Travel & Expense Approving Transactions Approving Transactions and Levels of Approval Expense Reports, Travel Authorizations, and Cash Advances require multiple levels of approval. Approvers will be notified by email of transactions requiring review and approval giving them details of the transaction and a link to navigate directly to the approval page. Example of E-mail Subject Line: Expense Report 0000000071 for John Smith requires your attention Types of Approvers: Reviewer Approval Exception approvers for international Travel Authorizations requiring Provost s Office approval and student Travel Expense Reports requiring Financial Aid approval. HR Supervisor Approval - Employee s direct supervisor as defined in HR system. Department Chartfield Approval As defined by department/division. Accounts Payable Approval Controller s Office review; Includes Expense Reports and Cash Advances, but does not include Travel Authorizations. Each level of approval has the action options of: Approve, Send Back, Hold, Deny and Save Changes. The Expenses module also uses visual display icons to alert a level of urgency associated to the transaction. A green circle indicates a low level, a yellow triangle a medium level or red square a high level of urgency. See Navigation below: Main Menu > Travel and Expenses > Approve Transactions > Approve Transactions From here, you can view all transactions, or you can select a tab at the top of the screen to view a select group of transactions. Click on Transaction ID to review the request. 1
Or, for a Travel Expense Report: 2
Images of receipts can be found by clicking on the Attachments link. 3
Under the Expense Type column, select an expense line to review the details. Or, for a Travel Expense Report: 4
Select Accounting Detail to review chartfield distributions. Or, for a Travel Expense Report: Amounts and/or funding sources can be changed. Account codes cannot be changed unless the expense type is changed appropriately. If any information is changed, an e-mail will be sent to all the others in the approval workflow advising them of the change to the document. 5
Pending Actions show the status of the document in the electronic workflow process. Action History provides a date and time stamp for previous statuses of the document. Budget Checking is required before the Expense Report or Travel Authorization can be approved. Supervisors are the first stop in the workflow approval process and will be required to budget check the document. To do this, select Budget Options to budget check transaction. Note: Budget Checking batch processes will be run throughout the day. If the process has already been run systematically before the Supervisor reviews, and if the Budget Status is Valid, the transaction may be approved. No manual checking necessary. 6
Select Budget Check. Once the Budget Status is valid, click on OK and Approve. If the Budget Status is Error, then select Go to Transaction Exceptions to review the error. At this point, the Supervisor may want to notify the chartfield approver and request guidance on what needs to happen next (i.e. use a different funding source, transfer funds, etc.). If a new funding source needs to be used, please enter the corrected information on each applicable line under Accounting Details. If a transfer of funds needs to occur, please exit out of the document and wait until the transfer has been processed. The transaction will have successful budget checking by the time it reaches the chartfield/budget approver. However, if the chartfield/budget approver changes any amounts or funding sources or adds/deletes any lines, the document will need to be budget checked again. Once budget checked for a final time and approved, the transaction will move to the next approval step and will be reviewed and processed by Accounts Payable. 7
Modifying Approved Transactions The Modifying Approved Transactions functionality is used to change, add or delete expense transactions on a previously approved document up until the point of being approved for payment. Documents cannot be changed after they have been staged for payment or paid. Travel Authorizations can be modified after they have been approved, as no payments are associated with Travel Authorizations. See Navigation below: Main Menu > Travel and Expenses > Approve Transactions > Modify Approved Transactions > Find an Existing Value. Click on the Expense Type line to be changed. The traveler and other approvers in the workflow approval chain will be notified via e-mail of any modifications. 8