How to Create a Travel Expense Report

Per Chapter 4.2 of  LSC's Administrative Manual, you are required to create and submit an expense report in Concur no later than 12 business days following the last day of your trip. If you are unable to meet this deadline, please reach out to your approving official and Bernie Brady, [email protected] 

Before you begin

 

Have all the transactions from your GSA Visa downloaded to Concur?  To verify, click on Expense and view transactions. Your charges will be listed under Company Paid Charges or Corp Visa. You should also cross reference these transactions by logging into your Citibank account

 

Your Expense Report must include receipts for all charges incurred (except meals, which are deducted from the applicable per diem amount, unless actual meal costs are claimed, in which case, receipts are required). If you lost or did not receive a receipt, you must prepare a Concur Missing Receipt Declaration or submit other alternative documentation satisfactory to OFAS showing the quantity, description, and total cost of the item or services purchased. Your credit card statement is insufficient to support expense report reimbursement requests; a receipt, affidavit, or other document showing the quantity, description, and total cost of the item or services purchased, is required.

 

Have you uploaded all of  your required receipts to the  receipt store or on your desk top for easy access?

This short video will demonstrate the various ways you can upload,or send receipts images to the receipt store.

Click here for more detailed information on receipt images

E- Receipts

Receipts must legible and attached upright to the expense line item. One receipt per line item is preferred. When scanning receipts from the LSC scanners, scan one receipt at a time. You can attach up to 10 PDF's to an email and email it to [email protected]. It can take up to 30 minutes for the receipts to appear in your receipt store.

You can also take a photo of smaller receipts using your Smart Phone and upload it to the receipt store or directly to your report by using the Concur APP for iPhone  or Android

Launch Concur www.concursolutions.com

Select the expense tab and click on create new report

Completing the Report Header

  • Expense Group ID: No action required. Can only be changed by OFAS. Expense pay means direct deposit, No Expense Pay means check payment
  • Report Name: Enter your last name, first initial month and year. Example Doe-J May 2019. If you have more than one report in this month, enter another identifier, but last name must be first.
  • Trip Purpose: Purpose of the report (PQV,AUDIT,CSR)
  • Start and end dates: When you departed for the trip and when you returned from the trip.
  • Start Location: Enter your departure airport
  • Destination:  Enter the destination visited. If you are visiting more than one destination enter all of them if possible.
  • Department: Your department is the default.
  • Grantee Number: Select from the drop down menu. If the Grantee Number is not applicable, select NONE
  • Project Code:  Select from the drop down menu. If not applicable,  select NONE
  • Non Employee address and city state - leave blank
  • Claim travel allowance: 
  • If you are claiming Per Diem for your trip, select "yes I  want to claim travel allowance"
  • Click NEXT 

Inserting Your Itinerary and Generating Per Diem Allowance

Click on Import to display available itineraries.

Select the appropriate itinerary for your trip. Do not use Single Day Itineraries. Keep in mind, you may have multiple itineraries for one trip. Click on import

After you import your itinerary, you have the opportunity to review it for accuracy. You can change the stops by clicking on the itinerary rows or add stops using the new itinerary stop. The itinerary must match where you stayed each night. Example, you flew to Minneapolis but drove to Bemidji. You will list Bemidji as a stop so that the system can accurately generate the per diem for that location. Per Diem is generated from the location where you spent an overnight in a hotel. Once your itinerary is finalized, click NEXT

The per diem has now generated based on your itinerary. If you were provided meals as part of a conference, you can make the deductions here by checking the appropriate boxes for meals provided. Click create expenses

Your travel allowance has now populated into the report. If you need to make a correction, click: Report Details and then Manage Travel Allowances

Select either Available Itineraries to update your itinerary or make the necessary adjustments by clicking on the Expenses and Adjustments tab. Click update expenses.

Adding Expenses To Your Report.

You can now add in the GSA visa transactions and create new out of pocket expenses. If you use a LSC GSA Visa card, the transactions will download into Concur and can easily be imported into your report.  Typically all transactions have downloaded by the Wednesday following a standard Monday to Friday trip. Do not submit your report until all the transactions have downloaded for that trip. If you have multiple trips in the same month, be sure to only import the charges that are relevant to the trip you are preparing the report for.

Select the Corp Visa items you want to add from the Available Expenses and click Add to Report ( You can select multiple items at one time)

Alerts: Defining expenses (all alerts must be cleared before you can submit your report) Yellow Alerts are informational, Red Alerts require something to be changed or updated

You must now define each expense item. Any box with a red bar/ alert must be edited. Other fields are optional. Note several expense type names and categories have changed. Please use this list for reference

  • Expense Type: Select from the drop down menu
  • Transaction date: Already populated for corp visa, only enter for cash expenses
  • Expense purpose: Optional but you can use this field to enter an explanation for the approvers if necessary. Example, Gas for Mary's car or drop off at airport.
  • Vendor Name: Optional
  • City - Optional
  • Payment Type Corp Visa is non changeable, Enter cash for out of pocket expenses.
  • Amount:  This amount cannot be edited for Corp Visa. Enter the amount for out of pocket expenses.
  • Expense Description: Select from drop down menu ( Staff travel is the default)
  • Department: Default is set to your department
  • Grantee Number and Project Code: Select from drop down menu or select NONE if not applicable
  • Personal Expense - Check this box if you have charged a meal to your GSA Visa and are claiming a travel allowance. Check this box if you charged any other item to your Corp Visa that you cannot be reimbursed for.The meal expense type is Meals Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

 

Attaching Receipts

Click on Attach Receipt Image to attach a receipt now, or save and attach it later.

Select the receipt image you want to attach, click attach.

If you want to access the receipts from your desktop, select Upload Receipt Image and follow the prompts

Itemizing hotel charges

Hotel charges need to be broken down by nightly cost, taxes, parking etc. Please watch this short video to understand the process.

Some hotels are E-receipt compatible and the data will download into Concur already itemized. Check first to see if this is the situation before proceeding with manual itemization.

Below is an example of an automatic itemization from the hotel. This receipt came directly to Concur as it was paid for with the GSA visa and the employee is signed up for E- Receipts and has linked their profile with Hilton to Concur. Not all vendors are E-receipt ready.

Deducting Excess Taxi Gratuities

If you exceeded the 15% rule rounded up to the nearest dollar for taxi gratuities, you need to have this deducted from your amount due to you. You can enter it as a gratuity and enter the dollar amount  as a negative amount.

Missing Receipts and Missing Receipt Declaration

If you were unable to obtain a receipt of have misplaced it, you can create a missing receipt declaration. With the report open, click on Manage Receipts and select missing receipt declaration.

Select the expense(s) that are missing a receipts and click on Accept & Create. NOTE:  This cannot be used for hotel receipts, airfare and other large ticket items.

Entering personal mileage

Concur has a built in Googlemaps feature to automatically calculate mileage so you do not need to upload a print out of miles driven.  

Click Add Expense

Create New Expense

Select Personal Car Mileage

Enter the Way Point of your journey and select calculate route. You can make it round trip or add another destination if applicable. Click add to expense and follow the prompts. You will need to enter expense purpose Example. Drop off at airport.

What are all these Alerts?

After you add descriptions to your expenses you may still have yellow alerts. These alerts are informational alerts and you will not prevent you from submitting your report. They remain with the report.  The gratuity alert is merely a reminder to check the tip amounts you gave to taxis so that you can correct it before submitting it for review.  Otherwise it will be sent back to you for corrections. If you are missing a receipt or have a missing receipt affidavit you will see an alert for these items.

How much did I spend and what amount will I be reimbursed?

The report Details Tab allows you to quickly access information about your report

Report Header  Shows title of report, start and end dates. You can make edits to this if necessary

Report totals will show you the total amount of the report and the amount due to you

Report time line shows where the report will go next

Audit trail documents the entire process of the report from start to finish

Allocation summary shows you where the expenses are allocated to

Report Payments will show if the report has been paid

Manage Request will open up the request feature

Manage Cash Advances will advise if you have any cash advances linked to this report

Manage Travel Allowances will open up the itinerary page and you can click on expenses and adjustments to see the per diem amounts for your trip

If you wish to email a copy of the report to yourself, select print/Share and follow the prompts

If you wish to view your receipts, select Manage Receipts.

You can sort the expenses by  Payment Type, Expense Type, Vendor Details,Date and  Requested

Submitting your report

Once you have verified all your transactions and attached your receipts, you can submit your report. You can attach any additional documentation ( memos,waivers etc) as you would receipts. One expense item can have multiple receipts attached to it.

Click SUBMIT report for your report to be routed to OFAS for review before being sent to your approving official

Recalling your report

You can easily recall your report for corrections or additions by clicking on the recall button and make the edits. OFAS or your approving official may have more questions on your report and occasionally will send it back to you. You will receive an alert by email that the report has been sent back. You should promptly fix the errors or provide the required information within 3 business days.

Resources

Click here for a complete library of training materials and videos from Concur

Call the Concur Help Desk 24/7  1-866-793-4040

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