SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3421154 - Approver of the Expense Report should be the Employee's respective Line Manager

Symptom

  • The Expense Report 'XXX' is being approved using a single-step approval process.
  • The work distribution is assigned to the Line Manager of Employee 'YYY'.
  • A condition has been maintained where Expense Report Approval Configuration = Yes.
  • For Employee 'YYY', the expected approver is the respective Line Manager.

('XXX' refers to Expense Report ID)
('YYY' refers to Employee ID)

Environment

SAP Business ByDesign.

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Go to the Travel and Expenses work center.
  2. Go to the Expense Report sub view.
  3. Filter it with Expenses Reports - Pending Approval and for the Expense Report XXX, the expectation is that the approver should be the Employee's respective Line Manager.
  4. But the Approval process did not yet happen, and the Expense Report XXX is still pending for the Approval.

Cause

You checked the below mentioned pre-conditional steps.

  1. Go to the Application and User Management work center.
  2. Go to the Approval Process view.
  3. Select Approval Process for Expense Report.
  • Make sure that there is only One Step in Process Step.
  • Work Distributions needs to be set as 'Approver of Highest Cost' or 'Line Manager of Employee'.
  • The Conditions have to be 'Expense Report Approval Configuration Equal to Yes'.

Even though all pre-conditions appear to be correctly configured in the system, the Expense Report 'XXX' still requires direct Line Manager approval. This is due to the Reporting Line Unit checkbox not being activated under the Organizational Structure. 

Resolution

The Organizational Management can be extended by enabling the RLU - Reporting Line Unit checkbox for the specific period using the following steps.

  1. Navigate to the Organizational Management work center.
  2. Open the Edit Org Structure sub-view.
  3. Select the Org Unit 'YYY'.
  4. Give the Edit button.
  5. Select the Preferred Date.
  6. Under the Definition tab, check the Reporting Line Unit checkbox.
  7. Activate the changes.

See Also

KBA - https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1839565

Keywords

Expense Report, Single Step Approval, Line Manager, Employee, Organizational Management, Reporting Line Unit. , KBA , SRD-FIN-ERM , Travel and Expense Management , Problem

Product

SAP Business ByDesign all versions