Concur Invoice Standard Edition Administration Help

February 2019 Invoice Standard Edition Admin Summary

Initial Post

Release Notes

This topic contains the admin summaries of the release notes for the Concur Invoice functionality for the Standard Edition.

Concur Invoice

Menu Changes to Invoice Pay and Invoice Capture Features

Several design changes have been implemented in Concur Invoice. The Services menu has been removed, a new menu named Payments has been added, and the Invoice Capture and Payment Manager options have been moved to new locations.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement makes it easier for clients to navigate to the Invoice Capture, Payment Manager, and Provider Payment Manager features.

**Reminder** New User Interface for Concur Invoice Available for Client Review and Opt-In

Clients still have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the new user interface as SAP Concur prepares for general availability targeting the first quarter in 2019.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new Concur Invoice user interface enables clients to work more efficiently and provides them greater visibility into their invoices in flight.

Invoice Pay

New Provider Payment Manager Feature

With the February release, Invoice Pay clients who have signed up with a payment provider on the App Center will be able to use the new Provider Payment Manager feature.

The Provider Payment Manager feature offers clients, who use external payment providers, the option to view details and status of their payments in SAP Concur without having to log into their providers' systems.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Provider Payment Manager feature makes it easier for clients to keep track of their payments when their payments are processed by a third-party payment provider.

Invoice Capture

Verification Page Changes for Large Documents

In previous releases of Invoice Capture, when uploaded batches containing documents with more than 500 pages were viewed on the Invoice Capture Verification page, clients could view every page in each document.

Beginning in this release, if a document has more than 500 pages, the first page will be displayed on the Verification page. To view all pages in a document, you can download the document in PDF format.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the performance of the Verification page.

Vendor Manager

Audit Trail for Vendor Changes (Released February 22)

Clients with the Create and Approve Vendors feature enabled can now track changes to a vendor through the Audit Trail page within the vendor record in Vendor Manager. For example, when a vendor is approved or updated by the Vendor Manager, those actions appear on the Audit Trail page.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change enables users with the Invoice Vendor Manager role to track changes made to vendor information in Vendor Manager.

Create and Approve Vendors Feature Available in Test Environments (Released February 22)

The Create and Approve Vendors feature is now available in test environments.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change enables developers and implementation teams to work with the Create and Approve Vendors feature prior to moving to a production environment.

Field Added to Default Vendor Information Form (Released February 5)

The default form for adding and updating vendor information now includes the Country field. The Country field contains the country associated with the vendor address.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This field enables clients to include additional information about requested and approved vendors.

Invoice E-Bunsho Timestamp

Updated Invoice E-Bunsho Timestamp Icon

The icon for the Invoice e-Bunsho Timestamp feature has been updated from an analog clock symbol to a check mark symbol.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the usability of the feature.

Company Administration

New SSL Certificate for concursolutions.com

In an effort to ensure the ongoing security of our products and services, SAP Concur has issued a new concursolutions.com SSL certificate. The current certificate will expire on March 16, 2019.

Any client who has pinned this expiring certificate will need to update to the new certificate prior to March 16, 2019. If the pinned certificate is not updated prior to March 16, 2019, the client's organization and users will experience disruption to SAP Concur products and services.

Clients who have not pinned the certificate do not need to take any action as the new certificate is updated automatically. Most clients do not pin the certificate.

Please be aware: As an enhancement to our Security and Compliance program, this certificate will be updated on an annual basis.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update provides ongoing security for our products and services.

SAP Concur Email

**Ongoing** Email Infrastructure Change - Add IP Addresses to Safe Senders List

SAP Concur is transitioning to a new email infrastructure for outbound email from our services to SAP Concur users. Because of this, companies that filter inbound email based on the sending IP address must add new IP addresses to their Safe Senders list to ensure that their users receive email from SAP Concur.

Initially, the issue described here affected only companies that use Concur Expense. Starting in January, email from other SAP Concur services (such as Concur Travel and Concur Pay) will move to the new email infrastructure.

We will continue to add other services throughout the first quarter of 2019. Please monitor the release notes for more information about the timing of the additional changes.

**Ongoing** Updated Email Format

SAP Concur has provided a release note about the updated email notifications for several months. Be aware that we will discontinue this release note in two months.

IMPORTANT

Note the following:

  • The email content has not changed – just the look and feel has been updated.

  • The changes will appear over time. Each product team (Expense, Invoice, Travel, etc.) decides when to use the new format. Timing will be based on resource availability and the priority of other scheduled enhancements.

  • Do not expect that all product emails will change at the same time. For example, the Expense approval email might be first, and then other Expense notifications might follow.

  • There is no assigned end date for the project. The changes might take longer than a year.

IMPORTANT FOR SSO CUSTOMERS

For customers who use SSO, a lengthy URL might be replaced with www.concursolutions.com. For example, the URL in the expense report status change email might be replaced. Because some URLs can reach 200 characters in length, the decision was made to provide the www.concursolutions.com link instead, providing a better experience for users.

The link in the email still works as it always has – redirecting the user for proper SSO authentication. The user can see the underlying URL at any time by hovering the mouse pointer over the www.concursolutions.com link.

This change does not affect those emails where the user clicks a button – instead of a link – to access Concur Expense.

SAP Concur Support Portal

Security Questions Available When Using the SAP Concur Support Portal

Prior to 2017, Authorized Support Contacts (ASCs) using the SAP Concur support portal were required to answer security questions prior to interacting with support. This feature was retired while it was being redesigned.

As of January 3, the feature is again available.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Customers appreciate this feature because it provides another layer of security. It prevents someone from impersonating:

  • An ASC and then requesting an improper or unexpected configuration change

    – or –

  • An end user and then accessing their confidential data

Miscellaneous

Reminder: No Personal or Sensitive Data in Custom Fields

All companies must take all reasonable steps to protect the personal and sensitive information of their employees. Per recommended security-related best practices, custom fields should not contain personal or sensitive data.

NEXT STEPS

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.

For additional information, refer to the FAQ (English Only).

Planned Changes

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

Concur Invoice

**Planned Changes** New User Interface for Concur Invoice Targeted for April Release

SAP Concur will soon offer a new user experience that is particularly targeted at the Accounts Payable (AP) user who is constantly monitoring the health of the Invoice lifecycle within the system. With a new AP landing page, concepts of "call to action" and "work to zero" are being brought to the forefront to better inform AP users to ensure they are working on the highest priority task.

The new user interface in Concur Invoice that clients can now review and familiarize themselves with is targeted for general availability the second quarter in 2019.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new Concur Invoice user interface enables clients to work more efficiently and provides them greater visibility into their invoices in flight.

**Planned Changes** Payment Request(s) Renamed to Invoice(s)

In a future release, SAP Concur will replace instances of the term "payment request" and its iterations with the term "invoice" and its iterations. These changes will be made in the user interface, the Concur Invoice documentation, and in all other SAP Concur product documentation where it appears.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change helps to ensure that the terminology used in SAP Concur is consistent with industry standard terminology.

Purchase Order

**Planned Changes** Import Now for PO and PO Receipt Imports

The Import Now feature enables clients to import PO and PO receipt files into Concur Invoice immediately without having to wait for an overnight scheduled import. This is beneficial for clients who need to import POs and PO receipts and work with them in the Concur Invoice product the same day they are created externally. This also allows clients to do multiple PO and PO receipt imports a day for more synchronized and up-to-date data.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients control over when and how frequently to import POs and PO receipts into Concur Invoice.

Budget

**Planned Changes** Workflows for Budget

In a future release, workflows will be available for Budget. Workflows define how the system routes invoices, expense reports, and requests through approval and processing steps. The flexible workflow feature for Budget that SAP Concur offers allows companies to design workflows specifically tailored to their unique needs.

Without budget review, budgets may become fully consumed well before the end of a period or year leaving an organization with limited options and budget owners with, for example, exceeded budgets. In addition, early spending means spending that is more important to the organization will be declined because less important spending consumed the budget early on.

Combining budget review in the workflow adds value. Audit rules and workflow step rules can help organizations to add in controls when it makes sense to fine tune to an organization's specific needs.

Equally important is the determination when a spending item is regarded as committed toward a budget. In most organizations, the commit is when a spending item is paid; it went through most if not all approval steps. In other organizations, the commit occurs much earlier. As soon as a purchase request or an authorization request is approved it is regarded as "promised".

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature will provide clients with control over the budget spend to, for example, avoid exceeded budgets too early in a budget period or budget year.

Product Settings

**Planned Changes** Single Sign-On (SSO) Self-Service Option Coming to SAP Concur

Single Sign-On allows users to access multiple applications using one set of login credentials. Currently, SAP Concur has two methods for signing in: with a user name and password or using SSO with identity provider (IdP) credentials, such as a user's login credentials for their organization.

SSO is currently supported for Concur Expense, Invoice, Request, and Travel. SAP Concur is planning to add a Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature to SAP Concur which provides SAP Concur clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO for their organization.

The new Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature will be accessible from the Access To Concur section of Product Settings.

  • Single Sign-On can be managed for Standard Travel if it is bundled with Concur Expense, Invoice, and/or Request.

  • For standalone Standard Travel, the Manage Single Sign-On feature will be accessible from the Travel Settings page.

Other SAP Concur products and services are outside the scope of this initial release.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides SAP Concur clients with a self-service option for setting up SSO.

Company Administration

**Planned Changes** New SAP Concur Sign In Page

SAP Concur is planning to add a new Sign In page, providing an updated login experience for users who log in with user name and password credentials. Current Single Sign-On (SSO) users will log in without having to enter additional credentials. This feature is planned for 2019.

The new Sign In page feature includes the following:

  • Two-step login: provides enhanced security, meets current industry standards, and provides a better log in success rate

  • Multi-account login: allows administrators to log in with multiple accounts

  • Password hint removal: provides better security for users and SAP Concur

  • User avatar: enhances the user experience (planned for a future release)

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides better security and a faster, more convenient experience for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

Miscellaneous

**Planned Changes** Archive Deactivated User Data

This information will no longer appear in the release notes.

For more information about deactivated users, refer to the General Information: Archiving Deactivated User Data Fact Sheet.

Client Notifications

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