Asking the Experts About…Reporting Best Practices
Concur Reporting uses the power of data to give businesses full visibility over spend as well as highlighting trends that can streamline processes and improve compliance.
So, how can you make sure you’re getting the most out of your platform?
In our webinar series: Ask an Expert, we sit down with topic experts to discuss best practices within Concur solutions. This time, we discussed all things reporting and how you can use tools within Concur reporting solutions to make sure you’re seeing data that has the biggest impact on your business.
Make Strategic Considerations Throughout the Process
In order for you to receive the most accurate and useful reports for your unique business needs, you must first load data to the reporting tool. When you have enough data to be able to compare year-on-year, that’s when you’ll be able to highlight trends for spend, review your processes and use reporting insights to take action.
Create reports that have easy-to-digest data and use graphs that make it simple to understand and share important insights with stakeholders. To find reports with graphs, Petra Zavadakova, Supervisor, Reporting Services stated, “go through the Standard Reporting Catalogue and you will find many reports that have graphs”.
To take reporting capabilities even further, consider adding Consultative Intelligence to your solution. The service “will give you the ability to reach out to your Client Engagement Executive who will provide you with many best practices and recommend the best reports and build them, schedule them and give any training”, says Petra.
Cut back on spending and save money confidently by using Intelligence reports to achieve savings, enforce policies and sharpen strategies. Lisa-Marie Gravell, Customer Success Executive explained some of the ways reports can help save money: “We can look at it from a bank perspective, there’s a whole folder [in the Standard Reporting Catalogue] of reports we could use. We could look at it from employee spend trends, we could look at it from a fraudulent perspective. One of the recommendations I would have is contact your Client Engagement Executive and align with them on what your goals are and what your focus is, and we can make sure that in your next business review we bring some of those reports that can help address or meet those cost saving goals.”
Find Useful Templates in the Standard Reporting Catalogue
If the business is looking to crack down on specific spend, for example excessive milage, you can search for a pre-made standard report. There are over 100 standard reports to choose from and they can be accessed by downloading the Standard Reporting Catalogue from the Concur platform.
The Standard Reporting Catalogue is updated monthly to keep up with increasing and ever-changing business needs across the globe. However, we recommend you re-download the catalogue once every six months, as monthly updates can sometimes only be minor changes.
Be sure to involve the right people in each reporting element. Consider and include in your strategy what data the CFO would want to see, and what line managers would want to see. Then decide which reports would work for them, whether that be a standard or a custom template.
Use Custom Reports to Meet Your Unique Business Needs
If there is something specific that your business needs visibility on, you can either create a totally custom report or customise a standard one.
Petra confirmed that custom reports are available. “You can review the Standard Reporting Catalogue and see if there is a report in the standard package. If not, there is a possibility to request a custom report. We will ask you a few questions and based on your requirements, we would be able to build the reports for you. They can be sent via PDF, Excel or any other output that is available to you within the reporting portal.”
There are two ways a standard report can be customised, as George confirmed, “if you have Intelligence you can go into the reporting suite and customise the standard reports yourselves. Alternatively, if you’re a Consultative Intelligence customer, just ask what report you’d like customised and your reporting admin would make those changes where necessary.”
Set Up Dashboards to Keep Track of Reports
Use data collected from Travel, Expense and Invoice to create dashboards in the Reporting Studio that enable a more detailed visibility over spend.
Within the reporting tool, set up multiple dashboards for different reports to make sure you’re seeing the data that’s most relevant to you. There is capability to set up multiple dashboards for different stakeholders so they will only see the reports that effect their departments.
From there, use custom reporting to send an email notification to the people who need to see certain aspects of a report on the dashboard. For example, set up a notification that shows line managers parts of a report about late credit card fees.
Getting More from Your SAP Concur Solutions
By adopting these processes, your business can be confident that the reports they are creating will help drive the business towards success by clamping down on non-compliance, making processes simpler, and gaining greater visibility over spend.
To find out more best practices, tips and tricks, and get answers to reporting questions asked by businesses like yours, register now for the Ask an Expert: Reporting webinar