Concur FAQs

Concur is a Travel Management System that allows you to create/process Travel Requests, make on-line travel arrangements with the TSU contracted travel agency (optional), and create/process Expense Reports to record expenses and initiate payments.

All employees who have travel related duties (i.e., travelers, supervisors, certifying signatories, unit heads, other approvers, Delegates, Travel Arrangers, Travel Card Custodians) and non-employee travelers (i.e., guests, prospective employees, students, contractors, future employees who will be reimbursed for moving expenses) should be setup as users in Concur.

Unit Head is an employee who approves Travel Requests for non-employee travelers in the department.  Travel Requests for non-employee travelers must be approved by a Unit Head before they are routed to the certifying signatory.

Delegates create or approve Travel Requests and expense reports for travelers.  Travel Arrangers handle travel arrangements for travelers. 

Yes.  Be sure to setup the person as both a “Travel Arranger” (in the traveler profile) and as a “Delegate” (in the Concur Request/Expense profile).

No.  The on-line booking tool in Concur is optional.  However, the Concur booking tool includes TSU and state-contracted discounts for airfare, lodging, and rental cars, as well as the inventory of travel arrangements available through public websites like Expedia or Travelocity

A Travel Request should be created and processed for employee travelers and non-employee travelers (i.e., all students, all guests, all prospective employees, all future employees who will be reimbursed for moving expenses, and contractors if Travel Cards are used to pay for the contractors’ travel expenses).

Delegates may create Travel Requests but cannot submit them into workflow for employee travelers.  Concur requires employee travelers to review and submit their own Travel Requests in workflow.  However, Delegates can create Travel Requests for non-employee travelers and submit the requests into workflow for them.

Once Travel Requests are in workflow, a user can click on the “Approve & Forward” button and enter an additional workflow approver.  After the user approves the Request, it will be sent immediately to the additional approver.  After the additional approver approves, the Request will be sent to next workflow approver.

Type an asterisk (*) in the blank box where the name should be and a list of approvers will appear.  Select one of the approvers. 

You can also start typing the name of the next approver, if you know it.

For non-significant changes which do not affect the business purpose of travel, you do not need to re-create a Travel Request.  Such cases include a change of the traveler’s departure date or return date by a day or so.  You can prepare an explanation and upload it to the Expense Report.  The certifying signatory may want to route the Expense Report to the traveler’s supervisor for his/her approval, if needed. 

For significant changes that affect the purpose of travel, you will need to create a new Travel Request and inactivate the old Travel Request.  Such cases include a cancellation of the original trip and scheduling a new trip instead due to an unexpected business meeting.

Travel Advances may be issued only for employee foreign travel and for group travel.  To receive Travel Advances, the Concur access form must indicate that the employee traveler is “eligible” for Travel Advances.  Travel Advances are referred to as “Cash Advances” in Concur and the required amount would need to be entered in the traveler’s Travel Request for the trip.

When a Travel Request is submitted into workflow for approval, the Travel Advance request is submitted into workflow at the same time.  After the Travel Request is fully approved, the Travel Advance goes to the designated approver for Travel Advances in the department (usually the College/Division Administrator) and then to Accounts Payable.  After the Travel Advance has been approved, an overnight process will create a Voucher in the Finance System to issue a Travel Advance payment to the employee traveler.

Delegates may create Expense Reports but cannot submit them in workflow for employee travelers.  Concur requires employee travelers to review and submit their own Expense Reports into workflow.  However, Delegates can create Expense Reports for non-employee travelers and submit the reports into workflow for the non-employee.  Non-employees do not log into Concur.

Once Expense Reports are in workflow, a user can click on the “Approve & Forward” button and enter an additional workflow approver.  After the user approves the Expense Report, it will be sent immediately to the additional approver.  After the additional approver approves, the Expense Report will be sent to next workflow approver.

Type an asterisk (*) in the blank box where the name should be and a list of approvers will appear.  Select one of the approvers. 

You can also start typing the name of the next approver, if you know it.  You don’t need to select the name of someone in Accounts Payable to approve.  The Accounts Payable approval box can be left blank.

Yes, receipt photos are accepted as a backup document for Expense Reports as long as they are legible.

Concur has a built-in Mileage Calculator (Google Maps) which calculates the mileage based on addresses entered.  Click on the “Mileage Calculator” icon and compute the mileage so you do not have to upload print-outs from other mapping service websites.