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Scenario for Expense Reporting


This scenario provides an example of an expense reporting business process performed by a Siebel administrator, a consultant, and a consulting manager. Your company may follow a different workflow according to its business requirements.

A Siebel administrator at a large consulting company is responsible for setting up expense reporting for employees. First he creates additional expense types and establishments to meet the special needs of some of the consultants in the company. He also changes the existing period type to match the company's reporting process. Next, he must map each expense type to an Actuate report category. This is to make sure the correct types are placed in the correct boxes on the Actuate expense report. The administrator then must define reporting relationships between end users to accommodate the approval process of expense reports. With these relationships he must set up limits that determine the maximum expense amount each manager can approve per expense report. Any expense report that exceeds the limit is automatically routed to another approver, as determined by the reporting relationships defined by the Siebel administrator.

The administrator is also responsible for configuring expense reports. He can change the name and position of an expense report's dynamic buttons to meet the needs of the company. He can also add new dynamic buttons as needed. Sometimes he even has to specify dynamic button inheritance for a new detail view. Finally, he must change the trigger for the Submit To field in an expense report when a user prefers not to use the value Pending Next Approver as the trigger to change the Submit To value.

A number of things must be activated by the Siebel administrator before users can successfully work with expense reports. Therefore, the administrator activates Auto Gen so that users can automatically submit their reports. He also activates email notification and status updating.

One of the company's typical consultants logs expenses against projects, tasks, or activities. Toward the end of a reporting period, she uses the My Expense Diary view to enter her expense items. In this view, she also has visibility to the expense items that she has not added to any expense reports (unreported items). After entering her expenses, she uses the Auto Gen functionality to automatically generate an expense report for the current reporting period. After reviewing and editing her expense report, she submits it to her manager for review and approval.

Another way the consultant can enter expenses is to enter them directly against an expense report. For example, she can create a new expense report and select the desired reporting period. She can then add expense line items to the expense report. Before submitting her expense report, there are a number of things she may want to do to it. She may need to change the reimbursement currency or change the default currency for one or many expense report line items. She can remove an item from the report, adjust the billable total, or move one or many expense items from one project to another. When she is satisfied with the expense report, she submits it to her manager for review and approval. After submitting the expense report, the consultant may find that she made an error and wants to make a change. She can recall the expense report from her manager, correct the mistake, and resubmit the report.

The company's consulting manager routinely manages consultants on client projects. His responsibilities include reviewing and approving the expenses of his subordinates. At the end of the reporting period, he reviews any expense reports that require his approval in the Expense Report Approval view. After reviewing one of his consultant's submitted expense reports, he decides whether to approve or reject it. If he rejects the expense report, it is returned to the consultant for rework and resubmission. If he approves the expense report, and if the expense total is within his approval limit, the expense report status is changed to Acceptable. However, if the total on an expense report exceeds his approval limits, the expense report status is changed to Pending Next Approver and it is forwarded to the next level approver for review and approval.

After the expense report has been approved and status is changed to Acceptable, a financial administrator processes the expense report for reimbursement. After reviewing the expense report, the financial administrator changes the status to Acceptable. The financial administrator can also revoke the acceptable expense report. A revoked expense report exhibits the same behavior as a rejected expense report. It is important to note that this administrative process is likely to be automated and connected to a back-office system such as PeopleSoft or SAP and the status change may be a data hand-off between the back-office system and the Siebel application.

After her expense report has been paid, the consultant updates the status of her expense report to Paid to reflect the appropriate fund disbursement stage.

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