Maintaining Expense Report Approval Statuses

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create and edit approval statuses used to track expense reports as they transition through the approval flow in Concur Expense Professional Edition

Expense Report Approval Statuses

In Concur Expense, Approval Statuses show where an expense report is in the workflow. For technical users, these statuses are important because they help you understand how a report moves through each step, troubleshoot routing issues, and confirm that configuration changes are working correctly.

Concur allows you to customize these statuses to fit your organization’s workflow:

  • You can edit the default approval statuses, including changing the status name (e.g., from Approved to Approving), updating the action text users see, and adjusting the description for clarity.
  • You can create new statuses if your workflow includes custom steps that do not exist in the standard configuration.

Note

Approval Statuses are attached directly to workflow steps, so each status represents a specific point in the approval process.

Configure Expense Report Approval Statuses

Review the following steps to learn how to configure Expense Report Approval Statuses.

Steps

  1. On the Workflows page in Expense Admin, select the Expense Report Approval Statuses tab, and then select the New button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the Workflows page under the Expense Report Approval Statuses tab. A list of report status names, approval actions, descriptions, and editable groups is displayed. The New button is highlighted at the top left for adding a new report status.

  2. Enter the required information and then select the Save button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing a Report Status popup window. The fields Status, Action Text, Description, and Editable By Group(s) are visible and editable. The Save button is highlighted at the bottom right of the popup.

  3. Select the Workflows tab to access the list of workflows. Select the workflow you want to add the new Expense Report Approval Status to, and then select Modify. Note that you can only modify workflows with unrestricted access.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the Workflows page with a list of workflow names, types, who can add steps, and editable permissions. The “*1-Up Workflow” row is selected and the Modify button above the list is highlighted for editing the selected workflow.

  4. On the General page, select the Next button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the workflow setup screen for an expense report. Various options such as workflow name, approval actions, expiration settings, and step restrictions are visible. The Next button at the bottom right is highlighted.

  5. Select the Step row that requires the new approval status and then select the Modify button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the Steps tab of a workflow configuration. The “Manager Approval” step is selected, and the “Modify” button is highlighted for editing this step. The table lists step order, step names, and roles for each workflow step.

  6. Select the Initial Status drop-down menu and select the appropriate new status. When you’re done, select the Save button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the Modify Workflow Step window. Fields for configuring the Manager Approval step are visible, including step name, role, approval permissions, deletable permissions, initial status (with dropdown options shown), approval actions, and additional workflow settings.

  7. Ensure all steps are in the correct order, and then select the Next button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense displaying the Steps tab within a workflow configuration. A table shows the step order, step names (Report Submitted, Manager Approval, Approval for Processing, Prepayment Validation, Processing Payment), and their associated roles. The “Next” button at the bottom right is highlighted.

  8. From the Step Rules page, select the Done button.

    Screenshot from Concur Expense showing the Step Rules tab of a workflow setup. The table lists steps, rule order, rule names, and action names for each step in the workflow. Manager Approval has rules to skip the step or generate an exception. The Done button is highlighted at the bottom right.

Result

The new Expense Report Approval Status is saved and visible on the Expense Report Approval Statuses tab.

Summary

  • Approval statuses show where an expense report is in the workflow and help troubleshoot routing and configuration changes.
  • Edit default statuses by updating the name, user action text, and description for clarity.
  • Create new statuses to support custom workflow steps not included in standard configuration.
  • Add a status to a workflow step by modifying the step and selecting it as the Initial Status.
  • You can modify only workflows with unrestricted access; save changes so the status appears on the Approval Statuses tab.

Reference

TopicLink
Approval and Payment StatusesSAP Help Portal

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