From Suggestions to Fixes: Travel and Expense Project Delivers New Concur Enhancements

Guided by campuswide suggestions collected final 12 months, the Travel and Expense Project staff is rolling out a number of enhancements in Concur geared toward simplifying journey pre‑approval, reserving, expensing and reimbursement.

A visit can come collectively in a couple of emails. Getting it authorized and reimbursed can take longer.

For many school and workers, the problem isn’t journey itself, however duties akin to estimating Travel Requests, decoding system messages or fixing minor report points.

To handle these challenges, Finance and Operations, with help from Operational Excellence, launched the Travel and Expense Project in 2025 as a part of its ServiceFirst dedication to simplify help processes. This challenge is enhancing Concur — the University’s on-line system used for managing journey requests and expense stories — whereas additionally strengthening associated insurance policies and help throughout pre-approval, reserving, expensing and reimbursement.

Making journey and reimbursement simpler

To additional perceive these ache factors, the Travel and Expense Project staff gathered enter in July 2025 by means of discovery workshops and a campuswide survey that closed on Aug. 1. In complete, 123 school and workers participated in 4 workshops. More than 1,300 school, workers and directors accomplished the survey.

The outcomes confirmed a key frustration: practically one in 4 expense stories are returned for correction.

Changes rolling out

Drawing from worthwhile person suggestions, the staff set 5 priorities to deal with frequent frustrations:

• Simplifying the Concur interface to scale back confusion
• Reviewing insurance policies for better readability
• Simplifying workflows to avoid wasting time
• Upgrading coaching and help to make navigation simpler
• Exploring AI instruments to additional help customers

Guided by these priorities, the Travel and Expense challenge staff are launching numerous updates geared toward lowering returned stories, dashing up approvals and clarifying course of and expectations for vacationers and reviewers.

“One major enhancement is the new AI‑driven Request Assistant,” mentioned Spanos. “It will help travelers estimate expenses when creating a Travel Request.”

The staff additionally labored to streamline the assessment course of and lower down on back-and-forth questions. Concur now requires sure data up entrance, like enterprise justifications for floor transportation and meals and beverage bills. “This information was often requested during the review and approval process, even when it wasn’t required to submit a report,” mentioned Spanos. “By requiring it up front, approvers can review expenses more efficiently without needing to ask for additional details.”

Design staff suggestions highlighted a standard problem: many new staff arrive at Carolina uncertain tips on how to e-book enterprise journey or navigate state-mandated insurance policies, which differ from these at many different establishments. To present a transparent start line, the staff created a brief introductory video for brand spanking new and rare vacationers that explains what to know earlier than planning journey and tips on how to get began.

“These updates are the result of listening closely to user feedback,” mentioned Carly Perin, affiliate vice chancellor for Finance. “They may seem like small changes, but they address real pain points, and collectively they have a meaningful impact on reducing frustration and making the process easier to navigate.”

What’s forward

With the primary set of user-driven enhancements in place, the Travel and Expense Project will proceed refining Concur and associated workflows in response to ongoing school and workers suggestions to make the method even simpler for customers.

“We recognize that we’re not there yet,” mentioned Perin. “This is just the first step in a continuous improvement process, and we’ll continue listening to campus feedback.”

Perin added {that a} future Travel and Expense challenge as a part of ServiceFirst implementation will discover use of a Travel and Expense shared providers perform to assist scale back administrative workload from school and workers to allow them to concentrate on their work that’s core to the mission of Carolina. “Our goal is to give people time back by reducing unnecessary administrative burden,” she mentioned.

In the approaching weeks, customers can anticipate an up to date one-page journey guidelines, continued progress on an AI chatbot to reply questions, and a consolidated Travel and Expense Policy, every supposed to make duties clearer and simpler for customers.

“We are continuing to look for ways to simplify requirements, streamline the process and leverage advances in AI,” Spanos mentioned.

These updates are the results of listening carefully to person suggestions. They could appear to be small adjustments, however they handle actual ache factors, and collectively they’ve a significant influence on lowering frustration and making the method simpler to navigate.
Carly Perin, affiliate vice chancellor for Finance

Campus colleagues will quickly produce other methods to share enter. The Travel Services web site will add a suggestions submission web page so campus colleagues can submit recommendations and lift issues. World Travel will now additionally embody a “Rate Your Experience” hyperlink in its affirmation emails that takes vacationers to an prompt suggestions kind — permitting scores, feedback, and issues — and commits to responding inside one enterprise day.

Travelers and journey arrangers are invited to the Travel Vendor Fair on Tuesday, March 3, from 2 to five p.m. within the West Lounge of the Carolina Union, giving customers a chance to work together with distributors and uncover useful assets in particular person.

For updates, customers can go to go.unc.edu/travel-and-expense-updates or be a part of the Travel Office Notification Teams Channel. Users in search of help may also contact the Travel staff or the Concur Help Desk for private help.