Explaining SAP Integration with SAP Concur Solutions Fundamentals

Unlike a connector, Integration with SAP Concur Solutions (ICS) is built into and configured within the SAP system. The customer is responsible for making sure their SAP system has all of the appropriate service packs and codes required to facilitate ICS.

With ICS, customers control their finances with automated end-to-end data synchronization between their SAP and SAP Concur systems. ICS supports the SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA (cloud and on-premise), and SAP Business ByDesign platforms.

ICS allows customers to automate the entire spending process, right in their SAP systems. The direct data exchange between the systems enables customers to accurately post expense-related data in their SAP financial systems, establish continual communication between the systems, reimburse their employees faster, and free up their employees for more important activities.

There are some key benefits that customers find in natively connecting SAP Concur to SAP systems.

• Accurate Financial Postings
• A safe solution for moving to the cloud
• Connected systems mean more insights

Customers not using Integration with SAP Concur Solutions (ICS) can still integrate their data. This process is typically done using a series of flat files that get generated, encrypted, transferred via FTP, decrypted, and imported. This process requires a significant development effort on the part of the customer and is prone to issues. The diagram below illustrates the process and the issues contained within.

1. The Great Divide

   Without ICS, the SAP and SAP Concur systems exist in complete isolation. Neither system is aware of the existence of the other. Middleware or complicated FTP processes must be used.

2. Master Data Export

   Customers must first figure out how to get their Master Data out of SAP. Without ICS, they must come up with a way to extract that data from SAP, format it to meet the proprietary standards needed for SAP Concur, encrypt it, and place it on our FTP server.

   This task requires them to assign a developer to the project that can build and automate this process. For many customers, developer resources are hard to come by and expensive.

3. Master Data Import

   The SAP Concur system must then locate the correct data files, decrypt them, and import them into the customer’s SAP Concur site.

4. Financial Data Export

   Once expense reports have been processed, SAP Concur will generate the Standard Accounting Extract (SAE) in our proprietary format, encrypt it, and place it on our FTP server.

5. Financial Data Import

   Customers are responsible for downloading the SAE, decrypting it, converting it into a format they can use, and importing that data into SAP.

6. Manual Corrections

   If there are any errors in the posting process, they must be corrected on the SAP side, as extracted expense reports cannot be edited in SAP Concur systems. This means the data in SAP is no longer in sync with the data in SAP Concur, possibly causing audit issues that customers must be able to address.

   a. Major Drawbacks

   For both Master Data and Financial Data, these (often manual) processes require significant development effort on the customer’s part as they are responsible for writing and maintaining the code to manage the data. This can mean an increase in project timelines. Customers are also responsible for any ongoing maintenance of this process.

   b. Decreases

   The entire process has:

   • Reduced security as data files are passed between systems.
   • Low fraud prevention as manual changes may be required.
   • Low flexibility as customers are forced to work with fixed file formats.

   c. Process Flaws

   The entire process can only run once per day, at most. This can be frustrating if customers make frequent changes to their Master Data or process expense reports at different times of the day based on the region of the users. It can also cause delays in their reimbursement processes.

   Throughout the process, there is no fault handling. If any of the processes fail, they can take significant time to fix and cause significant data issues down the line.

Customers integrating their data via Integration with SAP Concur Solutions (ICS). Review the diagram below to see how ICS simplifies the whole integration process, which speeds up implementation times and makes the system easier to manage going forward.

1. Core Code

   Core code has been added to the SAP Concur system to facilitate direct communication with the SAP system.

2. Core Code

   Core code has been added to the SAP system to facilitate direct communication with the SAP Concur system.

3. Master Data Export

   ICS sends the master data (cost objects and employees) directly into the SAP Concur system. This holds true for both the initial import during implementation and ongoing updates.

4. Master Data Feedback

   The SAP Concur system provides feedback to the SAP system regarding any issues with the Master Data. This can include things such as invalid characters in a cost object or an employee record with a null value in a required field.

5. Financial Data Export

   In terms of financial posting, ICS periodically asks the SAP Concur system to send any fully approved expense reports, and the SAP Concur system sends them directly into the SAP system via ICS.

6. Financial Data Feedback

   If there are any issues posting an expense report into SAP, the expenses are not posted and ICS sends feedback regarding the failure to SAP Concur.

7. Corrections

   Expense processors in Concur Expense can make the necessary changes to the expense report. These might include correcting GL Codes, changing the cost objects, or sending it back to the user. Once corrected and approved, that expense report will move to SAP automatically.

   a. Reductions

   ICS helps reduce the number of errors in the integration process and decreases the cost and time associated with development and maintenance.

   b. Increases

   With ICS, security is increased as the data never exists outside of the two systems, and data consistency is increased since invalid expenses must be corrected before posting.

   c. Activator

   The entire ICS process is configured, scheduled, and monitored in the customer’s SAP system. This gives them full control of the entire process, including the ability to create custom schedules for data integrations.

There are clearly strong benefits to using ICS.

• ICS enables direct, automated integration between SAP and SAP Concur, supporting SAP ERP, S/4HANA, and Business ByDesign.
• Customers gain accurate financial postings, better data security, and faster reimbursements with end-to-end synchronization.
• ICS reduces manual effort, errors, and maintenance compared to traditional flat file and FTP-based integrations.
• All integration processes are managed and monitored within the customer’s SAP system, providing greater control and flexibility.