Approving Expense Reports

Owned by Nehal Gupta
Last updated: Jul 24, 2024 by Alyssa Wojcik
5 min read

As an expense report approver, you are responsible for reviewing the Concur expense reports routed to you. The approver review process should include, but is not limited to ensuring:

  • Compliance with the UConn Travel & Expense policy.

  • Compliance with individual department and general university business procedures.

  • Expenses accurately represent business related expenses.

  • Compliance with other legal, federal guidelines, when applicable.

This page provides a general overview of an approver’s role in the Expense module of Concur.

Table of Contents

Opening an Expense Report

When an expense report is submitted through Concur, an email is sent to the identified approver(s), notifying them an expense report is pending their review.

Concur automatically routes all expense reports to all required parties, including the Fiscal Officer(s). This routing is based on a feed from CORE-CT, Fiscal Officers in KFS, and other system logic.

Once routed for approval, an expense report is available from the approver(s) Approvals tab in Concur.

If you have assigned an Approver Delegate and/or a Previewer Delegate via your Concur Profile, the approval email(s) will be sent to both you and any delegate(s) with appropriate permission.

  1. Review the details in the email, including the Report Name and Purpose to identify the report requiring approval.

  2. Click the report link (within the email) to log into Concur.

A reminder email is sent to an approver 5 days after the initial email, if the approver has not approved nor returned the report for correction.

Reviewing an Expense Report

As an approver, you will need to review submitted expense reports and approve them for reimbursement. A list of pending expense reports, waiting for approval, can be found on the Approvals tab | Expense Reports once you log into Concur.

If you are serving as an approver delegate or previewer delegate (for expense reports), click Profile | Acting as other to select the individual for whom you want to act as.

  1. From the Concur homepage, click the Approvals tab.

  2. Click Expense Reports. The Reports Pending your Approval page lists the awaiting reports.

  3. Click the link in the Report Name column to open the report you want to approve. The individual expense item list displays to the left of the view. The linked request displays to the right of the view.

  1. Review any exceptions that display at the top of the view, as applicable.

  2. Click each link in the Expenses list to review each expense details individually.

  3. Hover on expense icons for more information. Key icons are listed with a brief description below.

Comments

  1. Click the Details dropdown.

  2. Click Comments.

  3. Review for any applicable comments.

  4. Add comments, as needed.

Report Header

  1. Click the Details dropdown.

  2. Click Report Header.

  3. Review the contents of each field, as necessary including, but not limited to:

    1. Business Purpose: The Business Purpose to ensure it explains that the overall purpose for the expense report is necessary and how it appropriately benefits the University.

    2. Account Number: The account number listed on the report header is applied to all expense items, by default. A traveler may allocate to additional account numbers on an individual expense line items.

Receipts and Other Attachments

The Receipts area is designed to be a document repository available with each expense report. You will find individual expense receipts, as well as various other documents such as, but not limited to the following:

  • Conference Brochure

  • Travel Award letter/email

  • Approval from Dean/Director/Dept. Head

  • Business Travel Air Fare Price Comparison

  • Other relevant communication/documentation

To View Receipts and Other Attachments

  1. From the main expense report view, click Receipts dropdown.

  2. Select View Receipts in New Window.

Linked Request

As desired, details of the linked request(s) can be viewed.

  1. Click the Summary link. The linked request(s) displays to the right of the list of expenses.

  2. Click the Request Name link to view details of the request in a separate window.

Approving an Expense Report

If it is determined that the report is ready to be approved, follow the steps immediately below.

  1. From the main expense report view, click Approve. An attestation displays.

  2. Read the details of the attestation.

  3. Click Accept. The report will no longer appear in the Reports Pending your Approval list

Sending Back an Expense Report

As an approver, you will review submitted expense reports and come across situations when additional information and/or corrections are required before approval and reimbursement can be granted.

As an Approver, you can send the entire expense report back to the Employee, adding a required comment, which will require that the traveler update the report and resubmit.

  1. From the main expense report view, click Send Back to Employee. The Send Back Report window displays.

  2. Enter a Comment for the employee, explaining why you are returning the report, and then click OK.

Adding an Additional Approval

Concur allows any approver to assign an additional approver in Concur, as desired.

  1. From the main expense report view, click the Details dropdown and then click Approval Flow. The Approval Flow for Report: screen displays.

  2. Scroll down to the User-Added field.

  3. Click one of the blue “+” icons.

  4. Click the one of the “+” icons to add an approver to the approval workflow. A User-Added Approver field displays.

  5. Click within the User-Added Approver field, and then click the Search Approvers By dropdown.

  6. Click to select criteria to search by.

  7. Type the approvers respective information in the search field. A filtered list of users displays.

  8. Click to select a valid entry from the list of approvers.

  9. If your review of this expense report is complete, and ready for approval, click Approve.

  10. If additional review is required for this report, click Save Workflow.

  11. Continue the report review, as needed, and then click Approve once the review is complete. An email is sent to the user-added approver, notifying that an expense report is pending their review and approval.

Additional Support

For help with Concur, contact travel@uconn.edu.

For additional reference material, refer to the Training and Resources page located on the Travel Services page.

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