CONCUR: Travel & Expense

YEAR – END/NEW FISCAL YEAR PROCESS:

Key Dates –
– Thursday, June 30th – Concur expense reports with deposits must have money deposited at the Cashier’s Office by 4:00 and the expense report must be approved by 5:00 pm. Depositing money due Rice at the Cashier’s Office prior to June 30th is strongly recommended to allow sufficient time for the report to be approved.
– Monday, July 4th – Pcard charges sent to the bank by the vendor on or prior to this date will be included in FY17 business. Charges after July 4th will be recorded in FY18. Please refer to the two dates below regarding expense reports where re-allocations are done.
– Friday, July 9th by midnight – Concur expense reports without deposits must be approved in order to be recorded in FY17.
– Monday, July 10th – This is the first day to submit expense reports for FY18.

Process –
– All charges are in the 72356 account, whether they are for travel or non-travel.
– Any travel charge pertaining to FY18 must have a Concur expense report started and the header record field “Trip/Report End Date” completed with the future trip’s end date; the travel related charges in these expense reports will be recorded as FY18 expense.
– Please remember to allow time for the report to route to the Concur Audit Service (if selected) and for the report to be approved by the approver(s).
– The Concur system will remain available for use. FY18 expense reports can be worked on but should NOT be submitted before Monday July 10th. If reports are submitted and approved prior to July 10th, the expenses will be recorded in FY17.
– Expense reports must be approved by the specified deadlines. If deadlines are missed, there is no alternate reallocation method available. Please remember to factor in the possibility that expense reports may be routed through Concur’s Audit Service (CAS); 10% of expense reports are randomly selected for audit by CAS. The expense report routing occurs once reports are submitted and prior to reports being sent to the approver. CAS has on average a monthly goal of responding within 72 hours. Since this timing is an average, some reports do exceed 72 hours.

Please clear pcard expenses for FY17. There are a significant number of pcard charges that are uncleared. For those areas with few uncleared charges, thanks very much for the good work!

Cash Due to Rice.Third Party Reimbursement Matrix

Traveling for business or pleasure?

Christopherson Business Travel will be on hand to discuss any travel related needs you might have. Stop by and meet our dedicated account representatives – Kelly and Sheila.

We will also be there to address any questions regarding Concur expense reports, training and/or outstanding PCard charges.

See you there!

Travel, Business Meeting and Entertainment policy # 806 and related procedures

TBME “…expenses should be submitted and approved no later than thirty (30) calendar days after the return from a business trip or end of the meeting or event.” “Expenses submitted in excess of 60 calendar days may not be reimbursed.”

Please note that the Controller’s Office will take the following action:

PCards will be automatically suspended on the 15th of every month or prior business day for any uncleared  pcard charge that has not been submitted and approved in Concur within 60 days of the trip/event or are non-travel expenses over 60 days old. This does not apply to future dated trips documented in the header record of the expense report.

Pcards will only be reactivated upon notification from the department chair/head that the charges are cleared and reactivation is requested. If the PCard holder has a second suspension within a calendar year, the card can be reactivated 90 days after the charges have been cleared. The department chair/head must request the reactivation after the 90-day period has ended.

For assistance with Concur, please email concur@rice.edu or call ext. 6715.

Should you have an extenuating circumstance for not clearing Pcard charges timely, please email concur@rice.edu with information regarding the circumstances.

Initial Login Instructions

Go to: www.concursolutions.com or click the ‘LogIn link on the right side of this page.

1. In the User Name field, type your netid@rice.edu. Tab.
2. Skip the Password field and select ‘forgot your password’. Enter.
3. You will be directed to enter you login id. After entering your login id, select the radio button ‘Send me an email with a link to reset my password’. Submit.
4. Confirm that you are requesting to receive an email resetting your password. Return to the login page using the link. An email will be sent with a link to reset your password. The email/link is only good for 24 hours.
5. Enter a password. The password must be at least 7 characters. It can contain numbers, upper and lower case characters, and symbols. It cannot contain spaces. All fields are required. Passwords are case sensitive.
6. Enter a password hint. Submit.

The Blog

We are truly excited to introduce you to Concur and the many benefits the new system has to offer. Please take a few minutes to tour the site, familiarize yourself with the layout and click on some of the links to see demos, videos, reference materials and other resources you might find helpful.

Rice University is changing the travel and expense process!

What is Concur? Concur is Rice’s new user-friendly integrated travel and expense process automation. It is a web-based system that centralizes travel booking, out of pocket travel reimbursement, PCard reconciliation and cash advance processing. Concur is used by many Universities, was highly recommended and best matched the University’s needs. Concur is slated to roll-out campus wide during the month of October.

Travel
The new travel system offers faculty and staff traveling on university business a better, faster way to book and manage travel and handle expenses for trips. This system features an online booking process and includes all major airlines, including Southwest. The goal is to provide a best-in-class travel experience for faculty and staff. Use of this system is optional, although it is strongly encouraged in order for Rice to maximize pricing benefits.

Christopherson Business Travel (CBT) will manage travel for Rice and coordinate use of the new online booking and expense technology, which is powered by Concur. We encourage you to use CBT for international travel as well as travel with complex and unique requirements and or restrictions. Christopherson also fulfills airline, hotel and car rental ticketing on behalf of the on-line travel system.

Expense
Concur’s online expense system makes paper expense reports a thing of the past. Expense reports are easy to file, and reimbursements will be direct-deposited to the employee’s or student’s bank account for those individuals that are enrolled in direct deposit. The improved expense report process offers pre-populated reports with the option of uploading receipts from your mobile device. Your mobile device can also be used to prepare and /or approve an electronic expense report.

The University currently processes expense reports in paper format, resulting in manual effort that is both time consuming and costly. Implementing an automated solution will meet our operational objectives of becoming more efficient, reducing paper and lowering costs.

The new system will require changes to current work processes. Stay tuned for more details and training opportunities.