Data Sources for eDiscovery Professionals
Concur
Company Snapshot
SAP Concur is SAP SE’s cloud‑native travel, expense, and invoice management platform. The service supports ≈ 85 million end users at 45,000+ customer organizations worldwide and processed $1.48 trillion in travel‑and‑expense spend during 2024.
Origin
Concur Technologies was founded in 1993 by brothers Steve Singh and Rajeev Singh with colleague Mike Hilton to replace paper expense reports with a Windows application. The company pivoted to the cloud in 2000, re‑engineered its product as a multi‑tenant SaaS, and was acquired by SAP in 2014 for ≈ $8.3 billion, becoming SAP Concur.
The Concur Platform
SAP Concur runs on a multi‑tenant, microservices architecture hosted across multiple AWS regions. Data is modeled around Expense Reports, Entries, Attendees, Invoices, Trips, and Users with immutable audit events for every status change. Key traits relevant to eDiscovery:
- Receipt Images stored as binary objects linked to each entry with SHA‑1 hashing.
- Row‑level history (e.g., approval, payment, audit) preserved indefinitely unless customer‑configured purge rules apply.
- ISO 27001 / SOC 1 & 2 audited environment with optional Key Management Service (KMS) for customer‑provided keys.
Extracting Concur Data for Investigation
| Method | What you get | Typical Volume | Pro Tips |
| Standard Accounting Extract (SAE) | Flat‑file (CSV/TXT) of approved Expense & Invoice data via SFTP | High | Schedule daily/weekly; include ExpenseReportID, ReceiptImageID, and LastModifiedDate for chain‑of‑custody. |
| Extracts API v1+ | On‑demand ZIP of data objects (Expense Reports, Invoices, Payment Requests) | Medium–High | Supports ‘Approved’, ‘Paid’, or date‑range filters; returns secure download URL valid 30 min. |
| Expense Report API v3 | JSON payload with header, entries, attendees, itemizations, allocations | Low–Medium | Medium Ideal for targeted collections; paginate with $offset & $limit. |
| Intelligence / Analytics | Scheduled XLSX/CSV reports (ad‑hoc or recurring) | Low–High | Preserve report definition (.xrx file) alongside output for defensibility. |
| Concur App Center Connectors | Streaming expense & audit data to Snowflake, SIEM, or S3 | Continuous | Verify connector logs for delivery confirmation; hash incoming files. |
Preservation Note: Receipt images and audit events are retained for 10 years by default, but administrators can configure shorter retention. Initiate a Legal Hold profile or disable purge jobs during litigation.
Common eDiscovery & Investigation Use Cases
- FCPA & bribery investigations – Analyze T&E spend vs. compliance policies; cross‑reference vendor payees and high‑risk destinations.
- Expense‑fraud detection – Identify duplicate receipts, mileage padding, or split transactions.
- SOX & internal‑controls audits – Export approval chains, payment status, and audit logs.
- Data‑breach response – Locate PII or PHI embedded in receipts (e.g., medical bills) and fulfill privacy DSAR requests.
- M&A due diligence – Review travel‑spend patterns, outstanding reimbursements, and vendor concentration.
Related Technologies in the Concur Portfolio
- Concur Expense – Core expense‑management SaaS
- Concur Travel – Online booking & GDS integration
- Concur Invoice – AP automation for non‑PO invoices
- TripIt – Traveler itinerary management app
- Hipmunk (IP only) – Travel‑search UX & AI (sunset 2020)
- Drive – Mileage capture via mobile GPS
- ExpenseIT / OCR Service – Mobile receipt capture & ML OCR
- Request – Pre‑trip approvals & encumbrance