Did You Know ... Approvers Have a Big Impact on Concur Users and Audits?
Approvers in Concur have the important task of reviewing Concur travel request and expense forms for compliance to policy, permission to travel, and budgetary expectations and limits. Don't rubber stamp your approvals! Review the expense types, the amounts, the payment methods and payment types, and all attachments and receipts. Every approver should look at the funding sources. Funding sources can be found in the header of a travel form, but also on the individual expense types. Another way to review the funding for the travel is to access the allocation summary, which is found under the request or report details link.
Reviewing everything in a travel form is especially important for a couple of reasons:
The first reason is that funding sources can be allocated to individual expense types. If a traveler splits funding sources and uses two sponsored projects with different owning Orgs, and/or SOAPF information from different Orgs, the travel form will route to Cost Center approvers in both Orgs. This gives both Orgs a chance to approve that travel expense before it hits one of their accounts. So if you are notified that you have something to review, please look at what is being charged to your Org via the funding. This will be even more important when the ability to encumber funds becomes active in Travel Requests and Travel Expenses. When encumbrances are activated in the future, you may be encumbering funds by an approval for travel that is charged to a different Org than yours — through a funding split.
The second reason is because auditors will be able to tell if attachments are opened or not. When an approver does not open attachments, they put your department at risk for an audit finding.
The third reason is so their travelers can learn from the experience. If you reduce an amount on a travel expense type in a request, enter a meaningful comment as to why. If you need attachments that aren't included, make sure your traveler knows what is missing and why it's needed. We are all new to Concur, and we're all learning together. The better the review is, the more the traveler learns about getting their forms completed correctly. This in turn feeds a more timely reimbursement.
So please do your due diligence and take care to review everything in a request and report. It's important, and it's a valuable learning tool for travelers.