Maintaining roles and data in eExpenses

 

eExpenses support 

The SAP Concur 24/7 Support Desk is your first port of call for queries about using the eExpenses system. Contact them on 0800 389 8758 or via Help within SAP Concur which also offers a chat function.

For issues relating to accessing eExpenses please see Managing access to eExpenses for information on how staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students are set up and the forms needed to add and remove access if required.

 

 

There are close links between SAP Concur eExpenses and Oracle Financials, with claimant data (via CoreHR or SITS) and coding data imported into eExpenses, and approved expense claims exported to Oracle Financials for payment.

 

While there are a number of automated processes between the two systems, departments may need to maintain data in the source system. Expenses approval and reporting roles also need to be managed within eExpenses itself.

CLAIMANTS

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  • Set up:
    • An automated process imports data from CoreHR or SITS on a daily basis
    • If urgent (for example, because an individual's CoreHR or SITS record is not up-to-date), new staff or graduate student claimants can be set up using the eExpenses Claimant Access form
  • Maintaining claimant information in eExpenses (for example, name, title): follow appropriate processes to update CoreHR or SITS and the update is then imported to eExpenses
  • Bank details: maintained by claimant within their eExpenses profile in the desktop app only. It is the claimant's responsibility to ensure their bank details are correct before saving these in SAP Concur. Once saved bank details will be partially hidden to keep claimant's bank details secure. It is not possible to edit bank details in the mobile app. If a claimant's bank details appear to be incorrect they will need to be re-entered to ensure accuracy.
  • Removing claimants: claimant accounts are made inactive in line with their leaving date in CoreHR or SITS

 

  • Set up:
    • Undergraduate students are not automatically set up on eExpenses because relatively few undergraduates submit expense claims
    • Departmental finance or admin teams should request access for undergraduate students needing to claim, via the eExpenses Claimant Access form
  • Maintaining claimant information in eExpenses (for example, name, title): request amendments using the eExpenses Claimant Access form
  • Bank details: maintained by claimant within their eExpenses profile in the desktop app only. It is the claimant's responsibility to ensure their bank details are correct before saving these in SAP Concur. Once saved bank details will be partially hidden to keep claimant's bank details secure. It is not possible to edit bank details in the mobile app. If a claimant's bank details appear to be incorrect they will need to be re-entered to ensure accuracy.
  • Removing claimants: undergraduate claimants should be set up with an end date of the current academic year but you can also request that undergraduate claimant accounts are made inactive using the eExpenses Claimant Access form

 

APPROVERS AND ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES

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Budget-holder approvers are assigned to a particular cost centre or project sub-task. They are responsible for:

  • Confirming that the activity has taken place and is legitimate to charge to their budget
  • Considering the Expenses Principles and any relevant restrictions (for example, donation, trust fund or any departmental terms and conditions)

 

The How to review and approve expenses claims webpage gives full information on the responsibilities of budget-holders.

 

Budget-holders do not have a financial approval limit.

 

Budget-holder approvers are managed separately for cost centres and projects:

 

Only one budget-holder approver can be set up for each cost centre or project code but each budget-holder can set up delegates to cover for them (for example, for annual leave) via their profile in eExpenses.

Authorised approvers are responsible for the review and approval of expense claims. The How to review and approve expenses claims page gives full information on the responsibilities of authorised approvers.

 

Authorised approvers are managed in eExpenses through ‘master accounts’ to which named approvers are added as delegates. This allows for more than one approver at each level, to manage workload and cover absences. There are three levels in the eExpenses hierarchy:

  • £0.01: finance team review of claims
  • £1,000: financial approval of claims
  • £10,000: financial approval of claims

 

A claim for more than £10,000 should be split over more than one claim in eExpenses, if it is for multiple items.  If it is a claim for a single item, it should be discussed with the HAF (Head of Administration and Finance) or equivalent.

 

It is advisable to include at least two approvers at each level in the hierarchy:

  • To provide cover, for example for holidays or absence (it is not possible to set up temporary delegations or vacation rules in eExpenses)
  • As claims cannot be self-approved, if a claimant is the only person with a specific approval role their submitted claim will not be approved and a request to add an additional approver will need to be completed

 

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove authorised approvers.

 

When deciding who should fulfil authorised approver roles, consider:  

  • An expense claim will flow up the hierarchy until it reaches an approver with a high enough limit to approve it (for example, a claim for £5,000 would be approved by all three levels)
  • An approver can be in more than one level (this may be useful for small departments with limited staff to obtain sufficient cover) but means the same person approving some claims more than once
  • The majority of expense claims are for up to £1,000 which means the people delegated this approval limit will be authorising the majority of expense claims for your department
  • If your HAF (or equivalent) should approve the majority of claims, they should be made the approver level 2 (authorisation limit of up to £1,000) and you then have options to consider for approval level 3 (authorisation limit of up to £10,000):
    • HAF: which means they approve claims of more than £1,000 and up to £10,000 twice
    • Head of department
    • Divisional contact:
      • Divisional teams have agreed to be approvers at the £10,000 limit if required (for example, in smaller departments)
      • If you want to add a divisional contact for claims of up to £10,000, please contact your DFC (Divisional Financial Controller) before making the request

Additional approval is required for claims from senior staff as set out on the How to review and approve expenses claims page. These claims flow through the department approval chain and are then additionally approved by the appropriate named senior approver.

 

The named approver flow forms part of the Expenses Process put in place to support the Financial Regulations. If you have any queries, please contact financial.assurance@admin.ox.ac.uk to discuss.

 

Use the eExpenses Senior Staff Approver Request form   (XLSM) to add, amend or remove senior staff approvers.

  • A preview delegate can be assigned to preview each claim in an approver's approval queue. This delegate cannot approve the claim; instead, they can perform relevant checks, add comments or notes and, if necessary, send back to the employee for corrections.  When ready, the delegate notifies the approver, via the system, that the claim is ready for review
  • The preview delegate also has the ability to view all claims in an approver's approval queue or claims that have been approved in the past.  This is useful when claims and associated receipts need to be collected for any reason, for example project audits or review
  • The preview delegate should be assigned at the 1 pence or £1,000 level to ensure visibility of relevant claims because assigning at the £10,000 level only provides access to claims of more than £1,000
  • If you are an authorised approver at the 1p, £1,000 or £10,000 level for a department, you cannot also be a preview delegate at that level for that code 

 

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove preview delegates.

  • The BI manager can run reports in SAP Concur eExpenses (see the Reporting on expenses webpage for more details including the limitations of reporting)
  • BI managers are assigned at the department level (there is no hierarchy in eExpenses to link departments to divisions or subdivisions) so, for example, NDORMS would need to set up BI managers for three separate departments (BX: NDORMS, HF: Botnar, AZ: KIR) not for the subdivision NDORMS 127
  • A single BI manager can be set up per department

 

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove BI managers.

CODING INFORMATION
  • Information on cost centres, projects, tasks and sub-tasks, including whether or not they should be available to have expenses charged to them, is maintained in Oracle Financials
  • Details are imported into eExpenses on a daily basis
  • As cost centre names, project short names and task names will be available to anyone using eExpenses, care should be taken to ensure that they do not include sensitive information (for example, a person’s name or sensitive research information)

 

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  • Most project sub tasks are set up as eligible to have expenses charged to them by default (with some exceptions, for example Estates projects)
  • Departments can subsequently request that the ‘Allow expenses’ flag is set to ‘no’ which means it will not be available within eExpenses
  • The ‘Allow expenses’ flag can be amended using the eExpenses Allow Expenses Flag Update form (XLSM)
  • This is a useful way of using the system to manage projects, for example to avoid expenses being charged to ineligible codes
  • Codes will become inactive in eExpenses after the end date of the project
  • If you need to add or amend a source of funds code, please the complete the source of funds form. Source of funds codes are maintained in Oracle. A weekly routine is run to transfer updates into SAP Concur.

In some circumstances it is not possible to use the coding entered in SAP Concur on an expense claim when the transaction is brought into Oracle. In these cases the Payments team will post the transaction to the department’s suspense account to be journalled accordingly by the department. Examples of scenarios where this occurs include:

  • A project is flagged as eligible for expenses in SAP Concur but ineligible in Oracle;
  • The expense relates to a future purchase, e.g. payment for a hotel stay which has not yet taken place (this should only impact itemised expense claims; itemisation of hotel stays is optional);
  • Claims dated before a project’s start date;
  • Where a code becomes unavailable after a claim is started and is not corrected during approvals.

Where an expense has been claimed using an incorrect expense type, e.g. consumables claimed as Equipment/Computer Hardware, the Payments team will amend the expense type so the transaction maps to the correct expenditure type in Oracle but will not adjust the cost centre or project and task coding.

The Payments team will not contact departments in advance of making these adjustments.
 

List of General Ledger and Project expense type mapping descriptions to help claimants and finance teams enter the correct coding and descriptions when making and approving expense claims.

SAP Concur to Oracle expense type mapping (xlsx)

Log in to SAP Concur eExpenses

Only use this link, do not access via SAP Concur website. Re-click here if session times out

Help

SAP Concur 24/7 support: 0800 389 8758 

Try the app!

When eExpenses is live in your department, download the app and log in using:

  • Verified email address or
  • SSO (in format abcd1234@ox.ac.uk) or
  • University unique mobile code (95D6V7)

Forms

Guidance and support