March 2018 Expense Standard Edition Admin Summary
Last Update: 17 March 2018
Accessibility
Alternative Text for the Logo on the Sign In PageIn June of 2017, accessibility tests for the June 2017 VPAT identified exceptions to the WCAG 2.0 global standards of the W3. These exceptions are identified issues where the location or action did not adhere to the A or AA standard of specific WCAG 2.0 rules. Resolving this issue improves our accessibility quality on the targeted location or action by aligning it to the appropriate WCAG standard.
Effectively, the issue and resolution is this: Screen readers are a type of assistive technology that audibly reads each screen element (instructional text, fields, options, etc.) to the user. Proper coding (in this case, known as alternative text or alt text) is required to ensure the reader “reads” the proper information to the user.
The issue is that the logo on the Sign In page does not currently have the proper code to read the logo description to the user. In this release, this issue will be resolved.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Enhancing our products and services to better align to the accessible standards of WCAG 2.0 increases the ability of all Concur users.
Keyboard Access for Working for Others Quick HelpThe Working for Others Quick Help contains important information and should be available to everyone. Currently, it is available only by clicking the "?" icon with a mouse. With this release, the Working for Others Quick Help will become accessible via the keyboard.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Working for Others Quick Help will be available to mouse users and keyboard users.
Admin
Reminder: No Personal or Sensitive Data in Custom FieldsAll companies must take all reasonable steps to protect the personal and sensitive information of their employees. As per recommended security-related best practices, remember that custom fields should not contain personal and sensitive data.
If your company is currently using custom fields to store personal or sensitive data (for example, Social Security numbers, family member names or any other personally identifying information), you should plan to remove this information from your existing fields within the service and modify your current configuration.
Users by Browser Report UpdatedThe Users by Browser report has been updated to include more information – all in one place. It now lists all users as well as their browsers and login count.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The admin no longer has to generate a report for each browser. All users are listed in one report.
Budget
New Budget Feature Generally Available 19 March, 2018The 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 clients.
In addition, the Budget feature is available for the Concur mobile app for Expense. Please note that the release for the Concur mobile app occurs seven to ten days after the regular release.
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 clients.
Expense Pay
Consent Term Clarified from "Agree" to "Authorise"For all users who opt in to receive payments via Expense Pay, both Expense Pay – Global and classic Expense Pay, the term "agree" has been changed to "authorise" in the Concur User Interface (UI).
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater legal clarity for the instruction that users authorise direct deposits from Concur for classic Expense Pay or a Concur payment-processing partner for Expense Pay - Global.
Expense Claims
Check for Missing Account Code Later in WorkflowEmployees can now submit an expense claim even if one or more account codes are missing for expenses in the claim. However, the expense claim cannot be approved by the processor until an account code is provided.
Before this update, employees could not submit an expense claim if one or more account codes were missing for expenses in the claim.
Whenever an expense is saved, the system inserts the correct account code for the expense type (based on the account code configuration in Product Settings). With this update, the claim can now be submitted even when no account code has been mapped to the expense type. The expense claim can also be approved by the manager.
When the processor attempts to approve the claim, the system identifies that an account code is missing, checks the expense type account codes configuration to see if an account code has been added since the expense was last saved. If available, the system inserts the correct account code and continues with approval. If not available, the system blocks the expense data from being approved until your Concur company administrator provides an account code mapping for the expense type.
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.
Next Generation (NextGen)
Expense User InterfaceSAP Concur is dedicated to the consistent improvement of our products, not only the features they provide, but also the experience of using those features. How users interact with technology changes over time, along with needs and expectations. We are constantly listening to our customers and soliciting feedback on how we can improve the user experience.
NextGen Expense is the continued evolution of the SAP Concur user experience. It was built from extensive user research and data analytics that include 680 1:1 conversations, 58 usability studies, 3,000+ survey responses and 1.3B monthly user actions.
The result is the next generation of the Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced UI, but also allows SAP Concur to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
(UK) Updated HMRC Fuel Advisory RatesConcur has updated Value Added Tax (VAT) rates in accordance with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Advisory Fuel Rates (AFRs).
Changes for petrol vehicle types:
Over 2000cc to 22 pence
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** Remove All Instances of "ConcurAccessible"This release note has been removed but will be included for a future release.
**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 Feature for Outdated DataThis new feature will allow clients to control how long Concur stores their data based on who, when and where criteria.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients the ability to meet their specific compliance needs regarding data retention.
**Planned Changes** Opt Out of In-Product Messaging (United States)Last year, when In-Product Messaging (IPM) was introduced in Europe, the feature included the ability for users to opt out of messaging.
In a future release, Concur will provide customers in the United States the ability to opt out.
**Planned Changes** IC Card Readers Will Support Company-Level AuthenticationThe IC Card Reader solution will switch authentication processes during the weekend of 14 and 15 April, 2018. The maintenance time will be provided in a future version of these release notes.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change will simplify user activation and allow transactions to show more quickly in Available Expenses.
**Planned Changes** New 23-Month FilterA 23-month filter will be included with the new Data Retention feature. The filter will impact the following areas:
- Available Expenses
- View Transactions
- Unassigned Cash Advances
This new feature will automatically filter older transactions. The 23-month time is not configurable. Clients who opt to enable the new Data Retention feature automatically turn on the 23-month filter.
Under View Transactions, statement periods older than 23 months will also be filtered out.
Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This filter will reduce the accumulation of unprocessed transactions over time and support the new Data Retention feature.
**Planned Changes** Support for Plain Text FTP to End on 15 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 15 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
