What Is SAP Concur?
SAP Concur is a widely-used platform for accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, or financial operations. As a virtual assistant working with SAP Concur, your job is to keep your client's financial records accurate, their reports timely, their cash flow healthy, and their workflows running without interruption.
This guide covers everything you need to get up to speed quickly and deliver genuine value from day one of your engagement.
Before You Start: Questions to Ask Your Client
Getting the right answers upfront prevents costly mistakes and dramatically speeds up your ramp-up period. Before logging into SAP Concur for the first time, get answers to:
- What tasks am I responsible for, and on what schedule?
- Who else has access to the account, and what do they manage?
- What is the chart of accounts structure, and is there a reference guide?
- Are there any recurring transactions or templates I should use?
- How do you want discrepancies or unusual items flagged—email, Slack, or task?
- What financial reports do you review and how often do you need them?
Getting Oriented in SAP Concur
First Login Checklist
Start with a high-level review before touching anything:
- Check the dashboard for any outstanding items: overdue invoices, unreconciled bank accounts, bills past due
- Review the chart of accounts to understand income and expense categorization
- Check connected bank feeds and integrations for sync errors
- Look at existing invoice and bill templates
- Review the most recent reports to understand the business's financial rhythm and scale
Understanding the Core Data Model
Nearly all accounting platforms organize data around the same basic structure:
- Contacts and Vendors: The people and companies your client does business with
- Accounts: The chart of accounts covering assets, liabilities, income, and expenses
- Transactions: The actual entries—invoices, bills, payments, journal entries
- Reports: Financial summaries including P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statements
Core Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Tasks
Daily (15–30 minutes)
- Categorize incoming bank feed transactions before they accumulate
- Enter any new invoices received or bills that arrived by email
- Apply payments to open invoices as they come through
- Check for bank sync errors or broken connections
Weekly (1–2 hours)
- Review the AR aging report and flag overdue accounts for follow-up
- Send professional reminder messages to past-due clients
- Enter expense reports submitted by team members
- Spot-check recent categorizations for accuracy
Monthly (3–5 hours)
- Complete bank and credit card reconciliation for the prior month
- Generate the standard monthly financial reports (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow)
- Review and clean up any uncategorized or miscategorized transactions
- Verify payroll entries are recorded accurately and match payroll reports
Best Practices for SAP Concur VAs
Never delete transactions—void or archive instead. Deletion breaks audit trails and can cause permanent discrepancies in your reports. Use the platform's void or inactive function instead.
Use consistent naming and descriptions. When entering transactions, use clear, standardized descriptions that match your client's established convention. Consistency makes data searchable and audits manageable.
Flag before you guess. If you're ever uncertain how to categorize a transaction, flag it for client review rather than making an assumption. One wrong categorization early can cascade into larger reporting errors.
Keep a change log. Maintain a simple running document noting any significant changes you make—new recurring transactions, chart of accounts additions, template modifications.
Stay current on platform updates. SAP Concur releases new features, UI changes, and compliance updates regularly. Spend 15 minutes each month reviewing their release notes.
Certifications and Learning Resources
- SAP Concur's official training portal, certification programs, and help documentation
- YouTube tutorials from SAP Concur's official channel and certified partners
- LinkedIn Learning courses on SAP Concur and bookkeeping fundamentals
- Coursera or Udemy courses on accounting basics for non-accountants
Getting the Most Out of Your VA Engagement
Hiring the right VA is only the first step. To get maximum value from the relationship, treat the first 90 days as a structured onboarding period.
The First Two Weeks: Foundation
Focus on documenting your processes and granting system access. Your VA should spend significant time in observation mode—understanding how you work, what your standards are, and what good output looks like before operating independently.
Weeks Three and Four: Supervised Execution
Your VA begins handling assigned tasks independently, but you review output closely. Provide specific, constructive feedback immediately so habits form correctly from the start.
Month Two: Expanding Scope
Once you've confirmed quality and reliability in the initial task set, expand the scope. Add more complex tasks, higher-stakes responsibilities, or adjacent workflows that have been on your list.
Month Three: Full Autonomy
By month three, most high-performing VAs are operating largely independently—checking in on decisions that require your judgment while handling everything else without prompting.
Communication Best Practices
Use async by default. Most VA tasks don't require real-time communication. A brief daily or weekly async update (voice memo, short video, or written summary) is more efficient than scheduled calls.
Be specific about feedback. "This isn't right" is less useful than "The report should show data for the current month only, not year-to-date. Here's an example of the format I need." Specific feedback creates permanent improvements.
Celebrate good work. Acknowledging strong performance is not just courteous—it's a retention strategy. VAs who feel valued perform better and stay longer.
Build a shared knowledge base. Keep SOPs, templates, and reference materials in a shared location your VA can access independently. This reduces dependency on you for every small question.
Ready to Hire?
Virtual Assistant VA connects businesses with trained SAP Concur virtual assistants who are certified and ready to manage your books reliably from day one.