SAP Concur vs Esker

Requirement evaluated: Mobile approval with full invoice image view; approvers must be able to act from their phone in under 30 seconds

For a multi-location services company with distributed approvers, SAP Concur delivers mobile invoice approval through its native iOS and Android app. When an invoice reaches an approver's queue, they open the SAP Concur app and are presented inline with a summary, a rendered image of the invoice, and line-item details — all without a separate download step. From that screen, the approver taps once to approve or send the invoice back with a comment. This covers the legitimacy and authorization stages of the pre-processing journey (stages 1 and 5 of the five-question chain). …

Limitations: For approvers who authenticate with a Concur username and password rather than SSO, 2FA is mandatory on every new session login, requiring a six-digit authenticator-app code each time a session expires — a step that can push the first approval action in a new session well beyond 30 seconds. …

Requirement evaluated: Mobile approval with full invoice image view; approvers must be able to act from their phone in under 30 seconds

For a 3-person AP team at a $120M services company routing 1,800 invoices per month for approval across 6 office locations, Esker's dedicated mobile app, Esker Anywhere, directly addresses this requirement. Approvers receive instant push notifications of pending invoices, open the app on their Apple or Android device, view the full invoice image as received by the accounting department, review key invoice data and prior approvers' comments, then approve, hold, or return the invoice; all in a single, purpose-built mobile interface available 24/7. …

Limitations: No published data confirms a specific 'under 30 seconds' benchmark; the speed claim depends on network connectivity and how quickly each approver can load and review the invoice image on their device. …

Requirement evaluated: SOC 2 Type II certification (current, not in-progress)

For a $120M multi-entity services company requiring a current SOC 2 Type II certificate, SAP Concur meets the standard through a dedicated, annually renewed audit program hosted on the SAP Trust Center. The most recently issued report covers the audit period April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2025, and was prepared by an independent third-party CPA firm. The scope explicitly includes Concur Invoice (the module relevant to your AP process), and the report covers the Security, Availability, and Confidentiality trust service criteria under AICPA standards. …

Limitations: The full SOC 2 Type 2 report is NDA-gated rather than publicly downloadable, which is standard practice but does require your team to formally request it through the SAP Trust Center. …

Requirement evaluated: SOC 2 Type II certification (current, not in-progress)

For a $120M services company requiring a current SOC 2 Type II report before deploying AP automation, the publicly documented picture for Esker is materially incomplete. Esker's primary platform-wide certifications are ISO 27001 (for its Information Security Management System, renewed via A-lign) and SOC 1 Type 2 under SSAE 18 and ISAE 3402, which validate internal control processes for on-demand services. Esker's own security datasheet confirms that SOC 2 Type II examination was completed in 2020, but scoped only to the Collections Management solution, not to the AP automation module. Esker's customer-confidence page (updated March 2026) …

Limitations: The buyer's requirement is a current SOC 2 Type II report, and the most recent public evidence shows Esker's SOC 2 Type II scope is limited to the Collections Management module as of 2020; the AP platform's documented certifications are ISO 27001 and SOC 1 Type 2 (SSAE 18), which do not satisfy a SOC 2 Type II requirem …

Requirement evaluated: Support for Sage Intacct dimensions: Location, Department, Class, Project, Customer, and custom dimensions

For a $120M multi-location services company running two Sage Intacct entities, SAP Concur's native Sage Intacct integration pulls GL accounts, vendor lists, and Intacct dimension lists directly into Concur via a bidirectional, near-real-time sync. The Sage Intacct Marketplace listing published by SAP Concur confirms that 'SAP Concur automatically collects all Account Codes, dimension lists, and vendors directly from Sage Intacct,' and a third-party implementation review (RSM Technology) confirms that 'Intacct dimensions can be selected and mapped into SAP Concur.' During invoice coding in Concur Invoice, coders select dimension values (Location, Department, Class, Project, Customer) …

Limitations: The five named standard dimensions (Location, Department, Class, Project, Customer) are evidenced as synced through the native integration, but Sage Intacct user-defined (custom) …

Requirement evaluated: Support for Sage Intacct dimensions: Location, Department, Class, Project, Customer, and custom dimensions

This $120M multi-location services company runs two ERP entities in Sage Intacct and requires that the AP automation layer carry all six dimension types (Location, Department, Class, Project, Customer, and any custom dimensions) through to Intacct on every posted bill. Esker's documented Sage ERP integrations cover Sage X3, Sage FRP 1000, and Sage 100 only. Esker's own integration page states that its pre-built connectors are 'tailored' to Sage X3, Sage FRP 1000, and Sage 100, with no mention of Sage Intacct as a connected ERP. …

Limitations: Esker has no documented integration with Sage Intacct; its Sage connectors target Sage X3, Sage FRP 1000, and Sage 100. A buyer on Sage Intacct would have no path to dimension-level coding or multi-entity bill posting through Esker at any price point.

Requirement evaluated: Automatic extraction of: vendor name, invoice number, date, PO number, line items, amounts, tax, and payment terms

For a services company currently keying 1,800 invoices per month from email and mail, SAP Concur's Invoice Capture feature handles pre-processing stage 1 (legitimacy/data extraction) using OCR combined with machine learning. <cite index="2-4,2-5,2-6">Invoices created with Invoice Capture leverage Concur's automated service to process vendor-submitted invoices via email, upload, fax, or hard copy; the system uses OCR and machine learning to extract data, capturing details like vendor name, invoice number, date, line items, PO numbers, and GL codes automatically.</cite> At the line level specifically, <cite index="7-15">Concur Invoice captures the description, quantity, unit prices, and catego …

Limitations: Payment terms extraction is the documented gap: official SAP Concur Invoice Capture field lists (SAP Learning Portal and concur.com product documentation) enumerate vendor name, invoice number, date, line items, PO number, tax, and amounts, but do not explicitly include payment terms as a captured field, which matters …

Requirement evaluated: Automatic extraction of: vendor name, invoice number, date, PO number, line items, amounts, tax, and payment terms

For your team of three processing 1,800 invoices per month across email and mail channels, Esker's Accounts Payable module addresses invoice capture at Stage 1 (legitimacy and data intake) of the pre-processing journey. <cite index="12-8">The platform captures invoices automatically across channels such as email, EDI, mail, fax, and supplier portals, then brings them into one standardized workflow.</cite> The extraction engine is Esker Synergy AI: <cite index="20-1">Esker Synergy AI optimizes invoice data extraction by using machine learning and deep learning to accurately extract and populate into a validation form, or auto-approved when no exception is detected.</cite> Critically for your …

Limitations: Explicit documentation confirms vendor name, invoice number, date, PO number, line items, amounts, and tax code as extracted fields; direct confirmation that payment terms are extracted as a discrete OCR field from the invoice document itself (rather than sourced downstream from contract data in Esker's S2P module) …

Requirement evaluated: Cash flow forecasting based on approved and pending payables with due date distribution

For a 3-person AP team processing 1,800 invoices monthly across two Sage Intacct entities, SAP Concur Invoice offers several reporting components that touch cash flow visibility, but they do not combine into the forward-looking, status-segmented forecast the buyer describes. The platform includes a default accrual report that shows every invoice in the system along with its current status, location, and approver, and this report can be scheduled for automatic distribution to stakeholders. …

Limitations: For this buyer, the material shortfall is the absence of a native, pre-built cash flow forecast view that unifies approved and pending-in-workflow invoices into due date buckets; the available accrual and aging reports address workflow status and payment batch management separately, but not the combined forward-looking …

Requirement evaluated: Approval bottleneck analysis: which approvers are slowest, which invoice types take longest

For a 3-person AP team at a $120M multi-location services company currently blind to approval timing, Esker provides role-specific KPI dashboards that surface process efficiency metrics across the full invoice lifecycle. AP managers get a dedicated dashboard tier covering spend visibility, process efficiency, and payment KPIs, while cost center owners see requests pending approval in real time. The platform tracks average processing time by month and breaks out invoices by type (PO vs. non-PO), giving the AP manager visibility into which invoice categories move slowly. …

Limitations: The documented metrics include average processing time by month and invoice type breakdowns, but Esker's product documentation does not explicitly surface a pre-built 'approver league table' report showing ranked cycle times per named approver; that view would likely require the buyer to configure a custom dashboard us …

Requirement evaluated: Clear exception categories: price variance, quantity variance, missing PO, missing receipt, duplicate, vendor mismatch

For a 6-location services company running 1,800 invoices per month across two Sage Intacct entities, Concur Invoice's exception management centers on its configurable PO Matching Rules engine. Administrators define rule groups for two-way matching, three-way matching, and receipt confirmation, each with configurable tolerance thresholds expressed as a percentage or unit amount above the PO value; when an invoice breaches a threshold, the system triggers an exception message and can warn or block submission. …

Limitations: The entire matching and exception framework in Concur Invoice applies only to PO-linked invoices; the buyer's 45% non-PO volume (utilities, subscriptions, insurance) …

Requirement evaluated: Non-PO invoice routing: automatic GL coding suggestions based on vendor history and invoice description

For your approximately 810 non-PO invoices per month covering utilities, professional services, subscriptions, and insurance, Esker Synergy AI applies AI-based predictive line-item coding at the point of invoice capture. The mechanism is explicitly documented for non-PO invoices: Esker's machine learning and deep learning engine analyzes historical transaction data and recommends GL account, cost center, cost type, and tax code values for each invoice line, surfacing those suggestions in a validation form for AP review or bypassing review entirely when no exception is detected. …

Limitations: Esker's documentation confirms coverage of GL account, cost center, cost type, and tax code dimensions for non-PO coding, but the specific depth of its Sage Intacct connector relative to Intacct's full custom-dimension schema (including any user-defined dimensions your two entities may use) …

Requirement evaluated: International wire payments to 8 overseas vendors with multi-currency support

For a $120M services company needing to pay 8 overseas vendors in multiple currencies, Concur Invoice's native payment network does not cover international wire transactions. As documented by SAP Concur's own Director of Global FSI Partnerships, the platform historically handled payments 'only within the US and Canada,' with any international payment falling outside the system and requiring separate, manual bank processing. To close this gap, SAP Concur partnered with TransferMate, an independent third-party payments company, whose 'PaymentsHub' product can execute cross-border payments in 130+ currencies across 160+ countries and embed within Concur Invoice's approval flow. …

Limitations: International wire and multi-currency AP vendor payments require contracting with TransferMate, a separate third-party company, as Concur has no native international payment rails of its own. …

Requirement evaluated: Automatic remittance advice sent to vendors upon payment

For a 3-person AP team at a $120M multi-location services company currently sending remittance advice manually (or not at all), Esker addresses supplier payment visibility primarily through its supplier portal rather than through event-triggered outbound remittance delivery. Esker's AP automation module gives suppliers direct, self-service access to invoice and payment status via an online portal, reducing inbound status inquiry calls to the AP team. Separately, Esker's Synergy AI layer can automatically sort and generate responses to inbound supplier inquiries about payment status, including overdue payment reminders and payment confirmation questions. …

Limitations: The primary documented supplier communication mechanism is portal-based self-service access, which places the discovery burden on each vendor and requires portal adoption; for the 1,800 invoices per month this buyer processes across facilities, subcontractor, subscription, and utility vendors, those vendors must active …

Requirement evaluated: Centralized vendor master synchronized bidirectionally with Sage Intacct

For a 2-entity Sage Intacct environment like yours, SAP Concur's native Financial Integration Service pulls vendor records, GL accounts, and dimensions directly from Sage Intacct into Concur in near-real-time: <cite index="21-1">SAP Concur automatically collects all account codes, dimension lists, and vendors directly from Sage Intacct,</cite> and <cite index="15-7">customers can sync at the Top Level or up to 10 entities to one SAP Concur company/entity.</cite> In the other direction, processed invoices post back from Concur to Intacct automatically after approval. However, the write-back path for net-new vendor records created inside Concur (rather than originated in Intacct) …

Limitations: For your team's specific need, the material gap is the Concur-to-Intacct direction for vendor records: new vendors created or updated inside Concur rely on a scheduled extract or a manual import step before they appear in Intacct, rather than an automatic real-time push. …

Requirement evaluated: Vendor communication log: track every inquiry and response to eliminate the 6 hours/week our team spends on status calls

For a 3-person AP team currently spending 6 hours per week fielding status calls, Esker addresses this through two interlocking mechanisms. First, the Esker Supplier Portal gives vendors self-service, 24/7 access to real-time invoice and payment status at each workflow stage (received, approved, paid) so they can check themselves without contacting AP. Second, a built-in chat tool on the portal lets suppliers and the AP team exchange messages directly on the invoice record; all conversations are retained in a persistent log accessible to both parties at any time. …

Limitations: The communication log and status visibility only capture interactions that flow through the portal; vendors who do not adopt the portal and instead continue to call or email will still generate untracked inquiries, so the volume reduction depends on supplier enrollment rates. …