Spend Management Transformation

travel spend management

Spend Management Transformation & Harmonisation

Our experts work closely with your organisation to tailor the most appropriate solution that integrates with your policies, meets your budgets, and is scalable and future-ready to meet the needs of expanded business requirements or operations. FinTrans Solutions brings the thought leadership & expertise needed to deliver the following through the functional design of harmonised T&E or P2P Processes within the context of SAP Concur and subsequent end-to-end cloud implementation:

  • Business case development support
  • Harmonisation of T&E and P2P policies towards leading practices
  • Implementation of global T&E and P2P Policies
  • Spend Management Strategy and global Template/Blueprint development
  • Process mapping, including improvement and recommended T&E and P2P practices

The ultimate result is intended to generate the following benefits

  • Lean and integrated Best Practice Intelligent Spend Management processes with a high degree of automation
  • System-driven policy compliance: Auto-enforced policy compliance from Request/Requisition to Pay
  • Better Spend Governance and cost savings through workflow enabled processes, improved compliance rates, and the ability to negotiate lower rates with suppliers/carriers and to reclaim GST/VAT
  • Elevated Productivity through cycle time reduction (processing time, travel planning time, workflow approval time, expense reimbursement time, etc.)
  • Simplicity and Usability (e.g., OCR features, Concur mobile app and partner app enablement)
  • Seamless Integration between Concur and your business application (ERP Finance, HRMS, Vendor Master, and CRM)
  • Credit Card Feed integration with all common card programs
  • Standardised paperless expense reports and invoices
  • Simplified approval workflow processes, including auto-notifications & reminders
  • Drill-down KPI and Reporting capabilities (Analytics and Intelligence) paired with access to real-time data
  • Pre- and post-payment system-supported audit policies & processes
travel spend management solutions

The steps taken to achieve these outcomes can be broken down into the following components

travel and spend management systemStrategy

  • Alignment of T&E Management or P2P mission and strategic principles
  • Simple, clearly defined and clearly communicated Global T&E Management or P2P policy template
  • Setting up of Global Integration Strategy, considering inbound and outbound key integration points and transfer methods (e.g., SAP ICS native integration, Concur Web API Integration, or SFTP flat file integration)

spend management systemProcess

  • Design of To-Be functional design which embraces Intelligent Spend Management Best Practices, result in adherence to policies, a positive user experience, and improved productivity
  • Clear segregation of spend (AP vs T&E) for better spend governance and downstream reporting capabilities
  • Definition of one common and streamlined spend or expense type catalogue, workflow, receipt handling, and payment hold
  • Metrics and incentives to improve the cycle time of the “Travel Request-to-Claim-to-Reimbursement” Process (T&E) and the “Purchase-to-Invoice-to-Pay” Process (P2P)

what is a spend management system Policies & Compliance

  • Definition of rigor to drive harmonisation and auto-enforce policies & procedures
  • Definition of permissible deviations from the Global/Best Practice template to account for country-specific requirements of legal, statutory, and tax compliance related nature
  • Setup of a uniform organization hierarchy structure with differentiation by country, legal entity, division, and function
  • Standardised audit & compliance procedures (pre-payment and post-payment) by applying statistical measures focusing on materiality in terms of risk, value, and transaction volume
  • Global vendor management through a dedicated category manager (e.g., Self-Booking Tool)

travel and spend management systemGovernance

  • Establishment of governance on global and local levels that differentiates between global and local roles and responsibilities
  • Use of defined/preferred vendors
  • Defined means of travel as per comprehensive travel rule sets
  • Travel Requests subject to pre-trip approvals
  • Amounts Limits apply by employee type and grade or vendor type
  • Defined forms of payment, e.g., Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), company-paid credit cards, AP posting and payment

saas spend management systemOrganisation

  • Definition of required capabilities, functional units, KPIs, and key roles & responsibilities
  • Support services for administrators, support teams, the back-office, and end users (requestors and approvers)

Spend Management Transformation & HarmonisationTools

  • Definition of automation within the Concur platform and integration from and to the customer’s business applications
  • Enhanced solution capabilities, e.g., mobility functionality, SSO, OCR, receipt imaging, image archival, etc.

FinTrans Solutions works in close collaboration with its customers to evaluate and tailor the best solution in order to meet their Intelligent Spend Management priority and business requirements.

The entire spend management transformation is aligned with our following guiding principles.

Spend Management HarmonisationBusiness-driven

  • Clarified mandate and mission
  • Strong global governance
  • Right fit of concepts and designs to mandate and mission
  • Aspiration to drive standard global T&E and P2P policies with a minimum of localisations
  • Focus on adoption & change management including change impact analysis, communication, workforce enablement through training, stakeholder management, and change monitoring

T&E and P2P processes with SAP Concur.Template/Blueprint approach-driven

  • Global template/blueprint design and implementation
  • Industrialisation by using our Concur deployment toolkits and standard implementation methodologies
  • Country-by-country preparation and enablement

sap spend managementStandard tool-driven

  • Standardization of the To-Be integration landscape and RICEFW
  • Processes and solution design following Concur standard functionality
  • Configuration enhancements in existing standard solution

sap intelligent spend managementGlobal Delivery model-driven

  • Leveraging our delivery center network
  • Offshore, near-shore, and on-site resource mix

Illustration: T&E Approach Example Path to a Best Practice Solution

Concur Implementation Services

To ensure that every transformation meets our high standards, we adhere to the following key functional design principles, while leveraging our thought leadership and in-depth experience in the Intelligent Spend Management domain:

  • One global or standard process and SaaS application – SAP Concur
  • Consistent organisational setup with end-to-end delivery responsibility
  • Employees are empowered to arrange their own travel and manage expenses
  • Leverage global data standards (Expense/spend types, Standard Chart of Account, Employee master data, etc)
  • Minimise the need for manual intervention and strive for paperless processing, where possible
  • One back-office claim & invoice auditing approach
  • Segment payment and reimbursement requests into risk categories for audit
  • Enable T&E and third-party invoice spend data analysis for the purpose of vendor & travel sourcing as well as internal control

Global Template/ Blueprint

  • Standardized expense & invoice management processes, including employee reimbursement and vendor payment options
  • Ideally a single GL account code setup based on a common Chart of Account (mapping expense/spend types to GL codes)
  • Standardized entitlements as per policy based on connected or simple lists, e.g., employee types and bands
  • Pre-defined catalogue of expense types (T&E) and Spend types (P2P) across categorize determined based on nature of spend
  • Common T&E and P2P Policy rules embedded within the solution to support employee compliance
  • Single set of forms (Header, Segments/Entry and Allocation level)
  • Common rule sets across invoice capture and PO matching (P2P related only)
  • Common settings for itemization and allocation of spend line items
  • Standardized approval workflow configuration for:
    • Travel Request and Expense Management (T&E) and
    • Purchase Request and Payment Request (P2P)
  • Standard conditions for the real-time budget check at the time of expense report (T&E) or purchase request approval (P2P)
  • Consistent data capture in a single solution to provide the basis for all "Global" and "Local" business reporting

Local requirements of legal, regulatory and statutory nature, limited to:

  • Travel Allowance (TA) configuration with import of local rates
  • Personal & company car mileage setup
  • VAT/GST administration for each employee group to reclaim tax credit on expense
  • Receipt and Invoice handling setup

Get a free POC with Just 1 call. Within 3 business days.

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Try before you buy. With a free PoC (proof of concept).

Just give us a call and we will conduct a T&E best-practice process & Concur value proposition session, while capturing your specific key business requirements. This will be followed by a developed Proof of Concept, building end-to-end scenarios in our sandbox, reflecting your key design requirements. FinTrans will run a Concur UI-based walkthrough (from Travel Request-to- Book-to-Claim) to provide a clear idea on your future user experience and solution benefits. In just 3 business days.

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FinTrans Solutions is regarded as one of the most trusted SAP Concur CIP partners globally. FinTrans Solutions pioneered this domain in the Asian market with its client-centric approach and – since then – rapidly gained recognition for delivery excellence globally. We have consistently been able to build on our expertise and create a reputation for sound analysis, seamless end-to-end implementation, and rock-solid application maintenance support across the globe.