Using Data Metrics to Assess the Health of your Program
Written by: Kara Bernard, Managing Director - Contributions by: Chris Burns, Account Development Manager
Our "Secret Sauce"
Throughout my 13-year tenure with Concur® Travel and Concur® Expense customers, I have noticed one common theme. Very few organizations have truly leveraged the robust amount of data available from their SAP® Concur® solutions to truly measure, track, and improve their spend management programs. Even those organizations using best practice reporting to effectively support their financial processes and controls are often only using the data to manage financial processes and are not using the data to optimize their T&E programs.
Our Firm is routinely retained by organizations to conduct program assessments in which we analyze every facet of their programs - from employee onboarding to the financial posting process and every step in between. The objectives for these assessments are varied and range from reducing overall spend, defining a global expansion strategy, and eliminating manual back-office processes, to improving the end-user experience. Regardless of the specific focus of our assessment, we always start with data. The data can tell us how the site is configured versus how it is used by the organization and provides “check engine lights” that identify areas that may need deeper analysis.
Most organizations analyze their data by internal business categorizations such as country, region, legal entity, department, business unit, etc. In our analysis, we affiliate this information with how the SAP Concur solution is configured to achieve a holistic view of your program.
Below is a sampling of often overlooked metrics and how they are used to indicate any potential issues or opportunities:
Spend by Payment Type
Analyzing spend by payment type can identify how employees are paying for their T&E expenses. There are several indicators we look for when reviewing this data:
A program with high cash spend indicates the potential opportunity for increased credit card rebate dollars, as well as improved controls to reduce spending and/or misuse/abuse.
A program with many payment types indicates the potential opportunity for streamlining card program and/or card imports/feeds and improving the end-user experience.
Aged Transactions by Payment Type and Number of Inactive Users with Aged Transactions
Aged transaction details are vital signs for both the health of the credit card program and employee responsibility/training needs. Most organizations will find that credit card transactions aged between 30 - 60 days are typical, depending on your credit card statement periods, type of card program, and related company card policies. If a consistent trend of unsubmitted transactions greater than 90 days is apparent, this is typically a red flag that needs attention. For example:
A high volume of aged cash transactions typically indicates a need for employee training and the risk of cash liability. As some states do have taxation and wage laws related to aged expense reimbursements, organizations should require cash reimbursements to be requested within 30 days of the transaction to minimize risk.
A high volume of aged corporate credit card transactions is often tied to a Company Billed/Company Paid card program that does not have the proper controls and training for users to ensure timely submission.
A high number of inactive users with aged transactions indicates that the offboarding process for employees needs review immediately.
Volume of Expense Reports by Policy, Country (or another categorization such as Department)
Identifying the volume of expense reports in these areas can improve understanding of the volume of activity, which can be leveraged to prioritize support and assess change management impact for any program or configuration changes.
Cash Spend Analysis
Analyzing cash spend by expense type across the entire program will help determine potential areas of concern. Even programs with mandated corporate credit card utilization have some inevitable cash spend categories.
Organizations that have “Other” or “Miscellaneous” as both a “Parent” expense type category and a “Child” expense type and find it among the top categories of spend, should review the entry details to determine if additional expense types are needed, or if employee education is warranted. This may also be an opportunity to measure actual credit card spend vs the rebate target that the organization has established.
Average/Median Amount by Expense Type
Analyzing both the average and median amount for specific expense types provides a benchmark that can be compared to written policies and thresholds to indicate any non-compliant trends and/or areas for spend reduction. This may also provide an opportunity to set or reset audit rule “trigger” amounts.
Mobile Utilization
Reviewing mobile utilization provides an understanding of how users and approvers leverage the mobile application versus the desktop application. These metrics can indicate an opportunity for improving workflow cycle times and may be an area that organizations should target with employee and approver training/communications.
User Metrics by Configuration Policy
Understanding user metrics by each SAP Concur configuration policy over a specific period allows an understanding of user trends and indicates any potential user training opportunities. It can also be used to determine the change management impact for any policy configuration changes. These are a few of those key metrics:
Unique number of Employee IDs
Highest number of reports by employee
Average number of reports per employee
Number of users with only one report
Top 10 Employees with the most reports
Expense Report Count by Month
Understanding the volume of reports by month allows the organization to determine any trends in expense report volume and take the appropriate corrective action (e.g., Are there more reports during a certain month or quarter? Why? Does this impact your contracted expense report volume?)
Percent of Reports Sent Back
Monitoring the percentage of expense reports sent back to employees can also provide indicators that the program or SAP Concur configuration needs attention.
If an organization has strong compliance to written policies, a high percentage of reports sent back can indicate the need for employee and approver training. However, this can also indicate there is something else in the program that is not optimized. For example, an organization that allows employees to change default account codes but does not have the configuration optimized to support this may be returning reports to fix data entry errors.
Conversely, if there is low adherence and compliance with written policies, then a low percentage of reports sent back can indicate that approvers or processors are not performing their review responsibilities and completing the required due diligence.
Delegate User Metrics
Some organizations rely heavily on administrative professionals creating and/or submitting reports on behalf of other employees or allowing the delegation of expense report approval to another manager. Other organizations strictly prohibit the use of delegates altogether for internal control purposes. Regardless, reviewing delegate metrics by policy allows the organization to understand if the reality aligns with expectations. Additionally, there is some functionality that is not supported for delegates, so understanding what the true delegate utilization is by report and policy will help determine how to deploy to end users.
Expense Type Analysis
While most organizations already have spend-related reports for their expense types, reviewing this data to also analyze the frequency of use indicates potential opportunities for streamlining and determining what expense types are not being actively used for reimbursement.
Spend by Parent Expense Type
Spend by Expense Type
“Other” or “Miscellaneous” Spend Breakdown
Frequency of Use
These metrics represent a substantial opportunity to not only understand an organization’s Travel and Expense program better, but to improve upon it. Those improvements can be measurable, such as increasing financial return on your investment in SAP Concur or improved operational effectiveness, like a better end-user experience or streamlined back-office processes. Analyzing these metrics in a program will help understand trends, create benchmarks, and determine areas that may need attention.
Lyndon Group brings extensive experience to help guide these reporting and analysis efforts and can help eliminate the learning curve associated with analyzing a high volume of complex data.
Interested in watching a session on this topic? Join both SAP Concur and Lyndon Group teams as they walk through how you can best optimize and implement your SAP Concur Reporting solution now. This is the first of three webinars in the SAP Concur Summer Series - be sure to register so you don’t miss out on the next two sessions.