For this international bank, meeting strict regulatory requirements meant addressing manual, outdated expense processes that threatened compliance and financial control.
 
The organisation used a fragmented, manual system in which expenses were submitted through Excel spreadsheets and legacy SAP forms. The process was cumbersome, requiring most staff to depend on Executive Assistants for manual data entry, and physical receipts were mailed to the office.
 

This manual process created two critical risks for the CFO:

• Financial Leakage: Without built-in validation rules, out-of-policy expenses were often approved and paid, resulting in financial losses due to insufficient controls.
• Delayed Financial Visibility: Manual processes extended the reimbursement cycle to four weeks, preventing Finance from having real-time insight into accrued liabilities.
• Audit and Data Risk: Manual entries by Executive Assistants led to inconsistent data quality, complicating reconciliation and posing risks to the bank’s upcoming SAP S/4HANA migration.

The Solution: Intelligent Logic for Complex Compliance

 
The organisation engaged Consilio.io to implement SAP Concur Expense as a governance platform. Consilio.io translated the bank’s complex regulatory and internal policies into automated system logic.
 
1. Automating the Delegation of Authority
 
Consilio.io replaced manual approvals with a dynamic workflow that enforces the bank’s approval hierarchy:

• Risk-Based Routing: Standard claims are routed to Line Managers, while out-of-policy exceptions are automatically escalated to the department’s Managing Director. This ensures senior oversight of all irregular spending.
• Category-Specific Governance: Sensitive spend categories trigger dedicated workflows. For example, relocation costs are routed directly to HR for verification, bypassing standard approvers who may not be familiar with specific policies.

 
2. Protecting the ERP Core
 

To ensure financial data integrity, Consilio.io integrated the platform with the bank’s legacy SAP ECC system. This integration ensures all transactions are accurately recorded in the general ledger and prepares data for future migration to S/4HANA.
 
3. Modernising the Audit Trail
 
By deploying the mobile app with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the bank transitioned from physical receipts to digital, audit-ready records. This change shifted control to the point of purchase instead of weeks later.
 
 

The Results: From 4 Weeks to Real-Time Visibility

 
In five months, Consilio.io delivered a unified, compliant expense management platform across Europe, achieving the core goals of fiscal control, real-time visibility, and audit readiness.
 

• Leakage Eliminated: Financial losses from unverified expenses have been eliminated. The system now enforces strict controls on violations that previously bypassed manual checks.

 

• Operational Efficiency: The four-week delay has been eliminated. Claims are now processed, validated, and paid with full audit transparency.

 

• Strategic Expansion: With enhanced controls, Finance is now collaborating with Consilio.io to model complex budgeting scenarios, such as tracking spending against specific funds and grants, ensuring donor funds are managed with the same rigor as operational expenses.

Consilio.io Blueprint: Why This Succeeded

• Speed to Value: Deployed a complex, multi-country solution in less than 20 weeks.

 

• Audit Readiness: Replaced posted receipts with digital, audit-proof records.

 

• User Empowerment: Transitioned over 1,000 users from manual processes to mobile autonomy.