small-business
2022-11-13T16:24:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This post originally appeared on Phillycom The CARES Act which was passed last March as a result of the growing coronavirus pandemic provided substantial funds to millions of...
<p>This post originally appeared on <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/business/cares-act-small-business-tax-breaks-covid-19-losses-20201109.html">Philly.com</a></p>
<p>The CARES Act, which was passed last March as a result of the growing coronavirus pandemic, provided substantial funds to millions of small-business owners through its loan programs, as well as payroll tax credits for the most significantly affected employers.</p>
<p>But the legislation, which expires Dec. 31, also included a few lesser-known provisions for small businesses that could — along with some other savvy moves — significantly reduce our federal income tax bills this year.</p>
<p>For starters, there are new and temporary rules about net operating losses or NOLs. If your business loses money this year, regardless of whether it was pandemic-related, you may be able to get money back from the government faster than you were able to before.</p>
<p>That’s because up until this year, and due to the 2017 tax law changes, businesses are only allowed to apply NOLs to future years. But the CARES Act will allow businesses to not only carry forward their losses but to now also carry them back for up to five years. What does this mean?</p>
<p>It means that if you made money in the past five years, you can now reduce those prior years’ profits with this year’s loss and get money back from the federal government for the taxes you previously paid.</p>
<p>“This is significant for all small businesses this year that might have permanently closed or incurred substantial losses,” says Chris Kourmadas, a partner at <a href="https://frankfordtax.com/">Frankford Tax</a> in Philadelphia. “It gives them an opportunity to take any excess losses to carry back to prior more profitable years and seek tax refunds.”</p>
<p>Rosalind Sutch, a partner at Philadelphia-based accounting firm <a href="https://www.taxwarriors.com/">Drucker & Scaccetti</a> agrees. “This large-scope disaster declaration that occurred in all 50 states opens the door for potentially big refunds this year,” she says.</p>
<p>The CARES Act also expanded the federal deductions that small businesses can take for depreciating assets. It includes new (and again temporary) “bonus” and accelerated depreciation rules for Qualified Improvement Property. This deduction covers improvements made to the interior of commercial real property like the installation or replacement of drywall, ceilings, interior doors, fire protection, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. The idea is to provide businesses an incentive to make changes for health and safety purposes and to help them generate cash flow.</p>
<p>“Generally, improvements to commercial property are depreciated over a 39-year period using the straight line method,” Kourmadas says. “But the legislation modified the depreciable life down to 15 years, which greatly reduces the amount of time it takes for a small-business owner to recognize the full amount of expense for their purchased asset.” Kourmadas says that many small businesses may even be able to deduct the full amount of this property in the first year using “bonus” depreciation.</p>
<p>Small business owners should also pay close attention to research and development expenses because many businesses may qualify this year for a substantial credit related to these costs. To qualify for an R&D credit, a company must develop new (to their organization) or improved processes.</p>
<p>Costs could include in-house research expenses such as any internal wages paid, supplies, or even external contractual services for qualified activities. “As a result of COVID-19, many of our clients had to pivot and create new products or processes to stay afloat,” Sutch says. “For these companies, it’s important to investigate the research and development tax credit and discuss it with their tax advisers.” If applicable, this credit could result in big savings for small businesses in any industry.</p>
<p>Finally, for those business owners who chipped in to help their employees through these difficult times, the government has enabled employers to offer assistance and then get tax relief through what’s known as the “Section 139” tax deduction. “Section 139 allows an employer to make tax-free payments to employees for certain COVID-related expenses,” says Anthony Bruce, <a href="http://www.afbcpa.com/">a tax adviser</a> based in Cherry Hill.</p>
<p>“These deductions could be very important because it’s not only an expense to the business, but they won’t be considered income to the employees.” Qualified relief payments could include assistance with hospitalization, home repairs, or just the payment of reasonable and necessary personal, family, living or funeral expenses that were incurred because of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Regardless of how profitable or unprofitable this year was, few business owners will dispute that taxes consume a significant portion of our take-home income, and any way to save on what’s due to the government could have an enormous impact on our precious cash flow.</p>
<p>Will any or all of these provisions apply to your business? Hopefully so. But the best thing to do is to talk to your tax adviser now, while there’s still a couple of months left in the year to do some planning, and take action.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/most-exciting-article-taxes-youll-ever-read">The Most Exciting Article On Taxes You'll Ever Read</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-biden-administration-will-impact-your-business">3 Ways A Biden Administration Will Impact Your Business</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-things-youll-need-get-ppp-forgiveness">The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness</a></li>
</ul>
Gene Marks
Six Technology Upgrades to Help Make Your Business More Resilient Right Now
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-technology-upgrades-help-make-your-business-more-resilient-right-now
2022-11-13T17:09:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In uncertain times, it’s essential to make your business as resilient as possible.
<p><em>This article has been produced in collaboration with Telegraph Spark. The original article as well as a collection of helpful guidance, business stories and interactive quizzes produced by SAP Concur and Telegraph Spark can be found on this <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/spark/building-resilience/">Building Business Resilience</a> hub.</em></p>
<p>In uncertain times, it’s essential to make your business as resilient as possible. There are plenty of ways you can do this: improving cash flow, developing potential new business models, and providing regular staff training.</p>
<p>Using the latest technology can help with all of these. By investing in technology, businesses can expect to drive much greater operational efficiencies and, crucially, improve productivity.</p>
<p>Last November, the UK's <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/56-million-to-boost-business-productivity">Business Productivity Review</a> announced a £56bn spend on helping to boost the UK’s output and close the productivity gap. One of its key recommendations was that businesses need to embrace technology much more, particularly “online accountancy and customer relationship management (CRM) software."</p>
<p>Kelly Tolhurst, the minister for small business, enterprise and industry at the time, said: “We are determined to make the UK the best place to work and start a business – and boosting productivity is key to that. As a former small business owner, I know how important it is to harness technology to make your business more productive.” </p>
<p>Businesses have had to cope with often significantly changing agendas, priorities, and operations in recent months, making the issue of productivity of paramount importance. So now is the time to seriously scrutinize processes and put in place the necessary technology to future-proof operations. Here we look at six ways you can do this.</p>
<h3>1. Switch to online accounting </h3>
<p>One of the simplest ways that small businesses can make big productivity gains is by switching from an offline to an online accounting system. Several now exist, either as standalone packages or as part of a suite of <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-cloud-erp-anyway">enterprise resource planning (ERP)</a> tools. Not only will an online accounting package save on costs in the long term, it will also help businesses track their payments more effectively, which is crucial for maintaining cash flow, as well as file their tax returns on time. </p>
<h3>2. Automate back-office finance processes</h3>
<p>Many of the initial concerns around automation replacing people’s jobs have now been superseded by the realisation that today’s tools can help free up staff time so they can work in areas of the business where they can add value. For example, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a> can help businesses manage their employees’ expense claims and supplier invoices from one place, giving finance an overall view of what’s being spent. Increasingly, automation is also being combined with AI (artificial intelligence) to help take the admin away from finance by accurately capturing data. AI can also be used to predict which companies are likely to default on payments, based on factors such as previous late payments and customer complaints, and which are the most likely to pay on time. </p>
<h3>3. Distribute digitally</h3>
<p>If we have learned one thing from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that companies that are able to distribute their products digitally are much more likely to succeed. Now is the time to think about your future business strategy with a particular focus on e-commerce and digital marketing initiatives. Key to this is investing in your own website and the technology required to process online orders, if you haven’t already. </p>
<h3>4. Optimize the supply chain </h3>
<p>One of the biggest problems that small businesses face is ensuring correct stock levels. This is a particular issue for those selling across several different channels, for example on their own website, Amazon and eBay, as well as offline. ERP tools can help businesses get a single, unified view of their stock. Using AI, it’s also possible to predict future changes in demand and supply to optimise inventory management accordingly. </p>
<h3>5. Invest in cybersecurity</h3>
<p>Undoubtedly one of the biggest threats to SMBs is cybercrime. According to the latest <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2020/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2020">CyberSecurity Breaches Survey 2020</a> by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, almost half of businesses (46%) and a quarter of charities (26%) have experienced cybersecurity breaches or attacks in the past 12 months. </p>
<p>What’s more, researchers monitoring global COVID-19-related phishing activity have seen steep rises in cyberattacks, with this trend being likely to continue. </p>
<p>However, with many of the cyberattacks caused by human error, such as clicking on phishing links, it’s important that staff training plays a large part in any cybersecurity investment. </p>
<p>There are challenges for every business at the moment, particularly with so many companies dealing with much of its staff working remotely. In this <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/blog/article/data-security-considerations-when-employees-are-working-home">article</a>, we cover some of the data-security considerations for employees working from home.</p>
<p>By taking control of data security, coping with the consequences of fraud or a data breach needn’t be so challenging. Digitizing and automating your finance processes, such as expenses and invoices, adds extra layers of security to your business.</p>
<h3>6. Adopt the internet of things </h3>
<p>It isn’t only devices such as laptops and smartphones that can connect to the internet. Increasingly, everyday items are becoming “smart” too. For example, IoT-enabled smart energy systems can help businesses monitor their energy usage remotely so they only provide light and heat to rooms when they are occupied, while IoT sensors fitted on stock can help companies track exactly where their products are at any given time. In the energy and utilities sector, IoT is being deployed for measuring usage via smart grid systems, as well as monitoring assets. </p>
<p>Technology isn’t a silver bullet to guarantee business success, but it can help you take control of your operations. By automating many of your business activities, such as back-office finance processes and optimizing the supply chain, staff can be freed to add value and drive productivity elsewhere in the business.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Take A Peek at Where Travel Is Headed
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/take-peek-where-travel-headed
2022-11-13T19:16:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Everybodys talking about the new normal and while nobody really knows what thats going to look like were guessing it isnt going to feel all that normal Especially when it concerns...
<p>Everybody’s talking about the "new normal" and while nobody really knows what that’s going to look like, we’re guessing it isn’t going to feel all that normal. Especially when it concerns going into the office, booking a trip, getting on a plane, and flying around the world.</p>
<p>Yeah, that level of normalcy is out the window.</p>
<p>But we can get a glimpse into <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travel-new-normal-what-to-expect-how-to-get-ready">what lies ahead</a>, at least in the world of business travel. Wakefield Research recently asked 4,850 business travelers in 23 markets how they see things changing, what their expectations are, and how they feel about it, among other “what’s life going to be like” questions.</p>
<p>Their answers are outlined in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Global Business Traveler Report</a>, and while many of travelers say they’re excited to get back on the road, they expect things to be quite different.</p>
<h2>No more celebratory high-fives</h2>
<p>No matter how well the meeting goes, we’re likely not going to in congratulatory contact. No handshakes, no hugs, no high-fives. But we are likely going to wear masks, use hand sanitizer, and practice social distancing. 41% of travelers also expect that temperature screenings will be a routine part of their trips.</p>
<h2>The shortest distance between two points</h2>
<p>Travelers are going to be looking for direct flights and fewer layovers in large airports. 29% prioritize taking the shortest route between locations, and 21% hope to skip stops at major hubs. These direct flights are going to have a direct impact on the budget, and it isn’t going to be cheaper. But to get them out there again, they’re going to want assurances that they can avoid the crowds.</p>
<h2>Hop in the car</h2>
<p>In the new normal, business travelers are going to steer clear of public transportation (37% will be limiting ridership), and 29% predict that they’ll be using their personal vehicle for traveling. That’s going to impact companies all over the map – from parking to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-calculate-mileage-drive">mileage</a> – as well as increase time spent driving, while decreasing time spent working.</p>
<h2>What other kind of changes are they expecting?</h2>
<p>Contrary to what we’ve been seeing the past few months, travel really does need to happen. But to get people to feel confident in grabbing their carry-on again, businesses are going to have to adjust.</p>
<ul>
<li>96% of travelers want safety measures to be in place before they return to the road, such as mandatory health screenings and limiting travel to critical trips only.</li>
<li>94% say company-provided training would be helpful, including info on how to protect their health and safety while traveling.</li>
<li>Travelers also want tech to help take care of things, like <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-new-health-and-safety-tools-tripit-your-travel-kit">apps that offer safety information and ways to manage their itineraries</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>We’re all going to have to roll with the changes</h2>
<p>Flexibility will be key as you move forward. Travel programs will have to adapt when the rules and expectations change, then adapt again when they change again. And, staying nimble will be easier if you have the apps and other tools travelers are planning on – everything from those safety information mentioned above, to pre-trip approval processes, to the ability to track and offset carbon footprint. (Yes, this shows up in the Wakefield whitepaper, too, as an on-demand function travelers expect to see soon.)</p>
<p>This is a considerable change at a time when we’re all already dealing with considerable change. But you don’t have to let it worry you. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">Read the report</a> to see what you need to know, where we all need to go, and how we can get there. </strong></p>
Neha Mehta
Employee Experiences: The New Key to Retention
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-experiences-new-key-retention
2022-11-13T19:54:33Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Over the past few years employee expectations about their jobs and jobrelated experiences have dramatically changed In fact according to a survey conducted by Oxford Economics and SAP...
<p>Over the past few years, employee expectations about their jobs and job-related experiences have <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/employees-seek-personal-value-and-purpose-at-work-be-prepared-to-deliver">dramatically changed</a>. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Oxford Economics and SAP Concur, 60% of U.S. employees say the pandemic caused them to reevaulate what they value in a workplace. And, a survey by Accenture found that 78% of employees believe employers are responsible for their job satisfaction and well-being.</p>
<p>Because of this, it’s more important than ever for your organization to create positive experiences for your employees, especially new hires. Below are four tips on how to get started:</p>
<h3><strong>1. Improve your employees’ onboarding and training experiences. </strong></h3>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/235121/why-onboarding-experience-key-retention.aspx">Gallup</a>, only 12% of employees feel that their organization does a great job of onboarding people. (That’s 88% of organizations that miss this opportunity, even though it can result in higher retention.) When employees have a negative onboarding experience, they are <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/0cbe87_664f8806dc694bd7b52246c2e0fe41c1.pdf">twice as likely</a> to look for a new job.<br />
A great place to start is to set up a formal, personalized onboarding process for new employees. This can include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Preparing employee workstations in advance—whether they are working in the office or remotely—so they have everything they need (e.g., a computer, software, a telephone, etc.) from day one.</li>
<li>Providing technology onboarding experiences can make a huge impact, but is often overlooked. Equip new employees with personalized training and set up guided walkthroughs of your applications that will appear in context as they navigate through a platform.</li>
<li>Gathering feedback during the onboarding process to ensure all questions and uncertainties are answered, and to optimize and improve the process for future employees.</li>
</ul>
<p>Improved onboarding and training processes will go a long way in making new employees feel welcome and like they made the right decision to work for your organization. </p>
<h3><strong>2. Empower your employees to get their job done from wherever they work. </strong></h3>
<p>Employees today are working from more places than ever—in the office, in home offices, on the road, from cafés, from other countries, and everywhere in between. As a result, your organization needs to design experiences to support employees across all of these environments. Look for ways to make their work lives easier, like moving to the cloud, so they can access applications from anywhere and collaborate with other people. Or, alternatively, optimize your employees’ use of legacy systems.</p>
<h3><strong>3. Streamline and simplify your employees’ experiences across your technology stack. </strong></h3>
<p>Start by looking for ways to standardize and streamline your business processes and automate tedious tasks. Then, automate workflows across your technology stack. Finally, empower and proactively guide your employees to complete your businesses processes across single or multiple applications.</p>
<h3><strong>4. Improve the experience your employees have with software applications. </strong></h3>
<p>The more you understand how your employees use and consume applications, the more you can create a positive experience when they use those applications. There are several software solutions available that can provide you with complete visibility into your technology stack, as well as give you the data you need to understand employee sentiment and behavior in using your applications—including where employees struggle. Then, you can design better experiences to improve product engagement, adoption, and usage of your digital assets on any device.</p>
<p>Not only will taking the above steps help you improve your employee experience, but they can also be highly beneficial to your organization. In fact, a <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx">Gallup poll</a> shows that organizations with exceptional employee experiences achieve:</p>
<ul>
<li>3 times higher revenue per employee</li>
<li>40% lower employee turnover</li>
<li>17% higher productivity</li>
</ul>
<p>And in a world where employee experiences and corporate results matter, that can make all the difference.</p>
Kiersten Conner
Be prepared to keep your employees safe during the busiest travel season
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/be-prepared-keep-your-employees-safe-during-busiest-travel-season
2022-11-14T12:46:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As we enter into the busiest time of year for corporate travel I cant think of a better time for businesses to ensure they are prepared to keep employees safe and informed while on the...
<p>As we enter into the busiest time of year for corporate travel, I can’t think of a better time for businesses to ensure they are prepared to keep employees safe and informed while on the road. Concur data shows that November 15 and 16 were the two busiest days for travel last year, with 58% more employees traveling for business than an average weekday during the rest of the year. Overall, October and November are historically the busiest months of the year for business travel. Notably, infrequent travelers with only one to three business trips a year contribute significantly to this surge of business travel during this time.</p>
<p>Given this uptick in travel and our increasingly unpredictable environment, companies need to ensure their employees are safe and secure at all times.</p>
<p>As the leader of Concur, and a frequent traveler myself, I feel a great sense of responsibility to proactively care for our employees throughout the world. I believe that all business leaders have a similar responsibility to know where their employees are and keep them safe and informed regardless of company size or location. I encourage you to ensure you have a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">reliable risk management program</a>, powered by data, so you and your employees are prepared as we enter this busy travel season.</p>
<p>At Concur, we believe <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-home">duty of care</a> is one of the most important things a business can do for its employees. To help businesses achieve this, we released <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a>, an integrated traveler risk management solution featuring the most comprehensive, actionable travel and expense data set in the industry. This solution includes an option for 24/7 monitoring services to help communicate with and assist employees at any time on a company’s behalf – from pre-travel guidance to emergency safety information.</p>
<p>We were recently put to the test with multiple hurricanes in the United States and thankfully, were able to quickly account for and ensure the safety of hundreds of Concur employees at risk. Whether it’s a health crisis or natural disaster, the ability to quickly find and help employees in times of need is critical, which is why having a reliable duty of care solution is necessary.</p>
<p>Take the time now to ensure you have a policy, training and technology in place so your employees are prepared and be sure they can rest easy knowing their company is keeping them safe when they are out on the road in the coming months.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Why HR Professionals Should Put Employee Spend on Their Radar
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-hr-professionals-should-put-employee-spend-their-radar
2022-12-05T15:07:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
HR is getting a seat at the table around how companies are capturing how employees are spending company dollars.
<p>The great resignation, big quit or whatever term you use is impacting HR leaders to not only ask finance for more resources to recruit and keep talent, but also engage finance to ensure employees are happy with their current expense and travel processes and tools. In addition, HR is getting a seat at the table around how companies are capturing how employees are spending company dollars since it’s impacting some key areas of HR. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-oxford-economics-employee-experience-global-report">Only 26% of companies</a> feel they have a very or completely effective at managing T&E compliance according to an Oxford Economics study. HR can lend a hand here. </p>
<h2>Why does employee spend data matter to HR?</h2>
<p>Accurate and up-to-date travel and employee spend data enables the business to uncover information that can help mitigate these three key enterprise risks where HR plays a pivotal role: </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Duty of care</strong></li>
<li><strong>Interstate and global tax compliance</strong></li>
<li><strong>Employee experience</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>However, not all data that can help with these issues is created equal across an enterprise.</p>
<h2>On the radar: Duty of care</h2>
<p>Managing the health and safety risks of employees traveling or living abroad is on the global radar for many companies. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, this risk has elevated, making it an even bigger moral and legal obligation for employers. To help offset these sudden, profound risks, many of our customers are utilizing the <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro app</a> which puts health and safety information into the hands of travelers as they prepare and land in a new destination. This is the most advantageous timing as most assistance providers send this information to travelers when they book the trip – which could be months before their take off. In addition, companies must now know in advance where their employees are heading or residing. Pre-travel <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">approval requests</a> can help give companies the information they need sooner, rather than later, to weigh risks, travel options, and safely conduct business. Once the trip is pre-approved, travel itinerary information can then be placed into a tracking solution that helps monitor the traveler’s location. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/duty-of-care">duty of care partners</a> even provide solutions that allow the organization and traveler to remain connected, in the event of an emergency, with texting capabilities that can send helpful tips and relevant information to escort the employee back to safety.</p>
<p><strong>What can HR do?</strong> HR is truly at the center of managing an employer’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care">duty of care</a> and part of that obligation requires employers to do their best to prepare, track, and inform employees of any medical or security risks that they may encounter. Having an entirely connected spend management solution that’s integrated with your duty of care protocols allows organizations to move quickly when needed and accurately pull in additional data that’s booked outside of corporate managed systems – direct from suppliers like IHG, Starwood, Uber, or Airbnb. Data from HR systems can also be placed into a tracking tool to ensure better quality. For example, in the event of a crisis, the security team needs accurate phone numbers to text or call an employee and HR data can help ensure that it’s optimal.</p>
<h2>Mitigating the tax trap: Interstate and global tax compliance</h2>
<p>The remote work environment has really thrown a wrench in to interstate and global tax compliance. More employees are traveling and working on the go and governments are getting more savvy:</p>
<p>"COVID-19 opened the possibility for employees to work from anywhere," said Nishant Mittal, senior vice president and general manager at Topia, which makes software for managing remote workers. "This introduces new concerns when it comes to legal and tax compliance."</p>
<p>If a business has <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/out-of-state-remote-work-creates-tax-headaches.aspx">employees who reside and work</a> in a state different from where the business is physically located or operates, it could face unexpected state and local taxes next year. Remote workers also could find that they'll need to pay income taxes to more than one state on the same earned income. Employers can take steps to help manage cross-border taxes on the business and to help employees understand their own tax obligations. First, however, business managers must understand the tax laws of their home state and the state where employees are working remotely.</p>
<p><strong>What can HR do? </strong>Quite often, HR and global mobility have a role in mitigating this risk, especially with expatriates. As companies try to fine-tune their policies and processes with various solutions and stakeholders, it has become evident that visibility to reliable travel data and advanced tracking capabilities are key to mitigating this risk. Many companies are searching for a “single-source of truth” around this area so proper risk assessment, analytics, and recommendations to the business can be made for mitigation purposes.</p>
<h2>Improving morale: Employee experience</h2>
<p>Anyone who has struggled with a tedious expense report or waited weeks to be reimbursed for a travel expense, understands why getting the technology and processes that support these practices right is so important. Respondents in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/forrester-improve-travel-expense-invoice-management-solution-to-drive-better-ex">Forrester study</a>, 476 finance, IT, and HR decision-makers, agreed that the tools which employees use on a regular basis are critical to enabling good employee experience. Specifically, 63% name travel and expense (T&E) management software as one of the most important tools when it comes to good employee experience. While effective T&E enablement is critical for financial governance, making the process effortless is also critical for employee experience and productivity. Overall, it leads to better engagement and increased customer experience, which furthers financial performance.</p>
<p><strong>What can HR do? </strong>An engaged, connected team is critical to leading your business through change. During this time, it’s important for HR leaders to evaluate every process and tool that affect employees and reimagine the experience. By making little improvements outside traditional HR, you can make a big difference on your employees’ experience – boosting both morale and productivity. For example, at one point or another, virtually every employee must tackle expense reports, wrangle receipts, or book travel. These are necessary tasks that can be a significant source of frustration, but they don’t have to be. Organizations can make sure employees have the right technology and tools to support business continuity.</p>
<h2>A single-source of truth</h2>
<p>As HR aligns more closely with stakeholders from travel, procurement, finance, accounts payable (AP), and outside suppliers, they need to ensure that the data they are analyzing is reliable, consistent, and inclusive before a change in procedure or policy to the business is made. Here are three questions HR can ask others to ensure that the data that falls into the travel, expense, and employee spend areas is accurate and connected:</p>
<p><strong>1. Are we making it easy for employees to book travel or report spend with digital tools or is it an administrative nightmare?</strong></p>
<p>Employees today expect mobile, consumer-like experiences at work. Thus, “going digital” in the workplace is often a corporate initiative. If a company is not delivering the tools and functionality employees want, and instead thrusting a frustrating, inefficient process on them, then companies will have trouble capturing accurate travel and spend data. Essentially, you must meet the employee where they are currently at: <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2020">According to a Wakefield research survey</a> of over 7,800 global business travelers, 67% of them say their company lags in the technologies that make travel easier. Specifically, 66% want better information and 65% want more convenient tools.</p>
<p><strong>2. Are we using new ways to capture all employee travel outside of our traditional </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking"><strong>corporate travel</strong></a><strong> processes?</strong></p>
<p>Despite strict travel policies and procedures, it’s hard to change employees’ booking habits – and it’s because, to some employees, travel can feel personal. Whether for convenience, cost, or business need (and getting reimbursed for it), there’s most likely a “leakage” issue that exists in every company. Travel suppliers are also fueling this missing data, putting millions of dollars into clever marketing and loyalty programs that encourage your employees to buy directly from their service. Fortunately, modern technology can help companies uncover this “leakage” and reconcile it with actual spend without chasing the traveler or pushing another policy on them.</p>
<p><strong>3. Where is the data?</strong></p>
<p>As we look at how employees are booking travel or spending company dollars, there’s a real disruption and shift taking place even in the forms of payment. Employees are spending more money across more spend categories, using more payment methods than ever before. This includes contactless credit cards, ghost cards, checks, cash, P-cards, and even more. The down-side is, it’s highly likely that these payment methods are managed by multiple systems that don’t connect or share data across the organization. Ensure your company is connecting the travel and expense data, so you are getting a big picture view of actual travel and spend in one place for a proper analysis to take place.</p>
<p>If your company is failing to capture travel, expense, payment, and other spend in one place, then perhaps HR can take a lead role or lean on those in the organization to do so. Using employee spend data to help guide important budget decisions may be one initiative to consider and drive internally. To learn more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-expense-compliance">visit us online</a>.</p>
Erin Giordano
Employee Needs Have Changed. Has Your Travel and Expense Program?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/employee-needs-have-changed-has-your-travel-and-expense-program
2022-12-06T13:39:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For travel and expense TE programs and policies to work they must take employee needs and reallife experiences into account Just when some organizations thought they had these elements...
<p>For travel and expense (T&E) programs and policies to work, they must take employee needs and real-life experiences into account. Just when some organizations thought they had these elements aligned, the pandemic hit and the world changed, causing dramatic shifts in employees’ needs, behavior, spending patterns, and expectations. For example, many employees who used to stay in hotels started booking apartments or vacation rentals. Some employees who used to only travel for business began extending their business trips with a personal vacation either before or afterward, since they could work from anywhere.</p>
<p>All of these changes can create significant gaps between your organization’s T&E program and your employees’ real-life needs and experiences. But, if you take the time to listen to your employees, you can quickly identify and understand the reasons behind their decisions and close those gaps.</p>
<p>Below are five easy ways to do that:</p>
<ol>
<li>Gather employee sentiment data. Employee sentiment is a relatively new term, but it essentially refers to how your employees think and feel about your organization and their experiences. It’s the vital information your organization needs to understand your employees’ views, challenges, and experiences. Some of the best ways to gather employee sentiment data about their on-trip experiences and needs throughout the T&E lifecycle include: using a technology solution to regularly collect employee opinions and feedback, conducting a formal survey, and discussing in focus groups, managerial meetings, and performance reviews. </li>
<li>Measure employee sentiment. Whenever changes happen, as they inevitably will, it’s important to know how your employees feel about those changes. By measuring and tracking employee sentiment over time—by team, department, or even your entire organization—and reviewing the data, you’ll be more aware of what’s going on in your organization so you can quickly identify and address any issues and proactively respond to important trends.</li>
<li>Combine employee sentiment and operational data. This will help you figure out what’s working and not working in your T&E program—and why. It will also give you the critical insights you need into your organization’s spending habits and patterns. It will also enable you to identify potential risks in your program, and uncover reasons for variance in your most important spend categories.</li>
<li>Assess how travel policies impact employee sentiment. Your organization’s travel policies aren’t meant to be static. Instead, they should change and evolve over time to keep up with organizational, employee, and typical life changes. Thus, it’s important to know and understand how your organization’s policies are impacting employee sentiment, well-being, productivity, and attrition risk so you can modify and update your policies accordingly.</li>
<li>Use the data to improve your T&E program. Review and analyze all the data and create an action plan to improve your program. This will help your organization bridge the gap between your employees’ expectations of your T&E program and their real-world experiences. It will also enable you to improve compliance, cost efficiency, and duty of care, while better managing and controlling spending across your organization. What’s more, when your employees see that your organization uses their feedback to improve their experience, they will feel heard and valued, encouraging even more communication in the future.</li>
</ol>
<p>Business travel has changed and getting the employee experience right has become a lot more complicated than it used to be. And that’s why, if your organization hasn’t assessed and recalibrated your T&E program in a while, it’s a great time to start.</p>
<p>Learn more about how to assess changing employee preferences, expectations, and experiences by <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">visiting us online.</a></p>
Kiersten Conner
SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit: Together, Let’s Define the Future of Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-travel-industry-summit-together-lets-define-future-travel
2022-12-06T15:32:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Ready to engage with your travel community The SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit is back for round three As travel returns and new trends emerge were excited to welcome the travel...
<p>Ready to engage with your travel community? The <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> is back for round three!</p>
<p>As travel returns and new trends emerge, we’re excited to welcome the travel community back to this event where, together, we can serve as industry advocates and define the future of business travel. Join us on June 9, 2022, for a day of learning and collaboration.</p>
<p>Hear what previous attendees gained from their experience:</p>
<ul>
<li>“I really enjoyed the summit; it was very informational and helpful. The speakers were very candid and personal in answering questions and shared important experiences. This conference and discussions covered so much more than what is in travel articles.”</li>
<li>“It was a very user-friendly Travel Industry Summit for all to access. The best I have experienced so far.”</li>
<li>“Excellent format for the summit, it really is the way to go. I found the flexibility of listening to the recorded discussions amazing, the content was excellent, and it was very professional.”</li>
<li>“I learn so much from these events. The content is always excellent. Networking opportunities abound.”</li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</h2>
<p>A complimentary, half-day virtual event</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">Register today</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>What to Expect at the Travel Industry Summit </h2>
<p>This virtual event will highlight how the travel community has evolved and what is to come. The expertise and ideas being showcased will help change and define business travel.</p>
<h3>1. Network and collaborate with peers and experts</h3>
<p>This year, we are bringing even more interactive elements into the event, so you can get to know peers and thought leaders in the travel industry! In addition to live attendee chats, polls, and Q&A, we’re offering interactive sessions dedicated to collaborating.</p>
<ul>
<li>Make real-time, collaborative decisions and predictions about travel during our interactive swarm intelligence session. For more information on swarm intelligence, check out this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu-RyZt_Uas">TEDTalk.</a></li>
<li>Network with your peers during our roundtable session, where you’ll share and learn best practices for how to navigate the latest trends in travel and changes to your program.</li>
<li>Interact with our resilience expert to learn how to be more confident in handling challenges and change in the future.</li>
</ul>
<h3>2. Join informative sessions and gain new insights</h3>
<p>During this event, the breakout sessions will explore how business travel will ensue in the future – from 2022 and beyond – plus what’s top-of-mind for today’s travelers and travel leaders, including the CEO of United and the Chief Sustainability Officer at IHG. Attendees are encouraged to ask live questions and generate meaningful conversations about what to expect with travel going forward.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at some of the sessions you can expect:</p>
<ul>
<li>Transforming Your Sustainability Goals into an Action Plan</li>
<li>Defining Modern Day Travel Policies</li>
<li>Real Examples and Real Solutions for Fraud Today</li>
<li>The Balancing Act: One Travel Program with Many Priorities</li>
<li>Play the Investor: Which New Travel Tech Would You Choose?</li>
</ul>
<p>Plus, there will be the SAP Concur Hub where solution demos will be available to show the new tools and tech that SAP Concur has for the travel industry.</p>
<p>Check out the full event agenda <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit/high-level-agenda">here</a>.</p>
<h3>3. Connect with travel industry partners</h3>
<p>Throughout the day, our exhibiting partners will be on hand displaying their newest technology solutions and tools for business travel management in 2022. Jump into our virtual expo hall to explore these solutions and learn how each exhibitor can help you elevate your travel program by requesting a meeting.</p>
<h2>Why attend the Travel Industry Summit?</h2>
<p>This event will challenge the status quo of travel while providing guidance into exploring new ways of thinking and connecting you to the travel community. By attending this event, you will learn how to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Elicit the meaningful moments that are created when we travel</li>
<li>Design new, positive experiences for travelers</li>
<li>Enable travel managers to have the visibility, transparency, and flexibility they need</li>
<li>Empower employees to make decisions for themselves about travel</li>
<li>Create a connected travel ecosystem, including digital processes</li>
</ul>
<p><br />
<a href="https://concurtravelindustrysummit2022.sapevents.com/">Registration for the 2022 Travel Industry Summit</a> is live now! Can’t make it on June 9? Not to worry. You can still register to get access to the event content on demand after the event concludes.</p>
<p>We are so excited about this event, which will be a wonderful day of learning for all – whether you are new to the industry, a seasoned veteran, or simply want to learn more about the latest travel trends.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Top 5 T&E Reports for Healthcare Organizations
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-5-te-reports-healthcare-organizations
2022-12-30T15:40:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its that time of the year again where the years financials end and forecasting for begins Now that youre automated gathering the data and reports needed should be much more...
<p>It’s that time of the year again: where the year’s financials end and forecasting for 2022 begins. Now that you’re automated, gathering the data and reports needed should be much more streamlined. But do you have a strategy on how to align cross-functional teams and gather the proper reporting? Before we dig in to the top five reports, use these three tips to get your team’s reporting strategy aligned for the new year.</p>
<h2>Three tips to build a reporting strategy</h2>
<p>Finding the right data and understanding how it fits into the puzzle of a broader vision is where the magic happens. You get the right insights, at the right time, and even more precise information because it’s all automated with the exact numbers. So, if your organization is looking for more ways to strategically manage employee spending, then utilizing your data to ensure every dollar is used properly is a great start. Use these three tips to build a reporting strategy:</p>
<p><strong>1. Gather the right cross-functional team to share reporting: </strong>Think about it like a house – you need an architect, builder, decorator, and a landscaper. Each offers their own unique skillset and perspective when building the perfect home. The same goes for your organization and reporting.</p>
<ul>
<li>CFO</li>
<li>Expense Administrator</li>
<li>Accounts Payable (AP) Manager</li>
<li>Travel Manager</li>
<li>Line Manager</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Collect immediate data needs: </strong>Different departments have different needs, and every department is important in offering their top metrics, budget asks, and major wins when discussing goals. Gathering this data will also help shape the metrics needed for cross-functional dashboards that can be used to share and discuss spending goals, as well as analyze anomalous reports, either on a monthly or quarterly basis.</p>
<p><strong>3. Design dashboards, track scorecards: </strong>Use stakeholder dashboards to monitor relevant spending and create individual department scorecards to measure progress. Actionable analytics and alert thresholds, like "Percent of Budget" and "Credit Card Transactions," can be routinely leveraged to help manage current spend and identify potential policy or fraud violations. The more you know about what’s happening across your organization, the more you can refine your processes for even greater efficiency.</p>
<h2>The top 5 travel and expense reports</h2>
<p>Jumpstart into forecasting and managing expenses for 2022 by looking at these top five T&E reports for healthcare organizations:</p>
<p><strong>1. Monitoring mileage</strong>: For SAP Concur healthcare customers, 11% of T&E spend was categorized as ‘Mileage’, replacing airfare as the third greatest area of spend in 2020. As travel shifted from airfare and rental cars to personal vehicles during the global pandemic, the mileage spend category increased for many healthcare organizations, especially for those who continued to provide home care services to those in need. Use this report to look at excessive mileage drivers and assess whether the current breakeven distance is practical. You may be surprised to uncover just how many of your drivers are exceeding the breakeven distance.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify how much is being spent on car mileage</li>
<li>Assess whether current breakeven distance is practical</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Identifying duplicate spend</strong>: This report identifies expenses that might have been submitted for the same employee more than once, across multiple reports. If the reimbursement methodology is different between the same duplicates, then you'll want to look at the fraud folder and remove the filter: same expense type, same transaction data, and same amount – so you can see if someone files the same expense type twice. While it may appear as different, fraudsters can do this to get around the non-compliance exception rule.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?</p>
<ul>
<li>Highlight frequent offenders</li>
<li>Identify potential policy modifications</li>
<li>Identify training opportunities</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Credit card reconciliation</strong>: This report makes the reconciliation process easier to identify and match up numbers and totals from the statement when you add the transaction ID and reference number. Cross-referencing statements also ensures that other bank statements and fees aren't included.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?</p>
<ul>
<li>Gain visibility of all credit card transactions</li>
<li>Ensure card transactions are being submitted and processed in a timely manner</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>4. Healthcare attendee spending</strong>: This report helps ensure approved amounts are within limits per attendee, saving valuable time during audits. You can also identify potential policy violations and create training opportunities, if violations are found, to ensure future compliance.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?</p>
<ul>
<li>Your organization may be subject to Sunshine Act reporting</li>
<li>Ensure approved amounts are within limits per attendee</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>5. Workflow aging</strong>: This report helps identify expense reports that are pending approval, including the approvers associated with the reports, to help ensure approval of expense reports in a timely manner. Easily identify reports that have been sitting the longest by sorting the report by age, uncover reports that need immediate attention, and see who's queue the report is sitting in so you can determine what the next step is.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?</p>
<ul>
<li>Visibility into aged transactions</li>
<li>Ensure employee reimbursements and credits cards are paid timely</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Want more on reporting? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-5-reports-in-travel-and-expense-for-healthcare-organizations">Get best practices</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/top-5-reports-in-travel-and-expense-for-healthcare-organizations">access the standard reports</a> via SAP Concur solutions.</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
Why T&E Demands So Much Attention In Financial Services
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-te-demands-so-much-attention-financial-services
2023-04-02T14:03:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your margins are under enough pressure already But with continual digital disruptionfrom fintechs and other recent entrants who are tightening the screws even furthercosts are always...
<p>Your margins are under enough pressure already. But with continual digital disruption—from fintechs and other recent entrants who are tightening the screws even further—costs are always in the spotlight.</p>
<p>In this environment, you need to do whatever you can to control and reduce what you spend. And after people and payroll, T&E is likely one of your biggest cost centers.</p>
<p>With large numbers of employees, including relationship managers, financial advisors, and insurance brokers, all needing to meet with clients daily, it doesn’t take long to see how much getting a handle on <a href="http://concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">T&E</a> really does matter.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is Your Data as Secure as You’d Like It to Be?</h2>
<p>Given the sensitivity of everything you’re doing—from analysts and finance specialists working on mergers and acquisitions, to thousands of people meeting thousands of clients every day—the security of your data and confidentiality of their travel plans is key.</p>
<p>And in the era of data hacks and cyber attacks, it’s easy to recognize the value of data safety and integrity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>This is Costing More Than You Thought it Would</h2>
<p>More of your people spend more time on the road than most other industries. That means T&E takes a larger bite of your budget pie—money you no doubt could be using elsewhere. Eliminating any inefficiencies and driving out excess costs—finding new sources of savings in the process—is critical.</p>
<p>You don’t need anyone to tell you you’re operating in a highly regulated, highly scrutinized industry. You need your T&E systems to increase policy compliance, prevent fraud, and make sure you meet every regulatory requirement, including duty of care. In this people-centered business, knowing your employees are complying with company policy—and knowing where they are in times of danger—is crucial.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You Have Top Talent. Are You Giving Them Top Technology?</h2>
<p>Paperwork is busywork, and if your people are still wrangling receipts and writing up expense reports, they’re not getting to the work you need them to get done. Giving them super-simple apps—and cutting unnecessary steps from the T&E process—not only makes travel more enjoyable and productive. It helps recruit and retain top talent.</p>
<p>The answer, not surprisingly, is the cloud. But what’s the best way to get T&E up there?</p>
<p>You’re probably working in the cloud already, so you understand the ease and efficiency it brings. Taking T&E to the cloud is no different; it delivers control over spending, transparency into your deepest data, and a better, more fruitful travel experience for every employee.</p>
<p>Move to the cloud with the world’s <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/financial-management/travel-expense-management.html">T&E authority</a>, and you can be certain you’re on top of what matters most.</p>
<ul>
<li>Secure your data with systems that set the industry standards.</li>
<li>Reduce cost pressures at every level—from negotiating rates to automating processes.</li>
<li>Mitigate fraud, manage risk, and maintain compliance.</li>
<li>Digitize T&E with the latest apps and other brilliant tools employees want to use.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Ready for the Next Step?</h2>
<p>Download <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance">Oxford Economics Research: Effective Spending Management Boosts Performance</a> and find out why 95% of top-performing leaders consider cloud-based applications critically or very important to the success of the finance team.</p>
<p>To learn more, reach out to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">T&E experts</a>.</p>
<p>This originally appeared on the <a href="http://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2018/04/25/why-te-demands-so-much-attention-in-financial-services-06136610">Digitalist </a>and is republished with permission.</p>
Andy Hirst
The Challenges and Opportunities of SMB Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/challenges-and-opportunities-smb-travel
2023-08-24T15:38:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Last year it was clear to SAP Concur that a large portion of the UK economy simply wasnt being serviced when it came to business travel Although SMBs make up more than of private...
<p>Last year, it was clear to SAP Concur that a large portion of the UK economy simply wasn’t being serviced when it came to business travel. Although SMBs make up more than 99% of private sector businesses in the UK – and crucially employ more than <a href="https://www.fsb.org.uk/media-centre/small-business-statistics">60% of all private sector workers</a> – the business travel industry has been geared towards the larger end of the scale: the enterprise-size organization.</p>
<p>What many providers of travel solutions need to realize is that businesses of all sizes have become more global in their outlook and structure, and it is now far easier – and cheaper – for SMBs to travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>But Why do SMB Companies Need Specific Travel Solutions?</h2>
<p>A big part of answering this question is the flexibility needed by smaller businesses, which is something not often found in enterprise-focused businesses. This is where the data collection of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Triplink</a>, for example, comes into its own as one of the most important parts of an SMB travel program, allowing spend to be captured from a huge array of sources. This then helps companies to save money, remain compliant, provide duty of care, and be more productive.</p>
<p>Furthermore, small businesses often don’t have a dedicated travel manager to oversee processes, meaning that other roles, such as HR, are drafted in to oversee travel, while employees themselves are tasked with finding and making appropriate bookings. This then relates to a lack of education too: How can you comply with international regulations or fulfill duty-of-care obligations if you have no idea what they entail?</p>
<p>Another easily overlooked aspect of SMB travel is the role played by domestic routes. Just because a salesperson is traveling within the country, rather than outside it, doesn’t mean that their journey should not be planned, booked, and overseen in the same way as an international trip. For many smaller businesses, these trips happen regularly.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What Specific Challenges Can be Faced by Smaller Businesses When Traveling?</h2>
<p>Firstly, companies without an effective travel solution tend to generate a huge amount of administrative work for themselves, including finding the right booking, paying for it, and filling out expense reports. Small businesses are often the most time-constrained, so this can result in more stress for the employee involved.</p>
<p>Secondly, the booking habits of SMBs – even more so than large organizations – mimic those of people booking for themselves. The approach is fragmented, destination-focused, and often booked late. This then creates a black hole for money, with little-to-no visibility as to where it is being spent until the expense report is begrudgingly filled in and submitted.</p>
<p>Duty of care also suffers without appropriate technology in place. You might be able to track a flight and find out when someone has checked into their hotel, but there’s a gap between these two points (more often than not in a cab) where that visibility is reduced to zero.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How is SAP Concur Looking to Tackle This?</h2>
<p>As we mentioned above, Triplink holds the key to a successful SMB travel program. It allows businesses to capture spend across an enormous ecosystem of partners, allowing a full, connected picture of the trip and its spend.</p>
<p>But Triplink is only as strong as the ecosystem surrounding it, which is why the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57eecc1f140411120087e7fd">partnering with Booking.com</a> late last year has made such a tremendous difference to smaller businesses and their travel. Consumerization and the desire to book in much the same way as you would at home is a major trend in business at the moment, so allowing businesses to book through Booking.com and still capture spend is a powerful tool.</p>
<p>This spend capture can then be analyzed to better the financial health of a business; but without this data, these insights just cannot be achieved. Data allows SMBs to make deals with chains they often use, avoid the more expensive options, and ensure they are running a streamlined and effective travel strategy.</p>
<p>The partners and their subsequent data capture also positively affect duty of care usage. Using Uber as an example, an organization can track the journey to ensure safety – with the direct expense integration just an added bonus. This awareness also means that an employee can be easily reached in case of an emergency, respond and even be pulled out by a security team if need be, by our recently launched <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a> solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel Needs are Universal</h2>
<p>The way in which SAP Concur has set about putting together its comprehensive suite of travel products means that it can apply to a company of any size. We are working with partners best suited for smaller businesses (such as Booking.com), putting our emphasis on education and learning on how best to deliver a travel strategy that works and keeps your employees safe. This is then sold by our team of experts in the field of small and medium businesses. </p>
<p>Travel is becoming increasingly more inclusive. We want to ensure that the insights, safety, and ease of use when organizing it are too. Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">SAP Concur solutions for small businesses</a>. </p>
Dafydd Llewellyn
How to Reclaim More Value Added Tax on Corporate Travel Expenses
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-reclaim-more-value-added-tax-corporate-travel-expenses
2023-08-29T13:16:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to the Global Business Travel Association each year corporate travelers take more than million business trips If each trip costs US as estimated by Taxback International the...
<p>According to the Global Business Travel Association, each year, corporate travelers take more than <strong>480 million business trips</strong>. If each trip costs US$1,452, as estimated by Taxback International, the associated costs can take a toll on your corporate balance sheet. With just 24 travelers that take ten trips each per year, the related fees would be $348,480 in meals, transportation, accommodations, and communications.</p>
<p>Now, add to these costs an increase in taxes paid on travel. That's the reality facing many organizations with the global expansion of value-added tax (VAT) regulations.</p>
<h2>How VAT is changing</h2>
<p>More and more of the world's governments are relying on indirect taxes as a source of revenue, creating a dramatic shift in the rules and regulations tax offices across the globe are enforcing. VAT is a massive revenue generator for the roughly 120 economies that use it. In the European Union, (EU) for instance, there is a €137B “VAT Gap” between expected and collected revenues due to fraud and non-compliance based on lack of awareness or inability to comply with VAT regulations because of complexity. To close this gap, the European Commission has proposed a significant reform of the EU's VAT system to close the gap between expected and collected revenues -- creating a sense of urgency among businesses. </p>
<p>What does this mean for you? As international trade in goods and services rapidly expands, so does the spread of VAT and the requirement for multinational companies to collect and pay VAT in the countries where they operate. But with the right tools, you can comply with complex and changing VAT regulations more efficiently and avoid potential audits and fines. There is also an opportunity to recover significant amounts of the taxes paid, including for employee travel, entertainment, and invoice expenses.</p>
<p>For those that make <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">VAT reclaim</a> a priority, the potential is staggering. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/electrolux">Electrolux</a>, a leading global appliance company with employees in 42 countries supporting more than 150 global markets, has increased its VAT recovery ten-fold from €31,000 to €354,000 in just three years. Citrix Systems, another multinational, recovered $900,000 in VAT in one year.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How to reclaim more VAT</h2>
<p>With rules and regulations varying from country to country, VAT recovery through manual efforts is prone to errors and delays. A better way is to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/innovating-vat-reclaim-through-automation-taxback-international">use automation and digitalization</a> to maximize compliance and reclamation rather than attempt to shoulder the burden of keeping up with regulatory changes and the trivialities of global tax.</p>
<p>Solutions that capture and validate invoice and receipt data are vital to tackling VAT, both domestic and foreign. Look for solutions that focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and optical character recognition (OCR) to adhere to the shortening windows for VAT reporting and reclamation, especially if this can start automatically assessing expense reports for taxation information. These features will help accelerate the process and minimize the amount of incorrectly completed reclamation requests. Paying attention to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-state-tax-implications-for-traveling-employees">domestic taxes</a> and mapping your company's tax structures is also crucial to ensure money isn't left behind. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Working with VAT experts</h2>
<p>For the 80 or so VAT-enabled countries that don't allow cross-border reclamation, you may be able to claim back taxes under domestic policy. Doing so requires companies to have international VAT registrations in all of the eligible countries. It also requires companies to share transactional data with experts who can ensure that money usually blocked by a lack of cross-border reclamation can flow back into those business accounts.</p>
<p>To help companies with VAT reporting and reclamation, specialists such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce45">VAT IT</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce03">Taxback International</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce3c">VATBox</a>, among others, have developed prebuilt integrations for Concur Expense and Concur Invoice solutions. Available in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a>, these integrations enable the automatic extraction of spend data to simplify VAT reporting, while intelligent, knowledge-based automation ensures maximum VAT recovery. </p>
<p>To learn more about how your firm can stay current with changing VAT regulations, read the whitepaper from SAP Concur, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">concur.com/reclaim-vat</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Resources Aid Travel During COVID-19
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-resources-aid-travel-during-covid-19
2023-09-07T12:50:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Those of us in the SAP Concur organization are committed to responsible travel that protects the health and safety of travelers and the communities they visit As companies plot the...
<p>Those of us in the SAP Concur organization are committed to responsible travel that protects the health and safety of travelers and the communities they visit. As companies plot the course ahead, here are several resources for SAP Concur customers that will help with travel when the time is right.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>TripIt Traveler Resource Center</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tripit.com/web">TripIt</a> from Concur recently launched a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/traveler-resource-center/">Traveler Resource Center</a>, making it easy for travelers to find the latest information on issues that are especially relevant today. From public health and safety advisories to cancellation policies and new travel guidelines, this information will help travelers make the best decisions for their next trip.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Booking Switch</h2>
<p>A key consideration in permitting both domestic and international travel is the destination, including whether it is perceived as safe or risky to travel there and the latest local health and safety requirements that must be met. Booking switch allows companies to define which trips can be self-booked or require travel manager approval via <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-request-travel-solutions">Concur Request</a> based on these factors. The Concur Request approval workflow can then be configured with a rule to check whether a specific country will be visited, then route to or skip approval. This enables companies to allow their employees to self-book within Concur Travel for “safe” trips but triggers a specific process via Concur Request otherwise.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Air Reassurance</h2>
<p>Air Reassurance in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, currently available for select major carriers, includes a message about each airline’s response, procedures, and guidelines for COVID-19 to encourage safer, more confident trips.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Unused Tickets</h2>
<p>Situations and travel restrictions can evolve at a moment’s notice, and travelers’ plans must follow suit. For convenience, Concur Travel can display unused ticket credits in users’ profiles. Ticket credits typically expire within a year of purchase, so this feature can help employees stay on top of them and apply toward essential or future travel. <a href="https://www.tripit.com/pro">TripIt Pro</a>—TripIt’s premium membership —also features a newly redesigned <a href="https://www.tripit.com/pro/pointtracker">Point Tracker</a> with an improved view of traveler point balances, history, and expiration dates to help users stay on top of their rewards programs in a rapidly changing environment.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Amadeus Ticket Changer</h2>
<p>Amadeus customers with reservations can make changes through self-service, instead of contacting their travel management company (TMC). Note: Both the customer and the TMC must have this feature enabled to use it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Concur FAVR by Motus</h2>
<p>Private vehicles have become an essential mode of transportation in the current travel climate. We have partnered with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/motus-reimbursement-favr-methodology-explainer">Motus</a>, a recognized leader in the mobile-enabled worker sector, to offer <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/motus-reimbursement-favr-methodology-explainer">Concur FAVR by Motus</a>—an end-to-end mileage spend solution that fully integrates with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>. The solution customizes reimbursements based on the actual costs employees incur as they drive their own vehicles for work-related purposes. Scalable and cloud-based, it adjusts for fluctuations in location, vehicle type, and other factors, allowing organizations to reimburse drivers fairly and accurately, while keeping company transportation costs in check.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Require Approval Policy</h2>
<p>Many companies have adjusted their travel policies, including requiring approval for non-essential or international travel. Concur Travel’s Require Approval Policy can be set to pop up when an employee books travel, showing a message that states approval is required.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Customized Messaging</h2>
<p>There are several additional opportunities for companies to incorporate customized messaging in Concur Travel that helps ensure employees are fully informed when planning their next trip:</p>
<ul>
<li>Company Notes: Companies can include notes for employees’ reference within Concur Travel. These work well for general communications, such as a change to policy or a clear message to employees about how they will be supported as they return to travel.</li>
<li>Pop-up Messages: Companies can insert messages that pop up for employees during the travel shopping process. The Log-in Warning feature provides a pop-up travel alert to all users upon log-in, and through Configurable Messaging, travel managers can define specific criteria to trigger a pop-up message based on an employee’s search.</li>
<li>Inline Messages: Travel managers can also define specific criteria that will trigger a message at the top of a search results page. This is a good opportunity to share information specific to a vertical search (e.g., airport changes, hotel cleanliness policies).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Duty of Care Network</h2>
<p>Duty of care has rapidly evolved, and SAP Concur customers are seeking specialized solutions that not only track and allow them to message travelers, but also provide critical security and medical assistance services when needed. This requires a more comprehensive approach, powered by the most robust, timely data set to enable duty of care for all companies and organizations. We recently <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/new-sap-concur-duty-of-care-partner-network">announced the expansion</a> of our duty of care partners within the SAP Concur App Center to take advantage of the rich data stream that SAP Concur travel booking produces. This rich data enables customers to provide the level of duty of care their employees expect.</p>
<p>While it is uncertain when travel will resume in full swing, it is important that companies and travelers are prepared with certainty when it does. In the meantime, we are doing what we can to help. For additional information to better navigate the future of travel, please join us at the first-ever virtual SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">Travel Industry Summit</a> on Thursday, September 17, 2020. This free summit will bring together the travel community to reconnect, recover, and reimagine the world of business travel. </p>
<p>Learn more and register at <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Would You Do with An Extra 3,000 Hours of Time Each Month?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-would-you-do-extra-3000-hours-time-each-month
2023-09-08T16:38:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
More time to do more things What would your organization do with an extra hours of work time each month Thats additional hours every week or extra hours in each day A new survey...
<p>More time to do more things. What would your organization do with an extra 3,000 hours of work time each month? That’s 600 additional hours every week or 150 extra hours in each day!</p>
<p>A new survey conducted by SAP Concur and Kelton Global <strong>polling 300 financial decision makers working in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">state, city, and local government</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">higher education</a></strong> shows that’s how much time these public sector organizations are losing processing expense reports and invoices manually. That’s more than 3,000 hours per month for government organizations and more than 2,000 hours per month for higher education organizations.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>At a time when government leaders are <a href="https://retensa.com/clients/clients-by-industry/retain-government-employees/">on a mission</a> to re-engage and future-proof their workforce and universities and colleges <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/2017-survey-admissions-directors-pressure-all-around">face pressures</a> to increase enrollment, these hours could add up to anywhere from 15-18 full-time employees focusing on more mission critical work each month.</p>
<p>But it’s not just a time and resourcing issue, it impacts budget accuracy too.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Manual systems waste many hours of precious employee time and increase financial inaccuracies</h2>
<p>One striking example: the sheer volume of expense reports and invoices that get processed in <a href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-cloud">higher education and government organizations</a>. On average, they’re looking at 382 expense reports and 320 invoices respectively each month, and around two-thirds of survey respondents are still using at least partially manual systems to manage all of it – manual systems that require a lot of unnecessary hours compared to automated ones that free up those employees to put their energy toward more mission-critical work.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1558461589447-keltonchart-3.png" /></p>
<p>How much time are we talking? Survey findings showed that organizations who do not have fully automated expense management programs spend an additional <strong>five hours processing each expense report and two hours processing each invoice</strong> compared to those who do have automation in place.</p>
<p>Inaccuracies are also on the rise. About one-third of decision makers also said the number of inaccurate expense reports and invoices that have been submitted has increased over the past year. Not only that, but about one-fourth of respondents said they’ve unintentionally reported incorrect budget data due to inaccuracies in expense reports or invoices.</p>
<p>With public programs and educational institutions depending on stretched budgets and strict funding and grant policies in the public sector, these errors can quickly create bigger problems beyond the T&E department.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1558461568601-keltonchart-1.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automating spend management improves productivity and accuracy, and can create new opportunities for employees</h2>
<p>Fixing these big-ticket issues – loss of man hours, reporting errors and budgeting inaccuracies – sounds like a major uphill battle. Especially when organizational leaders and their employees across different departments are so busy with day-to-day operations that they don’t have the time to rethink processes and create culture shifts around how they operate.</p>
<p>Automating the manual steps in existing processes can be a first step and is more doable than most think.</p>
<p>An example I like is <a href="https://www.eschoolnews.com/2019/03/18/why-k-12-accounts-payable-teams-should-embrace-automation/2/">Rochester City School District</a> (RCSD). Accounts payable supervisor Derrek Blair turned to automation after determining the district’s longstanding manual processes no longer had the agility and accuracy required to redirect costs with spending and comply with complex regulatory systems. By automating AP workflows, RCSD was able to improve efficiencies, get a better real-time view into what was being spent, and stay compliant. Now, they’ve been able to reduce compliance failures and eliminate 60 percent of travel and expense errors.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1558461597982-keltonchart-2.png" /></p>
<p>Putting automation tools in place creates check points earlier on in the process that not only decrease errors, but also cut down on time everyone from budget approvers to auditors have to spend manually reviewing submissions.</p>
<p>Other public sector organizations that have successfully shifted to an automated approach can also be motivating if you’re reviewing your current processes. For inspiration, take a look at some of our customer success stories <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/index">here</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>More about the survey</h2>
<p>Kelton Global’s study gathered responses from 300 financial decision makers working in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local government</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-expenses-software">higher education</a> to learn more about how these organizations are reducing risk, maintaining compliance and maximizing efficiency – what’s working well, what others might learn from what some organizations are doing, and where applying new systems and processes could solve for time and accuracy issues.</p>
<p><strong>Ready to learn more? Download the Kelton research in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-states-cities-counties-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">state, city, and local government</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">higher education</a> today!</strong></p>
<p> </p>
David Ballard
Top 3 Reasons Why Small Businesses Must Go Mobile
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-3-reasons-why-small-businesses-must-go-mobile
2018-07-10T08:32:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pace of business is not just moving quickly its moving at lightning speed When competing against the giants of the industry small businesses often feel the need to work twice as...
<p>The pace of business is not just moving quickly, it’s moving at lightning speed. When competing against the giants of the industry, small businesses often feel the need to work twice as hard just to keep up. But where SMBs lack in size, they make up for in agility, adaptability and flexibility.</p>
<p>This occurs particularly when it comes to business processes—when something doesn’t work, SMBs can quickly implement change. If there is new technology, they implement it. There are no long approval processes or multiple layers to cut through. This is why it’s no surprise SMBs have not only taken to, but excelled with, using mobile business solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Accessing business from anywhere</strong></h2>
<p>Mobile business solutions do more than just enable work to be accessed from anywhere. Many SMBs find that using mobile solutions is changing the way they work for the better. In a recent report by the SMB Group, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs">From Manual to Mobile: Speeding Business Success for SMBs</a>, a survey of small businesses found that:<br />
<br />
“67% of SMBs strongly agree/agree that mobile solutions are changing how they work and collaborate (Figure 5). The top benefits from mobile solutions include improved employee productivity, improved access to people and information, and time savings.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1502225159451-figure-5-3.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beyond business process benefits, mobility positively affects SMB’s employee recruitment and retention. The ability to work from anywhere opens up the talent pool, giving SMBs more access to top talent. The flexibility of mobility attracts the younger generation of workers (Millennials) who expect to work both in and out of the office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Giving your employees (and business) a leading edge</strong></h2>
<p>As mobile technology gains momentum, so do the capabilities of various applications. SMBs are using more than just the standard productivity and collaboration apps for their mobile business solutions. They are using apps to manage everything from CRM to spend management.</p>
<p>A good example of powerful spend management solutions are <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>. These applications allow SMBs to track employee expenses and review and approve invoices in real time. Since SAP Concur uses cloud technology, information is transparent and accessible by any team member with access.</p>
<p>An added mobility benefit with Concur Expense is the ability for employees to use their mobile phone to record expenses, snap photos of receipts or approve employees’ expense reports.</p>
<p>Not only are businesses reaping the benefits of a mobile business solution, they are also feeling the impact of time and cost savings thanks to efficient automated software.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Creating a powerful mobile business solution cocktail</strong></h2>
<p>Choosing the correct mix of mobile business solutions that are right for your company starts with taking a long, hard look at your current processes. From there, you can determine which practices would be made even better with mobile business solutions. Remember to think beyond just automating your current processes. Mobile and cloud-based software can often re-work or even eliminate processes altogether. </p>
<p>Keep the big picture of your processes and tools in mind as you make your decisions. Mobility is here to stay, and your employees will continue to demand more and more flexibility. Integrating mobile solutions in a thoughtful way allows both your company and your employees to reap all the benefits of a mobile workplace, ensuring that you stay ahead of the pack.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Are you ready to create a mobile workplace?<strong> Download </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs"><strong>From Manual to Mobile: Speeding Business Success for SMBs.</strong></a><strong> </strong>This Perspectives Report by SMB Group, sponsored by SAP Concur, explains the many ways mobility is changing the SMB marketplace.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
With cloud AP, your finance leader is your company's change agent
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cloud-ap-your-finance-leader-your-companys-change-agent
2020-09-11T11:15:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Todays Financial Decision Maker FDM must contend with an expanding lineup of duties as well as a growing list of constituents to whom they must answer Companies are also likely to have...
<p>Today's Financial Decision Maker (FDM) must contend with an expanding lineup of duties as well as a growing list of constituents to whom they must answer. Companies are also likely to have highly mobile sales forces, contract workers, and more flexible work arrangements for employees. Managing this expanding workforce has never been more challenging because the cost of inefficient financial operations, along with employee turnover and lost productivity, is greater than ever. Expectations from investors (and other C-suite leaders) have grown in scope, adding to the historical CFO mandates around controlling operational costs and reporting financial results that are in line with an ever-expanding set of industry compliance regulations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With these challenges in mind, FDMs are looking to create visibility and implement policy-based accounts payable and invoice management solutions. At first glance, neither process looks to be ready for a revolution. However, IDC feels that smart automation in both these areas can drive incremental and lasting improvements and sharpen the entire back-office posture around speeding processes that lend <strong>liquidity</strong> and <strong>flexibility</strong> to cash on hand and other important measures.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Many organizations have created their current AP and invoice "automation" from a variety of older point tools, relational databases, and file-sharing sites. While these solutions get the job done, the processes are painful to execute, waste time, and don't provide visibility or drive smarter decision-making. Purpose-built solutions with linked workflow and collaboration are much more effective than manual processes when it comes to quick automation and deeper reporting on a wider set of business metrics. The driving goal of this automation is to reduce accounts receivable turnover, improve company cash flow, and provide a more accurate picture of a company’s finances. Believe it or not, cloud-based accounts payable and invoice management can surround the entire Finance function with a halo of excellence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>IDC conducted an independent study of accounts payable and invoice management, interviewing eight customers of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> in various regions to assess benefits, risks, and return on investment (ROI). IDC’s study, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">The Business Value of Concur Invoice</a>, found that since implementing Concur Invoice, the surveyed organizations have made their invoice management processes more efficient and effective. With Concur Invoice, these organizations have automated and simplified accounts payable (AP) workflows, enhanced the user experience, encouraged mobility in the AP process, and improved compliance levels. IDC projects that for a five-year period, these organizations will achieve benefits worth a discounted average of $2.75 million ($54,647 per 1,000 invoices) and a return on investment (ROI) of 505%. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Smart automation also provides the following benefits:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Efficiency:</strong> Workers spent 68% less time processing invoices and average time to pay vendors accelerated by 51%.</li>
<li><strong>Compliance:</strong> 99% of employees using Concur Invoice comply with their companies’ procurement policies, which improved 14% over five years, and the number of delayed payments to vendors has decreased by 67%.</li>
<li><strong>Visibility:</strong> FDMs can provide greater business performance visibility and drive smarter decision making.</li>
<li><strong>Productivity</strong>: AP departments can be more efficient with an automated process and spend more time on strategic components rather than manually entering invoices, and employees can save substantial time submitting and reviewing invoices. </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>We're entering an age of digital transformation, where every business is looking to strengthen its internal processes, digitize as much as possible, and make all areas of the business – from product management to sales, IT to finance – contributors to an ethic of excellence. Automation frees up capital, provides true visibility, manages exceptions, and speeds the smooth operation between one company and its ecosystem. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">With this </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">study</a>, IDC has found that even with the expanding purview of the Finance function, with the right tools, FDMs can be agents for positive change in their organizations.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2><strong>Join our Webinar to Learn More </strong></h2>
<p>Join Concur and guest speaker, Robert Mahowald, for our <strong>Webinar: The Business Value of Cloud Software and Streamlining the AP Process</strong>, rescheduled for July 26 at 11AM PT/2PM ET to learn more about the study and the latest trends in cloud software.</p>
<p><strong>The Concur Webinar, The Business Value of Cloud Software and Streamlining the AP Process, featuring an IDC speaker, is on July 26 at 2:00 ET. </strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/IDC_Webinar_2017-07_RegistrationPage.html?pid=direct&cid=direct"><strong>Reserve your spot today.</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur App Center partner spotlight: VisaHQ
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-app-center-partner-spotlight-visahq
2017-10-30T15:00:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Applying for a visa or passport can be a long and confusing process Application processes are unique to each country and requirements can change at a moments noticesuch as the recent...
<p>Applying for a visa or passport can be a long and confusing process. Application processes are unique to each country, and requirements can change at a moment’s notice—such as the recent <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/world/us-turkey-halt-visa-service/index.html" target="_blank">mutual suspension of visa services between the U.S. and Turkey</a>. It’s no wonder a recent study found that 85% of corporate travelers have a poor or mediocre experience when obtaining a visa<a href="#_ftn1" title="">[1]</a>. More than just a painful chore for travelers, if done incorrectly, applying for travel documents can also result in delayed or missed trips, additional cost, or damage to a company’s business and bottom line. And with 58% of the current population requiring a visa to travel internationally<a href="#_ftn2" title="">[2]</a>, it’s an area of managed travel that shouldn’t be neglected.</p>
<p>Luckily, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5711224516680812000f787c">VisaHQ</a>, a valued <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">Concur App Center</a> partner, integrates directly with Concur Travel to enable Concur clients to easily obtain visas, passports, and other required documents for international business travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1509467593522-visahq-mobile-screens.png" /></p>
<p>Automation helps reduce errors, rejections and delays in the process, while having a single controlled environment for applications provides added visibility into spend and traveler data. Designed with the busy corporate traveler in mind, VisaHQ’s technology gets the job done, with more than 99.91% of applications approved on the initial submission. VisaHQ has assisted more than 500,000 business travelers requiring visa or passport services for 112 countries.</p>
<p>Travel management has a lot of moving parts, and VisaHQ aims to make things easy for all job functions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travelers</strong> receive proactive notifications, a personal profile and seamless expense reporting.</li>
<li><strong>Travel arrangers</strong> can manage multiple traveler profiles, and achieve time-savings with information at their fingertips.</li>
<li>Transparent pricing helps <strong>Procurement</strong> easily budget for travel documents.</li>
<li><strong>Travel managers</strong> get instant insight into data and increased compliance, making it easier to fulfill their duty-of-care responsibilities.</li>
</ul>
<p>Don’t let your travelers be grounded by visa or passport issues. If you or your employees travel internationally for business, we hope you’ll check out <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5711224516680812000f787c">VisaHQ in the Concur App Center</a>.</p>
<p>Launched in 2013, the Concur App Center to make it easy for travelers to find and connect to apps that integrate with Concur and provide additional value for individuals and businesses. With more than 160 pre-built integrations and popular connections, the App Center extends the value of Concur by helping customers implement Concur rapidly, gain insight into spend, simplify expense reporting and help deliver the perfect trip.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a> VisaHQ internal benchmarking study</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p><a href="#_ftnref2" title="">[2]</a> UNWTO <a href="http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/annual_report_2016_web_0.pdf" target="_blank">2016 Annual Report</a></p>
</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Here are a few tips to prepare for Small Business Saturday
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/here-are-few-tips-prepare-small-business-saturday
2017-11-14T08:38:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In an estimated million consumers reported shopping at small businesses on Small Business Saturday What started in by American Express as a way to help small businesses during the...
<p>In 2016, an estimated 112 million consumers <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161128005542/en/Small-Business-Saturday%C3%83%E2%80%9A%C3%82%C2%AE-Results-112-Million-Consumers" target="_blank">reported shopping at small businesses on Small Business Saturday</a>. What started in 2010 by <a href="https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/" target="_blank">American Express</a> as a way to help small businesses during the recession, has grown in popularity and participation, and is now entering into its 7th year. At Concur, we hold <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">small businesses</a> near and dear to our heart, supporting them with products and services that save them both time and money.</p>
<p>With Small Business Saturday right around the corner on November 25, we want you to perform your best on this busy shopping holiday. Here are a few tips to get you and your business prepared.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Start preparing early</strong></h2>
<p>Don’t wait until the eleventh hour to prepare for Small Business Saturday. Create a game plan for how you are going to take on the holiday. It should include everything from the products or services you are going to promote to how you’re going to advertise. Get your employees excited by including them in your planning. Don’t forget to incorporate the <a href="https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/" target="_blank">Shop Small logo</a> on your storefront display, your website and social media posts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Include a special offer</strong></h2>
<p>This holiday is only one day each year, which means you will want to take a few extra steps to get people through the door. And, nothing is more enticing to shoppers than a special offer. Whether it is a free gift with purchase, a percentage discount or a free appetizer with a drink, an added bonus makes shoppers feel special and more enticed to spend a little extra.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Automate as many back-end processes as possible</strong></h2>
<p>You need to put your focus on customer service and making Small Business Saturday a success. The last thing you need is to be mired down by paperwork before the big day, such as sifting through employee expense reports and vendor invoices. Using products like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> turn your manual processes into automated ones, allowing you and your employees to spend more time focused on your customers.</p>
<p>With automated spend management, you’ll have better insight into spending, which gives you tighter control over your cash flow. Say goodbye to out-of-policy spending and high fees, and hello to putting more cash back into your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Pay vendors on time to save money (and your relationships)</strong></h2>
<p>Late payments and additional fees tax not only your checkbook, but also your vendor relationships. Moving to an automated invoice system, such as Concur Invoice, helps you manage accounts payable and cash flow, ensuring invoices get paid on time. With Small Business Saturday fast approaching, you need your vendors on your side, to ensure your shelves are fully stocked and ready to celebrate the shopping holiday.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Get involved and partner with other small businesses</strong></h2>
<p>Why not work with other small businesses in your area to create a complete Small Business Saturday experience? Not only can you combine deals, but you can work together on getting the word out and promoting your businesses. Why not get shoppers in the holiday spirit by having carolers go from store to store, or host a fun run or photo with Santa. The sky’s the limit when working together, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Above all, have fun</strong></h2>
<p>Small Business Saturday only happens once a year. Make sure that you take a step back and allow yourself to enjoy the holiday. From all of us here at Concur, cheers to you and to a profitable Small Business Saturday.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">Get the report</a> to learn how SMBs drive growth and innovation when they embrace the full power of T&E solutions</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Three Reasons Why You Should be Automating Your Invoice Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-reasons-why-you-should-be-automating-your-invoice-process
2020-09-11T13:17:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Is your finance team still sifting through stacks of paperwork even after youve automated your employee expense management A closer look will show you those are vendor invoices in...
<p>Is your finance team still sifting through stacks of paperwork, even after you’ve automated your employee expense management? A closer look will show you those are vendor invoices in various stages of approval and payment. If your gut reaction is that there is something wrong with this picture, then you are on the right track. Why stop at automating just employee expenses, when you can also automate your invoice process? Not sure if this for you? Here are three good reasons why you should be integrating this technology today:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Automation Saves Time and Money</strong></h2>
<p>You've already learned this from the first time you automated a process, but it's worth a refresher. Using an automated invoice solution allows you to eliminate paper invoices and streamline both receipt and payment. Your AP team doesn't have to filter through paperwork trying to discern which is the most up-to-date invoice needing to be paid. In addition, moving away from paper invoicing reduces risk of error and fraud. Auditing invoices can happen quickly and more accurately. All those hours that would have been used to track down and fix any errors are now essentially saved.</p>
<p>Saving money when it comes to paying bills is always a good thing. The Association for Image and Information Management (AIIM) found that companies that use invoice automation experience a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">29.2% reduction on processing costs</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2.You Will Improve Vendor Relationships</strong></h2>
<p>It goes without saying that paying on time, or even early, improves your relationship with your vendors. Not to mention, it eliminates late fees, which add up over time. A good vendor-client relationship has its perks. With your account consistently in good standing, vendors are more apt to offer better financing deals, sneak peaks at new products or services, or additional discounts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. You Get Better Financial Visibility</strong></h2>
<p>Is your team still reeling from year-end reporting? Automating your invoice process opens up a world of opportunities when it comes to visibility and accuracy. Data is updated in real time, giving you what is needed to make informed, strategic financial decisions. You and your team can pull reports quickly, reducing hours of manual data entry and number crunching.</p>
<p>This visibility into spend makes it easier to spot errors and pinpoint instances of fraud, allowing your teams to resolve any issues before they grow into bigger problems.</p>
<p>If improving invoice reporting was one of your 2018 resolutions, you are not alone: Ardent Partners research shows that 40 % of finance executives identify improving payables reporting and analytics as a top priority.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Start the Invoice Transformation Process Today</strong></h2>
<p>Why wait any longer to automate your invoice process? Join SAP Concur and CFO.com for a free webinar, <a href="http://aef.argyleforum.com/BestPracticesforStreamliningInvoiceandExpenseManagement" target="_blank">Best Practices for Streamlining Invoice and Expense Management</a>, and learn how finance leaders can gain greater visibility into corporate spend, while increasing invoice processing speed and accuracy. By automating both your employee expense and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/invoicing-trends-the-lure-of-automated-ap">AP processes</a>, you open up the opportunity for more growth and overall positive financial health.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Create a More Efficient Finance Team in Three Steps
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/create-more-efficient-finance-team-three-steps
2020-09-11T13:18:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A business success depends not only on its leaders but also how well the internal teams work together The finance team in particular has the important task of ensuring budgets align...
<p>A business’ success depends not only on its leaders, but also how well the internal teams work together. The finance team, in particular, has the important task of ensuring budgets align with strategic goals, while keeping an eye on the bottom line. With some team members working in the office, others remotely, and the occasional contract worker sprinkled in, creating an effective and efficient work environment can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are a few ways finance managers can keep their team engaged and working well together.</p>
<p>Start with these three steps to building a stronger finance team:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 1: Ensure All Members Understand Team (and Corporate) Goals</h2>
<p>When was the last time your team had a discussion about goals? In order for a team to work together, team members must all be working toward common objectives. Set up a time to discuss the goals your team is looking to accomplish over the course of the next week, month, and year, and show how they integrate with the overall vision of the organization.</p>
<p>In his article, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/02/08/leadership-and-teamwork-the-secret-sauce-to-business-success/#7cc84ebe36f1" target="_blank">Leadership And Teamwork: The Secret Sauce To Business Success</a>, Theodore Henderson discusses the role leaders play in ensuring each team member understands the importance of his or her role: “Good leaders understand how to aid each member in seeing just how the final product will be beneficial and what, precisely, their particular contribution is toward that end.”</p>
<p>By taking the time to walk through specifics, team members are better able to understand the individual roles they play and how they influence the overall success of the team and the company.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 2: Give Your Team Tools for Success</h2>
<p>Once the goals are established and any areas of uncertainty are cleared, ensure your team has the tools they need to accomplish the plan. Implementing accounts payable and expense automation software, doesn’t just save time, it streamlines processes and increases visibility into spend, that would normally not be available. Tasks like month-end reporting that used to take many hours and sometimes two or three employees to complete can now be done within minutes, freeing up time to work on those strategic goals.</p>
<p>Systems such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> work with a company’s current workflows, to enhance current processes and increase visibility. These solutions are cloud-based and mobile, which means even remote employees or those travelling for business can access much needed data from anywhere.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 3: Play to Team Members’ Strengths</h2>
<p>In a recent interview for an <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295265" target="_blank">Entrepreneur article</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/domprice" target="_blank">Dom Price</a>, the head of R&D at Atlassian, commented: “The future of productivity is all about unleashing the potential of your teams.” Each team member has a unique set of skills and perspective that they bring to the table. By playing up to these strengths, you can tap into each individuals potential, increasing their engagement at work and benefiting the team overall. This is especially important as the expectations of the finance team continue to change in the face of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence</p>
<p>And, at the end of the day, when working to create a positive and unified team don’t overlook the importance of acknowledging team accomplishments. Something as simple as a “thank you” or “good job” goes a long way into creating a happy team environment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Looking for a few more ideas for creating a stronger finance team? Watch our on-demand <a href="https://www.proformative.com/events/small-business-team-s-guide-growth?sid=416790">Proformative webinar: How small business teams grow their businesses</a>, and get additional information and ideas for improving your finance team.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Don’t Forget Spend Management When Moving to the Cloud
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-forget-spend-management-when-moving-cloud
2020-09-11T12:12:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This article was originally published at GCN Technology Tools and Tactics for Public Sector IT on January Although state and local governments are beginning to move their...
<p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://gcn.com/articles/2018/01/30/spend-management-cloud.aspx" target="_blank">GCN: Technology, Tools and Tactics for Public Sector IT</a> on January 30, 2018. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Although state and local governments are beginning to move their applications to the cloud, many are forgetting to update their travel- and spend-management systems. With better spend-management solutions, agencies will have increased compliance, more information for improved decision-making and a better picture to allocate resources, making it easier for them to focus on delivering better services to citizens.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://go.govloop.com/Employee-Spend" target="_blank">recent survey</a>, only 16% of public-sector employees said they have access to cloud or web-based systems for submitting expenses. In fact, almost 40% still use pen and paper, while 27% use Microsoft Office applications, like Excel, to generate expense reports. These antiquated processes are difficult to track, prone to errors and vulnerable to waste and abuse, which is problematic considering employee-initiated expenses are the second largest controllable expenditure for most state and local organizations after payroll.</p>
<p>These cumbersome spend management processes also mean slow reimbursement times that can keep agencies from focusing on their mission. More than 80% of public-sector respondents said it takes two weeks or more for expenses to be approved. Even more alarming, almost half of respondents do not benefit from simple features such as direct deposit, automated expense reporting, integrated travel booking or mobile receipt creation and approval -- all of which were top priorities when respondents ranked the most desired features.</p>
<p>Automating internal processes and turning to cloud-based systems is an easy and effective way to improve transparency and redirect efforts to citizen-facing programs, which is critical for state and local governments that face tighter budgets. With enhanced expense tracking, agencies can better control costs and reduce spending by adopting software-as-a-service solutions that require less IT involvement than legacy systems or developing an in-house solution.</p>
<p>Despite the clear benefits of adopting new spend management solutions, 80% of respondents said their agency was not open to a cloud-based solution, attributing the resistance to a lack of budget (26%) or lack of prioritization by leadership (47%). While adopting cloud initiatives in state and local governments has been somewhat slow, real-world examples are beginning to show that the cloud's cost savings, scalability and improved security can help agencies focus on strategic initiatives rather than approving expenses. As for cost concerns, automating spend-management systems can cost a fraction of maintaining legacy systems and provide immediate returns on agency investments.</p>
<p>The benefits of improved spend-management solutions extend beyond financials. When asked what characteristic they would most like to change in their existing system, respondents described a wide gamut of problems, including mobility. Mobile features such as receipt capture, report creation and approval are critical as workforces become more mobile, yet only eight percent currently use these features. The thousands of agency employees who are regularly on the road should be able to book and change travel plans, submit invoices or approve requests from their mobile device just as easily as making a purchase on their Amazon app.</p>
<p>A better, more modern spend-management system in state and local government is ultimately not just about travel, expense reports or invoices. It’s about a connected, open ecosystem that allows agencies to gain a more complete picture of spending, enrich employee experiences, improve decision-making with new insights, increase compliance and refocus resources on an agency’s mission.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Power of Community
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/power-community
2021-03-01T16:43:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur I dont remember a time when my mom wasnt exploring a new small business idea She raised me to be selfsufficient and...
<p>Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don’t remember a time when my mom wasn’t exploring a new small business idea. She raised me to be self-sufficient and see the beauty in truly creative ideas, especially those that could be turned into a business plan. One of her absolute joys was being her own boss and she went after her dream, owning a farm, a cleaning business, and finally a successful craft store.</p>
<p>There’s one thing, however, that I know she could have benefitted from in those early years: a community of small business owners, like herself, to learn from and lean on. That’s why I was so honored recently to be part of <a href="https://www.seattlechamber.com/home/events/events-detail/2018/04/24/default-calendar/elevate-2018" target="_blank">Elevate NW</a>, a Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce conference dedicated to just that—creating community for SMBs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1525708748019-elevate-nw.jpg" /></p>
<p>From left: Beto Yarce of Ventures, Tony Philips of BECU and Erika Schmidt of Sappington, together with Christal Bemont, served as guest speakers at the Elevate NW Conference in Seattle recently. Courtesy Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For business owners, especially SMBs, the power of community is everything. They get you. They understand the struggles and joys you get from the first time you open your physical or virtual doors to when you’re stuck on what seems like an impossible problem. There’s nothing like sitting down over coffee with someone who truly understands what you’re going through. They get what it takes to run a successful SMB. </p>
<p>As a guest panelist at Elevate, I couldn’t help but emphasize the power of community with our audience of small business owners because together we empower each other to make better decisions. At SAP Concur, we encourage our clients to network and share knowledge. To help facilitate this, each year we host a SMB customer lounge at our user conference Fusion.</p>
<p>And we’re taking the power of community even further by connecting our hundreds of SMB customers in a way that they’re able to help each other grow and stay financially viable. That means they’ll be just as powerful together when compared to the largest companies in the world. Stay tuned for more on this!</p>
<p>There’s also so many free and inexpensive opportunities out there to find SMB colleagues and friends. Join online communities, your local chamber and user groups – find what works for you and just get out there!</p>
<p>Mom’s retired now but I know she would have leapt at the opportunity to harness the power of community for the same reasons SMBs should today – to keep a pulse on what’s around the corner. There’s no better way to do that than with amazing SMB friends.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Executives
The Power of Machine Learning to Travel, Expense, and Invoice Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/power-machine-learning-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions
2020-08-18T11:58:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Machine learning ML holds such promise for improving job satisfaction and reducing errors and costs for corporations At SAP Concur we use ML to make everything from travel booking to...
<p>Machine learning (ML) holds such promise for improving job satisfaction and reducing errors and costs for corporations. At SAP Concur, we use ML to make everything from travel booking to expense auditing smarter, more automated, and easier for employees.</p>
<p>We have a long history of using machine learning to add intelligence to applications and eliminate manual processes. Unlike many companies, we strive to reduce the time users spend in our application. At times that means bringing the task to the user and other times that can be achieved through automation. ML presents exciting opportunities for SAP Concur to do more on behalf of our users, aligning the employee’s need for simplicity with the company’s need to manage risk, compliance, and achieve cost savings.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/10437-0.jpg?itok=zNRZD7rd" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Robots are Coming!</h2>
<p>See why you should be excited about artificial intelligence and machine learning.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur was founded on the question of how to have an expense report write itself, and we are getting close. Today you can take a picture of a receipt and it is automatically added to your expense report with the right amounts, details, and classifications. When you book travel with SAP Concur, your itinerary is automatically added to your expense report ready to be submitted once you touch down at the end of your trip. We also have intelligent tools built with machine learning so that receipts are added to your expense report right from your inbox. And we are working on many more innovations to get us to a point where the expense report truly will write itself.</p>
<p>As part of SAP, we’re proud to contribute to SAP Leonardo machine learning capabilities, and leverage expertise from Leonardo to continue to innovate and improve our products and services. And we’re excited to continue to broaden our ML knowledge across the company through close collaboration with the SAP Leonardo team.</p>
<p>Here are a few more ways we’re using machine learning today, and thinking about how it can impact the future:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expense and Invoice</h2>
<p>Expense reports and invoice processing today often require a lot of manual data entry. We’re using machine learning to help reduce time on task so employees can spend less time on expense reports, and more time adding value to the business.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a></strong> uses SAP Leonardo to extract data from invoice images and classify data, helping customers process more invoices and increase accuracy, while reducing technology and operational costs. The next step is to continue to research how ML can improve the overall invoice management process.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a></strong> uses machine learning technologies in conjunction with Office 365 to create expense report entries directly from an emailed receipt that hits their inbox. <strong><a href="https://concurlabs.com/projects/office_365.html">Concur Expense on Outlook</a></strong> is currently available in beta in the U.S. and Canada.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.expenseit.com/">ExpenseIt</a></strong> goes beyond simple OCR by using machine learning to automatically turn photos of receipts into completed expense reports for end users. We’re able to determine the location and vendor of an expense more often than that information appears on a receipt.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect by AppZen</a></strong> applies machine learning to audit 100% of expense reports, before reimbursement occurs. Using artificial intelligence and ML, Concur Detect by AppZen validates whether expenses are legitimate and accurate by cross-checking them within seconds against hundreds of external data sources. Concur Detect by AppZen is integrated with Concur Expense, enabling seamless, automatic processing of low-risk expenses with high-risk reports flagged on the dashboard for review and alerts sent real-time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel</h2>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.tripit.com/">TripIt</a></strong> gives users a beautiful mobile experience by instantly organizing emails from travel bookings. TripIt uses machine learning to find opportunities to enhance the way it organizes travel plans from emails, allowing it to scale to support travelers and their plans around the globe.</p>
<p><strong>Hello Hipmunk</strong>, a free virtual travel planning assistant, uses Natural Language Processing and AI-powered travel search to provide travel advice and recommendations via a travel bot.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a></strong> is designed to help organizations perform Duty of Care functions. It uses ML to predict where employees may be via credit card data, itineraries and other sources, enabling companies to reach all employees, not just travelers and VIPs, in the event of an emergency. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">Concur Mobile</a></strong> uses machine learning to provide better hotel recommendations, based on hotels previously booked by the user, as well as coworkers. Over time, this becomes more accurate and we see an increase in a user booking hotels which were recommended.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What's Next?</h2>
<p>By unshackling smart people from laborious menial tasks, machine learning can help unlock new opportunities for interesting, creative, strategic work — the type of meaningful work that helps both employees and businesses get ahead.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for a deep dive on how we’re pushing the boundaries of machine learning in travel, expense, and invoice through vast amounts of data, collaboration with the SAP Leonardo team, and evangelism within SAP Concur. And <strong>be sure to check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">whitepaper</a> </strong>on machine learning and the value to accounting and finance.</p>
A.G. Lambert
3 Ways Invisible Spend can Impact Your Travel Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-invisible-spend-can-impact-your-travel-program
2018-08-23T09:48:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Corporate travel management has changed a lot in the last few decades and dramatic shifts in business needs employee expectations and the technological landscape have only accelerated...
<p>Corporate travel management has changed a lot in the last few decades – and dramatic shifts in business needs, employee expectations, and the technological landscape have only accelerated the changes in the last few years. Travel managers at every business find it challenging to keep up with apps and devices that offer hundreds of new ways to book travel and spend company money. These new methods of booking travel constitute what is often called invisible spend, which is defined as “corporate travel data not captured by traditional means such as TMC reporting.” Getting ahead of the changing tide of corporate travel is a worthy pursuit for your business, because invisible spend can also hurt your business in unseen ways.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1533755092417-concur-invisible-spend-rev-1030.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_" id="img1"> <img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1533755092417-concur-invisible-spend-rev-1030.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>In a recent report, the research firm Phocuswright, which studies how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect, put some concrete data behind the seismic shifts that have been happening in the travel industry. For example, the firm surveyed 2,300 business travelers and found that 88% of them relied on smartphones on business trips, leading to new traveler behaviors and difficulty in measuring adoption and compliance.</p>
<p>Without the ability to identify and capture that data and then turn it into better policies and greater compliance, companies run the risk of falling victim to some surprising complications. For example, a few of the hurdles that invisible spend creates include:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. It can hurt your supplier negotiations</strong>: Having employees that are compliant with policy is paramount to strong supplier negotiations. When travelers ensure that all of their travel data is captured, that means the company has the ability to use all of its travel volume during supplier negotiations. Securing the best possible corporate rates is crucial to keeping company costs controlled, and invisible spend can pose a big obstacle here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. It can result in compliance issues</strong>: One challenge that travel managers compete with is the subtle balancing act of meeting business needs while keeping traveler satisfaction high. Employees will be less likely to stray from company travel policy if they have the tools they prefer. But if they don’t have those tools, that may not stop them from booking the way they want anyway, not only contributing to policy compliance issues, but also violating legal accounting obligations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. It can pose risks to traveler safety</strong>: More important than any money or policy is the physical safety of employees – but invisible spend may also put that in jeopardy. The ability to capture invisible travel spending doesn’t only give travel managers and accountants all the fiscal information they need, but it also allows them to locate employees more easily if the situation requires.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more about how your business can avoid these pitfalls, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/capturing-and-controlling-invisible-spend">read the full Phocuswright study today</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Here’s How IT Can Reduce the Costs of Expense, Travel, and Invoice Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/heres-how-it-can-reduce-costs-expense-travel-and-invoice-management
2018-08-20T10:27:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
IT teams at many companies are under intense pressure from all sides Every day company leadership has expectations of cost savings and greater efficiency Users demand the same digital...
<p>IT teams at many companies are under intense pressure from all sides. Every day, company leadership has expectations of cost savings and greater efficiency. Users demand the same digital tools and capabilities at work as they have in their personal lives. Still other departments want greater visibility into budgets and analytics. The job of IT leaders becomes a tightrope walk of creating a unified strategy that benefits the business in the face of all of these demands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/forrester-report-it-spotlight-better-expense-travel-and-invoice-management">Download the report</a> to learn more about how modern T&E benefits IT</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is especially true when it comes to expense, travel, and invoice management. Each of these needs have solutions that are unique, yet interconnected in their outcomes. Forrester recently surveyed nearly 400 decision makers at companies around the globe to learn exactly how they are currently managing expense reporting, travel, and invoicing – as well as how they can improve. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/forrester-report-it-spotlight-better-expense-travel-and-invoice-management">The findings from Forrester</a> are a great model for you to follow when choosing a solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation is key to ease of use and accessibility</h2>
<p>Less than 45% of respondents were happy with how easy to use their travel and expense solutions were and only 37% were satisfied with invoicing. What Forrester discovered was that manual and unreliable processes were often the source of these frustrations.</p>
<p>This is where new technologies can help. Capabilities like cloud and mobile access, integration with existing systems, and a great user interface helped companies to deliver on their expense, travel, and invoice objectives. Automation also allowed IT teams to improve the efficiency of processes by empowering users with intuitive tools. Not only did this allow for greater productivity, but it had the added benefit of happier users, both of which reduced the burden on IT.</p>
<p>One IT leader that Forrester spoke to found that implementing automated tools allowed his company to eliminate around 42% of its human-engaged tasks, enabling the AI solution to process tasks within the ERP tool itself. The result was a 46% efficiency gain.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reporting capabilities get everyone on the same page</h2>
<p>Paper-based invoicing and manual expense reporting make for an uncertain reporting process. Even small errors in paperwork can make analytics unreliable or possibly unusable in some cases.</p>
<p>By automating more of the reporting responsibilities and consolidating that information within a central tool, that data becomes more accessible, more trustworthy, and more valuable. This allows auditors and analysts to get a clearer picture of fiscal health around the business, which also helps to raise the profile of the IT organization among company leadership.</p>
<p><strong>For more on how your team can increase efficiency and meet the goals of leadership while also increasing user satisfaction, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/forrester-report-it-spotlight-better-expense-travel-and-invoice-management">read the full Forrester report today.</a></strong><br />
</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Top 4 Spend Management Challenges Financial Service Firms Face
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-4-spend-management-challenges-financial-service-firms-face
2020-08-18T15:51:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From barter to bitcoinin an industry driven by modern technology the financial services industry has had to continually adapt to navigate through change Heavy compliance regulations...
<p data-id="79e58be5-2191-4536-972b-d28120b26600">From barter to bitcoin—in an industry driven by modern technology, the financial services industry has had to continually adapt to navigate through change. Heavy compliance regulations like SOX and FINRA, have also forced companies to spend their budget differently, prioritizing the reduction of fraud and other risks. With smaller budgets dedicated to employees, finance teams are starting to rethink the way they handle employee spend.</p>
<p data-id="79e58be5-2191-4536-972b-d28120b26600"> </p>
<h2 data-id="3669ac8d-a51d-41e7-b7f6-a2e5b80856d4">Life a Generation Ago</h2>
<p data-id="c9b2023d-6a6d-4559-90a8-1f1efffe9d31">Imagine the year is 1993. “Oh, the simpler times...”</p>
<p data-id="23acdf28-ae22-4c30-a05f-4f361a3466ee">The average cost of a house is $113,000, a gallon of gas costs $1.16, and a movie ticket costs $4. Jurassic park was the movie of the summer, Bill Clinton was president, the first “Got Milk” ad had just aired, and Apple had just shipped the first Newton.</p>
<p data-id="23acdf28-ae22-4c30-a05f-4f361a3466ee"> </p>
<h2 data-id="74db78f1-3cf6-41a0-b4e8-f671686007c4">Are you there yet?</h2>
<p data-id="74db78f1-3cf6-41a0-b4e8-f671686007c4">In 1993, the world was much different and so was the financial industry. The US economy was recovering from the 1989 junk bond crash and the 5th largest investment bank, Drexel Burnham Lambert, had just been forced into bankruptcy. Over the years to come, the financial industry would change. More industry scandals would surface, and compliance laws and regulations would be created.</p>
<p data-id="68c00424-7dbf-4a2b-b3a1-b68fa407c09d">Today, the financial services industry includes much more technology— forcing it to be highly focused on combating fraud and protecting its data. And in a highly regulated and data-concerned industry, spend management challenges can become difficult to face alone.</p>
<p data-id="68c00424-7dbf-4a2b-b3a1-b68fa407c09d"> </p>
<h2 data-id="68c00424-7dbf-4a2b-b3a1-b68fa407c09d">So, how can you protect your business?</h2>
<p data-id="a3ed96aa-08b4-4024-855d-4751755afaae"><strong>1. Budget around Compliance Chaos</strong></p>
<p data-id="1156f394-8559-498f-a4ea-55be7cd3d7c3">Money has a major impact on people, businesses, and the global economy, so it’s no surprise that the financial industry is one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the world. When keeping up with compliance regulations like SOX, FINRA, and the FCPA – a real monetary investment is required. According to a recent <a href="https://www.duffandphelps.com/about-us/news/duff-and-phelps-published-the-sixth-annual-global-regulatory-outlook-report">survey by Duff & Phelps</a>, 24% of financial services executives said they already expect to spend more than 5% of revenue on compliance by 2023.</p>
<p data-id="1244a9de-c94c-40e4-8030-ac221804102d">With compliance and transparency being a high priority, here are a few things you can do to better control budget spend:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="d87c5e69-dad0-4767-b7fc-ef7f6913153e">Simplify employee spend</li>
<li data-id="93f9eaf6-9641-4dc3-87ac-5914e3ac4d4c">Automate expense reports</li>
<li data-id="2eb37742-e613-4c8a-a54d-7583165182a8">Make employee spend central and visible</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="0584679c-ba8c-4e58-991f-f61ee77d5544"> </p>
<p data-id="0584679c-ba8c-4e58-991f-f61ee77d5544"><strong>2. Even Minor Fraud Hurts—Prevent it</strong></p>
<p data-id="e5e9f463-46f6-41d4-968f-87f8ac73b55e">Fraud isn’t always purposely malicious. Sometimes it’s a minor business dinner that really wasn’t a business dinner, or an accidental placing of an expense in the wrong cost category. Point being, big or small, malicious or not, fraud can hurt your company financially and impact your brand’s reputation. A digital spend management solution that connects all spend data can make complying with travel and expense policies easier, make intentional fraud more difficult, and help identify fraud faster.</p>
<p data-id="564f2bd3-2503-4ecd-ac55-b8fef9210be4">Here’s what you can do to help prevent it:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="8a8854dc-940d-4b65-9757-81adc48b29d4">Utilize an automated spend management solution</li>
<li data-id="d723e21e-d9f7-48e0-a77c-fbbdf3dd39b1">Incorporate a corporate card program</li>
<li data-id="78eda795-c4de-424c-b453-5e68a3fd6a7d">Automate data entry</li>
<li data-id="6394ab11-3674-46e3-8f9d-9d5448a6bfba">Incorporate data analytics</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="59059ff4-98c4-4054-967c-49034e6ef4d0"> </p>
<p data-id="59059ff4-98c4-4054-967c-49034e6ef4d0"><strong>3. Give Finance an Upgrade</strong></p>
<p data-id="7f7f2f12-f6a8-4ff2-a7f3-cae35fb99241">Even though technology has vastly changed the financial services industry, some of the largest enterprises are still years behind in updating its technology and processes. For those companies specifically—not all digital disruption is created alike. Using an automated solution can help you better handle spend and save money in your budget. How can you give finance an upgrade?</p>
<p data-id="fc626948-8cb5-4153-95f5-fe1db0e51343">Find an automated solution that can:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="5e23f958-0457-4326-a73e-8fe7f771f7b6">Streamline employee expense operations</li>
<li data-id="d071435e-f135-43a1-91b7-60cacf1d6a6e">Gain visibility into employee transactions</li>
<li data-id="17035d62-5b4b-4b8e-81b6-fc10b6bac3f5">Become agile with real-time insights into costs and business performance</li>
<li data-id="7900d5f9-3869-4357-9792-b67e39d065a4">Optimize for better cash management</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="d3138177-fcbd-48a4-99a7-c0b929a3dfb3"> </p>
<p data-id="d3138177-fcbd-48a4-99a7-c0b929a3dfb3"><strong>4. Your Business on the Road</strong></p>
<p data-id="b0f91f91-cfca-457c-a873-c6a11f4a49ac">Business is conducted in more places now than ever. Whether it’s starting your morning at home or traveling on a trip, employees expect to be able to work just as well outside of the office as they do at their desk. Too often employees are expected to manually submit a physical expense report using a templated word doc with stapled receipts.</p>
<p data-id="65e1d03c-fd19-49d4-9733-9fc98d079d3a">A mobile solution can help simplify your business where ever your employees are:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="970ee411-f806-4b98-bc76-039e4e9cb45a">Capture employee spend data</li>
<li data-id="bafee67b-d707-411c-89a0-ae720a847d36">Automate expense reports</li>
<li data-id="4f35ccec-ce53-48e5-813a-b4e715037488">Access more on the road</li>
<li data-id="aa5941e9-a742-42aa-8549-253770a73793">Increase reimbursement speed</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="2c05df29-da68-485b-b48a-e6a8d2468063"> </p>
<h2 data-id="2c05df29-da68-485b-b48a-e6a8d2468063">SAP Concur: The Solution to Employee Spend Challenges</h2>
<p data-id="84c67190-db2b-4e29-ba2b-8474d40cd6c0">SAP Concur offers a connected, automated travel and expense management solution designed to help you overcome your most pressing employee-initiated spending challenges.</p>
<p data-id="e631993d-4f4b-46ae-93b8-6952ceab71e6">Want to learn more about how to overcome spend management challenges? <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/us-ebook-top-4-spend-management-challenges-facing-financial-services-firms-and-how">Download our eBook</a> or find your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-services">solution here</a> on our Financial Services solutions web page.</strong></p>
Kyla Kent
How CFOs Can Manage Out of Control Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-cfos-can-manage-out-control-employee-spend
2018-12-13T12:34:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How we buy for business is changing Spend categories formerly under company control have shifted to employee control creating havoc on managed travel and expense programs The impact...
<p>How we buy for business is changing. Spend categories formerly under company control have shifted to employee control, creating havoc on managed travel and expense programs. The impact this has on an organization's spend visibility and management, internal controls, and compliance and workforce engagement will be explored in follow-up articles in the coming months.</p>
<p>The spending decisions your employees make on behalf of your organization every day, what we call employee-initiated spend, are expenses where the employee has the freedom to select what to buy, when to buy, from whom to buy, and for how much. Usually these expenses are associated with indirect purchases that are typically reported in the selling, general, and administrative line item of a company’s financial statements and come in any myriad of categories from airfare and hotel, mileage, local transportation, and taxis to trade show expenses, conference room rentals, office supplies, home office expenses, consulting services, internet and mobile phones, subscriptions, and training. As you can see, these expenses are diverse, and sometimes not actually traditional travel and entertainment expenses at all. </p>
<p>Due to the diverse nature of employee spend today, it is easy for expense and travel spend to get out of control. And if you think we’re talking about a few bucks here and there, just last year alone we processed at SAP Concur 238 million of these transactions worth nearly $109 billion. This is a lot of spend that can easily get out of hand without a comprehensive understanding of how to make employee initiated spend visible, compliant, and controlled, while simultaneously facilitating employees’ handling of expense payments, invoice processing, and reporting.</p>
<p>While most organizations have policies that guide employees toward making the right purchasing decisions and budgets that department heads need to comply with, the actual timing and magnitude of the expense is not always visible until after the expense has been incurred. Even when using a connected, automated solution such as SAP Concur to make and purchase airfare reservations, report expenses, or process vendor invoices, there can be a substantial amount of “invisible spend” that is made outside the “closed circuit” of predicted expense magnitude, timing, and vendor. </p>
<p>For example, according to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/capturing-and-controlling-invisible-spend">recent study by Phocuswright</a>, only 36% of surveyed travelers use their approved corporate booking tool to book travel products such as hotels, airfare, and rental car. This leaves a significant amount of travel spend unaccounted for. For instance, when an employee books a hotel reservation directly with the hotel, using cash or a personal card instead of a corporate card or p-card, the charges are “invisible” until the expense report is submitted for reimbursement, which can take place weeks after the expense was originally incurred.</p>
<p>As a result, these practices can result in an:</p>
<ul>
<li>Inability to predict how much will be spent or potentially saved over a time-period</li>
<li>Inability to take advantage of discounts associated with timing of payment</li>
<li>Inability to fully measure how much is being spent by vendor, information that could be extremely useful for contract negotiations and discounts</li>
<li>Inadequate fraud identification and mitigation, with high-risk of non-compliant spend</li>
</ul>
<p>Here at SAP Concur, we formed a Value Consulting group to help our existing customers benchmark themselves against best practices. We have developed a best-practice maturity model that shows our customers how they measure against others in their industry group and suggest ways in which they can obtain more value from the tools and services that SAP Concur can provide. </p>
<p>This is the first of a series of articles in which we will focus on several aspects affecting control of spend and value realization, where we’ve defined employee-initiated spend as spend categories formerly under company control that have shifted to employee control. Making this spend more visible to your finance organization can save your company money by increased compliance to budgets, fraud mitigation, better negotiating position with suppliers, better payment terms – all while employees carry out their spend across more spend categories, using more payment methods than ever before.</p>
<p>Additional themes we’ll cover in upcoming articles include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reducing employee-initiated spend</li>
<li>Fraud mitigation</li>
<li>Controlling invisible spend</li>
<li>Value Consulting at SAP Concur</li>
<li>Budget management</li>
<li>Travel and non-travel spend optimization</li>
<li>Use of corporate credit cards and p-cards</li>
<li>Managing paper and non-PO invoices</li>
<li>Best practices maturity model for employee-initiated spend</li>
</ul>
<p>Be sure to check back with us each moth as we continue our discussions around the business challenges associated with managing employee spend in today’s landscape. </p>
<p><strong>For additional reading on this topic, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-top-five-ways-in-which-employees-are-decentralizing-spend">read this post</a> or<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact"> contact</a> your SAP Concur Representative today.</strong></p>
Serge Kogan
Empower Your Organization to Take Its Spend Management to the Next Level
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empower-your-organization-take-its-spend-management-next-level
2018-12-18T08:22:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The nature of company spending has changed significantly within the last five to ten years and is poised to continue evolving over the next several years With changes in spending the...
<p>The nature of company spending has changed significantly within the last five to ten years – and is poised to continue evolving over the next several years. With changes in spending, the ways that you track and manage spending have become more complex as a result.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/report/field_pdf_image/11366-0.jpg?itok=nV6mvXBR" /></div>
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<h2>The Business Value of SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Understand the costs and benefits associated with SAP Concur solutions for expense, travel, and invoice management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">Get the white paper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition, many organizations still have several shortcomings in the way they manage their spending. For example, accounts payable teams can’t effectively influence and direct spending if all they’re doing is orchestrating a manual process. Budget managers aren’t actually managing their budgets if they’re just tracking what’s getting spent and not actively influencing how budgets are used. And finance managers can’t ensure payment terms and negotiated rates on every transation if they don’t have the tools.</p>
<p>By integrating and connecting travel and expense spending with p-card and invoice expenses, you can make the process of managing all the ways your employees are spending simple. But the real opportunity is much greater.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get more value out of every dollar you spend</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">a recent report from IDC</a>, “Organizations are looking at a variety of cloud-based technology solutions to lower their capital expense profile, increase employee productivity, lower costs for managing operational functions, and drive new capabilities that have a direct impact on business performance.” To help finance leaders better understand where they stand with their current spend management solutions, IDC created a model for the five stages of maturity, the lowest maturity stage being manual processes and spreadsheets with the highest maturity stage ultimately resulting in integrated solutions and intelligent processes using predictive AI and machine learning.</p>
<p>IDC found that, although many organizations may feel that they are fairly advanced, there may still be gaps in the way they track spending that restrict their ability to forecast accurately and use every dollar efficiently. According to the research, the benefits of reaching your highest maturity of expense, travel, and invoice solutions could be far more significant than you’d expect.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What's the business value of SAP Concur?</h2>
<p>In the course of their study, IDC interviewed seven large organizations, asking participants a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions about the impact of deploying SAP Concur solutions. What they found was that “these organizations were realizing significant business value.” By better integrating expense, travel, and invoice spending all together and adding more controls to their SAP Concur solution, survey respondents were able to take strategic control of their spending and get more return out of the technology investments they’ve made.</p>
<p>The organizations’ employees also reported improvements in productivity from being able to do more with less, ease of use and integration, and reductions in the costs of business trips. Furthermore, the organizations also found increases in compliance with business policies.</p>
<p>Ultimately, among the business benefits IDC observed, some of the highlights included:</p>
<ul>
<li>Accounts payable staff were <strong>30% more efficient</strong></li>
<li>Staff time costs for invoicing processing was<strong> reduced by $105,000 annually</strong></li>
<li>Discounted average <strong>benefits of $4.62 million</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">Read the full report today</a> to find out how mature your current solution is and how SAP Concur can help drive more efficiency and cost savings for your organization.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Improving Policy Compliance in an Era of Decentralized Employee Spending
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improving-policy-compliance-era-decentralized-employee-spending
2020-09-16T15:35:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Spending is getting simpler and while thats a good thing for employees on the move its getting harder for companies to control And the brunt of that burdenthe part where someone has to...
<p>Spending is getting simpler, and while that’s a good thing for employees on the move, it’s getting harder for companies to control. And the brunt of that burden—the part where someone has to make sure the rules are being followed—lands on your desk.</p>
<p>Here’s how it happens: With spending becoming increasingly decentralized, and employees becoming more empowered to make spending decisions on their own, your company’s risk goes up. Someone has to take an even tighter hold on the reins of regulatory compliance, internal policy compliance, fraud and employee safety. That’s where you come in.</p>
<p>That’s also where SAP Concur solutions come in. But before we get to the solution that audits more than one million expense reports a month, you need to ask yourself where you stand on the rules.</p>
<p><strong>Why should you audit expenses?</strong> Get the oversight to prevent out-of-policy spending.</p>
<p><strong>When should you audit expenses?</strong> Stop problems before they start by auditing before expense reports are approved.</p>
<p><strong>Where should you focus your audit?</strong> Start with 100%, then narrow your focus on the highest risks.</p>
<p>These answers are summarized further in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/are-you-auditing-travel-and-expenses-effectively">detailed audit infographic</a>, which also highlights the seven steps to building a successful audit process. And when you get through that, you get to SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So what exactly does this solution solve?</h2>
<p>We automate expense, travel, and invoice processes, so you can eliminate hours of manual effort and the human errors that go with it. You’ll also be able to audit expenses and policy compliancy efficiently—before expense reports are approved and before trying to recoup money you’re already reimbursed.</p>
<p>And because those expense reports are automated, mobile and essentially effortless, it’s easier for employees to follow your policies and get them done on time, preventing delayed reports from impacting budget accruals and raising red flags in compliance review. </p>
<p>SAP Concur tools help you put payment controls in place that actually improve compliance. You’ll get the data and tools you need to see spending clearly and manage it proactively – as well as audit services that provide fast, objective, third-party reviews without gobbling up your internal resources.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How well does it work? Let’s look at the numbers</h2>
<p>Companies <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">using SAP Concur solutions achieved</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>28% improvement in auditing-staff efficiency</li>
<li>62% increase in the number of employees following T&E policies</li>
<li>67% reduction in lost receipts1</li>
<li>$672,000 in savings on business travel per organization2</li>
</ul>
<p>Those kinds of numbers make a real difference on the bottom line and big impact on your day-to-day to-do list. For more information, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense-audit-service">do a little a review of SAP Concur Audit Service</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>1,2 “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">Empower Organizations to Digitally Transform Their Expense, Travel, and Invoicing Processes,</a>“ IDC, October 2018.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Spreading Joy Throughout the Year: How SAP Concur Supported Local Communities in 2018
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spreading-joy-throughout-year-how-sap-concur-supported-local-communities-2018
2021-03-01T15:34:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur As we close the year the SAP Concur Corporate Social Responsibility CSR Program would like to reflect on...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>As we close the year, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">SAP Concur Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program</a> would like to reflect on the incredible effort SAP Concur and SAP Concur employees made in communities around the world. Throughout 2018, the SAP Concur CSR Program sponsored 15 SAP Concur corporate events where we impacted 46,943 lives by donating more than $62,000 of goods to youth, STEM and educational programs. In addition, we donated $435,000 in support of nonprofits, and established <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/meet-our-new-sap-concur-community-impact-partners">three Community Impact Partners</a> including <a href="http://www.washingtonstem.org/">Washington STEM</a>, <a href="https://www.summersearch.org/">Summer Search</a> and <a href="https://www.care.org/">CARE</a>. Each of these nonprofit organizations supports our local (headquarters), national (U.S.) and global communities, while aligning with SAP Concur’s CSR <a href="http://mailwave.trafficmanager.net/api/f6c6caae-681c-4240-a970-6965de4f7464/link?href=https%3A%2F%2Fjam4.sapjam.com%2Fgroups%2FlvL7gtqkLWr2CQpjbWTSGB%2Fdocuments%2FTu0l4fNG9y4pOLZP4kke96%2Fslide_viewer">focus</a> on creating access to quality education, growing STEM education, and supporting girls and young women in leadership.</p>
<p>At our Q4 company meeting, Mike Eberhard and I presented <a href="http://www.marysplace.org/">Mary’s Place</a> with a $25,000 check, awarding them as our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/helping-most-vulnerable-community-members-as-we-enter-holiday-season">holiday giving recipient for 2018</a>. Helping homeless children and families across the greater Seattle area, Mary’s Place is an organization close to the hearts of many employees located in our Bellevue headquarters (located just outside Seattle). As part of this holiday giving, Bellevue-based employees supported Mary’s Place by donating 200 gifts including; toys, apparel, gift cards and other goods that will be given to families during their annual Holly Jolly holiday party this month. Throughout the year, our employees have offered support to Mary’s Place by packing meals, sorting goods, cleaning facilities and much more.</p>
<p>SAP Concur employees are making an impact around the world. From our Prague team hosting Code Week for local elementary school students to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-employees-tokyo-hands-on-wheelchair-experience-survey-accessibility">Japan team’s “ERPism” event</a> mentoring university students within an ERP business competition; our global <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/collaborative-hr-finance-leaders-can-unlock-lasting-business-value">employees dedicated thousands of hours</a> to give back to their local communities, amplifying our purpose-driven culture and influencing countless lives.</p>
<p>We are extremely grateful and proud of our employees’ work, driving SAP/SAP Concur’s mission of being best-run. Our team would like to give a special thanks to all CSR community leaders around the world for supporting SAP Concur’s CSR focus throughout the year. We look forward to growing SAP Concur’s impact in 2019.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Executives
2019 Mileage Rate: Are You Ready for a Massive Increase in Mileage Reimbursements?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/2019-mileage-rate-are-you-ready-massive-increase-mileage-reimbursements
2020-09-11T12:45:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
What is the IRS mileage rate for On December the Internal Revenue Service IRS issued its annual guidance on the business mileage reimbursement rate effective January With a...
<h2>What is the IRS mileage rate for 2019?</h2>
<p>On December 14, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued its <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2019">annual guidance on the business mileage reimbursement rate</a> effective January 1, 2019. With a suggested rate increase from 54.5 to 58 cents per mile year over year (representing a 6.4% increase), the 2019 IRS mileage rate is the highest per mile in more than 10 years. Similar increases have occurred throughout the globe. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-282684_Car_R.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Best Practices for Personal Mileage Reporting</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">Learn more</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>How can you measure and mitigate the potential business impact?</h2>
<p>As a cloud solution with thousands of data inputs for every customer we serve, SAP Concur’s value proposition often hinges on the increased spend visibility and compliance our customers will gain. Too often, however, organizations find it difficult to take full advantage of their data in order to solve complex business challenges. In my experience as a customer and now at SAP Concur itself, I’ve found that breaking down this barrier with the data is best done one business challenge at a time. The new mileage rate increase offers a fantastic opportunity for customers of all sizes to dust off their data and put it to work to positively influence financial success:</p>
<p><strong>Step 1: </strong>Determine just how much domestic U.S. mileage you had in 2018. This is most easily accomplished through reporting. Regardless of the SAP Concur analytics solution your organization is using, this spend data is available to you. Calculate your total U.S. mileage spend in 2018, multiply that amount by 106.4%, and determine an estimate of your increased costs for 2019. Follow the same approach for the mileage spend and reimbursement guidance for other countries in which your organization operates, and you will be able to put together a total impact study that your entire organization will benefit from seeing. If you need help on the analytics component, reach out to a member of your account team. We are here to help.</p>
<p><strong>Step 2:</strong> Update your mileage reimbursement rate within SAP Concur. This is actually a task most organizations can accomplish themselves within the expense configuration, but if you have questions or need help, be sure to reach out to us. While adherence to the IRS guidance is optional, many organizations that choose not to reimburse at the full amount run the risk of alienating employees. This can result in employees padding their mileage claims to make up the difference, or in extreme situations, negatively impact the organization’s ability to attract and retain talent. Typically, these outcomes are much more expensive and problematic than simply adhering to the IRS guidance in the first place.</p>
<p><strong>Step 3:</strong> Establish a mileage reimbursement strategy that boosts your employees’ experience while protecting your organization’s assets. As you are evaluating your mileage spend, explore your options for mitigating against waste and fraud, unfortunate biproducts that often accompany mileage reimbursement programs. For some organizations, simply establishing thresholds for when a personal vehicle is permissible rather than leveraging a corporate fleet vehicle or renting a car can save thousands, if not millions, in mileage reimbursements year over year. Fixed and variable rate (FAVR) programs are another great option for delivering fair and accurate mileage reimbursements for employees who drive frequently (5,000 miles or more per year). Finally, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">GPS mileage tracking</a> can save your employees time in entering in their routes while also improving the accuracy of their claims and reducing padding. Mileage padding, whether intentional or not, costs your organization money on its own; when combined with this reimbursement rate increase, the costs begin to snowball.</p>
<p>This is not a strategy that can be determined overnight. However, with the right analysis and some thoughtful collaboration between your internal teams, you can harness the new IRS mileage reimbursement rate as a business improvement opportunity, rather than a costly change. As always, your SAP Concur account team and our vast ecosystem of partners are here to help.</p>
<p>Happy driving!</p>
<p><strong>Want to learn more about strategically managing mileage? Download our guide to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/driving-your-business-best-practices-personal-mileage-reporting-0">mileage reporting best practices</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Improve Cashflow: Top Tips for Finance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-improve-cashflow-top-tips-finance
2019-08-21T13:57:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When your business uses manual paperbased finance processes all the information you need is there but finding it in a timely manner is hard That means its hard to keep track of...
<p>When your business uses manual, paper-based finance processes, all the information you need is there, but finding it in a timely manner is hard. That means it’s hard to keep track of cashflow – and even harder to improve it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Finance automation with solutions such as <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> means data flows into your systems automatically, saving you time. Plus, you’re able to analyse information much more easily and action insights that will help you improve cashflow. Take Samantha Henton from Hammerson for example. Getting visibility into their spend enabled them to better forecast cashflow to plan for business growth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Let’s look in more detail at some of the ways finance automation helps improve your processes and, in turn, improve your cashflow.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Real Time Visibility into Your Data</h2>
<p><strong>Understanding where the cash is</strong> in your business is the critical element of cashflow. Finance automation gives you <strong>real time visibility</strong> you need.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, automated expense processes smooths peaks and troughs in employee spend because it’s easier for employees to submit expense claims and allows the finance team to make reimbursements more quickly. It also speeds up accounts payable processes so you can reduce late payment fees from suppliers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One SAP Concur customer reports how gaining more visibility in all aspects of their business, and having real time insight into their spend, was an important win for them.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Standard Reports Track Progress and Target Productivity</h2>
<p>The chances are you and the rest of the finance team need to know the same information every month. It’s true of every other department in the business too. With finance automation, <strong>standard reports can be generated automatically </strong>each month so you can spend more time on the analysis and less time on the data mining.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For one SAP Concur customer the ability to generate standard reports automatically allowed them to achieve one of their critical targets: productivity and process improvements that would save them time they could spend on more important things such as driving their growth.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transparency and Proactivity Deliver Action</h2>
<p>For many businesses, the immediate access to cashflow information that finance automation brings means they can do things that simply weren’t possible before. Information becomes much easier to share and allows managers to gain better insight. In SAP Concur you can set up <strong>bespoke dashboards</strong> so each department can access the reports that are relevant for them at the click of a mouse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example, managers can easily see how much they’re spending with a certain supplier so they have the information they need to negotiate a discount. They’re also able to spot when spend is too high in a certain area so they can take steps to reduce it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For one SAP Concur customer, not having to report manually means they have more time for face-to-face meetings to look at opportunities to do more in the business. They also highlight how managers are increasingly seeing ways they can manage their own spend more effectively and making use of what real-time information has to offer.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Empowering Teams and Improving Morale</h2>
<p>Finance automation <strong>frees up time</strong> for you to spend on the more important things. <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/ami-partners-report-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Research suggests</a> the people responsible for processing expenses and invoices save over 15% of their time when finance automation is in place.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One SAP Concur customer reported that developing their people was a key growth priority. Having the system in place allowed them to broaden the team’s experience and give them new assignments because they were spending less time on manual processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make Managing Cash Flow Easier</h2>
<p>When cash is flowing smoothly through your business then your business is running smoothly. <strong>Finance automation makes it easier to monitor and manage cashflow so you’re able to make changes to improve it. </strong>If you would like to discuss how it could work in your business, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/contact">contact SAP Concur today</a>. And for more tips on improving cashflow, watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KVNFR_GZu8&t=23s" target="_blank">How Hammerson Fuels Growth with SAP Concur</a>.</p>
What to Do In San Diego
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-do-san-diego
2021-02-05T09:27:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Heading to San Diego Our friends at The Hipmunk share a few things you should know From the city to the sea San Diego lures visitors with its yearround sunny disposition Whether youre...
<p>Heading to San Diego? Our friends at The Hipmunk share a few things you should know: </p>
<p> </p>
<p>From the city to the sea, San Diego lures visitors with its year-round sunny disposition. Whether you’re headed there for work, fun, or <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/five-tips-first-bleisure-trip/" target="_blank">a little bit of both</a>, here are our tips for making the most of your time in San Diego.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Where to fly in</h2>
<p>Located a quick three miles from downtown San Diego, San Diego International Airport (SAN) serves as the main airport for the city. What can you expect flying into SAN? When our friends at TripIt analyzed over one million flight ratings to determine which <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2018/12/tripit-uncovers-formula-for-happy-trip.html" target="_blank">factors impacted traveler happiness in 2018</a>, San Diego International Airport ranked #11 in the country for best arrival airport and #14 for best departure airport. The city of San Diego also ranked #10 on the happiest hometown list, meaning San Diego-based flyers are among the happiest travelers in the country.</p>
<p>Once on the ground, a taxi or shuttle is a quick and easy way to get to your destination. Both can be found outside of each terminal. Taxi base fare and rates are displayed on the meter and include a per-mile and/or a per-hour charge. If you are traveling from the airport, taxis add $1.50 to your final total. Alternatively, Lyft and Uber are also available in San Diego and have access to service the airport. And, if you manage your travel and expenses with Concur or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-hipmunk">Concur Hipmunk</a>, your Uber trip receipt will automatically populate into your expense report. Instead of a taxi or rideshare, you can opt for a free airport shuttle. Shuttles run between the airport and the Sycuan Green Line Middletown trolley station every 10 to 15 minutes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551384809240-hotel-del-coronado.jpg" /></h2>
The Hotel Del Coronado
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where to stay</h2>
<p>Good news for <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/four-useful-features-savvy-business-traveler/" target="_blank">business travelers</a> craving a bit of luxury but working with a fixed travel budget: according to Hipmunk’s data, 5-star hotel prices in San Diego average just $329/night—essentially, you’re getting a <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/where-to-snag-a-5-star-hotel-at-a-3-star-price/" target="_blank">5-star hotel at a 3-star price. </a>For instance, you can experience the iconic <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/Hotels-in-San-Diego-CA/Hotel-Del-Coronado-509bfe2d66edc8466101d9c8-Reviews" target="_blank">Hotel del Coronado</a> with room rates starting at $320/night. Built in 1888 and frequented by stars like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, Hotel del Coronado is ideally situated along the Pacific coastline and offers luxurious accommodations, first-class amenities and exceptional service. Modern amenities more your style? The 5-star <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=San+Diego,+CA;i=2019-02-22;o=2019-02-24;sid=57f0840af6d99b4ddcf89ff4;is_search_for_business=false" target="_blank">Pendry San Diego</a>, located in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter, has six on-site bars and restaurants, an aptly named Spa Pendry, a rooftop pool and lounge, and even a beer hall. Room rates start at $295/night.</p>
<p>Whether you opt for luxury or prefer to save your budget for another business trip, here are our picks for where to stay in San Diego:</p>
<ul>
<li>If you’re all about location, the <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=San+Diego,+CA;i=2019-03-22;o=2019-03-25;sid=509bfdc666edc84661019224;is_search_for_business=false" target="_blank">Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego</a> is perfectly situated in Downtown San Diego, close to both the San Diego Convention Center and popular tourist attractions. We recommend ending your work day at the Top of Hyatt Lounge and Bar—the hotel’s 40th floor rooftop bar with views of San Diego Bay. (Plus, Concur Hipmunk users receive exclusive discounts when staying at a Hyatt property.)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=San+Diego,+CA;i=2019-03-22;o=2019-03-25;sid=509bfe1d66edc8466101cced;is_search_for_business=false" target="_blank">Andaz San Diego</a> offers a unique guest experience in its Lounge—a dedicated lobby space for guests to relax, get some work done, or catch up with a client. Located in the Gaslamp Quarter, this hotel is also well-situated for business travelers attending an event at the Convention Center or Petco Park.</li>
<li>In need of event space? The <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels?poi=ChIJi13lS1dT2YARpYx0CjdGiFY#w=San+Diego,+CA;i=2019-03-15;o=2019-03-18;sid=509bfdcc66edc84661019328;is_search_for_business=false" target="_blank">Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter</a> offers 10,000 square feet of event facilities. Amenities also include a 24-hour fitness center, outdoor pool, and on-site restaurant offering innovative California cuisine.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551384270112-san-diego-gaslamp-and-trolley.jpg" /></h2>
The Gaslamp Quarter and Trolley
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How to get around</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.sdmts.com/schedules-real-time-maps-and-routes/trolley" target="_blank">four Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) trolley lines</a> that service the downtown San Diego communities and beyond: UC San Diego Blue, Orange, Sycuan Green and SDG&E Silver. Trolleys run an average of every 15 minutes; every seven minutes during peak hours and every 30 minutes during off-peak hours. If you’re staying in Southern San Diego, Downtown, or Mission Valley, the trolley is a convenient way to get to places like the Santa Fe Depot and the San Diego Convention Center. Before you board, simply download the Compass Cloud app to purchase a one-day pass right from your smartphone. Don’t need a full day pass? One-way Compass Card tickets are available at all trolley stations.</p>
<p>If you prefer a faster mode of transport, hailing a cab, Uber or Lyft is likely your best option for getting around San Diego in a jiffy.</p>
<p>Pro tip: Use TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2017/05/announcing-go-now-more-new-tripit-features.html" target="_blank">Navigator</a> feature to search transportation options available to you. It will show you the estimated costs and travel times for each option, so you can decide which works best. You can find Navigator within your flight, hotel and rental car details screens. Plus, if you add a restaurant reservation to your itinerary (more on where to eat below), Navigator also helps you find the best transportation options for getting to your table.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551384281132-sunset-in-la-jolla.jpg" /></h2>
Sunset in La Jolla
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Where to eat</h2>
<p>Top Chefs. Urban wineries. Food festivals. Farmers markets. What do all of these things have in common? They’re all found in San Diego’s Little Italy—and exactly where you should head at least once during your trip (or every day, if you’re so inclined!). Little Italy’s Kettner Boulevard is home to hot spots like <a href="https://www.juniperandivy.com/" target="_blank">Juniper & Ivy</a>, <a href="https://bornandraisedsteak.com/" target="_blank">Born & Raised</a>, <a href="https://www.kettnerexchange.com/" target="_blank">Kettner Exchange</a>, and <a href="https://herbandwood.com/" target="_blank">Herb & Wood</a>. You’ll also find authentic Italian eateries lining India Street.</p>
<p>Craving Mexican food? Choose from authentic spots like <a href="https://www.luchalibretacoshop.com/" target="_blank">Lucha Libre</a> (multiple locations), <a href="https://www.yelp.com/biz/las-cuatro-milpas-san-diego-2" target="_blank">Las Cuatro Milpas</a> (Logan Heights), and <a href="https://eatpuesto.com/" target="_blank">Puesto</a> (multiple locations).</p>
<p>Looking for casual dining with beachfront views? Head to <a href="https://www.poseidonrestaurant.com/" target="_blank">Poseidon’s</a> or <a href="https://jakesdelmar.com/" target="_blank">Jake’s Del Mar</a>—both are located on the beach in Del Mar and serve delicious seafood.</p>
<p>For breakfast, <a href="http://www.cottagelajolla.com/" target="_blank">The Cottage</a> in La Jolla and <a href="http://www.thebrokenyolkcafe.com/" target="_blank">Broken Yolk</a> with locations in Downtown and Pacific Beach are great options. Just need a cup of joe? <a href="https://www.coffeeandteacollective.com/" target="_blank">Coffee and Tea Collective</a> has two great locations in North Park and East Village. You could also swing by <a href="http://www.communalcoffee.com/" target="_blank">Communal Coffee</a>, a combo coffee and flower shop with locations in North Park and South Park.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1551384486832-balboa-park.jpg" /></h2>
The House of Hospitality at Balboa Park
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What to do</h2>
<p>Looking to get some sightseeing in while you’re in town? Rent a <a href="https://www.sandiego.org/members/biking/pedego-san-diego.aspx" target="_blank">Pedego electric bike</a> and pedal your way around the city’s landmarks. First, head to Balboa Park—a beautiful, 1,000 acre park with 15 museums, botanical gardens, and the <a href="http://sandiegozoo.org/" target="_blank">San Diego Zoo</a>. Then, make your way to the historic Gaslamp Quarter—San Diego’s epicenter for art galleries, trendy boutiques, rooftop bars, gastropubs, and fine dining restaurants. Old Town, Coronado, Liberty Station and Harbor & Shelter Islands are all within biking distance, as well.</p>
<p>If you’re visiting San Diego during baseball season, be sure to catch a Padres game at Petco Park. More interested in the social aspect of the game (read: beer over baseball)? The area surrounding Petco Park offers loads of great places to grab a drink or bite to eat both before and after games at places like <a href="https://missionbrewery.com/" target="_blank">Mission Brewery</a> and <a href="https://tavernbowl.com/" target="_blank">East Village Tavern and Bowl</a>.</p>
<p>If your family tagged along on your business trip, there are plenty of kid-friendly things to do, too. Start your day at the San Diego Zoo, then head to <a href="https://thinkplaycreate.org/" target="_blank">The New Children’s Museum</a> for a hands-on art experience. Families will also love learning about San Diego’s maritime heritage at the <a href="https://www.midway.org/" target="_blank">USS Midway Museum</a> and the <a href="https://sdmaritime.org/" target="_blank">Maritime Museum of San Diego</a>.</p>
<p>Adults-only? By day, visit the <a href="https://www.mcasd.org/" target="_blank">Museum of Contemporary Art</a>, or for retail therapy, head to the shops of Seaport Village. By night, visit the East Village, a revitalized warehouse district now known for its vibrant nightlife, cafes, and craft beer bars.</p>
<p>This post originally appeared <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/the-go-guide-san-diego/">on the Tailwind blog</a>. </p>
Amanda Wowk
Small Business Growth Tips: Keep Overhead Low
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/small-business-growth-tips-keep-overhead-low
2019-08-23T10:23:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Although I was never the greatest law student at the time I was a little older than my peers had some realworld work experience and really liked it So as a result I got a job with one...
<p>Although I was never the greatest law student, at the time, I was a little older than my peers, had some real-world work experience, and really liked it. So, as a result, I got a job with one of the top law firms in the country.</p>
<p>I seemingly had it all: a great job, good pay, impressive benefits, and so on.</p>
<p>The only thing was, I was miserable.</p>
<p>They don’t pay you the big bucks for no reason. Between the extraordinarily long hours, and working for partners who saw nothing wrong with ruining weekends with extra work late on a Friday afternoon, I had to get out.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Oxford Economics Worldwide Report: Managing SMB Growth</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/tipsheet-four-top-tips-easily-roundup-receipts">Read the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So I started interviewing other lawyers who had escaped the corporate grind and started their own firms. How do they do it? Where did they find clients? What was the secret?</p>
<p>It was then that I received one of the most important pieces of business advice I ever got, and that is saying a lot given that I cull and share business advice for a living: “Keep your overhead low.”</p>
<p>I followed it when I started my first business (and all subsequent ones) and it was great advice for all sorts of reasons. I was able to withstand business disruptions far more easily, I didn’t fall for shiny and expensive pitches from salespeople and vendors, I was able to save, and as a result, I was able to grow responsibly. </p>
<p>It became my secret weapon, and apparently, I am not alone. According to SAP Concur and Oxford Economics, in their paper entitled, “Managing SMB Growth How Cost-Conscious Planning Helps Businesses Scale Up:”</p>
<p>"SMBs’ size may be a secret weapon for attacking some of the more pernicious problems associated with expansion, especially when it comes to budgeting. SMBs have to do more with less, and must be agile enough to anticipate changes or react quickly to the unexpected. Visibility and cost control are essential for growing businesses."</p>
<p>Read that again: <strong>Cost control [is] essential for growing businesses</strong>.</p>
<p>The report goes on to say that one reason being cost-conscious is important is that it enables a small and medium business to scale smartly. According to the report:</p>
<p>"Generally speaking, these cost-conscious SMBs approach their expansions far differently—and see very different outcomes—than companies that say spending and cash flow were not important factors in their growth decisions. For instance, 93% of cost- conscious SMB executives agree they have the right platforms and systems in place to adapt to their growing organization, vs. 79% of less cost-conscious executives."</p>
<p>And the opposite is also true, SMBs that do not prioritize spending end up with a host of real-world problems:</p>
<ul>
<li>59% encounter administrative issues</li>
<li>52% show an increase in travel and expense reporting</li>
<li>48% encounter issues with onboarding new hires, and this is a big one –</li>
<li>45% have a problem with digital and cyber security</li>
</ul>
<p>When I speak with SMBs about this topic, they all generally get very afraid of “the B word” – you know, budget. But it really is pretty simple. All a budget is your plan for what you want to do with your hard-earned capital. Would you rather spend it on a new marketing plan or paying off old debt? Voila! You are cost conscious and have a budget.</p>
<p>Or, maybe, you want to open a new location. Can you? Your budget will tell you. That way, instead of dropping a lot of money on a risky idea, your thrifty budget lets you avoid catastrophic mistakes and grow smartly.</p>
<p>That’s what savvy SMBs do.</p>
<p>Learn more about cost-conscious businesses from the Oxford Economics report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-smb-growth-oxford-economics-worldwide-report">Managing SMB Growth How Cost-Conscious Planning Helps Businesses Scale Up</a>. </p>
Steve Strauss
Do You Understand Your Travel Footprint and the Risks Associated with Cross-Border Travel?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-you-understand-your-travel-footprint-and-risks-associated-cross-border-travel
2019-10-16T12:01:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There are a number of shifts economically politically socially happening in the world today that make crossborder business travel more complicated than ever While businesses are...
<p data-id="4bcede0f-da2d-43e0-a122-8f2c057604c8">There are a number of shifts — economically, politically, socially — happening in the world today that make cross-border business travel more complicated than ever. While businesses are becoming more global, governments are becoming more concerned with protecting their borders, jobs and the financial interests of their local population…creating friction with business travel.</p>
<p data-id="4bcede0f-da2d-43e0-a122-8f2c057604c8">The digitization of data has also <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ey-sheds-light-on-3-key-business-travel-risk-areas">increased the risk profile</a> for multinational corporations looking to put the right people in the right places at the right time. Digital records are easier to share across government agencies. In the U.S., the Internal Revenue Service now uses data from the Department of Homeland Security to check a company’s tax returns against those of its employees for potential inconsistencies. There have also been similar approaches adopted in countries such as Canada, Singapore, and Australia.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/283591_Tax_Calculation_Euro_R_green.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Mitigating risk amid Brexit, travel bans, and trade Wars</h2>
<p>Learn how to manage the unique challenges of international business travel.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p data-id="e85eaf90-78d4-4b4b-8988-625702011fdf"> </p>
<p data-id="e85eaf90-78d4-4b4b-8988-625702011fdf">In order to stay compliant with global tax and immigration regulations, companies need to understand where their business travelers are, for how long, and the work activities they’re doing. To get a sense of your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-home">travel risk</a>, begin by answering these questions:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="09623d6c-2b07-4a9c-b0f6-c4f7905aaf96">Does your organization have a centralized process for identifying and reviewing the tax, social security, and immigration compliance of your business travelers before they travel?</li>
<li data-id="09623d6c-2b07-4a9c-b0f6-c4f7905aaf96">Do you have a formal policy for addressing the risk and compliance requirements for your business travelers?</li>
<li data-id="09623d6c-2b07-4a9c-b0f6-c4f7905aaf96">Do you have access to real-time data on immigration and tax requirements for the countries to which your employees travel?</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="e3d87b89-1a9a-47dc-ab36-854a0ddd5708">If you answered no to any of these, your business travelers could be triggering tax, social security, immigration or permanent establishment liabilities – and your organization could be at risk for noncompliance.</p>
<p data-id="271fff71-28f2-441e-b383-3e01fa06b593">While understanding an organization’s travel footprint is critical to mitigating this risk, existing processes for doing so are often inefficient and onerous — resulting in inconveniences for business travelers and complexity for travel and finance managers. Limited access to information and guidance, duplicate data entry, and having to switch between multiple systems creates a cumbersome experience for employees. Similarly, fragmented data and inconsistent information can cause travel and finance managers to discover non-compliance when it’s too late.</p>
<p data-id="dd0b58f1-e69a-46dd-ad48-b0437fb68f55">The only holistic, accurate and efficient way to ensure employees have the correct immigration permissions to enter a country, and that they’re compliant with country-specific taxes triggered during travel, is with a solution fully integrated into their travel booking workflow.</p>
<p data-id="de197fb1-30f5-4f70-8241-724be1d03cb9"><strong>To learn more about cross-border travel risks and how you can mitigate them, download our whitepaper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-travel-tax-immigration">Global Business Travel Tax and Immigration: Mitigating Complexity and Risk Amid Brexit, Travel Bans, and Trade Wars</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Customer Success Story: How Feld Entertainment Saves on Travel and Increases Online Booking Adoption
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/customer-success-story-how-feld-entertainment-saves-travel-and-increases-online
2019-07-30T13:16:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The global leader in live touring family entertainment experiences Feld Entertainment is in the business of bringing people together uplifting the human spirit and putting on an...
<p data-id="033d2751-3951-456d-b91b-a5ac9823afd1">The global leader in live touring family entertainment experiences, Feld Entertainment is in the business of bringing people together, uplifting the human spirit, and putting on an awesome show.</p>
<p data-id="033d2751-3951-456d-b91b-a5ac9823afd1"> </p>
<p data-id="e763ecba-46a4-4ca2-a46f-cf02b761a60d">Throughout the past 50 years, the Feld family has captivated millions of audience members in more than 75 countries across six continents with more than 3,600 shows each year. That means a lot of travel. Whether performing or behind the scenes, it is critical that everyone working to make each show great has a positive travel experience – from a nice place to stay to getting around in a new city. And it’s just as critical for Feld to provide that experience for employees without breaking the bank.</p>
<p data-id="e763ecba-46a4-4ca2-a46f-cf02b761a60d"> </p>
<p data-id="a93bcd25-cb99-4a84-aaca-3d42475f6395">To manage trip booking, Feld uses the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking" target="_blank">Concur Travel</a> solution. Employees can book travel and manage changes on the go from the SAP Concur mobile app – saving time and making travel simpler and less stressful. Integration with a wide array of travel service partners means that travelers can choose the brands they love. Plus, Feld can negotiate discounted rates with preferred airlines, hotels, and other travel vendors.</p>
<p data-id="a93bcd25-cb99-4a84-aaca-3d42475f6395"> </p>
<p data-id="4fd04f40-e31a-4b3e-91b3-bfb02324d7c2">According to Christine Zajda, director of procurement, sourcing, and travel for Feld Entertainment, access to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center" target="_blank">SAP Concur App Center</a> partners like <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce41" target="_blank">Rocketrip</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57868dac4659a61200efc32d/uber-for-business" target="_blank">Uber</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBxZQAmtpNwtTryfZvNwA0KQafw/airbnb" target="_blank">Airbnb</a> also helps her deliver choice and convenience for travelers while gaining savings and insight for the company.</p>
<p data-id="4fd04f40-e31a-4b3e-91b3-bfb02324d7c2"> </p>
<p data-id="ad4441fc-bd7a-49c7-8ecc-076b4ca9ea48">“Adding Uber has helped us cut ground transportation costs by half,” she explains. “Our touring staff can be on the road for up to a year. With Airbnb, they can get a large home where they can relax and barbeque out back after working long hours. It has really helped improve their quality of life. And, it saved us more than $100,000 last year alone.”</p>
<p data-id="ad4441fc-bd7a-49c7-8ecc-076b4ca9ea48"> </p>
<p data-id="aedf029e-cefb-4b23-8347-9f52cb00b624">Within Feld’s workforce, roughly 3,000 associates travel for business. While enforcement of company travel policy is built into Concur Travel, Zajda wanted more motivation for employees to consider the bottom line when booking travel. The question was: How do you motivate employees to save on travel in a way that goes beyond policy compliance?</p>
<p data-id="aedf029e-cefb-4b23-8347-9f52cb00b624"> </p>
<p data-id="dadce12d-78ae-482c-a8a6-fed008686045">That’s where <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce41" target="_blank">Rocketrip</a> takes center stage.</p>
<p data-id="dadce12d-78ae-482c-a8a6-fed008686045"> </p>
<p data-id="9f555304-71b0-4b83-8101-50bf00764963">“For many companies, travel is the one spending area where employees act like consumers,” explains Dan Ruch, Rocketrip founder and CEO. “We are leaving friends and family to go out on the road. So, we expect a certain level of comfort, convenience, and flexibility. But there is also a lot of frivolous spending. Rocketrip helps incentivize employees to cut that out by returning a percentage of any savings to their pockets.”</p>
<p data-id="9f555304-71b0-4b83-8101-50bf00764963"> </p>
<p data-id="84ea10fc-491c-495b-b70e-59c976d6c064">With Rocketrip integrated into Concur Travel, employees can compare the costs of different booking options, so they can make economical travel choices that are good for their pocketbook and for the company.</p>
<p data-id="84ea10fc-491c-495b-b70e-59c976d6c064"> </p>
<p data-id="360897a3-0b03-4480-a02b-75132390d451">Feld employees are clearly happy with the new integrated solution, as evidenced by an 88% adoption rate of booking in Concur Travel – up from 35% before the addition of the Rocketrip incentive program. “Rocketrip is a behavior modification tool,” explains Zajda, “and that’s what we’re doing.”</p>
<p data-id="360897a3-0b03-4480-a02b-75132390d451"> </p>
<p data-id="bdd088a7-0148-4b06-b6d9-323fae3f3824">By helping employees make better spending choices, Feld has seen a 15% reduction in the number of nights spent in hotels with a US$191 average savings per night from employees choosing to stay with family or friends. By choosing a lower-star-class hotel, employees have saved Feld 23% on total nights booked with an average savings of $73 per night. Flying low-cost carriers has resulted in a 10% savings on total flights booked with $171 saved on average per flight. And the savings keeps employees happy as well – by choosing to spend less on travel, they can earn points toward gift cards, cash cards or even donate them to charity.</p>
<p data-id="bdd088a7-0148-4b06-b6d9-323fae3f3824"> </p>
<p data-id="e7767fc4-32d5-4971-b5a2-e7a9e88704a1">Feld’s bottom-line results are better than expected. “We initially anticipated a 17% savings in the first year,” says Zajda, “and we actually realized an incredible 36%.”</p>
<p data-id="e7767fc4-32d5-4971-b5a2-e7a9e88704a1"> </p>
<p data-id="f52b6698-1b72-4c0a-be25-d63fccddd0d2">Plus, the Rocketrip Insights analytics dashboard provides detailed breakdowns of every trip so Feld’s travel and procurement executives can see the underlying sources of spending and target specific expense categories for additional savings.</p>
<p data-id="f52b6698-1b72-4c0a-be25-d63fccddd0d2"> </p>
<p data-id="a37fc31a-4eb3-4812-bd4c-e01f5fd54639"><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/feld-entertainment" target="_blank">Watch the video</a> to hear the full story on how Feld Entertainment is using Rocketrip and Concur Travel to make traveling better for employees and more cost-effective for the company. Then head over to SAP Concur App Center to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce41" target="_blank">download the app</a> for yourself.</p>
<p data-id="a37fc31a-4eb3-4812-bd4c-e01f5fd54639"> </p>
<p data-id="be878006-d753-4bce-a7f0-9ca0c6f6b9ec">To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can simplify travel and expense management for your business, visit <a href="http://www.concur.com/" target="_blank">concur.com</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Would You Do with an Extra $39,000 Per Year? Discover What You Can Save with Expense Automation Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-would-you-do-extra-39000-year-discover-what-you-can-save-expense-automation
2020-01-29T13:29:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Is your organization among the of small to midsize businesses SMBs using spreadsheets to manage their expenses Or the of SMB businesses still using handwritten records to track...
<p>Is your organization among the 26% of small to midsize businesses (SMBs) using spreadsheets to manage their expenses? Or the 49% of SMB businesses still using handwritten records to track, manage, and analyze spend?</p>
<p>While you may be comfortable with these status quo ways of working, maybe you shouldn’t be – because the costs can add up more quickly than you realize. A recent study reported that <a href="http://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud" target="_blank">50% of SMBs</a> say that manual processes hinder visibility into cash flow, which increases the risk fraudulent or unqualified spending.</p>
<p>Manual-, spreadsheet-, or e-mail-based processes also lead to costly mistakes and delays. That’s why <a href="http://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud" target="_blank">42% of small businesses surveyed</a> say they’ve experienced errors reconciling invoices. Meanwhile, 75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets. And even more agree their expense, travel, and invoice systems could be better connected for a single view of spend.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1572626688601-283166-epros-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Discover how much money your company can save by using Concur Expense.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expense automation is one cloud application away – and a big boost to your bottom line</h2>
<p>The good news is, there are easily deployed, affordable cloud solutions to automate this work, freeing your people to focus on top priorities such as growing or reinvesting in your business, keeping pace with the competition, and building customer relationships.</p>
<p>When you automate and integrate expense processes, you can make them run better and bring more visibility and control to all your spending. This frees up finance professionals to focus on other critical things. At the same time, you improve agility by enabling your business to respond faster to change – for example, by pivoting and redirecting employee spend to ensure the best outcomes.</p>
<p>In addition, by eliminating costly, repetitive, error-prone work using intelligent automation, you can empower your people to do more with less. For example, accounting and finance teams see an <a href="http://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud" target="_blank">average time savings of 15%</a> after adopting travel and expense automation solutions.</p>
<p>And finally, <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">according to AMI-Partners</a>, SMBs are achieving significant cost reductions with automated spending solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>US$30,000 – Average annual savings with automated travel and expense management solutions</li>
<li>$20 per expense report – Average savings of travel and expense users</li>
</ul>
<p>These savings can go toward hiring more people, investing in new assets, developing new offerings, expanding into new locations, and more.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>If you think these kinds of savings are out of reach for SMBs, think again</h2>
<p>AMI-Partners recently conducted a study looking at how SMBs are benefitting from travel and expense solutions from SAP Concur solutions, which automate and integrate travel and expense and vendor invoice processing from beginning to end. Companies using the Concur Expense solution report cutting costs and boosting the bottom line by an average of $39,000 in annual savings, according to AMI-Partners. Automation also gives everyone – both employees creating reports and finance staff who process them – more time in their day, while preventing costly mistakes, fraud, and surprise expenses. And finally, LOB managers and finance get a clear, near-real-time view into expense-related spending and trends so they can proactively control it and improve planning, accruals, and cash flow.</p>
<p>Want to know how much you can expect to add to the bottom line using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a>? Complete the questionnaire in our <a href="https://• https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator" target="_blank">expense ROI calculator</a> – and get a ballpark estimate in just a few minutes!<br />
</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How Do You Protect Your Business Travelers in the Evolving World of the Sharing Economy?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-do-you-protect-your-business-travelers-evolving-world-sharing-economy
2020-08-15T19:40:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The sharing economy has grown to be bigger than ever By it will reach million users in the US with revenues projected to more than double to billion by according to Juniper...
<p>The sharing economy has grown to be bigger than ever. By 2021 it will reach 86.5 million users in the U.S., with revenues projected to more than double to $40.2 billion by 2022, according to <a href="https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/sharing-economy-revenues-to-double-by-2022">Juniper Research.</a></p>
<p>For travelers, this is great news. The peer-to-peer model of the sharing economy makes travel more affordable, convenient, and efficient – putting the traveler in control of their itinerary and, more importantly, their experience. But as business travelers continue embracing new tools to help get them to where they need to go, many organizations and TMC’s are scrambling to adapt the proper policies – and technologies – to continue to meet their travelers’ needs.</p>
<p>So how does the sharing economy impact your travelers’ safety coming up in the year 2020? With increasing booking options for travelers and the constant change of industry travel, the rise of the sharing economy means it’s harder for organizations to stay in contact with, and support, their travelers when they’re on the road. Yet employees must still travel to build trust, and employers must provide duty of care during their journeys.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3 rising risks of the sharing economy in 2020</h2>
<p>The corporate travel ecosystem, once traditionally powered by the relationship between travel managers and travel providers, used to afford organizations complete control. This included having access to travelers’ itineraries and the channels they booked, helping organizations manage risk, improve satisfaction, ensure employee safety, and deliver on other critical business objectives – such as maintaining partner relationships and negotiating vendor prices. Yet, in today’s world of corporate travel, the sharing economy has put the traveler in control. So why are organizations struggling? Here are three areas within the sharing economy where organizations may still have concerns:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Criticism of the sharing economy involves regulatory uncertainty. </strong>Businesses offering rental services are often regulated by federal, state, or local authorities. However, unlicensed individuals offering rental services may not be following these regulations or paying the associated costs. For corporations and business travelers, this could lead to the increased risk of regulatory fines and other compliance concerns. For example, when issues regarding insurance coverages come into play, most companies will naturally want to distance themselves from such occurrences, thereby avoiding liability altogether.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>A lack of government oversight can lead to serious abuse of both buyers and sellers.</strong> This has been highlighted by numerous highly publicized cases of things like hidden cameras in rented rooms, lawsuits over unfair treatment of ridesharing contractors by the platforms that employ them, and even some more serious crimes such as rideshare providers putting employees/users in immediate danger. Without government oversight to ensure protection of both buyers and sellers, corporations run high risks of failing to provide proper employee safety and other duty of care concerns.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>A fear of personal data or travel information being leaked or shared. </strong>As our world becomes more and more digital, data privacy is a high concern for just about everyone. If one party fails to deliver or keep up their end of the bargain, there are serious consequences that must be dealt with. Remember: it’s not just about payment details, such as credit card information, that will have to be revealed by travelers – personal identity and location information are also involved.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Meet travelers where they are - tips to provide duty of care within the sharing economy</h2>
<p>Organizations should take a proactive approach to duty of care by empowering employees with the right knowledge, tools, and support to meet the safety and security challenges. Consider these four tips to help mitigate risks and meet travelers where they are:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Gather pre-travel reports.</strong> Destination risks, advice on situational awareness, and preventive security recommendations can help travelers understand their destinations, so they can choose appropriate accommodations and transportation options.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Send travel updates and alerts.</strong> City-specific and real-time travel alerts will inform individuals about destination-specific issues and incidents that could impact their safety so they can avoid risks where possible.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Ensure there’s an established two-way means of communication.</strong> Assistance and response services will provide immediate support to travelers should they experience negative incidents. Applied correctly, these mechanisms will enable travelers to make better decisions to reduce their travel risk.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Protect your employee’s information from unauthorized access. </strong>When dealing with location, credit cards, and other forms of personal identification information (PII), you’ll want to ensure your T&E management solution only collects the minimum PII necessary. You’ll also want to make sure that processes are founded on and audited to the internationally recognized ISO 27001 Security Management standard. This helps keep your employee’s PII secure and safe.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>How SAP Concur can help</h2>
<p>While the sharing economy has greatly increased the traveler’s experience, it’s also increased the chances of your employee’s travel data becoming siloed. How can you holistically gather location data, emergency contact information, and ensure data security to provide duty of care at any time? With help from SAP Concur.</p>
<p>SAP Concur connects every part of your unique travel ecosystem— your TMC, your online booking tool, your suppliers, intermediaries, or any other place your travelers’ book or buy. So, whether your employees are booking a room, a flight, a car, a train ticket, or even driving their own car— the data from every itinerary or purchase they make is secure, captured, and connected. We’ve even partnered with ridesharing companies <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57868dac4659a61200efc32d" target="_blank">Uber</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5a7cbd2fe641c7120085eeca" target="_blank">Lyft</a> to provide an effortless business experience for travelers on the road.</p>
<p>Once your data is connected, SAP Concur can then put that data to work, so you can effectively— and proactively— manage everything from policies to approvals and compliance, while keeping your travelers safer and more productive than ever before.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consolidate employee travel data into a single solution</li>
<li>Integrate with third parties, communicating to employees how they can opt in and reassure them about the separation between business and personal travel data</li>
<li>Enhance the quality of digital travel risk tools</li>
<li>Fill in the gaps between traditional itinerary data</li>
<li>Keep up with the sharing economy when it comes to increasing the traveler’s experience</li>
</ul>
<p>Learn more about how SAP Concur can help build traveler safety and support travelers in the sharing economy, no matter where they are, by visiting our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/duty-of-care" target="_blank">Duty of Care solutions</a> webpage.</p>
Kyla Kent
How Transparent and Efficient Payment Processing Saved a Global Insurance Company Time and Money
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-transparent-and-efficient-payment-processing-saved-global-insurance-company-time
2020-03-04T10:40:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
This blog was contributed by TransferMate Global Payments a platinum sponsor of SAP Concur Fusion There are many apps out there aiming to improve business efficiencies but few of them...
<p>This blog was contributed by TransferMate Global Payments, a platinum sponsor of SAP Concur Fusion.</p>
<p>There are many apps out there aiming to improve business efficiencies, but few of them can back it up with actual cost savings from the time saved. That can be one of the hardest things to validate when companies are evaluating possible solutions in the market.</p>
<p>Then, even if that cost savings is evident, are there other companies that have had success with the product and continue to use it? When it comes to managing and paying international invoices on one platform, PaymentsHub is validated and proven.</p>
<p>PaymentsHub – <a href="https://www.transfermate.com/en/payments-hub" target="_blank">from TransferMate Global Payments</a> – is a seamlessly integrated invoice payments processing and VAT reclaim app for SAP Concur customers. Many SAP users have found success with PaymentsHub. Let’s take a look at one recent example.</p>
<p>Chicago-based property and casualty insurance firm HDI Global was having trouble tracking its payments. The Accounts Payable team was manually entering approved wire transfer and ACH requests into a bank portal. The system provided little transparency as far as where the payment was once it was released and the process often caused time delays in payments.</p>
<p>After a recommendation from a SAP Concur rep, HDI implemented TranferMate’s PaymentsHub app that works with SAP Invoice. PaymentsHub provided a clear connection between approved payments and the ones that were paid, adding more transparency and efficiency to HDI’s international payments and eliminating duplicate data entry, review and approval processes.</p>
<p>HDI saw noticeable improvement within a month after implementing PaymentsHub. By eliminating the manual data entry into the bank and gaining visibility on where the payment is at all times, HDI improved its payments processing time by one week, giving the treasury, compliance and executive teams time back to use for other tasks. The company has also saved money with lower processing costs.</p>
<p>“PaymentsHub made processing of payments more efficient by eliminating duplicate data entry, review and approval process. We like that there are automatic notifications sent by TransferMate letting us know what status the payment is in. TransferMate customer support is very responsive and always able to help,” said Agnieszka Rudnik, Treasurer and Vice President at HDI.</p>
<p>HDI was able to see the benefits of PaymentsHub within one month, and that’s not uncommon for businesses making many international transactions per month and using manual processes to track them.</p>
<p>For a company making 200 international payments per month, PaymentsHub could save them an average of seven minutes administration time per transaction, which translates to 40 admin days per year. Companies can save an average of $60 per transaction on global bank wire fees X 200 payments per month, for annual savings of $144,000.</p>
<p>Are you interested in streamlining your international invoice payments process? PaymentsHub is available via the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> or <a href="https://www.transfermate.com/en/payments-hub" target="_blank">request a demo</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times: FAQ
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-your-business-through-turbulent-times-faq
2020-09-21T11:09:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
On April SAP Concur hosted the live thought leadership webinar Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times The webinar featured a panel of executives from various industries...
<p>On April 2, 2020 SAP Concur hosted the live thought leadership webinar <a href="https://go.concur.com/navigating-business-smb-panel.html?pid=blog&cid=newsroom_043020" target="_blank">Navigating Your Business Through Turbulent Times</a>. The webinar featured a panel of executives from various industries discussing the actions that their businesses are taking in the current economic climate to stabilize their operations, survive the downturn and position their businesses for the recovery.</p>
<p>The webinar, which can be accessed <a href="https://go.concur.com/navigating-business-smb-panel.html?pid=blog&cid=newsroom_043020" target="_blank">on-demand,</a> also included a Q&A session with questions sourced from both social media and webinar attendees. While we couldn’t answer every question during the webinar, we wanted to provide answers to the most broadly applicable questions below:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What types of expenses do employees submit now that they work from home?</h2>
<p>With the workforce now working largely from home, travel expenses are greatly reduced. However, that doesn’t result in instant cost savings for businesses because new expenses have emerged in their place. Items like monitors, cell phone and internet costs, basic office supplies, online fitness class reimbursements, and more all must be considered and tracked to control costs.</p>
<p>It’s also important to create a travel and expense policy that establishes what is and is <strong>NOT</strong> included. Can employees expense magazine subscriptions? Childcare? Home furnishings to create the perfect video conference backdrop? To avoid confusion and reduce the risk of fraud, it’s important to anticipate and evaluate <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">potential work-from-home expenses</a>, and then clearly communicate what complies with policy and what does not.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How are companies connecting with employees during this time? </h2>
<p>There’s never been an easier time for employees to stay connected from afar. Email, IM, text, video conferencing … businesses can choose from any of the countless digital communications platforms and services that are now standard in business.</p>
<p>Connection isn’t simply about making it easy for colleagues to stay in touch or see one another on a screen. Companies must also take steps to understand how employees feel during this difficult and emotional time.</p>
<p>SAP Qualtrics recently created and released solutions that were designed specifically for navigating working during COVID-19 pandemic. Its primary solution, <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/here-to-help/">Remote + On-site Work Pulse</a>, allows businesses to quickly assess employee well-being, safety, and resourcing. By listening to employees, and supporting them in the new remote work environment, leaders can identify gaps in employee morale, make adjustments, and help everyone stay productive and satisfied as they work remotely.</p>
<p>SAP Qualtrics is offering these solutions free of charge.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What tools are companies using to analyze weekly, monthly, or daily cash flow?</h2>
<p>In the new work climate, controlling employee-initiated spend is more challenging and more important than ever. One good way for companies to achieve this is by making the most of tools they already have.</p>
<p>SAP Concur customers can take advantage of a number of reports and analytics. With this data, businesses can increase visibility on spend, improve compliance, and manage spend more effectively. A few of the many reports that can be leverages include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Expense Accrual by Date Range: </strong>Review your outstanding credit card transactions and cash liabilities.</li>
<li><strong>Missing Receipt Audit: </strong>Analyze expenses that commonly miss receipts to better enforce policies and help new users submit expenses.</li>
<li><strong>Top Spenders by Employee: </strong>Easily see which employees spend the most and ensure that all expenses are justified.</li>
<li><strong>Workflow Cycle Times Details: </strong>See an expense report’s workflow cycle time and optimize your submission-to-reimbursement process. (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Intelligence</a> solution only)</li>
<li><strong>Invoice Aging: </strong>Get a detailed view of unpaid invoices and see how long it’s been since they were issued.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you are an SAP Concur customer, we encourage you to contact your client success manager, who has additional resources to share regarding recommended policy adjustments to make given the current climate and SAP Concur reporting to leverage and better control spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more about what your business can do to survive the current economic climate? Watch <a href="https://go.concur.com/financial-data-registration-0420.html?pid=blogt&cid=newsroom043020">Financial Data Analysis</a> on-demand where Scott Duffy, host of What Next? and Gene Marks, CPA and president of The Marks Group discuss how businesses can use the data that exists in their accounting systems today to analyze spend, drive cost savings, and optimize cash flow. <a href="http://go.concur.com/financial-data-registration-0420.html?pid=blog&cid=newsroom043020">R</a><a href="http://go.concur.com/financial-data-registration-0420.html?pid=blog&cid=newsroom043020">egister here</a> to watch now. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Read more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/links-to-covid-19-business-assistance-programs-in-every-state">Links to COVID-19 Business Assistance Programs in Every State</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-companies-can-prepare-for-the-future-of-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/7-tips-to-managing-productivity-working-from-home">7 Tips to Manage Productivity When It Comes to Navigating the New Challenges of Social Distancing and Working from Home</a></li>
</ul>
SAP Concur Team
Better Spend Control Equals Greater Business Resiliency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/better-spend-control-equals-greater-business-resiliency
2020-06-30T11:59:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A quick scan of the morning headlines reveals that work and business conditions are changing rapidly and unpredictably for businesses and their employees Abrupt sales declines credit...
<p>A quick scan of the morning headlines reveals that work and business conditions are changing rapidly and unpredictably for businesses and their employees. Abrupt sales declines, credit concerns, and supply chain disruptions are pervasive. Some businesses are experiencing a shocking spike in growth and demand, while many others – especially small and midsize (SMB) firms – are in a period of unprecedented crisis.</p>
<p>Regardless of where your business falls on this continuum, <strong>business resiliency</strong> is crucial to navigating our current challenges and building a better future – with cash flow and liquidity at the heart of it. The longer you can extend your liquidity runway, the better you can weather the storm, keep employees paid (or hire more to meet unexpected demand), and take advantage of one-time revenue opportunities.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Building Business Strength</h2>
<p>How to automate for better control of cash flow, improved compliance, and maximized savings.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">Find out more</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So how can you maximize cash flow and liquidity? Some of the most important steps you can take include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Better controlling and realigning spend</strong> – including employee spend, which for most SMBs is the second largest line item after payroll</li>
<li><strong>Cutting costs –</strong> especially unnecessary discretionary spending</li>
<li><strong>Proactively managing cash flow</strong> – for example, by taking advantage of early payment discounts offered by vendors</li>
<li><strong>Ensuring compliance with your latest company spend policies</strong> – which may be evolving rapidly in response to uncertain business conditions</li>
</ul>
<p>As explored in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">new study by AMI-Partners</a>, sponsored by SAP Concur, achieving all of this requires moving from manual to automated travel, expense, and invoice management. Automation can capture and centralize more complete, accurate spend data in near real time. Once you have this data, you can use it to make better business decisions and keep your business on track.</p>
<p>Automation can also lower operational costs. AMI-Partners' survey found that companies still relying on manual spend management processes face costs that extend far beyond simply higher “costs per” expense report or invoice paid. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>67% lack visibility into cash flow</li>
<li>59% lack integration with budgets</li>
<li>66% experience incomplete documentation (for example, through lost receipts and invoices)</li>
<li>65% experience delayed reporting of expenses</li>
<li>59% emphasized it was challenging to manage invoices from non-qualified vendors</li>
<li>57% encountered duplicate data entries in accuracies</li>
<li>55% indicated it was difficult to track spending behavior (which by default, makes it harder to manage spend)</li>
</ul>
<p>Adopting an<strong> </strong>automated spend management solution changes everything because companies:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Gain visibility into company spending data</strong> through consolidated views of cash flow spend and integrations across business processes</li>
<li><strong>Can stay compliant with internal and external regulations</strong> by reducing out-of-policy submissions and improving detection of inaccurate submissions</li>
<li><strong>Achieve significant time and cost savings</strong> by improving employee productivity (for example, free up time for strategic work) and reducing the risk of misplaced reports during audits</li>
<li><strong>Can finally integrate spend with budgets </strong>so that line-of-business executives can proactively – and more closely – manage budgets and finance leaders can take more control of total company spending</li>
<li><strong>Can put in place clear, effective spend management policies and enforce them effortlessly</strong> through intelligent automation and as transactions occur – in real time – before it’s too late to stop transactions and irrevocable payments</li>
</ul>
<p>The business benefits of managing travel, expense, and vendor invoice spend in a holistic, integrated way are vast. When AMI-Partners asked SMBs about the before-and-after business impacts of deploying an automated spend management solution for discretionary spending, they found that:</p>
<ul>
<li>54% reported improved compliance within industry regulations</li>
<li>64% reported time savings due to better efficiency as a top benefit</li>
<li>The weekly time savings after implementing an automated expense management solution ranges from 104 hours (with a non-SAP Concur solution) to 122 hours (with SAP Concur solutions for travel and expense management).</li>
<li>The weekly time savings after implementing an automated invoice management solution ranged from 104 hours (with a non-SAP Concur solution) to 148 hours (with the Concur Invoice solution)</li>
<li>69% reported they were better able to respond to business challenges due to improved visibility into their company’s spend data</li>
</ul>
<p>As you face today’s uncertainties and challenges, know that you don’t have to do it in the blind when it comes to the discretionary employee spend impacting your cash flow. With automated, integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, you can gain total control and transparency – and adjust things to optimize how and where money is spent. It’s the easiest, lowest-risk way to extend your liquidity runway.</p>
<p><strong>Want to know more? Read the full survey report from AMI-Partners: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">Building Business Strength: How Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management Can Help Control Cash Flow, Improve Compliance, and Maximize Cost-Savings.</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning: Lessons Learned from COVID-19
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/disaster-recovery-and-business-continuity-planning-lessons-learned-covid-19
2020-08-13T08:22:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A global pandemic Stayathome orders An unprecedented quarantine in which work school and life itself were confined within the walls of ones own home For most companies COVID was a...
<p>A global pandemic. Stay-at-home orders. An unprecedented quarantine in which work, school, and life itself were confined within the walls of one’s own home.</p>
<p>For most companies, COVID-19 was a wake-up call. Although disaster recovery and business continuity plans are nothing new, most are written to combat a regional incident, a computer hack, or a natural disaster—nothing as big or all-encompassing as a global pandemic of the magnitude that we're experiencing.</p>
<p>So, where should companies go from here? How can they create a disaster recovery and business continuity plan that truly prepares them for anything? And, just as important, how should they use the lessons learned in 2020 to disaster-proof their company going forward?</p>
<p>We spoke to some experts from SAP Concur and <a href="https://www.transfermate.com/international-payments/?utm_source=SAP%20Blog&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=SAP%20Concur%20US%20Blog%20WEB0012" target="_blank">TransferMate</a> to find out.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Look at the controls you have in place</h2>
<p>“We are ISO 27001-certified, which is an information security standard that has business continuity planning and disaster recovery as one of its controls,” explained Margaret Corrigan, head of information security for TransferMate. “So, an excellent place to start is by looking at what controls your company has in place. These give you very good guidance in putting together a framework for the recovery of your IT systems and keeping the organization running. So, it’s a good starting point for structure.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Conduct a business impact assessment</h2>
<p>Corrigan also recommends conducting a business impact assessment—a collective exercise across all functional areas that identifies:</p>
<ul>
<li>What operations you need to have in place</li>
<li>The minimum number of employees you need to maintain those operations</li>
<li>The core systems and service providers that those functions are reliant on</li>
</ul>
<p>“This assessment forms the scope of what you need to carry on an acceptable level of business, in terms of people, premises, technology, and your core suppliers—as well as identifying how long you could operate without any one of those components in place,” Corrigan said. “That's important because if you don’t need to have 20,000 people up and running day one, but do need 10,000, the support requirements to deliver that plan reduce down, which speeds your recovery time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Test your recovery capabilities</h2>
<p>Once the Business Impact Assessment is completed, this input goes to IT, so they know the core systems involved, the data requiring recovery, and the number of people who would have to be operational in 24 or 48 hours, or whatever those requirements are.</p>
<p>Then, IT conducts a test that simulates what would take place if an actual disaster occurred.</p>
<p>“If you can’t recover within the predetermined SLAs, then your organization has to take remedial action to address the issues and re-test,” Corrigan said. “Once that effort is successful, IT will continue to perform the test annually. At the same time, the business should revisit the impact assessment every year as well, to ensure those requirements are still valid.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Make sure the right stakeholders are involved</h2>
<p>It’s important to note that, although IT plays a significant role, disaster recovery and business continuity programs are not solely an IT effort.</p>
<p>“Today, disaster recovery and business continuity is a CEO issue. There has to be active involvement and buy-in from the executive management and business owners throughout the process,” said Paul Herrick, chief people officer for Taxback Group. “In Transfermate, that was, and is, very much the case. Our CEO was very involved in the review and oversight of the plan and its implementation.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Map out the scenarios—but prepare to improvise</h2>
<p>While mapping out different scenarios and “what ifs” is part of business continuity planning, as COVID-19 has proven, you won’t be able to plan for everything.</p>
<p>Our experts advise planning for what you can, but being prepared to adjust that plan for the situation at hand.</p>
<p>“You have two things at play here, really. You have different teams prepped for different stages of crisis and disaster recovery. Then, the disaster strikes and you ask, according to our plan, who needs to be in the room?” Herrick said. “That’s your baseline, that is your structure, but there is also an organic element that requires you to bring in the right people as the situation evolves, and to make decisions in real time within the structures you’ve identified.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Use those scenarios to re-evaluate technology</h2>
<p>Simulating the worst-case scenarios in advance also exposes your technological holes.</p>
<p>“COVID-19 is the first crisis of this scale where technology is advanced enough to give companies the option to do something about it,” said Nicholas Wong, presales consultant for SAP Concur. “So, this crisis also presented an opportunity for companies to look at new options to empower their employees to continue to do their daily tasks while operating remotely.”</p>
<p>While some have the processes and technology in place to do this securely, other organizations are starting from square one.</p>
<p>“By working with a provider that has controls in place, you know that your data is completely secure and protected, wherever your employees are working,” Wong said. “We’ve actually seen a lot of clients who looked at some of our products and services as ‘nice to have’ who are now realizing that they are essential—whether it’s technology to automate processes or services that manage manual matching of invoice to purchase order.”</p>
<p>Look at the processes—and the supporting technology—that impeded your agility and find ways to streamline or automate what you currently have in place. If something held you back this time, it will hold you back next time—and was probably weighing down your business’ daily operations long before the pandemic took hold. Just make sure you vet how your vendors are securing your data, their redundancy and approach to disaster response before you commit to the contract.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t wait until a disaster is upon you to start putting the plan in motion</h2>
<p>Companies that more successfully responded to COVID-19 were the ones that recognized the potential threat and took action before the pandemic reached its peak.</p>
<p>“The fact that we monitored what was happening in China, followed updates from the World Health Organization and paid attention to the media early on was critical to our ability to respond so well,” Corrigan said. “Our executive leadership and HR team proactively directed us to set up the remote access connectivity for impacted offices, slow down employee travel and get things set in case we needed to pull the trigger. Because of this, we had weeks to prepare, and were totally ready when the time came.”</p>
<p>It’s better to have a false start than to wait until you’re in the midst of a crisis to start taking action. In other words, the umbrella should go up when it starts sprinkling, not stay in the car until the deluge strikes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Communicate, communicate, communicate</h2>
<p>External and internal communications are critical during a crisis. Mapping out how you’ll direct your employees, and reassure your customers, and who is responsible for executing those communications should all be part of your plan, as well.</p>
<p>Just as important, make sure you continually communicate with your employees after the plan is in place to reduce stress and keep them feeling connected. </p>
<p>“You have to work with executive leadership on key messages which, for us, in the case of the pandemic, was that your safety comes first, and that every decision we were making was based on that belief,” Herrick said. “We’ve also done a lot of listening, so we could understand how they were feeling about working from home, what the barriers were, and how they felt about returning to the office. Staying in touch with your employees as well as your clients throughout the event is essential.”</p>
<p>Although no one can predict what the future holds, a well-tested, well-documented disaster recovery and business continuity plan is critical to weathering challenging times and still being there to serve your customers. It’s that combination of technology, process, planning and people that makes all of the difference.</p>
<p>Looking for additional tips on where to begin disaster-proofing your business? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-create-an-effective-business-continuity-plan">Download our FREE whitepaper on business continuity</a> for a template that can help you get started!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.transfermate.com/international-payments/?utm_source=SAP%20Blog&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=SAP%20Concur%20US%20Blog%20WEB0012" target="_blank">TransferMate</a> – a part of the Taxback Group – is a global B2B payments technology firm, enabling companies to send and receive cross-border payments faster and easier than ever before. TransferMate has built one of the largest portfolios of payments licences worldwide, including in 51 US states and territories, to support trading in 162 countries and 134 currencies. Leading banks, fintechs & software providers partner with TransferMate to offer an enhanced user experience for their business customers. Using TransferMate’s technology and global banking infrastructure, companies benefit from better exchange rates, greater transparency and improved reconciliation via direct integration into accounting and ERP systems.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Now Taking Nominations for the 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Awards
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/now-taking-nominations-2021-sap-concur-innovation-awards
2021-07-16T10:18:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each year the SAP Concur organization honors a group of top customers who embody innovative and purposedriven business practices that we are proud to support Our goal is to recognize...
<p>Each year the SAP Concur organization honors a group of top customers who embody innovative and purpose-driven business practices that we are proud to support. Our goal is to recognize and celebrate our customers around the globe who exemplify excellence in innovation and purposeful narratives with the support of SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tell us how SAP Concur solutions helps your organization run its best!</h2>
<p>Are you breaking new ground using SAP Concur solutions? The 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Awards is your opportunity to share your organization’s story and be recognized as a leader in your industry who is pushing the boundaries around digital transformation, and travel and expense.</p>
<p>For 2021, SAP Concur will identify five best-run stories of innovation, with a focus on people, process, and purpose. What makes a winning story? Your organization’s use of SAP Concur solutions to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Meaningfully impact your employees’ time, experience, and finances</li>
<li>Support your business initiatives by improving or evolving your internal travel and expense processes</li>
<li>Solve business or industry challenges that allows your organization to run at its best</li>
</ul>
<p>Please share your innovation story by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominating your organization here</a>!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why should you participate?</h2>
<p>By participating in the 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Awards, you’ll have the chance to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Showcase your innovation story at an SAP Concur event</li>
<li>Gain recognition as a leading innovator</li>
<li>Participate in a customer video story</li>
<li>Earn a trophy as a winner</li>
<li>Receive a complimentary pass and hotel accommodations to one SAP Concur event</li>
<li>Engage in exclusive promotional opportunities throughout the year</li>
</ul>
<p>From now through October 9, 2020 you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominate your organization</a> to amplify its achievements and innovations. Winners will be notified mid-October 2020, and then announced mid-March 2021.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>A look back at customers who run at their best</h2>
<p>In case you missed it, meet the 2020 Innovation Awards winners that are pushing the boundaries of travel and expense.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/airbus-americas"><strong>Airbus Americas</strong></a><strong>:</strong> Aerospace pioneer Airbus is working toward a safer and better-connected world. Airbus Americas implemented SAP Concur solutions for a paperless T&E solution, with secure automation, that enforces compliance. The organization has saved $1 million in employee hours in three years, and travel policy compliance shot up to 85 %.</p>
<p>“Innovation in our market is key to leading the way,” explains Richard Masci, Head of Financial Systems at Airbus Americas. “SAP Concur is the cornerstone to enable innovation.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/cisco-systems"><strong>Cisco Systems</strong></a><strong>:</strong> A global leader in IT, networking, and cybersecurity solutions that enable transformational benefits for customers, Cisco was able to deploy Concur Travel and Expense in more than 88 countries in less than a year to bring significant transformation and operational improvement opportunities to life. And at the core of innovation at Cisco are its people. The ease of use of SAP Concur solutions has resulted in an increase in employee satisfaction from 48% to 77% since going live in 2018.</p>
<p>“Culture and employees are our competitive advantage.” shares Alexandra Lopez, Chief Procurement Officer at Cisco Systems. “We’re really encouraging diverse thought and perspectives throughout the innovation and delivery of our products.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/globe-telecom"><strong>Globe Telecom</strong></a><strong>:</strong> Globe aims to help people and businesses in the Philippines to grow successfully through its purpose-driven culture to create a digital nation with a focus on sustainability. SAP Concur solutions helped to solve Globe’s business challenges around travel and spend management so that the organization could focus on the key pillars to care for people, the environment, and in making a positive societal impact. Only four months after going live, Globe has achieved 100% adoption across the company.</p>
<p>“We are creators and enablers of the Filipino digital lifestyle,” shares Jessica Mari Zara, Manager at Globe. “We nurture businesses, empower individuals through quality products and services, and strengthen the country through strategic partnerships.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/paccar"><strong>PACCAR</strong></a><strong>:</strong> A global leader in designing and manufacturing commercial vehicles and delivered to more than 100 countries, PACCAR has employees that frequently travel to suppliers and manufacturing plants around the globe. By deploying SAP Concur solutions in an effort to streamline the employee experience around travel and expense, the organization saw a reduction in costs, improved compliance and mitigated risks. With a single automated solution for booking travel and managing expenses, PACCAR identified $100K in potential annual savings and reduced leakage. The organization gained the visibility it needed into spend data and employees experienced an improved travel and expense process.</p>
<p>“We have utilized the tool to promote our preferred suppliers and have been able to realize over $20,000 in savings with just one supplier,” explains Nari Narvani, Global Travel, Expense and Corporate Card manager at PACCAR. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/vmware"><strong>VMware</strong></a><strong>:</strong> A global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology, VMware accelerates digital transformation for evolving IT environments, helps organizations transform into digital businesses, deliver better experiences for both customers and employees, and unlock new possibilities that transform the world. VMware previously had a process that was challenging for end-users, and the entire process was cumbersome and error-prone. With SAP Concur solutions, the organization and its employees found its new process intuitive and easy to use.</p>
<p>“Our mission is to deliver solutions to our business partners that transform, scale, or grow the business [through] process re-engineering and automation,” shares Reema Mukherjee, Director, Business Transformation and Automation. “SAP Concur helps us achieve our goals by allowing us to scale our organization and improve productivity as our employee population keeps growing. We are delivering quick, easy, and fully auditable T&E functionality to our employees.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We look forward to reading all of the innovative ways in which our customers are utilizing SAP Concur solutions to drive your purposeful businesses forward! Please visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">SAP Concur Innovation Awards website</a> to learn more about the Innovation Awards and to submit a nomination form.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Six Ways for Enterprises to Close Spend Loopholes with Tech
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-ways-enterprises-close-spend-loopholes-tech
2020-09-23T17:32:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Your organization is likely doing everything it can to increase sales find new customers and drive new revenue streams However you might be surprised to learn how much you lose due to...
<p>Your organization is likely doing everything it can to increase sales, find new customers, and drive new revenue streams. However, you might be surprised to learn how much you lose due to non-compliant expenses:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>56% of organizations</strong> generally <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content" target="_blank">reimburse employees</a> for out-of-policy spend</li>
<li><strong>52% of travel bookings</strong> are made <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/making-invisible-travel-bookings-visible" target="_blank">outside of corporate channels</a> by employees for hotel and air combined</li>
<li><strong>$19 billion of spend</strong> labeled as “other” in 2019 by SAP Concur customers</li>
<li><strong>20% of companies</strong> say they <a href="https://www.finance-monthly.com/2018/02/companies-lose-20-billion-in-unrecovered-vat-globally/" target="_blank">cannot recover VAT</a> due to complex and burdensome procedures</li>
</ul>
<p>The financial health of your enterprise comes down to two things: income and expenses. And with employee spend being the second largest cost next to payroll, technology is helping businesses accelerate how to control costs. This is fortunate as many back-offices are overwhelmed trying to stay on track of the thousands of transactions that could pose as mistakes, noncompliant spending, or fraud.</p>
<p>Employee spend can be difficult to track because:</p>
<ul>
<li>Suppliers have direct relationships with employees</li>
<li>There are countless ways to book and buy travel</li>
<li>Employees won’t wait for a formal process to buy what they need</li>
<li>COVID-19 and remote work expenses fall outside of policy</li>
</ul>
<p>As the adage goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. The more you can reduce non-compliant spend, the less financial pressure your enterprise will face when it comes to meeting your earnings, profit, and operating cash goals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Facing the facts of fraud during economic uncertainty</h2>
<p>While fraud is preventable, actually preventing it is still a challenge for many enterprises. <a href="https://www.acfe.com/uploadedFiles/ACFE_Website/Content/documents/occupational-fraud.pdf" target="_blank">According to the ACFE</a>, during the 2008 economic recession, more than half (55.4%) of the companies surveyed said that fraud slightly or significantly increased, compared with the level of fraud they experienced in prior years.</p>
<p>The current economic situation is also considered a recession. Therefore, the potential for fraud may be worsening, just as it did in 2008. In a <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2020/" target="_blank">2020 survey</a>, 42% of people who had committed occupational fraud recently were living beyond their means; the ACFE also found that about one-quarter of them (26%) were experiencing financial difficulties.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get the reports and automated tools to close risky loopholes</h2>
<p>Make fraud less tempting while guiding employees to make the right spending decisions and stay within policy. Your SAP Concur solutions provide you with the data to increase controls and compliance. Learn how to pull reports and automate controls by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/6-ways-to-close-spend-loopholes-with-tech" target="_blank"><strong>downloading our eBook</strong></a>.</p>
<p>And, uncover where in your business you could <a href="http://view.ceros.com/g3-communications/concur-spend-map/p/1" target="_blank"><strong>potentially find hidden savings</strong></a>.</p>
Kyla Kent
New Ideas Will Emerge from Challenging Times: Our Predictions for 2021
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-ideas-will-emerge-challenging-times-our-predictions-2021
2020-11-24T14:23:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
After a difficult SAP Concur leaders are optimistic that the coming year will be one of innovation recovery and renewal While is unlikely to look like any recent year in history it...
<div id="new-year-predictions">
<p>After a difficult 2020, SAP Concur leaders are optimistic that the coming year will be one of innovation, recovery, and renewal. While 2021 is unlikely to look like any recent year in history, it may be remembered as one in which life slowly began to return to normal after one of the worst pandemics of the modern age.</p>
<p>In 2021, the global community will continue to see significant changes in nearly every sector. Here, our global team of experts once again shares perspectives and predictions for the new year. Some remind us that out of challenging times often come new ideas that can benefit the world well into the future.</p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281090-airplane.svg" />Business travel will resume, responsibly</h2>
<p><strong>2021 will usher in the era of responsible travel</strong>. A coalition of players across the industry will increase work to regain the trust of customers, showing that travel can indeed be safe. They will begin to restart business travel in earnest in 2021. Those who must travel—members of the C-suite, salespeople, and essential workers—will remain as early adopters. Travel providers, including hotels, airlines, rail providers, ridesharing, and car rental services, may require travelers to disclose their COVID-19 health status until a vaccine is available and widely adopted. This could range from COVID-19 or antibody test results, including rapid testing right at the gate or rental car pick-up, to proof of vaccination once it is broadly available. Some businesses outside of the travel sector are already <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/11/12/ticketmaster-coronavirus-tests-vaccinations-billboard/6265349002/" target="_blank">considering such policies</a>. Mid-to-late in the year, the experiences of early adopters, measured by low infection rates, will then influence the broader base of travelers.</p>
<p><strong>Businesses will raise the bar on health precautions</strong>. As border policies change with the rise and fall of regional COVID-19 case numbers, companies will require employees to comply with government guidelines, such as quarantine requirements before and after trips. More mainstream mask requirements are also a possibility, with travelers proving compliance through documentation throughout the trip that they have complied with mask mandates. These protocols will address what an SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/global-survey-covid-19-impact-business-travel">study</a> identified as global employees’ top concerns: infecting their families (55%) and getting sick themselves (53%) during a business trip. With travelers able to practice the health and safety habits they’ve adopted in their daily lives, business travel will feel more feasible.</p>
<p><strong>Sustainability will be the table stakes.</strong> Health and safety isn’t the only form of responsible travel that will lure travelers back. New environmental research compels companies to use the temporary pause in travel to add new environmentally sustainable practices to their corporate travel programs. For example, Microsoft’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21527695/microsoft-greenhouse-gas-emissions-pollution-business-travel-aviation" target="_blank">purchase</a> of sustainable aviation fuel to reduce pollution from commercial flights most frequented by its employees. These efforts will inspire the 69% of travelers who rank sustainability as important to them feel more comfortable and encouraged about returning to travel. </p>
<p>-Mike Koetting, Chief Product Strategy Officer, SAP Concur </p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281474-machine-learning-3.svg" />AI at work will accelerate</h2>
<p><strong>The pace of digital change in business and society will sharply increase.</strong> Many companies were in the early and mid-stages of digital transformation when the pandemic struck. They pivoted and sped up that transformation to address unprecedented global disruption and customer needs, and now they will be expected to continue operating within this new context.</p>
<p><strong>Automation will become essential, not extra.</strong> As businesses maintain hybrid remote-working models and anticipate other potential disruptions in 2021 and beyond, the role of automation and AI use cases in the workplace will grow. These may include enabling efficient day-to-day communications between knowledge workers doing their jobs from home and automating invoicing and expenses to keep valued partners paid and to preserve budgets. We will also see more businesses leaning on AI algorithms to make quick decisions backed by real-time financial transparency in order to meet the business needs brought on by the pandemic. This includes managing spending in near real-time to improve budget management and liquidity, increasing compliance and eliminating errors, and maximizing profitability.</p>
<p>The broader use of AI and ML to add intelligence to applications and eliminate manual processes also gives firms a much-needed competitive boost by improving their productivity. A recent SAP Concur-commissioned <a href="https://www.concur.com.sg/resource-centre/whitepapers/finance-in-the-new-world-of-work" target="_blank">study</a>, for instance, found that as much as 38% of employees in the Asia Pacific region submit expenses manually by filling out a form and enclosing physical receipts. Firms can save tens or even hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars each year − and improve staff satisfaction − by automating their finance and administration processes.</p>
<p>-Andy Watson, SVP & General Manager for Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China, SAP Concur</p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" />Diversity, equity, and inclusion progress will take a village</h2>
<p><strong>It’s been a whirlwind for workplace culture in 2020. </strong>The pandemic has led to a <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/confronting-mental-health/" target="_blank">decline</a> in employees’ mental health and increased worldwide unemployment—including a great number of women <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/02/919517914/enough-already-multiple-demands-causing-women-to-abandon-workforce">leaving</a> the workforce. The U.S. has also grappled with restrictions to diversity training. These circumstances have set back companies’ D,E&I efforts, creating more unease for employees.</p>
<p><strong>2021 will bring a new wave of policy makeovers beyond HR. </strong>More representatives across the organization will get involved. Finance leaders will do their part to inform the business case for diverse hires and avoid the financial repercussions of turnover, which was an <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190925005201/en/Report-Toxic-Workplace-Cultures-Cost-Billions" target="_blank">estimated</a> $223 billion in 2019. These companywide cultural shifts will also include travel departments that are under more pressure than ever to ensure the health and safety of traveling employees—for good reason. SAP Concur research identified safety and harassment issues for <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/a-new-survey-reveals-hidden-threats-to-certain-high-risk-business">women and LGBTQ travelers</a>, and the potential for <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/global-survey-covid-19-impact-business-travel">travelers of Asian descent</a> to face discrimination as business travel resumes. We can expect some legacy travel policies, like prioritizing lowest logical fares, will shift to address more safety and employee-centric measures in 2021 and beyond.</p>
<p>-Amy Padgett, Sr. Director, Product Strategy Communications, SAP Concur </p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281100-earth.svg" />Consumer travel will look different</h2>
<p><strong>Longer stays are here to stay. </strong>From changing quarantine policies to a newly expanded meaning of WFvH (work from vacation home, anyone?), quick trips are no longer accessible to consumer travelers in the way they were pre-COVID. TripIt data show an <a href="https://tripit.com/web/vacation-home-for-the-holidays/" target="_blank">increase in trip duration</a>—spanning flight, lodging, and car rentals— indicating that travelers are planning trips with intention. And without the physical confines of work or school, longer stays at short-term rentals will continue to be a popular choice for business and leisure travelers alike.</p>
<p><strong>Sustainable sustainability.</strong> The pandemic has effectively hit the pause button on emissions, which are projected to be eight percent less in 2020 than they were in 2019. Travelers are increasingly demanding any recovery in travel to be rebuilt sustainably, from more effective seating layouts to low-carbon <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/clean-skies-for-tomorrow-sustainable-aviation-fuels-as-a-pathway-to-net-zero-aviation" target="_blank">sustainable aviation fuel</a>. In 2021, look for consumer travelers to spend more time at their destinations; utilize <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/documents-feature-in-tripit.html" target="_blank">paperless boarding pass and itinerary solutions</a>; dine at restaurants that offer locally sourced food; and stay in hotels that are more eco-friendly, boasting everything from refillable toiletries to water conservation as an amenity. Expect consumers to increasingly look for solutions that track and offset emissions easily.</p>
<p><strong>Digital health passports and travel corridors will become mainstream. </strong>Travel corridors will become more prevalent in 2021, especially in the spring. Vaccines are coming, which will increase traveler, travel supplier, and government confidence globally, although it is unclear how long disbursement will take and it is likely there will be global inequities in the speed in which the vaccine is rolled out. Traveling from highly vaccinated countries to less-vaccinated countries could therefore be problematic. Rapid testing is expected to become more accurate and prevalent, allowing travel and the hospitality industry to continue to reopen. Digital health passports, displaying a traveler’s vaccine or negative test status, along with travel corridors, will emerge as we transition to a new normal in global travel. </p>
<p>-Fiona Ashley, VP Product & Solution Marketing, SAP Concur</p>
<h2 class="section-header"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281283-briefcase.svg" />Small businesses will seize the moment</h2>
<p><strong>With U.S. federal financial relief in flux, small businesses will keep chipping away at the costs of doing business. </strong>The distribution of vaccines cannot come soon enough, as many small to mid-sized businesses are fighting to survive the economic effects of the pandemic. Continued trimming of operational costs and limiting non-essential spend will help. But barring access to a vaccine, unfortunately, it won’t be enough for some. Others will get some breathing room and many of them will have something in common: the ability to create and support demand underpinned by <a href="https://www.ggvc.com/insights/hello-alice-x-ggv-impact-report-what-covid-19-means-for-small-business-in-2021/" target="_blank">investments</a> in cost-saving, business-enabling technology solutions. These solutions will automate and digitize processes that are essential to running their businesses under tightened budgets. Leaders will also explore renegotiating terms on their loans and recurring payments to preserve cash, especially at the start of the year. Small businesses will also be on the hunt for vendors and partners that can withstand economic uncertainty and extend value beyond their traditional services, such as lower-interest credit card offers from their preferred banking institution. These steps will help small businesses minimize cash flow disruption as they manage lingering uncertainty in the market. That said, governments and large enterprises may still step up to support SMBs, as economies depend on small businesses for jobs and economic activity.</p>
<p><strong>New ventures, and ways of doing business, will mix things up in the marketplace.</strong> Many small businesses have permanently shuttered due to the economic fallout of COVID-19. At the same time, the pandemic has created a new context for commerce—gaps in the marketplace have created opportunities for new business. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BUSAPPWNSAUSYY" target="_blank">Spikes</a> in new business applications indicate more entrepreneurs will explore microservices and “side hustles” to meet emerging product and service demands. As new companies enter the fold, their leaders will leverage digital solutions and hybrid business models to fast-track growth and resiliency in a disrupted market. We will see more small businesses embrace digital commerce, changing the point of sale and/or moving from physical to online sales completely or in part. This will create new options for people to “shop locally” to support small businesses and enable small businesses to fill gaps in crucial supply chains.</p>
<p>-Val Blatt, General Manager, Global Small to Medium-sized Business Division, SAP Concur</p>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
How to Prevent Unused Ticket Headaches Moving Forward
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-prevent-unused-ticket-headaches-moving-forward
2021-01-04T11:55:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Among the thorniest challenges for organizations as a result of COVID is how to deal with all those unused tickets due to canceled travel plans As organizations struggle to track and...
<p>Among the thorniest challenges for organizations as a result of COVID-19 is how to deal with all those unused tickets due to canceled travel plans. As organizations struggle to track and identify this unprecedented volume of unused tickets, many are discovering hidden problems within their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">travel policies</a> and processes.</p>
<p>In pre-pandemic times, dealing with unused tickets due to a canceled conference or sick traveler was generally a rare occurrence and a slight headache. But contending with hundreds or even thousands of unused tickets is a major undertaking when you have only partial travel mandates or no mandates at all. Among the hurdles you may be facing are these:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Identifying all unused travel purchases.</strong> This presents a major challenge without the use of a mandated travel management company (TMC). A corporate card program can ease the burden somewhat by enabling you to track tickets purchased with cards. But if you do not have a mandated TMC or corporate card program, tracking and identifying tickets is a painstakingly manual process.</li>
<li><strong>Dealing with multiple TMCs.</strong> Organizations with multiple TMCs must identify which one purchased each ticket, and work with that TMC to recoup the funds or track credits. The more TMCs your employees use, the more complex the ticket exchange or refund process will be.</li>
<li><strong>Determining allocation of funds.</strong> How should you cross-charge and handle budget transfers between departments? Should refunds or credits go to specific departments or to a general fund? What if the employee has already been reimbursed for the ticket? Without visibility into organization-wide travel purchases, gathering the information to make these decisions can be time-consuming, manual, and tedious.</li>
</ul>
<p>As you seek to minimize risk and financial implications in the future, the management of unused tickets, waivers, name changes, and similar issues is likely to be an ongoing concern. How can you avoid this nightmare scenario going forward?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4 best practices for dealing with unused tickets</h2>
<p>We asked SAP® Concur® customers how they are tackling this problem and have identified four best practices you can use to mitigate unused ticket headaches.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Consider using air contracts with commonly used carriers.</strong> In addition to benefits such as discounts, seat access waivers, and name changes, working with a contracted airline gives you more flexibility in sorting out unused tickets. Airlines can consolidate unused tickets on a UATP card, which can then be used by anyone at your organization in the future.</li>
<li><strong>Mandate the use of TMCs.</strong> The pandemic has proven that a TMC’s value goes far beyond booking travel. When travel is booked through a TMC, you can count on their assistance to identify unused tickets and facilitate refunds or credits. Use reports available from your TMC to see how many tickets went unused and what percentage of those costs was recouped.</li>
<li><strong>Consolidate your TMCs.</strong> You’ll gain more control and visibility into travel spend by using a single TMC for all of your bookings. Importing those bookings into Concur® Travel maximizes the benefit of a managed travel program by gathering all your organization’s travel data in one place. When you can easily access travel details and spend information, it’s easier to deal with unused tickets. When multiple TMCs are issuing tickets to your organization, those tickets belong to the respective agency that issued them and therefore it makes the consolidation effort extremely tricky.</li>
<li><strong>Implement a corporate card policy.</strong> If mandating the use of a TMC isn’t feasible given your organizational culture, it may be worthwhile to mandate or more strongly encourage the use of <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/corporate-card-p-cards-gain-visibility-control-employee-spend">purchasing cards or corporate cards</a>. By putting all travel transactions on cards, you can better track travel spend – and track down unused tickets so you can recoup the cost. In addition, when any refund occurs, you know the credit goes back to the organization, rather than the employees’ personal card.</li>
</ol>
<p>When every ticket is purchased according to these best practices – in your preferred channels and with your preferred relationships – you can more easily use your aggregated travel data to take control of unused tickets.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taking tickets off your plate</h2>
<p>Organizations across the spectrum – from small businesses and large enterprises to higher education and public institutions – are grappling with unprecedented challenges and doing it all with reduced resources and new budget constraints. The time and effort required to track down and recoup unused tickets puts even more burdens on overloaded staff. Make the most of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">SAP Concur solutions</a> that put all of your travel data in one place to help ease the workload.</p>
Jason Grunin
Thought Leaders in T&E Recommend Top Reads to Set You on a Prosperous Journey for 2021
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/thought-leaders-te-recommend-top-reads-set-you-prosperous-journey-2021
2021-02-03T08:28:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sometimes a good book or podcast is just what you need to unwind or get inspired One of the best ways to reset our minds is to gain perspectives from others so our team set out and...
<p>Sometimes a good book or podcast is just what you need to unwind or get inspired!</p>
<p>One of the best ways to reset our minds is to gain perspectives from others; so our team set out and asked some of our top T&E thought leaders what recommended reads helped them become better leaders, find career inspiration, or manage the many personal life changes we all experienced in 2020.</p>
<p>Here are the recommended reads for 2021:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman</p>
<p>Recommended by Jim Kile, CIO Leader of Travel and Mobility, IBM</p>
<p>"This book relies on a Gallup study of more than 80,000 managers to identify what great managers do differently. The three concepts that struck me (because I wanted to be managed in this way) was that great managers: focus on strengths while working around weaknesses; recognize the importance of alternate career paths; define the right outcome and not the right steps. Nevertheless, the critical item that sunk into my psyche was to break the 'Golden Rule' by not treating your employees according to what you desire and need. Instead, manage them with their preferences in mind."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>2. Mind Hacking by Sir John Hargrave</p>
<p>Recommended by Bhart Sarin, Director of Procurement Operations, Corporate and North America, Ingredion Incorporated</p>
<p>“This book specifically targets many of the imbalances brought on by the pandemic.</p>
<p>Mind Hacking is a literal step-by-step guide to create positive loops in your thinking, thereby replacing the negative loops that have taken hold. I’ve read and followed the exercise plans in the book, and it has served me well in this most surreal year.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>3. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch</p>
<p>Recommended by Tami S. Novotny, Global Travel & Expense Manager, The Sherwin-Williams Company</p>
<p>“This book is about the importance of overcoming obstacles, enabling dreams of others, and seizing every moment. It is an incredibly moving story that has one reviewing their own history as they read the author’s story of his last lecture after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. I thought it was a fitting book to read in 2020 with the world turning upside down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This book truly makes you appreciate the time you have and how you can make an impact on those around you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to see the next 12, along with the top podcasts recommended? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/top-books-podcasts-thought-leaders-in-travel-and-expense-management-love">Download the full list.</a> </p>
Erin Giordano
The Need for Speed in County Financial Operations
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/need-speed-county-financial-operations
2021-03-29T09:44:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Accuracy and risk mitigation have long been the primary focus of finance operations but its time to expand that horizon County finance leaders can no longer afford to ignore...
<p>Accuracy and risk mitigation have long been the primary focus of finance operations, but it’s time to expand that horizon. County finance leaders can no longer afford to ignore inefficiencies around invoices and employee discretionary spend that are draining productivity in their organizations. Working in the finance department of a state or local government has always meant working under pressure. But now, when many are working from home, those pressures are greater than ever. Simply reducing a step here or automating a process there won’t deliver the far-reaching optimization that organizations need to succeed today. It’s no longer an issue that county finance leaders can table until later.</p>
<p>COVID-19 has driven down funding sources while the demand for services is climbing. Your constituents need digital support as they sort through this new and disrupted reality – yet the income and sales tax revenues which fuel that support are declining at unheard of rates. The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/24/how-much-is-covid-19-hurting-state-and-local-revenues/" target="_blank">Brookings Institute</a> projects that state and local income tax revenues will show a decline of 4.7% in 2020, or $22 billion, 7.5% in 2021, or $37 billion, and 7.7% in 2022, or $40 billion.</p>
<p>While finding a way to do more with less has always been top-of-mind, the events of 2020 have brought this need even more into focus. Rapid-fire, stay-at-home orders sent organizations scrambling to keep the operation going, suppliers paid, and customers, students, and patients served with a newly remote workforce. It quickly became clear that one manual process or a seemingly small inefficiency could have a significant impact on the organization’s ability to pivot and adapt. So there you have it: Less money, fewer people and, just because it’s government – greater scrutiny. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Digital revolution: Cloud-based management for government operations</h2>
<p>Automate. Integrate. And digitize. These are significant concepts, yet with the right tools, they’re relatively simple to put to work. According to a <a href="https://www.paymentsjournal.com/paper-is-the-enemy-of-on-time-payment/" target="_blank">Billentis Market Report</a> for e-invoicing, seventy percent of all invoice processing globally is still paper-based. Those cumbersome processes not only make the employee spend management inefficient, but also hamper the AP department’s ability to add strategic value to the organization. By <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">implementing cloud-based invoice management software</a>, organizations can decrease the time spent processing an invoice by 75%. At the same time, these tools enable the organization to pay vendors 13% faster and increase AP staff efficiency by 45% – all while gaining access to the comprehensive data needed to negotiate terms and pricing with suppliers.</p>
<p>Revolutionize your county’s digital process with these four steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Integrate credit card and purchasing card feeds</li>
<li>Automate receipt and invoice capture and categorization</li>
<li>Automate payments and reimbursements to suppliers and employees</li>
<li>Monitor progress and adjust along the way</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>The road to recovery: Automation equips your county with efficiency</h2>
<p>Investing in digital expense and invoice processes isn’t something you have to do, but as state and local governments face a changing and challenging future, it’s the best way to gain the adaptability it takes to manage those changes. Organizations that take the steps to actively improve invoice and employee spend processes will reduce costs, decrease errors, and speed up processing throughout. This will, in turn, increase agility and provide the visibility to better govern how each dollar is spent. That’s a strategic advantage that both offers immediate value and equips your county with the efficiency and intelligence it needs to steward resources for years to come.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Resources to Leverage</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/increasing-efficiency-and-productivity-for-financial-operations" target="_blank">Read about increasing efficiency and productivity</a> with SAP Concur for your county’s financial operations in our whitepaper today.</p>
<p>To learn more about how to optimize county financial operations, visit SAP Concur partner page at the <a href="https://www.naco.org/sponsor/sap-concur-0" target="_blank">National Association of Counties</a>.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
From Mind-Numbing to Value-Add: AP Automation Evolved and Explored with Deloitte
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/mind-numbing-value-add-ap-automation-evolved-and-explored-deloitte
2022-02-12T07:57:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The great leap of evolution towards a digitized infrastructure sparked by COVID is picking up speed Ryan Hamilton of the SAP Concur Value Experience Group had the opportunity to...
<p>The “great leap of evolution” towards a digitized infrastructure sparked by COVID-19 is picking up speed. Ryan Hamilton, of the SAP Concur Value Experience Group, had the opportunity to interview Oren Geshuri of Deloitte on the current state and future evolution of AP automation on our podcast, <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank">SAP Concur Conversations</a>. Read through the dialogue below, check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs-through-ap">blog post</a> or enjoy listening to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs/id1525744763?i=1000508166687" target="_blank">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/better-forever-freeing-0xon1LFZOBR/" target="_blank">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank">Acast</a> or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Let's go ahead and kick things off. My name is Ryan Hamilton. I'm a Value Consultant with SAP Concur. I would love to have my co-host introduce himself as well. Oren?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, my name is Oren Geshuri. I am with Deloitte.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do with Deloitte?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I am what's known as a Specialist Master, but essentially I am a consultant in the spend management P2P, T&E spaces, helping clients transform their environments to modernize their processes around traveling expense management and around procure-to-pay processes.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent. Like I mentioned, I'm a Value Consultant here at SAP Concur. Our team works with both prospective clients and existing clients to really quantify opportunities for creating value, whether that's through improving spend governance, improving compliance, or optimizing spend programs around vendor controls and other discretionary spend controls. So, looking forward to pooling our expertise here today as we talk about AP automation, particularly through the lens of the employee experience and through the lens of organizational spend governance.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>A lot of juicy stuff to talk about there.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. I guess as a jumping off point here, we use those two lenses a lot here at SAP Concur, but Oren, having just heard me say those, what does that mean to you, particularly as it relates to AP automation? So, let's start with employee experience. When you hear that, what comes to mind?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>So, the first thing that people forget about in an AP process is that there are people that are core to it. AP is generally speaking one of the least, and I say this with a little bit of tongue in cheek, but one of the least strategic areas traditionally in an organization. It's people who are taking what is generally, or has generally been a paper process, and they're paying checks, they're cutting the checks or if we're lucky, the wire transfers or the ACHs, and that is a process that has been basically the same for decades and decades, if not centuries.</p>
<p><br />
And in the past 20 years, this whole new world of AP automation has revived that area and has given a lot of ability to automate those processes to get that sort of paper out of the desk and allow that what was originally an AP manager or an AP clerk, maybe give them a little bit more opportunity to spread their wings and become a little more strategic in their roles. So, we're taking these people who were traditionally a very focused, routine-based person and empowering them to become more intelligent about the way they're doing business.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>So, is it fair to summarize your view of employee experience as really maximizing or at least optimizing the ability for someone in an AP role to contribute beyond just the tactical day-to-day process execution?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Right, the tactical aspect of paying a bill is what sort of drags the process down. So, we have these people who they come into work and they start with a big pile of paper and maybe that pile of paper reduces during the day, but then more paper is added to that pile. Now, that might be digital paper where it's PDFs and some types of imaging that's going through an inbox rather than through a physical inbox, but that has been the approach. And, those people are not given generally the ability to discriminate, to add value to those transactions. Do we pay for certain things strategically so we can get the best benefit of dynamic discounting? Or, maybe we can get a discount by paying it in a certain window. A lot of times it's basically a reactionary type of endeavor where they're just processing things in the order that they're given because people are screaming the loudest.</p>
<p><br />
Remember, these people are also the people who end up picking up a phone and speaking to a vendor who have the 1-800 number for AP wherever it is, shared service or some group of people in an office. And, they ended up getting yelled at by vendors just because they are not getting paid yet. So, they have become... The two things that they're doing all the time is processing paper and doing therapy over the phone for the people who are calling them. Do you know what I mean? So, these things are not incredibly value add tasks, and it shows on how those employees go about their day-to-day.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>So, I want to come back to that in a second, but I also think you've made a great point that transitions into the second lens that we want to look at this through, which is spend governance. The second that that vendor calls our AP person and is apparently yelling at them, that's where we sort of transition from the ability for an individual to contribute value to the entire organization's ability to generate value because obviously, the supply chain and the continuity of that supply chain is key to value generation. So, when we talk about spend governance, it seems like it's fair to say that very quickly, we transition into overall how an organization manages its money and ensures that that value chain stays cycling. So, can you talk a little bit about how you see spend governance around AP automation or AP in general?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>The more insight that an organization has to the inner workings or the tactical workings of any P2P process, an AP automation process, they have better information, so they can better assess their cash positions, how they're managing their credit relationships with their creditors, how they're managing their relationships with their suppliers. The bottom line is when you take this behemoth of manual process and you strip it down to its core parts, and then you automate it now, and let's just make the point that the last thing you want to do is to automate poor processes.</p>
<p><br />
You want to re-engineer or optimize the process before you automate it, that's key. But once you've optimized that process and then automated it, then you now have metrical data that can help you target the areas that you as an organization need to focus on. Are we cash rich? Are we having a problem with our credit ratings? How do our suppliers treat us or how do we treat our suppliers more likely? So, the ability to kind of zoom in on specific steps is super important, and you can't do that until you're able to measure them. You can't measure one person moving an invoice from the to pay pile over to the paid pile. It's not as easy.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>That's absolutely fair. So, you had mentioned earlier when we were talking about the employee experience that it was really one individual's ability to add value to that transactional step of processing an invoice. Is it fair to say then, in your experience, you've seen as organizations become more automated that it's the individuals who are taking over the creation of the metrics you were just talking about, and the process changes to then optimize those metrics?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>So, the individuals have to obviously be contributors for any success in this area. It comes down to let's strip the process down, like I said earlier, to the component parts and how the individual helps enable the optimization of that process. Then as processes merge, you can do centers of excellence or shared service centers where people instead of having one person focus on every end to end task, you can have people specialize, or you can even go the other way. If people are already too specializing, let them to generalize. You can create people who know soup to nuts, the entire end-to-end process, and can be experts on every aspect of that.</p>
<p><br />
So, you've taken what was the mind-numbing solo sort of performance of payments, and you've made it now a team collaborative effort on how do we best create sort of means or ways to give the best possible value for that type of process. And, that value chain goes all the way up to the finance folks who are looking down and seeing, okay, well here are all my areas for improvement, and now I can put some measurements to that. So, it's one of those things where it takes a village. You have multiple people who are helping consolidate the process, multiple people who are becoming that center of excellence, but those individuals are still the ones driving the train.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely, so we have started the conversation by talking a lot about what is theoretically possible and what we've seen across a wide array of organizations that we both worked with. I'd love to talk a little bit more about sort of specifically what happens to the employee experience into spend governance as someone moves through automation and why that's valuable. And to address the elephant in the room, I think COVID, and the related impact to business operations has provided a great foil for understanding what that impact is. We really transitioned from what value could I potentially derive by investing in what might be considered a cutting edge, changed my process by automating. We've really transitioned from that mindset during the COVID crisis to, what am I going to lose out on, or what can't I do if I don't have a best in class, or at least a cutting edge automated product? So, I guess a good starting point would be, do you think that's a fair statement? What do you see as the day-to-day impact of COVID on a non-automated process versus an automated process?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, COVID was the litmus test for the survivability of an organization, which isn't to say that organizations that had a lot of troubles aren't going to survive. It's just how well equipped were they? There were basically two broad categories of an organization. You had the organization who already walked down the path of automation. They already had digital workflows and they had more cloud-type services. Those guys could pretty much just the next day start up working from home as long as they dealt with any VPN or working from home issues, or maybe the fact that a lot of those places didn't issue laptops. That's a big problem right there, but nonetheless, those people pretty much just walked right into a sustainable type of process. The people that I kind of felt bad for were the people who either had not even looked at AP automation or maybe had it on their map downstream, and hadn't yet gotten to it.</p>
<p><br />
These are the people who they still come to work or prior to COVID came to work to a big pile of paper on their desk. You can't take all that paper home. Obviously, you're not going to have all the different AP clerks or AP tactical folks getting big batches of paper, invoices, to their houses. You had to come up with a process really quick to figure that out. So, to figure out how to distribute the work without sending Iron Mountain boxes to people's houses every day. Well, those people had to adapt quickly by figuring out a quick way to digitize - digitize at least the image. So, image capture became a huge sort of boon for those people who had to switch to a work from home situation. The thing about COVID is, for those people who always thought, 'ah, we can deal with automation downstream,' well downstream is here.</p>
<p><br />
If you have not used COVID as the sort of the spark to move towards a more digitized infrastructure, then you will probably not be around in another few years. This was the great leap of evolution. Let's go back to our Darwin, there's obviously cycles or slow cycles of evolution, but every once in a while, there's a triggering event that causes a great leap. The fish suddenly starts walking on land, that kind of thing. Well, we're at that crux right now where COVID is that spark. It's the meteor that's extincting the dinosaurs. That's what's going on here.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>It's interesting. I was reading a study the other day that said... It was a survey of AP professionals during COVID and about 28% rated that COVID had an extreme or high impact on their AP process. And, what I found interesting was that in a follow-up survey, it was about 28% of people who also said their top challenge in their process was too much paper. So, there's a one-to-one correlation between organizations that had at least taken first steps to get rid of paper and organizations who felt a medium impact or a low impact, that remaining 72% that were less effected. So, I thought it was interesting that there was such a direct correlation between the degree of impact and the amount of automation.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>And, let me throw a little shade on the suppliers too right now. A lot of suppliers still want a paper check. What kind of nonsense is that? If you go to Europe, they laugh at our checks. You have to have more of an ACH or digital payment type of infrastructure. There's so many great digital methods of payment nowadays, your Zelle's, your ACHs, even wire transfers if you want to go old school, but the Cash App, Venmo, whatever you're using, there's pretty much no excuse anymore to continue getting a check. And so, some of that is people who run an AP organization who haven't cleaned up their vendor master in some time and still have antiquated, check remittance address details instead of adding an email address into the vendor master, adding an ACH type of a process. So, there's both sides of that coin that make papers still necessary for the organizations who don't want to move forward to the last decade, not even the modern decade, but to the last decade.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>And, I think that's an important transitionary point. We had one group of organizations that were so preoccupied with ensuring the continuity of their process. They're the ones who if every organization is faced with the same general impact from this crisis, their cash is going to have to be stretched more, they're going to run into supply chain issues. You had one set of organizations where the AP people could come in and all they had on their plate was ensuring continuity, figuring out how to get those Iron Mountain boxes distributed to approvers who were no longer in the office, making sure that that process still ran on the one hand.</p>
<p><br />
On the other hand, you had the group of people who had already looked at automation. So, when I hear you talk about checks, a technology that was invented in the 1720s for all I know, is still being employed in a lot of organizations versus more secure methods, faster methods, methods that offer better cash flow control like ACH, direct transfer, virtual cards, that just reminds me of this second group of organizations were faced with the same set of crises, but having already addressed the continuity of their process, that same group of people then had the time on their hands to go start attacking other opportunities like that.</p>
<p><br />
If cashflow is our problem, how do we make better payment strategies under the same terms? A virtual card probably offers two to three more days of having your own cash in your own account, float. ACH also offers a little float. So without even going to your vendors and changing your terms, optimizing payments can improve your cash position, right?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>You could also then go out to your vendors, start to address payments. If all of your customers are paying you late, it seems reasonable that you should be able to go to your vendors and pay them late as their customer. So, you have one group of AP people who are so absorbed in continuity that they had no opportunity to take these other initiatives. Then, you have this other group of AP people who had already addressed continuity and were able to focus on some of the things that you had had just mentioned. So, outside of payment optimization, where do you see AP automation supporting more strategic crisis management?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, so there's always somebody from AP, an AP manager or a director or whatever who is part of that sort of crisis response committee that's at any corporation and because mostly so they can say, "I have a list of emergency payments that I can issue at a moment's notice." Procurement's in there having that same conversation, but all they're there, again, it's to be reactionary to say an emergency has happened, we need to get payments out the door so we can get PPE or whatever the need is. Well, let's unleash the P2P and the AP folks to say we have an emergency. Cash is going to be tight. We need some of things. So, let's see which of our vendors... Let's run some metrics, let's figure out which of our vendors are going to give us dynamic discounting terms, so we can shave a few cents off of the payments, so we can use that cash for other purposes.</p>
<p><br />
So, you can have a strategic conversation about where you're spending money without withholding money. Do you know what I'm saying? Dynamic discounting is kind of one of the untapped areas that a lot of people are getting into where everybody is familiar with 2% net 10. If I pay it in 10 days, then I get 2% back, but then what about 3% net nine and 4% net eight and blah, blah, blah. You need a means to be able to capture as much as you can and have a vendor or a supplier that will support that kind of thing. And, that's hard to do when you're still bogged down by the pushing of paper.</p>
<p><br />
You need to be able to free yourself from those sort of tactical things, to be able to focus on that strategic piece. I just want to add one thing. I don't know if you guys read the news. I read it in the news last week. So, Japan, which has for centuries... In corporate Japan, you have the managers who have to physically stamp their seal on a payment before it can go out the door. And in COVID times, there was some new legislation being introduced that is rocking the world of corporate management because they want to digitize that. They want to take that complete sort of ceremonial right out of sort of corporate Japan, so they can actually make things more speedy and more digitized. I think if that isn't an indication that COVID is a game changer, I don't know what it is.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>It was interesting, I was talking to someone who was a frontline AP clerk and one of the things they mentioned that you just made me think of was they're sitting there at the beginning of the COVID situation reading about how COVID can exist on mail for up to, I don't know what it was, four days. I'm not a scientist. I don't know if that has changed. I don't know if the science has come somewhere, but I remember that clerk describing to me automation, business continuity, improvement of our processes aside, I'm actually worried about my health having to handle each of these individual invoices and that's employee experience from the other side. What do they see as the value of your organization?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>I was going to say I'm fairly certain there have been zero cases of COVID communication through an email or a PDF.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>I certainly hope so, but the point I wanted to make was that that's one example of what's crossing the minds of an individual contributor, but I think it relates back to a greater point when you think about employee experience, which is as we have a contracting workforce, what are you doing to attract the best talent? If you're an organization thinking about things like how do we take advantage of modern best in class payment solutions? How do we do, or at least track, dynamic discounting? How do we do some of these cutting edge investments or ideological investments at least? You need people who are able to execute on that for you. So, in your experience, how have you seen automation or at least improvement to an AP process relate to the ability to attract and retain talent?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>So, it actually begins at the top of that tower because you need to have somebody who even wants the change before anything could happen. So, I believe that if you have a dynamic leader who is willing to embrace new technologies and move along the path to automation, the talent will come. So, I think the first goal is to get somebody in position who will drive that ship to success. Then, in terms of attracting the talent, there are a lot of ways to, to communicate the sort of desire to use the technology for good instead of evil.</p>
<p><br />
There's ways to ask the group of people, the candidates, the potential heroes, ask them to engage, ask them to participate in the strategic mindset rather than come in with the, I shall say, old school AP approach of how do I tactically move this paper from point A to point B. It is a mindset that is required that is going to make this a success. You've got to change. You've got to shake the cobwebs off of the old process, off of the old dusty AP way of thinking and embrace the new.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Do you think it's fair to say it's an AP way of thinking versus what AP has had time to do? If you go back 50 years before automation was on the table, it didn't matter what ideas you had in your head if you had to spend 60 hours a week making sure your business was simply able to continue its value cycle, right?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly, the conventional wisdom is that particular wisdom because that was the convention. The people in AP were going into it with this is the job of an AP person. It is a tactical career path and traditionally left little time for strategic thinking, but that is changing, that has changed. And, it is our goal here to completely eschew the old way of thinking and embrace the technological approach that frees everyone up to pursue the strategic path.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>You used the analogy earlier of the great leap forward, right?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>I always like the saying necessity is the mother of invention. So, the crisis that we've all gone through, everyone is I'm sure tired of talking about COVID this and COVID that, but the reality from an AP perspective that nothing you or we have talked about is limited in its value to just being a crisis response. Improving your payment methods, improving your payment terms, improving your AP team's ability to inform strategic decisions and metrics across a wide array of business, none of that is only useful during COVID. All of that is useful in perpetuity. So, as we talked about those two groups of organizations, the one group where they spent the brunt of COVID simply trying to figure out continuity, and the other that responded to that same set of crises, but already had continuity in place, which was able to spend their time on improving all of these metrics.</p>
<p><br />
When you emerge from this crisis, that delineation still exists. You have one organization or one set of organizations that's now better off from a continuity perspective. You have this other group that's gone in and permanently changed the way they operate for all of these other metrics. So, that improvement isn't just limited to the scope of COVID. Now you have these organizations that are permanently in a better place. So, I guess the question would be, do you see that in practice now? Do you see that those advantages are going to be permanent? And then as a follow-up to that, in your experience, what can you personally, in the work that you do, how do you help organizations sort of get into group B and stay into group B?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>I just happen to think that even once we all get herd immunity and the vaccines are distributed in whatever format that happens, COVID is kind of here to stay. Our lives, our entire sort of existences have kind of been irrevocably changed, but I think ultimately for the better. This is one of those, again, periods where it's a paradigm shift in societals, in corporate norms that are only going to make the people come out better for it, that they've had to adapt, but that push kind of has set people up for hopefully future success. Now, there are going to be a few organizations who once COVID is kind of gone, or at least at sunset for the time being, they're going to say, "Okay, phew, we can get back to normal." Well, to those people I say, really rethink that line of thinking because things will never be the same normal you had before.</p>
<p><br />
This is the perfect opportunity for you to change, and I'm seeing that with a lot of my clients. The people that I work with, the biggest shock of COVID wasn't can I check my email or look at a PDF at home? It was, I am now stuck at home and I have to take care of my kids. Luckily, I don't have any, but my pets are yapping in the background and the gardener is outside and I no longer have the community around the water cooler with the people I work with, et cetera, et cetera. It was that personality or the social contact change that was the most egregious for them.</p>
<p><br />
The work changes, the technology changes, everyone realizes this is the better way to work. The work from home world, aside from all of the distractions, shows us that we have the technology and we can succeed. How many companies before COVID never wanted to let people work from home? There were organizations that simply did not allow it. Well, sorry. The train left the station. It's over. You can't do that anymore and people are adapting to that. It is the perfect opportunity in this past year. 2021, we'll see, but 2020 was the perfect time for companies to gut whatever process they had, build some new, exciting, streamlined processes and get the technology in there to support them. That's what 2020 was about.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>So, I want to play devil's advocate here to really elucidate the point, but if I'm one of those organizations that's thinking, phew, once this crisis is over, I get my vaccine. I can go back to normal. What I'm probably also thinking is automation is a costly tool. It's something we had to do to enable our employees to work from home. But, improving that quote, unquote employee experience, or I guess the employee happiness during this crisis was a temporary cost that we don't want to bear anymore. Now, obviously you and I doing the work that we do, neither of us would agree with that perspective. But, I would love to hear from you sort of a direct challenge and where, in a short summary, where you would find the value to say, no, this is something that's permanently putting your business ahead. It was not a temporary thing you had to do to make due.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>It's something that happened even before COVID. When we would come in to do finance transformation with an organization, a lot of times I would sit with the key leadership, whether it's the CFO, the COO, whoever it is, and in that first introductory meeting, I'm sitting around this boardroom table and he looks across at me and says, "So, how are you going to save me money?" And, I always challenged them right at the table and say, "All due respect, that is the wrong question to ask. The better question is, how can we obtain or how can you deliver the best overall value?" And, that is throughout all work streams, throughout all technologies, targeting sort of the fat, streamlining, and allowing people to be more strategic about their jobs. It is about people moving away from tactical things, allowing the technology, RPA, machine learning, artificial intelligence, all the buzzwords you've heard, and I'll throw in Blockchain just for the heck of it, why not?</p>
<p><br />
All of the buzz words that you've heard for the past several years, applying them, using them, letting it free your people to do their best jobs. That's what delivering value is about. It is taking the chaff from the wheat, it is trimming the fat from that Kobe steak, it is giving people an opportunity to shine in the position that you have empowered them with. This is my opinion now, any good leader wants everyone in their organization to also be good leaders. And, you can't do that if you're mired in tactical, day-to-day junk. So, free them from the junk.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>I could not agree more strongly. Although I have to say, if you're trimming the fat from the Kobe steak, you are definitely doing something wrong.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Well, that's true. I should have said the T-bone or something like that, but yeah. A nice marbled Kobe, yes, you're right.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Fair enough, so that's really every question that I had wanted to ask you. In summary, I think we talked about this through two or three different lenses. There was a crisis, and it would be silly to ignore that elephant in the room, but I think really what we landed on was that as you look at this crisis, it gave an organization... It feels wrong to say the opportunity, it forced organizations to act on a set of value levers that was already there. When we talk about moving beyond tactical into strategic work, the crisis presented to an organization meant they had to go find more room to hold onto their money. It meant they had to go optimize payments, had to go improve terms, improve discounted payments all while trying to navigate continuity. So, the individual resource contribution was sort of offset with the need overall to make money go further and to govern how that money was being spent. But all of these hurdles that were presented were not unique to a crisis, they were simply more forceful during a crisis. Would you say that's a fair summary?</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Do you remember a few years ago, maybe 10, 15 years ago, there was a business book called Who Moved My Cheese? Do you remember that? Well, COVID was like the smelliest Roquefort that was forced on everybody or Limburger and here we are. Now we're all cheese lovers. We can all move forward with better lives for us in our corporate worlds.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I can't think of a better way to end the conversation then, by agreeing with you that we're all Roquefort lovers now.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely, especially with the caraway seeds.</p>
<p><strong>Ryan Hamilton:</strong></p>
<p>Excellent, well, hey, thank you for your time, Oren.</p>
<p><strong>Oren Geshuri:</strong></p>
<p>All right, Ryan, I appreciate the conversation.</p>
<p>-----------------</p>
<p>Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs-through-ap">freeing people to do their best jobs through AP automation in our blog</a> or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs/id1525744763?i=1000508166687" target="_blank">podcast</a> and contact your account representative today.</p>
<p>-----------------</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Oren_Geshuri.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Depending on the client or the situation, Oren can be a troubleshooter, a corporate therapist, a number-cruncher, or a negotiator. He is a technophile who tries to be a steady voice encouraging the adoption of new tools and technologies. After spending almost twenty years in the Entertainment industry, he really enjoys working with companies across all industries and getting a taste of other business sectors.</p>
<p>A lifelong bookworm, Oren cannot fathom a world without escapist literature or incisive non-fiction.</p>
<p>Follow Oren on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/oren-geshuri">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Concur Travel & Expense Recognized as a 2021 Top-Rated Software by TrustRadius
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-travel-expense-recognized-2021-top-rated-software-trustradius
2021-06-22T13:38:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Were excited to share that Concur Travel Expense has again been named a TopRated Expense Management Software in both the Expense Management and Travel Management categories by...
<p>We're excited to share that Concur Travel & Expense has again been named a Top-Rated Expense Management Software in both the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/expense-management" target="_blank">Expense Management</a> and <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/travel-management" target="_blank">Travel Management</a> categories by TrustRadius.</p>
<p>Since 2016, the TrustRadius Top Rated Awards have become the industry standard for unbiased recognition of B2B technology products. Each month, about 500,000 B2B technology buyers use more than 220,000 verified reviews and ratings on <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/" target="_blank">TrustRadius.com</a> to make informed purchasing decisions. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are based entirely on customer feedback and have never been influenced by analyst opinion or status as a TrustRadius customer. (To learn more about TrustRadius Top Rated awards, check out the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring" target="_blank">TrustRadius scoring criteria breakdown</a>.)</p>
<p>The 800+ <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/products/concur/reviews" target="_blank">reviews</a> from verified users of Concur Travel & Expense highlight features like a positive user experience, visibility into budget, mobile receipt capture, and time savings – both when using the product and receiving reimbursements. Reviewers love the way in which it integrates with productivity tools and appreciate the convenience of the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>See what some users think about Concur Travel & Expense in their own words:</p>
<p>“With COVID-19 and remote working, Concur Travel & Expense's centralized web management has enabled us to keep on with business as usual.” – <a href="http://trustradi.us/AOLEB" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | IT Infrastructure Manager</p>
<p>“We are a growing company, and this is our first travel and expense software system. This system is helping to streamline the expense reimbursement procedure, track all company credit card charges and credits, and it makes our accounting department's job easier.” – <a href="http://trustradi.us/GHITR" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | HR Manager </p>
<p>“Its integration with corporate credit cards like BOA and AmEx is particularly great. This coupled with the mobile app basically makes the whole expense logging, tracking, and management a breeze.” – <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2021-05-09-12-01-20?" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | Project Manager </p>
<p>“Concur Travel & Expense has won two Top Rated awards, in the Expense Management and Travel Management categories,” said Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. “Users highlight SAP Concur integrations with other finance systems and native automation capabilities. These features help users quickly record and process receipts and travel expenses at scale, according to reviewers.”</p>
<p>We would like to say a big “thank you” to all who shared reviews of our products on TrustRadius. Customer experience is a big part of our history and continues to be our passion. Helping you achieve your goals and listening to your feedback is critical to our success.</p>
<p><strong>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Take it for a spin in our free </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/" target="_blank"><strong>self-guided demo</strong></a></p>
Isabel Wang
Resilience Amidst Disruption in Business Continuity: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Post-Pandemic Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/resilience-amidst-disruption-business-continuity-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-post
2022-07-01T12:14:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The pandemic has disrupted every aspect of travel and expense Creative collaboration has worked during the global pandemic but the nottoodistant fond memory of inperson meetings events...
<p>The pandemic has disrupted every aspect of travel and expense. Creative collaboration has worked during the global pandemic, but the not-too-distant fond memory of in-person meetings, events, and workplaces leaves many longing for a return to some form of in-person meet-ups. While pre-approvals for travel and expense spending may be the secret sauce to an innovative hybrid program, how are organizations sifting through the mire and building an agile program that truly meets both their employee and organization’s needs? Tune in to our podcast to find out!</p>
<p>We asked our experts, Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at SAP Concur solutions and Katheryn Nolfo, Consulting Director at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/huron-consulting-services-llc">Huron</a>, to weigh in on this topic in our podcast, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations">SAP Concur Conversations</a>.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ready-to-flip-switch-for-next-business-continuity-disruption/id1525744763?i=1000526299159">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0RX2aKjy6D8ngRAFMJqRq4">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/ready-to-flip-the-switch-for-the-next-business-continuity-di">Acast</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ready-to-flip-the-switch-for-the-next-disruption-in-business-continuity">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Communication is Key</h2>
<p>While many of us are hard at work to build post-pandemic travel and expense programs, of equal importance is letting employees know about the changes and that their feedback is fundamental to its success. “There is definitely understanding how this new world is going to impact the employee. Ensuring that there is good and solid consistent communication to the employee-base to have them understand:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are their travel requirements?</li>
<li>What do they need?</li>
<li>If they're doing international travel, what are the requirements from a vaccination perspective?</li>
</ul>
<p>There's definitely the desire piece, but then there's still definitely that, how do we now manage this world of travel?” shares Nolfo.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Prioritizing Employee Safety</h2>
<p>Duty of care took on a whole new meaning in this global pandemic. While a few verticals carefully watched the safety scores of business travel locations before the global crisis, safety of travel evaluation has now become a central element of approving travel and communicating to traveling employees before, during, and after business trips. Nolfo shares that organizations are “looking at:</p>
<ul>
<li>How do we really better manage these programs? Not solely from compliance, how much money you're spending?</li>
<li>How are we ensuring that our employees are safe?</li>
<li>How are we ensuring that they have all of the information they need when they're traveling, even domestically?</li>
<li>How do we continue the communication and feedback from our travelers to ensure our programs are successful for them?</li>
</ul>
<p>Every aspect of busines continuity was impacted by duty of care during the global pandemic. Leveraging the pandemic data collected, so that organizations aren’t drastically impacted by the next obligation, is the ultimate obligation<a>.</a> “You have to have that contingency plan in place. We are working with our clients around, here's what you're doing today. Here's a successful project, program. Everything is great. Clap for yourself.</p>
<ul>
<li>But what's going to happen if this changes tomorrow?</li>
<li>How do we adapt quickly? That's where we started developing contingency plans around outcomes.</li>
<li>If there is a disruption, what is the desired outcome?</li>
<li>How do we put a plan in place to get to the desired outcome?</li>
</ul>
<p>We kind of were working at both ends in order to come up with the plan that works best for the client. We have to understand that desired outcome is the goal. How do we get to that goal?” shares Nolfo.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Innovation as a contingency: pre-approvals are the secret sauce</h2>
<p>When there is a series of if-then scenarios, it’s a no-brainer when the manager is going to say ‘yes’ to an expense or trip. So why clog their email, text threads, notification feeds, or conference call queue to approve it? “We've seen such a shift of not only new industries wanting these pre-trip authorizations for travel, but also wanting to use Concur Request for a lot of other areas. It just makes sense. You don't have to go buy another system now to manage the workflow approval for education or for scheduling office space and things like that. It's all being done within one system,” shares Nolfo. Creative usage of existing tools for new purposes has expedited the evolution of many things amidst this global pandemic. When it comes to post-pandemic travel and expense spend, pre-approvals with existing tools are one of those scrappy results.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How does that make you feel?</h2>
<p>Employee engagement and sentiment scoring is fundamental to adoption of the evolved travel and hybrid workforce model emerging today. Klippenstein asks, “When people do get out and about and they're going to make a decision to go, the business is going to look at this and say,</p>
<ul>
<li>Is this a healthy return for us?</li>
<li>Is this decision a go or no go?</li>
</ul>
<p>It goes into the risk, the duty of care contingency plan. It goes into where they're going and all of that. And of course, the cost of sale if it's a sales event or something like that. Is it worth traveling/at the end of the day, is it worth it? I think a lot of our customers, correct me if I'm wrong or give me some more insight here Kathy, but I think return on travel, ROI or ROT, is going to actually be a thing.” Assessing the business value of travel and human life altogether has taken a whole new level of meaning for organizations, so collecting both objective and subjective data is fundamental to a modern travel and expense program. On this, Nolfo shares new goals for ranking programs such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>“Did we represent our brand correctly?</li>
<li>Are we doing the right thing in the world?</li>
<li>Are people looking at us as an organization that takes care of their employees?</li>
<li>While yes, they traveled, were they taken care of?</li>
</ul>
<p>There's definitely a different sentiment.” While rushing to make more with less, to catch up for losses attributed to the global pandemic, this pause is not only a great leap in evolution for travel and expense programs but also the chance for organizations to demonstrate their value placed on human life – starting with their employees and vendors. “We've gone through it together,” Nolfo shares. “There's empathy for each other and we all know that we're going to have hiccups and it's okay. We're just figuring it out, and we're bringing the best possible information to you through our research, through [SAP] Concur [solution] research, our research. Through our experience with our clients during this time period. But there is just such a unity that we've actually gone through this together.”</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Better together</h2>
<p>While most of us are cautiously optimistic about the return to business travel, we all agree that it needs to be done thoughtfully. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense#inline_asset_form">Contact us</a> on how we can help your organization – in collaboration with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/system-integrators/huron-consulting-services-llc">Huron</a> – to build an empathetic, resilient, travel and expense program today.</p>
Kathryn Kamin
Become the Next MVP of AP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/become-next-mvp-ap
2022-07-01T13:48:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
AP touches every department every business initiative and every staff member and vendor So when the COVID pandemic suddenly changed the way we do business accounts payable rose to the...
<p>AP touches every department, every business initiative, and every staff member and vendor. So, when the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly changed the way we do business, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-ap-automation">accounts payable</a> rose to the challenge. You kept finance operations humming through the shift to remote work, supply chain bottlenecks, sudden dips and boosts in sales, and other business disruptions.</p>
<p>In a survey of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-global-us-report-leadership-new-era">500 finance and IT leaders</a> at small and midsized firms, nearly half (47%) said that the pandemic exposed their companies’ inefficient business processes. AP professionals can help their organizations continue to transition to new ways of doing business by building better processes, fostering collaboration, and showing colleagues how you can help them work even smarter. </p>
<p>Start elevating your AP team’s profile by keeping your skills sharp and showing leadership how you can contribute to the growth of the organization. Here are some resources to help.</p>
<h2>Two ways to keep on learning</h2>
<p>Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned AP veteran, participating in learning opportunities, peer networks, and digital communities will help you grow as an AP professional and bring greater value to your organization. Connecting with industry leaders helps you learn best practices, growth strategies, and workflow efficiencies to make your team an all-star.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Peer-to-peer connections</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>With new challenges and technological innovations hitting your business daily, sometimes your coworkers are just as stumped as you are. For example: What’s the best way to handle VAT recovery? How can you streamline workflows to get invoices and expenses processed faster? Rather than spending hours looking for answers online, pose your questions to the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a>. Our peer-to-peer digital channel of 13,000+ users understand just what you’re dealing with and can help steer you in the right direction. You may be able to answer some questions, too.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Industry events, webinars, and training opportunities to fit virtually every situation</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Regardless of your business size, there are several industry in-person or online events, webinars, and training and networking opportunities to fit almost every situation.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Leadership Council is one way to get into the minds of leaders in different industries who help us – and by extension, you – keep up with trends, potential problems, and solutions. Leadership Council members also provide one-to-many mentorship and networking that can help advance your career.</p>
<p>In addition, business and virtual conferences can keep you informed about the latest developments in AP and the new technologies enabling business efficiency and resilience. We <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/events">offer events</a> to ensure you come away with insights from industry leaders, build a network of like-minded professionals, and bring you even more learning opportunities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Uncover problems no one knew were there</h2>
<p>Problem-solving is a core part of your job. But how can you improve when you’re not even aware that problems exist? SAP Concur solutions are powerful, modern tools that help you gain visibility into potential issues and tackle them. But where to start looking? Try these resources.</p>
<ul>
<li>Start by pinpointing your pain points. Our <a href="https://www.concur.com/spending-impact-calculator">Spend Impact Analyzer</a> will help you discover key areas where your organization can gain more control over discretionary employee spend.</li>
<li>What activities can AP undertake to help strengthen the overall resiliency of the organization? This <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/checklist-7-ways-improve-financial-decisions-with-data">checklist</a> offers seven ideas about improving how you use your data.</li>
<li>Want more? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">Take an assessment</a> to learn how automation can help your organization simplify its AP processes.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Finally, celebrate all things AP</h2>
<p>AP teams are comprised of several essential professionals whose work is often unrecognized. But we see your work, and we want to let you know that you’re appreciated.</p>
<p>Our AP Recognition Week is an annual event taking place each October that highlights the central role AP teams play in helping businesses grow and rise to the next level. It’s a great learning opportunity for you to develop your skills, help you increase your influence over your company’s resilience and growth, and improve your job satisfaction.</p>
<p>Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/accounts-payable-recognition">AP Recognition Week resource center</a> to assess your current AP capabilities, identify the first steps to take to optimize your AP processes, continue your professional development, and much more.</p>
<p>And, don’t forget to sign up for our free <a href="https://go.concur.com/transformational-ap-aprw-registration-1021.html?PID=web&CID=APProBlog0921">webinar</a> to learn tips and tricks to help make your AP team become the most valued process in your organization – all while earning a CPE credit.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Finance is Central to the Digital Revolution: an SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Mike Eberhard and Chris Juneau of Oversight
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/finance-central-digital-revolution-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-mike-eberhard-and
2022-07-01T17:04:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
From the original graphical user interface GUI and using a mouse to manage business expenses to leveraging artificial intelligence AI and machine learning ML to create context for...
<p>From the original graphical user interface (GUI) and using a mouse to manage business expenses, to leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create context for spending and identify patterns, finance has always been central to the digital revolution. Join us as some of the original members of the SaaS and ERP landscape and former SAP Concur senior executives – Mike Eberhard, Board Member of Oversight and Chris Juneau, Chief Marketing and Product Officer of Oversight – have a conversation with Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Delivery Group at SAP Concur, to share their insights on the ‘then and now’ of how technology impacts finance and accounting for a perspective on how to manage your organization today.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an/id1525744763?i=1000538313718">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kezYe7Gek8yAm9ImzJnIP">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/finance-is-central-to-the-v-0sJhWTR8i/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/finance-is-central-to-the-digital-revolution-an-sap-concur-p">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwio9-jDgMTzAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCQ">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
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<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion, the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team here at SAP Concur. My team works with customers to analyze data for programmatic improvements across their overall spend processes. We typically concentrate on our customers' desired business outcomes and today I have two great friends with me to talk about the technological impact on finance and accounting. So, I'd like to introduce Mike Eberhard and Chris Juneau. Mike, if you wouldn't mind going ahead and introducing yourself to the audience, I think they may know who you are already, but let's go ahead and do that.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Sure Jeanne, while the folks who do know me know me from my 17 years with Concur and SAP Concur. And most recently for the last six years, I was leading the Concur business and then expanded with SAP to include Ariba and others. And really my background is 30 years in the financial system space. So, I'm really looking forward and thank you so much for the opportunity.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. And Chris, how about you?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Hi Jeanne. Again, Chris Juneau, I spent 17 of my 20 years working very closely with Mike at Concur and then SAP Concur in 2014. And I most recently retired from SAP Concur and I joined Oversight Systems as the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Thanks, Chris. So, I want to start today by laying some groundwork. As somebody who worked on the opposite side of finance, technological discoveries, and implementations I did a lot of work that was really manual, and it amazes me now to see what's happening in the landscape today. So, Mike, I was just wondering, you mentioned you've had a significant amount of experience moving across these financial technology fields. Could you kind of describe the landscape when you started your career?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. My initial position in the financial system space was really in ERP and it was the mid-nineties, even mainframe ERP to date myself a little bit more. And mainframe ERP, I think "manual" is a great term to use Jeanne. It was data entry heavy and that's really what it was designed for more than anything else was that data entry component. Then I had an opportunity to move over to a company called PeopleSoft and PeopleSoft was an ERP solution that had adopted a new technology called "client server." And believe it or not, that was the first time where business users really got an opportunity to use a Graphical User Interface or a mouse or anything like that.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I remember that, I remember that – that was like revolutionary.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>It was. I mean, people loved to be able to interface with their system at that point and from a technology standpoint it was important because it was a time where integration was coming in to be really important. So, you could let's say, look at a journal entry and then double click and right go right into the source system that created that entry. And it started to make some and big advances in financial users and how they interact with the systems. And they didn't have to pick up the phone and call another group or do a lot of things that they were doing manually and that was amazing. It was also a time where we were doing preparation for the new millennium. And so, people were really making whole system decisions across the entire enterprise and that integrated suite of solutions ended up becoming one of the primary priorities in their decisions, but big license fees, really big consulting fees to implement it, hardware and infrastructure to support it. And so, it was very long return on investment.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>So, when I think about that and I think about what happened during that period and we move forward like we can fast forward into the software as a service or those cloud solutions, they started to emerge right around then. I know you were involved in that as well, even before you came to SAP Concur, which is one of the premier SaaS systems. So, would you be willing to talk a little bit more about how those SaaS solutions began to impact finance? I know how it did for me personally, I joked and said that the Graphical Interface was revolutionary, but it was, but this was just brought my game to a whole other level, my team and I could do some amazing things with a SaaS application. So, from a background perspective, what did you see as an industry person of the impact that was happening?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Well, it was a huge change. The first I would say was the ability for any company to adopt a world class, best in class solution and process. Right before that, for example, I think most people recognize Salesforce as one of the primary champions of building out SaaS solutions. Before Salesforce came around you would likely lead to the best solution out there with Siebel, which was a great sales automation system and platform, but huge costs to license and implement and support that system ongoing. And so only the biggest companies really could afford to compete in that way. And when Salesforce came out that barrier to entry came down and you started to pay for the service as you used it, which allowed for a better return on investment. And the other massive change was... After Salesforce and then other companies out there, Concur included, they started really lowering the barrier to entry on implementation.</p>
<p>And so, it got to the point where it was a lightweight solution with IT. And that was revolutionary for finance because finance typically sat in the backseat about what would the next systems that were going to be implemented inside of an organization. And so, their own needs and their own solutions were pretty low on the priority list when it came to systems that affected product or systems that affected sales and distribution. When SaaS came in it allowed the finance professionals to be able to say number one, we can implement this, we can support this much lighter lift from an IT standpoint. And it started to create a lot of solutions inside of finance that they got a tremendous amount of value at. So, I would like to think of it as finance got to move from the back seat to the front seat and they really started to be able to adopt systems that they needed.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I agree with that. I mean, I felt like I moved from the kids' table at Thanksgiving up to the grownup table once we started pulling in some of those SaaS applications. And I also felt like it gave me the chance to have more control over how things were implemented, how things were configured and then how I could continue to do my job after it, it actually made it so that there was automation further down the line that could come to bear, which was really incredibly empowering for me as a finance leader.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. The SaaS system's, one of the biggest values of that model was that you didn't have to do big, expensive implementations to get innovation. And so, you would get innovation on a consistent basis. And so, it was really up to you in finance to say, I want to take advantage of these next level capabilities that have come out and made a huge difference.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>And so, when I think about that as being a milestone if we look at them like ages. We had the age of the initial technology where it kind of changed who we were. Then we had the age of SaaS, which really upped our game. What would you say is the next technological age that really impacted our finance professionals?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I think there was one in between and that was smartphone. And so, when you look at the topic, we were talking about earlier about data entry, even when SaaS came through there was still a fair amount of data entry that was happening inside of accounting and finance organizations. And when the applications began to adopt smartphone technology, what you found is that a lot of that data entry started happening at the source and that freed up a tremendous number of resources inside of finance and accounting to focus more on strategic topics and real value of the organization.</p>
<p>And so, I think smartphones was another one beyond software as a service or cloud that really helped the finance organization. But I believe the next level of innovation that's going to have a huge positive impact on finance is really around getting these solutions much smarter, using artificial intelligence, using machine learning. These smartphones enabled solutions have created a massive amount of data. And so, the ability to remain compliant and the ability to manage that level of data really goes to the next level when you start infusing AI and machine learning.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, absolutely. It starts to look to doing things here in artificial intelligence as being something more of a strategic versus the absolute hands on tactical. And Chris, I don't know if you have anything that you thought about as this being that last big major impact to finance. What do you think? What's happening within the finance field especially with people retiring?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Sure. Jeanne, I think... If you go around to many organizations, regardless of size, and talk to the finance leaders, they're likely strapped for people, even though organizations may grow; finance departments, traditionally do not. And then as you and I are chatting prior to this podcast is there is a growing number of finance professionals who are retiring and therefore we have a human capital shortage. So, I think that combined with greater compliance being applied at the state, local government, geographic level. So, you have a number of forces at work on finance professionals as they continue to try to do the traditional things of finance, ensuring business continuity, closing the books and so forth. And so, I think tools like AI drive increased productivity as well as enable rapid compliance with continuing emerging regulatory issues and so forth in a time when finance departments are not growing in size.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>You know, I think about it too. I have a daughter who recently graduated from college and when I think about how her course of studies changed so drastically from when I went to school and the idea that technology is pretty much baked into everything they learn today. Everything that our college graduates are learning bakes that in there as almost an expectation that things are going to work this way and that they're going to be automated, but I read a lot of stories, there's a group of people who also feel, oh my God, the robots are coming, they're going to replace us. When you talk about artificial intelligence what role do you believe that artificial intelligence can play in a finance and accounting space? And I'll toss that out to either one of you.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I'll be happy to take that first and then have Mike respond as well. I think first and foremost AI is uniquely suited for pattern identification. Human beings are not ideally suited for pattern matching across the vast amounts of data of which Mike was referencing that evolved through all the technology advances. So, I think leveraging AI in the right way to help finance professionals focus on what's most important within their financial processes, whether it be again, business continuity, time to close in terms of your books or compliance with their own internal policies or various regulations is key. So, I think AI could be liberating to finance professionals versus sort of marching. The robots are coming in to take over the finance professionals’ jobs.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yep, exactly. What do you think Mike?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>I think the core point that we have a massive amount of data now and you couple that with the fact that I don't think there's any finance organization that hasn't had a visit from risk and compliance within the last 30 days. And there are more and more checkpoints from a risk and compliance standpoint that's coming in. Some of it has been building cooperatively alongside of technology because the more we automate the more there's some needs for checkpoint and process and audit and those types of things. The key takeaway though is that most companies and certainly most finance organizations don't have the ability to just double their workforce to comply with the new data and matching and auditing that's required. And it doesn't matter whether it's in setting up a new vendor or whether it's coming through on expense reports and adhering to foreign corrupt practices act or new SaaS rules.</p>
<p>And so, it gets to the point of where you really can't move forward and comply without beginning to use technology against your data sets. And I think that's not something to fear. Certainly, there isn't as Chris said, the ability for humans to do some of the things that we really want AI to do now. And it's different than if you were working on the shop floor and being replaced by a robot, this is a much different situation. And I think this really does lift the finance organization from the tactical and move them much more into strategic.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>I mean, just a couple of things that both of you said that have struck me, I mean, we know that based on multiple surveys that most organizations or a typical organization will lose about 5% of annual revenue to white collar crime, that occupational fraudulent behavior no matter where it happens. We also know that if it's happening in one place of spend it's happening probably across the board because things like that tend to happen in clumps. But we also know that in times of economic uncertainty, that type of behavior actually skyrockets. And to your point, it takes about 14 months to find something like that happening. So, you're 14 months in with somebody's eyeballs, looking at it, having something that could be automated and really check those patterns is really powerful for an organization.</p>
<p>It can really bring the work as you said to a strategic level and provide you with some of that exception based type work. But I do want to ask, we know that AI has a lot of potential and what we've been talking about is having finance, accounting professionals work smarter, not really harder for compliance and efficiency. Is there a couple of examples that you can give us where you can show where that works really well? I know I have a preference of what part of spend it would work well on, but just want to toss it out to you guys as well because you see a lot of this in your every day.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I can take a first crack at that Jeanne. At oversight, we just completed a spend insight survey and you're absolutely right. I believe and I don't have the exact stat in front of me though T&E spending is down due to the pandemic, cases of noncompliance or potential fraud are up over 200 plus percent. And when we talked to our customers and I was just chatting with a few in Atlanta last week, novel idea, we were actually in person visiting with Atlanta-based customers. And three things that are on their mind is first unused tickets with airlines. So many of our customers and were all Concur customers have negotiated with the airlines to have all those airline credits over the last 18 months that are typically identified with an individual to be able to be pooled together.</p>
<p>So, they could literally burn those credits down as people begin to travel again. But what they're seeing is employees are also submitting expenses with those even though they may have used a credit. And so, the oversight Concur detect technology is identifying those duplicates. Is it fraud? Was it intentional? Regardless, you're not allowing that money to go out the door because you're trying to burn down those credits. Second, there's been a high proliferation of gift card purchasing which has been fascinating to see across our customers. And again, identifying those patterns, how are the gift cards? What are the gift cards? Who is purchasing the gift cards, to what purposes? Because that has just ramifications from taxability, both personal tax liability. In Australia, we call it fringe benefit tax and so forth. So, it's allowing technology to spot these trends in these patterns.</p>
<p>And then the third had a chat well with our mutual customer with Southwest Airlines, I listened to the webinar that was recently conducted and how excessive mileage reimbursement is up and that's near and dear to Mike's heart because he and I worked on an initiative on Concur Drive launching. And Southwest is having to remind their employees who now can live anywhere, which typically in an airline you did have a lot of flexibility, but even more so that you cannot be reimbursed for driving to your place of employment. So those are the things that we're seeing just immediately and primarily being driven by the pandemic that traditional systems we don't believe would've caught these patterns, surface these patterns and our organizations are changing their policies, reminding their employees of what is allowed, not allowed and so forth. So those are some of the examples I wanted to point out.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>The other one that I've heard a lot about Chris is the home office expenses and millions of dollars that are being spent much without process and that's another one that's being battled right now Jeanne.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. We're seeing that a lot when we speak with our customers, we're seeing a lot of that type of non-travel spend that's showing up on expense reports and so audit teams aren't really familiar. The people teams aren't really familiar with how to audit this on an expense report number one, but number two, some of this spend, you have to wonder, as you mentioned Chris, the de minimis tax benefits on some of this, especially like gift cards or even on the office supply spending. If I spend $600 on an office chair and I put it through on an expense report, am I expected to mail that back when I'm done?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Great point. And it's great that organizations have... Many organizations given their employees such flexibility to work remotely and so forth, but there are consequences from that freedom as well.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>The other thing that we've noticed and I'm sure you all have noticed as well is the rise of the third-party payment, the Venmos, the PayPal's even the Amazon accounts, Alibaba, all those different pay systems that you may or may not know who that vendor is. And so, having to try to figure out what's going on there. I don't even want to open up the can of worms on Amazon returns, I don't even want to go there. But just that idea from that perspective of looking at it, are you seeing an uptick in those type of vendor stories that are happening and that your tools are catching?</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>I can take a first response to that. We absolutely are because we're seeing that primarily as Mike was saying related to home office expenses. Increasing use of Best Buy for their 80-inch TV screen monitor and so forth. We're less seeing some of the trends in terms of payment though, I think that's a new opportunity that we should partner with Concur in terms of solving. But also, the way to purchase to your point, look at Uber Eats, now we're identifying things, why are employees continue doing Uber Eats when it's a weekend and not a workday and so forth. So, I think it's partly the proliferation of payment platforms, but it's the proliferation of things that you can buy and the ways that you can purchase, which are going to confound finance and accounting organization for years to come.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Exactly. When we think about the ongoing evolution of companies and jobs and business requirements and all the things that are happening, kind of tying back to this whole artificial intelligence piece of work, how would you advise finance teams to take a look at what they have now that might be semi-automated, where do you think that they would best be served putting their automation dollars towards?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I think that's a great question Jeanne. And I think if you look at most of the solutions out there, they've been really focused on creating efficiencies up into the process of finance and accounting. And so how long and how hard did we work at Concur of making a system that was as easy possible for the end user? The traveler, the person that can now just take a picture of the receipt.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>And I think what we didn't have the opportunity to focus on as much was a lot of the back-office processes, right? And so right now I think this is a fantastic opportunity, especially with the state of where spend is today is to look at those back office processes and say, where can you evaluate and do it in conjunction with where compliance like partner with compliance to get ahead of the curve of what those requirements are going to be over the next 12 months and begin to look at solutions like Oversight and others that can get deep into your expense process, deep into your payables process on a back-end and look at providing a tremendous amount of value that way. And that's a perfect spot to automate because I think that's been ignored for 20 years.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>It sure has. To Chris's point earlier, we were always throwing people at it, but now there aren't as many people to throw at it, so how do we get value out of it? And I think that's a great way to look at it is to evaluate those back-office processes and take a look from there. We've been so focused on making the employee experience and the optimization kind of front and center for the end user. We've got some people on the backend who haven't had it as easy as some of the rest of us for a long time.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>That's right.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>... for a very long time.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. You're absolutely right Jeanne. Many of us worked at Concur, always joked that we were building solutions and we were probably unique in that regard where we wanted the users to spend the least amount of time, the end users in that technology. Now I think to Mike's point, we do need to re frame the challenge for the finance and accounting professionals. How do we have them spend the least amount of time ensuring their process and then enabling process efficiency? And then as Mike also said that intersection of process efficiency, scalability all during a pandemic with a decentralized workforce. Now, combining that with where we see compliance going, enabling those professionals to do their job more effectively and to focus on the bigger strategic issues in their organization versus focusing on the health of their financial processes.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>And compliance and audit is still manual, Jeanne is kind of how you open this up on how much work is manual? I think they're still manual in many ways.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. They are and I have been challenging our customers as part of what I do here at Concur every day to rethink how they run those processes and to rethink where is the value in that process? Where does it bring value to the corporation and where can we better assist? One of the things I have spoken with customers about a lot is to rethink that entire workflow of approval on an expense report.</p>
<p>Do you really need to have the manager review it or is it better to move to an exception base, fix the exceptions and fix the behavior later using dashboard technology to tell you where you have problems, so you can start to target your training because once this spend has happened the toothpaste is out of the tube. It's not like you're going to get it back in. So, it's not like you're preventing anything from happening there. It's the training at the front end, but you need tools to help you target that. And I think that the Oversight tool is one of the more remarkable tools that we have in our arsenal to be able to perform that kind of automation to a workflow that affects everybody in the chain, whether it's somebody who's made the purchase right down to somebody who's going to make a journal entry; it affects everybody.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more Jeanne. And the way that's going to happen is by making the system smarter and smarter and by leveraging AI, right? Those bouillon audit rules that were in most expense reporting solutions were really invented in the nineties and they identified that an expense line item needs to be reviewed, but there's no other context. With AI, you can evaluate the same transaction, but with the context of all the transactions that they're processing, right? The transaction exceeds the normal amount for this expense type in the company or the transaction was with a non-approved vendor or as you talked about earlier, a non-approved payment method and it could be the gift card purchases which weren't allowed. They're just a... It's a perfect opportunity to apply the pattern recognition and only bring the real actions that are needed for people to engage. By doing that, you can start taking certain people out of the approval process, maybe not a review process, but out of the approval process.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Right. That's great. So, I could talk to you guys all day about this because this is one of my favorite topics, but I know we have a finite amount of time. I only have you for a certain amount of time. So, I'm just curious, is there any parting words of advice that you would like to give to any finance or accounting professionals who are listening to us talk today? if you could pick one thing that they should be focused on, can either one of view, both of you want to chime in on that?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I'll go first, Chris and then you can sum it up.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Sure.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>I think with all the transformation that's occurred over the last 30 years, much of which we talked about, it's going to pale in comparison to the next. And I think it's an exciting time to be in finance, I think there's scary parts and the level of compliance and rules that are coming in can get scary. But a lot of the times for me the scarier ones have become the most fun. And I'd suggest opening up and embracing change and looking for how the finance organization can ensure that they're ahead of compliance and risk and I can't wait to see it happen. So, thank you, Jeanne.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. And to build on what Mike said, I think it's an opportunity for finance and accounting professionals to rethink their current processes and their approach to compliance. As Mike said getting ahead of audit and so forth, because that's the opportunity that technology advancements have brought through the years. And Jeanne you said it yourself; many times, we always told the customer, yes, we can automate your current existing manual expense reporting process, but why would we? Why not take the opportunity to rethink, which has been a theme for SAP Concur in 2021? So, I think this is a great opportunity for finance and accounting professionals to rethink their approach to not only their processes but also how they're driving greater compliance.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. And I never thought I'd hear this, but it makes my heart sing, that finance is really part of the digital revolution.</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong></p>
<p>It is, it absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Chris Juneau:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Jeanne Dion:</strong></p>
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<p>I'm kind of sad that I'm not right back in the thick of it. Maybe I moved out of it too soon. Oh, well I can be on the other side of it helping it move through. So, I'd like to thank you both though for speaking with me today and spending some time with me, I'm looking forward to being able to kind of reconvene at some point in the future and see how things have changed. Maybe we can all be sitting around a table, looking at each other. I'm super jealous of your Atlanta trip. I want to thank you again for both of you and on behalf of SAP Concur thank all of our listeners for listening in. If you have any questions about our product families, please feel free to visit the Oversight.com or visit SAPConcur.com for more information. Thanks everyone.</p>
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<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634174881779-mike square.png" /> </p>
<p>Mike is the former president of the SAP Spend Management Group, where he supported global customers by overseeing end-to-end operations, vision, and strategy for the integrated cloud solutions at SAP, including SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP Fieldglass. During his 17-year career with SAP Concur, he was instrumental in leading the company through the SAP integration and held a series of executive roles, including Executive Vice President and General Manager; Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Business Development; and President, Global Distribution.</p>
<p>Mike enjoys spending time with his two daughters and two grandchildren. He serves on the board for Oversight Systems, Kyriba, and Castlight Health, in addition to consulting for companies that are preparing to scale for growth. Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeeberhard/">LinkedIn</a></p>
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<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634175136522-chris juneau.png" /> </p>
<p>Chris joined Oversight as CMO and CPO in 2021, bringing more than 19 years of deep industry expertise and proven leadership at SAP Concur. Juneau most recently served as chief marketing officer of SAP Concur and held various executive roles throughout his career with the company, including chief of staff for the president and senior vice president of Global Cloud Strategic Programs. During his tenure at SAP Concur, he was also responsible for marketing throughout the EMEA region until 2010 and led market expansions into China, France, Germany, Japan, and India. When not working, Christopher enjoys live music, practicing, international travel (when permitted) and raising his rescue German Shepherd Lexi with his wife Suzy in Phoenix, AZ. Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cajseattle/">LinkedIn</a></p>
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<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1634175398494-jeanne square.png" /> </p>
<p>Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community. Follow her on<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-dion-67062b8/"> LinkedIn</a></p>
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Kathryn Kamin
One Month Left for the 2022 SAP Concur Innovation Awards
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/one-month-left-2022-sap-concur-innovation-awards
2022-07-01T17:21:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With the annual SAP Concur Innovation Awards we recognize customers reinventing how they manage spend and embracing innovative business practices Winners are celebrated at Fusion in...
<p>With the annual SAP Concur Innovation Awards, we recognize customers reinventing how they manage spend and embracing innovative business practices. Winners are celebrated at Fusion in front of an audience of their peers and receive $1000 to support an <a href="https://www.globalgiving.org/sap/">SAP4Good</a> charity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tell us how SAP Concur solutions allow your organization to run at its best!</h2>
<p>For a chance to win an SAP Concur Innovation award, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">share your story</a>! We want to hear how your organization has adapted over the past year, how you’ve used SAP Concur solutions to empower your employees and how you are pushing boundaries around spend management, and travel and expense.</p>
<p>What makes a winning story? Your organization’s use of SAP Concur solutions to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Meaningfully impact your employees’ time, experience and finances</li>
<li>Support your business initiatives by improving or evolving your internal travel and expense processes</li>
<li>Solve business or industry challenges that allows your organization to run at its best</li>
</ul>
<p>Please share your innovation story by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominating your organization here</a>!</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Incentives for customers to participate</h2>
<p>By participating in the 2021 SAP Concur Innovation Awards, you’ll have the chance to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Win a $1000 <a href="https://www.globalgiving.org/sap/">SAP4Good</a> voucher to contribute to a charity of your choice</li>
<li>Showcase your innovation story at SAP Concur events throughout 2022</li>
<li>Gain recognition as a leading innovator in their industry</li>
<li>Earn a trophy as a winner</li>
<li>Winners and finalists earn a FREE pass to an SAP Concur event</li>
<li>Participate in exclusive promotional opportunities</li>
</ul>
<p>From now through November 19, 2021 you can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/innovation-award">nominate your organization</a> to amplify its achievements and innovations. Winners will be notified mid-December 2021, and then announced publicly mid-March 2022.</p>
<p>We look forward to reading all the innovative ways in which our customers are using SAP Concur solutions to drive your business forward!</p>
SAP Concur Team
Can You Use “Work” and “Happiness” in the Same Sentence?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/can-you-use-work-and-happiness-same-sentence
2022-07-02T05:19:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the olden days lets say the s employers didnt always put employee happiness at the top on the corporate hierarchy of needs Sure it was good to know people liked their jobs but it...
<p>In the olden days – let’s say the 1980s – employers didn’t always put employee happiness at the top on the corporate hierarchy of needs. Sure, it was good to know people liked their jobs, but it was their output that really mattered. Output still matters, of course, but in the middle of a pandemic and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-great-resignation-and-its-impact-on-spend-management">Great Resignation</a>, employers are being forced to look at what matters to employees.</p>
<p>Happiness, after all, breeds engagement. And engagement leads not only to loyalty, but to productivity and profits.</p>
<p>But let’s be clear: When we’re talking about happiness, we’re not talking about money. The adage is true: Even though you can rent it for a while, money doesn’t buy happiness. So we’re talking about frustrations. About meaningless, menial tasks. About the minutia of day-to-day work that get in the way of real and rewarding work.</p>
<p>Specifically, we’re talking about trivial travel and expense processes that slow your employees down. Like holding onto paper receipts. Like filling out expense reports. Like booking a trip on a legacy travel program – let’s say from the 1980s – only to discover that their purchase falls outside of some corporate rule they’d never heard, so it doesn’t get approved and they wasted their time.</p>
<p>These little infuriating issues aren’t really that little. Just take a look at these employee concerns:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t have enough time to complete my expense reports.”</p>
<p>“I hate trying to keep track of paper receipts.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know the COVID protocols for the places I’m traveling.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to accidentally spend money on something that won’t be reimbursed.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These are legitimate issues, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/improve-end-user-experience-sap-concur-solutions">the solutions</a> are out there – you may, in fact, already have a solution designed to tackle these hassles. Either way, your organization needs simple, engaging travel and expense experiences that simplify spend management for you, make travel easier for employees, and ensures that their spending fits your policies. All with a few simple apps that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Automatically build expense reports during travel, so employees don’t have to do them at home.</li>
<li>Trade paper receipts for digital records that don’t get lost, torn, or smudged.</li>
<li>Provide up-to-date, location-specific guidance on COVID regulations, along with other safety tips.</li>
<li>Incorporate pre-spend approval into travel workflow so employees know what they can spend and what they can buy.</li>
</ul>
<p>With the right solution and a few intuitive apps, teams can tap their way through expense reports, compliance challenges, and changing regulations – all while improving safety, sustainability, and spending. And you can prove that you’re listening to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/improve-end-user-experience-sap-concur-solutions">what employees have to say</a> while protecting your company’s finances.</p>
<p>And who wouldn’t be happy to work in a place like that?</p>
SAP Concur Team
Analyst Answers Five Key Questions on IT Leaders’ Minds
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/analyst-answers-five-key-questions-it-leaders-minds
2022-07-02T05:37:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For IT leaders around the globe the need for digitalization has never been clearer The past two years have put us on a new path where change is constant bringing with it new concerns...
<p>For IT leaders around the globe, the need for digitalization has never been clearer. The past two years have put us on a new path where change is constant – bringing with it new concerns. But at the same time, every one of those challenges brings with it a deciding moment that allows us to reach new levels of certainty and business opportunity.</p>
<p>But digital transformation is often easier said than done.</p>
<p>IDC's recent Worldwide Small and Medium Business Survey of nearly 2,600 executives at companies with less than 1,000 employees unveiled some of the top challenges facing IT leaders today. Katie Evans, research director for worldwide small and medium business (SMB) research, dove in to examine some of their biggest concerns in the IDC Analyst Connection, sponsored by SAP: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-answers-five-questions-keeping-it-professionals-night">Talking Tech: Answers to Five Questions Keeping IT Professionals Up at Night</a></p>
<p>For starters, getting executive leadership on board with digital transformation can be a challenge – even when they know it is the right moment for such a move. While 85% of SMBs consider digital transformation to be a top priority, just 26% have the digital strategies, processes, technologies, and talent in place to actually make it happen. This is perhaps not surprising when we learn that 71% of midmarket companies have no four or fewer full-time IT experts on staff, and 23% cite lack of IT staff as one of the largest challenges to meeting their business priorities.</p>
<p>It is critical, therefore, that IT leaders make the case for investing in the teams and technology they need to keep pace with ever-changing customer and market demands. The business world fluctuates on a dime and, without the right tools to quickly pivot, an SMB may find itself among the 20% that survived COVID-19, just to cease operations by 2025. Better to follow the lead of the 25% of digitally determined SMBs that grew revenue faster than less digitally determined SMBs during the pandemic by acting in the moment to provide their people with the tools they needed to work effectively and efficiently from anywhere.</p>
<p>But no discussion of digitalization is complete without addressing the cloud.</p>
<p>The benefit of scaling up and down in capacity as the moment requires and only paying for what you need is clear. But the initial migration from on-premise to cloud-based systems can be tricky – requiring time and financial investment, training, and patience on the part of employees. Yet, when we look again at the day-to-day of those small IT teams, the cloud presents a huge advantage by reducing maintenance and making it simpler than ever to process, house, and analyze data. And, while nearly 70% of companies with one to 499 employees are already using cloud technology, it is important to remember that businesses can make the move to the cloud at their own pace. Better to plan carefully and prioritize migration based on the highest benefit to your business in the moment.</p>
<p>The next thing keeping IT leaders – and all other executives – up at night is the changing workforce.</p>
<p>The labor market is tight and SMBs often don’t have the capacity to offer top salaries and the extra benefits that larger companies can afford. For many SMBs, technology is the key to doing more with less staff. Automation is the name of the game when it comes to freeing up time for your people to focus on the important work at hand. Plus, it reduces human error and makes the employee experience more satisfying to boot – helping keep your people happy right where they are. Take spend management, for example. Travel logistics, expenses, and processing invoices can feel like drudgery that gets in the way of the excitement of planning a big business trip, upgrading an office space, or working with a new supplier. With the right automation tools, you lift that burden while also improving the quality of spend data for finance and auditing teams and the speed at which they can verify every purchase and analyze spending trends overall. From productivity to accuracy to risk management and compliance, seizing the moment with automation is one of the top ways your SMB can run smarter.</p>
<p>Remote work is another critical component of today’s changing workforce. The pandemic brought with it a seismic rethinking of the time and energy we spent each day commuting to the office and how that time could be used more wisely. While connecting face-to-face with colleagues, partners, and customers will always have value, going to the office just for the sake of being there is no longer acceptable for many. In recognition of this new trend, 59% of SMBs listed mobile worker support, including remote access to network-based resources and cloud applications, as an employee experience and productivity technology priority for the coming year.</p>
<p>But the world of remote work also brings new security risks. When your people are connecting from coffee shops, airports, and anywhere else across personal and corporate devices, the risk of a breach skyrockets. The tools you choose to enable remote access must come from reputable providers with long-standing security credentials you can trust.</p>
<p>Digitalization, cloud technology, automation, and remote workforce enablement – these make a tall order for any IT team, much less a small one working to support your typical SMB. So how can IT leaders get the visibility they need with top company decision makers?</p>
<p>The answer is to seize the moment and make the case for an increased focus on technology today.</p>
<p>Work with leaders from every line of business to understand their needs and advise them on which technology offerings will best meet their requirements and budgets while also helping the business compete and grow.</p>
<p>To find out more about how to put digital transformation at the top of your company’s strategy, read the full <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-answers-five-questions-keeping-it-professionals-night">IDC Analyst Connection</a>. Then <a href="http://www.concur.com">visit us online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
SAP Concur Team
What Travelers Need to Know About Digital Health Passports
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-travelers-need-know-about-digital-health-passports
2022-11-13T16:27:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youve flown during the pandemic youre likely already familiar with the requirements many destinations have put in place based on your health status In the US many states require...
<p>If you’ve <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/passengers-wear-masks-flying-during-covid.html">flown during the pandemic</a>, you’re likely already familiar with the requirements many destinations have put in place based on your health status. In the U.S., many states require visitors to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival, or a period of quarantine in its stead. </p>
<p>Now that vaccines are being administered, the conversation around travel requirements is slowly starting to move from testing and/or quarantining to the future need for proof of vaccination. And while requiring proof of vaccination for travel isn’t a new concept (more on that below), routinely sharing health-related documentation will be a change for many travelers. Plus, how travelers share this information—likely in a digital format—will, for the most part, be new to everyone. </p>
<p>Here’s what travelers need to know about digital health passports. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is a health passport? </h2>
<p>A health passport, also called a vaccine passport, is an immunization record proving that a person has been inoculated against a certain virus or disease. Some travelers already have a health passport; a paper-based one issued as proof of yellow fever vaccination and required when traveling to some countries in South America or Africa. In the mid-1900s, the World Health Organization (WHO) created the International Certificate of Inoculation and Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP)—often referred to as carte jaune, or yellow card—and has been paper-based since it was introduced.</p>
<p>The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are issuing similar paper cards for COVID-19 vaccinations. When you receive your vaccine, you’re handed a white slip of paper called a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect.html">COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card</a>. It contains your name, date of birth, and medical record number, followed by a line to manually write in when the first dose was administered, the manufacturer of the dose, and the healthcare professional or clinic that administered it. A second line is available for recording the details of the second dose, as well, also serving as a good reminder that two doses are currently necessary. </p>
<p>In the U.K., the National Health Service (NHS) is also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/health/vaccine-card-intl-scli-gbr/index.html">issuing a credit card-sized vaccination card</a> to all inoculated citizens. In Canada, the healthcare system is decentralized, meaning provinces and territories will decide how to administer the vaccine to citizens. Ontario has announced it will issue vaccine cards to recipients; other provinces have remained mum (to date). </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is a digital health passport?</h2>
<p>“Digital health passports displaying a traveler’s vaccine or negative test status will emerge as we transition to a new normal in global travel.”- Fiona Ashley, VP Global Product & Solution Marketing, SAP Concur</p>
<p>While the paper-based health passport has worked for decades, technology provides travelers with a better method. </p>
<p>Enter: the digital health passport. </p>
<p>The digital health passport provides a means to conveniently store your vaccination information online—and share it electronically with necessary parties, such as when you travel. Similar to other third party applications, a digital health passport <a href="https://www.ibm.com/products/digital-health-pass">stores your data only once</a> within that application, and then verification is provided to the outside parties (such as airlines, border patrols, and so on) so they don’t also have to receive and store your health data, which could make it even more vulnerable.</p>
<p><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-ideas-will-emerge-challenging-times-our-predictions-2021">New Ideas Will Emerge from Challenging Times: Our Predictions for 2021</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How does it work? </h2>
<p>Your physical passport provides standardized proof of identification; specifically, your country of origin. A digital health passport would act similarly, providing standardized information about your health, including your vaccination certificates and COVID-19 test results. </p>
<p>But who sets the standard for sharing this type of information? The WHO <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/guide/covid-vaccine-passport/?utm_source=TPG%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1869207&utm_usr=d5e6cc2140af43c49c4cf7dd7bf91ecb82490a35c2b550e1bbb6d9178ad9e873&utm_msg=52b5610f21a44f2eae35a587846c4d9c&utm_date=2021-01-02">told The Points Guy</a> that any standardized proof of vaccination, like a vaccine card, “would have to be as per the International Health Regulations and would happen with debate and engagement with our member states.” The organization added that it is “currently exploring how the common vaccination record could be done electronically.” </p>
<p>Why is this necessary? In early November 2020, The Washington Post reported that travelers were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/11/10/fake-tests-covid-flights/">purchasing fake COVID-19 results</a> in order to travel. The current paper certification format for COVID-19 vaccinations also poses the potential for fraud (at worst) or loss of the vaccination card (at best). A standardized digital health passport would help ensure validity and verifiability, as well as safeguard against theft or loss. </p>
<p>A digital health passport would also support travelers’ expectations of a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/skipping-airport-security-lines-matter-biometrics.html">paperless travel</a> experience. For example, if you want to check into a flight online and need to submit your vaccination status in order to do so, a digital health passport will allow you to quickly and seamlessly share the necessary information. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How will I use a digital health passport?</h2>
<p>While future requirements might vary by location, airport, and airline, proof of a COVID-19 vaccine will likely become a requirement for <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/your-guide-booking-2021-travel.html">international travel</a>. What exactly that will look like is not yet clear. Some developing technologies are working to integrate the requirement into a typical travel process, such as while checking into a flight or as part of hotel check-in procedures. This approach will simply add another step within the existing process—one that confirms your vaccination status without adding a separate activity.</p>
<p>Others are exploring having travelers download an app and upload their <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-health-and-safety-tools-travel-kit.html">health information</a> to it (or have a medical provider do so) and provide that information upon boarding or at border entry. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>When will one be ready?</h2>
<p>In short, it’s still too soon to tell when a standardized digital health passport will be available to travelers and/or required. However, strides are being made to streamline the traveler experience in a post-COVID world. Just this past November, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced it was developing the <a href="https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-11-23-01/">IATA Travel Pass</a>, a digital health pass that will include a traveler’s test and vaccination certificates. Likewise, airlines are exploring the use of health apps like <a href="https://thecommonsproject.org/commonpass">CommonPass</a>, <a href="https://www.internationalsos.com/news-releases/secure-digital-verification-of-covid-19-compliance-status-launched-by-icc-and-international-sos-may-06-2020">ICC AOKpass</a> and<a href="https://www.myverifly.com/#/"> VeriFLY</a> to ensure passengers can present their digital health passport in a secure and standardized way. However, one single method for sharing COVID vaccination and/or negative tests results has yet to be agreed upon. </p>
<p>This post originally appeared on the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/travel-tips/what-travelers-need-to-know-about-digital-health-passports.html">TripIt Blog</a>.</p>
Amanda Wowk
3 Ways A Biden Administration Will Impact Your Business
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-ways-biden-administration-will-impact-your-business
2022-11-13T17:11:44Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As Inauguration Day is about eight weeks away, you might be wondering how will a Biden presidency affect your business.
<p>As Inauguration Day is about eight weeks away, you might be wondering how will a Biden presidency affect your business. Here are three things that I believe could very likely happen.</p>
<h2>Infrastructure spending</h2>
<p>Back in July, the Democratically-controlled House passed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that includes, among other things, spending on reducing emissions, more electric vehicles and trains, upgrading schools and hospitals, extending broadband coverage, making the nation's drinking water supply and vehicles safer as well as making security refinements to our energy grid. Biden fully supports this bill.</p>
<p>And believe it or not...so do the Republicans. Well, not all of it. But the GOP and the Trump administration have in the past proposed their own version of infrastructure spending—as much as $1.7 trillion—which would also do much of the same, although with less emphasis on the environmental and "green" aspects that have been a priority for Democrats.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that there is going to be some type of infrastructure spending in 2021 and the years thereafter. It's widely agreed that the country's airports, roads, electrical, broadband, and energy systems need an overhaul. A bill like this will certainly benefit all those companies that are directly or indirectly in the construction business. But it could also benefit any other firm that redirects their marketing efforts for their services to the benefactors of this potential spending boom. Follow the money, right?</p>
<h2>A more active labor department</h2>
<p>Joe Biden is pro-union and pro-labor and it's expected that his Labor Department will reflect those positions. So what does that mean for businesses?</p>
<p>I wouldn't bet on a $15 per hour national minimum wage, as this is something that will need Congressional approval and will likely face stiff opposition. But Biden's Labor Department will likely pursue and increase to overtime wages to the approximately $47,000 levels previously proposed by the Obama administration (it's currently about $35,500) which means that employees who make up to that amount may be entitled to overtime wages for any time spent over 40 hours per week. </p>
<p>A Biden Labor Department will also be more active in enforcing and creating new rules that it hopes to improve safety and lessen the occurrences of harassment and discrimination. His department would likely enable employees to more easily form unions and to collect more benefits if they're deemed to be part of a "joint-employer" relationship. Biden is also a proponent of eliminating non-compete clauses from employment agreements to make it easier for employees to leave their jobs and move to competitors. Look for more power put into the hands of OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), the EEOC (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and the NLRB (the National Labor Relations Board) as well.</p>
<h2>A re-look at independent contractors</h2>
<p>In 2019, California passed a law called AB5 that significantly impacted the way employers in that state could classify the independent contractors they used for their businesses. In effect, the law said that companies that used independent contractors—or 1099 workers—to generate revenue for their business (as opposed to just perform outside services) would need to classify these workers as employees and pay them the benefits therein. That law was contested by some of the big ride sharing firms like Uber and Lyft who ultimately received exemption via a public vote in November. But it still stands for many other businesses.</p>
<p>Joe Biden is a supporter of that law. He has said that independent contracting rules should be re-visited and potentially changed so that people who are entitled to the benefits of an employee can receive them. Changing these rules could be challenging, and if Congress needs to get involved he would probably not get far. But many experts believe that, with the help of his Treasury (that oversees the IRS) and Labor secretaries, some of the "rules" over classification could be changed without Congressional involvement because—at least for now—no new taxes would be levied.</p>
<p>If this happens, it could pose a serious challenge to many businesses (like mine) who contract with outsiders to provide services for our customers, and then bill out this work. The Trump administration has left this issue alone. But a Biden administration will probably have a very different take and it wouldn't surprise me to see changes in this area coming during his presidency.</p>
<p>I'm ignoring other issues here for sake of space. For example, a Biden administration's trade policies will affect businesses, as well as the potential for new environmental regulations. Depending on the compromises he's willing to make, we could see some form of tax legislation come about over the next few years, as well as further enhancements to the Affordable Care Act. But many of these things do need Congressional approval, and with the Senate being so definitively split it will not be an easy course. But in the meantime, you can be assured that the three things I mentioned above could very likely happen. Which means that you should be preparing for them just in case they do.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-small-business">Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/most-exciting-article-taxes-youll-ever-read">The Most Exciting Article On Taxes You'll Ever Read</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-things-youll-need-get-ppp-forgiveness">The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness</a></li>
</ul>
Gene Marks
Hear Why Concur Travel and Expense is a G2 Leader for Summer 2020
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hear-why-concur-travel-and-expense-g2-leader-summer-2020
2022-11-13T19:17:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Summer may look a little different this year but one thing has remained the same We have again been named a G leader Our users have spoken more than of them and they have ranked us...
<p>Summer may look a little different this year, but one thing has remained the same: We have again been named a G2 leader!</p>
<p>Our users have spoken (more than 5,000 of them!) and they have ranked us #1 in the <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/8d376df6-db64-471a-8000-af51222cd56e">Travel Management</a>; <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/9bc9f51c-abd9-45c6-bc50-1fb19a49e8b3">Expense Management</a>; and <a href="https://www.g2.com/gated_content/tokens/7b9badb9-2c9c-4dbc-9ced-7d67bdc3bf12">Travel and Expense </a>categories.</p>
<p>"SAP Concur has been ranked the #1 Leader in four of G2's Summer 2020 Grid® Reports: Travel Management, Expense Management, Invoice Management, and Travel & Expense Management," said Kara Kennedy, Director of Market Research, G2. "These top rankings are due to Concur's high market presence and strong satisfaction ratings from its users. In reviews, users especially appreciated SAP Concur's compliance and expense automation features."</p>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597770711717-g2cr_gr124_grid_image_for_sap_concur_v1 (1)[1].png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597770711717-g2cr_gr124_grid_image_for_sap_concur_v1 (1)[1].png" /> </a></p>
<p>What do our user reviewers love about SAP Concur solutions? Here are just some of the things they're saying: </p>
<p>"Travel and expense management is solved with this product." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-4174071">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"Concur cut the time I would spend processing paper expense reports drastically. This was extremely helpful as the company continued to grow." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-4222489">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"If you want to improve your expense management then I would certainly recommend that you take a look at Concur." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-3478673">Read full review</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews">Visit G2</a> to see how SAP Concur ranks against competitors, or take our solutions for a spin in our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense</a> demos.</p>
Rebecca Dolan
Simplify Expense Reporting Through Intelligence, Automation, and Integration
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/simplify-expense-reporting-through-intelligence-automation-and-integration
2022-11-13T19:58:34Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The cloud is bringing the power of intelligence and automation to small and midsize companies.
<p>The cloud is bringing the power of intelligence and automation to small and midsize companies through easy-to-deploy and consume software that saves time, cuts costs, and supports easier business expansion. Take travel and expense (T&E) automation, for example. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">According to AMI Partners</a>, amongst firms that have automated their T&E tools, 76% are already using cloud solutions.</p>
<p>And given the benefits, it’s no wonder more firms are looking to automate their T&E processes using cloud solutions that run easily on both PCs and mobile devices. Manual expense processes are incredibly slow and costly, in part because of the time and effort employees put into expense reporting. Business travelers need to keep track of every receipt, which isn’t easy on long trips. Some are hard copy, others are electronic – and most have at least a few expenses fall through the cracks along the way. During trips, manual processes such as populating spreadsheets, sticking receipts to paper, copying, and submitting and filing take up valuable time that could be spent on strategic work that grows the business.</p>
<p>Once the paper report is submitted, the inefficiencies continue within finance and across the business. Typically, many people need to touch each paper along the way, things get lost, and reimbursements are often delayed due to long approval processes, which frustrates employees. In addition, surveys show that six out of 10 employees have filed at least one incorrect expense report, which can lead to significant cost and compliance risks for the business.</p>
<p>In contrast, automated, mobile-first T&E processes that integrate with business software and third-party applications have the potential to transform expense processing, saving time and money while eliminating errors. AMI Partners found that, on average, finance teams see an average time savings of 15% by automating key tasks. And employees benefit even more. With the right solution, they can use their mobile phone or tablet to facilitate all aspects of travel – from booking flights to getting a taxi – and have receipts from these transactions flow to the application through smooth integration. They can take pictures of paper receipts and upload them to the system while on the go, eliminating the need for paper records altogether.</p>
<p>And when expense report policies are built into the software, employees can quickly create accurate, compliant expense reports that are ready for approval by their manager. The entire expense management process is much faster, more transparent, and less costly.</p>
<h2>Keys to driving employee adoption</h2>
<p>Three key drivers of employee satisfaction with T&E automation solutions are:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Integration –</strong> Specifically, the degree to which they are integrated with familiar, third-party cloud software such as uber.com and airline and hotel websites. (According to AMI Partners, 73% of firms using automated solutions are integrating their solution with other software. )</li>
<li><strong>Mobility</strong> <strong>–</strong> Specifically, the ease of use through mobile devices. (AMI Partners notes that 60% of users of T&E automation solutions access them using their mobile devices.)</li>
<li><strong>Intelligence –</strong> Specifically, to drive automation that ensures exceptions are accurately identified for special handling and data is captured and flowed to the right places (for example, to pre-populate expense reports as transactions occur).</li>
</ul>
<p>To better understand the value of these capabilities, watch the Concur Expense solution in action by walking through the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a>. You’ll see how SAP Concur solutions simplify integration with leading Web sites and reinvent employees’ experiences ahead of their expectations, giving users the ability to manage expense and invoices through simple mobile apps they’ll want to use.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Better Forever: Freeing People to Do Their Best Jobs Through AP Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/better-forever-freeing-people-do-their-best-jobs-through-ap-automation
2022-11-14T12:49:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
An SAP Concur podcast conversation with Deloitte While COVID presented vast challenges it also forced organizations to evolve to a more digitized infrastructure that supported...
<h2>An SAP Concur podcast conversation with Deloitte:</h2>
<p>While COVID-19 presented vast challenges, it also forced organizations to evolve to a more digitized infrastructure that supported employees personally and professionally. “2020 was the perfect opportunity for companies to gut whatever process they had, build some[thing] new and exciting, streamline processes, and get the technology in there to support them. That’s what 2020 was about.” Listen in to the hopeful and pragmatic conversation between Ryan Hamilton, value consultant for SAP Concur, and Oren Geshuri, specialist master for Deloitte, as they discuss the current and future state of the employee experience and organizational spend governance optimized through financial technology.</p>
<p>Enjoy this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/better-forever-freeing-people-to-do-their-best-jobs/id1525744763?i=1000508166687">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/better-forever-freeing-0xon1LFZOBR/">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a">Acast</a> or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maximize the ability, Minimize the mundane</h2>
<p>Automation in accounts payable (AP) does not involve the elimination of people. Rather, it is empowering people in those roles to do more for their organization, meanwhile enjoying their work. </p>
<p>“The first thing that people forget about in an AP process is that the people are core to it,” Geshuri shares. “AP is—generally speaking—one of the least…strategic areas, traditionally in an organization. It’s people who are taking what has generally been a paper process. They’re paying the checks, they’re cutting the checks, or if you’re lucky, the wire transfers of the ACH. That is a process that has basically been the same for decades and decades—if not centuries….in the past 20 years, this whole new world of AP automation has revived that area and has given a lot of ability to automate those processes to get that paper out of the desk and allow what was originally an AP Manager or AP Clerk…a little bit more opportunity to spread their wings and become a little bit more strategic in their roles…so, we’re taking these people, who were traditionally a very focused, routine-based person and empowering them to become more intelligent about the way they are doing business.”</p>
<p>Maximizing the ability for someone in an AP role to contribute beyond the tactical day-to-day process execution frees them up to look at the overall picture and strategically advise on how to optimize revenue and process. This is a shift in mindset as well as an opportunity to improve the employee experience for AP professionals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Doing therapy and processing paper for those that scream the loudest</h2>
<p>A broken payments system is the larger organization’s problem that the AP team gets to manage. “The second the vendor gets on the phone and is yelling at someone…That’s when we transition from the ability for an <strong>individual</strong> to contribute value to the <strong>entire organization’s</strong> opportunity to create value,” shares Hamilton. Both sides of the phone cringe when a payment hunt has begun, and the parties on the call are rarely the ones responsible for the delay or the solution. We must pity these AP folks as, “the two things that they’re doing all the time is processing paper and doing therapy over the phone for the people that are calling them,” shares Geshuri. The good news is, that once your AP system is automated and optimized, your team will have the time to prioritize payments based upon what makes sense for the organization rather than who is screaming the loudest.</p>
<p>“When you take this behemoth of manual process, and you strip it down to its core parts, and then you automate it—and let’s just make the point that the last thing that you want to do is to automate poor processes – you want to re-engineer, or optimize the process before you automate it. That’s key. But once you’ve optimized that process and automated it, then, you now have metrical data that can help you target the areas that you, as an organization, need to focus on…<strong>the ability to zoom in on specific steps is super important and you can’t do that until you’re able to measure them</strong>…you’ve taken what was the mind-numbing, solo performance of processing payments, and you’ve made it now a team collaborative effort on how do we…give the best possible value for that process…it takes a village,” shares Geshuri.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>COVID-19 = Survivability litmus test</h2>
<p>The pandemic accelerated many inevitable changes, and its impact is exponential. So much so that it has put some organizations forever ahead of their competitors in the marketplace. “COVID-19 was the litmus test for the survivability of an organization. Which isn’t to say that organizations that had a lot of trouble aren’t going to survive, just how well-equipped were they? There were basically two broad categories of organizations:</p>
<ol>
<li>You had organizations that had already walked down the path of automation, they already had digital workflows, and they had more cloud-type services. Those guys could pretty much the next day start working from home. As long as they dealt with any VPN or working from home issues, or maybe the fact that a lot of places didn’t issue laptops, that’s a big problem right there, but nonetheless, those people pretty much just walked right into a sustainable type of process.</li>
<li>The people that I kind of feel bad for were the people who either had not even looked at AP automation or maybe had it on their map downstream but hadn’t yet gotten to it. These are the people who, they still come to work, or, prior to COVID, came to work to a big pile of paper on their desk. You can’t take all that paper home, obviously, you’re not going to have all the different AP Clerks, or tactical folks, getting big batches of paper invoices to their houses. You had to come up with a process really quick to figure that out quickly…Image capture became a huge boon for those people who had to switch to a work from home situation,” shares Geshuri.</li>
</ol>
<p>In addition to the global heath crisis, organizations without a digital infrastructure either leaned into the change or struggled to catch up. Geshuri points out that, “if you have not used COVID-19 as the spark to move towards a more digitized infrastructure, then you will probably not be around in another few years…<strong>this was the great leap of evolution</strong>…let’s go back to our Darwin, cycles are slow in evolution, but every once in a while, there’s a triggering event that causes a great leap, right, the fish suddenly starts walking on land. We’re at that crux right now, where COVID-19 is that spark, it’s the meteor that’s ‘extinct-ing’ the dinosaurs.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Top talent retention: Shake off the AP cobwebs and embrace the new</h2>
<p>The way an organization runs its AP program can be a key indicator of its overall management and performance. On this, Geshuri shares: “If you have a dynamic leader, who is there, willing to embrace new technologies and move along the path to automation, the talent will come….there are a lot of ways to communicate the desire to use technology for good instead of evil…ask candidates to participate in the strategic mindset…you gotta shake the cobwebs off of the old dusty way of thinking and embrace the new.” The expectation for constant improvement has only been accelerated by the pandemic. Improving payment methods and terms empowers AP teams to inform strategic decisions across the entire organization. “It is our job here to completely eschew the old way of thinking and embrace the technological approach that frees everyone up to pursue the strategic path,” shares Geshuri.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Forever changed in a good way</h2>
<p>Once the pandemic dust settles, Geshuri predicts that organizations will be all the better for the changes that were forced upon them in 2020. “COVID-19 is here to stay. Our entire existences have been irrevocably changed. But, I think, ultimately for the better. This is one of those periods—it’s a paradigm shift in societal and corporate norms, that is only going to make people come out better for it. They’ve had to adapt, but that push has set people up for hopefully, future success…things will never be the same normal you had before. This is the perfect opportunity for you to change.”</p>
<p>Leveraging the opportunity to find community in new ways and streamline operations has helped organizations and individuals prioritize what is truly important. “The biggest shock wasn’t, ‘can I check my email or look at a PDF at home?’ It was, ‘I am now stuck at home…and I no longer have the community around the water cooler, with the people that I work with’…it was the social contact change that was the most egregious for them. The work changes, the technology changes, <strong>everyone realizes this is the better way to work</strong>. The work-from-home world, aside from all of the distractions, shows us that we have the technology, and we can succeed. How many companies before COVID-19, never wanted to let people work from home? There were organizations that simply did not allow it. Well, sorry, the train left the station. It’s over, you can’t do that anymore. And people are adapting to that…2020 was the perfect opportunity for companies to gut whatever process they had, build some new, exciting, streamlined process, and get the technology in there to support them. That’s what 2020 was about,” Geshuri shares.</p>
<p>As a Specialist Master for Deloitte, Oren Geshuri helps organizations transform their payment programs. In this role, he is often challenged by key leaders of clients on how Deloitte can save them money. Each time this question is raised, Geshuri realigns the partnership goal to be around how to deliver the overall value. “It’s targeting the fat, streamlining, and allowing people to be more strategic about their jobs. It is about people moving away from tactical things [and] allowing the technology…all the buzzwords that you’ve heard…to free your people to do their best jobs. That’s what delivering value is about. It’s giving them the power to shine.”</p>
<p>Maximizing people’s ability to do their best work by reducing menial tasks through automation has helped organizations survive the pandemic and create cultures of top talent that are mostly thriving in spite of crisis and are evolving to the new era of organizational optimization—regardless of industry.</p>
<p>To learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/employee-engagement">improving your employee experience</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/control-company-costs">managing your organization’s spend</a>, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us today</a> and subscribe to our podcast for future <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">SAP Concur Conversations</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
All About Compliance: What, Where, and Why You Should Care
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/all-about-compliance-what-where-and-why-you-should-care
2022-12-05T15:28:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For employees compliance can be a daunting term as it seems to imply firm rules and strict regulations Yet compliance doesnt have to negatively impact employee experience With the...
<p>For employees, compliance can be a daunting term as it seems to imply firm rules and strict regulations. Yet compliance doesn’t have to negatively impact employee experience. With the right tools, checks and balances, it may even be possible to increase employee satisfaction, all while mitigating the associated risks for organizations.</p>
<p>Protect your organization and employees by clearly understanding what compliance is, in which areas it’s most important, and why staying compliant benefits your organization.</p>
<h2>What is Compliance?</h2>
<p>In corporate and organizational management, compliance is the process of making sure your organization and employees follow applicable laws, regulations, standards, and ethical practices. In addition to following internal policies, it also means being consistent with state and federal laws.</p>
<p>There are two types of compliance that organizations should be aware of:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Policy compliance</strong>—an internally set goal by an organization in an attempt to encourage and empower employees to follow its own standards and ethical practices.</li>
<li><strong>Regulatory compliance</strong>—an externally set goal by the state or government that organizations are required to achieve in order to comply with relevant laws, policies, and regulations.</li>
</ol>
<p>Compliance programs help protect your organization’s reputation and prevent it from becoming involved with regulatory fines and lawsuits. On top of ensuring external protection, it also helps lay out your organization’s internal expectations, such as employee behavior, to ensure that your operations run smoothly and that employees are focused on achieving your organization’s goals and mission.</p>
<h2>Where Compliance Issues Lurk</h2>
<p>When it comes to budget, travel and expense (T&E) is one of the largest costs incurred by companies after payroll and supplier invoices; it is also highly vulnerable to compliance risks.</p>
<p>But while you may think this is due to increasing amounts of employee fraud, waste, and misuse, it can actually be the result of organizations using outdated processes which are impacting their ability to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">minimize fraud and maximize compliance</a>.</p>
<p>Here are the three most commonly outdated organizational areas where compliance issues lurk:</p>
<h3>1. Expense Management</h3>
<p>Every organization must face the possibility of fraud and non-compliant spend when it comes to expense management. This is especially true for organizations that still use a manual process, as fraud schemes can work across multiple financial systems and be hard to detect. Still, what you can’t see can cost you, and your organization could be exposing itself to unnecessary risks like <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/compliance-and-fraud-what-you-cant-see-can-cost-you">reputational and legal ramifications</a>.</p>
<p>Gain more visibility over your entire organization’s expense process by adopting an automated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management</a> solution. Make it simple for employees to stay compliant with policies, all while speeding up the process of tracking expenses—it’s a two for one kind of deal.</p>
<p>With a connected budget, expense, and audit workflow, your company can start putting the right safeguards in place to increase corporate compliance in areas of fraud detection, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Detect fraud across your organization</li>
<li>Improve the accuracy and timeliness of spend</li>
<li>Enforce policy compliance before approving expenses</li>
<li>Ensure all employees are compliant using independent auditors</li>
</ul>
<h3>2. Invoice Management</h3>
<p>Directly linked to an organization’s fiscal health, the accounts payable (AP) process or invoice management, involves collecting the money owed to an organization by its debtors.</p>
<p>It is also a <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-invoice-demo-discover-how-automate-invoices">big piece in your financial picture</a>. But what about when your AP process is disrupted by compliance issues? Well, it can be a costly problem. </p>
<p>Insufficient processes, like Excel templates and submitting invoices via email thread, are only causing more stress and errors for AP managers. Common invoice compliance issues, such as late payments to vendors, result in organizations paying increased penalties and interest fees. That’s more money out of your organization’s budget.</p>
<p>An automated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoicing system</a> can solve these pain points. By adopting an automated invoice process, you can facilitate greater compliance of company policies, reduce costs, and gain more control over employee spend. Employees can even submit and monitor invoices any place, anytime—even on the road—which saves a lot of time. </p>
<p>Modernize your invoice management process to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stay on top of spending</li>
<li>Capture invoices using machine learning</li>
<li>Eliminate late payments and manage cash outlays</li>
<li>Streamline purchase requests and automate approvals</li>
</ul>
<h3>3. Travel Management</h3>
<p>When employees are on the go, it’s common for organizations to have rules and guidelines for what employees should or should not spend money on. But it’s also common for employees to forget about these policies once it comes time to travel. Without access to policies on the road, how can your employees be sure that they are staying compliant with your organization? They don’t. Instead, travelers are forced to play the guessing game, only to later be discouraged about traveling when they find out that they were uncompliant.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is a common problem as many organizations have the assumption that high compliance means less traveler satisfaction. However, a podcast from the <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/commentary/postid/4152/podcast-how-improving-the-traveler-experience-can-boost-travel-policy-compliance">Global Business Travel Association (GBTA)</a> found the opposite. Programs that are more guideline driven and approve of more options make sure that travelers are taken care of. This is true for both the road warriors and occasional travelers. The folks who travel regularly look for such benefits when considering employment, often leaving if they aren’t happy with travel experience. And for those who rarely travel, a travel policy with more guidelines means less pressure on employees to make the wrong decisions or accidentally record the wrong expense, only to later be penalized for being out of compliance.</p>
<p>Take the stress out of traveling and easily guide travelers to make the right decision with an automated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">travel booking</a> solution. </p>
<h2>Why You Should Care</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cognoscape.com/three-most-important-facts-about-regulatory-compliance/">Compliant organizations</a> are more up to date on industry trends and have more streamlined processes, enabling employees to make appropriate decisions. Employee compliance also boosts overall satisfaction, as they have a clear and effective direction by which to achieve their goals.</p>
<p>Compliant organizations also:</p>
<ul>
<li>Avoid fines and lawsuits</li>
<li>Build a positive company reputation</li>
<li>Achieve higher productivity</li>
</ul>
<p>Updating your travel and spend management processes to optimize policies can improve your organization’s standardization, increase transparency, and bring your organization more simplicity and speed when it comes to doing what you do best.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about compliance, visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">compliance and fraud solutions page </a>or <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-does-your-company-stay-compliant-and-catch-fraud">download our brochure</a>. </strong></p>
Kyla Kent
How SAP Concur Admins Can Engage End Users
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-sap-concur-admins-can-engage-end-users
2022-12-06T13:41:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We know you work hard to make your travel and expense program as effective as possible so you probably already know that engaged users are integral to program success But whats the...
<p>We know you work hard to make your travel and expense program as effective as possible – so, you probably already know that engaged users are integral to program success. But what’s the best way to engage your employees?</p>
<p>Just like you work hard on running a successful program, your users are busy putting in 40+ hours toward their mission. This leaves little time – and frankly desire – for them to invest in their corporate travel and expense responsibilities. This reality means you need to be tactful when it comes to capturing their attention to drive adoption and engagement of the products at their disposal.</p>
<p>Luckily, we have these tips and resources that will help you educate and engage your users:</p>
<h2>1. Get familiar with your SAP Concur solution</h2>
<p>The first step in helping your users is being familiar with the tool yourself. Being knowledgeable about SAP Concur solutions and establishing yourself as a thought leader in your company will make it easier for you to help your users with any questions they might have. Fortunately, we have plenty of resources to help you become – and stay – an SAP Concur expert. Here are some ways you can get familiar with our solutions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Attend an in-person event: </strong>Attending <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion</a> is a great way to dive in and learn about the products you use (or could be using). Through keynotes, educational sessions, and live demos, you can learn how to make the most of your particular product suite. You’ll also be able to network with other admins and learn more about how they’re driving adoption and engaging their users.</li>
<li><strong>Sign up for our product newsletter: </strong>You can also keep updated on SAP Concur products by visiting the <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/What-s-New-in-Product/bg-p/WhatsNewinProduct">What’s New in Product</a> section of the SAP Concur Community.</li>
</ul>
<h2>2. Leverage our product trainings</h2>
<p>Are you familiar with all the resources available for you and your users on <a href="http://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/pr/get-started?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web">SAP </a><a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/pr/get-started?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web">Concur Training</a>? If you’re not, here are some ways to get started:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Access admin toolkits: </strong>These host content such as e-mail templates, signage, and FAQs. This content makes it simple for you drive awareness and adoption of the products available to your users. Get started with our Adoption Strategy Guides, which can be found on the admin toolkits. These guides will explain in detail how to use the content we’ve created to help you realize success. </li>
<li><strong>Direct users to resource pages: </strong>Linked on the admin training pages, this will house content specifically for your users – guides, FAQs, tips sheets, videos, etc. You can always direct users to these pages to find more detail on how to get started with the tools your company has purchased. </li>
</ul>
<h2>3. Use our admin messaging guides</h2>
<p>Admins can also benefit from making their own content to compliment the content mentioned above. By creating your own content, you have the flexibility to include the details of your organization’s specific configuration and policies.</p>
<p>To help you get started creating your own content, we’ve provided admin messaging guides for select products. You can find these guides in the admin toolkits on <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/pr/get-started?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web">concurtraining.com</a>.</p>
<p>In these guides, you’ll find tried and true messaging that you can copy-and-paste into your own resources – customizing and adding detail when necessary. </p>
<h2>4. Uncover employee sentiment</h2>
<p>Get to know your users and what’s important to them. <a href="https://www.concur.com/experience-optimizer">Concur Experience Optimizer</a> helps you listen and understand the reasons behind your employees’ behavior, so you can better shape policies and how they impact employee sentiment. Develop and improve processes, adjust policies that lead to enhanced productivity, drive higher profitability, and lower employee turnover. For example, do your users:</p>
<ul>
<li>Care about speed and ease the most?</li>
<li>The ability to get things done on the road?</li>
<li>The added perks and traveling benefits?</li>
</ul>
<p>Find out and draw your users in with the corresponding features. The SAP Concur mobile app also helps employees get things done, no matter where they are; <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/pro/sap-concur">TripIt Pro</a> helps them stay on top of their travel itinerary – something they can take advantage of both on business and personal trips. And <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Drive</a> helps users that are constantly on the road, expensing car mileage. Find it and promote it.</p>
<h2>5. Rollout digital adoption software</h2>
<p>For training to be effective, it needs to go beyond static videos and email that are easily forgotten and rarely provide context. <a href="https://www.concur.com/user-assistant">Concur User Assistant by Walkme</a> provides real-time, in-solution training to close the gap between learning and doing, so users can apply knowledge as they need it. Digital adoption software helps users get familiar with a new tool or process. It guides them through the steps and allows you to create customizable guidance that drives specific outcomes to your business, so you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make training faster, better, and more memorable</li>
<li>Drive adoption and enforce policy compliance</li>
<li>Streamline processes for increased productivity</li>
<li>Increase end-user experience and efficiency</li>
</ul>
<h2>6. Use in-product messaging</h2>
<p>In-product messaging is a free service we provide to help educate and engage your users on the specific products available to them. Best part? It requires zero effort from you. </p>
<p>We run targeted campaigns – based on your specific configuration. By thoughtfully delivering relevant messages straight in the product, we’re able to help your users realize the full potential of the SAP Concur tools purchased for them.</p>
<p>You can learn more about this tool by visiting the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/en-us/pr/ipm_admin_toolkit?utm_source=training&utm_campaign=ipm&utm_medium=web&utm_content=tl_resources?utm_source=newsroom&utm_campaign=newsroom&utm_medium=web">In-Product Messaging Admin Toolkit</a>. </p>
<p><strong>We're committed to ensuring our customers have access to resources that will help effectively manage change as it comes. Take a look at our </strong><a href="https://go.concur.com/ask-an-expert-library-on-demand.html"><strong>on-demand training offerings</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What is Invoice Automation?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-invoice-automation
2022-12-06T16:00:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
AP automation is the use of software to digitize the vendor invoicing process and create faster leaner more costeffective AP workflows No more paper receipts No forwarding invoices in...
<p>AP automation is the use of software to digitize the vendor invoicing process and create faster, leaner, more cost-effective AP workflows. No more paper receipts. No forwarding invoices in email. No cutting paper checks. Automation lets you eliminate manual AP tasks, increase visibility into spend, and control costs like never before.</p>
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<h5>Build a Case for AP Automation</h5>
<p>Our guide will help you lay the groundwork to plan, write, and present a business case that you can sell into your business leaders.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Why should you automate accounts payable?</h2>
<p>It would be difficult to overstate how significantly <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">AP automation</a> contributes to an organization’s overall success. To give you an idea, here are a handful of ways that automation can help:</p>
<ul>
<li>Control costs and reduce unnecessary spend (like invoice processing costs and check fees).</li>
<li>Boost employee morale and give staff more time or strategic tasks.</li>
<li>Attract and retain top AP talent (if you offer automation rather than manual processes, it’s far more likely that staff will love their jobs and stick around).</li>
<li>Reduce errors and duplications that come from manual data entry.</li>
<li>Uncover data that will help you make informed decisions.</li>
<li>Increase policy compliance and strengthen vendor relationships.</li>
</ul>
<p>True, upgrading to an automated system requires an investment like any new tool. That said, in today’s fast-paced, always-shifting business environment, organizations that don’t automate will struggle to compete and miss opportunities for growth. Which means that you easily could argue that companies can’t afford NOT to invest in automation.</p>
<p>Plus, if you compare the cost of automating to the time and <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-your-spend-management-costing-you">expense of continuing to do AP manually</a>, the return on your investment is easy to see.</p>
<p>Consider this: The Institute of Finance Management (IOFM) puts the cost of manually processing a single vendor invoice at $10 to $23 per invoice; automating vendor invoice management can reduce the cost of processing one invoice by up to 80%.</p>
<p>Think about how many invoices you process in a single week alone. Or an entire year. You’ve just learned that there’s a way to save 80% on each one. Let that sink in.</p>
<p>Given the obvious and numerous upsides to automation, the question isn’t why should you automate AP. The real question is, “why wouldn’t you?”</p>
<h2>Who benefits from AP automation?</h2>
<p>Automation isn’t a luxury reserved for large enterprises with big budgets. Every company, from local mom-and-pop shops, to high-ambition startups, to enormous multinational corporations with tens of thousands of employees, can and/or already have automated AP. It’s really just a matter of tailoring a solution to a company’s size and specific needs.</p>
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<div class="col-sm-12">
<h2>The Business Value of Invoice Automation</h2>
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<p>The move to automate AP touches and benefits everyone within an organization.</p>
<ul>
<li>CFOs see spend more clearly and can better plan, discover new opportunities for growth, and control spend more effectively.</li>
<li>CIOs and IT leaders create a secure, modern tech environment that complies with U.S. data privacy regulations.</li>
<li>Controllers and AP managers get a complete view of employee and vendor spend, can create and manage policies, and contain spend.</li>
<li>CEOs and business owners? They sit at the head of an efficient, cost-effective, modern organization that’s ready for future growth. (Not to mention the satisfaction they get knowing they’ve enabled this AP utopia and made employee’s lives easier.)</li>
</ul>
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<h2>The Business Value of Invoice Automation</h2>
<img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1564523753070-business-value-graphic.jpg" /></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>What are AP automation best practices?</h2>
<p>Improving AP isn’t simply a matter of finding newer, faster ways to shuffle paper. Real improvement comes from addressing underlying systems and bringing spend management together into a single, integrated, easy-to-use solution.</p>
<p>Once you’ve committed to this idea, the next step is to figure out what to look for in an automated AP solution. To help you get started, here are a handful of capabilities to consider. A good automated AP process should:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pair OCR capture with a team of company-badged human auditors</li>
<li>Have a plan for implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in the future</li>
<li>Offer a comprehensive view into spending through dashboards, reports, and key metrics</li>
<li>Allow you to instantly pinpoint where any invoice is in the approval process</li>
<li>Have a mobile solution for iOS and Android</li>
<li>Offer a diverse payment provider ecosystem to send electronic payments to vendors (which results in greater efficiency and more cash on hand)</li>
<li>Allow your AP team route invoices based on custom rules, exception guidelines, and processes</li>
<li>Automate the time-intensive and error-prone process of matching invoices, POs, and goods received (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/three-way-match">three-way match</a>)</li>
<li>Integrate with systems you already have in place (e.g. your existing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-connectors">financial system/ERP</a>)</li>
<li>Have a vendor portal for questions and easy access to invoice status</li>
<li>Capture all vendor invoices in one central location to eliminate lost paper invoices and get bills to the appropriate approver</li>
</ul>
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<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>A Buyer's Guide to AP Automation</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>You’ve seen how automation can help your organization. You’ve glimpsed an inefficient and expensive future that comes from sticking with manual AP. You know what to look for in a good automated solution. You’re ready. That said, we get that this is a big decision. To learn more and help you decide, check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">AP automation</a> page, take a deeper dive on what look for when <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">choosing an automated AP solution</a>, and visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> solution. Want to try it for yourself? Check out our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice demo</a> to see for yourself how automated AP management works.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-management-automation-and-why-should-you-go-paperless">What Is Expense Management Automation?</a> </strong></h3>
SAP Concur Team
How Can Digital Spend Management Improve Work Life and Support Business Growth?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-digital-spend-management-improve-work-life-and-support-business-growth
2022-12-30T14:59:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The world is looking toward the postpandemic horizon Hope for the future is strong but the impacts of the COVID pandemic will reverberate for years to come This is as true for your...
<p>The world is looking toward the post-pandemic horizon.</p>
<p>Hope for the future is strong, but the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will reverberate for years to come. This is as true for your employees’ expectations as it is for your business. Adapting to change that accommodates both will be critical to your organization’s success. People want the flexibility to work from anywhere and expect to have the tools required to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. Keeping employees happy while also supporting growth will depend on digitally transforming operations and maintaining tight control over cash flow.</p>
<p>This is where finance and IT come in.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
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<h5>How Finance and IT Can Empower Growth and Employee Experience</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-finance-and-it-can-empower-growth-and-employee-experience">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p>Company-wide digitalization and business expansion cost money. To make the most of every investment – from home-office equipment to travel expenses to purchases from suppliers – requires clear spend visibility. It is only by working together that finance and IT and provide the necessary technology and data to make that visibility possible.</p>
<p>So how do you get there?</p>
<p>The first step is to take stock of spend management at your company today. Do you have the process efficiency, spend control, and transparency you need? Are your spend policies and workflows flexible and scalable enough to support operations over the long term? Or are you simply in a workaround state – relying on e-mail and spreadsheets to gather expense and invoice data, secure approvals, and keep track of spend?</p>
<p>One of the few silver linings of the past year and a half is that it has forced finance teams to come to terms with the inefficiencies and gaps in their spend and cash flow management. No matter where they are in solving those problems, one thing is for sure: There’s no going back to the old way of working. Finance leaders need IT to bring together siloed data, automate manual operations, and enable deeper levels of insight if they hope to continue investing in growth and ensuring a satisfying job experience for employees and managers in their own department and company-wide.</p>
<p>Luckily, SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">recent study by Oxford Economics </a>shows that organizations that have already digitalized expense or invoice management are seeing increases in spend visibility (37%), organizational agility (47%), cross-functional collaboration (36%), and employee productivity (43%). </p>
<p>By connecting your travel, expense, and vendor invoice management processes and data and integrating them with back-end ERP or financial systems, SAP Concur solutions allow you to see, manage, and control all your spending – no matter the category, location, payment type, department, or individual employee. With policy compliance built into every transaction, making good spending choices is easier for users, and red flags are raised before noncompliant or even fraudulent spend ever occurs. And because the solutions are cloud-based, you can quickly scale the system to meet your growing needs. The end result is a unified and up-to-date view of spend data that gives finance teams the insight they need to make smart decisions that help save on costs and redirect spending in ways that support your specific growth strategy.</p>
<p>On top of all this, SAP Concur solutions also make life easier for your employees.</p>
<p>Gone are the days of paper-based process that tie workers to their desks and have finance teams chasing down reports and approvals at every turn. User-friendly mobile apps for expense reporting, travel booking, and mileage tracking make it easier to manage expenses while on the go. Add automated workflows, and auditors, managers, and the broader employee base are spending less time and making fewer errors than ever before – allowing them to stay focused on value-adding tasks.</p>
<p>The same is true for vendor invoice management. By allowing vendors and accounts payable to submit and process invoices remotely, payments go out faster and finance has greater visibility into upcoming spend and future cash flow.</p>
<p>The bottom line: By working together to digitally transform spend management across your entire organization, finance and IT can empower your whole business to achieve the agility and financial stability it needs to grow and thrive over the long term. Plus, by giving employees the tools and the flexibility to work efficiently and effectively from anywhere, you are not only improving their work experience, you are establishing operations that can keep running no matter what the future holds.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/how-finance-and-it-can-empower-growth-and-employee-experience">Read our latest e-book</a> to find out how finance and IT leaders at companies like yours are using SAP Concur solutions to support growth and make daily work life better.</p>
<p>Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">here</a> to see what they can do for your business. </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP appoints Charlie Sultan as President of Concur Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-appoints-charlie-sultan-president-concur-travel
2022-12-30T15:42:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP today announced the appointment of Charlie Sultan as President of Concur Travel In this role Sultan will be responsible for travel solution management supplier merchandising and...
<p>SAP today announced the appointment of Charlie Sultan as President of Concur Travel. In this role, Sultan will be responsible for travel solution management, supplier merchandising and customer needs, market awareness, and delivering market growth for SAP travel solutions.</p>
<p>A travel industry veteran, Charlie most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer and SVP of Strategic Planning, SAP Concur. He has held a variety of senior leadership roles at SAP Concur over the past eight years, overseeing supplier relations and content strategy for Concur Travel, including Concur TripLink.</p>
<p>“It’s an exciting time to be in corporate travel, especially with the talented team at SAP Concur,” said Sultan. “SAP is investing heavily in travel transformation, and I look forward to working with colleagues, customers, suppliers, and our many partners in the ecosystem to ensure SAP continues delivering innovative solutions to help customers meet their travel and settlement needs.”</p>
<p>Sultan brings a deep background in travel and distribution, working closely with customers, suppliers TMCs (travel management companies), GDSs (global distribution systems), and other partners across the industry. Prior to SAP, he spent 15 years at American Airlines in senior roles spanning corporate strategy, finance, distribution, sales, marketing, and more. He has also served on several of boards in the travel industry throughout his career.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Why Employee Well-Being is the Key to Sustainable Business Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-employee-well-being-key-sustainable-business-growth
2023-04-02T14:06:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Every smallbusiness owner wants to see their company grow but growth must be sustainable And sustainability goes beyond financials it also means prioritizing your employees wellbeing...
<p>Every small-business owner wants to see their company grow, but growth must be sustainable. And sustainability goes beyond financials – it also means prioritizing your employees’ well-being.</p>
<p>Grow too slowly and the lack of momentum can hurt company morale. But growing too quickly often means sacrificing days off and time with family and friends in order to keep up, which can leave you and your employees feeling burned out.</p>
<p>Neither is good for productivity. In fact, <a href="https://blog.accessperks.com/2018-employee-engagement-loyalty-statistics">39% of workers say they’d be willing to work harder</a> if they were happy in their current role or place of work.</p>
<p>So, what’s the trick to keeping your employees satisfied and your business prosperous?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>It’s all about finding the perfect balance</h2>
<p>Take <a href="https://www.rxbar.com/">RXBAR</a>, a whole-food protein bar company, for example.</p>
<p>When a surge in demand for natural foods spurred sudden, rapid growth for the company, Vice President of Finance and Global Controller Kelsey Letizia worried that the current systems and processes would be unable to keep pace with that growth.</p>
<p>With more employees traveling to meet with clients and partners, expense reports came flooding in. Kelsey and her team were spending extra hours compiling and reviewing what was being submitted. That’s when she began searching for a more scalable approach.</p>
<p>“I just knew that at that rate, we’d spend all our time on these non-value-add asks,” said Kelsey. “It left little room for more strategic endeavors such as evaluating new markets, investment opportunities and continuing to scale the business.”</p>
<p>Fortunately, by automating its expense process, RXBAR gained the insight and flexibility it needed to make fast, data-driven decisions – and Kelsey got more freedom to enjoy time with her family.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation leads to greater efficiency and employee well-being</h2>
<p>With the advancement of cloud technology, automating business processes has become more cost efficient and easier to implement than ever. As a result, businesses of all sizes now have access tools that were previously reserved for large corporations.</p>
<p>Now, let’s talk about how automation can benefit <strong>your</strong> business.</p>
<p>The first step is to identify the areas where there is room for optimization. If you’re currently doing something manually, chances are there’s an automated solution that can help you improve efficiency.</p>
<p>For example, automation can cut time spent on invoice management by almost two-thirds, which means your staff will have more time to think critically. Plus, the added real-time visibility into cash flow means they’ll be better equipped to provide insight and expertise when it’s time to make strategic decisions.</p>
<p>And then there’s the human-error factor to consider – or in this case, the lack thereof. Many automated solutions can prevent fraudulent or duplicate payments by detecting anomalies in invoices and expense reports.</p>
<p>But streamlining your processes isn’t just a boon to your business. It’s a path to the well-being of your employees.</p>
<p>According to Gallup, <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/the-benefits-of-highly-motivated-employees/">70% of employees lack engagement at work to due to dissatisfaction</a> – a trend that’s estimated to cost $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year.</p>
<p>By giving workers an opportunity to focus their attention on more essential activities, you help them gain a greater sense of purpose, accomplishment, and satisfaction. And the hours employees save at work provides them with ample time to enrich their personal lives.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increasing happiness is the secret to productivity</h2>
<p>Know that old cliché about working smarter instead of harder? Well, when it comes to sustainable growth, working happier is the real secret.</p>
<p>It should be no surprise that happier employees are more engaged, passionate, and productive – especially when their most tedious tasks are simplified.</p>
<p>So, next time one of your employees expresses dissatisfaction with a laborious part of their job, listen. Chances are, the solution you need is already out there.</p>
<p>For more tips on how you and your staff can achieve balance and spur sustainable growth, check out <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">this e-book</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Challenges of Modern Business Travel (and How to Solve Them)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/challenges-modern-business-travel-and-how-solve-them
2023-08-24T15:45:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It goes without saying that business travel is huge and it is always growing By GBTA predicts business travel spend will reach trillion globally by Not only that but corporate...
<p>It goes without saying that business travel is huge – and it is always growing. By 2023, GBTA predicts business travel spend will <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Global/Global-Business-Travel-Spend-Will-Reach-17T-by-2022">reach $1.7 trillion globally</a> by 2022. Not only that, but corporate travel is also changing as fast as it’s growing. According to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">a 2018 GBTA report</a>, travel managers say they’re now spending as much as 66% more time focusing on areas such as data analysis and reporting, evaluating or implementing new technology, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/up-in-the-air-whose-duty-is-duty-of-care">traveler safety</a>.</p>
<div class="teaser">
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<h2>Top travel management priorities </h2>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>And this ends up being the biggest challenge for businesses with managed travel: Traditional travel solutions can’t keep up with all of the modern travel demands. As travel becomes more complex and the options for booking become more diverse and decentralized, capturing all that information becomes more difficult than it’s ever been before.</p>
<p>There has to be a better way to manage your business travel than the disconnected third-party systems you’ve been using – and now there is.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Bigger challenges mean greater opportunities</h2>
<p>The multiple ways in which people can now book flights, hotels, and cars has made their lives so much easier. That’s great news, but the consequence is that your employees want three main things from their buiness travel experience as well: the flexibility to book how they want, better accessibility through mobile devices and popular apps, and greater security while they’re on the road.</p>
<p>But how do you balance those against tax regulations, reporting requirements, and other restrictions? The effective balance of all of these different necessities reveals the opportunity that this challenge presents: Every aspect of your unique travel ecosystem must be linked and sharing data in near-real time.</p>
<p>With a truly future-proof travel management solution, you can:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Connect all the facets of your travel spending</strong> by bringing together data from suppliers, corporate card providers, and your ERP or accounting systems to your GDS and TMC partners.</li>
<li><strong>Capture itineraries</strong>, no matter where travel is booked and keep them all in one place and up to date.</li>
<li><strong>Give your travelers more choices</strong> while taking advantage of negotiated and published rates and fares.</li>
<li><strong>Reach your people wherever they are</strong>, with accurate data on employee locations and risk levels and two-way communication.</li>
</ul>
<p>And much more. By enhancing your current solution to connect all employee expenses and travel expenses, you get the control you need while giving your travelers more choices – all while fortifying your business for the new world of travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Meet the solutions that will take your business beyond automation</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management">SAP Concur solutions</a>, you can satisfy the needs of your travelers, regulators, and your business – all at once. You can give travelers more choices without sacrificing their safety, offer them top-rated mobile apps, and reduce your own risk with innovative dashboards and in-depth reports.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How State and Local Agencies Can Eliminate Manual Processes and Approve Invoices from Anywhere
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-state-and-local-agencies-can-eliminate-manual-processes-and-approve-invoices
2023-08-29T13:24:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more And automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work stabilize operations and provide visibility...
<p>Reducing costs and gaining control of spend has never mattered more. And, automating your accounts payable process can help reduce manual work, stabilize operations, and provide visibility into your spend during times of uncertainty.</p>
<p>Imagine a touchless process -- implemented and deployed quickly -- that forecasts your spending and adapts your policies to your organization using SAP Leonardo machine learning, less human validation, and a secure cloud that keeps your information protected while providing ease of retrieval so you can update audit thresholds with a simple touch of a button.</p>
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<h2>Streamline AP From End-to-End</h2>
<p>How to simplify the invoice payment process for state and local agencies.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-a-public-sector-buyers-guide">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This enables state and local governments to have complete visibility into spend and the ability to shift your focus to redirecting budget where it is most needed.</p>
<p>Now your team can capture vendor invoices remotely, and process and distribute your summaries with ease, whether you're in the office or on the go.</p>
<p>Managers can use the Concur Mobile app to review and approve invoices, while your AP team gets near real-time visibility to avoid surprises. Leave the audit trail to us: We've got you covered with the right documentation for any audits that may come your way.</p>
<p>Our simple-to-use, advanced technology connects you to the reports you need, anytime and anywhere. With one click, edit thresholds and choose payment vendor options. We create a backup of your manual processes providing employees instant access to our secure cloud.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> is here to help your business strengthen cost control and cut out the paperwork so you can stay in sync on spend across the board.</p>
<p>Ready to stabilize your operation and budgets with Concur Invoice? <a href="https://www.concur.com/government-solutions#inline_asset_form">Contact us</a> today to get started.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Solutions: Celebrating 10 Years as an Open Platform
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-solutions-celebrating-10-years-open-platform
2023-09-07T12:54:20Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the early days of the SoftwareasaService SaaS revolution the common belief was that the customization requirements for highly standardized SaaS business processes were not the...
<p>In the early days of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service">Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)</a> revolution the common belief was that the customization requirements for highly standardized SaaS business processes were not the same as the requirements for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-premises_software">on-premise Enterprise Software solutions</a>. It turns out, this was not the case. Starting in the early 2000s, emerging technology companies such as Salesforce, eBay, and Amazon realized this and quickly turned it into a competitive advantage offering new ways to extend and integrate with SaaS software. They introduced an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_platform">open platform</a> concept along with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">application programming interfaces</a> (APIs) for greater customization without the need for extensive development.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The SAP Concur platform journey</h2>
<p>Beginning ten years ago in 2011 with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/legal/client-web-services">Client Web Services</a> offering, SAP Concur gave customers access to open APIs via simple web protocols. Customers could now seamlessly integrate with and extend SAP Concur products and services to meet their organization’s specific travel and expense management needs without extensive coding.</p>
<p>With the help of our APIs, customers and partners can access data and functions within the SAP Concur product ecosystem and solve a vast array of business issues and reporting needs such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pull data from SAP Concur solutions for in-depth reporting services</li>
<li>Reconciliation or validation of data against existing SAP Concur data</li>
<li>Post new data into SAP Concur solutions</li>
<li>Update existing information in SAP Concur products to match your system data</li>
</ul>
<p>In 2013 we took this concept to the next level by introducing the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a>. This new program allowed partners to certify their pre-packaged solution integrations and extensions. It also created a hub where they could publish applications that provided greater insights into total spend, simplify travel and expenses. Another step closer to the perfect business trip.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321509716-sap concur innovation journey jpg.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The SAP Concur innovation journey</h2>
<p>Today we have more than 75 customer and partner (APIs) available in the <a href="https://developer.concur.com/api-reference/">SAP Concur Development Center</a> and over 250 partner applications in the App Center.</p>
<p>We are continuously evolving our open platform to provide our customers and partners greater business agility while making it easy to integrate with, extend, and provide content on top of SAP Concur core solutions. To celebrate our decade milestone, we are focused on four key areas:</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321650770-four key areas of focus.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>1. Accelerate Integration across your value chain</h3>
<p>Our open platform delivers capabilities that simplify integration with other software systems. As part of the larger SAP vision and portfolio, we have expanded our existing platform to support the new end-to-end SAP intelligent business processes, like the newly-introduced <a href="https://blogs.sap.com/2020/11/30/travel-to-reimburse-take-control-of-your-business-travel-spending/">Travel to Reimburse scenario</a> (T2R).</p>
<p>This scenario provides seamless integration between SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and SAP S/4 HANA on-premise solutions. Customers can manage end-to-end travel booking and employee-initiated spend management processes and receive automated and integrated travel spend data regardless of where it happens.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321701128-sap intelligent enterprises. sap travel to reimburse integrated business process.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sap.com/documents/2020/02/520ea921-847d-0010-87a3-c30de2ffd8ff.html">SAP Intelligent Enterprises</a> – SAP Travel to Reimburse integrated business process</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another way we have expanded our integration capabilities is our new <a href="https://developer.concur.com/api-reference/financial-integration/v4.financial-integration.html">Financial Integration Service</a> (FIS). Customers can more easily build connections between a downstream financial system and SAP Concur solutions. That reduces the overall effort and cost of building integrations and avoid the usage of flat files and manual data transfers. By simplifying these connections, customers will benefit from improved accuracy, transparency, and real-time integration.</p>
<p>For a deep dive into the Financial Integration Service, listen to this expert session from our 2021 SAP Concur Partner summit: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4HvECFQQJs">Financial Integration Service</a> (35 min).</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>2. Simplify development of your application extensions</h3>
<p>We provide tools and services that simplify the development of extensions to enhance customers’ existing SAP Concur solutions. Our new API called <a href="http://developer.concur.com/api-reference/callouts/v4.launch-external-url.html">Launch External URL</a> is one example. It provides the ability to extend the existing capabilities of the SAP Concur User Interface and enable the display of a punch-out window, providing a means to deliver custom user interactions or access functionality found in an external system.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321778377-launch external url.dev.blog graphic.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>3. Boost compliance and adhere to regular policies</h3>
<p>To help our customers stay in compliance with constantly changing regulations, we provide APIs designed specifically for the development of applications to support business, regional, or industry-specific compliance processes. Today, we have more than 40 partner-built applications that provide risk and compliance solutions right <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/category/compliance-risk">out of the box</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>4. Expand business value with our global partner ecosystem</h3>
<p>We continually collaborate and innovate within our ecosystem to expand overall SAP Concur business, increasing the number of partner-built applications, out-of-the-box integrations, and adding valuable travel content. We have more than 700 partners in two main categories:</p>
<ul>
<li>Platform partners: App Center, Financial Services Companies, and Travel Suppliers</li>
<li>Distribution partners: Travel Management Companies, Resell, and Service partners</li>
</ul>
<p>Together with our Platform partners we have released more than 250 applications for both enterprises and end-users. Currently, more than 7,000 of our customers use at least one App Center application. Watch this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/sap-concur-app-center-partners">short video</a> to learn more about the App Center.</p>
<p>We are always looking for innovative companies with compelling integration ideas to solve real business problems for our 60 million business travelers and 48,000 enterprises worldwide. All our applications are certified for the highest standards of quality and security.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321897725-sap concur app center.jpg" /></p>
<p>SAP Concur App Center</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Join our platform innovation journey in four easy steps</h2>
<p>Whether you are a customer or prospective partner, we have well-established processes and resources available to begin building solutions or integrating with our SAP Concur Core Solutions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1624321978702-sap concur customer.partner graphic.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Step 1: SAP Concur App Center
<ul>
<li>Begin by exploring our App Center for relevant and useful content. Dramatically cut your time to value by leveraging a pre-existing application, integration, or connection that solves your business need(s) instead of building something from scratch.</li>
<li>“After integrating the Wipfli Concur Connector to our financial system, what used to take 8 to 12 hours is now done in 30 minutes, and we’ve also lowered the cost of reimbursing our employees.” – Wes Farquharson, Grand Valley Fortifiers</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Step 2: SAP Concur Development Center
<ul>
<li>If you cannot find an existing app that solves your business challenge in the App Center, don’t give up. Search our APIs reference list for the integration and extension points you need for your solution. Visit <a href="https://developer.concur.com/">developer.concur.com</a> and browse through the <a href="https://developer.concur.com/getting-started.html">Getting Started Guide</a> or the <a href="https://developer.concur.com/api-reference/">API reference guide</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Step 3: SAP Concur Web Services
<ul>
<li>To use our SAP Concur APIs as a customer, you will need to license our Web Services. Reach out to your SAP Concur sales representative or <a href="mailto:webservices@concur.com">e-mail our web services team</a> for more details.</li>
<li>If you do not have your own in-house API integration experts, SAP Concur can help by building custom applications for you. To engage our Web Services team, contact your SAP Concur sales representative or call (888) 883-8411.</li>
<li>Discover more about our Web Services in this <a href="https://concur.highspot.com/items/599f1331b919881ad29e9de0#1">brochure</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2cImyHt_74&feature=emb_imp_woyt">video</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Step 4: Certified App Center Partner Application
<ul>
<li>As a partner, you can “product-ize” your extensions and integrations on our App Center. To apply, you must meet the following criteria:
<ul>
<li>You have a compelling business case for many SAP Concur clients and/or their users</li>
<li>Your solution is technically feasible via the available APIs</li>
<li>You are committed to develop, market, and support your integration.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We will work closely with you throughout the certification process. Watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYqFm8IJ6N8">this session from our 2021 SAP Concur Partner Summit</a> for an expert overview of some best practices to certify and onboard your application to the App Center.</p>
<p>Depending on the type of application you build, fees may apply. Interested? Please contact us at: <a href="mailto:concur_bizdev@sap.com">concur_bizdev@sap.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What's next?</h2>
<p>To take a deeper dive into platform strategies for 2021 and emerging ideas, click <a href="https://go.concur.com/Dev-Lead-Generation.html">here</a> to make sure you are included in future activities and insights. We plan to announce a new series of blogs and podcasts you may find invaluable on topics including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83pSQ1UIzGM">SAP Concur Platform Roadmap</a> API deep-dives, how-to sessions, and best-practices sessions from customers and partners that have used our platform.</p>
<p>Questions? E-mail us at: <a href="mailto:concur_AppCenterAlliance@sap.com">concur_AppCenterAlliance@sap.com</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Additional Resources</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a></li>
<li><a href="http://developer.concur.com/">SAP Concur Development Center</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83pSQ1UIzGM">SAP Concur Platform Roadmap Session</a></li>
</ul>
Jenny Lundberg
The Wheels of Change are Spinning Fast: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation on Optimizing Mileage Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wheels-change-are-spinning-fast-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-optimizing-mileage
2023-09-08T16:42:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Whether youre clamoring to return to the office contemplating a hybrid work model or are staunchly opposed to ever setting foot in the office or going on a business trip again...
<p>Whether you’re clamoring to return to the office, contemplating a hybrid work model, or are staunchly opposed to ever setting foot in the office or going on a business trip again, workplace setup opinions are at an all-time high. And why not? According to SAP Concur customer data, mileage spend is consistently one of the top expense categories for all verticals. If you’re looking to give twenty-one hours back to each employee each year, dig into your mileage program and tune in to our podcast!</p>
<p>We asked Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President of the Value Experience Group at the SAP Concur organization<a> </a>and Ken Robinson, Market Research Manager for Motus, to share their expert perspective on optimizing mileage programs post-pandemic.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon </a>| <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5I9renR3B1ISIFuYRHFcT2">Spotify </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/winners-and-losers-shifting-gAzsmRZCkFw/">Listen Notes </a>| <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/winners-and-losers-shifting-gAzsmRZCkFw/">Acast </a>, or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/shifting-mileage-programs-to-accommodate-work-from-anywhere-lifestyle">read the transcript</a>.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Business is forever changed</h2>
<p>As we emerge from our home offices, personal and professional mileage is increasing— but it’s different from pre-pandemic conditions. “We're all familiar with working from home and [a] decentralized approach to work, but the way that we do business has changed in a way that I don't think is ever going to revert back to the way that things were, say a little more than a year ago,” shares Robinson. While many offices are not completely shuttering their doors, teams have found new ways to collaborate and execute tasks remotely with increased levels of productivity and employee satisfaction.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>We’re all a little different</h2>
<p>All business travel is not equal, and neither should be a mileage program. “The IRS one-size-fits-all mileage standard is not the only option,” shares Robinson. “Strangely enough, inside of the IRS tax regulations there's information on what it takes to pay a tax-free mileage reimbursement and FAVR is outlined there as the method that's really optimal, even though a cents per mile approach could be applied and people can just log mileage.”</p>
<p>When trying to determine the right mileage program for your organization, here are some key things to re-consider:</p>
<ol>
<li>Gas prices by region</li>
<li>Tax-free viability</li>
<li>Vehicle allowance or stipend programs</li>
<li>Accuracy of tracking and reporting</li>
<li>Fleet, rental, or personal vehicles</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Productivity vs. cost-savings: 21 hours per employee per year saved</h2>
<p>A key cost-savings in fleet vehicle programs is a decreased fuel cost in comparison with fuel reimbursement of personal vehicle mileage programs. Now that fleet vehicles have been sitting idle, this cost offset is vastly different. Robinson shares, “The value [of an optimized mileage program]…particularly when you're talking about the documentation or substantiation requirements that are outlined in the IRS tax code…It's about twenty-one hours a year that are saved per employee.” Quick math will show you how much 21 hours per employee per year costs – if that’s not a compelling figure, peek at your top expense categories. We’re fairly certain that mileage will consistently hit your top ten areas of expense annually. If you could save both time and money for your organization by adjusting your mileage program, wouldn’t you?</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>New behavior, new expectations, new policies</h2>
<p>Business travel is picking up speed, so now is the time to assess the need for change at your organization, modify your policies and then train everyone on what’s new. “Everybody's in this readdressed stage right now and I think mileage is just one piece of that that needs to be re-looked at, right?” asks Klippenstein. “It's new behavior. It's new expectations that the employees now have that the reimbursement factor is going to just always be there. I mean, overall, it's just policy reset or program design for specific outcome, specific budgetary control. Our customers are going to have to come back into that old. They can't just now expect that, okay, well, we're going to grant home office everything. It's going to change.”</p>
<p>Learn more about how to optimize mileage spend for your organization through the Concur FAVR by Motus partnership by contacting an account representative today!</p>
Kathryn Kamin
A summer spent embracing curiosity, not fetching coffee
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/summer-spent-embracing-curiosity-not-fetching-coffee
2020-09-13T04:28:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As university students and recent graduates interns know what its like to learn from textbooks whiteboards and professors But in the SAP iXps Internship Experience Project program we...
<p>As university students and recent graduates, interns know what it’s like to learn from textbooks, whiteboards and professors. But in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">SAP iXp</a>’s (Internship Experience Project) program, we are given the opportunity to learn beyond the walls of a classroom.</p>
<p>Everyone knows the stereotype of an intern whose biggest responsibilities are to fetch coffee and run errands. Interning in the iXp program, that stereotype couldn’t be farther from reality. Through encouragement from my manager, mentor, coworkers and the iXp team, I spent the summer learning as much as I could and put my knowledge into action.</p>
<p>When telling friends and family about my internship on the Search Marketing team at Concur, they would tentatively ask: “Search marketing … so, search engines? What exactly is that?”</p>
<p>Many people don’t know what Search Marketing is, and before starting this internship, I honestly didn’t know very much about it either. I knew the marketing buzzword “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) from a few classes I’d taken and articles I’d read, but I knew only the basics of this complex field. To give a quick overview, the goal of Search Marketing is to improve your company’s website ranking on search engines, ultimately driving higher website traffic and increasing sales. But beyond this basic definition, there was still much more to learn.</p>
<p>My internship began by reading about the fundamentals of Search Marketing, while jotting down notes and a scrawling list of questions. I attended “lessons” taught by my mentor and my manager, read articles from leading experts in the field, asked tons of questions and studied anything I could find.</p>
<p>At the time, I was antsy to get started on projects, but I quickly saw the value in these two weeks dedicated solely to learning as my efficiency and confidence were strong moving forward on more and more complex tasks. As I began applying what I had learned to tangible projects, my learning shifted to a hands-on style in which I found myself constantly trying new things, researching and reading when I came across something I didn’t understand, and continuing to ask questions.</p>
<p>Further, my team encouraged me to include learning in my daily routine. One coworker suggested that I spend time each day reading top Search Marketing blogs to stay up-to-date with new trends and research. My team also traded interesting articles and videos with one another, sharing what we found exciting in this constantly evolving field.</p>
<p>Beyond opportunities specific to my team, my internship was full of chances to explore something new. From “Power Hour” courses, which are one-hour learning bursts with professionals in the business, to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/intern-success-i-xp-summit-breaks-barriers">three-day SAP iXp North America Summit</a>, to a lunch with Concur President Mike Eberhard, I continually experienced the ways in which everyone at Concur encouraged the iXp interns to embrace our curiosity.</p>
<p>As my internship experience reaches an end, I’m incredibly grateful for my time at Concur. Not only am I grateful for this summer spent learning, but I’m also grateful for everyone at Concur who has supported me along the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the <a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank">iXp Twitter</a> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
We know what you expensed last summer
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/we-know-what-you-expensed-last-summer
2017-08-24T09:46:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
at least we do if youre one of our customers Lets set the scene After a troublesome business trip four colleagueswho are feeling a bit annoyeddecide to exaggerate their expense claims...
<p>...at least we do if you’re one of our customers. Let’s set the scene:</p>
<p>After a troublesome business trip, four colleagues—who are feeling a bit annoyed—decide to exaggerate their expense claims. After submitting their expenses, they receive anonymous messages from a Concur auditor. They start to feel guilty and soon they are desperate to come clean. Before their fraudulent expenses are exposed any further, they withdraw their claims.</p>
<p>OK, falsified expense claims may not be as scary as a blockbuster movie. But they can be just as devastating to businesses. If exaggerated expenses get approved, they could cost your company thousands and put your VAT position at risk. Indeed, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found that a typical organization will have up to <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/concur_audit_infographic.pdf">five percent loss in annual revenue</a> due to occupational fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices"><strong>Read the eBook</strong></a><strong> to learn more about closing the gaps in compliance.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>You wouldn’t believe what some people try to expense.</strong></h2>
<p>We have helped our clients catch their fair share of outlandish expense claims during the audit process. Some people just don’t know their travel and expense policy. (Raise your hand if you can recite yours!) Others view expense reimbursement as a second payday, and some just submit exaggerated claims because they know they can fly under the radar. </p>
<p>A 2015 report by Oversight Systems found that out of 160,000 travelers audited <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/are-you-throwing-away-money-your-expense-reports">20% expensed at least one non-compliant purchase</a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Some of the things people tried to expense include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Wedding costs</li>
<li>Spa trips</li>
<li>Teeth whitening</li>
<li>Kids’ college tuition payments</li>
</ul>
<p>We even heard from a client about a taxi receipt being edited from $11 to $111.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Not all exaggerated claims are extravagant.</strong></h2>
<p>What about lesser policy violations? For example, your company policy might allow a $30 spend for dinner. But if an employee purchased a $4 meal, plus a DVD and some flowers for their significant other for $22, would your internal audit process be able to catch that behavior?</p>
<p>While $22 may be a small amount in the grand scheme of things, if many employees are doing this, it soon adds up. Where will it end? This could lead to a flood of out-of-policy spending simply because it falls within the daily budget.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What can you do about it?</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/us_smn_brochure_audit_1.pdf">Concur Audit</a> offers customers an unbiased audit service to check up to 100% of claims and receipts that are submitted. So, whether it’s a C-level executive or a junior employee, everyone will be treated the same, while helping to improve compliance, save time and most of all, money.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If you’re not using Concur Audit, how do you know what your employees expensed last summer? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices">Download our full eBook</a> to learn more.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur in the news: Taking business travel management into the digital age
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-news-taking-business-travel-management-digital-age
2017-11-09T09:55:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Is technology key to business success We think so especially in the case of business travel As the number of business trips taken is expected to grow by three percent this year its...
<p>Is technology key to business success? We think so – especially in the case of business travel.</p>
<p>As the number of business trips taken is expected to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">grow by three percent</a> this year, it’s more important than ever for businesses to streamline their T&E management processes. One way to do that: Automation.</p>
<p>In an interview with BBC News, Concur Senior Vice President Nick Evered discussed how digital solutions are a powerful tool for cutting costs and protecting travelers.</p>
<p>Old manual processes mean you’re not as connected as you need to be. Embracing a fully-automated, digital T&E solution ensures all your data will be united in one place. What that means for you are <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/6-ways-to-save-on-t-e">cost savings</a> thanks to reduced management time, detection of expense report errors and visibility into employee spend. But, more than that, knowing where your travelers are and how to reach them at all times allows you to fulfill your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/managing-traveler-risk-in-a-world-of-uncertainty">duty-of-care obligations</a>.</p>
<p>Learn more in the video below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
SAP Concur Team
Maximizing your ROI on automated T&E management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/maximizing-your-roi-automated-te-management
2018-12-17T16:49:39Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The demands on todays accounting professionals when it comes to travel and expense management are increasing In an article for AccountingWeb Concur VP of Product Management AG Lambert...
<p>The demands on today’s accounting professionals when it comes to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">travel and expense management</a> are increasing. In an <a href="https://www.accountingweb.com/technology/trends/maximizing-automated-travel-expense-and-invoice-system-roi" target="_blank">article for AccountingWeb</a>, Concur VP of Product Management A.G. Lambert explains that these include reducing time on tasks, driving greater cost savings and improving compliance.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img alt="Concur Expense ROI" class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Do the Math</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>If your business is still relying on traditional manual processes for T&E management, you may be overlooking <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ebook-hidden-cost-te">hidden costs</a>. Adopting an automated solution is the first step toward capturing your data in one place and working more efficiently. Digital processes will allow your business to save money by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Tracking all purchases travelers make to ensure they’re within your policy.</li>
<li>Identifying employees who may be at risk of fraud and double-check potentially costly expense reporting mistakes. </li>
<li>Predicting, collecting and tracking passive expenses (like fees and contract charges) that can fly under the radar.</li>
</ul>
<p>But, while automating your T&E systems can be the first step toward efficiency, Lambert notes that it’s not the last. He suggests three ways in which accountants can further maximize their ROI on these systems: empower employees with mobile, connect business systems and applications, and make data work harder.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.accountingweb.com/technology/trends/maximizing-automated-travel-expense-and-invoice-system-roi" target="_blank"><strong>Read the full article on AccountingWeb</strong></a><strong> to learn more about these three tactics, and how to apply them to your business. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Prepare for Unexpected Events on a Business Trip
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-prepare-unexpected-events-business-trip
2018-02-08T09:03:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Weve all heard the saying that even the best laid plans go awry and as travelers this phrase rings especially true From speeding through security to scoring upgrades and knowing which...
<p data-id="39f5c92a-87f5-4aa6-a73c-f21c13a71d68">We've all heard the saying that "even the best laid plans go awry," and as travelers this phrase rings especially true. From speeding through security to scoring upgrades and knowing which hotels have the fastest Wi-Fi, we've perfected the art of business travel – but some things are simply out of our control. It's never something we like to think about, but being prepared can make all the difference when encountering a bump in the road. So, here are a few tips on how to prepare for unexpected events.</p>
<p data-id="39f5c92a-87f5-4aa6-a73c-f21c13a71d68"> </p>
<h2 data-id="0c217b00-af7a-40dd-8263-c1e6a9962559">Natural Disasters, Political Unrest, or Other Major Events</h2>
<p data-id="5d1eb0a6-5285-4a35-8f16-f1efaf30de8e">Serious events like natural disasters, transportation strikes, and political unrest are not fun to think about. Events like this are out of your control and, for the most part, don't need to be a point of stress or concern when traveling. That being said, it never hurts to be prepared!</p>
<p data-id="66a22160-bca2-4fb2-b426-27de2fae55d6">Luckily, there's Concur Locate to give you peace of mind while traveling. If you're an SAP Concur user and your company has purchased <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate</a>, your company will be able to give you advice and assistance if you're ever somewhere a potentially dangerous situation is occurring.</p>
<p data-id="f31ea03c-6239-42ef-8bdf-36fd0ddb3b5c">To ensure you receive these communications, update your SAP Concur profile with your mobile phone number and opt into these messages. You'll also want to download the SAP Concur mobile app so you can check-in as safe or request assistance if necessary.</p>
<p data-id="3702febd-f92a-4e34-9a75-2f9a18a3e158">Making sure people know where you are is important. With TripIt, this is easy. Organize your itinerary and share it with family or friends. And don't forget to make sure your business trips are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLNOjr32cY&index=11&list=PLLNSVdjqNPVt6wI4Xtbmm7QDXGUpdYZKb" target="_blank">synced with SAP Concur</a> - this will help ensure you get the benefits of Concur Locate. It's also a good idea to register with the local embassies when traveling abroad. U.S. citizens can do this through the <a href="https://step.state.gov/step/" target="_blank">Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)</a>.</p>
<p data-id="3702febd-f92a-4e34-9a75-2f9a18a3e158"> </p>
<h2 data-id="9fa03424-32db-47e0-94ff-b36c2acbb62a">Delays and Cancelations</h2>
<p data-id="c7d0dfba-2d5a-4c92-810f-87cc0ed9d8ff">Less serious but more common, delays and cancelations are events that can put a damper on your business trip.</p>
<p data-id="033e192e-3630-4cd8-a933-8c18849a738d">You never want to get in late for a meeting or miss out on a family gathering on your way home. Stay one step ahead of delays and cancelations with alerts from <a href="https://www.tripit.com/pro/features" target="_blank">TripIt Pro</a>. The app also makes it easy to search for alternate flights from all airlines so you can call to rebook if need be.</p>
<p data-id="34e7dd12-dd8a-4e17-a25c-a8bdf1ba7667">Other apps, like <a href="https://www.loungebuddy.com/" target="_blank">LoungeBuddy</a> and SAP Concur, can help soften the blow if you need to hang out in the airport, book a new hotel, or rearrange travel plans.</p>
<p data-id="34e7dd12-dd8a-4e17-a25c-a8bdf1ba7667"> </p>
<h2 data-id="9ea4e015-045d-4010-a83c-558b3d93e9f7">Lost luggage</h2>
<p data-id="b4532bf7-b7b8-4353-96d0-c17e22b916df">The best advice to avoid losing luggage is to not check any in the first place. As a business traveler, you'll want to get good at packing everything in a carry on. Haven't perfected the art of carry on packing yet? Find some tricks of the trade <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2015/07/10-tips-for-packing-a-carry-on.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2016/04/packing-accessories-to-help-you-fit-more-in-your-carry-on.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.tripit.com/blog/2016/04/packing-accessories-to-help-you-fit-more-in-your-carry-on.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p data-id="115002e8-4acd-46b4-aee3-ec8401f073a5">If you have no choice but to check, there are a few things you can do that won't prevent luggage being lost but will at least soften the blow if it does happen.</p>
<p data-id="186b0221-b1b0-4ee4-baf2-a4d87c6c3dba">First, make sure you take the most important items with you on the plane. Think electronics, medications, at least one business appropriate outfit, and the like.</p>
<p data-id="7181dbe5-c380-4aed-9837-b0f61fb90f06">Next, consider travel insurance. This will help cover the cost of the items you'll need to replace while waiting for you luggage - or permanently if it's never found.</p>
<p data-id="bfacd010-3543-47a3-b781-bc85c8b2619a">Finally, know what you're entitled to. Some airlines give stipends per each day you don't have your bag while others will reimburse you when you present receipts. In the U.S., airlines must reimburse you for your bag and its contents if they're unable to find it, so keeping lists or pictures of what you pack never hurts. </p>
Colleen Fogerty
App Center Partner Spotlight: Taxback International
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/app-center-partner-spotlight-taxback-international
2018-02-19T10:30:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As VAT valueadded tax regulations constantly change reclaiming VAT on travel expenses can be complex and time intensive for any company particularly when global travel is involved In...
<p>As VAT (value-added tax) regulations constantly change, reclaiming VAT on travel expenses can be complex and time intensive for any company, particularly when global travel is involved. In fact, 70-80% of VAT goes unclaimed by companies across Europe and the U.S. With VAT rates as high as 27%, that can translate into a significant return to a company’s bottom line with the right technology. New technology that addresses these concerns has arrived in the Concur App Center.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.taxbackinternational.com/" target="_blank">Taxback International</a>, a <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">Concur App Center</a> partner, recently launched VATConnect – 1Click, which streamlines connectivity from <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> to Taxback International’s VATConnect platform in one simple step. This pre-built integration eliminates the need to set up user admin accounts, assign permissions, or send unsecured e-mails. One click is all it takes to begin utilizing SAP Concur’s intelligent data combined with Taxback International’s proprietary software and VAT experience, to save time, drive smarter savings, and improve visibility into AP invoicing.</p>
<p>VATConnect – 1Click provides clients with a free no-obligation VAT analysis report in a matter of hours. The analysis includes details around global T&E spend and/or invoice spend broken down by country and expense types, helping identify total potential eligible and ineligible VAT. Taxback International can also manage full VAT refund claims from any country in the world.</p>
<p>To experience the impact of VATConnect – 1Click on your business, visit the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBRcD%24pT6A5oT8AcbpQZDOzUZB/taxback-international"><strong>Taxback International App Center listing</strong></a>.</p>
<p>Launched in 2013, the Concur App Center makes it easy for travelers to find and connect to apps that integrate with SAP Concur and provide additional value for individuals and businesses. With more than 160 pre-built integrations and popular connections, the App Center extends the value of SAP Concur by helping customers implement SAP Concur rapidly, gain insight into spend, and simplify expense reporting.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Save Money on Business Travel with a Travel Expense Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/save-money-business-travel-travel-expense-policy
2019-05-06T13:29:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
With business travel on the rise companies are looking for ways to keep costs low When it comes to decreasing employee expenses lowcost airfare and rideshare programs are only one part...
<p>With <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">business travel</a> on the rise, companies are looking for ways to keep costs low. When it comes to decreasing employee expenses, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/is-flying-in-basic-economy-worth-it">low-cost airfare</a> and rideshare programs are only one part of the story. Documenting travel and expense policies can make a huge impact on your bottom line.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to save money on business travel</h2>
<p>First and foremost you need a travel expense policy. The goal of a travel expense policy should be to ease the hassles often associated with business travel. The policy should cover standard expense categories like accommodations, travel, food, and entertainment, with rules about what is or isn’t permitted.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281996_Suite_R_blue%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Create Your Travel Expense Policy</h2>
<p>Use our template to build your custom policy and take the pain out of T&E management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">Get the Template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Your travel policy goes beyond expenses</h2>
<p>Understanding the role your travel policy plays is the first step toward creating one your employees will follow. How important is a travel policy? In a word: very. And here are two reasons why:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Procedure creates security</strong></p>
<p>A travel policy creates guidelines for employee expenditures, such as hotel fees, food, and entertainment. This makes expense reporting, approval, and reimbursement easier for travelers, managers, and finance teams. A streamlined process reduces time spent creating and reviewing expense reports, as well as decreases overall costs for each trip through the use of approved vendors, booking procedures, and standardized per diems. It also eases the stress of business-related purchases for the employees while on the road. A traveler isn’t left wondering if a bottle of water is considered a personal or business expense or if they shouldn’t have treated a prospective client to lunch.</p>
<p>An added bonus: With travel and expense procedures in place, employees are more likely to stay compliant, decreasing opportunities for intentional or unintentional fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Recruiting and HR will benefit</strong></p>
<p>When it comes to employee recruitment and retention, a company’s travel policy can a play an important role. A <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/north-american-business-travellers-identify-top-challenges-they-face-on-the-road" target="_blank">study on the top challenges faced by business travelers</a> conducted by the GBTA Foundation, in partnership with the Sabre corporation, found that “nearly three in five (59%) [of respondents] indicate a company’s travel policy is an important factor when considering a potential new employer. Additionally, the vast majority of travelers (84%) say the quality of their business travel experience impacts their business results at least somewhat.”</p>
<p>Turnover and hiring can be costly for organizations of all sizes, and being able to save money in this area can go a long way to improving your bottom line. Your road warriors deserve a seamless travel experience, especially since they are sometimes away from home and family for long periods of time. A travel policy that is clear, easy to follow, and fair goes a long way to keeping your employees happy while on the road and more engaged in their job.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Establishing a comprehensive travel expense policy</h2>
<p>Now that you have a better understanding of what is driving your travel policy, the next step is to actually create one (or update the one you have).</p>
<p>Here are a few tips to get you started:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Make sure you write in a clear and straightforward manner:</strong> No flowery language or legalese is needed.</li>
<li><strong>Have others review the policy with you:</strong> Put the experience of your seasoned travelers to work, and make sure to include members of various teams from your office (think HR, sales, marketing, finance, etc.).</li>
<li><strong>Ensure that the policy is findable and searchable</strong>: Make it as easy as possible for users to reference. </li>
<li><strong>Communicate the benefits</strong>: Protect against employee resistance by making sure employees know you're dedicated to making their travel experience a positive one.</li>
<li><strong>Leverage data to negotiate deals and discounts</strong>: Do your business travelers frequent the same hotels or airlines? Use this intelligence to negotiate better pricing.</li>
<li><strong>Consult and reference other company documents</strong>: Travel expense management is intertwined with other company procedures, so consistency and alignment is key.</li>
<li><strong>Review international law and global travel restrictions:</strong> Ensure overseas travelers have the most up-to-date information to make their long journey a bit less stressful.</li>
<li><strong>Decide on travel parameters</strong>: Develop clear guidelines on acceptable spending limits for standard expenses such as airfare, hotels, and meals.</li>
<li><strong>Integrate automated expense reporting solutions</strong>: Through the use of cloud-based and mobile technology <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> allows employees to submit expenses from their mobile phones.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Not quite sure where to start? Our free <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy template</a> has all the information and direction you need to create a travel policy your employees will be happy to follow.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Health Goes Beyond the Patient: the Well-Being of Life Science Organizations
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/health-goes-beyond-patient-well-being-life-science-organizations
2020-09-11T13:18:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The life science industry is dynamic and fastpaced The pressure to stay in compliance ensuring you are following the current accounting and financial regulations and retain toptalent...
<p>The life science industry is dynamic and fast-paced. The pressure to stay in compliance, ensuring you are following the current accounting and financial regulations, and retain top-talent can easily impact the health of any business. Maintaining competitiveness and taking advantage of opportunities for innovation starts with doing a health check-up on three key areas in your organization: your employees, your business, and your finances.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Employee Engagement Leads to Retention</h2>
<p>The life sciences sector has a high percentage of unsatisfied employees. A global study by <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/mx/Documents/human-capital/Talent_2020_LifeSciences.pdf">Deloitte</a> found that only 56% of those surveyed in life sciences are satisfied with their work (compared to the 70% in all other sectors), and 27% feel they are not being challenged in their current position.</p>
<p>There are aspects of all jobs that employees do not like to perform. Often this falls to the more administrative or mundane tasks, such as pulling reports or doing data entry. It is when these tasks start to become a majority of any given job that an employee begins to feel underutilized. If they become too unhappy, they start to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>The routine and tedious items do need to get done in order to keep business moving forward, so how should a company address this issue? The use of automated technology can alleviate some of these tasks, opening up time for your employees to focus on more strategic business opportunities, growing their skills, and keeping them engaged in their job.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Managing Compliance Without Hindering Innovation</h2>
<p>Compliance is a pretty heavy topic for any company in the life sciences industry, and the recent changes in accounting standards and tax laws is enough to make finance team’s heads spin. And while many turn to compliance programs, the struggle is to find the right balance that ensures all rules and regulations are followed without impeding innovation.</p>
<p>How is this done? Start with reviewing your current compliance program. Often times, as businesses grow, their compliance program is the last thing to be updated. In her recent article, <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c2d7f02c-b71d-4bbf-9b24-a02e9cb194ba" target="_blank">Compliance Issues for Global Life Sciences Companies</a>, Ropes and Gray Attorney Kim Nemirow, discusses the elements that go into an effective compliance program, and how the most important element is the tone and buy-in from senior leadership:</p>
<p>“While a compliance policy, training program, monitoring program, financial auditing are all key components of a compliance program, without the tone from the top and the sufficient resources, really from the corporate level, none of those policies or training can really be effective.”</p>
<p>In addition to having buy-in on all levels, Deloitte stresses the importance of using technology to create a compliance program that is not only efficient but, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/regulatory/articles/life-sciences-regulatory-outlook.html">can shape the future compliance landscape</a> and transform how the compliance function is viewed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increased Financial Insights Leads to Healthy Business Decisions</h2>
<p>One of the main drivers of business decisions often boils down to finances. Any company operating in the dark doesn’t have the financial data to assess current situations and know where the company should go next. This leads back to integrating automated technology to increase visibility and overall business effectiveness.</p>
<p>The accounts payable department is a great example of where the use of automated technology can lead to streamlined processes and employee satisfaction. This team is often found dealing with both electronic and paper invoices, creating more work as they have to manually enter in invoices, pull reports, and cross-check all data. Monthly reports can take days to create, and year-end reporting can take weeks. This is where implementing a solution like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> can alleviate these issues, streamlining invoice management and increase visibility into expenses. The cloud-based software is ideal for companies stretched across the globe, making applications and data available from anywhere.</p>
<p>As the life science industry continues to grow and change, it will be those companies who take time to examine their own health that will stay ahead of the competition. Engaged employees, an effective compliance program, and complete financial visibility are just what the doctor ordered.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
SAPPHIRE NOW 2018: A Week to Remember
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sapphire-now-2018-week-remember
2020-01-29T12:57:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Recently SAP held its annual business and technology event SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando Florida Its SAPs largest event spanning four days and reaching over attendees from over countries...
<p data-id="77278614-6163-4dd0-ad55-0eb5b6d259a4">Recently, SAP held its annual business and technology event, SAPPHIRE NOW 2018, in Orlando, Florida. It’s SAP’s largest event spanning four days and reaching over 21,000 attendees from over 100 countries. I always enjoy attending this event because I get to pack in a lot of face time with customers, hear great stories about how technology is transforming their businesses, and further my knowledge about the latest technology trends. <a href="https://events.sap.com/sapandasug/en/home">SAPPHIRE NOW</a> 2018 did not disappoint.</p>
<p data-id="12403cf4-2da3-4e4a-b377-2b17ed1d7bf1">The event kicked off with a powerful diversity and inclusion (D&I) Call To Lead Summit, featuring speakers like Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, and Abby Wambach. Each speaker shared perspectives on D&I, including how important diversity in thought is at all levels of an organization. Barack reinforced the importance of this when developing strategy, making decisions, and creating highly functional teams. He shared, “It was important to have diversity of opinion around the table so that when I decided I knew there wasn’t anything I hadn’t considered.”</p>
<p data-id="cbd400f0-c5db-4486-8b43-b1352c7bd5e3">On Tuesday, Bill McDermott officially kicked off the event with a keynote covering the progress SAP has made with customers on our co-innovation journey together. He shared how SAP is leading the way to provide the next generation of customer experience with SAP C/4HANA. He also unpacked what it means to be an <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/intelligent-enterprise.html?url_id=ctabutton-us-icon-ie">Intelligent Enterprise</a> and how this enables businesses to focus on higher value outcomes, gives them a picture of their whole portfolio, and lets them completely reimagine their businesses. The remaining general sessions expanded on these, and other topics, through customer stories, product demos and other guests like SAP co-founder <a href="https://news.sap.com/2018/06/sapphire-now-intelligent-enterprise-completely-different-flexibility/">Hasso Plattner</a>, Jon Bon Jovi, and executives from Adidas and Costco.</p>
<p data-id="95fe55fd-de37-4e38-954a-bff354a82583">Throughout the week I spent most of my time with customers and partners, which is always my favorite part of any event. It was inspiring to see how our conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-power-of-machine-learning-to-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">machine learning (ML)</a> are advancing so rapidly. And, I’m thrilled about our ability to now discuss what is possible with AI and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBDmQrnaIv4">ML</a> from a picture of a receipt through audit, and the potential to eliminate the concept of an expense report altogether in the future. The power of our connected platform to create local experiences for global companies was another common thread, as well as our customer’s commitment to transforming their employee’s experiences. Connecting with our customers to discuss their desired business outcomes and how SAP Concur is a strategic partner in the process was both powerful and humbling.</p>
<p data-id="5d2439b8-aaf6-427f-ac06-e90c33331da1">I had the good fortune of meeting with some of the largest global companies in the world to discuss a range of topics and how we can continue enabling their success and help them take their team members experience to the next level. Our customers are driven with a purpose, and I am honored they have chosen SAP Concur to work side-by-side with on their journey to be a best run business. </p>
How Women Can Create Their Own Safe Business Travel Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-women-can-create-their-own-safe-business-travel-experience
2021-04-28T08:53:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Looking back over two decades of business trips I can tell you Ive learned a lot about how to better protect my personal safety Some of the unsafe situations I found myself in were...
<p>Looking back over two decades of business trips, I can tell you I’ve learned a lot about how to better protect my personal safety. Some of the unsafe situations I found myself in were unavoidable, some were not, but I learned from each one. Examples include: a taxi ride where the car broke down on a New York interstate and I was on my own to find alternate transportation, getting really sick from food-borne bacteria, arriving alone in a foreign country after dark more unprepared than I realized, and sexual harassment. Planning ahead and knowing how to respond to these risks would have made a difference in my trip.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-to-safeguard-female-travelers">I shared in the last blog</a>, the companies we work for may have a super comprehensive travel risk management program, none at all, or somewhere in between. A travel manager who understands your unique safety needs might book your trip, or you may be responsible for making all the arrangements yourself. <strong>When it comes down to it, I’ve learned that no matter the level of support I have for my business trips, it’s ultimately up to me to be an engaged, educated traveler. </strong>The peace of mind I experience by prepping for potential risk is worth any investment of my time.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1538666742928-kim-blog-3-graphic.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Preparation is the Antidote to Fear </strong></p>
<p>Whether we’re traveling stateside or internationally, it’s not <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">unusual for female travelers to feel vulnerable.</a> According to <a href="http://rampartgroup.com/rampart-team-kathy-leodler/">Kathy Leodler</a>, CEO of security firm Rampart Group, and former FBI special agent, SWAT commander, and corporate security director, “Female business travelers are at greater risk for assault, theft, sexual harassment, and kidnapping.” She added, “Prevention is key. It’s the advance work you can do pretty quickly that will help ensure your safety and well-being—so your ability to conduct business is not impacted or slowed down.”</p>
<p>By learning to avoid unsafe situations, we’re also protecting the welfare of our families at home—whether we’re single, married, a parent, or near retirement. There’s always someone counting on us to return safe and sound. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11296-0.jpg?itok=--BqyRNH" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>A Safety Checklist for Female Business Travelers</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>We’ve assembled an eBook, <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/female-business-traveler-safety-checklist">A Safety Checklist for Female Business Travelers</a>, </strong>with resources, tips, and behavioral protocols to help you take more control of your safety when traveling. This guide includes expert tips from Kathy Leodler and trusted organizations and is especially helpful for the unmanaged female business traveler—those responsible for making their own business travel arrangements without the assistance of a company-wide travel program.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Here is what’s covered: </p>
<ul>
<li>Understanding Business Trip Insurance</li>
<li>Trip Planning Essentials</li>
<li>Packing for Safety</li>
<li>Protecting Your Health and Welfare</li>
<li>Lodging Safety Tips </li>
<li>Practicing New Behaviors</li>
<li>Social Media and Cyber Safety While Traveling</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1538670050649-10-02-cmo-blogposts-3-quotekathy.jpg" /></p>
<p>Next week, in my final blog of the series, <strong>Women: Are You Traveling Alone for Business? Keep Your Mobile Charged</strong>, I’ll review how mobile technology can be your travel safety best friend, especially when traveling alone in a location you’ve never been before. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See also:</h3>
<h3>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-is-business-travel-safety-different-for-women">Why is Business Travel Safety Different for Women?</a></h3>
<h3>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/are-companies-doing-what-they-can-to-safeguard-female-travelers">Are Companies Doing What They Can to Safeguard Female Travelers?</a></h3>
<h3>Part 4: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-your-mobile-phone-helps-keep-you-safe-when-traveling">How Your Mobile Phone Helps Keep You Safe When Traveling</a></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>1 The New Face of Business Travel: Unpacking and Redefining the Do-It-Yourself Business Traveler: Copyright 2018 The Upside Travel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.</p>
<p>2 Statista: Global business travel spending growth forecast from 2015 to 2020.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
Use this Data to Make Your Business Case for Invoice Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-data-make-your-business-case-invoice-automation
2019-03-26T14:35:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Accounts payable is more important to the business than ever before Besides processing invoices and entering massive amounts of financial data there is so much more value todays...
<p>Accounts payable is more important to the business than ever before. Besides processing invoices and entering massive amounts of financial data, there is so much more value today’s finance teams can offer. From reporting and analysis to negotiating better deals, finance has access to data that can make a real difference. Does your business have the insights it needs?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build a Case for AP Automation</h2>
<p>Our guide will help you lay the groundwork to plan, write, and present a business case that you can sell into your business leaders.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>The high cost of paper</h2>
<p>Manual processes can keep AP teams from focusing on higher value tasks and can hide significant costs. Consider these facts:</p>
<ul>
<li>A typical small to midsize business (SMB) processes 450 invoices per month with a duplication rate of 1.29% — that’s six duplicate invoices every month.</li>
<li>62% of businesses report manually handling more than 75% of the paper invoices they receive.</li>
<li>Labor costs typically make up 62% of total AP costs.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>We’re only human</h2>
<p>Whenever people are involved, mistakes can happen. Today 86% of business are moving away from manual AP tasks, and 82% have implemented largely automated <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/invoicing-trends-the-lure-of-automated-ap">AP processes</a>. Being fully automated means all invoices, processing, approvals, and communications happen through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice management software</a>. When your invoices are accurately captured and your financial data is correct, you can easily pull reports and get the visibility you need to make smarter, more strategic business decisions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation opens the door to mobile</h2>
<p>Workforces are increasingly mobile. By 2020, the U.S. mobile worker population is expected to exceed 105 million — or 72% of the entire U.S. workforce. With mobile quickly becoming the new standard, your employees don’t want to wait until they get back to the office to sift through inboxes and mail trays to find invoices. Enabling them to review and approve invoices on the go from mobile devices not only expedites the payment cycle, but also creates a more user-friendly experience. You can even combine spending, like expenses and travel, so you can manage everything from one convenient app.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Initiate the change to better financial visibility</h2>
<p>Fully automating your AP system can help you cut costs, gain insight and boost employee satisfaction. <strong>Learn how to gain better visibility into your current system and steps to take it to the next level with this eBook: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/10-step-guide-efficient-vendor-invoice-process">A 10-Step Guide to an Efficient Vendor Invoice Process</a>. </strong>Making this shift today takes you one step closer to better financial visibility and more control over your invoice processes.</p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Best Practices for Healthcare Mileage Reporting
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-best-practices-healthcare-mileage-reporting
2018-12-13T12:43:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Healthcare organizations already know that tracking personal mileage can be difficult Relying on employees to estimate miles driven then manually entering miles into expense reports...
<p>Healthcare organizations already know that tracking personal mileage can be difficult. Relying on employees to estimate miles driven, then manually entering miles into expense reports limits reliability and efficiency. Especially when managing large amounts of people and data, a manual mileage tracking process could actually be costing your organization money.</p>
<p>With mobile healthcare on the rise, it’s time to start planning for the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Mobile Healthcare is on the Rise</h2>
<p>At 11%, SAP Concur <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/road-tripping-road-warriors-racking-up-miles-across-the-globe">healthcare customers spend the highest portion on personal car mileage</a>, </strong>more than double the average spend of any other industry. And it’s only going to get more expensive. The demand for mobile healthcare will continue to increase as the number of Americans 65 and older double in the coming decades, requiring significantly more care as a result. This growth means more of your staff, such as nurses and hospice workers, traveling on the road to a variety of locations. Without a complete mileage solution, keeping up with accurate mileage reporting will continue to be frustrating as your organization grows.</p>
<p>Smooth out the road for your organization and save money in your budget by incorporating these four best practices for managing transportation and personal mileage expenses.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Best Practices for Mileage Reporting</h2>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Evolve Your Guidance</strong></p>
<p>Clearly define your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">expense policies</a> by including personal mileage dos and don’ts. Employees will be more than happy when you provide them with easily accessible guidance to keep them compliant, their reports accurate, and allow for the quickest possible reimbursement. Make sure to review and adjust guidelines yearly to ensure they still meet the needs of your business and travelers.</p>
<p>Your organization’s personal mileage policy should include information on:</p>
<ul>
<li>When expense reports for mileage should be submitted</li>
<li>When to use a personal car versus a car rental</li>
<li>The varying rates for different employee groups, if any</li>
<li>Clear expectations for what will and won’t be reimbursed</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Set High Expectations</strong></p>
<p>On the spend management spectrum, personal mileage offers little control and less data for healthcare organizations. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Set higher expectations to gain greater visibility and control on the dollars your staff are spending.</p>
<p>Accurately capture and reimburse personal mileage by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Requiring documentation for distance traveled</li>
<li>Utilizing the expense data you have to gain visibility into organization spend</li>
<li>Checking for travelers that have excessive personal car mileage</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Keep it Accurate</strong></p>
<p>With so many healthcare professionals on the road, accurately tracking mileage can make a big difference in managing your employee spend budget. Especially since tracking transportation is the second highest expense incurred by healthcare organizations, after airfare.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Companies save an average 20% on cost savings after moving from self-reported mileage to automated GPS mileage tracking - Motus Mileage tracker</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Providing and encouraging the use of tools like GPS tracking can help with accuracy, as well as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enable employees to effortlessly capture distance traveled</li>
<li>Increase accuracy of distances reported and reimbursed</li>
<li>Collect information you need for compliance and tax reporting</li>
<li>Increase employee compliance and minimize the temptation of fraud</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>4. Make it all Mobile</strong></p>
<p>Train staff to track mileage with a device they already know and love—their mobile phone.</p>
<p>In a recent study, Forrester found that 43% of organizations consider a T&E system offered through a mobile app as the most effective way to maintain compliance. With a mobile app, employees are more likely to use it on the go and submit information instantly rather than estimating miles later. Motus mileage tracker also found that companies save an average 20% on cost savings after moving from self-reported mileage to automated GPS mileage tracking.</p>
<p>Tracking mileage through a mobile app is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Simple</li>
<li>Intuitive</li>
<li>Automated</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Concur Drive</h2>
<p>Mobile GPS tracking solutions such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">Concur Drive</a> put an end to self-reported mileage altogether. Let staff set and forget their mileage tracking, automatically turn mileage log into expense line items in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> and free up time from administrative so that they can get back to caring for patients.</p>
<p><strong>For more about Concur Drive, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/concur-drive-brochure">download our brochure</a> or learn more about the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-drive">features of Drive.</a></strong></p>
Kyla Kent
Concur TripLink and American Airlines Integration Now Available
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-triplink-and-american-airlines-integration-now-available
2018-10-05T09:00:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries even if their travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel It connects trips travelers and itineraries...
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink </a>helps companies capture travel itineraries, even if their travelers need to make reservations outside of Concur Travel. It connects trips, travelers and itineraries across multiple channels, allowing companies to apply policy and ensure traveler safety by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees in the event of an issue or emergency.</p>
<p>We recently added an exciting new supplier to our network. <strong>Concur TripLink customers can now connect their SAP Concur account with American Airlines </strong>using the American Airlines <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5b6b7b4487b7812b00d72ae0">App Center listing</a> or by enrolling their AAdvantage number in SAP Concur’s My Travel Network.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is connecting more than 400,000 AAdvantage accounts with SAP Concur via TripLink, allowing travel managers to capture the data of users who make reservations on AA.com. Travelers will also have their booking data sent directly to Concur Travel and Expense, the Concur mobile app, and TripIt Pro. Bookings automatically appear in a traveler’s SAP Concur account without a need to email anything, providing immediate visibility into traveler spend and monitoring for policy rules, if applicable.</p>
<p>According to new <a href="https://www.gbta.org/news-and-advocacy/newsroom/travel-buyers-looking-to-bring-innovation-to-booking-process" target="_blank">GBTA Foundation</a> research, travel managers continue to struggle to capture bookings made outside of corporate channels. Concur TripLink ensures travel managers can realize the benefits of their managed travel program, even if their travelers make reservations with America Airlines outside of Concur Travel. TripLink automatically captures those bookings, enabling immediate visibility into traveler spend, application of policy, and robust duty of care. TripLink also helps increase traveler productivity and satisfaction with access to TripIt Pro for all travelers.</p>
<p>“We’re excited to provide more flexibility for travelers and give companies greater visibility into travel plans and spend.” said Alison Taylor, SVP Global Sales at American Airlines.</p>
<p>For TripLink customers who do not already have a corporate program with American Airlines in place, American is offering a signup bonus of 650 Business Extra points – enough for a one-way upgrade – for companies who sign up for the American Airlines Business Extra program by December 31. Click <a href="https://businessextra.com/i18n/content/specialOffersTermsConditions/mktOffers/BXTL18.jsp" target="_blank">here</a> for more details.</p>
<p>To date, more than 6.9 million travelers have access to Concur Triplink, and the global TripLink network includes 28 partners representing airlines, hotels, rail, and rental car providers. For more information about TripLink, visit <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur.com/TripLink</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Understand the Connection on User Experience and Wasted Time
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/understand-connection-user-experience-and-wasted-time
2018-12-10T07:47:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
By Kevin Permenter Senior Research Analyst Enterprise Applications IDC Time is a precious commodity in financial service firms They are always looking for ways to reduce their costs...
<p>By Kevin Permenter, Senior Research Analyst, Enterprise Applications, IDC</p>
<p>Time is a precious commodity in financial service firms. They are always looking for ways to reduce their costs and identifying places to gain efficiencies are always a focus area. Travel expense software end users rely on the software to help them identify those inefficiencies. However, more and more end users are looking to their software itself and how it functions as a place to save precious time. To that end, end users in financial services firms are looking for T&E software applications that offer a strong user experience. Specifically, end users are looking for a more intuitive and conversational user experience with their travel applications. It not only means that users will find it easier to use the application but also means that end users will be able to be more productive and efficient. However, building that user experience can be a difficult task. Creating a stronger user experience includes the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Simpler/Cleaner Interface:</strong> T&E solution end users want an intuitive experience without additional/unnecessary clicks or repetitive key strokes. They are looking for a simple clean interface with functionality (drop-down lists, tabs, cookies etc.) they have become familiar with in consumer software.</li>
<li><strong>Mobility:</strong> Business travels want the ability to interact with the T&E tool the same way they would any other application on their mobile device. They want simple icon-based applications. The application should mirror consumer functionality with photo capabilities, messaging, and alerts. Most importantly, it should provide access to expense data and allow them to create and submit expense reports.</li>
<li><strong>Multidevice support:</strong> Business travelers may need to interact with the T&E system via multiple devices within a given period. No one wants to have to learn multiple versions (mobile and laptop) of the T&E software. So, the overall user experience needs to be consistent (layout, navigation, naming) regardless of device.</li>
<li><strong>Conversational UI:</strong> Advances in natural language processing have given rise to conversational user interfaces (UIs) that promise to bring human and computer closer together. The driver behind the rise of conversational UI is improved speed to problem/search resolution and enhanced user experience.</li>
<li><strong>Strong customer support:</strong> End users routinely talk about the importance of customer support and how it can be one of the biggest time sinks for travel managers. End users are often forced to talk with lower level call center employees which can lead to unnecessary back and forth. End users want quick and efficient customer service regardless of their size and status.</li>
<li><strong>Automation/Intelligence:</strong> Intelligence within the financial software comes in many forms, some of which are already generally available, including workflow automation, conversational user interfaces, chatbots, and intelligent analytics, coupled with curated data sets. When taken together, intelligent workflows save time, increase operational efficiency and, more importantly, add a layer of big data analysis that human beings simply cannot duplicate.</li>
</ul>
<p>Streamlining the user experience leads to less wasted time for travel departments. Also, a better user experience can lead to more employee engagement with the application. This is extremely impactful as it relates to wasted time. Often travel managers must spend precious time urging employees to use the system or helping employees operate the expense software. The time spent chasing down expense report or helping employees find the right forms is also time away from higher level tasking that drives valuable insights. Simply put, time spent by the vendor streamlining the user experience is time well spent! <strong>For more about the evolution of travel and expense software, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/effective-risk-and-compliance-strategies-financial-firms-managing-travel-and-expense">read the Q&A</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Don't Let These Bad Habits Hold Back Business Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-let-these-bad-habits-hold-back-business-growth
2020-01-29T13:11:59Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It is generally accepted that if youre serious about growing your business youre more likely to succeed if you have clearly defined goals and a plan in place to achieve them But it is...
<p>It is generally accepted that if you’re serious about growing your business, you’re more likely to succeed if you have clearly defined goals and a plan in place to achieve them. But it is also important to look at any barriers to growth, especially within your own business.</p>
<p>Let’s take three examples: </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Paper-based expense and invoice processes</h2>
<p>When you’re small, there are only a handful of expense claims and supplier invoices each month and getting sign off on them is easy because there is only one person in the approval chain – the boss.</p>
<p>But as you grow, all this changes. Now there are hundreds of expense claims and invoices a month and there is paper everywhere. Plus, there are several people in the approval process and sign-off can take weeks when people are out the office or you’re based in multiple locations. It is annoying for employees and suppliers, while the finance team is always playing catch up and can’t plan expenditure sensibly.</p>
<p>When London-based charity <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/casestudy/concur-partner-excluserv-and-thames-reach" target="_blank">Thames Reach moved to SAP Concur</a>, filing in the first six months went from a six-foot-high filing cabinet to a concertina file. Indeed, research suggests that automation speeds up the expense approval process by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">up to 80%</a>.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"> </div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Boost Your Bottom Line</h2>
<p>Learn how automation improves efficiencies, reduces operating expenditures, and drives employee satisfaction.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Get the Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Lack of policy compliance</h2>
<p>Formal <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">travel and expense policies</a> are often written and then forgotten. Employees rarely check them and the finance team doesn’t have time to do anything more than cursory spot-checks on claims. As you grow, this can become a problem – in fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/infographic-traveler-behavior-invisible-spend">more than half of employees</a> may book out of policy. So how can you be confident your spend is under control?</p>
<p>Automation can solve this problem by embedding policies in the system. Employees are alerted when spend is out-of-policy so it can be stopped at source and you can gain confidence in your compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Too much unapproved spend</h2>
<p>When you’re small, everyone in the company knows the purse strings are tight and every purchase is carefully considered. But as you grow, this also changes. Even if all employees are budget-conscious, small purchases here and there soon start to add up.</p>
<p>Automation gives you a way to get insight into spend and control it. Luke Braham, head of technology operations at SAP Concur customer RED, said: “We’ve been relaxed in the past and we needed to be less relaxed. SAP Concur gives us a way to do this. For example, we realized we spent £27,000 with Amazon last year and it was all unapproved. We’ve now moved to a single Amazon Business account. The spend will be approved going forward, which is a big benefit.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Understanding the common theme</h2>
<p>The finance team is essential to business growth in the insights it can offer and the support it can provide. But it is also true to say that its processes are a crucial factor in business growth too.</p>
<p>Cumbersome paper-based processes create work for people throughout the business, meaning more time is spent on admin and less time on the work that will propel the business forward. Similarly, policies and systems that lack transparency mean no one has the insight needed to be able to reinforce policies or inform future spend.</p>
Controlling Expense Fraud: How Much of Your Revenue Would You Like to Keep?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/controlling-expense-fraud-how-much-your-revenue-would-you-keep
2020-09-21T18:44:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Heres an easy one How many miles is it to the nearest neighboring city in your state Okay Now go ask a few officemates Odds are your answers will all be different and none of you will...
<p>Here’s an easy one: How many miles is it to the nearest neighboring city in your state? Okay. Now go ask a few officemates. Odds are, your answers will all be different, and none of you will be right.</p>
<p>See how easy it is for people to make honest mistakes on their expense reports? What isn’t as simple to discern, however, is employees who aren’t merely making mistakes, but who are deliberately and fraudulently misrepresenting their expenses at your expense.</p>
<p>According to an Oversight Systems 2017 Spend Analysis Report, the typical organization loses 5% of annual revenues to fraud – 89% of which, according to a 2018 ACFE global study, are asset misappropriation which includes expense reimbursement schemes. And 50% of it all is due to weak internal controls.</p>
<p>So how do you rein it in? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/how-do-you-cultivate-compliance-protect-your-business">See the SAP Concur fraud tip sheet</a> to cultivate a culture of compliance and protect your business with six smart tips:</p>
<ol>
<li>Introduce robust policies for travel and expenses.</li>
<li>Provide tools that make it easier to be compliant.</li>
<li>Catch spend anomalies before they happen.</li>
<li>Reduce mileage padding.</li>
<li>Carry out audits to check adherence to your policies.</li>
<li>Monitor expense claim data automatically.</li>
</ol>
<p>These tips and their associated tools will help you capture and control travel, expenses and invoices, with the ultimate goal, of course, being able to significantly reduce fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You can’t control what you can’t see</h2>
<p>Crystal clear, real-time visibility into who is spending, what they’re spending, and where it’s getting spent is another critical key to controlling fraud. And that’s the foundation of what SAP Concur delivers.</p>
<p>SAP Concur connects to spending data directly from suppliers, from credit providers and from virtually any other source, so no matter where or when your employees are spending, you can capture it all. And <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-intelligence">Concur Intelligence</a> then puts that data to work, so you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Give finance and business leaders detailed reports that track spending in key categories, spot higher-than-normal spending, and catch outliers and out-of-policy spending behavior.</li>
<li>Give managers the tools to more effectively manage budget targets and control costs—using interactive, roles-based dashboards that give you a one-look window into what you’ve spent, where you spent it, what’s pending and where you stand on budget.</li>
<li>Add custom or standard alerts that send real-time emails to managers when spending exceeds policies or monthly or quarterly budget thresholds are met.</li>
</ul>
<p>Concur Intelligence is just one of a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/visibility-and-compliance">full arsenal of tools</a> that help you control risk and compliance.</p>
<p>And that’s how you can start to get your 5% back.</p>
SAP Concur Team
How Automation Makes It Easier to Comply With Company Travel Policies
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automation-makes-it-easier-comply-company-travel-policies
2021-02-11T15:56:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Travel and expense fraud isnt a finance problem Its a human problem When employees book their own travel and then report their expenses it can be easy to accidentally or purposely fall...
<p>Travel and expense fraud isn’t a finance problem. It’s a human problem. When employees book their own travel and then report their expenses, it can be easy to accidentally or purposely fall outside of the corporate travel policy. Meanwhile, a random expense report audit can be like looking for a needle in a haystack while doing little to help employees stay compliant.</p>
<p>In the latest episode of the Intelligent Business podcast, The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Barnwell explores how SAP Concur helps companies use new advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning to boost compliance and improve the detection of costly fraud, errors, and misuse.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1549298922265-headphones.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Business Podcast</h2>
<p>Episode 4: Seeing the Unseen: A Solution for Travel and Expense Compliance</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Rather than trying to catch mistakes or fraud after the fact, managers can instead use technology to build a culture of compliance. Soon enough, employees won’t recall a time before AI audited every transaction, while detecting fraud – accidental or purposeful – will be an automatic part of the expense process.</p>
<p>In this episode you’ll learn:</p>
<ul>
<li>Why different companies have different definitions of “T&E policy compliance”</li>
<li>How unintended errors can be as costly as intentional fraud</li>
<li>Why random audits provide a false sense of security</li>
<li>How automation makes it easy to protect against most common travel and expense fraud</li>
</ul>
<p>The Intelligent Business podcast is a collaboration between SAP Concur and The Wall Street Journal’s Custom Studios. This new series digs into the stories behind the innovations that allow companies to become smarter about business travel. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/sponsored/the-intelligent-business" target="_blank">Listen to the five-part series here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Power Your Accounts Payable by Integrating AP Processes With Your ERP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/power-your-accounts-payable-integrating-ap-processes-your-erp
2019-04-19T14:28:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Accounting is a fundamental building block of your business However for many years accounts receivable AR and accounts payable AP functions remained largely unchanged As a result they...
<p>Accounting is a fundamental building block of your business. However, for many years, accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) functions remained largely unchanged. As a result, they suffered from three primary issues: siloed information, disparate systems, and error-prone manual processes.</p>
<p>Recently the future has arrived for these essential tasks. In a report ranking different applications for <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/what-cfos-need-know-about-artificial-intelligence-ap-management">AP management</a>, the market intelligence firm IDC explains that innovative technologies like cloud, machine learning, and advanced analytics are taking hold in multiple areas of the business – and those changes are clearing a path for accounts payable to overcome those primary issues discussed.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in the report, IDC positions SAP as a leader in the category of worldwide cloud and SaaS ERP AR and AP applications.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Streamline Your AP Process</h2>
<p>See why IDC named SAP a leader in ERP integration with AP and AR processes.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-cloud-and-saas-erp-accounts-receivables-and-accounts">Get the Report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>“SAP views its solution as a comprehensive receivables and payables management offering, which also features fully integrated options within its SAP Ariba and SAP Concur solutions tied together by the Intelligent Enterprise system,” IDC says in the report.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As part of its seamless integration, SAP Concur helps to automate the entire spending process – from pre-spend approval to reconciliation, reporting, and analytics ­– right into your SAP systems. What does that mean for your business? IDC outlines a few examples in the report:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Automated AP processes</strong><br />
The direct data exchange between SAP Concur and SAP from end-to-end means near real-time data synchronization between your systems with no manual interaction required, freeing up your employees for more strategic tasks.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>Connected systems means more insights</strong><br />
Concur Invoice and your SAP systems offer greater visibility and reporting across all channels of your employee spend in a single system.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>Reduced risk and greater compliance</strong><br />
When you <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/five-very-good-reasons-to-automate-your-accounts-payable-management">automate accounts payable</a> processes, employees don’t have to worry about occasional mistakes, and AI can help to reconcile invoices and catch fraud.<br />
</li>
<li><strong>The ability to focus on growth and scale</strong><br />
A simplified implementation allows you to avoid maintenance, lower costs, and reduces the need for connectors and middleware. A truly global solution means that no matter where your business goes, your solution will be there to help.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP ERP integrates with accounting solutions, read the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-cloud-and-saas-erp-accounts-receivables-and-accounts" target="_blank">full </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-marketscape-worldwide-cloud-and-saas-erp-accounts-receivables-and-accounts">IDC MarketScape report</a><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-cloud-and-saas-erp-accounts-receivables-and-accounts" target="_blank"> </a>today.</p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur's Spring into Service Week
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concurs-spring-service-week
2021-03-01T15:34:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur In North America SAP Concur kicked off the new quarter with our Spring into Service initiative an annual...
<p data-id="9d5da887-dab5-44c5-b0f1-da184d6bb3d2">Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p data-id="9d5da887-dab5-44c5-b0f1-da184d6bb3d2">In North America, SAP Concur kicked off the new quarter with our Spring into Service initiative, an annual SAP corporate social responsibility week where employees give back to their local communities.</p>
<p data-id="9d5da887-dab5-44c5-b0f1-da184d6bb3d2"> </p>
<p data-id="9c85dc1b-6e17-4fa6-a5c4-b2370f316653">Our SAP Concur corporate social responsibility program hosted a nationwide event across six office locations in the U.S., partnering with <a href="https://readingpartners.org/" target="_blank">Reading Partners</a>, an organization that works with local educational programs to build literacy opportunities for underserved youth. SAP Concur employees had the chance to donate books to the organization that would go to their local educational partners. Overall our employees donated almost 1,900 books to local educational programs for youth!</p>
<p data-id="9c85dc1b-6e17-4fa6-a5c4-b2370f316653"> </p>
<p data-id="7588c1bb-e567-4137-be7b-5939f36cef67">We also saw many employees volunteer their time and coordinate group events to make an impact in their local communities. Here are just a few impactful stories from Spring into Service week:</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1555950301587-csr-3.jpg" />
<p>The SAP Concur Global Channel Marketing team in Seattle, Washington partnered with <a href="https://www.ugm.org/" target="_blank">Seattle United Gospel Mission</a> at their Hope Place facility in Columbia City. This is a 12-month residential recovery program designed to support and advocate for women and children who are caught in the cycle of abuse and addiction. SAP Concur employees helped the Hope Place program prepare dinner for that evening feeding more than 200 residents. This team was so inspired by the Hope Place program they have committed to dedicating their SAP Concur Cares Days to continue volunteering at the facility throughout the year. These "days off" are offered to each employee quarterly so they can dedicate a whole day to volunteer efforts.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1555950162802-csr-2.png" />
<p>In the SAP Concur Allen, Texas office employees volunteered with the <a href="https://www.heardmuseum.org/" target="_blank">Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary</a> for their second Spring into Service in a row! This year the museum hosted a plant sale fundraiser to support their educational programs. SAP Concur volunteers set up and loaded plants into customers' vehicles, helping make the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary fundraiser a great success.</p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1555950345496-csr-1.jpg" />
<p>The Global Operations team worked with the <a href="https://www.cancer.org/" target="_blank">American Cancer Society</a> to support their Paws for the Cause event in Kirkland, Washington. They created inspirational signs and thank you cards to encourage event participants and their dogs during the 5k walk and agility courses. It was a great event focused on raising funds for cancer research.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was so incredible to see the effort and impact made by our employees within their local communities. Although Spring into Service may be just a week, as a purpose-driven company our focus on giving back to local communities is year-round. </p>
SAP Concur Executives
Is Automation the Overlooked Secret to Small Business Growth?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automation-overlooked-secret-small-business-growth
2019-07-05T11:58:02Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
All businesses start small but only some end up growing into larger enterpriselevel companies Whats the difference Amazon was started in a house in Seattle by Jeff Bezos Apple famously...
<p>All businesses start small, but only some end up growing into larger, enterprise-level companies. What’s the difference?</p>
<p>Amazon was started in a house in Seattle by Jeff Bezos. Apple famously began in Palo Alto in the garage of Steve Jobs’ parents. Microsoft was started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and even into year three only had a few employees.</p>
<p>Obviously, if you work in a small business, or own one, then this is true for you too. You started small.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Better Manage Spend with Automation </h2>
<p>Elevate your business performance. Check out the SMB expense, travel & invoice management landscape</p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>But that said, given they all start at about the same size, why do some companies grow and scale seemingly so much easier than others? Now of course, it is unlikely that you are trying to create the next Amazon; few small businesses have that sort of ambition, or, frankly, desire. But it is also likely true that almost all small businesses and their entrepreneurs have a desire to at the very least get bigger and make more money.</p>
<p>So, what’s the secret? Needless to say, it is not just one thing. Having a superior product or service is key, yes, as is having a great team, a secret sauce, and a whole lot more. But a key, often ignored, ingredient – especially in today’s increasingly digital world -- is process automation</p>
<p>Automation?</p>
<p>You bet.</p>
<p>Here’s why: When a small business starts, the entrepreneurs do everything. They wear multiple hats. But before long, the businesses that scale realize a few things:</p>
<ul>
<li>Having the owners do tasks that others can do is a waste of time and talent. They hire smart. We all know that.</li>
<li>But similarly, and often missed, is that they also realize that the <strong>inefficient, early-day processes</strong> that were created before anyone knew better are an <strong>impediment to growth</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Consider, for one simple example, payroll. Early on, founders do payroll, right? Then a business grows and maybe a bookkeeper is hired, or maybe payroll is outsourced to a small firm. But eventually, if it is to really grow, the company automates payroll.</p>
<p>The same can be said for your vendor invoice and expense processes.</p>
<p>Automation frees up the company - and its resources and people - to concentrate on far more important things than the minutiae, the hum-drum, day-to-day operations; things that can be handled better, more efficiently, and far more economically, by the cloud, technology, and automation.</p>
<p>But don’t just take my word for it. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">recent study</a> of financial decision makers at SMBs by AMI-Partners found this to exactly be the case (check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/ami-partners-study-expense-travel-and-invoice-management-infographic">interactive infographic</a>).</p>
<p>First the bad news: the study found that traditional invoice and expense processes and systems negatively affected business performance:</p>
<ul>
<li>69% reported having cumbersome manual processes</li>
<li>60% had trouble tracking spending, and</li>
<li>56% struggle with missing paperwork</li>
</ul>
<p>Manual processes that lead to lost paperwork and related long-delays? No wonder these small businesses have a tough time growing.</p>
<p>But the good news is really encouraging. It turns out that cloud-based, automated solutions like those offered by my friends here at SAP Concur can solve the problem, speed things up, save you money, and thereby foster growth.</p>
<p>It does so in four ways.</p>
<p>First, automation creates <strong>increased visibility </strong>into spending, cash flow, and other financial data. And despite an increase in volume for submitted invoices and expense reports as businesses grow, companies actually find more time to spend on strategic analysis and tasks. Why? Because the otherwise tedious processing tasks become automatic, saving accounting teams, for example, 16% of their time – or 40 hours per week processing invoices.</p>
<p>Next, automating processes like expense, travel, and invoice reporting creates <strong>greater employee satisfaction.</strong> Consider: Employees report expense reporting is up to 80% faster with a mobile, automated solution.</p>
<p>80%!</p>
<p>Third, cloud-based expense, travel, and invoice solutions allows SMBs to <strong>grow rapidly</strong> without growing their finance teams. As one survey respondent in the AMI-Partners report said, “As we continued to grow, the system just absorbed new employees. The accounting team has remained stable as the company has grown over the last three years.”</p>
<p>Finally, the Concur solution provided <strong>bottom-line saving</strong>s. How much? How does an average of $34,000 annually sound? What could your business do with an extra $34,000? It can help you grow, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>So yes, if you want to grow, be great, have a great idea, hire the best, and start automating your processes!</p>
<p>Check out the full AMI-Partners report, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance" target="_blank">Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation</a>.</p>
Steve Strauss
How Employers Can Help Ground “Untethered” Digital Natives
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-employers-can-help-ground-untethered-digital-natives
2019-10-08T12:08:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Digital natives Millennials and Gen Zers who grew up with the internet make up of the workforce a percentage that is projected to rise to during the next years according to a CNBC...
<p>Digital natives (<a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it" target="_blank">Millennials</a> and Gen Z-ers who grew up with the internet) make up 38% of the workforce, a percentage that is projected to rise to 58% during the next 10 years, according to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/how-millennials-and-gen-z-are-reshaping-the-future-of-the-workforce.html" target="_blank">CNBC article</a>. While digital natives’ natural familiarity with the internet and technology can be a big advantage, for management and older colleagues, the demands of digital natives may feel unrelatable – and sometimes even out of line. But understanding digital natives’ worldview and attitudes toward work can help organizations create a productive and nurturing work environment for everyone.</p>
<p>Dr. Julie Albright, digital sociologist at the University of Southern California, shares her research findings and insights about what she calls an “untethered” generation and how employers can create a work environment that provides both missing connectedness and career success.</p>
<p>Growing up in a “risk society,” digital natives have been shaped by a perfect storm of factors:<br />
9/11, high divorce rates among their parents’ generation, a recessionary economy, the mortgage crisis, and high levels of college debt. One of the biggest consequences of this perfect storm is that we’re seeing <a href="https://youtu.be/zqj_HI-Vr7c" target="_blank">a generation of people coming untethered</a>. </p>
<p>Digital natives are unhooking from traditional, once-common social structures and processes. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/well/mind/millennials-love-marriage-sex-relationships-dating.html" target="_blank">median age of marriage rose</a> to 29.5 for men and 27.4 for women in 2017, up from 23 for men and 20.8 for women in 1970. Among those 22 to 38 years old, nearly three out of four never or infrequently attend religious services, according to <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/generational-cohort/" target="_blank">Pew Research</a>. This untethering from traditional social institutions means fewer social connections and a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. We’re seeing the highest rates in 30 years of anxiety and depression amongst young people, and a quarter of college students – your next generation of employees – <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/06/college-students" target="_blank">are taking psychotropic medications</a>.</p>
<p>And although Millennial turnover and employer loyalty is slightly better than the Gen X-ers who preceded them into the workforce, the career expectations of digital natives are different. All these changes have profound implications for the workplace.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How digital natives are changing the workplace </h2>
<p>As a result of untethering, employers need to recognize that, for digital natives, the American Dream has become “customizable.” Digital natives have seen what was once the ideal – such as staying at one job for an entire career and retiring on a pension – disappear. Instead, they want to create their own personalized path to fulfillment. Once employers understand that motivation is no longer “one size fits all,” they can better keep up with these seemingly “spoiled” workers. Here are a few examples of their different desires:</p>
<p><strong>Remote working. </strong>Nearly seven out of 10 digital natives feel they have the right to work remotely. They want to have the freedom to job hop and travel, as opposed to other generations that felt tied down to one place and job.</p>
<p><strong>Pace of time. </strong>Digital natives expect things to happen quickly. Business leaders used to recommend having a five-year plan for success. For many digital natives, five years can seem like an eon. For prior generations, a yearly performance review was typical, but younger workers want quick feedback monthly or even more frequently.</p>
<p>Digital natives, accustomed to the immediate response of the internet, texting, and smartphone apps, also expect to move up the corporate ladder at lightning speed. They want a promotion or to see a clear path to promotion within one year, and they’ll leave if they don’t see the possibility. In a <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx" target="_blank">Gallup report</a>, 21% of Millennials had changed jobs within the prior year, more than three times the number of non-Millennials. </p>
<p><strong>Differing expectations. </strong>There are multiple generations in the workplace now, and each has different expectations. Digital natives expect prompt responses and communication and short deadlines; whereas, older generations may be more comfortable with “analog” methods of communication, such as phone calls and business meals. These contrasting expectations can lead to clashes that breed unintentional resentment, anger, and potential team breakdowns.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How employers can lead and respond</h2>
<p>Organizations have a unique opportunity to lead and create new social structures, anchor points, support systems, and socialization for <strong>all</strong> employees by listening to digital natives. Here are some tips to achieve this:</p>
<p><strong>Remote working:</strong> Use remote working as an opportunity to build flexibility into employees’ daily schedules and work locations. Leverage tools for video meetings and dedicate specific times and activities for teambuilding. These will help foster team cohesion and avoid miscommunication, whether online or in person. Remote working can also help you hang on to valued employees who may need to move for family reasons or desire less expensive living standards, allowing you to recruit from a larger pool of candidates.</p>
<p><strong>Communication, timing, and differing expectations: </strong>Temper digital natives’ expectations about communication styles and promotions or leadership positions.</p>
<p>Be sure to address generational differences by encouraging communication and learning. Consider implementing a mutual mentorship program. For instance, digital natives can share expertise with new technology or social media, and more experienced workers can provide coaching on how to navigate office politics or move up the career ladder.</p>
<p>You may also need to consider introductory training for younger workers on skills needed for smooth business transactions, such as business meals or negotiations, because personal touches with customers still play a crucial role in successful deals and relationships.</p>
<p><strong>Wellness and growth opportunities:</strong> Finally, consider opportunities to offer wellness and growth benefits to help fill the gap for these untethered workers. Humans are social creatures, and these social connections are a missing link we need to figure out in a fast-moving, untethered society. Consider how to contribute to your employees’ wellbeing by ensuring your healthcare coverage includes mental health benefits and supporting family transitions like maternity leave and elder care. Then consider “softer” perks like opportunities to participate in good causes, join industry groups, and attend relevant conferences to encourage connections within and beyond the office.</p>
<p>The sometimes-conflicting aspirations of digital natives and previous generations creates a vexing problem for organizations: How do you maintain critical business processes while helping <strong>all</strong> workers succeed?</p>
<p>Employers can take the lead in finding a balance between yesterday’s analog world, today’s digital world, and the as-yet unimagined world of work tomorrow. It will take new ways of thinking and some creativity, but understanding digital natives’ motivations and priorities can help you create a future-ready workplace where all generations of workers can flourish.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Interested in learning more about the role mobile apps can play in untethering your employees from their desks, while easing everyday tasks like expense reporting? Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile" target="_blank">mobile apps hub</a>. </p>
Dr. Julie Albright
From Bleisure to Baby Steps on Home-Sharing Policies
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bleisure-baby-steps-home-sharing-policies
2019-08-26T14:08:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Tripkicks an SAP Concur App Center Partner shares industry insights from the ProcureCon Travel Conference Your travel policy says a lot about your corporate...
<p data-id="e38c6a14-4ae0-4fb0-ad94-e8fa844914e0"><a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5b577c461304e04e009b35d6">Tripkicks</a>, an SAP Concur App Center Partner, shares industry insights from the ProcureCon Travel Conference</p>
<h2 data-id="e38c6a14-4ae0-4fb0-ad94-e8fa844914e0"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="e38c6a14-4ae0-4fb0-ad94-e8fa844914e0">Your travel policy says a lot about your corporate culture</h2>
<p data-id="b9f49e16-19f3-47c0-9d4e-e3470efe71e2">36% of hiring managers report that candidates are asking for a copy of a company's <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy</a>. Why is that? Well, much of the workforce, which is trending to 50% <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">millennials who view business travel as a perk</a>, or at least an expectation, want to see how they'll be treated. Also, savvy job-seekers have found that a travel policy says <strong>a lot</strong> about the corporate culture. Does the company trust its employees to make good decisions? Does it prioritize the traveler’s well-being?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Take the Pain Out of Travel Management</h2>
<p>Use our template for a quick and hassle-free T&E management process.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">Get the template</a></div>
</div>
<h2 data-id="d017ee47-768f-49f1-afa6-6b96b2df047d"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="d017ee47-768f-49f1-afa6-6b96b2df047d">Revising travel policy takes a village (or at least many stakeholders)</h2>
<p data-id="9f4ab5e5-e749-472d-b931-ad32e577351e">While the group agreed that a lot of great resources exist for benchmarking and researching new trends and policy decisions, the process of actually revising the policy is still incredibly cumbersome. Ownership is often shared across many different (passionate) stakeholder groups. Today, most organizations are aimed at shortening or simplifying the policy, and the approval process presents a major and daunting roadblock. Companies who have had some successes here (think: less frustration!) have leveraged technology for a coordinated review and sign-off process across stakeholders. Technology is also used to share policy updates with travelers.</p>
<p data-id="9f4ab5e5-e749-472d-b931-ad32e577351e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="965ee2ec-6d67-4cc3-b98a-270114eb388f">Bleisure: A secret benefit?</h2>
<p data-id="933213b2-5a5f-4766-bcd9-029346110dc8">75% of business travelers took a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">bleisure trip</a> last year and that number is only increasing. Despite the popularity, many travel managers still do not address it in the policy. Sure, they approve it (provided that no personal expenses make their way onto expense reports), but they do not specifically call it out in their policy. We can't help but think, is this a missed opportunity for programs trying to become more traveler-centric? With just a quick mention and some bullet-point guidelines, companies can create goodwill with travelers, and mitigate risk.</p>
<p data-id="933213b2-5a5f-4766-bcd9-029346110dc8"> </p>
<h2 data-id="5a5de15e-ccf5-4c53-a3ca-e20e6d97f75a">Take baby steps towards home-sharing</h2>
<p data-id="283af8df-2a2f-4c86-96fd-8b3eee1ff027">With 79% of travelers preferring ride share, travel managers have widely embraced it in their corporate programs with few seeing major risks beyond traditional taxi providers. When it comes to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/airbnb-bookings-rise-sap-concur-listings-available-concur-travel">home-sharing</a>, all agree that more risks are present (the key/access process being a significant one). But many are warming up and even taking baby steps. While some millennial-driven companies integrated home-sharing content into their OBT, more cautious companies can allow it specifically for longer-trips, or have a process where the request and property are reviewed/vetted by corporate security prior to booking. </p>
Jeff Berk
Why Travel Managers are Business Superheroes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-travel-managers-are-business-superheroes
2020-01-28T19:22:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Managing corporate travel is never easy It requires attention hours a day seven days a week days a year across all continents It is also one of the least understood most...
<p>Managing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-travel-management" target="_blank">corporate travel </a>is never easy. It requires attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, across all continents.</p>
<p>It is also one of the least understood, most underappreciated, and often undervalued roles in a company. Yet, it is so critical that it requires a special type of person to accept this responsibility. Someone with an unparalleled commitment to serve, who is at their best working under pressure, can multi-task like no other, and wears many hats…. sometimes even the ones that don’t quite fit. Who could that be?</p>
<p>"It's a bird!"</p>
<p>"It's a plane!"</p>
<p>"It's a Travel Manager!"</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1573854698076-286158-superhero-flowing-cape-male-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>SAP Travel Heroes</h2>
<p>The time has come to celebrate travel managers for what they are – heroes.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.saptravelheroes.com/ ">Learn more</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Corporate travel managers are unsung heroes</h2>
<p>You thought we were going to say Superman, didn’t you? Well, like Superman, a corporate travel manager is a diplomat, strategist, top negotiator, crisis firefighter, care giver, clear communicator, and trusted advisor.</p>
<p>So, what does it really take you ask? What makes a travel manager’s power and abilities beyond those of mortal men and women?</p>
<p>To begin, try tackling <strong>trip-o-vision</strong>! This power is nothing short of the ability to track travelers with end-to-end transparency across an entire global travel program.</p>
<p>Taking on the task of aligning key suppliers to meet your essential business needs, providing guidance to your travel management company service providers, obtaining employee compliance by defining clear T&E policy guidance, and being at the ready when an incident occurs that could impact your employees no matter where they are in the world is no easy feat!</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe travel managers didn’t really come from Krypton to manage business travel logistics, but those in those shoes know they could fill a book or two with their experiences.</p>
<p>Business travel management is as real as it gets, and can often feel like it takes nerves of steel to uphold the virtues of being well prepared for anything. Indeed, it can feel like you almost to have to be a “superhero” to manage all the tasks you do.</p>
<p>And that’s just the logistical side. Don’t forget there’s also level-setting your travelers’ service expectations across the program globally.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How can corporate travel managers handle it all?</h2>
<p>It takes <strong>resolve and focus</strong>.</p>
<p>You do whatever it takes to get the job done and done right. And that is the right stuff!</p>
<p>You recognize that you are not in this alone. Everyone in your travel ecosystem plays a part, starting with the travelers themselves.</p>
<p>You empower your employees to make the right business decisions, based upon their business needs.</p>
<p>You give them the right technical tools to succeed and then get out of their way.</p>
<p>You help them along the way by eliminating outdated travel policies and processes.</p>
<p>One shining example of this type of travel management is exemplified at Salesforce, a global cloud-based service provider. We chatted with real-life travel superhero Dorian Stonie, director of global travel at Salesforce. Here’s what he and his global team shared:</p>
<p><strong>Where do you see your travel program progressing to in 2020?</strong></p>
<p>Some people talk about the "Golden Age" of travel being in the past...but I think we're in the Golden Age today. Change might be disruptive, but we are seeing so many advancements in technologies, supplier services, and a focus on personalizing the entire travel experience from start to finish. It’s a great time for travel managers to embrace the changes and to incorporate them into their travel programs, adding a higher ROI to their global program. </p>
<p><strong>How do you connect with your travelers so effectively?</strong></p>
<p>Personalizing our travel program: We develop travel communities, incorporate visuals into our messaging, and promote team members (Salesforce, TMC and suppliers) among our entire employee base. We are not just an HQ team - we are part of the Salesforce global family In the "new age of the customer", we focus on creating a persona or brand that resonates with our employees. Our Social Secret Sauce is 1/3 corporate info, 1/3 industry info, and 1/3 fun! </p>
<p><strong>What advice can you share with travel managers to sync with their management/leadership?</strong></p>
<p>One size does not fit all. You have to know your audience and connect with them in a way that effectively conveys your story. In this age of information overload, short and frequent messaging is one of our most effective tools. </p>
<p><strong>What does it take to align with your travel team members given their individual regional focus?</strong></p>
<p>One of the core responsibilities of the global travel manager is to create, communicate, and reinforce the benefits of our global programs (even among our own team). This is creating a collaboration environment that allows regional team members to share their unique requirements and find solutions to strengthen the broader goals of speed, scalability, and savings. This a cornerstone of our program -- knowing your customer at both the local and HQ levels. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>To wrap up this week’s episode, here are a couple of key points to remember regarding your travel program:</p>
<ul>
<li>The travel manager’s job is rapidly changing as the next generation of corporate travel management takes hold. The Era of the Traveler and AI/ML are beginning to merge as we enter 2020.</li>
<li>Travel managers have to become more strategic in their thinking, and yet stay true to a commitment of service excellence.</li>
<li>Travel managers must align with likeminded service providers, and share where we need to go for our mutual success like never before.</li>
<li>Travel managers must build trust among peers by empowering them to make business travel and expense decisions that meet their needs.</li>
<li>Travel managers must embrace technology and the agility of mobility.</li>
<li>Travel managers must strive to embrace end to end simplicity and automation and replace outdated polices and thought processes.</li>
</ul>
<p>So the next time someone asks you what you do, remember you’re so much more than a mild-mannered travel manager.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/episode-2-travel-managers-embrace-change-with-agility">Join us in episode two</a> to learn how travel heroes embrace change with the power of agility.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>ABOUT SAP CONCUR </p>
<p>SAP® Concur® is the world’s leading provider of integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. With SAP Concur, a top-rated app guides employees through every trip, charges are effortlessly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to audit 100% of transactions, businesses can see exactly what they’re spending without worrying about blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur eliminates yesterday’s tedious tasks, makes today’s work easier, and helps businesses run at their best every day. Learn more at concur.com or the SAP Concur blog.</p>
<p>ABOUT SALESFORCE</p>
<p>Salesforce is the global leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing companies closer to their customers in the digital age. Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful technologies—cloud, mobile, social, internet of things, artificial intelligence, voice and blockchain—to create a 360° view of their customers. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/" target="_blank">www.salesforce.com</a>.</p>
<p>Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.</p>
Ralph Colunga
Applying Lessons from Greta Thunberg to Business Travel Emissions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/applying-lessons-greta-thunberg-business-travel-emissions
2019-12-16T12:01:55Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its hard to think of anyone more serious about protecting the planet today than Greta Thunberg Just one look at the young activists face as she passionately urges us to act as if your...
<p>It’s hard to think of anyone more serious about protecting the planet today than Greta Thunberg. Just one look at the young activist’s face as she passionately urges us to “act as if your house is on fire” is enough to know that when it comes to the environment, Greta means business.</p>
<p>Thunberg doesn’t just talk the carbon-emissions talk; she walks the walk as well. From her fully vegan diet to her refusal to fly and instead sail to international events, Thunberg’s commitment to the environment is total. While her example can’t be directly applied to businesses, her actions and message should <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/12/03/what-greta-thunberg-can-teach-us-about-business-travel/#5e7bfa7b9b86" target="_blank">inspire us all to rethink business travel habits</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Change starts with awareness</h2>
<p>Sweeping change doesn’t happen on a whim or overnight in business. More often than not, a strong first step to implement organizational change is to get good data that will allow you weigh the pros and cons, and then argue for alternative solutions.</p>
<p>That’s where intelligent spend management solutions like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> can help. Recently, we added an environmental element our travel and expense management tool by including CO2 emissions (in either pounds or kilograms) for any given flight. Where available, hybrid cars can be displayed as well.</p>
<p>By providing this data, travelers are armed with information that they can use to assess whether a trip is worth the environmental cost. And much better equipped to discuss alternatives to business travel. For companies interested in travel options, Concur Travel can be configured to show teleconferencing and other options.</p>
<p>Additionally, green-minded companies can use data from Concur Travel to implement policies and sustainability standards that will push their employees to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/business-travelers-can-make-a-bigger-environmental-impact">make environmentally friendly choices</a>. Through Concur Travel, administrators can apply company policies, indicate company preferences, and insert messaging that will direct travelers to make green choices.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Consumers demand environmentalism </h2>
<p>Implementing environmentally friendly practices and policies isn’t just good for the planet. More and more, consumers favor companies that take environmentalism seriously. According to a recent study, <a href="https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2018/global-consumers-seek-companies-that-care-about-environmental-issues/" target="_blank">81% of global respondents feel strongly</a> that companies should help improve the environment.</p>
<p>As pressure from consumers for green practices increases, companies must demonstrate a commitment to both profits and the planet. Through SAP Concur, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-going-beyond-travel-automation-helps-your-business-go-green">organizations can deliver this</a> by carefully tracking travel, using emissions estimates to inform policy and secure carbon offsets, and finding creative solutions to reduce environmental impact.</p>
<h2><br />
It’s time to act</h2>
<p>Travel will always be a business reality. And the value of meeting in person versus video conferencing or a phone call is well understood. That said, we’re at a critical moment in time for reducing carbon emissions. So, it’s crucial that everyone do what they can, when they can, to limit their carbon footprint.</p>
<p>For global organizations that need to compete in a fast-paced, interconnected marketplace, it’s difficult to know what to give up and how best to do it. By giving business access to environmental data in Concur Travel, our goal is to raise awareness around environmental issues and provide organizations with tools that can help them to make choices that are good for business and good for the planet.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Bring Some “Grit” Into Your Spend Management Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/bring-some-grit-your-spend-management-program
2020-03-04T12:54:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jason Grunin Assistant VP of Business and Energy for the University of Tulsa understands the challenges that commonly hinder spend management programs It wasnt too long ago his...
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1583355173051-grit2.jpg" />Jason Grunin, Assistant VP of Business and Energy for the University of Tulsa, understands the challenges that commonly hinder spend management programs. It wasn’t too long ago his organization was feeling the many pains and frustrations itself, so their team decided to transform the entire program. Since then, the University of Tulsa has <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/university-tulsa">simplified it’s travel and expense system</a> with SAP Concur solutions – allowing employees to book travel where they want, create a consolidated itinerary, and even providing the University with a duty of care solution – all while automatically adding that information right into employee expense reports.</p>
<p> To get buy-in from so many internal stakeholders and to keep his project moving forward, Jason relied on some of the key principles from the book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth/dp/1501111116/ref=asc_df_1501111116/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312736202848&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=866272354564500905&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060230&hvtargid=aud-801738734305:pla-522591353422&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=62017409437&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312736202848&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=866272354564500905&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060230&hvtargid=aud-801738734305:pla-522591353422">Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance</a> by Angela Duckworth. While this book doesn’t directly apply to the steps the University of Tulsa took to revolutionize its spend management program, Jason has found that lessons from this book can be applied to both his professional and personal life, helping him create goals that fuel self-learning and uncover new areas of growth and innovation.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1575917935052-281518-openbook-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Reading List for 2020: Travel, Expense, and Spend Management</h2>
<p>These are the recommended reads of some of the most revered leaders.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reading-list-for-2020-the-books-visionaries-in-travel-expense-and-spend-management-recommend-most">Get the full list</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>To dig a little deeper into why Jason personally recommended this book for others, we asked him a few questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A Q&A with Jason Grunin, Assistant VP of Business and Energy for the University of Tulsa<br />
</h2>
<p><strong>Why did you recommend the book Grit?</strong></p>
<p>Grit is about having the passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It’s through reading this book that I learned the importance of finding passion in what I do every day, and that talent isn’t everything — it’s important to keep going even when things get tough.</p>
<p>I convey internally that the travel and expense (T&E) program is like a marathon, not a sprint, and that we have to stay modern to keep up with the changing times. Reading Grit has also helped me in continuing to pursue my goals, dreams, and see the world, knowing as I do, they become more real.</p>
<p><strong>What is some advice from the author that you feel your colleagues in spend management can apply to their roles in 2020? </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>It’s important to keep going even when things get tough.</li>
<li>Find passion in what you do every day.</li>
<li>Make the lifecycle and spend management process interesting.</li>
<li>Create something unique for you and your management team.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>How do you internally keep all of your stakeholders aligned on how your T&E management program is a marathon, not a sprint?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Continue to emphasize that we must continuously adapt. </li>
<li>Work and listen to internal constituents, then make improvements to the program that offers value to the organization.</li>
<li>We all have the same mission and responsibility to grow the institution, but what works for some areas may need to be tweaked in others.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Were you able to apply the advice from this book to your personal life as well?</strong></p>
<p>I’ve found that having grit has the greatest ability to impact my life in the long run. I try to do so by being different, enjoying the opportunities I’m afforded, and absorbing the new surroundings each day. Interacting with others, listening to different perspectives, and working hard allows me to appreciate each moment as I continue to pursue my dreams.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The books visionaries recommend most to help fuel success</h2>
<p>Do you need more inspiration to continue fueling your success in 2020?</p>
<p>Find other great books to boost your career, regain focus on personal goals, manage spend, or optimize the employee experience by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/reading-list-for-2020-the-books-visionaries-in-travel-expense-and-spend-management-recommend-most">downloading this brochure</a>.</p>
Erin Giordano
Compliance During this Time of Uncertainty: Part One
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/compliance-during-time-uncertainty-part-one
2020-05-31T11:45:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
During this time of global upheaval and disruption in our lives for businesses and communities one thing is certain Controlling spend has never mattered more Especially for businesses...
<p>During this time of global upheaval and disruption in our lives, for businesses and communities, one thing is certain: <strong>Controlling </strong><strong>s</strong><strong>pend has never mattered more</strong>. Especially for businesses who are seeking ways to hoard cash and are anticipating new costs that have been slowly creeping into the general ledger from the wide range of employee spend areas.</p>
<p>To help prepare organizations, we asked Connie Hoen for advice. She has more than 30 years of experience in audit specializing in expense and compliance areas. As the Program Director of Growth & Strategy within SAP Concur Extended Services, she has worked with thousands of companies of all sizes across many industries. In this Q&A article, the first of a three-part ongoing series, we ask Connie to provide some insight into common questions that many companies are asking.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q: Where should companies focus now to ensure that they have control over employee spend? </h2>
<p>A. There are three areas that will most likely be impacted during this crisis:</p>
<ul>
<li>Global travel and expense policies</li>
<li>Expense report audit programs</li>
<li>Reporting and analysis requirements<br />
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Q. How will expense policies be impacted?</h2>
<p>A. Companies need to assess: <strong>Do they typically have employees working from home (WFH) on a regular basis?</strong> If not, have they addressed the different types and amounts of expenses that would be acceptable for employee reimbursement? And have they communicated their policies effectively? If organizations don’t have a policy around what expenses can and can’t be reimbursed, prepare to be surprised at what expenses employees feel are valid when “working from home.” These are some of the current <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">“home office” expenses</a> we’re seeing:</p>
<ul>
<li>Shipping costs to send office chairs to employees’ home offices</li>
<li>Second monitors and stand up desks</li>
<li>General office supplies, such as pens, paper, printer ink, etc.</li>
<li>Home internet and phone service</li>
<li>Complete home office furniture</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q. As employees expense these WFH costs, how should companies capture them?</h2>
<p>A. I suggest that companies, if they haven’t done so already, immediately create “at home” expense types within their expense software. Without this subcategory classification, employees will submit expenses under “Miscellaneous” or “Other” expense types, and this is problematic for a few reasons. First, because reviewing these expense types is so tedious for finance or audit teams – who are already strapped for time and might also be experiencing WFH for the first time – it may require additional feedback from end users and take even more time. Second, these categories will most often times become a hot bed for compliance when addressing tax and fraud issues. Auditors and the IRS are well aware of this! It’s also critical that employees are trained or refreshed on what expense types are acceptable for home office expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q. Should companies enforce any new requirements around capturing receipts?</h2>
<p>A. Companies should re-evaluate their receipt requirements by asking these questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Do they typically require a receipt for anything over $25?</li>
<li>If the employee uses your corporate card is the limit increased to $75? </li>
<li>Should your organization reduce that receipt limit for the remainder of the crisis to catch any expense report padding?</li>
</ul>
<p>During times of economic uncertainty in the past, we have seen employees pad expenses. SAP Concur experts can help you make some decisions around this area.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Q. How should companies manage the influx of employees expensing items for the first time?</h2>
<p>A. Employees that have never submitted an expense report in the past will now be faced with submitting one. Set time aside to adequately train them virtually and refresh others. Inform employees of any changes to the company policy during the current crisis. Here are some key areas to cover in your training program:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to submit an expense report: Some employees may even need to request access to your expense software</li>
<li>How the app and mobile experience work: Some employees, especially millennials, find this easier and expect this type of functionality today from their employers</li>
<li>What is reimbursable and what expense types should be used</li>
<li>How frequently should expenses be submitted</li>
<li>Where to locate your Travel & Expense (T&E) policy</li>
<li>Who to call when employees have questions</li>
</ul>
<p>Besides those who submit expense reports, companies also need to consider the managers who will be approving them for the first time. But first ask yourself: Will you have new expense report approvers? Some managers may have never had to approve expense reports because their department never really travels. Here are the main things to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does your approval workflow need to be modified to add in these new approvers?</li>
<li>Have they been trained on how to approve expense reports and the expectations for them as approvers? </li>
<li>How much time do they have to approve? </li>
<li>Do they know the travel and expense policies and what policies they may be able to over-ride? </li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>In part two, Connie will address how companies need to shift their expense report audit programs and reporting and analysis requirements.</p>
<p><strong>In the meantime, </strong><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2308077/D13FEE5B092310D64B80C986F36FB18E" target="_blank"><strong>watch our on-demand webinar</strong></a><strong> to hear Connie address how to detect and prevent fraud in employee spend areas. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Read more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/preventing-detecting-fraud-risks-in-times-of-economic-uncertainty">Preventing and Detecting Fraud Risks in Times of Economic Uncertainty</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">Updating Your Expense Policy for Employees Working From Home</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-companies-can-prepare-for-the-future-of-business-travel">How Companies Can Prepare for the Future of Business Travel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/compliance-during-this-time-of-uncertainty-part-one">Compliance During this Time of Uncertainty: Part One</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/7-tips-to-managing-productivity-working-from-home">7 Tips to Manage Productivity When Navigating the New Challenges of Working from Home</a></li>
</ul>
Erin Giordano
Want a More Resilient Business? Gain Full Visibility and Control of Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/want-more-resilient-business-gain-full-visibility-and-control-employee-spend
2020-07-01T08:27:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
During times of unprecedented uncertainty small and midsize companies tend to feel the effects of it harder in part because they have less cash on hand to weather disruption When...
<p>During times of unprecedented uncertainty, small and midsize companies tend to feel the effects of it harder – in part because they have less cash on hand to weather disruption. When business gets unpredictable – whether from slow sales, unforeseen events, or even an unexpected spike in sales – challenges multiply.</p>
<p>For some firms, disruption can manifest as unprecedented demand. For example, after a major hurricane, makers of everything from building materials to shelf-stable food products and providers of construction and healthcare services can see exponential increases in orders. Finance leaders at businesses experiencing spikes in demand need to redirect spending toward new hires, purchasing of materials in large volumes, and even expanding manufacturing capacity. At the same time, countless other businesses impacted by the storm will be out of power and struggle to pay rent and meet payroll until business picks up again. They need to tighten their financial belts, cut costs wherever possible, and keep employees focused on strategic work.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Weather Unexpected Changes</h2>
<p>See how you can build a resilient business with more control over company spend.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/weather-unexpected-business-changes-with-more-control-over-company-spend">Get the infographic</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Each disruption brings new challenges and opportunities for your business to respond to. For example, today, you may be managing a largely remote workforce, trying to extend processes to wherever employees are, and finding new ways to ensure operational efficiency and service customers. One thing is certain: you will have greater agility to adapt – and more stability through any disruption – if you can gain <strong>full control of discretionary spending</strong>, which is one of the biggest drivers of cash flow.</p>
<p>Maybe you’ve already done some preliminary automation of your company spend processes – for instance, do invoices come into your inbox instead of your mailbox? And do approvals happen through email instead of paper files? Or perhaps you’ve made the leap to full process automation for expense reporting or accounts payable using an SAP Concur solution or similar technology. Or maybe are you still trying to get by with a fully paper-driven process because “it’s the way you’ve always done it – so why change, right?”</p>
<p>Wherever you are on the automation continuum, what’s key is that if your spend management approach has any “holes” – whether due to manual processes, automation of just one or two spend categories (travel, expenses, and AP), or fraud that goes undetected because data capture isn’t granular enough, it acts like a sieve; you lose money and control over your cash – and you may not even realize it. So at a time when you need to be flexible and nimble, you could find yourself blindsided by insufficient cash flows to take required action.</p>
<p>These are widespread problems, according to findings from a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/building-business-strength">recent AMI-Partners survey</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>66%</strong> of businesses want to better track and analyze expense trends to pinpoint opportunities to reduce costs.</li>
<li><strong>63%</strong> of businesses want to integrate spend management for better cash flow visibility.</li>
<li><strong>72% </strong>of businesses want to improve operational efficiency and productivity.</li>
</ul>
<p>The good news is, SAP Concur solutions work together to give you an integrated, holistic approach to spend management so that nothing falls through the cracks. Maybe you need to start by deploying incremental SAP Concur tools where you have the greatest need and build from there. And if you already have a solution in place, such as the Concur Expense solution, that’s great. To continually improve spend management, look for other holes to fill. For example, do you have lots of employees who need to track mileage and get reimbursed? Then add on the Concur Drive cloud service with super-granular, real-time, GPS-enabled drive tracking. You’ll address any vulnerabilities to mileage fraud and gain greater visibility and control over costs.</p>
<p>As this example illustrates, over time, with each SAP Concur solution deployment, you gain improved spend and cost control and thus better cash flow – the key to running a flexible, resilient business. According to AMI-Partners, you can also save time and money. Concur Invoice users report saving an average of US$42,000 annually through greater efficiency and an average of 148 hours per accounting team per week.</p>
<p>So…where are the potential holes in your spend management approach? To answer these questions and become a more resilient business, download the infographic now: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/weather-unexpected-business-changes-with-more-control-over-company-spend">Weather Unexpected Business Changes with More Control Over Company Spend.</a> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How SAP Concur Solutions Helped the Peabody Essex Museum Create a Virtual Guest Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-sap-concur-solutions-helped-peabody-essex-museum-create-virtual-guest-experience
2020-07-22T16:07:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When COVID emerged earlier this year businesses around the world were forced to make changes both large and small to stay afloat Retailers shifted their business online Restaurants...
<p>When COVID-19 emerged earlier this year, businesses around the world were forced to make changes both large and small to stay afloat. Retailers shifted their business online. Restaurants moved to carryout only. Offices closed and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/updating-your-expense-policy-for-employees-working-from-home">home offices</a> were set up. Business travel ground to a halt and Zoom became a communications standard.</p>
<p>For some organizations, though, survival required more than a simple pivot. For instance, when the <a href="https://www.pem.org/" target="_blank">Peabody Essex Museum (PEM)</a> in Salem, Mass. closed in mid-March, it faced the new challenge of giving would-be visitors a museum experience online. So, the staff moved quickly to create a universe of digital content that people could access from home.</p>
<p>Moving an entire museum online is, as you’d guess, no small task. Which is why the PEM’s decision three years ago to digitize its back-office operations has made this transition and time far more manageable. By adding SAP Concur solutions to manage its travel, expense, and invoice processes, employees have been less burdened with administrative tasks, and vendors brought on to help create PEM’s virtual world have been onboarded and paid more quickly and easily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you don’t have those processes automated, with visibility into the data, you can’t pinpoint opportunities to gain discounts or drive cost savings, and dollars just go out the door. -Valerie Blatt, General Manager, SAP Concur Global SMB Division</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We really haven’t missed a beat,” said Nathalie Apchin, PEM’s chief financial officer. “Our staff is creative. Using technology such as SAP Concur solutions provides seamless processes that allow them to focus on creating engaging, artistic experiences.”</p>
<p>Valerie Blatt, who heads up SAP Concur global SMB, said that PEM’s move to automate and digitize its travel, expense, and vendor invoice processes is just one example of a larger trend she’s seeing among small- and mid-sized businesses. Once seen as a luxury reserved for large companies with big budgets and IT departments, many SMBs are turning to automation software — particularly today as organizations do all they can to protect cash flow, be more efficient, and control costs.</p>
<p>“If you don’t have those processes automated, with visibility into the data, you can’t pinpoint opportunities to gain discounts or drive cost savings, and dollars just go out the door,” Blatt said. “Peabody Essex Museum is a great example of pivoting a business model to meet customer needs.”</p>
<p>To read the full story, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/sap-concur/the-art-of-virtual-transformation.html" target="_blank">check out the </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/sap-concur/the-art-of-virtual-transformation.html" target="_blank">article</a> via The New York Times site.<br />
</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Aberdeen Insights: The T&E Road to Recovery and Growth, Part 1
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/aberdeen-insights-te-road-recovery-and-growth-part-1
2020-11-12T17:15:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
During a recent Aberdeen webinar Vice President and Group Director Bryan Ball revealed the roadmap for success when it comes to companies navigating how to manage their travel and...
<p>During a recent <a href="https://solutions.aberdeen.com/30169-1-sap-web" target="_blank">Aberdeen webinar</a>, Vice President and Group Director Bryan Ball, revealed the roadmap for success when it comes to companies navigating how to manage their travel and expenses (T&E) during these uncertain times.</p>
<p>According to Ball, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/where-does-travel-go-from-here">finance and travel managers</a> who oversee or manage their T&E programs need to examine, “how to best support their resiliency and business continuity efforts for their companies through recovery to growth and prosperity.” The strategy and actions companies take now to manage their T&E programs will lead them to better outcomes and show value back to the business.</p>
<p>In this first part of our three-part Recovery & Growth series, we’ll discuss some of the research findings shared by Ball and insight from guest panelists:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rowena Froegel, Finance Operations Senior Manager of Corporate Accounts Payable at Discover Financial</li>
<li>Jeanne Dion, Senior Value Consultant at SAP Concur solutions.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>What pressures are T&E teams facing?</h2>
<p>What separates the best-in-class (top 20%) companies from the rest is their commitment to upholding the fundamentals, while still grasping hold of the bigger picture. Instead of only focusing on decreasing costs (31%), these top performers are also focusing on ways to control spend (27%), improve visibility (28%), and eliminate manual processes (31%). By doing so, they are essentially saving costs. With more control, best-in-class companies are gaining visibility into spending, enabling them to make even more informed decisions and accurate cash flow projections. Increased control also allows for better policy adherence, so that they aren’t unnecessarily losing money.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597189513985-figure1.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What capabilities for recovery will be important?</h2>
<p>As companies move to recovery, Aberdeen finds that these two core capabilities will be critical:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Pre-travel authorization:</strong> As companies phase back travel and additional spend they will want to keep managing this closely. “Pre-travel authorization will be important as companies come back,” said Ball. Almost three quarters (71%) of organizations are currently using this capability.</li>
<li><strong>Visibility into total spend:</strong> More than half (56%) of companies have an aggregated view of both travel and expense. “The value of visibility during recovery is that you get visibility to your cash flow more quickly,” said Ball. Without this, companies fail to make decisions quickly which can leave them to become almost crippled.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597189564093-figure2.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Some companies are finding this [pre-spend tools] more of a need now for safety reasons during the pandemic,” says Jeanne Dion. “However, the reality is that it is a critical spend control tool. You can’t control compliance after the spend has occurred. Whether you’re using an online booking tool that feeds directly into your expense tool or a machine learning tool to catch exceptions, you can see what happens from when the spend was authorized to when it occurs.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is the ROI?</h2>
<p>Top-performing companies are 41% more likely to capture spend under management (see “Best-in-Class Performance Indicators” chart below) than others. This is significant because, “If you can’t see the spend in T&E, obviously visibility is a problem. It comes in as a random expense through some type of expense reporting or invoice that shows up. But the more you can control the spend, you get the preferences driven by the T&E system your company is using,” said Ball. That means more visibility from the very start and less digging through expenses to try and re-define them later on.</p>
<p><strong>After implementing a new T&E solution, companies experience a 48% return on their investment (ROI)</strong>. Ball explains that companies who get a higher return are those who can capture spend under management in their T&E area, achieve compliance to their policies, and shorten the overall cycle time – from creation of the report to reimbursement.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Defining the leaders – maturity performance matrix</h2>
<p>Best-in-Class Companies Demonstrate Superior Performance</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597189581282-figure3.jpg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What are best-in-class companies keeping in focus?</h2>
<p>A key move that the best companies make is that they stay focused on the basics, even though they already do these things well. By constantly seeking to improve the most basic processes, they save big in the long run and are primed for success. Here are some of the ways these companies are remaining focused even in the current environment:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Improving and enforcing corporate T&E expense policies. </strong>By consistently reviewing policies, the best-in-class businesses can be sure that all processes are up to date and efficient.</li>
<li><strong>Automating key components of T&E expense management.</strong> By improving the automation of T&E management, teams can focus on high value tasks. Process time is thus shortened, and spend visibility is heightened.</li>
<li><strong>Enabling integration between travel/expense management and other systems.</strong> Better integration improves automation and cuts down on the manual errors that plague T&E management. Overall the effects are improved process speeds, compliance, and visibility.</li>
<li><strong>Leveraging data analytics to facilitate intelligence.</strong> Properly leveraging data will give your business insights to make more informed decisions.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1597189594071-figure4.jpg" /></p>
<p>“When you use one platform for your travel and expenses and feed it into other systems for single source of truth, you eliminate errors and speed up your compliance, processes and close,” says Dionne. “This will give you a greater ROI and ability to leverage your analytics.”</p>
<h2><br />
How SAP Concur solutions can aid recovery and growth</h2>
<p>Managing a business means managing change. And with well-managed cash flow so critical to every company’s success, you’ll want to recognize when a change is needed so you can make adjustments along the way to stay ahead of problems before they become serious. With SAP Concur solutions, you can simplify how you manage and control employee spend by automating and integrating the travel, expense, and vendor invoice process into a single, connected experience. That way you can see all of your spend data in one place, while helping employee comply with spending policies.</p>
<p>For more insight on the road to recovery and growth when it comes to T&E management, listen to this <a href="https://solutions.aberdeen.com/30169-1-sap-web" target="_blank">Aberdeen webinar</a>. Then stay tuned for the second part of our blog series.</p>
<p> </p>
Erin Giordano
World Gratitude Day: What Are You Grateful For?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/world-gratitude-day-what-are-you-grateful
2021-03-01T15:32:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur Today September is world Gratitude Day What does this mean World Gratitude Day is a day to celebrate the...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>Today, September 21, is world Gratitude Day. What does this mean? World Gratitude Day is a day to celebrate the impact of showing appreciation towards others. It affords us the opportunity to pause and recognize the transformative power gratitude has to energize individuals, positively influence people’s lives, and drive cultural change in the workplace. While many of you are active gratitude practitioners, today serves as a reminder of the importance of expressing gratitude towards others.</p>
<p><strong>“Gratitude </strong>binds people together and creates a symbiotic relationship. There are lessons for leadership that a little piece of positive reinforcement can change a life. … The gratitude movement is taking over,” - Eric Mosley, CEO, WorkHuman.</p>
<p>Gratitude lifts us up, rejuvenates our spirit, and gives us a renewed resolve to meet many of the challenges we face today. The pandemic has forced companies, like SAP, from their offices and into a remote environment. Feelings of anxiety and disconnection may continue to linger but our ability to find joy and gratitude in everyday moments positively impacts our mental and physical health.</p>
<p>So, why does showing gratitude matter?</p>
<ul>
<li>When you express authentic gratitude to another person, the sentiment creates a multiplier effect.</li>
<li>When you share gratitude, you give someone the gift of feeling valued.</li>
<li>When people feel valued, they are more motivated to unleash their potential and with a greater sense of enthusiasm.</li>
<li>Gratitude leads to greater emotional resilience.</li>
<li>Overall motivation increases tremendously when people feel appreciated.</li>
</ul>
<p>As a leader, I make an intentional effort to show gratitude to my team members on a daily basis. I practice small things that can make a big impact by bringing gratitude to the front lines, such as starting a meeting with a round robin of what we’re grateful for, creating programs and campaigns around why appreciation and gratitude matters, taking the time to send emails, texts or picking up the phone to share my real-time appreciation and gratitude for individuals on the team –- whatever it is, small or big, these moments matter and can make a huge impact.</p>
<p>I’ve seen firsthand the impact gratitude has on those around me, but there’s data and science that states the same thing. According to a worldwide study from <a href="http://www.towerswatson.com/services/Employee-Surveys" target="_blank">Towers Watson</a>, workers report that <strong>appreciation is the most significant driver of engagement</strong>. In a survey from <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/employers-to-retain-half-of-their-employees-longer-if-bosses-showed-more-appreciation-glassdoor-survey/" target="_blank">Glassdoor</a>, <strong>more than</strong> <strong>half of all respondents revealed feeling more appreciation</strong> from their boss would help them stay longer at their company. Research from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryabbajay/2019/02/28/the-secret-to-productivity-and-positivity-show-your-appreciation/#624b4fbe26c4" target="_blank">Harvard Medical School</a> suggests <strong>appreciation improves employee health, lowers stress, and cuts absenteeism</strong>.</p>
<p>As you can see, practicing gratitude not only creates positive business results, but it also has an amazing amount of health benefits that affect our whole being. A core human need is feeling valued: having a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose. We cannot bring our best, whole selves to work without seeing, hearing, receiving, and expressing gratitude. I encourage you to find ways to organically infuse opportunities to incorporate appreciation and gratitude into your teams. Join me in celebrating World Gratitude Day by expressing gratitude to those around you – small gestures of appreciation can make big impacts<strong>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Executives
Deloitte Announces New App Through SAP Concur Collaboration to Ease Business Travel and Remote Work Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/deloitte-announces-new-app-through-sap-concur-collaboration-ease-business-travel-and
2020-11-13T11:03:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Deloitte is today announcing the upcoming release of the Deloitte Travel Ready app in the SAP Concur App Center This is an extension of the working relationship developed through...
<p>Deloitte is today announcing the upcoming release of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5f9caaf2c61531001568755c">Deloitte - Travel Ready app</a> in the SAP® Concur® App Center. This is an extension of the working relationship developed through the SAP Deloitte partnership. SAP Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions.</p>
<p>The Deloitte – Travel Ready app, connects the Deloitte platform with Concur® Request, Concur® Travel, and Concur® Expense and will help make compliance for both cross-border business travelers and remote workers easier by creating a consolidated approval, travel booking, and compliance assessment process. The app supports compliance with matters related to travel restrictions, visa and work permits, income tax, EU cross-border posted worker rules, social security, payroll taxes and corporate taxes, and entity establishment risk. This new solution will assist in improving the employee experience and will help make conducting cross-border business easier.</p>
<p>Many employers are using this unique period to prepare themselves and their compliance programs for when business travel takes off again and are evaluating how those programs and tools can support not only traditional business travelers but also new remote working populations. Managing cross-border compliance can be difficult for businesses, but the Deloitte - Travel Ready app makes the complex, simple - with a focus on user experience with unparalleled functionality and breadth of coverage.</p>
<p>“I am tremendously proud of this app as it demonstrates our ability to combine the employee’s need for a simple and quick approval or booking process with a solution that meets the compliance needs of the corporate user in one straightforward process,” said Craig Muir, Deloitte Global GES lead partner. “In today’s world, remote working has become part of our new norm and we are seeing organizations using this time to ready their business travel compliance programs for when travel resumes. The launch of this app is an exciting step in simplifying compliance, driving value, and delivering an exceptional user experience to help businesses and their employees focus on what matters.”</p>
<p><strong>For the business traveler</strong>: It helps employees understand their travel compliance obligations as part of the approval process or booking their trip with SAP Concur solutions.</p>
<p>For the corporate user: It enables businesses to understand and address their global compliance requirements related to remote workers and business travel based on travel approval/travel booking data, linking to Deloitte’s interactive Business Travel Advantage dashboards.</p>
<p>“This solution will support our customers’ abilities to meet their evolving travel needs in an ever-changing world,” said Pete Elmgren, senior vice president of Global Business Development at SAP Concur. “The Deloitte - Travel Ready app will enable SAP Concur customers to work with Deloitte in a business-enhancing way. The app provides a fresh approach to supporting businesses with their compliance obligations making travel easier and allowing employees to travel and work with confidence.”</p>
<p>For more information, please visit the <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/tax/articles/deloitte-travel-apps.html" target="_blank">Deloitte Travel apps website</a> and the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte Organization”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts or omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see <a href="https://www.deloitte.com/about" target="_blank">www.deloitte.com/about</a> to learn more.</p>
<p>Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. Our global network of member firms and related entities in more than 150 countries and territories (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”) serves four out of the five Fortune Global 500r companies. Learn how Deloitte’s approximately 312,000 people make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com.</p>
<p>Any statements in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties described in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC), including its most recent annual report on Form 20-F, that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. SAP cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which SAP has no obligation to update and which speak only as of their dates.</p>
<p>SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see <a href="https://www.sap.com/copyright" target="_blank">https://www.sap.com/copyright</a> for additional trademark information and notices.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The 3 Things You'll Need To Get PPP Forgiveness
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/3-things-youll-need-get-ppp-forgiveness
2021-02-24T13:11:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If you received a Paycheck Protection Program PPP loan you are going to at some point apply for forgiveness Unfortunately the original PPP forgiveness calculations have morphed into a...
<p>If you received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan you are going to, at some point, apply for forgiveness. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the original PPP forgiveness calculations have morphed into a complex, bureaucratic maze of rules and requirements. To figure out what forgiveness application to use and what specific calculations will be required for your business, my advice is that you should get help from your accountant and spend some time on the <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/cares/assistance-for-small-businesses" target="_blank">Treasury Department's website</a> which has all the rules you'll need to know.</p>
<p>Depending on the size of your loan and the nature of your business, obtaining forgiveness may be as simple as filling out a form and submitting it -- without submitting any supporting documentation. Regardless, you’ll still need to make sure you have the documentation available just in case there are any questions or issues. You’ll certainly need to have your bank account statements, a photo ID (e.g. driver’s license, passport) and your Small Business Administration (SBA) loan number available, which can be found on your loan documentation from your bank.</p>
<p>And whether you’re required to submit proof or just have it on hand, you’ll still need to make sure you’ve got these three key things ready for forgiveness:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Payroll Expense Documents</strong></p>
<p>You may be required to justify the actual payroll expense of your employees. To do this, make sure you have these documents readily available:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bank account statements or third-party payroll service provider reports documenting the amount of cash compensation paid to employees.</li>
<li>Tax forms (or equivalent third-party payroll service provider reports) for the applicable periods:
<ul>
<li>Payroll tax filings reported, or that will be reported, to the IRS (typically, Form 941);<br />
-State quarterly business and individual employee wage reporting and unemployment insurance tax filings reported, or that will be reported, to the relevant state;</li>
<li>Payment receipts, cancelled checks, or account statements documenting the amount of any employer contributions to employee health insurance and retirement plans that the Borrower included in the forgiveness amount</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>As an owner of a business you can also submit your compensation for forgiveness (up to $100,000).However, it’s kind of tough to do this because many business owners don’t take salaries or they take money out of the business through a combination of salaries and distributions.So the calculation will need to be based on the best information available.To prove owner compensation replacement payments, you’ll need to provide:</p>
<ul>
<li>A 2019 Schedule C (or January to February 2020) for sole proprietors;</li>
<li>2019 1099-MISC forms (or January to February 2020) for independent contractors;</li>
<li>A 2019 Schedule K-1 (or January to February 2020) for partnerships;</li>
<li>Check images, OR annotated bank statement.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Headcount Records</strong></p>
<p>You may have to justify that you've restored your employee headcount from a period before the pandemic to the end of your forgiveness period. Make sure you have these readily available:</p>
<ul>
<li>Payroll tax filings reported, or that will be reported, to the IRS (typically, Form 941);</li>
<li>State quarterly business and individual employee wage reporting;</li>
<li>Unemployment insurance tax filings reported, or that will be reported, to the relevant state.</li>
</ul>
<p>You will need to figure out Full Time Equivalent employees (FTEs). Two options for calculating the number of FTEs are (1) calculating based on actual hours worked or (2) simplified approach of using an FTE of 1.0 for employees working 40 hours or more and 0.5 for employees working less than 40 hours in a week. You can elect the option that is more favorable to you and that option must be used to calculate all FTEs for all reference periods.<br />
<br />
Once that’s done, make sure your documentation will support these baselines:</p>
<ul>
<li>Average number of FTE employees on payroll per month employed by you between February 15, 2019 and June 30, 2019 or January 1, 2020 and February 29, 2020.</li>
<li>If you’re a seasonal business then you can use the average number of FTE employees on payroll per month you employed between February 15, 2019 and June 30, 2019 or January 1, 2020 and February 29, 2020 or any consecutive 12-week period between May 1, 2019 and September 15, 2019.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Non-Payroll Expenses Support</strong></p>
<p>You may have to justify the expenses you're submitting that are non-payroll related, such as mortgage interest, rents and utilities. Make sure you have these readily available:</p>
<ul>
<li>Business mortgage interest payments:<br />
A copy of your lender amortization schedule and receipts or cancelled checks verifying eligible payments or lender account statements from February 2020 and the months of the forgiveness period (depends on if you chose 8 or 24 weeks) through one month after the end of the forgiveness period verifying interest amounts and eligible payments.</li>
<li>Business rent or lease payments:</li>
<li>Copy of current lease agreement and receipts or cancelled checks verifying eligible payments from the forgiveness period; or lessor account statements from February 2020 and from the forgiveness period through one month after the end of the forgiveness period verifying eligible payments.</li>
<li>Business utility payments:<br />
Copy of invoices from February 2020 and those paid during the forgiveness period and receipts, cancelled checks, or account statements verifying those eligible payments.</li>
</ul>
<p>Got all that? Fall asleep yet? Well…don’t. Pour a cup of coffee, grab your accountant and make sure you’ve got all this stuff available. Your application requirements will depend on the size of your loan and the nature of your business. But even if you're not required to submit documentation supporting your expenses you're still required to have that documentation available in case there are questions. The above documentation will apply in all cases. So get your books in order!</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Learn more:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/little-known-covid-related-tax-benefits-could-save-a-small-business">Little-Known COVID-Related Tax Benefits Could Save a Small Business</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/section-179-tax-deduction-small-business">The Most Exciting Article On Taxes You'll Ever Read</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/3-ways-a-biden-administration-will-impact-your-business">3 Ways A Biden Administration Will Impact Your Business</a></li>
</ul>
Gene Marks
Make Better Financial Decisions with Help from Digital Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/make-better-financial-decisions-help-digital-spend-management
2021-02-04T09:22:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
was a difficult year But companies with employees or fewer have been hit especially hard To see how this segment is faring and how digital spend management can ease the road ahead...
<p>2020 was a difficult year. But companies with 1,000 employees or fewer have been hit especially hard. To see how this segment is faring and how digital spend management can ease the road ahead, SAP commissioned Aberdeen Research to conduct a survey of roughly 600 finance, IT, and procurement specialists from companies from around the globe.</p>
<p>The survey found that 3% of these companies will most likely close their doors in 2021, while 29% will still be operating in survival mode. Roughly 37% are planning for continued recovery, with 23% hoping to see an increase in revenue. Just 7% are making plans for growth.</p>
<p>Based on survey responses, Aberdeen classified these companies into three groups: Best in class, average, and laggard. It also applied its unique methodology to determine the pressures influencing change, the actions taken to make those changes, the capabilities required, and the technology needed to make it happen.</p>
<p>By determining how best-in-class companies are using digital spend management to improve business outcomes today and insight and planning going forward, we hope to shed some light on how you can do the same. In other words, by increasing visibility into spend data, we want to show how companies like yours can improve planning, optimize cash flow, maximize spend impact, and minimize risk.</p>
<p>Across all survey respondents, the top priorities for 2021 are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Controlling costs</li>
<li>Improving spend data accuracy and spend tracking</li>
<li>Implementing automated solutions</li>
<li>Simplifying management of regulations and compliance</li>
<li>Achieving a unified view of spend enterprise-wide</li>
</ul>
<p>But an inability to quickly capture spend data and incorporate it into financial decision-making makes realizing these goals a challenge. So does poor quality data and a lack of standardized spend management processes.</p>
<p>It is not surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of best-in-class companies (nearly 75%) reported already having digital spend management technology, including automated expense and vendor invoice capture and management. The result is that top performers report having their spend data on hand when they need it 80% of the time.</p>
<p>Employees at these best-in-class companies also report higher satisfaction with spend management capabilities. In fact, they are 61% more likely to be very satisfied with their ability to access spend data; are 22% more likely to be very satisfied with their expense data, visibility, management, and reporting tools; and are 39% more likely to be very satisfied with their vendor invoice data and management tools.</p>
<p>All of this leads to increased productivity and faster, more-informed decision-making.</p>
<p>Beyond employee satisfaction, best-in-class companies are using digital spend management to better manage budgets and cash flow. This includes using spend data to audit for budget compliance, enrich forecasting, prioritize category sourcing, and forecast cash flow for the future.</p>
<p>The bottom line: Over the past two years, when compared with their peers, best-in-class companies have reported:</p>
<ul>
<li>26.1% improvement in profitability, compared to -1.7%</li>
<li>24.3% improvement in productivity, compared to -2.4%</li>
<li>20.4% improvement in operating margins, compared to -0.3%</li>
<li>17.1% faster cash-to-cash cycle, compared to -0.7%</li>
</ul>
<p>With the COVID-19 pandemic putting the move toward remote work into high-gear, digital, cloud-based workflow and data management have been a top priority across lines of business. And now, as we move closer to being able to travel again, it is important to remember that the need for digitally enabled travel and expense management will become a must-have.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions help you capture, manage, and control company spending right where it happens – whether that is buying equipment for a home office, monitoring and maximizing vendor-related spending, or making travel easier. Not only do your people have the tools they need to stay productive from anywhere, finance teams have the real-time spend data and advanced spend analytics they need to help ensure your company is getting the most out of every dollar. Plus, by integrating SAP Concur solutions with your ERP or finance systems, finance leaders gain the deep insight into spending trends they need to better ensure spend strategy that delivers maximum impact with minimum risk.</p>
<p>Aberdeen’s worldwide and US research findings show how digital, integrated spend management is helping best-in-class companies make better financial decisions that lead to better business outcomes. To find out more and learn how SAP Concur solutions can do the same for you, join us for our upcoming Webcast <a href="https://go.concur.com/GainingStrategicInsights-RegistrationPage.html"><strong>Strategic Spend Insights: Best Practices for Improving Financial Decision-Making with Data</strong></a> on Thursday, February 18.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
What Did We Learn From 2020?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-did-we-learn-2020
2021-07-20T11:27:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Think of the last mistake you made Maybe it was this morning or maybe as long ago as last night Either way when you own up to it the question you have to ask yourself is What did I...
<p>Think of the last mistake you made. Maybe it was this morning or maybe as long ago as last night. Either way, when you own up to it, the question you have to ask yourself is: What did I learn?</p>
<p>Well, in the aftermath of the global mistake we’ll call 2020, we’ve learned that we can handle just about anything. Going remote? Sure! Going completely remote? Okay. Not going back to the office for a year or so? Um, yeah, fine.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Ready, Reset, Grow</h2>
<p>How better business processes can help businesses grow faster</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Businesses took action overnight, and over the year, they beefed up their tech capabilities and boosted their performance. And now, as they look ahead, they’re feeling good about what they’re seeing. According to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2021-eiu-report-ready-reset-grow">recent The Economist Group global paper:</a></p>
<p>Because of their investments in efficiency and productivity, businesses have put growth back on the radar.</p>
<p>Because they’ve taken on tools to trim costs and spot savings more effectively, they’re seeing actual hope on the horizon.</p>
<p>Because they’ve invested in improvements when it was scary to invest at all, they’ve committed to continuous improvement, and that positions them well against any upcoming economic upheaval.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Examining the positive role of change in an organization’s outlook</h2>
<p>The paper is based on several surveys, including a sampling of 550 senior executives in 11 countries, and their input is refreshingly optimistic. It’s also filled with insights into what it’s going to take to see that positive outlook through.</p>
<p>Chief among these initiatives is cost control, particularly in the realm of travel, expense, and invoice (TE&I) management. Because when you can handle these costs more efficiently, you can move more quickly toward growth. Nearly 90% of the executives agreed, saying that increased speed and flexibility in the management of TE&I is critical for their organizations to stay profitable and grow.</p>
<p>The paper dives a little deeper into the details, as well, highlighting essential and high-priority areas in which companies will invest, using new technologies to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Access real-time data and analytics:</strong> Get more than information, get intelligence backed by AI and machine learning and make the most of all the data you have.</li>
<li><strong>Identify cost savings:</strong> See more of what you’re spending, spot trends and anomalies, and save everywhere from fewer human errors to stronger negotiations.</li>
<li><strong>Consistently apply expense policies across the business:</strong> Set up preapprovals so you can keep spending in line, then automatically audit 100% of your expenses and invoices so you’ll know it’s all within policy.</li>
<li><strong>Improve VAT recovery and reclaim:</strong> Get your share of $40 billion of value-added taxes and don’t leave any more on the table.</li>
</ul>
<p>Companies are already starting to see these outcomes, and they expect even more as they continue to invest. They’re putting resources into in the types of tech improvements that give them more visibility into spend, more control over costs, more confidence in tax reclaim, and more tangible ways to drive growth.</p>
<p>They’re investing in tools to prepare for and conquer change, and it’s working.</p>
<p>What can we learn from that?</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Future of Work Explored: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Customer Smith & Nephew
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/future-work-explored-sap-concur-podcast-conversation-customer-smith-nephew
2022-02-12T07:55:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Streamlining a travel and expense program can serve as an indicator of process simplification allowing employees to focus on what actually matters In this podcast Smith Nephew used...
<p>Streamlining a travel and expense program can serve as an indicator of process simplification, allowing employees to focus on what actually matters. In this podcast, <a href="https://www.smith-nephew.com/" target="_blank">Smith & Nephew</a>, used SAP Concur solutions to implement a Global Business Service program to scale operations across more than 40 countries.</p>
<p>Join us as Marchelle Klippenstein, Vice President of the SAP Concur Value Experience Group, and Jorge Monge, travel and expense lead from Smith & Nephew, discuss the success of centralizing and standardizing processes across the world. Read through the dialogue below, then check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/scale-global-compliance-thrive-amidst-pandemic">blog post</a>, or enjoy listening to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/human-centered-technology-wins-how-prioritizing-employee/id1525744763?i=1000507554629" target="_blank">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank">Spotify</a> | <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/human-centered-technology-NQUjEG1kw3d/" target="_blank">Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank">Acast</a> or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Hi everyone. This is Marchelle Klippenstein, and I am the Senior Director of our Value Consulting organization here at SAP Concur. And I'm really excited to introduce our guest speaker or our guest friend here today, Jorge. I'm going to turn it over to Jorge to introduce himself and talk about his role and the company he works for right now. Jorge?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Thank you. Pleasure to be here, Marchelle, and thank you for the opportunity. My name is Jorge Monge. I work for Smith & Nephew, which is a medical devices company, and my role is, mostly, I am... I lead the global T&E processes for the company. Globally, we have over 40 countries in the scope. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Wow, 40 countries in scope, that's crazy. Okay, so-</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>It is.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's a lot of volume to manage. I didn't disclose this earlier, but when I was a program manager myself, I was only one country and I was only one US-based retailer, so I can't imagine the complexity that goes with 40 different cultures, 40 different expectations. So we're going to get into some of that here in a little bit, but I want to first ask, the first question I really wanted to get to today was, "When you think about that footprint... We know that there was an expansion push in recent years, just where you are today had obviously a path, so can you give the listeners some perspective on what it meant to tackle 40 countries and expand that footprint in a consistent way?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Of course. Well, I will have to start off by clarifying and providing some additional contextual information. So my organization is part of a GBS organization, which GBS stands for Global Business Services. So the idea behind all of that is mostly about centralizing and standardizing processes in a specific strategic centers across the world. So I work out of the center in Costa Rica, beautiful country by the way. Everyone is welcome to visit, we have very low COVID rates right now. And I think that on that particular regard, operations were mostly centralized. In general terms, I can tell you that, for instance, the US was by far the biggest operation. 80% of our population income and expenditure comes out of the United States, so that was mostly centralized and localized.</p>
<p><br />
With the GBS effort of implementing a global business service center, what happens is that you have to start taking, for instance, the major operation and start to design a model that will be functional across different regions, regulations, and that's quite a challenge. So part of that, one key element of GBS as a whole is just creating a set of, maybe, common language, if I may word it that way, metrics, analytics, KPIs, and things like that. So you have to take something that, in a sense, might have been there for over, maybe, 10 years that is quite organic, and then you take that and you start to think, "How can I modify this so that it fits this vision that I have at this moment," because it's only a vision of that moment, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>So, the first step is just understanding where things are. And maybe I can cover a little bit more as the conversation evolve?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. No, so I mean, with GBS... So let me make sure that myself and the audience here understand. So you were part of the standing up of GBS down in Costa Rica, which, PS, I love Costa Rica, I've been there. I went to, I think it's called Tamarindo?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Tamarindo, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Tamarindo, and I got to swim with some stingrays or something, it was amazing.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>So, the GBS was a concept that was moved to Costa Rica, and then it was decided that the Concur or the employee-initiated spend processes would be moved into that umbrella, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Mm-hmm (affirmative).</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>And then from there, you had to determine what were the centralized regulations to consider, what were the consistencies that needed to be set in place or established so that you could have those KPIs, and that common language would be understood. Did I make sense of that?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. That's entirely accurate. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. So 80% of your volume coming out of the US, the regulation and the activity there is probably pretty well understood. As that footprint expanded, let's talk about what it meant to understand some of those compliance challenges, let's talk about what it meant to consider some of the cultural, experiential considerations. So which one do you want to start with? Do you want to go with compliance or you want to go with the employees that you were then servicing through GBS?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>So maybe we can go and start on with the cultural aspect to it. I think everything starts with the culture first, and once you have created something that actually makes sense and resonates with everyone and there is a common understanding, you can start really working across the lines of compliance and having people understand what major decision makers and stakeholders... Understanding what compliance changes, at some point, needs to be understood and applied so that we can have a successful program and model taking shape globally.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>You're talking that the cultural influence, absolutely then, has an impact on that. The understanding of those employees, what it means to be compliant, what it means to understand policy, you had to consider how to feed that through so that they were part of the solution of tackling governance and compliance challenges. Is that what you're saying?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>That is correct. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Cool. I just wanted to make sure I understood. Okay, so keep going. So the cultural influence had compliance factors and other things?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So you mostly have to think about how are you going to be portraying and sending a concise message that clarifies things to everyone in the organization. The whole point of globalizing and centralizing operations is that everybody has to speak this common language that I'm referring to. So most of other countries, some of them were using spreadsheets, some of them were using other software pieces. Not everyone was entirely familiar as with Concur, so that's part of what we have. And that was part of the challenge, how to, in a way, sell this initiative of centralizing everything under a single platform. And there are many cultural aspects to it. For instance, some people might feel that they are not entirely invested into it, and there might be some trust issues because we have always done things this way, we have always worked this way. I'm used to having my receipts here, piled up, and that's how it works. And I'm used to using this physical archive that... It's been there 30 years, and we're going to keep using it. So things like that, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>And how do I defend myself in the event of an audit? I need to have my receipts here physically, so things like that. And you have to come up with strong arguments that actually are understandable and help you really sell. You become a salesman. At the end of the day, it's like we're working for the same company because I have to really convey a message. And thankfully, Concur allows me to really sell that properly. Number one is industry standard. Number two... It's working already in other countries. So for instance, we were going to migrate and their latest migration was Japan-</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So Japan is a whole different journey, of course, totally different, but one of the key arguments was, "We know there are many other companies in Japan already using it, so why can't we?" So that's part of the conversation that we need to emphasize, and I don't want to skip ahead too much, but I think that one key element to all of this is, maybe, it started to dwell a little bit into the compliance aspect.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right. Yeah. Sorry. We can absolutely jump into the concept of compliance and managing that because the expansion put, probably, more layers of compliance on you, or to consider in different business partners you needed to work with. So let's talk about that, let's talk about the meat on the bone of compliance. And which people in the business did you have to really work with to get to feel comfortable and feel protected?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>So I think that there are multiple elements to this, in terms of answering your question about who are the... One key thing you need to do is identify stakeholders. In my case, to be super specific, those normally are finance, vice presidents, and controllers as well, controllers and always working hand in hand with compliance officers as well. In my case, the first relationships I developed were with the chief compliance officer. Number one, I wanted to be friends with him, I wanted to make sure that we got his buy-in and support. Number one, you have always to go aligned with legal as well, so we touched base with legal and, last but not least, audit. So those are the three main people that you need to have in your organization. Every organization has compliance, legal, and audit, and you need to be partnered with them and establish this real partnering relationship.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Would you say that the complexity of this... Was there legal and audit in variety of regions? Did you have to spiderweb that out a little bit and get to know and work with different regional partners, or was it all consolidated as part of GBS maybe?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>It is spread all over right now, it's not entirely centralized. The GBS effort aims at centralizing things and having this common language spoken by everyone. At the end of the day, the ultimate target will be the one of everything is centralized under a single system and all services being facilitated out of a single platform.</p>
<p><br />
To give you an example, with Japan, my first conversation was with the controller. We needed to make sure that he understood the benefits of the tool, how can we actually stand against or defend ourselves or, maybe, just provide enough backup for an eventual audit, how do we actually understand regulations that are many particular things that we needed to clarify, and actually saying, "By deploying Concur, you are actually in better shape, you have better backup. Well, you will be in a much better position to defend it against an external or internal audit in many cases. At the end of the day, this is how you tackle risks first. And at the same time, it's a tool that allows you to increase user experience and improve it in a significant way, so no longer piling up receipts and things like that." So that part, I think, is an easy sell when it comes to the compliance part and the real deal. That's the real deal.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's the meat.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So that's one of the key elements.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. I think one of the pieces, even in my conversations with other customers or even in my own history, it was all about, "Well, how do I process this," or, "How do I check all the boxes and make sure the receipt is there," and then, "This is a financial transaction and we're done." And to your point on all the risk mitigation that goes into this, we... I mean, maybe you agree, or maybe you don't, you can say it. This is a very risky channel of spend, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>It is.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Employees have complete control over what they get to decide to spend money on, in a lot of ways, unless you have a preapproval process in place. So the question becomes like, "How much risk is out there?" So if you were thinking now like, "What outcome... Do you feel completely protected? Do your controllers and your audit groups and everybody... Is everyone feeling really solid and good about where you are today? What has been the outcome of this effort for you?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>We have been tracking our compliance levels and quality in terms of auditing right now. And we deployed a Concur Detect, and this really helped us sell everything in a different way. Back in the day, we used to have manual audit in place, and then we were using Concur Audit, which is still performed by humans. And with these utilization trends, AI comes into play as well. And we have been able to satisfactorily deploy Concur Detect. In all candor, it is a process that takes time, you have to really... There's so much learning component to it, so you really have to train the tool. Once you get to a nice level where it's properly trained... It is a tool that we're using globally right now and that really has helped us reach that level of trust. And shifting that mentality from, "There is this person, there is this guy who has always been reviewing expense reports manually, and he doesn't miss anything," to come into a point where...I cannot be super specific because I don't think I'm at liberty of sharing these details, but I can tell you that-</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>I don't want to know all those details, friend.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, of course. But we have been able to identify things that no human could have identified because this tool actually Googles it, it looks it up in web searches.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, the patterns of-</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So it's incredible. The fact that we have been able to do that really has been a success story for the company and then for this particular deployment. And artificial intelligence, it's going to continue to be a trend. And when deciding and, in general terms, thinking of designing a model, you have to make sure that it's something that will stay relevant as time passes, and you have to think, maybe, five to 10 years ahead. So we were risky, we were really taking this risk of deploying AI for the very first time. I think we were part of the early adopters, maybe one of the very first Concur Detect users. And the fact that we took that chance has proven to be a really good investment, and we have received very good feedback because of that, and our process is very mature because of that.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Right. So, okay. So with the accuracy coming out of the functional pieces of the platform, and then the big gamble, I guess, or the big bet on future-proofing using technology... I mean, I think it's all landing on an overall leadership trust, outcome for your team, specifically for the people that support this program, but then also knowing that the business is protected globally. But no, I think that you're right on target with that, in terms of what does it mean when you actually accomplish, number one, an expansion at this level, number two, considering all of the cultural components and then the compliance elements that go into that. You land on a program that people trust, you land on a platform or you land on a process that is easy, and the experience makes sense.</p>
<p><br />
I can't imagine if I was still having to use Excel. In fact, I can't use Excel today, even beyond expense reports. So, well, good for you. This is exciting. One of the other questions I had was, "If you could do it all over again, what would you take away, like what were your, let's say, top two learnings from your last two years of this growth opportunity?"</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Wow. Okay. I will say number one is to not assume customer needs. There has to be a consistent feedback loop. We didn't go into this in too much detail. I don't think we touched on this point, but we went through two extensive transformations with T&E which where CEO is sponsored, and what we thought would have solved the T&E issue... Everybody in the company used to dread that moment at the end of their travel, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>We all did.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>It ruined your business trip. Yeah. And we thought we knew how to fix it. Of course, we're going to take this away. And we were thinking, as process owners, really placing ourselves in the user's shoes, so that's the number one thing. We got it wrong the first time. In all candor, we were thinking simplifying this and that will result into increase user effectiveness and experience.</p>
<p><br />
And it really wasn't, so we had to go back to a drawing board and, maybe in three months, we have to redesign everything that we have proposed. And the one key element was really creating those feedback loops and enabling that opportunity to really surveyi your key users, frequent users, and also detractors. I love detractors, even though it sounds crazy, I love them. Those are the guys who really are willing to stand up and say, "You know, this is what you really need to fix," in a very candid way, sometimes...</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, sometimes you don't want to hear it. Yeah. Sometimes you don't want to hear what they have to say, but to your point... Yeah. Keep going, sorry.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So that's the lesson or teaching or lesson number one. I guess, that's the number one. And number two, I will say, I think it's very important to focus on really creating some partnership and establishing yourself as a real partner with your key stakeholders. It's not about, "I want to drive this agenda, and I think this is the way forward," but actually, "This is bringing people with you, we're all in this together. And this is what I think it's going to work out. Are you, are you on the same page? If not, how can I really get you to buy into this and really convey in a message of common benefit?" It's a mutualistic relationship, it's never, "I'm driving this agenda because I want this to look good. No, actually, is this the right solution," and be open to feedback and actually act on that feedback to things that you always need to satisfy customers and the stakeholders.</p>
<p><br />
Those are the ones, so those are my two main lessons learned from here. Why? Because at the beginning, in all honesty and vulnerability, I was really pushing to drive this agenda, and I got this challenge from the CEO himself. New CEO, he wanted to do things differently, more friendly and everything, so I figured, "The CEO tasked us with this particular thing, so let's do it, let's move it. And the CEO said to do so, so let's move." And it's not that way, it's not that easy, you know?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Jorge Monge:</p>
<p>So yeah. So maybe we rushed a little bit, but yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Well, sometimes it's like when you get that kind of directive... And that's actually a good thing, that the CEO had a connection to this program. I think that that's important to call out as well, that senior leadership across the business need to understand they're part of your stakeholder community too, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Not just the group you've mentioned earlier, like the compliance officers or the legal or audit, everybody has some sort of investment into the spend that happens through Concur, I think that that's actually a point that we often forget. I mean, treasury, audit, legal, AP, employees, sales, CEO, you name it, all of this spend touches a variety of groups, so I think that's important to remember. But your two lessons strike a cord with me because I've also experienced similar things.</p>
<p><br />
When I stood up Concur with my previous role, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I knew that we needed to figure out a way to get better at this management of this kind of spend. And I actually didn't have as much CEO directive, so it was like sometimes you don't have enough and you have to build some motion or some connection there, or you have too much where you're able to just... You take that and you try to run with it, but yet you still have some pieces missing. So I think it's interesting to look at both scenarios. Sometimes our customers or people we work with don't have the buy-in from senior leadership, which can be painful, too.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Oh, absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Well, this is exciting, Jorge. I'm thrilled that I was able to spend a little time with you today. I'm sure that there'll be more conversation, but at this point, are there any questions for me, maybe we can turn the tables and you can ask me a question or two?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Well, I'm curious. I'm going to flip the coin now, and I'm going to ask you, "What are your main lessons from directing a program yourself?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Oh yeah. Gosh. I mean, granted it was 10 years ago, so let's be clear. But I think one thing to remember is that business is business, and employee spend is employee spend, so it was about figuring out the most effective way to manage that. My experience was going from paper to an automated solution. We were pre-Travel so basically, it was like we implemented Expense. And then when Travel integrated with Expense, we re-implemented, and so we went to the T&E platform as a whole. And I mean, change management was probably my number one issue, and it wasn't even so much a cultural thing, global culture. We had cultural challenges within the business itself, and the freedom that they were thinking was being taken away from them, and some of the questioning or some of the judgment that they felt from the visibility into what they were spending money on.</p>
<p><br />
And so we had to really work through a lot of that, those painful pieces, to say, "At the end of the day, the employee experience is number one, or is very important. Controlling spend is very important, making sure we're staying within the compliance and regulations of this spend is critical, but at the same time, we're empowering you to do your job." And that was the piece. Once it clicked that it was all-encompassing, but yet they could still do their job, we were golden and we moved. It was great. We only had one country, there were still a significant population. The spend was only about $40 million, but we ended up transitioning to using Concur for a purchasing card activity as well. So we ended up having a significant volume more purchasing-related than travel, and expense-related going through the system, which was a huge benefit to accounts payable.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, it's a whole different world.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>A whole different world. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. We use it for P-Card as well. And a follow up question... Is that two questions?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>So yeah. So the fact that you're saying it was 10 years ago allows you to have a different perspective now. So I'm not going to ask you to disclose any information about SAP Concur, but at the end of the day, I want to know, "How do you see the industry evolving in the next five years? Because you have this perspective 10 years, now, what do you see in the future?"</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Well, of course, we all know the global situation is going to change how people travel, let's just... The elephant in the room on that one. I think where we're going to head, at least for five years, is... Obviously, recovery is going to be top of mind for everyone, this and a global camaraderie around that. COVID and this whole situation didn't impact just one country or just a single population, it affected the globe. And I think that our programs that we manage in our customers, as you say you call them, the employees and the companies are going to have to have that mindset. We're going to have to think about what's best for our people, what's best for the impact on the globe, how do we contribute to the recovery effort across the business.</p>
<p><br />
And it seems weird to connect it to T&E, but we're mobilizing employees, we really are. That's what this solution does, it mobilizes employees to do their job and to contribute to the revenue of the business and the process of the business. So to me, the next five years looks like a lot of control around dollars and cents and making sure it makes sense to spend that money. It's also going to be about protecting employees and protecting people, we've got to bring a human element back into this. Great processes streamlined to the fullest and all the buy-in in the world doesn't change the fact that you still have to protect the person. So I think the next five years looks a little bit more humane. I think it looks a little bit more flexible, and we're going to need technologies that help with that flexibility. That's my thoughts.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>I will add acceleration, right?</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Good point.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>We were pushed in a way that you have to create great changes in very little time. And we realized that things that we never thought were possible now are totally possible, so maybe that has the most rate of something. And we should expect changes to happen faster and people to be pushed a little bit more because we have proven that it's possible. So yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>No, that was a good point of acceleration. There's no time to waste, and you don't need as much time as you thought, right?</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. No, I just wanted to say, at the end of the day, T&E is something that touches everyone in the company. So it's one of those tools that allow you to send a common message, and I think that's where the simplification effort inspired by our CEO was, with the intention of conveying the message of the new way of doing things and the new culture that he wanted to install in the company... So I think that's what I like about T&E at the end of the day, you get to make a difference in people's life, and something that... It's dreaded normally, and you make it friendly and simple, so that gives people, maybe, humanity again.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I liked that, the idea that this is a feeder to other simplification efforts across the business or, at least, an example of what's possible to simplify and allow your employees to focus on what actually matters. So this was awesome, Jorge. Thank you so much for your time. I'm excited for, potentially, another conversation in the near future.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Wish you the best for the holidays, and we'll talk again soon.</p>
<p><strong>Jorge Monge:</strong></p>
<p>And to you as well, thank you. It's been a pleasure to share time with you, Marchelle.</p>
<p><strong>Marchelle Klippenstein:</strong></p>
<p>Awesome. Thank you.</p>
<p>-------------------------------</p>
<p>Learn more about the Smith & Nephew innovation story:</p>
<p>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-1-3">How Smith & Nephew struck a balance between employee experience and compliance</a> </p>
<p>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-0">How Smith & Nephew increased spend accuracy</a></p>
<p>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-3-3">How Smith & Nephew streamlined executive spend management decision</a></p>
<p>-------------------------------</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1633737342006-jorge monge square.png" />Jorge Monge joined Smith and Nephew as the Global Travel and Expense Manager in 2018. With over 14 years of experience in Shared Services, Jorge has held several IT and finance-related leadership roles in CI, Business development (BPO), T&E, Finance, Business Analytics, Migrations, IT Operations (Service Management) and IT Hosting Leadership (Site Manager). Jorge has devoted most of his career to Life Sciences companies, including GlaxoSmithKline. At Smith and Nephew, Jorge played a key role by leading the T&E Transformation project, a global simplification initiative which returned over 20K productivity hours benefiting over 9000 employees globally, the project won the GBS giants Award in all categories.</p>
<p>Jorge is also an avid meditation practitioner and has DJ-ed at several Techno music festivals in Europe (prior to the global pandemic). Follow him on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-monge-lssbb-adgbs-ceae-020205151/">LinkedIn</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Dynamic Spend Management Practices in Higher Education: Three Considerations for Returning to Travel This Fall
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dynamic-spend-management-practices-higher-education-three-considerations-returning
2021-07-14T10:15:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The COVID pandemic caused global disruption to daily operations at colleges and universities In response to the seemingly overnight switch to a virtual environment the financial...
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic caused global disruption to daily operations at colleges and universities. In response to the seemingly overnight switch to a virtual environment, the financial accommodation for testing and personal protective equipment, and the need to address declining enrollment, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/higher-education-solutions">higher education</a> leaders have been forced to be more strategic with their expenditures. While travel and expense planning may seem like an element that can easily be reduced to save dollars, it is important for higher education leaders to take into consideration how travel and expense programs factor into their institutional mission and goals.</p>
<p>As we cautiously return to travel, there are a number of considerations in determining how to do so safely and transparently for staff, faculty and students. The halt caused by the global pandemic gave higher education finance leaders room to pause and evaluate their travel programs, emerging with updated policies and procedures that were relevant to the current travel and expense needs. Over the past year or so, higher education procurement and finance leaders were forced to consolidate the rollout of many change management processes, such as spend management updates. These improvements shortened the time required to go live on new technology, and institutions immediately saw the benefits surrounding transparency, adoption, and cost management.</p>
<p>Figuring out how to return to travel may seem like a daunting task for many institutions, but there is a silver lining: travel departments now have had the chance to adapt their communications, policies and standard operating procedures for travel and entertainment before students and faculty returned to campus. Moving forward, this allows leaders to increase engagement and utilization of their systems while also creating more transparency around effective management of operational costs. With these things in mind, the top three ways to prepare your university or college campuses to begin traveling again are:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Increase visibility of travel requests and needs</h2>
<p>According to the 2021 <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">Global Business Traveler Report</a>, sponsored by the SAP Concur organization, which polled 3,850 business travelers and 700 travel managers across global markets, 96% of respondents say they are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months. However, 52% of travelers say they expect their employers to provide them with the ability to choose direct flights and 41% of respondents say they want the ability to stay in four- to five-star hotels during their business travel. By implementing new pre-trip authorization processes and expense policies, college and university leaders have more visibility from a regulatory requirements perspective. Seeing the associated costs upfront allows leadership to make strategic decisions in support of their travelers while ensuring the institution is spending its funds strategically.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Update policy planning and program deployment</h2>
<p>The key to traveling post-COVID is to do so safely. Returning to travel means colleges and universities are faced with new challenges and will need to adopt fresh policies that pertain to the issues today and what they may face in the future. By updating policies to be broader and incorporating more specific and flexible standard operating procedures (SOPs), institutions can accommodate post-COVID travel and expenses and remain agile for a future state with whatever restrictions or federal guidelines that may be put in place. For example, updated policy language can drive the adoption of a university’s travel programs. Colleges and universities will benefit from making sure employees understand that preferred booking solutions, vendors and program-specific guidelines have been put in place to keep employees safe. Also, using a university’s services ensures there is visibility into the traveler’s location in the event the traveler becomes in need of support.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Plan for the Future</h2>
<p>The only constant thing in travel and expense planning is change. From technological advancements and new modes of transportation to unpredictable world events, travel and expense planning requires swift action on the part of leadership. By understanding what an institution’s ideal future of travel looks like and how these disruptors may affect the institution, leadership can build contingency plans to serve these strategic goals going forward. Instead of waiting until travel picks up again, colleges and universities can start incorporating scalable policies and procedures and begin deploying innovative technologies across departments right. These practices can prepare the institution with resilient programs before becoming immersed in the new fall term. Streamlining the rollout to include both implementation and deployment allows institutions to dedicate time to offering detailed training when travel needs come up. Creating this environment of collaboration between departments and allowing employees to dive into new technology collaboratively ensures continuity once travel resumes full force. The future may not be certain, but leadership can begin identifying what will best suit their institution going forward and work back from there to achieve those goals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A successful return to travel</h2>
<p>The goal with travel and expense planning is just that—planning. For colleges and universities that are looking to reconfigure their travel and expense businesses, it is critical to take measured steps to build in processes that can adapt to both today and tomorrow. Higher education leaders must be proactive in guiding their institutions through the continuous sea of change that is post-COVID travel. Travel and expense management is an instrumental part of a future-focused strategic plan as leaders evaluate how they begin to rebound from the pandemic. By prioritizing travel and capitalizing on the opportunities it presents, universities and colleges can position themselves for success for years to come.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Huron helps clients in diverse industries improve performance, reduce costs, and leverage technology. As a Certified Concur Advisor, Huron has extensive experience in implementing travel and expense solutions and understanding the unique challenges of assessing, building, and optimizing best-in-class travel and expense management programs. Learn more at <a href="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/" target="_blank" title="https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/">www.huronconsultinggroup.com</a></p>
Katheryn Nolfo
Have No Fear, the American Rescue Plan Act is Here to Get Your State and Local Government IT Systems Modernized Today
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/have-no-fear-american-rescue-plan-act-here-get-your-state-and-local-government-it
2022-07-01T12:15:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When the COVID crisis hit it very quickly highlighted the drawbacks of legacy systems demonstrating the need for modernization in state and local government IT With funding available...
<p>When the COVID-19 crisis hit, it very quickly highlighted the drawbacks of legacy systems, demonstrating the need for modernization in state and local government IT. With funding <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/american-rescue-plan-act-and-it-modernization-four-things-state-and-local-governments-need-know">available under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act</a>. These agencies now have the chance to upgrade their technologies to put themselves in a better, more resilient position going forward.</p>
<p>Key points to consider when applying for the IT modernization funding are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Know what’s available:
<ol>
<li>December 31, 2024 is the deadline to use the ARP Act funds</li>
<li>Critical infrastructure projects like cloud services and other technology upgrades qualify</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Establish project priorities:
<ol>
<li>Travel, expense, and invoice processes are ideal for cloud migration</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Fix what’s broken first
<ol>
<li>Streamline manual, paper-based processes</li>
<li>Create dashboards and automated spend reports</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Leverage powerful technologies
<ol>
<li>Cloud-based systems</li>
<li>Automated spend management</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<p>By improving travel, expense, and invoice management processes, state and local governments can promote transparency and drive greater compliance. Improved reporting can help stabilize budgets – a key objective for agencies as they find their footing among the economic challenges of the post-pandemic era.</p>
<p>Taking advantage of automation and machine learning to manage expenses, travel, and invoices, will reduce operational costs, prevent improper payments, identify fraud, and free employees up to spend more time serving the public. Our experienced teams are well-versed and prepared to help your state and local government organization modernize its IT systems to align with both the needs of your community as well as the parameters outlined in the American Rescue Plan Act.</p>
<p>Get a deeper explanation of these points in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/american-rescue-plan-act-and-it-modernization-four-things-state-and-local-governments-need-know">this tip sheet</a> to help you plan how to best approach this funding opportunity and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution#inline_asset_form">contact us today</a> to start modernizing your state and local government IT systems.</p>
<div> </div>
Kathryn Kamin
Beyond Bagels and Balloons: How to Truly Appreciate Your AP Team
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/beyond-bagels-and-balloons-how-truly-appreciate-your-ap-team
2022-07-01T13:48:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For many organizations accounts payable AP is a backoffice outpost whose work happens far out of view But without a welloiled AP department staffed by knowledgeable professionals your...
<p>For many organizations, accounts payable (AP) is a back-office outpost whose work happens far out of view. But without a well-oiled AP department staffed by knowledgeable professionals, your organization would come to a standstill; imagine not being able to pay vendors or having accurate books to ensure proper forecasts.</p>
<p>AP Recognition Week is the perfect time to acknowledge your back-office team’s contributions and elevate its profile. So, be sure to draw attention to everything that AP does that makes your organization run smoothly and empowers these professionals to thrive.</p>
<p>But recognition doesn’t end there. Go one step further and show your AP team that you believe it has a central role to play in influencing your company’s path toward greater growth and profitability. Give your team the tools it needs to partner with you and achieve more strategic bottom-line initiatives: ease tedious work, prevent mistakes and fraud, gain insights for forecasts, and better manage working capital for increased cash flow.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Give AP time for more meaningful work</h2>
<p>Your AP team would love to reduce dull, manual work like keying in invoices, printing check runs, emailing approval reminders, and tracking down payments. Look to show appreciation by equipping them with powerful tools to reduce manual work and speed up workflows, so they can spend more time on fulfilling work that contributes to career advancement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-ap-automation">AP automation</a> is quickly becoming a top solution as businesses of all sizes move away from manual, paper-based systems. Say goodbye to lost receipts, printed invoices, check runs, and stamps.</p>
<p>Automating such tasks isn’t just a morale booster – it benefits the whole organization. With more time, team members can focus on higher-reward projects. In fact, organizations that create exceptional employee experiences see 21% higher productivity and 24% lower turnover, according to <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx">Gallup State of the Global Workplace</a> survey. And when invoices take <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/rc-import-1600866638874-AR_SAP_Concur_Facilitates_Financial_Ops_Mgt_Full_Report_RC.pdf">up to 75% less time to process</a>, you’ll have a happier, more productive team.</p>
<p>The digital transformation of AP is key to advancing strategic growth initiatives. Automation in AP gives organizations the ability to standardize data collection and obtain valuable insights that drive smarter decision-making. For example, seeing the frequency of invoices to a particular vendor can help you negotiate discounts – freeing up working capital that can be reallocated to other growth opportunities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Help them improve their skills</h2>
<p>In today’s tight labor market, top talent has many choices when it comes to employers. By investing in your AP team’s careers, you can make your company stand out as a great place to work. Whether you want to bring in professional development opportunities or connect them with outside conferences, continuing education, and webinars, you’ll be doing your staff and organization a favor – employers without learning and growth opportunities risk losing employees.</p>
<p>The SAP Concur team can help.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Encourage your AP team to attend our webinar.</strong> Our <a href="https://go.concur.com/transformational-ap-aprw-registration-1021.html?PID=web&CID=CFOAPblog0921">free one-hour educational webinar</a> will teach your AP team the tips and tricks they need to become a more valuable strategic partner. Even better: they’ll earn 1 CPE credit for their live attendance.</li>
<li><strong>Provide them with a bigger toolbox. </strong>Visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/accounts-payable-recognition">AP Recognition Week center</a>, which includes lots of content to help your AP team take on a greater strategic role in your organization, including:
<ul>
<li>A <a href="https://www.concur.com/spending-impact-calculator">new quiz</a> to take alongside your staff to identify ways to optimize AP</li>
<li>Our recently updated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started?bypass=form">Vendor Invoice Policy Template</a>, and</li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/become-the-next-mvp-of-ap">An article for AP professionals</a> on how to level up their careers</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Sign up to join the SAP Concur community.</strong> <a href="https://community.concur.com">Connect with thousands of your peers</a> to find success through our online digital community. We have several ways you can exchange tips and tricks, forge connections, and learn how to solve the challenges facing your organization.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>4 more ways to show your appreciation</h2>
<p>Need more ideas to show how much you value your AP team?</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Write a simple thank you note: </strong>In our digital world, never underestimate the value of a handwritten thank you.</li>
<li><strong>Encourage them to go to events: </strong>In-person and digital events allow your AP team to have continuing education and professional development opportunities. Look for regular user groups or leadership councils within your region to ensure your AP team has the knowledge to transform your organization.</li>
<li><strong>Give them leadership opportunities:</strong> Invite AP team members to sit in on leadership meetings to share their ideas and insights. Encourage them to dive into SAP Concur solutions dashboards and reports to find new ways to better support the business, whether it’s through cost savings, training opportunities, or identifying and removing workflow blockages. </li>
<li><strong>Don’t forget the bagels and balloons:</strong> Who are we kidding? The way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach, and AP is no different. Bring on the party.</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>For your AP professionals, sharing is caring</h2>
<p>Sharing knowledge and best practices is a key part of how AP professionals help their organizations address critical business challenges. Don’t hesitate to share the links in here with your AP team to let them know you’re thinking about them and support them.</p>
<p>And don’t forget to give your AP staff time to attend our free live webinar on <strong>Tuesday, October 5</strong> so they can earn a CPE credit. They’ll learn best practices from industry leaders and hear about the latest tools that allow them to do their jobs even better.</p>
<p>Share <a href="https://go.concur.com/transformational-ap-aprw-registration-1021.html?PID=web&CID=CFOAPblog0921">our registration link</a> and get ready to hear the great new ideas your AP team has to help your organization rise to the next level.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Expense Demo: Take a Self-Guided Tour
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-demo-take-self-guided-tour
2022-07-01T17:04:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
One of the top requests we get from people interested in our solutions is the ability to try them out quickly and easily We completely understand the desire to try something before you...
<p>One of the top requests we get from people interested in our solutions is the ability to try them out quickly and easily. We completely understand the desire to try something before you commit to it. That’s why we created a self-guided Concur Expense demo so you can do exactly that.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>Discover how to track expenses quickly and easily with our interactive experience. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>In this demo, we invite you to imagine that you’re traveling to a business conference where you’ll need to capture and submit all of your typical trip expenses, like travel, food, and lodging. You’ll step through the process of how to create an expense report, add expenses to it, and submit the report after it’s all set. Finally, you’ll see what it looks like for a manager to approve expenses from anywhere.</p>
<p>When you begin, the first thing you’ll see is how an Uber receipt is automatically added to your list of expenses. Our extensive system of supplier and app integrations – including popular hotel chains, car rental companies, and many airlines – make it possible to avoid tedious tasks like manually inputting these expenses, allowing you to take some of your time back for more important work.</p>
<p>As you continue, you’ll see how you can simply take a picture of your receipt, then have machine learning parse the details and instantly populate them in your Concur Expense account alongside your Uber charge. Once your hypothetical conference is over, you’ll move on to the submit phase of the demo. You can then create your expense report, add the prepopulated expenses, include details about the expenses and submit it for approval. Then once you’ve submitted it, your manager can approve it easily on-the-go with the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>The process is as simple as the demo makes it look. By automating your expenses, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> not only allows you and your colleagues save time, but also helps your business bring more control back into the process, ensure that spending remains compliant with policies, and offers budget managers greater visibility when it’s time to perform audits or evaluate the health of the business overall.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try out the Concur Expense self-guided tour today</a> to learn more about how it works and how it can help your business track expenses and simplify the reporting process.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want more? Take a look around our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Can IT Help Lead the Way to Greater Business Agility and Financial Control?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-can-it-help-lead-way-greater-business-agility-and-financial-control
2022-07-01T17:21:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Running a successful business has always been about keeping pace with change and these days change is faster and more drastic than ever The past two years have radically transformed...
<p>Running a successful business has always been about keeping pace with change – and these days change is faster and more drastic than ever.</p>
<p>The past two years have radically transformed the way we work. Now, as we move out of the “pandemic era,” yet another shift may be coming. The new anytime, anywhere model has put IT at the core of a company’s ability to stay agile, resilient, and in control as it faces new challenges and rises to meet new opportunities ahead. But too often, IT departments lack the tools they need to help develop successful, future-proof business strategy.</p>
<p>So, how can IT best realize its full potential and serve together with finance as a true business partner?</p>
<p>To find out, the SAP Concur business unit of SAP and Oxford Economics teamed up on a survey of 500 IT and finance decision-makers at organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees from across many industries and around the globe. The goal was to learn more about the changing nature and relationship of IT and finance, and what that could mean for the years ahead.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising that operational agility and functional efficiency are top priorities for IT and finance alike. But we found that IT experts who have been on the front lines keeping operations running now find themselves unable to fully embrace the strategic nature of that new role. A major issue is too much time spent managing manual operations. In fact, nearly 6 in 10 IT leaders report that they are spending more time executing manual processes since the pandemic began than they are on automating those processes. Not only does this waste time and limit IT’s ability to collaborate with finance and other departments, it makes it harder to step back and fully evaluate broader digital transformation needs over the long term.</p>
<p>Also at issue is the cultural perception of IT as a strategic business partner. For example, a large majority (nearly two-thirds) of IT leaders report that aligning growth strategy and long-range planning with executive leadership presents a challenge, as does bolstering cybersecurity. And only 52% say they are effectively working together with finance. Perhaps this explains why just 36% say their organization maintains the financial visibility and data it needs to inform decision-making, budgeting, and forecasting.</p>
<p>The finance leaders in our survey clearly see themselves as critical to setting overall company strategy – in contrast to many of their IT counterparts. But without the right technology foundation, finance (as well as most other business functions) will not have the tools required to effectively perform that task. From supporting hybrid work to safely enabling omnichannel customer engagement and achieving total spend visibility, IT is the driving force behind every aspect of a successful business operation. Yet too few IT leaders report having the right tools and infrastructure to make those things possible.</p>
<p>A clear remedy is the digitalization of finance tasks. By introducing technology that helps increase financial visibility and control, IT can begin playing an active role in building an intelligent, agile enterprise that is prepared for the good, the bad, and everything in between.</p>
<p>In fact, of IT respondents whose companies have already digitalized key finance processes, such as invoice and expense management, nearly half reported increased organizational agility, better collaboration, increased productivity, and greater spend visibility. Unfortunately, few businesses have made meaningful progress in this direction. Invoice management scored the highest, with just 38% of respondents reporting substantial progress, compared to nearly 70% of respondents reporting minimal progress in digitalizing expense and cash flow management.</p>
<p>The bottom line: It’s time for IT leaders to step up to the plate and take their place with finance at the decision-makers’ table.</p>
<p>By working together to digitalize finance tasks and provide deeper spend insight company-wide, finance and IT can function as a strategic powerhouse to increase business agility and control – helping steer the ship forward toward continually brighter horizons.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/oxford-economics-report-leadership-new-era-it-steps">Read the full report</a> to find out more about strengthening IT leadership in the new era. Then <a href="http://www.concur.com">find out how</a> SAP Concur solutions can help.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Navigating Tech and Best Practices for New Finance Leaders
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/navigating-tech-and-best-practices-new-finance-leaders
2022-07-02T05:20:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As a new finance leader youre ready make a meaningful impact on your organization But the first days in your new role will be busy Youll be diving into all aspects of the business...
<p>As a new finance leader, you’re ready make a meaningful impact on your organization. But the first 90 days in your new role will be busy. You’ll be diving into all aspects of the business to gain a deep understanding of how things get done at your company.</p>
<p>It might be daunting. But starting with a framework can make this a more manageable experience and help you establish successful working relationships in your new role.</p>
<p>This post—the first in a series of three—covers how to get to know your company’s finance processes and best practices.</p>
<p>Here’s how to establish your key goals and build critical areas of understanding of the business in your first 90 days as a new finance leader.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>New Finance Leader Checklist</h2>
<p>Your 30-60-90 day action plan</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>1. Dive into the numbers and know your spend</h2>
<p>Start by getting up to speed on the financials to see how the business makes and spends its money, and how it runs across all departments. </p>
<p>Gather the primary financial reports and data that business owners and the C-suite focus on, including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Income statement</li>
<li>Cash flow statement</li>
<li>Balance sheet</li>
<li>Budget vs. actual reports</li>
<li>Annual reports</li>
<li>Accounts receivable aging report</li>
<li>Current and past forecasts</li>
</ul>
<p>If the company has automated its finance and accounting processes, you should have access to real-time data and a clear picture of the day-to-day numbers. Also find out which dashboards your leaders look at every day. This tells you what’s important to them and to the business. </p>
<p>Download a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-technology-systems-and-best-practices">detailed checklist on finance systems and processes</a> for the first 90 days in your new role as a finance leader.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Know your industry and its financial best practices</h2>
<p>Having a solid grasp of your company’s industry is crucial to your success as a finance or accounting leader.</p>
<p>If you’re new to the industry, you can probably learn the key basics relatively quickly. If you’re a veteran, brush up on the basics and catch up on the latest trends. In any case, consider joining industry groups (check professional online communities and LinkedIn) and try to attend at least one industry tradeshow or event every year.</p>
<p>Also, get to know how your company acts within industry norms. You’ll learn these things while on the job. Proactively seek out information from company documents and subject matter experts. This is also where you’ll learn more about your products, business development, sales, and customer service. </p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<h2>3. Be proactive about using your company’s financial systems</h2>
<p>Navigating a company’s financial processes and technology can be a major hurdle. Get a list of finance and accounting systems within your first couple of days—all systems, logins, and details for navigating them.</p>
<p>Look for systems for accounting, payroll, spend management, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, and financial forecasting, plus any other relevant systems and technologies specific to the company.</p>
<p>Then, set aside time each week to learn the systems so you can confidently navigate them.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<h2>4. Get to know what makes your company run</h2>
<p>The general business fundamentals include, but aren’t limited to, the company’s products, services, solutions, and customers. And they’re usually well documented. Review the company’s website, products on resellers’ sites, product or company review sites, and sales and marketing materials. </p>
<p>Look at reports in your CRM system to see who your top customers are and what they’re buying. And talk to your customer service team. Knowing what your company sells and why customers buy from you will help you be a better-informed finance leader.<br />
Then, when you make financial decisions for the business, like cutting a product line or deciding where to invest for the future, you’ll know what impact these decisions could have.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Get a handle on AP, vendors, and spend</h2>
<p>Vendors often make up a large percentage of a company’s spend. When reviewing the numbers, you’ll see which vendors are the largest—but you might not see which ones are the most important. So, you’ll have to investigate to get the full picture.</p>
<p>Find out which departments and individuals deal with your vendors and set up meetings with them to learn more. Find out what these vendors supply, why it’s important to the business, and what their relationships are.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Build your 90-day action plan</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/new-finance-leader-checklist-30-60-90-day-action-plan">Building a plan for your first 90 days</a> can set you on the path to success in your new role. By your third month, you should have a clearer picture of how to help the company manage its spend, optimize cash flow, and chart a stronger path forward.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Read the next article in our series: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/build-relationships-in-your-first-90-days-as-finance-leader">Build Relationships in Your First 90 Days as a Finance Leader</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Top Finance Hacks Shared by Our Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/top-finance-hacks-shared-our-employees
2022-07-02T05:37:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Weve seen plenty of finance hack fails over the years and were sure you have too Were talking about those manual process fixes that add up to more time and money in the long run not...
<p>We’ve seen plenty of finance hack fails over the years – and we’re sure you have, too! We’re talking about those manual process fixes that add up to more time and money in the long run, not to mention the “simple” solutions that often create more complexity than they solve.</p>
<p>Our “Let’s automate that” global campaign puts a spotlight on some of the best—or should we say, worst—workarounds that we’ve heard in market when a business doesn’t have an automated solution in place.</p>
<p>How did we gather these finance hack fails? We went right to the perfect source: our employees!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“I thought I’d seen everything…”</h2>
<p>At the start of 2022, we sent a request to SAP Concur employees worldwide and asked them to share the most common, ingenious, and cringe-worthy process workarounds they’ve seen used by businesses of all sizes.</p>
<p>Here are some of our favorite submissions:</p>
<p><img alt="alternatetext" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Finance%20Hacks%201.png" /></p>
<p><img alt="alternatetext" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Finance%20Hack%202.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>No matter the finance hack, there’s a solution for that. Our campaign highlights how you can eliminate the finance hacks that are holding back your business: <strong>Let’s automate that.</strong></p>
<p>For our employees, however, Let’s automate that is more than just a campaign tagline. It’s an expression of their passion and commitment for solving today’s toughest spend management challenges. For solving your toughest challenges</p>
<p>Take a moment right now to consider how your company currently tracks and controls spending:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are there any unnecessary steps that can be removed?</li>
<li>Are there bottlenecks that can be eliminated?</li>
<li>Are there new expense categories or vendors that you didn’t have before?</li>
<li>Are there new policies to be added to fit those new categories and vendors?</li>
</ul>
<p>Equally important, do you know how your employees, managers, and colleagues in IT and HR would answer those same questions?</p>
<p>Finding the answers will be the first step on your automation journey, and one our team is ready to take with you. In fact, we’ve put together a guide on how to build a business case for automation that your entire company can get behind: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/2022-buyers-guide-choosing-right-travel-and-expense-management-solution">2022 Buyer’s Guide: Choosing a Right Travel and Expense Management Solution</a>.</p>
<p>Want to know more about the potential ROI of expense automation for your business? Make sure to also read the latest IDC report on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-idc-report-business-value-sap-concur-solutions">The Business Value of SAP Concur solutions</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Get around your workarounds. Let’s automate that.</h2>
<p>If your business is still relying on finance hacks, it’s time to digitalize your spend management with SAP Concur solutions. It’s easier than you may think. <a href="https://www.concur.com/lets-automate-that">We’ll show you how.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Hear Why SAP Concur Solutions Are G2 Leaders for Travel, Expense, and Invoice Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hear-why-sap-concur-solutions-are-g2-leaders-travel-expense-and-invoice-management
2022-10-25T10:11:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Our users have spoken (more than 5,000 of them!) and they have ranked us #1 across three categories.
<p>Our users have spoken (more than 5,000 of them!) and they have ranked us #1 in the <a href="https://www.g2.com/reports/grid-report-for-expense-management-fall-2022.embed?secure%5Bpid%5D=310&secure%5Brid%5D=3008792&secure%5Btoken%5D=7b3a4387612a79ee896aa03be6b1b6ad37df97305e70613f51edb0e05bc21140">Expense Management</a>, <a href="https://www.g2.com/reports/grid-report-for-travel-expense-fall-2022.embed?secure%5Bpid%5D=310&secure%5Brid%5D=3008312&secure%5Btoken%5D=7abf0ba20a2ed70044965dc58b528e2b53acd1cb8a799cf86ce3b56d792eb9fa">Travel and Expense Management</a>, and <a href="https://www.g2.com/reports/grid-report-for-invoice-management-fall-2022.embed?secure%5Bpid%5D=310&secure%5Brid%5D=3009489&secure%5Btoken%5D=51c4e3c683b34ff722deda2169898fcfa311a7f40eafd083b1a8b064bf65d960">Invoice Management</a> categories.</p>
<p>“SAP Concur is ranked #1 overall in both Expense and Invoice Management categories, and has been ranked a Leader in the following G2's Fall 2022 Grid® Reports: Travel Management, Expense Management, and Invoice Management”, said Nathan Calabrese, Senior Research Analyst at G2. “These top rankings are due to SAP Concur’s high market presence and strong satisfaction ratings from its users. In reviews, users especially appreciated SAP Concur’s approval process and invoice management features.”</p>
<p> </p>
<img alt="G2 grid ranking for expense management" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="51a8e384-fd49-4c81-984e-5477dfbd6968" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/Expense_Fall2022_Color_1.png" />
<p> </p>
<p>What do our users love about SAP Concur solutions? Here are just some of the things they're saying: </p>
<p>"SAP Concur totally streamlined our employee expense report process." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-5229974">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"We reduced the outstanding expense timeframe from 64 days to 23 days by going from a manual solution to Concur." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-4943082">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"SAP Concur has allowed us to improve company spending visibility by offering real-time reporting." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-5225187">Read full review</a></p>
<p>"User-friendly, straightforward to use, with minimal training required." - <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews/sap-concur-review-5229249">Read full review</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/sap-concur/reviews">Visit G2</a> to read more SAP Concur reviews and see how we stack up against competitors. Then, take our tools for a spin in our self-guided <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense</a> demos.</p>
<p> </p>
Rebecca Dolan
We’re Not the Best Just Because We Say We Are
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/were-not-best-just-because-we-say-we-are
2022-11-13T16:29:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A quick look at objectivity in the purchase process
<p>When you’re sorting through spend management options, it’s hard to separate substance from sales. It’s difficult to discern who’s the best and who’s merely better at marketing themselves. It’s a challenge to see through the spiel and determine what a given solution actually does.</p>
<p>So, to start the new year off right, we thought we’d simplify things by taking on any misperceptions that might be out there.</p>
<p>To help clarify your decision process, we’ll take a look at a few key myths and highlight the difference between what’s said by salespeople and what matters to businesspeople.</p>
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<h5>5 Reasons to Transform Spend Management with SAP Concur</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/5-reasons-to-transform-your-spend-management-with-sap-concur">See the numbers</a></div>
</div>
<h2>1. Experience is not one-sided</h2>
<p>We know the end-user experience matters more today than ever before – and for good reasons – but your experience is just as important. You need to be able to easily slice and dice your spending data, so you can measure it against growth objectives, the core needs of the business, and pressing issues like social responsibility.</p>
<p>If a spend management solution doesn’t make your job easier – by providing the data that helps you make more informed decisions faster, by keeping you on top of regulations and restrictions (think VAT reclaim and GDPR), and by diminishing your day-to-day to-dos – it isn’t really a solution at all.</p>
<p>Now, back to the end-user, because if they don’t have a great experience with the solution, they’re not going to use it. Therefore, it must:</p>
<ul>
<li>Remove every possible point of friction and frustration from the travel and expense process.</li>
<li>Offer a fully functioning app packed with features and designed with consumer-level simplicity.</li>
<li>Make staying on policy and in compliance the easiest way to get things done.</li>
</ul>
<p>The best way to know for sure what users are saying is by seeing what they’ve said. Check out the ratings in the App Store, but don’t stop with the rating. Look at the number of people who’ve rated it. Because it’s easy to get a few dozen people to say something’s okay, it’s much more difficult to get 750,000 people to say it’s great.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Connected does not mean integrated</h2>
<p>Managing spending, particularly T&E, is an inherently integrated process, one with multiple steps and seemingly too much data, all of which needs to be combined into a single, elegant flow. So as you look at solution providers, ask yourself if they appreciate the difference between connected and integrated.</p>
<p>Connected means:</p>
<ul>
<li>Loosely coupled functionality hidden under a thin veil of consistent UI.</li>
</ul>
<p>Integrated means:</p>
<ul>
<li>Systems are built from the ground up to work together without any intervention from you.</li>
<li>Travel bookings flow directly into expense reports without any effort or extra steps.</li>
<li>All types of expenses – including cash, corporate cards, p-cards, virtual cards, ghost cards, and more – can be captured in one place.</li>
<li>Prebuilt connectors eliminate inefficient data and support the automatic flow of information between your ERP/accounting system and your expense solution.</li>
</ul>
<p>Look closely at the solutions you’re considering, and you’ll see the difference. You’ll also be able to avoid some serious challenges down the road by choosing the option built for true integration.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Reporting is not created equal</h2>
<p>Analysis is absolutely critical when it comes to spending. That means it’s critical to get the right reporting and analytics suite from your spend management solution, and if you think providers are all the same, you might need some analysis yourself.</p>
<p>First of all, data makes the difference. If a solution doesn’t capture and connect all the spending data from all the sources we mentioned above, all the analysis in the world doesn’t matter. It’s simple: If you don’t have all the data, your reports won’t give you the whole story.</p>
<p>Next, know that the right solution should show you more than standard information. It should, in fact, help you find and focus on data typically hidden from basic reports. It needs to pull every digit into view, so you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>See if supplier payments that should be covered by POs are ending up in expense reports.</li>
<li>See how much spending is going on personal cards (and find out why).</li>
<li>See where your expense categories are working and where they’re falling short.</li>
</ul>
<p>Your solution should also come with access to analytics experts who will help you determine what, in fact, you’re looking for, design the reporting, and decipher what it all means. It should also give budget managers a simple dashboard where they can see what’s spent, what’s pending, and what’s planned, so they can see how their budgets stack up and distribute spending where it’s needed most.</p>
<p>Basic reports can’t give you all this; it takes technology built on a background of decades in the business. So be sure you know what you’re getting.</p>
<p>No, we aren’t the best because we say it. We’re the best because we prove it: <strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/5-reasons-to-transform-your-spend-management-with-sap-concur">See five more reasons why</a> you should transform your spend management with SAP Concur solutions.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Empowering Employees to Make Sustainable Corporate Travel Decisions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empowering-employees-make-sustainable-corporate-travel-decisions
2022-11-13T18:08:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Taking the pandemic as an opportunity to reset, corporate travel is facing a period of transition.
<p>With accelerated climate action rising up the business agenda, sustainable corporate travel was already a hot topic prior to COVID-19, but it seems especially important in a post-pandemic world.</p>
<p>In response, we ran a roundtable webinar on <a href="https://go.concur.com/EMEA_BLX_FY21Q1_Sustainably-webinar_27Jan2021_NB_Reg-Page-English.html">Empowering Employees to Make Sustainable Corporate Travel Decisions</a> on January 27, hosted by VP of Global Solution Consulting at SAP Concur Eric Webb. He was joined by a panel of leading voices from across the wider sustainable travel community, including Global Travel Category Manager at BNP Paribas Viviane Wolf, Senior Manager Travel and Reporting with Facebook Eric Rhode, Head of Corporate Responsibility at Lufthansa Annette Mann, and Partner at EY Seema Farazi.</p>
<p>First and foremost, sustainability is now a consideration for all parts of a business and at organizations such as Facebook it comes with policies and performance targets to match.</p>
<p>Eric explained: “We have been tracking and reporting on greenhouse-gas emissions for some years now. However, with our company's recent announcement of a net-zero 2030 goal, plus corporate travel-specific details to be publicly announced later this quarter, this has become a much bigger focus area for our team.”</p>
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<h5> <br />
How sustainable is your business when it comes to travel?</h5>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.co.uk/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">See how you rank</a></div>
</div>
<p>In banking, as in tech, sustainability has become part of the daily routine, Viviane agreed. “In my daily job, I see sustainability getting more and more important. And, in procurement, the target is not only now to reach savings, but also to help our company transition to more sustainable travel,” she said.</p>
<p>The greatest assets of a business, though, are still its employees and so placing them at the centre of sustainable travel policy is critical to addressing environmental concerns.</p>
<p>This was why the recent SAP Concur research report <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/corporate-travel-sustainability-index">Solving the Puzzle of Sustainable Corporate Travel</a> adopted the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit as its defining metric. In total, we surveyed not only 2,450 corporate travel decision-makers, but a further 2,000 corporate travellers too. The results therefore captured both the professional perspective and the user experience.</p>
<h2>Information is power</h2>
<p>Fundamental to any notion of empowerment is the issue of control. Therefore, it was a concern to learn from the survey that while 85% of corporate travellers felt they had control over their arrangements, almost half (46%) said they lacked the information needed to make an educated choice about the relative sustainability merits of different booking options.</p>
<p>Taking onboard the views of the corporate travellers themselves is crucial to success, said Viviane. “I think the figures here are really interesting because it shows that travellers have the control, but they are missing information on sustainability. Travellers today get really confused during the booking process. They have to make a decision between the schedule, the price, the airline, the sustainability and so on. I think they really get lost and need guidance here, and maybe HR or CSR could help with that,” she said.</p>
<p>In fact, one of the learnings to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is around the need for greater corporate agility and flexibility regarding collaboration between multiple teams and departments, Seema suggested.</p>
<p>“I think part of the challenge is that there are a number of stakeholders involved in corporate travel within a business so HR, mobility, immigration, tax, social security, and the stakeholders are often using different tech or different data. And those data silos have meant that integration has historically been quite challenging. But to some extent, the pandemic has really kickstarted that integration journey,” she said.</p>
<h2>Changing behaviours and attitudes</h2>
<p>When it comes to shifting behaviours, the survey identified the three most impactful awareness activities as the offering of incentives (25%), closely followed by formal training and education (24%), plus a role for Sustainable Travel Ambassadors (13%). The survey statistic that gave the panel pause, however, was that 39% of individuals say the sustainability of their corporate travel has never even occurred to them.</p>
<p>For Eric, while there are a lot of challenges, there are also many opportunities. “There’s work we can do whether it's aligning incentives or improved vetting and normalization of emissions data. Key opportunities here might include developing new progressive metrics that better reflect the balance of experience, productivity and sustainability,” he said.</p>
<h2>HR as sustainability change-agents</h2>
<p>Exploring opportunities for HR to become more engaged, the panel were interested to learn what the most motivating incentives might be for getting corporate travellers focused on sustainability. While options to carbon offset topped the list with 48%, tied in joint second place with financial incentives were better hospitality options, plus opportunity to celebrate and share success and best practices (47%).</p>
<p>On sustainability, corporate values matter to staff, especially younger hires, Annette explained. “We do a once-a-year feedback study with all our employees and the people are really asking for us to become more sustainable as an airline company. Nobody wants to be ashamed to work for Lufthansa Group because everyone is thinking ‘Oh, you're like, yeah, the bad CO2 guys’,” she said.</p>
<p>Therefore, while it is valuable for all concerned to be seen to be green, credibility is key, she added. “Many travellers are suspicious about whether this is greenwashing or if it's really making a difference. So it’s really important for corporates, but also for airlines, to make this more transparent,” said Annette.</p>
<p>In all this, success is a combination of communication and culture. “It really starts at the top with leadership defining social purpose and articulating policies and goals, and then, of course, the practical steps you’re taking,” said Seema. “Ultimately, you're asking people to break habits. Explaining that rationale means people understand the positive contribution they're making. Once they understand, you foster the kind of culture around social purpose and the rest starts to fall into place.”</p>
<h2>Sustainability: if not now, when?</h2>
<p>Taking the pandemic as an opportunity to reset, corporate travel is facing a period of transition. In conclusion, then, the panel talked of a seismic realignment of value in prospect, with 2020 having waved goodbye to some of the old ways and much corporate excess.</p>
<p>The question is: Can sustainability become part of the new normal?</p>
<p>Start by assessing your current state with our <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/quiz/corporate-travel-sustainability">sustainability benchmarking tool</a>.</p>
Madlen Nicolaus
Spotlight on Black Businesses at SAP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/spotlight-black-businesses-sap
2022-11-13T19:18:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur An important movement for racial justice comes to life during a pandemic Rarely do such worldchanging...
<p>An important movement for racial justice comes to life during a pandemic. Rarely do such world-changing events happen simultaneously, and when they do, it’s important to consider – and act – in part by thinking about some of the ways in which the two issues collide.</p>
<p>For Black-owned businesses, <a href="https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Entering-Entrepreneurship.pdf">racial disparities in business opportunities and a general lack of access</a> is compounded by COVID-19, leaving already vulnerable businesses in tougher spots than ever before. That’s why I was so proud to see that SAP launched <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/07/spotlight-black-businesses-new-sap-initiative/">Spotlight Black Businesses</a>, which elevates, promotes, and supports small, Black-owned businesses. Getting involved in this initiative is a natural for those of us at the SAP Concur organization, which began as a small business and has worked, from day one, together with small and mid-sized businesses to help them grow and thrive.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/07/spotlight-black-businesses-new-sap-initiative/">Spotlight Black Businesses</a> initiative, these businesses are nominated by our employees and are given a platform on SAP social media channels to drive awareness – and most important – commerce. Together, and with your help, we can drive more sales to these operations, helping them overcome the challenging economic times, and make additional strides towards a more equitable ecosystem for the entrepreneurs who get up each day to generate economic activity and jobs in their communities.</p>
<p>I recently had a chance to speak with SAP Chief Marketing Officer Alicia Tillman about this campaign. Check out our conversation in the video below about how this initiative started and how our employees are getting involved.</p>
<p>And for those of you located outside of North America, we asked Alicia how everyone can engage in this campaign, who advised us that while the focus of this program is the US, the issue of racial equality goes beyond our borders. Supporting Black-owned businesses is something we call can do through online purchases and non-profit organizations. </p>
<p>In our new work-from-home world, new barriers have formed for retailers. There is far-less foot traffic. And, in many communities, restaurants and bars have been some of the hardest hit, suffering many of the worst impacts. The Spotlight Black Businesses program is working to overcome these barriers by fostering connections in two ways:</p>
<ol>
<li>Within the SAP community, employees are sharing their favorite Black-owned businesses with each other, working together around a common social justice goal.</li>
<li>Within our own local communities, highlighting Black businesses is a way for employees to give back to their neighbors and friends.</li>
</ol>
<p>In such uncertain times, it’s a good feeling to know that our people care and want to help. Cindy Beauchamp, an SAP employee, plainly states, “Why is SAP launching #SpotlightBlackBusinesses? Because it’s the right thing to do, so we do it.”</p>
<p>With so many Black-owned businesses across the United States participating, it’s easy to find a variety of products and services – from books, to candles, to cupcakes. Janet Webster Jones of <a href="http://www.sourcebooksellers.com/">Source Booksellers</a> in Detroit, Michigan, is a proud Spotlight Black Businesses participant. “We are thrilled to be part of SAP’s Spotlight Black Businesses program,” she said. “I love being in the company of other businesses who are dedicated to serving their communities.” To find more participating businesses in the United States and across all industries, check out the <a href="https://www.sap.com/SPOTLIGHTBLACKBUSINESS">Spotlight Black Businesses</a> website.</p>
<p>This is only one action SAP is taking in the fight for racial equality. Find out more about the concrete steps SAP is taking <a href="https://news.sap.com/2020/06/social-justice-taking-action/">toward social justice</a> and follow the campaign hashtag on social media <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SpotlightBlackBusinesses">#SpotlightBlackBusinesses</a>. During these times, there is so much that is out of our control, but we do know how and where we spend our hard-earned money. Using your purchasing power mindfully might seem small but to our participating Black-owned businesses, it is everything. I appreciate your help, as a digital community, in coming together to make sure our Black-owned businesses not only get by – but thrive! </p>
<p><em>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</em></p>
SAP Concur Executives
4 Reasons SAP Concur Users Should Care About Their Data
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-reasons-sap-concur-users-should-care-about-their-data
2022-11-13T20:01:19Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Did you know that your data can deliver real savings on TE without cutting your budget?
<p>Did you know that your data can deliver real savings on T&E without cutting your budget? Using the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, you can uncover massive savings opportunities through SAP Concur data.</p>
<h2>Why is SAP Concur data unique?</h2>
<p>On top of automating expense and invoice management, saving time and eliminating manual processes, the added value you get from being an SAP Concur user is access to the unique data collected within SAP Concur- and what's even more interesting is how much you can do with all of that data.</p>
<p>Thanks to SAP Concur, you have information on all of your actual travel spend vs. budgeted, plus you know where the spend is happening- hotels vs. airlines vs. food and beverage- and in which locations around the globe.</p>
<p>With all of that travel, expense, and invoice data in one place, the scene is set to capitalise on instant, real-time, and actionable insights.</p>
<h2>What can you do with all of that data?</h2>
<h3><strong>1. Increase VAT Recovery</strong></h3>
<p>The Concur App Center is a goldmine of apps that help you drive smarter spend, easier travel and effortless expensing. And one of the easiest and most rewarding ways to identify big savings is by reclaiming Value Added Taxes (VAT).</p>
<p>Thanks to Taxback International VATConnect and our automated connection with SAP Concur, you can effortlessly identify VAT savings and pump them straight back into your bottom line.</p>
<p>Our VATConnect technology allows us to easily analyze every transaction to provide a clear breakdown of your VAT recovery potential across all entities, transaction types, country of spend, etc.</p>
<p>VATConnect analytics shows you the status of your VAT recovery in real-time, with high-level dashboards, detailed views and the ability to slice and dice the data across many variables.</p>
<p>On average, we increase new client’s VAT reclaim by up to 50%.</p>
<h3><strong>2. Identify spending trends and make smarter decisions </strong></h3>
<p>Taxback International take it a step further by helping our clients look not only at the VAT they can recover today but at the opportunity for increased reclaim in the future:</p>
<ul>
<li>Our continuous improvement program is focused on pinpointing lost VAT opportunity and taking specific steps to drive internal change through employee education programs and tools that improve compliance of receipts and invoices to increase your potential recovery.</li>
<li>One client doubled their reclaim by simply identifying a specific employee that continually submitted ineligible receipts, which they were able to easily correct by educating that employee on proper receipt capture.</li>
<li>VATConnect’s prescriptive analytics provide actionable insights to help clients get the highest possible reclaim and improve compliance year after year. Many clients have been able to multiple their VAT recovery tenfold or more.</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>3. Benchmark your spending and streamline your processes</strong></h3>
<p>Understanding the characteristics of other travel programs can provide unique insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your own travel program. By benchmarking your program against similar companies based on number of employees, air spend or industry you can gain a better understanding of where your company can improve.</p>
<p>As the additional data brings more clarity, you will have a clearer picture of how your employees’ business travel influences sales in the various markets. You can then boost profits by putting your resources into the most lucrative areas of your business.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1583255974578-benchmarking+spend+analysis.jpg" /></p>
<h3><strong>4. Control spend, manage and track against budgets</strong></h3>
<p>Manage supplier targets and track against budgets through real-time analysis of your travel data. With spend data at your fingertips; you are in a stronger negotiating position with suppliers. You can also build a complete picture of where non-compliant spend is happening and take steps to reduce it.</p>
<h2>Discover gold in your T&E data</h2>
<p>VAT reclaim is just one of many ways you can find gold in your T&E data- check out the Concur App Center to see what else you can do with your SAP Concur data.</p>
<p>Taxback International offer a <a href="https://taxbackinternational.com/contact/">free VAT analysis</a> to discover your VAT reclaim potential. Get started today to find big money and uncover hidden savings or check us out at Fusion 2020, Booth 751.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Joe Healy
As Business Returns, Now is the Time to Redefine Your Vehicle Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-returns-now-time-redefine-your-vehicle-program
2022-11-14T12:54:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While the COVID pandemic abruptly interrupted business travel the latest mileage trends report from SAP Concur partner Motus shows a gradual uptick in cars returning to the roadways...
<p>While the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly interrupted business travel, the latest <a href="https://www.motus.com/june-jobs-report/">mileage trends report</a> from SAP Concur partner Motus shows a gradual uptick in cars returning to the roadways. Although the pace of growth has slowed in recent weeks, business mileage activity is hovering at around 54% of “normal” pre-pandemic levels – a positive indicator of business recovery, and a reminder that having the right vehicle program is critical to accommodating the return of your mobile workforce.</p>
<p>An effective vehicle program simplifies life for those on the road, improves productivity for those managing it, and reduces risk for a business. Determining the right program, however, isn’t a simple task for organizations with high-mileage drivers. Location alone creates significant variances in accounting for the costs associated with driving and maintaining vehicles. The <a href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/">American Automobile Association</a> reports as much as a 175% difference between the lowest and highest fuel prices across all 50 states. The same is true for vehicle insurance premiums, which can vary greatly according to region.</p>
<p>Key findings from the <a href="https://resources.motus.com/reports/2019-mobile-workforce-benchmark-report">2019 Motus Benchmark Study</a> (a survey of more than 2,000 organizations and 25 industries to collect financial, operational, and program-specific data points to provide trends and comparisons on mobile workforce reimbursement programs), also show the complexity and risk inherent to traditional vehicle programs:</p>
<ul>
<li>Average vehicle program cost per mobile worker increased 5% year-over-year</li>
<li>70% of organizations with vehicle allowance programs have not reviewed their allowance amount within the past 12 months</li>
<li>Mileage reporting fraud cost U.S. organizations roughly $665 Million in 2018</li>
<li>Fuel accounted for 25% of the costs to own and operate a vehicle in 2018</li>
<li>88% of organizations do not measure employee satisfaction with their business vehicle program</li>
</ul>
<p>Traditional vehicle programs – flat car allowances, cents per mile reimbursement, and fleet owned vehicles – follow a one-size-fits-all approach that inefficiently manages cost and can leave dangerously wide liability gaps. Instead, companies must be nimble enough to adapt to changing and mobile-leaning workforce dynamics while simultaneously operationalizing vehicle program processes that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reimburse drivers fairly and equitably</li>
<li>Acknowledge regional cost distinctions</li>
<li>Minimize corporate liability</li>
<li>Save money and/or free up resources to be reallocated</li>
<li>Simplify administrative tasks for employee and employer</li>
<li>Ensure employee safety and satisfaction</li>
</ul>
<p>In our next article of this three-part series on creating an effective, equitable vehicle program, we’ll examine the advantages and shortcomings of the three most common programmatic approaches.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Help Your Travelers Better Understand their Carbon Footprint with TripIt Pro
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/help-your-travelers-better-understand-their-carbon-footprint-tripit-pro
2022-12-05T15:32:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
TripIt Pro part of the Concur TripLink offering shows travelers the carbon emissions for their flights tracks their annual flight emissions and gives them ways to offset that...
<p>TripIt Pro, part of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> offering, shows travelers the carbon emissions for their flights, tracks their annual flight emissions, and gives them ways to offset that environmental impact—right alongside all their other travel plans.</p>
<h2>How is it calculated?</h2>
<p>Carbon emissions are calculated using the <a href="https://ghgprotocol.org/">Greenhouse Gas Protocol</a>, the same methodology used by European government agencies. TripIt Pro takes into account factors like distance, flight class, and environmental elements for more precise calculations.</p>
<p><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/carbon_per_trip.gif" /></p>
<h2>Where can travelers find this feature?</h2>
<p>To view the carbon emissions for a flight, visit the flight’s detail screen within the <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt Pro</a> app and travelers will see the Carbon Footprint section. They can tap on it for more info and for ideas on how to reduce or offset their flight’s footprint. Travelers can also view their carbon emissions for all flights in a certain year, within the Travel Stats section of the TripIt app.</p>
<p>Carbon Footprint is just one of the ways in which TripIt Pro makes every trip easier for travelers and gives companies an easy way to boost travel program satisfaction, gain visibility into outside bookings, and better fulfill duty of care responsibilities.</p>
<p>TripIt Pro is available as part of Concur TripLink, an SAP Concur solution that gives companies visibility into their employees’ travel, regardless of where bookings take place. </p>
SAP Concur Team
The Loyalty Program Game Has Changed. Do You Know the Rules?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/loyalty-program-game-has-changed-do-you-know-rules
2022-12-06T13:42:52Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Before the COVID pandemic sent the travel world into chaos and uncertainty loyalty programs centered on miles traveled ticket class number of hotel stays and the like to earn status...
<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic sent the travel world into chaos and uncertainty, loyalty programs centered on miles traveled, ticket class, number of hotel stays, and the like to earn status and rewards. Really, it was all about the act of travel…one needed to fly, stay, or drive to earn status with preferred brands. In turn for their brand loyalty, travelers reaped free upgrades and other perks that made business travel all the more enjoyable. After all, surveys show that frequent business travelers consider reward program status a benefit to spending so much time on the road. So how will loyalty programs adapt to changing traveler demands and decreased travel levels? And how can companies ensure their travelers are happy, their programs are optimized, and their contracts are favorable? Read below to find out more.</p>
<h2>Loyalty Today</h2>
<p>The structure of loyalty programs is based on pre-pandemic behaviors, which are, at least temporarily, no longer the norm. The business travel landscape of today is very different from just a year and a half ago. Many companies still have travel paused, are only traveling by car, or are only permitting the most essential of business trips. However, vaccines worldwide are ramping up and many countries are loosening entry restrictions, leading to promising upticks in business travel. While the dust settles in the aftermath of the pandemic, corporate travel programs are being restructured, revamped, and rethought. Loyalty programs will be pushed to change and providers will work to understand and harness post-pandemic loyalty.</p>
<h2>Winning Back the Business Traveler</h2>
<p>In a sea of new options, emerging trends, and increased negotiating power for organizations, airlines, hotels, and car rental providers are evolving to keep clients and travelers happy while building continued program loyalty. Business travel is important to airlines, hotels, and car rental companies and loyalty programs will focus on winning back the business traveler (a valuable asset in rebuilding operations and revenue in 2021 and beyond).</p>
<p>Companies are poised to benefit from interesting opportunities to renegotiate contract commitments and maximize their program’s potential. For example, <a href="https://www.adtrav.com/sap-concur-ebook/">a recent survey of SAP Concur customers</a> within the Aerospace, Defense, and Government Contracting space noted that only 31% incorporated ground loyalty programs and 49% incorporated frequent flyer programs into their T&E policies. It’s a missed opportunity if companies aren’t incorporating parameters for loyalty programs in their travel policies; it will only increase the experience for employees who are eager to use their points.</p>
<p>It’s important to note that booking through your travel management company still provides the traveler with all the points, perks, miles, and status associated with the brand’s loyalty program while ensuring the organization maximizes travel spend and understands program data.</p>
<h2><strong>What to Expect as We Move Toward Recovery</strong></h2>
<ul>
<li>Decreased contractual volume commitments</li>
<li>More value in non-flight based activities (branded credit card spending, etc.)</li>
<li>Increased negotiating power and greater leverage as brands work to gain business travel</li>
<li>Shift to accommodate the desires of business travelers in 2021 and beyond</li>
<li>More investment in innovative, digital features and services that business travelers want</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Time to Renegotiate Is Now</h2>
<p>Now more than ever, brands are looking to encourage travel, boost business relationships, and accommodate corporate clients. It’s time to take a deep dive into your program contracts and ensure your program is optimized for the current travel landscape (and needs of your travelers).</p>
<p>ADTRAV and SAP Concur are working with clients and their preferred brands to renegotiate and meet the demands of business travel today. If your corporate travel program is in need of industry experts to lead and manage with a consultative and collaborative approach, ADTRAV and SAP Concur can help.</p>
<p><strong>About ADTRAV</strong></p>
<p>ADTRAV provides travel management solutions for corporate, government, and non-profit (NGO) travel. Through innovative technology, custom solutions, and thorough data reporting, we deliver increased efficiency and savings to our clients. To learn more about ADTRAV Travel Management and how we can help optimize your program, visit <a href="https://www.adtrav.com/">adtrav.com</a>.</p>
Chesley Vague
The Complete Guide to TripIt’s COVID-19 Travel Guidance Feature
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/complete-guide-tripits-covid-19-travel-guidance-feature
2022-12-30T15:01:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Travel restrictions related to COVID continue to vary greatly and constantly change meaning the decision to traveland the process of travelingisnt as straightforward as it used to be...
<p>Travel restrictions related to COVID-19 continue to vary greatly and constantly change, meaning the decision to travel—and the process of traveling—isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. TripIt’s COVID-19 travel guidance feature shows you the latest COVID-19 travel guidelines, restrictions, and requirements for the destinations you’re planning to visit. This information comes from our partner Riskline. </p>
<p>You can find destination-specific information about vaccination rates and requirements, approved vaccines, testing requirements, exemptions for vaccinated travelers, current infection rates, quarantine rules upon arrival, and other information you need to know before visiting the area. </p>
<p>If you’re a TripIt Pro user, you can search the feature to find all of the above information for destinations you’re planning to visit without needing them to be part of a TripIt itinerary. This is available in the Pro tab of the app.</p>
<p>The feature also provides airline-specific COVID-19 guidance, including airline-recommended apps to assist with travel and entry, airline-facilitated COVID-19 test availability and scheduling, and more. </p>
<p>There’s also a COVID-19 Summary screen so you can view crucial pre-departure information you may need to take action on before an international trip. These pre-trip details include vaccine and testing requirements for your destination, as well as apps recommended by your airline. </p>
<p>Here’s what else you might want to know about TripIt’s COVID-19 travel guidance feature. </p>
<h2>Who has access to COVID-19 travel guidance?</h2>
<p>COVID-19 travel guidance is available to all TripIt users in the TripIt app. Guidance is available for more than 200 countries and territories along with 79 airlines.</p>
<p>Some countries also have data available by specific regions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Australia has information available by state </li>
<li>Canada has information available by province </li>
<li>United States has information available by state</li>
<li>France has information available by region</li>
<li>Spain has information available by autonomous communities </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="h-where-can-i-access-covid-19-travel-guidance">Where can I access COVID-19 travel guidance?</h2>
<p>The next time you view a trip itinerary in TripIt, you will notice a guidebook button on your trip summary screen (above the edit button). Tap the guidebook to see additional information to help you prepare for your next trip. </p>
<p>If you’re a TripIt Pro user, you can also search for COVID-19 travel guidance prior to booking a trip right from the Pro tab in the TripIt app. </p>
<p><img alt="COVID-19 travel guidance" src="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/01/iOS-X-COVID-Guidance-01-563x1024.png" /></p>
<h2>What vaccine-related information is available for my trip?</h2>
<p>You can find vaccine-related information right in the COVID-19 travel guidance feature. All TripIt users can view vaccination information at the country-level for destinations they’re visiting, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Vaccination rates</li>
<li>Vaccination requirements</li>
<li>Approved vaccines</li>
<li>Exemptions from quarantine, testing, or other entry requirements for vaccinated travelers</li>
<li>Accepted forms of certification</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="COVID-19 travel guidance" src="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/US-travel-guidance-vax-563x1024.png" /></p>
<h2>Where can I find airline-specific COVID-19 guidance?</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 travel guidance feature also offers <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-tripit-air-travel-enhancements.html">airline-specific guidance</a>, giving you access to information about your flight’s enhanced cleaning procedures, health documentation requirements, food and beverage service, and more. </p>
<p>You can also find airline-specific details, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Apps recommended by the airline to facilitate travel and entry</li>
<li>Information on whether a COVID-19 test can be scheduled through the airline</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="COVID-19 travel guidance" src="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/US-travel-guidance-airline-563x1024.png" /></p>
<h2>What else is TripIt doing to help travelers?</h2>
<p>Adding COVID-19 travel guidance into the TripIt app is just one of the ways we’re making it easier to navigate your <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-health-and-safety-tools-travel-kit.html">health and safety needs</a> the next time you travel. </p>
<p>You can also view a general health and medical score for the area you’re visiting in <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-neighborhood-safety-scores-include-covid-19-data.html">Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> and easily <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places.html">find hospitals and pharmacies in Nearby Places</a>. We’ve also <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-tripit-air-travel-enhancements.html">added amenities</a> related to health and safety to Interactive Airport Maps. For available airports, TripIt Pro users can search interactive maps for the locations of COVID-19 testing sites, stores that sell face coverings, hand sanitizer stations, and personal protective equipment (PPE) vending machines—all right in the app.</p>
<p>Do you know if your company provides access to TripIt Pro with your current SAP Concur solution? <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Support-and-FAQs/What-is-TripIt-And-how-does-TripIt-work/ba-p/16867">Check out this blog</a> to learn how to find out and activate it.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Your New Air Travel Checklist
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-new-air-travel-checklist
2022-12-30T15:44:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Nowadays, our new travel normal comes with a lot of extra checks. So, we’ve created a new air travel checklist to help you stay organized.
<p>Flexible booking(s) ✔️<br />
Passport ✔️ <br />
Boarding pass✔️<br />
COVID-19 vaccination and/or testing documents ✔️<br />
Face covering ✔️</p>
<p>Nowadays, our new travel normal comes with a lot of extra checks. So, we’ve created a <strong>new air travel checklist</strong> to help you stay organized—and in the know—as you navigate an ever-changing world of travel. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://assets.concur.com/tripit/Images/travel_checklist_01.pdf"><img alt="air travel checklist" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/b9e3F8A4DVjg55DzuzSiZtf0dYrzARomjfze7VhtI66cM3jySHgcK0z53rHV3YgEGSWz15MVFQWfSVeP5jDff9iI8hNR1zCSKW2zKqBKfRIoNwQTa4Qt-N3oDvKmWaH69ltDAKYz" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://assets.concur.com/tripit/Images/travel_checklist_01.pdf">Download <strong>Your New Air Travel Checklist </strong>here, then upload it to <strong>Documents</strong> in TripIt</a></p>
<p>Want to learn more about the <a href="https://www.concur.com/tripit-pro">TripIt</a> features mentioned in the checklist? Read on for a detailed description of each feature. </p>
<h2 id="h-covid-19-travel-guidance">COVID-19 travel guidance </h2>
<p>Travel restrictions related to COVID-19 vary greatly and constantly change, meaning the decision to travel—and the process of traveling—isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. Last year, we added the <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-app-enhancements-travel-vaccination-status.html">COVID-19 travel guidance</a> feature to show you the latest COVID-19 travel guidelines, restrictions, and requirements—alongside infection rates—for the destinations you’re visiting. </p>
<p>You can also find destination-specific information about vaccination rates and requirements, approved vaccines, testing requirements, and exemptions for vaccinated travelers. We’ve also added airline-specific COVID-19 guidance, including airline-recommended apps to assist with travel and entry, airline-facilitated COVID-19 test availability, and more.</p>
<p>TripIt Pro users can also search for the latest COVID-19 travel guidance by destination, so you can see these details in advance of adding a plan to TripIt. </p>
<p><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-features-2021.html">In a Changing World of Travel, Here’s How We’ve Kept Up</a></p>
<h2>Inbox Sync </h2>
<p><a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/226108587-Authorizing-Inbox-Sync-">Inbox Sync</a> connects your Gmail, Google Workspace, Yahoo! Mail, and Outlook inboxes with your TripIt account.</p>
<p>Once connected, your travel plans are automatically added to your TripIt account. You never have to remember to forward an email to <a>plans@tripit.com</a> (though that works, too!). TripIt will scan your inbox(es) for travel plans, then automatically import them into TripIt. </p>
<h2>International Travel Tools </h2>
<p>TripIt Pro makes international travel easier by showing logistics such as embassy information, currency conversions, socket and plug requirements, required vaccinations, tipping advice, and more in our <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/neighborhood-safety-scores-and-international-travel-tools.html">International Travel Tools</a> feature. </p>
<p>Next time you travel internationally with TripIt, you will notice a passport button on your trip summary. Simply tap on it to find an array of tips and tools customized specifically to the country you are traveling to.</p>
<h2>Documents </h2>
<p>Gone are the days of toggling back and forth between your digital boarding pass and TripIt app as you multitask your way through the airport. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/documents-feature-in-tripit.html">Documents</a> feature enables you to upload PDFs, photos, boarding pass and mobile passport QR codes to your travel plans—and of course, your new air travel checklist—so everything is in one place. You can add attachments to the Details screen for your flight, lodging, car rental, activity, and other trip items.</p>
<p>This feature is available to all TripIt users. Anyone can upload three documents per trip; TripIt Pro users can upload up to 25 documents per trip.</p>
<h2>Share your TripIt itinerary</h2>
<p>To share your travel plans from the app, simply click the share icon on your itinerary to share your travel plans via text or email. You can also select individual (or multiple) trip plans within a TripIt itinerary and send them via text, Slack, WhatsApp, or your favorite messaging app. You can also choose to add people as viewers, editors, or travelers on your trip, and they will see updates to your itinerary in real time.</p>
<p>As a TripIt Pro member, you can add people to your <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/226107107">Inner Circle</a>, and we’ll do the sharing for you. New trips are conveniently shared to your Inner Circle as soon as they’re posted in your account. When you’d prefer not to share travel plans, simply select “Do not share with Inner Circle” when creating the trip. </p>
<h2>Airport Maps </h2>
<p>All TripIt users can view airport and terminal maps right in the app to help you navigate to your gate and more. </p>
<p>TripIt Pro members can also access even more <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/our-new-interactive-airport-maps-take-the-hassle-out-of-getting-to-your-gate.html">Interactive Airport Maps</a> to quickly and easily navigate your way around the airport, with step-by-step directions, walking times, search options, dynamic 3D detail, and more. </p>
<p>In pace with the times, we’ve added amenities related to health and safety to Interactive Airport Maps. For available airports, TripIt Pro users can search interactive maps for the locations of COVID-19 testing sites, stores that sell face coverings, hand sanitizer stations, and personal protective equipment (PPE) vending machines—all right in the app. </p>
<p>Interactive airport maps are available to TripIt Pro users for more than 105 global airports. </p>
<h2>Baggage claim alert</h2>
<p>TripIt Pro members can receive flight status notifications via email, push, and SMS. Upon arrival, TripIt flight alerts will tell you what time your flight arrived at its destination and will display your <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/pro">baggage claim information</a> if available.</p>
<h2>Navigator</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/announcing-go-now-more-new-tripit-features.html">Navigator</a> feature helps you get from point A to point B more easily with a search tool that shows you the transportation options available to you. It will also show you the estimated costs and travel times for each option, so you can decide which works best. You can find Navigator within your flight, hotel, activity booking, and rental car details screens.</p>
<h2>Nearby Places </h2>
<p>Whether you’re looking for a place to eat, drink, pick up supplies, or seek medical care, TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/find-what-you-need-most-with-nearby-places.html">Nearby Places</a> feature makes it easy to find places close to where you’re staying. </p>
<p>Should you need medical help while traveling, our enhanced Nearby Places makes it easy to find hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies close to where you’re staying. </p>
<p>The feature will give you the medical facility’s contact details, hours, and more. TripIt will also show you an interactive map with each option tagged so you can see where it is in relation to your accommodations. Then, you can easily get directions or tap the plus (+) sign to save the information for later. </p>
<h2>Neighborhood Safety Scores</h2>
<p>TripIt’s <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-neighborhood-safety-scores-include-covid-19-data.html">Neighborhood Safety Scores</a> feature helps you learn about the safety of the neighborhood they’re visiting. You can access hyperlocal safety ratings along any point within your TripIt itinerary for more than 65,000 cities and neighborhoods for both daytime and nighttime. </p>
<p>This helps you visualize and gain an understanding of current safety conditions by location. Among the safety categories, you can view a <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/tripit-neighborhood-safety-scores-include-covid-19-data.html">health and medical score</a>—which factors in COVID-19 data—for the area you’re visiting.</p>
<p>Since safety looks different to everyone, we enabled the ability to <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/neighborhood-safety-scores-personal-risk-level.html">set a personal risk level</a> within the Neighborhood Safety Scores feature. Once you’ve done so, we’ll warn you if you’re planning on visiting an area that exceeds your threshold—helping you to make better informed decisions while you’re on the go.</p>
<h2>Carbon Footprint</h2>
<p>TripIt shows you the carbon emissions for your flights, tracks your annual flight emissions, and offers you ways to offset that environmental impact—right alongside all your travel plans. </p>
<p>With our <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/new-tripit-update-carbon-footprint-flights-at-your-fingertips.html">Carbon Footprint</a> feature, you can: </p>
<ul>
<li>See your flight’s carbon emissions </li>
<li>Track your annual carbon footprint for air travel </li>
<li>View practical suggestions to offset and reduce your environmental impact </li>
</ul>
<p>To view the carbon emissions for an individual flight, visit the flight’s detail screen and you’ll see the Carbon Footprint section. To view the cumulative carbon emissions for all your flights in a certain year, check out your Travel Stats in the More tab. From there, tap on Carbon Footprint for more info and ideas on how to reduce or offset your footprint.</p>
<h2>Travel Stats </h2>
<p>Oh, the places you’ve been! Proud of how many destinations you’ve explored? Did you know you can view these stats, and more, in <a href="https://help.tripit.com/hc/en-us/articles/226108247-Travel-stats-">Travel Stats</a>? </p>
<p>To check out your Travel Stats, head to the More tab of the TripIt mobile app, then tap Travel Stats. You can also share your travel stats on social media using the share button or by snapping a screenshot. Remember to include #TripItTravelStats with your post.</p>
<h2>Search for iOS</h2>
<p>With a few keywords, you can now <a href="https://www.tripit.com/web/blog/news-culture/dont-scroll-search-tripit-adds-new-search-tool.html">search within your travel plans</a> to find trip details like restaurants you’ve booked, hotels you’ve stayed (or plan to stay) at, states or countries you’ve visited or plan to visit, and so on. </p>
<p>To get started, enter a few keywords—e.g., “London hotel”—into the search bar and results will instantly start to populate. Then, simply click on the plan that you were searching for, and voila! You can jump right to that plan and recall the details you need. </p>
SAP Concur Team
What Expense and AP Automation Really Means for Your Job
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-expense-and-ap-automation-really-means-your-job
2023-04-02T14:07:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Think of all the ways automation helps you in your personal life From Amazon recommending helpful items to add to your cart and saving you a trip to the store to Alexa setting a...
<p>Think of all the ways automation helps you in your personal life. From Amazon recommending helpful items to add to your cart and saving you a trip to the store, to Alexa setting a reminder for you to take out the trash, automation helps us complete our to-do lists more efficiently.</p>
<p>Similarly, automating business finance processes can minimize time spent on repetitive manual tasks, freeing up time to focus on higher-value work.</p>
<p>But workers might wonder how automation could affect their jobs. Particularly when the shift to remote or hybrid work arrangements has prompted many organizations—86% in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">2021 survey by The Economist Group</a>—to be more open to experimentation and quick shifts in strategy.</p>
<p>What does that involve? Well, 89% of executives surveyed by The Economist Group plan to make their businesses more resilient by implementing advanced technologies to reduce manual drag. That means automation.</p>
<p>While business intelligence and machine learning are already here, organizations still need their humans. Here’s why.<br />
</p>
<h2>What’s the impact of automating your finance processes?</h2>
<p><a>The </a><a href="https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/10/recession-and-automation-changes-our-future-of-work-but-there-are-jobs-coming-report-says-52c5162fce">World Economic Forum</a> projects that by 2025, automation will disrupt 85 million jobs globally across 15 industries—while creating 97 million jobs. As automation takes on more information and data processing tasks, the demand for human skills—like creativity, flexibility, and analytical thinking—will grow.</p>
<p>Despite the fear of job loss, what typically happens after automation is that finance staff are freed up to do strategic, business-building work that brings more value to the company. For instance, an AP Manager who once spent hours manually reviewing and matching POs can now spend that time negotiating more favorable terms with vendors.</p>
<p>Reducing pain points for your finance staff is a good thing. Automating tedious, lower-value tasks can help you create a better workplace, potentially helping you retain your dedicated existing employees. And, in a competitive hiring atmosphere, it can help draw top job candidates to your forward-thinking, employee-friendly organization.</p>
<p>Here are four other key ways automation can benefit an organization and its people:</p>
<p><strong>1. Ensure better compliance</strong></p>
<p>As the world becomes more digitized, staying compliant becomes more complex. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/wp_robots_are_here_ent_rc_0.pdf">2021 analysis by Deloitte</a> found 220 regulatory changes worldwide every day. Automation helps conquer those complexities, flagging issues to avoid fines or opportunities to claim tax breaks and refunds.</p>
<p>Alkermes, a global biopharmaceutical company, depends on automation to help manage compliance. Because the organization is in the life sciences industry, compliance is a top concern—including providing disclosures required by The Sunshine Act (Open Payments Act) and complying with various states’ laws.</p>
<p>“We also use the SAP Concur manual audit tool to make our audit process more robust and ensure all of our expense reports are in compliance with our travel and expense policy. We have around 1,500 reports every month, between the U.S. and Ireland—so, we utilize a combination of automation and human interaction to reduce our risk.” – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/alkermes">Tetiana Sapun, Senior Travel and Expense Specialist, Alkermes</a></p>
<p><strong>2. Promote greater accuracy</strong></p>
<p>If your finance staff relies on manual process—like those used in most small and midsize businesses—they’re likely bogged down, fielding numerous emails and sifting through endless</p>
<p>But automating your process creates a single system to capture and route invoices digitally from approval to payment—in practically any format. Automation helps cut invoice processing time by 16%, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">AMI-Partners research</a> found.<br />
<br />
Plymouth Rock Assurance, a Boston-based company, wanted to be able to easily audit and reduce discrepancies in their expenses.<br />
<br />
With their original manual process, the small AP team had no way to self-audit or confirm what they were paying without sifting through reams of paper—an exceptional task considering they processed about 650 requests per month. Typically, managers signed off on expense reports, which were automatically approved and paid. Then, the inevitable happened: discrepancies surfaced in the year-end audit.</p>
<p>Once they adopted SAP Concur solutions to automate their finance processes, the AP team could quickly see expenses that didn’t comply with policy and flag them for follow-up.</p>
<p>“We knew we needed a less archaic, digital <a href="https://concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reimbursement</a> process; one that would make it easier for everyone who was part of that lifecycle.” – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/plymouth-rock-assurance">Dan Bonnyman, AP Operations Supervisor, Plymouth Rock Assurance</a></p>
<p><strong>3. Control costs and manage expenses</strong></p>
<p>Chicago-based CareerBuilder’s sales force makes up 40% of its employees, which meant a lot of frequent travelers. Using Concur Travel and Concur Expense, the company improved its traveler experience, increased policy compliance, and gained significant savings and control over expenses, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enabling $420,000 in savings thanks to auto-population of reports, mobile, e-receipts, and more.</li>
<li>Improving online booking compliance from 80% to 95%.</li>
<li>Reducing administrative staff needs from just over two people to one. But instead of eliminating positions, they reallocated staff to higher-value-producing work.</li>
</ul>
<p>“We didn't actually eliminate any positions. At the time, there was no one in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/accounts-payable">accounts payable </a>department [who] actually did analysis. Now we have one FTE focused on analysis for all our spend. The rest of the team is able to easily manage processing for all expense reports and invoices.” – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/careerbuilder">Jeff Cole, senior director of Information Management, CareerBuilder</a></p>
<p><strong>4. Gain valuable business insights</strong></p>
<p>When you depend on a fully or even partially manual process, you struggle with uncaptured, disorganized, outdated data and disparate cash management insights and decisions. Automating your processes lets you tap into near real-time data to leverage for early-payment discounts, make on-time payments, and control category spend.</p>
<p>Improved tracking saves finance firms $28,000 per year and retail businesses $33,000 per year. Having accurate data saves professional services firms $39,000 per year. And better analytics saves tech firms $35,000 per year, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">AMI-Partners research</a> found.</p>
<p>Alkermes also depends on automation to help manage its travel and expenses. Working with SAP Concur gives its leaders clear visibility for better decision-making, employees get convenient mobile applications that make it easier to submit expenses. Meanwhile, the back-office processes have become more efficient so finance employees can stay focused on higher-value generating work.</p>
<p>“One of the biggest benefits of SAP Concur solutions is automation. By automating manual processes and bringing integration into the mix, our operations run smoother and better, with the visibility and analytics we need in one place.” – <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/alkermes">Tetiana Sapun, Senior Travel and Expense Specialist, Alkermes</a></p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What to look for in an automated solution</h2>
<p> Automating expense and AP processes can better support businesses as they navigate the complexities of the digital world. Leaders from all sizes of businesses are starting to see how automation can help prepare them for unexpected and gain better insights into what’s working well for their company—and what isn’t.<br />
<br />
Choosing an automation solution for expense and AP processes doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task.<br />
<br />
Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/expense-automation-solutions-buyers-guide">choosing an expense automation solution in this guide</a>, or try the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided Concur Expense demo</a>.<br />
<br />
Learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/accounts-payable-automation-buyers-guide">choosing an AP automation solution in this guide</a>, or try the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">self-guided Concur Invoice demo</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Deploying Your Federal Workforce to Simultaneous Disasters
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/deploying-your-federal-workforce-simultaneous-disasters
2023-08-24T15:50:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Every day from August through December the news showed hurricanes ripping through the southern US states and the Caribbean islands Frightening amounts of death and destruction were...
<p>Every day from August through December 2017, the news showed hurricanes ripping through the southern U.S. states and the Caribbean islands. Frightening amounts of death and destruction were delivered in their path. Just as soon as those storms had passed, multiple wildfires erupted across the western states. The extreme hurricanes and wildfires combined made 2017 the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/08/hurricanes-wildfires-made-2017-the-most-costly-u-s-disaster-year-on-record/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.28f269e0a470">costliest U.S. disaster year on record</a>.</p>
<p>With costly incidents such as these, how does a government agency instantaneously deploy tens of thousands of relief personnel to simultaneous disasters? Further complicating this question is in considering an agency whose mission is to support our nation’s citizens while preparing for and protecting against disasters, as well as the subsequent recovery efforts.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>Public Sector Expense Assessment</h2>
<p>How efficient are your organization’s expense management processes? Find out in five minutes or less.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/public-sector-assessment/questions">Take the quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Just two years ago, my son played all-star baseball for a Virginia team against multiple semi-pro baseball teams across Puerto Rico. He played in the same stadiums where future major league superstars like Roberto Clemente and Roberto Alomar had played their developmental baseball before making it big. After each game, the local players’ families would cook dinner on site for both teams of young players with the goal of bridging the language and cultural gaps. It was touching to see two dozen young men from opposite ends of the cultural and economic spectrum laughing, joking, and sweating together over their mutual love of baseball. Recently, some of those towns and stadiums were destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Maria.</p>
<p>Starting with Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas and continuing with Hurricanes Irma and Maria across Florida and multiple Caribbean islands; the year 2017 closed with endless wildfires in the western U.S. states. The devastation was horrific, and federal relief aid workers had to be deployed in the thousands simultaneously. </p>
<p>As recently as five years ago, responding to this kind of surge travel was a paper-based process where government travel operations personnel were often seen pushing large carts of color-coded travel authorization requests from one office to another for approval, ticketing, and deployment. When every moment counts, this manual process meant delays in relief personnel reaching destinations in distress, along with slow reimbursement for expenses. Agility and quick ramp up times were needed to be truly responsive in these types of crisis, a process that the Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/topics">continues to evolve to protect citizens</a> in times of crisis. </p>
<p>One thing that was desperately needed to streamline the process in this type of large scale mobilization was the requirement to have a “surge blanket travel” functionality which could deploy large numbers of relief personnel coming from multiple origination points to a common crisis destination using only one travel authorization. SAP Concur went to work in supporting this critical mission for government with its deep understanding of authorization and deployment requirements needed to achieve this agility in a managed travel program. Surge Blanket Travel was developed and delivered by SAP Concur to the <a href="https://www.concur.com/federal-government">federal government</a> to solve this challenging scenario. While this functionality cannot stop devastating weather from affecting the lives of citizens and the communities they live in, it can help the government respond more efficiently and effectively when disaster strikes.</p>
<p>Virtually every federal agency has a need at some point to meet their mission by deploying copious amounts of personnel simultaneously. Surge Blanket Travel can accommodate those needs quickly and efficiently. It’s reliable, scalable, compliant, auditable, and agile<strong>.</strong><strong> </strong></p>
Roger Williams
How Travel Incorporated Helps Customers Gain Control over Supplier-Direct Bookings
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-travel-incorporated-helps-customers-gain-control-over-supplier-direct-bookings
2023-08-29T13:27:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Travel Incorporated TI is a global travel management company TMC that has delivered custom and personalized travel programs to customers for more than years TI helps customers improve...
<p>Travel Incorporated (TI) is a global travel management company (TMC) that has delivered custom and personalized travel programs to customers for more than 40 years. TI helps customers improve processes and gain visibility into all travel data – including out-of-channel bookings – to identify leakage, negotiate better discounts, and fulfill duty of care for travelers. The foundation to TI’s success is integrated technology and tools, and premier cost recovery and avoidance mechanisms.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"> </div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Travel Incorporated Case Study</h2>
<p>Learn how TI optimizes travel data with SAP Concur solutions to better serve its customers. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center">Get it now</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>5 reasons why travel incorporated partners with SAP Concur</h2>
<p>Travel Incorporated has expanded its ability to meet customer needs throughout the years with solutions that integrate seamlessly into managed travel programs. “The tapestry of our commitment is fueled by utilizing today’s technology to deliver what our clients need to efficiently run and manage their global travel programs, while making every interaction an ‘over the top’ experience,” shares Linwood Hayes, Chief Information Officer of Travel Incorporated.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions having the capability to seamlessly integrate with Travel Incorporated’s applications and processes, TI is able to deliver the best in service for their customers with focus on safety, comfort, confidence, and convenience.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Visibility into travel data analytics.</strong> Travel Incorporated is able to leverage all traveler data to provide deeper insights for customers around new services, supplier partnerships and better discounts, and to leverage data in near real-time to customize bookings for travelers. This allows TI to deliver on their promise of premier cost recovery and avoidance mechanisms to their customers.</li>
<li><strong>Gain control over out of channel bookings.</strong> In order to improve program effectiveness for customers, Travel Incorporated identified the need to bring out of channel bookings into managed travel programs given today’s employee booking practices. With the additional visibility gained by integrating and capturing Concur TripLink transactions, TI is able to better support customers with decision points for their travel programs.</li>
<li><strong>New standard in policy compliance.</strong> With the ability to capture out-of-channel bookings, Travel Incorporated can empower customers to help their travelers make compliant choices. TI doesn’t perceive Concur TripLink as a product that encourages out-of-channel bookings; rather, having this added visibility into travel spend arms their customers with the data needed to regularly review their travel policies and consider new partnerships like home-sharing service, Airbnb.</li>
<li><strong>Improved productivity and customer service.</strong> Since current business travelers have many travel booking options available to them, these buying decisions create ongoing challenges for travel managers. Travel Incorporated took tedious manual tasks and eliminated them with automation through Concur Compleat. By automating tasks such as preferred seating and schedule changes, TI travel consultants have gained increased productivity to focus on elevating the traveler experience and satisfaction.</li>
<li><strong>Fulfill duty of care.</strong> As a result of using Concur TripLink to capture bookings across channels, Travel Incorporated has the visibility into where all their travelers are no matter how or where they booked, and have greatly increased their ability to apply duty of care for all travelers.</li>
</ol>
<p>“Out-of-channel bookings have and will continue to be a part of corporate business travel,” says Hayes. “Embracing this behavior as a necessity within your reporting and analytics capabilities will transform your understanding of traveler buying behaviors, and dramatically benefit your duty of care responsibilities.”</p>
<p><strong>Download the full <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/travel-incorporated">Travel Incorporated case study</a> and learn more about the benefits travel management companies can gain by partnering with SAP Concur.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Save on Business Travel Using These Three Tips
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/save-business-travel-using-these-three-tips
2023-09-07T12:55:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Are you noticing more of your employees traveling for business Youre not alone The Global Business Travel Association GBTA reported million business trips were taken in Why...
<p>Are you noticing more of your employees traveling for business? You’re not alone. The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) reported <a href="http://www.travelmarketreport.com/articles/US-Business-Travelers-Spend-424-Billion-in-2016">514 million business trips</a> were taken in 2016. Why? Companies are finding that business travel is <strong>good</strong> business. Meeting with clients and prospective clients in person can generate more opportunities and build solid, lasting relationships.</p>
<p>Traveling doesn’t come without its costs, though, and when not done correctly, the effects can be felt on the bottom-line. But there are ways to save money while traveling that won’t affect the traveler or client experience. Here are three tips that can help your road warriors keep costs down on their next business trip:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tip #1: Book at Least Three Weeks in Advance</h2>
<p>Last minute travel, while sometimes unavoidable, can be costly. Tickets booked fewer than seven days prior to departure are, on average, 44% more expensive than the same ticket booked 15 days in advance. Those kind of numbers definitely add up after two or three trips.</p>
<p>Reducing the amount of last-minute trips means supporting your employees in multiple ways. First, make sure there are booking guidelines in your travel policy. If a last-minute trip is necessary, ensure there is an approval process in place so there are records for why it was needed and who approved it. Second, give your employees tools to find the lowest possible cost for a ticket, whether it be through a travel booking aggregator site or through a preferred travel agency.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Tip #2: Try Ridesharing Instead of Renting a Car</h2>
<p>Unless an employee is going to be driving long hours during a client visit, a rental car doesn’t always make financial sense. With the popularity of rideshare growing, employees have many different and more cost effective modes of transportation available.</p>
<p>Again, make sure guidelines are outlined in your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel and expense policies</a> for using a rideshare program. List preferred vendors and how an employee goes about documenting and expensing the ride. Many expense systems are starting to include rideshare as an option. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, for example, has an <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bce2e">Uber app</a> that can be linked to a traveler's account, making expense reporting that much easier.</p>
<h2><br />
Tip #3: Research Meal Options Ahead of Time</h2>
<p>Planning on dining with clients? A little research beforehand on restaurants in the area can go a long way towards keeping costs down. Have a few dining options ready that are within an approved budget range. This not only makes meal selection simpler, it keeps sticker shock at bay when the check arrives. Using tools such as <a href="https://www.opentable.com/start/home">Open Table</a> and <a href="https://www.yelp.com/">Yelp</a> make finding a few eating options easier when traveling to an unfamiliar location.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Being Proactive Saves More in the Long Run</h2>
<p>Stay one step ahead of your business travelers by having the tools and policies in place that will not only save money but make expense management easier. Keeping abreast of traveling trends and available tools is always a good place to start.</p>
<p>Want more money-saving tips? Join our on-demand webinar with Kiplinger, <a href="https://cc.readytalk.com/registration/#/?meeting=h3oc126sqptb&campaign=dp49cysetan8"><strong>23 Ways to Save on Business Travel</strong></a>, and learn 20 more ways you can save your company money on business travel and expenses.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Where’s Everyone Going?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/wheres-everyone-going
2023-09-08T16:46:38Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The return to corporate travel after a year of change Yes clicking a Zoom link is easier than packing an overnight back and heading to Cleveland but after a yearandahalf of meetings in...
<h2>The return to corporate travel after a year of change</h2>
<p>Yes, clicking a Zoom link is easier than packing an overnight back and heading to Cleveland, but after a year-and-a-half of meetings in your spare bedroom, Cleveland – or Chicago or Sydney or anywhere – is looking pretty good right now. Getting there, however, isn’t going to be as easy as it used to be.</p>
<p>Travelers can’t just schedule a meeting, book tickets, reserve a room, and show up with a smile and a handshake. Your organization may not want people to travel yet, and your clients may not be ready to see their smiles or shake their hands.</p>
<p>Our soon-to-be-post-pandemic world has been forever altered, and business travel did not make it through unscathed. To be successful, companies must go farther than ever to ensure the safety of their travelers. They must provide more pre-trip details – from COVID-19 protocols in their travelers’ destinations, to neighborhood safety scores that keep employees comfortable, confident, and productive. Companies must wring every ounce of efficiency, sustainability and, again, safety out of their budgets.</p>
<p>How are they doing it? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/re-emergence-business-travel-where-are-we-going-next">A recent EY/SAP® Concur® whitepaper</a> offers the answers by asking four critical questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Why is travel so important?</li>
<li>How do businesses measure its value?</li>
<li>What’s changed?</li>
<li>How do you lead the next era of business travel?</li>
</ol>
<p>We’ve got a few questions, too, and the answers should help get you moving again.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do you really want to go that far?</h2>
<p>The short answer is “probably.” Your everyday travelers (not to mention road warriors) are eager to get back out there because they’re worried their client relationships (and, therefore, the business they’re doing) is going to suffer. And, at a very elemental level, they miss the people they meet on the road. In fact, according to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">2021 Global Business Traveler Study</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>38% </strong>of business travelers are concerned that if they can’t travel, it will be difficult to build new relationships with clients.</li>
<li><strong>45% </strong>are concerned about developing and maintaining business connections.</li>
<li><strong>54% </strong>want to travel to make personal connections with customers and colleagues.</li>
</ul>
<p>Human connection is critical in every facet of our lives, and business is no different. We need to sit face-to-face across the table from the people we work with and for, and we’re now willing to take on extra precautions to do so. This might mean something as simple as the aforementioned facemasks, or as involved as implementing preapprovals into the booking process. </p>
<p>Regardless, employees want to travel again, they’ll do what it takes to get there.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is all this worth it?</h2>
<p>This time, the short answer is “maybe.” Corporate travel as a whole is undeniably valuable to companies, but it’s important to determine the value of each individual trip. According to <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/re-emergence-business-travel-where-are-we-going-next">the EY/SAP Concur whitepaper</a>, if a visit to your client doesn’t drive revenue, or someone was just there last week, or the team can make do with a video conference, it might make sense to go, but at some later date. </p>
<p>Every trip employees take should align with company goals, and going to London just because you can might not accomplish anything. For every visit to have value, every trip must have a purpose.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Is it safe and sustainable?</h2>
<p>Here, the answer is “it better be.” Safety and duty-of-care details have always been important, but the pandemic has shone a brighter light on the issue than we’ve seen in decades. As the whitepaper outlines, your organization simply must have protocols in place to ensure safe travel, to find and contact travelers, to evacuate travelers in emergency situations, and to deal with illness or injury on the road. You’ll also see how to build a “traveler toolkit” complete with safety programs and simple “do’s and don’ts” – plus a discussion on artificial intelligence and its role in supporting health assessments, immunity requirements, and travel readiness.</p>
<p>Why? Employees won’t necessarily want to work for organizations who can’t or won’t offer this level of safety or control. The whitepaper also found that 54% of them are likely to quit if they aren’t offered the flexibility they want.</p>
<p>You’ll also have to look at restructuring travel to be more sustainable. Picking trains over planes, for example, or partnering with airlines that use sustainable jet fuel will soon be part of everyday travel practices. Employees will want and need to be able to track their carbon footprints. And companies all over the world will have to explore what travel does to the planet, not just what it does for their business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How are you going to get there?</h2>
<p>There’s no one simple answer here at all. But there are steps you can take, such as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Embracing a leadership role</li>
<li>Establishing a task-force mindset</li>
<li>Establishing clear sources of truth for safety information</li>
<li>Making sure you have the technology to get that information to employees</li>
<li>Getting comfortable ceding control to employees</li>
<li>Getting ahead of regulatory requirements</li>
<li>Don’t go it alone</li>
</ol>
<p>No one knows where travel is headed, but we know that when it’s done safely and done differently, it will take you places you’ve never been before.</p>
<p>For more information on navigating what’s next, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/re-emergence-business-travel-where-are-we-going-next">download the whitepaper.</a></p>
Neha Mehta
Business Expenses List: What to Include In an Expense Policy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/business-expenses-list-what-include-expense-policy
2024-01-30T03:32:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Staying on top of business expenses while maintaining a positive employee experience may feel like a daunting task. But having an employee expense policy in place will actually help you...
<p>Effectively managing business expenses is a crucial aspect for organizations of all sizes. The process of defining, managing, and tracking these expenses is vital for maintaining sound business practices and fostering positive employee engagement. </p>
<p>Implementing a robust employee expense policy is instrumental in achieving these goals. A well-defined and easily accessible policy enhances employee compliance, saves managerial time, and establishes consistency in expense rules for all employees. Crafting a comprehensive business expense policy is a strategic investment that pays dividends in streamlined operations, financial clarity, and employee satisfaction. </p>
<h2>What is considered a business expense? </h2>
<p>Business expenses encompass a range of common costs incurred in the ordinary course of running a company, irrespective of its size. While various types of business expenses exist, those related to employee activities, especially travel, are among the most prevalent and must be explicitly outlined. Clear rules and guidelines for submitting expenses and reimbursement procedures should be provided, ensuring both employees and managers have a transparent understanding of expense management. </p>
<p>Understanding your business expenses is essential for gauging the overall health of your business. Accurate organization and tracking of expenses enable you to determine net profit, taxable income, and other crucial elements necessary for effective financial management. This clarity empowers strategic planning and financial decision-making within the organization. </p>
<p>Managing expenses accurately can significantly impact your tax liability, as certain expenses qualify as business tax deductions. Identifying these deductible expenses, classified as "ordinary" (meaning common to the industry) and "necessary" (meaning essential for operating your business) by the IRS, is vital for optimizing tax benefits. </p>
<h2>What are the types of expenses in business? </h2>
<p> Business expenses can be categorized into three main types: </p>
<ul>
<li>Fixed. These expenses remain the same across business periods, such as rent and insurance. They are often referred to as overhead. </li>
<li>Variable. These expenses can differ across reporting periods or within a period itself. Utilities and shipping costs are common variable expenses. Travel and other employee business expenses fall in this expense type. </li>
<li>Periodic. These expenses do not occur in every reporting period and can be one-time or occasional expenses, such as emergency repairs or annual bonuses. </li>
</ul>
<h2> Different Business Expense Categories </h2>
<p>Business expense categories are broad classifications that bundle together common expenses. The IRS provides a helpful <a href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535">list of business expense categories</a>, which can be used as a guideline. Among the most common expense categories are: </p>
<ul>
<li>Payroll </li>
<li>Employee benefits </li>
<li>General expenses </li>
<li>Marketing and advertising </li>
<li>Research and development </li>
<li>Travel-related costs </li>
<li>Professional development </li>
</ul>
<p>Employee-related expense categories, such as travel, should be detailed in your policy. This includes various subcategories like transportation, lodging, remote working expenses, meal and entertainment expenses, and more. Here are some of those categories and the business expense list for each: </p>
<ul>
<li>Travel-related expenses </li>
<li>Transportation (air, rail, and road travel) </li>
<li>Public transit, taxis/ car rental, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/ground-transportation-rideshares-are-safer-and-less-expensive-taxis">rideshares</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-calculate-mileage-drive">Mileage reimbursement</a> rates </li>
<li>Agency booking fees </li>
<li>Meals </li>
<li>Other travel-related expenses </li>
<li>Baggage fees </li>
<li>Parking </li>
<li>Foreign currency charges </li>
<li>Visa fees </li>
<li>Service tips </li>
<li>The hire/use of a GPS </li>
<li>Lodging expenses </li>
<li>Hotels </li>
<li>Airbnb and other vacation rentals or alternative staying options </li>
<li>Travel allowance </li>
<li>Laundry and/or dry cleaning </li>
<li>Tips </li>
<li>Parking </li>
<li>Remote working expenses </li>
<li>Office furniture </li>
<li>Computer hardware, software, and equipment </li>
<li>Stationery </li>
<li>Electricity </li>
<li>Home insurance </li>
<li>Broadband internet connection </li>
<li>Virtual meeting lunches </li>
<li>Meal and entertainment expenses </li>
<li>Beverages and/or snacks for meetings </li>
<li>Business meals for meetings </li>
<li>Individual beverages and/or snacks </li>
<li>Individual meals – breakfast, lunch, and dinner </li>
<li>Entertainment </li>
<li>Per diems </li>
</ul>
<p>There are other business expense types that employees may incur while doing their work. These should also be included in your expenses reimbursement policy: </p>
<ul>
<li>Professional membership fees </li>
<li>Conference and tradeshow registration fees </li>
<li>Postage for business purposes </li>
<li>Insurance </li>
<li>Conference/seminar/training admission </li>
<li>Shipping fees </li>
</ul>
<p>In addition to the expense categories, your policy should list those items that are not eligible for coverage by your expense policy. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Mini bar contents </li>
<li>Clothes </li>
<li>Parking fines </li>
<li>Damage to personal vehicles </li>
<li>Corporate card late fees </li>
<li>Loss/theft of goods </li>
</ul>
<h2> Creating an effective business expense policy </h2>
<p>How should you start in building an effective business expense policy? It starts with having a clear understanding of the goals and objectives you want the policy to convey. </p>
<p>Be sure that the key stakeholders are engaged in the conversation. Human resources, payroll, employee benefits, and finance departments should play a key role. So, too, should departments that are frequent users of a policy. </p>
<p>Having the major stakeholders involved in the planning, development, and review of your policy ensures buy-in and a practical approach to what the policy should convey. </p>
<p>Here are some key considerations to include in the development of your expense policy: </p>
<ul>
<li>Identify clear categories. Make sure the categories reflect the way your organization does business. Employees need to understand the categories and why certain expenses fall into each. </li>
<li>Be simple and clear. Precise language helps prevent hard feelings or confusion when trying to get reimbursed. Clear language with examples is important. </li>
<li>Define processes approvals. Be sure employees <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/digging-into-essentials-automated-expense-management">know how to file their expenses</a> and who will approve them. These processes need to be transparent and include the guidelines for challenging a rejected expense. </li>
<li>Communicate. Whether you’re developing a policy for the first time or updating an existing one, communication is paramount. Employees need to understand why the policies are necessary, how they affect budgets and management, and the important roles employees play in the successful use of the policies. </li>
<li>Update regularly. An effective expense policy evolves with the times. For example, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were very few guidelines about remote work and companies had few rules on what home-based work expenses were covered. </li>
<li>Integrate systems. A good policy is backed by great technology. Look for solutions that integrate your expenses management, payroll and accounting systems for seamless and efficient business operations. </li>
<li>Check the regulations. There are myriad regulations that govern employee expenses, from IRS rules to regional and local laws. Ensuring that your guidelines remain compliant is critical. </li>
</ul>
<h2>How to keep track of business expenses </h2>
<p>This list is just a start. If you're ready to build an expense policy for your business, use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> to create your own customizable expense policy template. (We can help with an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/templates/free-invoice-policy-template-and-7-tips-getting-started">invoice policy template</a>, too!)</p>
<p>Once you have an effective expense policy in place, there’s even more to do to boost business resilience. Automation is the key to unlocking visibility into where your money is being spent. Check out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">AMI-Partners report</a> to learn the value of automating expense, travel, and invoice management. Watch the video below to see SAP Concur solutions in action.</p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MwOrvMttaxc" width="640"></iframe></div>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Three Steps to Creating a Best-Practice Expense Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-steps-creating-best-practice-expense-process
2020-02-04T09:48:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel conjures mixed emotions In one sense it can be a huge revenue generator as well as a sign of goodwill towards customers On the other hand the challenge of the entire...
<p>Business travel conjures mixed emotions. In one sense, it can be a huge revenue generator, as well as a sign of goodwill towards customers. On the other hand, the challenge of the entire travel and expense process—everything from filing expense reports, to auditing, to reimbursement— can feel like more trouble than it’s worth. The key to gaining the best of both worlds is ensuring your expense process follows industry best-practices, resulting in time and money savings, not to mention an overall improved experience for your employees. This begs the question: How do you go about creating a best-practice expense process?</p>
<p>Here are three steps to kickstart your efforts for a process that benefits both your company and your employees. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Step 1: Start with a review and audit </strong></h2>
<p>Before you can even begin to make any changes, you must first <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/its-that-time-to-assess-your-t-e-program">know where you stand</a>. Start by giving your current expense and travel process a thorough review. Not only will you want to read through the policy itself, but examine all corresponding documentation, such as the actual expense reports or reimbursement procedure. Make a note of any areas of improvement, anything from wording to the process, to the technology being used.</p>
<p>Go beyond just reviewing, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-does-your-travel-policy-look-like-through-your-travelers-eyes">interview employees</a> about the pain points they are experiencing when filling out, auditing, or processing an expense report. Find out exactly where they experience the most issues, what they think is causing these struggles and any suggestions for improvement. You will be surprised by some of the feedback you receive, and to learn where there is confusion and bottlenecks.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Step 2: Outline your expectations</strong></h2>
<p>Employees expect to be reimbursed for all their expenses. Seems pretty cut and dry. But, if they don’t know what information or documentation is needed to get reimbursed, things start getting messy. Keep your expectations simple and straightforward, clearly stating all the documentation needed for reimbursement. Take time to review expectations and policies with managers and finance, so all those involved in the process have a clear understanding.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, your expectations can go beyond documentation. If there are preferred vendors, make sure to make note. If there are certain expenses that do not count as “business” expenses, make note of that too. Put a time limit on claiming expenses. You don’t want an expense from a year ago to suddenly show up and wreak havoc on your finance goals and forecasts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Step 3: Plug any leaks</strong></h2>
<p>Now is the time to get hands-on. Any areas of ambiguity in your expense process can leave the door open for confusion, miscommunication, and even fraud. Take a little time to review receipts to see if expense reports are matching up, if not, take action. Consider implementing a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/corporate-card-p-cards-gain-visibility-control-employee-spend">corporate card policy</a> to get a tighter control on expense management.</p>
<p>How does your expense process fare on the road? Are you making it easy for employees to submit expenses while they are traveling? Consider implementing mobile-friendly software to ensure employees can easily capture their expenses while they are away from the office.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Time to get started</h2>
<p>Creating an expense process that is effective and easy to understand starts with educating yourself. It's not only important to have a firm understanding of best practices, but knowing how to implement them makes all the difference. <strong>Begin by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">using our expense policy builder tool</a> to create your very own customizable expense policy template in just a few minutes.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Four reasons for women in computing to get excited about Grace Hopper 2017
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-reasons-women-computing-get-excited-about-grace-hopper-2017
2020-09-11T12:52:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Throughout my time as a Talent Acquisition intern with SAP iXp I have interviewed several professionals within the business to learn more about their careers and passions I recently...
<p>Throughout my time as a Talent Acquisition intern with <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">SAP iXp</a>, I have interviewed several professionals within the business to learn more about their careers and passions. I recently spoke with Concur's Manager of Integration Services Carrie Wood, and was excited to learn about her experience attending <a href="https://ghc.anitaborg.org/" target="_blank">The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing</a> conference last year.</p>
<p>If you’re not familiar with Grace Hopper, it’s a three-day celebration for women in computing and it's the world’s largest gathering of women in technology. Attendees are able to hear from female leaders across many industries, and grow their networks through learning sessions and activities. Through Carrie I was able to gain a deeper understanding of what the conference entails, and from her experience at last year’s event we gathered four reasons to get excited for #GHC2017:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. The atmosphere </strong></h2>
<p><strong>EM:</strong> What’s it like at Grace Hopper?</p>
<p><strong>CW:</strong> It’s just crazy excitement. It’s usually at a really large conference center, and it's full of people who are very happy to be there. The conference puts on all kinds of professional and social events—one night they threw a disco party with the lights off. You can get as involved as you want.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w475/1506463572798-ginni-rometty.png" /></p>
<p>IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty speaks to attendees</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. The speakers </strong></h2>
<p><strong>EM:</strong> Which keynote speaker was memorable for you?</p>
<p><strong>CW:</strong> IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Rometty talked about how she worked her way up to being the CEO of IBM. She shared a lot of personal stories, so the audience felt like they could relate to her. She has kids, she’s married and talks about how to balance it all. She also spoke about the problems that she faces while being in a male dominant workplace—especially when she was a lot younger. Her perseverance and pushing through as a female in technology was very, very inspiring.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w475/1506463673103-job-fair.png" /></p>
<p>Women attend a job fair event during the conference</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. The network </strong></h2>
<p><strong>EM:</strong> What about the people at Grace Hopper? What was the vibe there like?</p>
<p><strong>CW:</strong> It was really informal, with a lot of conversations with people sitting at my table, having lunch, etc. I got to meet young women, follow up with them on LinkedIn and just share my story since many of them wanted to hear about how I got to where I am today.</p>
<p>I shared with them about where I work, what I do and what Concur is all about. There’s a lot of walking around and a lot of talking to people!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w475/1506463637597-swag.png" /></p>
<p>Did we mention that the swag is pretty great, too?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>4. The knowledge </strong></h2>
<p><strong>EM:</strong> What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone attending the conference?</p>
<p><strong>CW:</strong> Be prepared for there to be a lot of people, and for some of the sessions to fill up. Pick the ones you really want to go to, get there early and get in line to get a seat to ensure you aren’t turned away from a full room. That is one thing that I didn’t realize going into it, so that was a key takeaway for me.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about the Grace Hopper conference, click </strong><a href="https://ghc.anitaborg.org/"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>. @SAPiXp will be Tweeting at the event! Follow us </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/SAPiXp"><strong>here</strong></a><strong> and check for the hashtag #GHC17</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Are Your Travel and Expense Costs Topping the Charts?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-your-travel-and-expense-costs-topping-charts
2020-01-29T13:12:46Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It might seem counterintuitive especially for a small business but not buying software to help you manage expense reports can get well expensive According to the Aberdeen Group it...
<p>It might seem counterintuitive, especially for a small business, but <strong>not</strong> buying software to help you manage expense reports can get, well, expensive. According to the Aberdeen Group, it costs SMBs on average $35.02 to process one expense report. Multiply that by the number of expense reports you handle each month and you could be looking at a pretty substantial hit.</p>
<p>An automated travel and expense system may feel like overkill when spreadsheets are “free," but automated expense management software really start to make financial sense when you take into consideration the amount of time your people spend filling out and reconciling expense reports—time that could have been spent on more strategic tasks.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-te-and-invoice-digital-era">Download the report </a>to learn more about driving growth with modern T&E solutions</strong></p>
<p><strong>Plotting out Manual Expense Reporting Costs</strong></p>
<p>Why do manual expense reports cost so much? For starters, a manual expense report is just that: manual. This means an employee is sifting through receipts, entering costs into a spreadsheet, making photocopies, following up on missing documentation and, more often than not, tracking down approvals and signatures on foot. All this takes time.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t stop there. Once the expense report is complete and submitted, it’s the finance team’s turn to review and reconcile the expense report. Again, they are digging through a stack of receipts, reviewing, comparing and reconciling before finally paying the bill.</p>
<p><strong>Calculating Your Company’s Expense Line Item</strong></p>
<p>Because employees are the ones doing all the legwork, it’s easy to forget that your company is still paying for each expense report. Calculating the number of hours spent on expense reports multiplied by the average hourly salary of your staff, divided by the number of expense reports you process per year, will give you your customized number. It looks like this:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Hours spent annually on expense reports) <strong>X</strong> (average hourly rate of your processing staff) <strong>÷</strong> (Number of expense reports per year)</p>
<p><strong>=</strong></p>
<p>Cost per expense report</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If your company is like most of the others from Aberdeen’s research, this number is likely north of $30 per expense report. Don't feel like doing the math? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-spreadsheet-reporting-cost-calculator">Use our calculator</a> to see how much spreadsheet expense reporting is costing your company.</p>
<p><strong>It’s Time to Be a Little “Graph-ic”</strong></p>
<p>Fortunately, there is a way to bring spending on expense reporting back into line. Shifting from a manual expense process to an automated system will make that graph look a lot better. But, keep this in mind: Choosing the best solution for your company is not just about your needs today, but also what you will need in the future.</p>
<p>With so many solutions available, which one to choose? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> goes beyond automation, taking expense tracking mobile. With the mobile app, employees simply take a picture of their receipts, and the system takes it from there. This greatly reduces the chance of human error and eliminates the need to hold on to all those receipts. And the finance department has visibility into where the money’s going in near real-time, from any location. Plus, SAP Concur solutions can scale with your company as it grows.</p>
<p>With the right solution, productivity goes up and the time (and money) spent filling out and reconciling reports goes down. Now <strong>there’s</strong> an XY chart that’ll make any leadership team celebrate.</p>
<p><strong>Are You Ready to Draw the Line? </strong></p>
<p>There’s no time like the present to move from a manual to an automated, cloud-based expense and travel (and invoice!) system. For SMBs, choosing the right solution, with all the right data points, will make that transition pay off. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-te-and-invoice-digital-era">Read the report</a> to see how SAP Concur is "the unquestionable leader in the travel and expense management software market."</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Intern success: iXp Summit breaks barriers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/intern-success-ixp-summit-breaks-barriers
2020-09-11T12:51:57Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As Talent Acquisition Intern I work on creative content and use social media to highlight the SAP Internship Experience Project SAP iXp including activities intern success stories and...
<p>As Talent Acquisition Intern, I work on creative content and use social media to highlight the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">SAP Internship Experience Project</a> (SAP iXp) including activities, intern success stories, and our company culture. The internship program kicks off with the North America SAP iXp Summit, held on the program’s first week. This two-day event joins 250 interns from across the country to network with one another and learn from leaders across SAP. It includes various design thinking activities, presentations, and breakout sessions to welcome interns and inspire curiosity in their work during the next ten weeks.</p>
<p>To learn more about the impact of the Summit, I sat down with Sales Support Intern Dakota Newton to discuss how the experience expanded his horizons.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Dakota’s Story</strong></h2>
<p>Dakota is a senior at the University of Washington at Bothell. He has a humble and positive spirit, and is passionate about finance, customer relations and personal growth. He seeks independence and has a love for wide open spaces just like his favorite place, Yellowstone National Park. These are some of the factors that drive his willingness to explore his vulnerability and roll with the punches while here at Concur.</p>
<p>As a sales support intern for small- to medium-sized networks at Concur, Dakota’s work mostly involves market research. His primary focus is to pinpoint which customers are contacted and how the business should move forward with those customer relationships. These types of questions are what drive Dakota’s finance-driven mindset to adapt to the sales market and work with customers. But he didn’t always feel this way. </p>
<p>“I was surprised when [Concur] told me I’d be doing sales,” he explains. “I never imagined I’d have the personality to do sales because [salespeople] are very personable with their customers. I’ve always been very analytical and numbers-based, but I thought I’d give it a shot.”</p>
<p>Dakota says the overall goal of a sales support intern is to “create strong partnerships and keep customers happy.” To his surprise, the role didn’t become what it appeared to be at first. “Turns out, [the job] is more on the numbers side anyway, or more of the qualitative data now.”</p>
<p>Despite any initial skepticism, he says he would have taken any position and run with it. This type of optimism is what led Dakota to realize the value he brings to Concur and its customers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1501618238344-dakota-copy.jpg" /></p>
<p>Sales Support Intern, Dakota Newton</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>iXp Summit Leads to CFO Chat</strong></h2>
<p>After the Summit, Dakota felt inspired to step out of his comfort zone and reach out to leaders within the company. He says that throughout the Summit, he heard members of the SAP iXp team encourage interns to feel free to follow up with speakers and email them.</p>
<p>“If we didn’t have the iXp Summit, I don’t think I would have sent an email,” he says. The first couple of days of his internship, he didn’t reach out to anyone. “I just sat with my head down, did my work, and went home at 4 p.m. I thought, ‘Oh no, is this going to be every day?’”</p>
<p>Dakota emphasizes that after the Summit, he felt charged to ask more questions. “It really opened me up to be more confident and know it’s okay to ask questions.”</p>
<p>In Dakota’s go-getter fashion, his mindset in reaching out to company leaders was, “why not start from the top?”</p>
<p>The first networking email he planned on sending was addressed to SAP Business Network Group CFO Marc Malone. The email sat in Dakota’s Outlook draft messages for three days before he finally hit send. “I had nothing to lose,” he thought. Dakota was shocked when he received a response from Marc that same day saying he would love to meet.</p>
<p>The two spent one morning discussing Dakota’s project, and, in addition, Marc gave him tips on meeting with other business leaders within the company.</p>
<p>“I think it’s important to remember that what you go to school for doesn’t have to be what you do,” Dakota says. Though, in Marc’s case, he did stay in the same professional field as his studies. Dakota notes that most people have similar experiences to his own, where they end up in roles they never thought of while in school.</p>
<p>“As long as you’re open-minded and taking the opportunities that present themselves, even if it’s outside your major, take them and see where it goes. Everyone I’ve talked to said, ‘just go with it.’ If it goes to a closed door, there’s more to try out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Drivers of Personal Growth</strong></h2>
<p>With an ability to try new things and the optimism to get him there, Dakota holds the “it’s now or never” mantra around his day-to-day decisions.</p>
<p>When asked what he’s most looking forward to for the rest of his internship, he gave a slight smile, and explained in a hesitant response: “There’s a [Power Hour] that I really had to force myself to do and that was the Presentation Speaking Skills. I had my cursor over it and I really didn’t want to do it, but you don’t get these opportunities all the time and you’re not going to get that unless you practice stuff. So now I’m excited for it.”</p>
<p>Dakota thrives in vulnerable situations and sees them as opportunities for personal growth. The opportunities Dakota has been offered throughout his internship thus far, whether that be two days of hearing powerful speakers, or learning opportunities in a specific subject, drive him to apply his newfound knowledge and open doors for himself.</p>
<p>Although these meetings and events may not feel natural to him, he is quickly learning that these opportunities greatly benefit his career. “It’s funny to think that every day you’re uncomfortable, you go home and you’re like, ‘that was a really good day,’” he says. </p>
<p>“Even though you’re kind of stressed out about the things you have to do, after you do them, you think: ‘That was pretty cool. I’d do that again,’” he adds.</p>
<p>We look forward to following Dakota’s growth and projects throughout the summer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the <a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank">iXp Twitter</a> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What’s a Bad Expense Process Really Costing You?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-bad-expense-process-really-costing-you
2018-03-19T10:46:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
There is one principle thats the same no matter where you are You have to spend money to make money Regardless of how big or small your company is theres no getting away from expenses...
<p data-id="aa3a80ef-b2b4-4b35-87cb-4be8fe185c16">There is one principle that's the same no matter where you are: You have to spend money to make money. Regardless of how big or small your company is, there’s no getting away from expenses. We’re not talking about the rent on your office or wages, but the incidental expenses that your workforce will rack up while making the business money – travel, lunches, coffees, and all sorts of minor purchases.</p>
<p data-id="aa3a80ef-b2b4-4b35-87cb-4be8fe185c16"> </p>
<p data-id="aa3a80ef-b2b4-4b35-87cb-4be8fe185c16"><strong>Ready to revamp your expense process? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/8-tips-best-practice-expense-process">Download</a> our eight top tips to get started </strong></p>
<p data-id="aa3a80ef-b2b4-4b35-87cb-4be8fe185c16"> </p>
<p data-id="40ac817b-e908-4a1e-99e5-ab6b740dd815">Managing those expenses can be painful for both employees and the finance team. It’s a highly emotive issue for the employee because the initial expense often comes from their own pocket. They also tend to put it off as long as possible because it is such a tedious, admin-heavy task.</p>
<p data-id="afefceeb-6f53-4fef-a6fa-02f468c1778c">But what are the business implications of having a sluggish, manual expense process in place?</p>
<p data-id="24eec11b-cdef-45d8-a337-38fea598b054"> </p>
<h2 data-id="51c62fce-f7b6-41fa-91b9-d3f710455142">The Hidden Costs to Your Business</h2>
<p data-id="1f002219-902e-429a-907d-55b93cfe3796">Managing expenses can require a lot of back and forth communication between the finance team, the employee submitting a claim, and that employee’s manager. Every submission requires validation and approval – a process that can feel never-ending.</p>
<p data-id="45060939-4e8a-4233-8068-a1a2a5fd0f66">Lack of automated and defined processes are often to blame. When companies still use a mixture of paper and spreadsheets to process expenses, mistakes are likely to creep in. Paper receipts can get lost, and it’s not hard to imagine the manual errors that can crop up when copying data into a form. Plus, manual checking eats up valuable time. Every claim needs to be validated to make sure that receipts match the figures submitted by the employee, and each item needs to be checked against company policy to make sure it’s justified. However, companies should see <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/solving-top-5-travel-and-expense-management-challenges">36% fewer complications and errors</a> with expense submissions once an automated system is put into place. </p>
<h2 data-id="680f8fd9-255c-451a-b80b-261d8dafac37"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="1f540632-9af3-4779-b8f5-7ea381d8b776">Employees get frustrated</h2>
<p data-id="06f91ef8-058f-4d8d-bf20-6a8aedeb29b1">You would think that your employees are highly motivated to submit expenses, but the process can be so tedious that individuals choose to let their claims stack up. Chances are they have to deal with the paperwork in their own time, which can be a cause for serious resentment. But, delays are costly. The manager who needs to approve all those claims has a real headache getting through the backlog, as does the finance team. And, delays can result in an unwelcome hit on company cash flow.</p>
<p data-id="f68c70d3-e79a-4d09-806a-57ae9b10cd02">But the frustration doesn’t end with submitting expenses. Employees often wait a long time to be reimbursed too. The average time is nine days from approval to reimbursement, but it can be longer. That’s a lot of time spent shouldering an out-of-pocket expense.</p>
<h2 data-id="e41ef0c8-e899-4445-91b1-b844ada36f9c"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="9985f57d-1df7-4ff6-a2e8-791630708787">You miss out on valuable reporting and insight</h2>
<p data-id="b3297bb0-076d-4818-a83c-2adaff31147b">It’s not just the obvious costs of wasted time and potential processing errors that you need to consider. By not managing your expenses in a smart way, you also miss the opportunity to analyze spend patterns. Accurate <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reporting</a> allows you to spot trends in employee expenses, highlight anomalies, and identify ways to make savings in the business. Without real-time visibility, it’s difficult to provide this additional value.</p>
<p data-id="a8939fca-58f0-4eaf-adae-0a874941cebb">If you need to make improvements to your expense process but are unsure where to start, <strong>download our "<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/8-tips-best-practice-expense-process">Eight Tips to a Best Practice Expense Process</a>"</strong> to learn more.</p>
Manual Expense Processes Could be Causing More Damage than You Realize
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manual-expense-processes-could-be-causing-more-damage-you-realize
2020-09-11T13:17:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In the everchanging marketplace small businesses are facing the challenge of not only surviving but thriving When it comes to remaining competitive every penny counts and having a firm...
<p>In the ever-changing marketplace, small businesses are facing the challenge of not only surviving, but thriving. When it comes to remaining competitive, every penny counts, and having a firm grasp of your finances is the first place to start. If you’re still manually keeping track of business expenses, there is a good chance you are missing out on opportunities due to lack of visibility and inefficient processes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See</strong></h2>
<p>As a small business owner, it is easier to keep to the status quo, doing what it takes to survive the day-to-day. As the old adage says: “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” right? Not necessarily. You may think that manually <a href="https://www.concur.com/">managing business expenses</a> seems to be working to get employees reimbursed and the bills paid. But, do you have the visibility you need to make solid business decisions, or are you relying on your gut and best guess?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This is one area where using a cloud-based, automated spend management processes can have a huge impact on your financial strategy. Imagine being able to see up-to-date expense data at a moment’s notice or being able to pull a report that shows your current AP status. These cloud-enabled solutions allow for mobility, allowing employees to claim expenses while on the road, and showing you expenses in real-time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Be Proactive and Stop Playing Catch-Up </strong></h2>
<p>Not being "in the know” often means you are in a reactive mode when it comes to managing your company’s finances. Beyond the stress and agitation this can cause both you and your employees, it is also a bad use of time and energy. All those hours spent with back and forth, data crunching, and report creating adds up. Still not sold? Do the math and you just might be surprised at the total:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Hours spent x Employee hourly wage = Cost of manual process</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>With the help of automated solutions, you can move many manual, frustrating, and mundane tasks off you and your employees' plates and free up time to be spent on more strategic tasks. Now you can actually begin work on those strategic initiatives that will promote growth and open more opportunities for your company.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Bring Those Processes Into the Modern Age</strong></h2>
<p>Automation isn’t a cure. It enhances the processes that are already in place. So, if you either don’t have a process or are using something that was created when you first started your business then that needs to be fixed first. When updating or creating processes, do so with automation in mind. This will allow you to maximize efficiencies.</p>
<p>Not sure where to begin? Start with employee expenses. This category is often one of the largest when it comes to calculating and managing spend. Not to mention, clear-cut rules and processes will aid you in other areas, such as fraud prevention and your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">risk management program</a>. </p>
<p>Now it’s time to put pen to paper, and at SAP Concur, we understand that writing an employee expense policy can be challenging. That is why we created the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">Expense Policy Builder</a>. This free tool creates a personalized expense policy in a few short clicks and answering a few questions. Strings? None attached. We truly want you to succeed. And believe us when we say, it will be worth it in the long run.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Encouraging Innovation at SAP Concur Through Hackathons
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/encouraging-innovation-sap-concur-through-hackathons
2018-03-08T14:17:45Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
So much fun judging amazing innovation SAPConcur Hackathon Congrats to all regional winner Global Team Constructors ConcurLabs pictwittercomblBTWWOP Mike Eberhard meber January On...
<p>So much fun judging amazing innovation <a href="https://twitter.com/SAPConcur?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SAPConcur</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hackathon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hackathon</a>. Congrats to all regional winner & Global #1 Team Constructors. <a href="https://twitter.com/ConcurLabs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ConcurLabs</a> <a href="https://t.co/blB92TWWOP">pic.twitter.com/blB92TWWOP</a></p>
— Mike Eberhard (@meber99) <a href="https://twitter.com/meber99/status/958471924740382720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2018</a>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>On January 30, 12 finalist teams across different SAP Concur offices from the U.S. (Bellevue, Vienna, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas), Prague, Paris, the UK, Germany, and Bangalore gathered together for a showdown of their winning local hackathon demos in the SAP Concur Spike Global Hackathon. The 12 teams bested 100 others across the globe to make it to the final round.</p>
<p>A hackathon is a 24- to 48-hour brainstorming and coding event where an individual or team creates a demo of a concept or idea, usually called a "hack." The hacks are then presented in front of an audience and judges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1520267879561-hackathon-1.jpeg" />The lineup of judges influence how hacks are presented. Here we have judges from the product, technology, marketing, and business development teams.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hacks from the finalist teams ranged from <strong>visualization tools that help predict trends on expense and travel using machine learning, to bot “assistants”</strong> that provide a faster way to facilitate expense flow processes. To date, hackathons inside SAP Concur have generated more than 200 hacks. Some of these have already <strong>made their way into our internal toolchain and contributed to products</strong> that our customers use.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1520267948747-hackathon-2.jpg" /></p>
<p>Team Constructors won the Spike Global Hackathon with their event-based approach to batch jobs, resulting in 50% less instance utilization, which can be implemented on a variety of batch job types.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As much as a technical endeavor for participants, it is also a chance to <strong>mingle with peers from different departments</strong>. We found that the most successful hacks came from teams with the most diverse lineup — developer, UX designer, marketing, business development, etc. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1520268006920-hackathon-3.jpeg" /></p>
<p>Hackathons are opportunities for peers from different disciplines to team up and build something in a short period of time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1520268028724-hackathon-4.jpeg" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Exploration and experimentation</strong> are also key ingredients to successful hackathons. For us, they help push the boundaries of what "travel and expense" could be mean for the business traveler. We’ve seen hacks on AR/VR, blockchain, virtual assistants, and a host of other tech that help kickstart dialogue on technically-feasible to market-ready prototypes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1520268068321-hackathon-5.jpeg" /></p>
<p>Lance Hughes from Concur Labs demos a Concur Locate VR prototype to a team in Prague.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It goes without saying that having fun is important! In the local events leading up to the Global Hackathon finale, we’ve seen demos and presentations that drew unanimous applause and chuckle from the audience because of their quirky/funny nature. Some of these hacks included an SAP Concur side-scrolling zombie game, employee highlight via an AMA (ask-me-anything) Slack bot, and an SAP Concur-ready beer vending machine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1520268126845-hackathon-6.jpeg" /></p>
<p>SAP Concur CTO Mark Nelson, Chief Product Officer Tim MacDonald, and Chief Marketing Officer Christy Marble, gett a kick out of one of the presenters in the Bellevue Spend hackathon.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>All in all, we are proud to have leaders in the company that support out-of-the-box thinking and understand the value of hackathons as a source of innovation and fun.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1520268202554-hackathon-7.jpg" /></p>
<p>Spike Global Hackathon judges from left: Chief Product Officer Tim MacDonald, SAP Concur President Mike Eberhard, VP of Concur Labs John Dietz, CTO of Global TechMark Nelson, and Ben Brewer of global SMB</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'Til the next Spike Global Hackathon!</p>
Concur Labs
June 30 Approaches. Have You Filed to Reclaim VAT?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/june-30-approaches-have-you-filed-reclaim-vat
2020-08-18T11:45:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For the average organization TE travel and expense is the second largest annual budget item second only to payroll A significant portion of this spend however may be recoverable in the...
<p>For the average organization, T&E (travel and expense) is the second largest annual budget item, second only to payroll. A significant portion of this spend, however, may be recoverable in the form of Value Added Tax (VAT) reclaims.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What is VAT?</h2>
<p>VAT is a type of tax levied on goods and services. While the U.S. doesn’t implement a VAT tax, most other countries do. So, when an employee of a U.S. company travels to a country with a VAT tax, they’re paying tax on travel expenses like hotels, taxis, trains, and meals.</p>
<p>The good news is that VAT recovery is possible in more than 40 countries around the world, including major business travel markets. For companies with employees that travel to any of those countries, a percentage of tax in many expense types can potentially be reclaimed.</p>
<p>The bad news is that the reclaim process can be difficult and time consuming. In the European Union alone, 28 countries exercise VAT reclaim, each with its own set of constantly changing recovery rules. This year alone, <a href="https://www.tax-news.com/news/China_Cuts_VAT_To_Fuel_Economic_Growth____76655.html" target="_blank">China</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-inflation/saudi-january-inflation-jumps-to-3-0-percent-on-vat-gasoline-price-hike-idUSKCN1G90B7" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/south-africa-raises-vat-for-the-first-time-in-25-years.html" target="_blank">South Africa</a>, <a href="https://government.ae/en/information-and-services/finance-and-investment/taxation/valueaddedtaxvat" target="_blank">UAE</a>, and others have enacted new VAT rules. On top of changing regulations, many companies simply do not have the resources and trained personnel to undertake hours of receipt and data gathering, manual data transfers, language translations, currency calculations, and more.</p>
<p>For example, VAT rates vary from country to country and expense type, plus each country requires refund documents to be completed in their local language. A survey from the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/tax/consumption/47108311.pdf" target="_blank">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</a> found more than 70% of businesses surveyed found reclaim procedures difficult to navigate, and 20% were unable to recover any VAT expenses at all. In fact, half of the respondents recovered 50% or less of the foreign VAT they incurred. GBTA expects business travel spend to reach $1.7 trillion by 2021, and with VAT rates as high as 27%, this can equate to big money for businesses. In fact, it’s estimated that millions are left on the table each year by businesses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Time is running out</h2>
<p>For U.S. companies with employees working in or traveling to countries where VAT recovery is possible, an important deadline is approaching. June 30, 2018 is the final day to reclaim VAT tax for calendar year 2017. Thankfully, it’s not too late!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How the SAP Concur App Center can help</h2>
<p>An integrated solution simplifies the tedious VAT recovery process, while intelligent automation ensures a maximum VAT refund. The true value of an integrated solution lies in the ability to leverage your existing T&E data to seamlessly and effortlessly process and route eligible transactions into a VAT-ready report</p>
<p>If you are an SAP Concur client, you’re in luck. We partner with VAT solution providers to extend the value of our platform through the SAP Concur App Center. Our partners provide pre-built solutions that connect directly to Concur Expense, Concur Travel, and Concur Invoice. Data acquisition happens in near-real time, eliminating manual processes and creating efficiencies for finance and accounting departments who don’t have to spend time tracking down the myriad of details required for each claim.</p>
<p>SAP Concur clients who have engaged with one of our VAT reclaim partners typically experience a significant increase in VAT reclaims. Have a closer look at how it works with two of our partners, <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBRcD%24pT6A5oT8AcbpQZDOzUZB/taxback-international" target="_blank">Taxback International</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5aa1c0963ae16a1200988fb0">VAT IT</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Taxback International</h2>
<p>Taxback International recently launched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_kxaiBXPo" target="_blank">VATConnect – 1Click</a>, an end-to-end VAT reclaim solution delivering a free, no-obligation VAT analysis in 1click in under three hours. Clients receive a complete report including details on spend broken down by country and expense types, helping identify total potential eligible and ineligible VAT. Taxback International can also manage full VAT refund claims from any country in the world. They also provide automated travel alerts, notifying employees of VAT opportunities on upcoming travel itineraries linked to Concur Travel. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHK8URmwg_g" target="_blank">Electrolux</a>, a global leader in household appliances and appliances for professional use, tripled its VAT reclaim using Taxback International in only one calendar year. Refund savings jumped from an average of €18-20K per year, to €75K the first year they introduced the solution into their organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One click is all it takes to begin utilizing SAP Concur’s intelligent data combined with Taxback International’s proprietary software and VAT experience, to save time, drive smarter savings, and improve visibility into AP invoicing. – Joe Healy, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Taxback International.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>VAT IT</h2>
<p>VAT Cloud from VAT IT is an end-to-end VAT recovery solution for business travel, supplier invoices and more. It streamlines and automates VAT recovery with a smooth, click-through integration. SAP Concur clients can simply sign in via the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5aa1c0963ae16a1200988fb0">SAP Concur App Center</a> for a real-time VAT analysis at the touch of a button. With a simple activation process, VAT IT streamlines the entire VAT reclaim process with one cloud-based solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to save</h2>
<p>If you’re already using Concur Expense or Concur Invoice, you can gain massive efficiencies and ensure you’re compliant by connecting that data directly with one of our VAT partners. It’s a no-brainer and an easy sell in to executives in your business, because you can show a real dollar value and produce real savings that directly benefit your company’s bottom line within the first year.</p>
<p>Reach out to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/5aa1c0963ae16a1200988fb0">VAT IT</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/nBRcD%24pT6A5oT8AcbpQZDOzUZB/taxback-international">Taxback International</a> through the SAP Concur App Center to figure out how much unclaimed VAT you’re leaving on the table.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Use This Cheat Sheet When Choosing an Expense and Travel Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-cheat-sheet-when-choosing-expense-and-travel-solution
2018-07-06T11:38:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The benefits of moving your expense and travel management to the cloud are welldocumented You get simpletouse tools that give you greater efficiency better visibility and better...
<p data-id="c8acd1b9-fba6-4ff4-b178-61a49b846e9e">The benefits of moving your expense and travel management to the cloud are well-documented: You get simple-to-use tools that give you greater efficiency, better visibility, and better control of your costs. It’s hardly surprising that for many businesses, their first experience of cloud solutions is with their T&E process.</p>
<p data-id="c8acd1b9-fba6-4ff4-b178-61a49b846e9e"> </p>
<p data-id="61417d0d-3eea-4b2c-a822-d1b25a58c61b"><strong>Ready to select your expense and travel software? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-expense-management-apps-2018-vendor-assessment">Download the vendor assessment</a></strong></p>
<p data-id="61417d0d-3eea-4b2c-a822-d1b25a58c61b"> </p>
<p data-id="5bf4ac8b-0f56-4b51-a67f-87afcfbd9799">Yet despite all the benefits, a move to the cloud can still seem like a big step into an unfamiliar world. This is especially the case if you feel IT isn’t really your "thing." How will you know what questions to ask? What should you be looking out for? How will you know when you’ve found the right provider?</p>
<p data-id="8c6de32f-1d99-4238-8dca-6ded93d6db81">If it’s fear of the unknown that’s holding you back, here’s a guide to the questions you need to ask to find the right T&E solution provider for your business.</p>
<p data-id="8c6de32f-1d99-4238-8dca-6ded93d6db81"> </p>
<h2 data-id="32fdaa80-66f1-4d7b-8007-5e27afbfc411">Does the product meet your specific needs?</h2>
<p data-id="3b61543d-bc05-4b37-b9c6-a31716e8331f">Let’s start with the most important requirement: does the product itself give you what you need? Here are some things to think about:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="906d8e79-b587-4ab9-a7d5-334a2de448eb">Is the product available anywhere, anytime on desktop, tablet, and mobile so you can maximize the benefits of a cloud solution?</li>
<li data-id="7736107d-6e75-4acf-854f-fc2dd39d9507">How frequently is the solution updated and upgraded?</li>
<li data-id="2da9676c-cb19-46ac-bc26-7a047bfa2912">Can the solution be integrated with your other IT systems?</li>
<li data-id="f7674fa5-87aa-4323-abe0-f130ce03f0d0">How quickly will you see ROI? What is the provider’s track record on ROI for its customers?</li>
<li data-id="15b5d0ea-80bd-4148-8fee-4e50efa01293">Is the product standalone or does it have an ecosystem of other solutions and apps that will help your business even more?</li>
<li data-id="1064eb2d-c3d7-40cf-a19b-a63e773b0c2e">Is the product scalable so it will continue to be a good solution even as your business grows or evolves?</li>
</ul>
<h2 data-id="37340a39-c28e-44ed-9fe2-7cb68435e260"> </h2>
<h2 data-id="37340a39-c28e-44ed-9fe2-7cb68435e260">Does the provider have the experience and knowledge you need?</h2>
<p data-id="635ab579-145f-4b26-b547-e7686f553b47">There are three areas you might like to consider here:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="0fc4ffad-4c06-4f03-908a-c75385e7c0a9"><strong>Experience:</strong> Does the provider have experience working with companies of your size or that sell your type of product or service?</li>
<li data-id="7f4d56d7-19da-47c5-92d7-3c37a31b52e5"><strong>Knowledge:</strong> Does the provider have a good handle on financial regulations and guidelines?</li>
<li data-id="3c7213eb-b60c-4d81-b49b-bb6d89554a57"><strong>Understanding:</strong> Does the provider understand how those regulations affect your business?</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="c2ee2c29-fd02-4c45-aab5-0310f2ee1c0e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c2ee2c29-fd02-4c45-aab5-0310f2ee1c0e">What levels of support do you need?</h2>
<p data-id="229efc37-bba3-4dab-a114-d31a6244e70c">The best T&E cloud solutions are designed to be intuitive and easy to use. But it’s still likely you’ll need support at some time or another, especially in the early days. Here are some things to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="268408e7-09a2-4704-ae3f-cdc25d794c95">What levels of support are available from the provider and how easy are they to access?</li>
<li data-id="9a8135ac-f55d-4946-82b7-80e28aae055d">What training or training materials do they provide so you can get up and running quickly?</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="c9ca67fe-e029-4d7e-99f3-30b42cd4b0df"> </p>
<h2 data-id="c9ca67fe-e029-4d7e-99f3-30b42cd4b0df">Look at the long-term</h2>
<p data-id="24318e54-b967-495f-ac02-cc6c6137d749">The right T&E solution is one that works for you in the long-term.</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="08c1cf59-54fd-4f66-bfd2-770d3ce7aaea">What are the provider’s long-term strategic plans?</li>
<li data-id="9e42dca4-c83f-46e5-9e6d-281932143905">What investment is the provider making in developing its solutions and delivering innovative advances?</li>
<li data-id="8269eac3-7080-4e86-bcbe-7fb6e7fdf140">Does the provider have a track record in being a long-term partner for its customers?</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="311d9256-80b3-4e56-8798-f83d590b0d8c"> </p>
<h2 data-id="311d9256-80b3-4e56-8798-f83d590b0d8c">Starting your search</h2>
<p data-id="ffd9636a-9221-40ee-96c7-6d9c22b3116a">IDC MarketScape recently reviewed travel and expense management applications worldwide and published its findings in its <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-expense-management-apps-2018-vendor-assessment">Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Travel and Expense Management Applications 2018 Vendor Assessment</a>. The report’s authors positioned SAP Concur as a leader in the sector, commenting: “SAP Concur provides the most sophisticated travel booking application among the travel and expense vendors evaluated in this study.”</p>
<p data-id="67691539-f517-4e3c-931e-62aff72d6029">If you're interested in how SAP Concur solutions could help your business, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/free-trial">take us for a test drive</a>.</p>
Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/becoming-intelligent-enterprise-sap-concur
2020-09-21T19:42:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its no secret that technology advancements have and will continue to change the way we do business Today organizations of all sizes must embrace how technology can enable growth and...
<p>It’s no secret that technology advancements have, and will continue to, change the way we do business. Today, organizations of all sizes must embrace how technology can enable growth and ultimately help them remain relevant in an increasingly competitive environment.</p>
<p>Technology also continues to rapidly change expectations for senior leadership, employees, and constituents; creating a need for businesses to adopt modern technology and adapt faster than ever before. The challenge is, this isn’t easy, but the good news is, we have an answer: helping customers drive digital transformation as <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/intelligent-enterprise.html" target="_blank">intelligent enterprises</a>.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11252-0.jpg?itok=NrMrZVNf" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Intelligent Enterprise is Changing the Face of Business</h2>
<p>Download our whitepaper to see how.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/intelligent-enterprise-changing-face-business">Learn More</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>I meet with customers every chance I get. Since SAP crystallized what it means to be an Intelligent Enterprise and how this elevates employees to focus on higher-value tasks, customers ask me how they can achieve this through their travel and expense programs. We discuss how SAP Concur can help their companies by collecting, normalizing, enriching, and connecting previously siloed data so everyone can focus on more strategic work. I explain how their finance teams can gain more visibility, focus, and agility in controlling spend, while HR, travel managers, and security officers can improve the travel and duty of care experience for employees. We also discuss how IT leaders can help their businesses drive agility by delivering innovative cloud-based solutions that reduce time, inaccuracy, and costs.</p>
<p>An Intelligent Enterprise includes three key capabilities that most organizations are already on a journey to build, however, intelligent technologies, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-power-of-machine-learning-to-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">machine learning</a>, Internet of Things, and advanced analytics enhance their progress tremendously.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Visibility:</strong> The ability to collect and connect data that was previously siloed, recognize unseen patterns, and gain actionable insights. The SAP Concur solution is integrated and shares expense, travel, and invoice data across a single, unified intelligent suite, providing greater visibility into employee spend.</li>
<li><strong>Focus:</strong> Understand where you are spending and ensure you see spending in time to do something about it. With rule-based budgeting and analytics solutions, technology can help the finance team take care of the details, offering the control and visibility to zoom from the big picture down to the transaction level and see what’s happening as it occurs.</li>
<li><strong>Agility:</strong> The ability to empower businesses to respond faster to changes and pivot to ensure the best outcomes. With near real-time budgeting and analytics tools, intelligent enterprises allow business leaders to respond quickly to events as they unfold.</li>
</ul>
<p>Bringing travel, expense, and invoice management systems together is a perfect example of the value of the Intelligent Enterprise. No longer is data in disconnected systems; you have visibility across all spending with one view. This means employees are freed up to do more meaningful work, giving them the opportunity to reimagine their business by providing insights to refine processes, support compliance, and stay ahead of market changes. Moreover, this unified experience delivers on the expectations of employees. By eliminating the complex and clunky user experiences that push users away and drive down adoption, intelligent enterprises accelerate value creation.</p>
<p>While SAP Concur is laser-focused on managing employee spend, SAP shares the same dedication to leveraging the data businesses generate to their benefit. If bringing expense, travel, and invoice management together can deliver greater visibility, focus, agility, and traveler safety to finance and IT leaders, imagine the impact bringing data together across every part of the organization. How would security, procurement, HR, sales, marketing, or operations look if they were part of the same intelligent suite, using best-in-class user experiences and smarter workflows?</p>
<p>In the end, the Intelligent Enterprise is more than just an automated business; it is a vision for how SAP sees the future of business for our customers, the future of work for our customers employees, and a foundation for greater visibility, focus, and agility across their organizations. We believe the opportunities are endless and we are committed to helping customers discover where they are on this journey and how we can help them reimagine their business as intelligent enterprises.</p>
<p>This article was originally featured on the <a href="https://news.sap.com/2018/10/become-intelligent-enterprise-travel-and-expense-sap-concur/">SAP News Center</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Why T&E Matters: Digitalization
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-te-matters-digitalization
2018-09-08T15:16:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
It could be said that the financial services industry is built on paperwork and if youve been part of it for long youll no doubt agree Were talking of course about the paper processes...
<p>It could be said that the financial services industry is built on paperwork – and if you’ve been part of it for long, you’ll no doubt agree. We’re talking, of course, about the paper processes, manual expense reports, and other legacy T&E systems many companies still have in place. We’re talking about those tedious workplace requirements that slow your business down, frustrate employees, and make it harder to find and keep the best workers. And we’re talking about the very real and hard costs of sticking with the status quo.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How much do your people like paperwork and process?</h2>
<p>A team of your advisers has just traveled from Cleveland to Houston to Miami to London, and they’re now getting home and gearing up for another week. The last thing they want to do is fill out an expense report.</p>
<p>So they don’t. They play with their kids instead. And the numbers you need (like what and where they spent) get delayed, so you don’t get an accurate or timely view of your budget.</p>
<p>And as they get ready for another trip out of town, they book their trips their way – on the apps they like to use – so you’re not effectively capturing this spend, either. (Not to mention you don’t know where they’re headed or when they’ll be back.)</p>
<p>By automating and digitalizing your T&E processes, the top solutions can collect and connect spending and other data, so you know exactly what – and who – is going out the door.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How much do you like saving time and money?</h2>
<p>You can’t control what you can’t see, but when you capture all your T&E spending, you get clear visibility and firm control. And because the processes are automated, things move faster.</p>
<p>Here’s what makes it work:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Mobile experience</strong> – Employees can work with native apps that manage everything from booking and itineraries to submitting and approving expenses.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Less hassle, more accuracy</strong> – You can cut paper from the process and eliminate the hours and errors of expense reporting.
<ul>
<li>Electronic receipts from airlines, hotels, and car rental companies automatically populate itemized charges into expense reports.</li>
<li>Smartphone pictures of receipts can be attached to expense reports to automatically create, itemize, and categorize expense entries.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Brand choice</strong> – Connect employees to the apps they love – like Uber and, Airbnb – so they can use the tools they want, and receipts flow automatically into their expense reports.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>By digitalizing and taking unnecessary steps out of the T&E process, you’re improving travel for the people who take your business on the road. You’re helping them stay focused on their job and on their clients, not on their receipts. And, by making work a little less work, you’re making it easier to recruit and retain top talent in a highly competitive industry.</p>
<p>To learn more, reach out to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact" target="_blank">T&E experts</a>.</p>
<p>This originally appeared on the <a href="https://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2018/08/08/why-te-matters-digitalization-06180583" target="_blank">Digitalist </a>and is republished with permission.</p>
Andy Hirst
Uncovering the Hidden Costs and Business Opportunities in Invoice Processing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/uncovering-hidden-costs-and-business-opportunities-invoice-processing
2018-09-19T12:45:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When was the last time you took a close look at your current accounts payable process Cutting costs and boosting profits are a priority for most businesses but many do not realize the...
<p>When was the last time you took a close look at your current accounts payable process? Cutting costs and boosting profits are a priority for most businesses, but many do not realize the hidden costs of simply paying the bills. In fact, the average cost to process a single invoice is $12.90 according to research from the Association for Image and Information Management. Fortunately, you can get those costs under control and achieve valuable business insights by gaining greater visibility into your accounts payable process. Here are three steps to get you started on taking command of your invoice processing.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 1: Review your current AP system</h2>
<p>A full audit of your system is likely to reveal a host of hidden opportunities to gain greater efficiency, reduce costs and improve the overall experience for employees. Some things to keep in mind: How many invoices does your business receive by mail? How many people are involved in the review and approval process? How much does the business pay in late fees? These small costs add up quickly. A typical small to midsize business processes 450 invoices a month with a duplication rate of 1.29%, and labor costs typically make up 62% of total AP costs.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 2: Determine where you can save time</h2>
<p>An audit will likely reveal areas of redundancy and spots that can easily be cut or reworked to save your team time. When looking to make some updates to your process, consider centralizing where invoices are sent to prevent confusion, reduce delays, and keep multiple copies from circulating. Businesses also increasingly are importing invoice images directly into their finance tool for faster cross-checking and easier auditing.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Step 3: Remove the margin for human error with automation</h2>
<p>Mistakes happen, but there are ways to reduce these errors with automation. In fact, 86% of business are moving away from manual AP tasks, and 82% have implemented largely automated AP processes. Being fully automated means all invoices, processing, approvals, and communications happen through a software tool. When your invoices are accurately captured and your financial data is correct, you can easily pull reports and get the visibility you need to make smarter, more strategic business decisions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Take command of your invoice processing today</h2>
<p>Gaining greater insight into the accounts payable process can have a big impact on your bottom line. These three steps are just a start. There are many more opportunities and possibilities for streamlining and gaining insights from your AP process. <strong>Learn more in an on-demand webinar, hosted by Accounting Today: <a href="http://pages.marketing.accountingtoday.com/20180821_act_concur_ws_lp.html?source=client">Take Command of Invoice Processing in 10 Steps</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How You Can Lead the Change for AP Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-you-can-lead-change-ap-automation
2021-03-01T12:43:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The invoicing process had gotten so intense for the accountant at a Tennessee insulation manufacturer that she was replacing her keyboard every six months She kept wearing the letters...
<p>The invoicing process had gotten so intense for the accountant at a Tennessee insulation manufacturer that she was replacing her keyboard every six months. She kept wearing the letters off.</p>
<p>Then her company adopted an automated invoice solution.</p>
<p>Month-end close time went from five business days to two. Report time shrank to almost nothing. The company stopped needing new filing cabinets every year. And, as she put it, got to “actually be an accountant.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/DigitalTools/APProcessRiskAssessment.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build a Case for AP Automation</h2>
<p>Our guide will help you lay the groundwork to plan, write, and present a business case that you can sell into your business leaders.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Remove the drudgery</h2>
<p>Accounts payable automation can do all that for you. A primary value-add for automation is the ability to speed up invoice capture and payment, provide visibility into every step of the process, and free up the AP team to do the work they love.</p>
<p>Ah, but how do you get there if you’re mired in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/is-your-ap-process-holding-your-business-back">manual or semi-automated processes</a>?</p>
<p>It can be challenging to create change if you’re not in a decision-making position. It’s especially difficult when your day job is already wearing you down to the nub. And, frankly, the idea of automation can be scary. For a lot of professionals, there’s the nagging worry that it’s going to take away their jobs.</p>
<p>We have some recommendations below to help you present your case, but we’re also here to encourage you to <strong>make</strong> the case – soon!</p>
<p>Here’s how to do that.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>How to build the business case for vendor invoice automation</h2>
<p>Fortunately, there’s a process to follow. (Disclaimer: Like any good process, it’s simple but not easy).</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Frame the argument:</strong> You’ll need to get buy-in from your company’s financial leader (the CFO or equivalent). The main thing for them to know and for you to keep in mind is that there’s a better way for AP professionals to use their time – one that will allow you to be more strategic and create more value for the company.</li>
</ol>
<p>For example, if you’re not manually keying invoices or tracking down approvers, you can spend your time:</p>
<ul>
<li>Calling vendors and negotiating better payment terms</li>
<li>Removing bottlenecks</li>
<li>Reconciling company cash-flow projections with planned initiatives</li>
<li>Moving payments into an ACH system</li>
<li>Exploring virtual-card payment options that will give you cash back</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Gather data.</strong> Leadership will want to see numbers. Here are three places to start:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li><strong>Case studies:</strong> You don’t need a ton. Just pick 3–5 that are similar to your company’s size and industry. You can find a slew of them on the SAP Concur <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy">case study page</a>. For example, Concur Invoice helps the Simons Foundation <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/simons-foundation">save approximately 100 hours a month</a> on the overall invoice process.</li>
<li><strong>Industry statistics</strong>: Have some figures on hand that demonstrate the value of automation for both the AP team and the business as a whole. For example, did you know that automation helps accounting/finance employees reduce invoice processing time by 16%? (It does.) Or that an integrated expense, travel, and invoice solution saves them each 500 hours per year? (It does.) </li>
<li><strong>Your own company data</strong>: You need to show your leadership team the high cost of manual processes by letting them know how much time you’re spending on day-to-day tasks. This is the hardest data to gather, because you’re already so busy. But it’s also crucial. Benchmark the time you spend tracking down approvals and communicate how much time erroneous invoices are costing you. (We have a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">calculator</a> that can help.) Your executive team will insist on that raw data. Yes, it can feel daunting. Yes, you can do it. Yes, it’s worth it!</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Make your pitch:</strong> Presenting to your financial leader may seem intimidating, but keep in mind that you want to help the business and leadership wants to help you. Present your argument, let them know what you’re trying to do, and suggest the solution. Once you’ve compiled the data we’ve outlined, you’ll have all the conviction and authority you’ll need to make your case.</li>
</ol>
<p>Let them know that with automation, everybody wins.</p>
<p>Stay strong, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation#inline_asset_form">get in touch</a> if you have questions – even if you’re just looking for pitch-meeting tips. We can and do help companies all the time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want more? Check out the guide, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-study-automated-ap-invoicing-saves-money-drives-growth">How Automating Your AP Invoice Processes Saves Finance Leaders Money and Drives Growth</a>, to get more insights and data to help make your case.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Report: Traveler Expectations are Growing. Here's How Businesses Should Respond
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/report-traveler-expectations-are-growing-heres-how-businesses-should-respond
2019-01-10T08:10:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business travel is changing constantly but so is the world around travelers That means more ways to book that are convenient and easy but that may not have the visibility of corporate...
<p>Business travel is changing constantly – but so is the world around travelers. That means more ways to book that are convenient and easy, but that may not have the visibility of corporate booking channels. To learn more about traveler needs and the challenges they pose for businesses, the research firm GBTA has partnered with us at SAP Concur to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">explore business traveler booking behavior and preferences</a>, and how booking behavior affects duty of care.</p>
<p>As you might expect, GBTA found in their study that your travelers have a lot of expectations around their business trips. Not only do they want to book with whatever channel is most convenient, but even if there is a mandated policy, employees are still likely to book through their preferred method regardless.</p>
<p>“On average, two-thirds of travelers with mandated policies book business travel through alternative channels,” the study found. And if you think more restrictions will solve the problem, think again. GBTA warns, “Stricter policies might not control out-of-policy bookings.” Based on their responses, 40% of travelers expect to use online travel agencies and 37% expect to use direct bookings even more in the next year.</p>
<p>Another expectation travelers have is to be taken care of and feel safe where they go. That makes sense, because in many places, corporate duty of care is standardized, or codified into laws. But, in some ways, it goes even further.</p>
<p>Take the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/bleisure-gaining-popularity-across-globe">new trend of “bleisure,”</a> for example. The clever combination of the words “business” and “leisure” refers to the practice of tacking on a few extra days of leisure time after a business trip. These kinds of trips are a great way to combine working days with vacation days to get some off time while in a different city. What GBTA found, however, is that many employees now believe the company has a responsibility to protect them – even when they have transitioned to a leisure trip from a business trip.</p>
<p>“While over half of travelers generally see themselves as responsible for expenses and safety on added leisure days,” GBTA says, “between 24 and 37% expect the organization to be responsible for these aspects, and around one in ten do not know who is responsible.”</p>
<p>That means – regardless of what kind of trip an employee is on – it is critical for organizations to have resources in place to capture traveler data and keep them safe, and to educate travelers about which resources are available on leisure days.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/lost-translation-changing-landscape-familiar-challenges">Read the full report</a> for even more recommendations about how you can brace your travel program for the coming changes and meet your travelers’ expectations for their next business trip.</strong></p>
<div> </div>
SAP Concur Team
What is Cloud ERP, Anyway?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-cloud-erp-anyway
2020-09-11T08:41:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Wondering what cloud ERP is Well youve come to the right place First lets take a look at a brief history of ERP and then see how cloudbased ERP is changing business as we know it ERP...
<p>Wondering what cloud ERP is? Well, you've come to the right place. First, let's take a look at a brief history of ERP, and then see how cloud-based ERP is changing business as we know it.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>ERP systems in the beginning</h2>
<p>What does it take to get companies to update their systems? Sometimes, only the threat of total mayhem. This was certainly the case toward the close of the last millennium, when Y2K, a brand-new flavor of disaster — an IT crisis! — loomed large, kicking off a panicky, worldwide effort to avert computer Armageddon come midnight on January 1, 2000.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the IT crisis never materialized, but the upheaval in the run-up to Y2K did come with a silver lining. It accelerated the adoption of the ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems that help run most large companies today.</p>
<p>An ERP system, at its most basic level, links all of a company’s business processes, from finance to procurement to HR to sales, all sharing a common set of underlying data. The rationale was simple: The better the understanding of how each step in a process affects the next, the more efficient a business can be.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/10437-0.jpg?itok=zNRZD7rd" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Robots are Coming!</h2>
<p>See why you should be excited about artificial intelligence and machine learning.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>(The term, ‘ERP’ was coined in 1990 by Gartner, the IT consultancy, but its roots date back to the 1960s and 1970s and the first materials requirement planning (MRP) and manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) systems.)</p>
<p>By the time of the Y2K panic in the late 1990s, ERP systems including SAP’s R/3, launched in 1992, were already well established. Nevertheless, concerns about Y2K and its impact on legacy mainframe-based corporate infrastructure fueled a frenzy of IT investment and upgrades.</p>
<p>When all was said and done, U.S. companies had spent $100 billion on Y2K fixes according to a Senate report. But the fixes also presented an opportunity. If companies had to spend piles of money and worker hours on IT overhauls, it only made sense to address bigger IT problems that would end up helping the business in the process.</p>
<p>“Because of Y2K, companies finally said, ‘I guess we have to do this,’” says Dr. Benoit Aubert, professor of information systems and director of the Rowe School of Business at Dalhousie University. “But at the same time, there was enthusiasm for the idea of integration.”</p>
<p>Today ERP systems are part of the mainstream operation of nearly every large company. The market is huge. In 2016, it was worth $25.4 billion in total revenue, according to IDC’s Worldwide ERP Software Tracker, 2017, and projected to grow to $33.6 billion by 2021.</p>
<p>Now another sea change within the ERP market is underway. Large companies are waking up to the advantages of cloud ERP, says Mickey North Rizza, program vice president of enterprise applications and digital commerce at IDC.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>From on-premise to the cloud</h2>
<p>“Some of these Fortune 500 companies have spent billions of dollars over the last 20 years building, maintaining, upgrading, and customizing ERP products to make them more usable,” North Rizza says, “and what they figured out is that you don’t need to be spending all this money.”</p>
<p>To understand why, consider the differences between on-premise and cloud ERP. Essentially, an on-prem ERP system lives on a company’s own servers, and is customized according to its needs. It’s a system built for a single client, and is typically maintained by the ERP vendor or partners with updates delivered maybe once or twice a year.</p>
<p>In contrast, public cloud ERP systems are standardized to meet the needs of a multitude of clients. Though all the data are separated and secure, the application and intelligence layers are shared, and there’s a common UI. This offers some huge benefits.</p>
<p>First, cloud ERP is typically more affordable. “Management is easier, so those savings are passed along,” says Peter Russo, global vice president, and head of SAP S/4HANA product marketing for SAP. Second, updates are pushed out to everyone at once, which delivers a competitive advantage. You’re not left waiting around for a vendor to update your custom ERP system. Third, if companies identify any issues or unmet needs with cloud ERP, they can push the vendor to deliver changes — the will of the crowd often prevails, Aubert says. Or as Russo put it, with cloud ERP, “the overall pace of innovation is faster.”</p>
<p>Shifting to the cloud also often requires changes to a company’s internal workings, which often turns out to be enormously beneficial. “The beauty of a cloud ERP system is it forces many companies to clean up their data,” Aubert says. Because a cloud ERP system is more standardized, it in turn forces standardization of the underlying data.</p>
<p>That, Aubert says, is simply good for business, because it gets everyone within a company working from a single, unified source of information. It's also crucial if a company wants to take advantage of another big benefit of cloud ERP systems: AI and machine learning.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Letting the machines take over</h2>
<p>“We call it intelligent ERP, or iERP; and it’s built in the cloud, because the vendors only want to do this once,” says North Rizza. “You can do it in on-prem, but it’s going to cost you a fortune because you have to keep updating it.”</p>
<p>So, what are the robots up to? Put simply, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-power-of-machine-learning-to-travel-expense-and-invoice-solutions">the machine learning or artificial intelligence that accompanies cloud ERP</a> systems automates common, repetitive tasks. The benefits quickly become clear in finance departments in particular, North Rizza says. “You can do more with less,” she says. She points to one company that, in a recent quarterly earnings call, said it had saved 50% on invoice processing, just by automating the invoice reconciliation with an intelligent process.</p>
<p>And intelligent cloud ERP, coupled with in-memory processing, can handle far more complex situations. “You can detect an error in real time,” says Russo, “and as the algorithms mature, there’s a lot less human intervention needed, and a lot more exception handling.”</p>
<p>Indeed, access to real-time data is an outsize advantage of cloud ERP, and intelligent cloud ERP in particular. Instead of waiting weeks or months to get end-of-quarter results, an executive can run the numbers at any time, and adjust budget or strategy accordingly. Instead of hearing a day too late about a disruption on a production line, a manager can learn about a problem right away, and rest assured that the algorithm has initiated the appropriate solution.</p>
<p>“It’s not only enabling people to pull information from the system,” says Aubert, “but also pushing information out, so people can act more quickly.”</p>
<p>And that can have a meaningful effect on the most important cohort — a company’s customers. Even though cloud ERP should essentially be invisible to customers, “it enables better service, because more and better information is available,” Aubert says. “Customers should just have the impression that the employee serving them is more competent."</p>
SAP Concur Team
Has the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Taken the Fun Out of Your Company’s Meals and Entertainment?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/has-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-taken-fun-out-your-companys-meals-and-entertainment
2020-01-29T13:00:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Meals and entertainment is one of the top expense categories contributing up to of a companys total travel budget Such a staggering amount of spend makes compliance with the Tax Cuts...
<p>Meals and entertainment is one of the top 10 expense categories, contributing up to 22% of a company’s total travel budget. Such a staggering amount of spend makes compliance with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) even more pressing. The complexity of the new rules, however, also makes compliance nothing less than complicated.</p>
<p>For instance, you may be able to deduct business-related entertainment expenses for entertaining a client, customer, or employee – but only if they are both ordinary and necessary and pass either the Directly Related test or the Associated test (see <a href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463#en_US_2017_publink10002661" target="_blank">Table 2-1</a> of the publication). Entertainment expenses, however, generally aren’t considered directly related if they’re in situations where there are substantial distractions that generally prevent you from actively conducting business. A meeting or discussion at a nightclub, theater or sporting event? Not deductible. A meeting with a group that includes persons who aren’t business associates at places such as cocktail lounges, country clubs, golf clubs, athletic clubs, or vacation resorts? Not deductible.</p>
<p>However, you can deduct up to $2,000 per year of your expenses of attending conventions, seminars, or similar meetings held on cruise ships – as long as they meet all of five detailed requirements listed in the publication. One of these requirements, for example, is that the cruise ship must be a vessel registered in the United States.</p>
<p>What if your company rents skyboxes and other private luxury boxes to entertain clients and prospects? If you go more than once, deductibility gets even more complicated.</p>
<p>If you rent a skybox or other private luxury box for more than one event at the same sports arena, you generally can’t deduct more than the price of a nonluxury box seat ticket. Let’s say you pay $3,000 to rent a 10-seat skybox at Team Stadium for three baseball games. The cost of regular nonluxury box seats at each event is $30 a seat. You can deduct (subject to the 50% limit) $900 ((10 seats × $30 each) × 3 events).</p>
<p>As with anything tax related, the rules aren’t always easy to comprehend so it’s best to consult your tax advisor. But what if you could leverage your T&E expense data to ease compliance and improve the accuracy of your tax filings? You could even reduce your corporate tax bill by recovering a significant portion of expenses incurred on business meals.</p>
<p>Learn more during a 45-minute webinar hosted by Taxback International on Wednesday, December 12th, 9:00 a.m. EST. CPA and US Tax Advisor Iliyan Tzakov will demystify the new tax rules and show you why quality data is key to your compliance strategy. You’ll also learn how an integrated solution can automatically analyze your T&E data, identify transactions eligible for deduction, and generate an itemized transaction-based report for tax submission.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://zoom.us/webinar/register/1415421089402/WN_JEA-AmcCR2qG0G33H7izQw">Register today</a></strong>. </p>
Joe Healy
Invest in Your Finance Team to Drive Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/invest-your-finance-team-drive-growth
2020-08-18T16:18:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The input of the finance team is a critical part of business growth In a recent survey of finance leaders commissioned by SAP Concur of respondents said the finance team plays a...
<p>The input of the finance team is a critical part of business growth. In a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/three-key-challenges-growth-and-how-finance-leaders-can-get-ready">recent survey of 500 finance leaders</a> commissioned by SAP Concur, <strong>91% of respondents said the finance team plays a vital role</strong> in helping achieve the business’ growth objectives. Seventy-nine percent said their financial insights are important for driving growth strategy.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/11674-0.jpg?itok=Yk-oiBwk" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>3 Key Challenges to Growth</h2>
<p>How financial leaders can put the right finance processes in place to scale their businesses</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/three-key-challenges-growth-and-how-finance-leaders-can-get-ready">Download</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>What’s interesting is their sense about how the role of the finance team will develop in the future: <strong>96% said the role will become ever more important in driving the company growth strategy.</strong></p>
<p>But while it’s clear there’s a recognition of the importance of the finance team, there’s also a sense they are being held back.</p>
<p>We found 60% of the finance team’s time is taken up with day-to-day tasks. And the time the finance team spends dealing with the day-to-day isn’t being spent doing the more important task such as analyzing the numbers and informing the growth plans of the business. Further, <strong>one in five respondents said they’d like more visibility</strong> into their finance data than they currently have.</p>
<p>The fact is, without proper maintenance and review, the systems that once served you well will hold you back as you grow. And if your systems are not fit for purpose, your finance team will be spending more time than necessary on day-to-day tasks. It also means they probably don’t have the visibility they need to provide the insights that are so valuable for forward planning.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What finance leaders know they need</h2>
<p>The fact the finance team’s systems are inefficient and unproductive isn’t news to you, and it wasn’t news to the finance leaders we surveyed either. The overwhelming majority (98%) said automation would benefit their organization. The key benefits were seen as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reducing manual errors (53%)</li>
<li>Getting real-time insight into data (50%)</li>
<li>Controlling costs (48%)</li>
<li>Helping with faster payments (46%)</li>
</ul>
<p>What’s more, <strong>93% of respondents agree that connecting expense, travel and invoice processes is important to achieving their growth objectives.</strong></p>
<p>When asked what an ideal automated expense, travel, and invoice system would look like, the top answers were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Easy-to-use (55%)</li>
<li>Provide real-time access to data (53%)</li>
<li>Offer quick payments (50%)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>What stops finance teams from automating?</h2>
<p>Such systems are not a fantasy because the solutions already exist. By working with specialist providers such as SAP Concur, businesses can have access to expertise and technology tailored to their unique needs so they can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rapidly increase efficiencies</li>
<li>Reduce errors</li>
<li>Free finance teams from low-value-add repetitive tasks</li>
<li>Adhere to best practices</li>
</ul>
<p>And, ultimately, focus on the company’s strategic goals.</p>
<p>So, given all this, why aren’t more businesses investing in automation?</p>
<p>Looking at the big picture, respondents said a lack of funding for IT / finance infrastructure projects was a big barrier to growth (39%). When asked specifically about the reasons for not investing in automation, the biggest reasons were the investment in staff training (41%), and a lack of capacity in IT (32%).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Seize the opportunity that automation offers</h2>
<p>The reasons for not investing in automation may seem sound at first glance. But the fact is, many cloud-based solutions require little IT investment and can be implemented with minimal support. And most offer customizable employee prompts that reduce the need for repetative training on policies and procedures.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, automation has the ability to deliver rapid ROI.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Additional research shows</a> the average SMB sees <strong>annual savings of $30,000</strong> after implementing an automated T&E solution and <strong>annual savings of $34,000</strong> after implementing an invoice solution. They also save 500 hours a year per finance employee – that’s 500 hours that could be spent on strategy and planning for growth.</p>
<p>If you would like to harness what finance automation has to offer your business, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/fuelling-business-growth-how-uk-finance-leaders-can-drive-strategy-and-avoid-risk">review the full research findings</a>.</p>
Celebrating International Women’s Day: A Conversation Between Mike Eberhard, SAP Concur President, and Jenn McColly, SAP Concur Vice President of People Connection
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/celebrating-international-womens-day-conversation-between-mike-eberhard-sap-concur
2021-03-01T15:34:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In recognition of International Womens Day SAP Concur President Mike Eberhard and Jenn McColly Vice President of SAP Concurs People Connection sat down to discuss how to create more...
<p>In recognition of <a href="https://www.internationalwomensday.com/" target="_blank">International Women’s Day</a>, SAP Concur President Mike Eberhard, and Jenn McColly, Vice President of SAP Concur’s People Connection, sat down to discuss how to create more gender balance in the workforce. </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1551986231024-image.png" /> <img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1551986469208-image.png" /></p>
<p><strong>Jenn McColly: </strong>Mike, gender diversity is a passion we both share, simply because achieving it is the right thing to do. But I’m struck by studies that clearly show how good it is for business, as well. In fact, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/organization/our%20insights/delivering%20through%20diversity/delivering-through-diversity_full-report.ashx" target="_blank">McKinsey & Company</a> found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile. One of the ways leaders can achieve better balance is through sponsorship. Why do you believe sponsorship is such a vital component to achieving gender inclusion and equality?</p>
<p><strong>Mike Eberhard:</strong> As leaders, all of us would like to believe we are where we are today based on our smarts and talent. But the truth is we didn’t get here on our own. We had a mix of parents or other family members, teachers, coaches and mentors who encouraged and guided us. That’s why, once you have some momentum in your career, you have a responsibility to help others in their journeys. As you think about who to sponsor, it’s also really important to think about people who don’t have the advantages you did, and those who are underrepresented in your field. In STEM fields, we have a long way to go to achieve a fair gender balance. In addition, how can we, as an industry, make products and services for diverse customers if our teams don’t include people from diverse backgrounds? These are some of the reasons that, as I’ve mentored young professionals, I’ve made sure to coach women interested in roles in the technology field.</p>
<p>Now, Jenn, I want to ask you a question. Your team plays a critical role in supporting our employees in bringing their best, authentic, selves to work every day, and in diversifying our teams. What sort of initiatives have helped us make progress at SAP Concur?</p>
<p><strong>J.M.:</strong> I am so proud of the progress we are making towards balance. Our employee base is 46% female. Thirty-nine percent of our leaders are women, and 24% of employees in technology roles are female. Our focus on creating that balance is very intentional. Last year, for example, we hired a firm to help us better understand the experiences of senior-level leaders, including the specific challenges they face in staying engaged with our organization over the long-term. The information we learned from these conversations will help inform what it means to be an inclusive culture and help guide the creation of new initiatives. And not just for women, but for everyone. </p>
<p> We also look a little more globally, beyond our own business, to see how we can have a positive impact on this issue. That’s why one of our Corporate Social Responsibility partners is <a href="https://www.care.org/" target="_blank">CARE</a>. They work to eradicate poverty, which is directly connected to gender inequality. By supporting the economic empowerment of women and girls around the world, through education, they become catalysts for positive change in their communities.</p>
<p>Mike, to your point about sponsoring young women in their careers, would you share an example of the impact you’ve seen that has improved our culture and our business at SAP Concur?</p>
<p><strong>M.E.: </strong>Well, given the two of us are talking, I think the best example is the fact that we actively recruited you to serve as the leader of our employee experience team, today called “People Connection.” If I recall correctly, you had left SAP Concur for a time. But your leadership potential was clear, and fortunately, we managed to convince you to come back. Is there a connection between the fact that we put the right leader in place, at the right time, and we’ve steadily improved our diversity numbers? I would like to think so.</p>
<p><strong>J.M.:</strong> Thanks, Mike. I like to think I’ve had an impact, but it really is a team effort on the People Connection team, in partnership with the SAP Global Diversity and Inclusion Office, our HR organization, the Executive Leadership Team, and our Employee Network Groups. We have so many team members who give their all every day. That said, asking me to return to SAP Concur to lead this team speaks volumes to the role you have played as a sponsor. Your vision to see me in this role strengthened my confidence as a business leader. I also worked under Scott Torrey’s leadership for several years. As you know, he’s our Chief Revenue Officer for international markets. Scott has been a huge advocate for me and my teams. He helped me grow my career from individual contributor to a senior leader, providing ample opportunities to expand my scope and impact at the company. I do feel fortunate to have had so many awesome leaders committed to helping me realize my potential.</p>
<p>Mike, this year’s IWD theme is around “balance for better.” When you think about the opportunity ahead of us in creating balance, what comes to mind?</p>
<p><strong>M.E.: </strong>Actually, what comes to mind is one of the things I heard you say at our most recent all-hands meeting. You were talking about recruiting and shared the idea that often people want to know if a candidate will fit in to an existing team’s culture. The better thing to consider, as you pointed out, is what the culture of a given team is lacking. Then the conversation shifts to be about how you can find someone who adds that missing element or elements. As we know, because the data on technology companies is clear, diversity is often the thing that’s missing. We run into problems in the recruiting process when we look for people similar to us. We ought to look for people who balance our teams. That means bringing on more female professionals and people from ethnic groups under-represented in a given field. That’s what we need to do to balance our teams, to make sure we are hearing all perspectives, to make our business more inclusive and successful.</p>
<p><strong>J.M.: </strong>I couldn’t agree more, Mike. I recently had a conversation with a male colleague who was inquiring about our support and promotion of Employee Network Groups, specifically the Business Women’s Network group. The individual wondered if the focus on women will “tip the scale.” That choice of words affirmed that there is currently a gender imbalance. I think it’s really important to recognize that our focus on gender intelligence is not about tipping any scales, it’s about balancing it.</p>
<p>Mike, as we close out our conversation, and because I know you believe in making things action oriented. What is your ask of everyone reading this?</p>
<p><strong>M.E.:</strong> That’s easy: look for people different than you to mentor. Keep in mind that, still today, women are under-represented in many fields. Of course, I have a bias here, but I think it’s especially important for male executives in the technology field to mentor more women. This is a great conversation to have on International Women’s Day. Let’s all continue that conversation throughout the year, and also ensure that we are outreaching to every group under-represented in the technology workforce.</p>
<p><strong>J.M.: </strong>That’s a great point. Both mentorship and sponsorship play important roles. It’s important to call out, however, women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored. As individuals, it’s important we understand the role each plays in advancing our career. As a leader, be intentional with sponsorship. As a women leader, remember to pay it forward and help the advancement and promotion of other women and underrepresented minorities. It’s been great talking with you, Mike, on this International Women’s Day.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
The One Email Leaders Should Send Daily
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/one-email-leaders-should-send-daily
2019-08-21T13:58:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Im not a big fan of competition A lot of businesses use it to motivate their people to do better but it also inevitably demoralizes the ones who dont make it to the top of the top Its...
<p data-id="c64184a4-a872-44ab-ac16-bd8a2c9bc150">I’m not a big fan of competition. A lot of businesses use it to motivate their people to do better, but it also inevitably demoralizes the ones who don’t make it to the top of the top. It’s a zero-sum game where nobody wins in the long run.</p>
<p data-id="c64184a4-a872-44ab-ac16-bd8a2c9bc150"> </p>
<p data-id="f627d7ea-604c-4750-b68f-497b50e7398d">I’ve been exploring other ways to motivate people to achieve their fullest because our team has grown substantially, and is still growing. Many of those who’ve just joined SAP Concur are younger individuals with fresh perspectives on how to do things, and like me, they’re not especially enthused about competing for accolades or achievements. They’d much rather work together and get the job done than be constantly looking over their shoulders.</p>
<p data-id="f627d7ea-604c-4750-b68f-497b50e7398d"> </p>
<p data-id="ca0cf64f-d878-471d-bf4e-8ca7b05b8c94">I think we’ve done a good job encouraging our people in the past, always having an “all in this together” approach to work where we succeed as a team but also celebrate one another’s achievements. The next step for me has been to turn that relatively informal approach to motivation into something more concrete and consistent.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>“You did good”</h2>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="107e8235-1a20-43ac-82f6-1d1e64bc9473">There are many ways to formally recognize achievement. You can announce big wins to the entire organization and make everyone’s contribution as visible as possible. You can also invest more in individuals who do well, sending them for further training and development to fully realize their talents and show them that you see their value. And, of course, you can provide financial incentives.</p>
<p data-id="107e8235-1a20-43ac-82f6-1d1e64bc9473"> </p>
<p data-id="b794734d-549b-4097-93e9-b8208f0c2f70">However, I think there’s one (criminally underrated) way to recognize individual contributions that resonates with everyone. It’s a simple email that says “thank you” and “you did good”. What really matters is who it comes from – ideally, the highest level of leadership in the organization.</p>
<p data-id="b794734d-549b-4097-93e9-b8208f0c2f70"> </p>
<p data-id="a474b507-ee80-44da-874c-eb8a12448aa7">This is something that Nick, the head of SAP Concur in Asia Pacific, does all the time. He sends these emails on an almost daily basis, based on what his top leaders like my boss Madanjit relay to him. I can say that this makes a huge difference to morale and motivation because I know what it feels like to receive these emails myself. It’s exciting to think that the big boss not only knows your name, and sees the effort you’ve been putting in, but took the effort in his busy day to thank you for what you’ve done. You realize that what you’re doing matters – and you’re encouraged to keep serving.</p>
<p data-id="a474b507-ee80-44da-874c-eb8a12448aa7"> </p>
<p data-id="abb38869-ee0f-4d89-89d8-924a3a175709">I believe this is something every business leader should do every day. We should make it a point to find out who’s been doing praiseworthy work, or going beyond the call of duty, either first-hand or by consistently asking other leaders to give that feedback when we can’t be physically present in their office. And we should take a few minutes, ideally at the start of the day, to write one or two of those emails appreciating the contributions of those around us. Not only does it make their day, but it also puts us in the right frame of mind to lead.</p>
<p data-id="abb38869-ee0f-4d89-89d8-924a3a175709"> </p>
<p data-id="b4448d85-932b-4e63-adff-b7e5e02fba4e">These emails are probably as uncompetitive as you can get. They do not raise one person up at the expense of someone else. They also don’t put pressure on individuals like more public forms of recognition do. But at the same time, they demonstrate to people that their work and achievements are not only visible but valued by those in charge of the business. I feel that as leaders, our job is to build businesses by building up people. Those few minutes saying, “you did good” may be the most important thing we ever do.</p>
Laura Houldsworth
It's Time to Give Finance the Tools it Needs to Fuel Business Growth
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-give-finance-tools-it-needs-fuel-business-growth
2019-08-20T12:08:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Growth is top of mind for enterprises today Yet expansions bring a host of challenges from heavier workloads overloaded and disrupted processes and a larger more...
<p>Growth is top of mind for enterprises today.</p>
<p>Yet, expansions bring a host of challenges, from heavier workloads, overloaded and disrupted processes, and a larger, more fragmented workforce to unfamiliar regulatory challenges in new markets. All of this complexity increases costs, reduces efficiency and agility, and hinders progress on the ultimate objective: growing your business</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Keys to Successful Business Growth</h2>
<p>Learn why visibility into spending and paying careful attention to cash flow are pillars of successful growth.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>These growing pains are due in part to outgrowing your business systems and processes, not just the size of your workforce. That old “people, process, technology” mantra holds true – each are part of the three-legged stool powering the modern enterprise. It’s just that today, intelligent automation, or technology, can drive process automation that empowers your workforce to do more in less time than ever before.</p>
<p>But from an IT investment perspective, it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. You want to grow, but you need technology to ease and enable growth. Do you invest proactively, before you grow, to drive growth? Or wait until after you grow and play catch-up, with sustainable growth hindered by old ways of working? What’s the cost of waiting? What’s the benefit of investing early? And in what areas? </p>
<p>A new study conducted by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-expansion-successful-business-growth" target="_blank">Oxford Economics</a> and SAP Concur sheds light on these questions. Oxford Economics surveyed 500 finance and IT executives at firms worldwide that have undertaken an expansion in the past year. Of those respondents, 350 came from companies with 1,000 or more employees. </p>
<p>This study found that far from being immune to growing pains, large global enterprises often struggle harder than smaller companies to manage the challenges of expansion. Their scale and complexity can make the consequences of a growth initiative – more data, more invoices, and more administration – difficult to handle. Flexibility and responsiveness when the business hits an obstacle are tougher for big companies: it’s easier to turn around a tugboat than a battleship. From this perspective, investing early in digital finance transformation to automate spend management processes – especially for employee spending on travel, expenses, and invoiced purchases – makes a lot of sense. Freeing employees from rote finance tasks allows them to do more value-added work that’s critical to driving growth. Automation can also help the finance function scale easily to handle larger post-expansion workloads without adding headcount. </p>
<p>In addition, the study found that having visibility into spending and paying careful attention to cash flow are pillars of successful growth. We’re talking near-real-time visibility into all employee spending across the globe – because the study found that global enterprises that anticipate their spending needs can more-easily avoid the growing pains of expansion, no matter how complex and far-flung their organisation may be. Finance can use predictive insights to redirect spending where it needs to go to drive growth – before it’s too late. </p>
<p>The survey results also show that cost-consciousness in general can greatly affect an expansion’s success. When we asked executives to rate the importance of spending and cash flow in their decision to expand, dramatic differences emerged between those who answered “very important” or “somewhat important.” Cost-conscious respondents – and those who answered “not very important” or “not at all important” – have more cash flow to direct toward strategic growth plans. At the same time, a focus on costs seems to improve performance in non-spending-related areas as well. For example, 62% of non-cost-conscious enterprises say they have difficulty reacting quickly when the business hits a roadblock, compared with 28% of cost-conscious enterprises. And siloed business units are more likely to be a problem at enterprises where costs were not important during expansion decision-making. </p>
<p aria-level="2">Want to learn more?<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/oxford-economics-managing-business-growth?pid=loc_social&cid=lwood_growth_scale_oe_blog_post_link_20190507" target="_blank">Download the Oxford Economics repor</a><a href="https://www.concur.com.sg/resources/oxford-economic-research-managing-expansion-keys-successful-business-growth?pid=sites&cid=apa-sg19-gns-ooblog-spend-visibility-is-critical-to-fuelling-business-growth">t</a> and learn why attention to spending in the planning stages not only reduces the likelihood that growth initiatives will incur cost overruns, but also mitigates problems in almost every area, from workforce issues to risk and compliance </p>
SAP Concur Team
Practical Privacy: How to Increase Data Privacy and Grow Machine Learning
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/practical-privacy-how-increase-data-privacy-and-grow-machine-learning
2020-01-28T09:58:26Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Data privacy is a huge topic right now for any companies using personal data and recent legislative activities including the possibility of a new federal privacy law has brought it to...
<p>Data privacy is a huge topic right now for any companies using personal data, and recent legislative activities including the possibility of <a href="http://fortune.com/2019/02/21/technology-companies-federal-data-privacy-law/" target="_blank">a new federal privacy law</a> has brought it to the forefront. Consumer concerns are also growing with IBM reporting 78 percent believe a company's ability to keep their data private is very important.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the same time, machine learning improves products, delivering user benefits such as improved personalization, tailored experiences, and less time manually filling in forms. But machine learning requires data to train the system - without data, it can’t function. So, businesses say they face a conundrum: how can they increase user privacy while still building products powered by machine learning?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As the IT decision makers for their organizations, CIOs must embrace the idea that privacy is not just an on/off switch where they either collect and use all or none of the data. There are new methods that allow increased user privacy while still preserving the accuracy of machine learning systems. Here are three practical options IT leaders can introduce to increase user privacy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Limit the personal data you collect</h2>
<p>One of the simplest ways to increase user privacy is to limit the amount of personal data that is collected in the first place. My team and I created an internal prototype that is based on the principle that privacy should be a sliding scale, not just an on-off switch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="d2949181-177f-4f6e-a4d9-3ebe5677a055">Our idea is an adjustable software feature – a privacy dial – that lets users or their companies increase or decrease the type of information gathered by removing different levels of personally identifiable information. Developers can provide users a button for how much privacy they want, accompanied by an explanation of the benefits of each option. By understanding how levels of data sharing impact their user experience, users have greater knowledge and control.</p>
<p data-id="d2949181-177f-4f6e-a4d9-3ebe5677a055"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1568208594135-image.png" /></p>
<p>The Privacy Dial gives a range of options for increasing user privacy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the lower dial settings, the personal data that can be used to directly identify a person is removed. As the setting increases, the data that is removed cannot be used to directly identify a single person, but it can still provide additional information about an individual. In most cases, personally identifiable information is not useful for a model’s predictions, so removing it does not affect the accuracy of the final model.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/sap-machine-learning-research/client-sided-differential-privacy-preserving-federated-learning-1fab5242d31b" target="_blank">Federated learning</a> is an <a href="https://blog.openmined.org/upgrade-to-federated-learning-in-10-lines/" target="_blank">excellent</a>, but more complex, option for limiting the amount of data collected from users: here, a model is trained on a user’s device, then the trained model is passed to the central storage. This means the raw data never leaves a user’s personal device, but it still allows for high accuracy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Only use a subset of the data</h2>
<p>It’s also possible to increase user privacy at the stage where data is selected to train a machine learning model. One way to do this is to use k-anonymity to make users indistinguishable from others.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1568208738736-image.png" />
<p>Making one person indistinguishable from 5 others: k-anonymity with k=6.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>K-anonymity is achieved by aggregating or removing data that could indirectly reidentify a person (for example, the location of a business expense) until a certain number of entries are identical. “K” refers to the number of identical people in a dataset, so if k=3, then three entries in the dataset have identical combinations of sensitive data. However, this method can cause a large decrease in the accuracy of a machine learning model and does not provide a strong guarantee of privacy.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Prevent data leaks in the model’s predictions</h2>
<p>Machine learning models can <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/02/secrets_fed_into_ai_models_as_training_data_can_be_stolen/" target="_blank">expose rare examples</a> from their training data in their predictions, causing a possible loss of privacy to users. Differential privacy can prevent this. <a href="https://privacytools.seas.harvard.edu/differential-privacy" target="_blank">Differential privacy</a> is a mathematical definition that guarantees that for any transformation of data, the probability of any specific result being returned is nearly the same, whether an individual is in a dataset or not. So, a differentially private machine learning model makes virtually the same predictions whether a person’s data is included or not - it learns about the population, not the individual.</p>
Concur Labs
Access to Lufthansa Group Airlines’ NDC Smart Offer and British Airways Full NDC Content Generally Available on Concur Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/access-lufthansa-group-airlines-ndc-smart-offer-and-british-airways-full-ndc-content
2019-09-18T11:28:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
At SAP Concur weve always been hyperfocused on ensuring our customers can access all relevant business travel content regardless of the source of that content In we were the first to...
<p>At SAP Concur, we’ve always been hyper-focused on ensuring our customers can access all relevant business travel content, regardless of the source of that content. In 2008 we were the first to make the complete inventory of Southwest Airlines available in a corporate booking tool, and we introduced <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> to give clients the ability to bring <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-invisible-bookings-impact-travel-program">supplier-direct bookings</a> back in to their managed travel program. Customer needs continue to drive our innovation today.</p>
<p>Throughout the past few years, <a href="http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/airline-distribution/ndc/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">New Distribution Capability (NDC)</a> has been one of the hottest topics in the managed travel industry. The promise of more personalized fare bundles, continuous pricing, and the desire of airlines to display their full product attributes have led to a lot of excitement and discussion about the benefits and roadblocks with NDC. </p>
<p>Based on customer interest, we’ve been working diligently with British Airways, Lufthansa Group airlines, Travelfusion, Farelogix and several TMCs on pilots to ensure that we are able to deliver the necessary experience via NDC. Today, we’re making <strong>NDC content from Lufthansa Group airlines and British Airways available to all Concur Travel Customers and their TMCs </strong>(travel management companies). Any client can turn on this NDC content through their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> configuration.</p>
<p>When NDC content is enabled for the relevant airline, this feature will allow clients to avoid carrier-imposed GDS distribution cost charges and will ensure that they have access to the most competitive fares and exclusive ancillary services. As some airlines have removed content from the GDS or have added the benefit of continuous fares which the GDSes don’t include, we’ve heard from many travel managers that would like the extra savings these fares afford them. We’re excited to be able to make those available to our customers in the booking tool.</p>
<div class="teaser--floating"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Pictogram-Traveller_Male_R_orange.png" />
<p>We answer all of your questions about NDC and Concur Travel</p>
<p class="teaser--floating-link"><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/ndc-in-the-corporate-space-and-concur-travel">Learn more</a></p>
</div>
<p>In addition, since British Airways makes all of these lower fares and additional content available on their website, customers who have the Concur TripLink product can already benefit, while still supporting their travel policies, realizing their negotiated discounts, fulfilling their <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/whos-in-charge-duty-of-care">duty of care</a> obligations and having the information automatically integrated into Concur. We’re also excited to share that<strong> Lufthansa’s integration with Concur TripLink will be live in Q4 2019, which allow travelers to get access to Lufthansa Group airlines’ NDC Smart Offer either in the Concur Booking Tool or directly on the Lufthansa website</strong>, including access to fares from Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Swiss International Airlines.</p>
<p>SAP Concur is the only company that provides multiple ways for travel managers to bring non-GDS content into their managed travel programs and reduce their costs along the way.</p>
<p>Concur Travel customers will now have two different options for obtaining the full content of British Airways as well as access to Lufthansa Group airlines’ NDC Smart Offer. They can enable NDC content via the Select Access content feature and see the content directly in the Concur booking tool and/or they can enable TripLink to capture all of the benefits of managed travel, even if their travelers are booking directly on the airlines’ website.</p>
<p>“Both SAP Concur and we are committed to delivering innovative travel solutions. With our combined technology and the direct interface via Concur Travel to all Lufthansa Group airlines and Concur TripLink to lufthansa.com we believe in our joint ability to enhance the end-to-end experience of our product innovations for all partners in the value chain,” said Xavier Lagardère, Head of Distribution Lufthansa Group Hub Airlines.</p>
<p>“Our TripLink connection went live in April 2018, and we are delighted that the NDC connection will now also be available to all Concur Travel customers and their TMCs,” said Ian Luck, Head of Distribution at British Airways. “Our aim is to give our customers choice and offer multiple options to purchase British Airways flights and products in a way that best suits their needs, while also providing access to new fares and products that are enabled by our NDC capability.”</p>
<p>For more information, please check out the press release on the <a href="https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/english">Lufthansa Group newsroom</a>, and for more information on TripLink, please visit <a href="http://www.concur.com/triplink">www.concur.com/triplink</a></p>
The Better the Travel Experience, the Better your Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/better-travel-experience-better-your-compliance
2019-11-16T09:27:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
People and this includes employees tend to do what they wish We resist rules we make up our own And when told that something is mandatory we often look for a way around it An easier...
<p>People – and this includes employees – tend to do what they wish. We resist rules; we make up our own. And when told that something is mandatory, we often look for a way around it. An easier way. It’s human nature.</p>
<p>So when it comes to things like business travel and its associated expenses, it can be very hard to make sure employees stay in compliance with corporate policy, or the many local and global regulations and requirements your company faces. But, if you give them something they want – say, a travel and expense-reporting tool that’s virtually effortless or a way to use the apps they already love – they’ll not only be happier and more satisfied, they’ll give you what you want (the data you need to stay on top of spending) without even realizing it.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1573672816885-284612-traveller-female-r-purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>How modern tools lead to happy travelers </h2>
<p>See 11 ways in which T&E tools take the strain out of business travel. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/modern-tools-happy-travelers">Download now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Offer the right tools, and you’ll get the right behaviors</h2>
<p>Nobody likes your expense-reporting process. There. We said it. And we only say this because often it’s not intuitive, it’s not as mobile as it should be, and it takes more time to use than it’s worth.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe it isn’t that bad, but odds are, you recognized some grumblings of truth in the above statement. So why not improve the expense-reporting and travel-booking experience with a tool that works with what they’re already using? Why not let them manage their travel the way they want and capture all of that spend? Why not upgrade the overall experience for your employees as they take your organization around the world?</p>
<p>So…how?</p>
<p><strong>Deliver an intuitive, mobile-first employee experience that erases frustration and creates the kind of modern workplace where people want to be.</strong></p>
<p>And how do you do that? Make life easier:</p>
<ul>
<li>Offer travelers mobile apps that manage all their travel and expenses in one, easy place.</li>
<li>Help them track fares and points and find the best seats on flights.</li>
<li>Eliminate every possible piece of paper from the T&E process – integrating air/hotel/car-rental receipts and accepting smartphone pics of other receipts.</li>
<li>Give them expense reports that write themselves – automatically creating, itemizing, and categorizing their charges, so they don’t waste time (and make mistakes) entering it manually.</li>
<li>Connect to their favorite brands, like Uber and Airbnb, so they can use the apps they love – and the receipts flow straight into their expense reports.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>You’ll see all your spending, and happier employees</h2>
<p>When employees get to use the travel and expense tools they want and like, they’ll use them. They’ll be following the policies you need them to follow – happily doing what they’re supposed to do – and you’ll get visibility into their spending.</p>
<p>Give them a better experience and they’ll not only give you their best, they’ll give you the compliance that keeps spending under control.</p>
<p><strong>What kind of travel experience do employees expect? </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/modern-tools-happy-travelers" target="_blank"><strong>Download this infographic to find out.</strong></a></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Robots Help Businesses Save Time
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-robots-help-businesses-save-time
2020-08-18T12:17:30Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Robots are the future Weve all heard it before While some people are fully ready to welcome the robots others feel a slight panic creep in Will artificial intelligence replace the need...
<p>Robots are the future.</p>
<p>We’ve all heard it before. While some people are fully ready to welcome the robots, others feel a slight panic creep in. Will artificial intelligence replace the need for humans? Will our jobs one day become obsolete? Take a deep breath and rest assured: Despite advances in technology, human brain power is still very much a necessity.</p>
<p>“AI doesn’t replace employees, it augments them,” says A.G. Lambert, SVP of product strategy at SAP Concur. Technology in the workplace is changing the way we work – but for the better. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Tech-Augmented Workplace</h2>
<p>Dive deeper into how AI helps employees focus on the work that matters most. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-tech-augmented-workplace">Read now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Automation is already an integral part of daily life at home, from customer service chat bots to automated monthly payments. And now artificial intelligence has made its way into the workplace, helping us save time and reduce paperwork. For example, AI is making paper receipts and tedious manual data entry a thing of the past with automated travel and expense management tools.</p>
<p>We partnered with Forbes to examine the ways in which technology is changing business processes for the better. In the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-tech-augmented-workplace">second article</a> in our three-part series, learn how current and upcoming technologies are helping three typical office workers – an accounts payable specialist, a manager, and a CFO – become more efficient and productive. You’ll also get behind-the-scenes insights from two SAP Concur executives, Lambert and Chief Product Strategy Officer Mike Koetting, plus a current customer, to hear their thoughts on the tech-augmented workplace.</p>
<p>Some highlights include:</p>
<ul>
<li>AI-assisted auditing that automatically checks every expense report</li>
<li>Travel policy bots that help employees stay compliant</li>
<li>Tools that improve cash flow management while keeping employees happy</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Check out <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/the-tech-augmented-workplace" target="_blank">this article</a> and dive deeper into how AI helps employees focus on the work that matters most.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Self-Promotion Shouldn’t Be Cringeworthy
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/self-promotion-shouldnt-be-cringeworthy
2020-03-06T13:28:16Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How do you react to the term selfpromotion Does it make you uncomfortable As a diversity and inclusion professional I have only recently begun to fully understand the importance of...
<p>How do you react to the term “self-promotion”? Does it make you uncomfortable?</p>
<p>As a diversity and inclusion professional, I have only recently begun to fully understand the importance of self-promotion in the workplace and the barriers that exist to developing this skill.</p>
<p>Women and people from underrepresented communities face distinct challenges when practicing self-advocacy. Regardless of your background, self-promotion is important to discuss – either to grow your own skillset or to help you understand why it is a positive attribute. </p>
<p>Do you hesitate to share recent accomplishments because you’re worried if they’re good enough? While internally debating this, you may be losing opportunities along the way to share smaller wins and build your personal brand. This is where imposter syndrome comes into play, when self-doubt clouds your feelings of belonging and being proficient in your role.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Self-promotion is more than self-serving</h2>
<p>The benefits of self-promotion go well beyond the individuals who are sharing their achievements. Self-promotion enables a conversation around skillset and experience that benefits a team and the larger organization. In order to be competitive in the ever-changing market, leaders need to know who is great at what and how each individual can contribute maximum impact to the goals of a company.</p>
<p>When many people self-promote or promote one another, the culture begins to shift – creating psychological safety to share without the fear of backlash. One tactic to contribute to this shift is creating a dialogue with your own self-promotion. After sharing an accomplishment with someone, ask them about a milestone they are striving to hit. You can also bring others along with your own self-promotion. For example, sharing a big win you’ve accomplished and thanking those who contributed to the success.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Don’t get caught in the humble brag trap</h2>
<p>While many of us want to share our accomplishments but don’t want to be perceived as conceited, the humble brag has been the ‘go-to’ option, especially on social media. Celebrities can be some of the most visible culprits when it comes to the humble brag. Take Kim Kardashian for example. In 2015 she tweeted “Apple, so sorry I broke your app store” after launching Kimojis. Was she really sorry? No, she wanted to show her influence and create a dialogue about the ridiculously high Kimoji download volume. Given the cultural popularity for the humble brag, you may be tempted to follow this example. After all, it sounds good on the surface -- a little self-promotion mixed with humility. But <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3049360/how-to-talk-about-your-skills-without-sounding-like-a-show-off">research</a> has found that the humble brag consistently warrants a negative response. Why? Because it isn’t seen as sincere. I share this because you’ll get a better reaction from people if you are honest with your self-promotion rather than trying to slide it into a conversation disguised as something else.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Women have a tougher time self-promoting</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8ea0/f568680dd1583e893bc5f4dac7eee7753ed0.pdf">a study</a> conducted by New York University, researchers asked subjects to assess how a group of men and women performed on a joint task. The findings were definitive, unless the researchers explicitly provided information about the women’s excellent contributions or strong past performance, the subjects deemed the women to be less competent, less influential, and less likely to have played a leadership role than their male peers, regardless of their actual contributions. This study showcases the issue that accomplishments do not always speak for themselves. We must be deliberate in what we share and how we share it.</p>
<p>What complicates this matter even more is that both <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8ea0/f568680dd1583e893bc5f4dac7eee7753ed0.pdf">men and women don’t like other women that self-promote</a>. Not only do we need to be aware of how we are showing up, we need to be conscious of how we are reacting to others when they promote themselves. This is a mindset change. Instead of internally rolling our eyes, we need to actively celebrate others, especially women.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Self-promotion is uncomfortable, but it’s necessary</h2>
<p>Self-promotion is a topic we don’t usually talk much about, but research suggests it’s crucial to succeeding in the workplace. Applicants who talk opening and confidently about their achievements are more likely to be hired than more modest candidates – even in countries where self-promotion is frowned upon! I started my HR career as a Recruiter and something I regularly saw were candidates using “we” to describe their accomplishments. Although they may consciously or unconsciously be doing this to show teamwork and collaboration, it can also create uncertainty for the interviewer. It is important to use “I” statements that showcase what you’ve accomplished and contributed even if it rolls up to a “we” statement. For example, we launched a large campaign and I contributed the internal communication strategy, which helped create employee visibility. This is a form of self-promotion.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Be aware of bias</h2>
<p>Unconscious bias plays a major role in how self-promotion is received. The same verbiage and tone may be used by two individuals, but the reaction can be completely different based on who is self-promoting. Unconscious bias sounds negative, but it is only negative when it goes unchecked. If you are having a negative reaction to the self-promotion of someone, take a step back and give yourself time to consider why. Would you still feel this way regardless of a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, etc.? Unconscious bias is our gut reaction, so the best way to ensure it doesn’t affect your perception is to take additional time to process the situation.</p>
<p>Regardless of who we are or where we’re from, we all have acquired stereotypes of some type. I am small, blond, and have a higher-pitched voice, and as a result, I’m often mistaken for being younger and more junior in my career than I actually am. Just last week I was mistaken for a college student at a breakfast for Diversity & Inclusion leaders, like myself, to discuss diverse talent pools in higher education. We can’t always control how others see us, but we can all work to keep our biases from mistaken assumptions in check.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Build your own self-promotion skillset</h2>
<p>The celebration of International Women’s Day is an opportune time to grow your own self-promotion skills and to create space for others to share what makes them great.</p>
<ol>
<li>Reflect on what makes you unique and what you’re proud of. This is your material to self-promote.</li>
<li>Like any skill, self-promotion takes practice. Establish a peer-mentor relationship or try it out with those you are comfortable with.</li>
<li>Think about opportunities you can utilize for self-promotion – team meetings, meetings with your manager, or social media.</li>
<li>If someone sends you a ‘thank you’ or ‘job well done’ e-mail, forward it on to your leadership. Show the impact you’re making!</li>
<li>Promote others and their achievements to contribute to a culture of promotion that is free of backlash.</li>
</ol>
<p>Self-promotion can be uncomfortable, give you butterflies in your stomach and cause your hands to sweat. But with practice comes a point when sharing achievements are no longer cringeworthy – just worthy.</p>
Devan Vaughn
Manage City Government Expenses and AP More Effectively with Automation
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/manage-city-government-expenses-and-ap-more-effectively-automation
2020-09-21T11:18:35Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Pop Quiz What does managing a professional sports team have in common with running a city government Challenging travel demands and hectic schedules Sure Too many stars and not enough...
<p>Pop Quiz: What does managing a professional sports team have in common with running a city government?</p>
<p>Challenging travel demands and hectic schedules? Sure.</p>
<p>Too many stars and not enough support staff? Probably.</p>
<p>Most importantly? They both run on money. And in both sports and city government, success often hinges on an organization’s ability to oversee budgets effectively and make dollars go as far as possible.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Boost Government Cash Flow</h2>
<p>Learn how automated AP can improve transparency and even create new income streams. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/how-invoice-automation-can-help-government-cfos-boost-cashflow">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Even under the best circumstances, managing budgets and spend manually is difficult. Now, with a largely remote workforce, and mailed paper invoices stacking up, the challenges to better manage spend are even greater. To navigate this time, it’s more important than ever for city leaders to have a connected expense and AP system that will control costs, accurately track employee-initiated spend, and make budget management easier. </p>
<p>Here are a few ways that city leaders can manage spend more effectively and get the most from their players and teams.</p>
<p><strong>Empower Your Players</strong></p>
<p>Tracking individual spending behaviors has never been easy. Now, with the rise of new payment tools and technologies, employees have more options than ever when it comes to spending budget dollars. Whether it’s travel to and from public hearings, or the day-to-day use of funds to ensure a city runs smoothly, managers need a good system in place to keep track of it all.</p>
<p>For staff to remain motivated and productive, they need to believe they’re working on their own terms. By introducing technology and automation into your expense and invoice management game, city leaders can provide the tools and autonomy that staff desire, while simultaneously getting visibility into what’s being spent, where, and by whom.</p>
<p><strong>Have a Game Plan</strong></p>
<p>Modern technology offers a new a way to bring efficiency, visibility, and accuracy into your city government’s budget process. One other critical area in which technology can help is strategic planning. From expense reports to travel costs, integrating data, detecting fraud, and processing invoices — automation can help.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions deliver the tools needed to help you plan for success, from controlling costs to spotting concerns to helping redirect resources where your city needs them the most. Our technology can capture, manage, and track invoices and expenses in one comprehensive, streamlined platform. We make it easy to see what’s going on with staff spending, and even easier to use that information to make better, more efficient decisions with your city’s budget.</p>
<p><strong>Put Your Players In “The Zone"</strong></p>
<p>If you’re a sports fan, you probably know about “the zone.” That mystical, magical, hard-to-find place in which distractions fade, an athlete goes on autopilot, and they can do no wrong. No second guessing. No errors. No obstacles. Just a Zen-like focus on completing the task at hand.</p>
<p>While managing budgets and sorting through paper invoices may not have the same cachet as professional sports, when you’re talking about taxpayer dollars, the stakes are definitely high. And with a manual, paper-based expense and AP system, you’re not giving your team the equipment they need to win.</p>
<p>By automating expense management, and eliminating paper invoices, you can put your back-office staff in the zone. Automation can increase productivity, help them commit fewer errors, and let them focus their time and energy on more mission-critical work. This is in addition to improving cash flow, forecasting more accurately, improving policy compliance, and reducing the risk of fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Whether on the field or in an office, the best managers give talented players what they need to shine, and then step out of the way so they can get to work. By removing process barriers and giving your team the tools they need to succeed, you’ll see more accuracy, improved compliance, and greater efficiency across your entire organization.</p>
<p>To see how managing spend can ensure your programs benefit citizens effectively, services run efficiently, and more, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/other/four-tips-to-help-government-city-leaders-run-city-budgets-more-efficiently">get our tip sheet</a>. Then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/reduce-risk-maintain-compliance-maximize-efficiency-state-local-government">check out our infographic</a> and learn how automating and integrating travel, expense, and invoice management can streamline operations and drive compliance across your organization.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Improve Visibility and Cashflow with Intelligently Automated AP Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improve-visibility-and-cashflow-intelligently-automated-ap-management
2020-08-15T19:47:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
No matter the economic climate invoice management is a key business function But given the current uncertainty about what lies ahead it is critical that you continue to buy the...
<p>No matter the economic climate, invoice management is a key business function. But, given the current uncertainty about what lies ahead, it is critical that you continue to buy the materials and services that keep your business running while also optimizing cashflow. Managing vendor invoicing with paper, e-mail, spreadsheets, and disconnected applications has always made the job of your accounts payable team more difficult than it needs to be. But now, with many AP managers and controllers working remotely, those manual processes have become unworkable.</p>
<p>With the right software, you can bring your invoice management into the modern age – empowering your AP team with the visibility, flexibility, and process efficiency to ensure all invoices are processed correctly and on time and you never leave money on the table. For example, does your AP team have the tools it needs to make sure all invoices are accounted for before closing your books? How do they keep track of who has pending invoice approvals? How do you ensure you are taking advantage of early payment discounts, card rewards, and rebates? What is your system for making sure that invoices are never paid before final receipt of goods and services? What is your mechanism for flagging duplicate payments, over payments, and questionable payments? How do you ensure that you never miss a payment deadline? And how does your filing system continue to grow each year?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>The Business Value of Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Learn how finance leaders can revolutionize AP and vendor invoice management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The reality is that manually-driven invoice processes lead to errors, rework, late fees, and missed savings that eat up your AP team’s day while negatively impacting your bottom line. You know that you need a smart invoice management solution. The question is, which one?</p>
<p>As a global provider of IT market intelligence and advisory services, International Data Corporation (IDC) helps businesses make the right technology decisions. To find out what the Concur Invoice solution has to offer, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">SAP commissioned IDC* to study our customers</a> – eight organizations across six industry sectors, including education, construction, energy, insurance, manufacturing, and non-profit. The group’s median size was 998 employees, indicating a good variety of small and large enterprises.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, IDC found that Concur Invoice enables faster, more efficient, and more accurate vendor invoice processing as well as better management visibility and lower error-related costs. But what may surprise you is that it all adds up to $662,700 in annual benefits per organization – that’s $3,258 per 1,000 invoices.</p>
<p>By automating the entire invoice management process from capture to payment and using AI to analyze key data points over time, Concur Invoice allows you to automate vendor invoice and other financial processing, better manage cashflow, and streamline accounts payable functions. By speeding up invoice approvals and processing and streamlining business-to-finance touchpoints, it makes financial management teams and business users more efficient. In fact, IDC found that companies using Concur Invoice were able to reduce invoice processing time by 75% – resulting in a 45% more efficient accounts payable staff and a 40% more efficient auditing staff. Across all business areas, companies saw an average productivity gain per user of 2.6%, with average of 132.5 users impacted – adding up to a whopping $243,000 in average annual savings.</p>
<p>Companies saw an average of 13% faster payments and a 42% reduction in delayed payments. This adds to an average annual savings of $137,000 on AP-related costs.</p>
<p>Finally, if you are concerned about making new technology investments at this time, you can rest easier knowing that businesses deploying Concur Invoice realized an average pay-back period of four months, followed by an astonishing 634% three-year ROI.</p>
<p>As an IT company, we know how critical it is that every application give you the flexibility and interoperability you need to run holistic operations. This is why Concur Invoice integrates with most ERP and accounting systems and connects with a wide array of vendor solutions across the procure-to-pay lifecycle. Concur Invoice also integrates with payment providers to create a platform that streamlines and optimizes payments. Robust reporting and analytics offer a comprehensive view into spending that helps you make better decisions surrounding vendors, contracts, and cashflow. Plus, when you combine Concur Invoice with Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions, your finance team can achieve a complete view of business spending overall.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-report-sap-concur-facilitates-automated-management-of-financial-operations">Read the full IDC White Paper </a>to find out how what Concur Invoice can do for you. Then visit us at <a href="http://www.concur.com">Concur.com</a> to get started today.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>*IDC White Paper, sponsored by SAP, SAP Concur Facilitates Automated Management of Financial Operations, May 2020</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Control Government Employee Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-control-government-employee-spend
2020-07-29T17:13:27Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Everyone who works in the public sector understands the unique responsibility that comes with managing taxpayer dollars With access to public funds comes an elevated sense of...
<p>Everyone who works in the public sector understands the unique responsibility that comes with managing taxpayer dollars. With access to public funds comes an elevated sense of obligation — not to mention a higher level of fiscal responsibility and greater public scrutiny on spending decisions.</p>
<p>With so much change to the world in recent months, state and local leaders have even more to consider when it comes to meeting these high expectations. For starters, supporting an almost entirely remote workforce and controlling spend requires a total re-evaluation of current processes and systems. One specific, and perhaps less-obvious, action that leaders can take to save money and satisfy taxpayers’ demands is to combat government employee fraud.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282615_Government_building_R_orange.png" /></div>
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<h2>Managing Fraud and Compliance Issues in the Public Sector</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/battle-fraud-compliance-issues-public-sector">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automate it, for the people</h2>
<p>Generally speaking, people are honest and want to comply with spending policies. That said, even the best-intended employees can go astray when faced with the triple threat of decentralized spending, manual processes, and poor or nonexistent data integration. These factors, either alone or in combination, add layers of complexity to financial systems and make it far more likely that employees will either see an opportunity to commit fraud or, more likely, make an honest mistake that leads to fraudulent spending.</p>
<p>Automating spend processes allows agencies to create customized, built-in policies that map to the ways in which <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/state-local-government-solution">state and local government</a> staff work. By implementing a system that automatically flags inappropriate expenses, you can catch mistakes and potential fraud before reimbursements occur.</p>
<p>Additionally, finding ways to evolve your spend solution is bigger than shifting technologies. By offering a system that aligns with the ways in which employees spend money, you’re signaling a willingness to meet employees where they are in terms of spend preferences.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>A simple and powerful solution</h2>
<p>SAP Concur solutions integrate and automate expense, invoice, and travel data into a single solution that helps employees accurately and efficiently manage spend. Our products and services also make it easy for staff to comply with relevant rules and regulations — without bogging them down in extra steps or arcane knowledge of spend policies.</p>
<p>When you fold compliance into your spend processes, everyone benefits. And by empowering employees to use a system that leverages preset criteria, automatically gathers data, receipts, and other key information, you can streamline the expense reporting process and put an end to fraud.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Delta Air Lines and Marriott International Executives Among Those to Speak at SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/delta-air-lines-and-marriott-international-executives-among-those-speak-sap-concur
2020-08-13T16:41:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In June we announced that we will bring the business travel industry together at the inaugural SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit The community has been hardhit by COVID and...
<p>In June, we <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/sap-concur-our-commitment-to-the-travel-industry" target="_blank">announced</a> that we will bring the business travel industry together at the inaugural <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit" target="_blank">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>. The community has been hard-hit by COVID-19, and there is much to discuss, including how to stabilize, transform, and reimagine the world of travel. </p>
<p>Since the announcement, we have been incredibly pleased by the response we have received from the industry. <a href="https://news.delta.com/bio-ed-bastian-chief-executive-officer" target="_blank">Ed Bastian</a>, CEO, <a href="https://www.delta.com/" target="_blank">Delta Air Lines</a>, and <a href="https://news.marriott.com/leadership/arne-m-sorenson" target="_blank">Arne M. Sorenson</a>, President and CEO, <a href="https://www.marriott.com/default.mi" target="_blank">Marriott International</a>, will join SAP Concur President <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimlucier/" target="_blank">Jim Lucier</a> for conversations about how their organizations are adapting to these challenging times. </p>
<p>Another highlight will be a panel on “The Voice of the Travel Manager,” moderated by <a href="https://www.areka-consulting.com/" target="_blank">Areka Consulting</a>’s <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-miller-9063097/" target="_blank">Louise Miller</a>, which will include: </p>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="1">
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorianstonie/" target="_blank">Dorian Stonie</a>, Senior Director for Global Travel, <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/" target="_blank">Salesforce</a> </p>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="1">
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpiatt/" target="_blank">Jeff Piatt</a>, Director of Global Travel, Meetings and Events, <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/" target="_blank">ZenDesk</a> </p>
</li>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="1">
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-cuschieri-7821717/" target="_blank">Mark Cuschieri</a>, Executive Director, Global Head of Travel, <a href="https://www.ubs.com/us/en.html" target="_blank">UBS</a> </p>
</li>
<li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-listid="1">
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimkayehamer/" target="_blank">Kim Hamer</a>, Director of Global Sourcing, Travel and Events, <a href="https://usa.visa.com/" target="_blank">Visa</a> </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The Wall Street Journal’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/author/scott-mccartney" target="_blank">Scott McCartney</a> is also set to host a panel of industry executives to discuss how the future of business travel will take shape. McCartney is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes the popular weekly column, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/types/the-middle-seat" target="_blank">The Middle Seat</a>. We will announce additional speakers over the coming weeks. </p>
<p>These are difficult times for the world, and for the travel industry, which has been deeply affected by the pandemic. We convened the SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit to facilitate the sharing of ideas to help bring business travel back safely and sustainably for the environment, at the appropriate time. </p>
<p>At this complimentary virtual event, participants will have the opportunity to hear from industry leaders, join sessions on relevant topics, learn about industry best practices and engage with peers. We look forward to discussing what is to come in the future of business travel. I hope you can join us! </p>
<p>Learn more and register at <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit" target="_blank">https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit</a>.</p>
Christopher Juneau
Why We Believe in the Transformative Power, and In the Future, of Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-we-believe-transformative-power-and-future-travel
2020-10-12T17:46:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Today I had the opportunity to welcome thousands of attendees to the first SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit I said in part that I am not the only one who has tried to explain to...
<p>Today I had the opportunity to welcome thousands of attendees to the first <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>. I said, in part, that I am not the only one who has tried to explain to friends and family who are not in the travel business, the utter carnage wrought by Covid-19. The headlines and statistics do not begin to describe the economic and personal devastation caused when business travel is all but eliminated. The dot.com bust, 9/11, and even the Great Recession all seem like bumps in the road compared to the cataclysm we in the travel industry face today.</p>
<p>Those of us in the SAP Concur organization have not been immune to the economic impacts of the current recession, but we are more fortunate than some, partly because we are part of one of the largest and most diverse software companies in the world, <a href="https://www.sap.com/index.html" target="_blank">SAP</a>. We convened a summit to use our resources to bring the travel sector together, at no charge, to address the challenges we all face. It is one way we are giving back to a community that has been so key to our success.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1600349180784-screenshot (40).png" /></p>
<p>In response to the disruption of the travel industry, it is almost instinctive to retreat to the past; to the comfort of what’s been done before. In the context of travel management, that usually means locking everything down and resuming a heavy-handed style of command and control. But new challenges demand new thinking. In this time of great disruption, the winners of tomorrow are asking what greater good this disruption bring and how else might we use this moment to make our industry – and the world around us – better?</p>
<p>Today, the very premise of corporate travel management has been turned on its head. Since its inception, it has largely been about acting as a gatekeeper, tempering employees’ natural enthusiasm for travel. We have had other objectives, like improving efficiency and traveler satisfaction, and delivering duty of care, but controlling costs and enforcing policy – gatekeeping – has always been core to the mission. Fear of Covid-19 among many travelers, however, has eliminated our need to play that role. Our role will likely evolve from travel gatekeeper to travel enabler – and maybe travel therapist.</p>
<p>I say that because I believe we should be travel enablers – and not just because we want our industry and livelihood to survive – but because we believe in the transformative power of travel. Travel transforms people, politics, economies and most important, relationships. That is why, even in what may be our industry’s darkest hour, those of us in the SAP Concur organization believe in travel. We are committed to responsible travel that enables those who want to travel to do it in a way that protects their health and safety -- and in a manner that is environmentally sustainable.</p>
<p>While the landscape of our industry will be permanently altered, there are reasons for optimism. Travel will return over time, safer and stronger than ever. History demonstrates it will come back, just as it has after past recessions, even though it is hard to fathom after what we’ve been through in 2020. But remember that before the pandemic, the business travel sector was projected to generate about $1.7 trillion for the global economy by 2022. That spending creates jobs and infuses governments with needed tax revenue. These are among the reasons that the work we do is important – and not just to us but to the world around us.</p>
<p>That is why, in the midst of this storm, there is no better time to pause and connect, even if we must do so virtually. There is no better time to reinvest in each other; to rediscover our strength; and to reinvent the future of our industry. And to challenge each other to use this moment – this disruption – to make our industry – and the world around us – better.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The SAP Concur Travel Industry is currently available on-demand. Watch <a href="https://vshow.on24.com/vshow/SAPConcurSummit/home?regPageId=17172" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>
Mike Koetting
College and University Back Offices Face Toughest AP Test Yet
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/college-and-university-back-offices-face-toughest-ap-test-yet
2020-11-17T08:23:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
COVID isnt the only concern colleges and universities are facing this Fall but it does bring several other issues to light Take for example the fact that twothirds of higher education...
<p>COVID-19 isn’t the only concern colleges and universities are facing this Fall, but it does bring several other issues to light. Take, for example, the fact that two-thirds of higher education finance and administration departments lack the software to work remotely.</p>
<p>Which isn’t a critical problem, of course, until everyone has to work remotely…immediately.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Wakefield Higher Ed Report</h2>
<p>Learn the steps to take to navigate the future of work.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/wakefield-higher-education-report">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Other campus concerns exacerbated by the pandemic include the loss of state and private funding, loss of revenue from sources such as housing and athletics, and the tightening of budgets, all while increasing focus on student success and minimizing tuition debt burden.</p>
<p>Not an easy year, in other words – perhaps the toughest challenge higher education administrators have ever faced, in fact. And according to a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/wakefield-higher-education-report">Wakefield Research survey</a> of 350 higher ed finance and admin staff, the numbers are still wrecking the curve:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only 16% of staff can continue to work remotely without hurting department productivity.</li>
<li>60% are prepared to reduce pay or cut staff to offset budget shortfalls.</li>
<li>71% are concerned with complying with regulations due to sustained remote work.</li>
</ul>
<p>These decision makers are being asked – once again – to do more with less. It’s just that this time, it’s much more, with much less. Less money, less staff and, frankly, less of an understanding of what’s going to happen next.</p>
<p>At the same time, they realize that getting through these challenges is going to take investment. When asked, 99% of these decision makers agreed that certain investments must be made to maintain developmental operations. Eighty-four percent of them want funding for technology that will integrate systems, devices, and spend data, so they can see where they can save.</p>
<p>Other data in the report suggests ways colleges and universities are hoping to improve how they handle financial operations remotely:</p>
<ul>
<li>46% Want to adopt mobile practices</li>
<li>43% Want visibility into real-time expense information</li>
<li>43% Want to automate invoice processing</li>
</ul>
<p>So, what does Wakefield recommend?</p>
<ul>
<li> Moving operations online quickly.</li>
<li>Updating technology as a means of offsetting budget shortfalls and inadequate staffing.</li>
<li>Managing spend, invoices, and expenses to avoid significant delays in handling accounts.</li>
</ul>
<p>These technologies will improve back-office efficiency, highlight savings opportunities, and improve productivity – finally allowing them to do more with less. By integrating and automating how they manage invoices and expenses, higher ed will have the time and resources to turn their attention back to students and staff.</p>
<p>And that’s a test they cannot afford to fail.</p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>See the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/wakefield-higher-education-report">full Wakefield report</a> for more.</p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Ways Tech Will Impact the Future of K-12 Schools
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-ways-tech-will-impact-future-k-12-schools
2021-01-11T18:44:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Sasha Nunes is the COO and cofounder of NB Team Consulting There have been drastic changes in the education sector due to the impact of the COVID pandemic Redesigning of the school...
<p>Sasha Nunes is the COO and co-founder of <a href="https://www.nbteamconsulting.com/en/home" target="_blank">N&B Team Consulting</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There have been drastic changes in the education sector due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Redesigning of the school environment online through remote learning has emerged as one of the notable changes. Besides online learning, there are plenty of other critical roles that technology will play in the future of schools. Read on below to find out.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Enhanced learning experience</h2>
<p>An essential role of technology in the future K-12 setting will be the automation of administrative tasks. It will free employees and teachers from the burdens of having to handle high-volume, repetitive tasks like generating schedule reports or admissions. With automation abilities, technology will allow schools to deliver better quality services to students on time.</p>
<p>Implementing automated spend management systems can virtually free a faculty from dealing with time-constraining manual tasks. It means that even schools with limited staff members will still be able to manage heavy volume tasks, like formulating invoices, correcting errors, and reviewing their expense reports. The current systems for doing such kind of functions are typically outdated and prone to expensive user errors.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Better school management abilities</h2>
<p>Adopting an intuitive and centralized school management solution will offer schools the capacity to remotely monitor, schedule, control, and execute various critical learning services. It allows analytics and auditing to occur within the same environment since administrators can generate frequent reports to improve their governance.</p>
<p>A user-friendly management interface also enables school administrators to make quick changes to learning paths and content without the need for excellent technical skills. These intuitive interfaces will also benefit learners. It will ensure they can easily access content without requiring extra training, thus avoiding the system frustrations and limitations that often curb engagement.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cost savings</h2>
<p>The current COVID-19 environment is characterized by numerous layoffs and lack of sufficient funding, and thus controlling school budget spend is critical. To overcome these limitations, cutting inefficient operational costs will be key. By providing increased visibility into administrative spending, through smart expense management solutions, schools will be able to create suitably-fitting budgets while increasing their faculty's productivity and efficiency by integrating self-service and automation tools.</p>
<p>K-12 schools may also have to face increased cash flow stress post COVID. In such a scenario, getting better control and visibility of large purchasers will help decision-makers better understand how those items will impact the school budget and other financial projections. That way, all purchases will be business-critical and supplied on time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Improved supplier relationship</h2>
<p>Schools are more involved in a wide range of suppliers and invoicing relationships than comparable small businesses. The average K-12 school has to deal with multiple suppliers, including stationery, sports equipment building contractors, and many more.</p>
<p>These complicated supply networks will also benefit from digitization and the use of technological solutions. Through the increased visibility schools can effortlessly manage their entire supply chain, streamline invoice processing, and automate expense reports in a single, robust cloud solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Increased compliance</h2>
<p>Use of technology can support school administrators, eliminate data inconsistency between separate sources and also log every action completed during automation. It enables school faculty to proactively identify and manage any compliance problems by running frequent internal reviews. It also reduces cases of fraud by digitizing your processes, audit rules and spending controls to each transaction in real-time, thus removing the likelihood of accidental fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Final thoughts</h2>
<p>K-12 schools have mainly been lagging on integrating tech innovations, and this latest health pandemic has placed an even greater spotlight on gaps and inefficiencies across their operations. Thus, the future of schools and the education sector, in general, will entail fast-tracking the adoption of tech solutions to streamline processes and improve the learning experience.</p>
<p>Incorporating SAP Concur solutions in K-12 schools has the potential of enhancing the efficiency, visibility and governance of school operations. With a smart, automated system in place, an educational institution will also easily detect potentially costly data entry errors and fraud requests instantly. These improvements will make administrative processes easier and allow schools to focus on learning activities.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>About NBTeam</strong></p>
<p>NBTeam is a SAP Concur Partner that offers innovative SAP Concur solutions to help public sector and private organizations achieve their objectives. We do this by automating essential administrative tasks, including invoicing, expense management, and travel cost management. </p>
<p>Visit us: <a href="https://www.nbteamconsulting.com/en/concur/us/" target="_blank">https://www.nbteamconsulting.com/en/concur/us/</a></p>
Guest Blogger
How Prioritizing Employee Satisfaction Helped A Company Scale Global Compliance and Thrive Amidst the Pandemic and Beyond
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-prioritizing-employee-satisfaction-helped-company-scale-global-compliance-and
2021-03-08T16:59:40Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Transformation of a travel and expense program served as a starting point for simplification in other areas of the organization for medical device company Smith Nephew Smith Nephews...
<p>Transformation of a travel and expense program served as a starting point for simplification in other areas of the organization, for medical device company, Smith & Nephew. Smith & Nephew’s choice to prioritize employee satisfaction allowed it to keep humans central to the implementation of artificial intelligence-aided technology, which has allowed operations and employees to thrive amidst the pandemic and beyond.</p>
<p>Listen in to the empowering and candid conversation between Marchelle Klippenstein, VP of customer improvement for SAP Concur, and Jorge Monge, travel and expense lead for Smith & Nephew, as they talk through the key elements to a successful transformation and globalization across more than 40 countries.</p>
<p>Enjoy this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763" target="_blank">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/" target="_blank">Listen Notes</a>, <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank">Acast</a>, or your favorite podcast player.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Global Business Service implementation (GBS) key learnings</h2>
<p>Smith & Nephew successfully established Global Business Services (GBS), a centralized operations delivery model, by creating a common language around metrics, analytics, and KPIs. When spanning more than 40 countries, this was no small feat. However, its CEO-sponsored priority of employees helped the company to get it right. “Everything starts with culture,” shares Monge. “Once you have created something that actually makes sense and resonates with everyone and there is a common understanding, you can start really working across the lines of compliance and having…major decision makers and stakeholders understanding what compliance changes ha[ve] to be understood and applied, you can have a successful program and model taking shape globally.” Monge candidly shared that they didn’t get this right the first time. His two key learnings were:</p>
<ol>
<li>“Do not assume customer needs–there has to be a consistent feedback loop…We went through two extensive transformations with T&E, which were CEO-sponsored, and what we thought would’ve solved the T&E issue didn’t….We got it wrong the first time, in all candor. We were thinking simplifying this or that would increase user effectiveness and experience and it really [didn't].</li>
<li>It’s very important to focus on creating partnerships and establishing yourself as a real partner with your key stakeholders…really conveying a message of common benefit.”</li>
</ol>
<p>Because SAP Concur is an industry leader and was already supporting operations well in some countries for Smith & Nephew, they were able to implement Global Business Services across their organization. “At the end of the day, this is how you tackle risks and at the same time is a tool that allows you to increase user experience and improve it in a significant way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Human-centered technology: Early adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)</h2>
<p>One of the risky moves Smith & Nephew made was to be an early adopter of AI, and it brought them great success. “When deciding and modelling, you have to make sure that it is something relevant as time passes,” shares Monge. “You have to think maybe five to ten years ahead. So we were risky–we were really taking this risk of deploying AI for the first time. I think that we were one of the first <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/detect-expense-fraud">Concur Detect</a> users and the fact that we took that chance has proven to be a really good investment. We have received good feedback and our process is very mature because of it.” While he couldn’t share specific numbers, Monge told us that auditing processes are now seamless at Smith & Nephew. “We have been able to identify things that no human could have identified, because this tool looks it up…the fact that we have been able to do that really has been a success story.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Recovery and future-scaping: More human, more simple</h2>
<p>As the conversation between Monge and Klippenstein closed, the industry leaders shared their thoughts on the coming years of recovery from the pandemic.</p>
<p>“The global situation is going to change how people travel,” shares Klippenstein. “Recovery is going to be top of mind for everyone and a global camaraderie around that. COVID-19 did not just impact one country or just a single population...and I think that our programs that we manage, and our customers…are going to have to have that mindset. We’re going to have to think about what’s best for our people, what’s best for the impact on the globe, [and how] we contribute to the recovery effort across the business. And, it seems weird to connect it to T&E, but we’re mobilizing employees–that’s what this solution does–to do their job and contribute to the revenue of the business and the process of the business.”</p>
<p>Since Smith & Nephew was able to centralize and streamline its travel and expense program as a model for other areas of innovation in the organization, Klippenstein’s hopeful future-scaping is pleasantly hopeful. “To me, the next five years look like a lot of control around dollars and cents and making sure it makes sense to spend that money. It’s also going to be about protecting employees and protecting people. We’ve got to bring a human element back into this. Great process streamlined to the fullest and all the buy-in in the world don't change the fact that you still have to protect the person,” continues Klippenstein. As we progress into 2021, Smith & Nephew’s story is a hopeful indicator of successful recovery and innovation across the globe.</p>
<p>“More human, more flexible, and we’re going to need technologies that are going to help with that flexibility…There’s no time to waste…this is a feeder to other simplifications across the organization and it’s an example of what’s possible,” shares Klippenstein.</p>
<p>Learn about the Smith & Nephew innovation story:</p>
<p>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-1-3">How Smith & Nephew struck a balance between employee experience and compliance</a> </p>
<p>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-0">How Smith & Nephew increased spend accuracy</a></p>
<p>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-3-3">How Smith & Nephew streamlined executive spend management decisions</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
Is It Okay to Grow Now?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/it-okay-grow-now
2021-04-05T08:58:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
After the last year or so every question is a valid question Should we hunker down Should we stick with status quo Should we stretch our legs a little Its pretty clear that of these...
<p>After the last year or so, every question is a valid question. “Should we hunker down?” “Should we stick with status quo?” “Should we stretch our legs a little?”</p>
<p>It’s pretty clear that of these three, status quo doesn’t get you very far. No business can do things the old way and expect to succeed in whatever the new normal is. Hunkering down isn’t the best bet either. Businesses that used their downtime to upgrade technologies have seen their newfound flexibility navigate unforeseen changes and challenges.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Reset for Growth</h2>
<p>How financial leaders can chart a course into the future</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/reset-growth-financial-leaders-chart-course-future">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>But stretching yourself a little? Where does that get you?</p>
<p>Everywhere. Businesses at the forefront of growth in 2021 are those who took the turmoil of 2020 and turned it into a sort of “reset culture.” They were willing to reconsider their processes and were ready to change them. They were eager to re-evaluate how they get work done and happy to rework their procedures. They were capable of stretching themselves when it was easier to contract – and instead of drawing the line, they crossed it and made a commitment to continuous improvement.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The key is control</h2>
<p>So yes, it’s okay to get out there and get growing again. In fact, as our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/reset-growth-financial-leaders-chart-course-future">joint whitepaper with Deloitte shows</a>, many business leaders are looking at 2021 as the year to grow. And they’re doing it by taking control of costs.</p>
<p>These leaders (incidentally, they’re financial leaders) have invested in travel-, expense-, and invoice-management tools to give themselves an edge: They know what they’ve got to spend, so they can quickly made definitive decisions that drive business growth.</p>
<p>They’re not wondering what’s being spent or where their budgets stand. They know, so they can act now. And they’re committed to knowing more.</p>
<ul>
<li>They’re investing in AI and machine learning tools that provide in-depth analytics into spending while pointing out which policies work and which need to be improved.</li>
<li>They’re setting up simple, pre-approval standards that let them control spend before it happens.</li>
<li>They’re moving towards a 100% audit policy and getting accurate, automatic assurance that each expense and every invoice is correct.</li>
<li>They’re going after their fair share of $40 billion in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/vat-in-the-new-world">value-added-tax reclaim</a>, and because they have the tech to trim complexities out of the process, they’re getting it.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Efficiency is always more effective</h2>
<p>Financial leaders investing in these changes don’t simply want to get things moving again, they want things to move faster. Efficiency is everything in business – no surprise there – but in our post-pandemic world, no one can afford to let process or procedure or inaccurate information slow them down. No company can afford to have “too much data to use;” they must be able to immediately access exactly the data they need and only the data they need. They must continue to adapt as they learned last year and be able to make sudden-but-significant shifts in direction.</p>
<p>Businesses have to turn on a dime to outpace changes in the market; their quick adjustments are the only way to keep moving forward.</p>
<p>This course for growth – through adaptability, efficiency, cost control, and the tools that make it possible – are outlined in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/reset-growth-financial-leaders-chart-course-future" target="_blank">whitepaper</a>, which highlights why this is the year to get going.</p>
<p>Take a look, because it’s time.</p>
SAP Concur Team
New Global Survey Reveals Employees Connect Travel to Business Success
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-reveals-employees-connect-travel-business-success
2021-05-17T09:22:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
New research commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in April May revealed a shift in priorities for business travelers amid COVID The data offers powerful insights for...
<p>New research commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in April – May 2021 revealed a shift in priorities for business travelers amid COVID-19. The data offers powerful insights for organizations to consider as they continue to think about the evolution of their travel programs, suggesting that employees see travel as essential for both professional and personal reasons. Ninety-six percent of respondents are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months, including 65 percent who are very willing!</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1621012825719-96 percent willing to travel.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Notable highlights of the responding 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets include:</p>
<p><strong>It’s personal. Travelers believe their career success and fulfillment depend on a return to business travel. </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-two percent of respondents are motivated to travel for business this year for personal reasons, including making personal connections with customers and colleagues (54 percent), experiencing new places (52 percent), and taking a break from their everyday life (41 percent).
<ul>
<li>That said, four in five business travelers worry that unless they increase business travel this year, their personal (80 percent) and professional lives (80 percent) will suffer.</li>
<li>Respondents listed personal concerns about the ability to develop and maintain business connections (45 percent), making less money (38 percent), and not advancing in their career (33 percent). In fact, one in five (18 percent) are worried they could lose their job if they are unable to increase their business travel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Respondents also felt that if business travel does not increase, it will be more difficult for their company to build new relationships (38 percent), and it would result in fewer new deals signed (37 percent) and fewer contract renewals with existing clients (34 percent).</li>
<li>Heavy workloads and unused vacation days also mean workers want to make the most of any upcoming business travel—89 percent say they will add personal vacation time to their business trips in the next 12 months.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1621012891977-89 percent personal trips.png" /></p>
<p><strong>But COVID-19 has also altered power dynamics in the workplace. Business travelers will consider their options if employers don’t match their expectations. </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Two out of three respondents (68 percent) clearly state that they want to return to business travel, but they want to do so on their own terms.</li>
<li>Almost a third (31 percent) say they would ask to limit travel if their company does not implement policies or measures to help protect their health and safety, while 20 percent would go as far as looking for a different position.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Travel flexibility is moving to the forefront for business travelers, while safety is taking a back seat. </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Flexibility, such as choosing your transportation, lodging, and travel dates, is now the most pressing need for business travelers, ahead of their vaccination-related demands (72 percent vs. 62 percent).</li>
<li>In contrast, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/global-survey-covid-19-impact-business-travel">in 2020</a>, ensuring personal health and safety while traveling was the most important consideration for business travelers.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Additional findings—including how businesses can address travelers’ requirements to rebuild trust and retain talent—will be released and discussed during the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a> on June 17, 2021.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com), a leading independent provider of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research, among 3,850 business travelers (defined as those who travelled for business three or more times in the past 24 months, and who work in a role that will likely require them to resume business travel when it is safe to do so) from the following markets: US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia, New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore, Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. The survey took place April-May 2021.</p>
SAP Concur Team
The Long Road Back to Business Travel is Getting Shorter
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/long-road-back-business-travel-getting-shorter
2021-06-24T08:00:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You remember that trip out west with your parents when you were ten How it took forever and you werent quite sure where you were going and all you had was a promise that it would be...
<p>You remember that trip out west with your parents when you were ten? How it took forever, and you weren’t quite sure where you were going, and all you had was a promise that it would be great when you got there?</p>
<p>Yeah, that trip. That’s where we are again, except we’re not headed to your uncle’s house, we’re getting corporate travel back up off the ground. And it has been…a…very…long…haul. One with enough hairpin turns to ensure that you can’t take your hands off the wheel for even a moment.</p>
<p>But as a travel manager, this is nothing new to you. You’ve perfected the art of adaptation, and as is often necessary, re-adaptation. And according to our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">Global Travel Manager Report 2021</a>, you’re expecting to adapt again: 60% of travel managers in the Americas and 58% in Europe anticipate upcoming changes in government regulations that will ultimately force changes in your policies.</p>
<p>Add to that the fact that nearly all of you – 99% – expect additional challenges in the next 12 months. You’ll be, as the report points out:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dealing with last-minute trip changes and cancellations.</li>
<li>Wrangling a very literal wealth of unused tickets to (attempt) to reuse.</li>
<li>Navigating the aforementioned government regulations, and well, everything else that changed in the last 16 months.</li>
</ul>
<p>While you’re busy with all that, you’ll not only be restarting but reshaping your travel program. And instead of doing it in relative obscurity, the eyes of your organization will be upon you – from the C-suite to every last traveler itching to get out on the road again (which, according to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">the report</a>, is 68% of your traveling headcount).</p>
<p>Your ability to fire up the engines of business travel is critical to regaining confidence and rebuilding business momentum.</p>
<ul>
<li>The boardroom is looking at you to deliver the policies, practices, and predictability that will get and keep your business moving.</li>
<li>Finance is looking at you to help them ensure the efficiency they need from every dollar, yen, and euro they spend on travel.</li>
<li>And your road warriors are looking to you to keep them safer and more informed than ever before.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, while the return to travel is approaching the jetway, and you’ve worked nonstop in getting us to the gate, we’re not slipping the surly bonds of earth just yet. Or, to use still another tired travel metaphor, we ain’t going nowhere fast.</p>
<p>What is getting there going to take? Flexibility.</p>
<p>This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you, either; the changes mentioned above keep coming. The budget still requires nimble navigation. Compliance is more of a concern than ever. And travelers’ expectations have gone from “But I want to stay in a five-star hotel” to “I need to know the vaccination policies in Vlorë, Albania…and I want to stay in a five-star hotel.”</p>
<p>To stay on your feet – not to mention march forward at the ever-increasing pace of progress – you’re going to need help. The most successful travel managers will implement tools and solutions that support business priorities while providing a greater level of duty-of-care protection and the flexibility business travelers now demand. Without the right tools, any new policies you put in place will struggle. Without the right tech, you’ll be left with old solutions to new problems.</p>
<p>There’s no need to go on this journey alone, because no one’s ever gone where travel managers are now going: A post-pandemic business world.</p>
<p>If you want to find that copilot, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">read the report</a>. </p>
Neha Mehta
Find Out If You Have the Spend Control to Stay Agile and Meet the Future Head-On
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/find-out-if-you-have-spend-control-stay-agile-and-meet-future-head
2022-07-01T12:15:48Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business agility depends on staying on top of spend As recent history has shown change is both constant and can happen in an instant Keeping a close eye on costs and improving your...
<p>Business agility depends on staying on top of spend.</p>
<p>As recent history has shown, change is both constant and can happen in an instant. Keeping a close eye on costs and improving your cash flow is critical to your company’s ability to both weather challenges and embrace new opportunity.</p>
<p>Truly effective spend management means having control over every dollar – no matter the department, employee, location, spend category, or payment method. Any gaps in your processes or spend data limit your visibility and control – opening the door to risk and unnecessary costs.</p>
<p>But achieving total spend control doesn’t happen overnight. It’s often a gradual process that involves coordination between departments – especially finance and IT. Your goal should be to connect all types of spend, digitalize all your spend management processes, and empower everyone across your company to make smart spending choices that meet requirements while also protecting the bottom line. With the right spend management capabilities, you can stay a step ahead of the competition – no matter what the world throws at you.</p>
<p>The question is: When it comes to spend visibility and control, where does your business stand?</p>
<p>To help you find out, we’ve created the <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-business-agility-assessment">Business Agility Assessment</a> tool.</p>
<p>With just seven short questions, we can help you evaluate your spend management processes.</p>
<p>To begin with, we’ll look at your expense and invoice management. Are you still using paper-, e-mail-, and spreadsheet-based processes and manually checking for errors? Or are you fully automated – from receipt and PO capture to intelligent exception flagging and workflow approvals – all through mobile devices? Or maybe your business falls somewhere in between.</p>
<p>We’ll also explore how integrated your spend management processes are with each other and with your back-end ERP, HR, and CRM systems. This can range from having various, unconnected systems for expense, invoice, and travel management to integration across your IT landscape, enabling unified processes, holistic data, and deep cash flow insight. Your answers, of course, will help shed light on how reliable your data is and how fast you can get it when making time-sensitive business decisions and identifying potential red flags that could lead to increased risk.</p>
<p>In addition to evaluating your spend management processes and data, we’ll also take a look at your level of spend control. For example, do you have a hard time predicting cash flow? Do you find yourself paying late fees to vendors, missing out on discounts, or keep up with employee reimbursement schedules? Or do you feel like you have full control – including the ability to quickly audit expense reports, catch duplicate invoices before they’re paid, and flag noncompliant spend before it happens?</p>
<p>Finally, we’ll ask about your spend management solution provider. Do they have the technology, services, and support you need to achieve your goals today while also maintaining the agility you need to quickly scale with your business in the future? Do they offer a complete and integrated spend management solution that can be connected to a wealth of third-party apps and systems that allow you to customize processes in a way that fits your exact business?</p>
<p>Once complete, we’ll score your level of business agility based on the answers you provide. Whether you get the highest score indicating fully automated and integrated spend management; are still getting there with some but not all of your spend management covered; or are really starting from square one – we’ll offer advice on types of improvements you should consider and some insight into the benefits you can expect to see as you continue to expand your spend management landscape and control.</p>
<p>Finally, regardless of your results, we’ll give you access to our spend management toolkit, offering an array of information from best practices to planning templates to thought leadership papers and more. Plus, if you’re already using SAP Concur solutions, we’ll give you a complete overview of our partner apps to help extend the value of your existing spend management technology.</p>
<p>So, what are you waiting for?</p>
<p>Take the <a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-business-agility-assessment">Business Agility Assessment</a> today.</p>
<p>It may end up being one of the best three-minute business investment you ever make.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
This Isn’t Even Scary
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/isnt-even-scary
2023-07-19T15:24:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
A few years ago we published a whitepaper entitled The Robots are Coming It garnered significant attention because while it was about the advancement of artificial intelligence AI and...
<p>A few years ago, we published a whitepaper entitled The Robots are Coming. It garnered significant attention because, while it was about the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and their ability to sort through oceans of data, automate manual business processes, and instantly inform business decisions, the paper tapped into human fears of being replaced (or, you know, overtaken) by machines.</p>
<p>Well, the robots are here.</p>
<p>In the latest <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">The Robots are Here</a> whitepaper, we now explore the ubiquity of AI and ML in business. And the news is not only good, it’s getting even better. So no, not scary at all.</p>
<p>Intelligent technology is not only fueling our smartphones and learning to drive our cars, it’s working behind the scenes in business – managing back-office practices in ways we could hardly have imagined just a handful of years ago.</p>
<p>AI isn’t taking over our jobs, it’s taking on risk.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281474-machine-learning-3.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Robots Are Here</h2>
<p>How AI and ML Automation Solutions Can Solve Business Problems</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="http://concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Let’s say you have 10,000 employees. Odds are, you’ve got 10,000 different interpretations of your spending policies. Yet these people are out there every day, spending your business’s money. They’re traveling (or will be again soon), they’re racking up expenses, and while your policies keep things (mostly) in check, there are countless ways they’re inadvertently putting your company at risk. And this doesn’t even include your invoice processes and the multitude of opportunities for errors there.</p>
<p>Now imagine if it was all manual and the only way to review it was to physically read it all.</p>
<p>Okay, that is a pretty scary thought. Which is why it’s good to know certain solutions have AI and ML built right in and built to evolve right along with your company. Because the “smart robots” working for you don’t need to blink, they don’t take time off, and they don’t miss a thing. They just highlight what it is you need to know about your spending, so you can take action. And because they continuously improve themselves, it makes it easier to continuously improve your business.</p>
<p>The robots don’t cheat.</p>
<p>Sure, auditors might love their jobs (and we certainly don’t fault them for that), but no one – no one – is going to look at every single line item, examine every single transaction, and cross-check every single thing for mistakes and outright fraud. No one has that much time. Instead, they sample 10-20% of transactions and hope for the best. So when someone does commit fraud, the odds are in their favor. In fact, expense fraud typically goes on for two full years before it gets noticed.</p>
<p>How much do you think that costs you?</p>
<p>Auditing 100% of your expenses and invoices by hand just isn’t feasible. But with the right solution, intelligent technology can review it all in an instant. That way, your auditors and other AP types have time to solve the problems AI discovers, instead of randomly stumbling upon them themselves.</p>
<p>You’re just not as good with taxes as they are.</p>
<p>Sure, you might be a tax expert. One of the best, even. But with GST, HST, and VAT impacting you in different ways in different countries on different days, it’s impossible to keep up. Businesses often have entire teams to stay on top of changing rules and regulations, but billions still get left on the table (54% of unclaimed VAT adds up fast).</p>
<p>And with this much money on the line, the last thing you want to do is slip up on your taxes.</p>
<p>Intelligent technologies, when embedded with tax knowledge, can digitalize the entire compliance process, automatically checking transactions against local tax regulations to find significant reclaim opportunities.</p>
<p>So yes, the robots are here. They’re may already be working for you. And the only thing that should make you nervous is how you ever got by without them. Get the details when you <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-use-ai-and-ml-automation-to-solve-business-problems">download the whitepaper.</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Invoice Demo: Discover How to Automate Invoices
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-invoice-demo-discover-how-automate-invoices
2022-07-01T17:05:09Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Vendor invoices are a critical part of your business and theyre a strong indicator of financial health and cash flow Thats why its necessary to have an invoice management solution that...
<p>Vendor invoices are a critical part of your business and they’re a strong indicator of financial health and cash flow. That’s why it’s necessary to have an invoice management solution that you trust and that makes the job of your accounts payable (AP) team quicker and more efficient.</p>
<p>Concur Invoice streamlines the entire capture-to-pay process, drastically reduces processing times, and gives organizations the control they need to make proactive business decisions.</p>
<p>We have a self-guided demo to show you exactly how.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Invoice Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>See first-hand how to make your invoice processing paperless with Concur Invoice</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Try it Now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>When you begin the demo, the first thing you’ll see is a payment request for some office furniture. Concur Invoice captures all vendor invoices – no matter the format. For paper invoices, Invoice Capture uses OCR technology and SAP Leonardo Machine Learning to auto-populate data followed by human validation to ensure information from the header and line item level of the invoice are accurate before it gets processed. This allows you to eliminate paper and reduce manual entries. For this demonstration, though, you’ll start with a pre-populated invoice.</p>
<p>Your invoices are then automatically routed for approval based on your department. This prevents invoices from sitting on someone’s desk and getting lost in the shuffle, adding efficiency and peace of mind to your overall invoice management process. Once that’s completed, you’ll see all of your comments and distribution codes that you can then save and submit.</p>
<p>Next, the demo will show you how easy it is to approve invoices and prepare them for payment. Finally, you’ll be able to check the processor dashboard to see every vendor invoice in the AP system and filter them, so you only see reports with a certain status, or check the audit trail to see their history. This is how Concur Invoice offers you greater visibility into all of the spending that’s happening across the business.</p>
<p>Try out the <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a> today to learn more about how it works and how it can help your business automate invoices and eliminate paper from the process completely.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want more? Take our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a> for a spin! </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Supplier-Direct Bookings in Our Post COVID World
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/supplier-direct-bookings-our-post-covid-world
2022-07-01T17:22:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
One of the most controversial topics for travel managers over the years has been supplierdirect bookings SDBs Also referred to as open booking invisible spend out of system...
<p>One of the most controversial topics for travel managers over the years has been supplier-direct bookings (SDBs). Also referred to as open booking, invisible spend, out of system, non-compliant, etc.</p>
<p>Certainly, pre-pandemic, the number of SDBs was growing at a continual pace due to the personalization of travel. Suppliers are getting on board with their "book direct low-price guarantees" and applying extra fees for not booking directly on their websites.</p>
<p>Suppliers don't just want to go B2B but rather the next phase: B2T – business to traveler.</p>
<p>While COVID was the great flattening across a vast portion of the global travel industry for 2020 into 2021, it ushered in our resilience and drove our creativity and adaptability. The truth is, we as an industry, as a global community, will come out of this stronger than ever before. And with that, I firmly believe SDBs will continue to increase.</p>
<p>So why do I think this will be the case?</p>
<p>It isn't just my opinion; instead, I hear this from multiple travel managers of major corporations. I am also reading this in articles and hearing this in travel industry summits and travel forums.</p>
<p>Post-pandemic travel is demanding that traveler flexibility be afforded our travel communities. The growing number of SDBs we are seeing aligns with survey after survey that highlight travelers' desires for more freedom of choice and the flexibility to choose the travel supplier they feel most comfortable with from a health and safety standpoint.</p>
<p>Travel communities have become emboldened for their greater good and not just that of the company. Travelers' personalization will be first and foremost, before cost and even over supplier relationships.</p>
<p>As I have said many times over the years – transparency equals compliance. It's about obtaining "true transparency" for all bookings taking place across a travel program, irrespective of the source.</p>
<p>This is where SAP Concur solutions – like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/triplink">Concur TripLink</a> – play a vital role in providing the end-to-end transparency that travel managers need moving forward. If you can see what travelers are doing, pre, during, and post travel, you can take corrective actions as necessary. Taking control of SDBs is key to paving a pathway to travel program compliance.</p>
<p>The first step in dealing with realities is acceptance.</p>
<p>SDBs are not a sign of failure of a travel program, but more so the reality of trust and empowerment in one's travel community.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/toolkit/en/triplink/administrator">Concur TripLink Admin Toolkit</a> provides resources for getting started and driving user adoption.</p>
<p>Discover ways to leverage your Concur TripLink investment with these on-demand mini-webinars, where in just 15 mintues you’ll learn how Concur TripLink works, what it delivers, and how your peers are using it:</p>
<p><a href="https://go.concur.com/top5waystotakeadvantageofconcurtriplinkin15minutes_registrationpage.html">Top 5 Ways to Take Advantage of Concur TripLink in 15 Minutes</a></p>
<p><a href="https://go.concur.com/top5waystoleverageyourconcurtriplinkinvestmentin15minutes_registrationpage.html">Top 5 Ways to Leverage Your Concur TripLink Investment in 15 Mintues</a></p>
Ralph Colunga
A Blueprint for a Better Event: Democratizing Meeting Planning, An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation with Groupize
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/blueprint-better-event-democratizing-meeting-planning-sap-concur-podcast-conversation
2022-07-02T05:21:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In a time when selfserve is the new fullservice event essentials now include things like instant communication event ROI reporting and seamless event experiences for all stakeholders...
<p>In a time when, “self-serve is the new full-service,” event essentials now include things like instant communication, event ROI reporting, and seamless event experiences for all stakeholders. Having deep levels of database and platform integration not only keeps things running smoothly, but also dynamically optimizes programs real-time and into the future. Roles and responsibilities are also changing greatly in the event management space. “Every single industry has meetings, and they all have different problems to solve. And that's the beauty of an all-in-one platform that's configured to meet their needs,” shared Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien co-founder of Groupize. Listen to her vibrant conversation with Susan Isaacson, Principal Solutions Consultant for SAP Concur, as they discuss how to plan and conduct better events in a post-pandemic world.</p>
<p>You can listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-blueprint-for-a-better-event-democratizing/id1525744763?i=1000548136992">Apple</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V">Amazon</a> | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/4BFgV13T1xVqI9z1chCqpk">Spotify</a> |<a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur/a-blueprint-for-a-better--EP0Lz3FelV/"> Listen Notes</a> | <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/a-blueprint-for-a-better-event-democratizing-meeting-plannin">Acast</a> | <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzVmMjJlOWJjNGJjYWYwN2EwNzgzYWEwYQ/episode/NjFlNTliN2RkMWRjNGUwMDEzMjU1NjIz?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwi4iMj2tsH1AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg">Google</a> or your favorite place to find podcasts.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson:</strong></p>
<p>Hello, my name is Susan Isaacson, and I am a Principal Solutions Consultant at SAP Concur. Today, I'm very excited to talk to Alisa about our partnership with Groupize. Hi, Alisa!</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Thank you, Susan. I'm Alisa de Gaspé Beaubien and I am the co-founder of Groupize, and I am delighted to be here today to talk about Concur Event Management and how we can help companies have better events, help organizers get more time back in their day, and help the attendees have a better experience before, during and after every event.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>It's so exciting because I have been one of the people that have – I'm not a professional meeting planner in any stretch of the word. However, I have had experience with meeting planning. For an example, a few years ago, I was planning our event for just the Solution Consultants at Fusion, which is our big event for Concur. But I was in charge of about 40 people and the 40 people needed to know what hotels they were staying [at] when they were coming in, when they were leaving, when we needed to do dinner, what size shirts they had, all of these types of things.</p>
<p>And I literally, Alisa, had a six to twenty tabbed spreadsheet. So how could have you helped me?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Wow. I think that your experience is common and so relatable to so many roles in any organization. I think that every single company and every single department has people that are tasked with planning events and meetings. Sometimes they're not called events and meetings. They're a get together a gathering. Maybe it's a project that you're going out to visit. But I think the common thread that they all have between it is typically the most organized person in the department is tasked with managing it, and you probably experienced it, it was a full-time job on top of your full-time job! So, I definitely admire your persistence to get through it, and you probably did feel responsible for the experience of your 40 colleagues as well. So, to kind of fast-forward to how we could have helped you. I think there's endless ways we could have helped you as well as your organization and all of the people that were going to the event. Concur Event Management is an all-in-one solution that can be leveraged to manage a meetings program, such as the spend, or individual event logistics. So, I think today we can focus on the individual event logistics and how anyone in the organization can help have a better meeting. So, one of the questions that I get asked frequently is, how does Concur Event Management actually manage the 43% of T&E spend that comes from groups and meetings? And how is [that] done is by managing the individual events and all of their logistics?</p>
<p>So, this solution helps companies by managing the entire category of spend, but [also] helps their organizers and their attendees have better meetings by managing the individual event logistics. So, whether an organization is focused on managing their spend or elevating their event experience, they don't have to choose because they actually get both.</p>
<p>And many companies have under-managed this category of spend, and this gives them the opportunity to seamlessly bundle this spend management into their core solutions. So, you can think of it as maybe someone asked you, Susan, you know, who you know that you needed to start coordinating this meeting? Or did that come from someone on your team that kind of said, Guess what? You're in charge?</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Yeah. So, a lot of times here, like it's a blessing in disguise, right? It's like you should do this and you're like, OK. And then all of a sudden, I need to order shirts and things for like 40 different people and figure out when they're coming in and when they're going to be in the booth and all of these things that I'm like, yeah, that's what I thought I was going to do.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Well, I know, you know what, a lot of people, it does sound glamorous from the outside, and I think it's probably more of a reality to people that have planned, or organized meetings in the past is that it's really a logistics role. It's kind of getting all of the right people to all of the right places, and often in a company, someone maybe hasn't had experience in organizing a meeting before, and they're kind of like, where do we start? Sure, I planned a family vacation or maybe my wedding, but I haven't done a meeting before.</p>
<p>So, the concept behind Concur Event Management essentially democratizes event planning [and] meeting management. And so, anyone within the company can log in to the Concur Event Management and it recognizes the user. So, it would say, “Hi Susan, what would you like to do today?” And one of the options would be to plan and start a meeting. So just like Concur Travel has rules, Concur Event Management has rules, that's going to help you know what you can do or when you should be asking someone else on your team for help. So, the solution would allow you to go in and start with registering the meeting. It needs to get on the calendar. Everybody else needs to know that this event is happening so that nothing is organized over it.</p>
<p>And then after you have it on the calendar, so the organization knows it's happening, then you need to move into finding the venue. So, another question, Susan, I think when we have talked in the past that you've shared with me that has come up is about what really does self-service mean and is that a good thing or a bad thing? And so, I liken it to just like Concur invented the online booking tool for travel. The Concur Event Management is the online booking tool for meetings and events. 15, 20 years ago, we used to have to call a travel agent to make it airline booking, and maybe five years ago we had to call a meeting planner to make a meeting reservation. And in today's world, while we still very much rely on our travel agents and our meeting planners, there are some categories of events that are better suited to be managed by an individual within an organization.</p>
<p>So, self-service does not mean giving up controls or, you know, prohibiting any part of the experience. It's just today's world that people want to be able to manage more components by themselves, and now they can. I hope to talk about later.</p>
<p>I had heard a little rumor that you have a meeting coming up in Q1 and it's happening in five different locations. So, logging into a portal and picking a venue. You know, that's a very important task in this whole process. So, within the solution, you're actually able to go in and say, OK, my event is happening in Seattle on these dates. I think there's going to be about 40 people and we're going to need three nights of hotel rooms and we're going to need meeting space and a projector and some coffee. And if you've ever gone to a hotel website, finding that information is hard, it's often hidden and hotels enforce a kind of a process where you have to fill out a form, send it in. It kind of goes into this blank black, you know, black hole and people may respond to you in a few days, and there's no instant gratification for that. But what can Concur Event Management does is it allows you to shop all venues within a location that would be appropriate for your meeting, and it would also have things like your company's preferred rates, preferred deals, et cetera. So, you'd actually have the power to shop multiple venues at one time, and you could even put in four or five, ten, fifteen – get fifteen bids or two bids, whatever your policy is, and then you'd be able to send it to the hotel. And believe it or not, 80% of hotels respond within twelve business hours. And if they haven't responded to you, it's going to send a follow up to the hotel at 24 and 72 hours.</p>
<p>So that's often the pain point. So, after you've got all of your bids, the solution would automatically fill in a spreadsheet and give you a cost comparison report.</p>
<p>So, you'd be able to take it to someone else on your team and say, “Gosh, I've just went out. I have bids from five different hotels. Let's pick one together.” It sounded like, Susan, in your going to Fusion. Maybe hotels were already selected and then you picked up after the venue was chosen. Is that true?</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>That was the fact, Alisa. But I love that you brought up this other situation that we are in right now, and I probably have a question. And then maybe some follow up questions. So, we are having a sales meeting, I'll just put it called sales, even though I'm not technically in sales in Florida and again, it's the venue selection, it's the menus, it's the negotiating, the contracts and then above and beyond that, we need to make sure that people are: A) vaccinated and/or have a COVID test, and B) that we have less than or 100 or less and people in each individual hotel. So, I'm wondering how you're dealing with situations like that?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Wow. Well, first and foremost, I am thrilled to hear that you are getting together in person. I definitely believe there is no replacement for that. And, you know, in the industry in the past two years, there was, you know, an obvious and necessary transition to virtual.</p>
<p>There's a lot of talk out there about hybrid. Some industry experts actually call hybrid what you're saying. It is one meeting that used to take place as a large group, and now it's happening in smaller groups, in different locations.</p>
<p>So, whether you know it or not, I think you're going to a hybrid meeting. And I think that meeting and event planning was always challenging, and in today's world, there's even more moving parts. So, you are correct with selecting the venue, and I'm going to answer your question about kind of the protocols of attending.</p>
<p>But I want to also point out whoever selected that hotel probably had safety protocols in that venue selection. So, one of the features of this platform is allowing to ask those questions, those safety questions to help with venue selection.</p>
<p>So, I'm sure that was done. And in the solution, there's also functionality called "registration." So, most people have been to Fusion before, and they've received an invitation. An email comes in and it says “Alisa, please come to Fusion,” and you're so excited to get it and you click to learn more.</p>
<p>That's actually a functionality called "registration." So, Concur Event Management does that. [It] sends out invitations, save the dates, and allows you to start to register for the event. So, registering for the event can be as simple as, "I'm Alisa and I'm coming," or it can be more comprehensive that would allow me to, first and foremost, opt into any regulations for travel.</p>
<p>So, I think we're in today's world, regulations change every single day, and you want people to recognize that they have responsibility for attending a meeting. So right from the get-go, it's going to say, Susan, do you really want to come to this meeting? And of course, I'm sure you would say “yes!” Yeah. And then you'd be able to go through a more typical registration, maybe answering some questions dietary preferences, emergency contacts. But it would also allow you to upload a vaccination card. So that would allow you to have a more seamless experience on-site so that you wouldn't have to stand in a long line and show it to someone. The organization would already have it on file. So that's going to improve the attendee experience during – they don't have to go through that hassle. But more importantly, it's also can be auditable in the future for the organization so they can go back in any time and say, “Gosh, you know, 50 people are coming, 48 uploaded their vaccination card in advance and two people showed it on-site.” So, we're able to track at that level and more so after the event. If there's any need for communication, we have reports on every single logistic of the meeting, but also contact tracing. So, if any notifications needed to go out, you'd be able to have that communication tool as well. So, I liken this tool as the tool for today and tomorrow.</p>
<p>And also, one last point: You know, who knows what could change during now and then? Maybe something would change in your personal schedule or change that some of this would be virtual. This platform allows a person or a meeting to transition to virtual or back to in-person with just a click of a button. And I think that's a unique and exclusive functionality in this tool because most systems you'd actually have to start over. Can you imagine if you had to start over after you'd already done all the work you were talking about?</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>No, I can't. And I love how you streamline that communication. And then also, if you needed to bring it to virtual like we did in 2020 with our SAP Concur event, Fusion, that would have made things so much easier in some ways to make, you know, for a better event, not only for the employees that were coming to speak and present at the event and the vendors that were coming and having their booth at the event and everything else, but just a better event in general that could have come across like that.</p>
<p>It's like almost like a blueprint. Also, I was thinking as we're planning to do more in-person things. A blueprint for like if you had an event this year and things went well and you had all of this information and reporting how it would, how would does that benefit companies going forward?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>So, you said a few things there that really got me excited. So, I am so excited to answer that question. The first is kind of that blueprint-slash-playbook. One of the tenets of this platform is ease of use, and it is designed for an occasional planner. So, some meeting systems in the marketplace. Gosh, I've always thought you needed a Ph.D. to use. So, nobody needs to worry about that. Nobody needs to be intimidated by technology. The system has playbooks-slash-templates that you could come in and look at last year's event and clone it and basically bring over all of the components that are still relevant. And they're already built for you. And you can maybe just change the date or location, but everything else is there. So, and it would also show you budget and venue negotiations that would really give you that playbook of where to start.</p>
<p>I know in my past careers, when I was asked to plan a meeting kind of "year two," it would be dig out the binder, try to remember, where did we go, what did we spend? So, we take all of that, which is usually just floating in multiple disparate systems and bring it into one. But that one other area that I think was very interesting and what you just mentioned was about vendors and speakers. And I think that's an under-discussed topic as well is that many meetings and events bring in people that are not employees of the company. In Concur speak, "non-profile travelers."</p>
<p>So, Concur Event management is the best solution in the market for managing non-profile travelers. And I think there's some crazy statistic right now that about 43% of workers are contingent workers, which I think is another word for gig economy, but contractors, projects, etc. So essentially with Concur Event Management, you can take all of the Concur Travel tools you're used to using for employees in a self-service and make it available to non-profile travelers and your contractors or your "HCPs." And that's really powerful because there's massive savings, and it also improves the experience. Nobody wants to call and make a booking anymore, so allowing them to self-serve in Concur self-serve is the new full service.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I completely agree with that, Alisa. And the other thing that I think about is when I used to go to events and I like I said, I've been here for a long time, so it doesn't happen that much lately. But when I used to go to an event, you know, you'd go book something here, expense something there, and then how does it come to fruition, like with the reconciliation? So, figuring out how to plan for next year, what did we budget for all of those things? How does that come into play for you?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>It's a very important component of an event, and this platform helps companies before, during and after the event. So obviously reconciliation comes in after. There are two areas, which I think it provides value. One is for the actual attendee. It can automate expenses that are associated with travel to the meeting, and it also allows whoever is tasked with reconciling it, whether it's someone in accounting or another individual that was not the planner, with their reconciliation features. And of course, being able to track the budget from an approved budget all the way through to negotiated and final. That also provides a blueprint for future years, and it allows you to report on your entire year meeting program, which really goes into cost control, et cetera.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, I think that speaks to what an entire organization would want to do. "Was this event fruitful or not?" Right?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>The actual ROI for the event that is very important to track, and there are so many tracking points within a platform like this that allows you to really, kind of, assess and identify the ROI for your event.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>I remember back a few years ago when I was helping plan an event, the communication, like, I was getting emails and I was like, “Well, OK, what did everybody get this email?” And I would just like, ping or text, my friends. Did they get this email?? How does that work for you guys?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Great question. So, communication is vital in today's world. I think we're all attached to our phones, at all times, and we're an instant gratification world. And I believe that this platform helps all stakeholders, from a company to a planner to an attendee with instant gratification because it has real-time insights into things like itinerary travel plans and, of course, ultimate attendee communication. So, it does allow for easy email communication as well as text messages. I personally love that when I'm in a meeting and it's like, “Hey, the keynote speaker is going on in 15 minutes, you better move down to center stage,” as well as direct messages. So, I think you nailed it on the head that communication is a key component of employee experience and satisfaction.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>I completely agree. It's almost like you sometimes forget where you're supposed to go for certain things. And like you said, if you got a text or an in-mail about that, that would be amazing to be able to know where and where, where you should go during a particular event.</p>
<p>I also love how you guys have pivoted to make a model that is adaptable to change. Like we talked about earlier, the fact that you can upload a COVID vaccination certificate or whatever you're always looking forward and in-time as well.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Yes. And I think, you know, I'm sure it could be a whole other podcast of everything that has changed in the world. And I believe most of the changes are positive. And one of those is system optimization and expansion. It seems like every company I talk to is going through a digital transformation, and they're digitally transforming their organization by necessity and also by desire. We're at a time where people want to use technology to make their lives easier and Concur Event Management does that. And so, taking your core solution of Concur for travel and expense and extending it into an entirely new category that's often about 43% of spend within a company just makes sense in today's world, and it's really about optimizing core solutions and expanding them within a company.</p>
<p>Susan, I have a question for you. Are you seeing any titles change that used to be maybe "travel manager" or "meetings manager" that now might be called "global mobility?" Are you seeing that people that didn't used to have responsibility for meetings now do?</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>That is very interesting. Alisa, and off the top of the cuff! Yes, I have seen that. It is interesting especially, you said, "mobility managers." But yes, they have new titles coming up as well!</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>I know it's fascinating to me, and I think that in today's environment that a lot of budgets that previously were or that were spent on travel have been reallocated into HR departments, and companies want to retain their top talent. They're really focused on employee experience and they're investing in internal meetings. To me, that's one of the most exciting trends that companies are. Well, they've always cared about their employee experience, but it's more defined now, and it's more obvious that they're investing just as much as an employee experience. They're equal VIP's, just as a customer or a prospect, would have been in the past. So, I'm seeing not only new titles, but new departments that are really concerned about better events and that would be HR and Facilities, for example.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I think the same thing, Alisa. And I even think about like small events like we have a small footprint here at SAP Concur, where I am located in Minneapolis. But we haven't had a quote-unquote "holiday party" for many years. And even something like that is where I think your meeting organization like Groupize can help us out a lot.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Well, it could and in two ways. And of course, it makes communications easier between the organizer and the attendees. But you know, when you're doing a meeting like that locally, which many organizations do, whether it's a fun holiday party or a product launch or training. If people are driving, there's typically no duty of care system that focuses on that. So essentially Concur Event Management is the duty of care solution for day meetings, off-site events without an air ticket because otherwise they could just unfortunately be on somebody's Excel spreadsheet on their laptop, and nobody has the visibility.</p>
<p>And which reminds me of another great way that this helps companies control and be compliant is that you don't want people to have the capacity to take spreadsheets with PII and email them all around to hotels and others. So, another key benefit of Concur Event Management is really control and compliance. Whether it's PCI, GDPR, California privacy, all of that is covered as companies need today.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>I totally get that Alisa. It just brings forth to me again my 20 tabbed spreadsheet when I was planning an event for those 40 people. And like I have their emails; I have their emergency contacts. I'm like, "should I really have all of this information?" Probably not. And then also, like a group event like that, you could also put in how to contact like an Uber or Lyft or a taxi, like as part of that, like just that small holiday party. It doesn't have to be huge. It could just be something small like that.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Yes. And I know so many Concur customers could rely on other Concur apps and their app center partners, like you're mentioning Uber or Lyft. This would actually not only be able to put it in kind of recommended that they take it, but also Uber or Lyft, you know, credit numbers as well. So, one of the great things about this solution is also staying within kind of the Concur ecosystem that I have always found so powerful.</p>
<p>Now moving to a different industry in life sciences, this product has recently announced an integration with Medpro that really helps with compliance for health care professionals. So, it's, you know, I think every single industry has meetings and they just have different problems to solve. And that's the beauty of an all-in-one platform that's configured to meet their needs.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>I couldn't agree more. My first, well, not my first job, but when I was in graduate school, I was a speech and debate, not professor, but the coach. And so, I like literally took like I was 22, 23 years old, Alisa. So I took kids in a van and we went to a hotel like throughout the Midwest and even Arizona. Like all of that's so fantastic. And I mean, somebody had to figure out how much we were going to pay for the hotel, how much money they were going to give me and the team to be able to travel not only in the van, but how much per diem we were going to get – all of this. And I think, oh my gosh, if I had what you have now, it would have made even life for 22-year-old Susan so much better.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, and I absolutely agree. And I think there's two themes that I hear from that. One is kind of cost control and spend governance. Having the ability to, you know, approve a budget in advance, approve a form of payment, ensure that payment is in accordance with that organization's terms. But of course, as we were just mentioning kind of the duty of care. In today's world, I doubt many organizations are operating that way. You know, they may be because they don't haven't heard of Concur Event Management yet, but you want the ability to be able to go into one solution and have real-time access to who is where. And I think that's important. I think that's where we bring in risk mitigation. And I think I remember I was speaking to a travel manager of a clothing brand that's a Concur customer not too long ago. And he said the risk by not doing this is unquantifiable. So, there are so many risk points in an event that you can really manage well with this solution that I think that's also compelling and that's where the safety officer might get brought in and just really making sure you're having a better event. You know, we all want to have events, we all want to go to events. We just want to be able to rest-assured that all of those behind-the-scenes important things to a company to mitigate risk are taken care of for us.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Alisa, I loved our conversation today. I am excited to talk to you again. Just so much interesting facts and scenarios. Thank you so much.</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Well, you're welcome. I know. And if you did have Concur Event Management, some of the research shows we could have saved you 23 hours per event. You probably could have gotten home on time for dinner and enjoyed the event. So, looking forward to helping companies have better events, helping organizers have more time in their day, look like a superhero to their colleagues and guests, and make sure that the attendee has a seamless experience and are utilizing the tools that they know so well for both travel and expense.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Thank you for joining us, Alisa. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?</p>
<p><strong>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien</strong></p>
<p>Well, thank you, Susan. I think today's conversation has inspired me. I can't wait to plan my next event, but I just want to ensure that just like all of the Concur products, ensures spend governance, control and compliance, help with employee experience and satisfaction can Concur Event Management follow suit. We're going to help everybody have a better event.</p>
<p><strong>Susan Isaacson</strong></p>
<p>Fantastic. Thanks, Alisa.</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Alisa%20de%20Gaspe%20Beaubien.png" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Alisa de Gaspe Beaubien is the CEO of Groupize, the award-winning, innovative platform for global enterprise-wide meeting and event management. Her Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Administration is the foundation of her highly successful career as a travel executive and entrepreneur. Experiencing the inefficiencies and daily pressures of managing group reservations for more than twenty years with the nation’s leading travel companies inspired Alisa to reimagine an antiquated industry. Today, she is a visionary force, leading the digital transformation to simplify end-to-end meeting management with modern tools. Alisa is a respected thought-leader, advisor, sought-after speaker and proudly served as a member of the Endicott College Board of Trustees and as the President of the Endicott College Alumni Council.</p>
<p>Follow Alisa on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisa-de-gaspe-beaubien-0002973/">LinkedIn</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/susan_isaacson.png" /> </p>
<p>Susan has been with SAP Concur since 2008. As a solution consultant, she has assisted hundreds of customers in analyzing their data to understand what they can do with their employee-initiated spend. Even more importantly, she believes "why" we do something is more important than simple automation.</p>
<p>Susan binges on documentaries and NPR podcasts. She loves board games, gardening, and karaoke. She is based in Minnesota and is a lifelong Twins and Vikings fan.</p>
<p>Follow Susan on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-isaacson-38b3235">LinkedIn</a></p>
Kathryn Kamin
On the Road Again: Track What’s Important by Optimizing Mileage Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/road-again-track-whats-important-optimizing-mileage-spend
2022-07-02T05:37:54Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youve thought a lot about how to track expenses for business purposes particularly when it comes to events and travel But what about mileage While it may seem like a minor expense it...
<p>You’ve thought a lot about how to track expenses for business purposes, particularly when it comes to events and travel. But what about mileage? While it may seem like a minor expense, it pays to learn the nuances. Just take these stats into consideration:</p>
<ul>
<li>Organizations with high mileage report spending up to 10.6% of their travel budget on mileage-related expenses.</li>
<li>A quarter of <a href="https://smartcar.com/blog/self-reported-mileage/#:~:text=Inaccurate%20data&text=A%20quarter%20of%20drivers%20understate,discuss%20in%20the%20section%20below.">drivers </a><a>understate</a> their annual mileage by 6,000 miles or more.</li>
<li>Every year, underreported mileage causes organizations in the United States <a href="https://www.verisk.com/insurance/visualize/auto-insurance-premium-leakage-a-29b-problem-for-the-industry/">$5.4 billion dollars in losses</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The problem is too costly to ignore. By forgoing documentation, your organization is increasing the likelihood of intentional mileage padding and inaccurate reporting required for compliance and tax purposes. And, at some point, these intentional attempts or inaccuracies can add up to impact your bottom line. That’s why it’s so important to hold your mileage spend to the same standards as you would with any other expense, so you can help increase your company’s controls and compliance. To see where your organization stands compared to others in your industry, check out our annual benchmarking data for mileage in 2021.</p>
<div>
<div>
<div> </div>
<h2>2021 enterprise mileage benchmarks by industry</h2>
<p>Enterprise organizations that use SAP Concur solutions report, on average, that their mileage spend makes up 3.7% of their organization’s total expensed spend. If your mileage spend is over this industry benchmark, first rule out if mileage is a large player within your business model, then decide if it’s necessary to take a closer look to reduce mileage spending.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Mileage%20Spend%202022.png" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/Mileage%20Spend%202022.png" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Why should you optimize mileage spend?</h2>
<p>Besides enjoying additional savings, using the proper tools to manage mileage spend can help your organization reduce the amount of intentional or unintentional inaccuracies, as well as provide insights that can change behavior in the long run.</p>
<p>Here are a few reasons why optimizing mileage spend is worthwhile:</p>
<ul>
<li>Eliminate manual processes</li>
<li>Reduce tracking and validating frustrations for finance teams and drivers</li>
<li>Increase the accuracy of tracking mileage data</li>
<li>Reduce over-reporting and fraud</li>
<li>Increase compliance and opportunities for tax breaks</li>
<li>Increase cost savings</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>How do you optimize mileage spend?</h2>
<p>So how do you optimize mileage spending? It all starts with getting a clearer look into the finer details of your organization’s spending data. This enables you to see where policies are working, what you could be missing, and where you can improve your system for efficiency. Use this list of best practices to start optimizing mileage spending and expose areas that are dragging down your bottom line:</p>
<ol>
<li>Review travel and expense (T&E) policies for opportunities to encourage employees to use automated mileage for tracking, approvals, and reporting</li>
<li>Educate on <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-calculate-mileage-with-concur-drive">mileage tracking tools</a> such as Google Maps and Concur mobile apps, ensuring that they are enabled for employees who drive for your organization</li>
<li>Consider using <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/do-your-companys-mileage-reimbursement-program-a-favr">Concur FAVR </a>(Fixed And Variable Reimbursement) for users with more than $5K in annual mileage reimbursement</li>
<li>Acknowledge a threshold where car rental is more cost effective than mileage reimbursement</li>
<li>Assess your application of audit rules to enforce commute deduction</li>
<li>Encourage mileage-only users to submit at regular intervals to improve accuracy</li>
</ol>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>It’s time to take control of mileage spend</h2>
<p>Automatic mileage tracking removes the risk of reporting mistakes or purposeful fraud, increasing your ability to control budget compliance. Plus, you can do it all while making the entire experience easier for your employees; they’ll be happier, compliant, and you’ll be confident that you’re getting every bit of value for your T&E budget.</p>
<p>For more information, <a href="https://shows.acast.com/sap-concur-conversations/episodes/winners-and-losers-shifting-mileage-programs-to-accommodate-">listen to our podcast</a> or <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-wheels-of-change-are-spinning-fast-an-sap-concur-podcast">read this blog post</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
7 Tips to Keep Your Company Credit Card Under Control
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-tips-keep-your-company-credit-card-under-control
2023-07-17T09:24:22Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Search the hashtag companycreditcard on Twitter and it will reveal some interesting habits from employees entrusted with the company plastic While many posts are innocent fun and...
<p>Search the hashtag <strong>#companycreditcard</strong> on Twitter, and it will reveal some interesting habits from employees entrusted with the company plastic. While many posts are innocent fun and typically boastful jibes among social media friends, it raises questions: How can you control company credit-card spend? And, how do you limit abuse of this little pocket perk that your employees value so highly?</p>
<p>There are many sound reasons to issue a company credit card to your employees, especially those who travel on a regular basis or work remotely. Utilizing company cards can give your business complete visibility into who spent what, where, and why, generating insight and opportunities to negotiate better rates with vendors. </p>
<p><br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">Read this checklist </a>for tips on managing costs and cash flow to stay resilient.</p>
<h2><br />
How to manage company card use</h2>
<p><br />
The Twitter stories can cause a chuckle, but all joking aside – accidental use or intentional misuse of company credit cards can be costly. So, what can you do to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks when it comes to issuing employees a company credit card? Here are our top seven tips for success.<br />
</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Set expectations.</strong> Companies issuing credit cards should create an expense policy that, as a best practice, includes an annual card user agreement for employees to sign. Be clear on how the company credit card should be used, including the user’s responsibilities, the types of expenses they can incur, and the proof of purchase they need to provide with each item. Clearly outline the disciplinary process for non-compliance—and enforce it.</li>
<li><strong>Limit liabilities.</strong> Set spending limits for certain items like hotel rooms and establish overall spending caps to limit your liabilities. Review limits on a regular basis to ensure they’re still reasonable and not being exploited. Corporate cards also offer tools like Merchant Category Code controls to restrict where cards are used. Some providers even let you control the times and days of the week when cards can be used. And, of course, be sure to cancel and collect cards from employees when they leave the company.</li>
<li><strong>Monitor spend.</strong> It’s good practice to monitor all spending. Look for items bought for personal use or items that users may try to reclaim again via your usual expenses reclaim process, sometimes called double-dipping.</li>
<li><strong>Require receipts</strong>. While you may not require receipts for expense reclaim or you’ve set a spend threshold for requiring them, it’s still a best practice to insist on receipts for all purchases, particularly if you wish to reclaim the VAT that you may be entitled to.</li>
<li><strong>Set alerts.</strong> Your credit card provider can notify you of suspicious activity or attempts to use the card outside of its intended purpose. Make the most of these alerts.</li>
<li><strong>Approve and control. </strong>Require supervisors or approving managers to accept every credit card statement from employees on their teams. And appoint a designated controller who’s responsible for ensuring everyone follows these guidelines.</li>
<li><strong>Consider digitizing expenses.</strong> By automating your expenses, all transactions flow directly into a single platform, giving you a clear, up-to-date view of spending across all cardholders and spending categories—not just on a monthly basis when statements arrive. While corporate cards are an important tool for helping control spending, moving from a paper-and-spreadsheet-based expense process to a live, automated process gives you more comprehensive and proactive control over your costs.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>To learn more about controlling spend, download the eBook <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/5-ways-finance-automation-can-help-your-growing-business">5 Ways Finance Automation Can Help Your Growing Business</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
The Hidden Potential of VAT Reclaim
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/hidden-potential-vat-reclaim
2022-11-13T16:31:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
turned the economy on its head to get it back up and running some governments reduced VAT on a wide range of items and extended payment terms for struggling businesses allowing them...
<p>2020 turned the economy on its head: to get it back up and running some governments reduced VAT on a wide range of items and extended payment terms for struggling businesses, allowing them to find ways to remain sustainable amid the pandemic.</p>
<p>In principle, such tactics are good news for businesses. They provide more flexibility, enable the market to run faster and improve competition. In practice, changing VAT rules can lead to significant challenges down the line – something that many businesses are experiencing today. </p>
<p>To learn more about the challenges our customers are facing, we ran a survey among 3,500 European business and finance leaders to ask them about the ways they handle <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">VAT reclaim</a>, the challenges they face and how they have adjusted to the pandemic*. Today, we are releasing the results of this survey, which show that the VAT reclaim picture is complex. This complexity boils down to three primary challenges: compliance in a multi-currency, multi-tax rate world; processes used to manage VAT reclaim; and the technology used to file and process expenses and invoices.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center">
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>VAT in the New World</h5>
<p>How to navigate tax regulations so you can ensure compliance and maximize VAT reclaim</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/vat-in-the-new-world">Get the guide</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h2>The compliance mystery </h2>
<p>A majority of companies we surveyed reclaim VAT in up to 10 countries (76%); a little over a quarter state that VAT reclaim is vital to boosting their revenue and cashflow. The more countries a business reclaims VAT in, the more likely it is that they are facing a diverse landscape of regulations including adjusted tax regulations to help local businesses weather the storm. </p>
<p>This has created confusion among businesses, with more than half admitting that the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges with understanding the impact of the changing VAT regulations on claims. Combined with the fact the pandemic has drastically reduced the amount of potential foreign VAT to reclaim for close to half of businesses, it’s clear that the tax picture we’re looking at today is very different to previous years. </p>
<p>Such a complex picture explains why with 14% only a small proportion of businesses have prioritised reclaiming outstanding VAT during the pandemic. And while you would be excused to expect businesses with the largest number of employees to reclaim VAT better, there is a threshold where the risk of non-compliance makes the project unattractive: companies of over 1,000 employees making €500 million or more in revenue. Simply put, the bigger the company, the more complex VAT filing and processing becomes – and with it, the higher the chances of penalties in case of non-compliance.</p>
<p>This issue needs to be addressed today, as half of all surveyed companies expect this complexity to get even more challenging over time, and a similar proportion believe that they will face more frequent audits and punitive penalties compliance in the future. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Simplifying VAT reclaim </h2>
<p>While businesses will need to remain attentive about changing VAT rules and regulations, there are some easy steps they can take, starting with improving their internal processes. Four in ten companies are processing expense claims and invoices slower than before the pandemic. To counter this, companies are investing in digital transformation tools and processes: one in two have implemented digital tools to submit claims and invoices; a similar proportion has taken this one step further and deployed digital tools, including AI, to process these claims. </p>
<p>While these are steps in the right direction, the reality is that almost half of European businesses still rely on paper-based evidence for claims. This outdated approach to expense and invoice management is ill-adjusted to a world where remote working is the norm for many. It also creates issues with documentation for one in four businesses at a time when over half of finance teams were already struggling for time and resources, resulting in a surge in errors in submission and processing for four in ten companies. </p>
<p>Implementing digital tools would enable companies to simplify the expense claim and invoice submission process for employees, reduce the pressure on finance teams and ensure that all VAT reclaim operations are compliant with the company and government’s regulations. Many companies are already aware of the benefits of AI-powered tools designed to automate the process and improve VAT reclaim. These include better data and reporting to optimise spending, which is seen as a benefit of AI for 39% of survey participants, increased revenue back into the business (33%), reducing the penalties due to errors or non-compliance with regulations (31%), deploying the finance team to more strategic initiatives (29%) and reducing refused claims and improving the experience for employees (25%). </p>
<p>While digitally transforming the finance department is crucial, focusing solely on tools would be short-sighted. Over half of companies admit that they aren’t getting the best out of their digital tools, and a similar proportion admit that their system and process to reclaim VAT needs to be better defined. With that in mind, it’s clear that more needs to be done to ensure that businesses have the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/brochures/concur-tax-assurance-by-vatbox">right tools</a>, but also clear policies and expertise in place to manage their VAT reclaim potential properly and without having to worry about non-compliance. Only then will they be able to truly tap into the hidden potential of VAT reclaim. </p>
<p>To learn more about the hidden potential of VAT reclaim, learn more about our solution <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/tax-solutions">Concur Tax Assurance by VATBox</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="small-size">*‘The Hidden Potential of VAT Reclaim’ report is based on the views of 3,587 survey respondents in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Nordics, Spain and the UK. The survey was conducted by Censuswide in January/February 2021. </p>
Pierre-Emmanuel Tetaz
Brex and SAP Concur Partnership Expands Through Brex Rewards Center
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/brex-and-sap-concur-partnership-expands-through-brex-rewards-center
2022-11-13T18:10:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We continue to build on our financial servicesbanking partner relationships allowing greater flexibility and choice for customers using Concur Expense and Concur Invoice Recently...
<p>We continue to build on our financial services/banking partner relationships, allowing greater flexibility and choice for customers using Concur Expense and Concur Invoice. Recently, we expanded our partnership with Brex to feature SAP Concur solutions in the Brex Rewards Center. </p>
<p>For businesses using SAP Concur solutions, it’s important that they make the most of their bank and its tools in order to manage business spend more effectively. By connecting SAP Concur solutions with their existing bank’s programs, they can automate expense and payment processes, get more visibility into spending, and take full advantage of all that their bank has to offer.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2020, Brex launched an <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/brex-card-integrates-concur-expense-streamline-expense-report-submissions">integration with Concur Expense</a> that allowed charges on a Brex card to seamlessly flow into Concur Expense. This integration allows us to better serve our customers that use a Brex card today. Brex is changing the corporate lending landscape by opening up this opportunity to a segment of the market that was previously untouched by many corporate card programs. As Brex customers expand their business, they often have a need for an expense reporting platform to help manage the spend that comes along with that growth. Having the ability to integrate their Brex card with Concur Expense is key to enabling a seamless spend management experience.</p>
<p>Learn more about the integration <a href="https://www.brex.com/integrations/concur/">here</a>, and click <a href="https://www.brex.com/partners/concur/">here</a> to take advantage of the SAP Concur partner discount and rewards.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Banks Need to Keep Pace with Customers’ Accelerating Demands. Consider These Three Things
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/banks-need-keep-pace-customers-accelerating-demands-consider-these-three-things
2022-11-13T19:19:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The current economic environment has magnified the need for companies to embrace digital transformation Companies are demanding more of their bank partners expecting consumerlike user...
<p>The current economic environment has magnified the need for companies to embrace digital transformation. Companies are demanding more of their bank partners, expecting consumer-like user experiences in the business or commercial products they consume. The relationship between a corporate client and their bank is critical. That is true in good times – when revenues are up, cash flows are positive, and investments are being made for future growth. It’s even more important in hard times. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/why-consolidating-spend-management-tech-enables-business-resiliency">according to IDC, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of digital transformation</a> when it comes to staying agile, accelerating areas across the business such as: operations, digital infrastructure and connectedness.</p>
<h2>How banks can keep pace with their customers’ accelerating demands </h2>
<p>It is challenging for banks to keep up with accelerating demands, and to provide solutions that can be easily adopted by their customer base – which can range in size and complexity, from large corporate enterprises to small businesses. With SAP Concur solutions, banks can enhance their client relationships by offering one of the best spend management solutions, and through collaboration and co-innovation, to provide differentiated services. </p>
<p>Corporate clients can find value through our intelligent spend management platform, and by leveraging our spend management suite for pre-authorization, reporting, reconciliation, and reimbursement of corporate card spend. All of this enables your clients to maximize spend through their corporate card program, which in turn enhances the value of the program, and the relationship between the corporate client and their issuing bank.</p>
<p>For more than 46,000 customers globally, SAP Concur solutions have become essential to adopting and realizing the full value of the commercial card and other payment services their banking partners provide.</p>
<h2>With SAP Concur solutions, banks can provide easily adoptable customer solutions. Here are three things to consider:</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>A collaborative, innovative technology partner</strong>: We welcome co-innovation projects with banking partners to prevent fraud, improve visibility into employee spend, and deliver an excellent end-to-end customer experience.</li>
<li><strong>One easy, scalable platform:</strong> SAP Concur solutions are uniquely suited to help banks meet the demands of their clients, since we provide a single spend management platform that scales to the needs of clients large and small.</li>
<li><strong>Extend your reach:</strong> With SAP Concur solutions, banks can improve their share of wallet, increase credit utilization, decrease customer churn and boost customer satisfaction.</li>
</ol>
<p>We are proud to foster an expanding ecosystem of partners that create innovation and choice. Your customers are demanding a leading solution. It is your time to deliver them. </p>
<p><strong>To learn more and inquire about how to join our partner ecosystem, visit our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/financial-services-partners">Financial Services Partner</a><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/financial-services-partners">ship Program</a> overview.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
Rebecca Sheehan
What Does Automating Expense Reporting Have to Do with Boosting Productivity and Company Performance?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-automating-expense-reporting-have-do-boosting-productivity-and-company
2022-11-13T20:02:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
More than you may think
<p>More than you may think.</p>
<p>According to<a href="http://www.gallup.com/workplace/238079/state-global-workplace-2017.aspx"> Gallup’s latest “State of the Global Workplace” report</a>, just 15% of full-time employees are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace. This means 85% – nearly all employees across industries – are not engaged or are actively disengaged in their job.</p>
<p>It’s a shocking number – and something every business, large and small, needs to address. As a financial decision-maker, you understand the implications of this data on your company – the kind of negative impact that unmotivated employees can have on your company's performance and the high cost of replacing highly skilled staff who leave. So, it’s critical that you take an active role in mitigating these impacts by focusing on improving the employee experience. According to research by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-report-why-financial-decision-makers-fdms-need-to-focus-on-the-employee-experience">AMI-Partners focused on small and midsize businesses</a>, increasing employee satisfaction and retaining top talent or among the top challenges these companies face.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center">The challenge is figuring out where to get started – because the concept of “employee experience” can seem a bit vague. But consider yourself, for example. Do you work to your true potential and willingly go above and beyond the call of duty when you are:</div>
</div>
<ul>
<li>Not enthusiastic about what you do or how you’re expected to do it?</li>
<li>Bogged down by cumbersome, paper-based, manual processes?</li>
<li>Unable to do work where you want, when you want, even while traveling because your company hasn’t implemented mobile-friendly systems?</li>
<li>Working harder and longer than you should – and often on weekends – because your company’s processes aren’t designed to help you get work done efficiently?</li>
</ul>
<p>Most likely not – and neither are other employees. So use your own experience as a starting place.</p>
<p>AMI-Partners’ research sheds light on where you, as a financial decision-maker in a small or midsize business (SMB), can get started, and it’s right in your purview: automating travel and expense management in ways that enhance the employee experience and increase the bottom line. Consider the fact that <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-report-why-financial-decision-makers-fdms-need-to-focus-on-the-employee-experience">93% of SMBs have employees that travel for work on a regular basis</a>. This means nearly all employees have to use your current process to create expense reports. This makes travel, expense, and reimbursement processes high-touch, high-impact processes for nearly every company.</p>
<p>The AMI-Partners’ study notes that the majority of SMBs worldwide still rely on manual processes for managing and tracking employee travel, expenses, and vendor invoices. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/ami-partners-report-why-financial-decision-makers-fdms-need-to-focus-on-the-employee-experience">Only 21% of SMBs worldwide are using a dedicated travel and expense solution</a>. And more than half of small and medium-sized companies do not have well-defined travel and expense policies. As a result, employee expenses are often managed on a case-by-case basis, which leads to confusion (for example, are receipts required for reimbursement or not?) and inconsistent approvals.</p>
<p>An automated travel and expense solution – such as the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense </a>solutions – can help you establish straightforward policies that are in alignment with your company’s processes and then enforce them through use of simplified templates. Automated travel and expense management also increases policy control by guiding employees to book travel through approved channels that you define. This vastly simplifies the process for employees on the go and gives them peace of mind.</p>
<p>At the same time, Concur Expense can also reduce unproductive man-hours and employee frustration and reduce costs by cutting down the time they need to spend on tedious expense forms. For example, instead of saving receipts, taping them to sheets, and manually entering data into a spreadsheet, employees can take photos of receipts with their cell phone using an app that auto-populates relevant data into an expense report. The app can also capture data from travel booked using popular Web sites – all in real time – enabling greater efficiency and a better overall experience for employees.</p>
<p>See the power of expense automation for yourself by exploring the <a href="http://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Expense</a><a href="http://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense"> self-guided demo</a>. In just two minutes, you’ll see the true power of expense automation in action – and understand how it can transform your employee experience in ways that boost productivity and drive better business performance. As noted by <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">AMI-Partners, customers of SAP Concur solutions save, on average, US$23 dollars per expense report</a>.</p>
<p>View the <strong><a href="http://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Concur </a><a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense">Expense</a><a href="http://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense"> self-guided demo </a></strong>now!</p>
SAP Concur Team
New Survey Uncovers Travelers’ Requirements for Return to Responsible Business Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-survey-uncovers-travelers-requirements-return-responsible-business-travel
2022-12-05T16:47:00Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
While percent of global business travelers are willing to travel for business over the next months addressing their demands for flexibility may prove essential for companies longterm...
<p>While 96 percent of global business travelers are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months, addressing their demands for flexibility may prove essential for companies’ long-term success.</p>
<p>Timed with the <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit/">SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit</a>, new research commissioned by the SAP Concur organization in April – May 2021 highlights global business traveler enthusiasm to return to the road, while pointing to what companies are doing—and need to do—to ensure a productive return to responsible business travel.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-global-survey-highlights-covid-19-impact-and-outlook-business-travel">2020</a>, business travelers found the trip itself to be the most stressful stage of travel, reflecting increased anxiety around safe travel during a global pandemic. The findings from this year’s survey suggest a return to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-research-reveals-top-concerns-among-business-travelers">pre-pandemic</a> stress levels before, during, and after a business trip.</p>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1623883933453-concur sap_final-1.jpg" /></p>
<p>However, employees’ expectations of their employer to protect their health and safety while traveling for business remain. After a year of being grounded by events beyond their control, employees are ready to return to business travel, but on their own terms. The actions that companies take in the next 12 months could make or break their ability to acquire and retain valuable employees amid a competitive market for talent.</p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021">Global Business Traveler Report 2021</a></strong></p>
<p>Key findings from the survey of 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets and 700 travel managers in seven global markets include:</p>
<p><strong>Global business travelers are enthusiastic about returning to travel, both for professional and personal reasons.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Ninety-six percent are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months, including 65 percent who are very willing.</li>
<li>The majority—68 percent— say they are pushing for a return to business travel, while just 32 percent feel their company is requiring them to do so.
<ul>
<li>Baby Boomers are most likely to push their employers for the return to business travel (74 percent).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Four in five business travelers worry that unless they increase business travel this year, their professional (80 percent) and personal lives (80 percent) will suffer.
<ul>
<li>Professional concerns include the ability to develop and maintain business connections (45 percent), making less money (38 percent), and not advancing in their career (33 percent).
<ul>
<li>One in five (18 percent)—including 29 percent of Gen Z respondents—worry they could lose their job if they are unable to increase their business travel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Personal reasons for business travel include making personal connections with customers and colleagues (54 percent), experiencing new places (52 percent), and taking a break from their everyday life (41 percent).
<ul>
<li>One in five global business travelers are looking forward to having the ability to dress up to go somewhere (19 percent), and one in 10 say that their partner wants them out of the house (11 percent)!</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1623884076699-concur sap_final-2.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>Although they are ready to hit the road again, global business travelers want to do so on their own terms.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Flexibility, such as choosing transportation, lodging, and travel dates, is now the most pressing need for business travelers, ahead of their vaccination-related demands such as wanting themselves, or the clients or colleagues they visit, to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (72 percent vs. 62 percent).
<ul>
<li>Flexibility has emerged as a top priority for younger generations, particularly in the U.S., where the majority of Gen Z business travelers (59 percent*) say they would rather have a crying toddler in the seat behind them than have no control over when and where they travel for work.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Heavy workloads and unused vacation days also mean workers plan to make the most of any upcoming business travel—89 percent say they will add personal vacation time to their business trips in the next 12 months.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Global business travelers will hold themselves most accountable to protect their health and safety while traveling for business (42 percent), followed by their employer (22 percent).</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Eighty-nine percent expect their company to protect their health and safety while traveling by allowing them to select their preferred accommodations (46 percent), preferred mode of travel (43 percent), book travel directly on supplier websites (39 percent), and decide the length of their trip (39 percent).
<ul>
<li>While most of Gen Z (93 percent) and Millennials (92 percent) expect changes, only 76 percent of Baby Boomers do.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>New benefits that business travelers expect from their employers in the wake of the pandemic include the ability to choose direct flights (52 percent), stay in four- to five-star hotels (41 percent), and select premium seating, like first or business class (39 percent).</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1623884139712-concur sap_final-3.jpg" /></p>
<p><strong>If their company doesn’t meet these expectations, business travelers—especially those from younger generations—intend to act.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Almost a third of business travelers (31 percent) would ask to limit travel if their company does not implement policies or measures to help protect their health and safety. One out of five business travelers (20 percent) would go as far as looking for a different position.</li>
<li>The issue is even more important for younger generations—more than half (56 percent) of Gen Z and Millennial respondents would ask to limit travel or search for new positions.
<ul>
<li>Gen Z and Millennial employees especially would be willing to walk: nearly a quarter (24 percent) of global Gen Z and Millennials would search for a new position.</li>
<li>The risk is even greater for the youngest generation in the U.S.: a whopping 48 percent* of Gen Z respondents say they would search for a new position.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Read more: <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021">Global Business Travel Manager Report 2021</a></p>
<p><strong>This climate puts additional pressure on travel managers, who must be extra vigilant to ensure policies match employee expectations.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Nearly unanimously, global travel managers think their job will be more challenging in the next 12 months compared to last year (99 percent).
<ul>
<li>The challenges facing global travel managers include communicating and ensuring compliance with new and revised company travel policies (60 percent), last-minute changes or cancelations to bookings (53 percent), and changes to government regulations (51 percent).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All surveyed travel managers (100 percent) expect their company to implement some travel guidelines or policies in the next 12 months. However, their expected changes do not necessarily track to business traveler demands.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1623884217754-concur sap_final-4.jpg" /></p>
<p>Enthusiasm for returning to travel, paired with the intent to act if their flexibility demands aren’t met, puts global business travelers in a unique power position. However, with an eye toward the right changes, organizations can encourage a productive return to business travel this year—and help achieve broader business goals in the process.</p>
<p>Expert panelists discussed findings from the research at the annual SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit. To access the recorded session, register <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-industry-summit">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>For more information, download the </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-business-traveler-report-2021"><strong>Business Traveler</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/global-travel-manager-report-2021"><strong>Travel Manager</strong></a><strong> whitepapers.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>*Small base size; directional findings only.</p>
<p class="small-size">The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com), a leading independent provider of quantitative, qualitative and hybrid market research, among 3,850 business travelers defined as those who travel for business three or more times annually from the following markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Additionally, Wakefield Research surveyed 700 travel managers from the following markets: U.S., Mexico, UK, France, Germany, SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), and Hong Kong. Both surveys took place April – May 2021. For the interviews conducted in this study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 1.6 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Empowering Your People for a Better Employee Experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empowering-your-people-better-employee-experience
2022-12-06T13:46:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
More than ever your employees know what they want from their jobs where they want to do the work and what theyll tolerate Pandemics apparently do that If theres a big jobrelated lesson...
<p>More than ever, your employees know what they want from their jobs, where they want to do the work, and what they’ll tolerate. Pandemics apparently do that.</p>
<p>If there’s a big job-related lesson from recent years, it’s that remote work can work well and that employees like it. But the fact is, it doesn’t work nearly as well as it could. That’s a finding documented in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-oxford-economics-employee-experience-global-report">Empowering your people,</a> a new report from Oxford Economics and SAP Concur based on a global survey of finance and IT employees and executives.</p>
<p>The survey shows many executives are well aware of their failings when managing flexible work and handling travel and expense processes and technology. So are their employees. And at times there are noticeable gaps between what employees believe and what employers perceive.</p>
<p><strong>Employee expectations. </strong>Six in 10 workers said most employees reevaluated what they value in a workplace, but fewer executives – 46% – think such a pandemic-related rethink took place. If you think it’s just about money and benefits, think again: Far more workers than executives thought their company had the right mix of both.</p>
<p><strong>Flexible work here for good.</strong> Half of executives and employees expect work to be fully or partially remote over the next two years. Nearly 7 in 10 employees say they perform better when they can set their job location and hours. But most don’t think they’re getting the tools: Just 38% say their organization’s technology and policies enable flexible work.</p>
<p><strong>Technology and process shortcomings.</strong> Only 42% of remote-working employees say they receive the seamless technology needed to do that work well. Among processes not optimized for flexible work: compliance policies, invoicing, T&E reports, report auditing, and providing COVID-19 guidance. Just 1 in 8 executives think they manage cybersecurity well – a sobering finding for risk management and remote work.</p>
<p><strong>Not paying attention.</strong> Just 4 in 10 employees say their organization uses formal surveys to gauge what employees think. And less than half of executives (46%) use employee feedback to update T&E policies. It’s hard to nail down exactly what employees want, but you certainly won’t if you don’t ask or disregard their input when you do.</p>
<p><strong>Willing to walk.</strong> Just 37% of employees are not actively seeking a new job. That’s a striking number if you look out at it this way: Fewer than 4 in 10 of your team members are so satisfied they plan to stick around.</p>
<p>With retention and the employee experience in the spotlight amid what some call the Big Quit or the Great Resignation, a big question remains: Are you listening and ready to act?</p>
<h2>Best practices for satisfying, productive work</h2>
<p>Your employees are adept at plugging in numbers and making shoestring catches, but that type of work isn’t very gratifying as time rolls on. They’d rather be spending their time on engaging, bigger-picture duties instead of tedious tasks. You probably agree.</p>
<p>Employees in other departments also want to focus on their real jobs instead of collecting receipts, correcting expense reports, and bouncing from one system to another. They don’t need the frustration, and they increasingly prioritize sustainability, as does the organization. With the role T&E plays in all those things – and with retention in mind – this isn’t just an HR challenge. It’s yours, too, especially as finance assumes a broader role than in the past.</p>
<p>The Oxford Economics report and a new SAP Concur eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/improve-employee-productivity-and-loyalty-improving-travel-and-expense-experience">Managing Travel and Spending to Support Everything From Productivity to Loyalty,</a> address the challenge of a better employee experience as work and workplaces evolve.</p>
<p><strong>Optimize your processes.</strong> These days, processes must work as well remotely as they do in the office. Consider automating approval workflows and putting spending and travel information in one spot, so employees can make safe and smart choices before they travel and while on the road. Give employees technology that snaps a picture of a receipt and then gathers the numbers and puts them in the right categories on expense reports. An expense report that writes itself is the definition of a better employee experience.</p>
<p><strong>Use advanced technologies.</strong> Cloud-based solutions are vital for flexible work, but you can go further. Consider solutions that incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze expense reports before payment goes out and afterward look for patterns human auditors can’t see. Integrate your T&E systems with your ERP and spend management ones, while allowing end users to smoothly move from one system to another. Overall, you gain insight and efficiency and end users have a better experience.</p>
<p><strong>Guide and train.</strong> Employees say – and leaders agree – they lack the training to keep up with changing policies and processes, a training deficit complicated by a dispersed workforce. In-app and in-system training and guidance can step employees through the process instead of grinding to a frustrating stop. They learn and adapt to changing policies and processes as they go, while you increase compliance and steer them to the right choices.</p>
<p><strong>Be sure to listen up.</strong> What your employees expect can vary widely and be a moving target. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Conduct regular surveys about your processes and technology and how employees feel about them. To help, you can embed intuitive feedback tools within your technology solutions to collect feedback, respond, and adjust.</p>
<p>There are plenty of approaches when trying to make work and workplaces better for employees. But wait and see is probably not one of them.</p>
<p><strong>Learn more</strong></p>
<p>Get copies of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/2022-oxford-economics-employee-experience-global-report">Empowering your people</a><strong> </strong>and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/improve-employee-productivity-and-loyalty-improving-travel-and-expense-experience">Managing Travel and Spending to Support Everything From Productivity to Loyalty</a> to learn about changing employee expectations, best practices for meeting those expectations, and how SAP Concur solutions can simplify processes.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Driving Business Agility, Growth, and Employee Engagement Through Transformative Finance and IT
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/driving-business-agility-growth-and-employee-engagement-through-transformative-finance
2022-12-30T15:02:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business transformation starts at the top But it cannot be achieved by mandate alone To create lasting change that shapes future success executives must act as the example embodying...
<p>Business transformation starts at the top. But it cannot be achieved by mandate alone.</p>
<p>To create lasting change that shapes future success, executives must act as the example – embodying the cultural shifts they want to see while also motivating and empowering every line of business, department, team, and employee to work independently toward a shared vision for the future.</p>
<p>When it comes to achieving business agility, employee satisfaction, and future growth, finance and IT leaders play a particularly critical role. With global economies and markets in constant flux, it has never been more important for these business areas to work together to provide the transformational leadership needed to thrive and prosper in the face of change.</p>
<p>So, what does it mean to be a transformational leader?</p>
<p>To begin with, one must recognize when the old ways of working aren’t working any longer – and act quickly to pivot into new business models. This requires breaking down organizational siloes that slow down communication, collaboration, and decision-making – getting in the way of achieving common goals. It also requires giving employees the tools, resources, and development opportunities they need to innovate and take risks – allowing them to develop into transformational leaders themselves.</p>
<p>The right technology – including smart automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced analytics – is crucial to your ability to future-proof your business and scale with growth. So is your ability to manage cash flow, control spending, and accurately budget and forecast for the future. What better place, then, for finance and IT to come together to give employees and executives the tools they need to improve financial insight, spend compliance, and cost controls?</p>
<p>Whether you already have some degree of finance process digitalization or are still managing expenses, travel, and vendor invoices using paper, e-mail, and spreadsheets, there are always new automation opportunities available to make these processes more efficient, effective, and compliant. Not only will you reduce the risk of human error, rogue spend, and wasted budget, you will also save time on tedious, repetitive tasks – allowing employees to stay focused on value-adding, strategic work. Plus, with cloud-based, mobile-ready solutions, you can be sure to keep operations up and running even when your office is not.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is employee satisfaction. There is nothing more frustrating for a tech-savvy worker than clunky systems, tedious manual processes, and constant rework. Work-life balance is also critical to employee engagement and health – making flexibility a hot commodity. In an increasingly competitive labor market, your ability to provide visionary leadership supported by cutting-edge technology that allows your people to work from anywhere is a key differentiator.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that agility keeps employees happy and is the engine of business growth.</p>
<p>By coming together to provide near real-time visibility into spending and cash flow, finance and IT leaders make it possible for their companies to generate the data they need to gain insights and act quickly – whatever the future may hold. With the right expense and invoice management technology, employees have the tools they need to make sure their spending is compliant and their reports are correct before they are ever submitted. Managers get automated prompts when it’s time to approve, eliminating the need to chase down who has what. And automated processing means auditing and accounts payable teams spend less time on exception handling. On top of all that, business leaders have the complete spend data and insight they need to identify trends, optimize supplier contracts, and make forecasts months in advance.</p>
<p>But none of this can happen in a vacuum.</p>
<p>It is up to finance and IT to set the example by joining forces to become the strategic partners and transformational leaders the rest of the company needs them to be. Your organization and your people are full of great ideas – it’s up to you to offer the vision and make the investment in the tools they need to stay agile and engaged as you grow and scale into the future.</p>
<p>To find out more about how transformational leaders can make the most out of spend management technology, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/create-business-agility-transformational-leadership">read our latest e-book</a>. Then visit us <a href="http://www.concur.com">online</a> to see how SAP Concur solutions can give you and your employees the power and agility you need to grow and thrive – whatever the future may bring.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Accounts Payable and FinTech: The Perfect Combination
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/accounts-payable-and-fintech-perfect-combination
2022-12-30T15:49:24Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Combining the process of Accounts Payable AP with the tools of Financial Technology FinTech is an essential element for successful spend management Best in class companies have leaned...
<p>Combining the process of Accounts Payable (AP) with the tools of Financial Technology (FinTech) is an essential element for successful spend management. Best in class companies have leaned into digitization within their AP processes to deliver significant business value. By connecting financial services tools with spend management processes, organizations are prepared to run at their absolute best. Check out how: </p>
<div class="youtube-embed-wrapper" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;padding-top:30px;height:0;overflow:hidden"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Kw-jkzyoMs" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%" width="640"></iframe></div>
<h2>2020: Accounts payable goes remote</h2>
<p>The global pandemic changed the way we work, live, and play. But opportunity is born of change, and therein lies the silver lining for finance. AP functions became strained with employees working remotely, almost overnight. As a result, companies found it difficult to keep AP processes and vendor payments running smoothly and on time. They quickly turned to technology to streamline invoice management for better business resilience.</p>
<p><strong>Story Time </strong>– Before utilizing Concur Invoice, a mid-sized company processed their vendor bills in a tedious, paper-based process. They received invoices in numerous locations and experienced challenges approving them in a timely and efficient manner. They paid roughly 75% of their invoices by paper check. This worked OK for them…until it did not. In April of 2020, AP received a call from their CFO. They had a problem – how were they going to pay their bills if they could not go to the office to gather their invoices and cut a check? The remote workforce was born overnight, and businesses were not prepared. The recommended solution – rent a U-Haul truck, gather the necessary office equipment, and bring the entire AP operation to the employee’s dining room. AP knew there had to be a better way, and they were right. Today, they are one of many customers that have increased efficiency, reduced costs and risk, and grown revenue with Concur Invoice and our payment provider partner solutions.</p>
<h2>A new approach</h2>
<p>Concur Invoice automates and streamlines invoice management by digitizing end-to-end processes, improves visibility to effectively manage cash flow, and ensures AP processes are accessible anywhere, anytime. Payment provider solutions integrate with Concur Invoice to modernize the payment process of invoice management. Together, SAP Concur and our ecosystem of payment providers create an efficient, automated system for managing every aspect of your invoice process—from purchase request through payment processing. Keep track of every payment going out the door (and out of your budget) by controlling your spending wherever and whenever it happens.</p>
<h2>What is the value in connecting finance and FinTech?</h2>
<p><strong>Control: </strong>Payment controls help you manage exactly how payments are executed and when they’re completed. Ensuring only approved, vetted business liabilities are paid.</p>
<p><strong>Powerful Data: </strong>Enhanced reporting links fintech transactions to supplier invoice data</p>
<p><strong>Maximizing Spend: </strong>Capture spend and maximize bank card spend for increased card incentives</p>
<p><strong>Security: </strong>Increased payment security and fraud prevention</p>
<p><strong>Embracing Digital: </strong>Innovation through fintech without the development cost</p>
<p>Ready to Learn More? Check out <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/payment-providers">SAP Concur Payment Providers</a>. </p>
Ashley Hayman
How Automated Expense Management Frees Finance to Focus on What Matters Most
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-automated-expense-management-frees-finance-focus-what-matters-most
2023-04-02T14:24:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
We often hear why SMBs haven’t automated, and the reasons typically fall into in one of four categories.
<p>Manual and spreadsheet-driven processes are costly and inefficient at any scale, not just for big businesses. In fact, given the resource constraints of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), it’s likely that the inherent inefficiencies of manual processes have an even bigger impact on the efficiency and growth goals of smaller firms. These organizations can’t just “throw more bodies” at a cumbersome task the way larger enterprises can because there may not <strong>be</strong> anyone else available to absorb more work – at least not without a serious impact on another business area.</p>
<p>Take a finance task that every SMB needs to do: employee expense reporting and reimbursement – a key area of company spending. <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/5-great-reasons-move-your-expenses-cloud">Studies show that</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>41% of businesses have a paper-based expense process in place</li>
<li>26% use spreadsheets to manage their expenses</li>
<li>73% don’t use automated expense management systems at all</li>
</ul>
<p>In the era of cloud computing, where even the smallest business can easily and affordably access targeted, world-class software geared for SMBs, why not automate expense management to improve process efficiency? You’ll not only unlock greater spend visibility, focus, and control, but you’ll also free your finance staff to focus on top business priorities.</p>
<h2>Why don't SMBs use automation?</h2>
<p>We often hear why SMBs haven’t automated, and the reasons typically fall into in one of four categories:</p>
<p><strong>Category 1: “It’s just not a priority. We’re good with the status quo.” </strong><br />
These customers tend to put off investment in automation by saying things like, “Our people wear too many hats to focus on making a change.” “There’s already a backlog of IT projects.” “Our culture and leadership resist change.” Or, “We don't want to do too much too soon – before the business is ready.”</p>
<p>But they probably don’t realize just how much the status quo is actually costing them, as noted above.</p>
<p>Manual, paper-based, and spreadsheet-driven expense processes also increase the risk of fraud and costly mistakes and limit spend visibility and control. These are real risks, too – make no mistake. Sixty percent of SMBs have difficulty tracking spending trends and behaviors, and 56% struggle with missing paperwork. This increases the likelihood of accounting teams missing fraudulent or unqualified spending. And, <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend">68% of finance leaders</a> aren’t completely confident that employees comply with company <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">travel and expense (T&E) policies</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Category 2:</strong> <strong>“I don’t believe we’ll actually realize monetary return on the investment.”</strong><br />
These customers tend to tell us, “Our manual processes are ‘free’ because we don’t pay for software,” and “Our accounts payable workload and travel volume aren’t big enough to deliver enough ROI to make it worth the investment.” But most likely, they haven’t looked at the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">data on ROI</a>. For example, according to AMI-Partners, SMBs are achieving significant savings using automated spending solutions, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Improved tracking saves finance firms US$28,000 per year and retail businesses $33,000 per year.</li>
<li>More-accurate data saves professional services firms $39,000 per year.</li>
<li>Better analytics saves tech firms $35,000 per year.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Category 3: “We’re already automated.”</strong><br />
These customers tell us that, “We’ve already implemented partial automation. It’s not ‘smart,’ but it’s enough for us.” Or they worry that, “Our people will struggle to fully adopt the features of a bigger, more powerful solution.” So they get by with the status quo, when they could use automation to empower their people to do more faster – and free up time to focus on what matters most. But, AMI-Partners also found that accounting and finance teams typically net:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>15% less time: </strong>Spent by finance teams processing expense reports when accounting and finance teams use automated travel and expense solutions</li>
<li> <strong>$20 per expense report: </strong>Saved on average by T&E users</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Category 4:</strong> <strong>“The change management required is just too much.”</strong><br />
These customers tell us that, “We’ll have to change too many internal processes at once.” Or, “It makes sense, but it will be too hard to communicate the process changes to our internal partners, even if they know it is the best option for the company.” In other cases, they are concerned that their people won’t like it, so they won’t adopt it. Or maybe they fear that the new software won’t integrate with their ERP. But by choosing the right cloud solution, all of these concerns are mitigated. Look for automated solutions that can be deployed incrementally over time, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/financial-system-integration">can be easily integrated with most ERP</a>, finance, and accounting solutions (and with each other), and are easy to roll out and use. For example, your employees will likely want the option of using a mobile app to do work that’s easy and intuitive, just like quality consumer mobile apps.</p>
<h2>Do any of these statements ring true for your organization?</h2>
<p>It’s time to let go of the status quo and embrace the power of automation. For example, SAP Concur solutions automate and integrate expense management from beginning to end, eliminating inefficient methods that take too much time, cost too much money, and keep you in the office, so you can keep things moving. With SAP Concur solutions, you’ll give everyone more time in their day, while preventing costly mistakes, fraud, and surprise expenses. Expense data is collected and connected automatically, so as your business grows, you’ll always have clear, near-real-time visibility into what you’re spending. When all of your expense data is on one place, you can grow your business with more intelligence – for example, by redirecting spend to strategic priorities before it’s too late. You can also harness data for more-intelligent planning, accruals, and cash flow management.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, your employees will get simple, friendly apps they’ll want to use. You’ll receive an easy-to-implement solution that’s backed by hands-on support and designed to keep up with growth without adding headcount. And your entire business will benefit because employees across the business – and especially finance – will be free to use time on what really matters to your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Learn more</h2>
<p>Spend happens. Make it count. Learn more by downloading the latest paper from SAP Concur: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-expense-management-small-midsize-businesses">Focus Your Time and Spending on What Matters Most: Automating Expense Management for Small-to-Midsize Businesses.</a></p>
<div> </div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Do You Bleisure? The Word We Love to Hate is Gaining Popularity Across the Globe
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/do-you-bleisure-word-we-love-hate-gaining-popularity-across-globe
2023-08-28T15:51:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Have you ever been on a work trip and wished you had more time to explore the citys museums or take a hike in the nearby mountains Unfortunately for many of us the only sightseeing we...
<p>Have you ever been on a work trip and wished you had more time to explore the city’s museums or take a hike in the nearby mountains? Unfortunately, for many of us, the only sightseeing we do when traveling for business is finding a conference center’s best coffee or exploring the many meeting rooms of an office building. However, according to new SAP Concur travel and expense data gathered between January 2017 and December 2017 there’s an increasing trend to break out of the confines of a typical business trip. In fact, “bleisure” trips, as we’ve come to know them, where a traveler combines business travel and leisure travel into one trip,<strong> increased by 20% from 2016 to 2017</strong>. And during this time, <strong>more than 2.2 million bleisure trips </strong>were taken by business travelers around the globe, making up 10% of total business trips. This trend is also popular for small businesses – since launching in September 2017 our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-hipmunk">Concur Hipmunk</a> data shows that <strong>16% of business trip hotel bookings</strong> included a Saturday night stay.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, bleisure travel isn’t just a <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">millennial</a> trend. While on average the percentage of bleisure travel is slightly higher for millennials, according to our data, the entire workforce, from Generation X to baby boomers is tacking on leisure days to their business trips in droves. Why? It’s convenient, efficient, cost-effective and let’s face it, a way to make work trips more fun. This likely adds up to happier, re-energized employees, who in turn are more productive and satisfied when they return to the office.</p>
<p>But while bleisure travel is becoming increasingly common, the way we decipher when work travel stops and personal travel begins isn’t always the same. To explore this growing trend further, we defined a bleisure trip as including a Saturday night stay. By looking at the data through this lens, we found four unique insights that give us a new view into this new norm.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>It’s not just a millennial thing – all generations are picking up on the trend across the globe</h2>
<p>On average, millennials make up the largest share of bleisure travelers in the world, accounting for 38% of all bleisure trips in the Americas region in 2017, however Generation X (31%) and baby boomers (31%) are not far behind! This trend holds true across the globe with millennials, Generation X and Y and baby boomers extending a similar number of trips to include a Saturday night stay. Generation Z is not yet showing up in any significant way when it comes to business travel.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Bleisure travel is growing around the world</h2>
<p>From 2016 to 2017, the number of bleisure trips taken increased in all regions worldwide, with a 46% jump in EMEA, 45% in APAC and 19% in the Americas.</p>
<p>Where exactly are these bleisure travelers going? In the Americas the top destinations are NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles; in EMEA, Tel Aviv, London, and Paris; and in APAC, Tokyo, Singapore, and Shanghai. We compared this to our Hipmunk data which looks at non-business travel. Each of these top bleisure cities are also amongst the top 20 travel destinations for each region – a real testament to the reason folks tend to want to stay an extra couple of days in these cities!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Airbnb provides respite for business and bleisure travelers</h2>
<p>In addition to hotels, <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/airbnb-bookings-rise-within-sap-concur-airbnb-listings-now-available-concur-travel">Airbnb is an increasingly important supplier</a> of accommodations for business travelers in many scenarios including sold out or expensive hotel reservations during a busy trade show, when multiple travelers need to stay together in the same property, or bleisure trips.</p>
<p>According to expense data from SAP Concur, 70% of trips using Airbnb lodging include a Saturday night stay – a fairly significant number compared to just 10% of trips with hotel bookings.</p>
<p>And, in cities and times where we see a spike in alternative lodging bookings, we found that the average daily rate of traditional hotels is 16% higher than normal, likely spurring a traveler to seek out other options.</p>
<p>Also according to expense data from SAP Concur, specific to bleisure trips when the traveler stayed at an Airbnb property, 76% of bookings were made by millennials, compared to just 6% made by baby boomers.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cost and length of bleisure trips follow distinct trends globally, but can vary by industry</h2>
<p>Globally, September and October are the peak months for bleisure, with 15% and 18% more bleisure trips than the average, respectively. So, which industries are bleisuring the most and for how long?</p>
<ul>
<li>Manufacturing, tech, and financial services are the top three industries for bleisure trips, accounting for 40% of all bleisure trips in 2017.</li>
<li>On average, the length of a bleisure trip is extended roughly two days longer than non-bleisure trips, unless you’re a government contractor, in which case that average extension length is one day longer than travelers from other industries.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Check your policy – at your bleisure!</h2>
<p>This growing group of bleisure travelers is compelling companies to take a closer look at how they address travel and expense policies, while also providing opportunities for fun travel experiences for their employees.</p>
<p>Whether you’re a traveler looking to take a bleisure trip, or a company ready to bring your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy</a> up to bleisure code, here are some things to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travel Managers:</strong>
<ul>
<li><strong>Are you covered?</strong> Is blended travel already included in your policy, and is there broader employee awareness of the policy? Make plans to communicate the details sooner than later, since it’s likely travelers are already blending their business and leisure trips without direct knowledge of the policy terms.</li>
<li><strong>Do you know where your employees are? </strong>Clear traveler safety and duty of care policies become increasingly important during bleisure trips, so determine and clearly define what portion of employee trips will be covered by the company’s travel insurance.</li>
<li><strong>Who picks up the tab? </strong>Who pays for what – and how? It’s common for companies to cover all costs for the days their travelers are there for business as well as the round-trip flight, while the employee foots the bill for anything associated with their personal time off. Expense reporting can get tricky, though, if you don’t define when business ends and leisure begins and establish clear processes to separate the two.</li>
<li><strong>Who books what? </strong>Decide whether employees will be allowed to book bleisure trips through your company’s OBT. According to a recent <a href="https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2633">SAP Concur GBTA survey</a>, 78% of companies said they sometimes or always allow bleisure travelers to book the leisure component of their trip through company channels, but it’s up to the discretion of the travel managers if this is something you’ll offer.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Travelers:</strong>
<ul>
<li><strong>Know before you go: </strong>Get familiar with your company’s travel policy before you go. Some companies have more robust bleisure policies than others, so knowing what’s covered and what’s not as it relates to expenses and traveler safety will make the whole process easier and safer for both you and your travel manager.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Accommodating bleisure travel in travel policies can offer a way to demonstrate to employees that a company values their travelers’ well-being and work-life balance. In turn, employees feel more job satisfaction, leading to higher productivity and talent retention.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tim MacDonald leads the company’s T&E Cloud initiatives such as fostering an ecosystem of partners to create value for clients, their employees and the travel suppliers who support them as well as developing Concur's data science capability and product offering. Mr. MacDonald’s travel industry experience prior to Concur includes senior vice president & general manager of Expedia US, chairman and president of luxury travel provider Classic Vacations and vice president of product management at Hotwire.</p>
SAP Concur Team
If You Don’t Have Room for Travel Management in Your Budget, You Must Have a Pretty Big Budget
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/if-you-dont-have-room-travel-management-your-budget-you-must-have-pretty-big-budget
2023-08-29T13:31:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The question small to midsize businesses need to ask themselves is not how much a travel and expense management solution costs but how much it saves Because if youre not watching every...
<p>The question small to midsize businesses need to ask themselves is not how much a travel and expense management solution costs, but how much it saves. Because if you’re not watching every dollar, euro, or yen when travelers hit the road, you may be losing money.</p>
<p>But maybe you have money to waste.</p>
<p>If not, because you’re in business and you have to keep an eye on spend, you may want to consider what the IDC MarketScape mentions in a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">recent report</a>: Moving from spreadsheets and manual expense reports to a new breed of “born in the cloud” T&E management software vendors.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look at what that move actually means.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"> </div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC MarketScape</h2>
<p>Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled SMB Travel and Expense Management Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">Get the report</a></div>
</div>
<h2><br />
Where are we going?</h2>
<p>No matter where your business is headed or where employees are working, it’s your responsibility to take care of your people. And after the abrupt disruption the world just went through and the recovery we’re all going through, employee safety is absolutely paramount.</p>
<p>What does this have to do with seeing and saving what you’re spending? Nothing…yet. But we’ll get to that soon.</p>
<p>It does have a lot to do with T&E, because if you don’t know where your travelers are, it’s fairly difficult to protect them. If, on the other hand, you can instantly access their itineraries and track their credit card spend, you can find, reach, and if the situation warrants, retrieve them.</p>
<p>Doing your duty of care is difficult without this type of data, and your business isn’t going to get very far without it. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do we have money for this?</h2>
<p>Again, it all comes down to seeing what you’re spending, because you can’t control what you can’t see. But with the right tools – and a real-time view into your travel and expense data – you can actually control what’s going out the door.</p>
<p>Visualize that for a second. Picture what it would be like to see spending by category, vendor, cost center, team, employee, and any number of other slices, and imagine what that would mean for your ability to cut costs, spot savings, shine a light on hidden spending, and add a little muscle to your negotiating arm when you’re chatting with vendors.</p>
<p>And as long as we’re stretching our imagination, let’s think about automation and analytics. If bookings and charges are automatically captured and categorized, and dashboards help you manage everything from compliance and accruals to budgeting and forecasting, could you ease some of your worries about what’s on your books, what’s in the bank, and what’s going out the door?</p>
<p>In the end, the real question is simple: How do you not have the money for this?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Could we get more done?</h2>
<p>Which would you rather do: Your job, or a bunch of paperwork that your job demands of you?</p>
<p>It’s the same for your travelers. They’ve just spent six days on the road, but before they can say hi to their kids, they need to account for the $8 latte they had at LaGuardia. And because they’re frazzled, they accidentally enter $80, and now we’re in trouble. They’ll waste more time correcting this mistake, and you’ll run the risk of spending more than you should. </p>
<p>This is not the work that propels your business to the head of the pack.</p>
<p>Give your employees a simple app that makes booking and managing business travel a lot more like leisure travel – erasing paperwork, auto-filling expense reports, and the like – and you’ll give your people more time to do the work that matters. And again, with the right T&E solution in their hands, all of the data goes directly into your hands.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So how do you get there?</h2>
<p>Productivity, safety, cost control – they’re all tied together, and there’s room in your budget for each of them; there has to be, or there may be little less room for success. But how do you make it happen?</p>
<p>IDC answers this and other important spending questions in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/midmarket-report-idc-marketscape-worldwide-saas-and-cloud-enabled-travel-and-expense-applications-midmarket-2022-2023-vendor-assessment">IDC MarketScape Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled SMB Travel and Expense Management Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment</a>. You’ll also see why they named SAP Concur a leader. And you’ll learn what to look for when considering a T&E management system (everything from integration and data security to automated workflows).</p>
<p>It’s a fairly quick read, but one you cannot afford to miss.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Supporting Small Businesses From One Uncertain Year to the Next
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/supporting-small-businesses-one-uncertain-year-next
2023-09-07T14:20:36Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As draws to a close small to midsize businesses SMBs around the world are at different stages of coping with economic impacts of the global pandemic According to a recent Aberdeen...
<p>As 2020 draws to a close, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business">small to midsize businesses (SMBs)</a> around the world are at different stages of coping with economic impacts of the global pandemic. According to a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/aberdeen-report-taking-control-of-spending">Aberdeen report</a>, many expect to remain in survival mode in 2021 (24%) while others expect to start seeing revenue increase in the new year (29%). The same goes for the state of business travel among SMBs: More than half expect to resume business travel in 2021 (57%) while others are holding out until access to vaccines is more widely available.</p>
<p>This year of uncertainty and unpredictability has created challenges and tested SMBs like never before. At the start of 2020, SMBs accounted for roughly 48% of the U.S. economy and provided employment to about 60 million people. Then unemployment among smaller companies rose to 14.7% at the beginning of the pandemic—and businesses with 20 – 49 employees experienced the largest employment decline of any size group. </p>
<p>Out of this, SMBs have shown their flexibility and resilience by establishing new best practices and strategies to navigate such extraordinary business disruptions. Twenty-five percent of SMBs have repurposed or reassigned employees to do new tasks. In addition, IDC reports at least 70% of digitally enabled SMBs will operate under a hybrid model of working by 2021, with remote work emerging as a norm. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Celebrating customer successes </h2>
<p>We’ve seen these trends play out among SAP Concur customers. Like many SMBs and nonprofit organizations, CAF America, a global grantmaking 501 (c)(3) organization, transitioned its employees to work from home during the COVID-19 lockdown. Using SAP Concur expense management solutions, 80% of CAF America staff submitted expenses for home office equipment in less than two weeks and were reimbursed within the same pay period. As a result, CAF America staff were able to focus their time and energy on strategic COVID-19 initiatives, including the development of an extensive database of charities responding to the crisis and the publication of a series of COVID-19 reports that summarize more than 2,000 responses from charities around the world.</p>
<p>Genevant Sciences—which partners with pharmaceutical companies to utilize its world-class nucleic acid delivery technology in the development of a broad range of innovative nucleic acid therapeutics— rapidly adjusted its existing financial system to enable new initiatives in real time while avoiding unnecessary downtime, additional sandbox testing, or staff training. Cloud-based SAP Concur solutions supported Genevant in this new global environment.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Preparing for the year ahead</h2>
<p>With the next wave of U.S. federal stimulus stalled and presidency transitions afoot, the next chapter for business leaders may be equally uncertain—but the SAP Concur organization is here to help where we can. We’ve gathered several useful resources to help SMBs through lingering uncertainty heading into the new year, including:</p>
<ul>
<li> Expert advice from Gene Marks, CPA and president of The Marks Group, on key topics like the PPP Flexibility Act and valuable tax strategies that SMBs can implement as they keep operating against tightened budgets. </li>
<li>Free trials of Concur Expense and Concur Invoice for U.S. small businesses through SAP Concur’s continued participation in the “<a href="https://www.concur.com/stand-for-small">Stand for Small</a>” initiative by American Express.</li>
<li>Regular updates to our popular <a href="https://community.concur.com/t5/Education/bg-p/Education">Timely Topics Education Series</a>, available via the <a href="https://community.concur.com/">SAP Concur Community</a>.</li>
<li>New offerings with key partners that benefit SMBs, including <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/avid-xchange-avid-pay-now-integrated-concur-invoice">AvidPay’s integration</a> with Concur Invoice and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/u-s-bank-instant-card-now-integrated-with-concur-expense">U.S. Bank Instant Card’s integration</a> with Concur Expense. Additionally, SAP Concur solutions have many features to help address the challenges that SMBs currently face, including automated expense and invoice management to enable a remote workforce, integration with payment providers to manage the increasing popularity of virtual card payments, and reporting capabilities that can provide full visibility into spend to preserve cash flow and identify opportunities for savings. </li>
</ul>
<p>While we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we know there is a long way to go. Whether business is picking up or slowing down in the weeks and months ahead, giving organizations the control over costs they need to be responsive and flexible is our top priority. We’re here to help SMBs survive and thrive in 2021 and beyond.</p>
Valerie (Val) Blatt
Why Digital Receipts Are Good for Business, and the Planet
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-digital-receipts-are-good-business-and-planet
2023-09-08T16:50:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Every business understands the value of generating receipts While the word receipt remains synonymous with a small slip of paper that youll probably end up losing more and more...
<p>Every business understands the value of generating receipts. While the word “receipt” remains synonymous with a small slip of paper (that you’ll probably end up losing), more and more businesses today are embracing paperless receipts. With the right tools and software, going digital can simplify receipt management, capture every transaction, and track spend without using a single piece of paper. Through this organizations <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/12/16/eliminating-paper-receipts/#734e5f325b97">can save time, save money, protect public health, and benefit the environment</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Receipts are not as recyclable as you think</strong></p>
<p>Each year in the U.S., millions of trees and billions of gallons of water are used to produce physical receipts. While this alone represents a big impact to the environment, you’d think that recycling receipts would, at least part, offset the toll this process takes on the planet.</p>
<p>The truth is that most paper receipts can’t be recycled. That’s because thermal paper receipts are coated with a toxic and potentially harmful chemicals called Bisphenol-A (BPA) or Bisphenol-S (BPS).</p>
<p>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned BPA from use in baby bottles and sippy cups, but these chemicals remain in use in more the 90% of receipts —despite their links to health risks including miscarriages, premature births, heart disease, prostate cancer, and adverse effects to the endocrine and nervous systems.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Good for the planet, good for business</strong></p>
<p>Protecting the environment and public health are just part of the argument against paper receipts. Offering digital receipts can also significantly benefit a company's efficiency, spend management, and employee satisfaction.</p>
<p>Using tools like <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">Concur Travel</a>, businesses can automatically integrate electronic receipts from airlines, hotels, restaurants, and other providers into an expense report. For business travelers, every paper receipt they get on the road can be digitized by simply snapping a photo on their smartphones through the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile">SAP Concur mobile app</a>. This image then goes directly into <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, which automatically reads receipt data to create, itemize, and categorize information into an expense report.</p>
<p>By going paperless and connecting solutions, organizations can save time and ensure that data is entered fully and correctly. In addition, business travelers can be spared both the pain of collecting piles of paper, and the burden of attaching these to a physical expense report when they return to the office.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Our work is bigger than software</strong></p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are working beyond its software to help organizations around the world digitize receipts and reduce the unnecessary use of paper.</p>
<p>In 2015, we worked alongside with the Japanese government to address regulations that required companies to keep copies of paper receipts — even after the receipt had been digitized. The following year, Japan reformed its regulations and relaxed this requirement on Japanese businesses.</p>
<p>In 2017, we introduced an <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/concur-unveils-e-fapiao-solution-powered-by-wechat-in-china">e-receipt solution in China</a> that integrated with the country’s WeChat platform to meet unique tax and expense policies around the world, simplify spend management for employees, and control costs more effectively. </p>
<p>To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions are using automation and AI to redefine and simplify the expense reporting process, check out <a href="http://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/your-expense-reports-could-be-writing-themselves">the blog</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Calculate Mileage with Drive
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-calculate-mileage-drive
2023-10-10T05:27:05Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Drive is an SAP Concur app feature that empowers your mobile device to capture mileage for you – making expensing your car trips effortless.
<p>When it comes to expense management, accurate mileage calculations are a top priority. Everyone wants to be on the right side of the law, so precise calculations must be part of your business model. You may want to <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-are-expense-reimbursements-and-other-faqs">calculate mileage traveled </a>for your employer or for tax purposes. Either way, there are several various methods to help you.</p>
<h3>Standard Rate</h3>
<p>The IRS mandates the standard mileage rate every year. This rate is the number used to determine the gas mileage rate for business purposes. This rate already considers operating costs, depreciation, and maintenance. Standard rate is the most commonly used method because it is often the easiest.</p>
<h3>Actual Expense Method</h3>
<p>Another option is the actual expense method. This method requires calculating the actual costs of using your vehicle for business needs taking fuel, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation into account. It is, obviously, more complicated than some of the other options.</p>
<h3>GPS Apps</h3>
<p>Smartphone apps, like Drive, and GPS devices track and calculate mileage using GPS technology. Not only is this an easy method to use, but it’s also accurate. With the our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/business-mileage-tracker">Drive app</a>, you can automatically upload to Concur Expense, streamlining the mileage reimbursement process.</p>
<h3>Good Ol’ Odometer</h3>
<p>For many years, mileage was calculated by recording the odometer readings at the start and end of a trip, and then using simple subtraction to calculate the total miles driven. Many still use this manual method. A note of caution, this method is riskier because it’s prone to human error. As simple as it is, it’s not always the most accurate.</p>
<h2>Calculating Mileage Reimbursement</h2>
<p>The good news is it’s reasonably straightforward to calculate your mileage. The key is ensuring you’re using the right calculations. If you prefer manual mileage capture, the Drive app can help you there, too. You can easily switch back and forth between the two methods. The steps below can guide you.</p>
<h3>Step 1 - Business Mileage Records</h3>
<p>The more detailed records you keep, the better able you are to calculate miles traveled and provide proof if required by your employer. You can rack up miles by driving to meetings with clients, running business errands, or making site visits. Any time you must drive to complete some aspect of your job, you should calculate the miles. No matter where you’re traveling, the Drive app supports you. It measures kilometers or miles and can be used around the world.</p>
<h3>Step 2 - Know the Reimbursement Rate</h3>
<p>The IRS sets the mileage rates each year. Starting January 1, 2023, the rate is 65.5 cents per mile, which is an increase from the previous year. But just because that’s the IRS rate, it may not be the rate your company is using. You should always check with your organization to verify their reimbursement rate. While the rate they’re using should be based on the one set by the IRS, there could be a number of reasons why an organization’s rate differs. For example, some organizations may pay less than the IRS rate to save money.</p>
<h3>Step 3 - Calculate the Amount</h3>
<p>The mileage reimbursement formula is simple:</p>
<p>(total miles for business) x (the reimbursement rate) = amount of reimbursement</p>
<p>Let’s look at an example: Say this year you drove 600 miles for work purposes. The reimbursement rate is 65.5 cents. 600 x $0.655 = $393.00</p>
<h3>Step 4 - Other Factors</h3>
<p>There could be some other factors that impact the rate you receive. If you use your own vehicle, your reimbursement rate is higher. However, if your business provides a vehicle to you, the rate they allow you to use may be lower. With Drive, you can easily set parameters to help you calculate your miles accurately.</p>
<h3>Step 5 - Submit the Report</h3>
<p>Your employer likely has a specific type of format for their expense reports. It’s essential that you follow their process and provide all requested information. Details should include all information about the trip, miles driven, and reimbursement amount. You should keep a copy of all records.</p>
<h2>Best Practices for Mileage Calculation</h2>
<p>When it comes to understanding how to calculate mileage, you want to get it right. You must follow all regulations and procedures. The following tips should help you calculate your mileage accurately.</p>
<p>No matter if you’re tracking your mileage for tax purposes or employee reimbursement, you should:</p>
<ul>
<li>Record your mileage accurately and immediately. Don’t rely on memory. Using the Drive app gives you a reliable and useful way to track mileage</li>
<li>Your records should be detailed and accurate. Include the miles, where you started and stopped, and the date and purpose of the trip.</li>
<li>Always review your records and verify their accuracy. You want to do your best to catch errors. Use a mileage reimbursement calculator to ensure your numbers are correct.</li>
<li>When tracking mileage for employee reimbursement, draw a distinct line in the sand between business and personal travel.</li>
<li>Follow all of your company’s best practices for how to calculate car allowance for employees for proper employee reimbursement.</li>
<li>For employee reimbursement, use consistent and reliable methods to track and calculate your data.</li>
<li>Verify mileage with map applications. These tools can give you the distance of specific routes. You can use them to confirm your calculated mileage.</li>
</ul>
<p>Combining the Drive app with these tips will help you capture and calculate your miles correctly for both reimbursement and tax purposes.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur TripLink and AccorHotels integration now available
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-triplink-and-accorhotels-integration-now-available
2019-08-29T05:24:41Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries no matter how employees book It connects trips travelers and itineraries across multiple channels allowing companies to apply...
<p>Concur TripLink helps companies capture travel itineraries, no matter how employees book. It connects trips, travelers and itineraries across multiple channels, allowing companies to apply policy and fulfill duty of care obligations by making it easier to quickly locate and communicate with employees.</p>
<p>We recently added an exciting new supplier to our network. Concur TripLink customers can now connect their Concur account with AccorHotels' Le Club loyalty program, allowing users to make reservations on AccorHotels’ website and mobile app, receive their company’s negotiated rate where available, and receive booking data in their Concur account. It automatically brings bookings into Concur without a need to email plans@concur.com or plans@tripit.com, which provides immediate visibility into traveler spend and monitoring for policy rules, if applicable. If a Concur TripLink traveler does not have an Accor Le Club account, they can sign up for one from the <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57d6f0c1ade95812001675c4">AccorHotels Concur App Center listing</a>.</p>
<p>Le Club AccorHotels, AccorHotels' free loyalty program, offers exclusive services and special attention during a guest’s entire stay in 95 countries and more than 4,200 AccorHotels hotels throughout the world, with over 20 hotel brands from luxury to economy. With a user-friendly online platform available 24/7, Concur trips will display on accorhotels.com and in the AccorHotels app, and travel details will prepopulate based on the information in Concur. Once confirmed, reservations and details will automatically be returned to a traveler’s Concur itinerary.</p>
<p><strong>For more, check out the TripLink <a href="http://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57d6f0c1ade95812001675c4">App Center listing</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Your Checklist for End-of-Year Finance Team Survival
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/your-checklist-end-year-finance-team-survival
2018-11-15T13:05:58Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The end of the year is almost here and with December being the busiest expense day last year we know your work is starting to heat up Dont stress Use this handy checklist to reduce...
<p>The end of the year is almost here, and with December 19 being the busiest expense day last year, we know your work is starting to heat up. Don’t stress! Use this handy checklist to reduce distractions, increase productivity, better communicate with your team and finish the year out strong (not to mention prepare for a better 2018).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/bring-year-landing">Read the whitepaper</a> to learn more tips and resources for a smoother year-end</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Set the stage </strong></h2>
<p>Start by reducing distractions so you can focus on the tasks at hand:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Turn off messaging and phone alerts, turn on email auto-responder</strong>: Schedule at least one hour per day of distraction free working.</li>
<li><strong>Schedule social media time: </strong>Taking a social media break is OK, just not every five minutes. Allow yourself only a few times each day to check and post updates.</li>
<li><strong>Allow for breaks, especially lunch: </strong>Don’t burn the candle at both ends. Take a walk, don’t eat lunch at your desk (if you can help it) or get a cup of coffee with a coworker.</li>
<li><strong>Stay hydrated: </strong>Drink plenty of water and stay healthy!</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Prepare your team</strong></h2>
<p>Taking time now to address questions and concerns will make for a smoother busy season:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Hold a year-end planning meeting: </strong>Gather your team together and create a game plan for tackling the next few weeks.</li>
<li><strong>Open the doors of communication: </strong>Make it clear your team knows how to get in touch with you and each other when questions or concerns arise.</li>
<li><strong>Create a vacation calendar: </strong>Make sure everyone knows who will be out of the office and when they'll be gone.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Maximize productivity and improve your expense processes</strong></h2>
<p>By evaluating your current expense process, making necessary updates and moving to an automated and mobile system sets you up for future success:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Review your current expense process: </strong>Look for opportunities for improvement, and ensure you are set up for successful automation.</li>
<li><strong>Implement small process changes: </strong>Cut out unnecessary steps and update out-of-date policies to be more relevant.</li>
<li><strong>Look for opportunities to automate</strong> <strong>now: </strong>It's ime to kiss spreadsheets goodbye.</li>
<li><strong>Plan for automation next year: </strong>Make note of processes that can be automated, and the tools you need to make this happen.</li>
<li><strong>Consult a technology</strong> <strong>partner: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur</a> is here to help! We can review your current situation, make recommendations and create a short-term and long-term plan.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Reward yourself and your team</strong></h2>
<p>There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, so make sure to schedule some kind of celebration for you and your team:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Treat your team: </strong>Whether it’s coffee, cookies or lunch, show your team your appreciation.</li>
<li><strong>Treat yourself: </strong>You deserve it!</li>
<li><strong>Set that out-of-office: </strong>Taking much-deserved time off? Don’t forget to set your out-of-office, and RELAX!</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>This list doesn’t have to stop at the finance department. Share it with other teams, so they too can end 2017 feeling more accomplished. Download and save a copy <a href="https://go.concur.com/rs/013-GAX-394/images/Concur_FinanceTeamEOYChecklist_DRAFT%20%281%29.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>!</p>
<p><strong>Want to bring the year in for a landing?</strong> <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/bring-year-landing">Read our whitepaper</a> about how you can get all this on your list completed and more to get your new year off to a great start.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
4 Expense Process Tips to Save Your Bottom Line
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/4-expense-process-tips-save-your-bottom-line
2020-07-14T07:38:03Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
An expense process is about more than just expense reports It includes all things expensemanagement related from defining compliant reimbursements a travel policy approval...
<p>An expense process is about more than just <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a>. It includes all things expense-management related, from defining compliant reimbursements, a travel policy, approval processes and everything in between. A process that follows industry best practices creates an overall positive employee experience, as well as saving time and money.</p>
<p>Follow these four steps to get your expense process on track:</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Start with an audit of your existing process</h2>
<p>Even if you don’t have an existing documented process, there likely is still “the usual” way your staff submits, processes and reimburses expenses. The implied process can work for a while, but as your company grows, you’ll need to get more formal about it.</p>
<p>An outdated, confusing or non-existent expense process will not only leave your employees feeling lost, but also bring with it misguided expense reports, incompliant expenses and delayed reimbursements. If your employees feel like they need a map to navigate expense management, then it’s time to reevaluate.</p>
<p>Giving your expense process a thorough review offers insights into what your employees face every time they travel for work, submit, review or approve an expense report. That's not to mention what your finance team is up against with reimbursements and forecasting.</p>
<p>Put yourself in the shoes of each person who touches the process and examine how easy or difficult their role is:</p>
<ul>
<li>What information could be clearer?</li>
<li>Where do you need to go for information?</li>
<li>Which steps take too long?</li>
<li>Where do bottlenecks occur?</li>
<li>Is there opportunity for fraud?</li>
</ul>
<p>Any areas of ambiguity in your process not only create confusion, but also open up opportunities for fraud. While no one likes to think of their employees taking advantage of them, it does happen. By ensuring your expense process is clear and that all players (those who review and approve expense reports) know the rules and how to spot red flags, you decreases the chances of fraudulent claims.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Evaluate for change: An effortless experience makes happy, compliant employees</h2>
<p>Once you’ve figured out where the stumbling blocks are in your existing process (written or not). Plan critically for how you can improve that process.</p>
<p>Technology can help. With new tools available every day and mobility entering the workplace, your process should take advantage. Mobile apps improve workflow by allowing your employees to submit expenses while on the road and giving your finance team access to real-time expense information. Automated spend-management tools make approvals easy and build in-policy compliance so you never have to hear the dreaded “fraud” word.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Focus on saving time, so you can save money</h2>
<p>Without a doubt, saving time equals saving money. But how does your expense process come to play here? For starters, if your process is unclear or creates bottlenecks, this leads to unnecessary time being spent possibly re-creating expense reports, digging through stacks of receipts, multiple rounds of review and a whole lot of frustration. This is a lot of unnecessary time being spent running in place.</p>
<p>Still not convinced it matters? If you think all those steps and repeat steps just take minutes, think in terms of a lawyer and billable hours. All these minutes being spent adds up to hours, which by the time you calculate the hourly wage of all players involved, adds up to quite a bit of money. Streamline your process, and your bottom line will thank you.</p>
<p>A clear, easy-to-follow and current process does more than save employees time, it also circles back to the fraud issue mentioned previously. Large or small, fraudulent expenses add up. Enough said.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Take your expense process to the next level</h2>
<p>There is no time like the present to take control of your expense process. And SAP Concur is here to help, with the resources you need to ensure your expense process is following all best practices from start to finish. To learn more, download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/8-tips-best-practice-expense-process">eight tips for a best-practice expense process</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Save time and money on expense report processing
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/save-time-and-money-expense-report-processing
2020-06-29T21:05:56Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
According to a report by the Global Business Travel Association GBTA US firms will spend about billion on travel and entertainment in On average that can amount to or more of annual...
<p>According to a <a href="https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2444" target="_blank">report</a>1 by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), U.S. firms will spend about $296 billion on travel and entertainment in 2017. On average that can amount to 10% or more of annual revenues, and for project-based firms, that amount can be much higher.</p>
<p>Adding to the actual amount of expense reports, the time and costs of expense report processing can easily exceed $100 according to another report2 by GBTA. This is a result of the following facts:</p>
<ul>
<li>It takes 20 minutes on average to complete one expense report.</li>
<li>The average cost to process one expense report is $58.</li>
<li>On average, 19% of expense reports have errors.</li>
<li>It takes 18 minutes on average to correct an expense report.</li>
<li>The average total cost to fix one expense report is $52.</li>
</ul>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Accounting Departments are Overwhelmed </strong></h2>
<p>In today’s world, accounting departments run lean. Asked to do more with less, accountants are being pushed more than ever. Adding staff usually is not an option, so finding ways to lighten the load with automation is more crucial than ever.</p>
<p>Especially in the busy month of December, as your employees are hustling to finalize those year-end expenses and reporting, this automation can result in significant time savings, leading to lower costs and happier employees.</p>
<p>Automating your workflows and implementing best practices for your accounting will significantly reduce your department’s workload, improving accuracy, cycle time, and employee satisfaction. It can also improve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Reduce Time Spent for Accounting Staff and Employees</strong></h2>
<p>Manually collecting receipts and filling out expense reports on paper or a spreadsheet is time consuming both for your employees and for your accounting staff to then enter into your ERP system. By providing a simple solution to capture the receipt and capture the information significantly reduces the time spent.</p>
<p>The crucial aspect of any solution is the integration into your accounting system. By automating the information flow between the systems, the accuracy of the data is assured, and your accounting staff can do a quick review for posting.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Improve Employee Satisfaction</strong></h2>
<p>By reducing the time spent manually creating and entering expenses, and eliminating the need to keep up with paper receipts, your employees can focus their time on what is important. This leaves them more time to be productive. Truly this is a win-win solution for the company and your employees.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Lower Costs</strong></h2>
<p>Based on the GBTA study mentioned above, automating your expense processing can reduce this number to as low as under $10. The right automation system can easily reduce the time spent by your staff by 50% or more.</p>
<p>In addition to the time savings, the features available in an automated system can impact your bottom line even more. By catching duplicate entries, and automatically flagging expenses outside of company policy, the back and forth from your employee to your accounting team is virtually eliminated. All communication can be handled within the system, and completely documented for auditing purposes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Win-Win Solution</strong></h2>
<p>Switching to an automated expense report process is truly one of the best win-win solutions for everyone involved. Your employees spend less time on expense reports, receive reimbursements more quickly due to improved cycle time, and your accounting staff spends much less time and energy entering data and enforcing company policies.</p>
<p>During the busiest month of the year, every minute counts, and no one wants to spend time on expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1: <a href="https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2444" target="_blank">https://hub.gbta.org/groups/reviews/item/20/11/2444</a> </p>
<div id="ftn2">
<p>2: <a href="http://blog.gbta.org">http://blog.gbta.org</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tanya Drake is Director of Add-on Technology at Full Sail Partners</p>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
Are You Prepared for New Taxes on Business Entertainment Expenses in 2018?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-prepared-new-taxes-business-entertainment-expenses-2018
2018-03-19T10:44:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Like it or not tax season is upon us So youre probably busy thinking about the ways in which the new tax law affects your business One new rule we wanted to flag for you is the major...
<p data-id="42997e2b-6ba8-4c52-aebc-48c4ebee0485">Like it or not, tax season is upon us. So, you're probably busy thinking about the ways in which the new tax law affects your business. One new rule we wanted to flag for you is the major change that could affect how many businesses handle client and prospect entertainment expenses.</p>
<p data-id="faac3f0c-c524-44fa-9678-7fd40183be95"><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-partys-over-businesses-cant-write-off-entertainment-expenses-under-new-tax-law-2018-02-08" target="_blank">In a recent article, MarketWatch</a> highlights the way in which the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will affect this area of business expense: "Starting in 2018, the costs of entertainment expenses will no longer be deductible. Under the old tax code, 50% of the entertainment expenses were deductible." Though, <a href="https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/media-resources/news-media-resources/checkpoint-news/daily-newsstand/2017-tax-reform-checkpoint-special-study-on-business-tax-changes-in-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/" target="_blank">according to Reuters</a>, that 50% will still apply to meals provided by an in-house cafeteria or on the employer's premises. </p>
<p data-id="9d903591-5227-43ca-9ac2-611c6be9a8ab">Where does that leave you? As <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/01/13/tax-bill-recreation-deductions/" target="_blank">Forbes points out</a>: "Businesses that use the entertainment deduction extensively will have to gauge the effects on their bottom lines." The good news is that these changes don't take effect until 2018 – only applying to expenses incurred or paid after December 31, 2017. So, you have some time to address your processes to account for the change. </p>
<p data-id="94b246a0-8840-4df1-a39a-25c04423ed7e">While we are not able to give you tax advice, there is one way in which we can help smooth the transition. With our tools, you can alleviate the tedious task of manually tracking those entertainment expenses by automating your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reporting</a> and tracking processes . Plus, you'll get near real-time visibility into your entertainment budget so that you can make adjustments before it has all been spent. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Learn more</a> about what Concur Expense can do for you. </p>
Rebecca Dolan
8 Reasons Why You Need to Connect Expense, Travel, and Invoice Spend
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/8-reasons-why-you-need-connect-expense-travel-and-invoice-spend
2018-03-23T11:05:31Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youve considered automating your expense travel and invoice management processes youre on the right track to improving your bottom line One major benefit to automating with...
<p data-id="17c681e7-12ae-4086-ac1a-4b177c9a988e">If you've considered automating your expense, travel, and invoice management processes, you're on the right track to improving your bottom line. One major benefit to automating with cloud-based software is the ability to connect your data in one location. Wondering why that's so important? Here are eight reasons why your business will benefit by getting connected.</p>
<p data-id="17c681e7-12ae-4086-ac1a-4b177c9a988e"> </p>
<p data-id="17c681e7-12ae-4086-ac1a-4b177c9a988e"><strong>Is your expense and travel solution disconnected? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/your-travel-expense-solution-disconnected">Answer a few questions</a> to find out.</strong></p>
<p data-id="20cafa51-a182-429a-8735-9ad5ae4e6236"> </p>
<p data-id="f4dc8a04-1862-4f7d-b099-0183d697a882"><strong>1. Connected spend gives you visibility and control.</strong></p>
<p data-id="bf41351e-74f2-4a09-96ef-6df6dd899417">Being able to see and report on company-wide spend from a single place can help you accrue, budget, spot spending patterns, and control costs effectively before they get out of hand.</p>
<p data-id="289d4c52-c37a-45b1-aaed-ea6c43a21328"> </p>
<p data-id="0e595b7d-d6d9-4f00-ac93-33e016027ce5"><strong>2. Connected spend helps you make better decisions.</strong></p>
<p data-id="3c40ad95-acf8-4ec2-9c4b-9ec3819cb405">Expense, travel, and invoice spend are often handled separately by different teams. Implementing simple processes that connect into a single system helps you to report on employee spend - wherever it happens, whenever you need it - to make more informed business decisions.</p>
<p data-id="1ff835ea-4aca-4d38-bd71-699c58a8389e"> </p>
<p data-id="94e7f304-f359-40d8-bee1-5468991807e6"><strong>3. Connected spend drives business efficiency.</strong></p>
<p data-id="ce1e4d71-32f2-4a97-9e65-364013acb902">Automating expense, travel, and invoice processes can cut the time employees spend on administrative tasks and reduce data-entry errors. If you have one comprehensive system, employees don't have to spend time learning a different tool for every process.</p>
<p data-id="ec57f38a-742d-4603-ab75-bc335fe5bca6"> </p>
<p data-id="e606a4db-09a7-43d0-88e5-8ac610a99c60"><strong>4. Connected spend helps you reduce late payments</strong>.</p>
<p data-id="2e4e181b-7ebf-4cd0-8e64-4d11a8478f51">For healthy business relationships, prompt payment is essential. A connected approach when <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/healthcare-spotlight-automating-accounts-payable-with-concur-invoice">automating accounts payable</a> can cut down processing times and the inevitable admin that comes with manual processes. That means you can pay employee expenses and supplier invoices promptly to prevent unhappy people and penalties.</p>
<p data-id="a4831869-1fe5-485f-b535-13b63b51c58b"> </p>
<p data-id="8ba89cd6-e347-46cc-8181-72310a804a0d"><strong>5. Connected spend makes it easier to be compliant.</strong></p>
<p data-id="1a14d5ed-c893-4def-bbf9-a2dc24eba9ae">A connected approach can <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/three-c-s-of-expense-and-invoice-policy-compliance">keep you compliant</a> across multiple areas. It can help you weed out invoice costs that are being passed off as expenses, ensure you're reclaiming VAT by expense type correctly, and give you the confidence that your spend data and reporting are robust enough to stand up to auditing.</p>
<p data-id="3eecf380-1172-4f6a-81f2-4192b39d17ad"> </p>
<p data-id="52b4c773-7189-4b16-8750-3a00917b9e17"><strong>6. Connected spend retains employees.</strong></p>
<p data-id="5fafdc96-6984-4809-9f83-08a32718141b">Employees don't want to grapple with three different but equally clunky systems for expense, travel, and invoice management. If they're frustrated, they may consider leaving. As a result, your business will lose good (and expensively trained) people who are not easy to replace - don't let things get to that stage.</p>
<p data-id="e2090992-5772-48d2-bce2-422609d47193"> </p>
<p data-id="28b14f9e-6b6f-4cd9-9d81-3fe4234d539c"><strong>7. Connected spend means more strategy and less admin.</strong></p>
<p data-id="8d8b3a51-dfdd-4a99-b5d9-dde58344c429">Streamlining processes frees you up to focus on the more important aspects of your role. Your business relies on you to provide strategic insight, which cannot be achieved without a foundation of comprehensive, connected, and reliable data.</p>
<p data-id="a0190547-afc1-4cdc-850d-51ac72cd1b77"> </p>
<p data-id="f98cd9f0-a704-4f2d-9f95-df8aae4434c6"><strong>8. Connected spend helps you manage duty of care.</strong></p>
<p data-id="1c08abf6-7eac-4da4-8176-3abc1316c4b6">Capturing and consolidating travel and expense data in near real-time can help you locate employees in the event of an emergency. Combined with intelligent communication services, you can ensure all your employees are safe and accounted for.</p>
<p data-id="54cbea97-12e1-4233-acc4-ba199ab167e4"> </p>
<p data-id="54cbea97-12e1-4233-acc4-ba199ab167e4">When you connect expense, travel and invoice data all in one place, it’s easier to see company spend and make smart decisions. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/modern-finance-leaders">Learn more</a>. </p>
Announcing the 2018 SAP Concur Innovation Award Winners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/announcing-2018-sap-concur-innovation-award-winners
2018-04-03T12:15:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Each year at our annual SAP Concur Fusion conference we gather together customers partners and staff to connect collaborate and inspire We also take the time to recognize and celebrate...
<p>Each year at our annual <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/">SAP Concur Fusion conference</a>, we gather together customers, partners, and staff to connect, collaborate, and inspire. We also take the time to recognize and celebrate a select group of marquee customers who exemplify an innovative mindset and use SAP Concur to help them focus on what’s most important to them. </p>
<p>This year, we received entries from customers across various industries and sizes, who submitted their success stories of using SAP Concur and the transformation they have realized. We received compelling examples of how clients use our products to help them run more efficiently, gain greater visibility into their spending, and improve their employees’ experiences. The winners highlighted how their partnership with SAP Concur drove innovation and the effect it had on their company, culture, and employees.</p>
<p>“At SAP Concur, we are passionate about delivering innovative solutions that fulfill the promise of the cloud and help our customers reach their full potential,” said Christy Marble, CMO, SAP Concur. “Congratulations to the 2018 SAP Concur Innovation Award winners. This group of forward-thinking customers are pushing the boundaries of transformation within their own companies. They are making their employees’ jobs simpler while managing spend and improving their businesses. Each year we are grateful to leaders for sharing their stories to inspire the pursuit of continuous innovation at SAP Concur, within our customer community, and across the industry.”</p>
<p>Meet this year’s winners below, we look forward to sharing their in-depth stories more in the coming months:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.campbells.com/" target="_blank">Campbell’s</a>: Campbell is driven and inspired by the purpose – real food that matters for life’s moments. The company’s values are: Do right, be real and seek the power of different, which are foundational to driving their culture of innovation and a consumer-first mindset across the business. Campbell’s use of the SAP Concur platform and TripLink have provided enhanced efficiencies, greater transparency and audit capabilities, and a better end user experience by reducing traveler friction.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cardinalhealth.com/en.html" target="_blank">Cardinal Health</a>: For those tasked with navigating the complexities of healthcare, Cardinal Health brings scaled solutions that help customers thrive in a changing world. They apply nearly 100 years of experience and expertise to reduce the total cost of healthcare and to improve the lives of patients. SAP Concur helps them deliver on this promise by creating an easy-to-use, cost-management system that gives employees the freedom to focus on what matters most – that is, being "essential to care."</li>
<li><a href="https://www.edsisolutions.com/" target="_blank">EDSI</a>: EDSI is a workforce development and talent solutions consulting company with a passion for training and connecting people and companies. They provide better employment opportunities for their customers, helping them feel better about themselves and their future. With SAP Concur, the ease and efficiency with which they now process expenses impacts their work by making their employees’ lives better, smarter and faster – allowing them more time to do what they love.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.ibm.com/us-en/" target="_blank">IBM</a>: IBM is the largest global technology and consulting employer in the world, specializing in cognitive and cloud platform solutions. IBM recently deployed SAP Concur solutions internally as well as "travel bot" to answer hundreds of employee travel and expense questions daily.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.promat.us/en" target="_blank">Promat</a>: Promat is a leader in the field of passive fire protection and sophisticated fire science technologies that thrives on sustainability and protecting people’s lives. They develop unique sustainable solutions for construction and industrial markets, providing safety and energy savings. Since implementing SAP Concur, they’ve gained visibility into their company spend and drastically cut down on paperwork; by using Concur Mobile for quick smartphone approvals, they can give time back to employees so that they can focus on what matters.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
See Which Travel and Expense Solution Stands Out in the IDC MarketScape Report
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/see-which-travel-and-expense-solution-stands-out-idc-marketscape-report
2019-09-24T08:19:21Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Digital tools have transformed the way companies capture employee travel and business expenses Employees are booking travel and making business purchases on mobile devices and in many...
<p>Digital tools have transformed the way companies capture employee travel and business expenses. Employees are booking travel and making business purchases on mobile devices and in many different locations, meaning the cloud is quickly becoming the necessary option for businesses that want to track their T&E. But how do you select the right solution for your business?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_Flight-itinerary_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Travel & Expense Management Apps 2018 Vendor Assessment</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-expense-management-apps-2018-vendor-assessment">Read the report</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Every year, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-expense-management-apps-2018-vendor-assessment">IDC publishes a study</a> that aims to offer an assessment of the available options. The research firm analyzes several different factors that businesses might want to consider, including experience, innovation, support, and ROI, among many others. Because the travel and expense space evolves rapidly, IDC says, “it is extremely important for end users to understand how vendors and their solutions are positioned currently as well as how those vendors and their solutions may be positioned in the next three to five years.”</p>
<p>In 2018, the IDC MarketScape report evaluated nine different travel and expense solutions. IDC positioned SAP Concur solutions in the "leaders" category of this market. In particular, IDC highlights some primary strengths that our solutions provide, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Extensive global support</li>
<li>A sophisticated travel booking app</li>
<li>Acquired supplemental tools to better manage travel and expenses</li>
<li>Dedicated company division focused on developing innovative features</li>
<li>Built-in integrations with SAP solutions for increased business intelligence and automation</li>
<li>The most extensive app store devoted to travel and expense applications</li>
</ul>
<p>When making a big decision about the digital tools your business will use in the future, it’s important to have all the information you need to make the best choice. Get the report from IDC to find out more about how a connected solution from SAP Concur could help you better manage employee travel and get greater visibility into your spend.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-marketscape-worldwide-travel-expense-management-apps-2018-vendor-assessment">Get the free report</a> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
These Top Trends are Driving the Need for Better Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/these-top-trends-are-driving-need-better-spend-management
2018-07-11T09:24:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
As the expense travel and invoice management landscape changes small and midsize businesses SMBs are put in the position of having to keep up with the times or fall behind Businesses...
<p data-id="16b2a6b5-fd05-470a-a372-58206ee60d8f">As the expense, travel, and invoice management landscape changes, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are put in the position of having to keep up with the times or fall behind. Businesses struggling to grow and compete eventually find that their legacy processes and solutions can’t keep up – and they risk getting surpassed by more nimble competitors.</p>
<p data-id="16b2a6b5-fd05-470a-a372-58206ee60d8f"> </p>
<p data-id="16b2a6b5-fd05-470a-a372-58206ee60d8f"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Read the report</a> for more on boosting business performance with automation</strong></p>
<p data-id="16b2a6b5-fd05-470a-a372-58206ee60d8f"> </p>
<p data-id="26662914-18f2-4a1c-bd15-a9c922f7c85e">So, how can financial decision makers at SMBs best allocate their limited resources? AMI Partners conducted a study to find out the answer to this exact question. In surveying more than 400 small and midsize businesses, the research firm discovered that businesses which were automating their expense, travel, and invoice management saw the greatest boost in business performance.</p>
<p data-id="df394d77-08b4-494f-b49c-cce21f10a475">As part of their findings, AMI Partners laid out the top trends that SMBs must be preparing for in order to remain competitive in the current landscape:</p>
<p data-id="df394d77-08b4-494f-b49c-cce21f10a475"> </p>
<h2 data-id="ed8d0e89-cfc1-4901-8193-082672c3b0c9">Workforces are increasingly mobile</h2>
<p data-id="bdf845d8-903e-4220-9a53-4de760f82abc">The need for mobility in the modern workplace is quickly becoming non-negotiable. More employees are going to expect to work on mobile devices; more partners and suppliers are going to be based on mobile-enabled solutions; and as technology advances faster in the coming years, businesses that don’t go mobile risk falling further behind.</p>
<p data-id="f994aad3-8445-4d7e-af55-4b66f03e549e">In the report, AMI found that “allowing for key personnel to sign off on invoices while on the road saves time and allowing traveling employees to automatically populate and upload an expense report boosts employee satisfaction and engagement.”</p>
<p data-id="f994aad3-8445-4d7e-af55-4b66f03e549e"> </p>
<h2 data-id="42623735-fc58-40b6-b43f-a0f83a31fb1c">Businesses are processing invoices from multiple suppliers</h2>
<p data-id="469f7241-8e50-4403-92e9-5407f14d5c83">A typical business could be working with hundreds of suppliers and was likely to process as many as 28 invoices per accounts payable employee per month. That added up to 14% of the finance staff’s time in a given week spent processing invoices. Teams using an automated expense, travel, and invoice solution were found to spend “significantly less time processing invoices” and were able to dedicate more time to tasks that helped grow the business.</p>
<p data-id="469f7241-8e50-4403-92e9-5407f14d5c83"> </p>
<h2 data-id="e47787d3-f1fd-4f24-9100-7a3c1e1a319c">Overarching business goals are creating added pressures</h2>
<p data-id="a10c46ea-3f34-4eaa-a73f-a7134357acf0">64% of businesses surveyed by AMI said that reducing operating expenses is a strategically important goal for them, and more than half said that they wanted to reduce costs and increase productivity with technology. However, businesses that stuck with manual solutions were at a disadvantage when trying to meet their goals because inefficient finance systems impacted several other parts of the organization.</p>
<p data-id="c4bcf4e2-8eb3-4ccc-80c4-a3a824e91b4d">As these trends continue to pose new challenges that small businesses will face, the spend management space also continues to heat up. The demands on managers and decision makers will force them to automate spend management processes or risk lagging behind — or worse.</p>
<p data-id="49bfc7e4-32a8-464c-9946-4ea998093f2f">Ultimately, AMI Partners sums up the results of their study succinctly: “Firms that do not take steps to update their T&E and invoicing processes will miss out on opportunities for growth and struggle to compete.” <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance-and-better-manage-spend-automation">Get the free report</a> to learn how to take those steps. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Use These Best Practices and Tips for a Fraud Mitigation Program
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-these-best-practices-and-tips-fraud-mitigation-program
2018-10-10T07:50:28Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
In part one of our ongoing series we defined employeeinitiated spend and enumerated on a number of areas affecting management of this category of spend In this article we turn focus on...
<p>In <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-cfos-can-manage-out-of-control-employee-spend">part one of our on-going series</a>, we defined employee-initiated spend and enumerated on a number of areas affecting management of this category of spend. In this article we turn focus on potential fraud that can result from employee spending, intentional and accidental, and how to mitigate it.</p>
<p>The new ways in which employees are spending complicates spend management for organizations. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) 2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse reports that 5% of a typical organization’s revenue is lost to fraud each year, and 83% of fraud cases involve asset misappropriation, including padding Travel and Expense categories. Employees using personal payment methods such as cash, Apple pay, personal credit card, or buying directly from a service provider to pay for non-traditional expenses can open the door for potential fraud and impact an organization’s predictability of cash flow requirements. Non-traditional expenses include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Hotel bookings outside of the company’s managed travel system,</li>
<li>Meeting room bookings and catering for a corporate function without a P.O. or prior approval request,</li>
<li>Subscriptions to magazines, gift programs such as wine clubs, season passes at football games, etc.</li>
<li>Gasoline</li>
<li>Reimbursement for the use of personal cars;</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, opportunities for fraud can occur when multiple reimbursement requests are submitted for the same expense, such as home-office supplies purchased with a credit card, reimbursed on an expense report to the employee, and later paid against an invoice submitted to accounts payable by the vendor; or if an employee submits the same receipt on two different expense reports or the same expense for different trips. !</p>
<p>The ACFE study shows that the median loss of asset misappropriation amounted to $154K, with expense reimbursements making up 14% of risk in this fraud category. Additionally, a 2017 report by Oversight indicates that 37% of business travelers had at least one exception on their expense reports. Ultimately, this means that there are numerous opportunities an employee has to manipulate expenses to their personal benefit. The multiple channels of spend and payment methods available today, and the absence of a process and system in place to capture all of this spend can multiply the impact of this phenomenon.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Audits are only part of the solution</h2>
<p>Most companies have some form of approval workflows and audit processes to ensure that expense reports are properly filled out and substantiated. The employee categorizes what the expense was for (e.g. travel to visit a client, personal meal, hotel, taxi, etc.), indicates amount spent, which form of payment was used (cash, corporate credit card), and attaches a receipt or invoice. Managers approve or reject the expense reports according to corporate policies, approved expense reports and invoices are registered in the ERP system and scheduled for reimbursement to employee, payment to corporate credit card, or to vendor.</p>
<p>Audits are a great method when used to verify expenses are properly substantiated to meet tax and fiscal requirements, adherence to company policy, and as a checkpoint for multiple submittals of the same expense or invoice. However, if you are not connecting all channels and methods of spend available to employees in today’s landscape, you don’t have the ability to proactively prevent fraudulent activity and are missing out on accurate spend data for reporting, budgeting and forecasting purposes no matter what percentage of expenses you are auditing</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Visibility into fraud requires observation over time</h2>
<p>According to the ACFE study, 82% of fraud is caused by 5% of employees, and it takes 18 months to uncover. Tracking unusual patterns of spend within a department, or spending peaks by employee, might help detect possible fraud.</p>
<p>Fraud mitigation involves a combination of actions beyond audits:</p>
<ol>
<li>One organization suggests having a robust program for corporate p-cards or travel and expense cards that integrates into a spend platform. This provides a mechanism for automatic verification of charges and visibility of charges independent of when an expense report is submitted. Fraud examiners, auditors and managers can rely on this data to validate purchases, credits and aid in investigations.</li>
<li>Using GPS-enabled technologies that track point-to-point mileage ensures employees are not padding their traveled miles to see clients.</li>
<li>Monitoring out-of-policy spending with reporting tools that can track exceptions over time by employee and by category of expense can alert managers to potential fraud before it gets out of hand.</li>
<li>Having an integrated system that automatically alerts when the same charge is being submitted on two separate expense reports, e.g. a train ticket for reimbursement against a personal credit card receipt, and against the actual ticket, will prevent potential instances of fraud.</li>
</ol>
<p>For employee spend that is not travel-related, employee spend, payment with P-cards or corporate credit cards also can protect the company from paying for the same invoice twice: once when the expense is recorded in an expense report, and then if an invoice is received. The P-card or credit card provides visibility to the charged amount and vendor, so that chances of the same invoice being paid twice are minimized.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Best practices CFOs can implement to mitigate errors and fraud associated with employee spend</h2>
<p>Intentional fraud and unintended mistakes can be minimized by implementing one or more of the following best practices:</p>
<ul>
<li>Using an integrated platform for capturing employee spend across all spend channels </li>
<li>Having centralized budgets with timely alerts to department managers for staying within approved budgets, combined with approval policies both for prior and after submitting the expense</li>
<li>Putting audit policies in place to monitor 100% of reports for key areas of duplication and intended and unintended errors</li>
<li>Eliminating manual reporting of mileage with the introduction of automatic GPS-based mileage trackers</li>
<li>Auditing 100% of expenses using a combination of Artificial Intelligence and manual audits</li>
</ul>
<p>To assist our customers in the implementation of the above best practices, SAP Concur is your partner that provides the tools and services you need to proactively prevent, manage and detect expense fraud. SAP Concur solutions including Consultative Intelligence, Budget, Detect, Drive, and Corporate Billings Statements, work with Concur Expense to help mitigate risks around fraud opportunities.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>SAP Concur value consulting to benchmark best practices</h2>
<p>For current SAP Concur customers, there is a new service called Value Consulting.<strong> Value Consulting benchmarks best practices of an organization</strong> to compare them against others in their industry, and possible cost avoidance is identified through a collaborative value assessment with the SAP Concur value consultant. For more information on this and other services, CFOs should contact their SAP Concur account team.</p>
<p>In this article we learned from the ACFE that up to 5% of a company’s revenue is lost each year to fraud. For organizations with $100 million to $500 million in annual revenue, fraud can account for $5 million to $25 million in losses. Putting in place policies and best practices such as budget control, 100% auditing, replacing manual-reporting of mileage with automated mileage tracking, and data mining, among others, can help mitigate the magnitude of these losses and increase the company’s bottom line.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for our next article where we will explore the topic of invisible spend and take an in-depth look at ways in which CFOs can benefit from monitoring and tracking spend, no matter how spend is captured, where the money is spent, and what payment channel the employees use to pay for services.</p>
<p><strong>Visit our website to learn more about <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/compliance-fraud">compliance and fraud solutions</a>, and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/strategic-spend-management">strategic spend solutions</a> for better expense management and create a culture of compliance.</strong></p>
Serge Kogan
How to Free Up Time So You Can Focus on the Important Things
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-free-time-so-you-can-focus-important-things
2021-04-28T08:51:01Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
How much of your day do you spend doing financial admin Entering data chasing invoices remedying incorrect expenses tracking down missing paperwork and all the other things you need to...
<p>How much of your day do you spend doing financial admin? Entering data, chasing invoices, remedying incorrect expenses, tracking down missing paperwork, and all the other things you need to do to? Every task is essential but it’s also time-consuming and, often, tedious.</p>
<p>How much of it is up to the standard you’d like it to be? You wouldn’t be alone in thinking it isn't. According to <a href="https://www.concur.co.uk/resources/connecting-dots-travel-expense-and-invoice-spend">research carried out for us by Vanson Bourne</a> among 500 finance leaders in the UK:</p>
<ul>
<li>46% believe that errors and mistakes are their greatest challenges</li>
<li>68% aren’t completely confident that employees comply with company T&E policies.</li>
</ul>
<p>And what about the strategic thinking, the planning, and the analysis that’s consistently squeezed out because the day-to-day admin gets in the way?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Finance automation offers a way to free up time</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Research carried out with AMI-Partners</a> among key financial decision makers in 420 SMBs revealed some startling results about the effectiveness of finance automation in giving you the time you need to focus on the bigger picture.</p>
<p>The average accounting/finance team implementing an invoice management solution reduced time spent on their tasks by 16%. This translates to about 40 hours a week for a team of five. The time saving is similar (15%) for companies using an expense and travel solution. Think about all of the strategic business tasks you and your team can take on in that additional time.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Finance automation allows you to add value to the business</h2>
<p>A Head of Finance at a London charity sums it up perfectly:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Accountants generally have a reputation for being backward-looking because that’s our role. But just having a system that works and takes advantage of technology… gives us self-confidence and a standing in the organisation we didn’t have before.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>More than half (54%) of the companies surveyed by AMI reported that improved analytics was an important benefit of an automated solution. With finance automation you get more reliable data, as well as greater visibility into your spend, meaning you'll be better equipped to make informed business decisions.</p>
<p>You can also be confident in the rate of user adoption and employee compliance. Users of expense, travel, and invoice solutions found that with automation, employees were less likely to submit non-compliant expenses. If they did, automation allowed finance managers to flag expenses that were out of policy and better prepare for audits.</p>
<p>With automation, you’ll be able to do more with less, which is an important ability in today’s business landscape. A key decision maker within a large technology firm using SAP Concur said: “As we continued to grow, the system just absorbed new employees. The accounting team has remained stable as the company has grown over the last three years.”</p>
<p>You’ll also have more time to be more human because there will be less pressure to process paperwork before it gets on top of you. It means you’ll be in a position to be more proactive, more visible, and to build relationships both in the business as well as with clients and other stakeholders.</p>
<p>In other words, automation lets you do the job you want to do and add even more value to business planning conversations and board-level discussions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ami-partners-study-elevate-business-performance">Download the full report</a> to learn more about elevating business performance with automation. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Renowned Engineering Firm Turns to SAP Concur for a “One-Stop Shop” Travel Solution
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/renowned-engineering-firm-turns-sap-concur-one-stop-shop-travel-solution
2018-10-11T14:39:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Illinois Tool Works ITW a Fortune company is no stranger to innovation As the companys website puts it The ability to invent envision and create something new is central to ITWs...
<p>Illinois Tool Works (ITW), a Fortune 500 company, is no stranger to innovation. As the company’s website puts it, “The ability to invent, envision, and create something new is central to ITW’s longevity and profitable growth.” Because of its long history of pioneering new solutions to complex challenges, ITW eventually turned to a similarly innovative set of solutions from SAP Concur to help move their thousands of employees around the globe.</p>
<p>Before switching to integrated SAP Concur solutions, ITW was spending $3 million each year to service only their U.S.-based employees. “With SAP Concur, we have been able to shave a million dollars off and we’re now servicing 33 countries instead of one,” says Cathy Sharpe, the Director of the Global Travel and Expense Group at ITW. Watch the video to learn more about how ITW is running at their best with SAP Concur.</p>
<p>To find out how you can achieve similar travel and expense success to ITW, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">check out Concur Travel</a> today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Increase Job Satisfaction and Reduce Stress for your Accounts Payable Staff
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-increase-job-satisfaction-and-reduce-stress-your-accounts-payable-staff
2021-03-01T16:42:47Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur AP Recognition Week is an annual opportunity to show appreciation toward our unsung heroes in the finance department...
<p>Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.financialops.org/web/membership/recognition-week1">AP Recognition Week</a> is an annual opportunity to show appreciation toward our unsung heroes in the finance department: the accounts payable employees who every day focus on making sure bills get paid promptly and accurately while keeping suppliers happy.</p>
<p>Their work is behind the scenes, but AP is essential to managing vendor relationships and your company’s overall financial success. And sometimes the job is stressful.</p>
<p>So how do you keep your AP staff feeling more satisfied and less stressed?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Let them contribute to higher-impact, strategic projects</h2>
<p>Traditionally, accounts payable employees spent much of their day manually recording payment information – and then having to double-check it for errors. But there’s no need for that anymore. For example, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-value-of-automating-your-ap-accounts-payable-process">payments automation</a> frees up your AP staff’s time, allowing them to focus on more valuable, strategic tasks. Consider an AP employee who is commissioned to create a report based on your company’s spending data and recommend ways to improve the company’s cash flow. Not only is that employee adding value, you’ve helped make their role more interesting and rewarding.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Give them ownership of their work</h2>
<p>Along the same vein, AP employees should be encouraged to recommend changes and make decisions – and be accountable for those decisions. <a href="https://qz.com/676144/why-its-your-call-is-the-best-thing-you-can-say-to-keep-employees-happy/" target="_blank">Research</a> shows that employees who have autonomy in their work are more productive, satisfied, and innovative. Once again, a cloud-based AP automation tool can provide your business with a treasure trove of data and analytics that provide great visibility into their spending. Your AP staff can use this data to identify efficiencies and savings. Empower them to do that.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Invest in the right technologies</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">Millennial</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/meet-generation-z-the-newest-members-of-your-workforce">Gen Z workers</a> are avid users of technology in their personal lives, and they expect employers to embrace technology as well. When it comes to your AP Processes, consider what technologies can benefit your company overall while making your employees’ jobs easier and more rewarding. From mobile to machine learning, tools are now being incorporated into AP solutions that provide an unprecedented level of convenience and insight. (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/why-you-should-be-excited-about-ai-and-ml-accounting-and-finance"><strong>Download this white paper</strong></a> to find out more about how machine learning and AI are revolutionizing AP.)</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Provide the right tools and resources</h2>
<p>Information is power. Offer your AP employees access to the latest tools and resources to help them perform their jobs. SAP Concur has created a <a href="https://www.concur.com/accounts-payable-recognition">resource page</a> dedicated to helping AP staff. In celebration of AP Recognition Week, don’t just pop the champagne bottle. Find meaningful ways to show your AP employees they are a valuable part of your team.</p>
<p>Want to learn more about how to strengthen your company’s AP processes? <a href="https://go.concur.com/1018_AP-Recognition-Week-Webinar.html"><strong>Join our webinar </strong></a>on Wednesday, October 10, at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern. Accounts payable experts Landon Bickel of SAP Concur and Justin Reynolds of American Express will lay out the top five challenges AP professionals face and reveal actionable ways to solve them.</p>
SAP Concur Executives
How to Fine-Tune Your Expense Approval Process
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-fine-tune-your-expense-approval-process
2019-03-19T08:12:17Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Signing off expenses can be a problematic chore On the one hand its essentially admin Its very easy to simply approve an expense claim without a second glance which...
<p>Signing off expenses can be a problematic chore.</p>
<p>On the one hand, it’s essentially admin. It’s very easy to simply approve an expense claim without a second glance, which is troubling given <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/minimizing-fraud-maximizing-compliance">5% of a typical organization's annual revenue</a> is lost to fraud. </p>
<p>On the other hand, approving expenses is a vital job. Taking the time to do it right is essential if you’re going to pick up on mistakes and fraud that could be costing the company money. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">10% of travelers have at least one duplicate expense</a>, and those errors average more than $50.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/styles/resource-center-asset/public/whitepapers/field_pdf_image/9717-0.jpg?itok=NpAm6Ty9" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Taking the Driver's Seat</h2>
<p>Use these tips to better manage, detect and prevent fraud.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>So how do you balance both these issues? How do you minimize the time it takes expense approvers to sign off expenses but also be confident in your compliance?</p>
<p>Here are four ways you can fine-tune your approval process:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>1. Let automation take the strain</h2>
<p>Automation is a huge help in spotting inconsistencies and highlighting concerns. It means issues such as duplicate claims, missing receipts, and out-of-policy items can be weeded out before they even reach the approval process.</p>
<p>It doesn’t stop there either. Automation tools such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a> can be customised to meet your precise requirements. For example, if some line items – bank charges on the company credit card being an obvious one – don’t need a receipt, Concur can be set to accept these without further question. It means that approvers don’t waste time checking an expense query they don’t need to.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Train your expense report approver</h2>
<p>When it comes to improving compliance, training is essential. It means report approvers are equipped with the information they need to approve expenses with confidence.</p>
<p>Create guidelines so report approvers know what they should be looking for when they are approving invoices. For example, make sure they are confident the expenses they are signing off:</p>
<ul>
<li>Have a valid business purpose</li>
<li>Comply with your policies</li>
<li>Include all the relevant detail</li>
</ul>
<p>It is also important that report approvers feel supported. If they have a query about an expense, how do they escalate it?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Check your approval chain</h2>
<p>An expense claim typically has to go through several layers of sign off. In each case, the approver typically becomes more and more senior. It’s worth asking the question: Is checking things such as whether dates tally and receipts align really <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/5-things-your-ap-team-didnt-sign-up-for">the best use of their time</a>? Automation can definitely alleviate this pain point. But could someone else in the business be responsible for checking the nuts and bolts of an expense claim, leaving management to sign it off at a business-case level?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Consider a safety net</h2>
<p>For complete peace of mind, nothing beats the combination of automation and human intelligence. That’s exactly what Concur Audit provides. Once an expense claim has been through your system, it can go through ours. Concur Audit conducts unbiased audits on your behalf so expenses are thoroughly checked before they are reimbursed. You also get advice from our experienced audit team on how to update and manage your policies to save your business time and money. The service gives you an extra pair of eyes where you need it most and can be configured in a way that makes sense for your business.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Save time and increase compliance</h2>
<p>By placing automation at the heart of your expense approval process, you can minimise the time burden on approvers and have greater confidence in your compliance. It’s a situation where everyone wins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Travel Risk Quiz: How Can You Improve Your Duty of Care?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-risk-quiz-how-can-you-improve-your-duty-care
2019-03-19T08:15:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
For every business whatever its size duty of care and travel risk management should be a top priority Its your legal requirement to keep employees safe and to take reasonable steps to...
<p>For every business, whatever its size, duty of care and <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/four-reasons-why-travel-risk-management-is-a-business-imperative">travel risk management</a> should be a top priority. It’s your legal requirement to keep employees safe and to take reasonable steps to ensure a safe working environment. However, it’s an unfortunate reality that a number of issues – strike action, natural disasters, world health warnings, and the like – can put them at risk.</p>
<p>Take a couple of minutes to take our travel risk quiz and see where your company stands. Don't like the results? Below are some questions to ask yourself.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/images/us/risk-meter-animation-looped.gif" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Travel Risk Quiz</h2>
<p>In just a few minutes, find out how well your company is managing travel risks.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">Take the Quiz</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do you know the risks your employees face?</h2>
<p>If you do, you’ll be able to identify how to mitigate them and keep your employees safe. Try and put yourself in their shoes to prepare them for every eventuality. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are they able to navigate unfamiliar locations and conditions?</li>
<li>How might health issues such as stress and fatigue from travel delays affect mental health and illness?</li>
<li>Can they speak the local language, do they understand the culture?</li>
<li>Are they fully aware of health risks and local medical facilities?</li>
<li>Do they know who to contact in case of an emergency, such as line managers or a safety representative?</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Can you spot your duty of care gaps?</h2>
<p>Even if you have a good track record of safety and security, there might be hidden duty of care gaps you won’t spot until it’s too late. Ask yourself, do you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Educate your business travelers on general and specific travel risks?</li>
<li>Keep track of when an employee was last given travel safety advice?</li>
<li>Consider high-risk foreign travel, domestic travel, and remote working?</li>
<li>Document your risk management strategy with a dedicated team?</li>
<li>Regularly test your crisis management plan?</li>
<li>Ensure procedures are in place for reasonable care and situations of ill health?</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Do you know where your employees are?</h2>
<p>If your duty of care program is disconnected from your travel and expense process, it can be difficult to locate and communicate with employees that may be in harm’s way. Technology can improve business travel visibility to help you track and communicate with your employees whenever and wherever needed. You can use company credit cards to access real-time visibility of travel and expense spend and when combined with location-based analytics, you’ll be able to fulfil your duty of care obligations and legal duty.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Are you prepared for the new norm?</h2>
<p>As organizations continue to expand their operations, business travel becomes more essential. That, combined with the rise of flexible working, makes managing a remote or mobile workforce the new norm. The demographic of your workforce is also changing – employees are increasingly independent, booking their own trips and choosing their own places to stay. While changes in the working environment, and having mobile and flexible options gives employees the freedom and personalization they want, it raises concerns for organizations whose current solutions don’t capture employee spend where and when it’s happening. If your travel program is stuck in the past, it’s time to prepare for the future.</p>
<p>It is also important to ensure your business is compliant with employment law and you follow the correct safety regulations with regards to your employees' duty of care. Ensuring your employees are safe when traveling on business, can help avoid issues such as personal injury, whilst maintaining the health and wellbeing of staff. This in turn helps with overall staff retention and performance, which ultimately is in the best interests of a business.</p>
<p><strong>To see where your business stands, use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/risk-assessment-quiz">risk analysis tool</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
Helping the Most Vulnerable Community Members as We Enter the Holiday Season
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/helping-most-vulnerable-community-members-we-enter-holiday-season
2021-03-01T15:42:14Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur Today during SAP Concurs Quarterly Company Meeting Mike Eberhard and I had the honor of surprising Marty...
<p>Jenn McColly was formerly Vice President of Employee Experience at SAP Concur</p>
<p>Today during SAP Concur’s Quarterly Company Meeting, Mike Eberhard and I had the honor of surprising Marty Hoffman, executive director of <a href="http://www.marysplaceseattle.org/">Mary’s Place</a>, with a $25,000 donation in support of their No Child Sleeps Outside campaign. By helping provide safety and shelter to the underserved youth of Seattle, Mary’s Place allows children to focus their efforts towards obtaining a quality education.</p>
<p>At SAP Concur, we work to help the world run better and improve peoples’ lives. One important component of this mission is our commitment to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">corporate social responsibility</a>; working to positively impact our local and global communities. Our focus at SAP Concur is made up of three pillars: growing STEM education, creating access to quality education, and supporting girls and young women in tech and leadership.</p>
<p>During the holiday season we reflect on the importance of our community and those who need community the most. Mary’s Place, located in the Seattle area, has the mission to support their local community by empowering homeless women, children and families to reclaim their lives.</p>
<p>SAP Concur has had a long history of community outreach with Mary’s Place, hosting volunteer projects for employees and interns, holiday gift giving, and collection drives. Last year my son and I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Mary’s Place Holly Jolly Party and we look forward to continuing our support of events and activities just like this. Their tireless efforts to bring shelter, food and education to our most vulnerable community members makes Mary’s Place such an incredible organization.</p>
<p>We are incredibly thankful to work with the fantastic employees and families at Mary’s Place and look forward to continuing our relationship in the future. At SAP Concur we are excited to continue our efforts to give back to local communities and grow our global impact.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Executives
Creating a Healthy Balance of Work and Life Can Propel Your Business Forward
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/creating-healthy-balance-work-and-life-can-propel-your-business-forward
2021-03-01T16:42:11Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur Running a small business often means wearing many hats getting pulled in multiple directions and sometimes spending...
<p>Christal Bemont was formerly Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Concur</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Running a small business often means wearing many hats, getting pulled in multiple directions, and sometimes spending nights and weekends working. When time is our most precious commodity, it needs to be spent wisely and not on tedious tasks such as processing invoices and approving expenses. Consider this . . . what if you could take the current time you spend on mundane tasks and put it toward what matters most inside and outside of the office – like implementing more strategic projects or spending time with family and friends? Automation can help.</p>
<p>That is why SAP Concur is celebrating <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/national-small-business-week">National Small Business Week</a> by focusing on the benefits of creating a healthy balance between work and life, and showcasing how automation can help you create a more productive environment for your employees while accelerating your success.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1556667468289-nsbw_ebook_automating_recipe_growth_cover.PNG" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Automating Financial Processes: A Recipe for Wellness and Growth</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automating-financial-processes-a-recipe-for-wellness-and-growth">Read the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Automating processes is a winning approach for small businesses. It gives you the opportunity to create efficiencies, streamline processes, and eliminate tedious tasks, ultimately freeing-up time for what’s truly important. It also sets your business up for success by enabling real-time visibility into spend, giving you the ability to control and manage costs, and surfacing data that can better help you accurately forecast the future. The result: happier, more productive employees and a business that’s well-positioned for growth.</p>
<p>So, as we move into National Small Business Week, I encourage you to carve out time next week to explore the <a href="http://www.concur.com/nsbw" target="_blank">many resources</a> SAP Concur is sharing about the different ways you can add more life to your business. I’m particularly excited about the webinar <a href="https://go.concur.com/add-more-life-to-your-business-webinar-register-smn-0519.html" target="_blank">5 Signs Your Business is Running You</a>. Steve Strauss, bestselling author and senior USA TODAY small business columnist, and our own Accounts Payable Specialist, Kellee Simmons, will discuss best practices to mitigate or eliminate inefficient processes that are creating work-life imbalance. You’ll also have the opportunity to learn how optimizing AP and expense processing can restore performance and satisfaction. </p>
<p>Achieving balance between life and work is a personal and dynamic journey that looks different for everyone. Here’s to finding what works best for you and your business!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wishing you continued health and success,<br />
Christal Bemont </p>
SAP Concur Executives
Introducing SAP Business Exchange - A Community to Help You Grow and Connect
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/introducing-sap-business-exchange-community-help-you-grow-and-connect
2019-05-13T11:48:23Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Introducing SAP Business Exchange A Community to Help You Grow and Connect wwwsapbusinessexchangecom At Fusion our annual customer conference we unveiled our refreshed and enhanced...
<p><strong>Introducing SAP Business Exchange - A Community to Help You Grow and Connect </strong> <br />
<a href="https://community.concur.com/">www.sap-business-exchange.com</a></p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1552935037003-background-copy.png" />
<p>At Fusion, our annual customer conference, we unveiled our refreshed and enhanced community site, SAP Business Exchange. This community is a terrific resource to discover insights that can unlock new opportunities for your business. And, for those who choose to become members (which we highly recommend), the SAP Business Exchange gives you a platform to connect and learn from fellow business leaders. </p>
<h2>Access exclusive content to help accelerate your success</h2>
<p>Visitors to the SAP Business Exchange can view a list of upcoming SAP and SAP Concur events. Anyone who visits can also access exclusive content from industry leaders and subject matter experts about a variety of business topics, such as starting a business, driving growth, team building, and more. Below is just some of the content we’re currently showcasing. We update this content regularly, so visit often to see what’s new! </p>
<img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1552933953125-sbe.jpg" />
<h2>Become an SAP Business Exchange member to unlock more content</h2>
<p>To take advantage of all the resources and benefits the SAP Business Exchange has to offer, we recommend becoming a member. Membership has its perks! </p>
<p>As an SAP Business Exchange member, you can create connections and start conversations with other business leaders using the business forums and groups. </p>
<p>Think of some of the most valuable business relationships you have and how much you’ve learned from those connections. They’re important and have likely helped or are helping you grow professionally. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned business owner, having a network of peers to reach out to for ideas and support can be very helpful. </p>
<p>SAP Business Exchange members also have access to: </p>
<p>Offers and discounts from SAP Business Exchange partners </p>
<p>Resources to keep you informed about the latest SAP Concur products and solutions </p>
<p>Sign up here to join the conversation on the SAP Business Exchange. Membership is open to everyone. </p>
<p>Questions or feedback? Feel free to email SAPBusinessExchange@sap.com. We’d be happy to help you.</p>
Ryan Demaray
Guidance for Growth: The Finance Leader’s Role in Business Expansion
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/guidance-growth-finance-leaders-role-business-expansion
2019-06-25T14:28:08Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its a fact When small and midsize businesses SMBs grow time and money get stretched to the limit Companies not only hire more people invest in new equipment and work space and buy more...
<p data-id="08182d25-7439-45fb-a669-f05ca3e3d259">It’s a fact: When small and midsize businesses (SMBs) grow, time and money get stretched to the limit. Companies not only hire more people, invest in new equipment and work space, and buy more materials to produce products, but their employees tend to spend more on travel, expenses, and miscellaneous resources such as marketing and office supplies.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/concur-enterprise-cover-image.jpg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Growing a Business?</h2>
<p>Watch our on-demand webinar with Oxford Economics to explore survey data and insights to help you scale.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://go.concur.com/how-prioritizing-cash-flow-helps-businesses-grow.html">Watch now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="0496bca8-155e-48e6-a2ff-7e0756f95964">Left uncontrolled, these discretionary expenses can add up quickly and leave little cash flow left for critical growth initiatives. But conversely, when finance leaders transform how they manage spend – for example, by applying intelligent, automated technologies – they can proactively control costs, optimize cash flow, and provide guidance to line-of-business teams on where to direct spending to maximize growth.</p>
<p data-id="0496bca8-155e-48e6-a2ff-7e0756f95964"> </p>
<p data-id="cf1adf57-b42b-4c9a-838f-20108051e9f8">According to a new <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/managing-smb-growth-oxford-economics-worldwide-report">study conducted by Oxford Economics</a>, cost-conscious finance leaders achieve the best outcomes – all while keeping expansion costs in line (see Figure 1). Generally speaking, cost-conscious SMBs approach their expansions far differently – and see very different outcomes – than companies that say spending and cash flow were not important factors in their growth decisions.</p>
<img alt="6,5,1.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/opal/image/upload/v1559595073/6_5_1_twjmwf.png" />
<p data-id="e334b5d5-161c-41c4-848f-57d86e74f312">Figure 1: Cost-conscious SMBs stay in budget, even during expansion.</p>
<p data-id="70a11cb9-8211-49a3-b5e0-00aa49ccc6b6"> </p>
<p data-id="70a11cb9-8211-49a3-b5e0-00aa49ccc6b6">So the big question is, what’s so different about how cost-conscious finance leaders manage spending and costs? This same study reported that 93% of cost-conscious SMB executives agree they have the right platforms and systems in place to adapt to their growing organization, vs 79% of less cost-conscious executives. In other words, they have the right technologies enabling visibility and control over spending, which equips them to prevent spiraling costs, make better decisions, and provide better guidance to lines of business. Their finance departments also work more efficiently, as they report spending less time and effort on core finance tasks relative to their less cost-conscious peers – despite the fact that they are growing and there’s more to do (see Figure 2).</p>
<img alt="6,5,2.png" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/opal/image/upload/v1559595073/6_5_2_ysel8h.png" />
<p data-id="8dc81826-1acb-4d4d-9553-ea0c4468ba78">Figure 2: Cost-conscious SMBs that report having the right platforms and systems in place to adapt to their growing organization spend less time and effort on core finance tasks.</p>
<p data-id="8dc81826-1acb-4d4d-9553-ea0c4468ba78"> </p>
<p data-id="025dbeb2-d22d-4645-8a5f-5fe3dd156f14">Clearly, cost-conscious SMBs are on the right track – and you can learn from their success by <a href="https://sap.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/105282/Eewb7QB9LiZMkjJvqoHJbKoB6yDJE4LJQThYHLJ4IWqsGw?e=OccK2Z" target="_blank">downloading the full report</a> from Oxford Economics now.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
Taming the Wild West of Corporate Travel: A Win-Win for Travel Expense and Finance Leaders
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/taming-wild-west-corporate-travel-win-win-travel-expense-and-finance-leaders
2019-10-17T09:51:13Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Its easy to view corporate travel as just a cost of doing business But it plays a vital function for every business Depending on your industry its what keeps your company moving the...
<p>It’s easy to view corporate travel as just a cost of doing business. But it plays a vital function for every business. Depending on your industry, it’s what keeps your company moving; the sales pipeline flowing; your experts informed and certified; and your people in front of patients, customers, and partners. Travel also brings teams together, whether it’s to assess a potential acquisition, collaborate to solve a problem, or innovate. Equally important, travel management processes touch everything from regulatory practices and compliance to budgets, payroll, tax applications, traveler safety, and value-added tax (VAT) reclaim.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So the pressure’s on to make travel spend management count – to get as much business value from your travel program as possible.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Four Keys to Maximizing the Strategic Business Value of Travel Programs</h2>
<p>Learn how to maximize the strategic business value of your travel program. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/four-keys-to-maximizing-the-strategic-business-value-of-travel-programs">Download eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>This is no small task, as corporate travel spend is only getting harder to manage. Travelers are taking over, booking their own travel using mobile apps and supplier Web sites. They are wielding more influence and bringing more demands for flexibility and control to corporate travel programs. At the same time, new distribution channels have ushered in a new normal, fragmenting data on bookings and costs. This is making it harder for CFOs to not only understand what’s being spent, but for travel managers to know where employees are. According to the GBTA, 77% of businesses are not completely confident that their organization can quickly and accurately locate business travelers in an emergency.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Further proof that travel management is getting more complex results from recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/evolution-of-corporate-travel-content" target="_top">GBTA study</a>. It found that compared to five years ago, experienced travel managers spend more time on key functions today, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>66% more on data and analysis reporting</li>
<li>66% more on evaluating or implementing new technology</li>
<li>60% more on traveler safety and duty of care</li>
<li>52% more on cross-department meetings or collaboration</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Travel managers play a critical role in managing through these challenges and maximizing the value of travel programs, but this is often overlooked by management. For example, travel managers don’t just choose booking tools and enforce policies – they open the door to a new world of opportunity, from expanding into new markets to innovating with customers, suppliers, and partners around the world. They also play a key role that can bring order to travel chaos: helping choose new travel technologies. When they make the right choices, they can unify fragmented, third-party reservation and cost data; automate compliance; give employees the flexibility they want to book travel how, when, and where they want; and give finance a holistic view of travel-related spend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So it’s a bit of a wild west out there – even for large enterprises. And taming it will take a joint effort led primarily by finance and travel program leaders. Together, they can choose and deploy solutions that capture and centralize travel spending and itineraries booked using both corporate booking tools and third-party apps. With all travel data connected and integrated in one place, travel managers always know where employees are, finance can get more control over costs, and both parties will have the data and insights needed to drive continuous improvement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As CFOs and travel managers work together to evaluate travel technologies, look for intelligent solutions that can automate and integrate travel and expense management and capture and connect all travel transactions. These capabilities are the key to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Driving innovation into improving compliance, visibility, and cost control</li>
<li>Reinventing employee experiences ahead of their expectations</li>
<li>Supporting travelers wherever they are</li>
<li>Integrating travel and expense processes for unified visibility and control</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>Want to learn more? Download the latest paper from SAP Concur solutions, “<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/four-keys-to-maximizing-the-strategic-business-value-of-travel-programs" target="_blank">Four Keys to Maximizing the Strategic Business Value of Travel Programs</a>."</p>
<div> </div>
Neha Mehta
Automate Your Invoice Processing and Gain Transparency into School Spending
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automate-your-invoice-processing-and-gain-transparency-school-spending
2019-09-30T10:08:32Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Do you truly know where your schools spending is going Many schools experience errors within their invoice processing system leaving their total spend in the dark To mitigate these...
<p data-id="ac48a126-5652-4f5c-9133-1c9aa05c43f2">Do you truly know where your school’s spending is going? Many schools experience errors within their invoice processing system, leaving their total spend in the dark. To mitigate these issues, many schools have started taking the necessary steps to better improve their AP systems by compiling a list of strategic objects to implement, including reducing costs associated with processing expenses, improving operational efficiency, increasing policy compliance, attracting and retaining talent, and mitigating risk.</p>
<p data-id="5733b7b8-8409-4efb-8256-3df34feca4c1">These topics, and more, were the focus of a recent SAP Concur webinar, “<a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2048722/21AF7CBE29ED4E342896E425D035C676" target="_blank">Gain Immediate Transparency into Your School’s Spending Webinar</a>.”</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Gain Immediate Transparency into Your School's Spending</h2>
<p>Learn more about how your school district can streamline your AP process.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2048722/21AF7CBE29ED4E342896E425D035C676">Watch the Webinar</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p data-id="16d1b5c3-8235-4a5d-8239-9993d056ccbb">Read on for webinar highlights on how your school can achieve its AP goals through implementing SAP Concur.</p>
<p data-id="16d1b5c3-8235-4a5d-8239-9993d056ccbb"> </p>
<h2 data-id="7014bbfc-34e1-44f1-8891-a396f33496b5">How SAP Concur can help your school streamline accounts payable</h2>
<p data-id="261102dd-5f06-4b8d-83e5-d6bdd0497986">Automation is key when looking at AP tools to bring value to your school. But over 70 percent of organizations still receive paper invoices and have to spend unnecessary hours manually going through them. By eliminating paper invoices, organizations can prevent manual errors such as duplicate invoices. In fact, SAP Concur processed 12 million invoices for our customers last year and prevented more than $1.4 million in duplicate payments.</p>
<p data-id="6f300713-ee61-4a2c-b530-477ed9ad27e4">How SAP Concur’s AP processing technology can help your school district:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="e1b63d11-5e8a-48f2-a00f-701831ed6693">Save time and labor by using more efficient processing</li>
<li data-id="22f5455d-965d-4f98-b005-f9f96d75041d">Eliminate additional work caused by duplicates and other errors</li>
<li data-id="fb6b669e-ca96-4d2c-8985-dfb7c2733314">Gain earlier awareness of exceptions</li>
<li data-id="aedb0ce2-4124-4c4d-a675-3ae6131229a3">Cut the costs of storing paper checks and invoices</li>
<li data-id="1f8e0c48-70b0-4bd0-81a4-02dbe3961716">Reduce late-payment fees</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="08a10050-77cd-4f53-9ca8-566a822f4f0e">Automating your AP process will help your school district gain more accurate spending forecasts and better visibility into spend management. By having greater visibility into spend management, you can improve your bottom line.</p>
<p data-id="08a10050-77cd-4f53-9ca8-566a822f4f0e">SAP Concur combines automation and intelligence to transform the way your organization looks at spend management. Concur Invoice leverages OCR technology and SAP Leonardo Artificial Intelligence to capture data and validate data. Some of the key features of Concur Invoice are:</p>
<ul>
<li data-id="42693e62-8bf8-43f9-98ae-86bdcd6414cc">PO Invoice Fuzzy Match: Uses smart technology to match invoice, PO and receipts of goods. Artificial Intelligence looks at description, quantity, and unit price and performs a fuzzy match on documents to determine whether they are a pair.</li>
<li data-id="9fe37bd5-a698-4b19-a262-d8efaa06a6c0">Non-PO Invoice Coding: OCR technology pre-populates invoice details and reduces data entry.</li>
<li data-id="8b983dfe-2e62-4d1d-bc2c-8a8b7c5ee60d">Auto-submit: Allows for the approver to focus more time on pure exceptions. The SAP Concur mobile app allows users to approve invoices anytime, anywhere.</li>
</ul>
<p data-id="cee124f6-38a1-4f4c-a076-be8e216d242c"> </p>
<p data-id="70c2bc35-8f68-42e5-a9b8-6c191f54761e">Want to learn more about how your school district can streamline your AP process? <a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2048722/21AF7CBE29ED4E342896E425D035C676" target="_blank">Watch our on-demand webinar</a> for a live demonstration of managing invoices from capture to payment, how to create a purchase request, and more. </p>
Brenee Byrd
SAP Concur Customers, Are You Ready for 2020?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-customers-are-you-ready-2020
2020-09-13T04:22:42Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If youre like many SAP Concur customers youre deep into planning for But while youre likely focused on making largerscale decisions such as budget allocation and longterm strategy its...
<p>If you’re like many SAP Concur customers, you’re deep into planning for 2020. But while you’re likely focused on making larger-scale decisions, such as budget allocation and long-term strategy, it’s easy to forget about the small changes you can make today that will have a big impact on your business down the road.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.rc-concur.com/1571156272597-Tips%20and%20Tricks_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Spend management tips and tricks</h2>
<p>Check out best practices, industry recommendations, and ah-ha moments to optimize your T&E programs</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-tricks-best-practices-to-optimize-your-travel-and-spend-programs">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s especially true when it comes to your business processes. Process improvements are easily overlooked yet can make a lasting impression. And changes to your travel and spend management processes are no exception. As travel-related expenses are the often the second-largest line item on a business’s budget behind payroll, efficiencies here can give you a big bang for your buck.</p>
<p>Here are four small changes to your T&E process you can make in 2019 to bring greater rewards going into the new year:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Make it (even) easier for employees to submit expense reports with Expense Assistant</strong><br />
Enable Expense Assistant for your users to automatically create an expense report and fill it with incoming expenses. Calendar-based Expense Assistant creates one monthly report or adds expenses to an existing report, whereas Trip-based Expense Assistant creates a trip report and adds expenses based on the trip start and end dates. This feature reduces the time it takes for employees to complete expense reports, making sure they start 2020 off happy and productive.</p>
<p><strong>2. Better track noncompliant behavior with the Missing Receipt Declaration</strong><br />
Ensure you’re capturing missing receipts with a signed affidavit using the Missing Receipt Declaration function in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>. This function allows you to benefit from the Missing Receipt Audit Report (folder: Expense), so you can catch repeat offenders and promote changes to behavior, like adoption of the SAP Concur mobile app for digital receipt capture. Improved visibility here can lead to better policy compliance and decreases the chance of fraud, waste, and abuse. </p>
<p><strong>3. Update your receipt policy for a more accurate view into spending</strong><br />
Don’t allow the submission of an e-receipt or travel reservation without card data, and vice versa. This makes sure that dollars spent are tied to an actual policy-compliant purchase, reduces the chance of paying for duplicate expenses, and provides greater visibility into overall spend. </p>
<p><strong>4. Boost employee satisfaction and adoption through user feedback</strong><br />
Who better to tell you what small changes your T&E process could benefit from than your own users? The SAP Concur Satisfaction Rating allows users the option to anonymously share their thoughts about their current SAP Concur experience. Make sure your organization has this turned on and monitor the User Rating Summary (Administration Folder) to adjust policies, configurations, or training. You get the information you need to make sure your tools are effective, and your employees have a chance to help improve the way they work in the new year – a win, win. <br />
</p>
<p>Planning for the new year doesn’t have to be overwhelming for your business. When it comes to T&E, take these small steps now to make 2020 your best year yet.</p>
<p><strong>Want to learn even more ways you can set your business up for success? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-tricks-best-practices-to-optimize-your-travel-and-spend-programs">View our collection of tips and tricks.</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
SAP Concur Recognized as a 2019 Top-Rated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/sap-concur-recognized-2019-top-rated-expense-management-software-trustradius
2019-11-07T08:44:07Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Were excited to share that SAP Concur has been named a Top Rated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius Each month about BB technology buyers use more than verified reviews...
<p>We're excited to share that SAP Concur has been named a <a href="http://trustradius.com/buyer-blog/2019-top-rated-expense-management" target="_blank">2019 Top Rated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius</a>.</p>
<p>Each month, about 400,000 B2B technology buyers use more than 208,000 verified reviews and ratings on TrustRadius.com to make informed purchasing decisions. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are based entirely on customer feedback and have never been influenced by analyst opinion or status as a TrustRadius customer. (To learn more about TrustRadius Top Rated awards, check out the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring" target="_blank"><strong>TrustRadius scoring criteria breakdown</strong></a>.)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.trustradius.com/products/concur/reviews">Reviews</a> from verified users of Concur Expense highlight features like mobile receipt capture, automated workflows, auto-populated expense reports, and tools to enforce company finance policies. Reviewers love the way in which it integrates with productivity tools and appreciate the convenience of the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>See what some users think about SAP Concur solutions in their own words:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> “Currently, all users in the organization rely on Concur Expense to submit and track their monthly expenses. Through utilization of both the web-based platform and the app on their mobile devices, team members are able to photograph their receipts and have the OCR perform its analysis of the expense by automatic allocation to their expense portal, simplifying their submission to their manager for approval.”</p>
<p>– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-expense-2019-08-21-10-16-22" target="_blank">Verified User</a> | Manager in Information Technology | Automotive Company </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We can be at a restaurant and ready to leave and when we pay, we instantly snap a pic of the receipt and Concur will do the rest. Saves a ton of time. Sometimes, we just forget or lose the receipt so being able to do it as it happens is a huge benefit.”<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-expense-2019-10-29-08-16-26" target="_blank">Verified User</a>| National Account Executive | CentralReach</p>
<p> </p>
<p> “We have started using it locally and are planning to roll out globally. This has streamlined the submission of expense reports by business users for reimbursement. Finance and accounts payable teams are also happy as they do not need to manually follow up, making it easy and timely to pay back employees.”<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-expense-2019-10-04-10-30-22" target="_blank">Verified User</a>| Project Manager in Information Technology | Health, Wellness and Fitness Company</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We would like to say a big “thank you” to all who shared reviews on TrustRadius. At SAP Concur, customer experience is a big part of our history and continues to be our passion. Exceeding your expectations and listening to your feedback is critical to our success.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Take it for a spin in our free <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Share Your Expertise of SAP Concur Solutions by Speaking at Fusion 2020 in Orlando
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/share-your-expertise-sap-concur-solutions-speaking-fusion-2020-orlando
2019-12-27T09:14:43Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
SAP Concur Fusion is an annual event for bringing our expansive community of customers partners and experts together for a peer networking and handson educational experience The...
<p>SAP Concur Fusion is an annual event for bringing our expansive community of customers, partners and experts together for a peer networking and hands-on educational experience. <a href="https://fusion.concur.com/na-us/orlando" target="_blank">The conference is an immersive four days</a> of keynotes, educational sessions, product trainings, and more to help organizations learn how to run their best.</p>
<p>We’re looking for innovative customers and partners to speak in a session at Fusion 2020. If you have a compelling story to share on your organization’s unique use cases, best practices, and lessons learned with your fellow SAP Concur community – we want to hear from you by <a href="https://go.concur.com/Fusion-2020-Speaker-Nomination-Pre-Form.html" target="_blank">nominating yourself for consideration</a> as a speaker!</p>
<p>Session formats where speakers can share their expertise include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Presentations:</strong> Subject matter experts lead sessions that include best practices, success stories, and strategic topics, followed by Q&A discussions</li>
<li><strong>Panel Discussions:</strong> Panel of individuals with a unique knowledge of an important topic discuss related issues and ideas in a chat show format, followed by Q&A discussions</li>
<li><strong>Micro Forums:</strong> 20-minute sessions that invites conversations between speakers and audience on a particular subject</li>
<li><strong>Campfire Chats:</strong> Small, peer-led discussion among attendees with similar challenges and complementary expertise to share best practices</li>
</ul>
<p>Nomination submissions are <strong>due by January 10, 2020</strong> – so don’t delay!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The best value of attending Fusion is bringing the innovation to the table. I also find the value in networking. SAP Concur is fantastic at connecting clients together to discuss what others are doing and share best practices from each other.” <strong>Anthony Madigan, Global Process Lead T&E, AstraZeneca</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Three key reasons SAP Concur customers attend Fusion </h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>To learn</strong> from SAP Concur experts on best practices and unlock the full potential of SAP Concur solutions, improve usage, and empower end users.</li>
<li><strong>To discover </strong>how our integrated partner ecosystem delivers a connected travel, expense, and invoice management solution that aligns with an organization’s unique needs.</li>
<li><strong>To network </strong>directly with peers and experts, sharing business challenges and best practices, and building a professional community.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p>“EDSI, as well as me personally, received a great return on the investment in attending Fusion. With the knowledge gained, I was able to redesign our process within SAP Concur Invoice which greatly helped reduce the time spent processing invoices. I was also able to better understand all of the reporting capabilities and have begun to utilize and leverage our data for greater savings and visibility. I will absolutely attend Fusion again.” <strong>Robert Dancer, CFO of EDSI, SAP Concur Innovation Award winner</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>We look forward to seeing you in Orlando!</h2>
<p><a href="https://fusion.concur.com/na-us/orlando" target="_blank">SAP Concur Fusion 2020</a> will take place March 9 – 12 in Orlando, Florida at the Orlando World Center Marriott. Don’t miss this opportunity of possibilities in being a part of a community of peers and experts that have the insights and experience to help you take your business to the next level.</p>
<p>Once again, speaker submissions are <strong>due by January 10, 2020</strong> – so don’t delay on <a href="https://go.concur.com/Fusion-2020-Speaker-Nomination-Pre-Form.html" target="_blank">submitting your nomination to speak</a>. After full consideration, speakers will be selected by <strong>January 27, 2020</strong>. The registration fee will be waived for <strong>confirmed speakers</strong> only. If you have any questions, please email the <a href="mailto:concurcustomerstories@sap.com">SAP Concur Global Customer Stories team</a>.</p>
Still Focused on Customer Experience? Today, Employee Experience Is Key
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/still-focused-customer-experience-today-employee-experience-key
2020-03-10T10:12:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Business priorities have shifted your competitors are no longer focused solely on the customer experience Instead theyre creating exceptional employee experiences that keep the...
<p>Business’ priorities have shifted – your competitors are no longer focused solely on the customer experience. Instead, they’re creating exceptional employee experiences that keep the workforce engaged, productive, and profitable. And you can use cutting-edge technology to reap those same rewards, regardless of the size of your business.</p>
<p>You might think that focusing on the employee experience is beyond the scope of your resources. However, new, intelligent technologies are enabling businesses of all sizes to intelligently support an employee experience that empowers everyone, from full-time employees to external contractors, to achieve more.</p>
<p>Specifically, intelligent finance solutions can help you extend your existing technology and business processes to enhance your employee experience for maximum productivity and value.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1583860350211-282421_employee-advocacy2_r_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>7 Reasons Why Employee Satisfaction is Good for SMBs</h2>
<p>Discover how you can gain greater business insight, control, and savings</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/7-reasons-why-employee-satisfaction-is-good-for-small-or-midsized-businesses">Get it Now</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>More than just free lunch</h2>
<p>If you were to ask your employees what aspects of their jobs they find frustrating, some answers are a given: mundane work, repetitive tasks, and inefficient processes. A better employee experience means improving the things that your workforce needs to get the job done – and minimizing those parts that get in the way. And while free lunch and other office amenities can help create a better employee experience, they aren’t what makes or breaks the experience. Rather, employees find job fulfillment from the rewarding, value-adding aspects of their jobs.</p>
<p>By streamlining or removing repetitive, mundane, and unfulfilling aspects of their day to day, you can create a better employee experience that empowers your employees to get more done. This begins with the automation of simple, often tedious, employee tasks.</p>
<p>Even if you have already invested in some form of business automation, you can simply continue to extend those automated processes to include even more tasks that your employees would benefit from focusing on less. One easily automated area is finance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>New and extended automation in finance</h2>
<p>Automation lends itself well to finance processes because intelligent technology can easily complete forms, interpret documents, and check for errors – often more accurately than humans. Not only do many finance processes consume significant amounts of your employees’ time, but they are also error-prone and costly. Embedding intelligence into finance processes, such as the completion and submittal of an expense report, can catch errors early. This is especially useful for regulated areas of your finance processes that, when incorrect, could cost you big, be it from lost revenue or fines.</p>
<p>If you’ve already taken your first steps and automated some of your finance processes, you can extend these enhancements even further. For instance, modern finance solutions can process and interpret receipts and integrate with the apps and sites your workforce already likes to use, and then update employees about the best deals on travel as they plan their next business trip. You can also enhance the reach of automation in accounts payable and vendor invoice management. Not only can automation automatically capture, process, and pay invoices, but it can also catch duplicate vendor invoices to save you time and money.</p>
<p>Such solutions provide new benefits to finance leaders, too. Intelligent technology can gather accurate data from your finance solutions, so decision-makers can, for instance, identify safety risks for traveling employees. By making the right calls at the right time, intelligent finance technology keeps decision-makers informed and improves duty of care.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The benefits of a small-to-midsize intelligent enterprise</h2>
<p>The best way to show your employees that you value their time is by giving some of it back to them. Your employees, in turn, will be empowered to spend that time on higher-value tasks that bring greater benefits to your company. In fact, according to the findings of a <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238079/state-global-workplace-2017.aspx">Gallup poll</a>, an exceptional employee experience results in 17% higher productivity and 40% lower employee turnover. And some organizations have seen as much as three times greater revenue per employee.</p>
<p>If your stakeholders are still dedicated to the customer experience and wary of focusing on anything new, they will be glad to know that the employee experience and customer experience go hand in hand. When employees are more satisfied and empowered to fulfill their jobs, it only makes sense that they’ll do a better job of meeting your customers’ needs. The technology improvements that you’ve provided for your employees, such as automation, can easily be extended to the customer to enhance their experience, too.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions are here to help finance leaders in small-to-midsize business improve their employee experience and reap the benefits of an empowered workforce. SAP Concur solutions embed intelligence into your finance processes so you can gain greater business insight, control, and savings. Download the new white paper, <strong>“<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/7-reasons-why-employee-satisfaction-is-good-for-small-or-midsized-businesses" target="_blank">Employee Experience and the Bottom Line: 7 Reasons Why Employee Satisfaction Is Good for Small and Midsized Business</a>”</strong> to learn more.</p>
Jennifer Rodriguez
COVID-19: Responding To a Community Crisis
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/covid-19-responding-community-crisis
2021-03-01T12:59:10Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
The devastating spread of COVID has forced many of us into our homes and onto our personal devices Those who have the ability to stay at home and work virtually are equipped to...
<p>The devastating spread of COVID-19 has forced many of us into our homes and onto our personal devices. Those who have the ability to stay at home and work virtually are equipped to overcome many of the obstacles that we are experiencing within our current reality. However, this is not a luxury for many and has created even more vulnerability within our communities.</p>
<p>When we look at the socioeconomic impact, we see a disparate number of low-income communities affected by the spread of coronavirus. In an analysis of COVID-19 cases by income percentile within New York City by <a href="https://time.com/5821212/coronavirus-low-income-communities/" target="_blank">TIME</a>, more than 36% of total confirmed coronavirus cases are citizens in the bottom 25% of incomes while only 10% of cases have been confirmed in the top 25% of household incomes. Why are lower-income populations affected in disproportionate numbers by the coronavirus? Let’s start with basic needs: a lack of access to affordable medical care, childcare, housing, as well as a higher population of essential employee statuses, are all contributing factors to a higher risk of contracting the virus.</p>
<p>As we continue to witness the tragic effects of COVID-19 on lower-income populations around the world, we must ask the question: How are organizations that support lower-income populations being affected? In March, <a href="https://sap.sharepoint.com/sites/105565/Shared%20Documents/Corporate%20Social%20Responsibility/COVID-19/1.%09https:/www.cafamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/CV19_Report_CAF-America.pdf" target="_blank">Charities Aid Foundation of America</a> polled more than 500 non-profit organizations across 93 countries, and more than 90% of those organizations have reported being negatively impacted by COVID-19; Sixty-seven percent of these organizations have seen a reduction of contributions, 56% have experienced disruptions within client relations, 48% have experience staffing disruptions, and almost 34% have experienced an increase of costs. The need for community support is greater than ever and, in turn, the organizations that support our communities are at high risk, many referring to COVID-19 as an extinction level event for non-profits.</p>
<p>Within the SAP Concur organization, we created a holistic response to the crisis of COVID-19 and will continue to tailor our response throughout the year. Our current efforts focus around three main areas: monetary donations, itemized donations, and volunteerism.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Non-profit partner unrestricted donations:</strong> The <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility">SAP Concur Corporate Social Responsibility</a> commitment focuses on building inclusive opportunities that prepare youth for future success. One way we drive this commitment is through our non-profit partnerships within our Community Impact Partner Program. Our non-profit partners receive grants supporting their programs that drive one or more of our three pillars of focus: growing digital skills; creating access to quality education; and girls in tech and leadership. Due to the impact of COVID-19 this year, we recommitted to non-profit partners for 2020 with unrestricted donations, allowing our Community Impact Partners to leverage these funds for operational costs so they can serve their communities through these difficult times.</li>
<li><strong>Quarterly COVID-19 crisis support</strong><strong>:</strong> The future impact and aftershocks of COVID-19 are still very unknown. In response to our ever-changing climate, SAP Concur will be donating quarterly to non-profit organizations focused on the COVID-19 response. In Q1, we partnered with <a href="https://thriveglobal.com/categories/first-responders-first/" target="_blank">First Responders First</a> to donate protective medical gear to frontline health workers. For Q2, we have focused our support towards <a href="https://makesense.org/" target="_blank">MakeSense</a> and its efforts within France supporting homeless, caregiver, and elderly populations.</li>
<li><strong>Virtual community outreach:</strong> SAP Concur employees are empowered to leverage their professional and life skills to support nonprofit organizations virtually during this crisis. Now more than ever, people need connection and purpose. To continue driving engagement opportunities internally, we provide easy access to volunteer opportunities through Benevity. From sewing protective masks, career coaching for early talent, to building digital platforms, our localized volunteer leaders find opportunities for our employees to support non-profits around the world. Hear from our employees on how they are making a virtual difference themselves; check out the video below.</li>
</ol>
<p>How can you help your community during this crisis?</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.ncss.gov.sg/GatewayPages/Donate-Volunteer/Volunteer/Types-of-Volunteerism" target="_blank">Identify</a> how you would like to give back, whether donating or volunteering.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.volunteermatch.org/" target="_blank">Find</a> an organization in your local community that you would like to impact with your efforts.</li>
<li>Connect with the non-profit organization to share your interest in supporting its efforts within the community and stay in contact with the organization as it continues to respond to the future developments of COVID-19.</li>
</ul>
<p>Many have said this is an unprecedented time for our world as our communities, health, and livelihood are put to the test. We continue to witness the resiliency of our global citizens and the true connection of humanity. We are listening, and we have shifted our corporate social responsibility mission to meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens during this difficult time. As one of my favorite musicians Andra Day says “All we need is hope and for that we have each other. We will rise up.”</p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
Why We’re Proud to “Stand for Small”
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-were-proud-stand-small
2020-06-22T11:52:51Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Small and midsized businesses SMBs are the engines that fuel local economies but unfortunately they are among the hardest hit by the fallout from COVID A poll by the US...
<p>Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are the engines that fuel local economies, but unfortunately, they are among the hardest hit by the fallout from COVID-19. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/report/small-business-coronavirus-impact-poll" target="_blank">poll</a> by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MetLife in May revealed that one in five small businesses is at risk of closing permanently within two months or less. The cost of these closures is not just borne by entrepreneurs who sacrifice so much to build their dreams, but by the larger workforce. According to the <a href="https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/" target="_blank">Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council</a> and others, SMBs employ the majority of workers in countries such as the United States. </p>
<p>We have never forgotten that SAP Concur began as a small startup and we have always maintained a strong partnership with SMBs. That’s why it was a natural for us, as part of the SAP family – and longtime business partners of <a href="https://www.americanexpress.com/" target="_blank">American Express</a> – to join their “<a href="https://www.standforsmall.com/" target="_blank">Stand for Small</a>” initiative. </p>
<p>Stand for Small provides support for small businesses in the United States through valuable services, offers, and access to expertise from leading solutions providers – a roster of brand-names that only an organization such as American Express can assemble. </p>
<p>We’ve had a long and productive partnership with American Express, which can always be counted on to provide world-class services to SMBs and larger businesses. Through Stand for Small, we are providing rotating content and free trial offers for products including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management" target="_blank">Concur Expense</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management" target="_blank">Concur Invoice</a> to help SMBs get real-time visibility into discretionary spending and automate invoice process, saving time and money. </p>
<p>Small and mid-sized businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, and we know cash flow is always top of mind. They have a natural resiliency and optimism, and one of our jobs is to help ensure this mentality stays intact despite strong headwinds. As the leader of our SMB division at SAP Concur, I’m particularly proud of the work we’re doing with American Express to help keep SMBs moving forward, no matter what they may face. </p>
<p>This contribution, through Stand for Small, is one of many ways our teams are reaching out to the SMB community. We developed an on-demand <a href="https://go.concur.com/financial-data-registration-0420.html" target="_blank">webinar</a> for SMBs about how to use their existing financial data to analyze spend, cash flow, and develop strategies for cost savings. We created <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/toolkit/COVID-19" target="_blank">training sessions</a> to help our customers manage their SAP Concur solution in the shifting, increasingly work-from-home environment. And on May 22, we were a title sponsor of the <a href="https://covaidbusinessfestival.com/" target="_blank">CovAID Business Festival</a>, a free, two-day virtual event, to provide entrepreneurs with the tools and training necessary to succeed during these unprecedented times. </p>
<p>It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to assist our thousands of SMB customers, and the broader SMB community. Together, we will overcome today’s challenges – and come back even stronger tomorrow. </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about <a href="https://discover.sap.com/smb-offers/en-us/index.html" target="_blank">SAP Stand for Small time-limited, discounted offers</a> to manage your business, improve your decision making and empower your people.</strong></p>
Valerie (Val) Blatt
Concur Expense Recognized as a 2020 Top-Rated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-expense-recognized-2020-top-rated-expense-management-software-trustradius
2020-08-25T11:51:12Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Were excited to share that Concur Travel and Expense has again been named a TopRated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius Each month about BB technology buyers use more than ...
<p>We're excited to share that Concur Travel and Expense has again been named a <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/buyer-blog/top-rated-categories-announced-4-22-2020" target="_blank">Top-Rated Expense Management Software by TrustRadius</a>.</p>
<p>Each month, about 400,000 B2B technology buyers use more than 208,000 verified reviews and ratings on TrustRadius.com to make informed purchasing decisions. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are based entirely on customer feedback, and have never been influenced by analyst opinion or status as a TrustRadius customer. (To learn more about TrustRadius Top Rated awards, check out the <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring" target="_blank">TrustRadius scoring criteria breakdown</a>.)</p>
<p>The 600+ <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/products/concur/reviews" target="_blank">reviews</a> from verified users of Concur Expense highlight features like a positive user experience, visibility into budget, mobile receipt capture, and time savings – both when using the product and receiving reimbrsements. Reviewers love the way in which it integrates with productivity tools and appreciate the convenience of the SAP Concur mobile app.</p>
<p>See what some users think about Concur T&E in their own words:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"[The] interface is elegant and satisfying, so I don't dread doing my expense reports."</p>
<p>– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2020-03-13-09-45-04" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | Manager in Information Technology & Services | CenturyLink Business for Enterprise</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Concur allows us to compile, manage, and approve expenses with a high level of efficiency. This has allowed users to know exactly where their report is in the approval process and allowed managers to manage their budgets more closely in real-time."<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2019-10-08-11-55-58" target="_blank">SAP Concur User </a>| Director of Strategic Content in Higher Education | University of Notre Dame </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Concur Travel and Expense has definitely allowed our organization to evolve from a paper company! Prior to Concur, employees in our organization would have to submit a paper expense report with all of the actual receipts included and hope that they made the cut-off for a check to be issued to them. Now, this process is very easy as reports are submitted electronically online and receipts can simply be uploaded."<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2020-03-18-08-43-12" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | Payroll Manager in Wine and Spirits | Terlato Wine Group</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"The employee experience is great. We're reimbursed far quicker. The time required to generate an expense report is minimal, especially if you capture your receipts as you go. It's quite literally a press of a button to generate your report and submit."<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2020-01-14-09-07-31" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | Marketing Manager | Stertil-Koni USA, Inc.<strong> </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I loathed filling out expense reports previously. But with Concur, it's quick and easy!"<br />
<br />
– <a href="https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/concur-travel-and-expense-2020-02-18-09-53-08" target="_blank">SAP Concur User</a> | Marketing Associate in Veterinary | PSIvet</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Buyers have many choices when it comes to travel and expense management tools,” says Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. “Concur Travel and Expense earned a Top Rated Expense Management award based entirely on feedback from its users. Reviewers speak highly of [SAP] Concur’s receipt capture capabilities within the mobile application, as well as the platform’s automated features around expense reporting from an administrative perspective.”</p>
<p>We would like to say a big “thank you” to all who shared reviews of our products on TrustRadius. Customer experience is a big part of our history and continues to be our passion. Exceeding your expectations and listening to your feedback is critical to our success.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to see Concur Expense in action? Take it for a spin in our free <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">self-guided demo</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
You’re Closer to Travel Management Than You Think.
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/youre-closer-travel-management-you-think
2020-08-21T10:58:25Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Small to midsize organizations like yours travel the world just like larger organizations But because you dont have seemingly endless travel budgets many companies your size believe...
<p>Small to midsize organizations like yours travel the world, just like larger organizations. But because you don’t have seemingly endless travel budgets, many companies your size believe they can’t – at least at first glance – afford the programs designed to help manage that travel and help control all the costs that go with it.</p>
<p>Look deeper, however, and you’ll start uncovering the time and real-dollar reductions that put corporate travel management within reach. No matter the size of your organization.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src=" http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281955_Hand_with_mobile_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Put travel back on track</h2>
<p>and save at the same time</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/put-travel-back-on-track-and-save-at-the-same-time">Read the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>See savings. Get rid of headaches</h2>
<p>Managing travel can create headaches all across your company. Travelers can get bogged down with details. Accounting folks can get overwhelmed with receipts and inaccurate reports. And you can get frustrated with unpredictable expenses. But with some simple technology, you can start to see real savings in terms work hours, reduced paperwork, and actual hard costs.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the fact that the right tool to manage your travel and expense spend will show you what you’re actually spending. So instead of thousands and thousands in hidden costs, you see every expense. Instead of wondering if your travelers’ booking choices match your policies, you know what’s getting booked where and for how much. And instead of wondering where your travelers are, you see every itinerary.</p>
<p>It’s as good as making sure every booking decision goes across your desk, before the money goes out the door. It gives you oversight and cost control automatically – without slowing you or your employees down. </p>
<p>For your travelers, the benefits are just as valuable. No more receipts, reports, or paperwork. Every charge is accounted for automatically – so they can focus on work, and you can get the accurate data you count on. And because every booking is captured no matter where it’s booked, they can go directly to the suppliers and brands they love.</p>
<p>Travelers get what they want, and you get control. All without hassle.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Corporate travel management. Without all the corporate</h2>
<p>Here’s how it works, in seven, very simple, non-bureaucratic steps.</p>
<ol>
<li>Employees book business travel wherever and however they like.</li>
<li>Your solution captures all the itinerary details and confirmation information.</li>
<li>The data flows straight into your system.</li>
<li>Expense reports are auto-populated with itemized, categorized charges.</li>
<li>Employees get to use the tools they want without having to keep track of itinerary details and confirmation numbers, fill out expense reports, or chase down paper receipts – giving them more time to be more productive.</li>
<li>They also get updates on everything from flight changes to price/gate updates to neighborhood safety scores – ensuring a better trip and safer choices on the road.</li>
<li>You get visibility into what you’re spending and where you can save.</li>
</ol>
<p>Most importantly, you’ll know where your employees are when they’re on the road, so you can take care of them if any issues arise.</p>
<p>It’s all spelled out in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/put-travel-back-on-track-and-save-at-the-same-time">brief eBook</a>, and it’s designed to help you stay on top of travel and expenses no matter where your company is headed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>So where are you headed?</h2>
<p>Travel is slowing coming back on line and, odds are, you’re gearing up to get back out there. That makes this the perfect time to examine the programs you have in place and determine how much spotting savings, increasing safety, and improving the employee experience might mean to you.</p>
<p>We’re not just talking in terms of currency, either – although increasing productivity and reducing hidden costs never hurts – we’re talking about the day-to-day issues of traveler well-being and employee engagement.</p>
<p>These are priceless tools you can use to make work safer, better, and more meaningful. And no matter where your company is going, they’re within reach. </p>
Neha Mehta
Why Consolidating Spend Management Tech Enables Business Resiliency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-consolidating-spend-management-tech-enables-business-resiliency
2020-09-30T15:03:53Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
You dont have to be the CIO to understand that business success depends on your enterprises ability to leverage the power of digital technology In fact according to IDC the COVID...
<p>You don’t have to be the CIO to understand that business success depends on your enterprise’s ability to leverage the power of digital technology. In fact, according to IDC, the COVID-19 pandemic has so far underscored the <a href="https://www.idc.com/misc/covid19" target="_blank">importance of digital transformation</a> when it comes to staying agile, accelerating areas across the business such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Operations</strong>: A digitally transformed operation is based on resiliency in all parts of its organization and in its decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized why it is critical for digital organizations to build a house of resiliency with innovation and operational agility as its foundation.</li>
<li><strong>Digital Infrastructure</strong>: Responding quickly to business deceleration/acceleration brought on by the pandemic required greater use of infrastructure resources that minimized underutilization of assets and improved the ability to scale up capacity for critical new experience or analytic workloads.</li>
<li><strong>Connectedness</strong>: Organizations and individuals need to connect seamlessly, regardless of their location, situation, or context. During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have seen how critical it is for information to be created, shared, or consumed in real-time.</li>
</ul>
<p>And to build business resiliency, your primary focus – even as <a href="https://www.idc.com/misc/covid19" target="_blank">remediation actions</a> are taken to reduce costs or take advantage of pandemic-related revenue opportunities – is to remain digitally fit. This includes having a holistic grasp on spend, which is imperative for cost-control and maximizing the value of resulting data.</p>
<p>But when it comes to digital, less is sometimes more. With too many platforms and tools, you can run into complications such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Data becoming siloed</li>
<li>Reporting is onerous and “real-time data” is just an ideal, not a reality</li>
<li>Departments may start moving in different directions using non-standardized tools, leaving you without a single source of data truth</li>
</ul>
<p>These issues will hamper your business agility in the face of recovering from recessions, rapidly expanding into new markets, or when exploring mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The more siloed your spend data and tools are, the harder it is to understand what, where, and why your employees are spending, which can leave you exposed to inefficiencies, a lack of compliance, and even fraud. All of these are areas that can quickly drain budgets and impact the bottom line, while also taking a considerable amount of time to reconcile. Now that doesn’t sound resilient.</p>
<p><strong>Evaluate your current mix of spend management platforms and vendors by </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/optimizing-the-enterprise-how-platform-and-vendor-consolidation-create-business-agility" target="_blank"><strong>asking these five questions</strong></a><strong> to determine if consolidation makes sense for your enterprise.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
Kyla Kent
In Higher Ed, COVID Compliance Means More Than Masks
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/higher-ed-covid-compliance-means-more-masks
2020-11-19T16:31:37Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Youre following all the rules Youre social distancing youre requiring masks on campus youre keeping students staff and faculty as separate and safe as possible Its what COVID demands...
<p>You’re following all the rules. You’re social distancing; you’re requiring masks on campus; you’re keeping students, staff, and faculty as separate and safe as possible. It’s what COVID demands, and you’re doing it.</p>
<p>You’re also dealing with the economic fallout of the shutdown, which isn’t any easier. Forty-two percent of finance and administrative leaders at U.S. colleges and universities, in fact, are struggling to manage new categories of spend brought on by the pandemic while, at the same time, attempting to adapt organizational policies to fit work-from-home dynamics. It’s a significant challenge, to say the least. Add in unexpected expenses, which 41% of higher ed institutions say they’re not sure how to manage, and you’ve got a real fight on your hands.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Gonzaga University Case Study</h2>
<p>How AP automation helped staff seamlessly pivot to remote work</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/gonzaga-and-ap-automation">See the case study</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>You’ve got help, however, with CARES Act funding, grants, and other support to keep your institution running and serving students. But this help comes with conditions, making compliance absolutely critical.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Expense types aren’t what they used to be</h2>
<p>Masks, of course, are obvious. Unexpected, but obvious. You need to provide personal protective gear to faculty and staff when they come into the office, and that’s a cost for which you have to account. What you might not have thought about (and certainly weren’t prepared for) was the costs of working from home.</p>
<p>Remote employees are buying postage and paperclips and paying internet providers, and the bills are landing on your desk. They have OSHA requirements to meet at their desks and their home workspaces, and you’re getting those bills, too.</p>
<p>If you don’t put policies in place to manage these expenses – if you don’t create unique expense categories with specific rules – you end up stuck in some sort of Wild West Spending Spree that damages your internal policies and defies regulatory requirements.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reporting requirements aren’t either</h2>
<p>Government regulations, donor requirements, your own internal reporting standards – they certainly haven’t loosened in light of the pandemic. And the responsibility to track how and where and when you spend any granted funds is all on you. The audits for which could take years.</p>
<p>Seeing and controlling your invoices and expenses under this scrutiny is more challenging and more crucial than ever.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Automation might just be the most intelligent answer</h2>
<p>When your expense and invoice processes are entirely automated, you can see all the details on all your spending. You can put policies in place that allow you to see where your spend is going before it’s spent, and you have a data trail to back up every decision.</p>
<p>Detailed dashboards and reports bring you real-time visibility, so you can take proactive control of your compliance policies – and you’ll know what’s working, what’s not, and where fixes need to happen.</p>
<p>In the end, you not only know how funding is being used and how effective your policies are, you know how to adapt as requirements change. And if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that change can be more severe than we thought.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Now Is the Time to Digitalize Your Spend Management
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/now-time-digitalize-your-spend-management
2021-01-12T09:14:29Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
When we think about the havoc COVID has wreaked on the business world digital transformation may not be the first thing that comes to mind But whether business is booming or times are...
<p>When we think about the havoc COVID-19 has wreaked on the business world, digital transformation may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But, whether business is booming or times are tough, the new work-from-home paradigm has put a spotlight on the untenable nature of paper-, e-mail-, and spreadsheet-based processes.</p>
<p>Shari Lava, research director for small and midsize businesses at IDC, makes it clear: “It is definitely the time to be saying, this manual way we were doing things is not working.”</p>
<p>This is especially true for spend management.</p>
<p>Depending on the products and services you offer, uncertainty can mean sudden drops in revenue or sharp spikes in demand. Even if you’ve already started to strategically automate expense management, that doesn’t provide the full spend visibility and process control you need to optimize cash flow, withstand chaos, and prepare for whatever the future may bring.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/284450-people-network.svg" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Why Now's the Time to Digitalize How You Manage Company Spend</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/why-now-is-time-to-digitalize-how-manage-company-spend">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Many businesses are already looking at cloud-based technology that allows their people to work safely from home. In the meantime, employees wonder how to submit expenses for home-office equipment and fret about lost paper receipts. Because of these process delays and data that is coming in piecemeal, finance teams are forced to pay whatever comes their way – making it nearly impossible to optimize cash flow, effectively direct budgets, and identify errors, waste, or abuse.</p>
<p>There is no doubt: The time to invest in digital expense management is now.</p>
<p>As Bryan Ball, director of research on supply chain and supplier management practices at Aberdeen, explains: “In this current environment, having visibility into critical spending information that impacts cashflow, such as expense reports, can make a difference in terms of survival or how quickly companies can return to a stable position and be better prepared for the future.”</p>
<p>With the right technology to manage company spend, your people can stop wasting time manually reviewing paper receipts and credit card statements, then keying data into spreadsheets or other reporting tools. Managers can get automatic alerts when it’s time to review and approve expense reports, so no one needs to follow up with phone calls and e-mails. Even if you already have these tools in place, manual invoice management – with automatic invoice capture and approval workflows – can give you a complete view of spending company-wide. Plus, human error and the frustration and rework it causes are taken out of the equation. The result is more time in the day to focus on interesting, value-adding work – increasing job satisfaction and staff productivity.</p>
<p>In addition to overall efficiency gains, strategic spend digitalization gives you tighter cost and budget control. By combining intelligent technology and automated processes, you can help ensure that your expense data is accurate and up to date. Employees can be reimbursed faster and invoice cycles can be shortened to minimize late fees and end-of-the-month surprises. You can also apply automatic controls and audit rules that alert employees to noncompliant expenses. Finally, with all your spend data integrated with your finance systems, you can run detailed, real-time spend analytics that help you optimize spend strategy company wide.</p>
<p>While you may already have some digital spend management tools in place, it’s important to ensure that you’re able to track and categorize every aspect of company spend in order to eliminate blind spots. This includes expenses, mileage, cash versus card spend, and spend due to specific situations, such as the current pandemic. It’s also important that the technology you choose integrates fully with your back-end ERP and finance systems, so your finance team has the data they need right when they need it. Robust spend analytics make it possible to organize data by category, cost center, team, employee, and more, so you can shift budgets as needed, find savings opportunities, and guide spending choices in a way that puts your cash where you need it most.</p>
<p>But making the call to digitalize spend management is just the first step. Next, you need to find the right technology partner. A few must-haves are simple, fast deployment; ease of integration; mobile workflows; intelligent analytics; secure cloud hosting; and predictable costs. But above all, you need a partner you can trust – one that will bring the most value to your business today and for the long haul – whether you are tightening your belt or figuring out how best to scale for future growth.</p>
<p>Joseph Bertran, senior research analyst at Analysys Mason, sums it up best: “Now is an optimal time for companies to digitally shift the way they manage company spend.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/why-now-is-time-to-digitalize-how-manage-company-spend">Read the full business case</a> to find out why.</p>
<p>Then <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">contact us</a> to get started.</p>
<div> </div>
Jennifer Rodriguez
How One Company Gave 20,000 Productivity Hours Back to Its Employees
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-one-company-gave-20000-productivity-hours-back-its-employees
2021-03-08T16:58:49Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Smith Nephew was facing a change in philosophy due to upperlevel management changes shifting from an overly compliant enforcement approach to a more employeecentric focus The global...
<p>Smith & Nephew was facing a change in philosophy due to upper-level management changes, shifting from an overly compliant enforcement approach to a more employee-centric focus. The global medical devices company realized it needed to transform from assuming needs to anticipating them.</p>
<p>“That shift from excessive compliance to customer [employee] centricity and improving the experience helps us convey a message that really, we care about you, and want you to have a smooth experience as a Smith & Nephew employee,” says Jorge Monge, the travel and expense lead at Smith & Nephew.</p>
<p>The organization knew that mutual trust between company, employee, and customer was integral to success as it scaled operations within 44 countries. By creating focus groups and surveys to get feedback from customers and employees, Smith & Nephew was able to build a solid method to deliver the optimal employee experience. Part of that exercise was the use of AI to streamline the travel and expense process and ensure compliance, saving both time and money while increasing accuracy of reporting.</p>
<p>“We have been able to…return over 20,000 productivity hours to our employees. That enabled us…to shift from a very tactical approach to more strategic-oriented duties,” shares Jorge. “For instance, managers don’t really have to approve expenses nowadays. We use AI and [Concur]Detect [by Appzen] for that and they are assured that things are taken care of, and they can dedicate that time to other more value-added tasks.”</p>
<p>Smith & Nephew came up with creative ways to increase communication and awareness of new processes by creating short and fun animated internal training videos and then distributed them through the SAP Concur platform. The company also selected “change champions,” or frequent users of the employee expense tools with a span of influence, to spread these messages across the company. With employee adoption of new philosophies in place, Smith & Nephew has been able to make realistic goals and stay within budget. </p>
<p>Jorge adds, “we have been able to really shift to a more strategic approach, where we are not only doing the expense reporting function but actually shifting towards being a strategic business partner. And at this moment, we are producing analytics that allow upper management and executives to trend and track expenditure, spend behavior, and this has enabled them to also better understand and reach their target, their savings and their budget management objectives.”</p>
<p>Part 1: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-1-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew struck a balance between employee experience and compliance</a></p>
<p>Part 2: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-0">Watch how Smith & Nephew increased spend accuracy</a></p>
<p>Part 3: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/smith-nephew-part-3-3">Watch how Smith & Nephew streamlined executive spend management decisions</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Listen to this episode on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763" target="_blank" title="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sap-concur-conversations/id1525744763">Apple</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAP-Concur-Conversations/dp/B08K59B79V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1" target="_blank" title="https://www.amazon.com/sap-concur-conversations/dp/b08k59b79v/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sap+concur+conversations&qid=1612375045&sr=8-1">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7H4gImkQ5Ftm1EB3Znbyap" target="_blank" title="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7h4gimkq5ftm1eb3znbyap">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-FwTLxzA-IXV/" target="_blank" title="https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/sap-concur-conversations-sap-concur-fwtlxza-ixv/">Listen Notes</a>, <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a" target="_blank" title="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f22e9bc4bcaf07a0783aa0a">Acast</a>, or your favorite podcast player, and learn more about Smith & Nephew's employee experience focus below. </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
Kiersten Conner
Just How Often Do We Have to Reinvent Ourselves?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/just-how-often-do-we-have-reinvent-ourselves
2021-04-06T09:14:04Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
If change wasnt an issue and disruption didnt exist you wouldnt have to worry about much You wouldnt have to wonder what was going to happen next and you could just run your business...
<p>If change wasn’t an issue and disruption didn’t exist, you wouldn’t have to worry about much. You wouldn’t have to wonder what was going to happen next, and you could just run your business the same way you always have – with the same tools, the same processes, the same budgets.</p>
<p>It would be boring, but it would be consistent.</p>
<p>But we all know that’s not how life – or especially business – works. Change really is a constant, and if we’re going to get ahead of it (or at least keep up with it), we have to keep changing ourselves. We have to continually re-examine our business processes and procedures. We have to rethink our approach to business itself – and then do it again. We must always be on the lookout for new tools, new techniques, and new ways to sharpening the tools we already have.</p>
<p>We must continually reinvent ourselves, in other words, and commit to constant improvement.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram_GrowthUpArrows_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>All you have to do is ask</h2>
<p>A surprisingly versatile way to boost convenience, spend control, and safety</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/all-you-have-to-do-is-ask">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Our willingness (or lack thereof) to continuously reconsider how work gets done is the key component to conquering the changes and challenges of business. If we close our eyes and ears to innovation because it’s too complicated, too expensive, too much to do right now, we will fall further behind – making the next round of revisions even more difficult.</p>
<p>So we work to stay ahead by finding ways to be faster, more efficient, and more flexible.</p>
<p>Often, this means examining business processes and stripping paperwork and procedure anywhere possible. Smoothing out these systems speeds up your work, literally unblocking pathways to productivity and profits.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Let’s get moving</h2>
<p>Speaking of money, let’s take spending as an example.</p>
<p>Imagine if you could integrate spending from corporate cards, personal cards, purchasing cards, and cash (yes, cash) into a single, digital process, so you could see exactly what’s going out the door – all in one easy place.</p>
<p>Now imagine you could insert pre-purchase approval into the process – so you can see and control what goes out the door before it’s gone.</p>
<p>Then, because we’re really just imagining here, think about adding AI and machine learning technologies to push audit controls right up to the point of purchase.</p>
<p>At that point, you not only accurately and automatically see your spending, you’re able to stay on top of all the regulatory complexities that that spending creates in the countries where you do business.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Okay, now for the good news</h2>
<p>Yes, you have to continuously reinvent your business. Yes, you have to begin the move to digital if you haven’t already. Yes, you have to tackle spending in all those ways mentioned above just to make reinvention doable.</p>
<p>And the tools are out there.</p>
<p>Looking more closely at our spending example, we can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/all-you-have-to-do-is-ask" target="_blank">take a page from this pre-approval eBook</a> to see how approving purchases before they’re made helps you:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enforce company policies without having to be an enforcer.</li>
<li>Gain visibility into spending before expenses are incurred.</li>
<li>Ensure travel and employee safety.</li>
<li>Get the data that keeps you in compliance while keeping costs under control.</li>
</ul>
<p>These may seem like big changes, but they’re really just the updates that make true and ongoing transformation possible. Because when you know what you’re spending and where your budgets stand, you’ll always know what you can do next.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Taking Another Look: Work From Home Edition
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/taking-another-look-work-home-edition
2021-05-19T09:55:50Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Over a year into the pandemic we are beginning to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel as we slowly emerge from the captivity of lockdown Indeed our futures may be...
<p>Over a year into the pandemic, we are beginning to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, as we slowly emerge from the captivity of lock-down. Indeed, our futures may be different from the quarantine life we have been living, undoubtedly however, it will not be as it was prior to COVID-19.</p>
<p>As we begin to enter this new phase of life and work, many organizations are electing to revisit work models and employee benefits. Work-from-home arrangements may not become a thing of the past and may very well be the way of the future. COVID-19 caught much of the world ill-prepared to the risks and opportunities afforded both employees and employers through work from home schemes. </p>
<p><strong>Are we any better prepared for the future of our businesses now as we look forward to closing the COVID chapter? Have we given enough thought to the implications of business expenses incurred by those employees that work from home?</strong></p>
<p>Whether your business is a seasoned pro at remote working, or you implemented primarily to ensure continuity during the restrictions beginning in 2020, we believe that every organization can find value in revisiting work-from-home considerations and policies.</p>
<p>We invite you, and anyone interested in expense management considerations related to work from home policies, to explore more by <a href="https://www.lyndon-group.com/news-blog/2020/4/29/work-from-home-considerations-tzc3">downloading our white paper</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
Lyndon Group
How the Pandemic Changed CME Spend for Healthcare
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-pandemic-changed-cme-spend-healthcare
2021-06-29T09:09:18Z
2022-06-29T11:47:38Z
Hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly working to enhance physician alignment and attract new talent This helps improve the quality of patient care grow market share and...
<p>Hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly working to enhance physician alignment and attract new talent. This helps improve the quality of patient care, grow market share, and increase revenue. As a result, continuing medical education (CME) continues to take on a greater importance. But as everything else, CME spend has changed since the start of the pandemic.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The pandemic changed how physicians think about CME courses</h2>
<p>During the pandemic, many CME courses moved online, and it’s looking like that trend will continue. According to a <a href="https://www.platformqhealth.com/2020/04/28/survey-shows-hcps-turn-online-for-cme-we-must-not-ignore-other-medical-topics/">survey of 200 physicians</a> taken by PlatformQ Health in 2020, <strong>9 out of 10 </strong>physicians said they will use online courses as their primary CME format choice post COVID-19. However, that doesn’t mean that clinicians will stop attending conferences. In the same survey, at least <strong>22%</strong> said they still plan to seek most CME at in-person meetings.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/281610_Stethoscope_R_purple.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Managing CME Expenses in the New World</h2>
<p>Learn more about the costs and risks of the different kinds of CME spend</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=3003768&sessionid=1&key=AAEEF6736E6B81C56D0977F6B7F8F071&regTag=&V2=false&sourcepage=register">Watch the webinar</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h3>The 3 Key Problems of CME Spend Management</h3>
<p>As the landscape of CME spend changes, healthcare budgets will also change, and having visibility is critical to preventing non-compliant spend. This could range from ensuring CME courses are through reputable companies, to preventing clinicians from booking out-of-policy hotels or extending their stay at non-local conferences.</p>
<p>How are your current CME expense processes managed? If it’s like most healthcare organizations, it’s manually. Here are three key problems impacting your CME expense management:</p>
<p><strong>1. Manual process</strong></p>
<p>To keep track of the CME budget, if they do at all, clinicians will typically start by checking a spreadsheet to see what they have available. From here, they can use this budget when and where they see fit. However, keeping track of every item to be expensed often means keeping stacks of paper receipts and purchase records to enter later. But with many back-office administrators and clinicians working from home, or altered schedules due to COVID-19, manual spreadsheets and paper receipts are difficult to manage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>40% of healthcare customers CME spend falls within T&E spend - SAP Concur customer data</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Since each clinician must manually calculate and enter information every time they access their CME budget, not only is time wasted, but it also increases the risk of human error.</p>
<p><strong>2. Limited visibility</strong></p>
<p>It can be difficult to track exactly which programs are being used to complete courses, especially online, and clinicians are completing more CME hours than pre-pandemic. In fact, PlatformQ Health survey found that over 50% of respondents will complete 5+ hours of online CME per month, up from 38% prior to March 2020. With the increase of online courses, there was also an uptick of incentive-based CME. These types of courses are still online, but once it’s been completed, the clinician is given gift cards in return. The dollar amount of these gift cards often mirrors their budget for yearly CME spend. Without full visibility, CME is an easy target for unapproved spend, not only for online courses, but destination CME as well. With destination conferences, physicians could extend their stay, bring family members, and book at non-approved hotels without your organization knowing until it’s too late.</p>
<p><strong>3. Budgets are difficult to control</strong></p>
<p>Even with complete visibility into when, why, and what spend is happening, if you can’t control your budget, you still have a challenge. Effective tracking of CME spend requires having access and control over your budget to remove or add funds, while also having the ability to approve and deny expenses before they occur. Ultimately, you need to be able to implement changes to a CME budget as you see fit, when you see fit. Especially during a time where the pandemic landscape changes from day to day.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Regain control of CME with SAP Concur solutions</h2>
<p>If you can’t see your spending, you can’t control your spending. It’s essential to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to CME post-COVID-19. By rethinking how your organization handles its CME spend, you can help your clinician get the most value out of their education so that they can keep treating their patients with the best possible care.</p>
<p>With SAP Concur solutions, you can get a clear look into travel and expense data from all across your business to ensure clinicians are staying within budget, before the spend ever happens.</p>
<p>To learn more about how CME has evolved through the pandemic and what SAP Concur solutions can do to help gain visibility and control costs, download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/evolving-challenges-cme-expenses-how-assess-your-risk-factors">one-pager</a>.</p>
Kiersten Conner
Power in people: How I transformed my internship experience
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/power-people-how-i-transformed-my-internship-experience
2020-09-11T12:35:05Z
2022-06-29T11:46:05Z
Badge Check Laptop Check W tax form Check These questions among others were running through my head as I walked into Concurs Bellevue headquarters I had already missed the first day of...
<p>“Badge? Check! Laptop? Check! W-4 tax form? Check!” These questions, among others, were running through my head as I walked into Concur’s Bellevue headquarters. I had already missed the first day of the internship program, and wanted to make sure that everything was in line so that I could jump right in as soon as I arrived. Before I knew it, I was introduced to my team, had been given my first day swag bag the <a href="http://sap.com/careers/ixp">SAP iXp</a> team provided, and sat down with my manager to talk about what my summer was going to entail.</p>
<p>To give you some context: I worked as a Customer Experience Intern for 10 weeks. I had the opportunity to interact with clients, get my hands dirty with Microsoft Excel and Tableau, and work across different departments at the company. In all of my interactions, I sought to answer the question “how can I make a more effortless experience for our customers?” This would end up being very rewarding work. I quickly discovered that my interactions with coworkers were far more beneficial to me than mapping trends in excel.</p>
<p>Now, hear me out: As an intern, you’re getting paid to help whatever specific department you are assigned to. But, an opportunity like this is so much more than just hitting deadlines, creating graphs and making copies.</p>
<p>Here’s what it’s all about:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Looking beyond the work</strong></h2>
<p>On my very first day in the office, I started building out a robust network of relationships with the employees here at Concur. I remember sitting at my desk and thinking to myself: “I can come into work every day with my headphones in, make a beeline for my desk, and dig into the different projects that I’m working on. Or I can make the choice to lift my head up from my computer and engage with the people around me.”</p>
<p>I could simply “do my work,” or I could look for opportunities to hear the stories and experiences from the massive network that I have at my fingertips. I could finish this internship with only proficiencies in business related tools, or I could walk out of these doors knowing that I was able to make the most of this incredible opportunity.</p>
<p>These past 10 weeks at Concur gave me the chance to grasp an understanding of some pretty vital business tools, and more importantly, leave with a first-hand experience of the collaborative vision that Concur is all about.</p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1503525425141-jordan-interns.jpg" /></p>
<p>Jordan and two fellow interns at the SAP iXp Summit</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Connecting with colleagues</strong></h2>
<p>This idea of connecting with professionals seems intriguing on paper, but doesn’t really come to fruition if the individuals you’re seeking don’t respond, right? Thankfully, that was not the case for me.</p>
<p>Every single employee I reached out to either responded promptly or gave me names of other people if they weren’t able to meet with me personally. I’ll be honest – this shocked me. I was expecting this process to be a little more like pulling teeth and sending reminder emails and coming to terms with the reality that my role as an intern has little to no significance in their day-to-day job. I couldn’t have been more wrong.</p>
<p>Another thing that surprised me was how employees seemed to remember so clearly what it was like to be in my shoes. What I often heard was something along the lines of, “I wish that I had been doing what you’re doing right now.” Or “I wish I had a mentor, friend or co-worker to show me the ropes early on in my career journey.” They were all so in touch with reality and didn’t let their fancy shmancy job title cloud their thinking. This allowed me to cherish my time with them even more, and stands as a reflection of the selfless and intentional employees that Concur hires. It makes me think of this quote from leadership guru and business legend, Jim Collins:</p>
<p>“They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Learning from leaders</strong></h2>
<p>During the final week of my internship, I had the honor to sit down and speak with Concur President Mike Eberhard. Although it took me a few minutes to really grasp that I was actually having a one-on-one with the president, I made sure to capitalize on the situation and not let any time go to waste. From grasping the idea that the proactive search for feedback is the most fruitful way to grow, to learning the process he goes through when making a divisive decision, I walked away with some incredibly thoughtful and insightful words – from an equally down-to-earth and genuine man. What stuck out to me the most was this: The success that he has had is solely based on the team and the people that have been around him.</p>
<p>As I prepped to turn in my badge and laptop in the final days of my internship, I kept coming back to this: It’s the people I’ve encountered, not necessarily the various projects I worked on, that have made this internship experience so incredibly transformational. At the end of your internship, if all you can recall is how many data sources you sorted through or e-mails you sent, you’re not going to live up to your potential. </p>
<p>You can find a compilation of quotes I gathered from my various meetings with colleagues at Concur <a href="https://spark.adobe.com/page/8YYDds9ZYnptN/">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the <a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank">iXp Twitter</a> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Moving away from the invoice black hole
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/moving-away-invoice-black-hole
2017-09-12T13:45:04Z
2022-06-29T11:46:05Z
If youre still manually processing invoices your system likely involves a lot of paper handling a convoluted workflow and a storage system that is not accessible or disaster proof In...
<p>If you’re still manually processing invoices, your system likely involves a lot of paper handling, a convoluted workflow and a storage system that is not accessible or disaster proof. In other words, a black hole where you hope your invoices are paid eventually.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Invoice automation </a>streamlines and automates invoice handling and payment with little to no paper. And the good news is that AP automation is scalable and cost-effective for small- to medium-sized companies. Companies that have implemented AP automation <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">experience many benefits</a> including saving time, resources and money. Here’s how it works:</p>
<p>Invoice automation captures invoice data, automatically routes it to approvers via custom rules and workflows, and schedules payments to vendors. No more manual data entry, routing or struggling to find the status of an invoice. Reducing the number of people that touch an invoice on its path to payment saves employee time for more important initiatives. And, automatic payment scheduling helps avoid late payment fees.</p>
<p>Another benefit of automation is two- and three-way matching to check that invoices match the amount of the PO as well as materials or services received. Discrepancies are flagged for resolution before payments are issued so you don’t overpay and find out later. </p>
<p>Last but not least, cloud-based invoice automation means there is no need to install expensive software or invest in big upgrades. And as your company grows, your solution can scale with your needs. </p>
<p>If you’re still hesitating, take a look at our new <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/concur_fact_or_fiction_ebook_v8_0817.pdf">Fact or Fiction ebook</a>. You’ll likely recognize common misperceptions about automation and hopefully discover that the scary option is not doing anything at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Use This Checklist to Avoid Travel Expense Management Software Pitfalls
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/use-checklist-avoid-travel-expense-management-software-pitfalls
2018-04-09T10:32:48Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
In todays techfilled world usability is key We start our day with a smartphone in our hand we work on a computer all day and even cars trains streetlights and bank tellers are machines...
<p>In today’s tech-filled world, usability is key. We start our day with a smartphone in our hand, we work on a computer all day, and even cars, trains, streetlights, and bank tellers are machines to interact with on our way home. If the user experence wasn't a top priority, we’d all be very frustrated navigating this landscape every day.</p>
<p>As technology advances, the definition of usability is also advancing. It’s no longer good enough for something to just be simple to use. We want our technology to do more for us. In fact, we’re demanding that it do more for us. And the more complex a service is, by definition, the more complex the interface must become. Fortunately we humans are also advancing our technical skills, but the balance must be considered at all times.</p>
<p>Steve Jobs famously once said: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” It's true. Simple and good-looking are important, but simplicity alone does not mean a product will fulfill your needs, or the needs of your employees who are expecting a consumer-like experience from their business technology.</p>
<p>When you are <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/market-guide-travel-expense-management-software">considering a travel expense management software purchase</a> to help your team do anything from marketing to expense processing, we know usability is a top concern as you need your employees to adopt and enjoy the tech that will help them accomplish their goals.</p>
<p>However, simple design alone can be deceiving and sometimes gets in the way of choosing a product that truly meets your needs. We recommend you use the following checklist to ensure you get what you need from the product you are purchasing:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Utility:</strong> Does the product deliver what you need to meet your goals? This is a simple "yes" or "no."</li>
<li><strong>Scalability/Adaptability: </strong>If you are planning to grow, will this product deliver what you need a two or more years from now? There is nothing worse than putting a product and process in place only to outgrow it in just a few months.</li>
<li><strong>Mobility: </strong>The cousin of scalability, mobility will be a key part of your growth as a company into the future. If your product or vendor isn’t helping you modernize for today’s mobile workforce, you’ll need to replace it in the near future.</li>
<li><strong>Usability: </strong>You need your employees to be able to use the product with minimum frustration to ensure compliance. Depending on the complexity of the product, some training might be required, but processes should be easy to navigate post-training.</li>
<li><strong>Visibility</strong>: You need complete visibility into spend data in order to proactively manage budgets, as well as reduce the chance of surprises and unaccounted for costs.</li>
</ol>
<p>Some products woo with simple interfaces that on the surface seem like a slam dunk for usability and happy employees, but when you try to do more complex processes or demand more from them, they are not equipped to deliver.</p>
<p>If you’re currently making do with manual, paper-based processes, you’re already feeling the extreme pain of poor usability! And any sort of upgrade to automation can seem like a huge leap forward. Just keep this checklist in hand as you’re navigating your options to ensure you make a great decision for your company.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/market-guide-travel-expense-management-software">Download the whitepaper</a> to learn how the right travel expense management software can substantially improve the user expernence and add business value for your organization.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Concur Solutions Overview: Concur Travel, Expense, and Invoice
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/concur-solutions-overview-concur-travel-expense-and-invoice
2022-07-01T17:13:47Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
SAP Concur solutions connect the primary pieces of business travel and spend so you can focus on what matters most to your business Concur Travel Concur Expense and Concur Invoice work...
<p>SAP Concur solutions connect the primary pieces of business travel and spend so you can focus on what matters most to your business. Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice work seamlessly with each other and integrate with the systems you already have —ERP, HR, accounting and other business systems —to create a single, connected process for managing your company’s spend to help you save time and money, negotiate better rates with suppliers, and create happier travelers. See SAP Concur’s full platform in this end-to-end solution demo.</p>
<h3>See also: <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice#/">Concur Invoice self-guided</a> demo and <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Concur Expense self-guided demo</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
Travel throwbacks: Why we're thankful for travel technology
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/travel-throwbacks-why-were-thankful-travel-technology
2017-11-22T10:11:24Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Its easy to take technology for granted when it comes to business travel Since all it takes are a few taps on the phone to book and checkin for a flight trip prep hardly requires more...
<p>It’s easy to take technology for granted when it comes to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">business travel</a>. Since all it takes are a few taps on the phone to book and check-in for a flight, trip prep hardly requires more than a passing thought. </p>
<p>It wasn't long ago, though, that we booked trips and traveled without cell phones, laptops and the other tools that make our twenty-first-century lives more manageable. So, when you think about how much work business and leisure trips used to be, we have a lot to be thankful for. In honor of Thanksgiving, let's take a look back at what travel used to be like:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You couldn’t book travel yourself</h2>
<p>Remember the days when you had to call or drive to a travel agency to book a trip? The rise of do-it-yourself booking engines such as Travelocity and Expedia changed all that for consumers, and business travel partners like Fox World Travel, Atlas Travel, and Uniglobe ONE Travel. Now, whether you’re on a computer or your smartphone, you can book your entire trip from anywhere, at any time, and keep track of your entire itinerary on <a href="https://www.tripit.com/">TripIt</a>. No more fumbling around with (and possibly losing) paper tickets and notepads full of itinerary details!</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Everything was paper-based</h2>
<p>Remember having to actually go to the airport to pick up an airplane ticket? We’re happy that’s gone the way of the dinosaurs. Now you can travel with nothing more than identification and a confirmation code, or, in some cases, a QR code on your smartphone will do the trick.</p>
<p>It’s the same with expenses: One of our employees, a tech veteran, once went to China on business for three weeks. The jet lag was so bad when he got home that he lost every single one of his receipts—which were nicely collected in an envelope, sorted by date and with each attendee’s names written in ink on them—when he washed the jacket that contained the envelope. Now he snaps photos of business receipts on his mobile phone and sends them to Concur, which is considerably easier than trying to decipher Mandarin from a washed-and-dried wad of receipts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Just getting to the airport was expensive</h2>
<p>Remember when getting to the airport was a steep expense? Arriving on time for flights meant either calling for a pricey cab and hoping one was free in time to get you to the airport, or paying to park in airport garages. (Unless you were really lucky and had a generous neighbor or family member drop you off.) But, thanks to <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/57868dac4659a61200efc32d">Uber</a> and other ride-sharing services, as well as advances in technology that help airport parking vendors like <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center/listings/550353cc99066b13221bcdf0">Park 'N Fly</a> quickly deliver customers to their terminals, those costs and inconveniences are now a thing of the past. Getting to the airport has never been easier, or cheaper.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Staying at a hotel was a gamble</h2>
<p>Remember when <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking">travel planning</a> meant you had to rely on word of mouth to find a place to stay? And, you had to arrange reservations directly with the hotel, by phone. That could be tricky when traveling between time zones, not to mention dealing with different languages. One of our staffers, as a 22-year-old freelance journalist, sent what she thought was enough cash for a week at a run-down Parisian hotel, only to learn on arrival that the funds had mysteriously disappeared, leaving her homeless. And, one of our engineers decided to save his company money when he went to a conference by staying at a lower-priced chain hotel two miles from the conference venue—only to find that no taxi drivers would take him there because the neighborhood was so bad.</p>
<p>But now, thanks to the Internet, you can make use of travel forums to choose a hotel with confidence and make a reservation there online, with a credit card, through an online booking service or travel agency. At some hotels, you can even check-in online to avoid the line at reception, or even select the exact room you want to stay in, like choosing a seat on a plane. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>You had to lug around so many devices</h2>
<p>Remember the days of carting along a 15-pound laptop that had maybe two hours of battery life? Or having to find your way around a city with a paper map? Those days are over, friends! At least a few of us here remember cramming a carry-on with a cell phone, pager, Palm Pilot, and if we had room, a CD player and a camera. But it was the laptop that was the real killer, with an underpowered fan that ensured you’d feel like you were in the desert after using it for a mere 15 minutes onboard—and that’s if you could manage to make it fit on your tray table. Now, of course, a smartphone, tablet or ultralight laptop has everything you need built-in, and altogether weigh less than three pounds. Not to mention that you have your choice of mapping apps—with dictation—so you’re no longer a hazard on the road.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Do you know how your travelers are spending? Check out our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">State of Business Travel</a> report. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Don’t get blown away by manual expense processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/dont-get-blown-away-manual-expense-processes
2017-06-09T10:35:21Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Expense reports ruining your staffs day Well youre not alone Manual paperbased expense report processes can take hours Employees have to set aside large portions of their days to dig...
<p>Expense reports ruining your staff’s day? Well, you’re not alone. Manual, paper-based <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense report</a> processes can take hours. Employees have to set aside large portions of their days to dig through receipts, manually input each expenditure and piece it all together. Meanwhile, those in the finance department have to spend time reviewing and reconciling these reports. Any lost receipt or discrepancy can lead to hours of back-and-forth between departments. In a small business, you just can’t afford this flurry of tedious tasks.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Go with the mobile workforce flow</strong></h2>
<p>With the uptick of mobility in the workplace, manual tasks, including expense reporting, are becoming a thing of the past. In fact, working away from the office and outside the hours of 9-5 are becoming the norm, and small business owners are embracing this new workforce. These stats from SMB Group’s <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs">From Manual to Mobile: Speeding Business Success for SMBs</a> paint a pretty good picture of today’s modern workplace:</p>
<ul>
<li>30% of SMBs now support telecommuting for 20% or more of their employees</li>
<li>18% of SMBs expect the percentage of their telecommuting workers to increase in the next year</li>
<li>57% of SMBs say that 20% or more of their workforce travels for work, and 14% expect this number to increase in the next year</li>
</ul>
<p>While getting up to the speed of mobile can seem like a big job, going mobile isn’t actually hindering businesses. The availability and flexibility of mobile solutions opens up opportunities for collaboration in and out of the office, which makes for easier work and happier employees overall.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Make expense reporting a breeze</strong></h2>
<p>With more business happening outside the office, the hassle of doing expense reports manually becomes too cumbersome to consider. Automation is a must for turning this tedious task into a walk in the park.</p>
<p>If you’re looking to automate, it’s particularly important for an SMB to choose a system that will change with you. Consider what you need today and what you might need tomorrow. And of course, you must ensure your system can go mobile. </p>
<p>A mobile expense system, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">Concur Expense</a>, creates an easy to use mobile solution for employees on-the-go. Using the app, all that employees have to do is take a picture of their receipts - it’s easy and removes the chance of error. It also saves time for the people in the finance department who won’t face headwinds reviewing and auditing expense reports.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Become a fan of expense reporting</strong></h2>
<p>Embracing automation and mobility is a win for small businesses. Allowing employees to work remotely increases retention and engagement – it makes them want to come to you, and stay. And technology that lets work happen seamlessly outside the office helps you stay competitive.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Want to learn more? Read <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs">From Manual to Mobile: Speeding Business Success for SMBs</a></strong>. <strong>This Perspectives Report by SMB Group, sponsored by Concur, explains the many ways mobility is changing the SMB marketplace.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Seven Ways to Increase Small Business Efficiency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/seven-ways-increase-small-business-efficiency
2018-07-05T17:41:22Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Inefficiency like rust never sleeps and can suddenly creep into any corner of your business Vigilance against inefficiency is even more critical for small to mediumsized...
<p>Inefficiency, like rust, never sleeps, and can suddenly creep into any corner of your business. Vigilance against inefficiency is even more critical for small to medium-sized businesses because margins for error can be thin, and small but steady drains on revenue can suddenly hit a tipping point. So how can you run a tighter ship? Here are seven steps to take: </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Automate wherever possible</strong></h2>
<p>This is our favorite efficiency booster, since we’re in the business of automating travel, expense and invoice management. But there are many routine tasks that can be streamlined and automated for greater efficiency, including network maintenance, marketing and customer support. You can see how much spreadsheet-based expense reporting may be costing you with our tool.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281540_DollarSign_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Real Cost of Spreadsheets</h2>
<p>Manual processes aren't free. Calculate how much money your company is losing due to hidden costs.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-spreadsheet-reporting-cost-calculator">Do the math</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Be down for maximum uptime</strong></h2>
<p>A reliable, secure, and responsive company network ensures that your employees can access the information and resources they need, and maintain responsive contact with customers and suppliers. Many a sale has been lost due to technical difficulties.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Held up by a drawbridge? Don’t just sit there</strong></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/manual-mobile-speeding-business-success-smbs">Mobile productivity</a> on the go is more critical than ever, especially in SMBs where employees often wear multiple hats. Make sure your employees have the mobile tools to connect to the company network, each other, and your customers from wherever they are. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>4. Collaborate</strong></h2>
<p>Equip your employees with the tools they need to collaborate with each other, your customers, vendors, and partners. Capabilities such as interactive calendaring, videoconferencing, and document sharing help to keep everyone on the same page and bring out their best.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>5. Save by outsourcing</strong></h2>
<p>SMB owners are used to doing it all, but it can be a false economy. For example, it may be more cost-effective to outsource network security tasks to a managed service provider and free your IT specialists to work on revenue-generating initiatives.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>6. Reduce your email attachments</strong></h2>
<p>Attaching files to email for internal sharing and client review is the easy default. But, besides being notoriously insecure, this method consumes mailbox and server space, can degrade network performance, and requires you to send a new attachment with every revision. Consider exchanging documents through a secure client portal, where the files are stored in the cloud with the option of password protection, and sharing is achieved by emailing the link instead of the document. This can also eliminate the need to encrypt sensitive files, and ensures that everyone is accessing the latest version.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>7. Keep employees satisfied with simple technology</strong></h2>
<p>Most employees typically use only four for five main features of an application, and the easier technology is to use, they more they’ll use it. Frustration with company technology is turning up more frequently exit interviews, so in addition to boosting productivity, keeping it simple helps to reduce your recruitment costs.</p>
<p>Identifying other opportunities to increase efficiencies in your company can be as simple as asking, “Is there a better way to do this?” With the robust competition to provide affordable productivity tools for the growing SMB market, chances are excellent that there is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If you're ready for an efficient way to handle expense and travel management, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">read the report</a> to learn more about how SMBs can drive growth and innovation. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
The software that saves you from expense reports
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/software-saves-you-expense-reports
2019-08-21T03:10:45Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Its safe to say that no one likes filling out expense reports No one It either takes time away from getting your job done or if youre like most people and end up doing them after hours...
<p>It’s safe to say that no one likes filling out <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a>. No one. It either takes time away from getting your job done, or, if you’re like most people and end up doing them after hours, it takes time away from doing the things you love.</p>
<p>It’s no party for the finance department, either. There are entry errors to deal with, deadlines to enforce and endless management hassles.</p>
<p>So yes, automating expenses is a good thing. But what software is right for your business? Which solution goes beyond the automation of expenses to include travel in the equation? Which travel expense management (TEM) application gives employees tools they want to use while adding overall value to your business?</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-282709_Receipt_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Check Out the Market Guide for Travel Expense Management Software</h2>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/market-guide-travel-expense-management-software">Get the Guide</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> This complimentary and highly detailed report points out the differences between top TEM performers and offers a number of insights. Key findings include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Cloud-based SaaS offerings generally offer the most functionality.</li>
<li>The ability to meet industry and country-level requirements varies greatly among TEM providers.</li>
<li>Although ERP providers are making an effort to improve TEM tools, TEM specialists outperform them with focused innovations.</li>
<li>Most providers offer digital receipt capture via mobile or tablet, but it’s what they do with that image that makes the difference.</li>
<li>Finance and procurement teams are still focused automating and enforcing spend policy, but this shouldn’t negatively impact the end-user experience.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>There isn’t one right answer for everyone, but there is one that stands out. </strong></h2>
<p>Gartner makes a number of recommendations in the report—from seeking a SaaS solution to making usability a key selection criteria. The report also highlights which vendors are going above and beyond to offer:</p>
<ol>
<li>A sharper focus on small to mid-sized businesses.</li>
<li>Innovations in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/duty-care-101-three-good-reasons-consider-concur">Duty of Care</a>.</li>
<li>Advancements in mileage tracking.</li>
<li>A partner-platform ecosystem that covers travel, expense and invoice in one place.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/market-guide-travel-expense-management-software">Download the full report</a> to find the solution that's best for you.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="text-sm">Gartner Market Guide for Travel Expense Management Software, Chris Pang, 08 May 2017.</p>
<p class="text-sm">Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.</p>
SAP Concur Team
Improving Visibility and Efficiency: The Lure of Automated AP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/improving-visibility-and-efficiency-lure-automated-ap
2019-02-27T08:06:24Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Its an interesting time to be in accounts payable Throughout the last few years there has been a wave of cloudbased technologies that promise better visibility into spend greater cost...
<p>It’s an interesting time to be in accounts payable. Throughout the last few years, there has been a wave of cloud-based technologies that promise better visibility into spend, greater cost control, and significantly improved operational efficiency. Yet, the majority of companies haven’t caught up with the times. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/whitepaper-your-ap-department-truly-automated">A study by the Institute of Financial Operations</a> (IFO) revealed that, on average, 50% of invoices are still received by paper, 37% by e-mail, and 5% by fax. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Take the pain out of AP management with our invoice policy template. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-ap-management-invoice-policy-template">Download it now</a>. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Manual AP systems are painful and paper-heavy, requiring a human being to open envelopes, print out emails, match invoices with purchase orders and receipts, and decide whether or not the invoice needs exception handling. Then, everything has to be sent downstream for approvals. Travel makes it more complex. If your employees are required to submit paper receipts, then you have to wait for them to come in off the road to do so—often times, asking managers who are out of the loop to approve the expenses.</p>
<p>As a result, gaining full visibility into spend is difficult. If you’re not able to get real-time data, it’s hard to track payments. It’s a challenge to be on top of compliance issues if you have to wait three weeks to see paid invoices. And, it’s asking a lot of managers who are usually more focused on the business of your business, which often isn’t AP.</p>
<p>Manual AP processes are also time-consuming. A 2016 Aberdeen Group study, <a href="http://www.aberdeen.com/research/11252/11252-RR-APinvoice-automation-efficiency.aspx/content.aspx">Reap the Benefits of Invoice Excellence with AP Automation</a>, shows that it takes, on average, 17 days to approve an invoice manually—a process that costs $31 per invoice. Only after those 17 days is that invoice added to the ERP system, giving you the visibility you need to create a report. And then, of course, you have to archive the invoice and any other paper that goes along with it. That’s a lot of work in the days of cloud computing.</p>
<p>This manual approach can also lead to duplicate invoices, lost invoices, and insufficient controls. Reimbursement takes longer than your employees would like, and vendors are often left to wonder when their invoices will be paid. And then there are late payment fees and, in the worst cases, the possibility of losing a vendor or a partner to too many late or failed payments.</p>
<p>But, when you move accounts payable to a cloud-based system, you can simplify processes and offset your costs with the savings in time and labor. Research by Ardent Partners showed that businesses can <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/ap-automation-fact-or-fiction">reduce their invoice processing costs</a> up to 70% through automation.The emotional costs of moving your employees to a new system are also offset by the reduction in rote tasks and the ease-of-use of modern digital AP systems.</p>
<p>Digitizing your AP processes gives you a scalable way to gain visibility into when and where spend happens, take advantage of discounts from paying quickly, and integrate payment tracking, compliance, and management. And with cloud technology, you can spin up a pilot project easily and inexpensively to see whether or not it’s right for you.</p>
<p>By using cloud-based AP processes, you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Log invoices automatically, using optical character recognition (OCR) to extract text from invoices</li>
<li>Automatically match invoices with their POs and forward it for approval (or for exception handling)</li>
<li>Set up a portal to give your suppliers visibility into the process, enabling self-service (and reducing your costs)</li>
<li>Set flags on certain types of spends and behaviors to notify you immediately when problems occur</li>
<li>Give your employees the ability to use mobile technology to create and submit expense reports on the road—reducing error rates by filing expenses while they’re still fresh in the employee’s mind</li>
<li>Automatically submit invoices to your ERP, significantly reducing the need for manual input</li>
<li>Develop reports more quickly and get a better handle on your company’s cash flow, immediately seeing what your liabilities are</li>
<li>Archive invoices, receipts, and other proofs electronically, for as long as it’s required, without taking up physical space</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">Automated, cloud-based AP</a> gives you the ability to reduce risk, increase compliance, make tax management easier, and cut off bad spend before it happens.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Customer Success at Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/customer-success-concur
2019-08-29T05:21:35Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
At Concur we put our customers at the center of everything we do From how we design our user experience to how we measure success our ultimate goal is to provide solutions our...
<p>At Concur, we put our customers at the center of everything we do. From how we design our user experience to how we measure success, our ultimate goal is to provide solutions our customers need and want. Recently, I had the privilege to talk about our customer success journey and what this means to all of us at Concur. It was fun to bring people on our journey that has spanned decades and shaped who we are today—a company passionate about customer success. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Our Journey</strong></h2>
<p>Our journey started when Concur was founded in 1993. In our early years, we focused on delivering the best on-premise software solution to automate expense reporting. This meant success equaled hassle-free implementation and support. As we entered our second decade, we embraced the cloud and expanded our solution offerings. Device proliferation drove us to develop mobile solutions, which then led to better web solutions. In our third decade, we matured in our approach to customer success, offering global solutions to meet the unique local requirements of our customers. We opened up our data with APIs and forged strategic, industry partnerships that enabled us, and the broader ecosystem, to fuel even more customer success.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Throughout this journey, we have embraced the ever-changing nature of our industry while listening and responding to customer feedback. How we bring customer success to life today is based on this learning and focus on four key areas:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Infusing It in Our Culture</strong></h2>
<p>Concur is a village, full of 7,000 people taking care of our customers all over the world. We foster an environment that is vocal about customer success and puts it front and center. We encourage every employee to internalize what customer success means to them. One of our four main goal areas as a company is Customers, and we ask all employees to define at least one of their annual objectives that helps us make progress in this area.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Innovating for Customer Value</strong></h2>
<p>Innovating for customer value is everybody’s responsibility at Concur. We think about innovation in every process, always starting with the customer at the center. From user-centric development to first-call resolution, we start by asking what the experience will be like from the customer’s perspective. We also innovate through a network of partners who leverage our APIs to provide customer value in areas we don’t specialize in. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Leveraging Data to Manage Customer Success</strong></h2>
<p>Today, we have the ability to understand how customers use our solutions—it’s amazing what this does for customer success. By leveraging insights we get from our data and third-party tools, we can build the right skillset to support our customers, review how they use our services and make recommendations on how they can optimize their experience. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Organized to Deliver Customer Success</strong></h2>
<p>Our business is structured to deliver customer success through various stages of the customer journey—from sales through implementation and ongoing support. Although these are separate organizations with different operating approaches, the end goal is that through each phase, we deliver an ideal experience, enabling our customers to succeed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We drive customer success by delivering value for customers throughout their journey, as they evolve their businesses, and by becoming a trusted company they never outgrow. As we continue on this journey and look to the future, our approach to customer success will continue to evolve and improve. We will strive to anticipate and respond to our customer’s needs, enabling them to be successful. Because in the end, customer success is our success.</p>
Six questions to ask yourself before taking your business global
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/six-questions-ask-yourself-taking-your-business-global
2016-10-14T12:43:36Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Making the leap to doing business internationally may seem dauntingafter all why add complexity if its not necessary But doing business overseas can help your company grow and with...
<p>Making the leap to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/go-global-concur">doing business internationally</a> may seem daunting—after all, why add complexity if it’s not necessary? But doing business overseas can help your company grow, and with fewer complications than you might think. For example, the cloud makes it less expensive to operate across geographical boundaries—and cloud-based <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice</a> and <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management</a> tools can help small businesses sort out tax and compliance regulations before moving to new markets.</p>
<p>There are undoubtedly plenty of considerations to keep top of mind before making the leap. Let’s look at just a few questions to ask as you determine whether to open up shop in a new country:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What’s in it for you?</strong> Make sure you’re clear on the advantages that market could present to your business that you can’t get elsewhere, whether that’s the ability to disrupt that market, add additional clients, reap cost efficiencies or outshine the competition.</li>
<li><strong>What’s the red tape?</strong> Do your research on local laws and industry regulations—they can affect everything from the taxes you pay to the way in which you and your employees work. You might even find some surprises, like less regulation in international markets than you have at home.</li>
<li><strong>What do the locals want?</strong> Consider bringing on a local expert to help you navigate the waters, particularly if you’re not fluent in the language or the culture. Having boots on the ground isn’t just important for figuring out local laws and customs, it helps when you’re hiring, when determining your client demographic and during product planning.</li>
<li><strong>What do the locals want? Part two.</strong> Is your product or service going to resonate with them? Here’s another area where having a local expert can help: They may be able to suggest tweaks that will make your value proposition even stickier with local customers.</li>
<li><strong>What assumptions are you making?</strong> Does your business model rely on always-on, super-fast Internet speeds? And, does your new market provide that? Take time to fully assess what you need to succeed and then make sure your new market provides it, or research viable workarounds.</li>
<li><strong>Are you ready to start over?</strong> You’ve built a reputation for your small business in your home country, but opening a presence in a foreign land may require you to do it all over again, depending on your business. In some ways, this can be a benefit. If you want to rebrand, now may be a good time. But don’t go into it blindly. Make sure you plan for the time and expense of building name recognition.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">Download the report</a> to learn about how SMBs can drive growth and innovation when they embrace the full power of T&E solutions</strong></p>
<div>
<div>
<div id="_com_1"> </div>
</div>
</div>
SAP Concur Team
The cost of doing nothing: Ignoring fraudsters? Part 1
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cost-doing-nothing-ignoring-fraudsters-part-1
2018-11-22T08:39:21Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Fraud is an enterprise risk It falls in the same realm as economic supply chain disaster duty of care and regulatory risks according to the Association for Fraud Examiners ACFE An...
<p>Fraud is an enterprise risk. It falls in the same realm as economic, supply chain, disaster, duty of care and regulatory risks, according to the Association for Fraud Examiners (ACFE). An awareness of this risk can get the attention of the CFO and others, and thus with proper positioning, can receive the resources to prevent and manage it effectively.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evidence of this destructive act can show up across an enterprise – within expense reports, cash advances, Pcards, invoices, travel data, HR feeds, etc. “Red flags” can be proactively detected by companies who have visibility into data and the controls in place to manage employee spend across an enterprise.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fraudsters use multiple means to steal and pull off their schemes, and many fraudsters attack the company from multiple angles,” says Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, Director of Research for the ACFE. “Fraudsters may need cash…so they might steal multiple gift cards or create a fake invoice with payment going to their bank account. There’s your red flag—uncovering an employee theft or fraudulent payment might unravel a larger scheme that puts the company at risk for a corruption scandal.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Savvy companies who pull together various departments of an organization who plan, manage and oversee employee spend can often find the weakest links that enable fraud in the first place. Setting up proper audit rules, coding ways to spend money properly, using effective spend reports that identify trends and outliers and revisiting policies and procedures are a few ways professionals can help manage this enterprise risk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>CFO.com webinar on Tuesday, June 6 with Julie Losee, North America Travel and Business Expense Accounting, Supervisor for Ford Motor Company; John Warren, J.D., CFE, VP and General Counsel, ACFE; and Andi McNeal, CFE, CPA, Director of Research, ACFE</strong></p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>See More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-cost-of-doing-nothing-tax-troubles-for-guestimators-part-2">The cost of doing nothing: Tax troubles for guestimators (Part 2)</a></h3>
Erin Giordano
Using data to track down your travelers
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/using-data-track-down-your-travelers
2022-11-14T11:54:45Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
If you were looking at a map right now could you pinpoint your people Sure you could get close with some of your travelers but do you know exactly where all of them are as you read...
<p>If you were looking at a map right now, could you pinpoint your people?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sure, you could get close with some of your travelers, but do you know exactly where all of them are as you read this? Could you call them? Could you warn them of an impending travel delay or political protest that’s turned violent?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Could you get them out?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>There’s a reason duty of care is the #2 issue facing businesses this year. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Locating, protecting and communicating with your employees is more challenging than ever. Popular booking sites (and even your suppliers) are competing directly with your corporate booking tool. Your travelers have more and more ways to book their trips and, those outside tools often appear easier, faster and literally more rewarding.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), 42% of travelers<br />
prefer to book directly on a supplier’s website.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s a startling statistic—reassuring only in that it proves you’re likely not alone in this issue. Here’s another:</p>
<p>One-third of travelers in the UK, Germany and France still book directly with suppliers at least once a year—even though they have access to their companies’ online booking tools (OBT). And travelers who used an OBT in the past year, 40% also booked directly with a supplier at least once in the same period.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The short story is this:</p>
<p>If your travelers aren’t booking through you, you’re not getting their itineraries until it’s too late—</p>
<p>often after they’ve returned and submitted their expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s not protection, it’s a potential disaster.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>What is your protocol if your travelers are affected by a crisis halfway around the world? </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Here are a few things to ask yourself as you think about your duty of care:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li>Do you centralize all reservation and itinerary information for all your travelers?</li>
<li>Do you have centralized source to find and communicate with employees in their usual work locations?</li>
<li>If employees book directly with a hotel or airline (instead of through your booking tool or TMC) can you capture and see their itineraries?</li>
<li>If plans change during a trip, are you able to track that information in real time?</li>
<li>Are you able to capture real-time, in-trip purchase and app location data to help you pinpoint where employees are during their trips?</li>
<li>And what about mobile phone numbers? Do you have a mechanism to track, manage and update that critical-but ever-changing piece of information for all your travelers?</li>
<li>What’s your plan when emergencies happen and you’re asleep or otherwise away from the office?</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The data that connects you to your people is there, you just have to connect to it. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you’re going to protect your travelers from delays and disruptions, you need every digit of data regarding their trips—regardless of where they were booked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be nice, you’re saying to yourself, because you know that even the most refined travel programs often only track traditional GDS data—and that’s only when the trips are booked through their TMC.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are tools and services, however, designed to present you with all the data from all your travelers’ itineraries—in real time and with risk analysis and pre-trip alerts and information. And also to monitor events when you can’t. But before you go looking, you have to know where you stand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/managing-traveler-risk-in-a-world-of-uncertainty">Managing traveler risk in a world of uncertainty</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Read more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/providing-the-travel-support-your-employees-need-when-they-need-it">Providing the travel support your employees need, when they need it</a></strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
It's Time to Let Go of Your Expense Tracking Spreadsheets
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-let-go-your-expense-tracking-spreadsheets
2020-01-16T10:53:42Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Small businesses often start tracking their expenses using spreadsheets and its easy to see why Its not a difficult tool to learn and its a heck of a lot easier than digging out your...
<p data-id="6611fe2a-41c5-48bf-b878-5d00b578da44">Small businesses often start tracking their expenses using spreadsheets, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not a difficult tool to learn, and it’s a heck of a lot easier than digging out your calculator. If you’re a one-person show, this approach is manageable. But after a while, the limitations of a manual process become clear, and it’s time to start considering an <a href="https://www.concur.com/">expense management system</a> that’s purpose-built to manage your expenses. </p>
<p data-id="82caa23b-f552-4a5c-822a-5860849bbcd9">While it can be daunting to wade into the world of accounting software, there are benefits to be had for the savvy small business owner. With that in mind, we’d like to walk you through a few best practices on finding expense management software that works for you.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281540_DollarSign_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense ROI Calculator</h2>
<p>Spreadsheets aren't free. Calculate how much money automation could save your company.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-roi-calculator">Do the math</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<h2>What's holding you back from automation?</h2>
<p>We’ve been there: you have a solution that’s worked for you from the beginning, and you have valid reasons for staying put. Here are a few arguments against moving off spreadsheets.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Your investment:</strong> If you started the company, you probably also started that spreadsheet. You’ve invested time in learning how to use it, and you don’t want to invest more time to learn a new system.</li>
<li><strong>The cost:</strong> Spreadsheets are free, right? So what if it takes you time to update it? At least it’s not another bill to pay. </li>
<li><strong>No time to research:</strong> Who has time to look into accounting software? Let alone the time to learn a new application and move all your data into it.</li>
<li><strong>No business case:</strong> You don’t have time to frame up a business case for moving off the spreadsheet…possibly because you’re too busy updating the spreadsheet.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/expense-automation-solutions-buyers-guide">Expense Automation Solutions Buyer's Guide</a></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why expense software is worth looking into</h2>
<p>Sure, you’re familiar with your spreadsheet. And it's useful in certain circumstances—analyzing small sets of data, for example. But when it comes to tracking expenses over time, <strong>there’s a lot your spreadsheet can’t tell you that a simple expense solution can, like trends over time, who your most profitable clients are, or how you’re spending your money.</strong></p>
<p>Your spreadsheet can’t notify you when someone violates your expense policy. It doesn’t automatically enter expense data, spin up reports or roll up data into a dashboard. Simply put, it’s not the right tool for the job. Here are some of the drawbacks of relying on a spreadsheet for managing expenses.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Inconsistency:</strong> Spreadsheets proliferate—they’re sent around in email and there’s no version control. That means you lack one true source for your data, and that results in data that’s inconsistent and inaccurate.</li>
<li><strong>Poor visibility:</strong> Spreadsheets are terrific at storing raw data, but how do you quickly draw conclusions from that? It’s hard to get a handle on what’s important and what’s not.</li>
<li><strong>Inaccuracy:</strong> It’s easy to make small mistakes that balloon into larger ones. Make an error in the data that’s entered, or in the formulas used for calculations, and your figures can be way off. A mistake can be as simple as using the formula for Sum instead of Average.</li>
<li><strong>Can’t spot trends:</strong> Because the spreadsheet is constantly updated, you can’t get the historical view—which means you can’t spot trends over time. If you’re running a restaurant, it would be helpful to know which night is your least profitable in each season so that you can run specials to bring in the crowds.</li>
<li><strong>Aggregating data is a nightmare:</strong> Without built-in version control, spreadsheets can be easily overwritten. Trying to get back to the “one true source” of data isn’t just time-consuming; it also takes time away from doing things that bring in revenue.</li>
<li><strong>No flexibility:</strong> Try adding a column, a row, or a cell, and see what that does to your beautifully organized spreadsheet.</li>
<li><strong>No scalability:</strong> When your business grows, you need tools that help you grow. Spreadsheets can’t do that. They can’t easily offer up visibility into spend or send you an alert about a late payment.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>For more about how automation can lead to better spend management, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/value-of-automated-travel-expense-invoice-management">download the study</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
The cost of doing nothing: Tax troubles for guestimators (Part 2)
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/cost-doing-nothing-tax-troubles-guestimators-part-2
2019-08-21T03:13:18Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
According to Ed Sturm Tax Managing Director at Deloitte Tax LLP companies are generally doing a decent job in keeping up with book accounting for travel meal and entertainment expenses...
<p>According to Ed Sturm, Tax Managing Director at Deloitte Tax LLP, companies are generally doing a decent job in keeping up with book accounting for travel, meal and entertainment expenses. "At the same time, when referring to the correct tax answer, it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, ‘Well, M&E is just 50 percent of that number,’” says Sturm. “However, where companies face difficulty is finding that number.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Why is this so hard? Often, these expenses make up thousands of transactions in an enterprise-size company over a year and are typically low dollar amounts per transaction. “The IRS allows companies to use statistical sampling to come up with that number. Although, if companies can get better data to put in that formula, they can potentially save money and be better prepared to defend on audit.” </p>
<p><br />
“In the view of the IRS, the taxpayers are required to use whatever systems and processes are out there to comply with the tax rules. So, whether it’s electronic expense reporting or employers following up with the employees to make sure expense reports are completed, the onus is always on the employer,” says Sturm.</p>
<p><br />
In summary, the IRS expects companies to have exact documentation to substantiate each transaction and come up with a reliable amount that is deductible for tax purposes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>How much time would it take to your company gather this data now? Is it even possible for your team to pull this reporting?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more on this topic: </strong><strong><a href="https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&referrer=&eventid=1288967&sessionid=1&key=5D7859FA405B20E357A4C3F5A0F11259&regTag=&sourcepage=register" target="_blank">Listen to Sturm</a> as he speaks on this topic during a webinar with Concur.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>See More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-cost-of-doing-nothing-ignoring-fraudsters-part-1">The cost of doing nothing: Ignoring fraudsters? (Part 1)</a></h3>
<h3>See More: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-cost-of-doing-nothing-mitigating-fcpa-risks-part-3">The cost of doing nothing: Mitigating FCPA risks (Part 3)</a></h3>
Erin Giordano
How Concur Invoice Works
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-concur-invoice-works
2024-01-29T20:29:04Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Concur Invoice automates your invoices and integrates invoices with T&E payments into a single system.
<p> </p>
<p>If you're looking for a way to simplify invoice-based spending, accelerate accounts payable processing, and gain visibility and control into how employees are spending money, look no further than SAP Concur.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> automates the entire invoice management process from capture to pay, and by integrating invoice, travel, and expense management into a single system, you can easily track and manage your budget.</p>
<p>Designed for efficiency, visibility, and ease of use, SAP Concur connects invoices to the rest of your business spending with a single integrated solution. Invoices can be submitted via email, fax, hard copy or electronically. Data is extracted by OCR software and is validated and corrected by either an auditor or an invoice verifier and then assigned to the invoice owner within the system.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Take closer look at Concur Invoice</h5>
<p>See how Concur Invoice works in about five minutes with our free interactive demo.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Try it now</a></div>
</div>
<p>We are leading the way in reducing manual entries and errors with machine learning to process data from invoices including details such as the invoice number, date, shipping, tax and more.</p>
<p>At the line-item level, Concur Invoice captures the description, quantity, unit prices, and categorizes the item by expense type. For complex invoices that may require extensive allocations, the system allows the ability to import distributions from Excel, edit the distribution, or save user-specific favorite distributions.</p>
<p>To efficiently process invoices tied to purchase orders, the system can automatically populate PO data from your purchasing or ERP systems, or you can take advantage of SAP Concur's Purchase Request Module.</p>
<p>To ensure budget dollars are spent as intended, the solution's matching capabilities compare invoices to purchase orders and goods receipts, and instantly displays exceptions. When invoices are submitted, SAP Concur's dynamic approval workflow capabilities ensure invoices are approved by the right people in a timely manner.</p>
<p>In the office or on the go, simply open the SAP Concur mobile app to approve invoices, purchase orders, and expense reports, all with one app. At a glance, you're provided with the summary, an image of the invoice, as well as the line item details. With one click, the invoice can be approved or sent back to the submitter with a comment as to why it was rejected.</p>
<p>To help your organization better manage every payment you make to suppliers, SAP Concur not only provides complete visibility into how your team is planning to spend, but also where they've already spent. Invoices that are ready for processing are conveniently organized in one location, making it simple to pinpoint unassigned or unsubmitted invoices. The solution also offers a payment manager, which automatically prepares payment batches for you.</p>
<p>Leveraging SAP Concur's single-data reporting warehouse that contains both expense and invoice spend, you're able to gain actionable insight into your bottom line. Eliminating time-consuming manual effort, this default accrual report provides detailed information for every invoice in the system, enabling you to see what the status is, where it is, and who has it.</p>
<p>As a benefit, this report can be automatically emailed to department heads to keep them informed of upcoming expenses.</p>
<p>SAP Concur's comprehensive KPIs and dashboards also enable you to slice and dice spend data to see how long it's taking to process invoices, compare invoice and expense spending by department and identify trends in spending with vendors and use that information in ongoing supplier negotiations. Plus, you integrate directly with your other applications using <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">SAP Concur App Center</a> partners to optimize your solution for specific business challenges.</p>
<p>Concur Invoice management offers a holistic, connected approach to managing all of your spend. To learn more, try our <a href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-invoice">Concur Invoice self-guided demo</a>. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>You may also like:</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/how-concur-expense-works">How Concur Expense Works</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/video/how-concur-travel-works">How Concur Travel Works</a></p>
SAP Concur Team
It's time to get your invoice process out of the '80s
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/its-time-get-your-invoice-process-out-80s
2019-02-27T08:15:43Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Are you feeling like you need a FluxCapacitorequipped DeLorean to get your business operations streamlined with modern solutions Outdated invoice systems are causing businesses to...
<p>Are you feeling like you need a Flux-Capacitor-equipped DeLorean to get your business operations streamlined with modern solutions?</p>
<p>Outdated <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/enterprise-invoice-management">invoice systems</a> are causing businesses to spend more on invoicing than they would with an automated solution. (Calculate how much spreadsheet-based expense reporting is costing your company <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-spreadsheet-reporting-cost-calculator">here</a>.) Take a look at five reasons your business should evolve past the bygone business era of the '80s and streamline office invoicing, even if you are a "Goonie" at heart:<br />
</p>
<h2>1. Better Visibility</h2>
<p>You shouldn’t need to use the Zoltar machine to gain visibility into your accounts payable. Many CFOs and financial decision makers don’t feel they have big-picture visibility into invoicing and office expenses. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">Automated solutions</a> create reports with detailed expense and invoice data in formats that are easy to read and analyze.</p>
<h2>2. Reduced Costs</h2>
<p>Because manual, paper-based processes are driving up business labor costs, many organizations spend significantly more on invoice processing than they would with more efficient and streamlined solutions. Businesses are unknowingly throwing away a lot of money—thousands to millions of dollars each year—on manual AP steps that could be automated.</p>
<h2>3. Less Paperwork</h2>
<p>Physical filing cabinets have a new form these days: secure computer files. You shouldn’t feel like you’re navigating the Labryinth when you’re really just trying to find invoices from years past. Plus, having digitized versions of invoices helps keep them secure and readily-accessible. Physical documents are subject to loss, fire, flood and theft, so it’s important to have a backup.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Learn more about the true costs of paper-based invoicing <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">in this report</a>. </strong></p>
<h2><br />
4. Increased Productivity</h2>
<p>Finance workers spend hours filling out forms, paying bills and manually processing invoice paperwork. With automation, employees and financial decision makers will save time that can be used to focus on more important endeavors, rather than printing out invoices, getting approvals and sifting through invoice data.</p>
<p>Taking human hands off documents by automating workflows is a no-brainer that reduces the possibility of errors along the way.</p>
<h2>5. User-Mobility</h2>
<p>As long as accounts payable remains manual, which requires workers to be in their offices to do their jobs, it won’t operate with the speed and flexibility that modern business operations desire today. Mobile and cloud-based solutions cater to all workers—especially <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/the-impact-of-millennials-on-corporate-travel-and-expense-%E2%80%93-and-why-it">Millennials</a>—when it comes to allowing invoice processing and approvals through technology like tablets and smartphones. Mobility also helps reduce late payments since approvals become much faster when all information is readily accessible anytime, anywhere. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Welcome to the 21st Century</h2>
<p>In the immortal words of A-ha, cloud-based and automated invoice processes scream to businesses: “Take on me.” We bet that even Doc Brown himself would be impressed by technologically-savvy solutions to make office life easier. No time travel involved. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to build AP nirvana with millennials
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-build-ap-nirvana-millennials
2017-06-06T09:05:09Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
A survey conducted by Microsoft and Survey Monkey found that of Millennials say upto datetechnology is one of the most important factors at work Another recent study by PwC found that...
<p>A survey conducted by Microsoft and Survey Monkey found that 93% of Millennials say up-to date-technology is one of the most important factors at work.</p>
<p>Another recent study by PwC found that:</p>
<ul>
<li>59% of Millennials said an employer’s willingness to provide of state-of-the art technology is important to them when considering a job</li>
<li>78% said access to the technology they like to use makes them more effective at work</li>
</ul>
<p>These opinions affirm one of the guiding objectives of Concur: to design connective technology solutions that free users to focus on more important business tasks. Traditional AP systems that require manual data input and paper shuffling are directly at odds with the aspirations of tech-savvy millennials who want to make more meaningful contributions, while also having the flexibility to work from anywhere.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Read more about the true costs of paper-based invoice management <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">here</a>.</strong> </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Paper invoices are so Gen X</strong></h2>
<p>By 2020, millennials will comprise 40% of the working population, so their preferences are getting increasing attention from employers. One Concur client cited their company’s difficulty in filling a position in their AP department as an additional incentive to automate with Concur Invoice<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>The Microsoft-Survey Monkey survey cited above was designed to uncover what it takes to attract and retain Millennial talent. It concluded that Millennials thrive in a workplace that:</p>
<ul>
<li>Offers the latest technology</li>
<li>Creates a culture of collaboration</li>
<li>Keeps data safe</li>
<li>Fosters a strong sense of purpose</li>
</ul>
<p>If your organization is still laboring under paper-based, manual AP processes, modernizing with Concur Invoice<strong> </strong>will help send the right message to the cohort that expects automated business processes to be as ubiquitous as free Wi-Fi.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>See how <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> can give your employees more time to make a difference.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Is This Outdated Process Costing Your Business?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/outdated-process-costing-your-business
2022-07-01T17:26:57Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
You might be surprised to find out how much automating workflows including invoice management can save your businessboth in terms of your operating dollars and your sanity Because...
<p>You might be surprised to find out how much automating workflows, including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice management</a>, can save your business—both in terms of your operating dollars and your sanity.</p>
<p>Because labor costs play such a huge role in how much an invoice costs to process, some businesses’ outdated processes cause them to spend more than they would with automated invoicing. Extra costs can easily add up, so assessing your company’s current process to figure out where money might be slipping through cracks is a good first step.</p>
<div> </div>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-283386_OrderToCash_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Calculate the ROI of Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Use your company's data to find out how much you could save with SAP Concur invoice automation.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-roi-calculator">Calculate now</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Why do outdated invoice processes cost so much?</strong></p>
<p>Many financial decision makers don’t realize how much manual invoice processes can cost their business. That's not to mention that many moving parts can make finding inefficiencies challenging. Here are four things to consider and review in your current invoice process:<br />
</p>
<p><strong>1. Outdated systems</strong>: Many businesses’ invoicing processes are out-of-date. Automation can simplify processes to save both time and money. Taking out unnecessary steps, such as printing out documents and manually filling out information, should be considered. Ask yourself these questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Has your business grown since you originally implemented your accounts payable system, or is your business growing? How much extra time will the manual process take, given this growth?</li>
<li>How many invoices go out each month, and are they complex? Could the process be simplified with a streamlined solution?</li>
<li>Does your invoice system make it easy for you clients to pay you? Could accounts be delinquent because making payments isn’t streamlined?</li>
<li>Are you possibly losing vendors or partners because of too many late or failed payments?</li>
<li>Is reimbursement taking too long? Are your employees getting frustrated?</li>
<li>Do you have the necessary software/tool support needed to keep your invoice system running seamlessly?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>2. Inaccuracies</strong>: In addition to costly manual invoice processes that are often outdated, many studies have discovered that inaccuracies can also be a problem. Manual processes are prone to inaccurate data entry and even fraudulent practices, which can result in the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Manual processes can result in duplicate invoices and payments. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/its-time-to-fully-digitize-your-spend">the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates the typical organization loses 5% of its revenue to fraud each year</a>.</li>
<li>Overcharges can be a problem as human error is often inevitable. Not to mention inventories can easily be off with data entry, causing overcharges—all of which can cause mistrust and confusion between you, your customers, and your employees.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>3. Labor costs</strong>: Getting work done more quickly with an automated invoicing solution drives down labor costs. AMI-Partners found that implementing a vendor invoice management solution <strong>saves companies an average of $13 per invoice and $34,116 annually</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>4. Decreased productivity</strong>: Manual processes between different departments that touch invoices often add up to wasted hours, days, and dollars. AP personnel spend significant work time with manual invoice processing and it’s likely that employees would rather spend their time on more engaging tasks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Automating invoice processing is easier than you think</strong></p>
<p>In today’s fast-paced business climate, organizations in every sector are under pressure to do more with less. This means businesses cannot afford to squander opportunities to free up their working capital. This includes optimizing invoicing processes as everyone involved wants the process to go faster. Figuring out how to streamline, though, requires expertise.</p>
<p>With a simple cloud-based AP solution, the process can be simplified to remove a lot of wasteful steps. Automating accounts payable with modern solutions—that work with what you already have—just makes sense. Get business process out of the way to focus on what's actually important for your business today.</p>
<p><strong>If you’re ready to move to automation, download our guide </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/how-to-build-business-case-ap-automation"><strong>How to Build a Business Case for AP Automation</strong></a></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How Much Money is Your Business Throwing Away in Duplicate Invoice Payments?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-much-money-your-business-throwing-away-duplicate-invoice-payments
2018-07-26T09:15:37Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
If your small or midsize business is like most you could be throwing away as much as a month money that could be spent on staffing resources innovation or any number of impactful...
<p>If your small or midsize business is like most, you could be throwing away as much as $12,000 a month – money that could be spent on staffing, resources, innovation or any number of impactful investments. Duplicate payments are a common and preventable error plaguing AP processes today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>How can your company save on invoice management? <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">Get the full report</a> to find out</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>SAP Concur studied invoice data from September 2015 through August 2016 to explore the volume and value of duplicate invoices <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> is catching for our SMB customers (businesses that employ up to 1,000 people). Nearly $20 billion spread across more than 2.8 million invoices were processed by Sap Concur on behalf of these customers in the past year.</p>
<p>According to Concur Invoice data, a typical SMB* processes approximately 450 invoices in a busy month, and experiences an invoice duplication rate of 1.29%, or about six duplicate invoices monthly.</p>
<p>The average value of a duplicate invoice received is $2,034. That amounts to a total potential outlay of $12,000 per month if each duplicate invoice were to be paid in error.</p>
<p>“SAP Concur data shows us that duplicate invoicing is a big problem in the SMB market, likely costing businesses not just in terms of overpayment but in time spent to rectify the overpayment,” said Christal Bemont, SVP & GM (SMB), SAP Concur. “For businesses focused on growth and profitability, time and money spent on making and correcting duplicate payments runs completely counter to their goals.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Concur Invoice study also found that: </p>
<ul>
<li>For SMB customers that processed invoices only in the amounts of $50,000 and less, a subset of the total population studied, SAP Concur prevented payment of nearly $24 million in duplicate invoices.<br />
</li>
<li>July represents the peak month of the year in terms of the amount of invoices processed, seeing more than $2.5 billion and 275,000 invoices.<br />
</li>
<li>In July 2016, across the total population of SMB customers studied (no limit on invoice amounts), Concur Invoice saw the largest number of duplicate invoices, with a median value of $530 and average value of $9,066 per invoice.<br />
</li>
<li>SAP Concur flagged 1.29% of invoices as duplicates for SMB customers during a one-year timeframe.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>How Can Duplicate Invoices Be Prevented?</h2>
<p>Concur Invoice can help eliminate this duplicate invoice issue. In addition to serving as a platform for managing invoicing and payments, Concur Invoice tracks and matches invoice details to identify duplication. As with Sap Concur’s other products, Invoice allows customers to configure alerts or automatically halt on processing when duplicate invoices are identified, saving businesses not only a lot of financial headaches, but also a bundle of operating dollars.</p>
<p><strong>Learn the true costs of paper-based invoicing, and potentially save thousands of operating dollars. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">Download the report here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>*SMB companies receiving and processing invoices in the amounts of $50,000 or less.</p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
5 ways to immerse yourself in Boston during GBTA
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-ways-immerse-yourself-boston-during-gbta
2021-03-01T16:49:45Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Heading to GBTA Take a look at a few ways enjoy Boston while youre there See you soon Looking for a way to spend the day in Boston You can climb aboard an amphibious vehicle for a...
<p><strong>Heading to GBTA? Take a look at a few ways enjoy Boston while you're there. See you soon!</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Looking for a way to spend the day in Boston? You can climb aboard an amphibious vehicle for a Duck Tour, picnic at the Boston Common and Public Garden, mix with the intelligentsia in Harvard Square, catch a game at Fenway Park, or listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.</p>
<h2>1. Boston Common</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1496954415362-boston-common.jpg" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/bostoncommon.asp" target="_blank">Boston Common</a> is located in the heart of historic Boston, near some of the best <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=Boston,+MA;i=2015-06-19;o=2015-06-21" target="_blank">Boston hotels</a>. It is the oldest public park in the country, dating back to 1634. This is a gorgeous place for a picnic, a leisurely stroll or people watching. It’s also the starting point for Boston’s famous Freedom Trail. The adjacent public garden is a Victorian-era gem loved by plant and flower connoisseurs. Boston Common and Public Garden is on the National Historic Register.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>2. Duck Tours</strong></h3>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1496954445862-boston-ducks.jpg" /></p>
<p>A great way to explore Boston is on one of the city’s famous <a href="http://www.bostonducktours.com/" target="_blank">Duck Tours</a>. Sightseeing will never be more fun than on board a six-wheel-drive amphibious DUKW — colloquially known as a”Duck.” These modified two-ton military vehicles will immerse you in Boston history on land and in the water.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Harvard Square</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1496954468011-harvard-square.jpg" /></p>
<p>Another way to get the full Boston experience is by visiting a spot that’s not technically in Boston. Head across the Charles River to <a href="http://www.harvardsquare.com/" target="_blank">Harvard Square</a>, and grab a seat at the popular <a href="http://www.cremacambridge.com/" target="_blank">Crema Cafe</a> or whatever restaurant looks good to you. You can enjoy your favorite beverage and even strike up a conversation with the locals. Enjoy a leisurely stroll around Harvard Square, browse the shelves in bookstores and mingle with the intelligentsia.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Fenway Park</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1496954490204-fenway-park.jpg" /></p>
<p>Save your appetite for a Fenway Frank while watching a baseball game in <a href="http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/">Fenway Park</a>, the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. Since 1912, Fenway has been the home of the famous Boston Red Sox. Before the game, you can get a close look at Pesky’s Pole and explore the stands above the world famous Green Monster, Fenway’s famous left-field wall. You can even stay at the nearby <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/Independent-Hotels-in-Boston-MA_Hotel-Commonwealth-509bff2766edc84661028efd-Reviews" target="_blank">Hotel Commonwealth</a> in a room overlooking the ballpark.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Boston Symphony Orchestra</h2>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/wide-w980/1496954512647-symphony.jpg" /></p>
<p>Boston also offers a wide selection of musical interludes. One of the best is the <a href="http://www.bso.org/" target="_blank">Boston Symphony Orchestra</a>, which has been making music since 1881. Today, the Boston Symphony Orchestra presents more than 250 concerts annually. During the summer, the Boston Symphony plays at its outdoor venue in the Berkshires, about three hours west of the city, but you can catch a Boston Pops concert at the famous esplanade along the Charles River.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ready to extend your stay? There are plenty of great Boston <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/hotels#w=Boston,+MA;i=2015-06-19;o=2015-06-21" target="_blank">hotel</a> options throughout the city.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>This article originally appeared on Hipmunk.com. Visit the Hipmunk Tailwind blog <a href="https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/" target="_blank">for more travel tips</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Can you Justify the Cost of an Automated Expense Solution?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/can-you-justify-cost-automated-expense-solution
2018-07-19T06:43:55Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
If you read our post about letting go of your spreadsheets youre already familiar with the benefits of moving to an automated expense management solution Now were focusing on how to...
<p>If you read our post about <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/let-go-of-your-spreadsheets">letting go of your spreadsheets</a>, you're already familiar with the benefits of moving to an automated expense management solution. Now, we're focusing on how to justify the upfront and ongoing costs so you can frame a business case for making the switch. Here are the questions you may want to consider when determining whether to justify an automated solution:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Labor costs</strong>: How much time do you spend each month consolidating information? Correcting the data? Trying to find and correct errors? Tweaking your formulas to get the right outcome?</li>
<li><strong>Data integrity</strong>: Do you trust your data? Particularly if you’re tweaking your formulas, do you know if the “right” outcome is actually showing you the information you need to make the right decision for your business?</li>
<li><strong>Reports</strong>: How long does it take you to spin up a reliable report from your spreadsheet? Is it as easy as pushing a button, or does it require doing data sorts and making pivot tables to arrive at the right combination of data for your report? And after you do that—do you trust that report?</li>
<li><strong>Visibility</strong>: What is your company spending money on? How quickly can you spot trends or problems? Do you have a dashboard that displays the most important information quickly?</li>
<li><strong>Opportunity costs</strong>: If you were out of the office and your team had a business opportunity that relied on being able to serve up the right data quickly, could they?</li>
<li><strong>Mobility</strong>: Can your people access data from their smartphones? What about capturing receipts and recording expense data—what’s that experience like in a spreadsheet? Do you have one-button capture?</li>
<li><strong>Data integrity</strong>: Is your data centralized? Do you have one true source of data, or are there multiple versions of your spreadsheet? What about getting the historical view of the data so you can spot trends over time?</li>
<li><strong>Policy violations</strong>: How do you spot violations of your expense policies? Can you configure your spreadsheet to automatically alert you about a potential violation?</li>
<li><strong>Cash flow</strong>: How easy is it to track payments using your spreadsheet?</li>
<li><strong>Integration</strong>: Can you integrate your spreadsheet with other applications that you and your employees use?</li>
<li><strong>Time savings</strong>: How long does it take you to close the books? What about logging expenses manually? Do your employees have to keep their paper receipts? Do they ever lose them, or put them through the wash?</li>
</ul>
<p>Automating expenses can make a complex, time-consuming process much more efficient, as well as bring visibility to your budget. Take these <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/5-steps-strategic-spend-management">five steps to strategic spend management</a> to understand more about an integrated solution for modern finance leaders. </p>
SAP Concur Team
5 tips to break the intern mold
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-tips-break-intern-mold
2020-09-11T12:52:07Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
As Talent Acquisition Intern I highlight SAP Internship Experience Project SAP iXp experiences including activities intern success stories and company culture through blog writing and...
<p>As Talent Acquisition Intern, I highlight <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html">SAP Internship Experience Project</a> (SAP iXp) experiences, including activities, intern success stories and company culture through blog writing and social media. I’ve spoken to multiple interns about their career goals, projects they’ve been working on and their impressions so far.</p>
<p>One such intern I was able to sit down with was smiley and energetic product management intern Gabe Ho. It was the middle of week three of the iXp program, and while he was still learning the ins-and-outs of corporate life, Gabe shared his story and what he’s been up to so far at Concur. Here are five great insights I picked up from our conversation:</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Be a donkey.</strong> </h2>
<p>When meeting with interviewees, I always ask some silly questions to get to know the person better and make them feel comfortable so they know they can be themselves and not take the interview too seriously.</p>
<p>I asked Gabe: “If you could be any animal which one would you choose?” Two seconds later he responded with “donkey.” I laughed because that was an incredibly unique response and one that I would not assume many people would choose. Why a donkey?</p>
<p>“They’re hard workers,” says Gabe. He loves how donkeys carry the weight, do the heavy lifting to get the job done and never seem to complain. Donkeys are instrumental in moving people and objects in some cultures. This response made me not only intrigued to know more about Gabe, but I also gained a deeper respect for him. Even when faced with tedious, sometimes exhausting work, Gabe finds value in what he’s doing and stays positive. He knows that donkeys are perfect examples of hard workers and oftentimes, little appreciated. Take Gabe’s advice: Be a donkey.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="img-responsive" src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/half-w540/1501619487090-gabe-1-copy.jpg" /></p>
<p>“I’d be a donkey”- Product Management Intern, Gabe Ho </p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Bridge your passions.</strong> </h2>
<p>Gabe recently graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in Business and Informatics. “I got into liking both because I saw the merits and the synergy between the two,” he says. He also studied operations and supply chain management.</p>
<p>“I did a custom track emphasizing information architecture. Really seeing that bridge between technology and the business, that’s a gap that I feel like smaller companies are struggling with,” he adds. As a product management intern on the Financial Integrations team at Concur, Gabe says being able to speak to both sides of technology and business development is a good place to start his career.</p>
<p>Product management is the end goal for Gabe and believe it or not, the donkey mantra inspires him daily. Specifically, he says how double majoring and graduating in four years was at times extremely difficult. Yet he continued to remind himself to never give up and be more like a donkey. At SAP, we oftentimes hear the motto, “build bridges, not silos.” Gabe is living out that mantra, bridging his two studies and driving his product management career goal.</p>
<p>If you’re passionate about different things, don’t keep them in silos, try to find a bridge. You will end up happier coming into the office every day when your passions are bridged with your career.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Step out of your comfort zone.</strong> </h2>
<p>Gabe was born and raised in Singapore. When asked where his favorite place in the world is, he quickly responded: “Home is where the heart is.” Gabe tries to make it back to Singapore once a year (mostly to relish in the beautiful weather), but has ultimately found a community in Seattle and doesn’t plan on leaving.</p>
<p>“I never quite fit into Singapore. I feel like I understand people and get the culture here so much better. I’ve found a home away from home here.” Although not easy at first, Gabe left his comfortable life back home, and jumped on the opportunity to attend school in Seattle. This opened his eyes to endless possibilities.</p>
<p>Stepping out of his comfort zone encouraged Gabe to apply for this internship. At first, Gabe was skeptical about the type of personal development he’d gain while working for a multinational technology company due to the large-scale work environment.</p>
<p>After taking the opportunity with SAP iXp, he’s been pleasantly surprised with the inclusivity and invigorating SAP culture. He’s been able to learn more about himself and set his sights on the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>4. Grow your network.</strong></h2>
<p>This statement gets preached throughout every internship and job opportunity, and there’s a reason for that. This nugget of truth is invaluable. Gabe says he uses this advice to expand his visibility in the company.</p>
<p>He makes connections through the context of his project. Gabe bridges the gap between sales, UX teams and engineers, creating opportunities to meet leaders and colleagues. Gabe’s manager, Michelle Schmetzer helps Gabe feel at home on the Financial Integrations team, all the while introducing him to other departments and teams. He calls her a “rock star.”</p>
<p>When you network, you’re not only meeting new people and hearing their stories, but you’re also branding yourself. Even if you’re hesitant, send those emails to people you admire. Introduce yourself to that hiring manager you see in the hallway. Ask someone for help on a project simply to hear their creative thought. As Gabe reminds us: “Every day is an opportunity to branch out.” Go ahead, make that new connection.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>5. Stay ambiguous.</strong></h2>
<p>In most cases, it’s important to come prepared. Sometimes, keeping things a bit ambiguous leads you to not have any preconceptions or be intimidated. For Gabe, ambiguity led him to a great surprise.</p>
<p>Gabe says his favorite iXp event thus far was the CSR event, cycling for charity with <a href="https://www.soul-cycle.com/">Soulcycle</a>. He explained to me that he thought “soul cycle” would entail riding around downtown Bellevue and exploring the area. Gabe was sorely mistaken when we walked to the venue, a short distance from Concur’s Bellevue HQ, and discovered it was a spin workout class.</p>
<p>After sweating and heavy breathing for 45 minutes, Gabe understood and accepted what Soulcycle was. Although it was not at all what he had expected, he said he had a ton of fun.</p>
<p>I envy Gabe’s “go with the flow” attitude and serendipitous spirit. His reluctance to research the activity inspires the element of surprise. Now, Gabe laughs about the whole thing. You don’t always have to know the answers or the destination ahead. Maybe sometimes you’ll pleasantly surprise yourself!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Visit our careers pages for more information about the <a href="https://www.sap.com/about/careers/university-programs/students/internships/internship-experience-project.html" target="_blank">iXp program</a> and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/careers/join-us-interns">Concur internships</a>.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Follow our interns throughout the year on the <a href="https://twitter.com/sapixp?lang=en" target="_blank">iXp Twitter</a> page and #MyiXpStory.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
6 Expense Management Considerations for Small Business Owners
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-expense-management-considerations-small-business-owners
2022-07-01T17:27:41Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
For small business owners whove decided to make the switch from spreadsheets to an expense management solution the process can seem daunting How do you ensure your new solution meets...
<p>For small business owners who've decided to make the switch from spreadsheets to an <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-management">expense management solution</a>, the process can seem daunting. How do you ensure your new solution meets the needs of your business, and that the transition is as seamless as possible?</p>
<p>While it can be daunting to wade into the world of finance software, there are benefits to be had for the savvy small business owner. Check out these six considerations to keep in mind when shopping for your T&E solution.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img src="https://www.concur.com/sites/all/modules/custom_concur/concur_startup/js/local_scripts/quiz_builder/images/expense-policy-builder/expense-policy-thumb.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Build Your Own Expense Policy</h2>
<p>5 minutes is all it takes to generate a custom expense policy template for your business. Get started now.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">Get your template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Policy compliance.</strong> A good business expense management solution will make it easy for you to apply your policy to it, setting limits on what can be expensed and sending you an alert when someone is outside those policy limits. You can even set caps so your employees can’t submit expenses above a certain amount. Look for a solution that automates policy checks so you can quickly see whether any policies have been violated without having to check every charge.</p>
<p><strong>2. Reporting and visibility.</strong> It’s important to know how your business spends its resources, and a good solution will make this easy on you. Look for solutions that offer dashboards with preconfigured reports, so you can quickly see what you need to without having to pore over raw data. For example, if you can separate expenses by project or client, you’ll see clearly which clients are most profitable.</p>
<p><strong>3. Cloud-based.</strong> One of the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/cloud-and-automation-smbs-simple-strategies-success">great things about the cloud</a> is that you don’t have to pay for a bunch of hardware to run your solution on—and you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for a boxed set of software. With a subscription-based solution, you can automatically get the most up-to-date version of your solution without having to apply patches or go through a lengthy update process.</p>
<p><strong>4. Integration.</strong> This is what separates the good from the great : the ability to integrate the new solution with the rest of the applications in your environment. A solution that offers <a href="https://www.concur.com/app-center">an ecosystem of partners</a> can help you maximize your investment. For example, one SAP Concur partner offers tax-back services, which helps SAP Concur solutions users reclaim VAT tax.</p>
<p><strong>5. Migration.</strong> Look for solutions that offer an implementation team to help you set up the features you want, get started using the system, and transport your data into the new system. In short, look for a company that doesn’t make you set up everything from scratch and is there to assist you along the way.</p>
<p><strong>6. Ease of use.</strong> Make the most of a new solution by finding one that automates rote tasks and makes it as easy as possible for you to do what you need to do. For example, capturing receipts—look for a solution that offers optical character recognition, so that just by taking a photo of your receipt with your smartphone, you’ll capture all the text in that receipt and it’ll automatically be logged as an expense.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/oxford-economics-research-effective-spending-management-boosts-performance"><strong>Download the whitepaper</strong></a><strong> to learn more about how effective spend management boosts performance</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Automated Expense Management is Key to Finance Efficiency
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/automated-expense-management-key-finance-efficiency
2019-02-22T08:01:50Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
As employees have more ways to incur travel expenses than ever now is the time to rethink your companys strategy to thrive in changing times Automating your financial processes can be...
<p>As employees have more ways to incur travel expenses than ever, now is the time to rethink your company's strategy to thrive in changing times. Automating your financial processes can be an important part of such a strategic plan, and research shows small and medium-size businesses see <a href="http://concur.com">expense management</a> automation as key in their strategy.</p>
<p>A commissioned <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">study conducted by Forrester Consulting</a> on behalf of Concur indicates that nearly two thirds of the SMB financial leaders surveyed picked “managing expenses/cash flow” as their top financial challenge. The study says: “with limited bandwidth, SMB financial leaders recognize the need to improve their overall T&E processes in order to enable employees to track expenses more efficiently.” Take a look at these other key reasons to automate expense and travel processes:</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Concur Expense Self-Guided Demo</h2>
<p>Discover how to track expenses quickly and easily with our interactive experience. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/self-guided-demo-expense#/">Try it Now</a></div>
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<h2><strong>Errors and time management present challenges</strong></h2>
<p>In a bit more detail, Forrester found that SMBs' “key [expense and travel] challenges focus on user-induced errors and long time requirements.” Smaller businesses (from 1-499 employees) called out the time requirements for paperwork and approvals as their top challenge. That was important for larger businesses in the sample (500-999 employees), but those gave a small edge to the high number of inaccuracies caused by human error.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Size matters</strong></h2>
<p>The businesses surveyed considered improved process efficiency to be the most important benefit of automated expense and travel solutions. This priority of is markedly different from Enterprise organizations, which are more likely to emphasize “more accurate reporting…for real time expense tracking.” The study notes that "SMB organizations have far fewer employees to manage or business departments to reconcile” so that difference makes sense. Since many of them are still using paper to track expenses, about two-thirds of the SMBs surveyed are either updating their T&E system now, or plan to do so in the near future.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Solutions need to be user-friendly</strong></h2>
<p>The Forrester study notes that new investments in expense and travel systems only pay off if those systems are easy for employees to use. If so, the workers are more likely to buy in. That implies certain capabilities, including a mobile app so users can submit and approve from anywhere, a way to automate T&E and vendor invoicing from a single solution, and faster reimbursement times to head off employee frustration. The SMBs saw all three of these attributes as improving compliance with rules and policies. (To further improve compliance, use our tool to <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">build your own expense policy</a>.)</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Solutions need to be business-ready</strong></h2>
<p>User friendliness is only half the picture. Forrester found seamless integration with the HR and finance systems that SMBs already have is critical, and the technology SMBs are thinking about here is the cloud. More than three-quarters of the SMB companies surveyed are either using now or plan to use soon cloud apps. That’s because they can roll out important systems faster, like expense, travel, and invoice management. Among the things they’re looking for systems to be able to affect are “accurate reporting through data consolidation and analytics” and “improved visibility into and access to data.” In these areas, paper simply can’t compete with, or compare to, digital and cloud systems.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>These improvements in the tools for handling expense and travel add up to ess time spent on expense reporting, lower spending, and fewer complications and errors. And what business, large or small, couldn’t use all that?</p>
<p>To get more details, and Forrester’s key recommendations <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">download the full Forrester study</a></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
The three “C”s of expense and invoice policy compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/three-cs-expense-and-invoice-policy-compliance
2017-10-17T09:56:09Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
How wonderful would it be if you only had to tell someone something once Unfortunately real life doesnt always work that way and this is especially true when it comes to your company...
<p>How wonderful would it be if you only had to tell someone something once?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, real life doesn’t always work that way, and this is especially true when it comes to your company policies. The truth is that you can’t simply write expense or invoice policies and put them in an employee manual, expecting them to be followed. No, if you want people to follow your policies—and protect your business—you need to call on the three “C”s of compliance: collaboration, comprehension and communication.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For more guidance, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices">download our report</a> on compliance best practices</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Collaboration</strong></h2>
<p>If you’re going to maximize the chances of your employees buying into your company’s compliance policies, it’s wise to get their input from the start. Meet with your department heads to discuss current policies and processes to find out whether they’re feasible, realistic and achievable, as well as whether or not they can be applied fairly across the board.</p>
<p>Set clear deadlines for acknowledgement and acceptance from your department heads. Your compliance policies might be at the top of your to-do list, but they won’t be at the top of theirs.</p>
<p>If you don’t have existing policies, use this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">expense policy template</a> and this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-accounts-payable-management-invoice-policy-template">invoice policy template</a> as a starting point. (While you’re at it, take a look at our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">travel policy template</a>, too.)</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>2. Comprehension</strong></h2>
<p>There’s a tendency for the language around compliance to be dry, technical and jargon-heavy. While this might be fine for experts like you who encounter this type of vocabulary daily, it won’t be appealing—or even understandable—to anyone outside the finance team. And that makes it less likely to be followed.</p>
<p>Make sure your policies are easy to read and understand. Even more importantly, make sure they’re written in a way that is informative and intelligent, not preachy and prescriptive—never has the adage “speak as you would like to be spoken to” been more apt. Consider too the different ways by which people like to access information. Would some people take more away from watching a slideshow or listening to a recording? You should also ensure employees know to whom they should reach out if they have any questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>3. Communication</strong></h2>
<p>The final step is to make sure your policies are communicated effectively and embedded in your company’s way of working. Make sure copies of your policies are easy to find and up-to-date at all times. From then on, you need to be thinking about what’s needed to turn the theory into practice. Formal training sessions for current employees and a strategy for onboarding new hires should be considered.</p>
<p>Or, you might think about setting deadlines for people to acknowledge receipt of the policies and/or having a quiz to check people understand what’s required of them. When everything is up and running, you could continue to motivate employees by recognizing and rewarding those that follow the policies, or by recruiting the best employees to help coach those that consistently struggle.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Bonus: Consider the rewards</strong></h2>
<p>You may be responsible for compliance in your business, but achieving it will be a team effort. The best way to keep everyone on board is to remind them that compliance isn’t something that can be avoided, rather it’s something that needs to be embraced as a vital part of the ongoing success of the business. Because compliance isn’t a “nice-to-have,” it’s essential, and the business consequences of falling short are severe.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about closing the gaps in compliance, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/closing-gaps-compliance-concur-client-community-report-te-audit-best-practices">read our report</a>.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Feeling Lucky? Make Your Own Luck by Investing in Automated AP
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/feeling-lucky-make-your-own-luck-investing-automated-ap
2020-08-13T18:22:35Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
You dont need to catch a leprechaun to bring good fortune to your business St Patrick would most likely agree that modernizing your business solutions can do as much for your company...
<p data-id="81e70628-7547-4c36-950a-062beee1705b">You don't need to catch a leprechaun to bring good fortune to your business. St. Patrick would most likely agree that modernizing your business solutions can do as much for your company as finding a pot of gold.</p>
<p data-id="16aee534-6e4e-4df6-bbfb-252198533b3c">Outdated invoice processes are causing businesses to spend more on invoicing than they would with more efficient processes. According to the Institute of Finance and Management, the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/true-costs-paper-based-invoice-processing-and-disbursements">average cost to process a traditional invoice is $9.66</a>, compared with $6.21 with automation. And, when you consider that the average business receives 63% of its invoices as paper, that extra $3.35 makes a difference.</p>
<p data-id="16aee534-6e4e-4df6-bbfb-252198533b3c"> </p>
<p data-id="42a167a6-576f-4b4c-901f-8087bfaa2140"><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the whitepaper</a> to explore the value of modern invoice solutions</strong></p>
<p data-id="42a167a6-576f-4b4c-901f-8087bfaa2140"> </p>
<p data-id="274741a1-d39e-4c0d-a37e-e2581ae561b2">You won't need the powers of a four-leaf clover to set your business up for success if you invest in an automated AP process. Read on to learn how streamlined invoice solutions can help you.</p>
<p data-id="274741a1-d39e-4c0d-a37e-e2581ae561b2"> </p>
<h2 data-id="372abfbe-f57f-4fdb-a685-ac4bbf375a18">Improve Your Business Odds: Luck or Modern AP?</h2>
<p data-id="7e594fb6-b1c7-4876-b2ea-9d04c728bd51">Your odds of finding a four-leaf clover are one in 10,000, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/how-science-can-help-you-find-four-leaf-clover-video/">according to Scientific American</a>, while your odds for greatly improving your business with modern AP solutions are significantly better. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">an IDC study</a> of organizations using Concur Invoice found that the businesses spent an average of 34% less time on invoice management tasks. IDC also projected that these businesses would see a five-year ROI of 505%. If those odds don't convince you that investing in better AP solutions is the savvy choice, here are a few other reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li data-id="eee6040e-4c59-4e84-a1ab-11bd56758e9e"><strong>Costs are lowered</strong>: We saw above how organizations spend more on manual invoicing processes than they would with more efficient and streamlined solutions. But, those average invoice processing costs don't tell the whole story about AP costs. Consider, also, the hidden costs of processing errors, poor spend management, regulatory compliance, and fraud risks, to name a few. Manual AP processes can be painful and paper-heavy, not to mention they involve extra steps that could be eliminated. Are you unknowingly throwing away a lot of money on a process that could be automated?</li>
<li data-id="8918727a-0592-42c2-9b08-afe0d9fad382"><strong>Paperwork is reduced</strong>: The Internet has changed the way we do business and access business information. There's an entire online business ecosystem and more efficient way of business than using file cabinets. Physical documents are fragile in case of flood, fire, or human error. Digital files save trees and headache.</li>
<li data-id="966d9477-e73c-4e5f-9d18-ac481cdc45a7"><strong>Automation increases mobility</strong>: Let's face it - today's workforce is highly mobile. Businesses need to meet employees where they already are in terms of utilizing modern technology (especially the millennials). Smartphone technology and streamlined business solutions enable workers the flexibility of working anywhere, at any time, and make the whole process more simple and efficient. Since approvals are much faster - as time and place are less relative when all the information is readily accessible-mobility also helps reduce late payments.</li>
<li data-id="ef0f985f-7174-4125-b624-1a5d189ecec7"><strong>Visibility grows</strong>: Tracking spend is difficult. If you're not able to get near real-time data, it's hard to track payments, let alone track them with enough time to make any necessary changes. Managers and financial decision makers need a big-picture view into invoices and office expenses, and automated solutions can provide itemized lines of financials through the data reporting. The detailed reports provide expense and invoice data in formats that are easy to read and analyze, to help businesses improve on their bottom line.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<h2 data-id="2fe208f5-b052-4824-8af1-225e1ef39eb2">Rainbows, Invoicing and Leprechauns, Oh My!</h2>
<p data-id="56b84fc8-78c2-4058-83f2-53a92f5a74f3">St. Patrick's Day is symbolized by the color green, which also stands for growth, harmony, money, and good fortune. You don't want to be caught without a splash of green on March 17, otherwise you'll have to watch out for a pinch. Nor do you want to get caught with manual, outdated AP processes, lest your budget feel a pinch as well. While wearing green is a fun custom on a giddy day, automating your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">accounts payable process</a> is a much more serious, effective way to set your business up for success throughout the year.</p>
<p data-id="d8dc3c97-975c-4793-8be1-72866c16f994">Wondering how SAP Concur can help you improve your accounts payable process? <strong>Learn more in the whitepaper <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">The Business Value of Concur Invoice</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Recap: Higher Education Leadership Forum
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/recap-higher-education-leadership-forum
2020-09-11T12:04:52Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Last week we gathered some of the best minds in higher education procurement finance and travel management for the th annual Concur Higher Education Leadership Forum CHELF in Boulder...
<p>Last week, we gathered some of the best minds in <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/higher-ed-guide-intelligently-managing-university-spend">higher education</a> procurement, finance and travel management for the 5th annual Concur Higher Education Leadership Forum (CHELF) in Boulder, CO. With more than 100 attendees, this was the largest gathering of Concur higher education customers to-date. Attendees included representatives from 45 schools from across the country looking to learn best practices from their peers, discuss challenges and learn about what is next from Concur. A special thanks to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHOa40hGD7E">University of Colorado</a> for hosting this successful and highly informative event! </p>
<p>Day one welcomed us with sunny and 70 degree temperatures as well as a day focused on topics including benchmarking, best practices with travel requests, common practices from the front lines, campus customer perspectives, and small group discussions on topics like audit rules and practices, implementation, guests and students, locate/duty of care, security, TMC partnership, and travel policy, just to mention a few. Panel discussions included representatives from Arizona State University, Cornell University, and University of Colorado.</p>
<p>Tuesday evening offered the opportunity to tour part of the CU campus and dinner with a view of the iconic Folsom Field. This allowed for the attendees to continue to network with other attendees and discuss relevant topics that impact those in Higher Ed.</p>
<p>Day two kicked off with an “Ask the Experts” panel discussion with folks from The University of Colorado, Christopherson Business Travel, and Huron Consulting and continued with a discussion about Concur’s new Whitepaper, “Back Office Optimization” which was developed in partnership with the Concur Higher Education Advisory Board (CHEAB). The whitepaper covers four key topics relevant to Higher Ed customers – The need to automate your T&E program; what to audit when; which metrics matter; and communicating creatively with everyone involved in the process. The conference and day wrapped with a sharing of best practices in training resources.</p>
<p>Travel is a reality and daily occurrence at higher education institutions around the globe. Colleges and universities often face unique challenges that make all of the above issues important to discuss. More specifically, higher education institutions have a diverse traveler set, their travel details are often in disparate systems and ownership resides across multiple departments. We are happy to provide a forum where our Higher Ed customers can learn from each other and walk away with a larger network of peer support, and gain a new understanding of best practices and ideas to make improvements at their institutions.</p>
<p>For Concur, this time with our customers is invaluable and we use what we learn to develop products and resources that continue to help our customers better manage travel and expenses for their institution. We thank everyone who helped organize, attended and made this gathering a great success! We look forward to seeing and hearing from everyone again soon!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/higher-ed-guide-intelligently-managing-university-spend">Access our eBook</a> to learn more about intelligently managing university spend</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
6 ways to save on T&E
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-ways-save-te
2021-10-27T18:05:06Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Rapid changes in technology and traveler behavior are driving significant change in corporate travel so businesses need modern solutions to take control of employee spend In fact...
<p>Rapid changes in technology and traveler behavior are driving significant change in corporate travel, so businesses need modern solutions to take control of employee spend. In fact, manual processes are impacting your bottom line in unexpected ways, costing you more than you think.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281996_Suite_R_blue%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Take the pain out of T&E management with our travel policy template.</h2>
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<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-travel-expense-management-travel-policy-template">Get the Template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>We uncovered six ways in which automating with modern solutions can help uncover savings where you may not be looking. These include:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Stop overspending on errors</strong></p>
<p>Human error is inevitable. If your workers are manually entering and itemizing expenses, you’re asking for mistakes. According to a 2015 <a href="https://www.oversightsystems.com/" target="_blank">Oversight Systems</a> study, one in every 10 travelers submits at least one duplicate expense in error, which easily adds up over time. That's approximately $50 per error, to be exact.</p>
<p>Since automated T&E systems populate charges directly from suppliers, credit card companies and captured receipts, accuracy is no longer an issue and the time saved on the processes leads to less expensive operating costs, not to mention bigger rebates from paying credit card bills sooner and better cash flow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Reduce management time</strong></p>
<p>It’s no secret that extra steps take extra time, which is why manual processes can be so time consuming. When administrative steps such as requesting travel, booking reservations, paper receipts and authorizations can be removed with built-in automation, financial leaders can see not only increased productivity, but also a process that takes care of itself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Gain visibility into mobile spend</strong></p>
<p>Roaming mobile charges from traveling employees can easily add up unexpectedly. Since these costs are rarely accounted for in budgets, they can deliver quite the unpleasant surprise in end-of-month finances and your bottom line. In fact, if you aren’t managing mobile contracts correctly, you could be overpaying by as much as 30% per device.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/6-ways-uncover-te-savings-where-you-may-not-be-looking">Read the full report</a> for more ways to save.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Gain back that low-hanging fruit</strong></h2>
<p>With an average of 10 percent of business budgets devoted to T&E, that spending is low-hanging fruit when it comes to both managing expenses and unlocking savings. For many businesses, the amount of money unwittingly spent on wasteful processes would be shocking. <strong>To see how your T&E solution stacks up: <a href="http://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/6-ways-uncover-te-savings-where-you-may-not-be-looking">Download the report</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/contact">Click here</a> to connect with a Concur sales representative.</strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Why employee spend matters for sales leaders
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/why-employee-spend-matters-sales-leaders
2018-01-19T08:26:47Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
As a leader of your sales organization your people and their performance are what drives progress You work hard to inspire motivate and engage your sales teams to be as productive as...
<p>As a leader of your sales organization, your people and their performance are what drives progress. You work hard to inspire, motivate and engage your sales teams to be as productive as possible, but is the technology they use every day for administrative processes, such as <a href="https://www.concur.com/expense-report">expense reports</a>, taking too long? And, is it giving you full visibility and reporting into your T&E budget and cost of sale?</p>
<p>Enterprise organizations that adopt and take full advantage of mobile and digital technologies, instead of sticking with the status quo, can accelerate the most growth potential and productivity. Consumers have driven a sort of sales revolution since individuals can search and find anything they want, whenever and wherever they want, and for the best price possible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>To learn more, watch: </strong><a href="http://www.brainshark.com/concur/vu?pi=654859387&IntK=368322574?pid=video&cid=cost_of_doing_nothing_brainshark&nodesktopflash=1" target="_blank"><strong>The cost of doing nothing: What is the status quo costing you?</strong></a> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Your employees are no different when it comes to making purchases for their professional lives. Whether for booking travel, transportation or work-related expenses, your sales teams want the same convenient, consumer-like experience to be as productive as possible. And if you are lagging behind in adopting the technologies that will help your sales teams be as efficient as possible, with the ability to capture the way employees spend today for accurate budget or cost of sale data, then you are leaving your organization vulnerable to stunts in growth.</p>
<p>Sales leaders need to ask their teams: “How can we leverage technology to improve productivity and manage budgets more accurately?” and, “What is the cost of doing nothing?”</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Driving Business Value Through Better T&E Technology</h2>
<p>Spend that was once under an organization’s control has now shifted to employee control. We call this shift “employee initiated spend” and companies need to start thinking differently about the way they are capturing and managing their spending. According to an IDC Analyst Report on <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-business-value-through-travel-and-expense-management-maturity">T&E management maturity</a>, “Having a partner that is driving innovation in the TEM space enables organizations to focus on what matters most – their own revenue-generating business initiatives.”</p>
<p>Your sales road warriors are spending more money across more spend categories, and using more payment methods than ever before, including credit cards, ghost cards, P-cards, cash and checks. And if payment methods are managed across disconnected systems, you can’t accurately budget or report spend data across your organization.</p>
<p>Additionally, if your sales teams lack mobile tools and are instead forced to book travel, request approvals and submit expenses through an archaic system, they are not able to be as productive as possible and focus on want matters: generating revenue.</p>
<p>Before sales leaders can mobilize support from decision makers at their organizations for a new approach to managing travel and expenses, it would be beneficial to ask their teams the following questions:</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>1. Are we making it easy for employees to book travel and report spend with digital tools, enhancing productivity and compliance, or is it a time-consuming, administrative nightmare? </strong></h3>
<p>No matter where, how or when your employees make purchases on behalf of your organization, you need a solution uniquely equipped to capture employee spend with mobile capabilities for compliance and productivity while on-the-go. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-travel-expense-management-digital-era">Forrester report found</a> that, “Employees are embracing new digital capabilities in their personal lives to make purchases, and they now expect their employers to support those same capabilities as they relate to employee generated spend.”</p>
<p>Suppliers are marketing directly to employees to incent them to buy directly and your busy sales team expects a consumer-like experience to meet their professional needs, anytime and anywhere. By adopting technology to provide a mobile and simple experience for your employees, they’ll be able to focus on driving revenue instead of being burdened with administrative duties around their travel and expenses.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>2. Are we connecting our travel management data and expense data together for accurate view of spend for budgeting and cost of sale reporting? </strong></h3>
<p>The way organizations manage spend is struggling to keep up in the digital economy without the right solution infrastructure in place. A lack of visibility into accurate spend data hampers efficiency around managing, budgeting and forecasting spend. And with the way employees are generating spend today, there’s a real disruption to how finance teams are able to share spend data across the organization.</p>
<p>Automating your travel and expense processes is just the first step. The next step is to connect those processes and all sources of spending to avoid exceeding budgets or forecasting inaccurately. Also, integrating your travel and expense solution with a deep integration into your CRM can help the business analyze the cost of acquiring and maintaining a customer: The Concur Salesforce connector provides useful intelligence for those in sales operations. </p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3><strong>3. What channels do employees use to spend company dollars, and which systems are tracking this spend? </strong></h3>
<p>With all the payment options available to employees as a result of a digital economy, it’s important for your organization to conduct an assessment to identify which payment channels employees are currently using and how you are tracking each one. Automation is a great first step; however, you must adopt technologies that will connect all sources of spend, from travel to non-PO spend to invoices. Additionally, connected technologies will aid in capturing employee purchases made outside of managed T&E programs for an accurate picture of spending at your organization.</p>
<p>By automating key parts of the spending process in one system, you’ll make the process simpler for your employees, and as a result, you’ll better capture and manage what they are actually spending.</p>
<p>Today’s workforce has changing expectations for how work gets done and the tools businesses need to use. Concur is the only solution designed to create easy-to-use experiences for your employees, and connects you to all your employee initiated spending data, so you can see it and proactively manage it.</p>
<p>If your organization is lagging behind on travel and expense technology that will help drive your revenue-generating teams towards increased productivity, and provide you with accurate spend data for reporting to leadership, then it’s time to rethink your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">T&E solution</a> so you can run and grow your business more effectively.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more on how technology can improve productivity and accurate budgeting, watch </strong><a href="http://www.brainshark.com/concur/vu?pi=654859387&IntK=368322574?pid=video&cid=cost_of_doing_nothing_brainshark&nodesktopflash=1" target="_blank"><strong>The cost of doing nothing: What is the status quo costing you?</strong></a> </p>
<p> </p>
6 things you need to know about international business etiquette
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-things-you-need-know-about-international-business-etiquette
2022-12-30T14:56:33Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Traveling for business might be one of the most exciting things youll experience in your career But while thrilling global business travel comes with various rules of etiquette that...
<p>Traveling for business might be one of the most exciting things you'll experience in your career. But, while thrilling, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/partners/travel-partners/american-express">global business travel</a> comes with various rules of etiquette that cannot be ignored. In fact, business etiquette is so thoroughly interwoven with international travel that books and movies frequently use the topic as plots. Anyone who has seen Lost in Translation has at least a notion of some of the cultural nuances involved in international business etiquette.</p>
<p>Working across countries and cultures can be tricky as there are no universal business etiquette rules—business culture norms in Italy, Russia or Colombia are different from those in China, India or Africa. So, if you frequently travel internationally for business, it’s wise to research the specific customs and expectations of each destination.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/mid-november-expected-to-be-the-busiest-time-of-year-business-travel">busiest time of the year for business travel</a> coming up, let's take a look at six overall areas to consider when doing business abroad.</p>
<h2><strong>1. Take introductions seriously</strong></h2>
<p>In many cultures, people, their relationships, and face-to-face interactions are much more important than they are to North American business professionals. Relationships can be even more important than the actual business issue being discussed. Learning everyone’s name and title before meetings can go a long way to showing you understand what’s important to those with whom you’re doing business. Understanding whether you should address someone by their first name or last name only is also important in certain cultures for building relationships and showing the proper respect.</p>
<h2><strong>2. Respect business cards</strong></h2>
<p>In Asian countries, for instance, business cards are an extremely important symbol. They are representative of the person them-self, and should be treated with similar respect. In Asia (particularly Japan), business cards are always presented to someone with both hands. When you receive a business card, always read it to yourself while you are still standing in front of the person as a sign of respect—it also helps you memorize their name and title.</p>
<h2><strong>3. Be on time</strong></h2>
<p>Every culture has a different standard for punctuality. For instance, in Central Europe, business meetings generally begin on time. Conversely, it’s often said that in Latin American cultures, meetings frequently run late. But it’s hard to know how late is acceptable without accidentally offending someone. Regardless of where you do business, you won’t go wrong by being on time. Arriving at the appointed time shows respect to your hosts, and you can always check email or complete another task if you find yourself waiting. It’s also a good idea to clarify specific times. Dinner time in Germany might be 7 p.m., but it is commonly 10 p.m. in Spain. If you have questions, ask a colleague in the country.</p>
<h2><strong>4. Stay awhile</strong></h2>
<p>Leaving an event early (perhaps due to jet lag or needing to complete work) can also be an unintentional sign of disrespect to the hosts, particularly in Asian cultures. A premature departure could be the death of a deal or a relationship. You don’t have to stay until the very end of an event, but it is best not to be the first person to leave.</p>
<h2><strong>5. Bring a gift</strong></h2>
<p>Bringing a gift is an important way to show respect to your host. Even if gifts are not expected, bringing one will show courtesy and earn respect from your business associates. While gift-giving is more common in Asian cultures, they can be a great way to begin a relationship anywhere—Europeans and people from the Middle East are also particularly fond of receiving them. (Just be sure that neither you nor your employees are unwittingly <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/proactive-approaches-mitigate-foreign-corrupt-practice-act-fcpa-risk-global-business">violating FCPA laws</a>.)</p>
<h2><strong>6. Expect to socialize</strong></h2>
<p>In Asia and Latin America, socializing outside of the office environment is critically important to building camaraderie and developing trust. At a minimum, you’ll be expected to have dinner with colleagues or customers. But social expectations often go far beyond just having dinner. You may be expected to go out to bars or nightclubs, go golfing or attend other social activities. Your participation in those activities is an important factor as colleagues assess your trustworthiness for business matters.</p>
<p>If you are uncertain about cultural norms, business customs and cultural differences in certain settings, carefully observe your hosts and co-workers while following their lead. Watch body language cues as this can give you an indication if you are making a faux pas. Before you travel, you should research whether it is the custom to shake hands, how people feel about personal space, and whether making eye contact is considered good or bad in that particular culture. </p>
<p>International <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/lp/do-you-know-how-your-business-travelers-are-spending">business travel</a> can be a rewarding experience for you and your company. A little research can help you get the most out of it.</p>
<p><strong>Next, learn six ways in which Concur can help you <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide">cut T&E costs where you may not be looking</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
What’s the Business Value of Concur Invoice?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/whats-business-value-concur-invoice
2018-06-11T11:33:41Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Todays world of business demands modern solutions In fact you risk being left behind if you dont modernize your invoicing Automating AP not only helps you better engage with employees...
<p>Today’s world of business demands modern solutions. In fact, you risk being left behind if you don’t modernize your invoicing. Automating AP not only helps you better engage with employees, customers, and suppliers, but also helps you <strong>improve compliance, efficiency, and spend visibility</strong>.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/thumbnail-idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>The Business Value of Concur Invoice</h2>
<p>Learn how SAP Concur customers are seeing a 505% ROI over five years and improving invoice management processes.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the Whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">The Business Value of Concur Invoice,</a> a whitepaper by IDC and sponsored by SAP Concur, explores the costs and benefits of <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>. According to the eight businesses interviewed – from small to medium sized businesses to large, enterprise businesses – SAP Concur has helped improve their AP process in the following ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduced staff time on invoice processing by 68%</li>
<li>Improved employee compliance to nearly 100%</li>
<li>Decreased late payments to vendors by 67%</li>
<li>Increased productivity for line of business employees involved in invoice management cycles by 11% by integrating mobility</li>
<li>Reduced IT staff time required to manage AP solutions by 29%</li>
</ul>
<p>But there’s more to it than cost savings and better workplace efficiency. Invoice management is a big piece in your financial picture, and getting informed data, along with T&E components, provides more informed business decisions. Read on to learn why businesses across many industries think Concur Invoice is a great investment.</p>
<h2><strong>Future-proof Your AP for Better Workplace Efficiency.</strong></h2>
<p>Today’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) faces numerous challenges, from managing operating costs and employee turnover to improving workplace productivity and keeping up with the competition. In the digital era, spending choices for employees abound, making it harder to manage costs, cash flow and the bottom line. Financial leaders are looking to new user-friendly, business-ready Invoice solutions to make it easier.</p>
<p>One of the businesses interviewed discusses how automating with Concur Invoice improved its <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/invoicing-trends-the-lure-of-automated-ap">AP processes</a>:</p>
<p>"There definitely is a change since implementing Concur Invoice. Employees are more productive and happy and costs have gone done, and from a fraud standpoint, we don’t have to rely on a squiggled signature on a piece of paper. This way, we know that the right person is approving the invoice. SAP Concur has enabled 100% compliance because it ensures that the right person is providing the signature for approvals."</p>
<p>As noted in the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">IDC white paper,</a> the organizations are projected to achieve annual benefits worth $775,401 per organization ($15,418 per 1,000 invoices) and a return on investment of 505%. Those savings, efficiencies, and productivity gains are phenomenal.</p>
<p> </p>
<div id="Fig1"> </div>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Concur Invoice Benefits Businesses at Every Stage of Growth.</strong></h2>
<p>Whether you’re a start-up looking to grow business, a medium sized business looking to streamline operations, or an enterprise business that wants to improve compliance, productivity, and spend visibility, Concur Invoice can be customized to fit your unique situation. Businesses across the spectrum discovered that the investment was well worth the savings for the following reasons:</p>
<p><strong>1. Easy Implementation </strong></p>
<p>Apart from the business benefits attained by the surveyed organizations, Concur Invoice has had an impact on the IT staff time required to administer invoice management technology. Moving to a cloud-based invoice management solution has resulted in significant time savings for the IT departments of the surveyed organizations. For example, one organization noted how it no longer requires IT staff to administer its <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">invoice management software</a>:</p>
<p>"We don't involve the IT staff in the Concur process. After we implemented Concur, we don't need any IT support. It's very user-friendly, and it's an online tool, so there's no need for IT support."</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Mobility</strong></p>
<p>Enabling mobility has greatly enhanced the end-user experience and increased workplace productivity. Employees can submit and monitor invoices any place, anytime—even on the road—which saves a lot of time. Enabling a mobile solution has improved productivity for everyone involved as the process has been simplified with more streamlined steps. One business comments:</p>
<p>"Most of our employees travel a lot, so it's easier for them to submit all of their invoices and expense claims through the Concur mobile app. Previously, they used to send all of the invoices through emails, and they had to repeatedly check on the status of the invoice. Now, they can just log in to Concur and see what the status of the invoice is and whether it's pending approval or has been paid."</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. Improved Compliance and Efficiency</strong></p>
<p>The surveyed organizations reduced costs they had previously incurred because of lack of compliance and late payments to vendors. Since deploying Concur Invoice, they have avoided penalties and interest fees on late payments. As one business notes: </p>
<p>"Concur Invoice has helped us minimize the risk of human error and has facilitated greater compliance of company policies."</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Automating Invoicing Should Be a Top Priority.</strong></h2>
<p>Based on the survey, businesses agree that SAP Concur empowers organizations to improve the invoice management process by delivering intuitive end-user experiences, enabling mobility, enhancing compliance, increasing productivity of business users and employees within the AP department, and decreasing reliance on IT staff.</p>
<p>Are you using a manual AP process? See how SAP Concur gives you the power to get an accurate view of your company’s fiscal picture to help inform better business decisions. <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/take-control-ap-run-more-efficiently">Access the white paper now</a></strong> to learn more about the business value of Concur Invoice. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Knowledge is power: Using all your data to drive better business decisions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/knowledge-power-using-all-your-data-drive-better-business-decisions
2020-10-29T17:39:04Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Its been said that knowledge is power but having too much information is as bad as not having enough In todays business world staying ahead means staying on top of every dime If you...
<p data-id="da78a5df-4455-45eb-a015-4e6614be0d0e">It’s been said that knowledge is power, but having too much information is as bad as not having enough.</p>
<p data-id="8cf7bf28-c615-4cf8-947a-cb403119297c">In today’s business world, staying ahead means staying on top of every dime. If you are using <a href="https://www.concur.com/">Concur’s solutions</a> to track spend and simplify cash management you've taken a huge first step in the right direction, but do you know how to use all of your data to drive better business decisions?</p>
<p data-id="e764ddc2-f7c2-4299-9105-d3dc98a14ee4">You need to see spend clearly, manage it proactively, and ultimately, report with ease, so you have more time to run your business. And as your business and reporting needs evolve, you need someone who can grow with you, every step of the way.</p>
<p data-id="224971ee-ebea-451d-bde7-d1e446c0484d">Concur’s Consultative Intelligence and Analytics Reporting Services give you the right knowledge for the right decisions, right now.</p>
<p data-id="91b2973b-327a-4188-afde-faa3d18ca725">Learn more about the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/10-data-points-hiding-plain-sight-within-concur">data points that are hiding in plain sight within Concur</a>. Then, contact your Concur account representative to see how we can specifically help your business—because knowledge is power.</p>
<p data-id="91b2973b-327a-4188-afde-faa3d18ca725"> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
SAP Concur Team
5 Ways it Pays to Pay Your Vendors on Time
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/5-ways-it-pays-pay-your-vendors-time
2019-08-29T05:15:29Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
As youd expect from the company that provides Concur Invoice weve compiled compelling data on the high costs of paperbased invoicing On average it costs to process a paper invoice...
<p>As you’d expect from the company that provides <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a>, we’ve compiled compelling data on the high costs of paper-based invoicing. On average, it costs $23 to process a paper invoice. Automating the process reduces the cost to $3.41, and cuts processing time by up to 75%.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-283386_OrderToCash_R%402x.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Create Your Invoice Policy</h2>
<p>Use our template to build your custom policy and take the pain out of AP management.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-accounts-payable-management-invoice-policy-template">Get the Template</a></div>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p>Besides significant savings, centralizing and automating invoice processing also helps to ensure that your company is a punctually-paying customer, which yields other dividends that are too good to ignore, including: </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>1. Not Leaving money on the table</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/ap-automation">Automating your AP processes</a> can help ensure that you get the maximum in early- payment discounts, while avoiding late-payment penalties and interest charges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. A self-running, positive public relations program</strong></p>
<p>Paying on time is the easiest thing you can do to burnish a positive reputation in your industry and the general business community. Conversely, bad news travels fast, and once the buzz circulates that you have to be chased for payment, potential suppliers and partners will cross the street when they see you coming. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>3. The opportunity for VIP service and pricing from your vendors</strong></p>
<p>Consistently paying on-time or early makes you the kind of customer your vendors want to keep, one who is hard to replace, and one who merits priority attention.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>4. Preserving your good credit</strong></p>
<p>Habitual late payments can turn up in the worst places, such as your Dun & Bradstreet report, and raise red flags at a time when you’d rather raise cash.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>5. Keeping a positive balance in the bank of good will</strong></p>
<p>A major benefit of automating with Concur is greater visibility into cash flow, so you always have a clear picture of your outstanding invoices and other liabilities. But should you ever hit a cash flow speed bump and need your vendors to give you some breathing room, they’ll be far more likely to lend a flexible hand if a late payment is the exception rather than rule. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Plus, you’ll prevent the dreaded “Where’s my money?!” phone call</strong><br />
<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> gives your suppliers access to a portal where they can easily see their payment status and remittance information. And if they ever feel the need to get your attention by phone, email or skywriter, you can instantly pull up invoices that are automatically matched to purchase orders, and quickly resolve matters— with no paper cuts or bruised relationships. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>For even more, get our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/10-step-guide-efficient-vendor-invoice-process">10-step guide to an efficient vendor invoice process</a> today</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to get the most out of your money, part 2: Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-get-most-out-your-money-part-2-compliance
2020-09-21T14:59:25Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
People who say the rules are meant to be broken have obviously never had to deal with regulators Or audits Or anything having to do with numbers You on the other hand are trying to get...
<p>People who say the rules are meant to be broken have obviously never had to deal with regulators. Or audits. Or anything having to do with numbers.</p>
<p>You, on the other hand, are trying to get the most out of your money—all the way down to the bottom of your budget. And in this three-part blog series, we’re examining how small and midsize businesses can do so from three all-important perspectives:</p>
<ul>
<li>Efficiency—You have to spend it anyhow, spend it right.</li>
<li>Compliance—Spending within the rules</li>
<li>Visibility—You can’t control spending you can’t see. </li>
</ul>
<p>We’re also connecting you to resources that show you how you’re doing, how your peers may be doing things differently, and what to look for in a spend-optimization solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Compliance can be as painful as it is expensive. </strong></h2>
<p>If you stay on the right side of the rules, it’s all good. If you don’t because you don’t have an efficient system of checks and balances in place—and you can’t see what, where and how things are being spent—the results can be catastrophic for your company.</p>
<p>But how do you know what sorts of spending rules and limits you should have in place? And if you do have rules in place, how do you know they’re being followed?</p>
<p>Tied into all this is your accounting team, and instead of focusing on the financial leadership of the company, they’re playing the role of “bad cop,” so you can at least have hope that the rules are being followed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Follow the rules and there’s nothing to worry about. </strong></h2>
<p>As we mentioned in <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-1-efficiency">part one of this series</a>, having a connected, efficient system can alleviate the pain of the process. You’ll know which policies and procedures to put in place, and you can be confident that they’re being followed. You can let your accountants be accountants, not “enforcers.” And you’ll know where your money is going and control how it’s being spent.</p>
<p>Most importantly, you’ll reduce compliance errors and keep the entire process moving. <strong>Check out five quick case studies to s</strong><strong>ee how your peers are making it work and getting more bang for less buck.</strong> You can also learn more at <a href="https://www.concur.com">Concur.com</a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>See more: <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-money-part-1-efficiency">How to get the most out of your money, part 1: Efficiency</a></strong></h3>
<h3><strong>See more: </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-budget-part-3-visibility">How to get the most out of your budget, part 3: Visibility</a></h3>
SAP Concur Team
7 Tips to Successfully Mix Business Travel with Pleasure
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/7-tips-successfully-mix-business-travel-pleasure
2022-12-06T16:04:35Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
Juggling work and play is not always easy in todays fastpaced world Expectations abound with career responsibilities and busy social schedules not to mention societys tendency to...
<p>Juggling work and play is not always easy in today’s fast-paced world. Expectations abound with career responsibilities and busy social schedules, not to mention society’s tendency to always be plugged-in. Carving out time for vacations can be a challenge, which is why it makes sense to strategically plan vacation around work trips, if possible.</p>
<p>Instead of just dealing with the pressures of travel such as the airports, rental cars, jet-lag and conference expectations, why not turn obligation into opportunity?</p>
<p>Here are a few ways you can pack some vacation into your business travel.</p>
<h2>1. Schedule extra vacation days around your work trip</h2>
<p>A little ‘joie de vivre’ can do a lot for your soul, and having something fun to look forward to may be just what you need. If you already have a business trip planned, why not schedule an extra day or two (or three!) to take some much-needed time for yourself? Part of what makes business travel stressful is the feeling of rushing from meeting to meeting without having time to yourself. If you can convince your company to add a few days to your travel, you will get that boost of excitement to not only perform better for your work function, but also benefit from your travels.</p>
<h2>2. Attend a convention at an ideal destination</h2>
<p>If your business is one that offers the opportunity to choose the conferences you attend, why not choose one in a great destination? If there’s a specific business topic or expertise you’re interested in for your own personal goals and career advancement, see if there are conference destination choices offered throughout the year. And if you have no control over your business trip destination, take advantage activities and services offered at your hotel or resort as chances are the convention is centered in a major hub like New York, Las Vegas, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington D.C., London, Tokyo or Paris.</p>
<h2>3. Become an explorer</h2>
<p>As tempting as it may be to hole-up in your room with your laptop to order room service, watch TV, or finish those TPS reports, you should try to take advantage of your trip. Whether it’s to see the Eiffel Tower or the world’ssecond-largest gumball, chances are there’s something nearby to see.</p>
<h2>4. Catch up with friends and family</h2>
<p>A business trip can provide the perfect opportunity to visit your people. Even if your destination is not in the same town as a friend or family member, you can check with your company to see whether you can be booked on a flight that connects you close to someone you know. Just make sure to ‘okay’ this with your boss and pay the price difference, if any.</p>
<h2>5. Take advantage of fitness facilities</h2>
<p>Working out releases endorphins, which may boost your mood or release some travel tension. Since business travel can be stressful, why not work out or take a dip in the pool at your hotel? Scheduling an hour, or even 20 minutes, to help relieve stress during a hectic trip can make all the difference when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.</p>
<h2>6. Do something that makes you happy</h2>
<p>If you are in a hotel that offers golf, state-of-the-art cuisine, or a spa, try to take advantage of the venue. Even if it’s taking a couple hours to go shopping or be a tourist, remember to make yourself a priority. A scheduled call home or a workout that’s part of your daily routine is something that shouldn’t be ignored.</p>
<h2>7. Take your family</h2>
<p>If your spouse or even your kids can join you for an extended trip, you might as well consider the possibility. You don’t want to be distracted from your work task-at-hand, so make sure you schedule your family to come when it won’t interrupt your work obligations. Hotels often offer fun services for various ages, and childcare can be available through sites such as Care.com or local resources.</p>
<p><strong>Having streamlined business solutions can help you and your employees enjoy your trips even more. Learn how to </strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-booking"><strong>simplify your travel booking experience</strong></a><strong>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Are You the Company’s Invoice Guru? Here's How to Improve Your Processes
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/are-you-companys-invoice-guru-heres-how-improve-your-processes
2018-06-22T06:51:22Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
The reality for many small and midsize businesses is that their AP bestpractices reside on the shoulders of the often lone employee who is the AP department If that resourceful...
<p>The reality for many small and midsize businesses is that their AP best-practices reside on the shoulders of the (often) lone employee who is the AP department. If that resourceful individual is you, it may be difficult to find the time to do anything but inputting and processing invoices. And it’s probably rare for you to make it all the way through a vacation without getting a call from someone at the office who’s frantically trying to locate an invoice.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Immunize your company against AP disruption</h2>
<p>Going to an automated invoice processing system like Concur Invoice can free you to work on other important business initiatives, and help your organization continue to function when you’re on vacation or out for an extended period of time. Manual AP processes are time-consuming and expensive enough when they’re functioning. The costs of having to de-code or reinvent a jerry-rigged AP system can pile up quickly — in fire-stomping labor costs, late-payment charges and missed discounts, duplicate payments, dinged credit ratings and supplier ill-will.</p>
<p>In a study of companies that have gone from manual invoice processing to automating with Concur Invoice, IDC found that, on average:</p>
<ul>
<li>The total processing time per invoice dropped by 53% and staff time required to process one invoice decreased by 64%.</li>
<li>Productivity improvements for AP staff equaled a savings of $7,537 for every 1,000 invoices processed. </li>
<li>Vendors received payments 51% faster and the number of delayed payments fell by 67%.</li>
<li>IT staff time required to manage invoice management solutions fell by 29%. </li>
<li>The overall annual business benefits from productivity improvements, avoiding late-payment penalties and getting early-payment discounts equate to $14,953 for every 1,000 invoices processed. </li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Read the full IDC whitepaper</a> to learn more about the business value of Concur Invoice </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another benefit of automating AP with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a> is that it can improve employee satisfaction with the teams responsible for managing vendor invoices. The IDC report quoted a client saying: “It has definitely saved employees time because otherwise they would be sitting in a taxi doing nothing. They used to have to submit invoices when they were back in the office and are now more productive with their time. They are able to have more visibility, and visibility is the first step in managing costs. Also, staff morale has gone up. We can retain people because we have better systems and processes.”</p>
<p>With Concur Invoice, you and your AP staff can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Use invoice capture to quickly get invoices into your system so you no longer need to manually enter invoice data</li>
<li>Sync all POs, invoices and payments with your accounting system on the back end</li>
<li>Approve invoices and <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-report">expense reports</a> from your mobile devices</li>
<li>Vendors can access a supplier portal and see their payment status and remittance information, preventing the “where’s my money?!” phone call</li>
</ul>
<h2><br />
The time to automate is before you wish you had</h2>
<p>See how<strong> <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/invoice-management">Concur Invoice</a></strong> can lower your costs, accelerate invoice cycle-times, improve visibility into spend, and boost morale in your AP department. And if you are that indispensable invoice guru, you’ll still be revered—for all the things you’ll be able to do when you’re no longer behind a stack of paper.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/idc-white-paper-exploring-benefits-modern-invoice-solutions">Download the full report</a> to learn what you can save by automating. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Prevent Fraud and Enforce Global Policy Compliance
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-prevent-fraud-and-enforce-global-policy-compliance
2018-05-18T11:37:46Z
2022-06-29T11:41:10Z
The more global your business becomes the more difficult it is to keep an eye on every dollar and every person who has access to the corporate coffers And with seemingly daily changes...
<p>The more global your business becomes, the more difficult it is to keep an eye on every dollar and every person who has access to the corporate coffers. And with seemingly daily changes to the regulations that govern your business—in addition to the changes to your business itself—keeping an eye on your spending and keeping up with policies and procedures can seem virtually impossible.</p>
<p>How do you know what to audit? Or how often? Or which departments or budgets or teams or individuals? How do you discern between mistakes in the numbers versus manipulation of the numbers? How do you keep track of T&E when your travelers and suppliers are thousands of miles away and constantly on the move? Here's how to gain the upper hand in the ongoing balance between auditing and uncovering fraud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">Download our ebook</a> for more tips, tricks, and best practices to prevent and manage fraud</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Would you rather fight fraud or prevent it altogether? </strong></h2>
<p>As you consider audits as a tool to prevent fraud, it’s important to recognize the difference between real fraud and the appearance of fraud—simple mistakes. These are things people do accidentally, not intentionally, but which still impact financial health. By following these tips, you can learn how to identify those instances, as well as discover a few fraud trends that may surprise you.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Mistakes happen.</strong></h2>
<p>The majority of people who work for you don’t intend to commit fraud. But sometimes, they accidentally enter a dinner receipt twice on their expense report. In fact, according to an <a href="https://info.oversightsystems.com/hubfs/PDFs/Spend_Analysis_Report_Volume_03-v8.pdf?t=1507849399781">Oversight Systems study</a>, 37% of business travelers had at least one exception on the T&E reports. And, it's estimated that <strong>the typical organization <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-drivers-seat-fraud-ebook">loses 5% of annual revenues to fraud </a>each year</strong>.</p>
<p>Catching these mistakes and, more importantly, making it easier to avoid these mistakes, enables you to highlight the actual incidences of fraud within your organization. So instead of tracking down an employee who haphazardly charged twice for cab fare, you can focus on the real issues.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>How do you eliminate the errors?</strong></h2>
<p>The initial and simplest answer lies with <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/use-a-corporate-credit-card-program-to-fight-fraud">using the corporate card</a>. When travelers charge expenses directly to the company, they’re not accidentally entering incorrect numbers into their expense reports and leading auditors astray. There’s little room for error, and you get far more detailed and accurate figures. So once again, you can focus on fraudulent behavior. Consider mandating a corporate card program and requiring receipts for all cash expenses under $25 and for all card expenses over $75.</p>
<p>Shaping your T&E policy around corporate card usage simplifies matters greatly for you and makes things easier for your travelers, as well. It also makes it possible to prevent and/or flag expenses that fall out of policy, so you can stop bad spending before the money goes out the door.</p>
<p>With these types of policies in place—and a workforce that understands them—you’re saving money, increasing traveler satisfaction, and separating well-intentioned employees who make mistakes from a few who look to outsmart the system.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Focus on communication.</strong></h2>
<p>Once you’ve separated simple mistakes from bad behavior, it’s time to enact a strong communication plan. Leave no question that fraud will not be tolerated. Let employees know that you’re watching, you’re tracking and that audits are a matter of “when,” not “if.” Publish it in the newsletter. Proclaim it on the intranet. Let your people know that all expense reimbursement claims are open to audit and even surprise audits.</p>
<ol>
<li>Use a third-party auditor to track expenses.</li>
<li>Conduct random checks.</li>
<li>Investigate those investigating your audit system. (They may be looking for weak spots.)</li>
<li>Audit cash expenses.</li>
<li>Identify location and types of expenses.</li>
<li>Take a detective approach.</li>
</ol>
<p>Adopting a zero-tolerance policy and shining a light on fraudulent behavior are the best things you can do to deter further fraud. And utilizing a third-party auditing lets you be the big brother without having to be the bad guy. </p>
<p><strong>Learn how to increase cost savings by identifying and reducing non-compliant spend and risk of fraud with <a href="https://www.concur.com/sites/default/files/us_smn_brochure_audit_1.pdf">Concur Audit</a>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
How Mature is Your Travel and Expense Management?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-mature-your-travel-and-expense-management
2020-01-20T09:23:29Z
2022-06-29T11:40:05Z
As it matures your travel and expense management TEM process will go through various stages of development If youre feeling the equivalent of teenage angst in your organization not...
<p>As it matures, your travel and expense management (TEM) process will go through various stages of development. If you’re feeling the equivalent of teenage angst in your organization, not to worry, there is light at the end of this tunnel.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-business-value-through-travel-and-expense-management-maturity">In a study</a> commissioned by SAP Concur, IDC identified five stages of TEM that frequently correlate to an organization’s life-cycle stage. IDC found that, typically, as a company expands its workforce, product lines and geographical reach, its less-mature TEM processes can become a mounting source of lost productivity and revenue, and increased employee dissatisfaction.</p>
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<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/282728_Receipt-on-phone_R_blue.png" /></div>
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<h2>Assess your T&E maturity </h2>
<p>Use our tool to determine how your processes measure up versus other businesses and what you can do to level up.</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment/questions">Start your assessment</a></div>
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<p> </p>
<p>Below is a summary of the five stages of TEM maturity. If you recognize your organization as being in stages one through four, this will help you look ahead to the advantages of greater maturity and weather those growing pains.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stage 1: Paper-based expense reporting</h2>
<p>Using an expense report spreadsheet is a popular place for new companies to start with TEM. Employees are familiar with these applications, and back-office staff can keep both paper and electronic records. This approach quickly outlives its viability as a company grows. Manually reconciling paper-based reports becomes increasingly labor-intensive and errors mount when importing data from reports into a larger accounting system. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stage 2: Automated expense and travel management processes</h2>
<p>The next leap is often from spredsheets to <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-expense-management-automation">expense management automation</a>. One of the immediate benefits is the ability to insert customized accounting codes into the application template, which will reconcile with back-end accounting systems. This automation is a big step forward but employees are still tracking piles of receipts and accounting doesn't have visibility into expenses in near-real time. </p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stage 3: Purpose-built mobile/cloud apps</h2>
<p>This stage brings an organization into sync with the mobile realities of its workforce, enabling employees to efficiently account for their expenses on-the-go with a specific set of mobile applications. For example, apps that allow for receipt image capture, when linked to a cloud-based application, can automatically populate an electronic expense record, which immediately increases spend transparency across the organization, as well as encouraging employee compliance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stage 4: Platform ecosystem</h2>
<p>If your organization operates internationally, within compliance-intensive industries, or has a large mobile workforce that often books travel outside of corporate booking systems, a platform ecosystem can deliver significant savings and productivity improvements. For example, employees can book directly and still benefit from the corporate rates, while the company gains near-real time visibility into spending. Reclaiming value-added taxes (VAT) from international travel is greatly simplified.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Stage 5: Intelligent/predictive processes</h2>
<p>Full T&E management maturity enables an organization to gain more wisdom from experience. It also brings predictive powers that can head off unplanned or needless expenses before they happen, and drive smarter, policy-based employee and company decisions. For example, the SAP Concur platform can link an international travel itinerary to a third-party mobile data management service via an expense function. This provides pre-trip alerts which can prompt a user to switch data plans and avoid jaw-dropping roaming charges.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Maturity has its rewards</h2>
<p>Never fear if you’re still working your way through the five stages. Each new level will bring new returns, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Greater staff productivity due to automation, ease of use, efficient processes and mobile availability</li>
<li>Reduced staff time to support T&E management</li>
<li>Reduced travel-related costs due to greater visibility into employee spending</li>
<li>Reduced risk due to enhanced audit capabilities</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>To learn more about TEM, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/driving-business-value-through-travel-and-expense-management-maturity">download the full report here.</a></strong></p>
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<p> </p>
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SAP Concur Team
What Does T&E Mean?
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/what-does-te-mean
2024-01-29T20:19:34Z
2022-06-29T11:40:05Z
The term TE is bandied about often in business and as with most business acronyms people assume that its automatically understood In case you have ever wondered what TE actually stands...
<p>The term T&E is bandied about often in business and, as with most business acronyms, people assume that it's automatically understood. In case you have ever wondered what T&E actually stands for, we’ll explain not only what it is, but also why the term is important in the business world, and how paying attention to your T&E spend can save your business time, hassle and money.</p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>The Beginner's Guide to SAP Concur Solutions</h5>
<p>If you don’t know much about SAP Concur solutions, don’t worry. Here’s a one-minute look at what we do.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/beginners-guide-sap-concur-solutions">Watch the video</a></div>
</div>
<h2><strong>The Basics: What Does T&E Mean?</strong></h2>
<p>The term “T&E” stands for “travel and expense." These phrases (<a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">T&E, travel and expense</a>) are often used when talking about a major operational cost for businesses, which devote, on average, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide">10% of their budgets</a> to T&E. So, it's a big deal if you're concerned with either cutting costs or making your business processes more efficient.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What Are the Business Implications?</strong></h2>
<p>T&E expense management is considered the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/expense-insight-infographic">second-most difficult operating cost to control</a>. It makes sense, when you think about it, because your company's travel and expense budget is one of the key places where you could be looking to reduce costs, but your data is likely stored in various places making it difficult to consolidate and evaluate.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>What Does This Mean for You?</strong></h2>
<p>If you are involved in reducing company costs – you might be a CFO, financial director or anyone in finance management – then you know that saving money is necessary. But, if saving money on <a href="https://www.concur.com/">business travel expenses</a> may not seem like much of a priority, consider this:</p>
<p>First, you might not be able to put your finger on how much your business is spending on T&E exactly, at this moment. You wouldn’t be alone. Eighty percent of organizations still rely on manual processes, leaving plenty of opportunity for human error. And, if your system isn’t capturing spending wherever and whenever it happens, you’re not managing all your spending.</p>
<p>Second, you might not think that there are ways to save a lot of money on your expenses bill. Fortunately, this is not the case. Once businesses know their real spend (and a good T&E system will tell them this) they are often surprised by how much they spend with the same supplier, or how many employees might be spending out-of-policy. The former information provides a great leverage point for negotiating lower prices with providers. The latter will ensure you aren’t paying for duplicate invoices or other fraudulent expenses. In fact, almost <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/taking-pain-out-expenses-11-tips-creating-expense-policy">20% of T&E expenses</a> fall outside of policy.</p>
<p>The benefits of improving T&E processes are also applicable to business travelers. Your employees might not all travel frequently, but even if they hardly ever travel or submit expenses, the chances are that they will occasionally need to buy things for the company out of their own pocket. And when this happens they will want to know that they will be paid back, and promptly.</p>
<p>A good T&E management system will give you visibility of your spend and enable you to reimburse employees more quickly, while ensuring they are submitting expenses that comply with your company's T&E policy. And if you don't already have one of those, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder">use our tool to build your own expense policy</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Five reasons why your business technology should be easy to use
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/five-reasons-why-your-business-technology-should-be-easy-use
2019-02-27T08:04:51Z
2022-06-29T11:40:05Z
While it may go without saying that technology should make your life and the lives of your employees better there are many small ways that toughtouse tech can creep into your org and...
<p>While it may go without saying that technology should make your life and the lives of your employees better, there are many small ways that tough-to-use tech can creep into your org and cost you more than you think.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>1. Increased productivity</strong></h2>
<p>The easier your technology is to use, the more your employees will engage and accomplish with it as up-to-date technology is generally more user-friendly and efficient. According to a survey by <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-businesses-wasting-up-to-18-trillion-annually-on-repetitive-employee-tasks-samanage-survey-says-300224177.html rel=" nofollow="">Samanage</a>, U.S. companies are wasting $2 trillion using outdated technology that limits employee productivity. Indeed, one in four workers (25.4%) report that their company's technology and policies hurt their work productivity. That complaint is even higher among millennials, with nearly 31% reporting that company technology could make their lives easier and more productive.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong>2. Time savings for the IT department</strong></h2>
<p>Besides enhancing productivity, easy-to-use, up-to-date technology also saves you time and money on training and support, reduces security risks and prevents data loss—all of which frees your IT department to focus on more mission-critical matters.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong>3. Prevent the use of unauthorized tech</strong></h2>
<p>If an application or device is difficult to use, employees often have or will find an easier solution, such as downloading and using unauthorized applications. This use of “shadow IT” can create massive headaches for your tech support staff and seriously hamper employee collaboration.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong>4. Less is more</strong>, <strong>and more affordable</strong></h2>
<p>Usability research shows that most users learn only four or five main functions of an application, so the most feature-filled, and expensive, solution, is not necessarily the best investment.</p>
<h2><br />
<strong>5. Reduced employee frustration</strong></h2>
<p>Your employees endure plenty of frustrating encounters with technology outside of the office, so it’s the last thing they need at work. And they appreciate having the tools that empower them to do their best. The more you can you can make their company tech experience rewarding and aggravation-free, the more effectively you will retain your hard-to-find talent.</p>
<p>Your employees may be reluctant to express their dissatisfaction with your company’s IT for fear of appearing “un-techie,” so consider surveying them on the issue. It will let them know that the quality of their work experience is your priority, and also help you identify which technologies you should simplify first.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/smbs-drive-growth-and-innovation-when-they-embrace-full-power-te-solutions-forrester">Download the report</a> to learn more about how SMBs drive growth and innovation when they embrace the full power of T&E solutions. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Traveling at the Eleventh Hour: Myth-Busting Last-Minute Travel
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/traveling-eleventh-hour-myth-busting-last-minute-travel
2023-09-08T15:56:48Z
2022-06-29T11:39:03Z
Theres a commonly held belief that airfares continue to rise every year even if the price of oil is dropping and that the cost of lastminute travel follows suit But the truth may...
<p>There’s a commonly held belief that airfares continue to rise every year — even if the price of oil is dropping — and that the cost of last-minute travel follows suit. But the truth may surprise you. There’s more to the cost of last-minute travel than meets the eye.</p>
<p>To understand the true cost of last-minute travel, you have to crunch the numbers on how they affect your planning and bottom line. Fortunately, we’ve got the data and have done the analysis.</p>
<p>SAP Concur solutions process more than $130 billion in business travel and expenses annually. This report looks at the costs associated with approximately 30 million domestic round-trip airline bookings from 2018 to 2020. *Domestic is defined as a flight starting and ending in the same country.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The true cost of air travel</h2>
<p>While the total amount spent on air travel has increased significantly, ticket prices aren’t the reason why. In fact, our data shows that between 2018 and 2020, the cost of airfare actually went down by $9 per ticket. In the past few years, airfare prices progressively decreased while fees continued to increase. In pandemic conditions, airfare tickets are plummeting, yet fees are increasing in order to ensure traveler safety.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Average airfare by year</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img1"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904038201-avg airfare by year.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904038201-avg airfare by year.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, you might be wondering why airfares seem so much higher these days. It’s pretty simple: Airlines have been making up for the relatively flat ticket prices by charging incremental fees for services like extra leg room, checked luggage and onboard sales of food and beverages. Now, these fees cover things like personal protective equipment or additional luggage or cabin sanitization recommended by the <a href="https://www.businesstravelnews.com/uploadedFiles/Covid/Management/TAMS-SOS-Report.pdf">Traveler and Meeting Standards</a> committee, in order to standardize a way to ensure traveler safety. This ancillary airline revenue amounts to big bucks. In a recent <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/advice/2020/09/11/travel-fees-flights-hotels-more-what-you-can-do-them/5746706002/">USA Today story</a>, Ralph Colunga, thought leader, travel and expense at SAP Concur shared:</p>
<p>"Consumers are at a disadvantage....Unlike businesses, which have the leverage to negotiate away some of the nuisance fees, individual travelers have a lot less power. And they have limited alternatives.”</p>
<p>With more than $40 billion in airline revenue coming from ancillary fees, it’s never been more important for managers to track these costs as part of the price of the overall flight. By creating policies and tracking employee spending, it’s possible to avoid surprise charges and have a much clearer picture of travel spending.</p>
<h3>Tips</h3>
<ul>
<li>When considering travel options, travelers need to factor in the price of ancillary fees when booking. Fees to check bags, upgrade a seat and board early, or additional cleaning methods may add up to the price of a first-class ticket on some airlines, which the traveler would obviously prefer.</li>
<li>Travel managers should seize the opportunity to revisit primary and secondary contracts, as prices fluctuate due to macroeconomic factors. Airlines are likely to discount fares but still may include fees for additional cleaning and safety services.</li>
<li>The more volume your company gives an airline, the more leverage you’ll have when negotiating rates, including ancillary and change fees.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Planning window: Don’t miss your window of opportunity</h2>
<p>Even though we live in a completely connected society, advances in technology haven’t really helped us become better planners when it comes to business travel. In fact, planning horizons have remained relatively stable over the past few years.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Booking behavior of business travelers</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img2"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904088172-booking behavior or business travelers.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904088172-booking behavior or business travelers.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>What’s on the horizon?</h2>
<p>The data indicates that planning windows aren’t getting any wider. Which makes sense when you consider a fluctuating economy and the need to use last minute resources to close big sales, win new customers or address urgent issues in person.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Cost premium: Last-minute or just in the nick of time?</h2>
<p>Last-minute travel is one of those inevitabilities of life. We’d all love to plan our trips far in advance – but sometimes it’s just not possible. So, if we accept that booking at the last minute is going to happen, we can begin to understand the impact of timing on the premiums paid and how to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. We define “premium” as the incremental amount paid over and above the average price paid for a ticket purchased more than 14 days in advance.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Average airfare by booking window</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img3"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904198540-avg airfare by booking window.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904198540-avg airfare by booking window.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We all lead busy lives, and as time goes by, technology and business just keep moving faster. Which means our window for planning keeps getting shorter and shorter. But if a business traveler has the luxury of advance notice, the best bet is to book at least 14 days in advance of departure and, if that’s not possible, at least 8 days out. Booking travel within a week or less incurs a premium that’s considerably higher. But there’s a plus side. If a traveler <strong>must </strong>book less than a week in advance, the cost savings will be negligible whether the flight is purchased six days, three days, or one day before the flight.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Booking at least eight days in advance</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img4"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904249579-booking at least 8 days in advance.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904249579-booking at least 8 days in advance.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Tips</h3>
<ul>
<li>By enforcing a travel policy that encourages employees to book at least eight days prior to departure, you’ll be able to save an average of $159 per ticket.</li>
<li>Booking a one-way ticket based on a known departure or arrival date can help optimize last minute travel costs. For example, in markets where lower one-way fares are an option and only the return date is unclear, it makes sense for the traveler to at least book outbound travel to lock in savings and book the return flight at a premium later.</li>
<li>If there is a good chance plans will change, a traveler should consider booking refundable tickets, even on a non-preferred carrier. That way, the traveler will have the ability to cancel and eliminate change fees if a more desirable fare is found at a later date.</li>
<li>Reward employees for consistently booking within policy and avoiding booking at the last minute.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Time of year: Every season has its price</h2>
<p>Timing is everything. It’s how you close the big deal, negotiate new terms, pitch the next big idea, and/or address a serious concern that’ll change the world. But to get there, you have to be ready to seize each and every opportunity. Which means employees have to be able to travel whenever, wherever. But that doesn’t mean that savings opportunities don’t abound.</p>
<p>As we’ve already established, whether you book greater than eight or fewer than seven days before travel is a big factor in the overall price of a ticket, but so is the time of year. We know there are certain times of year, like summer and winter holidays, when airfares are almost always higher. But what’s interesting is that the premium paid for last minute travel during these times is relatively lower compared to the overall cost of the flight.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Average airfare by month: Booking window</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img5"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904388128-avg airfare by month.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904388128-avg airfare by month.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<h3> </h3>
<h3>Percent difference in airfare between booking windows</h3>
<p><a class="blog-img" href="#img6"><img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904432996-percent difference in airfare by booking windows.jpg" /> </a> <a class="lightbox" href="#_"> <img src="/newsroom/public/uploads/article_image/original/1603904432996-percent difference in airfare by booking windows.jpg" /> </a></p>
<p>(click to enlarge)</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Tips</h3>
<ul>
<li>When travel is flexible, travelers should opt not to travel during summer months with peak fares, especially if travel costs make up a large portion of your overall budget.</li>
<li>If employees must travel at the last minute during peak summer months, they will spend less of a premium to travel last minute, which may make it easier to justify the cost.</li>
<li>When booking large events, consider doing so during off-peak months or in alternative locations.</li>
</ul>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Key takeaways: You can still save, even at the last-minute</h2>
<p>Booking last-minute travel is just one of those inevitabilities of the modern business landscape. Regardless of whether last-minute travel is the result of true need or poor planning, there are ways to keep costs down and improve efficiency within your organization.</p>
<ul>
<li>Provide rewards for smart travel booking</li>
<li>Offer ongoing education regarding the best practices for booking</li>
<li>Establish and enforce travel policies</li>
<li>Negotiate optimal rates with frequently used airlines and partners</li>
<li>Use travel booking tools</li>
<li>Configure settings within your travel booking tool to notify travel managers when employees are booking within a seven-day window</li>
<li>Use data to identify behavior and target the areas that will provide the most financial impact</li>
<li>Use mobile apps and self-service check-in kiosks to cut down on travel times</li>
</ul>
<p>We’re interested to see how the airline industry changes and adapts to trends in the future. With additional fees becoming commonplace, airline apps becoming more and more sophisticated, and gas prices continuing to fluctuate – the only constant we can expect from this industry is change.</p>
<p>Learn more about balancing concerns about controlling cost and traveler safety and well-being in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/cpos-procurement-execs-want-more-strategic-role-in-managed-travel">BTN whitepaper</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shannon Mobley contributed to this post. </p>
Kathryn Kamin
Going Beyond Automation: How T&E Management Drives Business Value
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/going-beyond-automation-how-te-management-drives-business-value
2020-01-16T10:24:00Z
2022-06-29T11:39:03Z
Are you getting all the benefits you could from your travel and expense management TEM solution A lot of companies set it and forget it They assume that automating rote tasks is the...
<p>Are you getting all the benefits you could from your <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">travel and expense</a> management (TEM) solution?</p>
<p>A lot of companies “set it and forget it.” They assume that automating rote tasks is the primary benefit of travel expense management software—but they’re wrong. Saving on labor costs is just the first benefit you’re likely to realize. We enlisted research firm IDC to help us prove that point in our whitepaper, Empower Organizations to Digitally Transform Their Expense, Travel, and Invoicing Processes.</p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="https://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-281177_WomanSittingDesk_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Drive Business Value Through T&E Maturity</h2>
<p>Learn how to digitally transform your travel and expense (and invoicing) processes. </p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">Get the whitepaper</a></div>
</div>
<h3> </h3>
<p>What we found is this: the real benefit of a TEM solution goes far beyond automation. Greater insight gives you greater agility to empower employees to make smart decisions. It can also help you identify new opportunities like better supplier rates, <a href="https://www.concur.com/reclaim-vat">VAT reclaim</a>, etc. Going beyond automation helps you tap into an ecosystem of partners who add extended value to travel and expense management. </p>
<p>Of course, you’ll benefit from automation, too. Automation helps streamline reporting processes to make it easier for employees to avoid errors and submit receipts quickly—giving them less chance to lose them. It’s a big benefit—you can substantially reduce the amount of staff time you’re using on supporting travel and expense management. Between ease of use, improved processes and mobile capabilities, you’ll improve staff productivity and make it easier for them to follow your organization’s travel and expense policies.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>For the paper, IDC interviewed seven organizations who are using SAP Concur solutions. These organizations are located around the world and across industries, and have an average employee size of 1,906.</p>
<p>By using SAP Concur as its technology partner for travel and expense management, IDC calculates that each customer will gain an average benefit of $1.96 million per year ($97,447 per 100 SAP Concur users). That’s an ROI of 650% in three years. Here’s where those benefits come from:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reducing the amount time employees spend planning business travel and completing expense reports</li>
<li>Requiring less staff time to support business travel and manage expense reports</li>
<li>Enabling cost savings through enhanced visibility and improved compliance with travel and expense policies</li>
<li>Making audit operations more robust and efficient while minimizing the risk associated with improper expenses and lost receipts</li>
<li>Empowering employees to make smarter decisions and increasing employee satisfaction with options to book travel</li>
</ul>
<p>How’d they do it? In each case, the customer migrated to a robust mobile-based reporting solution that let them use analytics to drive savings and agility. Most of them moved from T&E management based on spreadsheets and/or hard-copy reporting to one with more maturity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>The IDC maturity model</h2>
<p>Whether you’re a small business drowning in a sea of paperwork or a global enterprise looking to stay out in front of complex compliance requirements, it’s likely that your organization fits into one of the five stages of maturity outlined below:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stage 1</strong>: Manual/spreadsheet-based processes</p>
<p>Most small businesses start by manually entering their expenses into a spreadsheet—which is time-consuming and error-prone. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stage 2</strong>: Automated expense, travel, and invoice management</p>
<p>Companies usually then move to basic expense management software. That way, you can reconcile your back-office accounting systems with custom accounting codes—but the user experience leaves something to be desired.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stage 3</strong>: Purpose-built but siloed business apps</p>
<p>These solutions immediately increase spending clarity across the organization by making it as easy as possible for users to update their expense reports on the fly and receiving timely and relevant travel alerts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stage 4</strong>: Integrated platform ecosystem</p>
<p>Platform ecosystems can hook into corporate booking systems and travel management companies, and the platform can accommodate international travelers who need to account for value-added tax (VAT) as one example.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Stage 5</strong>: Intelligent/predictive processes</p>
<p>Predictive analytics can look at historical data and highlight trouble areas for you before they happen again—and can help you set up warning flags to head off problems.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No matter what level your organization is currently at, look for a TEM solution that is able to grow with your business. A solution that will continually help propel your business to the next level is one that is able to anticipate pain points and take care of them for you, while also streamlining processes and allowing your business to run more efficiently. Only SAP Concur has the track record and the expertise to support the evolution of your business, every step of the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>It’s clear that using a cloud-based TEM can drive business value far beyond merely automating manual processes. Wondering which level of travel and expense management maturity your organization fits into? <strong><a href="https://www.concur.com/spend-management-assessment">Take this interactive quiz</a> to find out.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Shortlist potential TEM vendors with this guide
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/shortlist-potential-tem-vendors-guide
2021-06-07T15:58:18Z
2022-06-29T11:39:03Z
The most innovative solutions for travel expense management TEM are only available as Software as a Service SaaS Thats according to Gartners Market Guide for Travel Expense Management...
<p>The most innovative solutions for travel expense management (TEM) are only available as Software as a Service (SaaS). That's according to Gartner’s Market Guide for Travel Expense Management Software for IT/Financial buyers. This report looks at 16 market players, helping decision makers to analyze the market and shortlist potential TEM vendors. </p>
<p>It notes that TEM isn’t just about automating processes and increasing efficiency—it’s about making life easier for users. Gartner recommends using TEM innovations as a way to show your leadership team and employees how going digital can turn the lengthy and often unpleasant process of creating an expense report into something that’s easy and at the same time, greatly improves internal efficiency.</p>
<p>And, with more than 75% market share and the most differentiated solution, <strong>Concur is a leader in the TEM space</strong>.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for a TEM solution, we recommend selecting one that offers these attributes: </p>
<ul>
<li>Travel booking and management</li>
<li>Invoice automation</li>
<li>A supplier network</li>
<li>An app center</li>
<li>Extended services</li>
<li>Enhanced OCR</li>
<li>Partnerships with major TMCs, BPO and travel suppliers</li>
<li>A dedicated public-sector product for the U.S. government</li>
<li>Integration with Salesforce</li>
<li>A payment platform for customers to reimburse employees/suppliers</li>
</ul>
<p>The report also points out that ERP, Procurement and Human Capital Management vendors have begun to deepen TEM functionality. When you’re looking for a vendor, choose one based on its user experience across roles, including not just travelers, but also finance and system administrators. Think about the level of functional sophistication each constituent needs and can embrace, and let that guide you in your decision.</p>
<p>Gartner also touches on the importance of mobile innovation in TEM, saying, “TEM software is an excellent case study of a traditional business process becoming digital. The move to digital actually began when specialist TEM providers wrote mobile applications for popular smartphones, which enabled the in-built camera to capture receipt images. But the state of the art is now moving beyond this, with leading-edge vendors having product roadmaps that aim to kill the expense report as we know it.”</p>
<p>To learn more, see the full Gartner report <a href="https://www.gartner.com/account/signin?method=initialize&TARGET=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.gartner.com%252Fdocument%252F3707117%253Fref%253DsolrAll%2526refval%253D289605478" target="_blank">here</a>. (Gartner subscription required.)</p>
SAP Concur Team
How to Capture Receipts with Your Mobile Phone
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/how-capture-receipts-your-mobile-phone
2023-07-31T14:24:52Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
SAP Concur solutions make it easy for users to capture receipts and eliminate some of the manual data entry associated with business expenses ExpenseIt is a receipt scanning feature...
<p>SAP Concur solutions make it easy for users to capture receipts and eliminate some of the manual data entry associated with business expenses. ExpenseIt is a <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile-receipt-scanner">receipt scanning </a>feature on the SAP Concur mobile app that allows you to digitize receipts on the go – meaning you won’t have to keep track of all your paper receipts.</p>
<p>By digitizing these receipts, expense entries will be created, categorized, itemized, and sent to Concur Expense for you. This automation decreases the time you spend on expense reports and increases your productivity.</p>
<p>To capture receipts,<strong> log into the SAP Concur mobile app, tap <a href="https://www.concur.com/receipt-management-app">ExpenseIt</a>, and take a photo of a receipt.</strong> ExprenseIt will then create a line item, selecting the expense category, matching credit card charges, and even itemizing your complicated hotel bills for you.</p>
<p><img alt="gif" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e256d0aa-4f26-43cb-b6c1-e7e21ac2560f" src="/sites/g/files/sqenrx226/files/inline-images/Picture1.gif" /></p>
<p>ExpenseIt is most helpful when you capture receipts as you spend. That’s why capturing a quality photo of your receipts is very important. Dark or blurry photos can be difficult to read so, remember to:</p>
<ul>
<li>· Make sure the camera lens on your mobile device is clean.</li>
<li>· Make sure the camera is focused on the receipt.</li>
<li>· Take photos in a portrait (vertical) orientation.</li>
<li>· Take photos in a well-lit area. Otherwise, use the camera flash.</li>
<li>· Avoid shadows across the receipt.</li>
</ul>
<p>Be sure to double-check the expense for accuracy before submitting. If you want to capture multiple receipts, you can tap the Next Receipt button while capturing them in the app. You can also email receipts to Concur Expense by forwarding them to <a href="http://mailto:receipts@eu.expenseit.com">receipts@expenseit.com</a> (if you use concursolutions.com) or <a href="http://mailto:receipts@eu.expenseit.com">receipts@eu.expenseit.com</a> (if you use eu1.concursolutions.com) from a verified email address. You can find more information on why and how to verify an email address in this <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/infographics/expenseit-end-user-faq">ExpenseIt FAQ.</a></p>
<p>Note that the ability to capture receipts on your mobile device is only available for users whose company has purchased access to the SAP Concur mobile app and ExpenseIt. If you’re not sure, ask your SAP Concur admin. To learn more about ExpenseIt, visit the <a href="https://www.concurtraining.com/toolkit/en/expense/expenseit/end-user">ExpenseIt User Resources</a> page.</p>
<p> </p>
Colleen Fogerty
Here's the Travel Expense Policy Template You Need
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/heres-travel-expense-policy-template-you-need
2022-11-14T12:00:54Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
Setting clear guidelines is important in every aspect of business, particularly with your most valued audience – your employees.
<p>Setting clear guidelines is important in every aspect of business, particularly with your most valued audience – your employees. Managing business expense and travel is no exception. And, with <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resources/six-ways-save-travel-expense-guide">an average of 10% </a>of a company's business budget devoted to employee expense and business travel, this isn't a cost area you can afford to overlook.</p>
<p>A formal travel expense policy provides employees with knowledge of what they can and cannot submit as reimbursable, while providing management with critical real-time visibility into budgets. Having this protocol in writing will cut down on reimbursable expense report fraud, which is often unintentional, but can have big consequences. Oversight found that 37% of business travelers had at least one exception on their expense reports, and the typical company loses at least 5% of its annual revenue to fraud. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>Build your own expense policy</h5>
<p>Get a free template to customize for your business.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">Get the template</a></div>
</div>
<h2>Where do you start?</h2>
<p>Creating an employee expense reimbursement policy from scratch can be overwhelming but an expense policy template can help get you started. You can use our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a><strong> </strong>to create your own customizable expense policy template in just a few clicks.</p>
<p>Consider the following when you start working on (or revising) your policy.</p>
<p><strong>1. Ditch the jargon: </strong>Write the policy to cover the basics, but don’t be afraid to revise it later. Make sure it’s easy to read and not bogged down by jargon. The easier a policy is to understand, the easier it is for your employees to follow on their next business trip.</p>
<p><strong>2. Keep it fair and sensible: </strong>Write your policy to guide behavior, but be flexible enough to adapt to local and international travel requirements— such as higher air travel fares in more remote locations and hotel room costs in more expensive cities.</p>
<p><strong>3. Invite participation: </strong>Before you implement your expense policy, ask team members to participate in the new expense reporting process. For example, if they help develop the policy they’ll see why it’s necessary and will be more likely to adhere to the rules, encouraging others to do the same.</p>
<p><strong>4. Make it easy to find and easy to use: </strong>Your expense policy won’t be followed unless people know about it. Make sure yours is visible and easy for company employees to find.</p>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>Emphasize the positives of a revised expense policy and lead by example</h2>
<p>Hold a training session for employees, accounting and human resources teams to explain your expense policy’s benefits and purpose. Familiarizing managers who approve expenses with the content, the importance of compliance, and the reasons for implementing the policy can help them confidently enforce the rules.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Consider helpful software tools and leverage existing technology</h2>
<p>An automated solution that automatically populates charges from suppliers, credit card companies, common expense categories and receipts such as business meal expenses, car rentals, dry cleaning, hotel rooms and airfare will save time and allow you to focus on your core business purpose. Choose an expense management solution that works with mobile devices and allows for the submission and approval of employee expenses via photographed receipts no matter where you or your employees are.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Ready to get started? Generate your custom expense policy template now with our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/expense-policy-builder/quiz">expense policy builder</a> or download our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">expense policy template</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
Four Types of Expense Report Fraud to Look Out For
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/four-types-expense-report-fraud-look-out
2024-01-30T03:03:34Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
Fraudulent spending has the potential to significantly impact a business bottom line According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners ACFE of a typical organizations annual...
<p>For many companies, expense fraud is an unfortunate — and costly — reality. And research shows that overall business fraud has increased in recent years, costing a business an average of tens of thousands of dollars annually. Adding to the challenge, it takes an average of 12 monthsi before a fraud case is detected. </p>
<p>Fortunately, being able to identify how expense report fraud can occur — and installing the proper safeguards and technology — can help you protect your business. </p>
<div class="cta-widget-container">
<div class="pictogram-container"><img src="/themes/custom/sap_component/images/odometer.png" /></div>
<div class="content-container">
<h5>How to Build the Best-in-Class Fraud Detection</h5>
<p>Learn how top organizations are using the latest tech to improve investigations and drive prevention.</p>
<a class="btn-primary" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-economic-uncertainty">Get the eBook</a></div>
</div>
<h2>The Impact of Expense Report Fraud</h2>
<p>Fraudulent spending can significantly impact a business’s bottom line. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 5% of a typical organization's annual revenues are lost due to fraud each year, resulting in an average revenue loss of $8,300 per month.ii </p>
<p>And business fraud has been on the rise. In May 2022, the ACFE found 51% of businesses it surveyed had discovered more fraud since the pandemic began, with 71% of businesses expecting fraud cases to increase over the next year,iii making it critical for businesses to stay on top of expense reporting. </p>
<p>See more in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/fraud-research-report-2022">Fraud Research Report 2022</a>. </p>
<h2>What Does Expense Report Fraud Look Like? </h2>
<p>Knowing what to look for when trying to identify expense fraud and other non-compliant spend is a critical first step in protecting your business. Want to keep your business from being a statistic? Here are four common examples of expense fraud schemes to look out for. </p>
<h3>1. Mischaracterized Expense Fraud </h3>
<p>Mischaracterized expenses are defined as non-business-related purchases claimed as business expenses. A <a href="https://www.concur.com/blog/article/new-pulse-surveys-explore-financial-impact-covid-19-business-travel-reductions">Pulse survey commissioned by SAP Concur</a> in January 2022 found that 65% of business travelers admitted that questionable expenses came from employees intentionally trying to get reimbursed for personal expenses. Whether expenses are mischaracterized intentionally or by mistake, they can result in damaging losses for businesses. </p>
<p>SAP Concur experts have heard stories from auditors about some rather outrageous non-compliant expense submissions. They include: </p>
<ul>
<li>Theme park admission for four </li>
<li>A cruise classified as a business trip </li>
<li>Eight cell phone lines for the employee’s family for a year </li>
<li>A $2,000 business meal, with the employee’s significant other and two friends listed as attendees </li>
</ul>
<p>Hear about other over-the-top questionable expense submissions — and how to prevent them — from SAP Concur experts in our <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/videos/fending-fraud-best-practices-webinar">Fending off Fraud with Best Practices webinar</a>. </p>
<h3>2. Falsified Claim Expense Fraud </h3>
<p>Falsified claim expense fraud happens when an expense report has been submitted with false documents (checks, invoices, or receipts digitally created using a design application) or with stolen blank receipts. </p>
<p>The attached fake receipts have often been taken from a vendor (restaurants, hotels, taxis) and filled in with inflated and falsified amounts. For example, when an employee purchases an item for its actual cost (say, $30) but it shows up on an expense report for a much higher amount (say, $150). It’s done by altering an existing receipt, invoice, or other document. So, instead of being reimbursed by the company for $30, the employee receives $150 and makes $120 on the transaction thanks to the altered document. </p>
<p>Another example of falsified claim expense fraud is taking receipts that belong to a friend or family member and claiming it on an expense report as your own. </p>
<h3>3. Inflated Claims Expense Fraud </h3>
<p>Inflated expenses is another type of expense fraud. One example of this type of fraud is over-purchasing. </p>
<p>An employee might buy too many office supplies and hold on to the receipt for $500, then return some of the supplies for a refund with a new receipt for $200. By submitting only the first receipt for $500, the employee pockets the $300 difference between the two receipts. </p>
<h3>4. Multiple Claim Expense Fraud </h3>
<p>Multiple claim expense fraud can be tricky to detect. It happens when, for example, a service or product that was purchased and submitted for approval in January gets submitted again in March and maybe even again in August in the hopes that approvers won’t notice. The claim might even be submitted to different approvers in the company. </p>
<p>Without insight into the history of the expense, these approvers don’t know the expense has already been submitted and possibly already approved by someone else. </p>
<h2>How to Identify and Reduce Expense Report Fraud </h2>
<p>Detecting and mitigating expense fraud often requires using a combination of tools, strategies, and processes. Here are some tips for reducing risk within your business. </p>
<p>Tip #1. Build a business case for prioritizing an anti-fraud strategy – including building better processes. </p>
<p>Tip #2. Identify common fraudulent expense activities – particularly at your company. </p>
<p>Tip #3. Work with employees to minimize fraud and errors – including <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/tips-for-creating-an-expense-policy">creating a clear expense policy</a> and providing regular training on expense compliance. </p>
<p>Tip #4. Consider using a mobile app to capture receipts at time of purchase – this makes it easier for employees to submit expenses and could reduce the potential for fraud. </p>
<p>Tip #5. Consider using <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/small-business/expense">finance automation</a> to spot potential non-compliant spend, increase audit accuracy, and reduce the time spent by your finance team on reconciling expenses. </p>
<p>You can find more tips in our eBook, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/guides/6-tips-drive-compliance-identify-fraud-and-minimize-workloads">6 Tips to Drive Compliance, Identify Fraud, and Minimize Workloads</a>. </p>
<p>In the examples outlined above, the fraud is intentional. But in many cases, the expense-related risk is accidental or a result of confusion as to what is or is not acceptable. Either way, the good news is that having anti-fraud controls in place is associated with fewer losses and quicker detection. </p>
<p>To learn how to prevent and detect fraud in times of economic uncertainty, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/preventing-and-detecting-fraud-during-economic-uncertainty">download our eBook today</a>. </p>
SAP Concur Team
Effortless Travel and Expense with SAP Concur
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/effortless-travel-and-expense-sap-concur
2020-10-26T11:19:28Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
Everyday thousands of business travelers embark on trips around the world Although expense policies differ each company needs a seamless way to track their employees travel and...
<p>Everyday thousands of business travelers embark on trips around the world. Although <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">expense policies</a> differ, each company needs a seamless way to track their employees’ travel and expenses. With the wrong tools, it's expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating. But with SAP Concur, it's efficient and easy. We’ll show you how.</p>
<p>In the video below, follow Linsy, VP of Brand Experience for SAP Concur, as she manages an event from end-to-end using SAP Concur tools.</p>
<p>Whether on the mobile app or desktop, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/travel-expense">Concur Travel and Expense</a> makes it simple for users to book round-trip or multi-segment flights, while handling specific policy requirements, international taxes, and visas, on the back end or via the partner ecosystem. TripLink even captures supplier-direct bookings into the same system, giving visibility into travel no matter where it’s booked. And, thanks to the availability of accurate, up-to-date information, travelers will get the help they need through <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/concur-locate">Concur Locate and Active Monitoring</a> if the unexpected happens.</p>
<p><strong>Watch the video below to learn more. Then, take our quick quiz to <a href="https://www.concur.com/travel-expense-check-in/questions">see where your T&E tech stands</a> and how you can improve.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="video-wrapper"></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
SAP Concur Team
6 Benefits of Automating AP, Travel, and Expense Processes for Small Universities and Community Colleges
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/6-benefits-automating-ap-travel-and-expense-processes-small-universities-and-community
2020-08-11T19:41:48Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
Managing accounts payable and travel and expense TE spending is crucial to the sustainability of any college or university but it can be especially difficult for smaller universities...
<p>Managing accounts payable and travel and expense (T&E) spending is crucial to the sustainability of any college or university, but it can be especially difficult for smaller universities and community colleges. Generally, these smaller institutions waste significant time and resources with manual processes, leading to a lack of visibility into their spending data – data that’s crucial to make strategic decisions. Here are six benefits of having a fully automated travel, expense, and invoice processes. </p>
<div class="teaser">
<div class="teaser-thumbnail col col-sm-12 col-md-2 text-center"><img class="img-responsive" src="http://assets.concur.com/newsroom/pictogram-284620_Expenses_R_blue.png" /></div>
<div class="teaser-content col col-sm-12 col-md-6">
<h2>Automating spend management for higher ed</h2>
<p>Learn how automation can help your institution Increase compliance and reduce risk</p>
</div>
<div class="teaser-button col col-sm-12 col-md-4 text-center"><a class="btn" href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">Get the ebook</a></div>
</div>
<h2> </h2>
<h2>1. Eliminate paper</h2>
<p>Invoice, travel, and expense management at many smaller institutions and community colleges continues to be heavily paper based. With all of the copying, auditing, scanning, and hounding your staff for crumpled paper receipts, it makes sense that paper is a naturally inefficient, error-prone process. On top of that, the amount of manpower required is overwhelmingly high: a recent <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/ebooks/automate-spend-management-higher-education-increase-compliance-reduce-risk">Kelton study</a> found that higher education organizations using manual or legacy systems are spending over five additional hours processing each expense report and over two additional hours processing each invoice than those colleges and universities using fully automated systems.<br />
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The good news is that automation can eliminate all paper. Invoice and expense data is entered directly into an automated system and imaged receipts are matched to those transactions. Reports are then routed automatically for approvals and reimbursements, making data easily accessible for proactive budget planning and better vendor negotiations.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>2. Decrease reimbursement times</h2>
<p>Wouldn’t it be nice if you could easily eliminate the inquiries such as, “Where is my money?” Automation helps to significantly decrease reimbursement times, for your faculty and staff, by eliminating the need for manual re-keying and reducing the need for additional human intervention in the process. In fact, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/pima-community-college">one community college</a> reduced reimbursement wait times from one month to one day after approval after implementing an automated T&E solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>3. Gain visibility into actionable data</h2>
<p>Automated, accurate data provide answers for those questions like, “How much did we spend on T&E last month?” and “What do we owe this vendor?” With automation, these types of questions can be answered within minutes rather than weeks or months. </p>
<p>Plus, when you bring all of your spending data together in one place, it’s easier to plan for what’s next. You can eliminate much of the guesswork you currently encounter in budgeting and planning – in both the short and long term – by reviewing travel, expense, and AP trends in the data you’ve collected. You might even uncover potential opportunities to invest more in programs for your school.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>4. Increase adoption/compliance via user-friendly tools</h2>
<p>Change can be scary and difficult, especially for smaller institutions where time and resources are already strained. However, with travel and spend automation, you can expect the user experience to be – do we dare say? – delightful. Of course, having the best technology in the world means nothing if the staff doesn’t use it – a particularly elevated risk in a non-mandate culture. Introducing easy-to-use, mobile tools your faculty and staff will want to use will encourage the right choices. Plus, the days of interoffice mailings, overflowing envelopes with stacks of taped receipts and manual entry into expense reports will be over forever. What’s not to like about that?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>5. Support traveling faculty, staff, and students</h2>
<p>Beyond cost reduction, there’s one, far more priceless benefit to putting a comprehensive travel and spend management system in place – the safety of your faculty, staff, and students. Knowing where and when your users are traveling and spending, at any moment, can help you fulfil your <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-is-duty-of-care">Duty of Care</a> obligations. To ensure the safety of those under your charge at a moment’s notice, you need a single access point for all traveler information, as well as contact information and home addresses. If an incident occurs, university leaders can get in touch with travelers quickly, assess the situation, and determine next steps to get them back safely. In this case, investing in a comprehensive T&E solution to give you visibility into this critical data not only saves costs, but could potentially save lives. That’s a value proposition that’s hard to ignore.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>6. Reduce fraud, waste, and abuse</h2>
<p>Employees misusing the T&E and AP processes for personal gain are an unfortunate reality. <a href="https://www.acfe.com/report-to-the-nations/2018/" target="_blank">A 2018 survey</a> conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) revealed that 18 percent of fraudulent activities in higher education are due to expense reimbursement schemes. Additionally, the median loss due to occupational fraud for the industry is $68,000.<br />
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And whether or not mistakes are intentional, they do happen. Without a streamlined solution and process, you are counting on users to do both “what’s right” and make no mistakes in all situations. By automating, you now have a vast access of data to fully understand the decisions your faculty and staff are making on behalf of the institution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Are you ready to free yourself from the mistakes and inefficiency of manual travel and spend management? Learn more about how automation can </strong><a href="http://view.ceros.com/g3-communications/higher-education/p/1"><strong>transform your campus</strong></a><strong>. </strong></p>
SAP Concur Team
Empowering Employees with Mobile Solutions
https://www.concur.com/blog/article/empowering-employees-mobile-solutions
2020-04-29T19:42:34Z
2022-06-29T11:36:56Z
Want to enlist your employees in managing spend Make it as easy as possible for them to use your tools Dont just take it from us SAP Concur customers share how it works and what you...
<p data-id="37249032-b0f5-4a08-9552-73cbdc5ba15c">Want to enlist your employees in managing spend? Make it as easy as possible for them to use your tools. Don't just take it from us. SAP Concur customers share how it works — and what you gain — when you combine your expense reporting with a mobile solution:</p>
<p data-id="37249032-b0f5-4a08-9552-73cbdc5ba15c">"Our sales folks love the fact that they can take pictures on-the-go, and that they then log in, do a couple of clicks and they're done with their expense report. Whereas before it would take a couple hours to do an expense report.” says Jennifer Gettman, director of expense management at <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/cisco-systems">Cisco Systems</a>. “What SAP Concur brought to the table was an amazing user experience [and] mobile capabilities right out of the box."</p>
<p data-id="e3153af0-19c2-41d1-a2f3-cbdd5dcb8311">It just makes sense: as consumers, employees have access to countless mobile devices and apps, and they’ve come to expect the same kind of flexibility and ease out of their corporate applications. Mobile applications benefit the user, letting them fill out their expense reports on the go—but they can also help you fulfill duty of care by alerting them of emergencies and giving them accurate, up-to-date information they’ll need for client calls, like up-to-the-minute stock prices, weather, directions, etc. Mobile makes travel and expense management more efficient, so your employees can focus on the task at hand rather than logistics.</p>
<p data-id="18dc9cf9-7ce4-429c-97c0-2713c5719b17">We’ve found that when companies invest in a robust travel and expense management solution, they save money. Usually, the investment pays for itself inside five months. <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/reports/empower-organizations-digitally-transform-their-expense-travel-and-invoicing">A report from research firm IDC</a> found that employees using a modern, efficient travel, expense, and/or invoice management solution cut their travel booking time by 78%, and time spent completing an expense report by 60%. Additionally 62% more employees were found to be compliant with their organization's <a href="https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/need-expense-policy-template">T&E policy</a>. The result on the bottom line? IDC determined that the SAP Concur customers surveyed achieved benefits of $1.96 million per organization per year with an ROI of 650%.</p>
<p data-id="62eadf83-870c-4e3e-bcb1-082bd1508e0f">At <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/vmware">VMware</a>, leadership has much better visibility into expenses than it did before moving to SAP Concur solutions. Concur Detect has enabled us "to look at every single expense report that's submitted, to really monitor compliance, look at spend categories, and help provide meaningful analytics and insight to the business,” says Brian Dela Pena, senior director of accounting operations at WMware. It’s also a big hit with users, who want the flexibility to fill out their expense reports from anywhere. “It's surprising how easy it was, using the app, to be able to just take a picture, and then get that receipt imported into Concur," adds Suraj Dyre, lead analyst, BTA Finance. </p>
<p data-id="be064aed-fcc6-4fc3-bea9-35b2953fb2db">With SAP Concur solutions, <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/casestudy/globe-telecom">Globe Telecom</a> has visibility of the entire process of managing the organization’s expenses and has improved the <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/resource-center/whitepapers/why-employee-experience-matters">employee experience</a>. "We have this circle of happiness in Globe," says Suzelyn Urbano, senior director of enterprise services. "And we say that if we have happy employees, we will be having happy customers, happy customers will actually give you their business, and now we have happy stakeholders."</p>
<p data-id="12661a70-1a65-4dbb-aa2e-9efd5d22c8ad">Here’s the bottom line: When you make it easy for your employees to comply with your travel policy and compile expense reports, you benefit from increased efficiency, productivity, policy compliance, and real-time visibility into spending trends.</p>
<p data-id="72a69fc5-752c-4ef2-b9e9-fac8b134e648">Discover how to empower your employees to make smart decisions <a href="https://www.concur.com/en-us/productivity">here</a>.</p>
SAP Concur Team