Few companies have a real-time view of T&E spend. The survey reveals that the vast majority of firms do not have the capability to process invoices such as hotel bills and rental car charges automatically to enable transparency and control over their T&E budget.
LONDON – Concur, a leading provider of spend management solutions and services, announced the results of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Concur, “The Power of Real-Time Insight,” which examines how better visibility, data analytics, and reporting can help better manage companies’ employee travel and expense (T&E) spend.
The study evaluated research based on 348 financial decision makers worldwide and found that T&E is the second most difficult financial line item for companies to control. Most firms wait for their employees to manually enter their T&E data after the expenditure is already made, which means that reporting focuses on compliance and budgeting after the fact. Analysis of T&E trends and potential cost optimization, if done at all, is primarily completed through spreadsheets.
“The reality is few companies implement real-time visibility into their T&E expenses, unless they have an T&E system with real-time integration with all their vendors and travel partners” the study stated.
Forrester’s study yielded these key findings:
- Data is entered manually. 91% of UK firms rely on T&E data entered manually, after the event, by employees – even when the organization uses an automated system. That compares to 80% globally. This is not only time-consuming and error-prone; it means that the companies have no real-time insight into the data to optimize spend
- Companies are hampered by data integration and reporting shortcomings. Over a third (37%) of UK firms were not able to import any data from disparate sources, including external systems. For these companies, T&E analytics is time-consuming and many times inaccurate
- Few companies have a real-time view of T&E spend. The survey reveals that the vast majority of firms do not have the capability to process invoices such as hotel bills and rental car charges automatically to enable transparency and control over their T&E budget
- T&E systems lack of mobile capabilities. Almost half of UK respondents (47%) feel that access to information via mobile devices is too limited and there’s opportunity for immediate access to the business insight they desire
- Businesses want more capabilities. As part of this study, respondents were asked what capabilities their current T&E analytics tool lacks when it comes to providing business insight and informed decision-making. In addition to the firms being unable to import data from disparate sources, 32 % think the ability to easily create and modify reports is lacking.
“We believe the Forrester research illustrates the high number of companies that are still dealing with the pain points of manual data entry and limited visibility into their employees’ expense behaviour, placing companies at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding their corporate spend,” said Robson Grieve, Executive Vice President for Concur. “Our mission is to develop an automated, mobile-first solution that enables employees to populate their expenses in real-time, allowing companies to have real-time insight into the data to optimize spend.”
In this study’s methodology, Forrester conducted an online survey of 348 financial decision-makers at enterprise organizations in the US, India, UK, Mexico, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, China, and Hong Kong to evaluate travel and entertainment expense spend management. Survey participants included decision-makers with oversight of T&E expenses. Questions provided to the participants asked about strategy, software implementation, and future plans. The study was completed in February 2014.
The Power Of Real-Time Insight
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She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
