The configuration of the customer's SAP Concur system plays a crucial role in how expense reports post to the customer's SAP system. Let's take a brief look at some of the key areas of configuration that have a direct impact on Financial Integration through SAP ICS.
- Group Configurations
Financial integration through SAP ICS is configured by Expense Group within Concur Expense. This gives the customer the ability to control which expense data does and does not go through SAP ICS. This can be useful if the customer has multiple financial platforms or has a group of users, such as contractors, who may get reimbursed in a different manner than their employees.
To activate Financial Integration through SAP ICS, the Enable Financial Integration checkbox must be selected for each group as needed. This setting cannot be activated globally.
The setting can only be activated by SAP Concur employees with a specific level of access.
See an example in the screenshot below. Select it to zoom in for a closer look.
- Forms and Fields
Allocation data for each expense report is required for accurate posting of financial data via SAP ICS. Customers are not required to force their users to allocate their expenses, but the system must be set up to copy cost object data from the Employee to the Expense Report Header and then to the Expense Allocation form types.
- Workflows
One of the more complex areas of the SAP Concur configuration is the approval process (workflow). This is true for SAP ICS customers as well; however, specific guidelines must be followed for customers using SAP ICS to ensure that expense reports that fail posting can be corrected in a timely manner.
All users that will have their expense data flow via SAP ICS must use a workflow that has an Expense Processor step as the last step of the process. Customers are able to have the system skip this step as needed, but it must be the final step of the process. This is what facilitates the ability of Expense Processors to manage expense reports that fail to post via SAP ICS.
- Accounting Administration
Customers using SAP ICS are no different than others in that the Accounting Administration tool is used to map general ledger (GL) accounts to their expense types.
Account codes can be managed in one of two ways in SAP Concur:
- Direct account codes maintained within the Accounting Administration tool in SAP Concur. This is the traditional setup that most are familiar with.
- Symbolic account codes managed in SAP Concur. Once the data moves to SAP, these symbolic account codes will be transferred to real account codes based on the chart of accounts. This is not as common and requires additional configuration when setting up the Financial Posting process of SAP ICS.
A few more things to note:
- Multiple ledgers are supported as long as the customer is able to assign the ledgers appropriately to each user.
- Account code hierarchies are supported.
- As always, it is the customer's responsibility to provide the correct account codes during implementation and then maintain these codes going forward.
- Payment Types
All company card payment types with no offsets applied and cash payment types are supported (except in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which does not support IBCP). The Company Paid payment type is not supported at this time, due to the default offsetting behavior that is not supported.
The customer is responsible for providing the correct clearing account code for each payment type.
- Tax Administration
Proper tax configuration in SAP Concur is vital for the proper posting of tax and reclaim amounts for all taxable expenses. This is true for all customers, regardless of their SAP ICS status, but for proper tax posting using SAP ICS, certain configuration procedures must be followed.
Domestic Transactions
- A two-character Tax Reclaim Code is required for all expense postings with tax. This code is provided by the customer to SAP Concur and entered on the Reclaim Rates screen of the Tax & Reclaim Groups configuration process.
- The City of Purchase field must be a part of the Expense Entry form for any expense type referenced in a tax configuration. This is already part of the global template. The City of Purchase field is also required for proper posting of car mileage expenses.
Non-Domestic Transactions
- Where tax is not calculated: A non-domestic tax code must be entered in the Non Domestic Code field on the General page of the Tax Authority configuration process. The customer provides this code to the partner implementation team. This is the most common scenario for SAP Concur customers.
- Where tax is calculated: Tax conditions must be configured to allow the calculation of tax where the country of residence on the employee's profile is not equal to the Tax Authority Country. Tax Codes and Tax Reclaim Codes are entered in the Tax & Reclaim Groups configuration process.
Canadian Tax Configuration
- For customers that need the SAP Concur system to calculate Canadian taxes, there is an additional configuration step: The SAP Condition Type (found in the SAP transaction FTXP) must be added as the Tax Code on the Tax Rates page of the Tax & Reclaim Groups configuration process for all Tax & Reclaim Groups for all Canadian Tax Authorities. This code is provided by the customer to the partner implementation team.
- Tax jurisdiction codes may need to be mapped in SAP to ensure the data for each Canadian province from SAP Concur matches with SAP. This process is performed in the SAP ICS configuration for financial integration.
- Expense Processor
As mentioned previously, even if the customer is not using the Expense Processor as a step in the approval process of expense reports, the Expense Processor step must be the last step in the workflow for SAP ICS to function properly. But remember also, the step may be set up to be skipped within the workflow.
Upon activating the Enable Financial Integration feature for a Group, a new query called Reports Financial Posting Failed is automatically available to all Expense Processors. Any expense reports returned by this query have failed financial posting to SAP and must be corrected. Customers are encouraged to run this query on a regular basis to make sure they are addressing expense reports that fail to post.
The Expense Processor can evaluate the situation and begin the process of correcting the problem. This could include making configuration changes, sending the expense report back to the user for corrections, or making the corrections themselves. The system will not attempt to repost the expense report until it has been corrected and fully approved by the Expense Processor.
Note
The Company Paid payment type is not supported by SAP ICS due to the offsetting behavior.
Financial Posting automates the transfer of financial data from SAP Concur to SAP.
