Audit rule which checks across multiple years

[Danc]

Is it possible to create an audit rule which checks across multiple years for a given user/expense report type?

Ex. We have an expense report type ‘Employee Special Benefit’. The lifetime limit is $1000 per employee. When an employee enters a new expense report of this type we want the system to add up all prior expense reports for that type/person for all prior dates and confirm is not > 1000. If > 1000 then throw error/warning that user is over limit.

Seems like there is some limit to only check by year so can a formula be created to do:

Amount-Yearly Total for current year

PLUS

Amount-Yearly Total for prior year

Possible?

Thanks for any assistance you can provide

[AmberLee]

This is an excellent question and one I'm surprised wasn't answered. I have a similar issue right now regarding mobile phone device allowance for a two year period, which I'm told can't be done. We all know that nothing is impossible. @KevinD @tjbmoreno @RichardG  Do either of you have any insight?

[KevinD]

@AmberLee Can you send me the details of what the mobile allowance amount is over the two-year period, please? I've reached out to someone and he has an idea he wants to try. No promises, but he's gonna test something out. 

I take it you want to prevent report submission if they go over the allotted amount within the two year period, correct?

Kevin

[sreeleshskumar]

Hi All,

This is the same question even i have raised a couple of years back they (Concur Support) have come back saying its not possible to set it up and asked me to submit a solution suggestion.

But still i am think on and trying to find an altenative. 

Shouldn't be possible to set up by having the dates being set up for 2 years?

For example if the audit rule has to be audited for 2 years and if we can put the number of instances this expense has been expensed and the date as dated from Jan 1 2018 to Dec 31, 2020? - Is this something possible??

[KevinD]

As a work around since this currently isn't possible, what I would do is create a Cognos report that is scheduled to run on the first day of every month. You can have the employee name, report name and add expense type. Filter expense type for this one single expense type. Then group the report by Employee so the report will total up this expense type by employee to show what their current running total is. At least this way you can track employees. I know it won't prevent them from going over the limit, but you can at least see if they have and then take the appropriate action. 

[aevangelista]

I would like to know why this audit rule can't be created? The work around isn't a great solution and requires manual intervention. Like you said, it won't prevent somone from going over the limit. But this is exactly what we need it to do. What are the barriers to get this audit rule to be developed? 

[aevangelista]

I just posted a solution suggestion. Would appreciate if you can update for visibility and push to the top of the queue.

https://concur.secure.force.com/CteSupport/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=0870e000000XiTP

[AmberLee]

The link was dead but I probably waited too long.

[kathyunited]

great idea!  We have a similar case where the union group can be reimbursed for passport and Chinese Visa for new or renewals (but not for lost).  It would be great to be able to track this across multiple years to ensure no double dipping.

[jen_docusign]

With Covid and going forward, there are many many more of us that need to have this ability. So many companies (and probably Concur) will be going virtual or hybrid and giving their employees a one-time stipend up to $X. We need a way for it to track and then just reject anything once they've hit the amount, regardless of the timeframe. I just logged in to check the forums and see that this is something that's been requested for years. I can't believe it hasn't been addressed yet...

[Munari_alEXPert]

I personally would avoid including expenses that can be used only once or have a total limit of X Dollars amount.

I don't think is the purpose of the Concur system for T&E. If there were some allowance or benefits it should go throught Accounts Payable department with their relative approver and probably HR included on the loop.

Running monthly report to check if the employee had spent during the years a specific amount on some expenses it would be much more manual work than having it completely outside of Concur. For me Concur is the place to contain all expenses, using Cognos for analysis (cost-audit) and finding best way to see cost optimization. 

[KevinD]

@jen_docusign I understand your concern. However, if you read @Munari_alEXPert explanation on this thread, he sums it up pretty well.

The design of Concur is for expenses that are regularly incurred by employees and not a one-off type of expense. Currently we can only create an audit rule that looks at a yearly total for an expense. 

I know a few people have expressed they would like to be able to create a rule that looks across multiple years, but in all transparency, only a few customers have expressed this concern. So, when a solution suggestion goes in, it needs to receive enough votes for us to implement the change. Not getting enough votes sometime means the suggestion wasn't something a majority of customers felt they needed. 

[Nitty]

Hello all,

Has anyone found a resolution to this issue? As I couldn't locate any available options or viable workarounds, I have submitted a request for improvement. If anyone has come across a solution, kindly inform me. Thank you.

https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/303458 

@mamehta 
@schernau 
@AmberLee 
@aevangelista 
@sreeleshskumar 
@jen_docusign 
@kathyunited 

@Danc 

[AmberLee]

I haven't seen anything yet but agree with Munari_alEXPert about one-time expenses or stipends needing to go through HR/Payroll. We ended up doing that with relocation costs because of the different way they're taxed. For the work from home expenses, we did that the hard way and just let everyone do it one time. We even moved cell phone reimbursement to Payroll instead of expense reports and everyone gets the same amount, regardless of device or size of their phone bill.  

[mengelken]

This would be very useful for us as well as we have some purchase policies for 1 and 2 year purchases.  Sad to see this post is so old, but the system will only go back 1 year still.