Despite a couple of very minor user experience issues, I highly recommend Concur Travel and Expense
August 17, 2020
Despite a couple of very minor user experience issues, I highly recommend Concur Travel and Expense
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Standard
Modules Used
- Expense
- Travel
Overall Satisfaction with Concur Travel and Expense
I work for a global hospitality company that utilizes Concur for both travel and expense management. Its use is mandated by company policy, which is not an issue as both are very easy to use, though many users (myself included) still prefer to use airline websites for direct bookings. The expense side of the tool in particular is great, with several recent enhancements that have made it much more user friendly compared to previous years, which required much for physical paperwork and took much longer, though there are still a handful of nagging issues that I wish were addressed or eliminated from the process. Overall, both are great tools and I am glad that we have them at our disposal.
- Great integration with the mobile app (very easy to use when traveling, which is often for us).
- Drag and drop functionality and a very intuitive user interface.
- Very rarely notice any service interruptions or downtime.
- If your expense report is out of compliance, you are not notified until AFTER hitting the submit button, which can cause embarrassment or inconvenience, and often results in your expense report being returned for re-submission. If they can build in a pre-submit check for compliance, this would be a huge time savings for the users and the approvers (and likely the administrators).
- Some of the detail level of questions can be cumbersome. For example, always having to explain the business purpose, even for minor, mundane purchases like a bottle of water at the airport.
- Integration with our corporate card has saved tremendous amounts of time (pre-populating expenses into the tool).
- Tracking of staff during emergency situations since usage of the travel tool is now mandatory.
- Ensuring staff are selecting cost effective routings instead of overpaying based on frequent flyer preference.
I have not used any other travel platforms, other than airline and travel supplier direct websites. From the expense solutions side, while I have not used other products, I think it would be hard to find anyone else that could substantially outperform Concur; their platform is robust, well designed, easy to use and my complaints and user experience issues are all relatively minor. I am glad we use this tool.
Aside from integrating our corporate card (JP Morgan Chase), I am not aware of any other integrations. However, having our corporate card integrated has been a tremendous improvement, both in user experience and in time savings. With the drag and drop functionality of the tool, it is an absolute breeze to submit expense reports now, versus our previous process which also required the physical mailing of receipts. The Concur app makes it so much easier to include receipts, which can be captured via your smartphone camera. Kudos to whoever integrated this capability, you made my life much, much easier.
As previously mentioned, the mobile app and integration with the corporate travel card and the functionality to take photos of receipts and submit them electronically have all been game changers. As someone who travels frequently (45+ business trips per year), this has saved me so much time and hassle, it has truly made my life easier.
The single biggest feature that has drastically improved our user experience is the ability to capture receipts on your smartphone and submit them electronically. Previously, our process involved making physical copies of receipts and mailing them into a central business services department, which was not only a pain, but also slowed the process down dramatically. As someone who travels frequently and leads a team of fellow road warriors, this new process was a welcome change that has allowed us more time to focus on work, rather than administrative paperwork issues.