approving a report for payment but not the actual expense

[Tblake63]

Employees put all credit card charges on their expense report because we pay card charges in full and then have the employee reimburse us for anything that should not have been on the report.   

We are finding that now we are having issues with auditors that the report and expense are shown as approved when the expnese is something questionable.  Is there a way to approve the total dollar amount but have the approver indicate that a specfic spend amount was not authorized?

[KevinD]

@Tblake63 you may consider doing partial approvals. Here is how it works. When a manager receives an expense report in their approval queue and opens that report, when they click on a line item to review it, they will see that there is a field labeled Approved Amount. This is where they can enter the amount of the expense that can be approved. For example, if your company policy regarding, let's say Dinner, is that you aren't supposed to spend more than $40 and the employee entered $50. The approver can type $40 in the Approved Amount field to say that only $40 of the $50 is approved. This will then place an icon on that line item indicating it has been partially approved. 

Also, before a report gets reimbursed or paid, the Expense Processor should be giving the report one last look and can hopefully catch anything the auditors and approvers may have missed. Processors can also partially approve expenses and even send the report back to the employee to make corrections.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Tblake63]

Unfortunatly when you partial approve it results in only partial payment as well. 

The auditors I refer to are not individuals that have access to our Concur.  They are more of an oversight committee that regulates what the sales force can and cannot purchase.  Managers do not want to approve something they know should not have been purchased but we still have to pay our credit card.

[KevinD]

@Tblake63 are your employees marking the expenses not business related as a personal expense to denote that is what they will then owe back to the company? 

[Tblake63]

No they are entering in as the expense they believe it to be and submit.  When it gets to the manager that is where they would be marking if it is in compliance regulations or not.  If they had the ability to put a note on the report when approving that would be helpful.

I believe I may have found a way that will designate that a specific charge is not in compliance and still pay the entire amount. 

If the approver clicks approve and forward, the approver can then add a comment  stating what they did not authorize and forward an approver set up to review compliance issues.   

[Tblake63]

yes 

[JackieL]

So what happens to the portion of the report that was not approved for payment? It is still closed and not able to be paid at a later date? Or will it sit in there and someone else could possible pay the difference between the requested amount and the approved amount?

Thanks

Jackie 

[KevinD]

@JackieL if any expense was only partially approved, then the employee is responsible for paying the amount that was not approved, whether that be directly to the company or to the credit card company. When I say partially approved, I mean the report has gone through the entire approval process. The report should still be closed out. Once closed, any payments at a later date would be handled manually and not through SAP Concur, as far as I understand the process. 

[JackieL]

Thank You! The report being closed out will not allow future payments towards that same expense correct? Meaning someone else couldn't accidentally pay the remainder. Correct?

[KevinD]

@JackieL I don't believe so. Once the batch is closed, SAP Concur considers those reports Paid and those reports cannot be reopened and reprocessed.