The Top 5 T&E Reports for Healthcare Organizations

It’s that time of the year again: where the year’s financials end and forecasting for 2022 begins. Now that you’re automated, gathering the data and reports needed should be much more streamlined. But do you have a strategy on how to align cross-functional teams and gather the proper reporting? Before we dig in to the top five reports, use these three tips to get your team’s reporting strategy aligned for the new year.

Three tips to build a reporting strategy

Finding the right data and understanding how it fits into the puzzle of a broader vision is where the magic happens. You get the right insights, at the right time, and even more precise information because it’s all automated with the exact numbers. So, if your organization is looking for more ways to strategically manage employee spending, then utilizing your data to ensure every dollar is used properly is a great start. Use these three tips to build a reporting strategy:

1. Gather the right cross-functional team to share reporting: Think about it like a house – you need an architect, builder, decorator, and a landscaper. Each offers their own unique skillset and perspective when building the perfect home. The same goes for your organization and reporting.

• CFO
• Expense Administrator
• Accounts Payable (AP) Manager
• Travel Manager
• Line Manager

2. Collect immediate data needs: Different departments have different needs, and every department is important in offering their top metrics, budget asks, and major wins when discussing goals. Gathering this data will also help shape the metrics needed for cross-functional dashboards that can be used to share and discuss spending goals, as well as analyze anomalous reports, either on a monthly or quarterly basis.

3. Design dashboards, track scorecards: Use stakeholder dashboards to monitor relevant spending and create individual department scorecards to measure progress. Actionable analytics and alert thresholds, like "Percent of Budget" and "Credit Card Transactions," can be routinely leveraged to help manage current spend and identify potential policy or fraud violations. The more you know about what’s happening across your organization, the more you can refine your processes for even greater efficiency.

The top 5 travel and expense reports

Jumpstart into forecasting and managing expenses for 2022 by looking at these top five T&E reports for healthcare organizations:

1. Monitoring mileage: For SAP Concur healthcare customers, 11% of T&E spend was categorized as ‘Mileage’, replacing airfare as the third greatest area of spend in 2020.  As travel shifted from airfare and rental cars to personal vehicles during the global pandemic, the mileage spend category increased for many healthcare organizations, especially for those who continued to provide home care services to those in need. Use this report to look at excessive mileage drivers and assess whether the current breakeven distance is practical. You may be surprised to uncover just how many of your drivers are exceeding the breakeven distance.

Why is this report important?

• Identify how much is being spent on car mileage
• Assess whether current breakeven distance is practical

2. Identifying duplicate spend: This report identifies expenses that might have been submitted for the same employee more than once, across multiple reports. If the reimbursement methodology is different between the same duplicates, then you'll want to look at the fraud folder and remove the filter: same expense type, same transaction data, and same amount – so you can see if someone files the same expense type twice. While it may appear as different, fraudsters can do this to get around the non-compliance exception rule.

Why is this report important?

• Highlight frequent offenders
• Identify potential policy modifications
• Identify training opportunities

3. Credit card reconciliation: This report makes the reconciliation process easier to identify and match up numbers and totals from the statement when you add the transaction ID and reference number. Cross-referencing statements also ensures that other bank statements and fees aren't included.

Why is this report important?

• Gain visibility of all credit card transactions
• Ensure card transactions are being submitted and processed in a timely manner

4. Healthcare attendee spending: This report helps ensure approved amounts are within limits per attendee, saving valuable time during audits. You can also identify potential policy violations and create training opportunities, if violations are found, to ensure future compliance.

Why is this report important?

• Your organization may be subject to Sunshine Act reporting
• Ensure approved amounts are within limits per attendee

5. Workflow aging: This report helps identify expense reports that are pending approval, including the approvers associated with the reports, to help ensure approval of expense reports in a timely manner. Easily identify reports that have been sitting the longest by sorting the report by age, uncover reports that need immediate attention, and see who's queue the report is sitting in so you can determine what the next step is.

Why is this report important?

• Visibility into aged transactions
• Ensure employee reimbursements and credits cards are paid timely

Want more on reporting? Get best practices and access the standard reports via SAP Concur solutions.