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Fully Digitizing Expense Claims at York

Effective Monday, Oct. 4, 2021, employees must submit expense claims via SAP Concur (York University’s digital expense reimbursement claim software).

Why the change?

SAP Concur offers a number of benefits over paper-based forms. The figure below outlines the case for change.

Figure 1 | Case for change

Concur is faster. Concur claims are about five times faster than manually processed paper claims (5.9 versus 30 business days).

Concur is more sustainable than paper. The full digitization of expense claims supports the University’s sustainability goals by reducing paper.

Concur provides status visibility. Concur is a digital workflow that enables claimants to see the status of their claim at any time. Claimants can also access past claims for reference.

Most claimants use Concur. Prior to COVID-19, 94 per cent of claims were submitted using Concur. Since COVID-19, this number has increased to 99.7 per cent.

Concur is easier than ever. A series of improvements have been made to the Concur interface to simplify the claim experience and provide time saving shortcuts, such as automated receipt upload using the Concur mobile app.

Finance provides hands on support. Where users still find the Concur interface challenging or have questions about Concur, Expense Compliance Administrators (ECAs) reachable through the University Services Centre (USC) are available to provide assistance. See contact information below.

Comparable universities have removed paper claims. 85 per cent of Canadian universities engaged by York use electronic claim processing systems and 79 per cent have removed the option to submit a paper claim. The remaining 15 per cent of universities without an electronic system are currently implementing one and intend to make it mandatory.

Support and additional information

The following optional Concur training is available:

  1. Existing Concur training sessions as posted on the York Employee Learning Calendar
  2. One on one hands-on support from a University Services Centre (USC) Expense Claim Administrator (ECA)


You can contact a USC ECA for support or more information on this change:  

  • Sonia Fermin-Peat – (416)736-2100 x 40150
  • Piera Li – (416)736-2100 x 20233
  • Yan Liu – (416)736-2100 x 22003

For information on other SEP Finance initiatives, please visit the SEP website.