With the latest enhancements to Concur Request, your journey towards seamless expense management becomes more efficient and intuitive. In this article, we'll dive into four exciting new updates: budget authorization, Request Assistant improvements, travel advisories, and the ability to search for requests by ID.
Budget Authorization: Simplifying Expense Management
What is the budget authorization capability?
The new budget authorization capability revolutionizes the way employees and managers manage travel and expense budgets. This feature provides users or managers with the ability to ask for budget that may apply to one or more participants during a given period of time. This capability is designed to streamline the process from pre-approval to reimbursement, significantly reducing repetitive tasks.
How does it work?
Imagine an employee who visits a client site monthly. Instead of creating separate budget requests for each trip, they can now submit a single request that covers the budget for all trips over a period. This consolidated request enables employees to submit expense reports against the preapproved budget, ensuring automatic approval for in-budget expenses. Managers and employees alike save time and effort, improving overall productivity.
Group requests also benefit from this new capability. For instance, a manager can request a total budget for a team attending a conference, assigning the approved amount to multiple employees. Each team member can then submit expense reports against the shared budget, facilitating speedy approvals for compliant expenditures.
Benefits of budget authorization
For your organization, you’ll benefit from:
- Streamlined approval process: Expedite settlement with automatic approval for compliant requests.
- Enhanced budget tracking: Efficiently track travel and non-travel expenses for various projects and events.
- Advanced visibility and forecasting: Improve planned spending visibility for better budget forecasting.
- Group budget management: Manage group budgets effectively, facilitating fund approval for team events.
- Compliance assurance: Promote compliant spending practices, safeguarding financial oversight.
For your employees, they’ll appreciate:
- Simplified request process: Submit a single request for multiple trips or events, reducing repetitive submissions.
- Efficient expense reports and approvals: Automatic approval for in-budget expenses saves time for employees and managers.
- Time savings: Navigate budget requests and expense reports with ease, reducing manual work.
- Empowered spending: Encourage compliance with preapproved budgets, minimizing approval delays.
Ready to try it at your organization?
Activate the Budget Authorization capability today and empower your organization with efficient, compliant expense management. To activate budget authorization, Request Admins can set up a dedicated policy by following the steps found here. Please note, this is only available on Concur Request, professional edition.
Request Assistant: Harnessing the Power of Generative AI
Refresher: What is Request Assistant?
Request Assistant utilizes generative AI combined with SAP Concur benchmark data to provide users with intelligent cost estimates for travel-related expenses. This feature is designed to save your employees time and effort when creating requests.
Latest updates
#1: Meal and car rental estimates
Users can receive estimates for meals and car rentals, further expanding the capability of Request Assistant. By leveraging SAP Concur benchmark data from our Verify solution, employees are provided with accurate estimates on meal costs, making budgeting more predictable and efficient.
#2: Flight cost estimates with new Concur Travel
For users of the new Concur Travel, flight cost estimates from Request Assistant now accurately reflect the price of the traveler’s top flight recommendations in Concur Travel. This ensures a more aligned budgeting process, accommodating real-time flight information.
Update #3: Enhanced policy compliance
For all Concur Travel customers, Request Assistant now respects organizational travel policies by restricting flight and train estimate options for classes that are out of policy, such as first-class tickets. This enhancement helps your employees stick to company budget rules, promoting responsible spending. Learn more about this in the release notes: professional edition and standard edition.
Update #4: Request Assistant on mobile
Now you can use Request Assistant on the go in the SAP Concur mobile app, for both Android and iOS. Make sure your app version is up to date and give it a try!
Travel advisories in Concur Request
Overview
Now, when your employees create travel-related requests in Concur Request, they will see helpful travel advisory information regarding their destinations. The advisories can include information about anything that has the potential to disrupt their trip, for example, airline and airport strikes, natural disasters, or visa requirements. The advisory data is powered by our partner, Riskline, and is available to Concur Request users on both professional and standard editions.
Search by request ID: Enhancing Visibility and Efficiency
Overview
The ability to search for requests by Request ID is one of the latest enhancements to improve user experience within Concur Request. This feature reduces the effort required to locate specific requests, especially helpful for users managing extensive lists of requests. This capability is available to Concur Request users on both professional and standard editions.
Embrace the future of travel and expense management with these new enhancements to Concur Request.
