It's Time to Level Up Spend Management for Higher Ed

The pandemic redefined the education landscape. New restrictions, new patterns of spending, new workplace expectations, and finally… the return of travel. Managing this new reality requires advanced tools to keep up with spending, ensure compliance, and cope with safety risks. Especially when higher education back-office teams are already struggling to keep up:

49% are handling an increase in employee reimbursement requests¹
43% are managing three or more new responsibilities as a result to staff shortages²
63% face unexpected expenses or new categories of spend³

It’s clear, the way faculty, staff, and students make purchases and interact with suppliers has changed; becoming more digital and decentralized from your institution’s finance departments. While nearly two-thirds (63%) of finance and administrative departments have a localized software solution, it’s one that must be accessed on-site at an office or there’s only some degree of remote access.⁴

Modern, Scalable Solutions for Every Size of School

There is a better way. Modern cloud technology is scalable and includes easy to use tools like mobile apps and customizable workflows to help automate process inefficiencies, increase productivity, and reduce cost. These efficient solutions are available for every size of school – no matter if you’re a large research institution, medium-sized university, community, or junior college. Everything is scalable to the size of your school, your budget, and how many expense reports or invoices you process.

Now is the Time to Level Up Your Program

Before normal travel frequencies return in the Fall semester, it’s time to advance your travel and spend management program to adopt a scalable automated solution. It means getting employees back into the habit of using technology to capture spending, book travel, enforcing compliance and regulatory and tax requirements – all while keeping faculty, staff, students, and those who travel on behalf of the school safe.

"We now have a full picture of our spend, and don’t have to look into two or three different systems to merge and verify the information. That also makes reporting and overall fiscal governance easier as well. Everything we need to see is in one place.”
~ The University of Alabama

It’s More than Just an Expense Solution

SAP Concur provides powerful technology, backed up with human insight and expertise, so you can leverage industry best practices and tailor a solution that fits your unique institution. With access to our extended network, you’ll also tap into an unparalleled ecosystem of partners, suppliers, and apps that help you deliver a holistic, end-to-end, discretionary spend management solution.

Maximize your ERP backbone: Build lasting resilience for your institution, while integrating directly into your existing ERP system with SAP Concur solutions. With a customizable workflow, policies can be built right into the system, keeping your institution’s requirements and nuances in mind – no matter your size – and providing the comprehensive spend management information you need, right at your fingertips.

Implementation is easier than you think: SAP Concur solutions can help you make the exponential leaps in strategy, process, and technology to fit the new spending and travel reality; re-establish and increase momentum across your institution. We provide the guidance and support your organization needs to deploy a platform that responds to evolving demands and complex situations. We continue to focus and grow in the Higher Education community beyond just sales to include dedicated functional and technical experts from R&D, implementation specialists, marketing, product management, and client support… this is our commitment to Higher Education.

We have also established a mature Higher Education client advisory board. This board has been instrumental in guiding SAP Concur to establish Higher Education best practices, tailor implementation methods and create Higher Ed-specific services.

"We use Concur for more than just travel & expense. It's critical for Duty of Care and we've also integrated our P-Card program, that's where we reconcile expenses. The ability to do that remotely from home, upload receipts, and perform all these functions was huge for us."
~ Regional Community College Executive Director of Procurement, E&I Cooperative Services member and SAP Concur client

Even community colleges have realized the following benefits since implementing SAP Concur solutions:

• Reduced manual work
• Decreased travel approval time
• Reduced reimbursement time
• Complete visibility into college spending
• Proactive budget planning
• Stronger vendor negotiations
• Better user experience for travelers

Tailored to your institution’s needs: Of course, having modern technology means nothing if the staff doesn’t use it – a high-risk in a non-mandate culture. Fortunately, easy-to-use mobile and desktop tools help encourage the right choices. As a cloud-based solution, the SAP Concur platform, consists of three pillars that cover travel, expense, and invoice. Our services, App Center partners, and solution extensions strive to connect your institution to a wide ecosystem, filled with a variety of tools, platforms, suppliers, and consultative experts. They all integrate seamlessly into the SAP Concur platform to give you a single, usable tool that gathers a complete source of discretionary spending data. See for yourself:

Concur Expense

Let employees capture receipts and submit claims in real time. It speeds up the review, processing, payment, and auditing of claims, making it easier for finance to manage expenses and budgets effectively. Learn more

Concur Travel

An advanced booking system that brings all travel data into one place so you can see and manage your travel program more effectively. Learn more

Concur Invoice

Digitizing the accounts payable process, Concur Invoice automates invoice processing to accelerate the end-to-end cycle and get a clear view into company spending. Learn more

Concur Request

Make requesting spend easier for employees and increase oversight into upcoming spend. Concur Request helps prevent fraud and drive policy compliance. Learn more

ExpenseIt

Turn paper receipts into expense reports at the click of a button with ExpenseIt. Automatically create, categorize, and itemize expense entries on the go inside the SAP Concur Mobile app. Learn more

Intelligence

A savvy reporting and analytics tool, Intelligence helps your institution and back-office teams make better decisions with the insights you need. Learn more

SSO

Single Sign-On (SSO) allows users to securely access multiple applications using one set of sign-in credentials. Learn more

Concur Event Management by Groupize

Make meeting and event planning simple with Concur Event Management. Centralize your events on and off campus across multiple departments with this all-in-one solution. Learn more

Concur User Assistant by WalkMe

Adopting new technology doesn’t have to be difficult, but every new technology comes with a learning curve. Concur User Assistant gives your people valuable, easy-to-follow training content – all within the SAP Concur platform’s user interface. Learn more

Essential Care

There’s nothing more frustrating than needing support but not being able to get it. Receive helpful guidance from our experts to assist with updates, get insight into monthly releases, and accelerate feature adoption.

TripLink

Capture booking leakage with access to TripLink. Our systems connect to some of the world’s most famous travel names, giving you a comprehensive picture of travel spending while also improving the end-user’s travel experience. Learn more

SAP Concur support

Whether you’re an administrator, user, or simply want to learn more about SAP Concur products, our experts are ready to answer your questions. Learn more