To get started, SAP Concur has organized the key information into many standard dashboards, tiles and over 180 reports available in the standard report catalog. Many of the standard dashboards include the bulk of information your teams need, but they can also be personalized to meet specific requirements or preferences. These dashboards, tiles, and reports can be used to assist managers in tracking budgets and forecasting for future cashflow management. Tracking elements include spend by expense type, time-period, and project or department.
To budget for future spending and forecast future cash needs, you need to understand what you have spent in the past and what spend is still outstanding. Firms often use the processed spend data from within their financial or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. However, the challenge firms face is real time access to spend and accrual data that hasn’t yet been submitted into their ERP system. Concur Analytics Data is available in real time and is available before the expense report or invoice is submitted for payment.
Tiles in Concur can be used by themselves or pulled into dashboards for a more comprehensive view of spend.
For more in-depth analysis and details, reports can help streamline your workflows and drill down into the data you need. Custom reports can also be created by the Concur team if your requirements fall outside of the standard options.
Quick Access with Dashboards
You can start with one of many pre-built dashboards or create your own from scratch by adding tiles and reports to existing templates. While there are many dashboards available, some of the top ones include the Expense Overview dashboard and Policy Compliance dashboard.
The Expense Overview dashboard is a perfect starting point for budget, cashflow management, and policy compliance all in one place. This dashboard can be used as a starting point to create a new custom “Spend Management” dashboard. Managers can use this detail for budget and forecasting purposes. Personalization recommendations are to retain the Spend, Accruals, and Top 5 Spend by Category tiles as well as adding additional tiles: Spend Summary Trends, Spend Change by Category, and Accrual Detail.
The Spend Analysis dashboard is an incredibly functional dashboard that offers users an in-depth analysis on total spend for a given period along with a summary breakdown of that spend by Expense Type and associated detail. This dashboard can be easily filtered to show specific Spend Categories, Expense Types, or Employees for total spend analysis or grouped and sorted in ways that are meaningful for specific tasks. It allows leaders to identify what their teams have spent in a given period. They can even track individual spending patterns to identify specific areas for follow-up or track improvements in spending behaviors. This report is versatile in that it can be filtered to show trends in spending patterns or behaviors. If more detailed analysis is required, use the Expense Entry Analysis Detail report.
It is recommended that an organization review their travel policy once a year and adjust as needed. It is important to consider the potential impact of a policy change before one is implemented. If an organization does not have a limit on cell phone reimbursement, but needs to create a policy on this expense, the Spend Analysis dashboard can be reviewed to identify average reimbursement rates to establish a baseline for a new policy. This dashboard can also be used to assess the impact of such a policy change to identify how many individuals would have been out of policy if the value was changed.
With over 180 reports available in the standard report catalog, Concur can help you quickly and easily analyze your Travel, Expense, and AP automation program to gain valuable insight into how to proactively manage all aspects of your business’s finances. It’s been said that knowledge is power, but having too much information can be as bad as not having enough. You need to be able to see spend clearly so you have more time to run your business. As your business and reporting needs evolve, let Concur and Full Sail Partners help you capture and monitor the data you need.