Concur Invoice Standard Edition Administration Help

July 2021 Concur Expense Standard Edition Admin Summary

Update #1

Release Note Summaries

The items in this section are summaries of the release notes for this month. The Standard Edition release notes are accessible from What's New - Standard Edition

Audit Rules

Image Certification Date (e-Bunsho)

Administrators can configure custom audit rules based on the date value in the Image Certification Date field. Once the custom audit rule is configured, administrators can compare the receipt timestamp date to the expense entry transaction date and send alerts to users/groups and stop the flow of expenses reports when regulations are not met.

Currently, the Image Certification Date field is the e-Bunsho timestamp date used in Japan.

Image Certification Date field considerations:

  • Field calculation is based on the calendar day (business day logic is not included).

  • Dates used in the number of day calculation are based on the GMT time zone. We recommend making audit rules for one day less than desired to account for the time difference between the GMT and JST time zones.

  • Audit rules and compliance validations are based on information provided by the user for the transaction date. Because users can edit transaction dates, responsibility is with the user to ensure the transaction date is accurate based on receipt information.

  • Admins have the ability to create multiple audit rules for comparing the transaction date to the receipt timestamp date.

This field is available to new and existing clients.

This feature released was released in July 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Configuring custom audit rules for this field helps reduce manual reviews needed to compare the number of calendar days between the expense entry transaction date and the receipt timestamp date.

Authentication

Support for HMAC Now Deprecated

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

SAP Concur support for Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) has been deprecated.

SAP Concur provides a Single Sign-On self-service option that enables client admins to setup their SAML v2 connections without involving an SAP Concur support representative.

For more information about the Single Sign-On self-service option, refer to the Shared: Single Sign-On Overview (English Only) and the Shared: Single Sign-On Setup Guide (English Only).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

Cookie Preferences and User Consent

Explicit Cookie Consent and Zero Cookie Load Expanded to More Jurisdictions (July 1)

To ensure that SAP Concur solutions meet the user cookie consent requirements of the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the United Kingdom (UK), and Brazil, on July 1, 2021, SAP implemented explicit cookie consent and zero cookie load for SAP Concur solutions in those jurisdictions.

  • Explicit cookie consent: The user must agree to allow cookies to be stored on their device by responding affirmatively to a request for consent.

  • Zero cookie load: The user must provide explicit cookie consent before any cookies can be saved to their device.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change ensures that SAP Concur sites comply with the cookie consent requirements of the listed jurisdictions and enables users to choose which cookies are downloaded to their devices by SAP Concur solutions.

Expense Reports

Edit Multiple Expenses and Itemizations (Jun 22)

These changes are part of the NextGen UI experience.

This feature allows users to select multiple expenses in an expense report and edit common elements across all lines at once.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This functionality simplifies repetitive data entry for expense reports and streamlines expense report creation for users.

File Transfer Updates

**Ongoing** Mandatory SFTP with SSH Key Authentication

This release note is intended for technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur products. For SAP Concur customers and vendors participating in data exchange through various secure file transfer protocols, SAP is making changes that provide greater security for those file transfers.

As of April 10, 2021, non-SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) protocols and SFTP password authentication are not allowed to connect to SAP Concur for file transfers:

  • Non-SFTP file transfer accounts must switch to SFTP with SSH Key Authentication.

  • SFTP file transfer accounts that use password authentication must switch to SSH key authentication.

  • SFTP password reset requests require the client to provide an SSH key for authentication.

On April 12, 2021, SAP started disabling non-compliant file transfer connections. The process of disabling non-compliant accounts will continue throughout 2021. If you have multiple file transfer connections configured, this change applies to all of your file transfer connections.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

  • st-eu.concursolutions.com

  • vs.concursolutions.com

  • vs.concurcdc.cn

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes provide greater security for file transfers.

**Ongoing** SAP Concur Legacy File Move Migration

This release note is intended for the technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur. For our customers and vendors participating in data exchange, SAP Concur is maintaining our file transfer subsystem to provide greater security for those file transfers.

SAP Concur is in the process of migrating entities that currently use a legacy process for moving files to a more efficient and secure file routing process that relies on APIs.

Clients whose entities are currently configured to use the legacy process will be migrated to the more efficient process sometime between now and January 24, 2022. After they are migrated to the more efficient process, clients will see the following improvement:

  • With the legacy process, clients had to wait for the file move schedule to run at a specified time. With the more efficient and secure API-based process, extracts and other outbound files from SAP Concur will be available within the existing overnight processing period shortly after the files are created.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes provide greater security and efficiency for file transfers.

Rotating PGP Key Available for File Transfers

Files transferred to SAP Concur products must be encrypted with the SAP Concur public PGP key, concursolutionsrotate.asc.

concursolutionsrotate.asc

  • Key file is available in client’s root folder

  • Key ID 40AC5D35

  • RSA 4096-bit signing and encryption subkey

  • Key expires every 2 years

  • Client is responsible for replacing the key before it expires

    • Next expiry date: September 4, 2022

    • SAP Concur plans to replace the current rotating public PGP key in the client’s root folder 90 days before the expiration date

The SAP Concur legacy PGP key (key ID D4D727C0) remains supported for existing clients but will be deprecated in the future.

SAP Concur strongly recommends that clients use the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers. To facilitate the use of the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers, SAP Concur added the key to existing client’s home folders on Friday, January 15, 2021.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

  • st.concursolutions.com

  • mft-us.concursolutions.com

  • vs.concursolutions.com

  • st-eu.concursolutions.com

  • mft-eu.concursolutions.com

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The rotating public PGP key provides greater security for file transfers.

Localization

Translations for Cash Advance Term

With the June release, SAP Concur is changing the following terms in the Brazilian Portuguese version of the SAP Concur user interface to bring consistency in translation of the term “Cash Advance”:

English Term

Current BR Portuguese Term

Updated BR Portuguese Term

Cash Advances

Adiantamentos de viagem

Adiantamentos

Cash Advance

Adiantamento em espécie

Adiantamento

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These revisions provide a more accurate translation and improved user experience in Brazilian Portuguese.

Mileage Service

Fuel for Mileage (July 21)

SAP Concur releases a new Mileage Service update that allows a company to track and reclaim fuel and mileage taxes. The feature for fuel Value-Added Tax (VAT) reclaim lets a user record mileage expenses and fuel expenses on the same expense report (also known as a claim) to allow tracking of the reclaimable VAT paid on the fuel that will be used during mileage journeys.

As a result of this change, a Fuel for Mileage expense type can be created by an admin for users to reclaim fuel and mileage taxes.

The result is the next generation of the Concur Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent, and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced user interface, but also allows us to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

An admin can also create the following for new Mileage Service users to use:

  • Fuel for Mileage entry form

  • Mileage – No Receipt entry form

  • Fuel Type simple list

  • Mileage (Placeholder) UK Tax Group

  • FUELFORM Audit Rule

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update enhances the Mileage Service functionality by allowing users to:

  • Add Fuel for Mileage expenses via the Quick Expenses grid

  • Add mileage expenses via the Mileage grid

  • Reclaim fuel and mileage taxes

NextGen UI

**Ongoing** Updated User Interface (UI) for Concur Expense End Users

The continued evolution of the Concur Expense solution user interface experience is the result of thoughtful design and research that provides a modern, intuitive, and streamlined experience for creating and submitting expense reports.

Concur Expense customers have the ability to preview and then opt in to the NextGen UI before the mandatory move.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The result is the next generation of the Concur Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent, and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced user interface, but also allows us to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

Payment Types

Welcome Banner Removal

On July 6th, the Welcome banner in the Payment Types module in Product Settings was removed.

When the Payment Types module was added to Product Settings in March 2021, the Welcome banner gave clients the option to revert to using the current Credit Cards module (located in the Connections section in Product Settings) for a temporary period and until all clients successfully migrated to using the new Payment Types module.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change supports client use of the new Payment Types module for self-service setup and management of card programs and set up and configuration for company paid expenses.

Profile

(Canada) New Personal Address Requirements for Bank Information

For Canadian users who enter or update their Bank Information page in Profile, new fields display. Some of the new fields are required to comply with local banking regulations.

The following fields are impacted by this change:

  • Personal Address Line 1 (required)

  • Personal Address Line 2 (optional)

  • City (required)

  • Province (required)

  • Postal Code (required)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Concur Expense must contain all information that may be required for payment processing.

(Mexico) New Personal Address Requirements for Bank Information

For Mexican users who enter or update their Bank Information page in Profile, new fields display. Some of the new fields are required to comply with local banking regulations.

The following fields are impacted by this change:

  • Swift Code (required)

  • RFC (required)

  • Phone Number (optional)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Concur Expense must contain all information that may be required for payment processing.

Security

**Ongoing** Changes to Some Email Subdomains

SAP is adopting the Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC) email security protocol for all email sent from SAP. As a result, the email addresses for some email sent from SAP Concur organizations will no longer be sent from the @sap.com root domain, but will instead be sent from a subdomain of sap.com, such as @example.sap.com where “example” is the subdomain.

If your organization maintains an allow list for email addresses, you can update your allow list to include email from the following domains to ensure that you receive emails sent from the sap.com root domain and subdomains of the sap.com root domain:

  • @info.sap.com

  • @mail.sap.com

  • @*sap.com

    • If your internal configuration allows it, adding @*sap.com can minimize the need for future updates by allowing all emails from the sap.com domain and from subdomains of the sap.com domain. For example, if your allow list includes @*sap.com you do not need to add @info.sap.com or @mail.sap.com because @*sap.com encompasses those subdomains.

The following types of email communications from SAP Concur solutions are not impacted by this change:

  • 1:1 e-mail communication that you have with your SAP Concur account team or other SAP representatives. These e-mails will continue to come from @sap.com.

  • System e-mails (for example expense report approvals and travel bookings) that come from concursolutions.com, tripit.com, or other SAP Concur products and solutions

  • SAP Concur support updates (such as case notifications)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: DMARC compliance provides better security for emails sent from SAP to its customers.

Web Services Administration

**Ongoing** Application Connector Username and Password Length Requirements Updated

Beginning on October 4, 2021, the length of the username and password associated with an application connector must be at least 10 characters long and not more than 50 characters long. To avoid disruption of callouts through application connections, usernames and passwords that do not meet these requirements must be updated before October 4, 2021.

Application connection usernames and passwords can be updated by an administrator with the Company Admin or Web Services Admin role.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Enforcing password and username length restrictions improves the security standards for callouts made through the application connector.

Planned Change Summaries

The items in this section are summaries of the changes targeted for future releases. SAP Concur reserves the right to postpone implementation of – or completely remove – any enhancement/change mentioned here.

IMPORTANT: These Planned Changes may not be all of the upcoming enhancements and modifications that affect this SAP Concur product or service. The Planned Changes that apply to multiple SAP Concur products and/or services are in a consolidated document. Please review the additional Planned Changes admin summaries available in the July 2021 Shared Planned Changes Standard Edition Admin Summary.

App Center

**Planned Changes** Amazon Business Integration

Targeted for August 2, 2021, SAP Concur solutions is excited to announce that Amazon Business will be integrated with SAP Concur. With this integration, companies are now able to offer their employees, who purchase items through Amazon Business, the ability to add their expenses to an expense report, view the e-receipt, and then submit, rather than needing to import receipts or filling out forms for each expense.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This integration allows employees to easily purchase items through Amazon Business and then submit their expenses in Concur Expense.

Mileage

**Planned Changes** New Mileage Features

SAP Concur continues to work on this change. With the next release, this information will be removed. When this change gets closer to a release date, this information will again appear in the release notes document.

Miscellaneous

**Planned Changes** 5-Star Rating Replaced with New Survey

Beginning on August 1, 2021, Concur Expense end users will see a new survey when submitting Expense Reports.

Currently, after submitting an Expense Report, a message appears intermittently asking the user to rate their experience from 1 to 5 stars. Beginning on August 1, after submitting an Expense Report, a short survey will intermittently appear enabling the user to provide feedback on their experience.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new survey will collect more actionable feedback that can be used by the SAP Concur product teams to prioritize and improve the features they deliver.

Client Notifications

The items in this section provide reference material for all clients.

Accessibility Updates

SAP implements changes to better meet current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Information about accessibility-related changes made to SAP Concur solutions is published on a quarterly basis. You can review the quarterly updates on the Accessibility Updates (English Only) page.

SAP Concur Non-Affiliated Subprocessors

The list of non-affiliated subprocessors is available here: SAP Concur list of Subprocessors (English Only)

Monthly Browser Certifications

Monthly browser certifications, both current and planned, are available with the other SAP Concur monthly release notes, accessible from What's New - Standard Edition