FAQ’s
Why won’t the alcohol itemization message go away?
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The reminder message to ensure that all alcohol has been itemized is built into Concur and will
appear whenever certain expense types exist within an expense report (Lunch, Dinner, Snacks,
Business Meal W/ Attendees, Entertainment). This is a “soft warning” and you will still be able to
submit the report. This message will not disappear – when you see it just take it as a reminder that
if you have alcohol on your receipt, it must either be itemized as non-reimbursable or as alcohol.
How do I enter per diem?
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Within the expense report, click on Details>New Itinerary and enter the itinerary and then from the
expenses & adjustments create the fixed meals.
Instructional PDF’s
o Step 1 – create your itinerary - http://cms.businessservices.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/tem-training-docs/cncrtr%20%20create%20itinerary%20for%20per%20diem.pdf
o Step 2 – enter per diem for meals - http://cms.businessservices.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/tem-training-docs/cncrtr%20%20enter%20per%20diem%20for%20meals.pdf
Meals Per Diem Offset – only to be used in conjunction with Fixed Meals. You would use this
expense type if you need to lower the per diem amount per day. For example, the GSA per diem
rate is $90/day, but your S/C only allows $50/day.
o After entering your per diem as notated above, enter an additional expense type of “Meals
Per Diem Offset” (located in the Meals category).
o Enter the total amount of the overage as a negative number. In the example above, it
would be $40/day overage, so for 4 days, the amount would be $160 overage, so the
amount entered for the expense type would be -$160.
o The Per Diem Offset amount will be deducted from the amount of reimbursement due the
employee.
When should Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner be used, as opposed to
Business Meal (Attendees)/Campus Business
Meeting/Entertainment?
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Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks are meal expenditures incurred while traveling on behalf of the
University – and are for when you are paying for yourself only.
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Business Meal w/ Attendees – Meals with a clearly substantiated business purpose and takes place
in a dining establishment. Business is the primary purpose of the meal.
Campus Business Meeting – Refreshments for meetings, lab lunches, groceries, box lunches, etc. To
be used when the primary focus is the meeting and the food is brought in.
Entertainment – Encompass those expenses incurred in conjunction with meals or events that are
business-related but social or celebratory in nature.
How do I itemize…
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A Hotel?
o When you choose the hotel expense type, you are forced to itemize the receipt.
o First you will enter your check-in/check-out date and recurring/nightly charges – the nightly
room rate, associated taxes and any other nightly charge (i.e. parking, hotel internet, etc.).
 If the rate changes during your stay, select the rate and associated taxes that were
used most of the time. Once you hit SAVE, the nights will appear on your expense
report in the left pane individually. At this point you can adjust any nights that were
a different rate by selecting them individually from the left and adjusting the
amount on the right.
o Once you save those itemizations you then can enter any additional charges on the bill, such
as breakfast.
o Instructional PDF - http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/temtraining-docs/cncrtr%20-%20itemize%20hotel%20expense.pdf
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Alcohol?
o http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/tem-trainingdocs/cncrtr%20-%20account%20for%20alcohol%20on%20expense%20report.pdf
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A non-reimbursable amount?
o http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/tem-trainingdocs/cncrtr%20-%20enter%20non-reimbursable%20expenses.pdf
I received a Travel Advance – how do I reconcile and return
unused cash to the University?
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Open up the expense report to which the Cash Advance will be applied (it is referred to as a Cash
Advance when applying & reconciling the money). Click on Details>Available – this will show you all
available cash advances that can be assigned to an expense report. Click on the box in front of the
Advance to apply and then click “Assign Cash Advance to Report”.
If there are funds still available from the advance after accounting for all expenses, you will receive a
message when attempting to submit the report “This report could not be submitted. Cash Advances
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must be entirely utilized or returned. Please enter a Cash Advance Return on this report to return
the remaining balance”.
o You should work with your Business Administrator to return the excess funds back to the
University via BEN Deposits.
o Use the “Return of Cash Advance” expense type for the amount shown on the receipt.
o Attach the receipt received from BEN Deposits to the expense report as a receipt.
Why did I get an email about my banking information changing
in Concur?
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You can view the banking information within your Concur account by navigating to your “Profile” tab
and on the left, in the “Expense Settings” section, choose “Bank Information”. Here you can view
your current banking information that is loaded, and you can see any history at the bottom.
All banking information in Concur is imported from either Payroll (Fac/Staff/Post Doc/Students on
Payroll) or SRFS. When you make a change to your direct deposit account, that change will be sent
to Concur.
Direct deposit changes are not sent immediately to Concur. There is a several day delay while the
new direct deposit account is pre-noted by Payroll or SRFS. In the interim, an Aline card (formerly
the TotalPay Card) may be issued before your new direct deposit account is pre-noted – so both the
Aline Card and then the direct deposit account will be loaded to your Concur account.
If you have lost your Aline Card you should call ADP – 1-877-237-4321.
When will my payment show up in “My Reimbursements”?
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Any reimbursements that originate in Concur will not show up in your “My Reimbursements” on the
Penn Portal or as an invoice in BEN Financials. You can easily view the status of your expense reports
by hovering over your Expense tab and clicking on “View Reports”. From here, it defaults to your
active reports; however you can choose to view other reports by clicking on “View” (underneath
where it says Active Reports). A helpful option under this “View” drop-down menu is to view
“Payment Confirmed Reports” - this will display all reports that are in a payment confirmed status.
What is the difference between a travel assistant and an
expense delegate?
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The travel assistant & expense delegate are separate roles that both need to be granted. A Travel
Assistant is someone that you are giving the ability to perform travel functions for you (i.e. book a
hotel room). An Expense Delegate is someone you are allowing to perform expense work on behalf
of you in your own Concur account – they will have the ability to create, edit & view expense reports
in your Concur account. They will also be able to follow your expense reports and view when they
are in payment confirmed status. You can manage both of these roles from your profile.
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Travel assistant - from the left menu, in “Travel Settings” section, choose
“Assistants/Arrangers”. From this portion of your profile you can add travel assistants.
o Expense delegate – from the left menu, in “Expense Settings” section, choose “Expense
Delegates”. From this pop-up window, you can manage your expense delegates.
 If you are a delegate for others, this is also where you can check to see who has set
you up as a delegate and what responsibilities they have given you. Simply click on
the “Delegate For” tab (above the add, save & delete buttons), and it will display
that information.
When acting as either a Travel Assistant or an Expense Delegate, navigate to the respective tab
before “Administering as” someone. For example, if you want to create an expense report on behalf
of your boss, 1st navigate to your expense tab and then choose your boss’ name from the drop-down
to administer as them.
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Delegates: What does “Mark as Not Complete” mean?
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When you are creating an expense report as a delegate, you are doing so in the Delegators Concur
account. Once you are finished with the report, you “Notify” the person that their expense report is
ready to be submitted. When you hit the “notify” button, Concur does 2 things:
o Sends an email to them letting them know it is ready
o Adds a green checkmark icon next to the report name. This checkmark icon can be viewed
on both the “My Concur” tab and the “Expense” tab, where the active reports are listed – so
the Delegator just needs to look for the green check mark icon and submit only those
reports with that icon.
If you need to go back into that expense report to make any edits, you will no longer see the
“Notify” button; you will instead see the “Mark as Not Complete” button. By hitting this “Mark as
Not Complete” button, it removes the green checkmark icon from next to the report name, so that
report is no longer flagged as ready to be submitted. You can make your changes, and then you will
again see the “notify” button. Keep in mind that the Notify & Mark as Not Complete buttons work as
a toggle.
Receipts – Header vs. Expense Line level, How to attach, How to
View, How to delete.
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There are 2 places you can attach receipts – to an individual expense line item, or to the report
header.
o To attach to an expense line item, there are 2 ways
 Click on that expense line item in the left pane so that the information will populate
in the right pane. In the bottom right, you will see an “Attach Receipt” button.
When you click on that you have the option to browse and upload the receipt image
from your PC or you can choose an image from your receipt store. Once you choose
the desired image, click Attach.
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Alternatively, if you wish to go directly to your Receipt Store to attach the image to
the expense line item, you can do so. Click on the expense line item in the left pane
so that the information will populate in the right pane. In the top right of the pane,
click on “Receipt Store”. Then browse through your Receipt Store for the desired
receipt image. Once you find the receipt, in the top left of the grey box surrounding
the image click on the green circle icon – that will attach the image to that expense
line item. If the receipt shows in the Receipt Store it has not been attached to a
report.
You can attach receipt(s) to the Report Header as well. This is useful if you have a bundle of
receipts that you have scanned into 1 document, or if you wish to upload an itinerary of a
conference, or a travel memo, etc. In the expense report click on the “Receipts” button
(underneath the title of the report), and click on
“Attach Receipt Images”, you can then browse on your PC and upload the image from there.
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Viewing receipts – you can view the receipts in a number of places.
o If you want to view everything that has been attached to the expense report, at both the
header and line level, click on Receipts>View receipts in new window. The receipts will now
be in a pop-up window available for viewing.
o If you want to view the receipts attached at the line level hover over the green icon that
indicates a receipt has been attached to that expense line item and the image will pop up.
Alternatively, you can click on the expense line that the receipt is attached to in the left
pane – and on the right pane, where the detail for that expense line item populates you can
click on the tab “Receipt Image” (above where it says expense type) and view the receipt
there.
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Deleting receipts – can only be done on an unsubmitted report
o To delete a receipt attached at the expense line level – hover over the green icon indicating
that a receipt is attached – the receipt image will pop-up. In the bottom right of the receipt
image there is a blue button that says “Detach from Entry”.
o To delete a receipt attached at the report header level – click on details>delete receipt
images. That will delete anything that has been attached at the header level only – so
anything attached at the line level will remain there.
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A word about the Receipt Store – You can email receipts to [email protected] from your verified
email account and those images will appear in your Receipt Store. This includes taking pictures of
receipts from your smartphone and emailing the pictures. It is recommended you verify all emails
on your smartphone – including personal email accounts – this is so because your smartphone may
use your personal email account to send the image.
o You can verify your email address in your Concur Profile.
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Click on “Email Addresses” from the left menu under the 1st section “Your
Information”
This is where you would add additional email accounts and you can manage your
verified email accounts
Approver Specific FAQ’s
Where is the object code?
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The object code does not exist in Concur – it gets assigned prior to the expenses being exported
from Concur. You can view the Concur Expense Type/Object Code Matrix on the Comptroller’s
website - http://www.finance.upenn.edu/comptroller/accounting/gloc/. Keep in mind that the
object code is assigned based on the affiliation of the submitter, the type of travel and the expense
type.
Why isn’t the funding source I need in Concur?
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If you cannot find a funding source in Concur you should contact your business office – they need to
add an approver to it via Web ADI.
New grant accounts will be automatically added once they have been budgeted or other expense
transactions have charged to the grant.
How do I view the reports that I have previously approved?
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Hover over your “Expense” tab and click on “Approve Reports”. This will default to reports that are
currently pending your approval. Under where it says “Reports Pending your Approval” there is a
“View” drop-down menu, click on “View” and then you will be able to choose the time period in
which you approved the report – Reports you approved this month, last month, this quarter, etc.
How do I set an approver delegate for while I am out of the
office?
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You can do this in your Profile, in the “Expense Settings” section, choose “Expense Delegates”.
Instructional PDF - http://cms.business-services.upenn.edu/penntravel/images/stories/temtraining-docs/cncrtr%20-%20assign%20an%20approval%20delegate.pdf
Why won’t the system allow me to set someone as my approver delegate?
o To be a delegate the person you authorize must already have an approver role.
Why am I not receiving the emails from Concur whenever an
expense report enters my Approval Queue?
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Emails from Concur sometimes end up in junk mail folders. You should add the domain
“@concursolutions.com” and “@concur.com” to your safe senders list to prevent this from
happening in the future.
How can I tell if a cash advance has been applied to an expense
report?
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When you open up the expense report to approve, the left pane lists the expenses and the right
pane lists a “Summary”. If there is a cash advance applied, there will be a cash advance section in
the right pane, and you will see the name of the Cash Advance, date requested, amount requested,
starting balance & available balance.
You can also click on the “details” drop-down menu in the expense report and you can click on
“Assigned” to see the details of the cash advance assigned to the report. Also in the “details” dropdown, you can click on “Totals” and it will summarize the totals in the report. You will see a line
item that says “Cash Advance Utilized”.
When Cross charging expenses to other Schools/Centers…
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At the allocation level the S/C must match the first two digits of the CNAC-ORG-BC-FUND.
Type of Travel should also be verified to have the correct object code charged.
“Approve & Forward” vs. “Approve”
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Approve & Forward will insert another approver into the approval flow and if that approver
appears again in the flow (for example, as a cost object approver), they will have to approve the
report again. Instances where you would use “Approve & Forward” are with students or crosscharging – where adding another person from another department would be to act as an
additional approver that does not appear in the flow.
“Approve” simply just approves the report and moves it to the next step in the approval flow.
Important things to look at when approving an expense report:
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Open the report, click on Details>Report Header to review the Business Justification, Type of
Travel/Reimbursement and confirm all other fields were entered correctly.
o If Affiliation is Student, verify the student has entered how/why the activity being
reimbursed was in support of the business objectives of the University. Full details of the
scope of the assignment including location, dates, and activity, and sponsoring faculty or
University Organization should be included in the Business Justification field (This replaces
the old Statement of Business Connection form).
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You can review the Funding Source information in multiple places within the expense report. The
below are the recommended places to review this information to ensure you are seeing the
complete picture:
o In an open expense report (careful that you do not have any individual expense lines
checked), click on Details>Allocations. Once the Allocations pop-up window appears, in the
left pane, choose the “Summary” button. This will display a summary of the allocations
within the report - showing you the full amount that is to be expensed against each funding
source/Prog/CREF & Type of Travel combination.
o You can also view detailed information in the detailed reports. In an open expense report,
click on “Print/Email” and then you can choose either UPENN Detailed Report 1 or 2. This
will display the allocation lines for each expense type, information from the Report Header
and Report Amounts. Also be sure to click the “Show Itemizations” checkbox in the top left
of the pop-up – otherwise the itemized lines will not display any detail. Another benefit of
this Detailed report is to be able to save it as a PDF. When you do so, it will open up as a
PDF and the receipts that are attached to the expense report will be appended to the PDF as
well.
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Review expense lines and detailed receipts to confirm all entries are correct.
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Click on Details>Approval Flow and verify the Supplemental Approver is correct for this specific
expense report.
o A note about viewing the approval flow – keep in mind that as a Default Reviewer, you will
not see who the Cost Object Approver(s) is/are. You should not add User-Added Approvers
just because you do not see anyone in the “Approver” field in the workflow – it just hasn’t
reached that part of the workflow yet, so it is not displaying it. Trust the way your hierarchy
was setup by your School/Center – and if the Cost Object Approver believes that another
Approver needs to be added, let them do so. This will eliminate reports entering the same
person’s approval queue multiple times.
o You can approve the report from the Approval Flow
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