Case study: Australian Bureau of Statistics achieving compliance rates of over 99%

Establishing a blueprint for travel and expense management: How the Australian Bureau of Statistics tackled the implementation and integration of Concur Travel and Expense, optimising Whole of Australian Government travel arrangements

In 2017, the Australian Government’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) developed its Secure Cloud Strategy¹ to prepare government agencies for the shift to cloud and support them through the transition. The DTA has identified the role that cloud technology plays in reducing costs, lifting productivity and delivering better services, and the new strategy focuses on helping agencies use cloud more easily. Announcing the release of the Secure Cloud Strategy in February 2018², the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Digital Transformation, The Hon Michael Keenan MP also announced that the Government had executed a new whole-of government arrangement with cloud-based travel and expense management solutions provider SAP Concur.

Overall, the Government’s ICT procurement reforms are expected to achieve savings of up to $54 million over the next four years.³

A number of government agencies have already adopted SAP Concur for travel and expense management, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) first implementing Concur as its online travel booking tool back in 2010 and adding Concur Expense in 2013.

This case study explores in-depth how the ABS has adopted SAP Concur as an integrated end-to-end travel and expense management solution.

Australian Bureau of Statistics case study

The ABS was using a lot of disparate systems that were costly to maintain and relying on approving managers within the credit card workflow process to detect illegitimate and non-compliant transactions. The top three benefits they're now getting from using Concur solutions are:

• improved control and visibility over spend
• improved compliance
• improved efficiency of process through the use of mobile technology.

They are now achieving a compliance rate of over 99%.

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The Challenge

The ABS is Australia’s national statistical agency, providing trusted official statistics on a wide range of economic, social, population and environmental matters of importance to Australia. The agency is best known for conducting the national Census, which has played an important role for over 100 years in charting Australia’s history and shaping its future.

Concur Travel had already been in use at the ABS for online travel bookings since 2010, but in reality the agency had myriad ways for booking travel, and also for tracking and managing expenses. That included an online expense management system from its incumbent corporate card provider, a Lotus Notes database for travel requests, approvals and allowances, and numerous methods for booking and reconciling hotels and hire cars. These disparate systems were costly to manage and maintain, there was very little visibility on overall spending and compliance was difficult to manage and a major issue.

“It was very hard for us to find out how much was being spent on one trip and whether or not our staff were spending efficiently,” explained Richard Grigg, Assistant Director, Business Services, Australian Bureau of Statistics. “As a government agency, we are accountable to the Australian public in spending taxpayer funds responsibly and efficiently. With the systems we The Challenge had in place, there was no way we could ensure that we were doing so.”

Another major pain point for the ABS was the excessive burden that its travel and expense management systems were placing on managers. As approvers, the responsibility was on senior managers to ensure all the expense claims submitted were compliant, a signifi cant impost on their time and productivity. There was also a considerable burden on users, who had to manage multiple profiles and manually scan every receipt, upload it and attach them in the existing EMS. “The retention and scanning of receipts was one of the biggest bugbears for our staff” said Grigg.

A Whole-of-Australian-Government (WoAG) mandate announced in 2012 that all payments of flights, domestic accommodation and car rental had to be made through a Diners Club account was the catalyst for ABS to consider a new expense management system. The ABS saw this as an opportunity to implement an integrated end-to-end travel and expense (T&E) solution by acquiring Concur Expense in 2013. Since implementing Expense, the ABS has expanded its Concur T&E suite to include Concur Audit, ExpenseIt, TripIt PRO and TripLink.

Project Lessons

Before starting the implementation project for Concur Expense, the ABS ensured that all the key internal stakeholders were fully consulted and behind the solution. The fi rst consultation was with ABS’s Technical Services Division (TSD), who had to be satisfi ed with the security and safety of the proposed cloud platform, particularly the type of data stored and where it was being held.

“It wasn’t an issue that the data was being stored off shore in the US – the data from our previous solution was being held in New Zealand – it was more about evaluating what information was being stored off shore. With the Patriot Act potentially giving the US Government access to our data, we had to be confi dent that no personally identifi able information relating to our staff was being held by the Concur system,” said Grigg.

While the pre-planning, design and stakeholder engagement led to a successful six-week implementation, the ABS project team made a false assumption during the rollout that had an initial impact on user acceptance and take-up of the new solution.

“We had assumed our staff would have a level of knowledge in how to use the new system because they had already been using an expense management system, so we didn’t do a roadshow or make a big eff ort on training our staff in the use of the new system,” explained Grigg. “Instead, we just provided our people with the standard videos and self-help resources and, as a result, we had to win back the trust of the users.”

Grigg’s recommendation for anyone rolling out a new enterprise management solution (EMS) like Concur is not to assume any knowledge from your staff in how to use the system, because every EMS has its own look and feel. Also, there was a critical diff erence in functionality between the two systems: in Concur, you build a report while in the previous EMS, each item was just a transaction.

It’s important to invest in customised user guides and videos, and in face-to-face training as part of the roll out, and Grigg says “there is no such thing as too much training!” and it will cost you that “three times over down the track” if you don’t prepare your users properly for the change up-front.

Whole of Government Advantages

For government agencies like the ABS, designing the policies and functionality of an integrated travel and expense management solution is made easier by the Australian Government’s travel arrangements. These stipulate the mandatory elements and optional services available through the travel arrangements, which also provide the ABS with preferred rates on airfares, hotels and car rental services.

The Australian Government has also mandated the use of a sole travel management company (TMC) for all travel bookings: QBT. This requires that all flights originating in Australia must be booked through QBT and its online booking tool Amadeus e-Travel Management (AeTM). Currently, all domestic accommodation must be booked through AOT Hotels and all domestic car hire booked through Europcar and Thrifty.

As part of the implementation of Concur, the ABS worked in conjunction with QBT and AeTM to ensure an integrated solution and an optimum end user experience. The ABS also added the Concur TripIt Pro mobile app to improve their users’ travel experience with the complete itinerary in one app, and TripLink to link non-Concur bookings into TripIt Pro for travellers and provide greater visibility on travel and easier auditability and reconciliation with travel and expense policies.

ABS users have been really happy with TripIt Pro which, with the recent WoAG contract signed with SAP Concur, will result in a signifi cant saving for the ABS on their annual licence fees in 2019.

“Not long after we rolled TripIt Pro out to our users, I had a call from one of our executives from the airport – ‘I love this app! It told me my flight to Brisbane had been delayed and it’s not even showing on the departure board yet.’ The Seat Tracker feature in TripIt Pro has also been really popular with our regular travellers,” said Grigg.

The ABS spent considerable time and resources with SAP Concur and QBT to make the addition of Tripit Pro and TripLink a viable solution, not just for the ABS but also other Australian Government departments and any other Australian organisations that are already using QBT and AeTM. That included ironing out some data integration issues with QBT and AeTM, customising the app with local travel contact details, and avoiding potential user confusion by preventing the shell transactions that are created from populating travellers’ ‘Available Expenses’.

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“We also worked closely with QBT post implementation to ensure the QBT robotics worked correctly with TripLink and TripIt PRO to correctly reflect all booking changes and modifications,” said Grigg.

However, the biggest advantage for the ABS, from the whole of government arrangements has been the decision to mandate the payment of flights, domestic accommodation and car rental through a Diners Club account.

“A few months after we went live with Concur Expense, the ATO ruled that a Diners Club Business Card statement was all that was required for GST reporting for all travel expenses,” said Grigg. “This enhanced data all feeds automatically into the Concur Expense system from Diners Club.”

The ABS processes in excess of 80,000 transactions a year, with between 50 and 60,000 covered by Diners Club. Staff also have a ‘companion’ MasterCard and receipts are only required for purchases over $82.50, again in line with ATO reporting guidelines. Grigg was interviewed by QBT in early 20184, explaining the advantages for staff and the ABS:

“Since the introduction of WoAG Phase 2, the ABS has taken advantage of ATO Legislative Instrument Waiver for Diners Club to dispense with the need for staff to retain and scan all their receipts and invoices. This has resulted in annual savings in the receipt management task alone across the organisation of between 1 to 1.5 full time employees, allowing those resources to be better deployed.

Importance of Auditing and Compliance

Compliance with travel and expense policies had been a major issue, with the ABS relying on managers and manual checks as part of the approval workflow process. The implementation of Concur Expense gave ABS the opportunity to embed its policies into the solution, which challenged users to explain their reasons for any noncompliant transactions, which made the approver’s job a lot simpler.

“We still had to go through 80,000 transactions a year, which would have meant a whole new team if we wanted to really get serious about compliance,” said Grigg. Instead, the ABS decided to procure the Concur Audit service, which outsourced auditing of every transaction to an independent third party. After the user has completed the acquittal and the expense report has been approved, every transaction is checked against 21 audit rules, ensuring that they are compliant with GST and internal policy, returning any non-compliant transactions to the user for action.

Thanks to the embedded policies and independent auditing the ABS has achieved a 99% compliance rate with the WoAG travel supplier arrangements.

However, Grigg’s advice to other organisations planning to use a third-party auditing service is to set up the workflow to submit the expense reports for audit before sending them to the approver. “That way the hard work will have been done, and our approvers are just dealing with what looks odd and managing exceptions."

Conclusion

While there is still a small amount of ongoing work for the ABS to achieve its vision of a complete, single end-to-end experience for its users, Grigg is happy that the work he and his team have done to establish a blueprint for other Australian Government agencies to follow when implementing a fully integrated travel and expense management system.

In recognition of their signifi cant efforts advancing the implementation of the Concur services TripIt Pro and TripLink, Grigg and his team were each presented with the Australian Statistician’s Award at the 2018 ABS Australia Day Award Ceremony. The Award recognises extraordinary contributions made to the ABS by individual employees.

Australian Statistician David W. Kalisch noted: “Your team worked closely with the WoAG Travel Supplier QBT to ensure the product was ready for use by Australian Government travellers. The team’s aim was to make our business work faster, smarter and better overall by using technology to create positive changes. The TripIt Pro and TripLink innovation will have direct benefi ts to all Australian Government entities as they will enjoy full functionality and immediate viability without having to spend the time and resources that we have put into this project.”

“You have successfully developed a blueprint solution that will not only benefit the end users of the ABS but also for all Australian Government entities into the future, demonstrating how our enabling services not just help the ABS undertake its activities but also can contribute to enhancing the ABS’ overall reputation.”

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Richard Grigg Assistant Director, Travel and Credit Cards, Australian Bureau of Statistics

Richard is an experienced Assistant Director with a demonstrated history of working in Commonwealth Government for nearly 20 years. At the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Richard oversees the transitioning of the ABS to the Whole of Australian Government Travel Arrangements, ensuring ongoing compliance and promoting best practice in travel and expense management. In recognition of his efforts implementing Concur’s TripitPRO and TripLink, Richard was awarded an Australian Statistician’s Award in 2018 by the ABS. He was also awarded the Concur ANZ Client Innovation Award in 2017.

1 “Digital Transformation Agency — Secure Cloud Strategy”, Commonwealth of Australia (Digital Transformation Agency) 2017 https://www.dta.gov.au/what-we-do/policies-and-programs/secure-cloud/

2 “Strategy supports shift to cloud”, Department of the Prime Minster and Cabinet press release, Australian Government, 1 February 2018 https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/keenan/2018/strategy-supports-shift-cloud

3 Ibid

4 “What does innovative travel and expense management really look like?”, QBT Blog, QBT Pty Ltd, 10 January 2018 http://blog.qbt.travel/travel-expense-management