Reducing Risk: 6 Reports to Close Your Spending Loopholes

The financial health of your enterprise comes down to two things: income and expenses. In today’s uncertain economy, your organization is likely doing everything it can to increase sales, find new customers, and drive new revenue streams. However, you might be surprised to learn how much you lose due to non-compliant expenses. As the adage goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. The more you can reduce non-compliant spend, the less financial pressure your enterprise will face when it comes to meeting your earnings, profit, and operating cash goals.

Facing the Facts of Fraud During Economic Uncertainty

While fraud is preventable, actually preventing it is still a challenge for many enterprises. According to the ACFE, 51% of surveyed respondents have uncovered more fraud since the onset of the pandemic, and nearly half of reported cases of fraud occurred due to lack of internal controls. In today’s fluctuating economy, actively managing spend is the key to getting a handle on the mistakes, double-entries, and mis-categorizations that can often go unnoticed and undetected as fraud.

Reduce Organizational Risk with 6 Reports

Your SAP® Concur® solution provides the data you need to increase control and compliance—and make fraud less tempting. Use these six reports to help reduce non-compliant spending and potential fraud.

1. Route Data
Paper-based mileage reports are too easily manipulated to include trips or mileage that didn’t take place. Automated mileage capture includes route data that helps ensure you only pay for the mileage and trips employees actually took for business. While this helps eliminate both accidental and fraudulent overages, it can also benefit employees who may be underestimating their mileage expenses.

2. Receipt Attachments
A pattern of expense reports without receipts can indicate that employees are filing false or exaggerated submissions. This report can help you focus on improving your substantiation policy, finding repeat offenders, or identifying expense categories being abused.

3. Cash vs. Card Expense
Cash spend is unaccountable and easily abused when compared with corporate card spend. The more cash spend (including personal card spend that is reimbursed) that you can move to corporate cards, the easier it will be to flow accurate, reconcilable data into your SAP Concur solutions – helping you validate and control spend.

4. Reports Approved Receipts Not Viewed
Receipts aren’t helpful if they aren’t being confirmed as valid. This report can show if expense reports are getting approved without being properly reviewed by the manager.

5. High-Risk Expense Categories
High-risk expense categories, like gifts, special projects, miscellaneous, or catering, tend to have a higher potential for misuse. These categories should be given extra scrutiny during the audit process to identify non-compliant spend as well as to uncover opportunities for employee education.

6. Travel Expenses on Cash
While you’re likely capturing major travel expenses, such as hotel, car rental, and airfare, on corporate cards, there are many other cash travel expenses that you may incur each month. The more detail that you can associate with these expenses, the easier it is to encourage employees to put them on the corporate card. Card use for all transactions allows for greater transparency and the reduction of risk for fraud or non-compliant spending.

Data Brings Value 

Non-compliant spend, whether fraudulent or accidental, can be costly. By using the right data, reporting, and tools, you can automatically identify the non-compliant spend that is holding your company back while increasing the value of your SAP Concur solutions investment.

Want to learn more about these reports and the tools available to help increase compliance? Contact your Client Success Partner today!