Enable Creating Expenses from Email Receipts

Your company can choose to allow the employees to create their expenses by mailing electronic expense receipts.

This is how it works. An employee sends an email with an expense receipt to a designated email address. After verifying the employee's email, the Expenses application extracts relevant details from the email receipt and creates an expense. The application also matches the expense to the appropriate corporate card charges and can optionally submit it in an expense report to the approver, if this has been configured by you.

Here are the setups that you need to do to allow creating expenses from email receipts:

1. Enable electronic receipts processing

2. Obtain email address for forwarding receipts.

Enable Electronic Receipts Processing

When the application creates an expense from an email receipt, the application also attaches the email receipt to the expense. You can configure the application to attach the email itself to the expense or to attach the primary receipt from the email. Attaching the email is the default configuration.

The application uses the primary receipt for creating the expense and filling in the expense details such as amount, location, merchant, and so on. The primary receipt can be an electronic expense receipt attached to the email or the email itself with an embedded receipt.

Here are the two attachment preferences that you can configure:

• Attach the email

  This is a default configuration. The forwarded email is attached to the expense.

  When an employee forwards an email receipt to the designated email address, the application verifies the employee's email address. After verification, the application extracts relevant details from the email receipt and creates an expense. The application converts the forwarded email to a PDF and adds the PDF document to the expense as an attachment. If the original email has other attachments, the application only attaches the primary receipt from the email's attachments and discards the rest of the attachments. If the email itself is the primary receipt, then the application only adds the email as an attachment to the expense in PDF format.

• Attach the primary receipt from the email

  When you select Attach the primary receipt from the email: the primary receipt from the forwarded email is attached to the expense created from the email.

  • If the email has no attachments, then the application adds the email as an attachment to the expense in PDF format.

  • If the email has multiple attachments, the application attaches only the primary receipt to the expense. The application will discard the email and other attachments from the email.

  Examples of the application configured to Attach the primary receipt from the email.

  • Employee forwards a flight itinerary email with the boarding pass and invoice as attachments. The application creates an expense based on the invoice attached, so the application adds the invoice as an attachment to the expense.

  • Employee forwards a hotel reservation email with the credit card statement added to the email as an attachment. The application creates expenses from the email body, and the email is the primary receipt and is attached to the expense.

  • Employee forwards an Uber email receipt with no attachments added to the email. The application creates an expense from the email receipt. Since there's no attachment in the email, the application adds the email to the expense as an attachment.

You can enable electronic receipts processing for your entire organization or specific business units.

Here are the steps to enable electronic receipts processing and setup expense attachment preference for the entire organization.

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, select these to navigate to the Manage Auto Submit and Matching Options Page:

   • Offering: Financials

   • Functional Area: Expenses

   • Task: Manage Auto Submission and Matching Options

2. In the Electronic Receipt Setup section, select Yes for the Enable Electronic Receipts Processing option.

3. In the Electronic Receipt Setup section, select the Expense Attachment Preference,

   • Select Attach the email to attach the email as an attachment to the expense.
   • Select Attach the primary receipt from the email to attach only the primary receipt to the expense.
4. To allow expense creation from employees' personal email addresses that are defined in the system, select Yes for the Allow Expense Creation from Personal Emails option.

5. Click Save and Close.

These are the steps to enable electronic receipts processing and setup expense attachment preference for a specific business unit:

1. On the Manage Auto Submit and Matching Options page, click a business unit in the Specific Business Unit section.

2. In the Edit Auto Submit and Matching Options dialog box, select Electronic Receipt Setup.

3. Select Yes for the Enable Electronic Receipts Processing option.

4. In the Electronic Receipt Setup tab, select the Expense Attachment Preference,

   • Select Use setup from all business units if you want to configure the Expense Attachment Preference same as all business units.

   • Select Attach the email to attach the email as an attachment to the expense.

   • Select Attach the primary receipt from the email to attach only the primary receipt to the expense.

5. To allow expense creation from employees' personal email addresses that are defined in the system, select Yes for the Allow Expense Creation from Personal Emails option.

6. Click Save and Close.

Note: The option selected at the business unit level overrides the organization-level settings.

Obtain Email Address for Forwarding Receipts

Only users with the Travel Manager role can generate the email to which employees send email receipts. Here's how you can obtain the email address:

1. Sign in as a travel manager and navigate to the Scheduled Processes work area.

2. Click the Schedule New Process button.

3. Select the Create Expenses from Email Receipts process and click OK.

4. You can select Yes for the Debug Switch option. This can be useful in debugging issues if required.

5. Click Submit.

6. In the Confirmation box, click OK.

7. After the process has successfully completed, check the text output file.

8. The output file mentions the email address to which receipts can be sent. You can note the email address and share it with other users.

Process Emailed Receipts

After the setup is completed, the travel manager also needs to run the Create Expenses from Email Receipts process at regular intervals to process the email receipts received from the other users. You can also choose to set a recurrence schedule for the process to run at specific intervals.