The SAP Concur Bidirectional Integration imports expense reports into VAT4U when they External Validator workflow step in Concur. VAT4U reads each receipt, calculates VAT and checks compliance. It can then write the results (VAT amount, Recoverable VAT amount and Compliance results) back onto the Concur expense entry, and a VAT4U user approves the report so it moves on in your Concur workflow.
The integration ships in two activation types:
Type | What it does | When to use |
Inbound (Receive-Only / Read-Only) | VAT4U receives Concur events and retrieves reports and expenses data for processing. No data is pushed back to Concur. | When you want VAT recovery analytics and compliance reporting in VAT4U, while Concur remains unchanged as the system of record. |
Full Bidirectional | Everything in the inbound mode, plus VAT4U writes VAT amounts, Compliance flags (on expense level), and report approvals back to Concur. | When you want Concur reports enriched with VAT4U's VAT and compliance data. |
Both levels share the same connection and configuration screen - only the Send results back to Concur toggle differs.
Inbound Data Flow
End-to-End Data Flow (Full Bidirectional)
Common Prerequisites and Activation
These steps apply to both activation types.
Prerequisites
Active SAP Concur Customer
Admin rights on SAP Concur
Active VAT4U Customer
Step 1 - Connect via the Concur App Center
VAT4U's v4 integration is authorized through the Concur App Center:
In VAT4U, open Company Settings → Connectors tab → Travel & Expense Connectors → SAP Concur.
Click Activate via SAP Concur App Center. Copy the Activation key, or click Email key to send it to your Concur Web Services Administrator.
In SAP Concur, open the App Center, find the VAT4U Partner application and click Connect.
On the VAT4U page that opens, enter the activation key and click Activate.
When Connection successfully activated! appears, return to VAT4U. The connector shows Status: Active.
Instructions and a demo video for connecting via the Concur App Center are available here: SAP Concur App Center connection.
Reconnecting
If the existing connection was established via Concur Web Services credentials, it must be reconnected through the SAP Concur App Center in order to enable activation of the Bidirectional Integration.
Step 2 - Configure the External Validator step in Concur
For the Concur Bidirectional Integration, your Concur administrator must add an External Validation step to every expense workflow that should send reports to VAT4U, and notes its step code. The code is under Administration → Workflows in Concur.
Reports in workflows without this step never reach VAT4U. VAT4U cannot add or change the step for you.
Step 3 - Set up the Bidirectional Integration
Still in Company Settings → Connectors tab → Travel & Expense Connectors → SAP Concur, locate the Activate Bidirectional Integration button and click on it.
The setup has five steps. You can close it at any time, and your progress is saved.
Connect
Hand-over step: the External Validation step code. VAT4U imports a report when it reaches this step.
Legal entity field: the Concur report field that identifies the legal entity. Options are OrgUnit1 to OrgUnit5, Custom1, Custom2, Custom3, Custom15 and PolicyID. OrgUnit3 is the most common choice.
Match your Concur data
Legal entities (Map companies): link each Concur entity value to a VAT4U company. This mapping is required. Expenses from an unmapped entity are not imported (see Troubleshooting).
Expense categories (Map categories): link each Concur expense type to a VAT4U category. New expense types appear here automatically as reports arrive. Unmapped types are imported into the To be verified category.
Tax codes (optional, only when writing to the tax record): link a country of refund and VAT rate to a Concur tax code, for example DE and 19% to DE19.
Data to send back
Turn Send results back to Concur on for bidirectional mode, or leave it off for read-only (inbound) mode. You can change this later.
Choose which results to send, and where each one goes (see the table below).
Under Advanced - destination settings, Write amounts to Concur's native tax record is on by default for new setups. Turn it off to use custom fields only.
Review & send mode: select Review before sending. Send automatically is shown but is not available at the moment (Coming soon).
Confirm & activate: check the summary and click Activate integration.
Result | Meaning | Where it can go in Concur |
VAT amount | Total VAT calculated by VAT4U | Tax record, custom field, or both |
Potential cashback amount | Recoverable VAT calculated by VAT4U. Sent as 0 when the expense is Not compliant. | Tax record, custom field, or both |
Compliance status | One of COMPLIANT, LOOKS_COMPLIANT, POTENTIALLY_NOT_COMPLIANT, NOT_COMPLIANT, NOT_VERIFIED | Custom field only |
Non-compliance reasons | Text that explains the compliance status. Available only when Compliance status is on. | Custom field only |
The integration now shows Active with its start date. Reports that reach the hand-over step flow into VAT4U. To change the setup later, click Modify settings.
Mapping changes apply to report expenses imported after you save them. Expenses already imported keep their company and category until you change them in VAT4U.
How reports move from Concur to VAT4U
An employee submits an expense report in Concur, and it moves through your workflow.
When the report reaches the hand-over step, Concur notifies VAT4U. VAT4U ignores all other status changes.
VAT4U retrieves the report and its expense entries from Concur, and finds the VAT4U company through the legal entity mapping.
VAT4U creates one expense for each Concur expense entry. It carries over the date, country, currency, vendor, amounts, itemizations, expense type, employee ID, report name and the Concur report and expense IDs.
VAT4U downloads the receipt image from Concur and converts it to PDF.
Each expense is enqueued for OCR and the Smart AI agentic extraction pipeline, producing:
Invoice metadata (vendor name, vendor VAT ID, invoice number, invoice date)
Net, gross, and VAT amounts per VAT rate
Recoverable VAT amount based on country of refund and category rules
Compliance audit flags
Only the data listed above is imported. Concur's own tax amounts, attendees, allocations and card data are not imported.
When a report reaches the step again (for example, after it was resubmitted), VAT4U checks it again. New expense entries are imported. Entries already imported are skipped, and changes made to them in Concur are not copied to VAT4U. Update those expenses in VAT4U if needed.
How results move from VAT4U to Concur
In Full bidirectional mode, you review each expense in VAT4U and then push its results to Concur. An expense can be pushed as soon as it is imported. Wait until processing has finished, otherwise results that are not ready yet are left out.
There are three ways to push:
One expense (Data Entry): open the expense, check the extracted data and click Validate & Push to Concur (after the first push: Push to Concur again).
The Push data to Concur window lists every result that will be sent and marks empty ones as "missing, will be skipped".
Click Push to Concur, or Push available data if some results are missing.
Many expenses (Manage Expenses): select or filter Concur expenses, then choose Batch actions → Push to Concur.
Choose Only expenses with all required data (default) or Every expense, skipping missing fields.
A check step shows which expenses will be pushed.
The result lists how many were Queued for Concur, Skipped and Rejected, with a reason for each.
Concur Dashboard work queue:
use Push on an expense, Push {n} expenses on a report, or Push all {n} to Concur.
Here, expenses with any missing result are rejected rather than partly pushed.
What to expect:
Only results that are switched on and have a value are sent. Empty results are left out, never written blank. A value of 0.00 is sent.
Pushes run in the background. When done, the expense shows a green Pushed to Concur tag. Hover over it to see which results were sent and which were skipped.
You can push an expense again until its report is approved. Each push overwrites the previous values in Concur.
If Concur accepts one destination but rejects the other, VAT4U tells you which one failed. Push again to retry. Values already delivered are overwritten with the same values.
When writing to the tax record, a tax code is sent only if the expense has a single VAT rate and a matching tax code mapping. Otherwise the amounts are sent without a tax code.
Approving the report
Once every expense in a report has been pushed, the report shows All pushed - pending approval. It appears under Ready to approve on the Concur Dashboard.
Click Approve report, or Approve all {n} for every report in the list.
VAT4U approves the report at the hand-over step in Concur, with the comment "Approved by VAT4U". The report continues to the next step of your Concur workflow.
The report shows Approved in VAT4U. If Concur refuses the approval, it shows Approve failed. Click Retry approve.
Approving closes the push window: expenses in an approved report can no longer be pushed. Expenses that failed to import do not count toward "all pushed". Fix and push them before you approve, or their results will not reach Concur.
The report advances whatever the compliance results. Non-compliant expenses carry their status and reasons into Concur, and your Concur reviewers decide what to do with them.
Important: VAT4U never rejects a report and never approves one on its own - approval is always an explicit user action.
Monitoring: the Concur Dashboard
The dashboard is in the Bidirectional integration tab of the SAP Concur connector. It has two views.
Work queue & pending actions shows each report in one section.
Section | What it means | Your action |
Blocked imports | Expenses could not be imported | Fix the cause, then Retry import |
Failed pushes | The last push to Concur failed | Expand the report to see the error, then Retry push |
Ready to push | Imported and processed | Review, then push |
Ready to approve | All expenses pushed | Approve report |
Waiting - no action needed | Import or push in progress | None. The list refreshes automatically. |
Each report row shows its import, processing, push and approval progress. Expand it to see each expense, its status and compliance result, and a link to Open in VAT4U.
Insights & reporting shows monthly figures for each stage: events received, reports and expenses imported or skipped, processing, pushes and approvals. It also shows the most common reasons for failures. Figures are counted in the month the report or expense arrived.
VAT4U does not send email notifications for imports, pushes or approvals. Check the dashboard regularly.
Statuses
Expense status | Meaning |
New / Importing | Received from Concur, being created in VAT4U |
Imported | In VAT4U and ready to push |
Failed to import | Not imported, usually because of legal entity mapping |
Failed to fetch document | The receipt could not be downloaded or opened |
Pushing… | Push in progress |
Pushed to Concur | Results written to Concur |
Push failed | Push could not be completed |
Report status | Meaning |
Imported | Report received and expenses created |
Partially pushed | Some expenses pushed |
All pushed - pending approval | Ready to approve |
Approved | Approved in Concur by a VAT4U user |
Approve failed | Approval of report failed, can be retried |
Troubleshooting
Problem | Likely cause | What to do |
A report never appears in VAT4U | The workflow has no hand-over step, the step code in VAT4U doesn't match, or the connection was not made through the App Center | Check the step code under Modify settings and the Concur workflow. Reconnect through the App Center if needed. If it still doesn't appear, contact support. |
Expenses show Failed to import | The legal entity is not mapped, the entity field is empty on the report, or the VAT4U user who set up the integration has no access to the mapped company | Complete the mapping, then click Retry import. Mapping alone does not re-run the import. |
Expenses are in the To be verified category | The Concur expense type is not mapped | Change the category on those expenses, and map the type for future reports |
Failed to fetch document | Concur returned an unreadable or unsupported file | Click Retry document fetch. If it keeps failing, contact support. |
Push failed: "The Concur report has moved past the External Validator step", or the report was recalled | The report is no longer at the hand-over step in Concur | Results can only be written while the report is at that step. Wait for it to return to the step, then push again. |
Push failed: "The SAP Concur connection has expired" | The connection must be renewed | A Concur Web Services Administrator reconnects VAT4U through the App Center, then you set up the integration again (see below) |
Push failed: "No tax authority is configured for this expense" | The Concur entity has no tax configuration | Add the tax configuration in Concur, or send amounts to custom fields |
Push failed: "SAP Concur is rate-limiting requests" or "temporarily unavailable" | Temporary Concur issue | VAT4U retries automatically a few times. If it still fails, push again later. |
Approve failed | Approval failed for example because the report is no longer at the step | Check the report in Concur, then Retry approve |
Changing or stopping the integration
Switch between read-only and bidirectional: open Modify settings and change Send results back to Concur. The change applies straight away.
Stop the Bidirectional Integration: use Stop Bidirectional Integration in the settings. New reports are no longer imported. Data already imported stays in VAT4U, and the Concur connection stays active.
Deactivate the connection: click Deactivate on the connector. This deletes the connection details and revokes VAT4U's access to Concur. Imported data is not affected.
Reconnecting replaces your settings. A new App Center connection resets the Bidirectional Integration settings, so you need to set them up again.
Best Practices
Start with the Inbound level, then upgrade to Full Bidirectional once you are confident in the VAT recovery output.
Map Legal Entities before you go live. Import of expense into VAT4U is skipped due to unmapped legal entity.
Validate from Data Entry for high-value expenses, batch-push for low-value. Single-expense validation gives you the most control; batch push maximizes throughput for routine spend.
Monitor the Concur Dashboard daily. Processing error counts, unmapped types, and pending-review backlogs are all surfaced there.
Keep the Concur admin in the loop for connector changes. Adding or removing the External Validator step requires a Concur admin; VAT4U cannot self-provision this.
FAQ
What is the difference between the two v4 integration types?
The Inbound level only receives data from Concur (events + reports + receipts) and processes it inside VAT4U.
The Full Bidirectional level adds outbound write-back: VAT amounts and compliance flags are pushed back to Concur, and reports are approved at the External Validator step.
The two levels share the same connection and configuration screen. Toggling Send results back to Concur ON is what upgrades you from Inbound to Full Bidirectional.
Are reports imported on every status change?
No. VAT4U is told about status changes, but it imports a report only when it reaches the hand-over (External Validation) step.
Are older reports imported when I activate?
No. Only reports that reach the hand-over (External Validation) step after activation are imported.
Does VAT4U change my Concur reports automatically?
No. In read-only mode it writes nothing. In bidirectional mode it writes only when a user pushes an expense or approves a report.
Can VAT4U reject a Concur report?
No. It can only approve one, when a user clicks Approve report. Rejecting reports stays with your Concur reviewers.
Can I still run on-demand Concur retrievals?
Yes. The Concur on-demand data retrieval tab offers one-off and scheduled read-only retrievals. It works separately from the Bidirectional Integration.
Is the write-back automatic or manual?
Manual by design. Each expense is pushed when a user validates it in Data Entry, or as part of a batch action in Manage Expenses.
The report-level Approve action is also manual - a user triggers it from the Concur Dashboard once every expense has been pushed. Nothing is sent or approved automatically.
Where can I monitor the integration's health?
The Concur Dashboard in VAT4U (per-company integration page) surfaces KPIs, per-report processing status, the error logs, unmapped Expense category warnings, and connection status.
Can I switch between Inbound and Full Bidirectional at any time?
Yes. Toggling Send results back to Concur ON or OFF in the Bidirectional Integration configuration takes effect immediately for newly ingested reports. Reports already in progress are not retroactively pushed.