Why legacy systems fail today’s finance teams and how Paynest is changing the game

The way companies run finance has changed. Regulations have modernized. Technology has moved fast. And today’s finance teams need tools that are integrated, flexible, and built for automation.

Legacy platforms like SAP Concur were built for a world of manual entry, paper receipts, and slow reimbursements. Over time, they’ve added modules and extensions to keep up. But the result is the same: complexity, heavy workflows, long implementations, and limited automation.

Modern companies expect something very different. They want:

• Real-time visibility into every expense and supplier.
• AI-driven accuracy and fraud prevention.
• Mobile-first workflows employees actually use.
• Integrated payments.
• Customisation that doesn’t require consultants.

And that’s exactly where Paynest stands out.

Paynest is an AI-powered finance platform that brings expenses, accounts payable, accounts receivable, corporate cards, budgets, and reporting into a single system. No add-ons. No outdated UX. No slow approvals. Just fast, automated financial operations.

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Legacy enterprise tool vs AI-native finance platform

SAP Concur is a known name, but it’s also a 10+ year-old system. Its workflows are complex, customisation is slow and expensive, and the platform relies heavily on image-based checks and manual rules.

On mobile, the experience is even more limited.

Paynest changes the model. It’s modular, AI-native, built for speed, and designed for modern teams that don’t tolerate friction. It’s ready to use, fast to implement, and evolves with your company without high consulting or integration fees.

From day one, Paynest gives companies:

• Fast implementation: ready to use in minutes.
• Integrated payments: instant reimbursements, advances, and vendor payments through virtual cards or SEPA transfers.
• AI-native compliance and fraud detection.
• A mobile-first experience for submission and approval.
• End-to-end visibility over expenses, AP, AR and cashflow.
• Easily customizable platform - approval flows, budgets, policies and cost structures updated in seconds, without any external help or additional costs.

This is what modern finance looks like.

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A day in the life of a traveling employee: Paynest vs SAP Concur

Picture an employee on a business trip.

They’re moving between airports, taxis, hotels, and meetings. They need to submit expenses quickly, stay within budget, track advances, and avoid mistakes when asking for receipts. And they need to do it all on their phone, because the laptop only opens during meetings.

Here’s how that experience differs:

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What companies lose when systems don’t evolve

Finance teams spend a shocking amount of time on work that shouldn’t exist anymore:manual validation, chasing missing data, correcting receipts, and reconciling systems that don’t speak to each other.

These tasks drag closing cycles, drain team capacity, and create bottlenecks across the entire organization.

And then there's the financial impact. Companies lose significant amounts of money every year to non-compliant, incorrectly issued, or fraudulent expenses - wrong NIFs, duplicate submissions, altered receipts, and out-of-policy items that bypass rule-based systems.

With Paynest’s AI-native validation, those losses disappear. Every expense is checked in real time. Every receipt is verified. Every inconsistency is flagged before it reaches a manager.

The result? Teams stop policing expenses and start focusing on strategy. Companies get real control over spend. Finance finally operates at the speed modern businesses demand. Paynest wasn’t built to digitise old processes, it was built to reinvent them.

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