Selecting Rate Bundles

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to select travel allowance rate bundles.

Travel Allowance Rate Bundles Overview

A company may reimburse its employees' travel expenses using a schedule of set reimbursement rates, commonly known as "per diem" or "travel allowance" rates. Government and company policies determine these rates, which may vary depending on location, length of travel, partial travel days, seasonal travel, and similar factors.

Travel allowances cover meals (including incidentals) and lodging expenses. They don’t cover expenses such as car rentals, airline tickets, seminars, and similar items.

There are two main categories of travel allowance configurations in Concur Expense: Managed Rate Service and Legacy Travel Allowance. These options differ primarily in how they handle per diem rates and travel allowance management. While Legacy Travel Allowance requires manual rate management and offers basic functionality, Managed Rate Service automates rate updates, enhances compliance, and reduces administrative effort.

The Managed Rate Service is a Concur-managed service and consists of:

  • Improved user interface delivered via the Next Generation Expense UI
  • New configuration functionality providing greater flexibility to support complex travel allowance requirements
  • Concur-managed automatic periodic rate updates for selected supported statutory countries
  • Integration with SAP Payroll (selected countries only) and Next Generation Request
  • Statutory support for new countries – Portugal and Slovakia.

Note

NOTE: Rarely used core legacy countries – Belgium and Australia – are not planned for the TA Service

As seen in the image below, there are five main configuration components available for the Managed Rate Service: Rate Bundles, Configurations, Travel Time Adjustments, Preview Mode, and Legacy Audit Rules.

The image displays a Travel Allowance Configuration page. A Back to Expense Admin link appears at the top left. The page title reads Travel Allowance Configuration. Five options are highlighted in blue: Rate Bundles, Configurations, Travel Time Adjustments, Preview Mode, and Legacy Audit Rules. Each option shows a help icon.
  • Users can indicate if any meals were provided and the system will deduct the appropriate amount from the allowances for that day
  • If Daily Allowances are used, ensure that the policy available to the users does not include individual meal-related expense types
  • If Daily Allowances are in use and the users have a company card, they should be instructed not to use their corporate card for individual meals or designate meals related to card charges as personal
  • SAP Concur offers a managed rate service, where available, through which Concur maintains statutory rate updates

Select a Rate Bundle

To add a configuration code:

Steps

  1. From the Travel Allowance Configuration page, select Configurations.

    The image displays the Travel Allowance Configuration page. A Back to Expense Admin link appears at the top left. Five blue options are listed: Rate Bundles, Configurations, Travel Time Adjustments, Preview Mode, and Legacy Audit Rules. Each option shows a help icon. The Configurations option is highlighted with a pink box.

  2. Select Add.

    The image displays the Configurations page. A Back to Travel Allowance Configuration link appears at the top left. A white toolbar shows a blue Add button on the left, highlighted with a pink box, and a Filter search field on the right. The main area below shows a No Data message with a small help icon.

  3. Fill in the fields. An asterisk indicates a required field. When you're done, select OK.

    The image displays an Add Configuration form for travel allowance. A pink outline highlights the full form area. The form includes fields for Configuration Code, Description, Statutory Rate Bundle, and Client Rate Bundle. It shows a checkbox to validate overlapping expenses on submit. A section titled Allowances as Fixed Amounts or Limits provides dropdowns for Meal, Lodging, and Incidental rate categories, options to combine rate categories, and an over-limit distribution method. A blue OK button at the bottom right is highlighted with a pink box.

Result

The newly created configuration displays on the list.

Note

Statutory Rate Bundles are the managed rates loaded by SAP Concur. You can have your client managed rates imported into the system by SAP Concur Support.

Summary

  • Select travel allowance rate bundles in Expense Administration > Travel Allowance Configuration > Configurations.
  • Use Managed Rate Service for automated rate updates and enhanced compliance.
  • Configure rate bundles, considering factors like location and travel duration.
  • Understand the differences between Managed Rate Service and Legacy Travel Allowance.
  • Add new configurations using the "Add" button and complete required fields.

Learning

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