With crisis comes opportunity

Undoubtedly, (business) travel will return, and with it will come entirely new demands on travel expense management systems. Travelers' personal safety and sustainability will become more central. The time for rethinking, innovation and digitalization has come - a phrase that could have been the unofficial motto of this year's SAP Concur Fusion EMEA. The virtual summit took place on July 7, 2020 and featured keynotes and breakout sessions.

"This is an opportunity to reinvent, to deploy digital solutions, and we want to do everything we can to help companies around the world emerge stronger and more agile than ever"says Rachel van der Merwe, Director of Product Marketing EMEA North, SAP Concur.

"Business travel is resuming. Now is the time to optimize."

One way to do this is to rethink travel policies, especially with sustainability and carbon emissions in mind. Concur Request can help by making it easier for employees to request travel and by helping decision makers make judgments about the need for travel.

To build employee confidence in the company and ensure their personal safety while traveling, TripLink provides safety data (including Covid-19 data) about the destination.

The virtual summit was also an opportune time to talk about new innovations and enhancements to the SAP Concur product portfolio. Below are some of the highlights.

Concur Invoice and Concur Expense

For example, the Concur Invoice home page has been redesigned to provide full visibility into unpaid invoices. Custom column configuration is also still being added. In the future, new features will allow users to send invoice lists to Excel and systematically process invoices with zero amounts.

Key 2019 highlights for Concur Expense included the digitization of receipts for France and Spain, the launch of ExpenseIt in Japan, and the integration of payroll with SAP systems, including S/4 Hana.

Focus areas for 2020 include security and stability, investment in public cloud infrastructure, and a new version of Concur Request and Concur Expense. Enhanced capabilities include comprehensive digitization of receipts, improved travel expense reimbursements, and deeper integration with existing SAP systems.

Update for Cognos 11

There will be an upgrade for Cognos 11. The early adopter program is scheduled to begin before the end of this year, and upgrades are expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021. The new Cognos 11 upgrade will be available first in the Americas, then in Europe, and finally in China.

SAP Concur will run a ten-week early adopter program to ensure everything is working as it should. Once it is determined that there are no more issues, upgrades will begin. SAP Concur is careful to avoid upgrades during the work week and the first and last week of the month.

Concur Travel

The portfolio of Concur Travel solutions (Concur Travel, Concur TripLink, Concur Request) also sees a number of new additions. Improvements to Concur Travel include an expanded range of branded fares, dual fare display, and an update to the Air France subscription fare. TripIt has been localized for the UK (available in English, German, French and Japanese).

In addition, integration with the HRS company portal and support for electronic receipts for direct bookings were added. A new desktop user interface was installed for Concur Request, and the mobile version of Concur Request was updated.

Support for multiple policy selection and custom fields in the mobile version is now available. Focus areas for 2020 are again security and stability. The overhaul of the Hyperscaler platform will be important. TripLink Travel Manager controls will be evaluated and updated as needed.