Where Are Your Travel & Expense Savings Hiding?

You probably have heard a few times about how automated travel and expense solutions can save your company money. 

So a fair question to ask is, “Just how and where can I find those dollars?” 

Much of the savings come by reducing the inefficiencies of doing business on paper, with spreadsheets or with semi-automated solutions. Things like the time spent filling out and submitting expense reports. Or time spent chasing errors, missing receipts, and approvals. From sales reps to the finance team, everyone could instead focus on work that adds value instead of monotony and distraction. 

Other savings come by improving your ability to spot and target savings that can hide in plain sight. Like ensuring mobile phone expenses don’t skyrocket when employees travel. Or that the company reclaims value-added or other taxes on purchases made during overseas travel. 

One of the most important improvements a comprehensive travel and expense (T&E) solution can provide is giving you a more complete – and timely – picture of spending. You can know when, how, and where money has been and will be spent. That means you can more easily identify waste, out-of-policy expenses, and potential fraud. And you can better set priorities and strategies for the weeks, months, and year ahead. What are now moments of doubt can instead become moments of clarity and confident spending decisions. 

Before detailing how your business could save with automation, consider what other business leaders say about taking a seamless approach like SAP® Concur® solutions provide. 

One purchasing manager reported that his company was “able to avoid fraudulent charges and excessive spending by using SAP Concur solutions.” 

Another offered a more expansive view, telling us, “SAP Concur solutions help us to increase efficiency and productivity. It makes our work process easier, simplifies tedious tasks, allows us to get things done faster, and now we can concentrate on other important work.” 

Fewer mistakes, greater accuracy 

Mistakes happen, especially when people, numbers, and typing are involved.  

Instead of leaving things to chance, fully automated travel and expense solutions can: 

• Collect individual charges from credit cards 

• Gather receipts from airlines, hotels, and other providers and place them in expense reports 

• Let travellers photograph a receipt and send the information straight to an expense report 

• Speed the entire process, allowing you to pay corporate cards sooner and earn bigger rebates 

• Connect with your existing accounting or ERP system, increasing your view of finances 

Fewer steps, less time 

From requesting and booking trips to completing and approving reports, travel and expense involves time-consuming steps. Removing steps or reducing the work involved can increase productivity all around. 

With fewer administrative burdens: 

• Employees can easily submit reports because they are not having to collect paper receipts and manually itemize expenses. 

• Managers can quickly review and approve reports because information is in hand. 

• Finance team members can focus on more important work instead of correcting reports and chasing receipts and employees. 

Fewer bad spending decisions 

Automated solutions can help make it easy for employees to follow spending policies and mitigate risk as well. 

They can include: 

• Request tools that guide employees to preferred, compliant choices 

• External auditors that can identify issues and mitigate fraud 

• Intelligent audit technology that matches receipts and line items and frees finance staff to focus on higher-level skills instead of the weeds of the process 

More ways to save 

Stop the roaming charges: A traveling employee can easily ring up unexpected mobile charges. Travel and expense solutions can help you expect those charges ahead of time – so you can avoid them with plan changes or discriminating use. 

Receive the best price: By pulling in and consolidating spending data, you have an accurate and up-to-date view of where all your money is being spent – and with whom. And that is knowledge you can use to negotiate better rates from suppliers. 

Limit taxes, reclaim more: Targeted solutions can help the company, especially with hybrid work, track payroll tax liabilities along with the GST, VAT and similar taxes paid during foreign travel. By detailing the tax implications, your company can adjust travel accordingly and manage tax reclaim instead of leaving money behind.  

A recent study we commissioned with Analysys Mason found that 26% of businesses saw their tax reclaim increase by using SAP Concur solutions or partners¹. Perhaps that’s indicative of the hidden savings your business can uncover through the closer look a systematic, automated approach can bring. 

Explore ways to save 

Get the E-book, Six Ways to Save on Travel and Expense, to further explore ways to control costs and hear what other business leaders have to say about travel and expense automation.  

1. Source: Analysys Mason 2022, Travel, Expense, and Vendor Invoice Management Study