January 2018 Expense Standard Edition Admin Summary
Last Update: 13 January 2018
Japan Public Transportation (JPT)
Jorudan MaintenanceThe Japan Public Transportation (JPT) database of stations and lines received routine maintenance changes such as additions, name changes and removals.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Lists in Expense continue to reflect JPT's current stations and lines.
New Concur Logo
New SAP Concur LogoIn January – on the release date or shortly after – the SAP Concur logo will appear in all Concur products.
The new logo will be displayed in the upper-left corner of each page.
Both the SAP and Concur logos appear in the footer.
If a Travel Management Company (TMC) has rebranded in the footer, in addition to the TMC logo, the SAP logo will appear.
USB IC Card Readers – Japan
No Longer SupportedAs mentioned in the December 2017 version of these release notes, the USB IC Card reader solution for capturing Japanese IC Card travel information in Expense utilised a reader connected to a single computer.
On 1 August 2017, Concur discontinued support for this solution.
After 31 December 2017, the solution is retired and will no longer work in Concur.
As a replacement, Concur's current solution uses a Network IC Card Reader, which our Japanese clients are already deploying. The Network IC Card Reader has the benefit of allowing multiple users to import transactions at a central location.
For the Network IC Card Reader release note, refer to the October 2016 version of this document.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This retirement keeps Concur users aligned with current technology.
Product Settings
Option to Hide Self-Education ? IconAdministrators can now temporarily hide the question mark (?) icon used to access the self-education pane on the Product Settings pages and other pages where the self-education pane is available.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement provides additional flexibility for managing the visibility of the self-education pane.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
(Norway) Updated Reduced RateConcur has updated the Reduced and Domestic Travel VAT rates from 10% to 12% effective 1 January 2018.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Businesses maintain best-practice tax compliance.
(Switzerland) Updated RatesConcur has updated VAT rates for Switzerland effective 1 January 2018.
The following table displays the updated rates:
Rate Type | Current Rate | New Rate |
|---|---|---|
Standard | 8.0 | 7.7 |
Reduced | 3.8 | 3.7 |
Domestic Travel | 8 | 7.7 |
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Businesses maintain best-practice tax compliance.
Planned Changes
The items in this section are targeted for future releases. Concur reserves the right to postpone implementation of – or completely remove – any enhancement/change mentioned here.
**Planned Changes** Removing the "Privacy Agreement" PageFor clients who currently display the Privacy Agreement page to users, be aware that on 14 April, 2018, Concur will eliminate that page. That means the privacy agreement will no longer display under any circumstances. In addition, the options to customise the privacy agreement text and to apply policy (for example, to require that a user accept the privacy agreement) will be removed.
In a separate release, Concur will provide a standard privacy statement, which can be accessed via a link in the page footer.
This release note discusses the removal of the Privacy Agreement page and its associated configuration options. Information about the new Concur privacy statement will be provided in future release notes.
The intent of the change is to ensure that all customers see the same unmodified Concur privacy statement.
**Planned Changes** New One-Year FilterCurrently additional design work is being done for this feature, which incorporates client feedback. In February, Concur plans to provide details about the revised design.
The Available Expenses list on the Manage Expense page will soon no longer display expenses older than one year.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This new feature automatically filters expenses with transaction dates older than one year and only displays expenses added within the past 12 months, to provide an easier end-user experience. This change is consistent with behaviour in the Available Receipts sections (where unused receipts older than one year are hidden) and will result in improved performance by reducing the volume of old, unnecessary data.
**Planned Changes** New Budget Feature in Early Adopter ProgrammeThis feature is available to Early Adopter clients only. Budget will be a phased release starting in March with availability to all clients targeted in Q2.
The Budget feature enables clients to set up all components of a budget; a fiscal year to determine the budget period, budget tracking fields to track spending on a cost centre (profit centre) level, budget categories to group expense types for budget purposes and budgets, which are the actual annual budgets, and Budget Items, which define the budget including fiscal year, budget owner, budget name and description.
This feature makes budgets visible, actionable and real-time for approvers and budget owners, leading to high-quality spending decisions for Expense.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature makes budgets visible, actionable and real-time for approvers and budget owners, leading to high-quality spending decisions for Expense.
**Planned Changes** Check for Missing Account Code Later in WorkflowEmployees will be able to save, submit and approve an expense claim even if one or more account codes are missing for expenses in the claim.
Currently, whenever an expense is saved, the system validates that an account code has been provided for the related expense type and adds that account code to the expense (a process not visible through the UI). If there is no account code associated with the expense, the expense cannot be saved.
With this update, the claim can be submitted and approved. However, the system will block the expense data from being extracted or posted to your financial system until your Concur company administrator provides an account code mapping for the expense type in Product Settings.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Employees are no longer prevented from completing their expense claims when an account code is missing in the expense type configuration. Account codes are now populated at a single, consistent point in the workflow.
**Planned Changes** Support for Plain Text FTP to End on 15th May, 2018Concur is announcing the End of Support for plain text FTP as a means to transfer data to and from Concur.
Plain text FTP is not a secured protocol and has inherent security vulnerabilities. On 15th May, 2018, Concur Operations will apply a security update to our File Transfer infrastructure, restricting the use of plain text FTP as a part of our ongoing commitment to securing our customers’ data and meeting the audited security requirements of the "Concur Trust Platform".
For more information, refer to the Plain Text FTP Retirement FAQ.
What This Means – The Client Experience: Transfer of data to and from Concur using plain text FTP after the End of Support date will result in a failure of incoming connections. Clients using plain text FTP must utilise one of the approved secured methods to continue transferring data as outlined in the File Transfer User Guide. This change is required on the client side, and Concur is available to support these efforts.
**Planned Changes** Category List Will Display Spend Category SuggestionsThe Category list on the Expense Types page (Expense > Expense Types) in Product Settings will show spend category suggestions at the top of the list.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update simplifies the spend category selection process for expense types.
Client Notifications
Concur Non-Affiliated SubprocessorsThe list of non-affiliated subprocessors is available here: Concur Non-Affiliated Subprocessors (English Only)
Monthly Browser CertificationsMonthly browser certifications, both current and planned, are available with the other Concur monthly release notes, accessible from What's New - Standard Edition
