Understanding Approvals in PeopleSoft Expenses

Note: PeopleSoft Expenses delivers an approval and workflow configuration as part of system data. You can activate or inactivate transactions and approver types to match your business requirements. Oracle recommends that you manage your approval rules only through the PeopleSoft Expenses configuration pages; otherwise, modifications to the Approval Framework configuration data could disrupt approval routing. PeopleSoft Expenses supports only user lists that are based on application class. Using other user list sources may require customizing your system.

Due to the complex rules used by PeopleSoft Expenses, the PeopleTools - Monitor Approvals page should not be used to approve or deny expense transactions. To approve and deny expense transactions, use the PeopleSoft Expenses approval pages that are documented in the Approving topics.

Note: The data that is entered using these pages can also be loaded as an Application Data Set (ADS). For more information about ADS, see Migrating Data Using Application Data Sets

Many organizations enforce rules and policies related to expenses that employees and contractors incur for which they seek reimbursement. To manage these rules and policies, organizations can require one or more approvals for expense transactions as a normal part of the business process. The expense transaction types supported for approvals in PeopleSoft Expenses are travel authorizations, cash advances, expense reports, time reports, and time adjustments. You can activate all or some of the transaction types for approval through the approval configuration pages.

Organizations can have one or more types of approvers ranging from a departmental reviewer to an auditor who reviews expense transactions after reimbursements are processed. The approval process in PeopleSoft Expenses can involve certain actions that an approver can perform such as Approve, Deny, Send Back, Save, and Hold. The actions that an approver can take are determined through setup and configuration of the approver. Reviewing and approving expense transactions are performed through a set of pages that are accessed through the Summary Approvals pages, worklist, e-mail, or e-mail notification. These are a centralized set of pages used by approvers and auditors. PeopleSoft Expenses enables reviewers, approvers, and auditors to drill down to the transaction detail where they can view, modify, add, deny, undeny, or take action on the transaction. PeopleSoft Expenses also provides the ability to view or take action on expense transactions directly through an e-mail approval message, depending on the configuration of your system.

Summary Approvals

The PeopleSoft Expenses approval functionality enables reviewers, approvers, and auditors to review and approve multiple expense transactions with one approval action. You control the approver actions that can be used on the summary approval pages. You can disable summary approvals if it violates company policy for expense approvals and disable transactions for approval on the summary approval pages if they have exceptions or contain risk. You can also configure approvals so that an approver with multiple roles can see the same transaction only once. Depending on how you set up PeopleSoft Expenses, reviewers, approvers, and auditors can:

Approve some or all expense transactions in their queues with one action.
Approve all expense transaction types on one page or approve by transaction type.
Drill down to view additional information and take action on transactions at the detail level.
Change the sort order of transactions and view them sequentially in the new order.
Search for transactions in a pending approval status.
View expense history for one or more employees prior to approval.
View risk and urgency alerts.
Approve transactions using any device that is capable of receiving HTML emails, including mobile and handheld devices.

Pooled Approvers

You establish pooled approvers by assigning multiple approvers to the same routing range of ChartFields or by adding multiple profiles to the Expenses Approval Setup - Approver Routing List. In both cases, you must select the Notify All Approvers option in the Submission Notifications group box on the Approver Routing List page. The system by default requires only one approver out of the pool to approve a transaction. You can modify this to reflect the number of approvers that your organization requires by changing the Number of Approvers Needed value on the Setup Process Definitions – Approval Step Definition - Step page.

The following rules apply to pooled approver functionality:

If you configure the system to require only one approver from a pool of approvers, and one of the approvers performs an approval action, the system withdraws the transaction from the other approvers' queues.
If you establish multiple profiles on the Expenses Approval Setup - Approver Routing list with multiple approvers assigned to each profile, the system requires only one approval from the pool if you set the Number of Approvers Needed field to 1 on the Setup Process Definitions – Approval Step Definition - Step page.
If you define a profile on an approver list that is associated with a refinement or filter that excludes a transaction, the system excludes the approvers assigned to that profile from the pool. For example, Auditor1, Auditor2, and Auditor3 profiles are on the prepayment auditor approver list. Auditor2 uses a refinement that selects only expense reports that contain project-related expenses. When an employee submits an expense report that does not contain project-related expenses, the approver pool consists of approvers assigned to the Auditor1 and Auditor3 profiles only. Auditor2 is excluded from the pool because no project-related expenses were included in the expense report.
If all approvers in a pool are excluded by the system because of refinements associated with their profiles, the system automatically approves the transaction for that role.
If all approvers on an approver list are defined with amount-based rules that exclude a submitted transaction, the system routes the transaction to the employee's supervisor. If the supervisor has already approved the transaction, the system routes the transaction to the next approval stage. If it is the last stage for approving an expense report or cash advance for payment, the system sets the status to Approved for Payment.

Email Approvals

Email approvals can be used to approve, deny, and send back expense transactions using e-mail without requiring the user to sign in to the PeopleSoft Expenses system. PeopleSoft Expenses uses e-mail collaboration within the approval framework to receive emails with interactive content. An approver can receive an e-mail that contains the detail of the transaction and can approve the transaction.

Email approvals can be sent to a handheld mobile device or any e-mail application capable of handling HTML or HTML attachments.

Line level approval enables approved time lines to flow to Project Costing when other time lines, for the same time report, are not approved.

Report level approval requires that all lines (of a time report) are approved prior to sending each time line to Project Costing. Using report level approval means that time lines for one project manager can be delayed because other project managers have not approved their time lines in a timely manner.

Using line level approvals for time reports allows individual time lines, which have been approved, to be processes to Project Costing faster. To enable this feature the Timesheet Line is Approved radio button is selected on the Business Unit 2 page (Set Up Financials/Supply Chain, Business Unit Related, Expense, Expenses Definition, Business Unit 2).

When using line level approval for time reports, an employee creates a time report that includes multiple lines for multiple projects. The time report lines are distributed to the approval manager of each project, and the approval managers can individually approve the time lines belonging to their projects. After a time line is approved, that line can be sent to Project Costing, while other time lines are waiting to be approved. This eliminates the process of holding the entire time report from proceeding to Project Costing while waiting for all approval managers to approve their individual time lines.

For example, an employee works on more than one project within a time report and enters multiple lines on their time report. Each line has a different project ID and each project is managed by a different project manager. Each project manager must approve the time report line for the projects for which they are responsible.

Keep these points in mind:

If a line on a time report is approved, then that line is available to the system, to send to Project Costing.
If there are three lines on a time report, one line is sent back and the other two are approved, and the employee corrects the line and resubmits the time report for approval. The system does not require the other two project managers to re-approve the other two lines, as long as no changes occurred to the lines for which they were responsible. Only the project manager for which the line was sent back needs to approve the corrections.

Note: This scenario applies to expense reports, travel authorizations, and time reports.
If a line on a time report has been approved or sent to Project Costing, then the line is not available for the employee to change.

Example

This is a step-by-step example of the approval workflow for a time report that has multiple project lines, when line-level approval is enabled for the business unit:

Time reports are approved by an HR Supervisor first, then Project Managers.
An employee submits a time report that has two lines, which are for project A and project B.
The HR Supervisor approves the time report.
The Project Manager approves the time line for project A.
This line is eligible to send to Project costing.
The Project Manager sends the time line for project B back for revision.
The employee corrects the line for project B and resubmits it.
The time report is routed to the HR Supervisor again, who approves the time report.
The time report is not routed to the Project Manager for project A because they have already approved it and no changes were made to this time line.
The time report is routed to the Project Manager for project B, who approves the time report line.

Project Manager Self Approval