Invoice

With this release, SAP Concur has added a new field, Expense Type Name, to the assisted Payment Request Import. Clients will now have an alternative way to assign an expense type to an employee when they import data.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature gives clients an alternative and easier way to assign an expense type name when importing data.

In previous releases, when an Invoice Approver clicked the Link to Invoice Processing link in an approval request notification email, the Approval Workflow summary was opened.

Beginning in this release, when an Invoice Approver clicks on the Link to Invoice Processing link in an approval request notification email, the details for the related invoice is opened.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Linking from the approval request notification email directly to the invoice details for the invoice that is ready to be reviewed and, if appropriate, approved, increases the efficiency of the approval process.

A new field, Matched Purchase Order Receipts, has been added to the GET method of the Invoice v3 Payment Request API.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new Matched Purchase Order Receipts field returns an array of the PO goods receipt numbers that are matched to the invoice line in SAP Concur. This information helps clients match the correct records in their external system when they post the invoices to the system.

Purchase Order

Two new query parameters have been added to the GET and DELETE methods of the Invoice v3 Purchase Order Receipts API, Purchase Order Number and Line Item External ID. These new parameters enable clients to better target the goods receipt records they want to retrieve or delete from the system.

With the addition of these new parameters, the following query parameters are now available through the GET and DELETE methods:

• Goods Receipt Number

  This pre-existing parameter can be used alone or in combination with one or both of the other parameters.

• Purchase Order Number

  This new parameter can be used alone or in combination with one or both of the other parameters.

• Line Item External ID

  This new parameter cannot be used alone. It must be used in combination with one or both of the other parameters.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These new API parameters provide more flexible and precise handling of goods receipt records through the Invoice v3 Purchase Order Receipts API.

Capture Processing

With this release, large batches of invoices (more than 100 for client-managed processing) will automatically be divided into multiple smaller batches (ten at a time) for easier processing.

If this happens, users will receive an automatic batch separation message on the Batch List page. In addition, they will see which batches belong together by looking at the original batch number.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature makes the verification task of processing invoices easier for clients, since large batches of invoices are divided into multiple smaller batches.

In the August release, Concur Invoice modified the Email Exception feature, so that exception emails that are sent out to clients no longer contain the original attached email.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature ensures clients only receive information relevant to them.

SAP Concur Email

SAP Concur is in the process of updating the format of all email notifications. These changes will provide a fresher, consistent look and feel across all SAP Concur services. The change will be introduced gradually. Some users will see the updated format immediately; some will see it over the next few months.

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

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The intent of these changes is to provide a consistent, updated look for users.

SAP Concur is transitioning to a new email infrastructure for outbound emails from our products to SAP Concur users. Because of this, companies who filter inbound email based on the sending IP address must whitelist new IP addresses to ensure that their users receive email from SAP Concur.

The new IP addresses are not published publicly but they are available by contacting SAP Concur support. Please work with your email server management team to ensure any required whitelists for IP addresses are updated so that your users continue to receive SAP Concur emails without interruptions.

Data Retention

With this release, the system will automatically email all users with the Data Retention Administrator role or permission whenever changes are made to the data retention policy.

Prior to this change, only the admin who made the change received the 72-hour confirmation email.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides greater visibility of configuration changes.

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.

Invoice

In July, SAP Concur introduced the first version of a new user interface for Invoice Early Access clients. Version 1.0 of the new user interface is 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.

Soon, the new user interface will be available to all clients through a setting in Invoice Preferences, which will enable them to test this new look and feel.

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

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 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.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Digital Compliance Administrator enables an administrator to assign a single role for access to the e-Bunsho timestamp validation tools.

Purchase Order

The Import Now feature enables clients to import PO and PO receipt files into 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 synchronised 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.

Purchase Request

At a future date, SAP Concur will make a new Purchase Request API available from the SAP Concur Developer Centre.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The Purchase Request API will enable developers to create and automatically submit purchase requests for preauthorisation leveraging external data, and to retrieve purchase request numbers and statuses by using the POST and GET methods.

In a future release, a user with the Invoice Configuration Administrator role will be able to modify the default value for the Receipt Type field that appears on the Purchase Request Item form.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change facilitates three-way matching of receipts and other workflow requirements.

Supplier Management

In a future release, clients with the Create and Approve feature enabled will be able to track changes to a supplier through the Audit Trail page within the supplier record in Supplier Manager. For example, when a supplier is approved or updated by the Supplier Manager, those actions will appear in the audit trail.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change enables users with the Supplier Manager role to view details about changes to a supplier within the Audit Trail page that is available from the Actions menu within a supplier record.

Company Administration

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 organisation.

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

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

The new Manage Single Sign-On (SSO) feature will be accessible from the Administration > Company > Company Admin page.

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

Miscellaneous

As SAP Concur continues to grow, steps must be taken to enhance and improve the performance of our system so that we can meet customer expectations and the needs of their business.

Our overall goal is to significantly improve the performance of SAP Concur services by reducing the amount of data that is stored in our Production datastore. By reducing the data in the Production system, we can use server memory much more efficiently, which reduces processing time for transactions. For this reason, SAP Concur is developing an archive process for users who have been deactivated by their employers for at least three years. The archive process moves this "deactivated" user data from our Production datastore to a separate Reporting datastore.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: Moving deactivated user data will provide faster processing time for transactions. In addition, it provides a more secure environment for inactive users' personal information.

IMPORTANT!

We are currently piloting the process and evaluating the results. Our goal is to ensure that customers are not negatively affected, that we have considered all pertinent scenarios and that the archiving process provides the desired results.

There is no target date for the implementation of this new process. We will announce via release notes well ahead of time.

Client Notifications

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

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