Problem

Resource strains and audit complexity exceeded internal team capabilities

The finance team knew it was time for a change when their existing expense audit processes failed to catch policy violations, despite excessive amounts of manual work. “We had limited internal resources that we could allocate to interfacing with Concur Intelligent Audit, and there were things it just wasn’t able to catch for us,” explained their Director of Privacy and Compliance. Their existing system’s inability to detect policy violations created dangerous blind spots, leaving them vulnerable to employee fraud that only surfaced through painstaking manual reviews.

To add to their challenges, reports and analytics were buried in Concur, so they went unused. It wasn’t until their CFO recommended AppZen Expense Audit, a solution used at his previous company, that they finally had a clear path in sight.

“Our number one concern was whether we had enough internal resources and knowledge of Concur to handle Expense Audit configurations,” shared their team lead. To ensure successful implementation and long-term sustainability, AppZen introduced them to Concur integration specialist and trusted solution partner, Lyndon Group. This strategic partnership gave them the confidence to deploy AppZen across their organization.

"I instantly felt that Lyndon Group had the expertise we needed."

Solution

Strategic guidance led to a seamless implementation of Expense Audit

Before rolling out AppZen, the company needed to understand what was missing from its existing expense processes. Lyndon Group’s thorough assessment revealed untapped capabilities and opportunities for success using AppZen. Their Director of Finance highlighted Lyndon Group’s value, stating, “We had never done an audit of our Concur configuration to see if it was optimized.” The findings included a “comprehensive analysis with observations and analytics we’d never seen before, including reports we didn’t know existed in Concur.” Following their proven implementation framework, Lyndon Group orchestrated a seamless rollout of AppZen Expense Audit.

“They [Lyndon Group] managed the entire implementation project, leading meetings with AppZen and handling action items. They knew what questions to ask, and when we weren't sure how to configure something, they gave us recommendations based on how other clients have done it.” 

The partnership continued beyond the initial execution. Lyndon Group assigned a dedicated resource to help fully review their policies inside and out, engage directly with employees, create documentation for their future hires, and provide the company with a roadmap for expense auditing based on their established processes.

AppZen also took a proactive approach to onboarding that helped minimize post-launch disruptions. Focusing on fine-tuning high- and medium-risk flags immediately reduced manual intervention. Their team leader shared, “AppZen helped us navigate high-risk issues, suggesting modifications to risk levels and implementing system changes during the ramp-up phase.” This collaborative support enabled the team to maintain consistent policy enforcement while building its foundation for long-term success.

Result

Expense Audit sped up reimbursements and prevented $200K in erroneous spend

Success came a lot sooner than expected. Their finance team achieved an auto-approval rate of 60% within three months, accelerating reimbursements from 4 days to less than 48 hours. AppZen’s AI did the heavy lifting, flagging fraudulent transactions, unauthorized merchants, and duplicate receipts that had previously gone unnoticed. “It was astonishing how much savings we had from detecting duplicate receipts,” said their head of finance. In their first year of using AppZen, they detected nearly $100K in duplicates across and within reports. Of these flagged expenses, 59% were confirmed duplicates, preventing approximately $57K in double payments.

Customized dashboards finally gave them real-time visibility into their expense data, allowing the team to show tangible savings to their executive leaders. The finance team took advantage of easy-to-use configurations to identify unauthorized expenses in specific categories, like luxury vehicles and no-show charges, totaling $128K in one year. They immediately adjusted controls to monitor problematic spending patterns more closely.

"Being able to adjust audit models ourselves is super valuable. Previously, we weren’t able to make adjustments on our own, and we would have to submit a support ticket [with Concur] explaining our issue. Sometimes that would get lost in translation and be incorrectly actioned on, causing back-and-forth corrections and delays.”

Reflecting on the AppZen-Lyndon Group partnership, the company's head of finance said, “I’m really glad we worked with Lyndon Group. They make you feel like you are a part of their team.” The collaboration reduced manual work, improved compliance, saved money, and provided better control over finances—all without overloading internal resources. The team's expense auditing has never been more efficient or effective.