Growth and Optimization
How Sage Publishing Transformed Travel & Expense Management with SAP Concur
Craig Moniz is the Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst at Sage Publishing, a global academic publisher based in Los Angeles with users spanning New Delhi, Melbourne, London, and Washington. When the Concur platform landed in his ecosystem in December, he inherited something the company had purchased but never fully explored.
His description of the situation? They’d bought a Ferrari and were driving it like a bicycle.
What followed was three months of building, learning, and rolling out capabilities that changed the day-to-day reality of everyone from executive assistants to the global controller. We spoke with Craig at his first Fusion 2026 about how that transformation happened and what he is watching next.
Three months from underused to fully utilized
When Craig took ownership of the Concur program at Sage, his first question was simple: What aren’t we using? He turned to his Concur account manager to help map out what Sage needed, identify where the gaps were, and connect him with a solutions architect who could help bring it to life.
The first major project was Concur Request. Before Request, Sage relied on a largely manual pre-approval process. With the implementation of Concur Request, Craig says over 80 percent of the manual approval emails tied to the old pre-approval process disappeared. HR, accounting, and payroll are spending their time more strategically rather than pulling Excel reports and chasing approvals. The month-end close process is shorter and simpler too.
“We bought a Ferrari and we were driving it like a bicycle. Now we know what the Ferrari can do, and we are super excited.”
- Craig Moniz, Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst, Sage Publishing
Craig says Sage leaned into the training resources within the platform to help users help themselves, sending out content from the training modules to build self-sufficiency across the organization. For a global company that operates across multiple time zones, giving employees access to on-demand guidance has helped reduce reliance on support teams while making adoption easier.
Reporting and visibility create confidence across the organization
One of the most significant changes since Sage activated more of the platform has been what Craig describes as data integrity becoming visible to the entire organization. Before, the data existed but the ability to see it, trust it, and act on it consistently was limited. Now, reporting reaches the right people automatically, accrual processes have improved and audit-rule exceptions that had accumulated are being cleaned up.
For Craig, this is more than better reporting… it’s greater transparency across the business. When everyone from the person entering an expense report to senior leadership can see the same clean data, the dynamic changes. Nobody is operating on assumptions. Nobody feels like information is hidden from them. And everyone has a stake in keeping it accurate.
“Data integrity means transparency across the organization. It is not just data anymore, it is knowledge, it is wisdom. It helps drive future growth, and it lets everything out on the table. Nothing is being hidden.”
- Craig Moniz, Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst, Sage Publishing
Automated reporting has also changed how people experience their own work. Reports that used to require someone to build and distribute manually now arrive in inboxes on a schedule. For an accounting team that had been spending time on manual data assembly, the shift is tangible. The reporting does the grunt work; people do the thinking.
Leadership at Sage has benefited as well. Better visibility into spend patterns and business activity has improved forecasting conversations, particularly as Sage continues to integrate acquisitions and grow. With cleaner, more consistent data, leaders have a stronger foundation for planning and decision-making. As Craig puts it, once leadership sees the engine working, they start asking for more.
Global T&E support across four continents
Sage Publishing operates globally, and that reality shapes every decision Craig makes about the travel and expense program. Supporting users across continents and time zones creates administrative complexity that a solution designed primarily for a domestic market simply cannot address. Country-specific requirements, regional nuances in travel, and the sheer coordination challenge of following the sun are all real operational concerns.
For Craig, the top non-negotiable in a T&E platform is global capability. Not global in the sense of handling multiple currencies, but global in the sense of understanding and accommodating the different requirements, approval structures, and user expectations that come with operating in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and beyond. The audit rules and the AI tools coming from SAP Concur are, in his view, what will help the team navigate that complexity more systematically going forward.
“We are global and we follow the sun. Our users from New Delhi to Melbourne to London to Washington all feel like they are part of this new strategy.”
- Craig Moniz, Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst, Sage Publishing
TripLink has been another critical piece of the improvements at Sage. By bringing travel booked outside the primary booking tool into the expense process, Sage has reduced travel booking blind spots. This visibility matters in a global organization where travel can originate from many different sources.
What's next: AI tools and Joule automation
Craig came to Fusion 2026 with a goal: understand what’s coming next that would have the most impact for Sage. Joule is the capability that caught Craig’s eye and generated the most excitement when he brought it back.
Executive assistants at Sage often coordinate travel for executives and manage complex meeting logistics. Joule would allow them to make arrangements easily using natural language.
The Joule AI audit rules tool would also allow T&E administrators to describe what they want an audit rule to do without writing logic themselves. Such a capability would remove a barrier that has historically kept some of the platform’s policy enforcement capability out of reach for teams without deep technical resources. For Craig, that kind of tool is squarely in the direction he wants to move.
Craig says leadership was already asking when Joule would be available before he was back through the door.
Why Concur? For Craig, it’s the community
Beyond the product itself, what Craig points to when asked about choosing Concur over other options is the ecosystem around it. The integrations, the app marketplace, the partner network, and the forward-thinking direction visible in the keynotes and sessions at Fusion all reinforce his confidence that the platform will keep moving. He has worked with software vendors long enough to know the difference between a company that responds reactively and one that is genuinely thinking ahead. For him, SAP Concur falls clearly into the second category.
“If you know a provider is forward thinking, you have confidence that your toolbox is going to be strong. Being part of a proactive solution is pretty awesome.”
- Craig Moniz, Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst, Sage Publishing
He also points to the Concur community itself as something that surprised him. The admin community at Fusion, the Champions program, and the sense that feedback actually reaches the product team have all reinforced his confidence in the platform. He has worked with vendors where feedback disappeared. At Concur, he describes feeling heard, and the speed at which the Premium Assistant has responded to questions has matched that expectation. That kind of support does not just make his life easier. It makes it possible for him to be responsive to his own users, which is ultimately how the whole system works.
“When Concur is transparent to you, you are transparent to your users, and then people feel like, all right, let’s get on this bus. Change management is all about people. Gratefully, Concur gets that.”
- Craig Moniz, Finance Systems Solutions Architect and Analyst, Sage Publishing
Craig’s experience at Sage Publishing highlights something many companies face: owning a platform and fully using it are two different things. With the right support and a clear roadmap, three months was enough to transform what Concur meant to everyone at Sage, from the person submitting an expense report in Melbourne to the CFO reviewing the close in Los Angeles.
Or, as Craig puts it, they finally started driving the Ferrari like a Ferrari.
