Automated Expense Reporting

Applications: Microsoft Outlook Email, Document Understanding, SAP Concur.

Description: When a new email is received from a vendor for an expense that is eligible for reimbursement, the system should automatically add an expense in SAP Concur, using the relevant information extracted with Document Understanding, and upload its receipt.

Steps:

Open Studio Web and create a new project. Make sure that in the New Project window, in the How to start the automation drop-down, Event based is selected.
Drag a Microsoft Outlook : Email Received trigger activity to the canvas. In the trigger activity:
1. Connect to your Microsoft Outlook 365 account.
2. Configure the Email folder property to point to where you receive expense-related emails.
3. Additional filters may be added to your automation, depending on your needs.
Add a Microsoft 365 Download Email Attachments activity to the canvas.
1. In the Email property field, select the variable that is set as the output of the Event Trigger activity added earlied.
2. For this example, we exclude inline attachments, so for Exclude inline attachments select True.
3. Additional filters may be added to your automation, depending on your needs.
Add aDocument Understanding: Extract Document Data activity and:
1. Set the Project field to Predefined.
2. Set Extractor field to Receipts.
3. For the Input file field, select the output of the Downloaded Email Attachments>Downloaded attachments list property as as the variable.
4. Notice that a For Each activity gets added above the activity that has currentItem as the Input file. This is because an email can have an array of attachments, and the For Each activity can parse through all of them.
Next, add a SAP Concur: Add Quick Expense activity and:
1. Connect to your SAP Concur account.
2. Select the appropriate Expense type from the drop-down menu.
3. Configure the Transaction currency field to use the currency you want to use.
4. Use a variable to set the Amount field to Extract Document Data > Data > Total Amount > Value > Value.
5. Set the Payment type from the drop-down menu.
Finally, add an SAP Concur: Upload Receipt Image activity and:
1. Use a variable to set the Receipt field to currentItem
Execute the workflow. Your expense is added to SAP Concur alongside its corresponding receipt.