Maintaining Invoice 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 Invoice Professional Edition

Invoice Approval Statuses

In Concur Invoice, 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 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. Additionally, 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 Approval Statuses

Review the following steps to learn how to configure Invoice Approval Statuses.

Steps

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

    Workflows screen showing invoice approval statuses list with names, actions, descriptions, and editable group all set to Global.

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

    Report Status dialog with fields for status, action text, description, editable group set to Global, and Save button.

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

    Workflows screen with the Default Mgr to Processor Review workflow selected and the Copy button highlighted.

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

    Settings screen with various approval and notification options, Global editable group, and the Next button highlighted.

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

    Workflow steps screen showing a list of step names and roles, with Manager Approval highlighted and New button selected.

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

    Modify Workflow Step dialog with fields for step name, role, permissions, initial status dropdown, approval actions, and Save button.

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

    Workflow steps list showing step order, step names, roles, and Next button highlighted.

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

    Workflow step rules list with steps, rule names, and Done button highlighted.

Result

The new Approval Status is saved and visible on the 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

Learning

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