Citi, the largest global issuer of self-owned and managed corporate cards, have partnered with Concur to be the first commercial card issuer to offer an exclusive suite of global, enhanced travel reports via Concur’s TravelTrax platform. In this new arrangement, Citi and Concur will offer mutual clients a set of consolidated, global reports that will include data from the client’s:

• Citi corporate cards
• Concur travel expense management service
• Travel Agencies/Travel Agents

to provide a complete picture of all travel costs.

Reports and dashboards

Subscribed clients will be able authorise Concur to bring together all card issuer, expense management provider, and travel management agency data which are consolidated into a set of easy-to-read dashboards and drill-down enabled reports, as shown below.

Executive Overview dashboard

Source & Copyright©2014 - Citi and Concur

Traveller summary dashboard

Source & Copyright©2014 - Citi and Concur

The new reporting service is presented as three packages: A standard package of 13 reports leveraging all of the clients’ Citi Commercial Card data , and two additional packages covering 49 and 60 extra reports respectively.

User benefits

By combining the global data from these core travel program vendors into one series of reports, organizations will gain a more holistic view into their overall travel program activities for improved analysis of their travel program’s purchase behavior, spend patterns, and overall performance. Good examples of the extra insight and control that this comprehensive data brings are the:

• ancillary fees report which shows where the additional charges incurred, see below:

Source & Copyright©2014 - Concur

• corporate card leakage report which shows the ‘out-of-policy’ expenditure.

Not surprisingly, Manish Kohli, Citi’s Global Head of Commercial Cards noted, “We’re excited to partner with Concur, a recognized leader in the industry, to provide these reporting packages to our clients.  These enhanced travel reports will not only provide efficiencies for our customers by automating current manual processes, but also enable clients to make key travel program decisions more quickly and with more confidence,”.

While Michael Hilton, Executive Vice President and General Manger, Concur Travel and Expense, commented, "Together (with Citi), we're giving customers greater visibility into travel programme spend and purchasing behavior, and the ability to gather deeper insights into overall performance.”

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CTMfile take: This is a first for travel expense management - the integration of all the data from: corporate cards, travel expense management company and travel agency - combined with the very latest dashboard reports and analysis. Management and control of travel expenses just got a whole lot easier. The overlap and duplications between procure-to-pay platforms, and the travel expense management systems and services is growing. It needs resolving.