Concur Professional Vs. Standard: A Detailed Comparison

Published by

Matthew William

Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions. They offer two main products – Professional and Standard. While both help manage business spend, there are some key differences in features and functionality.

This article provides an in-depth comparison of Concur Professional Vs. Standard to help you determine which is best for your business.

A Brief Comparison Table

Feature	Concur Professional	Concur Standard
*Ideal for*	Large enterprises with complex needs	Small to midsize businesses
*Key features*	Custom workflows, global capabilities, advanced reporting	Basic expense reporting, simple workflows
*Pricing*	Custom quote based on needs	Around $8 per active user/month

Overview Of Concur Products

Concur originally started out in 1993 as an expense reporting software company. Over the years, they have expanded their offerings to become a complete business spend management platform. Their two core products are:

Concur Expense

Concur Professional – The premium, full-featured product designed for large, global enterprises with complex needs. It offers customizable workflows, global capabilities, and advanced reporting.

Concur Standard – A scaled-down version meant for small to midsize businesses. It focuses on basic expense reporting functions with simple workflows.

While both solutions handle expenses, invoices, travel booking, and more – Professional has more advanced features, integrations, and customization options compared to Standard.

Concur Professional Features

Concur Professional is the company’s enterprise-level product packed with features for large businesses. Some of the key capabilities include:

Custom workflows – Admins can configure approval flows, policy rules, posting logic as per company requirements.
Global capabilities – Support for 130+ currencies, 170+ countries, 20+ languages to manage global spend.
Duty of care – Tools to ensure employee safety and compliance when traveling like travel alerts and risk management.
Advanced reporting and analytics – Robust reporting on spending patterns, budget Vs. actual, compliance, etc for data-driven decisions.
Integrations – Pre-built connectors with ERPs, HR systems, T&E vendors, payment solutions, and more.
Admin control – Granular controls over user permissions, access, policies, approval authority.
Travel booking – Online booking tool for flights, hotels, rental cars integrated with expenses.
Itemized digital receipts – Captures itemized details from receipts rather than just total amount.
Invoice processing – Digitize invoice receipt, review, approval and payment.

Concur Standard Features

Concur Standard focuses on basic expense reporting capabilities suitable for SMBs, key features include:

Mobile app – Allows employees to capture and submit expenses on-the-go from their phone.
Expense reporting – Template-driven forms to itemize expenses, add details, submit for approval.
Receipt handling – Snap photos of printed receipts and attach to expense reports.
Basic approvals – Single-level approval workflow for expense reports.
Company card imports – Automatic feed of company card expenses into Concur.
Reporting – Standard monthly expense reporting by employee, category, department.
Travel booking – Optional add-on for booking travel via Concur or TripIt Pro integration.
Integration – Limited 3rd party integrations available at additional cost like QuickBooks.
Admin tools – Basic controls for admins like managing users, policy, permissions.

Concur Professional Vs. Standard: Key Differences

Concur Professional	Concur Standard
Custom workflows	Fixed simple workflow
Robust global capabilities	Limited multi-national support
Advanced analytics and reporting	Basic expense reporting
Tight ERP, HRMS integrations	Limited integrations
Itemized digital receipts	Total receipt amount only
Invoice processing and payment	No invoice features
Configurable admin controls	Basic admin tools
Travel booking and Duty of Care	Optional Travel add-on

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Concur Pricing And Plans

Concur uses different pricing models for Professional and Standard.

Concur Professional pricing is customized based on your needs and number of users. They provide a personalized quote after assessing your requirements. Expect prices to start from $12 per active user per month.

Concur Standard has fixed packaged pricing based on number of active users per month:

Up to 10 users – $40 per month
11-50 users – $8 per user/month
51-100 users – $7 per user/month
101+ users – Contact for quote

Concur also charges additional fees for implementation services, support, and add-ons like Travel booking.

Volume discounts are available for large deployments. Contact Concur sales for customized pricing.

Pros Of Concur Professional

Complete enterprise-grade solution for end-to-end spend management.
Global capabilities suitable for complex multinational needs.
Tight integrations with ERP, HRMS, T&E systems, payment solutions.
Granular customization of workflows, rules, fields as per business needs.
Robust analytics and reporting for spending insights.
Itemized digital receipts provide details for greater accuracy.
Higher admin control and configuration options.
Helps enforce travel and expense policies across organization.
Tools for travel risk management and employee duty of care.

Cons Of Concur Professional

Much more expensive than Standard with complex pricing structure.
Overkill for smaller businesses with simple needs.
Custom implementations take more time and internal resources.
Can be complex to set up, manage, and customize without proper expertise.
Limited native integrations with small business tools like QuickBooks Online.

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Pros Of Concur Standard

Affordable pricing starting at $8 per user/month.
Streamlined focus on basic expense reporting needs of SMBs.
Mobile app allows easy expense capture.
Simple default workflows require minimal configuration.
Easy to roll out and adopt even for non-finance staff.
Optional basic travel booking capabilities.
Sufficient basic reporting for SMB needs.
Integrations available for SMB solutions like QuickBooks.

Cons Of Concur Standard

Limited capabilities beyond basic expense reporting.
Lacks advanced customization and configuration options.
Cannot handle complex global or large enterprise needs.
No support for itemized digital receipts or invoice processing.
Analytics and reporting less extensive than Professional.
Third-party integrations cost extra.
Travel risk management features only available as add-on.
Less admin control over permissions, policies, and workflows.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Concur Vs. SAP Concur: Are They the Same?

Concur and SAP Concur refer to the same enterprise software company and products. Originally founded in 1993 as Concur, the company was acquired by SAP SE in 2014. The full name is now SAP Concur, but they continue to market products simply as Concur.

Why Do Companies Use Concur?

There are several reasons why companies use Concur for business spend management:
Automate expense reporting – Eliminates manual processes and spreadsheets for expense reports.
Enforce spend policies – Ensure compliant spending and approvals based on predefined rules.
Itemize business expenses – Item-level detail improves accuracy over paper receipts.
Reimburse quicker – Automated approvals speed up employee reimbursement.
Capture out-of-pocket spend – Employees can capture expenses from corporate cards, personal cards or cash.
Analytics on spending – Reporting provides insights into spending patterns, leakages, budget Vs. actual.
Integrations – Syncs expense data with Finance, HR and Travel systems.
Travel booking – Provides online booking and integrates trip data into expense reports.
Global capabilities – Manages multi-currency, multi-country expenses.
Improve accountability – Detailed digital audit trail deters fraud and errors.

How Does Concur Expense Reimbursement Work?

Concur streamlines and automates the entire expense reimbursement process:
Employees incur approved business expenses via company card, personal card or cash.
They capture itemized expenses through Concur mobile app by snapping photos of receipts.
Details like merchant, date, items, total amount are extracted into an expense report.
Based on company policy, certain expenses may require additional approvals or documentation.
Once an expense report is submitted, it routes through the approval workflow in Concur.
Approvers review reports and approve or reject expenses per policy.
Approved reports flow to the Finance team for processing and reimbursement.
Reimbursements are issued to employees via direct bank transfer, payroll, or other methods.
Finance imports reimbursement confirmation back into Concur to close the loop.

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Conclusion

In summary, Concur Professional is designed for large global enterprises that need an end-to-end, highly customizable business spend platform. Concur Standard focuses more on basic expense reporting capabilities for SMBs at an affordable price point.

Select Professional if you require advanced global capabilities, tight ERP integrations, custom workflows, and robust analytics. Standard is ideal for simple expense reporting needs of small businesses. Evaluate your key requirements and budget to choose the right Concur edition for your organization.