How a Global Concur Admin Manages Expense Reporting Across 12 Countries

Being a Concur admin often ends up meaning much more than simply managing expense reports. For John Lovasz, Global Concur Administrator at Crane Payment Innovations (part of Crane NXT), the role touches reporting, compliance, employee experience, and standardizing processes across a growing organization.  

John has worked with Concur for more than a decade across a growing organization that now operates in multiple countries. We spoke with him at Fusion 2026 about what has worked well for his team, where friction tends to appear, and what other admins might want to think about as their own programs scale. 

How mobile expense capture improved employee adoption 

One of the biggest shifts John has seen over the years has been moving employees away from manual processes and into mobile expense management. 

Before broader adoption of Concur, some areas of the business were still relying on paper forms and manual receipt tracking. As many admins know, that usually meant employees handing finance a stack of receipts after a trip and hoping accounting could sort everything out afterward. 

“Sales and marketing people are not accountants... they just say, ‘Here’s a pile of receipts... pay me back for this stuff.” 

- John Lovasz, Crane Payment Innovations

For John, one of the biggest improvements has been making expense reporting easier for traveling employees. Credit card transactions flow directly into expense reports, employees can submit expenses while on the road, and managers can approve from anywhere.

“They don’t have to remember all their receipts… they just take a picture when they get it and they’re done. At the end of the trip, the expense report is basically ready.” 

- John Lovasz, Crane Payment Innovations

Using expense reporting data to fix policy problems 

John described reporting as one of the most valuable parts of his admin toolkit, not just for finance visibility, but for identifying recurring pain points for employees.  

One example involved meal expense warnings repeatedly triggering for employees who traveled for extended periods. Technically, the audit rules were working correctly, but the volume of warnings created frustration. Reporting surfaced these trends, which led to adjustments in meal allowance policies. 

Another recurring issue involved field technicians whose corporate cards were being declined at hardware stores because of merchant category code restrictions. These were legitimate business purchases such as small tools, parts, and repair materials needed in the field, but the restrictions created delays and extra manual reimbursement work. Reporting surfaced this issue so Crane adjusted card restrictions.

“The reports surface these patterns consistently. Without them, you’re responding to individual complaints and never seeing the full picture.” 

- John Lovasz, Crane Payment Innovations

Supporting growth across multiple business units and systems 

As Crane NXT expanded through acquisitions, the expense environment became increasingly complex. New business units brought additional ERPs, country-specific requirements, approval structures, and policy variations. 

Rather than rebuilding processes from scratch each time a new entity is added, the focus became configuring rules and structures that could scale alongside the business. 

Centralization became increasingly important as complexity grew. Reporting was used to consolidate visibility across regions and disparate systems, allowing finance to see spend clearly across multiple ERPs in a single view. 

Automated audit rules and the compliance payoff  

Because John also works closely with compliance, he sees expense management from both the admin and audit perspectives. 

When users are prompted to explain missing receipts, policy exceptions, or unusual expenses during submission, those explanations automatically become part of the audit trail. That context is already documented if questions arise later.

“When we do get audited and there are questions, we say, ‘Well, here’s the audit trail.’ We haven’t had fines or penalties come out of a Concur-related audit. That’s not luck — it’s what consistent, automated flagging does over time.” 

- John Lovasz, Crane Payment Innovations

John also noted that scheduled reporting and automated distributions have helped reduce repetitive manual work for his team. Once recurring reports and recipient lists are configured properly, much of the monthly reporting process becomes significantly easier to manage. 

What matters most when evaluating an expense platform 

Toward the end of our conversation, we asked John which capabilities he would consider essential if evaluating an expense solution today. He named six must-haves: 

• mobile receipt capture 
• a strong mobile experience for travelers and approvers 
• customizable reporting 
• flexibility to adapt as the business changes 
• scalability across countries, entities, and ERP systems 
• configurable audit and policy controls 

“It makes travelers’ lives easier and reduces the friction between travelers and the accounting team.” 

- John Lovasz, Crane Payment Innovations

Rather than viewing expense management purely as a finance process, John sees it as an operational system that impacts employee experience, compliance, and visibility across the organization. 

For admins managing growing or increasingly global programs, many of these challenges, adoption, reporting, policy friction, acquisitions, and scalability, are likely very familiar.