Enterprises today need teams to move quickly, spend responsibly and keep work flowing without unnecessary delays. Finance leaders, in turn, expect the same speed and consistency from their controls and approval processes. Yet the reality inside most organisations is very different. Many finance models were built for a world where spending was predictable and centralised, but that is no longer a reality.
Leaders feel the strain of this shift. The 2025 Productivity at Work report shows that 73% of leaders say finance processes block opportunities, 66% spend more than six hours a week on admin, and 43% of employees say finance delays have held up their work. These pressures highlight an underlying structural issue. Most enterprise systems were designed for structured spend, but much of today’s spending does not follow a predictable path. It happens across teams, regions and projects, often immediately and without the structure that T&E systems depend on.
Why legacy payment methods fall short
Many organisations still rely on employees’ personal cards and reimbursements for business spending, which provides no real control or visibility. Employees use their own money, wait to be reimbursed and carry unnecessary financial risk. Traditional corporate cards create a different set of challenges. They are costly to scale, cannot apply policy at the point of payment and therefore only reveal out-of-policy spend after the transaction has taken place. Other card options still leave finance teams in a reactive position. Spending happens first, and oversight happens later.
Across all of these methods, one pattern remains consistent. Finance teams do not have the tools to control spend before it occurs.
SAP Concur and Soldo: a unified model for proactive spend control
SAP Concur is well known for providing structure for travel, invoices and formal expenses. Soldo brings the payment intelligence that allows finance to see control spend before it happens. Together they create a solution where spend is controlled at source, not corrected after the fact.
Soldo releases funds only after SAP Concur approval and applies precise rules to every card and wallet. Each payment follows policy by design, which removes reimbursement, prevents out-of-policy spend and gives finance real-time oversight without adding manual work. Receipts and enriched data flow back into SAP Concur automatically, creating a tamper-proof audit trail and easier reconciliation for finance teams.
This approach also fixes the long-standing challenge of managing cards at scale. Employees no longer rely on personal cards or traditional corporate cards that reveal issues too late. Instead, controlled access to company funds is issued instantly, mapped to cost centres, regions and entities, and auditable across the entire organisation. Spend becomes predictable, compliant and faster for everyone involved.
Control that extends beyond T&E
Soldo brings the same level of proactive control to operational and departmental spend, subscriptions, project payments and one-off purchases that keep the business moving. SAP Concur governs structured processes. Soldo governs all non-payroll spend, with both feeding into a unified review and approval flow inside SAP Concur.
The result is a single model for spending across the organisation. Employees get the funds they need without delay. Finance gains real-time visibility. Policies are applied consistently. And spend across every domain becomes easier to manage, easier to audit and easier to scale.
Two leading solutions working together to deliver proactive spend control
The 2025 IDC MarketScape report position both SAP Concur and Soldo as Leaders in AI-enabled travel and expense management. SAP Concur is recognised for its “extensive and mature feature set, strong global presence and support, and a robust integration ecosystem”. Soldo is recognised for proactive governance of decentralised spend, integrated financial services and real-time visibility (IDC MarketScape Midmarket & Small Business 2025).
Enterprises can trust that this combined model exceeds the standards expected of modern finance teams.
Meaningful improvements across the whole organisation
Rising costs, distributed teams and increasing governance expectations mean enterprises need a spend model that supports fast, safe decisions. SAP Concur and Soldo together provide that foundation. They reduce friction, increase compliance and give teams the autonomy to keep work moving.
Enterprises do not need heavier processes. They need better ones. With SAP Concur and Soldo, organisations can strengthen governance, increase agility and build a more responsive financial environment for every team.
