T&E analysis for Concur toolkit

The T&E analysis for Concur robot toolkit is an analytics-as-a-service solution for monitoring travel and entertainment transaction risk for organizations using Concur. It analyzes and reports expense data from Concur that may indicate fraud, waste or abuse.

The toolkit comes as a pre-configured solution that is applicable to most customers. Once deployed, you can update the analysis robot toolkit with new scripts as we release them. You can further customize it by adding custom scripts to refine the toolkit. The imported data can be output to Results or Excel files.

Note

The T&E analysis for Concur robot does not support the following:

  • Analytics Exchange (AX)
  • Robots Cloud Agent for production purposes
  • Custom analytics and data sources
  • Any reporting other than Excel/Results outputs

System and subscription requirements

Ensure that you meet the following subscription and system requirements to use the T&E Analysis for Concur Robot.

Requirement Notes
ACL Robotics Enterprise Edition Robot toolkits are available as add-ons

On-premise Robots Agent version 15

Verify the version to be installed - Unicode or Non-Unicode
ACL for Windows version 15
  • Ensure that the installation uses the same encoding as the Robots Agent(Unicode or Non-Unicode).
  • Having a local installation of ACL for Windows can be helpful for troubleshooting purposes or for developing custom scripts.
Concur T&E Data Integration Robot Ensure that the Concur T&E Data Integration Robot has been successfully deployed into your organization and is currently running.

About the toolkit

The toolkit installs several components in Diligent One.

Component Count Name
Collection 2

T&E Analysis For Concur - Development Mode

T&E Analysis For Concur - Production Mode
Analysis

2

 T&E Analysis For Concur (one per Collection)
Robot 1 T&E Analysis For Concur
Analytic Tables 10 For more information, see Analytics for Concur.

T&E Analysis For Concur robot

The T&E Analysis for Concur robot is automatically created when the toolkit is installed. This robot contains the following:

  • Analytic scripts - Contains the core scripts to import and process data.

    Note

    You should not modify the analytic scripts. Modifying the scripts may result in failures while running tasks. Any modifications required should be configured in the User Analytic Configuration file or uploaded as custom analytic scripts.

  • (Optional) Custom analytic scripts - Scripts that are manually uploaded to add new customer-specific analytic capabilities to the robot or make a data logic changes. These scripts take precedence over the default analytic scripts and should be thoroughly reviewed.

  • Configuration files - All the configuration files listed in the following table are available in the Input/Output tab of the robot.

    File Name Description Mode
    Concur_Default_
    Analytic_Configuration.xlsx

    Contains default configurations

    Note

    You should not modify this file. Modifying the file may result in failures while running tasks. Any modifications required should be configured in the User Analytic Configuration file or uploaded as custom analytic scripts.

    		 Generated automatically by the robot
    Result_Table_IDs.csv Contains the destinations for the tables exported to Results, within the respective Development and Production collections.

    Generated automatically by the robot
    User Analytic Configuration File

    Contains custom configurations that must override configurations provided in the default analytic configuration file.

    Configurations in this file takes precedence over inputs in the default analytic configuration file.

    NOTE: If customizations exceed the capabilities of the User Analytic Configuration file, a custom script may be added.

    		 Manually uploaded when implementing the toolkit

  • Robot task - Executes the default and custom scripts within the robot and contains the following information.

    Parameter Description
    Export to HighBond Results?

    Specifies whether to export imported data to Results. Options available are as follows:

    • Export to Results - Overwrite - Overwrite the data in results tables each time data is exported.
    • Export to Results - Append - Appends data to the results tables.
    • Do not export - Does not export data to Results.
    Export to Excel?

    Specifies whether to export the current results to an Excel file or not. Options available are as follows:

    • Export to Excel
    • Do not export
    HighBond Access Token

    Token required to connect to Results. If exporting to Results is disabled, any random value can be provided for this parameter.

Linked tables

The required, shared tables from the Concur T&E Data Integration Robot is linked to the T&E Analysis for Concur robot in the Input/Output tab. When the analysis robot task runs, it pulls data from the linked tables and uses it to process the core analytic logic defined.

Note

You can create multiple analysis robots and link only the required tables to segregate the robots for specialized tasks or set of tasks.

Analytics for Concur

The analytics for Concur are listed in the following table.

Error logging

Any errors detected while running the task are logged to the Error Log table for each analytic. If the record count is 0, an error message is written to the Error Log table.

Tip

Review the error log after the task runs, even if the analytic returned no exceptions to ensure that the table was not flagged as having 0 records. For example, user input parameters from the User Analytic Configuration file can be ignored if the file is not formatted properly.

What each analytic does

Analytic Name Description
TNE01_Outliers_
Expense_Type

This analytic reports records with posted amounts that have at least N standard deviation from the median posted amount for the expense type codes. The OUTLIERS command available from Analytics14 and later versions helps detect outliers, if any. For standard deviations:

  • This command requires a positive number that represents the standard deviations from the median.
  • If you provide the value 0 for standard deviations, all entries are recorded.

The c_Expense_Type_Code field uses the expense type code from the Itemizations table, if available, to present data based on expense codes. If the table is not available, the field uses the expense type code from the Entries table.

The script analyzes all expenses, except those with an expense type code specified in the excluded expense type parameter, to identify the outliers by posted amount. By default, all expense type codes are included in the analysis. It is recommended to have the posted amounts in the same reporting currency across all transactions and reports in the data set.

The following default parameters are available for this analytic in the Default_Config_Params worksheet of the Default Analytic Configuration File.

  • v_Start_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_End_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_Min_Trans_Threshold - Applies to c_Posted_Amount field
  • v_TNE01_Outlier_Std_Dev - Applies to c_Posted_Amount field
  • v_TNE01_Excl_Expense_Types - Applies to c_Expense_Type_Code field

If the default parameters do not apply, or are incomplete, you can declare the required values in the User Analytic Configuration File. Ensure that you follow the format and naming conventions as is from the Default Analytic Configuration File.

The result table for this analytic is R_TNE01_Outliers_Expense_Type.
TNE02_Suspicious_
Keywords

This analytic identifies expenses that contain one or more suspicious keywords in the vendor description (E_Vendor_Description) or expense description (E_Description).

Expenses meeting the following criteria are reported in the results:

  • Vendor description or expense description contains one or more of the specified keywords
  • Report falls into the user-specified investigation period, based on report submit date
  • The posted amount is equal to or greater than the user-specified minimum amount threshold (in report currency)
  • Expense does not belong to one of the excluded expense type codes.

Posted amounts must be in the same reporting currency across all transactions and reports in the data set.

Default values for the suspicious keywords are maintained in the PARAMS_Keyword parameter table that is provided in the Default Analytic Configuration File. The computed field c_Matched_Keywords shows the keyword(s) that was matched by either the vendor description or expense description. Multiple keyword matches are presented as a pipe-separated list.

The following default parameters are available for this analytic in the Default_Config_Params worksheet of the Default Analytic Configuration File.

  • v_Start_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_End_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_Min_Trans_Threshold - Applies to E_Posted_Amount field
  • v_TNE02_Excl_Expense_Types - Applies to E_Expense_Type_Code field

If the default parameters do not apply, or are incomplete, you can declare the required values in the User Analytic Configuration File. Ensure that you follow the format and naming conventions as is from the Default Analytic Configuration File.

The result table for this analytic is R_TNE02_Suspicious_Keywords.
TNE03_Double_
Dipping_Expenses

This analytic identifies expenses made by an employee, for the same transaction amount and currency, incurred on the same transaction date, but with a different Report ID.

Expenses meeting the following criteria are reported in the results:

  • The flagged expenses are submitted by the same employee (R_Owner_Name)
  • The transaction amount (c_Transaction_Amount) and currency (E_Transaction_Currency_Code) match
  • Report ID (R_ID) of the flagged expenses is different
  • The posted amount (c_Posted_Amount) is equal to or greater than the user-specified minimum amount threshold
  • The expense does not belong to one of the excluded expense type codes (c_Expense_Type_Code)
  • At least one of the duplicated expenses must be in the user-specified current investigation period, based on the report submit date (R_Submit_Date). The remaining paired expenses may be from reports submitted outside of the current investigation period.

Posted amounts are expected to be in the same reporting currency across all transactions and reports in the data set. The computed field c_Group_ID assigns the same ID number to potentially duplicated expenses, which helps to filter results efficiently.

The following default parameters are available for this analytic in the Default_Config_Params worksheet of the Default Analytic Configuration File.

  • v_Start_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_End_Date - Applies to R_Submit_Date field
  • v_Min_Trans_Threshold - Applies to c_Posted_Amount field
  • v_TNE03_Excl_Expense_Types - Applies to c_Expense_Type_Code field

If the default parameters do not apply, or are incomplete, you can declare the required values in the User Analytic Configuration File. Ensure that you follow the format and naming conventions as is from the Default Analytic Configuration File.

The result table for this analytic is R_TNE03_Double_Dipping_Expenses.