Royal Voluntary Service frees up precious resources to focus on experience, service delivery and digital efficiency

Royal Voluntary Service frees up resources with SAP Concur expense management

Royal Voluntary Service (RVS), a UK charity with 600+ employees and over 35,000 NHS and Care Volunteer Responders, needed a scalable, fully digital expense management solution to reimburse volunteers quickly and accurately, without placing additional strain on internal staff.

The challenge

RVS's existing process for reimbursing volunteers' out-of-pocket expenses lacked the digital simplicity and scale required to support hundreds of thousands of volunteers across a wide range of ages and roles. Manual auditing was time-consuming, and the charity needed a system capable of handling significant volumes, including during national emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SAP Concur answer

RVS implemented Concur Expense alongside Expense Pay and Intelligent Audit, creating a fully digital, scalable expense management platform that integrates directly with its volunteer management system for seamless data flow and reporting.

The results

• Automated expense management: approximately 6,000 claims processed per annum with capacity to scale significantly
• Fast reimbursement as volunteers now receive out-of-pocket repayments quickly via Expense Pay, without manual intervention
• Improved compliance: Intelligent Audit delivers a clear audit trail and increases the volume of claims reviewed without adding headcount
• Reduced manual workload: staff no longer run audits manually, freeing capacity for higher-value work
• Flexible configuration: expense types and policy rules can be amended quickly to reflect changing activities and volunteer groups
• Scalable automation: the platform manages the demands of national COVID-19 vaccination sites and is built to handle future emergencies
• Seamless integration with RVS's volunteer management system, ensuring a consistent digital experience end to end

Read the full story

See how Royal Voluntary Service manages expenses for tens of thousands of volunteers with SAP Concur. Download the full case study.