Revising and Approving Expense Reports

This chapter discusses how to:

• Revise expense reports

• Approve expense reports

Revising Expense Reports

This section provides an overview of expense report revisions and lists the forms used to revise expense reports.

Understanding Expense Report Revisions

After you enter an expense report but before you submit it, you can review the report for errors, provide missing information, and revise it. You can also delete expenses and add new expenses, if necessary, and you can review the expense report totals to verify the reimbursement amount.

To revise an expense, select the expense report, and then click the link for the expense category to access the expense report details. You can revise any of the detail information, but note that:

• If you originally specified a split Charge To type, you cannot revise it to a non-split Charge To type. Instead, you must delete the expense and enter it again.

• If you select an expense that is a summary receipt, the system displays the last expense that was entered for the receipt. Click the Previous link to display each expense or click the Next link to toggle between individual expenses entered for the summary receipt.

After you submit the expense report, you can track its progress through the reimbursement process by reviewing the status that the system assigns to it.

You cannot revise an expense report that has been submitted unless it was rejected by the manager or the auditor.

Printing Expense Reports

As an alternative to reviewing expense reports online, you can print an expense report by selecting it and then clicking the Print Report link. The system runs the Expense Report Print program (R09E116). No processing options are associated with this program.

The program prints the total unallowable amount along with other totals, such as nonreimbursable totals and billable totals. The report also displays the business unit description or the description of the business unit associated with a work order.

Deleting Expense Reports

You can delete an expense report only when its status is 100 (Pending Completion). To delete an expense report, select it and click Delete.

Forms Used to Revise Expense Reports

Approving Expense Reports

This section provides an overview of the expense report approval process and discusses how to approve an expense report.

Understanding the Expense Report Approval Process

If the company requires management approval of expense reports before reimbursement and if you are set up as the manager on the employee profile, you must review and approve expense reports before the employees can be reimbursed. A processing option enables you to override the approving manager, if necessary.

After an employee submits an expense report, the system sends you a notification message that an expense report requires your approval. You can review the expense report details, and then either accept or reject the report. Depending on where messages are delivered, you can approve expense reports from the message center, email system, or using the Expense Entry program.

If you accept an expense report, the system completes the Approved Date field, which is visible from the Auditor's Workbench program only, and changes the report status according to your expense report routing rules.

If you reject an expense report, you must specify the reason for the rejection. The employee receives a notification that the expense report was rejected and that it must be modified and resubmitted. The expense report status changes from a Manager Approval Required status to Employee Review From Manager status.

Multiple Approvals

You can set up the system so that expense reports can potentially be approved by multiple designated managers and can be sent up the hierarchy for approvals depending on the amount. You use a distribution list and workflow to manage multiple approvals.

You set up a distribution list that includes the individuals that submit expense reports as well as the hierarchy of managers that approve the expense report. You can include several managers on each level to enable approval requests to be routed to alternate managers, should a manager not be available.

In the distribution list, you can set up amount threshold and time escalations for expense report approvals. Depending on the amount, an expense report might have to be sent up the hierarchy to be approved by a manager with the appropriate amount threshold. When a manager approves an expense report, the system displays a message stating that the approval is being routed to the next level. If the workflow message is no longer active for the expense report, the system generates error messages.

You can also set up an escalation time limit that determines how long an expense report can remain in a manager's inbox. If the time limit is exceeded, workflow automatically routes the expense report to the appropriate next-level manager.

See Setting Up Workflow Processing for Expense Management.

Forms Used to Approve Expense Reports

Approving an Expense Report

Access the Expense Report Approval form.

If you select the Reject option and then click OK, a message appears that enables you to explain why you are rejecting the expense report.