How to ignore the department code on employee profile and redirect the system to a table

[smojica]

My company is currently working on our Concur build and ran into an issue with the coding. We have been informed that the GL coding will derive from the employee profile pulling their "Business Unit" and "Department" and then the object account based on expense type pulled from a background table. Which in the case of the 3 main travel expense types this will work as we split travel, meals and mileage by salaried (fixed cost) and hourly (variable cost) employees. But we have additional "other" expense types such as Employee Relations, Recruiting, Mfg Shop Supplies, Dues & Subscriptions, Education, etc. in which only the business unit is relevant and the department code would not be based on the employee profile. The expenses just mentioned fall into either fixed or variable, but never both. How can we configure our Concur build to understand that if an employee request to be reimbursed for "Employee Relations" expense type and they are setup as business unit 211 and department 090 that only the business  unit should be looked to and department ignored? In this case the correct business unit and department would be 211 + 092 and the object account being 61234. I pressed our consultant on this and she made it seem as if this is a complex request. Is there not a way to build logic that states if expense type is B (other expense types non-travel) than system will look to a background table for coding and when expense type is A (travel, meals, mileage) pull from employee profile business unit, department, and the table for the proper object account? Or possibly all coding is pulled from a background table and the only field referenced in the employee profile would be the business unit which will aid in selection of the proper coding from the table in conjunction with expense type? Ultimately what I am trying to avoid is manual corrections needing to be done when preparing the monthly financials.  If we are going to implement a system to streamline our T&E process I want to make sure we are not adding work to others. Hope this all makes sense. Any and all suggestions are welcome and please let me know if you need any clarification. 

[leela2516]

@smojica - My first question is, will you be utilizing the AP/GL Extract and processing the transactions in a local ERP or is everything being processed through SAP Concur? I ask because we utilize the AP/GL Extract and would do this type of coding in the "processing" of the data from Concur, not within Concur. I am not aware of any way to do what you are asking in Concur itself.

[KevinD]

@smojica question for you...is business unit always used no matter the expense type and Department is the only thing that will be ignored with certain expense types? 

GL Coding is mapped to expense types, so you can certainly create a hierarchy to map an expense type's GL Code to a business unit. However, this information must be entered manually. Which means, if you have 100 business units and all need to have a unique GL Code for expense types, you will be doing a lot of manual work. Then multiply that amount of work by the number of expense types you want to map. 

If you don't need each business unit to have its own GL Code by expense type, I think I have an option for you. 

I'll await your reply.

[smojica]

Yes business unit will always apply and department is what I would like to ignore for a select expense types. 

I like the idea of a hierarchy by business unit, where the only field pulled from the employee profile would be the business unit and the next field to be referenced would be expense type and based on  business unit and expense type the account code table would be referenced for "Business Units + Expense Type" to complete the full GL coding. Is that something that is possible? 

Here is a sample of the data: 

[KevinD]

@smojica I believe it is possible. However, to be able to do this you would need the correct permissions within SAP Concur. Do you have full site access or does someone at your company have full site access? If not, then your two options are:

1. Take our Advanced Configuration Training to gain full site access.

2. Submit your request to SAP Concur Support.

Likely option 2 will be much cheaper and likely faster.

[smojica]

@KevinD  We are currently in the design phase. Possibly its unclear of what is being asked from me.  And once that is clarified the next step would be identifying if this configuration comes with a cost.  Fyi...We had a follow up meeting today in which this was an outstanding question and today the consultant confirmed the system is unable to configure such logic. I had no rebuttal to this finding as I was eagerly waiting to see if you had a solution. Do you have any advice on how to present this case so that it is better understood by the consultant? 

[KevinD]

@smojica is your consultant from one of our certified partners or are they an SAP Concur Implementation consultant?

[smojica]

@KevinD The company name is Concur and role/title is Senior Consultant & PMP. We are also using iMeet for communication. Does that help? 

[KevinD]

@smojica definitely sounds like it is one of our employees. Do you plan to use just one GL Code per expense type? From the example screenshot it looks like that is the plan as your Salaried and Hourly GL Code for the expense type Travel both look to be 61600. What will distinguish expenses for account string purposes is the Business Unit and Department, is that correct? 

In other words, no matter what business unit or department and employee is in, the GL Code/Account Code for an expense type will not change. So, the Travel expense type will always be coded as 61600 no matter who is submitting the expense, is that right?

[smojica]

@KevinD  The example provided was the impact to our plant locations, but we also have branches/corporate in which then creates two separate object accounts that could be used for travel either 61600 (plants) or 71600 (branch or corporate) 

Another idea I been thinking of is to have travel, meals, and mileage expense tied to the employee profile meaning they system will pull the business unit and department codes from profiles for theses specific expenses in addition to pulling the object acct form the account code table. 

And for all other expenses the business unit is pulled from employee profile and department is ignored and within the account code table the object acct will include the correct department in combination with the proper object account. Is this a possibility? 

[smojica]

@KevinD Curious if you were able to look into my last response. The team has a meeting in about 30 minutes to discuss if we are going to request configuration on this and push the consultant to look into our request further or go the "lazy" route and use the employee profile no matter right or wrong for business unit and department number. The lazy way would require the extract file to be corrected before posting into our ERP system. I would rather not have anyone manipulate the extract file....if possible. 

[KevinD]

@smojica just now seeing this. From what you described, it sounds possible. I was going to speak with a colleague about it, but she wasn't available. You mentioned the consultant said it was a complicated request, but they didn't say it wasn't possible, correct? If so, I would push for what you want. Unless the consultant tells you it just isn't possible, I would make the request. 

Keep in mind I haven't been part of your discussions with the consultant and I would defer to their expertise since this is what they do. I had a former boss tell me, "you don't get what you don't ask for", so I say ask for what you want and see what the consultant says. 

[smojica]

Not sure if I fully inquired on this correctly, but another thought was what if only the business unit is pulled from the employee profile and the remainder of the proper GL coding is pulled from the account code table based on expense type. I understand that would mean we would need to maintain more in the table due to each expense per business unit. Knowing the additional maintenance is this a possibility? 

[smojica]

@KevinD Do you need anymore information from me or clarification on any of the information?