MANAGEMENT
EXPENSE
where expenses are incurred, by only allowing virtual cards to be used for particular merchant categories. As well as making it easier
for end users, systems that can make the processing of expenses easier for companies are also in demand. Spendvision says much of its development recently has been in making the integration with enterprise resource planning systems, such as SAP, smoother. Spendvision’s Ray Merk says: “We have always been able to interface with other systems and hand over that data to an ERP [enterprise resource planning] system. But there are always unique requirements for each client. In the past, there has been a need to create these custom extracts on our side manually, but what we have done is given those customisation capabilities to the programme administrator.”
TREMENDOUS GROWTH Concur has seen rapid expansion in Europe, and the UK in particular – Tetaz says 50 per cent of Concur’s EMEA business is now in the UK. “The UK has seen tremendous growth over the past two to three years,” he says. The company has been on the expansion trail, too. The acquisition of Global Expense in 2011, which gave the company’s clients access to the audit and VAT compliance services, has been followed in recent months by the purchase of mobile service
34 • Buying Business Travel 2013
provider Contgo. Concur has also beefed up its offering for SMEs. In October, it set up a dedicated team for SMEs (defined by Concur as those companies having up to 750 employees). “There is a growing interest in expense automation and expense outsourcing in this segment,” says Tetaz. “The chief financial officer [CFO] is more interested in outsourcing technology and services and less reluctant to do so than in large
As well as making it easier for end users, systems that can make the processing of expenses easier for companies are also in demand
organisations where there might be a structured team in place,” he says. Outsourcing also provides the SME with some protection from fraud. “The risk faced by CFOs and CEOs if they happen to reimburse inappropriate expenses is increasingly material,” he adds. End-to-end travel and expenses (T&E) systems have been talked about for years but are finally coming to fruition. T&E system provider KDS used its annual KDS Now! client conference in Paris to launch KDS Flex T&E, a solution to the problem of travellers booking outside the TMC channel or online
booking tool. Flex T&E works by monitoring a user’s system for bookings made directly on the websites of travel suppliers or through an online travel agent. It then flags to the traveller that the booking information is going to be stored along with data for bookings made in the traditional way. As far as the expense element of the T&E is concerned, KDS Flex automatically passes the booking through to the expense system, cutting down on the time needed for matching up expenses at a later date. Concur is also launching its ‘open booking’ initiative in the UK, following a launch in the US at the beginning of 2013. “It enables you to import into your Concur environment all itineraries and bookings made outside the TMC or booking engine, including reservations made directly on supplier platforms,” says Tetaz. End-to-end may be a current focus but on the horizon are innovative payment methods. Spendvision has an eye on the future and is broadening its range of payment capabilities. “We have initiated payment where buyers are pulling the trigger on the payment on behalf of the client, allowing the buyer to control the payment even more.” Coming soon, says the company’s Ray Merk, are single-use payments. Spendvision has also added support for mobile-wallet providers such as Osaifu-Keitai in Japan, and is even thinking about adding support for virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin and Amazon Coins, the currency recently announced by Amazon allowing its US users to pay for purchases. Merk says: “Spendvision considers itself as an expert in total transaction management. It doesn’t matter if [the payment] is by card, cash or e-wallet – you can manage that with our solution and we will help manage that data and make it valuable financial data for you as a corporate.” By making it easier to pay, travellers
could soon start looking forward to doing their expenses. Perhaps... n
In association with
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