Barnsley Council Adopts Concur Expense as Part of the Drive for Digital Transformation

Adopting digital technology is becoming central to decisions that local authorities make moving forward. More and more we hear the phrases ‘Digital First’, ‘Digital by Design’, and ‘Doing things Digitally’. And rightfully so, according to Gartner, “a digital workplace enables new, more effective ways of working; raises employee engagement and agility; and exploits consumer-orientated styles and technologies”.

“Concur Expense has been a great example of modern, digital working. It gives us a drive and whets the appetite of employees for more digital initiatives” – David Robinson, Service Director, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has 3,000 employees and an annual budget of £170 million. It has seen its operating budget cut by around half over the past 10 years. Despite this, there have been very few changes to the volume of services it provides. The Council is committed to a Digital First programme, with every aspect of operations under scrutiny.

In a recent webinar, we hosted David Robinson, to discuss how “Barnsley Council Revolutionised their Expense Process with SAP Concur”. During this webinar, David highlighted a few of the reasons why the Council decided to make the change and implement a solution such as SAP Concur.

• Visibility & Compliance Before implementing SAP Concur, the Council’s expense management process was based on an old manual process, the system was slow, unwieldy and afforded no clear view of expense detail. The Council is now more compliant and better able to claim back VAT spend.
   
• Work-Life Balance This manual process forced Council employees to come into an office to process their expense claims – restricting their flexibility and mobility. SAP Concur allows these employees to submit and process their expenses on-the-go. Giving them time back to be more productive and deliver excellent service.
   
• Efficiency Streamlined back-office financial processes freed up AP teams to focus on more valued added tasks within the organisation. For employees, claims are now reimbursed within three days.

Part of the focus of the Council’s Digital First programme is to facilitate mobile working. The Council wants to create a more flexible, dynamic workplace culture, with staff able to work effectively from anywhere.

“This is as much about changing our culture as it is our policies,” says David “We want to encourage modern ways of working and enable staff to have the right work-life balance. It’s important we attract and retain the right talent.”

Some of the benefits that the Council has seen since implementing SAP Concur include:

• A platform which provides full visibility as to where employees are spending public funds
• A full digital audit trail to ensure compliance (including mileage expenses)

But the biggest benefit that the Council has seen since implementing SAP Concur is that Council employees’ time has shifted focus from “less admin, more caring”.

Find out more about how Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council is driving digital transformation, download the full case study now.