Embracing Digital Solutions and Engaging Employees

How do you free finance team members for the meaningful work they want to do? And as a finance leader, how can you balance the need for flexibility and resilience with the pressure to manage costs and ensure compliance? 

It’s a juggle occurring amid thin budgets and the nagging realization valued team members could go elsewhere if they feel you value their work life less than they do. In addition to the expense of replacing them, the loss of institutional knowledge and experience could deepen the financial toll through noncompliance, fraud, and waste.  

When examining the need to reinvent spend management systems and processes, it’s worth asking yourself if members of your financial team are among the 25% to 40% reporting to pollsters that they might quit within a year. 

Digital solutions can be part of the answer to improving the employee experience at your company, replacing frustrating processes and technology with straightforward, empathetic ones. Businesses that incorporate automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and integration with ERP and other systems can provide the engaging work employees seek. And you achieve the efficiencies and savings the times require. 

Here are some numbers to weigh as you consider your next steps. Among the benefits of using SAP Concur solutions: 

• 43% less time to fill out an expense report 
• 50% less time to reimburse expenses 
• 32% more employees following T&E policies 

Specific topics for you to consider 

Our new Ebook, Making Time for More Meaningful Work, sketches out five key questions for you and finance peers to weigh as you reimagine travel, invoice, and expense management. 

Is manual work bogging your team down? The time your team spends entering data and managing approvals by hand is time taken from ensuring compliance and spotting fraud. Automating tasks and integrating travel and expense data with your ERP can regain lost time, while machine learning and AI can uncover fraud and noncompliance. 

Are you always waiting on someone or something? Creating a more intuitive, digital process for employees can mean easier submissions, faster approvals, fewer bottlenecks, and less duplication of work. With less back and forth and manual work, finance teams can focus on more essential business challenges. 

Can you catch errors before they happen? Finding mistake patterns and spotting repeat offenders are essential to controlling costs and preventing fraud – before the payments go out. Utilizing AI and machine learning, digital solutions can uncover those issues, see and process legitimate exceptions, and continuously adapt as your organization does.  

Do you have the visibility to make good decisions quickly? Your employees, no matter how diligent or experienced, cannot be expected to make the best decisions without the relevant information. With intelligent technology and travel and expense data integrated with other financial systems, they get the full picture. 

Are you always on top of reclaimed taxes? Rules and regulations for value-added taxes – like the locations – are all over the place. An organization is likely to lose out on reclaiming taxes if it depends on a people-based approach. Automated, intelligent solutions can keep your business in compliance and obtain the money it’s owed.   

Learn more: Solutions up to the challenge 

SAP Concur solutions provide businesses with the automation and intelligent technology that can free their finance and accounts payable teams for engaging work. Obtain a copy of the Ebook for a deeper look at how the right tools and processes can demonstrate that your organization values not only employees’ time but them as well.