Imagine that you are asked if you can take over the project management for a Concur implementation in nine countries. The go-live date is in twelve weeks. Wait, twelve weeks, that is ambitious! This is what happened to Sven Ringling, managing director of iProcon UK.
Instead of having a laughing fit, Mr Ringling accepted the project and threw himself into the twelve week adventure. Whilst the preparatory work for the project had almost been completed, and a pilot implementation was well underway, Mr. Ringling had to face the following challenges:
- Various different workflows required for booking and billing
- The connection of a new travel agency partner
- Rollout and integration of a company credit card (definitely the biggest challenge of all!)
- Interfaces to the Cloud HR and SAP FI systems
- Provision of reservation and billing on mobile devices
Across a total of nine countries!
Concur – Intuitive and easy to use
Mr Ringling boldly moved the reservation and billing on mobile devices requirements to phase II of the project. After the twelve weeks, all nine countries were live with Concur. Two days after go live, the first IT savvy users were already downloading the Concur mobile app for themselves, not needing to do anything else than login with their Concur details and capture their first expenses! An amazing example how intuitive and easy it can be doing their expenses right away. This is how quick a Concur implementation can be, from start to go live with your employees recording their expenses in the method that suits them best.
At the event ‚Concur – The Future Solution of SAP for a Complete Travel Process‘ on 29th September in Frankfurt, Germany, Mr. Ringling cleared some confusion and perceived concerns surrounding Cloud software. Andreas Klein, Director Solutions Consulting Concur, gave a great live demo of the travel booking and billing functionality with Concur. It is impressive time and time again, to see how quickly and easily the billing of travel expenses is when using Concur. With some of the integrated travel and expense partners, e-receipts can even be created directly in your expense claims. requiring no further input from the user. Accounts such as for Uber, AirBnB and Starbucks can be linked directly to your Concur account, and your expense receipts are then delivered directly into your expense claims.
Risk Messaging Feature of Concur
For those employer duty of care responsibilities in protecting your employees across the world, Concur provides the Risk Messaging feature to locate and directly communicate with your team, wherever they may be. A dynamic interactive map view consolidates the location information of all your employees, any world events that may impact your employees and provides a two way communication system to deliver traveller specific and trigger-based messages. Mr. Klein demonstrated a vivid example using a scenario with traveller in Turkey, and keeping communication open with the traveller during a period of unrest in the country. The risk messaging feature not only ensures greater security whilst travelling, but also gives your employees a sense of security and support from their employer.
With Concur you can get rid of the paper stuff
Managing directors of iProCon GmBH Mr. Lübke and Mr. Edinger led the programme for the day and encouraged discussions around topics such as tax refunds, and paperless process integration in SAP HCM and FI.
Many companies still think that there is an obligation to keep the original paper expense receipts. In the UK, receipts can be kept digitally on Concur, and in Germany Concur support GoBD compliancy.
Concur is a great solution for your Travel and Expenses, streamlining the process for your employees capturing expenses on the go without having to worry about keeping hold of all those bits of paper!
Visit us on the next iProConference 2016
Overall, the day was a successful event of experienced SAP HCM consultants of iProCon together with Concur. Participants across various sectors had overwhelmingly positive feedback on the day. The next opportunity to discuss the benefits of Concur with iProCon, is the next iProConference on 27th&28th April 2016 in Cologne – an event with more that 20 presentations by customers, for customers.
Stay informed about the latest exciting Concur developments on our blog here, and get in touch with us today if you would like to see how Concur can enhance your T&E processes
This article has been translated from an original German blog written for Concur by Anya Marxsen, Senior Consultant with iProCon GmBH that can be found here.
