Send transaction and invoice statement

The credit card company sends a file feed of transaction data to the customer. File feeds can be for corporate liability cards, corporate cards with personal liability, or BTA/ghost (business travel account) cards.
Additionally, the credit card company electronically submits an invoice statement for the corporate liability walking cards and / or BTA/ghost cards.

Upload transaction and invoice file

The administrator receives or pick ups the credit card data file from the credit card company. The file which includes the transaction data for the company's travelers is uploaded to the travel expense system.
Additionally the administrator or FI clerk upload the invoice file to the travel expense and the financials system. The company can either post the data to a reconciliation account (in case travel management data is posted here too) or directly to GL accounts. The balance of the invoice is posted to the appropriate vendor account of the credit card company.

Employee Roles

Posting to vendor, reconciliation and G/L accounts

The existing integration between SAP Travel Expense and Financials benefits the customer by automatically posting the transaction data of the invoice file to a reconciliation account and the vendor account of the credit card company. If the integration is not activated, the customer can also directly upload the invoice data to his financial system and post directly to GL accounts and the credit card company vendor account.

Employee Roles

Administrator

Clear reconciliation account

Using unique identifiers on the reconciliation account (e.g. credit card number, transaction number, amount, etc.) the customer can clear the account automatically. Some documents may not have been cleared due to:

Traveler has not completed his expense report
Expense report is still in approval cycle
Trip has been cancelled but a credit for the airline ticket has not been processed
Unused airline tickets

Reimburse traveler and credit card company

The customer runs his payment program to pay all due A/P open items. The process for the different types of A/P (employees, third parties) is the same and can be run in one single payment run.

Employee Roles

Administrator

Create expense report

The traveler returns from a business trip and creates a new expense report or changes an existing one.

Employee Roles

Employee

Document Flow

Business Documents

Expense Receipts

Insert credit card items

The traveler now adds receipts from the personal credit card buffer. Additionally, all out-of-pocket cash receipts are entered by the traveler and submitted for approval and processing. The traveler has the ability to identify personal expenses for automatic deduction from the reimbursed amount. For itemization of credit card receipts such as a hotel bill, the receipt wizard functionality enables efficient processing of individual expense types and daily amounts.

Employee Roles

Employee

Document Flow

Business Documents

Time and Expense Entry Sheet

Approve expense report

The employee's manager and / or the travel expense administrator check the consistency of the expense report. They can then approve the expense report so the transfer to FI/HCM and the reimbursement can take place.

Employee Roles

Manager

Travel Administrator

Prepare data

The administrator prepares the trip data for subsequent processes within the customer's SAP components, such as FI, HCM, CO. There may be separate instances for some of these components.

Employee Roles

Travel Administrator

Post and pay expenses

The system transfers the settlement results from travel expense reports to Financial Accounting, Controlling, Funds Management, and possibly Payroll. The reimbursement amount is transferred to the employee's vendor account. If the customer is paying the credit card company on behalf of the traveler or for corporate liability accounts, the transactional data is transferred to the credit card company vendor account and to a reconciliation account in Financials.

Employee Roles

Travel Administrator

Credit Card Clearing for Travel Management and Financials

This Business Scenario Map is designed to highlight the key benefits for the customer by streamlining processes with your credit card service supplier. The credit card clearing functionality removes the burden of keeping up with paper receipts which provides for increased traveler convenience. By streamlining processes, reducing administrative costs, and improving accuracy and internal control of receipts, customers have the opportunity to save time and money. Additional areas for cost effectiveness are faster reimbursement to the employee or credit card supplier, and utilization of electronic receipts for country-specific statutory requirements.

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Value Potentials	Business Benefits
	Automated upload of credit card transaction data for travel expenses
	All travel expenses are handled 100% by the traveler
Up to 80% *	Cash advances administration reduced to a minimum
	Receive more detailed and accurate travel information
	Access to globally consolidated T&E spend data throughout the entire organization worldwide
	Full integration into SAP ERP - Financials, Controlling, Human Capital Management, Financials-Funds Management

Credit Card Company

Administrator / FI Clerk

Employee / Traveler

Manager / Expense Administrator

Send transaction and invoice statement

Upload transaction and invoice file

Posting to vendor, reconciliation and G/L accounts

Clear reconciliation account

Reimburse traveler and credit card company

Create expense report

Insert credit card items

Approve expense report

Prepare data

Post and pay expenses

Source:

* The American Express and A.T. Kearney European Expense Management Study 2003: comparison between best practice, fully automated and non automated expense claim processing (manual processing)

The value potentials shown in this table have been reported by selected SAP customers or independent third parties as referenced herein. However, there is no guarantee that such value potentials can be realized in any particular customer-specific business processes, and SAP does not make any representations and disclaims any liability as to the appropriateness of the referenced value potentials for any specific customer situation.
©SAP AG 2008

Business Benefits	Value Potentials
Expense items paid by the corporate credit card do not require manual entries
Automated monitoring of travel expenses against company’s travel policy
Multinational fiscal and legal compliance for expense processing
Employees receive benefits for card utilization
Expedite reimbursement cycle	Up to 70% *
Reduction in expense claim processing (related to the traveler)	Up to 70% *
Electronic workflow automating receipt and approval of expense claims	Up to 60% *
Improve monitoring of policy compliance	Up to 50% *
Automated controlling streamlines travel processes	Up to 80% *


Credit Card Clearing for Travel Management and Financials The SAP Travel Management solution supports the decentralized processing of business travel expenditures. Employees can request and book their business trips themselves and enter their on-trip expenses once returned from their trip. SAP Travel Management can additionally be connected to SAP Business Workflow, thus helping to cut processing time. Through its close integration with SAP ERP Financials and SAP ERP Human Capital Management, SAP Travel Management links all phases of the travel management process, from the travel request and planning and booking online, to the settlement of travel expenses, together into one integrated process. On top of this, SAP Travel Management is already integrated into the standard SAP environment. The automatic feed of credit card expenses is one of the key functionalities of an electronic travel expense management system. For this reason SAP has developed in cooperation with several credit card providers a standard interface structure for credit card charges to be imported into the SAP ERP system. The credit card import process will assist the end users with the input of trip receipts into their expense reports. To perform this import, a data file is required which is received from the credit card company. The process of importing the transactions into the individual end user's credit card “buffers” for import into trip expense reports is illustrated in this business map. Additionally the transfer of travel expenses to financial accounting is part of this process. Once these procedures have taken place the invoice data is uploaded to Financials for further processing: Reconciliation account can be cleared automatically Controlling of travel expenses Taxation issues Payment of reimbursement amounts