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.