Case Study: Penn State achieves automated travel and expense management with SAP Concur

Penn State automates 9,000-10,000 P-cards and 240,000 expense reports a year with SAP Concur

Penn State University faced the challenge of modernizing its outdated, hybrid paper-and-electronic travel and expense system. The university's legacy process lacked reporting, visibility, and controls, which hindered the expansion of its purchasing card (P-card) program. To address this, Penn State turned to the vendor SAP Concur, becoming the first large higher education institution to implement SAP Concur solutions, starting with Concur Expense in 2006.

The solution from SAP Concur evolved into a comprehensive platform integrating Concur Travel, Concur Request, and Intelligence. A major innovation was the creation of a new instance fully integrated with the university's SAP S/4HANA ERP, which included using Concur Request to automate all P-card requests and maintenance. This provided a single system for travel booking, expense reporting, and P-card management. The results included processing 240,000 expense reports annually with full electronic receipt capture, automating processes for 9,000-10,000 P-cards without adding staff, reducing expense types from 1,000 to 200 for better performance, and achieving seamless end-to-end workflow integration.

Penn State