Concur Update: Hospitality Expense Process Simplified

Thursday, August 27, 2026, 11:03am

TO: All Employees
FR: Amanda Tobias, Director of Travel & Expense, San Francisco Bay Region Network

Beginning September 1, 2026, we’re simplifying the process for submitting hospitality-related expenses in Concur by removing a duplicate approval step.

What is changing?

Currently, employees submitting a hospitality-related expense must first complete a Hospitality Justification Form in Concur and wait for it to be approved. Once approved, the employee submits the actual expense report, which then goes through a separate approval process.

Beginning September 1, the Hospitality Justification Form will no longer require that first round of approval. Once submitted, the form will be automatically approved, allowing the employee to move forward with submitting the associated expense report.

The expense report itself will still go through the existing approval process. Required review and approval of the actual hospitality expense is not changing.

What does this mean for you?

For employees, there’s one less approval to wait for before submitting a hospitality expense, helping expenses and reimbursements move through the process more quickly.

For administrators and approvers, you’ll generally review and approve the hospitality transaction once, when the actual expense is submitted, rather than reviewing essentially the same transaction twice in Concur.

In short, we’re removing an approval step while keeping the required review and oversight of the actual expense in place.

Do I still need to submit a Hospitality Justification Form?

Yes. The form itself is not going away. It must still be completed and submitted, as applicable, for:

• Out-of-pocket reimbursements: Complete the Hospitality Justification Form and link it to the associated Concur Expense Report.
• Procurement Card (ProCard) expenses: Complete the Hospitality Justification Form and attach it to the applicable ProCard report, unless your campus currently uses a different hospitality form.
• Unauthorized and/or punchout P2P purchases involving hospitality: Complete the Hospitality Justification Form and attach to the requisition in P2P.

The Hospitality Justification Form must still be submitted before the associated expense report. Blanket Hospitality Justification Forms are not allowed at this time.

Are there any exceptions?

Yes. There are a couple of situations where the Hospitality Justification Form will still need to route for approval:

• Promotional items: If Promotional Items are selected and the form indicates that university branding or a logo will be used, the request will continue to route for the required Marketing/logo approval.
• Hospitality exceptions: If the request includes a hospitality exception, it will continue to route to the appropriate exception approver(s).

What about forms already submitted?

Hospitality Justification Forms submitted before September 1, 2026, will continue through the current approval process.

Forms submitted on or after September 1, 2026, will follow the new process and be automatically approved unless one of the exceptions above applies.

We hope this change makes the hospitality process faster and easier for employees and approvers while maintaining the appropriate review and oversight of hospitality expenses.

If you need assistance with the hospitality process, please join Concur’s virtual Office Hours, Monday through Friday.