Clarkson University
PeopleSoft Expenses
Approvals Guide
September 2013
Module Map
Modules
Page
Course Overview and Objectives
3
Module 1 : The Summary Approval Component
9
Module 2 : Reviewing/Approving Transactions
17
Module 3 : Managing Approvals
46
Q&A
48
2
Course Description
•
The PeopleSoft Expense Reimbursement module (also known as
“Expenses”) is Clarkson University’s global software platform for expense
reimbursements. The Expenses module supports university travel policies.
•
Additionally, the PeopleSoft Expense module will be used to process general
expenses (aka “Procurement Card” purchases).
•
Managers with responsibility for reviewing and approving transactions will
perform those functions in PeopleSoft. Approvers will receive an email
informing them that a transaction was submitted for their approval. The
approver will be able to review the transaction and then approve it, hold it for
further consideration, or reject it by sending it back to the employee with
comments to delete it.
•
This course introduces the processes used by managers to approve Travel
Authorizations (TAs), Cash Advances (CAs) and Expense Reports (ERs).
•
Topics include general navigations and page elements.
3
Objectives
• At the conclusion of this course you will be able to:
– Access your Summary Approval page
– Review transactions awaiting approval
– Budget Check transactions (if necessary)
– Mark receipts received (if authorized)
– Make corrections (if authorized)
– Take action on an expense report by approving it, sending
it back to the employee, or placing it on hold
4
Approvals Process
•
•
Clarkson employees will create their TAs, CAs and ERs online in the PeopleSoft
Expenses module. Once transactions are completed, they are submitted for
approval.
Transactions are approved by at least one approver, and up to as many as six,
depending on the dollar amount of the transaction, and the Department and
Project IDs.
•
Allowed actions include approving a transaction, sending back to the employee for
correction or deletion, or placing an expense report on hold.
•
Certain approvers are authorized to update chartfields and mark receipts as
received.
•
The system is configured to escalate an approval if it is not worked within 14 days.
After 14 days, the expense report is pushed to the approvers’ HR Supervisor for
action. This is 14 calendar days - not 14 business days.
•
Approvers do not have the ability to reject a transaction. This is because rejecting
a transaction is permanent and if done in error, cannot be reversed. If you wish to
completely reject a transaction, do a “Send Back” to the employee, with
instructions to have the employee delete it.
5
Approvals – Travel Authorizations
6
Approvals – Cash Advances
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Approvals – Expense Reports
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Module Map
Modules
Course Overview and Objectives
Module 1 : The Summary Approval Component
Module 2 : Reviewing/Approving Expense Reports
Module 3 : Managing Approvals
Q&A
9
Summary Approval - Navigation
Navigate to the Approve Transactions page
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Summary Approval Component
This is your Summary Approvals component. When accessed, it will display all
transactions waiting for your review and approval. You can perform some actions on this
page, such as Send Back and Hold, but notice that there is no “Approve” button available.
This is because you must open the transaction and review it before it can be approved.
TIP: As soon as you reach this page
for the first time, save it as a
Favorite. It will save time the next
time you access the page!
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Summary Approval Component
The page will display information about the transaction, such as the employee name and employee ID,
the transaction ID, date submitted and amount, etc. It also displays the role that is currently approving
the items. In this example, you are seeing the Summary Approvals page for the Department Budget
Manager.
The “Urgency” column displays a color code representing the amount of time that the transaction has
been in workflow (for ERs and CAs), or the amount of time before the trip (for TAs). A green code, like
above, signifies an ER or CA in workflow for 7 days or less. Yellow is for 8 to 14 days, and the red
displayed for the TA means the trip is within 15 days. These are purely informational.
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Summary Approval Component
You can send a transaction back to the employee, or place it on hold, by clicking the “Select” checkbox
on the left and then either the “Send Back” or “Hold” button. You place a transaction on hold if you want
to keep it from progressing in workflow for some reason, such as needing further information from the
employee.
To “Send Back” a transaction, you must also include a Comment, instructing the employee what action
you wish to take. To add a Comment, expand that section by clicking the small triangle
on the Comments bar.
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Summary Approval Component
Type in a comment with instructions. These instructions could be to correct an item, as shown above,
or to delete the transaction.
Once you have added comments, click the “Send Back” button.
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Summary Approval Component
An Approval Action Confirmation page will be displayed.
Click OK to complete the Send Back action.
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Summary Approval Component
Note that the Select checkboxes for the Travel Authorization is grayed out. That is because there is some issue
with the TA. It might not be in a Valid budget check status, or could have missing information or some other
problem. You cannot take action on the Summary Control page if any issues exist – you have to open and review
the transaction(s) to take action.
In this example, it is because the transaction has not been budget checked. Budget Checking will run regularly in
batch mode; however, if you do your approvals before the batch run, there may be TAs and/or ERs that have not
been budget checked yet.
To review a transaction, make any appropriate and authorized changes, and Approve it, open the transaction by
clicking its Description or Transaction ID hyperlink.
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Module Map
Modules
Course Overview and Objectives
Module 1 : The Summary Approval Component
Module 2 : Reviewing/Approving Transactions
Module 3 : Managing Approvals
Q&A
17
Expense Report Summary
The Approval steps needed for Expense
Reports and Travel Auths are very
similar. You must look at many parts of
an ER or TA, such as the accounting
distribution(s), descriptions, amounts,
receipts, applied cash advance(s), etc.
Approval of Cash Advances is much
simpler, as you must only approve the
amount and the associated travel auth.
For the purpose of this guide, we will
review and approve an expense report.
Please note that the Pending Actions,
Action History and Comments sections
are collapsed at right because of sizing
issues.
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Expense Report Summary
No matter what your approval level is
(Department or Budget Manager, HR
Supervisor, PrePay Approver, etc.) you
will be able to at least view all
information on the expense report.
Certain levels, such as the PrePay
Approver, will have the ability to make
changes.
For example, on an Expense Report,
only the PrePay Approver has the ability
to mark Receipts as Received.
Please note that the Pending Actions,
Action History and Comments sections
are not shown at right because of sizing
issues.
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Expense Report Summary - Header
Regardless of your approval level, you must
review the transaction thoroughly. In the
Header section, review the following fields that
will display based on the type of transaction:
•Employee Name
•Transaction ID
•Description
•Business Purpose
•Status
•Default Location
•Accounting Date
•Accounting Template
•Pertinent Dates
There are also hyperlinks available, depending
on the type of transaction:
•User Defaults (shows the user’s default
options)
•Risk Details (n/a at Clarkson)
•Attachments (click to see the receipts)
•Accounting Defaults
•View Cash Advance (on an Expense Report)
•View Travel Authorization (on this expense
report)
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Expense Report – View Attachment
To see the receipts, click the Attachments
hyperlink, and the page shown here will be
displayed. There should be at least one file
attached by the employee which contains all the
receipts associated with this expense report.
Click the hyperlink for the receipts you wish to
view. The receipts will be displayed in a new
window.
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Expense Report – Attachment
The receipts for the expense reports will be displayed. You can keep this document open
while you review each line of the expense report.
Don’t forget to close the document when you are complete. Keeping too many
documents open on your desktop can slow your system down.
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Expense Report – Return to Exp Rpt
Click the OK button to return to the
expense report.
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Expense Report – View Cash Advance
To see any related Cash Advances (if applicable), click the View Cash Advance hyperlink, and the page
above will be displayed. You can see the information on the Advance, the total advance amount, and
the amount applied to this expense report. PrePay Approvers also have the ability to add or delete
Cash Advances as needed to cover Personal expenses.
Click OK to continue.
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Expense Report – Expense Lines
In the Expense Lines section, the system will display all the lines entered by the employee. You will see:
•Exception icons (if applicable). Click the icon to see any exceptions.
•The Expense Type as a hyperlink
•The Date that the expense was incurred
•The project information (PC BU, Project ID and Activity Code if applicable)
•The Reimbursement Amount and Base Currency (which is USD for all Clarkson expenses)
•Receipt Verified checkbox(es)
•Receipt Required checkbox(es)
•Approve checkbox(es)
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Expense Report – Verify Receipts
If you are authorized to update the Receipt Verified checkbox (Prepay Approver level), compare each
expense line to the attached receipts, and check the box if the receipts are included, are legible, and
are correct. The Receipt Verified box will be active if you have authority, and grayed out if you do not.
All other levels can view the receipts, but not update the checkbox(es).
Note that certain Expense Types (Mileage and Per Diem for example) will have the Receipt Required
box unchecked, and the Receipt Verified box checked, with both grayed out. This is because receipts
are not required for those expense types.
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Expense Report – Exception Comments
If the employee has a marked an expense
line as missing a receipt, you will see this
icon
to the left of the line (not shown
on the previous slides). Click on the icon to
see the reason for the missing receipt.
You can then decide whether to accept the
reason, and approve the expense report, or
reject the reason and send the expense
report back to the employee for further
action. This may include asking the
employee to delete the line, or to get a
duplicate receipt, etc.
Exceptions can also be caused by other
issues, such as exceeding Locations
Amounts, and those exceptions are
viewable here also.
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Expense Report Summary – Expense Lines
To view further details about the expense report, for each expense line, click the Expense Type
hyperlink.
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Expense Report Summary – Expense Detail
The Expense Detail page for each line will
display all the information added by the
employee. The information may vary,
depending on the type. For example, this
expense line is for Airfare, so a Description,
Merchant and Ticket Number are displayed. A
Lodging line would display the number of
nights. And, for Entertainment items, there
would be a hyperlink in the lower left (not
shown here) to view the Attendees.
If your approval level is authorized to make
changes to a field, it will be active and not
grayed out. Otherwise, you can only view the
information.
Carefully review the information and compare it
to the receipt (if attached).
Use the hyperlink in the lower left to see the
Accounting Details.
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Expense Report Summary – Accounting Details
The Accounting Detail page displays the chartfield combination(s) to which the expense item will be charged.
If allowed, you can click the Add ChartField Line button to add more rows and split the expenses, or change
the GL Account.
Click OK to continue.
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Expense Report Summary – Details
When the Expense Details page re-opens, you
can either click the ‘Next Expense’ or ‘Previous
Expense’ button to move to another expense
line, or the ‘Return to Expense Report’ hyperlink
to go back to the main expense report page.
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Expense Report Summary – Approve
In the Expense Line Items section of the main expense report page, there is a column with checkboxes
for individual line approval. These checkboxes are grayed out, because Clarkson’s business process is
to Send Back a transaction to the employee if a line needs to be changed or deleted.
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Expense Report Summary – Personal Charges
This step is for the PrePay Approvers ONLY.
If an employee has any Personal Charges on the Expense Report, the PrePay Approver will need to
create an Adjustment Cash Advance for that employee to account for the charges. This will ensure that
the employee doesn’t get reimbursed for the expenses.
Run the query ‘CU_EX_PERSONAL_APPR’. This query will display the total of Personal Charges
noted by the employee. Make a note of the employee ID and the total amount. If desired, download the
results to Excel and save the results. You can attach this file to the Adjustment Cash Advance as
documentation.
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Expense Report Summary – Personal Charges
To create the Adjustment Cash Advance, navigate via:
Travel and Expenses > Travel and Expense Center > Cash Advance > Create
Enter or select the Empl ID from the query.
Note: There are not actually any Personal charges on the example being
used in this manual. These steps are just for training purposes.
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Expense Report Summary – Personal Charges
Complete the Cash Advance as follows:
•Enter a description, including the
Expense Report number as a reference.
•Enter a Business Purpose.
•Enter a Comment if needed.
•If desired, attach the Excel results of the
query CU_EX_PERSONAL_APPR
In the grid:
•Select Adjustment Advance as the
Source.
•Enter a Description.
•Enter the required Advance Amount.
When complete, click Submit, and click
OK to confirm.
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Expense Report Summary – Personal Charges
One of the other PrePay Approvers will
need to approve this Cash Advance. Once
it is Approved, you will apply it (or a portion
of it) to the original Expense Report.
•Click the Apply Cash Advance(s)
hyperlink.
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Expense Report Summary – Personal Charges
In this example, note that Total Due
Employee is 25.00, and there is already
one advance applied against the expense
report by the employee.
Apply as much of the Cash Advance as
possible. You can continue applying this
Cash Advance to other Expense Reports
until it is completely recovered, OR, the
employee can repay the amount manually.
Application of manual repayments is
covered in the EX Accounting and
Processing manual.
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Expense Report Summary – Report Totals
The next section down on the expense report is the Expense Report Totals. This is a summary of the
amounts on the expense report. Vendor Credits and Due Vendor amounts are not applicable at
Clarkson. The other amounts are:
•Employee Expenses – this is the sum of all expenses on the report, whether paid on the One Card or
by the employee.
•Non-Reimbursable – this is the sum of all Personal charges from the One Card. This functionality
does not currently work correctly, so there will never be a value in this field.
•Prepaid Expenses – this is the sum of all expenses on the One Card, and are not reimbursed to the
employee.
•Employee Credits – any credits on the expense report are shown here.
•Cash Advance Applied – this is the total of all cash advances applied.
•Due Employee – the amount due to the employee.
You can click the Definition of Total hyperlink at any time to see this information again.
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Expense Report Summary – Pending Actions
The Pending Actions section displays exactly where an Expense Report is in the Approvals process. In this case,
you can see that expense report is at the PrePay Approver stage, and after that stage, it will be fully approved.
Once the expense report is fully approved, this section will no longer be visible.
Please note that there may be multiple approvers at each stage. Because of this, in the Name column the
system does not display specific approvers names and shows only the word Pooled, as shown at the PrePay
Approver stage above.
To see what approvers are in the “pool” for the current stage of approvals, run the query
CU_EX_PENDING_ER_APPROVERS (or CU_EX_PENDING_CA_APPROVERS or
CU_EX_PENDING_TA_APPROVERS).
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Expense Report Summary – Action History
The Action History section displays exactly what actions have been taken on the expense report so far. In the example
above, you can see that the expense report was submitted for approvals by Bob Employee 9/12/13 at 3:44 pm, and
then track it through various approvers, Send Back actions, resubmissions, etc.
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Expense Report Summary – Comments
The last section on the main expense report page is the Comments section. Comments are required if
you wish to Send Back the expense report to the employee. Enter a comment that explains the action
you wish the employee to take, so that he/she can clearly understand the requirement(s).
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Expense Report Summary – Budget Status
Expense Reports and Travel Authorizations must be successfully budget checked before they can be
completely approved and paid (for ERs). Budget Checking will run as a scheduled process throughout
the day. If the item is successfully budget checked during that process, then the status will show as
Valid.
If you have accessed the transaction for approval before the process budget checks it, you can perform
the budget check as an ad-hoc process. Click the Budget Options hyperlink.
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Expense Report Summary – Budget Status
The Commitment Control page for the
transaction will be displayed. Click the
Budget Check button.
Budget Checking for the transaction will start.
Wait until it finishes, and the status will be
updated. If the status becomes Valid, then
click the OK button to continue.
If budget checking isn’t successful, then take
appropriate action. If you are authorized to
Override Transaction, you can check that box
and re-run Budget Check.
Otherwise, contact the Controller’s Office or
Budget & Planning for that budget and ask
that they make the appropriate change. You
can then re-run Budget Check.
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Expense Report Summary – Budget Status
Expense Reports must be in Valid budget status before it can proceed to be paid or posted.
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Expense Report Summary – Take Action
Once you have completed your work, you can
take action. There are four buttons available at
the bottom of the page:
•Approved – use this action to Approve the
expense report.
•Send Back – use this action to send an expense
report back to an employee for either correction or
deletion. You will be required to enter a comment
to use this action.
•Hold – place the expense report on hold if you
wish to keep other approvers in your pool from
accessing the transaction. It remains on hold until
you either mark it Approved or send it back to the
employee.
•Save Changes – if you can make changes to an
expense report, you can save changes without
approving it. Note that the expense report can still
be actioned by other members in your pool unless
you also place it on hold. This button is not
available unless you are authorized to make
changes.
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Module Map
Modules
Course Overview and Objectives
Module 1 : Your User Profile
Module 2 : Reviewing/Approving Expense Reports
Module 3 : Managing Approvals
Q&A
46
Managing Approvals
•
•
•
•
It is important that you are proactive in managing your approval items.
The system is configured to escalate items after 14 days on an
approver’s worklist. The expense report will be bumped up to the
approver’s direct supervisor. Please note that this is 14 calendar days,
not business days.
If you know that you will be unavailable for some period of time (on
vacation or other leave, for example), please contact the PeopleSoft
Security Administrator. Tell them the dates you will be out and the
alternate approver to use. The Admin can then set up automatic rerouting so that work doesn’t back up on your worklist. The automatic rerouting will stop at the end date of your absence.
If you have an unscheduled absence, expense reports can also be reassigned if necessary.
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Questions
Return to Module Map
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