Automation is the duty, intelligent processes the freestyle

The manual planning, booking and accounting of a trip can take up a lot of time. Employees are often annoyed afterwards with tedious paper chaos, while accountants often process messy settlements - and are no less annoyed.

If there are still a few weeks between the trip and the data entry, information and receipts may be lost.

In addition, employees often do not adhere to the specified guidelines due to lack of time or knowledge, and thus commit payroll errors.

This then has to be revised, while the reimbursed travel expenses are often lower than expected - again to the frustration of finance managers and employees.

The heart: Travel & Expense

To address these issues, Concur has developed the Travel & Expense integrated end-to-end solution that supports travel managers, finance and business travelers before, during and after the business trip.

From individual online booking to automated travel expense reporting, the application offers a wide range of functions to accelerate processes and increase data quality.

A corresponding complete solution combines all relevant steps, from travel request, approval, travel planning and booking to accounting, reporting as well as audit and receipt handling, in one system.

In addition, there are mobile apps that travelers can use to view and edit all important information, such as travel plans or all travel expenses and statements, on their smartphones.

Travel content from different global distribution systems(GDS) can also be easily captured, as well as show specially negotiated and public supplier rates.

A recentIDC study shows the potential of corporate travel management: Users of Concur's integrated solutions report 49 percent time savings in travel booking, 70 percent in expense report generation, and 35 percent higher internal compliance.

Why automation is not enough

With an integrated business travel management solution, key expenses such as travel costs can be managed faster and better.

To ensure that employees comply with tax and legal requirements, companies have often formulated policies and processes.

In the course of the digital transformation, however, employees' expectations are changing. They expect more flexibility and user-friendliness.

In addition, the interaction between providers and suppliers has become more direct and immediate.

Responsible people in companies therefore often ask themselves whether their own approach to managing expenses is still the right one.

Concur, in partnership with International Data Corporation (IDC), has defined five stages for professionalizing travel expense management. They illustrate what step companies need to take next at their respective level to further increase efficiency.

Professionalization in five steps

• First Maturity Level: Companies that are at the first stage of development often do not yet have too extensive requirements for their accounting system.Usually there are few business trips. In this case, employee expenses can be recorded with a paper-based or Excel-based accounting system.As a company grows, the data must be transferred to a larger accounting system. This requires the use of additional employees to assist with this, and often leads to errors during entry.
• Second Maturity Level: As soon as companies reach the limits of their paper- or Excel-based accounting, they use an automated solution for travel expense reporting. This marks the second maturity level for professionalization.However, the requirements of tech-savvy users are often not met by this level. Employees who create more than 20 travel expense reports a year still easily lose track of them. They then often still need manual support from the accounting department due to the complexity of their accounting.
• Third level of maturity: Companies whose billing system requirements are more advanced use individualized mobile apps from the cloud that provide instant spend visibility as well as easy access to travel information.When companies reach the third level of professionalization, they use apps that capture receipts on the go and automatically transfer them into the system.
• Fourth maturity level: If companies also work across countries or have industry-specific compliance requirements, they also need a partner network that offers services that go beyond the cloud-based solution.For IDC, this means they have reached the fourth level of professionalization. Particularly when travelers book outside the company's own systems, such a solution can provide visibility into employee spend and whereabouts, provided it aggregates travel data booked outside into the corporate system.
• Fifth maturity level: The fifth maturity level marks the highest degree of professionalization. Through special early detection, intelligent travel expense systems prevent unplanned and unnecessary expenses - for example, escalating roaming costs - before they are even incurred.employees are made aware of potential problems and possible solutions before they travel. Companies that use predictive systems benefit from intelligent processes and make work easier for employees and finance managers.

First the duty...

Whether sharing economy platforms or mobile payments - travelers now want to decide for themselves when, where and how they book. This requires solutions that can map these requirements.

For internationally active companies with strict compliance guidelines or companies with a high proportion of travelers who book outside the company's internal systems, it is worth switching to an integrated platform.

This allows Concurs TripLink users to book with the suppliers of their choice. The system either captures bookings automatically and transfers all travel plans from third-party portals natively into the Concur system, or reads the data from forwarded emails.

It is also important that employees can use such a service on the move. After all, the same level of flexibility and simplicity that they are familiar with from apps used privately is what they also want for corporate applications.

The Concur App Center provides a listing of apps that integrate directly with Concur solutions. This allows organizations to ensure better compliance and also engage their employees in spend management.

...then the freestyle

Those who combine travel expense reporting with a mobile solution benefit from significant time and cost savings, but also from higher employee satisfaction.

With Concur, employees simply take a picture of their receipts with their phone and then submit their expense report electronically. The expense report basically writes itself on the go - eliminating the hassle of paper back at the office.

Mobile applications also help companies meet their duty of care. For example, Concur Messaging provides a platform for travel managers to notify employees of potential hazards or contact them in the event of an emergency.

Conclusion

Despite the introduction of comprehensive policies, many companies lack transparency. They complain about excessive travel costs and a lack of compliance.

The reasons for this are, on the one hand, ignorance on the part of users or simply the increasing unwillingness of employees to forego their favorite booking channels.

To save corresponding costs, companies should therefore rather provide their employees with an integrated end-to-end solution that goes beyond mere automation and supports them from planning to billing - and on the booking channels that the employees prefer.

The more the travel tools offered add value to employees, the more likely they are to be primarily used.