Reflecting Customer Wishes: Launch of Improved SAP Concur Expense Feature

User research and user feedback are non-negotiable when it comes to product design and development. Both not only offer significant insights, but they also enable product teams to focus on user satisfaction and functionality while making it easier for design teams to deliver expectational experiences.

A crucial part of SAP’s design-led development process is ensuring product requirements are derived from user research and implemented in product design. A notable example of this is the SAP Concur “Quick Tips on Expense Types” feature, which provides proactive guidance, supplementing alerts and warnings about missing data when submitting expenses. This new feature informs users about required information via clear, actionable descriptions for expense categories and offers proactive guidance while filing them. Admins can easily share additional information and requirements for each expense type, empowering users to file expenses right the first time. This is the outcome of user feedback, data-driven insights, and testing which has made the user interface easier to use, more efficient, and more accessible.

The New Expense feature “Quick Tips on Expense Types” allows admins to provide descriptions of expense types for their users and when to use them.

Listening to Pain Points in Expense Reporting

In early 2023, SAP Concur users identified a recurring challenge: employees often lacked clarity on the specific requirements for expense types, resulting in incomplete submissions and a cumbersome process. This communication gap left admins struggling to ensure compliance while relying on reactive measures such as alerts and warnings to address errors: Mistakes were only highlighted after they had occurred. For example, certain company policies which require users to identify a cost center would have not been communicated upfront. As a result, these submissions would pass initial checks but get flagged later during the approval process, causing frustrating rework for users. Alternatively, some admins tried to over-rely on warnings, leading to a noisy and often ignored notification system.

As User Research Expert Charles Mitchell highlights, “In the rare cases where alerts were finely tuned to block incorrect submissions, the process still felt punitive. Instead of guiding users to success from the outset, the system followed a “fail-first” approach, leaving users guessing, making mistakes, and then having to correct them based on alerts.”

Bridging the Knowledge Gap

These challenges prompted the need for a more proactive approach to streamline the expense submission process while improving compliance and reducing end-user challenges and administrative struggles.

To identify and confirm customers’ wants and needs, the SAP Concur team initiated a prioritization exercise with their user community at SAP Concur Fusion 2023. Through an interactive buy-a-feature activity, participants voted on future feature concepts. Among several innovative ideas, the “Quick Tips on Expense Types” was selected by the participants.

User Feedback Leading to a User-Centric Innovation

Mitchell emphasizes, “The introduction of Quick Tips transformed the process. By proactively delivering just-in-time guidance, users received relevant information—such as how to mark a personal expense or itemize alcoholic drinks—before starting their submission. This feature not only reduced errors but also minimized frustration by guiding users down the right path from the beginning, making the entire process smoother and more intuitive.”

One user happily stated how much submitters benefit from the additional information:

“The new release that came out with the expense type descriptions and Quick Tips is fabulous. Absolutely wonderful.” A second user emphasizes that the “new Customizing Expense Types Descriptions and Quick Tips feature is a huge win – BRAVO Concur!!”

By SAP Concur Fusion 2024, the Concur team announced the launch of this user-favored feature which added clear, actionable descriptions for expense categories directly in the system and offer proactive guidance that helps users understand policy requirements before submitting expenses.

Continuous Improvement with the SAP User Research Panel

SAP Concur’s innovative case highlights SAP’s commitment to putting users at the heart of their product development. While conferences like SAP Concur Fusion offer valuable opportunities for collaboration, customers and their users do not need to wait for annual events to share their insights.

Do you use SAP products in your daily work and see either room for improvement or do you want to share your experiences with us? We’d love to invite you to research studies and hear your feedback for products that matter to you.

By joining the SAP User Research Panel, you can actively help shape the future of SAP products and solutions. Registration is unbinding and easy, taking part in research studies is remote and quick.

Sign up for the SAP User Research Panel here.

Register for SAP Concur Fusion 2025 here.