ExpenseIt is a service within the SAP Concur mobile app that helps users digitize receipts into expense entries in Concur.
Gallagher, a world-leading agricultural management solutions provider headquartered in Hamilton, New Zealand, embarked on a travel and expense management transformation journey in collaboration with the global enterprise software company SAP. The company deployed SAP Concur across six countries centered around modernizing its labor-intensive expense reporting process along with ensuring stricter tax compliance and enhanced user experience for its mobile team worldwide.
As a leading provider of modern solutions in the animal farming industry, it was apt that Gallagher also sought a modern expense management platform to streamline the complex T&E process, including auditing, automating goods and service tax (GST), and calculating fringe benefits tax (FBT). Aside from SAP Concur’s brand of excellence in travel and expense management, Gallagher found the platform’s comprehensive features and usability crucial in enhancing its front and back-end processes as well as providing applicable audit trails.
Commenting on the latest expense management innovation, Paul Nobilo, Transformation Manager at Gallagher, said:
“We rolled out SAP Concur across six countries in two weeks, and it was seamless. The ease of use that SAP Concur has given the team is second to none compared to its previous time-consuming, manual process.”
Championing Automation with ExpenseIt
The adoption of the SAP Concur solution demonstrates the company’s reputation as a champion of innovation and as a mobile-first organization. One of the key highlights of Gallagher’s SAP Concur adoption is leveraging ExpenseIt, a mobile receipt solution that automatically digitizes paper receipts into expense entries that will be created, categorized, itemized, and sent to Concur Expense. Utilizing various techniques including machine learning (ML) and optical character recognition (OCR), ExpenseIt can read and predict critical values from a receipt, including identifying the amount, currency, date, location, expense type, payment type, and vendor to create an expense. This automation allows the finance team to approve claims and reimburse employees efficiently.
“This process can take as little as two minutes,” said Nicola McDonald, Global Financial Lead — Manufacturing.
“The mobile app is a feature that we love, and we’ve encouraged it during the training sessions,” shared Marion Andewag, Marion Andewag CFO of Gallagher.
During the first rollout period, the company ensured the team was given comprehensive training and provided a dedicated finance support email address to handle queries, which resulted in 99% employee compliance. It was also important for Gallagher to ensure that users experience its usability, like how the CFO leverages the app after team dinners or lunches.
“When you’re out for dinner and the CFO comes back to the table after having paid for it and takes a photo of the receipt, it means everybody within the company has bought into it,” detailed McDonald.
Meeting Tax Obligations
Operating in several markets, Gallagher can maximize SAP Concur’s global tax compliance capabilities and capacity to handle multiple currencies. Before the deployment of SAP Concur, the global company lacked tools to meet regulatory, audit, and tax obligations and has limited reimbursement visibility, especially with credit card expenses, which pose compliance risks and burden employees.
“With operations in multiple jurisdictions, the organization struggled to keep up with the constantly changing tax laws and regulations in each country,” stated Andewag. “This resulted in high compliance costs and the risk of incurring penalties for non-compliance.”
McDonald added:
“It’s important for us to know we have an automated system that can tell us tax requirements and we know what we can claim back and what we can’t.”
Seeing More Key Benefits
Gallagher shared some of the significant benefits of implementing SAP Concur across the organization:
- Cost Savings
- Enhanced user experiences
- Higher levels of efficiency and transparency
- Improved the accuracy of FBT and GST claims
- Reduced repetitive and labor-intensive back-office tasks
- Helped lower the company’s carbon footprint and champion a culture of sustainability
“Despite the impact of change on business operations, Gallagher has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from its employees who love the user-friendly experience and seamless processing capabilities of the SAP Concur solution,” stressed McDonald.
