Travel Allowance Upgrade AMA 2025

MitchellW

Hello all - Welcome to this AMA Event on SAP Concur's Travel Allowance Upgrade. As a reminder, this event has no audio/visual component. It is simply a conversational thread that gives you each the power to ask your Travel Allowance related questions to our in house experts directly for the next hour.

To ask your question, click the blue "Reply" button located above within the the event itself (bottom right of the panel that contains the event descriptions, Featured Guests and RSVP functionality). Our experts will respond and be able to have a conversation with you for the next hour.

dmurphy3

Good morning! My question relates to custom travel allowances. We use the USGSA feed for the majority of our Daily Allowance amounts, but there are some jobs that we contract where we need to pay something other than the USGSA rates. For those, we enter custom Travel Allowance amounts for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. Will the new upgrade allow us to continue to use the custom amounts?

MatthewZ

The new Travel Allowance Service does allow for the usage of custom rates in combination with the U.S. rate feed updating automatically.

For upgrading your custom rates, we recommend a Concur or partner Assisted Upgrade. For maintenance, you'll have to discuss that with your account and/or implementation team. If you're currently utilizing the Managed Rates Administration service, you can continue having the rates updated under MRA.

dmurphy3

our monthly bill lists "Custom Travel Allowance - Recurring". Is that the "Managed Rates Administration" service?

Melissa_Darling

Managed Rates Administration is seperate subscription. Learn more here: https://www.concur.com/managed-rate-admin

gillels

Hi All,

Western Washington University is in WA State, and we have a separate set of per diem calculations that we have to do (there are I think 3 states that don't follow the USGSA rates exactly), so we currently have to download the rates, run through a spreadsheet to re-calculate the per meal adjustments, and then re-upload out custom file for TA per diem rates.

I just wanted to confirm if this ability to adjust to our state regulations on per meal rates is 100% going away, e.g. no way to have custom rates? Or is this something that other Concur users are also finding is a need that is going to be addressed?

At the moment it is reading to me that we are going to have to make plans and have some serious discussions on our side as we will be out of compliance with our state's regulations if we are going straight to un-adjustable rates.

Thanks!

Shawna

MartinGregory

@gillels - the ability to upload rate records for re-calculated allowances exists in the TA Service, with the main difference being this is done via an Excel CSV format, while rates and meal deductions require separate import formats. As you have a customized version of USGSA it is likely you would require an assisted upgrade, so this part of the process would not likely be self-service. The ongoing process for making those regular adjustments to your rate would need to be discussed with your Concur implementation team, as typically this is not self-serviced by our customers, but much depends on how often the rates need to be updated. It could still apply that you create the rate update file for upload, and SAP Concur could import this on our behalf.

Telma

Good morning!

My questions:

Is it possible presentation how will be this new version?

In the new version, will it still be possible to add several daily rates at the same time through the travel itinerary, as is done today?

Will there be an environment for early testing?

We will have some cost with this change (upgrade)?

marketa_c

Hello Telma,

here you can find many useful information: Travel Allowance Service Migrations including end user videos.
For testing can be either used your UAT entity or so called Preview mode, more details can be found in the link above.
Assisted upgrades are billable unless your company has purchased Managed Rates Administration package.

Telma

Will material not be made available in Portuguese?

marketa_c

For now only English is available

dmiranda

Agree with Telma. A step-by-step presentation would be helpful. Communication was not entirely clear on the upgrade

MartinGregory

You can also view the new Upgrading to Travel Allowance Service Video

Telma

I've already seen the video, but it's quite difficult to understand the technical changes, especially in another language

MartinGregory

If you contracted for an Assisted upgrade project, you could request a Concur consultant who was able to deliver the kick-off presentation in your preferred language.

Telma

Sorry, but in my opinion this is not right, because it is an upgrade made by SAP CONCUR, which we did not request, so we need to have all the explanations and support to understand what needs to be done and the impacts for users and not have to hire an assisted upgrade project to have more details.

kelseygordon01

@Telma We acknowledge your concern. We'll be sure to pass your feedback along to our localization teams.

marketa_c

Detailed presentation is part of the Assisted upgrade project during the kick off call, not available in advance.

Telma

Does this mean that there will only be a detailed presentation for those who hire support for assisted upgrade?

Travel Allowance Upgrade AMA 2025

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