Make Intelligent Technology the Future of Your Travel and Expense Management

Personal connections are critical – especially in the digital age. Whether you’re brainstorming the next big move or meeting face-to-face with customers, business travel is high on the agenda. This means T&E management is top of mind for travel managers and finance leaders alike.

The challenge? Make travel and expense management simple and convenient for employees, while keeping costs down and ensuring compliance with internal policies and statutory regulations.

The solution? Intelligent technology.

With so many more ways to book travel and so many more options for finding the best fare, the role of the travel manager is changing. Gone are the days of personally assisting individual travelers with each booking. Now, the focus must be on helping employees make their own travel arrangements without burdening them with complicated expense reporting requirements.

Finance leaders also have serious skin in the business travel game. Beyond keeping a sharp eye on the bottom line, they must stay on top of fluid markets and rapidly changing business conditions. This means pulling together ad hoc reports, comparing data sources, and running what-if scenarios in real time to model the future impact of business decisions. Compliance with complex local and international regulations is also a critical finance task. Organizations must stay on top of constantly changing requirements while also making sure never to overpay on taxes – all across multiple tax jurisdictions.

Traveler safety is another key concern. Employee care is not just a moral obligation, but it is often a legal obligation as well. With global weather and geopolitical risks on the rise, travel booking and expense data is one of the first places an organization can look to identify an employee’s location and get them the information and help they need in an emergency.

While a digital assistant that employees can access from a smartphone and who can take care of everything from booking to expense management, compliance, and data gathering and analysis is still in the future – that future is closer than you may think.

SAP Concur solutions offer a central travel and expense management platform that allows bookings and expense reporting through any channel, gathers all that data, and connects it with underlying ERP systems to enable comprehensive financial reporting and analytics.

Desktop tools and mobile apps allow users of the Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions to work where and when they want. If they need to book direct, the Concur TripLink Web service captures data from connected suppliers. Additionally, by bringing itineraries into a connected platform, booking data flows automatically into expense reports – saving time for travelers and sending spend data to finance leaders and travel managers so they can make more-informed business decisions. Plus, on-the-road tools such as the TripIt Pro mobile app assist travelers by telling them when to leave for the airport, notifying them of gate changes, and explaining how to navigate new locations and local customs.

It’s truly a win-win.

Employees get simple, user-friendly access to the travel brands they want, as well as fast and convenient expense management and travel support; while travel managers and finance leaders can apply policies, negotiate rates, ensure compliance, mitigate safety risks, analyze strategy, and make the most of travel budgets.

The result? Both employees and employers sleep better at night knowing they have a solution that covers everyone.

To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can benefit your business, please visit here.