OCR used by Concur Expense module

[Mariuszt]

Hi there,

recently I found a note about OCR functionality used by Concur . Where can I find some more details about this option?

“Using smart devices employees can create digital counterparts of paper invoices by taking pictures of them. The SAP Concur app can turn these images into processable documents using optical character recognition (OCR) from which transaction information can be extracted automatically. AI processes can then analyze this information for errors or inconsistencies.”

Is this something that requires additional activation.

I'll appreciate some more guidelines or reference point with materials to explore.

Many thanks!

Best regards,

Mariusz

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@Mariuszt this is referring to our ExpenseIt feature which is an add-on service. Once purchased, it will be available for users to turn on in the mobile app. ExpenseIt scans the receipt and creates an expense entry for the users which can then be added to an expense report. 

One little nuance of using ExpenseIt is if your company uses a corporate credit card and feeds those transactions into SAP Concur. Users get confused because ExpenseIt creates the expense entry within about a minute of receipt capture. Corporate card charges take on average three days to appear in the user's account. What ends up happening is the user sees the ExpenseIt item and adds it to their expense report. They may end up even submitting the report. Then a day or so later the corporate card charges comes in. Users don't know what to do with the card charge because they submitted the entry already. What they need to do is when they see an ExpenseIt item, let it sit there in the Available Expenses. When the corresponding company card charge comes in, the system will match the ExpenseIt item to the card charge. Then the user should add it to a report. 

Now, for out of pocket/cash expenses, the user can add the ExpenseIt item to their report as soon as it is available. 

If you want to know more about adding on the service and pricing, you should contact your Customer Success Manager (Account Manager).

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@Mariuszt this is referring to our ExpenseIt feature which is an add-on service. Once purchased, it will be available for users to turn on in the mobile app. ExpenseIt scans the receipt and creates an expense entry for the users which can then be added to an expense report. 

One little nuance of using ExpenseIt is if your company uses a corporate credit card and feeds those transactions into SAP Concur. Users get confused because ExpenseIt creates the expense entry within about a minute of receipt capture. Corporate card charges take on average three days to appear in the user's account. What ends up happening is the user sees the ExpenseIt item and adds it to their expense report. They may end up even submitting the report. Then a day or so later the corporate card charges comes in. Users don't know what to do with the card charge because they submitted the entry already. What they need to do is when they see an ExpenseIt item, let it sit there in the Available Expenses. When the corresponding company card charge comes in, the system will match the ExpenseIt item to the card charge. Then the user should add it to a report. 

Now, for out of pocket/cash expenses, the user can add the ExpenseIt item to their report as soon as it is available. 

If you want to know more about adding on the service and pricing, you should contact your Customer Success Manager (Account Manager).

[Mariuszt · Accepted solution]

@Kevin  thank you very much for above information. Very helpful as always.

Best regards,

Mariusz

[MSteele]

My company encourages our employees to use the mobile app and ExpenseIt.  It saves everyone so much time while they are traveling our out with clients.  No more missing receipts.  LOVE IT!!!

[jcangel]

My issue is that when I email the receipt days after the charge (from Company Card) comes in, the emailed receipt or flight itinerary gets attached to a bogus expense and not the the correct charge/expense.  Would be great to turn off the OCR and just take the emailed receipt from the 'receipt store' and attach to the correct expense.

Is there a way in the mobile app, to pull receipt from the bogus expense to the real expense?

Thanks in advance.

[KevinD]

@jcangel I'll do you one better. You can simply turn off ExpenseIt for both mobile and the web. That way captured or emailed receipts will go to Available Receipts and not be assigned to any card transactions. In the mobile app, go to to Settings You'll see a toggle switch for ExpenseIt. In the web, go to Profile>Profile Settings>Expense Settings>Expense Preferences. You'll see the ExpenseIt option here.

[jcangel]

Thank you! I will give that a try.

[cjmarimo]

Hi @KevinD 

Would it be possible to make that if an employee has a corporate card, his/her capture with ExpenseIt remains in the "Card Transaction Request" type, and if the employee does not have a corporate card, leave it in the "Cash" type?

It frequently happens to us that there are employees who send the ExpensIt capture before the card transaction arrives to them.

BR,

cj

[KevinD]

@cjmarimo if a user has an assigned company card, their ExpenseIt items should be coming in as Pending Card Transaction. If they do not have an assigned card, it should be coming in as Cash/Out of Pocket. If that isn't happening, you might want to submit a help ticket. For those without a company card, if their ExpenseIt items are saying Pending, they should be able to change the payment type once the item is added to their report.

[lannyr]

What happens if the user has an assigned company card but they used their personal card for the ExpenseIt item?  Will it come in as Pending Card transaction or Out of Pocket?  

[KevinD]

@lannyr from what I understand, it should come in as cash. ExpenseIt looks at the last digits of the card listed on the receipt. If it doesn't match the company card assigned to the user, it will come in as a Cash/Out of Pocket payment type.