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In a sentence: SAP Concur wanted a payments partner that could integrate with their platform and support their customers’ international payments process.
| 48,000 | 66 million | €27.8bn | 4,800 |
| Customers | Users | Revenue in 2021 | Employees |
Integration is a very modern method of innovation. Combining the power of one great idea with another has the potential to deliver a whole plethora of new solutions to a marketplace.
SAP Concur is a great idea. It’s one of the world’s leading expense, travel, and vendor invoice solutions. It combines all spending into one system, providing a single way to manage spending from end-to-end, and simplify the process for everyone.
TransferMate’s great idea was to build a global payments infrastructure to outperform the traditional banking network, allowing payments to travel faster, more transparently, and more cost-effectively around the world.
In 2018, SAP Concur and TransferMate came together to embed TransferMate’s infrastructure into the Concur platform, making it easier for SAP clients to make international payments.
SAP Concur wanted to expand and improve their offering to customers, from SMEs to Enterprise-level organizations, particularly when it came to international payments.
There were three major improvements they wanted to make through a partnership with TransferMate: 1) Expand their global footprint when it comes to international payments, adding available currencies and territories for users, 2) Give users more choice in the method that they pay with, and 3) automate the accounts payable process within SAP Concur to reduce administration time for customers and make it easier for users to make payments.
Previously, the SAP Concur system was limited in the international payments space because its payments network was focused on the North American market. This meant their customers were extremely limited in being able to pay with any currency other than a US or Canadian dollar.
“Our clients were running into situations where they’ve got vendors that need to be paid in international countries, and they struggled with being able to either get decent rates through their existing treasury relationship’ said Dave Owen, Director of Global FSI Partnerships and Alliances at SAP Concur. ‘Or they’d have had to go down the route of opening up a new presence in that country because they feel that that’s the only way to get these vendors paid.”
Similarly, their network also limited their customers to using certain methods for payment, such as check. They would then have to process the payment outside of Concur and therefore it could take a long time to process, be non-transparent, and be costlier than it should be.
For quite some time, we’ve only had the ability to issue check or ACH in the US for our vendor payments. It simply wasn’t enough in terms of choice for our customers.
“For quite some time, we’ve only had the ability to issue check or ACH in the US for our vendor payments. It simply wasn’t enough in terms of choice for our customers. Then we found there was an opportunity to leverage ecosystems that existed out there to do things better. By working with partners like TransferMate, we’ve been able to provide extended payment modalities for these customers.”
Finally, the automation challenge was a complex but important one to resolve. Previously, SAP Concur users would have to download payments data from their SAP Concur system, upload it to their banking system, and then do rigorous cross-checking and reconciliation to ensure no errors or potential fraudulent activities (such as changing banking details between these data downloads and uploads).
Within a few months, the TransferMate and SAP Concur teams had produced a solution – PaymentsHub.
PaymentsHub sits within the SAP Concur app store. Users can embed PaymentsHub into their SAP Concur platform when they want to improve their international payments process. The implementation process is quick and easy – a business can be set-up within a day or two.
But how exactly does it solve those challenges SAP and their customers were facing?
When it comes to expanding their international payments footprint, partnering with TransferMate gave them an instant resolution. TransferMate has the largest non-bank licensing footprint in the world and, even including all major banks, TransferMate has the third largest. This allows SAP Concur customers to have the ability to pay easily in 140+ currencies and in 200+ countries.
You guys went through the effort of building a very real, and global, payments infrastructure.
What’s more, with the infrastructure TransferMate has built, these payments all happen within a single ecosystem (compared to correspondence banking where payments can travel within multiple banks before arriving at its destination) making them more cost-effective, more transparent, and faster.
“TransferMate brought something different to the table with the international payments. And it’s not simply just, “Let’s take the US dollar, impose the FX rates on top of that, and then simply claim that we’re able to do international payments.” No, you guys went through the effort of building a very real, and global, payments infrastructure.”
That long journey of building this global payment infrastructure through acquiring individual national licenses and connecting them via technology pays off in these exact instances. It’s that solid foundation, combined with a smooth platform, that makes PaymentsHub such an effective solution.
“It’s given the SAP Concur the ability to move beyond relying on an ACH to make international payments, which meant the payments essentially took place outside of our system. This makes payments more difficult to track, reconcile, and means more work has to be done to check for fraud. We’ve now got the functionality to be able to provide international payments all within Concur Invoice itself – that makes a big difference.”
| PaymentsHub No. of Transactions 2021 – 2022 | PaymentsHub Payments Flow by Value 2021 – 2022 |
| +332% | + 222% |
The PaymentsHub integration also expanded the way users could pay. The Concur platform had offered users the ability to pay with card, check, ACH, wires etc., but only within the US and Canada. Any payment that went outside that region became subject to delays and additional costs. With PaymentsHub, SAP Concur could now offer all the same methods to pay in regions right across the world.
The work that TransferMate has done to make international payments as simple as possible is second-to-none.
Automation and simplification of the AP process were the capstone of the project. By linking disparate systems through API integration, PaymentsHub users are now able to reduce their administration time, while also reducing errors and the risk for fraud.
“The work that TransferMate has done to make international payments as simple as possible is second-to-none. Our customers don’t have to go outside of the Concur platform to process payments for any step of the journey. We’ve been able to provide a more streamlined, simplified approach for our customers, while also giving them more options on how and where they can pay.”
That work of automating pain points and tying disparate systems together in an easy-to-use platform is continually ongoing.
‘TransferMate has done a great job in helping us in our own development work and some of the enhancements we’ve done with those APIs over the years. We’re getting really good at reconciliation back into ERP systems and the work we’ve done together, the input we’ve had – not only from TransferMate but from our joint customers – has helped us get to this point.”
Any time we talk about AP, our minds have always traditionally gone to AP automation, but that’s only an answer if you know what the question is.
The automation strategy was always underpinned by focus on solving customer pain points, not automation for the sake of it.
“Any time we talk about AP, our minds have always traditionally gone to AP automation, but that’s only an answer if you know what the question is. We really need to understand what it is our customers are trying to solve around their AP pains. Quite often it’s the payments process, and all that goes on behind that, that they need to solve for first, which can also be supported by an automation solution at the same time.”
Through solving these three key pain points – payment reach, payment options, and automation – the Concur Invoice platform now provides a much more seamless international payments functionality.
It has also allowed SAP Concur to target a greater range of customers, both in size and geography. They can now onboard an SME in Europe as easily as they were able to previously in the US, and that SME can grow exponentially without ever having to move off the platform.
“It doesn’t matter which industry that you’re playing in or what size of organization you are. At the end of the day, there are spend management requirements for every organization. That’s the opportunity there that’s been so great. We’ve got organizations that have vendors all over the world that need to be paid, hence the invaluable nature of what TransferMate brings by way of international payments. That doesn’t stop from the small through to the midsize organizations – it extends itself right into the largest of businesses as well.”
“And it’s not these advancements that we’ve made that gives me such confidence in TransferMate, it’s the way we’ve advanced together. You guys have gone above and beyond what we’d expect at every stage. The way the platform and the product offering continues to evolve year after year needs to be called out – and the value and benefits it’s brought are customers has been second to none.”
“Would I recommend TransferMate as a partner? Absolutely, although I don’t want to share you guys with anybody else! We always tell our customers to consider PaymentsHub by TransferMate where it’s identified that international payments are a priority, and we’ve had phenomenal growth and adoption since it was launched.”
Dave Owen, Director of Global FSI Partnerships and Alliances, SAP Concur
If you are a SAP Concur customer looking to improve their international payment process, contact the team today.
TransferMate and delaware have announced a strategic partnership that will deliver additional value for SAP customers who need to make cross-border payments.
delaware implements and maintains SAP’s S/4HANA and ECC6 solutions for medium and large corporations globally, guiding its customers through their business and digital transformations. With operations in 20 countries, delaware works with leadings brands like Decathlon, Sony, Sembcorp, and have ongoing AMS (application management services) with many customers.
‘We’re always looking for ways to add transformational value to our customers’ said Eric Hiernaux, Managing Director at delaware International. ‘Aligning the immense capabilities of the SAP platform with our customer’s business objectives is a central theme in delaware’s offering. TransferMate’s integrated solution with SAP will allow our customers to pay and receive payments quicker while reducing costs, improving transparency, and ensuring optimal cash management and bank optimization across global entities and currencies.’
Integrating Transfermate with SAP’s payment processes provides a better way to pay invoices through an end-to-end global B2B payments network that enables cost effective, faster, and fully transparent cross-border payments.
Customers will no longer be disadvantaged by non-transparent correspondent banking systems, including unexpected wire and intermediary banking fees and uncertain transfer timelines.
‘Partnering with delaware is a huge leap forward for the entire SAP ecosystem’ said Sinead Fitzmaurice, CEO of TransferMate. ‘They have exceptional knowledge of how their clients are leveraging SAP and will now be able provide a complete end-to-end solution. Their customers will not need to leave their SAP platform to complete their payments. We’ll immediately increase the value of their investment in SAP while simultaneously reducing costs and improving working capital management.’
For more on how delaware helps clients implement and add value to the SAP platform, go here. For more on how TransferMate connects with SAP, contact us today.
In a Sentence: AUB Group were seeking an automated payments solution that would seamlessly integrate with their SAP Concur platform – and have it implemented within just two months.
| ASX200 listed group | 850,000 clients | >500 locations across Australia and New Zealand | $4bn + GWP (Gross Written Premium) in insurance premiums | 120 subsidiary companies |
AUB Group is a 200 ASX-listed company that operates in the insurance sector, advising their clients on which insurance is right for them through an intelligent analysis of demands, needs and available options. With over 500 locations across Australia and New Zealand, AUB has a large client base and, with that, complex financial processes and requirements.
AUB Group were a long-time user of SAP Concur, using it as their AP (Accounts Payable) management system. When they received any invoice, it went straight to the Concur dedicated email address, where the accounting team would analyze the invoice, code it, and then send it for approval. Once approved, the accountant could then release the payment, and Concur would automatically direct debit AUB’s bank account, paying the suppliers.
AUB Group has 120 subsidiary companies. While some of their financial departments worked independently, around 30 business entities within the AUB Group shared a centralised finance department. This department was processing two to three thousand invoices per quarter, making the automated capability of SAP Concur a key part of their working process.
“We needed a platform which could automatically make our payments. Otherwise, it was a labor intensive and manual process”
“We needed a platform which could automatically make our payments. Otherwise, it was a labor intensive and manual process” said Reaz Kabir, Senior Financial Services Manager at AUB Group Limited. “Once it’s approved in Concur, then we need to manually extract the file from Concur and then upload in our physical bank accounts. The process then required two approvers to log into the system and manually approve the payment, so this was a labor intensive and time inefficient a long process.”
Then, late in 2021, SAP Concur let AUB Group know that they’d be removing that automation piece and recommended alternative solutions. One of those alternatives was TransferMate.
“Our biggest worry was having two systems working side-by-side that weren’t fully integrated. It soon became apparent, though, that by using TransferMate we could essentially mirror the SAP Concur automated function, meaning we could keep that fully integrated service.”
With a short timeframe to implement a solution, AUB Group engaged with TransferMate to see how they could help resolve the situation. There were three must-have requirements:
Only with these priorities in place could AUB Group recommend the solution to their subsidiary partners.
Having looked at other competitors, AUB Group soon found that TransferMate was the only organization that could fulfill their requirements. Implementation began quickly so that there would be no break in continuity.
“Even with those complexities, we finalized everything on time with the support of the TransferMate team”
“The implementation was complex because of our multiple entities. We had to get each entity to sign all the direct debit forms, and then check these with our compliance and legal team but, even with those complexities, we finalized everything on time with the support of the TransferMate team. Even with the time difference of the support team in TransferMate and ourselves in Australia, there was no communication gap.”
The work has not ended for the TransferMate and AUB Group partnership. Through building more API integrations, both sides want to bring the service to even higher levels of performance and capability.
“We’re always looking to improve. When we look at our wish list, there are other features we want to add. Every organization is unique, so we’re working with TransferMate to build new functions bespoke for us through APIs. When we look at the short timeframe TransferMate had and how they delivered the solution so quickly and professionally, we’re confident our wish list will be fulfilled sooner rather than later.”
From initial contact to the system being up and running, the time period was just two months, even with the complexity of onboarding the multiple entities.
The AUB Group team found the platform very user-friendly and, with the platform synchronized automatically with Concur, they didn’t need to rely on manual approvals – saving lots of time. The TransferMate team also began adding new features to the platform for AUB Group.
“One feature that was added that we really liked was the pre-populating of invoice number so, when we make the payment in the description payment reference, we don’t need to write any description manually. It automatically populates the invoice number on the reference, so once the suppliers receive the funds, they can see which invoice the payment is being processed or paid. So, it’s a really good solution.”
As well as this, the core functionality of TransferMate also made a positive impression.
High on that list was the transparency of the platform, giving users visibility over all the invoices paid that month, broken down to each entity, and that visibility coming from a single ‘source of truth’. This means less errors, a better reconciliation process, and less administration time to process everything.
The security features were also complimentary to AUB Group’s own systems, with all direct debits checked by the TransferMate treasury team at time of set-up for potential fraud and money-laundering activities.
“TransferMate really benefited us in a couple of ways. Firstly, that automated process meant we could manage 30 different entities with ease. Without it, it could have become chaotic if we had to do it all manually – the process was prone to human error and overlooking payments. With TransferMate, all those problems are resolved. Once the payment is approved in Concur, it goes automatically to the TransferMate platform, and our accountants team have full visibility over it all. So, less admin, less error, and less hassle for us as a team.”
“TransferMate is an easy solution to use, everything is automatic, the implementation is simple and seamless, and the platform means there is less chances of error and, maybe most importantly, reduces the amount of time you need to manage the AP function. I would definitely recommend it as an excellent solution for the payment process.”
Reaz Kabir, Senior Financial Services Manager at AUB Group Limited
If you’re a SAP Concur client and want to leverage TransferMate’s global payments infrastructure for your organization by integrating the two platforms, contact the team here.
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