As an Administrator, I have hundreds of expense reports to process daily

[IMBPR]

As an administrator, my task is to process expense reports.  However, there are over a hundred expense reports coming in daily into my queue to process for payment.  Each report is reviewed thoroughly to make sure it complies with our company policy.  Is there an easier way to control the flow of expense reports employees submit for reimbursement? 

[JessicaL]

Hi @IMBPR,

That is a large number of reports you are reviewing on your own. Do the reports go to someone else first/after you that you reviews for content so that you are only reviewing for receipts, financial applications? Workflows exist if you can add them to share the burden/responsibility for review.

Also, we have set up some Audit rules that flag certain reports for expanded review - for instance we have an audit rule that flags the reviewer "there's cash in this report" so extra attention is on that report.

You could also separate employees into different groups that have the same types of expenses so that it's easier to segregate them when it's in the final stages of report review.

My only other thought is have the administrator role shared with others.

I hope others have good ideas to offer as well. Best,

[IMBPR]

Thanks JessicaL.  I do have two others that serve as back up for processing reports.  The expense report flows to us after it is approved by a manager.  We check for receipts and company compliance.  However, the volume of expense reports is something that may need to be addressed.    Setting audit rules, as you mentioned, might be a great idea and will definetly look into it.

[DavidW · Accepted solution]

I think it depends.

1. Get an assistant to do some basic checks - if the reports are missing this data, let them kick it back.

2) Determine how many expense reports you will process that day - your turnaround might be slower for some people that have OOP, but you get some sanity.

3) Have employees only submit one expense report a month.

4) I guess you could pay for some of the audit services to help you too.

I've see option #3 and option #2 work the best.

[watson]

Hello,

Is there an audit rule that will only allow the employee to submit one report per month?

[clayw1963]

It sounds like you really need a strong set of audit rules.  Simple reports that are lower $ and don't violate the company policy would automatically approve and wouldn't stop in your office.

With our audit rules in place we have around 20 -22% of our total reports that stop in our office.  We also do a small audit of the auto approved reports to make sure that we have the correct audit rules in place.

Clay

[hlucas]

Clay, would you be willing to share some of your audit rules with me via email.  Just curious what we could be doing better to decrease the amount of reports that are touched by our processors.

Thanks!
Heather Lucas

hlucas@bcbsal.org

[joshhorton]

HI Clay- would you be able to share some of your audit rules with me as well?

We are new to Concur and welcome any advice.

thanks

[joshhorton]

Is there an audit rule that will only allow the employee to submit one report per month?

[amanning23]

Clay,

We have been reviewing 100% of expense reports and are now starting to look into auto approving some of the easy reports. Any chance you would share some of your Audit rules or how you were able to set up the auto approvals in your workflow?

Thanks,

Adam Manning

[lharr28]

Hi Clay!

I'm in the process of developing a system to audit our expenses that are automatically approved.  How do you conduct your audit for the smaller dollar amount expenses?  Do you mind sharing your procedure?

Thanks,

Tori

[SandraA]

You have not said but it sounds like you are processing 100% of the reports?    In our view that's not how Concur is best utilized.   The managers should be verifying things are done correctly.   You shouldn't need to recheck all the reports.

Most companies I've talked to fall into 2 camps.   Small companies tend to do 100%.  Large companies tend to audit between 5% and 25%.

We are currently doing less than 20%.   

[amanning23]

Sandra,

We are currently auditing 100% of expense reports. We are now starting to look into auto approving the easier expense reports and smaller $ amounts. Can you share any of your experience such as which audit rules your utilize or how you setup the auto approvals in the workflow?

Thanks,

Adam Manning

amanning@medline.com

[ConradHernandez]

Hi Sandra,

Hope you can help answering the following two questions:

1. Are you currently utilizing any AI or auditing solution (Concur Detect, Insight, etc.) for your post-approval audit process that supports only auditing 20% of expense reports approved by managers?
2. In your experience, what approach has been the most successful to you in having all approving managers be your partner as it relates to embracing policies and approving only expenses that meet policy?

Thank you in advance for your feedback/recommendations.

Best regards,

Conrad Hernandez

Medline Director of Finance

Medline Industries

chernandez@medline.com

(847) 837-2796

[dayfrench]

I agree with what everyone said about Audit Rules.

Also, make receipts required for expenses over a certain dollar amount. For us it's $25. That way people cannot submit until they have attached the receipt.

In addition, we're implementing Concur Detect to assist with our auditing. We're in the learning stages (just went live with Detect about 2 months ago) but I think it's going to be really good for us.